grison-in-space

[grison-in-space]

Have you ever been to earth?

On earth, we use the word “burrito” to describe a tortilla filled with things you eat. Pretty simple stuff, and I’m surprised you at least got that part right. My burrito was, in fact, filled with food. In this, you and I agree and are friends. But this is also where my lifelong hatred begins for you and anyone else whose brain has been repeatedly scrubbed with the same mixture of bleach and Pop Rocks as yours has. Because that should have killed you, but left you around long enough to do what you did to me today. Let me explain:

You’re an idiot.

Let me further explain:

Burritos are eaten from one end to the other. So that means when you assemble a burrito with motherfucking ZONES of ingredients going that direction, you create a disgusting experience for the burrito’s end user. When you make a burrito, you should put the ingredients in layerslengthwise. That way, every bite has AT LEAST A FUCKING CHANCE of getting at least two types of ingredients, and there is little chance of becoming almost hopelessly trapped in a goddamned cilantro cavern.

Have you ever eaten one of the things you make all fucking day? You should try one. They are pretty good WHEN YOU ARE NOT WILLING YOURSELF THROUGH THE FUCKING EMPIRE OF SOUR CREAM ONLY TO END UP IN LETTUCE COUNTRY.

When you eat a burrito, you don’t stand it up and bite down on it lengthwise like a fucking Rancor. Humans can’t usually dislocate their jaws, and I’m not a fucking pelican. But you must think that’s how it’s done, since that would be THE ONLY FUCKING WAY to take a bite of your crapstrosity and have it taste like a burrito.

And guess what else, player? You probably can’t guess anything, because I’m pretty sure you’re just a mop with a hat on it that fell over and spilled some shit into a tortilla, but just in case, here’s what:

Humans also don’t eat burritos like fucking corn on the cob. Like a fucking typewriter from one end to the other a little at a time and then DING next line. But today I wish I had tried that. Because at least THEN I would be able to eat some rice, then beans, then be all like HEY BEANS I’LL BE RIGHT BACK JUST GOING OVER HERE TO THE GUACAMOLE FOR A SECOND.

Nope.

My experience was more like HEY BEANS IT’S JUST GOING TO BE YOU AND I FOR A MINUTE UNTIL I CAN FUCKING EXCAVATE THE RICE FROM BENEATH YOU BUT BY THEN YOU WILL BE A FADING MEMORY OH HEY I WAS WRONG I’M IN THE FUCKING CHEESEOSPHERE NOW RICE MUST BE NEXT I HOPE IT’S NOT ANOTHER FUCKING SALSA POCKET.

You built this thing like a fucking pack of LifeSavers.

And don’t even fucking think I’m about to open this shit up and re-engineer your nonsense 90 degrees. I ALREADY PUT A HOLE IN IT WITH MY FUCKING MOUTH. YEAH. THAT’S HOW I DISCOVERED YOU FUCKING SUCK AT LOOKING AT THINGS. I AM NOT GOING TO DO FUCKING TORTILLA ORIGAMI TO GET THIS SHIT BACK TOGETHER, ONLY TO END UP WITH A BURRITO THAT’S BEEN SHOT IN THE GUT AND IS BLEEDING YOUR INEPTITUDE.

What’s that? I should ask you to mix it up first next time? IS THIS JAMBA JUICE? I DON’T WANT TO DRINK MY FUCKING BURRITO THROUGH A BENDY STRAW, AND I DON’T WANT A PILE OF BURRITO SOUP IN A FLOUR CAN.

I just want a burrito.

In conclusion:

You’re the worst thing that has ever happened to the universe, you owe everyone everywhere an apology for this burritobomination, and I hope your babies look like monkeys.

UPDATE FOR EVERYONE WHO SAID “JUST EAT IT WITH A FORK”:

A fucking fork?

I DIDN’T ORDER THE FUCKING COBBURRITO SALAD.

If anyone ever handed me a burrito with a fork, THEY WOULD BE WEARING A BRAND NEW BURRITO HAT FROM MY FALL COLLECTION TEN SECONDS LATER.

That’s like buying a car and having them hand you a fucking wrench with the keys. Like YEAH WE KNOW THIS MOTHERFUCKER’S GOING TO EXPLODE AND BE SPREAD ACROSS EIGHT LANES AS SOON AS YOU HIT THE GAS, BUT SHIT, WE GAVE YOU A WRENCH, SO BE COOL.

Jesus already gave me two burrito forks. One at the end of each arm. They’re called fucking HANDS.

A fork. My god. I haven’t cried since I was six, but I’m fucking sobbing now.

People eat burritos with forks?

God is sorry he made us.

(Source)

#laugh rule #an oldie but a goodie

[grison-in-space]

She sat in the car while I ran errands...

[grison-in-space]

*points* this is why I'm being pretty quiet right now, because this situation is quite fucked up enough without trying to stick my dick in it, too.

I make one exception, which is to flip off the British--because the mess surrounding the Balfour Declaration, in which within three fucking years the British promised the region to both Arab-nationalist groups within Palestine and to Jews and also, secretly, declared its own control over the area while partitioning up the Ottoman Empire with France. At no point did it actually tell any of these parties what they were doing or communicate directly about any of the others. Essentially, what it did was lie to Arab nationalist groups about its intentions to hand the region over to them in exchange for WWI support, secretly claim to a peer and ally that it intended to retain control over the region, and then seize on the area as a great place to stick all those inconvenient Jews without having to, like, keep or aid any of them itself.

I cannot emphasize enough how incredibly at fault the British Empire is for huge swathes of this mess as it relates directly to Palestine. (I also cannot emphasize enough how much the British Empire lying to other groups in similar ways when it was convenient to themselves outright created helpful little imbroglios like the Rwandan genocide later on. And that was in a region where there weren't hugely long-standing conflicts or massive bad feelings between various parties before the British Empire swanned on in.)

It's not so much that that fixes things now, you understand. It's not as if England the UK has exactly covered itself in geopolitical glory in the subsequent century or anything. But while we're arguing about who is colonializing whom and why, I do think it is incredibly important to understand and recognize that there is in fact a single group who took this incredible powderkeg of a situation and made it unspeakably worse as a direct function of their colonialist interests and project, and I think we should also be keeping that in mind. Decolonialization doesn't mean that we all just immediately forget about previous colonial occupation and let the literal colonial powers get off without comment.

(Also to the influence of American Dominionist conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists making absolutely everything worse in perpetuity, because it suits their apocalyptic vision of heavenly rapture to see Jews entangled in perpetual war in the Middle East. I am not joking about this, and this group has also been directly inflaming tensions in the region for decades.)

You know how they say, in a chaotic, tense situation, look for the helpers to understand what to do? Well, I think it is fair to insist that anyone who wants to declare the obvious answer to Israel/Palestine relations also look for the harm sources closer to home and start interrogating what we intend to do about those, too. If the solution to Israel and Palestine is so easy and clear, surely resolving Dominionist theology and its direct impacts at home should be equally clear and obvious. Right? Right?

Conversation between me, and another high educated Jewish women whose opinions I respect

Her: What's missing here are the facts. If we stuck to the facts there wouldn't be so much intensity surrounding this issue. Me: But you and I are both highly educated Jewish women, and we can't even agree on the facts regarding the history of Palestine as a place name, ethnic identifier, and nation. If we can't even agree on those facts, how on earth can facts help anyone move forward?

There's the question. Not just for Jews, but for everyone involved in, or concerned with this conflict. How do we move forward if multiple sides of the room dispute the veracity of such basic statements as:

-Jews are a globally oppressed minority ethnic group, the hatred of which is deeply embedded in Western thought and rhetoric.

-The Naqba was a period of ethnic cleansing in which the government and military of the new State of Israel expelled Palestinian Arabs from their homes and property; a dispossession and a series of events which continue to traumatize and negatively impact the lives and livelihoods of Palestinians.

-The Holocaust was a traumatic event in the history of the Jewish people, the legacy of which is embedded in the psyches, world views, and collective trauma of the Jewish people, and invariably impacts how this group views global issues.

-Palestinian Arabs had a full developed sense of identity and statehood before the British Empire fucked off, and made their discomfort with increasing Jewish emigration clear to the British before the outbreak of the Second World War.

-Jews had nowhere to go before, during, or really, after the Holocaust; and the governments of many Arab States ethnically cleaned their own ancient Jewish communities in retribution for the creation of the State of Israel.

-The State of Israel does not exist because the Holocaust happened, or as an "apology" for said event.

THIS POST COMPRISES A SERIES OF RHETORICAL QUESTIONS MEANT TO MAKE US APPRECIATE THE DEPTHS OF THE DISCURSIVE PROBLEMS HERE; NOT A POST FOR "DISCOURSE" AND HATEFUL, AGGRESSIVE SHIT.

If you feel you have to do that, copy & paste into your own separate post.

#israel #palestine #geopolitics

[grison-in-space]

She's a big fan of the grass

#look at that blissed out little face

[grison-in-space]

i saw a post on twitter by a european saying americans are fake for their random compliments to strangers and their general cheery demeanor and like no. no no no you don’t understand. if you get a random compliment from an american on the street about your outfit or whatever, that is 100% genuine. we mean it. we aren’t lying we are making a small but fleeting connection with you because our lives are shitty but the human condition is enduring. oh god i’m clutching my chest

[grison-in-space]

Yesterday, Tribble had a dental to remove one cracked carnassial tooth which turned into removing twelve teeth with cracked roots and root fragments (!) and also a gingival mass (!!) underneath her crappy ass incisors. (Vet thinks it's probably a function of gingival irritation but the mass has been fully excised and sent for pathology anyway; I'll hear back about that one in a week or so but I'm trying not to worry about it.)

I suddenly suspect I know a lot more about why Tribble has always been a reluctant chewer and biter. Dammit. (My vet assured me that she'd had no idea until she had to X ray her jaw to find all the fragments of the carnassial, but I still feel bad.)

Anyway, it's Tribble's thirteen birthday / twelfth gotcha day next week, and I am plotting birthday mush recipes. None of that is the problem.

The problem is that Matilda is Worried.

She was fine until Tribble came home sore and bloody mouthed and tired, at which point she insisted on carefully sniffing Tribble from nose to tail, several times over, and then checking over her periodically for the rest of the evening. Tibbs did not want to go alongside for the first couple of trips outside because she's sore, and Matilda kept going back to stare intently at her and make unhappy noises while Tribble sulked and ignored her.

Okay. Mildly annoying for everyone, but okay.

Except that at bedtime, Matilda fretfully woke up humans every goddamn hour or two to check on Tibbs. You know. In case we could fix it, or we didn't know. If Tribble was distressed that would have been one thing, but she just slept through it on her cozy heated orthopedic bed.

At one point, I am informed, she was offered Ball in case that was what she wanted, but no: she wanted to go make sure Tribble was okay. Ball is the highest reward in her universe at the moment, so that was... significant.

I'm glad you care, Matilda, but oh my fuck I am so tired

#Tribble #12 years #Matilda #1 year #australian cattle dog #boston boxer #Benton is also Concerned but he trusts that we'll figure out what to do if we can #Matilda believes we can fix it but is convinced we don't know what needs fixing #on the upside this does make me feel better about their ongoing relationship #ps matilda is in fact in that photo #you can see her horrible worried little face in the back

[grison-in-space]

concept: guy who leaves a lot of comments in their code which should be good but the problem is they're all written like this

#my student would do this #me of ten years ago also might but not now that I've spent so long trying to decipher my comments with a bad case of brain fog

[grison-in-space]

It's so funny, in a dark sort of way, how simply ceasing to accept resources cuts the power structure from this off at the knees. Sure, you're divorced from any generational accumulation of wealth that might be present--and don't think for a moment that this kind of shit doesn't scale aggressively with wealth aggregation--but you know, you might be hungry at the end of the day but you'll also be free.

It's absolutely about power structures. And you'll see that even people who think they believe in family as a group of people committed to supporting one another will slip seamlessly between these modes right up until you hit a hard conflict where a "junior" family member (could be a younger person; could be a spinster woman; could be a disabled person; whoever is lower on the hierarchy) enforces some kind of hard boundary, at which point the claws come out and we find out which truth they really believe.

In my experience, queerness tends to create this kind of hard strain on relationships. Now, of course, it looks bad to outright disown your kids for having a bad case of the gay, but it often doesn't look nearly as bad outside the family to say "well I won't help my kid materially until they behave the way I want." I see... a lot of people who want to believe that shit is better for queer kids now than it was when I was a teenager, or when my own parents were teenagers--estrangements that entangle with queerness without being quite definable around them, because that's a Thing Parents Aren't Comfortable With and so the attempts to control with finances come out, which leads to the kid breaking off contact rather than parents. It's messier, but you get the same strained, painful outcomes.

And of course a bleaker economy just intensifies the pressure to rely on and submit to this kind of hierarchical family system by making it harder for individual people to survive without a network of assistance, particularly from older people who have had more time to accumulate wealth.

I get how it's not actually paradoxical or surprising but it's eternally hilarious to me when the same people who say "But they're your FAMILY! You can't turn your back on the people who raised you!!!" also think it's a-ok to disown your children for the high crimes and misdemeanours of like. Smoking pot. Getting pregnant. Sucking dick.

#yep #everything about this #EVERYTHING about this #I have not been as lucky as Nis on this front #which is about all I feel like getting into right now

[grison-in-space]

yeah. also often they're the same people who earnestly lecture you about how FAMILY are the only people you can rely on to be there for you and you have to look after FAMILY, but also if you do anything they don't like (no matter how reasonable to a third party) they will absolutely sigh and shake their heads and say they can't help you there have to be boundaries and limits

I get how it's not actually paradoxical or surprising but it's eternally hilarious to me when the same people who say "But they're your FAMILY! You can't turn your back on the people who raised you!!!" also think it's a-ok to disown your children for the high crimes and misdemeanours of like. Smoking pot. Getting pregnant. Sucking dick.

[grison-in-space]

#my (generally feminine) name sounds identical to a masculine name with a totally different linguistic history #so generally people worried about my name ask me how I spell it to avoid accidentally misgendering me. #I got no problem with that. the annoying thing is when people who have only seen the masculine version accuse me of spelling my name wrong. #which has only happened a couple of times but GOOD GRIEF #nb to other people reading: do not do this. the world is bigger than you know and again: WHOLLY different language and cultural tradition. #sometimes people also delicately ask me if I spell my name in an intermediate fashion between the two #which I think is the funniest thing ever but is a fair question given my gender performance (ie nonconforming) #but no friends I am COOL with having a vaguely gender neutral four letter name thank you #it's like it came preselected for me according to all the nonbinary name picking algorithms #well done no notes

[grison-in-space]

Even though it's been months since I switched from neurosurgery to internal medicine, I still have a hard time not being angry about the training culture and particularly the sexism of neurosurgery. It wasn't the whole reason I switched, but truthfully it was a significant part of my decision.

I quickly got worn out by constantly being questioned over my family plans. Within minutes of meeting me, attendings and residents felt comfortable lecturing me on the difficulties of having children as a neurosurgeon. One attending even suggested I should ask my co-residents' permission before getting pregnant so as not to inconvenience them. I do not have children and have never indicated if I plan to have any. Truthfully, I do want children, but I would absolutely have foregone that to be a neurosurgeon. I wanted to be a neurosurgeon more than anything. But I was never asked: it was simply assumed that I would want to be a mother first. Purely because I'm a woman, my ambitions were constantly undermined, assumed to be lesser than those of my male peers. Women must want families, therefore women must be less committed. It was inconceivable that I might put my career first. It was impossible to disprove this assumption: what could I have done to demonstrate my commitment more than what I had already done by leading the interest group, taking a research year, doing a sub-I? My interest in neurosurgery would never be viewed the same way my male peers' was, no matter what I did. I would never be viewed as a neurosurgeon in the same way my male peers would be, because I, first and foremost, would be a mother. It turns out women don't even need to have children to be a mother: it is what you essentially are. You can't be allowed to pursue things that might interfere with your potential motherhood.

Furthermore, you are not trusted to know your own ambitions or what might interfere with your motherhood. I am an adult woman who has gone to medical school: I am well aware of what is required in reproduction, pregnancy, and residency, as much as one can be without experiencing it firsthand. And yet, it was always assumed that I had somehow shown up to a neurosurgery sub-I totally ignorant of the demands of the career and of pregnancy. I needed to be enlightened: always by men, often by childless men. Apparently, it was implausible that I could evaluate the situation on my own and come to a decision. I also couldn't be trusted to know what I wanted: if I said I wanted to be a neurosurgeon more than a mother, I was immediately reassured I could still have a family (an interesting flip from the dire warnings issued not five minutes earlier in the conversation). People could not understand my point, which was that I didn't care. I couldn't mean that, because women are fundamentally mothers. I needed to be guided back to my true role.

Because everyone was so confident in their sexist assumptions that I was less committed, I was not offered the same training, guidance, or opportunities as the men. I didn't have projects thrown my way, I didn't get check-ins or advice on my application process, I didn't get opportunities in the OR that my male peers got, I didn't get taught. I once went two whole days on my sub-I without anyone saying a word to me. I would come to work, avoid the senior resident I was warned hated trainees, figure out which OR to go to on my own, scrub in, watch a surgery in complete silence without even the opportunity to cut a knot, then move to the next surgery. How could I possibly become a surgeon in that environment? And this is all to say nothing of the rape jokes, the advice that the best way for a woman to match is to be as hot as possible, listening to my attending advise the male med students on how to get laid, etc.

At a certain point, it became clear it would be incredibly difficult for me to become a neurosurgeon. I wouldn't get research or leadership opportunities, I wouldn't get teaching or feedback, I wouldn't get mentorship, and I wouldn't get respect. I would have to fight tooth and nail for every single piece of my training, and the prospect was just exhausting. Especially when I also really enjoyed internal medicine, where absolutely none of this was happening and I even had attendings telling me I would be good at it (something that didn't happen in neurosurgery until I quit).

I've been told I should get over this, but I don't know how to. I don't know how to stop being mad about how thoroughly sidelined I was for being female. I don't know how to stop being bitter that my intelligence, commitment, and work ethic meant so much less because I'm a woman. I know I made the right decision to switch to internal medicine, and it probably would have been the right decision even if there weren't all these issues with the culture of neurosurgery, but I'm still so angry about how it happened.

[grison-in-space]

genuinely one of the saddest parts of this new era of the internet is how hard it is to rick roll someone now. with people's attention spans shortening so much, they wouldn't even get through the first few bait seconds before clicking off the video. like i saw a comment that ended with "btw i made all of this up" and the replies kept treating it so seriously because none of them finished the entire 4 sentence comment. and We're no strangers to love You know the rules and so do I (do I) A full commitment's what I'm thinking of You wouldn't get this from any other guy I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling Gotta make you understand Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

#laugh rule

[grison-in-space]

Posting due to an emergency- please share widely if you're local to Chicagoland.

If anyone in the Chicagoland area sees this, a friend's service dog prospect is in need of immediate boarding from tomorrow until May 6. Winnie is about 40 pounds and is not dog-reactive at all, but the person caring for her was hospitalized and so my buddy is looking for a short term emergency foster!

I'm available to help with any transportation (you wouldn't need to drive her anywhere!) and compensation+coverage for food/medical/etc. would be involved. You wouldn't need to pay for her stuff, just make sure she has a place to stay and walk her and call me if she needs to go to the vet.

If this is something you or someone you know could help with, please let me know. It's an emergency situation, so for the first time in... well over a year, I am opening my inbox in case this is something you can help with. Please DM me if you or anyone you know can help.

[grison-in-space]

I think the best advice I ever got to stop myself from getting in my head over issues i was having with a partner/friend was “Are you deciding on ultimatums in your relationship without the other persons knowledge or consent? Are you having conversations in your head where the other party is a projection you supply the responses for? If so; you have done this person a huge disservice in not allowing them to answer on their own terms. You have done so much architecture around this problem in your mind that is impenetrable for anyone who was not there when it was being built.”

That shit really changed my life and honestly? I think made me a nicer person to be around.

[grison-in-space]

This is your reminder because some of y’all are fucking weird.

An adult who has high support needs is NOT the same as a toddler. A high support needs adult is NOT “functionally a child”

THEY. ARE. AN. ADULT.

High support needs people that are adults are fucking adults. Stop speaking of them like they aren’t. “Oh but they can’t do this independently and they act very childish” THEY ARE HIGH SUPPORT NEEDS. STOP IT.

[grison-in-space]

Happiness advice is hard to compose, since we're all born with different brains, producing different chemicals in different quantities at different levels of efficiency.

"Try regular exercise!" chirrups an influencer whose brain has never known a day of depression in its squiggly grey life.

But I do think I've noticed behaviours that poison joy, and I haven't ever heard it as advice. My theory: bullying is bad for your happiness.

Of the four types of bullying, three of them - intimidation, humiliation and harassment - are usually committed by insecure people, trying to make themselves feel more powerful by taking that power from another.

(The fourth type of bullying is exclusion, and I have no citations for any of this, since it's just a bunch of stuff I reckon. I do think I'm right though, for what it's worth.)

The least happy comedians I've met are the ones who smoke weed in their flats while watching and scoffing at clips of their rivals. Their enemies. Their friends.

I'm slightly transfixed by the story of a relatively well-known comedian who became obsessed with the Instagram stories of an amateur comic. The established comic would watch the videos, share them with friends, play them at parties - mocking the comic's lack of self-awareness.

This newer comedian wasn't internet famous or anything. Just a guy starting out, trying his hand.

To operate like this, you must believe that some people have value, and others do not. Once you've decided this, how can you expect your brain to permanently accept that you're one of the worthy? You can make yourself feel powerful in the short term by humiliating another. But in the long term, you curate a worldview where a person's eccentricities are a reason they deserve to suffer.

Good luck enjoying what you see in the mirror.

[grison-in-space]

what if he wants lots of kinds of ants though. asking for a friend

just asked my professor if he wants to feature on a song LMFAO