goddammit this is my blog and I'm gonna say things

[sciatrix]

The anxiety weasels have returned, but I should manage a linkspam this week. It has not been a great mental health week for me, but I think I have identified the issues with my sound chambers for now (need more base-line microphone amps, peering at the chambers I )

Made the mistake of accidentally kicking off my own exclusionist trauma issues on a Metafilter post, and will be taking a break from there (have locked myself out of my account for the rest of the week). I am reminded why I tend to view lesbians with guarded suspicion until they demonstrate that they don't hold with the TERFy and SWERFy corners of queerpolitik, and regret bringing up both that particular article and tensions in queer-female-and-adjacent communities more generally.

No, seriously, the word lesbophobia is a dog whistle, and doubling down on it when I go "are you--are you intending to communicate this?" and insisting I'm speaking in bad faith is, ah. Fun.

Also today, I had a horrifically-ill student attempt to isolate his own DNA with a cheek rinse and fill it with so much phlegm that I couldn't figure out what the hell he was doing wrong when he showed me his sample. I did not, however, find this out before that student helpfully tried to dip a micropipette with no fucking tip into his cup of filthy sick spit-water and draw up a milliliter of fluid, and then get confused when the tip didn't fit on the micropipette afterwards. I think I got it dried out enough not to bleed everywhere, but I'm not sure. I definitely went back and splashed ethanol all over that sucker after he left.

I can only hope he had the same nasty bug I did a few weeks ago, so maybe I can fight it off before he infects everyone else.

Comments

[sciatrix]

Yeah, and the public-ness of the space makes it more easily accessible than the private spaces. There is absolutely a tradeoff and I don't think I can fault MeFi for experiencing that trade-off, you feel me?

ahahaha yeah seriously. I am personally in the camp of "voted for him in the '16 primary, swung enthusiastically over to Clinton in the general, would happily stab him in the kidney rather than deal with him at this point." The inevitable FPP on the announcement seems to be going... okay, but I hadn't been following it closely at all. I think a lot of people share my general association of both Sanders and Clinton with grief and pain and fear and our worlds having gone mad, and Clinton's graceful retirement has won her a lot of ground with me that Bernie's yearning for the Presidency for himself and to be personally in charge has lost him.

As it is, I'm vaguely hoping that the political knives knock him out early and hard and that he slinks back to his Senate seat--or even off it, in exchange for someone else!--before he splits the base again. I'm more concerned with the Texas Senate race this fall; if someone can knock Cornyn out, I'll die happy.

[gentlyepigrams]

Yes. That is exactly the tradeoff for that space and I think that's a good framing. It's just unfortunate that it leaves Mefites with the option of not discussing issues where marginalizations intersect or watching them blow up and expending all the emotional energy and work of fixing it. Which is the only way to make it better. Human nature, it sucks.

I am of the generation where many of us love HRC for coming out from under her husband's shadow and being in many ways more competent and, if not woke, awakening, than her husband (and working with our own issues about Bill and his enablers, fwiw). Sanders has a lot of good policy positions and I'm glad he helped move the Overton window and so on and so forth and ... yeah, I'll hold him and you go for the kidney.

I hear MJ Hegar is talking about running for Cornyn's seat. I would take her or Beto O'Rourke in a heartbeat. Or Wendy Davis if those rumors or true. But I think we're going to need to spend a lot of time calling into the statehouse to keep the Lege from screwing us on voting again. They almost screwed me out of my vote last time with the move coming when it did and it's made me a lot more attentive this session to all their vote suppression bullshit. (Also a regular donor to the Texas Civil Rights Project.)

[sciatrix]

Like I said, I was really well convinced to HRC's camp after the primaries; the more detailed information I hear about her, the more I love the work she did and tried to do--despite its flaws. Because that shit is so, so hard.

OMG you are hearing rumors about Wendy? I thought the gubernatorial run had burned out all her enthusiasm for statewide office. MJ Hegar I don't know as well--talk her up to me? I've been a little out of the loop in the last couple of months.

Those FUCKERS re the voting bullshit. I'm lucky, Kirk Watson is my state senator and I'm really excited about Sheryl Cole going to rep us in the House now that Dawna Dukes has finally stepped down, but then again I also now live in Lloyd Doggett's district of Austin where they've corralled all the broke deep blue folks. (Can't recall if you were around when I moved?)

(I have a friend at the Lege in one of the nonpartisan offices and she is perpetually exhausted and furious when the Lege is in session. She's got a lot of gossip about certain state reps and senators, and it's nice to know that Watson at least is just as much good people behind the scenes as he is in his letters.)

All that said, I would crawl over broken glass to vote for a rotting potato over Cornyn. I hate him more than I hate Ted Cruz for a personal immigration reason (along with Mike McCaul, who I canvassed against last season). I hate him enough to leave nasty reviews about him on his office's Google Reviews page. I hate him so much and I would die of happiness if we could pop him from his perch like an impacted zit.

Man, I gotta find the cash to donate to the TCRP. We had a bumper sticker from them for our car, but it got totaled a few months ago and the new one has been in two fender-benders since (none our fault) and is currently hanging out in a body shop getting itself a new bumper. Replacing it would be good, though. They do good work.

[gentlyepigrams]

(I should add: I would love to see candidates of color for Cornyn's seat. I haven't heard those names yet though. I kind of wish that was where Castro was going.)

[sciatrix]

God, same. I am still faintly pissed with him for not picking up the Senate run--he had the name recognition! and he didn't run for anything! and now a national Presidential run when progressive policies in Texas are so close!--but... yeah.

I think the only thing I've seen people fretting about re: that race is asking about what Beto is doing. Personally, I'd be happy if he breathes a minute, picks up his momentum, and runs again, but I'd also be thrilled if a female candidate or one of color who shares that ability to campaign and talk to people picks up the trail. (I would not vote for Beto in a national race out of hdu-abandon-Texas-progressives,-sir fury; I might be convinced to forgive Castro.)