i could never be normal about anything. i dont have it in me

master of distraction

"You could get up early and do it before work" I could also wait for a magic beanstalk to start growing in my living room LMAO. Let's focus on things that happen in the real world

CRYING

god it would be awesome if the human brain could just ignore an upsetting thing instead of constantly wandering back to it for no fucking reason

I love them and I want them to be happy.

[ pondering... ]

i’m not even kidding, until i was like nine or ten years old, i thought the chickenpox was one of those imaginary diseases people used to tell us about to scare us into washing our hands and staying away from sick people. i don’t know a single person around my age who has ever had chickenpox

I literally do not know if I got it or not. When I was like eight (long before the vaccine existed) it went through the church and everyone got it, and I wrestled with a kid who'd have been contagious at the time. I got a single weird bump that could as easily be chicken pox as a bug bite (mom insisted it wasn't and that I needed to go play with the poxy kids some more, but nothing more came of it).

So either I was exposed to chicken pox repeatedly without ever getting it, or I got the world's least symptomatic case of it,

I should, uh, really look into that shingles vaccine in the next decade....

I thought FOR SURE I'd never had the chicken pox. Despite my parents best efforts. And I mean that completely truthfully. Before the vaccine existed, parents would organize chicken pox parties - when one kid they knew got it, they suddenly had playdates with every other kid in the community. Because everyone wanted to get infected as young as possible. Now, thank gosh, the vaccine exists and we don't have to do it that way anymore. But anyway, despite my parents best efforts I never got the chicken pox - no symptoms, no itching, nothing. So when I went into health care, they made sure we were up on our vaccines and I was like "for sure I need the chicmen pox one" but the school insisted I go for blood work. I was SHOCKED when it came back with antibodies. Like, WHEN!? When did this happen?? (The real answer is thst I was obviously non-symptomatic. But that doesn't stop me feeling like my world shifted 2 cm to the left that day.)

Which is all to say....technically yes, but also kinda no?

I was born in the 80s. I had chicken pox twice, and was the youngest case of shingles my Dr ever saw when I was 12. Luckily I haven't had shingles again. I was very glad my kids could be vaccinated to lower my risk.

And when I was a kid and everyone got it? I knew kids who were hospitalized and needed feeding tubes - did you know you can get it in your throat?

Installs the mod that adds 4 extra secret hours to the evening

The Young Ones (1982)

Soccer players are the horses of men’s sports. They run around in fields for hours on end. They stub their toe and they die. They fall and they die. They run into each other and

in case folk outside the UK aren't abreast of our news, the British press just hounded a black academic to death

a rough timeline of events (from memory, there may be inaccuracies, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

the British tabloid press remains, and will always be, fucking evil

Went to google more news about professor Jason Arday, and I swear to God the first two pages of research are rancid propaganda sites smearing the man's reputation, up to and including popular Brazilian news magazine Veja.

This article by professor Kehinde Andrews clarifies more about the story of racist harassment Arday has been suffering since he fucking got a teaching job at Cambridge in the first place, in 2023, as the FIRST Black professor in that fucking stupid institution, who sure is taking it's sweet time defending their worker, despite already fucking checking his work for plagiarism and saying he didn't do it:

https://www.voice-online.co.uk/opinion/comment/2026/08/07/ardays-resignation/

Several of the academics who harassed this man into suicide do not seem to have suffered at all in their academic careers. Actually, Dave Harris, who lost his Emeritus title for his racist behavior back in 2024 (something the news only call "criticizing Critical Race Theory", instead of "sent racist emails to fellow black academics"), was defended by Plymouth University, where he used to work, and fucking got the title back earlier this year.

A couple things about the above.

1. He wasn’t the first Black Professor at Cambridge, but he WAS the youngest X

2. He was ALSO autistic, and nonverbal for the first 11 years of his life X

The rest of the story unfolds pretty much as described. And he was a fucking Sociologist studying racial equity in schools and academia. They publicly bullied a black autistic man to suicide for being imperfect whilst asserting a place for blackness in academia.

having a normal one applying for jobs rn

the fact that 8pm is only 3 hours after 5pm is fucking insane. we have to do something about this.

Stop doing it scared and start doing it scary. Invoke sheer eye-clawing terror into all those who have ever wronged you