Hello I want to share a beautiful story about myself and my triumph over mediocrity. I recently bought a large salt lamp because it was deeply discounted and I’ve been wanting one for my desk (the other one’s on my nightstand, see, and I can’t cart the thing up and down the stairs twice a day because I’m not a Olympic athlete ok). WELL the day it was slated to arrive happened to also be the day I walked into my downstairs bathroom, as I’ve done thousands of times before, and saw the square mirror with the overly decorative gold frame that I picked up at Goodwill for $5 and spray-painted matte black so it could be part of my elaborate Halloween display of 2014 and then, after Halloween, had nowhere to put the damn thing so I just stuck it on a nail in the bathroom and moved on with my life. Except I didn’t really move on, because every time my eyes locked in on that out-of-place and useless mirror — I forgot to mention it was hanging at a height that made it impossible for me to even see myself in it (which was really bothersome because in my early 20s I had a paperback book about the art of feng shui, of course, and it stated very clearly that every mirror in your home should be positioned so you can see your reflection in it and then your energy could be sent back to you and also be bounced around the room, otherwise that energy will just smash straight into the wall where the mirror should’ve been and slide down to the floor where it will rot and ruin your life) — I felt momentarily annoyed and also like I had lost control of things somehow; like I’d given up.
And anyway it was on that very day, the day my salt lamp was making its way over to my home, that I walked into the bathroom and just plucked that silly mirror right off the damn wall and spun around to look directly at my office area and realized HAHAAAAA this mirror belongs on THAT wall! So I put the mirror on that very wall on that very day with the bonus knowledge — which made me quite smug, actually — that this was the most perfect spot for the mirror because there it could reflect the light of my salt lamp which was, if you’ll remember, on its way to me! And therefore send its radiant energy ping-ponging all around the room!
I was of course very right and it really is perfect and I’m so fucking PLEASED WITH MYSELF. Thank you please clap.
Queer as in F*ck You
Having Sex When Your Partner Is The Same Gender, But A Different Size by Lauren Strapagiel.
Cult Hairstylist Masami Hosono Just Wants to Be a Chef. And honestly, I want Masami Hosono to have everything she wants in this life, you know?
Joan Jett Navigates the ‘Boys Club’ of Rock and Roll in Bad Reputation Documentary.
Average LGBT Student Carries $16K More Debt Than Straight Peers.
LGBTQ+ Advocates Worry a Serial Killer Is Targeting Black Trans Women in Florida by Mary Emily O’Hara.
Latino Millennials Least Likely to Identify As Heterosexual, Survey Finds.
Japan’s Ruling Party Lawmaker Says LGBT Couples Lack “Productivity”. To clarify, this dude who finds these LGBTQ couples unproductive is in fact a woman dude. It’s a woman who’s being a total piece of shit. A dude. I’m sorry my headline was misleading and didn’t take into account the fact that not everyone lives inside my head, where dude is gender-neutral and mostly means “useless tool.” Now let’s get out there and have some fun!
I’m Nearing 30 and Totally Single—Here’s Why That Doesn’t Scare Me by KC Clements.
Crossing the Divide: “Do men really have it easier? These transgender guys found the truth was more complex.”
Saw This, Thought of You
Braving the Cold With Hampstead’s Women Swimmers by Eva Clifford with the photography of Alice Zoo.
Hurricanes May Have Made These Lizards Better Huggers.
Meet Julia Salazar, the Next Democratic Socialist Poised for a Long-Shot Win.
9 Women to Watch From This Year’s Midterms.
An Unequal Justice: “Killings of black people lead to arrest less often than if the victim is white.”
Nat Geo Hires Jeff Goldblum to Walk Around, Being Professionally Fascinated by Things. This is precisely the kind of thing I want networks to present me with on a rose gold platter. Thank you.
Laneia continues to be the personification of my mommi goals.
Figuring out where to hang decorative shittery is oddly challenging. Maybe that’s why I failed as a straight wife? Or the gay, yeah it was probably the gay.
Re: the Japan story referenced in the title, it was (sadly) actually a woman who said queer couples aren’t “productive”. But this is hardly surprising; the LDP is Japan’s conservative party (despite being called the “liberal democratic party” which Americans find confusing) and they are desperate to raise the birth rate so that they don’t have to loosen up immigration policy to stabilize the economy long-term. And given that trans people in Japan are required to be sterilized and cannot stay married to current spouses during transition, they’re closing off possibilities for queer couples to get pregnant in the first place. Ugh.
Oh I was definitely using the gender neutral dude, the West Coast Dude, if you will.
Aha, well my East Coast self stands corrected :)
but yes also what snaelle said! thank you for expanding the conversation about this fucked up situation !!
Thank you for the added info/insight…and very very much ugh.
Wow, didn’t know that trans people couldn’t stay married. Can they remarry the person after transitioning?
Sadly they cannot remarry their former spouse, as same-sex marriage is illegal in Japan. In a few areas, local government issues partnership certificates to same-sex couples, and IIRC at least one trans person has received one.
If you’re interested in this topic, the comic memoir “The Bride was a Boy” goes into it in some detail.
Firstly, thrilled for your lamp and mirror!
Secondly, that Buzzfeed piece about queerness not eradicating one’s body image issues had a totally different headline two days ago! I am curious about the A/B testing they did that landed on the current title, which suggests the piece is not a personal essay, but some kind of sex how-to? How bizarre.
oh that is so odd! i saw the headline a couple of days ago too, and when i just read the link up above, i was just like “um, having sex with partners of different sizes isn’t hard, but if someone needs a how-to, more power to ’em I guess…”
right — i was like… did this girl also write a guide?? what’s happening? i would also say the vast majority of women i’ve had sex with have not been the same size as me, and i imagine that’s pretty common, and therefore not necessarily in need of a guide. maybe that’s why that headline got more clicks, it didn’t make any damn sense so people were intrigued to find out why it existed at all.
I had to google salt lamps
they make the nicest rosy glow!
congrats on the mirror move!
Very suspenseful story that I thought might end with a broken mirror! Glad it did not!
AWWWW!! I like seeing the rainbow version of my flag at the top pf an article. ❤❤❤❤❤ Most of the time that people use the word “Latino”, they seem to mean, “just Mexicans”.
About getting stuff you don’t need because it’s cheap; I went to IKEA on Sunday and got a side table that cost $9.99 for exercise purposes. XD
As for finding and keeping a job while being multiple minorities and having medical problems, I had been looking for work for over a year when I finally managed to get a job that I was laid off from after two months, a week and a day. While I think it’s because someone from the administration didn’t particularly like my face, my mom thinks it was due to problems I started having with my medical condition after I started working there. In any case, that’s illegal and I gave no reason for them to fire me so they had to come up with a bullshit excuse for it.
I’ve been job hunting ever since and think about removing my volunteer experience during the Pride parade because if I managed the miracle of getting through the ATS, probably I was discriminated against either because of that or my race/ethnicity. Also, since this place we’re living at isn’t exactly well known cpr being the most welcoming of LGBTQ+ people, in addition to the volunteer stuff, my parents told me to not wear “man clothes” for the interviews.
I’m surprised anyone involved in politricks in Japan would accuse anyone LGBTQ+ of being unproductive since there are at least two transgender and at least two gay politicians there and most of them have been involved in that since before it was talked about often. Maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising though what with Abe’s comments about comfort women from a few years ago and the men STILL working them STILL victim blaming and talking about how menstruation influences women so they shouldn’t be in politricks.
I love the photo on the front page for this article!
I can’t tell you how much I love that Latino millennials are the least heterosexual. Feels like we should be getting a prize!
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Hello I want to share a beautiful story about myself and my triumph over mediocrity. I recently bought a large salt lamp because it was deeply discounted and I’ve been wanting one for my desk the other one’s on my nightstand, see, and I can’t cart the thing up and down the stairs twice a day because I’m not a Olympic athlete ok.
As for finding and keeping a job while being multiple minorities and having medical problems, I had been looking for work for over a year when I finally managed to get a job that I was laid off from after two months, a week and a day. While I think it’s because someone from the administration didn’t particularly like my face, my mom thinks it was due to problems I started having with my medical condition after I started working there. In any case, that’s illegal and I gave no reason for them to fire me so they had to come up with a bullshit excuse for it.