Loopy

Hi,

This may be a mixed bag in terms of a post. Feel free to skip to the bits you’d rather read.

Dark humour

Recently the Jones family watched the film Nobody. With no spoilers, there’s an excellent (IMO) montage of the lead character’s family life: wake, coffee, jog, bus, spreadsheet, home, sleep, etc.

I had a wry chuckle to myself wondering how many of us have similar routines that we run through?

I guess mine would be wake, school run, laptop, lunch, dog walk, school run, tea, telly/game, and bed. I guess there’s some outliers in that of Thursday night out and Friday night waffle. I still struggle to call this writing.

If I was any good at programming, I’d make a While… Do loop joke with subroutine calls for workday, night out, and weekend. But I’m not. 🤓

Feel free to share yours if you want.

YMATBS

In honesty, I’d written about yet more anti-trans BS… but I’m not going to post it. YMATBS – yer Matt Bees? Could be a very busy blog given where we are. I’m not sure I’ve got the energy and there’s a group of folk doing an excellent job already 🏳️‍🌈

Gender-critical feminism is a really useful tool for the far right, because it enables it to repackage bigotry in a cloak of respectability.

Vic Parsons, Vice.com

It’s a long, very informative, and occasionally troubling read into the links between the far right and anti-trans groups. There’s also some positives from allies, inclusive groups, and other good stuff too.

A note of the good work, the TransSafety Network, Hope Not Hate, and Trans Media Watch. BTW, the latter’s post called Dear British journalist is well done satire.

Let’s just close this off with a completely unrelated joke 😜

Do you know the three rules of Fascism? Make sh** up, scream it loudly, and then kill people.

Susie Eddie Izzard

Wobbles & Rituals

No, I’m still not writing the programming joke. Instead, feel free to geek out on type of D&D game the title would make 😁

As much as you could look at the repeating activities in our lives, routine is not always a bad thing. Apparently we humans do love a bit of a ritual. Do I love everything the same? By all that’s fabulous, no, not really. I do like to know what’s coming, but variety is good.

This week I struggled to come to with what to wear on Thursday. It’s not that I don’t have enough clothes. Perhaps we’re back to this wisdom:

When a woman says, ‘I have nothing to wear!’, what she really means is, ‘There’s nothing here for who I’m supposed to be today.’

Caitlin Moran

buTt, LiNn, aRnt yOo a mAn?!

Well, physiologically in terms of body parts, how I appear, and how most folk think of me, yes. In my head, not really. There’s a whole load of trans and genderfluid unholy moley going on in there! 🙂 So, no. Plus, aren’t humans a bit more complex than carefully assembled meatbags?

I read the other month the statement: if you can hold two items of contradictory information in your head, you can call yourself a grown-up. I would caveat that with: you might work in IT, be trans… or both. 🤓

Caitlin’s words ring true for me however I look… it’s just that in bloke mode, A) style is *significantly* easier/safer, and B) I don’t care as much. Not “don’t care”, but maybe it’s less high stakes. 🤔

So, I did what I often do when stumped and circling on a problem: talk to an expert. In this case, the wisdom of the Ever Lovely Mrs J. A quick chat while we made the tea together and her ideas helped, bless her. I felt very lucky.

Out

Being a muppet, I managed to take a lump out of my face while shaving. I was alerted to this by the stab of pain and then a worrying warm sensation that wasn’t the shower.

Ouch.

Still, a quick application of a styptic pencil – owwwccchhh! 😖 – did the trick.

Going back to the above about ritual, getting ready is part of the night. Yes, there’s probably another loop: arrive, unpack, undress, tuck, shapewear on, clothes on, shoes on, cosmetics on, jewellery on, earrings in, hair on, pack up, and (finally) join the others.

But, perhaps like cooking, enjoying a walk (careful with the autocorrect 🤭), or similar: joy cash be found in the moment. Rather than rushing – or dawdling – it’s about that mindfulness of knowing you’re becoming who you need to be, that your with friends, and for a time, the handful of haters don’t matter.

At least, that’s what I’m going to tell myself and think of the better things.

The evening itself was fairly quiet and we had another new person come along. They mentioned the phrase ‘my egg cracked’ which may give you a clue to their age compared to the group. That’s not a negative thing. Language changes and we chatted about all sorts of things from history, trans issues, Eurovision, metal (as in \m/ not chemistry), and local language too.

After a quick round of photos for Val, Ann, Debbie, Izzy, and Yours Truly, it was time to run the Exit Process – way the cups, tidy up, remove slap, change clothes, pack up, lock up, and go home.

Whatever you are up to this weekend, I hope it goes well.

L x