Community Thursdays
May. 7th, 2026 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmith* Posted "Three Weeks for Dreamwidth: Repairing" in
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renew_repair_refashion.* Commented on "Just One Thing" in
awesomeers.* Commented on "May Day Full Flower Moon" in
common_nature.
Three Weeks for Dreamwidth: Repairing
May. 7th, 2026 12:15 amysabetwordsmithThree Weeks for Dreamwidth Part 13: Repairing
Repairing comprises a huge range of skills for maintaining and fixing tools, toys, and anything else that needs care. Most folks think of this regarding big machines like cars, but it used to be the case that small things were designed for repair too, like sewing machines or mixers. Nowadays, much is meant to be disposable, which wastes resources. Repairs may be divided into large equipment, small equipment, toys, and clothes among other categories. Different cultures have different things to repair and methods they like to use. Some of these are distinctive, like Japanese kintsugi (repairing pottery with golden seams) or boro (repairing clothes, often reinforced with sashiko stitches). Here on Dreamwidth,
renew_repair_refashion is low traffic, but posting is open to all members so feel free to pitch in. Also check out related communites such as awesomeers, crafty, everykindofcraft, get_knitted, goals_on_dw, green_living, sewing101, sewing,
( Read more... )
Demons and Bots
May. 6th, 2026 09:11 pmlovelyangelI did not finish the book until this morning. It took more than a month for me to finish a single book. I’ve reduced my tsundoku stack by one book. 😑
( Excuses, Below the Cut )
It’s good that I finished Queen Demon today, as tomorrow night I’m going to a book signing: Martha Wells - Platform Decay.
Future Murderbot and Rising World books are discussed in a Martha Wells Interview at Polygon (via
thewayne).2026 Rhysling Awards
May. 6th, 2026 08:51 pmgwynnegaLast year, when I wrote the poem, the jacarandas had taken their time blooming, but this year they are already going to town.
(no subject)
May. 6th, 2026 09:10 pmflemmingsCame home to a reminder to reregister for the Canadian Dental Plan which involved jumping through more hoops than I care to remember, but every step of the way involved entering yet another confirmation code. I think I racked up eight by the time I was finished, and wondered how dyslexic people manage this. The insult to injury part was that to set up an account with the program-- which I was sure I already had because how else would I have my current insurance?-- you need to register through a bank account. An online banking account. Which naturally everyone over the age of 80 has. And you need two ways to confirm your gov't account because just answering questions won't do. At least they weren't asking for biometric evidence, but one was a QR code, what I've never got the hang of, which also involves the cell phones that all seniors possess, and the second was a technical something I'd never even heard of. Managed it in the end but left a really snarky review when they were brazen enough to ask for it.
And no, there was no option for a paper form of any description. My curse upon the shrivelled soul of the technocrat bureaucrat and their blinkered view of how the world operates.
In reading I probably finished more Priestleys and Merrions and kept on with When They Burned the Butterfly. Began the new Murderbot and eventually got out of the hard to follow (for me) descriptions of space stations and cargo modules and hoppers and what-all to the actual plot. This requires most of my attention so 100 Demons is on hold, at least as far as upstairs reading goes. Downstairs I'm still working my way through When They Burned the Butterfly aka 'life is cheap in the east' aka maybe modern day Singapore's police state isn't that bad after all. The body count of the various gangster orgs is really high, like war of attrition high. Maybe that was policy? Mind, since we've got gods and magic all through this, perhaps there never were gang wars in 60s Singapore.
Ebook library-wise I sent the unfinished The Burning Court back to the 'one person waiting' and hope they have a better time with it than I. I started dragging my feet when theses amateurs began talking about doing an unauthorised exhumation from which these amateurs would deduce whether Uncle was poisoned or not. Good luck, chaps. This is forensic medicine which none of you know. I have Emilie and the Hollow World to be going on with for phone reading in coffee shops, which we will see.
can we handle adding things to the spectrum without kicking things *out* of the spectrum, or
May. 6th, 2026 09:38 pmerinptahSo I just read a piece of meta, which I’m going to avoid linking, because I don’t want this to feel like a callout or a slam on the writer. The writer was fine.
The quick summary is, [character] gets interpreted by fandom as autistic, and the writer explained “actually, [character] is intellectually disabled. They might also be autistic — you can be more than one thing at a time! — but they’re definitely intellectually disabled, because of [list of symptoms].”
…And, look, not to be all When I Was Your Age, but: (sits back in rocking chair, takes a long drag on pipe) when I was a young whippersnapper in school, back in the stone ages, all those things were just autism.
When the term “autism spectrum” was canonized in the DSM-5 in 2013, it folded together 4 different previous categories. One was Asperger’s syndrome, which specifically had “doesn’t test as being intellectually disabled” in the diagnostic criteria. The other 3, including the disorder previously known as Just Autism, didn’t have that exclusion.
So here’s some anecdata on how that played out in practice, back when I was in grade school. I knew students who were diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome — those were the kids who were intellectually able to keep up with standard-to-gifted classes, they just had struggles with other issues. And I knew kids who were diagnosed with Autism Classic, who were mostly in the “special ed” classes.
I can’t swear to the exact diagnosis of every special-ed kid. I was their schoolmate, not their doctor. Possibly some of them had the other two diagnoses (CDD and PDD-NOS) that ended up in the autism spectrum? There’s at least one that I know had Down’s syndrome, which is from a whole separate category.
One thing I can tell you is, in casual conversation, it was pretty standard to use “the autistic kids” to describe the whole group. Which was at least accurate-enough that no teacher or authority figure ever told us not to use it.
In elementary school — maybe third grade? — I remember one particular kid who was in the special ed classes at first, but got “mainstreamed” into my class for a year. The rest of us were specifically told that his diagnosis was autism, and that didn’t change. So, even though the term “autism spectrum” wasn’t official yet, the system did have different approaches available for different autistic people — not just on-paper but in-practice, enough to be understood by random unrelated small children.
(In retrospect, I wish I knew more details. How much support was this kid getting? Was it enough to make the “mainstreaming” work for him? But obviously the adults weren’t gossiping about those aspects to unrelated small children.)
Fast-forward a decade or so, and the DSM-5 merges all the diagnoses. The conversations about it were overwhelmingly positive — as in, I’m not sure I ever heard anyone complaining about it.
Which makes sense, for a lot of good reasons. If multiple “separate” conditions turn out to have the same underlying mechanism, then of course medical science should group them together. If people with the “less severe” condition would benefit from some of the support that the “more severe” condition gets, then of course we should make it accessible to all of them. If there’s not enough recognition that a diagnosis has a range of presentations that need different approaches, then yeah, let’s put the word “spectrum” in The Official Term. (Also: if you have a diagnosis that’s named after a Nazi doctor, it’s never a bad time to rename that.)
…And then I read this post, and I think, oh no. We, as a society, haven’t made a successful conceptual shift from “autism needs all the Classic Autism symptoms, otherwise it’s Asperger’s, which is something else” to “it’s all just autism.” The concept we’re shifting to is “autism is just the Classic Asperger’s symptoms, and if you have the other Classic Autism symptoms, that’s something else.”
Can we actually handle the idea of making a spectrum this broad? Or are we doomed to always fall back on moving it around — that is, only including one new batch of people in the category if we redefine another batch of people out of it?
Ugh.
…again, to be clear, this is all a reaction to one person’s post. I have no idea how widespread this mental framing is. Or if it’s having any negative effects for people IRL, as opposed to just flipping the direction of “[character] isn’t coded as autistic, you can tell because they [do/don’t] have these intellectual-disability symptoms” meta.
But it bothered me enough to vent about, so here we are.
Getting Decked
May. 7th, 2026 12:52 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
scalziwhatever_feed
The current state of the new back deck: In progress!
The astute among you, who also remember anything about the previous deck, will notice two differences so far. Most obviously, those tall posts, which will serve for framing a roof, and rather less obviously, the new deck is going to be flush with the patio door where the previous one had a step down. Why did it have a step down? Because, apparently, why not. Krissy decided she could do without the step down so here we are. This will mean that the stairs from the deck to the walkway will have one more step, but this is a choice we are ready to make.
I think it’s looking good, although when it’s done we’ll have some further decorating and landscaping choices to make. This is the way of all home improvements.
More updates as warranted. Expect at least a couple more before it’s all done.
— JS
Write Every Day: Day 6
May. 6th, 2026 04:48 pmsanguinityMy check-in: I added 2k to the new fic since last we spoke! Apparently now that the groundbreaking ceremony is over, I decided to bring in a backhoe.
Day 6:
china_shop, sanguinityDay 5:
acorn_squash, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, dswdiane, luzula, sanguinity, the_siobhan, trobadora, ysilmeDay 4:
acorn_squash, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, dswdiane, glinda, goddess47, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme( More days )
When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!
What I'm Doing Wednesday
May. 6th, 2026 05:59 pmsageThe Jeeves Omnibus Vol. 3: (I'm interspersing the Jeeves & Wooster novels with the rest of what I'm reading.)
Ring for Jeeves (1953). OMG such idiots. Not even Jeeves can redeem this. (I kind of despise gambling, sorry?)
The Mating Season (1949). Delightful beginning. Tedious middle (Bertie, you ass). Good, if brief ending.
Very Good, Jeeves! (1930). More vintage, not historical, Jeeves and Wooster. This is a collection of short stories, most very charming.
Wyndham & Banerjee #1: A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee. 2016. Really satisfying in terms of setting: the colonial India is vivid and fascinating. The plot is kind of a mess, complete with monologing villain. But I'll read the next one happily.
The Wild Atlantic Murders #1: The Clew Bay Detectives by Pam Lecky. 2026. ARC. ( gah )
Wyndham & Banerjee #2: A Necessary Evil by Abir Mukherjee. 2017. I love the setting so much! There was a bit more literal running back and forth than was completely necessary here, and the opium subplot is appropriately skeevy, but I loved all the women and really appreciated the ending. Looking forward to the next one.
Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From by Tony Joseph. 2018. Brilliant, if very slightly outdated wrt the prehistoric DNA research.
Wyndham & Banerjee #3: Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee. 2018. So good!! Nearly a perfect novel.
next up: rereading all of Murderbot bc I don't remember where things left off before Rapport.
healthcrap
Wrapped the wrist-thumb joint in kinesio tape, since I can't find where I put the thumb brace. Fibro is flaring & I'm way too sore. Still sleeping 12 hrs a night and not resting. /impatient to feel better.
I hope you're all doing well! <333
dentist: crown
May. 6th, 2026 06:30 pmredbirdI was pleased to see that my Lyft driver, the dentist, and the dental assistant were all masked when I first saw them. I told the driver it was nice to see other people masking, and I tipped extra because of it.
When I checked in, the receptionist told me there would be a $750 copay. I told her that I had been told that the crown was fully covered, and asked her to check. A few minutes later, she confirmed that I wouldn't have to pay anything. I do not understand dental insurance, including this dental insurance, which is an add-on to my Medicare Advantage plan; I would have paid the $750 if I had to, but I'm glad I don't.
I'd been planning to stop and visit some lilac bushes on the way home, but it was raining, which made that less appealing, so I didn't. I did stop at Lizzy's on the way home, and now have a total of five unlabeled pints of ice cream: three today, because a broken freezer meant I had to get the clerk to hand-scoop the ice cream, plus the two from Tosci's. However, I have blank sticky adhesive labels, which should make this easy.
some good things
May. 6th, 2026 11:00 pmkaberettOne: I have spent much of the day indulging the desire to Quietly Hyperfocus On Game and it has been a very relaxing autism to have.
Two: I have finished the questionable Ryvita we... somehow... came into possession of (I apparently object to things that are not salt & vinegar extruded potato twirls containing potassium chloride) and can now merrily go back to overpriced high protein crackers until such time as I get around to buying vital wheat gluten with which to make my own.
Three: two loaves of bread (because I strained a Lot of whey off the most recent batch of yoghurt), which are a slightly silly set of shapes but also extremely aesthetic. I am very much looking forward to extravagant breakfast featuring avocado and also scrambled egg. (New oven needs less time to do them than old one; new oven also would ideally get them rotated halfway through baking if I want them done evenly. I am trying to work out what the best way to freeze the second loaf is...)
Four: Adam brought me home British strawberries from the supermarket, all with their petals still attached.
Five: new Murderbot purchased. (When I will get around to reading it is another question, but the possibility exists!)
Podfic!
May. 6th, 2026 05:26 pmsenmutChapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker
Additional Tags: Drabble, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming
Summary:
A podfic of Do It Again? by Merfilly.
"Leia asks a question."
30 Days of Blake's 7
May. 6th, 2026 11:02 pmjulesjonesJarvik, because the poor soul was the creation of Ben Steed... Jarvik himself does have some good points, but dear God the misogyny dripping from the typewriter.
Of the regulars, Tarrant, partly because he is an entirely inadequate Blake-replacement for me, and partly because he's a bully in a way I find repellent even in a fictional character (there's a nastiness in his bullying of Vila that just isn't there from Avon before the aftermath of Orbit).
Vilakins mentions S4 Avon, and while I don't feel that way myself I can see where she's coming from. :->
Trying to pick my outfit
May. 6th, 2026 06:13 pmmissdiane( Snip snip for pics )Ignore my house slippers. Obviously not wearing THOSE to the wedding
ludicrous question of the day
May. 6th, 2026 05:15 pmjulianShe's more "there" in the mornings, and is sometimes able to connect up and have actual conversations, though I admit, this is not often. Then once she starts getting tireder, she is just not rooted in reality, meanders verbally, and has some kind of rich inner life to which I am not privy, and which, when she's asked about, she is unable to explain. (Which is more curious to me because she was just in 2026 in the morning, you know? But it is what it is.) This does often lead to problems because she meanders off, physically, to obey the mysterious dictates of her soul, and can't/won't explain what she wants to do, and does *not* take well to re-direction. (Or, in the words of the medical establishment, is combative.)
She's also miserable and seems to have developed actual aphasia at this point -- that is, she has something specific she wants to say but says the wrong words. Which, sometimes is commentary on 2026, but is also sometimes commentary from her inner life, so even if we could understand it, it wouldn't make sense, but the frustration is the same either way, so sympathy is at least called for.
She does recognize me pretty consistently, which is good both for her sake and mine (because the first time I actually knew she didn't know it was me was Not Entertaining), but she also firmly has the idea her parents are still alive and she wants to visit them (in Lancaster, PA), which is... not so good. My dad is very bad at dealing with the latter, and keeps going, in essence, "No, they're dead," which is. Nowhere near the response you want, there.
Also, she has no sense of time, so she's like, "Let's go!" three minutes after we start a thing. Which is one thing if it's at home, but it's more of a problem if she's at, say, her 5 year old niece's birthday party. My brother and I did decode that it's also her telling us she's done with our visits and we should go away, though, so that was good.
And, she is still doing the "taking a walk and then getting lost and getting the police called on her," thing, which frankly by this point is infuriating because why the fuck won't my dad get inside locks for the house, or at least notice that she's leaving. ?!?!??? <-- my internal state.
Anyway, the reason I'm making this post is that she's getting a lot more unstable on her feet, and has fallen a few times lately, though has not, thankfully, broken anything, but she can't get back up again when she does fall. My dad has now, despite their previously having promised each other they would Never Leave Their House, made the decision that he's open to looking into assisted living/memory care facilities, hosanna. (They've had in-house helpers for a bit, but my mom keeps taking against them because they tell her what to do and she hates that, see above re: combative.)
He called me up (I having had warning from my brother) and was like, "Can we get her into an ambulance and have her taken somewhere this afternoon?" and I barely managed not to laugh at him. No, is the answer, no we can't. I said something about it not being feasible. (I mean, if she broke something it would be, but that is To Be Avoided because it would lead to the downslope, and while she is not exactly happy in her life, the "broken bone to pneumonia" pipeline is not the most efficient way of dying, pardon my distancing humor.)
But! I have now scheduled two tours, one for my brother (on Friday) and one for me on Monday, at two different local-to-my-parents places, and we'll go from there.
Book meme
May. 6th, 2026 02:16 pmpetrea_mitchellalthea_valara.This week I'm reading: Ten Tomatoes That Changed the World, one of the finds at the B&N outlet.
My favorite book of all time is: On the one hand, it's hard to pick out one book. On the other, my favorite fiction author is Stanisław Lem, and my favorite of his books is The Cyberiad, so maybe that.
My current favorite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months) is: Ten Tomatoes That Changed the World is a lot of fun so far. Of books I finished in the last 3 months, probably Ballet Shoes, a childhood favorite that I recently reread. My favorite part is still the book affirming that it's fine to decide you're actually not that interested in the performing arts and want to go off and be a geek instead.
The last book I bought was: The online order I just placed for Fate's Trick, the last of the Crossroads Adventures series that I didn't have a copy of yet. Eventually I want to blog about the whole series.
The first book I bought with my own money was: No idea, probably part of an armload of used books from Powell's.
The first book I received as a gift was: Too far back to remember. But the first one I do specifically remember was The Crust of Our Earth, for my 8th birthday, which helped cement my interest in geology.
The last book I received as a gift was: Usually we do gift cards around here, but I do recall the SO tracking down a copy of Fieldwork Fail for me from a source in Belgium.
The last book I borrowed from the library was: Too long ago to remember.
This or that:
Physical book, e-book, or audio: Physical
Used, new, or fell off the back of the internet: Used
Fiction or non-fiction: Some and some
Read at a coffee shop or at the park: Park, unless the weather is terrible
Paperback or hardcover: Paperback, both cost-effective and easier to fit onto shelves
Romance or Crime: Why not both?
Yes or no:
Literary fiction? No
Sci-fi/fantasy? Yes
Poetry? Yes
Memoirs? No
Philosophy? No
Thrillers? Yes
Chronicles? Yes
Travellogues? Yes
Dialogue heavy? Not unless the dialogue is very good
Trying Out A New Recipe: Sugar Spiced Dreams “Banana Coffee Cake Muffins”
May. 6th, 2026 09:20 pmscalziwhatever_feed
One of my friends recently told me she’s pregnant with her second child, and as much as I love nice cards I knew I wanted to do something a little more for her, so I asked her to tell me what baked good she was really craving. She answered muffins, and my muffin making journey began.
Though she never specified what kind of muffins she wanted, my mind immediately went to a coffee cake type of muffin. In my experience, coffee cake always hits the spot, and there is virtually no one who doesn’t love cinnamon and brown sugar (shout out to the one person I know who is allergic to cinnamon). I just needed to find a good recipe for such muffins.
In my search for coffee cake muffins, I came across this video, showing banana coffee cake muffins:
I knew this recipe was the one. Banana bread vibes enhanced by cinnamon brown sugar streusel?! Yes, please!
Looking at the recipe, it’s very interesting because it uses butter, neutral oil, eggs, and sour cream. So you already know we are in for a MOIST muffin. Especially with the addition of the bananas.
Honestly this recipe is very good for a casual home baker, as there’s nothing weird or hard to come by on the ingredients list. I only had to go buy sour cream and bananas, everything else I had on hand. Though I did use the very last of my flour and brown sugar for this, so sadly I will need to replenish those on my next grocery trip.
Anyways, let me tell you, this recipe is super quick and easy and these taste so flippin’ good! They were so good that I decided to make them again, and this time document it for y’all. So technically this was my second time.
Here’s the ingredients lineup:
If you’ve got a keen eye, you’ll notice I left the oil out of the photo. That was an accident, so just imagine a tall bottle of Crisco Vegetable Oil in the photo. Thanks.
The recipe says to make the streusel first, and I have no arguments against that, so I did! The first time I made it, my butter was cold and cubed like the recipe says, but the second time it was definitely not as cold. But the streusel turned out fine, in my not-so-expert opinion:
You want your streusel to kind of be like wet sand. At least, that’s what I’ve heard in the past. I covered this with a tea towel and put it in the fridge while I worked on the batter.
The first step of the batter is to mash the bananas and mix in all the wet ingredients. Finally a recipe that adds the bananas to the wet ingredients instead of making you add them at the end. Lookin’ at you, Joy of Cooking.
It says to mix until smooth and glossy, and that’s looking pretty glossified to me:
For both times I made these muffins, I actually did not melt the butter fully. It was just very, very soft butter, not liquid. So, melt if you want, but I don’t think it matters too much. Everything whisked together super easy!
In the recipe, it says to mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and then fold into the wet ingredients, but why not make this a one bowl batter and just throw the dry ingredients in right on top of the wet, and then mix? Makes more sense to me. Here’s the completed batter:
I always use cupcake liners because I hate trying to get muffins unstuck from the pan, plus my pan is kind of not in incredible shape. It’s seen better days, so liners it is.
The recipe says to fill the cups halfway, then add a layer of streusel, then pour more batter and finish off with a top layer of streusel. So here’s the tricky part. How do you know how much streusel to use on the half-cup-layer to ensure that you have a decent amount in the layer, but also ensure that you don’t use too much and make it so the top layer is weak? You have to prioritize the top layer’s condition, but make sure there’s at least some in the middle.
Honestly, my line of thought is to have a decent crumble, but make sure you’re not completely covering the batter. Like you want to be able to see the batter. Then, when you do the top layer, that’s when you cover the batter completely and make it a very full layer of streusel that can’t be seen through. So here’s the half layer:
See how there’s like, a good amount of crumbles in there but you can still clearly see the batter through the spaces? Here’s the top layer:
Almost no batter visible at this point. I used every crumb of streusel in the damn bowl (ignore the streusel crumbs in the middle parts of the pan). These were ready to bake.
One interesting thing about this recipe that I haven’t really seen before is that she says to bake them at 400 degrees Fahrenheit and then reduce the temperature to 350 after five minutes, without opening the oven door. How intriguing! I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. Regardless, I listened and reduced it to 350 and baked for 13 minutes since it said 12 to 15.
They come out a little ugly, but they smell incredible:
The streusel sort of just melds into the top of the muffin instead of being a defined layer on top, so they just kinda look bumpy and weird. But I promise they taste damn good. Look at that crumb!
These are super soft, moist, flavorful muffins with a delish crunchy, sweet cinnamon streusel topping. There’s cinnamon in the streusel and the batter itself, so you’re getting a lot of warm flavor here. The banana is an enhancement, not a detraction.
I gave the first batch to my friend like I mentioned, and she told me they were “AMAZING” and “insanely good” and literally told me to come back and get one immediately so I could try it myself. Thankfully, I had enough ingredients to make a second batch shortly after, and now y’all can try it for yourself.
Some of the muffins from the first batch had a weird issue of sinking in a little bit on the top in the middle, but the second batch didn’t have that issue. Not sure why.
Anyways, this recipe is going to be one I return to often. These are perfect just to gift to friends and family, or have on hand for a morning snack with your coffee. I highly recommend giving them a try.
Do you like banana bread or coffee cake better? Would you try this delish combo? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
The arbitrary nature of bigotry
May. 6th, 2026 09:25 pmcosmolinguistSorry I kinda buried the lede amid all my paragraphs of rambling here, so the tl;dr is that I can probably have top surgery after all, in Germany.
I'm really glad that last week my counseling session touched on the difficult feelings that come up when a system that has been arbitrarily discriminating against me stops doing that.
I think it came up when I made some reference to the fact that, in my current workplace I sometimes get a real strong feeling that I know the instances in which white middle-aged and/or middle-class men are treating me better, because they understand me to be one of them, than they would have if I'd had this job while everyone (likely including me) was under the misapprehension that I'm a woman.
I said it made me think of coming back to Manchester Airport, a source of so much trauma for me since 2004, and how much easier it was to breeze through it the first time I had a UK passport which was in 2017. I was shaking and almost crying by the time I got out of customs and down to baggage control. I was angry, I was so angry it felt like my body couldn't hold all of the feeling, which is why it was leaking out of me like that.
We talked about the seeming counterintuitiveness of being angry (or in less dramatic cases maybe annoyed or unsettled would be better words), when "good" things are happening, or when there's also the relief that an experience I would previously have braced myself for is suddenly better. It helped to acknowledge that feeling surprised or shocked by this is something I've probably been trying to suppress because it felt like a bit of a betrayal of all the times I'd heard of this happening (like those men who have to pretend to be women on the internet in order to understand that Being A Woman on the Internet Sucks rather than just listening to the women who say so), or maybe it made me feel like my previous understanding of borders or patriarchy or whatever was somehow incomplete.
I know that being taken aback by something just because it's happening to me doesn't mean that I have to be surprised or making some kind of judgement about my previous understanding of the thing,, but I think I was trying to "skip to the end" or reach the "correct" response, rather than letting my soft animal body feel what it feels.
I'm glad this came up because today I had the video consultation with the German clinic that was personally recommended to me as being both good and explicitly reassuring on social media that they don't care about BMI and it was fine.
(At least, it was fine once we worked around the problem of not being able to log in to the video portal because the computer declared our postcode invalid when it definitely isn't, which greatly frustrated D who was helping me and made me just want to run away, it was fine -- we got all the problems out in that case, and it made us five minutes late, but that didn't present a problem at all once we got started.)
The surgeon was cheerful -- he said they love doing this type of surgery, and I imagine it must be incredible to see people at this stage in their life -- and gave me all the information I expected in a first conversation and I know when and what kind of other info to expect if I pursue this. They're used to people who aren't local so I'm very ordinary and expected to them in that way too.
It is such a relief to be normal.
It's tiring being an edge case all the time.
It's also, of course, infuriating because I have never been treated like my requirement for top surgery has been ordinary or manageable before.
I have only ever been treated like I am a problem, and I have fix that myself. And I have to do it via intentional weight loss, something that I know is basically impossible. I know that weight-cycling (and minority stress from anti-fat stigma) accounts for almost all the negative health effects that are usually, erroneously, associated with being fat. I have inadvertently already been through a couple of "gaining the weight back and then some" cycles (from phenomena such as I'm in college and I'm suddenly walking everywhere and also I'm poor so probably not eating enough) and I know there are people who've done far more so I feel silly treating myself as so fragile but it really upsets me to think about having to subject myself to that again just to access some healthcare.
And here I am, treated as if my requirement is routine, everyday. Because it is for this dude.
And that means (with a lot of money that I only have because of The Economy; it's equity from the house I used to own, and you bet I'm angry about this as well!!), it can be ordinary and respectable and possible for me, too.
The appointment was more than 12 hours ago, and this reality still doesn't feel entirely real to me.
But I'll get there, I guess.