#teams and companies showing their support for pride by using a pride flag is literally the bare minimum

[out--of--ordinary]

Tired of having to explain why a public figure not showing support for pride is enabling homophobes... If a hockey player doesn't wear a pride jersey when the rest of the team does, he's making a statement. And the influx of people buying his jersey just because he didn't wear a pride jersey (for a mere 20 minutes of his life off camera...) Directly allows for people to flaunt their homophobic ideologies and think it's okay...how do these people not feel shame so publicly discriminating...

[rainbowcapitalism]

[image description: three screenshots from a facebook ad for the company MeUndies. In the first is of the advertisement and the other two are of comments on the post. The ad has text that reads "We designed a Pride collection to celebrate you, us, and everyone else. Check out our new Pride, Bi Pride, and Trans Pride prints. 🌈" Below the text is an image. The top of the image shows the words "MeUndies Pride" in a large box on a white background. The word pride is in white block text but has the same letters arranged beneath in a rainbow so it looks as if the white it stacked on top or the rainbow is a shadow. The outline of the box is rainbow plus black and brown, split into small sections. On top of this is a border with the words "pride 2021" repeated to form another box which is on a slight angle to the first. Below this box is a black button that says "shop the collection" and three smaller boxes showing a bralette with the bi pride colors, boxers with the trans pride colors, and briefs with the pride colors including black and brown. Below this is a shop now button.

The second image shows the very bottom of the advertisement and a comment. It reads "I've noticed the HP partnership has been brought up on multiple ads, but MeUndies has yet to answer a single comment about anything, BUT had the time to tell a lesbian they aren't important enough to include this summer in their collection." A reply to this comment reads "oh shit I didn't see the lesbian comment... Fuck that noise".

The third screenshot is of more comments. The first reads "How are you going to leave the L out of LGBT lmao. I understand not being able to make every flag, but it's literally a letter form the main acronym. Huge oversight on yalls part." Below it is the original comment about leaving out the lesbian flag which has been edited to just "." Below this is the response from MeUndies which says "We wish we could make every flag for every person! This year we decided to focus on Bi and Trans flag print in particular, with the rainbow flag to include as many identities as we could."]

Another post from MeUndies shares that they have partnered with the LA LGBT Center to donate $75,000 which is to go to educational support for 150 youth, 22,500 hot meals for homeless youth, 1,500 full day of services (including meals, shower, laundry, employment training), and 600 bed nights in their Transitional Living Program. It will also be used to provide tents, sleeping bags, hygiene products and other essentials for 1,041 youth. They will also make a donation of products to the Trans Wellness Center Closet and Youth Services Closet, and their team will be volunteering and donating to the Pride Pantry.

Despite the donation, and agreeing with many comments, this seems an awful lot like pandering and nothing beyond marketing, given that they have a Harry Potter collection to line the pockets of jkr. How much can they actually care about trans pride if they actively support someone trying to take away trans rights? (I would not recommend reading the comments, there are some good ones but they're full of hate for the most part.)

[honest-inception]

RWBY Theories for 6x13 and Beyond + Small rant about stupid people

Okay.... Rants first because people trigger me.

ADAM - Okay first of all people who sympathize with Adam need to be educated on how REAL of a person Adam is. Like there are people out there who treat other people and the people they’re dating or married to or whatever exactly how he does. They’re abusive and manipulative and will isolate the person they’re with to an extreme so those people will depend on them and only them. They seem charming and nice, loving and caring. Always seem to have your best interest at heart. And slowly they become scary because they’re revealing who they truly are and the easy way to describe them, is that they’re creeps. Adam is a creep. He was NEVER the Beast in the Beauty and the Beast refrence to Blake. He was Always Gaston. He fell for Blake and wanted to make her his. Which in the beginning she was. He was charming and a hero seemingly for the White Fang. The faunus admired him and some I’m sure fawned over him. Eventually though Blake saw who he truly was. He WAS NEVER a redeemable character. I’m not sure how people ever thought he was to be honest. We first see him attacking a train with Blake and we were like alright whatever. But it’s when he says “what about them?” when Blake asks about the crew members. He obviously doesn’t care about other people and their lives right then and there and that should have been a RED FLAG right at the beginning. Next we see him attacking Beacon. Actual terrorist status. He brought grimm to a school, you know where teenagers are there learning how to fight Grimm. Then he almost killed a student to try to make a statement to Blake. Then abused Blake right in front of our eyes. Smacking her around, blaming her, making her feel bad about herself and who she was. Then STABS her, and decided, oh well I’m going to make you feel my pain and kill everyone you love and isolate you so the only person you will be able to turn to is me and then you will HAVE to love me, and then proceeds to hurt Yang. Next we see him kill the leader of the White Fang in cold blood because he’s power hungry. Then he orders Blakes family to be killed (not sure if he order Blake to be sent to him but if he did well there ya go, more creepy). Then he underestimates Blake and assums she’s there for him. And i believe the reason he got so owned by her is because he probably thought he still had the same power over her as he did in season 3, not taking into account how many months have passed since the Fall of Beacon. Then he proceeds to STALK Blake and try to once again manipulate her and make her feel bad about herself and to try and blame everything wrong in his life on her because she decided that murdering innocent people isn’t the way to bring justice and peace among the faunus and the humans. AND YET PEOPLE STILL SAY he could have had a good redeemable arc, he had bad things happen to him so he’s EXCUSED. Like excuse me? A lot of faunus had bad things happen to them and not all of them turned into terrorist, stalkers. That excuse doesn’t work anymore. Did he probably get branded by the Schnee Dust Company and abused? Yes. Does that excuse murdering and blaming literally everyone in the world for what happened to hm? No, it doesn’t. 

Cordovin and Breaking the Mech - People keep saying “Ruby and the teams shouldn’t have fought Cordovin. They shouldn’t have broken the law. But I feel like people forget the fact that JNR appraoched and tried to tell them they needed to go to Atlas and wasn’t listened to. Then RWBY tried and again they wouldn’t listen. Then AGAIN everyone was there and Ruby wanted to explain to Cordovin why getting to Atlas was important and why they needed to speak with Ironwood. But again, she wouldn’t listen because of her ego and she’s too prideful about her home and because of her grudge againt Maria that she deny’s them again. Leaving Ruby and the team with seemingly no choice but to steal an airship. Now lets remember also that they didn’t want to fight and they never wanted a fight and that it was Cordovin who fire the first bullet after bringing out a mech designed to fight large Grimm which probably put everyone in Argus in panic thinking that either something was wrong, or that they didn’t know there was a giant robot in the Atlas base (especially after everyone saw Atlas robots attack people at Beacon). When fighting Ruby tried one more time for Cordovin to just let them go peacefully and Cordovin denied AGAIN and tried to kill/severly injure Ruby. It was Cordovins pride and anger that caused the fight and conflict that RWBY is at right now. Not Ruby or her friends/team. She had no choice and gave Cordovin plenty of chances to just let them go legally to Atlas. Cordovin is the one who thought it would be a great idea to take a Mech out to fight a bunch of kids and a couple of adults that was designed to PROTECT people from large GRIMM.

Okay rants over. NOw theories.

Volume 6 Chapter 13 - Ruby’s moment to shine. Everyone is tired and weak right now. The Atlas soldiers have no way to fight that many Grimm or the Leviathan for that matter. A majority of their Aura’s are broken (Jaune, Nora, Ruby, Yang, and Blakes). Jaune can’t amplify Ren’s Semblance this time. Qrow and Oscar and Ren can’t fight all of them on their own. The only person that has even the slightest chance to elimate enought Grimm so Atlas can handle them and destroy the Leviathan is Ruby. Her Silver Eyes aren’t connected to Aura as far as we know. And Maria said that the only way she can get ahold of her power is trial by fire and what’s happening now is a perfect recipe. Though this will cause a lot of worry for them because Ruby won’t have aura or her semblance to help her. This might also show the headspace Ruby will have for activating her power. I’m sure nearly everyone will try to talk her out of it and I personally would really like for them to be like “Ruby you can’t, it’s a suicide mission” and for Ruby to reply with “Maybe, but i’m the only one who can try” and that would trigger JNR to possibly support her decision since it would be similar to the decision that Pyrrah made when she decided to fight Cinder. I would also like for Ruby to be injured during this possibly or just be unconsious for a while after wards,  (cause using her power to that extent I would assume, would take a toll on her body and mind). And for them to fly off towards Atlas with an unconsious Ruby and for the volume to end there. And then for the next volume, the first couple of chapters to have Ruby passed out and everyone not really knowing what they’re doing or supposed to do and to maybe realize just how much Ruby was doing for them.

Now for later on, I’d like Ruby to be either a little selfish and ask Jinn what happened to her mom, Summer; or to ask how Salem can be defeated. Since Ozpin was an idiot and asked how could “HE” destroy Salem because I 100% know that Jinn took that question literally and simple told him, that he himself could not destroy Salem.

And for Ruby to be the key to beating Salem since her eyes could probably eliminate the Grimm part of her or turn her to stone. Also need Ruby to get snappy with Qrow and his drinking.

And for Bumbleby to be canon. 

[dcnativegal]

Compulsion & Identity

Ruminations of a Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor--Intern

I’m sitting in one of the group therapy sessions with clients who have kept sober from a variety of substances for months or perhaps only days. They pee into a cup or suck on a saliva stick to prove their sobriety to me and their probation officers. They are biding their time and showing up and jumping through hoops that include community service, visits to Treatment Court, and paying off probation fines. Each one of them has harrowing stories. I have so much respect for them. Even when I know for sure they are flat out lying.

I’m trying to understand what it’s like, mentally, emotionally, and socially as they maneuver through their lives and all their important relationships as a sober person. We talk about it. One person admitted, I still don’t know who I am, sober.  I know I was funnier when I was high…

I’m learning all about “Substance use disorder” which is the newest term. (No longer abuse, and less use of the term ‘addiction.’) I have a stack of books with titles like “Buzzed” and “Uppers and Downers.” I remember from my early social work training that there is a stunting of brain maturation when a person starts using a substance regularly. Each of these people starting using as young teenagers. The growing human learns to navigate through life with the help of the mellowing effects of pot, the mania and energy of meth, the disinhibitions of alcohol. There are supremely stupid choices that are made under the influences.  They don’t know how to deal with frustration, with a broken heart, with the moments included under the umbrella: ‘shit happens.’

I don’t know anyone who deals with ‘shit happens’ perfectly.  Well, maybe the Dalai Lama, and the late great Maya Angelou.

My personal drugs of choice are carbs and yarn. Carbs may kill me in the end. I’ve developed pancreatitis, in large part because it’s a side effect of an injectable drug that worked well for me for a couple of years. The other part of why is, simply, gluttony. (Noun. Habitual greed or excess in eating. Ouch. Literally.) My side started hurting in December, and I self-diagnosed kidney stones, so upped the liquids. Didn’t get into see my family nurse practitioner until mid-January. NOT kidney stones but pancreatitis. What the…?  Clear liquids for me. Who knew that there are dozens of kinds of broth.  Although the pain did not disappear, it lessened, and the lipase and other lab values went down to normal when I stuck to liquids. When I eat solids again, the pain and labs worsen. So I’ve been off and on solid food for a while. Every one to two weeks, I give a couple of vials of blood and 3 hours later, my nurse scolds me. Kinda like peeing into a cup, or sucking a saliva test strip. Clean UA? Good labs? It depends on behavior.

Humbling.

A client ‘bangs’ (injects) meth. I indulge in a cookie, or three. Not equivalent, exactly. But pancreatitis is dangerous. Meth is, too.

When ‘shit happens’ to me, which includes simply a bad day, I realized some time ago that I have  a sense of entitlement, of somehow ‘deserving’ the special treat of new yarn, or a Peppermint Patty. Because…. Insert self justification here….  I can imagine that some of the same justification goes on in the mind of people who use meth or pot or beer compulsively.  “I’ve been good… It was a shitty day… Fuck you, bossy bitch, I’m going out… “  As I stand in the checkout line at Safeway, I’m like, I’m tired, just one Peppermint Patty won’t kill me…

Dark chocolate, ice cream, cookies. I’ve heard alcoholics say that if there’s alcohol in the house, it calls to them. Same for me with chocolate. Valerie hides it. At the moment, I think we are totally out. Which is good. (I found her stash. ‘Bye, ‘bye stash. I am a gluttonous theif.)  I’ve been keeping a pile of tiny chocolates in my office for my clients. I give up. They’re all gone now. I couldn’t resist them. I’ll put stress balls in the box that held the mini-snickers and Twix. The Twix were very popular. I was especially fond of the mini-Milky Ways with dark chocolate. Val discovered Russell Stover’s sugar free peppermint patties. Oh. My. God. They are now on the banned list, even though they are sugar free. Even after I start feeling sick, I can eat 10 at a sitting. Like the rat hitting the cocaine water until he dies.

I knew someone who had a compulsion to use pornography. The idea would take root and next thing, that person would be walking into a strip club. Feeling disgusted later, dirty and depressed, the urge would diminish for a while, until the next time. My basic feeling about this whole arena is: tip the sex worker very well and be respectful. But, the compulsion, if it harms relationships with real live humans outside the club, is a problem. Not to mention how porn distorts what men think women actually enjoy.

Cravings.

Chocolate or yarn doesn’t HAVE to be a problem, but for me it is. Everything in moderation, except for me with sugar or yarn. I can ignore a wine bottle. No interest in illegal drugs. But keep sugar away from me. And no more yarn… hm… until I hit the new Willows store in Christmas Valley again.  Seed planted, insert rationalization: I’m supporting an independent local business! (I think this is called ‘stinkin’ thinking’. )

What is your ‘self medication’ of choice, dear reader?

Weed, which seems to be the drug of choice for teens in Lake County is a mixed bag. Pun intended. It made me paranoid and more anxious than I already was when I used it in college. It’s legal in some states but federally illegal. The medical marijuana card is a great thing for those who need it. I’ve seen the videos with people who have Parkinson’s go from violent tremors to graceful movement. For young people, though, I’ve seen it among my kids’ friends, how all motivation seems to vanish. It is the slacker’s drug of choice. I have teenaged clients who are mandated to see me because of weed, and they pee into a cup. I want for them every ounce of motivation to get them out of poverty and do well in school, find a trade, make a better living than their parents.

Our group discussion gave me a chance to revisit my own struggles with identity, as well as my own compulsive behavior.  Perhaps there is a parallel between my deep discovery in my early 40s that I am really and truly gay and my clients’ growing familiarity with their sober selves. For me, it was 2003. My husband had given me permission to figure out whether or not I was gay, bi, whatever. He’d had a serious heart attack, and earnestly pointed out that life is short. What a gift. What insanity.  This journey led to the end of our marriage, which was a hard and painful process but also, to lives lived with authenticity. Thank goddess for therapists. The kids survived and thrived, and he has been with a lovely, gifted, hilarious and STRAIGHT woman for something like 10 years. I have been with the cowhand for nearly 6.

What made that part of my history relevant, perhaps, to the path of the newly sober, is that I had to regroup my identity. As my children’s father put it, I’d changed teams. Not only was I on a different team, that team had a culture, a lingo, a look and feel that was perceptible by something called ‘gaydar’ which I had the beginnings of but really needed to step up. I rented every classic lesbian movie I could find, and some of them were terrible, but all of them taught me something. As a feminine-appearing gay woman, I needed to learn about femmes and femme culture since I am so not a butch. I read Joan Nestle, founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and the hilarious Leslea Newman who wrote, ‘Out of the Closet with Nothing to Wear’, and the classic, “Heather has two Mommies.” I watched lesbians, especially in lesbian spaces. I learned about my own body, my own range of gender expression.

I moved to the Oregon Outback to be with my sweetie full time instead of half the year, and out here, I miss gay space (like a gay bar, community center, or Pride event), other gay people, any tiny glimpse of a gender bending queer sensibility.

We all feel this way, in each of our identities. Jewish people feel more comfortable when surrounded by other Jews. Women feel relaxed when there are no men present, and vice versa. Alcoholics can avoid the stigma when they are with other alcoholics. Ranchers enjoy the company of other ranchers.

Just this past week I met, FINALLY, another gay person who lives in Lake County. This person is married, and so now I know there are FOUR GAY PEOPLE IN LAKE COUNTY.  We’ll have a tiny gay pride parade in our living room come June, with a very large rainbow flag.

For my newly sober clients, it’s an adventure to learn who they are with their families, with their wives or husbands or girlfriends or boyfriends, with their employers, at their church. To say to their children, “yes, I have messed up, and I’m getting it together. No need to be sarcastic with me. I am still your parent.” They seek out the company of others in recovery to survive. There are several twelve step meetings in the county, thank goodness.  Since all of my clients started using in their early teens, there is a lot of growing up to do, all the while they have very real and heavy adult responsibility. It’s a lot to manage, in a punitive and financially strapped environment.  

For the sober, a hot bath has to take the place of a beer, or a bowl. All of those strong emotions cannot be mediated by a substance. Frustration? Anger? Sadness? How does one deal with those without an upper or a downer?  And if I have a rough day, I do not have to buy a Peppermint Patty.

I seek to relate to them and their stories, even while I immerse myself in online courses about substance use disorder. It’s a bit narcissistic, I know, to search for my own parallel struggle to humanize theirs. But as Anne Lamott once so wisely said, I am the turd around which the world revolves.

On New Year’s Eve, I went to Soul Collage at Toni’s house in Paisley, and made a New Year’s mandala (which I shared a picture of, two posts ago.)  In the center is a primate surrounded by bananas, and around the primate were examples of embodiment, words of encouragement, and healthy foods. It was shortly into 2017 that I was diagnosed with pancreatitis. I am now FORCED by my side pain and bad labs to get my eating act together, out of the realm of gluttony. Be careful what you wish for.

I went to Soul Collage again recently, and created two cards to help me tell the story of my clients, and also my own story. They depict the journey from serious faces to happy faces, with stops at

·        Know thine enemy and maybe befriend them, (the man and the skunk, the user and the dealer, the lesbian and the Trumpette)

·        Find your people and cuddle up to them to rest (like a pile of kittens)

·        Be creative in all things, with colored pencils or your new sense of who you can be now

·        Get used to feeling your feelings including the negative ones. They will not kill you. Smoking or ‘banging’ them away is procrastination. So are Peppermint Patties.

·        Do the work. No way to short cut the work. Carry the water that needs carrying and don’t be a whiney child about it. I know it’s a bitch to be a grownup and exercise self-control when other people are allowed to be such pains in the asses!!! Remember: sometimes, I AM THAT BITCH.

·        Allow time for joy, for running free, for deeply enjoying pleasure that doesn’t carry guilt. Find that joy if it’s new to you, the guilt-free kind! (Salad? Sigh. Knitting with the yarn I already own? YES.)

·        Make a home within yourself if not in the outside world. Make that home cozy and full of love. Beautiful and familiar. Full of life and healing. (I’m ALWAYS working at this, the finding and maintenance of home…)

The journey to sobriety, to a whole and generous life, is not a straight line, more like a circle or a spiral, hopefully forward. All the same, as Proust said,

The real voyage of discovery consists in not seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.