pers-books:

letsmeetinourdreams:

“Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated—with one another; with the rainy, sleety weather; with the world itself. Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got on, and nobody offered her a seat. Rage was in the air; no mercy would be found here.

But as the bus approached Seventh Avenue, the driver got on the intercom. “Folks,” he said, “I know you’ve had a rough day and you’re frustrated. I can’t do anything about the weather or traffic, but here’s what I can do. As each one of you gets off the bus, I will reach out my hand to you. As you walk by, drop your troubles into the palm of my hand, okay? Don’t take your problems home to your families tonight—just leave ‘em with me. My route goes right by the Hudson River, and when I drive by there later, I’ll open the window and throw your troubles in the water. Sound good?”

It was as if a spell had lifted. Everyone burst out laughing. Faces gleamed with surprised delight. People who’d been pretending for the past hour not to notice each other’s existence were suddenly grinning at each other like, is this guy serious?

Oh, he was serious.

At the next stop—just as promised—the driver reached out his hand, palm up, and waited. One by one, all the exiting commuters placed their hand just above his and mimed the gesture of dropping something into his palm. Some people laughed as they did this, some teared up—but everyone did it. The driver repeated the same lovely ritual at the next stop, too. And the next. All the way to the river.

We live in a hard world, my friends. Sometimes it’s extra difficult to be a human being. Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad day that lasts for several years. You struggle and fail. You lose jobs, money, friends, faith, and love. You witness horrible events unfolding in the news, and you become fearful and withdrawn. There are times when everything seems cloaked in darkness. You long for the light but don’t know where to find it.

But what if you are the light? What if you’re the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for?

That’s what this bus driver taught me—that anyone can be the light, at any moment. This guy wasn’t some big power player. He wasn’t a spiritual leader. He wasn’t some media-savvy “influencer.” He was a bus driver—one of society’s most invisible workers. But he possessed real power, and he used it beautifully for our benefit.

When life feels especially grim, or when I feel particularly powerless in the face of the world’s troubles, I think of this man and ask myself, What can I do, right now, to be the light? Of course, I can’t personally end all wars, or solve global warming, or transform vexing people into entirely different creatures. I definitely can’t control traffic. But I do have some influence on everyone I brush up against, even if we never speak or learn each other’s name. How we behave matters because within human society everything is contagious—sadness and anger, yes, but also patience and generosity. Which means we all have more influence than we realize.

No matter who you are, or where you are, or how mundane or tough your situation may seem, I believe you can illuminate your world. In fact, I believe this is the only way the world will ever be illuminated—one bright act of grace at a time, all the way to the river.“

–Elizabeth Gilbert

I think it’s time this got another airing.

depsidase:

hellyeahscarleteen:

hellyeahscarleteen:

New Advice Column!

HOW TO APPROACH HEALTHCARE VISITS AND GYN EXAMS AFTER SEXUAL ABUSE AND MEDICAL TRAUMA

A user reached out asking: “I was sexually abused as a young child. I’m 25 now, and I’ve never had anything inside my vagina⁠. I tried to have a pap smear ⁠when I was about 22 or 23, but it was horribly traumatic. My mom was with me and we told the doctor my history, but the doctor seemed to not really care. She acted like I didn’t need to be scared and that everyone does it. I tried so hard to tough it out⁠, and my mom was so supportive, but I was scared and in pain… I know that I need to have a pap smear because of my really bad periods, cysts on my ovaries⁠ (seen from scans), and family history of ovarian cancer (multiple generations) but I’m so scared…”

Head over to the link below to read s.e. smith’s response on how to navigate medical spaces and pelvic exams after sexual abuse. They share important resources to help you medically advocate for yourself, what to expect from gyn visits, and things to keep in mind when it comes to both gynecological and mental health!

I've been abused, but I have to have a pap smear.

Hello Rose, You’ve come to the right place for advice. You deserve love and care in your life, and I’m sorry someone broke your trust and abused you as a child. I hope that as an adult, you have lots of strong friends and supporters around you, not just in the context of going to the doctor, but for life in general. I also want to say that I am so sorry that your last exam was so horrible. Treating a patient the way that doctor did is not standard practice, normal or okay. What you have described also sounds like an abuse, medical abuse, in particular. If you are able and open to it, you may

www.scarleteen.com

ALT

This article goes in depth on what to expect from your next GYN visit and gives some guidance on pelvic exams, including pap smears.

Linked in this article are other helpful Scarleteen resources you can use for your next healthcare visit:

A breakdown of what should happen at a GYN visit

A guide to help you medically advocate for yourself

A comprehensive guide to pelvic floor problems, symptoms, and treatment

purlturtle:

nudityandnerdery:

victusinveritas:

library-graffiti:

nudityandnerdery:

nudityandnerdery:

I want you to remember:

The fascists hate you too and they just will pretend otherwise until after they’ve killed the rest of us, before they turn on you.

Thanks to whoever tried, but I knew they’d never allow it.

Let’s do it the old fashioned way. Spread it far and wide.

Reminder: you can’t be the whole wall against stopping fascism by yourself. Nobody can. But you damn sure can be a brick.

There’s a lot of good comments and tags in the notes, but this one is very important, I feel like it deserves some emphasis.

Part of how authoritarianism works is telling you that you can’t stop it. And you can’t stop it by yourself. But it wants to stop the train of thought there and let you fall into despair.

You need to remember the next part: you don’t have to stop it by yourself.

You’re not alone. Take care of your community and let your community take care of you. Supporting each other is so vital.

staying alive and as sane/healthy as you can be, is being a brick too. This is a marathon not a sprint. Live today so that you can live tomorrow, and continue to be a brick in the way that you can. We need you too, even when you’re not out in the streets, or donating to causes, or spreading the word. We need you; please stay alive, and take care of your health, mental and physical.

lil-high-alien:

kidobsolete:

ladykaymd:

inrnsanity:

Experience: Learning the right way to connect the dots.

This is the best representation of something I have been trying to explain to people for years!!!! Saving this to my phone so I can routinely pull it out when I need. 

This shit never made more sense than now

thememedaddy:

saxonratliffs:

it should be illegal for the weekends to last literally two seconds like what the fuck

cacodaemonia:

rainbowriderjt:

Whale Cleaning

THESE CLIPS ARE NOT REAL. THEY’RE CGI—LIKELY AI GENERATED.

The huge clumps of barnacles coming off just didn’t look right, and I was pretty sure something so abrasive would really hurt the whales, so I took a closer look. If you watch the video a couple of times, you’ll see that the brushes and crane-like things are different in every shot, as is the size of the boat, which sometimes seems quite large and sometimes makes it look like the people are in a rowboat. There’s no way there’s a whole fleet of magically-funded whale cleaning ships out there. The clips also show delicate display screens and wires/cords sticking up all over the place, where they could get splashed or hit with barnacle shards.

To double check my hunch about barnacle removal being painful, I did a quick search and found this Business Insider article:

Shari Bondy, a behavioral scientist who runs a whale-watching company in the area, said the video was disturbing.

“People are going to get hurt because of that video,” Bondy told Insider in an interview. “They’re going to think: ‘Oh, look, the whale loves this,’ but actually it’s really bad for them.”

Bondy, who has studied gray whales for decades, said picking parasites like barnacles off whales could hurt them because of their extremely thin and sensitive skin.

“People think the whales have got that big layer of blubber, that they don’t feel anything, but that’s not true,” she said. “So pulling parasites off with your fingers is certainly very, very painful for the whale,” she said.

“The barnacles in their skin have a foot that sinks in, that screws itself and embeds into the blubber by quite a bit. Could be even up to an inch down there. And they’re very hard,” she added.

Barnacles, she said, can only be pulled off by humans when they’re already hanging by a thread or when the whale’s skin is already shedding.

“Whales, for thousands of years, have been surviving without people picking parasites off,” she told Insider.

Whales that are bothered by parasites often crush them by rubbing their bodies on the bottom of boats or swimming into fresh water so they fall off, she said.

buf309:

last-starry-sky:

yeahwrite:

thelocalmuffin:

Hey everyone, I know it’s going to be a busy day for a lot of people, but Google enrolled everyone over 18 into their AI program automatically.

If you have a google account, first go to gemini.google.com/extensions and turn everything off.

Then you need to go to myactivity.google.com/product/gemini and turn off all Gemini activity tracking. You do have to do them in that order to make sure it works.

Honestly, I’m not sure how long this will last, but this should keep Gemini off your projects for a bit.

I saw this over on bluesky and figured it would be good to spread on here. It only takes a few minutes to do.

Writers: It’s asking to read your Google Docs and be able to ‘summarize’ things from them and such things. I just turned all mine off.

Because this isn’t mentioned above, also go to google.com/drive/settings and turn off all the annoying bits that interface directly with docs there.

This is all in the “privacy” tab of your settings. How fun that everything is hidden two layers deep. 🙄 This DOESN’T get rid of the stupid little star constantly asking you to use it, unfortunately, but that’s what the picker in ublock is for. 😉

More detail instructions for OP’s post for those who are confused. This is done from the browser on my laptop, I don’t know what they look like on phones.

When you click the first link gemini.google.com/extensions, you need to click on the setting icon at the bottom, then choose “Extension”, like this:

Scroll down a bit, you will see the options, turn them all off.

Then, you click on the second link myactivity.google.com/product/gemini, you’ll see it tells you that it’s already “turn off”. NO! IT’S NOT! You have to click on that “Turn off” option, it’ll drop down a menu like this:

Turn that thing off. Until that button shows you have to click to turn it back on like this:

And then, click on the delete button down there too, even if it says there’s nothing to delete, just do it as a caution.

After you’s done with those two. You go to your Drive, find the Setting button.

Click on the “Privacy” tab, choose the button “Manage Workspace smart feature setting”

Tick both of those off, then click Save. Or if you still want to use Google AI assistant for some reasons, please read the fine lines very very carefully.

Only then, you can feel safe enough with this force AI assistant bullshit. FOR NOW 🤡 All these steps still can’t get rid of that Gemini blinkblink icon though >:(((((

Repeat for every one of your google accounts 💀

crazysodomite:

Buses are very tolerant of humans and not skittish at all. Trains are much less tolerant and they get scared easily … Trains hate when their way of life /schedule is disturbed. Even a small deviation will be very stressful for a train. While buses are used to it. They have to deal with cars every day so their tolerance is very high. Buses are like large herbivores. You can’t push them over or make them do something they don’t like. You may train it but they still go their own way most of the time. Very independent. While a train doesn’t know what to do when it sees a plastic bag on the tracks