eat your oats

Basic. Bland. Good with cinnamon. Somehow this name was already taken but I don't want to think up a different one.

[opencommunion]

people who tell you to stop reading the news to "regulate your nervous system" do not have your best interests at heart. if following current events makes you spiral you probably need a better analytical frame, not less information

[opencommunion]

and the analytical frame you need is probably dialectical materialism

[opencommunion]

i'm totally crazy, i freak out all the time, but you know what helps me most? learning. reading. studying. discussing. sometimes you do need a nap, but sometimes you need a conversation with someone more knowledgeable/experienced, or a day at the (physical or digital) library. and really i think everyone has a different baseline emotional register that's best for them and their circumstances, but i recommend aiming to feel solid and anchored, not necessarily "calm." of course we won't feel "calm" after reading about genocide. but if we approach what we're reading correctly, it can strengthen our resolve; feed our fighting spirit; show us paths to liberation. a lot of people in my life have diagnosed me with "revolutionary optimism" and wonder how i maintain that mindset but i'm not an optimist by nature, it all comes from studying

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

In my opinion it's a lot more healthy to be able to own that you dislike someone for petty reasons than to do all kinds of mental gymnastics to make everyone you don't really vibe with out to be a bad person actually

[dhaaruni]

Happy International Women's Day

[watered-down-oatmeal2]

Pay transparency is great and important but one consequence of it is that if you disclose to a coworker that you get paid $20k more a year than they do and you're always asking that coworker to proofread your emails and emotionally handhold you through the workday, they may stop doing that, at least as much. As the coworker in that situation, I'm glad you disclosed though! And I don't hold it against you! But I am going to proofread your stuff less now because oh my god.

[watered-down-oatmeal2]

So female centered that sometimes I look through my slides for my sociology class and realize we are spending 90% of our gender and sexuality lecture on lesbians... and then I change Nothing

[lycanthropicture]

i love a show that gives ME what i want. not the audience. im not the audience. im specialer than the audience. i have wants that are better than the audience. yeah. i said it. im better at watching television than most people. i get what i want and if i dont then the show is bad. write this down.

[cardassiangoodreads]

If I, a lesbian, who has absolutely no stake in this because I do not need men to have romance and sex in my life, can acknowledge that there absolutely are sincerely feminist men out there, that no they're not just pretending at it to get into your pants (why would men be doing this to me? I know there are men out there who think they can "convert" lesbians but most are not that stupid, and I'm frankly not hot enough and too autistic for most men to give a shit), that nothing happening on Twitter is a representative snapshot of humanity and the medium needs to be taken into account along with the message when we are evaluating whether prevalence of hate online tracks to prevalence of hate in real life, and that it is in fact important for feminism to assert this precisely to shut up those misognistic men acting like women's only option for romantic happiness and good sex is to put up with their shit.... what is stopping some of the straight women on here? Like do I really have to hear this "are you sure they're not just lying to you?" Yes, I'm sure that I know my stepdad, my brothers-in-law, my close male friends and colleagues and professional mentors well enough, and better than you do. I do not believe every single one of them is some master manipulator only pretending to care about me and my rights for... no real gain in most of these cases? What would my male grad school professors have to gain from pretending at supporting me, including to the point of writing me strong recommendation letters, to help get me jobs if they secretly think I shouldn't have one? What would my brothers-in-law have to gain from pretending at feminism after they've already married my sisters, and in one case had a kid with her? What do my guy friends, who get nothing out of this friendship but my companionship, have to gain from pretending to be feminist for me if they secretly think I'm worthless and stupid (then why would they be hanging out with me and listening to my autistic ass prattle on about my latest special interest)? Just think about this for more than five seconds. Would this actually gain them anything? Does what you're positing follow any recognized patterns of human behavior? At least, is this perhaps why we should avoid absolute statements - given that any contrary examples wholly disprove them?

[watered-down-oatmeal2]

Every man benefits from the patriarchy, but not every man is comfortable accepting those benefits at the expense of women, and some of them do actually put in the lifelong work to get out of a patriarchal mindset. It's continuous work, like anti-racism, and it's important to watch for both actions and intentions, but like. Sometimes humans are willing to put in continuous work for the sake of building a better world long term. Also, like. Women also need to do continuous work to fight the patriarchy. Our perspective is valuable but the ability to see through the bullshit is not innate, and it's bonkers to pretend that women have a Feminism Chip that can be activated and men don't. For everyone, it's work.

[sigma-floyd]

[halles-comet]

i ignore most national stereotypes because all people are different people and i'm not some gun-toting bible thumper despite living here. however. when i was in paris in 2017 i got accused of shoplifting because i put a baguette in my purse after purchasing it rather than pay four euro for a bag and not only did the security guard scream at me for stealing after witnessing me go through check-out, he also called me a cretiné for not understanding his rapid french. finally i showed him my receipt and was like "well i took spanish, because i live in america, and i'm not fucking stupid" and believe it or not that did not deescalate the situation

[halles-comet]

i truly think learning french instead of spanish when you live in america is hysterical. do you want to understand the second most spoken language on the continent day to day or do you want to dick around montreal like some kind of vampire

[watered-down-oatmeal2]

...Are you familiar with author and icon Chelsea Fagan by any chance? Because this is 100% one of her arguments and you are both completely correct.

[thoodleoo]

the joy of working with middle school aged children is that, regardless of how long you've been doing it, they will always find novel ways to annoy and confuse you, which is okay because that's the natural state of the middle school aged child. anyway suffice it to say that for the past three weeks of school my 6th grade class has been greeting me at my door by lining up outside of it, playing the national anthem, and saluting me as i walk in.

[jouster-ari]

What they're doing to you:

[davidfangs]

Heres whats gonna happen, benoit freakin blanc and I are gonna ask you all some questions, and you all are gonna answer them and we're gonna get to the bottom of who killed monsignor wicks ☝️ aND WHY. and thennn... THATS IT!!

[watered-down-oatmeal2]

My one remaining pending law school application is for the school I thought about applying binding early decision to... so you know I'm suffering! And losing my mind! My application has been pending for FOUR MONTHS SIR PLEASE SIR PUT ME DOWN LIKE A RABID DOG SO I CAN MOVE ON

[watered-down-oatmeal2]

Procrastinated so badly on my One Thing at my Real Job that now half of today (Sunday) is devoted to doing this singular thing so I can show my face in work on Monday. People think it's so glamorous having an office job where my task is one easily managed thing but this is a media lie because actually the human brain is capable of procrastination on a scale that's unfathomable EVEN IF YOU ONLY HAVE TO DO ONE THING! IT'S ONE THING, BRAIN.

[ratheralark]

I happened to walk by and overhear two people talking about me (not in a bad way) and one of them was trying to figure out if we’d met, so I got to hear that the identifier that person chose was “with the glasses?”

so my engagement bait question is: do you know how people identify you, or how do you guess they might? (though I probably wouldn’t have guessed glasses, they are not that distinctive lol)

[a-silly-poll-side-blog-yay]

you're a magical girl now, the last thing you ate is your magical girl name is it good?

yes

no

it's perfect

it's awful

it's funny, i love it

results

Voting ended onFeb 25

[watered-down-oatmeal2]

I am a woman who does not shave and who wears skirts in public and at work and I have never been called on it, if you needed that affirmation today. Literally no one has meaningfully noticed or cared. There may have been moments where I think someone has noticed, but those have been 10:1 moments of another woman noticing and nodding vs anyone seeming upset about it. Your mileage may vary in your life and social setting, to be fair! But it feels great having full sensation in my legs and it's been completely worth it over here.

[tlirsgender]

Teenagers are like that because every problem feels the same amount of Catastrophic. There's no sense of scale going on there cause they lack frame of reference. This isn't the fault of The Teenager but it does explain the Discourse Circles I was in when I was younger. Like it operates in both "blowing shit that doesn't matter WAY out of proportion" and "not taking Real Problems seriously enough". This is why dni banners are like that

[tlirsgender]

I fear the only cure for this is to simply stop being a teenager. If you're an adult and still like this I hope you stop being a teenager soon

[inbabylontheywept]

Getting older is the easiest way to gain perspective, but taking the study of history seriously can help. As a (very anxious) teenager, I didn't really get why history classes existed. As I got to college and I took my studies more seriously, I was surprised at how much learning about the past lowered my stress. Learning about the past has this beautiful side effect of parochializing the present.

(And, as an added thing for my fellow Americans: We are taught a very idealized version of our own history as children. The conflict between this idealized history and our own messy present makes a lot of people feel like we just missed paradise. But we didn't. It never existed. And it's kind of a relief to know that if we miss the party, it will be because we didn't throw it, not because it was over by the time we were born.)