On Absolute Transparency, or Love in the Time of Google
@Cat named Virtute I'm with you, sisters. It is often hell to be someone who isn't "perfect" or "whole" in this shallow, unsympathetic society of ours. We are looked at and treated as pathetic and less-than. My disability isn't usually obvious because I hide it very well and have learned coping skills over the years. If I feel someone needs to know, I tell them; otherwise, it’s nobody’s business.
But the fact that I don't have a car, because I can't drive, because I'm legally blind (significant macular degeneration) ... well, that's often a *record-scratch* moment for a lot of people. The greater Seattle area has less-than-optimal public transport, so of course most people rely on cars to get around. My social life certainly suffers. I'm reluctant to continually beg rides, yet my options to get home after a night out are either spend a small fortune on a cab ride, or take the bus ride that ends with a dodgy half-mile walk through a deserted community college campus. Fun times!
My visual impairment is only one of several significant “strikes” I know I have against me in this ol’ world. I try my best to deal with it, but some days it’s definitely harder.
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On Friday Open Thread
@maybe partying will help For serious, I think the people who name polishes at OPI must all just get high and think up the silliest shit possible. (Says the girl who's worn "I'm Not Really A Waitress" exclusively for about 10 years now.)
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On Friday Open Thread
@SarahP If you're in the greater Seattle area, I'll volunteer to help you! I kind of love packing, honest to Pete!
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On If You Still Can, Don't Think Too Hard About This One
@leon.saintjean Well, that and properly cooking pork. That's probably easiest, overall. Pork needs long cooking for tenderness, anyway. Win-win, really.
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On If You Still Can, Don't Think Too Hard About This One
@dale Yeah, well, you'd think that, but clearly you've never watched any episodes of a lovely show on Animal Planet called Monsters Inside Me. It's all about parasitic infections in humanoids, some of which come from eatin' VEGGIES!
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On The Eyebrow Tutorial: Window Frames to the Soul
@Truly Outrageous Yes, precisely. Use a sharpish pencil, and draw short, upward strokes starting in the area where (I assume) you already have some brow hairs, and then extending out to where you want your enhanced brow to be. Don't try to do long, defined lines, because that will look WEIRD. If there's a Sephora or Ulta near you, pop in and ask someone for a lesson. Any of the department store cosmetic companies like Clinique or Estee Lauder will be happy to help, too.
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On Ask a Clean Person: Laundry School Is In Session!
@pain I used to just throw the measuring cup into the machine and let it go through the wash cycle with the clothes. But now we have a front-loader, so I don't do that anymore.
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On Ask a Clean Person: Laundry School Is In Session!
@LeafySeaDragon Word. Not only am in the greater Seattle area, I live near the airport, directly under the flight path. Even if I had a clothesline, I wouldn't want my clothes to get doused in jet fuel and exhaust on the regular. Blech. In any case, I do hang-dry all my undies and most of my tops, as well as dress pants and sweaters and anything else that might shrink or be wonkified by a trip through the dryer.
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On Nothing Tastes as Good as Not Being Cut Open Feels
@akapocalypse Fucking knives, man! Summer after I graduated high school, I worked prepping food in a restaurant at SeaTac Airport. It was such a shitty employer (seriously, never work for Host International!) that they didn't supply knives to us, so I had to bring a couple from home. My Dad had juuuuuuust sharpened the crap out of a chef's knife and a long, thin-bladed knife for me, and was planning to buy me a sheath for them the next day.
Right, so on the way home, I had the knives wrapped in a towel, in my tote bag with my uniform and shoes. I boarded the bus to go to the employee parking lot, and I plopped my bag down in the seat and then bumped the bag over with my leg so I could sit down. I felt the knives poke through the bag and into my thigh, and immediately blood started gushing all over my cute yellow pants. Shit!
I didn't really think it was that bad at first, but ... the blood was spreading FAST and I started to get scared. Soon as I got off the bus, I limped to my car and luckily I found a towel to wrap around my thigh.
I drove home, and walked into the house with blood running all down my yellow pants leg, saying, "I think I need to go to the hospital!" So Dad drove me, and we sat in the frickin' ER for over two hours with me bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. Eventually they took me in, where we discovered the puncture was indeed VERY deep. So deep, they had to irrigate it with a spinal needle. O.o They put a surgical tubing drain in it, and gave me four stitches, then bandaged me up, and sent me home. When I went back to have the drain removed, that fucker was FIVE INCHES LONG! I still have a very deep two-inch scar on my thigh that you can even feel through my heavy jeans. Go me?
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On Absolute Transparency, or Love in the Time of Google
@Cat named Virtute Yeah, if there's a house party or whatever, I've occasionally stayed over. Most of the time with my regular circle, we're meeting up someplace central to dine or go dancing or pub crawl or whatever, and then everyone goes their separate ways. So I pick and choose what's really important.
I resist using my cane on the regular, and pretty much only use it when traveling. I feel like I don't *really* need it most of the time, and that it could potentially make me a target. :-/ Reminds me, I need to write a letter of complaint to Delta and whoever oversees the useless Detroit airport passenger assistance monkeys. Fuckers left me stranded AGAIN without help between gates for a layover. Third time in Detroit. Assholes. *fume fume seethe*