three things make a post

1. I wrote a thing on my relationship with the NHS for the LashBlog. It's titled I love the welfare state. (-- and if you're interested, a DW feed exists! lashingsofgb_feed.)

2. I am currently wearing Glasgow on my clavicle and Marquis de Carabas on my wrists, and I reckon I smell amazing, and... that is helping. A lot. (See below.)

3. jeshyr made me a choker! ... well, they didn't make it for me personally, they made it for their Etsy store and I couldn't resist buying it. It's the minimalist rainbow and silver necklace, and it is a kind of jewelry I can be comfortable wearing, and that's kind of amazing. (See also: reclamation; broadening occupiable spaces.) Unforch I kind am kind of critically unimpressed by both my ability to take photos of myself with my cameraphone and my face this evening, but nonetheless have some photos of me wearing it. (That's not a request for compliments; I mention it more in the spirit of: we were joking, in IRC the other night, about how - even though I talk about counselling, even though I talk about the sads, even though I talk about things that I'm scared about - I can sometimes give the impression of being ~perfect~? And - I'm not, and for all I talk about liking my body and self-compassion and so on, I do think that it's important that I say: me too. And I think it's important that I record this so that my future self can look back and send me hugs. Thank you, future self - it does actually help. x)
( Two photos. )

--- ahaha, thank you, Indigo Girls: during the time of which I speak/it was hard to turn the other cheek/to the blows of insecurity

[links] ten things make a linkspam

(Reminder: if you want in on the group Dicebox order to the UK/EU, let me know by the end of today.)

• sorrillia posts on Gender and Balance, talking about negotiating the gaps in between self-perception of gender and managing the expectations of others.
  
• don't touch me no not even on the shoulder i cannot believe i have to wear this to accomplish that. On a sweater. Or a t-shirt. And a variety of colours. You choose.
  
• Things Real Dreamwidth Programmers Do, a new-ish page on the DW wiki. Worth a read even if you don't code at all, never mind for Dreamwidth!
  
• How the mainstream media exploits 'science' to reinforce gender stereotypes. Does some critical analysis - including critiquing the methodology in question - of a few popular mainstream media memes. (I'm sorry, I couldn't resist that phrase.)
  
• [content note: prescriptivism about living with mental illness] 21 tips to keep your shit together when you're depressed has been doing the rounds, along with some controversy. I think the initial critique - of "habits of happy people" - is RIGHTEOUS AND CORRECT; I don't think the entire rest of the article is helpful, and I don't agree with all of it, but. There's a thing.
  
• Lola Olson, awesome UK activist, is fundraising for surgery by selling their novel. In the event that the NHS gets their act together to provide funding, all proceeds will go to Gendered Intelligence.
  
• staranise, who is AWESOME and writes AMAZING THINGS ABOUT COUNSELLING AND INTROSPECTION in ways that are consistently helpful to me, is passing the hat to help fund their MA thesis. They're good people, they are, and - as explained at the link - the thesis will be a study of the long-term effects of being bullied and ostracised as a child.
  
• [content note: child abuse] Bikers Against Child Abuse helps make abused children feel safe again. I cried everywhere, in the best ways; possibly because (no surprises, heh) I've been doing a lot of processing since about Wednesday (on which more anon), but -- yes.
  
• seanan_mcguire writes I'd like to belong here. Do you think I could? - in which she highlights that she, and other women nominated for the Hugos (and elsewhere in speculative fiction and the world) getting slammed for "excessive self-promotion" is... kind of horrific, especially given similar behaviours exhibited by men who are, instead, getting praised. Plus some thoughtful stuff on what self-promotion looks like, in the world of publishing.
  
• The Making of Mykki Blanco, a look at the work and politics of a gay male transvestite rapper. AFAICT they are generally kind of awesome; I disagree strongly with some of what's said about "it's just language" (in re pronouns etc), but I also wept with joy several times while reading the article, so. Recommended with reservations.

What have you been reading? Have you got thoughts on any of the above?

it feels like some sort of inspiration to let the next life off the hook//then & now, with a twist

specifically, there's a lot of "give me your current age so I don't ask you to time-travel", but actually... I'd like to time-travel, and it will be genuinely good for me to envisage two separate (positive!) scenarios. If you're interested in answers for past ages, then ask & I'll reply in comments.

I picked 25 fairly arbitrarily as a quarter century; I'm a little surprised - mostly pleasantly - by how close that is these days. :-)

I lived in:

Now: a ground-floor bedsit room in college accommodation, next to the Botanic Gardens, with huge south-facing sash bay windows. My room contains a sofa and a desk and a sink and a bed and a fair number of bookshelves and a coffee table covered in my tea collection, and I'm next to a kitchen that contains fridges and a freezer and horrible electric hobs and a nice-enough-but-not-lovely electric oven and a microwave. The front door's up 6 steps, and the shower's on the first floor; the back garden contains purple and white crocuses and narcissi.

At 25 (i): A two-bed flat in South Kensington, in London, shared with a friend, with level access (be it by lift or not). We've got a kitchen with gas hobs and an oven and a fridge and a freezer that we're not sharing with 8 other students, so it isn't full of gross months-out-of-date raw chicken; we've got a sofa that doesn't try to eat people, and a media set-up a bit more satisfactory than craning over people's shoulders to stare at laptop screens, so we can watch shows together without being uncomfortable. The tea collection's got somewhere sensible to live, and we've got a shelf in the living room dedicated to storing the shared perfume collection. The bathroom's big enough to store my shower stool in without getting in the way, and in my bedroom I've a double bed and a view of a tree. We go to the Science Museum Lates, and I spend lunchtimes in parks or visiting another gallery in the Natural History Museum.

At 25 (ii): I live in my home town, and here I can afford to share a house - rather than a flat - with friends. We're on a bus route or two, and I'm within easy pushing distance of my mum and the Various Other People I want to see regularly. The best bit? I get to do whatever I damn well like with the garden, within reason, so we've got herbs and bulbs in tubs, and a bay tree, and roses and wisteria up the back wall.

I drove:

Now: Nope: I'm officially Too Crippy To Drive, in ways that are highly unlikely to change, and positively-imagined futures don't erase that. This doesn't mean I'm upset about it, or the prospect of not being able to drive; it just means that my life's rather better when I'm not desperately hoping for the impossible or, at the least, improbable.

At 25: See above.

I was in a relationship with:

Now: Some Boys and a Girl and some extremely intense, close friendships built around poetry and music, and a few other ill-defined things, and it's lovely.

At 25: I've got no idea, but I'm looking forward to finding out. :-)

I feared:

Now: A depressive relapse. Not doing well enough this year to take up the PhD place I've been offered (which is not necessarily a sensible thing to fear; see scenario (ii), which is plausible and lovely, just different!). Everyone I love or care for dying. Being shouted at. Hurting people. Coming out. Moving somewhere more than a phonecall and fifteen minutes from my mum. London buses.

At 25 (i): Hurting people. Another depressive relapse. Breaking the mass spec. Hydrofluoric acid. Presenting at conferences. Disappointing Julie. Not doing enough activism. Being authentically myself in an academic setting.

At 25 (ii): Hurting people and another depressive relapse; they don't quite go without saying. Navigating meetings with Equalities ministers. Getting things hurtfully wrong. Not being able to help as much as I want to.

I worked at:

Now: My final year of a degree in Earth Sciences, specialising in volcanology. My student union's LGBT+ campaign. Lashings. VagPag. (Dreamwidth.)

At 25 (i): The second year of my PhD in isotope geochemistry, spending endless hours in the clean lab in the basement running columns, and even more time doing the three a.m. I'm-the-only-person-in-the-building dance around the mass spectrometer. My university's LGBT+ campaign. Lashings. The Big Sibling Project. Dreamwidth. VagPag.

At 25 (ii): The Big Sibling Project, including organising regular workshops. Lashings. National campaigning for trans* equality. Collecting a book of my essays for publication, self-pub or zine or maybe traditional publishing houses. Counselling - I'm beginning to be let loose on actual clients, which is daunting and exhilarating. Dreamwidth. Copy-editing, to bring in a bit extra. VagPag.

I wanted to be:

Now: Trustworthy. Safe. Welcoming. Brave.

At 25: Probably still the above, but I'll defer to my future self on that one. :-)