during transitory periods of your life you may hit a 'this isn't even worth it, i'm already exhausted out of my mind from the effort of bringing this about, and losing any comforts i may have had in my life before - is it even going to be better for all of this?'. that's the hater PRINCE DIOS speaking and you have to run him over with a car

help a Black autistic trans couple survive:

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making a new ebegging post for april, aka autism awareness month! my wife and i r two autistic (and otherwise neurodivergent and disabled) Black trans folks living in Texas, unable to maintain gainful employment due to our disabilities. as a result, we are reliant on mutual aid and community support for our living expenses. any help folks can send to my main apps (or our shared ones) or by getting an item from our registry goes a long way, and means more than you could ever imagine. thanks so much for reading n rbing! (PLEASE DO NOT TAG THIS POST UNLESS FOR ACCESSIBILITY PURPOSES)

i guess the take here is that i believe in pretentious versus unpretentious dining as a useful gastronomic rubric the same way i believe in it as a useful literary rubric ie. pretty much not at all. what i think is constructive is thinking about how particular styles of food + service attract or detract from prestige and how the social currency of those styles is determined relative to the usual suspects of broader social formations ie. class, racism, colonialism.

which cuisines are allowed access to a 'pretentious' sphere in the first place? western european, undeniably. 'street food,' to me, is a racialised term; off the top of my head (& speaking from a specifically british metropolitan context), jamaican, indian, chinese, nigerian, southwest asian, greek cuisines, among others -- 'authentic' or otherwise -- are "street food" (found at food stalls or in cheap cafes and restaurants w/ a v. basic standard of service). paying the same prices for an upscale chinese or indian restaurant meal that you might for an upscale french or italian catches ire, often irrespective of the quality of the meal or service; there's a derision towards these spaces that i think gets caught in the net that 'pretentiousness' casts, and i don't like the assumption that western european countries get to dominate the upper echelons of culinary development whilst racialised cuisines in european settings are only ever cheap, accessible, low-fuss meals.

& similarly, what does it mean to 'elevate' a racialised cuisine to a higher price point & a more involved standard of service? i hate dishoom is a great piece about the british 'indian street food' restaurant phenomenon -- i worked in one of these places in central manchester, hated it, and used to say all the time that it attracted a crowd of white people who wanted to think of themselves as the sorts of people who ate "authentic" south asian food but were too racist to go to places like the curry mile. in conversation w/ a friend about these sorts of restaurants a few weeks ago, she described the discursive apparatus of one of them as a "noble savage"-type view of indian cuisine; the family recipe, passed down through generations, coming straight from the orient to yr doorstep. it's not at all uncommon for racialised cuisines to be picked up by predominantly-white ownership, predominantly-white FOH (and even BOH sometimes), and get sold back to a predominantly-white clientele in a neutered form, often pricing out people from the communities from which it originated. so you see the contradiction here -- i don't like the assumption that the food of racialised communities ought to be shut out from these higher-end settings (i do think higher-end settings have a lot to offer, i find as many of them to be interesting and unique and intellectually involved as i do pneumatic and unchallenging and overpriced, and i do think there exists w/ pretty much any dish you can think of a gradient of quality that comes into being to some extent relative to quality/expense of ingredients and expertise in craft), and nor do i like what often ends up done to those cuisines in order to break into those spaces, or at least mimic them.

& how do these more elevated spaces sustain themselves? dress codes, security guards, different codes of conduct for different guests. who gets to be a welcome and uncomplicated recipient of hospitality in fine dining/premium casual settings? i used to work at a fine dining-adj place where we were instructed to give far more careful + attentive service to the tables who were willing to spend £100+ on a bottle of wine. like, it's a classed space, and maintains itself the way any other classed space does.

i want culinary styles outside of the western european hegemon to emerge into the more 'elevated' spaces in hospitality on their own intellectual terms & through interaction w/ gastronomic science that allows for the development & elevation of a dish, but that feels like a tall order. i ask the same q's of restaurants relative to prestige or a lack thereof that i ask of texts relative to the literary canon; why do we attach value to this but not that, why do i like this, why do i dismiss that. what do i think it's saying about me as a person to enjoy or deride this or that, what assumptions have i let go unchallenged. what interests me, how do i follow up on this interest. what do i know about this, what don't i understand, do i want to understand, how do i go about understanding. how did this get here in this form. i like what i like w/ restaurants -- i like an elevated service, i like complexity, i like food and drink that tastes good -- i think the best i can do is discard this v. inchoate framework of 'pretentiousness' and simply try to consistently challenge myself & my assumptions along the way of developing my taste.

Housing Emergency

Please help two disabled trans women and @rickybabyboy stay housed

My bank has seemingly fucked us over. I paid off our credit so we would be able to cover rent with the credit we would have from paying it off completely and save everyone some money. They have taken the money out of our account but still havent applied it to our credit days later. Now the apartment complex has turned off our water and I don't think we have time to wait anymore.

I am begging for the money to cover rent now. Please please help us. I can't be on the streets I have multiple disorders that require I mostly be homebound especially in high heat.

I am a programmer and an artist, I will do most any work in these fields for money. If you want work done you can email me at me@agie.gay or message me @utopicwork

$10/$1500 raised

Venmo: AGIEF

Paypal: agieocean@gmail.com

Ko-fi:

Anonymously tell me your assumpmtions about me and I'll confirm or deny them.

!!!

I am once more appealing for my friend Ayah! She has tried to keep a brave face this Eid and has bought new clothes for her small children to bring them joy, but in reality, she is wracked with anxiety over the future. The fundraiser that they are relying on is not getting any donations. The situation is incredibly dire.

Since their old fundraiser was shut down, their new fundraiser has only raised €3,219 out of their goal €50,000 in 4 months of campaigning. This is not nearly enough for anyone to live off of, let alone a whole family living through a genocide where the cost of living is skyrocketing due to the scarcity of food, medicine, and supplies.

Please let's make a difference for them this Eid. If you can donate and give hope back to their family, please do so. And keep sharing the fundraiser. Follow Ayah here @ayo0osh

(remaking because my post lost r/traction)

Okay so my roommate has now threatened multiple times to stop paying rent and tell the landlord there's people living here who aren't on the lease as well as several other behaviours that have made her increasingly impossible to live with she's the only one who's actually on the lease and I think it's time for me to gtfo. Trying to get rent paid and help the remaining people trying to live there keep the lights on. I dont really know where I can go but I'm crashing at a friend's place rn. Asking for $600 to help remaining roommates out and square away bills and whatnot. Anything helps.

Cashapp: lilove99

Venmo: thelmaelizabeth99

PayPal: thelmaelizabeth99

($70/600)

($90/600)

Please help if you can I've started moving my stuff into a friend's attic because my current roommates have started being really agro to me and really want me to move out because they've found someone they want to take my room to but I still haven't found a place. The situation is really bad, I don't know these people very well but they've been acting really fucking weird and going in my room. I'm pretty convinced one of them ruined my PC too

($90/600)

Tbh I just really need to buy cigarettes today. I'm so exhausted, couch surfing is really getting to me and I just want to go smoke. Please like that would honestly make so much of a difference

($300/600) thank you so much

I've officially been forced out of the best home I've ever known, the new roommates out all my stuff outside without telling me even tho the plan was to stay another month. Had to have a pretty heated confrontation between my friends and them. I'm staying in a friend's attic now. Would still appreciate any help

🚨Urgent and important appeal🚨

‼️‼️The crossing is closed‼️‼️

I'm Wasim from Gaza, as you know the crossings are closed and the situation is very difficult, everything is expensive, we cannot afford any food or gas and we are in the holy month of Ramadan and we fast for 15 hours and we cannot break our fast because of the high cost of food...😭😞

As you can see, we do not have cooking gas because the crossings are closed, and we suffer a lot when cooking...😔😭‼️

My mother also needs medicine and vitamins, but she cannot buy them because they are expensive due to the closure of the crossings and the scarcity of the quantity.😭

‼️Help us and donate so that we can break our fast in this blessed month and so that my mother can receive her vitamins...😔🤲🫂‼️

Campaign Link ⬇️⬇️⬇️

✅️Vetted by @gazavetters , my number verified on the list is ( #290 )✅️

i love doing nothing ❤️

Yaaaay my nothing ❤ #mynothing