letsjustbecatsok

[letsjustbecatsok]

chronic fatigue from mental illness and neurodivergency isn't something you can just will your way out of. your nervous system is part of your body. your brain is an organ. the fatigue is real. you're not lazy. so be kinder to yourself. be gentler with your bodymind.

[letsjustbecatsok]

Honestly if we didn’t share the planet with funny little animals I would have fucking lost it years ago

[letsjustbecatsok]

this is your random reminder to CHECK IF YOU'RE STILL HAVING FUN

are you enjoying scrolling tumblr? watching youtube? reading that book? playing that game? drawing that art? doing that activity? if not,

YOU CAN STOP AND DO SOMETHING ELSE

you don't have to stick to something that you are doing for fun if it isn't fun for you anymore. You can come back! If you've loved it before you are likely to love it again! but you can stop!

Don't get stuck in a loop of doing something that you think should be fun when it isn't! You can put it down for a bit! Maybe that's the very thing that will make it fun again later!

[letsjustbecatsok]

Referred to as “the Dusseldorf patient” to protect his privacy, researchers said he is the fifth confirmed case of an HIV cure. Although the details of his successful treatment were first announced at a conference in 2019, researchers could not confirm he had been officially cured at that time.

Today, researchers announced the Dusseldorf patient still has no detectable virus in his body, even after stopping his HIV medication four years ago.

[letsjustbecatsok]

But seriously, if you keep pushing yourself past your mental or physical limits, it will catch up with you. You cannot live forever on three hours of sleep and caffeine and willpower. You cannot keep overpowering your very natural need to relax and recharge. If you don't treat both with care and respect, at some point your brain and your body will reach a point of breakdown and burnout - and any mental or physical conditions you may have tried to ignore and power through will kick your ass. So take that goddamn nap or that break now. Don't wait for yourself to shatter and fall apart before you tend to the cracks in your body and mind. Just because you may have the choice to ignore your limits right now doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Take care of yourself now or you WILL regret it.

[letsjustbecatsok]

Hey. People in my inbox saying you relate with intersex experiences because you were put on hormones as a kid for a hormonal condition.

Perisex people aren't put on hormones as children for a hormonal condition. You are intersex. You've been told your intersex traits are a disorder and you have been deprived of your community. I encourage you to learn more about the intersex community and participate if you'd like to. This community saved me.

[letsjustbecatsok]

Ok, so here’s a thing. I talk a lot about autonomy and freedom for children, and a lot of times that comes up in really radical ways, dropping out of school, running away from home, *big life choices*.

But that’s not the only place where we curtail kids’ freedoms. Like, say a little girl’s getting a haircut and she wants to get half her head shaved so she looks like Natalie Dormer in The Hunger Games, like, first the barber’s going to look to the parent for permission (which is already fucked up) and then the parent’s almost certainly going to say no and tell the barber to trim a few inches off or whatever it is they think their hair should look like and…

What I’m getting at is that so many of the things we think we need to protect our kids from are *fucking harmless*. Shaving their heads, going to the supermarket in a spiderman costume, eating ketchup for dinner, these things are not going to seriously harm anyone. In so far as they are mistakes, they are mistakes that kids should be able to just make and gracefully recover from.

And I think the mindset here – that children need to present *normally* because otherwise what will people think of them, and what will people think of their parents – is *precisely* the same mindset that leads to abusive shit like “quiet hands” and ABA. That it doesn’t matter what they want, what’s good for their well-being, what matters is that they *look and act* “normally”.

Like it seems like there’s something akin to a curb-cut effect here? Where this mindset hurts developmentally disabled children more, a lot more, but maybe the most efficient thing to do is just to tear it out by the root, to criticize it wherever we see it? 

Like it’d be nice if we could just say, if they’re not hurting anyone, kids should be allowed to look and act the way they want to, they should be able to cut their own hair or flap or crossdress or refuse eye-contact or have cereal for dinner or not want to be touched and it should be the parent’s *responsibility* to fiercely defend their child’s right to do those things and set those boundaries against anyone who wants to give them shit for it, not to victim-blame and say no you can’t do those things because people will give me shit about it if you do.

[letsjustbecatsok]

[letsjustbecatsok]

i always think about that study where they had adults hold a baby, and when they were told the baby was a girl the adults said she was cute and small, and when they were told the baby was a boy they said he was big and strong. they rated the baby’s ability to do things and tendency towards certain toys differently. they even held the baby differently. (x) or when they rated the baby’s physical ability to do various tasks such as climbing up a slope differently, (x) & when they measured how much parents told their girl children vs. their boy children to be careful and stop being so rowdy (x), & when they measured how often girls and boys were told to be quiet. (x) this was, obviously, all unconscious behavior in the adults. they’re not all like, raving sexists who outspokenly believe that women can’t do stuff or that girls really should just be quieter, be more still than boys. like its not even counting the direct, actual messages, its just literally how every single person in your entire life treats you, and if asked they would probably deny that its even because you’re a girl. how the fuck am i supposed to believe this doesn’t affect a child’s development when its literally constant throughout the entire process 

[letsjustbecatsok]

The sweater made of reclaimed yarn is a success! It fits me much better than the original sweater did, so it was totally worth all the unraveling. I look a little bit like a fancy chocolate box when I wear it.

I really should not have knitted it as relentlessly as I did; I've done some bad things to my neck and shoulder muscles in the process.

Definitely happy with the sleeve decorations, though. I learned a lot of useful things about what you can do with unorthodox cabling techniques, and the end result reminds me of some of the stuff in the Handbook of Ornament.

[letsjustbecatsok]

You should be starting a recipe book. I don't give a shit if you're only 20-years-old. The modern web is rotting away bit by bit before our very eyes. You have no idea when that indie mom blog is going down or when Pinterest will remove that recipe. Copy it down in a notebook, physically or digitally. Save it somewhere only you can remove it. Trust me, looking for a recipe only to find out it's been wiped off the internet is so fucking sad. I've learned my lesson one too many times.

[letsjustbecatsok]

Honestly if you live in one of those places where winters are really dark, it should be socially treated as night time. Fuck going to work or school when it's still dark out there. As soon as the sun sets, you're getting night shift pay. Socially acceptable to go to bed at 5:30 pm and not get up before 9 am. Let us fucking hibernate you bastards.

[letsjustbecatsok]

Yeehawgust day 30 “the big empty”

[letsjustbecatsok]

every winter solstice I am consumed with thoughts of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost...

[letsjustbecatsok]

So I think I forgot to post about it here but I'm knitting my own wedding dress.

Edit to add materials: I'm using suri silk alpaca (apparently I'm slightly allergic to mohair?), and glass beads for the silvery and pearl beads.

[letsjustbecatsok]

When Mindy Saved Hanukkah- by Eric A. Kimmel, pictures by Barbara McClintock.

Part 1 [you are here!] Part 2 [click here]  Glossary of Jewish Words [here]

This was one of my favorite books from when I was young so I thought I would upload it