Notices by Carrie Shanafelt (carrideen@c18.masto.host), page 2

I'm sorry that I haven't felt very inspired to say much over the past few days. Things are very bad here on earth! They have been bad, and every now and then, their badness becomes more visible to different/more people for a while. And social media spaces can't help but become attention-policing, outrage-churning, told-you-so-ing, football-spiking, panic-mongering spaces.

One of my goals is to do "the work" in my life, not online. Online, I prioritize listening, informing, and loving people.

During the GWB admin, a lot of really great people wrote a lot of stuff online about how to think about what was happening in politics and the war, and the real-life friendships I got from that period of blogging with anti-fascist anti-war anti-racist people are still most of the best relationships in my life.

What didn't happen was ending facism, or the war, or terrible things happening in our communities. Those who leveled up to MSM jobs from that group are the worst people in media today.

One of my best friends in philosophy taught me her theory of "wooking"--all the rabbit-holing and obsessing and fine-tooth-combing of ideas that we do to avoid working on our project. I can't help but think that what most of us do on social media around real-life suffering is the "wooking" of political action; it makes us feel as if we're doing something useful, but we're just feeling righteous while wasting our energy and nerves on conjured anger at the wrong people.

@futurebird Sounds like something Santa would do.

Last day of classes today. One of my students brought a ukelele and lightly strummed while they ate cookies and talked about how great 17th-century poets are. Wishing all my academic pals here a gentle denouement.

@chunshek I got 12/14 in the US. I get mixed up about a few things because I do some editing for a UK publication and read British texts for a living.

Twenty years ago, I was hung over in a bathrobe all day wondering what the hell kind of stupid, cruel country I live in. It radicalized me, and in the wake and ongoing progress of that nightmare, I found people online and IRL who became my best friends and allies. (One of them was at my apartment last night.) I don't have any wisdom other than to say we will find each other and work for justice. It's not the "bright side" to this; it's the only side there ever is.

I am especially grateful for the Fediverse today--for a means of finding and communicating with others without corporations profiting from misinformation and rage.

I caught Dolores trying on my sandals. #CatsOfMastodon

Life is funny sometimes. #nfl #patriots #texans

The Pats enter to O Fortuna from Orff's Carmina Burana and I'm going to say, that is the most accurate use of O Fortuna in pop culture.

Yes, Fortune is a fickle bitch, isn't she?

We are sitting next to a clutch of Texans fans who are very cool and not intimidated.

The Pats fans in front of us have preemptively apologized for being large and drunk and enthusiastic and like man I'm at an NFL game.

Do your cats ever have bad dreams? One of our cats is prone to nightmares--wakes up hissing and spitting and then needs cuddles. I wonder what cat dreams are like, and what happens when she has bad ones.

@FlashMobOfOne I nearly get run over whenever I walk to work because the college is a few blocks from where a highway dumps onto Manhattan streets, and I have just resigned myself to the fact that my very religious colleagues and students are going to hear me scream "It's a fuckin stoplight, asshole!!!" every few days. I do it for all of us.

@FlashMobOfOne Most of violence I've faced has been from straight people, to be clear! I'm not a bi person who has been marginalized by queer people in real life, though I hear other people say that happens to them, and there's always shit talk on the internet.

It's Bisexual Visibility Day! Time for the annual reminder that bi people have only recently begun to be studied as a distinct population, and these studies consistently show that we are, along with trans people (many of whom are also bi), the most likely to experience intimate partner violence, in addition to extremely poor mental health and isolation, despite our great numbers. Every year I say it: queer community saves lives, and bisexuals need it too. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10486155/

Being out is not "taking up space."
Being bi is not "being greedy."
Bisexuality is not a phase or a fad.
Bi people can be poly, mono, or ace.
If you are bi, you are bi all the time.
All your relationships, all your solitude, all your thoughts are bi all the time.
If you are with a non-bi partner, you are at a higher risk for physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. Seek out bi community and check in with each other. Make time for bi people. Check in on bi people. Your love is never wasted.

I first read the outcomes of these studies just 5 years ago, after 40 years of being told that the consistent, frightening violence I've experienced--and frankly, just gotten used to--in dating relationships must be my fault. None of my friends understood how it was possible that I had come to just expect physical violence from a first date. None of my partnerships lasted long, and I regularly endured IPV from age 19 on. I stopped protecting myself because I didn't feel I deserved protection.