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[punkimonki]

Miles Van Rensselaer (American, b. 1973, Lopatcong, NJ, USA) - Jari Jari Gelas Totem, 2016, Sculptures: Bronze and Glass

[punkimonki]

maybe i'm missing something, but why wouldn't you listen to a doctor's opinion of whether you're in pain or fatigue?

Okay, I’ve thought about this question for most of a day, because the obvious answer is “….why would I?”, but it’s clearly not obvious to you.

Now, I know exactly what you’re thinking. They’re a doctor. They’re a professional you’ve gone to for help. And pain and fatigue are, like, medical things, right? Going to a doctor about medical stuff and then saying “LOL NOPE” to what the doctor says is like hiring a plumber and then arguing about how to fix your sink, right? If you’re so smart, why’d you call the plumber over?

Okay.

But now imagine your basement is flooding and you call the plumber. While on the phone, the plumber asks you what the problem is and you say that there’s a pipe in your basement that’s burst and it’s now flooded.

And the plumber—still on the phone—says “LOL NOPE.”

And you say, “Excuse me?”

The plumber says, “Look, a flooded basement is a really severe problem, okay? Usually, these calls, they’re a clogged toilet or a leaky u-bend under the sink. Trust me, this is better. Those are a lot cheaper to fix.”

And you say, “I’m sure they are, but I’m telling you, my basement is flooded. I’m looking down the stairs and I can see the water.”

“I’m just saying, there are other things it could be. It won’t hurt anything to eliminate them first,” the plumber says.

And you say, “But I need my basement fixed! Look, I can’t go down in my basement and do laundry right now, and I have important keepsakes down there in boxes… some of them are already ruined, but maybe I can salvage some if we can just fix the problem.”

“Well, then it will be in your interest for me to check your toilets and your u-bends,” the plumber says.

“The problem is not in my toilets or my sinks,” you say. “I am looking at the problem. I called you because my basement is flooded, and I need you to help me fix that.”

And then… now, I’m not assuming you’re female, but I just want to emphasize that this is a starkly though not exclusively gendered phenomenon, so if you’re not female then imagine you are.

“MA’AM,” the plumber says, in a way you recognize. It’s the voice of putting you in your place, the voice of unearned authority, and with this voice, this word, ma’am, is not a title of respect, it’s a reminder and a command. “MA’AM, if you’ll just calm down. I’m sure what you’re experiencing seems terrible to you, but the truth is, it’s probably not as bad as it looks from where you’re standing. And that’s a good thing! Trust me, have been a plumber for 27 years. Now, when can I come over to check your u-bends?”

“It’s not my u-bends!” you say.

“Ma’am, if you don’t want to be helped, I’ll start to think you’re calling for attention.”

You see?

(Now for bonus points, imagine the plumber refuses to help you until you lose a statistically improbable amount of weight just to rule out that this might be flooding your basement, or is acting on the subconscious but deeply entrenched idea that people with your skin color are less susceptible to flooding and in less need of help, or believes that as a feeeemale you’re more likely to be suffering from emotional distress than a physical problem and suggests the preferable course of action would be for you to take a nap every time the supposed flooding in your basement bothers you.)

As I said in that post, pain and fatigue — like dysphoria — are qualitative experiences. This means they happen in your head and they cannot be directly observed or measured by anyone else (which would make them quantitative phenomena). 

The doctor talking to you about dysphoria —or pain or fatigue — is not a plumber in your house, they are a plumber on the phone. The only input they receive about the problem is your account of it. 

And if they’re not willing to listen to what you say and aren’t willing to take you at your word, then all the expertise and experience in the world doesn’t matter. You can have the most powerful calculator in the world but if you type the wrong numbers into it it will still give the wrong answers. Someone can be the best doctor in the world but if they’re ignoring the information they’re not going to give you the right answer.

[punkimonki]

Anybody else ever get so sucked into a book or book series that shifting back to reality is a little bit of a trip?

Like... sometimes it takes a day to get back to yourself.

[punkimonki]

[punkimonki]

Also can we talk about how much Soo Won misses his friends?

Like, it’s clearly killing him that this is the way things had to happen. (At least he thinks so.) And then Yona is right there, making him lie down when he’s feeling unwell, holding him when he can’t stand. There’s Hak working with the soldiers, training and laughing. It’s almost like everything is the way it used to be, but there’s Yona’s steely eyes now, Hak’s trainee uniform and distance, not to mention four dragons residing in the castle, all loyal to Yona.

We keep seeing him almost lean in, almost give up the facade and be soft with them. He wants to so much and knows that he can’t, that they won’t accept it again after all he’s done and he doesn’t blame them.

It’s fascinating to watch happen.

[punkimonki]

Yona Theory

Okay so I finally caught up to Ch. 188 and like.... Spoilers

What if Soo Won staged a rebellion, killed King Il and drove Hak and Yona out of the castle all to save the country from crumbling into dust, with the plan to hand it back to them in the end, since he’s not going to live very long?

What if everything he’s done was done out of a sense of urgency to fix things before he died? Before Il created a situation so convoluted and fucked up that it couldn’t be saved by Yona and her future husband? (Which, lets be real here, clearly Il was planning on it being Hak.)

I mean, Soo Won loves them both. He still does. He doesn’t care that it’ll hurt him or them, he’s doing what he thinks is necessary to save their country and the only people he could hand that off to, the only people he’s ever really trusted enough, would be Yona and Hak. (More specifically Hak, but since Yona has changed and grown, she’s proven herself a formidable leader and a potentially wonderful Queen.)

Soo Won isn’t going to die because someone kills him, he’s going to die from the same illness that took his mother.

Not to mention, both of Yona’s parents knew she was the reincarnation of Hiryuu, and certainly believed in it. Il knew, and brought her to the shrine every morning because of that. Il knew that Soo Won was planning something, so he kept him at a distance. Maybe he thought he was just like his father? Maybe he though Soo Won was malicious?

Anyways, I have so many more thoughts on this but I’m actually kinda excited for the direction the manga has gone now with Yona’s return to the castle.

[punkimonki]

Paris est à nous, 2019 (dir. Elisabeth Vogler)

[punkimonki]

I finally took back my boxes of books from my old neighbor’s house and there is SO MUCH manga in there. An entire 2 bookcases worth of manga, really. And drawings and comics and OCs I made as a kid and a teenager. 

I’m glad I’m finally in a place where I can open those boxes up now and look through them without it hurting.

[punkimonki]

I switched health insurance to Cigna and here I thought Aetna was fucking bad.

This shit won’t even let the login page load no matter the device or browser and I can’t access my healthcare.... What the fuck kind of new bullshit is this? This login site has been down for over a month. 

This is insanity.

EDIT: Oh look, even the motherfucking app doesnt work.

Isn’t that nice? The entire server for this goddamned site has been down for almost 2 months. That’s great. That’s just so fucking great. And I have 3 days worth of medication left for my fucking ptsd........

If I break my hand punching a wall, I’m suing the insurance company.

[punkimonki]

So it’s been a rough few months.

My aunt died finally. I flew out for the funeral in Armenia.

I miss her. She was such a kind person. And I know everyone says that about people that have passed, but she had this magnetic kindness to her. Children, the moment they saw her, would always flock to her, talk to her, play with her. They always knew with one look that she spoke their language, that she would engage enthusiastically.

She always told me after I explained something in English to “say all that again now, but in Armenian.” She wouldn’t respond to me until I did haha.

...

She was too young.

[punkimonki]

I’m so tired.

All I want to do is play video games and just relax for a while, but I have to find a fucking job still. So i gotta boost my portfolio.

I miss being in college. Shit was so much easier.

[punkimonki]

I should probably start buying them holiday gifts, shouldn’t I......

Sigh.

[punkimonki]

There is a point I’ve reached where getting a big mac display screen, at the very least, seems like a good idea if only for access in order to code to those dimensions and check on that device. Cause it sure as shit isn’t doing it right at the moment.

Seriously, everything on the web page I coded is all screwy, upside down, in the wrong place. It’s insane. And I was at a consultation with a potential job lead.

[punkimonki]

my wife is back

https://www.patreon.com/posts/snow-queen-24719968

[punkimonki]

Seriously, if my dad sends me one more fucking article about how Millennials are viewed in the workforce (surprise, surprise, apparently we’re lazy, disloyal, etc.) I’m going to fucking scream. We spend too much money? The cost of living is higher. We have no savings, and are therefore irresponsible? We’re paid basically nothing and have to spend every penny to fucking get by.

The number of conversations around me by people of my generation talking about how this paycheck is dedicated to rent, this one to food, god I hope nothing happens to my car cause I don’t have any extra money to get it fixed, is truly staggering. Not to mention how long and how much everyone owes in student loan debt.

God... sometimes I have to stop and think about this stuff when planning for my future (laughable as that may be) and job hunting (god forbid these people hire anyone with less than 5 years experience and a masters degree for $13 an hour on an entry level position) and I just feel fucking hopeless. Like... how are we supposed to get around all this shit? How are we supposed to succeed? Not starving to death is the closest we can get right now.

How are we supposed to be ‘adults’ and have families when we are constantly stonewalled from getting to a place where we can comfortable take care of ourselves? Like jesus, I spend all my time looking for jobs, teaching myself more skills, working on new projects for my portfolio and emailing people trying to get some kind of lead on a job. And relatively speaking, I don’t have it that hard in the first place.

[punkimonki]

Is it just me, or do studies that look at the economic situations of different generations generally fail to take into account cost of living, inflation and so on when comparing ‘wealth’ at the same age for these different groups?

Like.... 20K in 1983 was worth WAAAYYYY more than 20K now. (It’s worth about 50K nowadays. More than double.)

This study was saying that boomers had a net wealth of 20K in the 80s and millennials have a net wealth of 15K and how that’s not such a huge difference, but in reality it is. Now, are they saying 20K in today’s worth? or 20K dollars, period?

[punkimonki]

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Cat chattering Thanks @delyth-thomas-art for showing me this masterpiece.