Notices by TayFoNay, Pet Detective (tayfonay@beige.party), page 3

Your periodic reminder that Larry Ellison owns 98% of the island of Lānaʻi, the 6th largest Hawaiian island.

Back in 2010 when I was doing my post-doc I decided to have my first child. My salary was 100% paid by an NIH grant. A U01, which is a multicenter grant that includes the NIH as a collaborator. So you’ve got my boss, a guy at a university in New York, and a program officer at the NIH running things.

Guy in NY is not happy that I decided to get pregnant and tries to block me from receiving paid maternity leave, which is a benefit my university offered. He was bitching to the lady at the NIH, and my boss had to get the university lawyers involved.

Needless to say I received 12 weeks of paid leave. He spent the remainder of my post-doc looking for ways to fuck our team over. He hoarded the data from the study and excluded us from any publications. I’ve not spoken to him since the grant ended.

Yesterday I ended up on LinkedIn for some reason and see a request from him to connect. Bruh, as my 14 year old would say.

Took my ass down to the beach to get a better view. Bright moon and clouds making it not great but can see with the naked eye. Even caught some movement.

Empire Beach, MI
October 1, 2025

#aurora

My friend invented a game that could possibly become the official game of Mastodon.

Check it out here:

https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/cat-conquest-complete-edition

#CatsOfMastodon

Wait… we’re not the talking point any more?

#uspol
#WarRavagedPortland

I’m back from the woods. 4 days with zero connection to the outside world thanks to Verizon having no coverage where I was in the UP of Michigan.

What’d I miss?

Friend who's going backpacking with me sends me this shit yesterday.

This is the company I keep.

I've been toying with having a professional-ish account on here for a while. I started on mastodon on nerdculture and it wasn't a good fit. So I moved over to Beige.Party where I am not very professional. So I'd like to keep it separate.

I'd like a similar vibe to Beige. Small, well moderated, nice people who don't take themselves too seriously. But that would make sense for a psychologist / academic in the non-profit space.

Appreciate any recs and boosts!

Good news for Friday:

1) 14 got a B on her math test after she was convinced she was going to fail. I have to admit, I wasn't very hopeful because of how hard the material had been for her but she rocked it.

2) Day 1 of school, 14 was the only person who didn't stand up or recite the pledge of allegiance. About a week later, 3 more kids joined her. Today, nobody in her class stood for it.

3) I got a bunch of work done the past 2 days after procrastinating for weeks, so now I can resume procrastinating on the next set of tasks for weeks.

Pfizer COVID vax: here’s a little arm pain for a day or 2.

Moderna COVID vax:

Mr Nay downloaded every episode of The Colbert Report if you wanna come over and party like it’s 2007.

For the non-US folks, this is a 100% real message from the public high school regarding Wednesday’s active shooter drill.

But, you know, books bad.

14 was telling me about some of the things they ask students to do like barricade doors and use straps to hold the door shut, and grab anything that can be used as a weapon. Against a presumably white teenage boy with an AR-15.

I post a lot of shit on here about my time as a psychologist in the US and in academia, and that's annoying AF, so here's a happy story.

Right around when I first started my private practice in 2012, a person came in wanting help with weight loss. They had been on high doses of psychiatric medications for years, and were tapering themselves off.

900 mg of seroquel
5-7 mg of klonopin
120 mg of paxil

All this was for a bipolar diagnosis they received in the 1980s after a single manic episode after they were prescribed a tricyclic antidepressant. They were a prodigal musician, even achieving first chair/principal in a symphony orchestra at an unheard of age. There was a fuck ton of pressure in their life at the time.

Unfortunately they weren't able to maintain this high stress life and fell into a depression, but because they had the bipolar diagnosis they were given atypical antipsychotic medications at higher and higher doses. Long story short, they ended up on permanent disability with limited resources.

So we worked together for years, meeting twice a week. They couldn't afford their high co-pays from their shitty medicare advantage plan, so we came up with a barter system where they paid me in Snapple iced tea and other fun beverages and I wrote off the rest of the co-pay. I've never been so well hydrated.

It became pretty clear they didn't have bipolar disorder, so we had to unpack that revelation. It was childhood trauma, cPTSD. The lifetime of messages that they received of being unable to care for themselves from friends, family, and the healthcare system slowly was replaced with stronger and stronger beliefs in their capabilities.

One day, they mused on the idea of relocating to another state and attending college. I basically was like absofuckinlutely you should. And they eventually did. I'm not going to pretend it was a walk in the park, and we continued to meet during the transition. But once they got rolling in school, we stopped formally meeting as doctor-patient. But they keep me updated via text from time to time about how things were going.

They graduated this year with their bachelor's degree with honors and are attending a masters program this fall.

It's hands down the best thing that's happened to me in my life as a psychologist.

I went on the CVS website to book a COVID booster (I’m due in early October) before they pull the vaccine entirely here and it wasn’t on the list. The site said they were waiting for the updated 2025 vaccine and then it would become available so check back for updates. Which means it’s never going to show up, is it.

Tired: is he dead yet?

Wired: has he suffered a catastrophic stroke that renders him bedridden but cognizant enough to know what’s going on and that everyone abandoned him in droves?

People: now more than ever you gotta build community close to home.

Me: yeah but what if your neighborhood is full of assholes?

I think it's time for my children to experience Gwar

5 out of 5 Fedi psychologists recommend that you follow @owlsintowels for significant improvements in your mental well-being.

@WrenArcher 🤔