Best posts made by Aria

So it's now October, which means Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Which means that every goddamn thing marketed to women ever is now pink. And as someone who comes from a family where my grandmother had breast cancer at 46, and my mom had breast cancer at 50, and where I probably have a max of about 15 years before my tits try to kill me.....

This infuriates me. Mostly because a whooooooooooole lot of these things that are Pepto-pink and slapped with ribbons? Either don't actually make any charitable donations, make very minimal ones compared to the price of the product, or donate to poorly run organizations that effectively exist to make a profit rather than actually benefit anyone. (Lookin' at you, Susan G. Komen Foundation.) Especially if they're advertising their primary mission as "awareness". We all know what breast cancer is, guys. Mission accomplished!

If you were going to buy something anyway because you liked it, by all means, go right ahead and do so guilt-free! If you're buying something because you want to do good and get something in exchange, do your research. If you just want to do good, please just donate directly to the charity! I'm already getting emails that are like, "For every ugly $55 pink sweatshirt you buy, we'll donate $1 to one three charities!" and I pinkie-swear-no-backsies that you can probably find an ugly pink sweatshirt for $30 and donate the other $25 to the BCRF or wherever.

ETA: PS -- Check your boobs for weird lumps. Please. It takes, like, two minutes.

@insomniac7809 said in The Work Thread:

I don't care that you're hung over.

I don't care that you have homework.

I don't care about your relationship drama.

I don't care about Nicki Minaj.

Put your phones away and do your jobs.

These fucking twenty-year-olds are killing me.

Aww, sweetie! You've become The Man.

I may or may not have just caused a riot in the forum for my current course over the bullshit way the TAs have been grading assignments.

On November 17 evening, Mayor Jennifer Ananda proclaimed that Lawrence, Kansas, was now the 'official hometown of Sam and Dean Winchester, fictional characters of the television show Supernatural' at the City Commission Meeting. Ananda said that in her last full meeting as mayor, this was 'something she wanted to do because it was exciting and fun' and as a moment of 'levity' before stepping down as mayor after a particularly tough year. She added that she 'came of age with the Winchester brothers'. She hoped that one day, once the pandemic was finally over, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padelecki would finally visit Sam and Dean's hometown and take the 'haunted tour downtown and take care of some of those ghosts and The Eldritch'.

Thanksgiving in 2020 means waking up late and having pie for "breakfast".

I have literally had this conversation with four different people over the last week, in response to some things.

Offering an explanation is fine! It gives context. It gives understanding. It helps to highlight that the thing, whatever the thing was, was not intended maliciously.

But that's not the same thing as an excuse and it sure as hell is not the same thing as an apology. Especially when it's done repeatedly and the extension of understanding and patience is only expected to go one way.

Those people? Those people people can go fuck themselves. Sympathy is not a free pass to be a steaming pile of shit.

@puppybreath

My use of exclamation points is mandated by my perceived gender so that people don't think I'm being a bitch just for addressing them!

Should I add one more for good measure? Probably.

Apparently, the promotion to my new role involves switching me from being an hourly, non-exempt employee to an exempt, salaried employee.

Like, wow. For the first time in 15+ years of a professional career, I have a manager who has actually recognized that it doesn't matter if I walk off for two hours at 3PM because I need to go to the post office and the library before they close and then sit on my laptop writing communication drafts at 8PM, as long as a) I'm reachable and b) I'm getting my work done.

It's like my employer has recognized that I'm actually a fucking adult. Weird.

@macha said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Yeah. I refuse to put up with doctor's shit, anymore.

There was a time I went in to an OBGYN about a (small, temporary) issue that was causing me severe pain, he (because of course it was a he) told me he wasn't going to do anything to treat it until it got exponentially worse, and then calmly informed me not to worry because I could still have sex (which I hadn't asked him).

Because clearly, clearly the fact that I was in severe pain was of no concern, as long as I was still bangable.

Every time I've let a medical professional bully me, I've ended up worse off than I was before. My patience for doctors and their stupid bullshit is non-existent and I have reached the point that I say exactly what I think, right to their face, and make no apologies for it. If they don't like it, I don't really care.

@l-b-heuschkel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@aria But, if your partner can still get off, you're fine -- right?

Oh, yeah. I mean, let's be honest. I could suffer massive brain damage, lose a leg, and have half my skin peel off and we're totally good as long as @insomniac7809 can still bang one out before breakfast.

(In truth, bless my husband and his sweet little heart. After I told him what happened, he took one look at that OBGYN walking past and called out "Hey! What the fuck is wrong with you?!" in front of everyone in the waiting room. Much <3. I picked a good one.)

@greenflashlight said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@insomniac7809 said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

"Nobody wants to work anymore," I keep hearing.

Motherfuckers of course nobody wants to work, that's what work is.

I think people want to work. We just want our work to be fulfilling and humane; and our overlords frown on that because then we start getting uppity ideas about being people instead of numbers on spreadsheets.

^ I actually enjoy working and would continue working even if I were independently wealthy, because I like having a routine, feeling productive, and especially like working for companies that I feel make a positive difference for people, even if I'm not in a customer-facing role.

I do not enjoy working for chronically toxic jackasses that underpay and underappreciate, if not outright abuse, their employees and would like to have the option of tossing up deuces as I walk backwards away from my desk.

I have come to the conclusion that at least 80% of grad school is wondering why the fuck you did this to yourself, she said after five pages of calculations re: American COVID stimulus spending.

@selira said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Depression, anxiety and even PTSD rates all shot through the roof recently. There's help for all of them out there.

Take care of yourselves.

As someone who has legit been on and off meds for all three of those for the last... 22 years? And who has had multiple suicides in her family?

If you're overwhelmed by the mental health system* in the United States, I am more than happy to help you. Even if you don't particularly like me and I don't particularly like you, I will put that aside to answer any legitimate questions you have if you need help and have never done this before.

(*Note: I use the word 'system' as loosely as possible here. As loosely as possible.)

It's really super sweet that my dog is very concerned about how sick I am and just wants to lay next to me and cuddle.....

It would also be much more effective if he'd stop releasing gag-inducing farts, like, right on me when I already have food poisoning.

I was going to reply with a legitimate suggestion, but then this appeared on my Facebook feed and I'm laughing so hard that I'm just done for the night.

@testament

We give you the gift of cheesesteaks and this is what you people do with it.

I had a conversation with my boyfriend about this subject last year, specifically re: the death of flaming human garbage pile Antonin Scalia. The conclusion I came to was this:

I wasn't happy that the man was dead. I was happy that he could no longer inflict his particular brand of harmful bullshit on large swaths of people. Those are not the same thing and I feel absolutely zero guilt about the latter whatsoever.

YMMV.

@Auspice said in The Crafting Thread:

Sparkly green scarf ftw

Fun Fur: for when you decide you hate yourself and want to go blind trying to count stitches.

@Auspice said in Good or New Movies Review:

@Aria said in Good or New Movies Review:

@Auspice said in Good or New Movies Review:

I think one of the few cases in recent years where a company truly made strides as opposed to 'just slap a rainbow on it and make us some $$$' was Target. Because they took a holistic approach to inclusivity. You can find cards at a Target specifically for gay or lesbian relationships, not just 'eh, put some neutral cards out; those will work' type stuff. They acknowledged 'A wife may want a card for her wife' or 'People may want to wish both grooms congratulations' and saw it through.

I think, for a lot of people, that's the sort of thing they want to see. Sure, it's fun to have rainbow mouse ears if you go to Disney, but if that's all they have to offer, it sort of stings too to know that it wasn't worth the effort of putting any more thought into it than 'rainbow stuff = $$$'

As someone who spent years working in marketing organizations, the inclusivity of Target's advertisements was a big deal in the industry. Like, even though I worked at pharmaceutical and financial companies for ten years, it was pretty standard for Target to drop their Christmas toy catalog and find copies of it floating around my office within a few days, with every page that depicted people with physical disabilities, interracial relationships, a nod to their ethnicity, plus sized models, or families headed by same-sex couples with their pages turned down for people to look at -- and not just to steal ideas, but because they honestly enjoyed looking at the catalog.

Honestly, it's probably one of the most wholesome things I've ever seen in a business context because people wanted to improve our advertisements not just for the $$$, but because they were sincerely emotional every time one of their coworkers got all worked up and excited about seeing someone in that book that looked like them and their family. And if you do that enough, it stops feeling like a throwaway and starts looking like real life.

In the same vein, when Aerie/AE made their announcement that they would no longer photoshop their models... their catalogs looked twenty times better. Like, GASP, you could see belly rolls on girls sitting (damn near everyone's belly folds when they sit, it's anatomy, but teenage me thought differently due to models in advertising), you see girls covered in FRECKLES (fuck the people in the advertising industry who thought freckles were bad and began THAT trend), and even larger girls. I absolutely make Aerie/AE one of my stops when I need to shop for new stuff.

(The pants I am wearing rn are actually from them and they are black/red plaid and my favorite pants.)

As someone who is plus-sized, I go out of my way to spend money at stores that don't put all of their clothes on models who are a 5'11" and US size 12 (fuck you, that's still smaller than the average woman's size in the States and at that height is just called 'proportional') and who stopped airbrushing out any hints of a stretchmark or cellulite.

My MIL watched me burst into tears the first time I saw a TV show where there was a plus-sized female protagonist that was neither a middle-aged mother or the butt of someone's joke, but just, y'know.... my size.

Representation that isn't tokenism matters so goddamn much.