#pretty sure at my age a uti is the least of my issues

[2024skin]

Pussy smells weird but the tampon smelled normal so idek

[purplesurveys]

815

At what time of day do you normally feel the best? I love the evening the most. I get to have my coffee, it’s quieter around the house, and it also gets a little bit colder so it’s more fun to hang around by then. Do you normally have to hem pants? I’ve never had to do that before. If I need my pants fixed, I usually ask my lola to do it since she’s good at that kind of stuff. Name one reason why someone should not commit suicide. I can’t speak for other people, but I personally stay because I don’t want to leave Kimi behind and because I’ve seen countless mini-documentaries of parents who were left devastated by their kids taking their own lives. What would you do if you had no one to love and support you? That sounds so fucking bleak. I imagine bringing myself to therapy so I can learn how to deal with such a situation, and so that I at least have one person to talk to. If you didn't have love and support, would you feel life was worth living? No. But that’s why I imagine I’d be going to therapy, so my mind can be changed.

If you had no family nor friends nor money, would you feel life's worth living? These questions are so stressful to mull over and a tad bit triggering lmao, can I pass at this point? If you're unhappy, what would it take to make you fulfilled? Depends on what I need, which differs every time. Sometimes I’d wanna be alone, other times I’d want to be with other people, other times I’d need to drive and take longer routes than usual, or to binge YouTube videos, or a good nap...it’s always different. What was the last thing that upset your stomach? The meds I had to take for my UTI. Feeling poopy was one of its side effects, so even though it didn’t upset my stomach per se I did have to have several trips to the bathroom then. Do you have to go the pharmacy a lot? No, only when something’s wrong with me which doesn’t happen too often. Are you sunburned? I haven’t been sunburned since I was like 10. The tendency just suddenly stopped at some point. Do you wish someone loved you? I have a lot of people who already do, fortunately. Do you call yourself stupid often? Like every other hour lmao. What's a song you love? From Eden - Hozier. Do you miss anyone who was mean to you? Not to my knowledge. I’m glad they aren’t in my life today. Name someone you know who is a cancer survivor. One of my former Filipino teachers in high school. Are you friends with any cancer survivors? I don’t think that I am. Does God often answer your prayers? How was your day today (or yesterday, if it's morning)? It was average. Nothing out of the ordinary happened today but I did like the fact that my parents still left the living room aircon on for most of the day even though summer’s over and the weather’s already begun to be a little colder. Do you wish the sunrise and sunset lasted longer? Not really? I’m fine with the ones we’ve got lol. Would you want to relive your childhood again? Fuck no. It had some nostalgic bits, like the shows I used to watch or me playing outside, but it was far too traumatic for me to miss it as a whole. I’m happy being a grownup.

Were your college years the best years of your life? Not fully. My time in college only peaked by the second half, so it wasn’t all that great. Junior and senior year were very fun and eye-opening, though. Would you rather re-live high school or college? Ooh that’s quite a pickle...both periods had their highs. High school was a lot easier (academically), it was a time when I could fuck up and it was okay, and I found my first group of friends. College was a time of independence, a lot of growing up to do, and I also found my second group of friends. As miserable as I was during my freshman year, I ultimately have to go with college because I hated most of the people in my high school anyway and because I really loved the independence I gained in college, from being able to drive on my own and managing stuff on my own time to being free to choose my class schedule. And also, duh, I passed my dream school? I’d relive my years in UP in a heartbeat. What is the dumbest sports-team mascot you've heard of? Not really familiar with sports mascots to begin with. Are you a sports fan? Err, not really. I’m a pro wrestling fan, but it’s not 100% a sport. Where do you feel like you fit in the most? In my college and in my org. I’m sad that I only get four years with them – three when it comes to my org. Do you hate social classes? Yes. Do you think talent should have anything to do with social class? What? I have no clue what this question is insinuating but lmao of course not. I know some crazy talented people who wouldn’t be considered rich, and I know some bland-ass wealthy people who can’t do anything impressive at all. Name a country who's history you know nothing about. Australia. Name a religion you know nothing or very little about. Zoroastrianism. I only remember the founder. Don't you hate know-it-alls? I hate when they start getting conceited. What is your favorite store at the mall? I love visiting Fully Booked every chance I get. When was the last time you went to the mall? That would be when I had my eye checked last early March, because the clinic I visited was inside the mall. Aside from doing that, I also had late lunch at Marugame Udon which apparently would be the last time I’d have their food for a while, unbeknownst to me :( Do you have a bed or do you sleep on a mattress on the floor? I have a bed. When was the last time you went for a run? LOL never. Have you ever tried hard drugs? No. Which school subject did you hate the most? Back in high school I really hated the advanced math and science classes e.g. chemistry, physics, calculus, trig. In college, I found myself hating philosophy and economics the most. What was the last thing you wore from Aeropostale? I don’t think I ever wore anything from them. Which devotional do you read? I don’t read those. Do you appreciate classic literature? I appreciate and recognize their impact, but I don’t like reading them.

What is something you find strange? People who keep pushing for the All Lives Matter narrative. Cringe. Do you like your natural hair color? Sure. I’ve never actively complained about it, that’s for sure. Would you rather get a pixie cut or get dreadlocks? Pixie cut, because I’m pretty sure getting dreadlocks as a Filipino is a form of cultural appropriation? Would you rather dye your hair or get a perm? Dye it.

Do you keep Christmas lights up year-round? No, we don’t. Have you ever started a new trend? Just me? Lmao no. Do you have any artwork of yours from high school? I definitely don’t. Whenever a teacher would give our artworks back, I crumpled it up as soon as I got it and would throw it away. I just simply rejected all of my attempts to be creative lol. What did you win a scholarship for? I’ve never gotten one. But my university did start implementing free tuition for all undergrads starting in 2017 when I was a sophomore, so it’s kinda like the same thing. Did your college meet your expectations? Yes, and more. UP taught me far more than classroom lessons as it opened my eyes to the more important societal issues happening outside of school. It made me recognize our farmers who never earn the income they deserve; the factory workers stuck in poor working conditions; the jeepney drivers whose work is never respected; the millions of working class Filipinos who simply deserve better;  and the government that is more corrupt than I thought. My college on the other hand taught me to be fearless and to never hesitate to search for, report, and defend the truth, and to disseminate just that to the masses. Bottomline is that words can’t even begin to describe how grateful I am to have studied there and I will always be very much in love with my school. What was the best thing about college? The best thing about mine, at least, was the throng of life lessons and eye-opening realizations it gave me. Each of them has been more valuable than any lesson I learned in the classroom. UP taught me that there were a thousand other issues far more important than problems I face in my own privileged bubble, but that I can help facilitate change if I wanted to. How old were you ten years ago? 12. Easily the worst age I’ve been in. What's the best piece of advice you can give someone ten years younger? Stay. It’ll get better. Not instantly, but it does get better. Do you feel like you are old enough and experienced enough to give advice? I think anyone’s fit to give advice no matter how old they are. Even kids can be quite insightful. The differences just lie on the topics people give advice on. How old were you when you started to feel mature and experienced? 17, after I had a series of shitty stuff happen to me at one point in 2015. When I got past those, I could tell I wasn’t the same person that I was, like, two months back. Were your 20's hell? I’m only in my second year lmao, can you get back to me in eight years? What type of bug do you see the most often in your home? We don’t get a lot of bugs at home, fortunately. We have tons of ants though. Do you put off things until the last minute? If I’m not passionate about the task, yes. Do you have the air conditioning on right now? Nope, just the fan. Is your mom the same size as you? She’s slim but she’s still ever so slightly a bit larger. We can technically share clothes but some of them would still look loose on me.

Does camping appeal to you? I have moods where it does and moods where it doesn’t lol. What color is your sleeping bag? I don’t have one. How often do you pray? Do you surrender to Christ daily? When was the last time you went to church? Do you know any Christians who aren't judgmental? Only a handful, and it’s usually people in my age group. Most of the others suck, and I can say this because I’ve had coooooooountless personal experiences with rude, hypocritical, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic Christians and Catholics. Do you believe there are any good people in the world? Of course. What's one thing you are scared of? Flying cockroaches.

[jacketthief]

Wednesday night work vent post, behind a cut for length and cw for mentions of homophobia.

One of our regular Wednesday night patrons at the library is older and a veteran and like. "A character" as my coworker likes to say. He's generally a decent patron, if sometimes lacking conversational boundaries and has a solid conservative vibe.

But tonight it was like. He and my coworker segued into talking about Provincetown bc he spent a lot of time there growing up and her husband is from the cape. and like. He wasn't outright derogatory re: the large gay population but he was definitely talking about queer people like they were an alien species. And then he decided he should talk about the time he was in the service and on leave flirting with and getting felt up by a woman in Macau and enjoying it and it was pretty clear the story was going to end in "oh my god she had a dick" so I basically fled to the back while my coworker continued to talk to him and I legitimately don't know if I was more uncomfortable that he had literally zero boundaries re discussing a sexual situation with us or that he was being homophobic.

And I it was almost three hours ago and I still feel uncomfortable. I told my coworker I left bc I had ZERO interest in hearing about his junk and she laughed and said “he’s a character!” which is also fucking annoying. like, yeah, he’s mostly just weird with few conversational boundaries but like. “he’s a character” trivializes what just happened. 

And like. I feel like I should just get over it bc like. It's whatever just another overshare patron and I've heard worse about queer people before but like. I still feel shitty. 

And I don’t even know how to talk about it with my coworker bc she was also talking about gay people as though they were a different species. Like. Less otheringly and demeaningly but like. Ugh. and she pretty much lets anything he says roll off her so i don’t think she was uncomfortable at all and laughed when i said i had no interest in hearing about anything in the vicinity of [patron]’s pants. 

And like. of the other two people I actually work with, I hate one of them bc she’s patronizing and controlling and generally lacks empathy. the other is homophobic and I’m not sure she realizes it. (she’s a Childrens/YA librarian who actively pursues racially and ability diverse books, yay!, but is strongly against adding age appropriate books on queer topics to the children’s and young adult section bc Save the Children) and even if they weren’t, i don’t know if i would feel comfortable talking to them about it? like just in general this job has a very “that’s just [patron] being [patron], don’t let it bother you” feel.

It’s so fucking weird that the cishet male director is the most obviously accepting of queer people (he objected to the children’s librarian adding binary gender stickers to our children’s biographies for a variety of reasons but he specifically listed the lack of accounting for nonbinary genders and sexism as two of them) and possibly the most likely person to take it seriously, if only because he’s responsible. But even with him like. he’s super hard to read and I feel less than confident talking to him even when I am super confident in the stuff I’m talking about. Especially since talking to him about how uncomfortable it made me would probably end in me outing myself which like. I wouldn’t mind at job #1, where I’m not vocally out but 100% confident that all the supervisors would be totally cool with it, given that at least one of them is a queer woman and our director is as well and i’m casually out to at least a few people. But like. Job #2 is in a pretty conservative town by Massachusetts standards and I feel like my coworkers would be weird about it. The director would probably be fine but like. I don’t spend sixteen hours a week with him.

And I just don’t know what to do bc I hate that this happened and I feel like I’m overreacting but like. I also hate that I felt uncomfortable putting a stop to it given that I’ve had no problems telling patrons they’re oversharing about their deeply personal medical issues. But like. My coworker kept talking to him and the other day one of my other coworkers had a detailed and public conversation with a patron about the patrons UTI. In a social way rather than like. Okay you have a need for information that I can help you with.

I don’t even know what I want to have happen, other than for this not to have happened at all. Like, I 100% don’t want to talk to the patron about it, but I have no idea what escalating would bring to it other than the director saying “please don’t do that again” if that, and then my coworkers knowing i couldn’t deal with an oversharing patron and the patron knowing it made me uncomfortable but he’s the kind of dude that doesn’t care about making people uncomfortable so... 

i honestly don’t want anything more than for him to not ever do that again but i don’t know how to do that without making things weird. 

Ughhhhhhhhh.

[missrosienorris]

Life at the moment

So, in my last post I set up some goals for myself. Now, the truth is that I quite rarely accomplish my goals, partially because I apparently tend to set them a bit high at times and partially because I have the patience of a gnat and am not good with long projects that require a lot of planning and time. (As attested to by my atrocious, still-not-finished thesis. It’s not the amount of work as it is really not much harder than my day job, it’s having the patience to keep at it, especially when it’s boring af.) This time I did surprisingly well, even though it didn’t go exactly as I had planned it out.

Firstly, I said I would find myself a therapist. The situation on that front took an unexpected but somewhat interesting turn that I find myself increasingly cool with. But let me start by saying that HOLY SHIT trying to find a therapist in Finland is a garbage process and someone really needs to get on that. First of all, you get no help, zip, nada, zero. You have to scour the internet yourself and try to weed out some candidates in a sea of lacking descriptions, lacking contact information, lacking everything. But I am adept at the internet, so I did.

I wrote ten therapists who seemed to somewhat fit my criteria (which were pretty much woman, CBT-leaning, experienced and available to take on new patients). Half of them never replied, three weren’t able to take on new patients even though their sites said they were, one was in the middle of some iffy moving arrangement that I didn’t feel like dealing with and the only one I actually met started the session by telling me how lackluster my prognosis was and then when I talked about my family she explained how she knows that although we’re so big on equality nowadays she always sees these mental health problems in families where the mother is more in control than the father, and I was like yeah. No.

So at this point I was like fuck me, this is hopeless. But then I had a chat with the psychologist that’s covered by my healthcare benefits at work, and she was like “you know, we just made a deal about what kind of healthcare will be covered by your employer this year, and they’re going to cover group therapy. I think that could work pretty well for your situation, would you be interested in it?” Now in the past I was socially awkward to a painful degree so I had always ruled out group therapy from the get-go, so my first instinct was to decline, but then I though about it some and changed my mind. Over the last few years I have found that I’m actually rather sociable, my social skills have improved considerably and opening up about my mental health issues to perfect strangers has never been an issue for me as I don’t keep that stuff secret anyway so I though hey, why not give it a shot.

So that’s what I’m doing. It’s still in it’s infancy, as I have only done the two initial interviews so far and not met the group yet, but I am feeling really good about it. The psychologist who will be running the group is very experienced and also quite nice as a person, I feel like she gets me and perhaps best of all, she has no problem with using hard science and medical terminology, which is immensely helpful to me. I don’t believe it’s healthy to be excessively focused on diagnosis since mental health is so complex and variable, but I find that having a label for some of the soup that is my mind helps me de-clutter and honestly makes me feel less like a crazy person. For example, I had realized that my constantly low mood probably isn’t normal and my intense health worries are rather obsessive, but hearing a professional actually say “PDD” and “OCD” sort of validates that the problem isn’t just that I’m a weird-ass dingbat and overreacting, I have some legit disorders and that isn’t my fault. (Which obviously doesn’t mean that I don’t need to do anything about them or that I can use them as an excuse for behaving like a shit, don’t worry, I’m not going down that route.) Her using the proper terms and not being vague and roundabout also makes me feel like I’m being treated like an adult and not babied, which is important to me since I really really hate being treated like I lack the ability to comprehend shit. So that’s where that’s at, and I’m feeling optimistic.

Secondly, I said I would resolve my existing vet bills, set aside some money for unexpected vet expenses, get older cat’s stomach under control and make sure the new cats have insurance. This I have mostly done. The bills are paid, and although I have not technically set aside a specific sum of money I now have a credit card that is reserved for unexpected vet bills only. I have not used it at all yet. Older cat’s stomach is still acting up some, it appears he has a bit of IBD, but the diet and medication has been re-vamped again and the situation has improved. And pet insurance has been added to my insurance package, although obviously it does not cover older cat due to the large amount of pre-existing conditions. But it covers the babies.

Third, the babies. That has been an interesting ride. I did adopt from a shelter as I said I would, but the cats ended up being a girl and a boy instead of two girls like I had planned, not that that matters much. The thing that went funny is the age. They were estimated to be around 6 months of age, and they were about the typical size for that age so I thought nothing of it. But when they had been with me for about a week I took the boy to the vet because he was peeing like 7 or 8 times a day which is quite often and I wanted to make sure he didn’t have a UTI. (Which he didn’t. Apparently he just has a small bladder.) Anyway, during the examination the vet checked his teeth and was like “yeah, this one is definitely like 1-2 years old rather than 6 months, his teeth are quite developed and really need a cleaning”. So he’s technically not a baby, and I need to have his teeth cleaned, but honestly that’s no biggie, shit happens. I was slightly peeved that the shelter hadn’t checked the teeth, that’s pretty routine, but they were very cooperative when I reported it to them and are even paying a part of the cost of the cleaning, so it’s all good. I don’t blame them for being mistaken about the age, because he is very small for an adult cat and the vet told me it’s actually rather difficult to determine a cat’s age. So we’re heading in for a teeth cleaning in about a week, and I’m taking the girl with me too so the vet can check whether her age estimate was more accurate (they are not from the same litter, they just lived together at one of the shelter volunteers’ place while looking for a home). She is growing a bunch though, which he doesn’t seem to be, so her estimate might be closer to the truth. And if it isn’t, whatever. They’re sweet, sterile, chipped, vaccinated and checked for FIV and FeLV, and that’s way more important than the age being bang on the mark.

The first weeks with the newbies have gone nicely. I will refer to them as girl kitty and boy kitty for now, since I guess at least for the boy, kitten wouldn’t be accurate and the girl is honestly already too big in size to be called a kitten because she really grows like a weed. Both have adjusted really well to their new environment despite being very shy at first. Older cat has taken well to them too and there has been almost zero conflict between them and him, I think he hissed at girl kitty like once when she was being too forward and that was it. Now they all sleep in the same bed and particularly girl kitty and older cat are becoming very close.

Girl kitty is still a little reserved towards people and you can’t really pick her up yet, but if you let her come to you on her own accord she is quite friendly and cuddly. She seems like she might become quite a big cat and has quite strong legs, so she jumps and climbs a lot. She’s quite playful, but a bit shy about playing with people. She’s constantly getting braver though, so I think she might be more people-loving in the future. (And if she isn’t, that’s fine too. Not every cat has to love sitting on your lap or being picked up, as long as it’s possible to handle them if they need to be given medicine or boxed up for travel it’s all dandy.)

Boy kitty on the other hand is quite a people-lover. He often rolls around on his back on the floor looking for cuddles and is fine with being picked up as well. He is not yet quite sure about sitting on your lap for more than a little while, but I have a feeling he might be the type to do that in the future. One thing he hasn’t quite comprehended yet is that people aren’t toys and don’t really like being nibbled on, even if the nibbles are obviously playful and definitely not bites. So I’m trying to teach him that, hopefully he’ll pick up on it. Boy kitty is extremely active and playful and will play with people, other cats, by himself, whatever works. He’s not as good a jumper as girl kitty but quite adept at climbing. He’s also a bit of a rascal and has already chewed a pair of my headphones and sometimes annoys girl kitty with his roughhousing. But in general they like each other quite well, they often sleep on top of each other and lick each other’s coats.

So that’s life at the moment. I still miss younger cat heaps, dream about her and cry about her regularly, but I think I’ll live. And older cat isn’t lonely anymore, which has done him good, so that’s a big relief.