#I'm putting this in the

[himikochan]

Today was a whole lot of a day: this is more of a feelings update

I spent the day prepping food for the family- my grandma lives in senior housing and she had a party room reserved for us to come over to celebrate Thanksgiving. None of us are especially partial to the "holiday", and we're more like a Day of Mourning crowd, but it's important to my grandma. She's of the generation put in the concentration camps and there's all these Americanisms that perforate through her Nisei life.

For years, she did Thanksgiving with her oldest brother and his wife (both also interned and Nisei) but earlier this year they moved out of town to live with their daughter as they are both about 95 now. It's interesting the ways they wholeheartedly welcomed "Americana" in their life: when they were permitted to leave the concentration camps, it was with the orders that they would not educate their children in Japanese, form the kinds of organizations/communities they did before, and would become model citizens. So my grandma and her siblings could read kana but not kanji and had/have difficultly speaking, but understand at a high level when they are spoken to.

They all peppered their lives with the great conflicting dualisms of American immigrant life- deeply patriotic but distrusting of the government, celebrating Christian holidays full of enthusiasm and hardly any of them baptized as Christians, running successful businesses that employed other minorities but did not invite them to eat with the family. Think of ardent Cubs fans, frothing Easter bonnets, shooting competitions, Christmas trees overflowing with Coke decorations, and taiko drums made out of the backyard tree.

so like, a LOT rolled up for me re: "American" holidays even without the genocide of indigenous folx

so sort of highlights of today:

I woke up hella early to get in the car with my mama and shout our way through the AMERICAN IDIOT album which is always a good way to start off this shit

I've been helping her cook and prep stuff for about 3 days and I mf cooked the turkey even though I HATE turkey my dudes I don't like it but my grandma wanted it so here's a picture of my first plate

My siblings still aren't talking to each other but they both showed up??? :S in my honest opinion, I'm not taking either side not because I'm being some kind of moderate or apologist but because I think they're BOTH in the wrong. I love them, they're flawed people, and they've both done shitty things to the other but pretty equally (they keep trading off who is snubbing who).

My baby cousin showed up- she's been spotty with that kind of stuff since her ma died (our mothers are sisters) so it was really lovely to see her. I was one of her primary caregivers for a long time, before I was really even grown, and it seems like we're both ready to have a relationship again.

Also, today I caught "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" on xrt today!I first heard it when the late xrt dj Lin Brehmer played it last year on Thanksgiving when he hosted. I was cooking by myself for the family and was so happy to share it with Lin Brehmer- I really do miss him very much every day. So I snapped a picture of my grandma's kitchen when I listened today and tagged xrt- I know another dj I like Ryan Arnold checks the tags and when I met him, he was delighted to meet me in person because he remembered all the things I said about xrt and his slot specifically :)

Later on in the afternoon, we started inviting in my grandma's acquaintances from the building in to have a bite and take home some leftovers and I'm like... continuously jarred by older Japanese that really blame individual Japanese-Americans for not speaking Japanese. The guy I'm thinking of was Issei (first gen) but around my grandma's age so in his 80s-90s and seemed to have moved to the US much later in life. He was very rude about her Japanese skills- even though he spoke very little English and is her "friend"- and chided her for not teaching us more Japanese and it's like MY DUDE the US GOVERNMENT dropped the atom bomb on her cousins and immediately told Japanese in America to integrate so like? wtf

also, the 'feelings bingus' saga continues: as-in he's still texting me and sending me memes on insta and I'm not responding because I'm fed up with this shit

We ate hella early because grandma and her friends get tired early, so when I popped home I made a quick ramen with leftover broth and ham because I was sick of the smell of the food I've been cooking for days

Tomorrow I'm hoping to do some knitting or work on my Bocksten mini-projects, but also!

I found a job posting I'm going to apply for! It's sort of a temp position, just 3 months, but it seems fulltime and at the same wage I used to make. I really, really, really miss my old job. But I really miss what it was 2 years ago, not what it was when I left.

[fastcardotmp3]

the spring fic…. like ouch man

I want to apologize but I'm also not sorry but also thank you that's what I was going for but also my bad but also thanks for reading ily but also

[trans-ralsei]

[goldeaglefire1]

so the tiktok ban was literally just propaganda for the trump administration. like. we all agree with that right. this is just laughably transparent. the ban wasn't even 24 hours. not even a whole day. to quote my infinitely funnier mutual from Discord, "Misha Collins was bisexual longer than TikTok was banned"

[rioblitzle]

working retail

[angelhht]

[heavensickness]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I love you Safety Wizard.

(Inspired by @keroascrazy)

[monsoon-of-art]

[mumblingsage]

I'm wondering if, as a society who cares about vulnerable people, we could stop saying "traumatize" when we truly mean "upset"?

I am sick of hearing sad books or movies "traumatize" their readers. I simply do not believe that happens. A traumatic experience might be adjacent to books (I have vivid memories of books I was reading around certain experiences and even how the contents of those books affected my processing of the experiences). But it's not caused by the book. And, y'know. The weather is Christofascist Censorship Attempts outside.

Meanwhile from the other side I continue to be surprised at just how badly people fail to understand trauma and traumatic experiences in general. Watering down the term isn't helping. Find other hyperbole to express that The Bridge to Terebithia gutted you, chewed on your heartstrings, and made you cry your first pair of contact lenses right out of your preteen eyes.

(ETA here although it's impossible to edit reblogs: over the months since this post really took off, there has been valuable discussion in the comments. I stand by the passion with which I wrote this post and with the general message, but not all the exact wording. I talk more about the way I'd re-write this post in a response here, replying to an addition that added a ton of useful context [other additions touched on similar themes, but that person had it all together in one reblog]. With that said, I am muting this post.)

[annalyticall]

My new favorite excuse for not jumping on new trends or bandwagons is 'I'm 30.' No more explanation needed because anyone under 30 just thinks I'm old and everyone over 30 understands implicitly

[inkskinned]

she's singing in another room and my dog is asleep at my feet. my grandma asked me why i haven't found a man yet and i laughed. oh, you know. i like my house clean.

my girlfriend is also my man is also "my partner" if i'm in a professional setting. yesterday we went to a ren faire and a man mimed at me - you're together? and at my delighted nod, his baffled, you're gay? made me laugh. a woman with rainbow hair said i love the two of you together. you're both so beautiful it's absurd.

my dad introduced my partner as my "..... friend. or whatever" the other day. he knows we're dating. in the same way, i was never able to get my sister's husband to stop saying that's gay like it's 2008. he still uses the word fa***t, and my sister's defense of him has always been well, he's just kidding.

my lover and i dance to old music in a tiny kitchen. we judge new music together and take food critique very seriously. we watch love is blind before we fall asleep and agree that if they had a queer season, it would be bloody but also make for excellent tv. of fucking course queer people would know someone for only 2 weeks and agree to get married. what are you saying.

at a bar with friends, a man puts his hand on my wrist. got a boyfriend? and yes, i do have a boyfriend, she's amazing. i am texting her while i wander around a gas station named after geese. i am visiting a swing state for a wedding. in the candy aisle i overhear: she's actually like a lesbian it's disgusting. two teenage girls with packaged sandwiches in their hands, giggling. no literally, like. i'm not, like. okay with her being there while we're all, like, naked and changing.

my girlfriend and i tailgate, drink gin and cider out of cups. from the frat group beside us, a man corrects himself with one of his friends: bro, i mean, nonbinary entity, and it makes everyone around him laugh, myself included. he razzes his friend the same way i would have killed for at 19 years old - like nothing happened, he continues: you apply sunscreen like an alien. he does a little sassy (and fairly accurate) dance interpretation of the motion. his friend is laughing so hard they're crying.

i am lucky, i live in a safe neighborhood in a safe state. my masc passenger princess comes up from DC. i drive her for an hour to where all the leaves are a violent arrangement of color. we walk along the trails, letting autumn into our blood. in this part of the state, there's a lot of pickup trucks and trump signs. when we chastely kiss before getting into the car, i accidentally make eye contact with a woman holding her child's wrist. she looks disgusted. she looks fucking pissed.

two hours later my girl and i are eating dinner on a patio, soaking in the last warmth of new england sun before the chill of winter sets in. we are giggling and trying to talk through plastic vampire teeth. at another table, i see a young woman sit up straighter. i watch her watch us. she blushes and takes her partner's hand from across the table. shy, like the taste of evening has just become something deeper.

it's worth it for this moment, i think. my lover is still humming the same song she's been singing for four days straight and i don't want to kill her for it. her guitar is beside my bed. her toothbrush is in my bathroom. in a few moments i will make us lunch. we are lucky enough to have found each other. it is lucky enough to be in love.

[violet111reblog]

so i clicked on a wizard101 crowns trivia i hadn't done before

[nouverx]

Arcane season 2 ending made me too sad so yk what, everything is fine actually, Viktor is now a teacher at the Academy and he mentors young Zaunite students. That's how I choose to cope.

[gongyussy]

deepthroating a gun without breaking eye contact...... he put his entire gongyussy into that | SQUID GAME 2

+ the video because the sound he makes when he puts the gun in his mouth? [redacted]

update: he improvised that. the man really said i'll go full slut.