Here’s a casual reminder that the repeal of Net Neutrality officially goes into affect on April 23rd. We still have time to do something, we only need ONE more vote from the Senate to restore Net Neutrality, so please keep calling your representatives and put pressure on them to vote against the FCC’s repeal
To clarify, I’m not a wlw. I’m a mlm. But this story is wlw related, and I hope it can make people feel better about themselves, especially those who took a while to come to terms with themselves.
I came out as gay when I was 16. The reception was varied. My mom’s side generally accepted me in a lukewarm way where you can tell deep down they’re kinda not ok with it, but are trying to be nice. My dad’s side of the family rejected me pretty harshly. So, as you can imagine, I felt pretty alone.
I live in the US while my maternal grandma lives in Canada. We go to visit her shortly after I came out, and she eventually became aware of my sexuality from the hushed whispers. There’s a stereotype that older folk aren’t too accepting of the LGBT community, so I was nervous given she was 71… but I was wrong. She accepted me. Not only that, but she seemed to genuinely accept me. I didn’t get the vibe of lingering discomfort (and I’m very intuitive with that sort of thing). It was a relief.
She ended up getting an email address, and we’d keep touch via email. We’d talk about the typical stuff: school, work, friends. But she also asked me about my love life, seeming genuinely interested. It didn’t seem unnatural to her that I’d be pursuing boys instead of girls. She was the first to hear about my first boyfriend, and by far the most supportive of it.
Fast forward 2 years. I’m 18. I was about to go into college (somewhere more liberal, for my own sake). I had been in a relationship for almost a year now. Things were going pretty well. I was still in touch with my grandma. Then one day, she asked if she can vent about something. I said of course.
Her email was long. She talks about how she was never really attracted to my grandfather (he died when they were 65 of a heart attack). She considered him her best friend, and she missed him dearly as a friend, but nothing more. She admitted that she considered it a relief when the two grew older and the once flaming hot passion cooled down to a mere sizzle.
She told me how she was into women her entire life, though she denied it for a while. She reminisced about repressed crushes on ex best friends, finding female celebrities attractive and denying it, basically a lot of stuff that seems pretty typical of the stories of lesbians in denial.
She told me that it felt too late to be a lesbian. She was 73, had been married to a man, never was into women, and “past her prime.” I could only imagine how painful it was to have denied such a major part of herself for so long. When I came out at 16, I couldn’t imagine waiting another day, let alone so many decades.
I can’t pretend like my response was perfect and insightful. I was still a dumb 18 year old. But I did my best to assure her otherwise, and that she may as well live the rest of her life the way she wants to. I forget exactly what I said, but she thanked me and we moved on, talking about my upcoming college or something. The details escape me.
Fast forward another 5 years, to the present. If anything, her love life is going better than mine. She found a partner (also on a similar boat – in her 70’s, once married to a now dead man, denied her true sexuality), and she’s been with her for 2 years. I finally got the chance to meet her a year ago and they’re so cute together and it’s the happiest I’ve ever seen my grandma.
small brain: this advert is gay! that’s so progressive and cool
larger brain: that advert is taking advantage of “pink advertising” to sell you a product, they’re hijacking gay rights for profit
universe brain: even if this advert is taking advantage of gay rights for profit, it at least is on the face of things accepting of the lgbt+ community which will help normalise gay relationships on a broader spectrum of media. you could argue “this gay rep is for progressive points” for any form of media – and many “anti-sjw”/homophobes do. while gay representation for profit is definitely not great, positive representation of any kind isn’t something we should reject and scorn for or companies will stop – whether because they don’t see the benefit or the scorn feels like bad press to them
nirvana brain: i’m kin with the gay brother from the coke advert
meme in spanish: (uses a word very similar to its equivalents in every other language that has at least some root in latin, rest of the spoken dialogue can be guessed from context) everyone at the same time: This meme transcends language
A friendly fox in Pripyat, Chernobyl exclusion zone
*happy cheerful music as fox plays in deserted nuclear radiation land*
This is the aesthetic
Fun facts about the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone:
1) Most of it is pretty safe, even for long periods of time. In fact about 200 native people still live there, but no new settlement is allowed, so that number has declined from about 1200 after the zone was created in 1986.
2)The zone has become an unintentional animal reserve. Its ~1000 square miles of uninhabited forest. Poaching happens, but not to the degree one might expect due to the fear of radiation. Also as a consequence there are lots of human friendly animals like this fox. Most of the humans they do see are tourists that regularly feed them.
3) Its one big science experiment on post human occupation, environmental contamination, and radioactive degradation. Weve actually learned a hell of a lot about what would happen to a city after everyone leaves and how nature takes back over thanks to the city of Pripyat. And how the environment adapts to sudden changes and evolves. A fungus was desvovered in and around the Chernobyl Disaster Site that creates chemical energy out gamma radiation emitted from the melted down core. Something biologists had only theorized as even possible a few years ago, and heres this fungus feeding on it. Its crazy man!
^^ i was literally thinking about if nature and wild life had taken back over the area
so uh, my water pump for our well broke, we’re not hooked up to the city’s water, so the city isn’t responsible for it, because we’re far too rural to be on city’s water system, the only way we can get water is via a pump
uhh anyway, i have kidney stones, my brother has cancer and diabetes, and my dad has diabetes, we need water …. we will die without enough water lmao… like this isn’t a “oh we’re mildly inconvenienced we can’t shower and have to pee outside” this is a “we don’t have fucking water and our health relies heavily on it”
on average i alone probably drink 6 liters of water, now you make think thats unhealthy, but like … thats how much water i need to drink when passing a kidney stone lmaoo i drink an obscene amount of water and my brother and dad drink similar amounts to me.
this is very urgent …
it’s $1300 for a pump and having it put in which we cannot do because it’s particularly deep, and dangerous.
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