cleanandsunny @ cleanandsunny @literature.cafe

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2 yr. ago

Haha, “Happy HONK” does mean something to some of us! Totally plausible that she’s already in a HONK band…

https://honkfest.org/ https://honkfestwest.org/

No, we didn’t stop the war. I marched with 300k people in Washington (a lot of veterans) and we still didn’t stop the war. But I think the widespread and global protests of the Iraq war made it clear that the US was going to wage war despite its unpopularity, evidence, allies backing out, etc. A similar thing appears to be happening now with the backlash to Israel’s Hamas response.

Here’s a good column about what those protests writ large “accomplished.” https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/20-year-anniversary-of-iraq-war-protests

FWIW, this is one of the most common forms of protest in Seattle since BLM. It’s not necessarily newsworthy to us locals! And yes, to confirm, most people in the city get pretty annoyed with protestors when it happens. A lot of people late to work, missing medical appointments, stranded with kids in the car, etc.

Cardboard boxes, paper bags, and sheets of paper are all better than anything I could buy my cat, haha. But all cats are different! He also loves to hunt birds (part of why he’s indoor only) so bird toys with birdsong were his favorites for years. I’d recommend not spending a lot until you “learn” your cat! And also, if you’re getting a kitten or a youngish kitty, they will be way more playful and like anything you throw at them!

Ugh, yes. The joys of small businesses, alongside the rare spam call about “funding.” Thankfully these emails all go to my spam filter now! But it is super annoying.

A vet once called them “princess paws” and we’ve used that term ever since!

Panache is the way someone does something. Charisma is whether the person doing it is likable and charming.

I’m so sorry for you both! What a sweetie. She is lucky to have such a great human by her side ❤️

My husband has been slowly replacing stuff with Myles Apparel. He’s a weightlifter, so finding clothes that fit his quads (and allows him to still, you know, move) is a tall order. No ripping, tearing, funky workout stink, or any other issues so far! Also looks like they can ship internationally.

Sometimes keeping a symptom journal or diary can help your medical providers piece things together. They are only seeing you once for 10-30 minutes, but you’re living in your body and experiencing symptoms way more frequently. Don’t log obsessively, but maybe once a day review your pain (rated 1-5) and write down any noteworthy symptoms or episodes. And as someone else mentioned, get good at condensing your medical “story” to date, including your current symptoms.

Doctors will always go for the simplest explanation, even if it’s wrong. This is how they are trained (in the west, anyway). So don’t give up! Continue insisting on a proper diagnosis. Get another opinion. See a different specialist. If you find it difficult to advocate for yourself, imagine if this was your friend. How many mountains would move to get the same answers for a dear friend? And apply that logic and compassion to yourself. Have a bestie come with you to appointments if they are willing to.

A big part of the “suck” in this process is the not knowing. Will you be in pain forever? Will you get better? Will you get worse? Is it really a mystery illness? Will you ever get a diagnosis? With chronic pain you’ll find yourself exhausted often with the effort required to ignore the pain. So feel the pain sometimes. Lean into it. You may find it’s a relief to feel it instead of trying to block it out.

It’s maybe also worth accepting that these issues may never totally resolve. If they do, great. But what if they don’t? How can you live a happy and fulfilling life (which millions of people do with chronic pain/disability) even if it stays the same?

Lastly, I want to say that you have a separate problem, which is the lack of social support you are getting from your family. They are gaslighting you about your illness - of course you know your body best and are experiencing what you say you are. You are young and may depend on them financially, so that’s a needle you have to thread. But I’d encourage you to spend more time with friends who love and believe you.

If you have access, it’s worth working with a therapist on all of this. From what you’ve described, you have been left all alone to grapple with a disability that no one can even explain. That is an awful lot for someone to hold by themselves. Whatever happens with your illness, I hope you are able to get the love and support you deserve - which may never be offered by your family.

I get what you’re saying! Never was great at music theory either, but Bach indeed uses a lot of techniques in his composing to create the layers you’re referring to, where there is clarity but complexity. Sometimes it’s a melody mirrored or reversed, sometimes it’s the way themes repeat across and within parts, sometimes it’s a well timed key change, but there’s an often mathematical approach to the composition that you don’t find in other composers (or at least, done as well). I find Bach to be a bit boring to play, but it’s like violin comfort food lol.

Shostakovich, Dvorak, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky…I guess I have a thing for the Eastern Europeans, lol. I’m a violinist and idk how to explain it really, but it’s like the Eastern European composers understand the feel of the instrument better. Or maybe the way I play is just more aligned with that style. Either way, I find their pieces are more fun and dynamic (and sometimes, also challenging) to play.

Haha for real! At least we have some self awareness left.

I can’t tell if you’re joking, but apologies if this should have had a TW.

In my opinion, it would require a lot of policy changes on a national level (paid family leave, basic income/safety net things like expanding WIC and food stamps, universal healthcare including mental health and drug treatment, regulating social media for teens, stopping the use of fossil fuels, etc. - the wishlist is long!) as well as local investment in things like community centers, community events, support for parents, and small business.

We have plenty of money to do all of this, our leaders just choose not to. We need better leaders and/or a better system for electing them. And at this point, I don’t know how we get better leaders when a significant proportion of the country is in a cult.

Oops, your white supremacy is showing!

Yes. This is the result of a privatized health system where the only outcome that matters is profit. Doctors write enough opioid prescriptions each year for 46% of Americans to receive one. (Source: https://drugabusestatistics.org/opioid-epidemic/)

It’s absolute madness, but I do think the prescribing is getting better slowly. Unfortunately, the massive jumps in ODs seem very related to fentanyl taking over an illicit drug market that used to be primarily heroin and rx opiates. When I worked on national drug use surveys ~8 years ago, fentanyl was not a part of the landscape at all. Things have changed so quickly.

For sure, the deaths are simply the final outcome of a vast amount of suffering that cannot accurately be measured.

The corrosion of community, friendship, and third spaces are all well documented sociological phenomena that our country has yet to sufficiently address. Part of this is due to the decline in religious worship, which, while not a bad thing per se, does reduce a historically large source of socialization for our country. Part of this is due to the urbanization of our country over the last 30-50 years, and the hollowing out of many small towns. And of course part of it is due to the increased toxicity of our political systems, workplaces, and economic realities that limit our participation in society.

I guess all of that to say - none of this is an individual issue, it’s all systemic and part of the same sociological story. Feeling like a weird person for interacting with a stranger isn’t an isolated incident. It’s more a testament to how much has changed about our social world in the last 30-50 years.

To bring a slightly different perspective here: we’re not coping.

Our suicide rate has increased 60% since 2011 among youth and young adults. Rates of mental illness have doubled in young people. About 1 in 5 young people in this country will experience depression.

Our rates of overdose deaths have doubled since 2011. Over 100,000 people died from drug use in this country in 2021.

One in five of our kids go hungry. One in five Americans live with mental illness.

When you look at these data they are absolutely alarming and the opposite of most other countries, whose rates are falling. We are not coping, people are just dying these “deaths of despair.”