My Design Rant (mini version)

The place I work at is getting a redesign and I hate it. We all hate it. Nobody at the little fish level was consulted and it shows. I however have the slight advantage of being able to articulate why I’m so bothered by their design choices. I went down a YouTube rabbit hole recently that gave me the key words I needed, like “user-centered design” and “evidence-based design”. A much longer, more source heavy rant is probably coming at a later date, but here’s the mini version:

What is “good” design? For me good design accomplishes three things:

1) it’s Safe. I’m literally pulling the “safety first” thing, but I truly believe that safety should be the first and most important consideration in design. I hate my commute to work and to school because it feels dangerous to drive anywhere because the roads don’t feel safe. Thanks to the YouTube rabbit hole I know there are cost effective means of designing streets to make roads safer for cars and pedestrians. Another example I have from work is they repaved the road and whoever redrew the lines clearly had no idea how vectors work because at a three-way stop they made one of the lanes too narrow so that cars in the north bound lane trying to turn right towards the east were literally turning into the left turn lane for cars in the west bound lane. See hastily drawn visual aid below.

2. Good design is beautiful. I know people say that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” but they’re probably mistakenly thinking of “taste” which is acquired through socialization. My “taste” probably isn’t going to match that of someone with a different socioeconomic or cultural background than myself. There are a lot of elements that I’ve grown to appreciate over the years, but when talking about “beauty” I’m referring to 5 basic elements that constantly retain viewer appreciation over the long term rather than elements that are subjected to “seasons”. The five elements are: biomimicry, ornament, curves, symmetry, and “ordered complexity”. Biomimicry refers to things we find in nature like fractals as well as obvious nature elements such as living plants and plant and animal motifs. Ornament is fairly self explanatory. Curves refers to things like arches and domes. Symmetry is also fairly self explanatory. Lastly “ordered complexity” is probably the hardest to achieve because you have to find the right balance between too little and too much. Although the amount of appreciation will vary from person to person, these are the elements that science says we like to come back to. A beautiful design is a sustainable design because it doesn’t have to be changed with the seasons.

3. Lastly good design is humanizing. We need to design things for humans with humans in mind. My earlier example of the bad paint job didn’t even have cars in mind when they divided up the available space much less people. Roads are safer when we make room for pedestrians and bikers. There’s an apartment complex right next to where I work. It’s a TWO minute walk from the apartment complex, but there’s no sidewalk to connect the apartment complex to the shopping area and it’s a 20 minute drive to get out of the apartment complex and take the main road. It’s so frustrating because it’s so fixable.

Circling back to why I’m so upset about the new look for my workplace and company. Originally the company I work for went for a “neighborhood” model, to where each store was unique and tried to integrate itself into the surrounding community. That was one aspect of the company I respected and lined up perfectly with what I learned both in class and from my YouTube rabbit hole. Now, however, the stores are all switching over to a universal design and we need to be “hospital clean”. Like, has anyone BEEN in a hospital recently? Even hospitals are moving away from the “hospital clean” look. Let me tell you, it was a LOOONG walk from the parking garage to my dad’s room in the ICU and every foot of that hospital was covered in ART from local artists. There was ART in the ICU room that served as something I felt I could anchor to in a very mentally and emotionally trying time. My doctor’s office has art in the examination rooms. There’s art in every room at the dental offices I go to.

The reason I’m so upset about the new look at my job is they are forbidding ornamentation and have taken down all the signage, they are removing all complexity and painting all the walls and doors the same bland color. I told my coworkers it’s giving “dissociating in a mental hospital”. The lighting with the new paint color makes us look tired (I mean we are because we’re healthcare workers but I don’t need a paint color to make it obvious). There’s nothing in the waiting area for customers to look at so if they’re not on their phones customers just staring at us the whole time while we’re trying to do our jobs. There also wasn’t a reason given for the changes other than someone “very high up” wanted it. Rolling out big changes without getting feedback first or giving an explanation of why the changes are necessary is a surefire way to alienate your workforce.

It’s unsafe, it’s ugly, and it’s dehumanizing. It’s a bad design.

Dear Past Me

I just recently finished a handwritten journal that I started in 2011 and I’m very curious to see what was going on with past me. I didn’t figure out I was aromantic, asexual, and agender until 2015. I didn’t write consistently and the purpose of the journal changed to mostly evening relaxation and handwriting practice. If you’re feeling nosy you can come along. I’ll put current me’s comments/editorizations [in brackets with italics].

9/25/11
It’s been a week since my birthday and I must say it’s been a very long week. I’m twenty-two this year and I think I’ve pretty much overcome my adolescent demons. [i sincerely doubt that] A phrase that I have not read yet in a book comes to mind, “Behold, the great men of the ages past have banished all the other worldly demons. All that remains are the demons man kind has created for itself”. [meaning either i straight up made that quote up because I wanted to be a the next big high fantasy novelist or it’s from an anime and I don’t want to fess up to that]. I’ve kept journals before (and lost them) and there sits a great many blank notebooks in my bottom drawer. [I would call myself pretentious, but I think my spelling skills are actually the determining factor of my written speech patterns] I don’t expect [and “exspect” is hilariously miss spelled thus proving my previous point] this one to be any different, but I live and hope. [the rest of the entry goes on about how much my parents have supported me and some musing about being Buddhist, which isn’t what I currently identify with. In all honesty I’m finding the writing style to be very cringe so I’m going to move on]

9/26/11
Today’s insight comes from Card Captor Sakura, which is an anime whose dub I cannot stand but that’s beside the point. No doubt fans go wild at the end of the second movie where Sakura finally confesses her love for Syaoran, but do they ever stop and question it? […I’m about to say something very aromantic aren’t i? lol] Is there no, “…wait a second…” after the credits start to roll? Well, I must be strange then because I realized that poor kid (meaning Syaoran) is gonna go through hell. The movie [which current me haze ZERO memory of] ends with a freeze frame where Sakura who has just confessed leaps over a very long drop to get to Syaoran. Poor little Syaoran is telling her to wait for the magic to wear off and the killer jump to disappear, but in all her bubbly enthusiasm Sakura says no and leaps, presumably, into her lover’s arms. Freeze frame of mid jump with Syaoran running to catch her. They are now a couple (more or less) [I guess I wasn’t sold on the chemistry] and Syaoran now has a bubbly, daredevil, magic girlfriend. Although, I suppose it’s not all bad. He was originally sent to Japan to get the clow cards and now he has a girlfriend with clow cards so it’s a win-win. BUT! Girlfriend comes complete with two magic guardians, an ultra rich best friend who adores her, a father who’s the reincarnation of the most powerful wizard to ever live, and is buddy-buddy with two more ultra magic users, so in short: if Syaoran even messes up even a little bit he’s screwed. Hence I have discovered the phrase, “It could have been worse, you could have won” I’m sure Syaoran is overjoyed, but the dialogue would be something like- “yaaay…owwww”. Thus ends my analysis.

9/29/11
Wow, I am having trouble believing that September is almost over. The internet at work isn’t working so I’m doing writing therapy. Tsukiko [a friend from the same RP writing forum] gave me a very pretty Kurama sig ❤ <3. Mom wants to host a Halloween party for my younger sister, but most of her friends are no-can-do so she asked me to extend an invite to my pals. No dice. It’s a month away and my flakeish, scatter-brained pals already know they have plans. It’s amazing what a few years of college will do. I know that it’s not that I’m not important, but that Halloween after a certain age just isn’t really up there on lists of important holidays. Oh, well. The internet is still down and a full hour of work to go. Wow this must look silly, me writing in an archaic looking journal. Not half as silly as carrying a box of ears though (and that is exactly as it sounds). Such a feat is impossible to do with a straight face and the look on the other work study’s faces as I dropped the box off was very amusing. Maybe by the time I get to the last page of this journal (if I can) my handwriting will be readable. Still fuming about the internet. It’s all down then I can’t watch my anime. I need my fix. Ah, what to do? My stress levels are unbelievable with that one project for class. One class, I need just one class to graduate. Unfortunately financial aid doth not cover one class. Thus I must take three extra classes to keep my full-time student status. Which reminds me of how my work-study supervisor dared to ask me, “are you sure you’re graduating?” Uh, yeah. People tend to do that after they gat all their classes done with. My concentration is being disturbed by my coworkers. They are talking about what’s news and what’s not news. My watch ticking is getting really annoying. I better stop here, my hand is getting sore.

For comparison, here are the last three entries in the journal.

March 1st, 2024
And now I should do some serious reflection. I don’t really remember who I was as a person in 2011. My as a person now finds the greatest joy in family games nights, learning new things and new skills. I like making things. I still read when I can which is in long stretches or 15 minute bursts. Things I want to improve on is my handwriting [I have to say the handwriting practice part of journaling is NOT paying off and I need to squint and use context clues] and honestly that’s kind of it? I know I’ll naturally improve quilting by doing it. I’m getting better at figuring out my body cues. My stress was unusually high this passed week and when I clearly needed to rest, I did. I might have to miss tai chi all this week and so I will need to practice by myself or do chi gong with mom. I’m very tired and I have a headache, but I know that it’s because I didn’t eat much today. I made myself some onion soup with noodles and that helped a lot because it was savory, nutrient rich, and hydrating. I also paired with with some cherry/rose tea. So much for serious reflection. I have one more page, but I do need sleep.

March 3rd, 2024
I can’t sleep because my room is too hot, so I’m hoping a box fan on high in the window will help. I’m not going to be able to do a reflection.

March 10th, 2024
I saw online that a news organization went off-live and thus their entire backlog of news articles are gone. I’m not the best at recording my day-to-day or about world events, but maybe that’s something I can work on. I don’t know how to even begin. I think maybe my commonplace book would be better? I could take screenshots and print them out? Is it enough to just write my reaction and record the bibliographic information? Would I be saving the journal for? All of my siblings and myself don’t plan on having kids. Oh, well, it might be fun for me. I finished one journal.

What have I learned? The more things change, the more they stay the same I guess. I am apparently not one for details and just like to flutter from one topic to the next with my thoughts. It took a moment, but while I don’t think I’m the same person that I was in 2011, I can definitely see the continuity there. My mom is currently planning a St. Patrick’s day themed party for next week. My sister’s plus one is proving to be a problem. I have no plans to rewatch the CCS movie since past me gave it what amounts to a scathing review. OH, and I am ONE CLASS away from graduating with my master’s degree. Fortunately, this time it IS covered by financial aid. I don’t need an anime fix, I need a nap. Possibly a 4th cup of coffee. It was less embarrassing than I thought it would be to check in on my past journal entries. For now I’m going to put the journal away, but I might revisit it again in the future. I’ve already started my new journal and hope to report back with legible handwriting some time in the near future.

It’s Been Nine Years Since I Discovered I was Asexual

For some brief context, in 2012 I bought a book titled “How to Make Money Blogging: How I Replaced My Day-Job and How You Can Start a Blog Today” and it’s one of the many ebooks that’s just collecting whatever the digital equivalent of dust is in my digital library. The only thing I remember from the book is the tip that if you run out of ideas you can always revisit old posts and I am finally at the point where I’m comfortable looking back at my earliest posts from a charitable and reflective position. I started a blog about a year after figuring out I was asexual because I also had to figure out that I was also aromantic and agender. I keep promising myself that I’ll write more for my blog and I don’t think that’s going to happen (maybe I’ll make my New Year’s Resolution 4 meaty/meaningful posts in the next year as a SMART goal). I also don’t want to wait for the tenth year to do a serious reflection.

DECEMBER 17, 2015: “I Should Have Known I was Asexual/Aromantic Sooner”, feels a lot like a “Hello World” post. The title is a little misleading; I should have said “I Wish I Had Known I was Asexual/Aromantic Sooner”. I also really hope that my writing skills have improved significantly. There are a couple references that were mentioned and not linked so significant context is missing. However, I think I remember the inspiration for the blog post from an emotional standpoint and that’s the more interesting story that I should have told at that time. I was on my way to class (I had some education award left over so I spent it on a couple community college classes) and a song came on the radio. I don’t remember the title and don’t remember enough of the lyrics to look it up, but the message of the song was the singer was telling the listener to basically leave their man if they didn’t love them passionately enough and having just recently figured out I was aromantic at the time I found the experience of listening to the song very unnerving and hurtful.

DECEMBER 17, 2015: “Coming Out” is basically the story of coming out to my parents. It didn’t go as well as I had hoped and I still haven’t come out to a lot of other people since then. My brother and (now) sister-in-law have asked since then and when they did I didn’t say I was asexual and instead I more or less dodged the question by saying “dating is not my thing/priority right now”. A significant difference between when I wrote the post and now is I do have elevator speeches ready that aren’t asexuality and aromanticism 101. My brother is also very anti-label so discussing sexuality and orientation with him is a workout. The main sticking point that people are probably more interested in is that I am a life-long-single person. The “dying alone” stereotype is something that I’ll occasionally see aces and aros sort of overcorrect on which can be alienating because while singleness is very much an agentic choice for me, most people would rather not be single and will intentionally or not stigmatize being single as inherently bad instead of accepting it as just another stage in the relationship process. Bella DePaulo has several articles and books on the subject, but in all honesty I’ve only ever saw one lecture where she says that how happy you are when you’re single is the best indicator of how happy you’ll be in a relationship once the “honeymoon phase” is over. I found that point exceptionally validating. So, while I LOVE all the weird nuances of asexuality and aromantism and I love talking shop with other aces and aros I don’t plan on coming out to anyone anytime soon.

DECEMBER 19, 2015: “You’re so Weird” was basically me saying “I’m not actually weird” and I must now debunk that claim because since I turned 30 I basically went straight into my “retired grandma energy” era because I like tea, fiber arts, I just acquired a small collection of books on English witchcraft from a historical perspective that I read in between my small collection of Chinese novels that I read between the various on-going series I’m reading, and none of my college degrees have gotten me out of working retail yet. I also take tai chi classes and collect practice weapons. I’m also reading up on constructed alphabets because I watched a YouTube video on the Shavian alphabet and my dyslexia said “fuck that noise” so I’m going to try and construct my own alphabet for journaling and notetaking. The future descendants that have to deal with my personal effects when I die are going to be so confused. I can’t promise I’ll be historically relevant enough by that point, but maybe some of my stuff will have some archival value.

DECEMBER 30, 2015: “The Third Option” talks about being agender and there’s not a whole lot of growth in this area because I still struggle to find the language to describe my gender experience. Fortunately Canton Winer has coined a term for me and that is “gender detached” which I consider more accurate than my previous “none of the above”. I have not made many nonparasocial connections to the trans and nonbinary communities and I think that my gender detachment is informing that. The concept of gender itself feels very pervasive and burdensome so it makes sense that I wouldn’t be drawn to communities were gender experience is the focus. However, gender detachment might be surprisingly prevalent in the ace and aro communities so that’s probably why I’m more comfortable with my orientations being the anchoring point for community membership.

JANUARY 12, 2016: “Not Perfect”. I actually really like this post. Kudos to past me. The writing has significantly improved compare to my first couple of posts. I don’t remember if this was when I discovered the fine art of proof reading. A couple of changes between then and me now: 1) I no longer consider myself Buddhist, but I also don’t label myself as “Pegan” because the belief system I’m currently studying is, I think, best described as traditional folk practice rather than a “religion” or “spirituality”. 2) Thanks to some deprogramming I realize that my original point of people needing more things than they can give is most likely incorrect and very capitalistic. I’m not going to do a deep dive on that in this moment. I love that I put in writing “I’ve accepted that I will never be perfect. I’ve accepted that while I think other people-” I don’t specify who, but it was probably work or school related -“expect me to be perfect or even normal, I’m not going to be. And I’ve accepted that’s not my fault”. I do think it’s important to be charitable to one’s self. Backtracking to the folk practice thing, I don’t have a shrine or altar dedicated to a deity or anything, instead I have two thought bubbles hanging above my sleep space that say, “Seeing Clearly, Living Ethically, Daily Practice” and “What comes after helping yourself?” This intentional display is the best representation of what I’m aspiring to or trying to manifest or what have you.

I’m going to end the post there because while I’m really glad that I took the time to do some reflection, my craft project list has also become way beyond reasonable so I want to get as much done about that as possible before my class starts again. I’m going to be doing a craft speed run and get as much of my stash used up and made into actual cozy things. I’m in the middle of several quilt tops, several quilt sandwiches, a shawl, two hoody-scarfs, a quilted jacket, a wall hanging, and an embroidery sampler. Writing up a thoughtful blog post takes me at least an hour and I would really rather spend that time making cozy things, sipping on tea, and listening to video essays and podcasts. I would for sure make more blog posts if I could type and sew at the same time.

I never really had a targeted audience in mind when I started my blog. It’s just that I stumbled upon a blog post one day nine years ago and it made a difference for me on a personal level. My Fae/faer rant post is still my most viewed post, but I don’t actually know what people are getting out of it. It was really just a chance for me to do a resource dump and complain about my least favorite fantasy genre trope.

The Quest for All Things Cozy (Carnival of Aros December 2023)

Greetings! It has been a very long time since I’ve posted to my blog, but here is my submission for the Carnival of Aros for December 2023 hosted this month by Sara Jakša on the topic of “Aromanticism and Holidays”.

Something I think worth clarifying is that I’m not just aromantic, but I’m also a life-long single person; Those are ultimately two different things. Something that I can find alienating in online aro (and ace) spaces is that relationships like QPPs get mentioned quite a bit and there’s sometimes an overcorrection against the myth that aromantics are “doomed” to “die alone”. I’m slightly romance-repulsed and the pervasiveness of relationship talk can be overwhelming. However, being romance-repulsed doesn’t stop me from seeking out warm fuzzy feelings and I’m beginning to think that my craft habit is very much informed by my aromanticism.

I have a weird hobby of collecting hobbies, specifically hobbies of the fiber arts persuasion (which is also why my poor blog gets neglected). I’m currently very into quilting because I learned there was a Welsh quilting tradition (see here, here, and here for more info) and I had a lot of cloth masks left over from the mask shortage early in the pandemic. Since I can now by KN95 masks by the box, my cotton masks are now my attempt at learning English paper piecing. I also taught myself nålebinding as an alternative to knitting and crochet that was easier on my hands (I recommend this YouTube channel if you want to learn). I also have a blackwork embroidery sampler in process (it’s very similar to cross stitch and etsy has some amazing patterns and kindle unlimited has patterns).

Thus far I’ve finished three quilts (not the EPP one however) which I have dubbed “fur-baby” quilts and they will be winnable prizes for my family’s Christmas party.

My family is many things, but the most seasonally relevant traits are we are competitive and frugal. Each year everyone is only responsible for two gifts, a secret santa gift to another family member and a white elephant gift. After that extra gifts are optional because they’ll be used as prizes for games. My mom is in charge of coming up with the competitive games and they change every year. I usually don’t win many games, but I still enjoy the quality time with my family. My sister will also be without a partner this year since her boyfriend of two years broke up with her, but perhaps we can work together if there are any team games.

Most importantly for me the holidays are also a break from school. I get to catch up on the pleasure reading list that’s been piling up all semester. I just finished the last books in two series that I was reading and get to experience the “first date” feeling that comes with picking up a new book series for the first time and hoping for the best. I have a really hard time imagining how different the holidays would be if I were alloromantic or actively seeking an intimate partnership. Outside of my work and school schedule there’s very little time for anything else so it’s not surprising to me that I was drawn to handcrafts. Just sitting down in front of a television feels like a waste of time, but I can mentally justify the leisure time if I have a craft project in my hand.

The internet is actually really deceptive about how long fiber arts projects take. I have several books of easy patterns that would take me about a week to finish using my machine, but a lot of the hand work takes FOOOOREEEVER. Nålebinding, like crochet, can’t be automated like knitting can. There’s 3D printing knitting machines now apparently so while I like to think that I’m fairly speedy at nålebinding stitches making even just a throw quilt takes something like 80 hours all together. The fun part for me, however, is the journey not the finished product because usually by the time I finish a thing all I can see are the flaws from where I was trying to figure out something. Just this week I was trying to figure out a new nålebinding stitch and the pile of tangled false starts is never going to see the light of day. The finished blanket, however, will probably end up as a consolation prize next year.

…Whatever, I’m bored. Let’s talk about my gender

I haven’t been able to make regular updates and that goal is officially scratched off my new years resolutions list because I’m currently working two jobs as I ride out the global pandemic. My second job is substitute teaching which is why I’m stuck in a classroom basically babysitting two middle school kids because the rest of the class is virtual and I have an entire hour of literally nothing to do. I don’t talk about my gender nearly enough so I’m just casually talk about my gender for an hour. [Content Warning: gender dysphoria mentioned]

My first day I had another substitute ask if I was pregnant and that was super uncomfortable and awkward for me. I have to present as my assigned gender because Texas has some funky laws regarding LGBTQIA+ students and transphobia is literally written into the leading party’s platform.

I’m more comfortable and confident about my asexuality just because I’ve interacted with more aces and had access to compiled research and history. I haven’t had as much luck finding a “community” based around my experience with gender identity. The closest thing I’ve have was one of my coworkers at my old job was pansexual and agender, but I’m no longer at that job. I’ve tried discord chats in the past to try and meet other agender or even just nonbinary folks and it didn’t really work out because the chats were geared towards younger people discovering their gender and not people in their 20s-30s. So because I haven’t interacted much with a community I don’t know what the shared language lexicon or jargon is.

What I do know is I’m agender. Period. When I ping my brain for gender it shoots back a 404 error message. I got nothing. There’s no little voice in my head guiding me like Jiminy Cricket towards gender euphoria. But I definitely experience some social gender dysphoria. My dysphoria isn’t triggered by what my body looks like, but by how other people see and interpret my gender cues. Fem is okay, female is a hard “no”.

I’ve had some negative interactions with counselors completely unrelated to my gender and sexuality so I’m super hesitant to seek professional help and prefer self-help. So, far that’s what works best for me. Ideally I would prefer to consult a professional for my dysphoria symptoms if only so I could have someone break down the technical language of my symptoms for me because that’s not really something I trust the internet with. However, consulting an actual paid professional just not a feasible option right now. That also means that I don’t have the option to even explore the possibility of medically transitioning at this time either which is also a sensitive topic for me.

After a time check, I still have 30 minutes to ramble but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to ramble about. I prefer jobs with unisex uniforms because of my gender. I’ve been studying historical garment construction (it’s hard and there’s weird math involved) because I want to make my own clothes because of ethical reasons and because it would give me more control over my presentation. That’s still a long ways, though, because I’m working two jobs and my “free time” is never conveniently anywhere near my sewing supplies.

I am Not an Activist

[This is my own submission for the Carnival of Aces hosted this month by me, for the prompt “What are you hoping to get out of the ace community?“ I will be posting the Roundup on Monday night, Aug 31st, so if you’ve submitted something and have not received a like on the comment or a “thank you” acknowledgement let me know because that probably means that I missed it. If you sent me something via email and didn’t get a response please resend it and let me know in the comments here or the Call for Submissions post so I can be on the look out for it. Thank you!]

As the title says, I am not an activist. I don’t think of myself as an activist, I don’t call myself an activist, and I try not present myself as an activist because I am not an activist. I merely exist as an asexual (and aromantic and agender) person and I infrequently ramble on my personal blog (and admin a Twitter account that posts screenshots of aphobes being assholes on the internet, which is also definitely not activism).

The thing is just existing as an asexual person comes with caveats. For instance if an acephobic troll shit-post goes viral on Twitter (or tumblr or Facebook or any mainstream online media) you literally have hundreds of armchair pharmacists, evolutionary biologists, and psychologists swarming the comments trying to pick apart your existence based on what they probably remember from their high school biology textbook. LGBTQ exclusionists demand “proof” of your existence and “oppression” in the form of peer reviewed journal articles and hard science while hypocritically using PowerPoint slides that they’ve clobbered together based off of a preliminary study/article they either obviously didn’t actually read or obviously didn’t understand how the data was being interpreted because the orginal source overtly contradicts their claim. Then there are “well meaning” family members and friends who instead of listening to you as you share a deeply personal, core aspect of your very self and personal identity, they brush you off or offer irrelivant/harmful advice because what you are saying contradicts the status quo they’ve been conditioned to believe without question their entire lives. What I’m hoping to get out of the ace community is just a goddamn break.

It is completely and utterly exhausting to go through life feeling isolated, disconnected, and othered by every emotional support system you’ve build up, especially if you can’t fully trust the medical systems in place because of heteronormative bias on top of cost/availability. It’s almost like life decided to push out of a plane with just a spool of thread instead of a parachute and you just have to find a way to deal with it. Okay, the parachute thing might be just a bit over dramatic (again, personal blog, I can vent if I want), but just because I’m “complaining” it doesn’t automatically make my perception untrue or “out of turn” and it’s really nice to know that there’s a group of people who understand that. Day-to-day I’m really just hoping for bare bones, basic dictionary definition of “community”.

I am looking for a human connection that I literally cannot get in my regular life. It’s nice to have a conversation with a stranger who already knows what asexuality is. It’s nice to have someone who’s sympathetic to my crappy coming-out-to-my-parents story. It’s nice to know there’s other people who also didn’t realize until later in life that there’re more options than just “straight or gay”. It’s nice to know that even though I barely had the energy to put a new coat of gorilla tape on my car today, there are other people who are working really, really hard on the daily to make real, meaningful changes to laws, medical practices, and general awareness regarding asexuality. I’m not an activist, I can’t organize people, I don’t consider myself charismatic, I don’t know anybody important, but I do a pretty good impression of a warm body when the situation calls for it. It’s not much, but it’s also not nothing either.

Mini Rant: Exclusionist “Sources”

A personal pet-peeve of mine, but here I am banging my head against freaking paywalls trying to find actual evidence that the Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee (the first LGBT organization according to Wikipedia) was asexual inclusive, meanwhile this (see image below) is what passes for “sources” among exclusionists:

screenshot “source list”

Twitter Screenshot

Exclusionsts will grab whatever quotes from whatever pops up in their Google search they think might support their argument without actually checking if they read the material correctly or if it even supports the argument they are trying to make. Nothing in that linktree mentions asexuals. But that’s what somebody sent me when I asked for their sources on their post on asexuals. It’s like they think my nerdy ass isn’t going to check.

Anywho, a gay activist named Carl Schlegel was asexual inclusive in 1907 and I’m trying to figure out figure out if that was a him thing or if he adopted it from the WhK. Unfortunately, I don’t read German and there was that rise of the Nazi thing that destroyed a crap ton of priceless LGBT history. But sure, a instagram linktree is a “source”.

John Oliver headdesk reaction image because words cannot fully express my frustration right now

ANYWHO, self-care today is putting a pin in the WhK thing (for now) and watching my all time favorite film, Denial (2016), to remind myself that it is not my job to debate people on Twitter and I don’t have a crack team of researchers who can pour over everything my “opponent” ever wrote. ALL that considered, I’m doing fine…..

(minus, you know, global pandemic and upcoming US election. “Fine” might be relative)

What’s it Like Running an Aphobe Hot-takes account?

Greetings! My internet is absolutely crap right now so I just wanted to do a quick post and the easiest topic I can throw together is about running @Aphobehottakes on Twitter. It’s actually not very exciting.

TW// aphobia because I will be showing some screenshots. yay. Fingers crossed that all of my screenshots still load after I hit “Publish”
(TW is short hand for trigger warning)

30 Minutes into My New Project and I’m already Conflicted (Quick Read)

Ever since taking a deeper look at the Medium Article ace-exclusionists like to cite I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a rebuttal as just sort of a demonstration that literally anyone can write and post something to Medium, but instead of just doing a sloppy copy-paste like the original I would treat it like more of a final project worth 25% of the class grade. Research actually isn’t one of my favorite things, I much prefer direct teaching methods like you find in traditional math classes, so I let the idea simmer for about a week to see if it would go away. It didn’t.

Another reason I was hesitant to adopt the rebuttal project is all the community college campuses are closed because of Covid so I don’t have easy access to archives and databases which limits my pool of sources to secondary and tertiary sources. I wouldn’t be satisfied with that. If I’m going to put time and effort into a project like this, because it’s about my sexual orientation it needs as pristine as I can possibly accomplish even if that pushes the timeline back. There’s no real rush. The original Medium article, despite the blatant copy-paste format isn’t going anywhere.

Just to test the inquisitive waters I started looking at the section of the article I could address, the part about David. The original article referenced rumors (although it didn’t refer to them as such) about David Jay being homophobic and a misogynist, but didn’t actually cite any sources. Since I had already gone down that rabbit hole before it was just a matter of going over the tumblr posts again specifically looking for things I had missed.

Tumblr is both a curse and a blessing because even if the original blog is deactivated any posts that were reblogged are still preserved. One blog in particular kept popping up in my search as not necessarily the original source of the rumors, but was definitely an agent in passing them on. When I went to their bio I found a link to her book. She had a book. This was no longer a nameless, faceless person on the internet. This was a writer and activist living in Montreal. What am I supposed I do with that information?

Do I blast this woman on Twitter (obviously not)? Should I pass the information on to ace activists (maybe)? Do I include that information in my rebuttal? Is her identity even relevant or is citing the original tumblr posts enough and it doesn’t actually matter who actually wrote it? I guess the shock of actually putting a face to the baseless tumblr claims rattled me. This is why I don’t like research, the pursuit of truth isn’t about comfort and the truth is rarely comfortable.

My Freebie COVID Rant

As the title suggests I am giving myself a free pass to just unload about the pandemic and how it’s affecting my mental health. I totally understand if that is not your jam and want to click off now.