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Weekly Open Thread with wakeboarder and dolphins

tigtog

The featured video for this week’s Open Thread is this astonishing moment in the Sea of Cortez (my brother just showed it to me). Please natter/chatter/vent/rant on anything* you like over this weekend and throughout the week.

So, what have you been up to? What would you rather be up to? What’s been awesome/awful?
Reading? Watching? Making? Meeting?
What has [insert awesome inspiration/fave fansquee/guilty pleasure/dastardly ne’er-do-well/threat to all civilised life on the planet du jour] been up to?

* Netiquette footnotes:
* There is no off-topic on the Weekly Open Thread, but consider whether your comment would be on-topic on any recent thread and thus better belongs there.
* If your comment touches on topics known to generally result in thread-jacking, you will be expected to take the discussion to #spillover instead of overshadowing the social/circuit-breaking aspects of this thread.

29 thoughts on Weekly Open Thread with wakeboarder and dolphins

  1. [CN: self-loathing]

    I’ve recently started to break down a lot of my self-loathing thought patterns. To the extent that I was able to say “I love you” to my mother and my sister yesterday without any shame or self-loathing. Usually I hate saying even the word “love” because I feel like I’m not worthy of using that word due to being ugly, disgusting, worthless, etc. It also hurts to say it out loud because I hear it spoken in a voice that makes me feel extremely dysphoric. So this development means a lot to me.

    I also feel so appreciative of everyone who has helped me deal with all sorts of things life has thrown at me, whether it’s giving me consolation or giving me a place to stay. I have made my own efforts, of course, but those efforts would be lost without their help.

    It’s kind of a complex array of feelings I’m experiencing and I can’t really explain things well I guess, but I know for a fact that I’m beginning to make more and more progress. I know that there’s a possibility of life becoming worse, and my mental health issues are far from being resolved – especially my dysphoria and my self-loathing – but I feel more ready to deal with the consequences of things like coming out, transitioning, and so on.

    I’m not entirely where this optimism and self-acceptance are coming from, but I do know that fellow trans women have done the most for me. I would be lost without them.

  2. This Week Min. Valcourt’s office stated that without cooperation of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) for Bill C-33, a 1.9 Billion dollars trust for First Nations education will be withheld from them; “funding will only follow real education reforms.” It didn’t take long for Twitter to respond with ‪#‎HoldTheRations‬—referencing historic colonial strategy used to force Indigenous Nations to bend to colonial agendas by withholding vital resources from them.

    1. What assholes. As if that money didn’t come from a tax base built on land stolen from them to begin with.

      1. Can you imagine telling someone ” I know I owe you money, but I’m going to withhold what I owe until you do what I want” ?

  3. This armpit of the universe which brought you the bully-assisted suicide of Tyler Long has outdone itself. Again.
    Several Calhoun, GA students were given permission to have grad photos made at a parent-rented vacation cottage in nearby Ellijay. Instead, they invited their friends, and drank to excess. The class valedictorian, a “rich kid”, and two of his ditto buddies raped a girl with beer cans, breaking her pelvis and literally driving her tampon so far into her that it had to be removed surgically.
    A date rape drug was found in her system, and one witness claims that they originally planned to rape the mayor’s daughter. Political rape has now arrived in white neighborhoods, y’all.

    The victim tried to go to her hometown hospital but they don’t have rape kits or a trained nurse. She had to return to Ellijay to be treated.

    The three young rapists were bonded out immediately by their parents. Who knows what future indignities the local justice systems and cliques will perpetrate on the young lady.

    We’re getting a big dose of “rape culture meets wealth and privilege”. I worry that the families of these snakes will buy propaganda and PR, especially in Calhoun, where many are related to, and contribute ideas to, a former corporate leader of 20th Century Fox and who founded a publishing empire.

    On top of this, I have a tenant on the sex offenders’ registry who was convicted of rape in another state. I’m polite and treat him as I would any other tenant but I really want to get the Louisville Slugger out and leave some serious splatter now.

    1. Angie, for my edification, are you allowed to deny housing to sex offenders? I actually have no idea.

    2. That was one of the best few minutes of television I’ve seen this year. The segment at the end about Net Neutrality was so needed…but considering that people have been screaming about NN for years, I doubt it’ll make a splash with anyone that isn’t already aware.

  5. Link CN: Depiction of violence.

    So this happened: A twelve-year-old was stabbed nineteen times by two of her friends who are also twelve. Internet proceeds to Armchair Psychology everywhere AND turn the horrific event into a debacle about children and access to the internet.

    This and the girl that committed suicide after being caught cheating on an exam — a bright girl at a high school for STEM students.. the two children stabbed in an elevator..

    My heart hurts so fucking much.

      1. People need to understand that a headdress is not a fucking hat. It has meaning. Feathers are earned through acts of selflessness and bravery. Different headdreses have different meanings, and not every tribe even has them. Asshole. #NOTHappy

    2. Fuck you pharrel.

      Second that. He probably just doesn’t give a shit. And fuck Elle Magazine too.

    5. I’m sorry but no. There’s no way he wasn’t aware of this. There’s been more than enough coverage of it every time some stupid fashion designer sticks a headdress on model. Theres also no way Elle didn’t know either. He isnt a child and the internet wasn’t just invented.

    6. Forget for a moment how he should have known better. The fact he’s from a historically marginalised group in a state with an infamous history of racism (such as, y’know, arresting and deporting mixed-race couples) makes his collusion in a racist magazine cover even stupider.

  7. I mentioned that I quit my job a few days ago, right? Maybe not. Sometimes you can do something for 19 years, and then not one more day. There really can be such a thing as a last straw. At least I don’t have to worry about getting yelled at every single day anymore. I think I’m going through withdrawal right now. I’ve been sleeping all day, every day, except the couple of times I’ve gone back in to start going through all my stuff to decide what I want to take with me.

    I haven’t had a vacation — except for using vacation days as sick days after I ran out of sick days — in three years. I need some time off. I’ll never get another well-paying job, but I don’t care. I can’t do the same kind of thing anymore.

    1. Please do whatever you need to take care of yourself, Donna. Sending good thoughts your way, and if I were able to, I would totally try to send you an actual gift as well. (Unfortunately, I am terrible at knowing what people like as gifts for some reason.)

    2. You are a lawyer, right Donna? The high paying law jobs are a killer. I totally understand being burned out, especially with how many things you’ve had going on recently. I hope you get a good nap in.

      1. I only wish my job had ever been really high-paying. Maybe I could have saved up enough by now to get by indefinitely. I have enough for maybe a year. Whatever I ultimately decide to do, though, working at a law firm again isn’t in the cards. Not at my age, not with the fact that I don’t have any clients of my own, and not with a trans history that I can’t really conceal.

        But I don’t want that kind of job again anyway. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I think the email 36 hours after my father died, telling me I was leaving the firm and its clients in the lurch by taking a second day off after his death, really was it. Everyone I forwarded that email to immediately said I should just quit then and there. I waited a week, and then did so.

        And then the person who sent that email had the nerve to show up at my father’s public memorial service. The last face I wanted to see.

        (If he somehow sees this, too bad. It’s not defamation when it’s true.)

  9. Love my new apartment – hate my downstairs neighbors. Any advice from folks in NYC? They throw parties twice a week and blast music with ridiculous base lines (I honestly can’t tell what songs they’re playing, but the bass makes my floor vibrate), and their friends are so loud that I can hear their conversations word for word. Most of the time, they’re fine. It’s just when they throw parties.

    Why you would ever throw parties in the shitty ramshackle tiny apartments in NYC is beyond me.

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