Golden Retriever GF

@thatfrisiangirlish@blahaj.zone bawoof woof grrrrr

My wifish is clearing up storage in the camera for our vacation to Ireland tomorrow and sent this picture to me. Ae's been spending time with that cute girl I keep seeing in the mirror!

I am going to say this in English but it's about Berlin. I'm doing this as I'll also be referencing Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. So I came out about a year after the Pulse shootings. It wasn't phrased as an attack on the queer community but rather Florida and US Democracy as a whole. A muslim extremist slaughtered 49 and wounded 58 with a machine gun.

I remember the queer community being robbed. I remember the pride banners. I even had one to support a community I would find out I belong to the next year. I remember it being made about not the deaths of queers but an attack on democracy. "Those depraved Muslims." they said, like they were any better

Florida is now one of the most conservative, anti-LGBT states to the point that tourism has died. So clearly this event meant absolutely nothing. I remember on the anniversary a year later as a freshly hatched egg, neutral NPR asked a Neo Nazi what he thought and he thought in retrospect he was glad they had killed the filthy perverts. I went and wept in a bathroom. I had never even met this man and he would glory in my death.

Now this is linked to the same terror group IS except in Germany. The CDU/CSU has decided no firewall has to be crossed if they stand on the side of fascism. They have been painting a target on our backs for years. Increased extremism. Increased hate and now what do I hear all over again, the queer community robbed of it's own massacre.

It's an attack on European Values. An attack on democracy. Full stop it's an attack on LGBT. This is the same issue I have with allies. We aren't allowed our own deaths, discrimination or massacres. It has to be about you. When there's blood on the hands of the AFD and the CDU/CSU, you can't call us depraved perverts and then turn around and rainbow coat your regressive, populist politics to make this about you and your xenophobia.

I've already seen this played out so often that what stings the most is my inability to care. It's so much par for the course for cishets to make our extermination about you that I have given up on even feeling. But the ordeal is as follows. We have seen this before. We are watching and dogshit wrapped in rainbow sprinkles remains dogshit.

The suspect was born and raised in Germany. He is a German. This is not about Immigrants or Islam. It's about increase in populism. Stop weaponising our deaths for your politics. We, the queer community, are tired of your dogshit, rainbow sprinkles or no.

#Berlincsd #pulsenightclub #homophobia

There is a festival at the manor near our house and this means parking is rather at a premium. We are concerned about parking so a say to my wife

Me: I know, I know! We could do the most German thing imaginable. When we need to leave our spot we could just leave a white towel there and it would stay reserved!

( An unwritten societal rule that annoys people at swimming pools. Germans just leave a white towel on their spot and rely on strict honor code as a reservation. There is no law that says the white towel is actually a reservation. Some Germans just seem to think so, and they believe this very strongly )

My wifish: You are terrible

Me: But it's why you love me, right?

Ae: Yeahhh.....

#immigrantlife #lgbtjoy

One of my pet peeves is when a science fiction human character says "It's an earth expression" to a confused alien character when it is, in fact, not an earth expression. Earth Expression would imply it's Earth Generalized not an American English expression. "Like shooting fish in a barrel" is not an earth expression, James. America is not earth. Stop taking your culture as a the unilateral default, James. Southern California is not "Earth". Hollywood is cancer.

I'm moderately dismayed upon living outside of the USA. I was born in California and it's a frequent question and a well known state. I don't generally need to describe where California is but I do need to explain where Colorado is, generally by being north of Texas. I digress.

I am blonde, friendly, loquatious, tall, a bit of a drama queen and my new endo in Germany assumed that from the rather "perfect" shape of my breasts that I had already had breast augmentation. I have not but he complimented them anyways. I realize that to these people I AM the Californian that they have been told about, assumed plastic and all.

I just thought of something funny. In German there is the word Fahrt it comes from Fahren which means to drive. Fahrt is a drive. Einfahrt is onramp. Ausfahrt is offramp. A lot of English speakers like to mispronounce this to Fart. But I just saw a rather poetic title of Mistfall. Mist is a bad word in German. It means shit. Fall is used in Umfall, accident; Notfall, emergency. It is a suffix meaning "case". So a Mistfall would not be anything poetic but rather a mad case of the shits.

Every language has false friends. Humans will always find eachother silly for we are, in fact, silly gooses.

#language #humor #immigrantlife

I have a friend with Aspergers, his choice and not mine, as my exboyfriend described "we autistics can label ourselves and allistics will laugh and ignore it or we can take the names of people that genocided and experimented on us. We lose either way. I won't debate people on the usage of the term" and neither will I. He has the diagnosis. He doesn't care and neither should you.

ANYWAYS there was a time he giggled and slipped me a piece of paper like it was a love note. It was a string of numbers. A code. I broke it wrote my own and handed it back. We did this back and forth for a bit and another friend caught it. Also ND. ALso genius level IQ. He sees it. Sees what we are doing and calls us Crazy in a loving way and our very niche conversation continues.

I had a autistic boyfriend and we had codes for days he was nonverbal. This smiley face means I am here but can't talk. We had hand symbols for when I needed to take over because he was overwhelmed. I am now married to an AuDHD.

My mother has OCD. Her counting number is the same as mine. I took a test. The OCD inventory. It felt like I was receiving the Voight Kampff test from bladerunner. It was awful and I too would love to shoot the test giver with a laz gun and run away. My sister has equivalently bad bipolar. My brother and father equivalently bad ADHD. My grandmother had such severe Bipolar that it read more like Schizophrenia. A condition known as Schizo Affective Disorder. My first closet lesbian relationship was with a woman with Bipolar. My second girlfriend had a brother with OCD as severe as mine. It just manifested more in throwing desks at the cause of the disturbance ( Ie a teacher or another student ) than my hyperventilating type.

I honestly have a very odd experience with humanity. I'd generally rather work with someone with Downs Syndrome than a nuerotypical and I know a few people with Downs Syndrome. It's not that I view downs syndrome as bad but rather that I find neurotypical people difficult to talk to. So I develop scripts.

And what I have learned is consistently mortifying. "ADHD and OCD can disappear as you get older" not really? I met a cook with ADHD. He was great at completing small odd tasks and he did this to throw people off that he couldn't do large tasks without help. "Just get sun and exercise" my mother, the one with severe OCD, had to get melanoma removed from her nose from TOO MUCH sun and exercise. I had a head chef that went in the ER for what he supposed was a heart attack post divorce. It was his first panic attack. I have two a month in a good month. In a bad month I can have several back to back because we parked in "Not our spot".

I've had to do exceedingly intense exposure therapy to function without medication and it's still a challenge. My sister has to limit her social interactions to 4 hours a week or lose all control which is better for her than the Atypical antipsychotics or life in a mental hospital. My grandfather had to save my grandmother from a lobotomy and she still underwent electroshock therapy.

I'm overwhelmingly used to mental disturbance, in a sense that makes me used to addicts to the point I know the smell of different cigarettes by brand. I don't know or want another life. I'm so used to being around ND people that I know what to look out for, what I'll be aroused by, what I will need to stay away from. It's like I know enough from interacting with enbies to know that one of the most attractive gender identities to me is Agender and Maverique.

Yet the vast vast vast majority of people do not even think or understand what we go through everyday. These people will say "You are the first person like you I have ever met" and it boggles my mind. How?! this is all I've ever known. How is it that NT are the majority. I guess it's true that birds of a feather flock together. My core group of friends later came out as bi with aspergers, Bi and a sociopath, and me Bi, Trans and OCD. And I mean like a sociopath. Like she has come to me weeping begging me to tell her how I can understand emotions and morality without having to logic them out of the ether while very deep into her beers.

I dunno what this rant is really about other than NT people are weird and I still struggle to see them as the norm. Statistics is weird AF.

So I feel a little odd about something. I have lived in Colorado, California, Montana, Texas, and New Mexico. If you made a line from Montana to Texas, I have visited every state West of that except for Alaska. So including Hawaii. I've visited Minnesota and Illinois and Landed in New York en route to Scotland.

I've visited Europe twice, now I live in Germany. So I have visited, Wales, England, Scotland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and now I live in Germany. I'm about to vacation in Ireland. I realize I am a bit of an outlier but seriously how in the ever living fuck are there people that have never left their home town?

Even if I didn't have a car I had two individual friends that would just show up at my house and be like "Get in loser, we're going to Yellowstone" then depending on your friend you might have a nice weekend in Yellowstone or might somehow go and get drunk and wind up in Vietnam.

Humans are persistence predators. Our locking knees are so efficient at moving that we will make our dogs exhausted before we've exercised at all. If you stayed in your home town you have failed your evolutionary assignment and you have the audacity to be proud. Like you are better than me for making your best Apple Tree impression.

Sorry I don't think it's normal to stay so stationary that you blend in with the rock strata. My persistence predator genes say "MOVE" so I move. Or "there's flowing water over there, follow it" and I will. If there is an ocean I will cross it. That's what we do. We power walked Mammoths to extinction, y'all.

It's not my fault you stuck your dick in some purity ring having virgin at prom and just decided to sit on ass and forfeit evolution. There's a reason the insult is Evolutionsbremse in German. Evolution Brakes. You had to stop doing what you were supposed to to fuck up evolution that bad. Darwin is calling.

Rant over

-Signed a Golden Retriever Girlfriend that will dance at the door before walkies happen.

I want to give some advice from a family story. My sister was in love with Peter Pan. She decided that if she could think the happiest of thoughts she could fly. She was however aware of the consequences of a failed experiment so she tied a rope through her belt loop.

I remember as she jumped from the tree, fell from the tree, the belt loop immediately snapped and she fell unceremonisouly with a thud and a small cloud of dust. For most children this would be the end of it but my sister is the patron saint of stubborness. She decided she needed to think happier thoughts .... and have a sturdier anchor.

This time when she jumped from the tree, she did so with the rope around her ankle. I remember her upside down staring at me with those green eyes like saucer plates saying as she passed the first time "Taylor" then gravity brought her back to eye contact again "go get mom"

My advice is sometimes your ideas are stupid. Sometimes the wise thing to do is not, as common wisdom dictates, to endure. Sometimes your best possible option is to just give up. My sister had to have knee surgery on that knee twice and it still hurts her. Sometimes perserverance is damaging. Sometimes surrender is wise.

The fun thing is it's often impossible to know the difference. Sometimes you just gotta think happy thoughts and jump from the tree. But maybe that dust cloud when you hit rock bottom is just telling you to give up and you really should. I don't know where that line should be drawn but you need more in this life than fairy dust, toxic positivity, and a fake it til you make it attitude.

Sometimes the only lesson from the tree of life was "that was a dumb idea" but I didn't stop my sister even if I thought her idea was about the most scientifically unsound hypothesis my 8 year old brain had ever heard. I won't question you either, I'll just run and get mom when you are ready.

#wisdom #surrender #deepthoughts

The summer equivalent of rocks in a snowball is scalding water in a squirt gun. Where did I learn this, from a sister that thought if she could not win honorably and righteously she will have to win dishonorably and underhanded. She was not a fan of losing.

Remember when life is difficult and hard and rough that you are so hot even life got hard for you.

Also remember that when life gives you lemons at least you won't get scurvy.

@nicolexyz@hachyderm.io I have Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian coworkers and they always laugh their asses off when I ask for a bucket. Which is is kanta + the cutification ending that I don't know how to even spell kantija is approximate. It is a HARD language and half the sounds I feel like the goal is to push my chin downwards with a bicep of a tongue. They all think it's hysterical and I am an extrovert and am just happy to have made them laugh.

I was talking to my ( German ) boss once about the American (maybe anglophone, need more information there ) tendency to not tell the truth if the truth is negative. In this case it was about not telling a person if you like them as a friend or not because hurting someone's feelings is considered rude. Germans do not care. They believe the truth will set you free, even if it feels cruel.

She asked me "How could you know if anyone ever truly likes you?"

I thought back to my fears of rejection, that everyone would walk out because nobody actually likes me and hasn't had the decency to tell me. This has happened multiple times in my life. I had a girlfriend that cheated on me and broke up with me on my birthday because saying she wanted to end it and didn't love me anymore is anethema to an anglophone.

I replied to my boss a la Invicible meme

"That's the neat part, you don't"

#immigrantlife

@nicolexyz@hachyderm.io well I get very strong reactions to waking up. Lifelong insomniac and problems with panic attacks when waking, so when my wifish wakes me and I am immediately stressed, disoriented and confused and say "Whhaaa I'm confused" ae can say "You are being flapjacked" and I immediately calm

A bit of an odd niche vent, I am an extreme spoon cuddle admirer. I am a side sleeper and a doctor once said I have short tendons in my legs that leads to me aprreciating sleeping in a curled up position. I have dated people 16 cm to 20 cm shorter than myself, men and women, and I do not appreciate being used as a cuddle booster seat. I once dated a guy about 16 cm taller than me and I was like "Awesome now I get to be lil spoon" unfortunately he was a big strong man and didn't like being big and strong while sleeping so I played jetpack, which also, ngl, not a huge fan. I do not get to be a curled up pupper in this case and it's just kinda uncomfy. It was a different kinda splayed out than I usually was with him and this one was much less enjoyable. Don't misunderstand I loved all of these people and would 100% sleep in these positions again. I am not hating. HOWEVER My wifish is about 4 cm shorter than me. Ae fits me like a glove and I get to be "flapjacked", as we call it, every night because at that small size difference being little spooned is not uncomfortable. Flapjacked has to do with me being an American and being flipped on my other side to move from big spoon to little spoon as one would flip a pancake or a flap jack. EXTREME SPOON ADMIRATION. The perfect cuddles >=3

Get yourself a partner that lets you give up. It took me years and multiple Pokemon games, loads of panic attacks, lots of anger for me to make the decision to give up on Pokemon. It plays havoc with my OCD and it really isn't nice. MULTIPLE titles because giving up is not something I am used to with the hyperfocus and the childhood trauma. Giving up wasn't something I was allowed.

I was really trying to cogame but there are certain segments of Cyberpunk 2077 that have a similar impact to pokemon on the perfect/not perfect segments of my OCD and eventually it just irks and makes me angry and my wifish told me just uninstall it. Just give up. You won't disappoint me.

I also generally really struggle to stay in English when I hear a German accent. I literally tell curious coworkers, "Ich bin nicht nach Deutschland umgezogen, um Englisch zu sprechen" ( en: I didn't move to Germany to speak English ) I also struggle near the boundaries of English and German to speak anything but strong Denglish. Especially when tired. My wifish recently said, "Just give up, I'm fluent in both. I stay in English for you but you face no such obligation."

Relationships shouldn't just be trying and trying. They should also definitely give room to give up. Throw in the towel and for that to be relaxing instead of stressful and fighty.

#relationshipgoals #mentalhealth

I had a Orthodox Serbian coworker talking about the formation of the Orthodox church and he asked me. "The US is predominantly Evangelical?" except in very broken German but that's irrelevant. Just know this conversation wasn't in English and it's not a direct quote. And I thought about all the different sects of evangelicalism that exist in the USA. I dated a Irish roman catholic, don't come for me for what I am about to say

but.

I have met Catholics, Evangelicals and Ortodox Christians in Europe. I have met enough Muslims to hear Romeo and Julietesque stories about a Sunni and a Shiite getting together. Europe is DIVERSE but I still think about all of these absurd sects. And I realize something

America has applied Capitalist Logic to Christianity. You walk into a US grocery store and are immediately overwhelmed by the choice but if you look closely at all of these colorful bags of cereal, all of them, every single one are just Cheerios. Chip aisle the same. All of these are just Nacho Chips. Shampoo aisle the same. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. America has offered, once again, the illusion of choice. The illusion that the first ammendmet allows for something other than Evangelicalism.

America offers the illusion of choice, of diversity, when all that these offshoots of sectarianism are, is a shittier offbrand bag of Doritos.

@thatfrisiangirlish@blahaj.zone fair

@thatfrisiangirlish as I remain rather distanced from any East German/DDR experience and I still wept, I feel that is still a little much of a reach

@thatfrisiangirlish look I was expecting to laugh not sit there and bawl my eyes out. Just sitting there weeping asking how is this a comedy? I feel this is only a comedy in Shakespearean sense.

@thatfrisiangirlish niemand braucht so viel Senf.

Everyone is always telling me that I am privileged to be married to A German but I don't feel privileged. I feel scarred. Like I ask "Wer zur Hölle ist Hase" and she shows me an entire article on Victor Hase and why he doesn't know anything. Or I ask how can "Ja Ja" be offensive and she pulls out her copy of Werner Beinhart. Now I know it means "Leck mich am Arsch" (en: lick my ass). Or she started singing die Toten Hosen in the shower and I bring this earworm to work and everybody at the bar is singing "UND DAZU EISGEKUHLTER BOMMERLUNDER"

I feel like something broke inside me when I saw Es Gibt Reis for the first time. And I still don't get why the Butler isn't just honest in Dinner For One so he isn't drunk off his ass in five minutes. Everyone is convinced that Germans are cold and quiet and stoic. No their culture has scarred them so deeply that nothing phases them.

#immigrantlife

@andrelop@donot.fit or "Castro's"

Everybody knows Scuba is actually an acronym. Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. But a Tuba could also be like Scuba except it's a TERRIBLE underwater breathing apparatus.

I am not made for capitalism. I am made for cuddles! But now I must work TT_TT. Cuddles come after =3

I am a demisexual. My wife is an asexual. Sometimes I will forget that sex is a thing that exists until my brain bugs me and says "Hey HEyyyy there's something important that you are missing". My wife will just forget for all time. Well last night she rolls over and feels my nips and noticed I was aroused ( "like tiny diamonds" she said ) WHEN I DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE. Sometimes being ace spectrum can lead to some very odd sexual encounters X.X

@cloudless_sky@norden.social @scarlet@plush.city I get it. I am married to a German or at least we are waiting on Standesamt. She's disappointed in Germany as well. I have had this impact on a lot of Germans. Do times suck, yeah but that's everywhere. Restaurants in france that are older that my homeland have closed recently. I'd never fault anyone for trying to find a better life someplace else, I just don't really see someplace else that isn't equally as troubled as Germany if not more so. Merz is a problem and fuck the AfD but at least Merz receives push back in his party and from the EU. I'm not trying to convince you that Germany is somehow wonderful. My first experience with German racism was within 5 minutes of landing in Germany. More that it's an overall problem and "das leben ist kein Ponyhof"

@scarlet@plush.city I honestly know that feeling. I was in Germany in 1990 so my first memories are actually from Germany. When I visited France in 2015 ( my second choice of countries ) and I was getting on the plane at the end to fly back to the USA it didn't feel like I was flying home but rather away from it.

@SleepyCat@mk.absturztau.be To build off of this the stereotype for eastern europeans here is "filthy thieves" but the stereotype for Americans is "Uneducated Idiots" so when you can't speak German in Germany or French in France ( or whatever ) you are going to prove a xenophobes point. You are going to be called an idiot, you are going to be insulted and held in low regard but I find that's a minority. It's hard at first but it gets better over time, in my experience at least. But also be aware it's integrate or fail as Immigration holds the keys to your future. @scarlet@plush.city

@scarlet@plush.city I left as soon as the borders opened again post-corona. I have studied a lot and knew the direction the USA was headed since 2001. But I really knew it was time to leave when I woke up every morning and I felt like running. My flight or flight reflex could not understand the distance to canada or mexico but it still screamed "run". So I started making my plans. They took a few years to implement and crystalize but I've been living in Germany for almost 5 years now. How do I feel? I inadvertently walked into a country whose culture is very calming to how my brain actually works. How Germans communicate is very similar to how I communicate. It was the best decision I ever made. How my footwear is made is designed for a German Clime to hearken back to your metaphor. Insofar as the grass is not always greener. In the first year, I've honestly never felt so alone, even living with someone else. To go from highly educated to barely being able to form a sentence is a hell of a ride. Road Signs were exhausting as my brain tried to make sense of the language. Integrating into another country was the hardest thing I've ever done and I was fired from a job for being queer. That shouldn't scare you off. I'm a head chef at a locally famous restaurant now and my German is close to mothertongue. While it was the hardest thing I have ever done it was also the most rewarding. Everything Germany does badly the USA does worse and everything the USA does well Germany does better. Working in Germany right now is pretty tough due to ridiculous worker shortages and the USA and Russia fucking everything up but that's not a Germany problem that's a world wide problem.

The only con to my girlfriend's tiddies is there are no cons. Only pros. The biggest pro is that there are only pros.

So my understanding of "Immigrants is just code for racism" has moved from a logical understanding to an empathic one over time. Like I am not a German yet. I'm in the process of citizenship but it's long, hard and expensive. But generally speaking, my coworkers call me an "Honorary German". You can likely see this from my profile but I'm hella white, got blonde hair and blue eyes. VERY white. I make Mayo look tan.

I had a coworker. Lived his whole life in Germany. Is a German. Speaks perfect German ( naturally ). He also is just white. But his father is Turkish. People call him Turkish and me an honorary German. Like ... could y'all be more obvious? I had a coworker even ask him when Ramadan was and he was like "TF should I know? I'm an atheist." The assumption goes, is Turkish, therefore Muslim, therefore knows when Ramadan is.

Then another chef was teasing me. Called me an "Auslander". Nothing was meant by it. I am one for heavens sake. It was just playful trashtalk between immigrants. But my very German coworker looked at me with pitying eyes of "We both know what you actually are".

The whiteness of my skin paired with some personality markers and education in a federalist democratic country and strong integration makes the immediate assumption "German". I had a german official bend over backwards, make several calls, and get me in with the best German school with the highest ranked teacher to join a class where there were brown and black people that had waited for over 10 years for this course. I got in in 3 months out of Ausländeramt.

The thing is I have never heard anyone say it. Nobody says "Immigrant means brown, black or yellow" it just is ubiquitous. Immigrant literally is just "I'm racist but need a code word so you don't hear the hard R". Hating immigrants is literally just being racist with a dogwhistle inbetween. The vast majority of AfD, and CDU/CSU voters I have met think I am "The Exception". I am not. I'm just white, and y'all are just hella racist.

Again, I knew this before. I voted and acted accordingly. Now that understanding has just moved from logical understanding to empathic understanding. I know I am an exception as a white educated westerner from another federalist democracy with a strong work culture. People are willing to look past certain labels if you "pass" well enough for them.

PS Also this isn't just about Europe. I've heard the same stuff out of Japan and the USA. This isn't trash talking Europe. It's trash talking Xenophobia and I don't think I have ever heard of a country that was an exception to what I am talking about.

#immigrantlife

Every so often I reach up and feel the gauges in my ears and go "Wahoo, I got holes in my ears". I had a lot of people tell me "No, don't do that! You'll ruin your ears" or while I was going through the very painful, long process of gauging threaten to put immediate holes in my ears instead of rather slow ones. Gauge tolerance has increased since I was a lil baby pupper but it's still not all there.

I'm still overjoyed even if my wife had her doubts at the beginning. Now she loves them too. 10 mm life ftw.

When I say "we need a cat" and my partner replies "two" that is marriage level material.

I thought Chuck Norris could never die. He's the only man to make God and the Devil afraid. May the heavens know fear. I would say rest in peace, Chuck Norris but he doesn't know Peace. So let the heavens tremble for Chuck Norris knocks for no man. Not even saint Peter.

Everyone is always talking about the densest object. Black Holes. neutronium. Osmium. I'm hear to tell you, they are all wrong. The densest object in the universe is German white cabbage. Weiß Kohl. The stuff they make Kraut and Sauerkraut from. Good gods.

If you don't know this chefs generally have banded scarred arms from all the burns. The other day I was training, prepping and working through a rough Friday and absentmindedly burned myself on a carrot pot. My wife and are sitting in the shower and I am investigating if it's healing well.

Me: yeah it's fine. It'll scar but gestures helplessly at arms ya know.
My wife: That's the benefit of dating a cook, perfectly char griled/lined arms.

I love her so much

#cooklife #gay #transjoy

I was practicing my German today by doing puppygirl teething and playing with German. My wife encourages this.

To become uneepy: enteepen
To become destructively eepy: zereepen
To become eepy: vereepen
To go eep: eineepen
To forfeit or decide not to eep: abeepen
to make someone else eepy: beeepen

#german #silly

I had another coworker ask me today "Why is America so? Why don't you change it." My reply was to the extent of "We the people are cowards" but it goes deeper than this and I had a rather stunning realization today.

We are told when we move our military or perform a coup we are "helping". There's a consistent saviour complex associated with our military. It is not a saviour. It is not good. It's a military industrial complex not a moral codex or religion. Our military is one of the greatest destabalizing elements on this earth. Not communism. Not Russia. not Islam. Not pinko commie fags. The US fucking military.

And this goes so deep that when we have problems we will seek outside help and play helpless. We'll think the UN will intervene. Not only is the job of the UN NOT military intervention, it hasn't really intervened anywhere since it was made. It's a peace keeping referee force for after a conflict has already ended. Also the largest part of the UN military is THE US MILITARY. Would it make a difference to you if US troops occupied your home town but this time with a UN on their helmet?

But I had a secondary thought today and that's the burn it to ash mentality. That we should burn the US to ash. Every system. Every building. We bring ourselves to the stoneage and that's progressive? And I realized, this was the alternative to the Marshall plan. The alternative to building Germany up was burning it down and robbing them of industry. Progressive. And every single time we perform a coup or flatten a country with tomahawks it's always about bringing liberty, equality and justice to the unjust. That's progressive. That's liberalism. That's America.

Obviously that's not the case and it's why there are so many weird over the top flaming revolutionaries in the US and so many more reformers in the EU. It's not marxist praxis. It's US war dogma. It's US propaganda and it's one of the reasons we sit on ass and wait for the UN to come, or think that we should burn it all down and start over. It's US propaganda we have mistaken for egalitarianism.

These are fundamentalist farms. They breed radicals like ISIS. This isn't progressive or fiery passion, it's a misread of US Propaganda.

Iranians are willing to die in the thousands but we're still convinced activism is hiding behind a keyboard, shooting down the trenches, performing purity tests we would never pass ourselves. Maybe it's past time we started saving ourselves, instead of waiting for France to step in like the did in our revolutionary war.

Nobody is coming to save you. That whole idea of a saviour nation that will come in and magnanimously save us is just what we are told the US does. It does not. We are responsible for our own countries.

I feel this song is the song of the times now that a draft dodger is running another war against a china backed country talking about reinstating the draft. Written in a fit of rage about the unjustness of the Vietnam War and that a senator's son had gotten out of the draft because he was a senator's son.

I'm really starting to see how much of protest music is really sung with false ironic positivity. Bruttosocialprodukt Geier Sturzflug, 99 Luftballoons Nena, or even more from the same band, Bad Moon Rising was about Nixon winning. All song with the false positivity that you would hear from your relatives or the media back then.

#musicispolitical #fortunateson #fuckthedraft

https://youtu.be/3RmQTYLD398

"I don't think I could..."

In 2015 I took a trip to France, England and Scotland. I could barely parse Scottish and I found French opaque. I convinced myself I could never speak another language. Now in 2026 I have been told my German is "Praktisch Muttersprachig" (Practically mothertongue) and "Umgangssprachlich" (Colloquial). Well on my path to citizenship.

I was divorced in 2016 and was convinced I'd be alone and was hella straight. Turns out I am hella bi, am now engaged to a person with almost the same gender as myself. I was also convinced of my jealousy, turns out I am polyam.

I worked in a few kitchens to get by on bills when I was younger. I was convinced I could never be like the chefs I watched. I struggled with dishes for chrissakes. Now I have been a head chef and a sous chef INCLUDING in another country in another language with a different culinary style.

I was convinced I should get on disability for my OCD. I did years of therapy and now it's mostly under control.

I'm not saying you can do anything you can set your mind to. I certainly can't. I'm more saying that a lot of the limits we place on ourselves are self or society imposed and are just made up. Just peer pressure we impose on ourselves like how human jaws could easily bite off a finger but our brains will not let us or a mother could lift a car to save a child. We impose limits on ourselves as a way of saying we are safe here when often we are not. We are stuck in the same rut we always were and convinced we could never change.

Don't be afraid to be that crazy hippie commie gay aunt. Be that gay metal butterfly you were meant to be! I am the cool gay aunt now and you can be too.

#immigrantlife #lgbt #iconoclast

@Frantasaur@mastodon.ie exactly that @Natasha_Jay@tech.lgbt

@Natasha_Jay@tech.lgbt I had to go to years of therapy to learn that society adds moral weight to emotions the same way it does to food. Cake is a sin, Salad is for saints. We are trained to see emotions like sadness and anger as "Bad" as "Sins" when what they are trying to communicate is important. Anger is the emotion that says we have been wronged and being placid and treating it as "Bad" or "I shouldn't feel this way" will not fix the issue. I was also trained to use the energy from those higher emotions to improve my life. Anger's energy should be used to address the source of the anger. Constructively if possible but only if the situation is actually worth it to your life and your happiness to salvage. Otherwise it's better to excise the source of that anger, but still use the energy from it.