Notices by lirazel (lirazel@federatedfandom.net), page 2

@lookitmychicken already doing this!

General advice for what to do when your supervisor won't provide you with the guidance you need to do your job?

#decrecs

I assume that most of you who are into #podcasts already listen to #maintenancephase but just in case you managed to somehow miss it:

Fat lady about town (her own description) Aubrey Gordon and journalist Michael Hobbes, two of the most delightful people around, do research deep dives into various topics regarding "health and wellness," most in the form of debunking by...actually looking at science!

Whether it's combating fatphobia, telling us the history of the Presidential Fitness Test and the food pyramid, debunking the 10,000 steps myth, or reading diet books from years gone by, they're equal parts fun and informative.

Mike is self-described methodology queen, so there's tons of examinations of the actual studies people cite all the time, and Aubrey brings an essential personal level of insight into the topics.

If podcasts aren't for you, they have transcripts, too!

https://www.maintenancephase.com/

@lookitmychicken The assholes are easy to ignore. It's the ones who seem like nice enough people...but who have NOTHING in common with me that I don't know how to reply to. Do I just say, "Look, we clearly have nothing in common"? How do you say that nicely?

I think I need to just delete my dating profiles that I made in a fit of optimism earlier this year.

Because I keep getting messages from dudes (ladies/nbies never send me anything, boo!) who want to have kids or are super Christian or spend most of their time at the gym...

when I am VERY clear in my profile that I am nerdy (almost) Jewish lady who will never have children, has very leftist politics, and mostly just likes to stay at home and read.

And it drives me crazy. Either they're not reading the profile (in which case, they are not for me) or they are reading the profile and just don't care (in which case...they're still definitely not for me but I'm very confused about what they're thinking).

Don't they WANT to have something in common with their partner? I stopped caring about the people who clearly just like or pass based on pictures alone.

But the ones who take the actual trouble to message me (even though it's mostly just "hey")...why would they do that for someone they have nothing in common with???

Okay, I've finished book one and I have...no particular feelings, sorry to say. It's fine? I am unimpressed with MXTX's prose style--not my style at all--but it's not so bad that it's putting me off reading more.

But I am really going on trust in y'all's taste, here! If I just read this one on my own without knowing how in love with it y'all are, I would probably not continue!

As it is, I'll probably take a break and read something else before I pick up book 2.

#tgcf

The Palace of Tremendous Masculinity???

#tgcf

Okay, I’m starting #tgcf

Anything it might be helpful to know before I start it? I’m going in almost completely blind

@lookitmychicken You just need to buy some pipe cleaners and make the antenna!

I feel like I'm constantly being reminded that there is this important thing called "gender" in the world that I don't understand. I legitimately do not know what it is or what its point is. No definition or explanation I've ever been provided with makes sense to me.

It's different than being ace. I don't feel sexual attraction, but I at least understand what it is and what purpose it serves in human existence. Gender seems as arbitrary (and, honestly, as destructive) to me as race does.

At least this makes me very trans-friendly. I fully support any gender anyone tells me that they are because it all seems made up to me! But I know it matters to you so I will treat yours with the utmost respect! And I will 10000% defend your rights!

@thalassa Yes, I am comfortable with the idea of gender as a set of role expectations. That is a definition that makes sense to me and resonates with me.

But both trans and cis friends tell me that there is something that they feel is inherent. And that's what I don't understand at all. What is that thing? If you disconnected it from cultural expectations, what would it look like? How do people know what their gender is aside from being told by their culture?

Because trans friends are very clear that it isn't just that they connect to the set of expectations of a certain gender. They say that if there were no gendered expectations in their culture, they would still be [whatever gender they are]. And that's what I don't get at all.

@soph_sol @thalassa I definitely think that I'm inherently agender! But the experience of being treated as a girl/woman has so shaped me that I have *become* a woman. So that's how I understand gender--on good days as a series of experiences that have shaped me, on bad days as something imposed on me. Sometimes I hate and resent it, sometimes I am fine with it.

But yes, it is similar to the difference between romantic attraction and deep friendship! I have not experienced it, so I don't understand the difference really! My understanding has always been deep friendship + sexual attraction, because that's what makes sense to me. But like you say, people say there's something else going on there! Perhaps I will experience it one day, perhaps I won't!

But yeah, secretly inherent gender instead of gender as experience...sounds super fake to me!

@lookitmychicken Yeah. I feel similarly. It's compounded by the fact that I'm ace and have never had a relationship at all. But I'm not willing to settle, and to me it's better to be single and happy about my life than to be in a relationship and it either be miserable or just not quite right.

I will almost certainly be single for always. But I think I would have been really good at being in one of those forever relationships.

@lookitmychicken I lived in Louisville Kentucky for a while (home of the Kentucky Derby) and we liked to talk about how it was the school district in the world that canceled school for a horse race...but it sounds like that might not be the case. Does your whole town shut down for the horse race or just your particular job?

That pair of caps I just reblogged is one of my all-time favorite. That's LWJ's "top me I deserve it" face.

@lookitmychicken Classic Sesame Street songs are SO good! I’d Like to Visit the Moon? Do You Like Me? What’s the Name of that Song? Put Down the Duckie? They truly had some geniuses working on that show.

@villainousfriend @lookitmychicken Put Down the Duckie also has the greatest string of cameos this side of a Muppets movie. Literally an incredible look at pop culture at that specific moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acBixR_JRuM