I think I'm starting to get a handle on where my head is at re: submarine.

We've been asked to practically celebrate covid deaths this whole time whenever someone was unvaccinated or even "unwell to begin with". And NOW everybody has to be the soul of mercy? It's a crime to feed the homeless in some cities. Border Patrol goes through the desert and destroys water caches. But now we must do everything we can as a society to save people who are in danger.

My old roommate was a republican raised by his fundie grandparents who encouraged the debate team, as they all do.

I can say with a lot of insider information: NEVER debate these dudes. He told me straight out the debate isn't for YOU. Nobody willing to engage in the argument can be moved. It's for everyone listening to you.

I tried doing that too for a while but it doesn't work as well if you're not charismatic and full of shit.

Petty fountain pen thoughts: Parker Penman was discontinued largely because they were a bit sheeny and thicker than the other colorful inks on the market at the time (Herbin and... Herbin) so you had to be up on your pen maintenance to use it. Now people defend Bay State Blue. There are so many absolutely garbage inks on the market right now from an actual usability standpoint, which is fine, do what you want to YOUR pen. But I'm over here channeling Morpheus like GIVE ME BACK MY RUBY!

Fountain pen thoughts: I have both gold and steel nibbed pens and I don't prefer gold enough to pay for it most days but I only recently figured out why not.

Steel, when well tuned, writes faster. Definitely an asset when you draft on paper. Every fountain pen youtuber I watch does a quick writing test and the gold keeps up, I suspect more from a superior feed tbh, but their handwriting goes absolutely off the rails to a degree i don't think it does with steel. The softer material doesn't need you being erratic.

The grind conversation reminds me of something I struggled to understand that's pretty widespread in writer subculture. "If you finish the thing you get cake". I used it as an excuse sometimes to have cake but I didn't GET IT, coming from a household of ONLY EXCELLENCE ALWAYS. There is no reward for doing what you're supposed to be doing only punishment for NOT doing what you're supposed to be doing (including even if you TRIED) and I know that's messed up but it's in my head and I can't seem to get it out.

I dreamed during my inevitable weather nap that I was given the coolest box of art supplies. It was a box of five boxes, each containing a color group of four color pencils and four watercolors. The pink and blue boxes also had short fountain pen cartridges. Green and ocre were together, blue and umber were together for sky and wildflower purposes, the purple also had a neutral grey i think, then there was reds: orange leaning and fire colors, and reds: who are we kidding this is all pink.

Somebody drew this on my house. How concerned should I be? The one thing I think we can all agree on is whatever this is, someone has TERRIBLE drawing skills.

I wish storytelling relied less on twists these days. Reading a horror novel wherein by page 2 I was informing the pov character that he was dead. I'm pretty sure I'm not meant to know that. That's very like the twist in one of my favorite tv shows of all time tho and I still enjoy the hell out of rewatching it. So i shall see if I enjoy the journey.

Painting myself with this brush too but for those of us treating our own diseases with, not to put too fine a point on it, a sample size of one and no control group, there's a limit to how much use we can expect our results to be for other people. I know what happens when I don't get my sticky rice puerh.

I don't know what, if anything, it'll do for you.

I have no idea what the active ingredient is. Nuo mi xiang? The puerh fermentation process ON nuo mi xiang? Some trace microbe at the facility that made mine? IDK!

Might delete, but I'll explain for the cheap seats how "transgenderism" has nothing to do with this. For about 2% of us, what sex is on your birth certificate may involve a literal coin toss.

I'm xy. Due to physical traits my BC says F. My baby pics are in medical textbooks.

https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1645774414279999489

I was raised tomboy because that seemed safest. And it wasn't that big of a deal. Til puberty we weren't really sure how things were gonna go. I got too much T for this functional uterus.

What is my biological sex? Idk, how much hell do you wanna put me through?