Nothing Has Been More Important To My Being Queer Than When I Went To My First Pride Parade, Got Seperated

nothing has been more important to my being queer than when i went to my first pride parade, got seperated from my group, had a panic attack about it and was sitting on the side of the road holding a tiny genderfluid flag and freaking out. then this six foot five drag queen in four inch heels appeared from literally nowhere and sat down next to me. i, this scared-shitless trans bi kid at pride for the first time, very nervously told her she looked pretty and i told her my name and that i got lost and didn't feel like i should be at pride and she held my hand and said "oh, honey, everybody deserves to be here, especially you. pride is for everybody who's ever gotten lost, who's been scared of who they are or where they are. you think we never been scared before? pride's for you, honey, because you're scared. you don't have to be proud right now, but you're gonna be one day, honey, i'm sure of it."

i found my group soon after that and i never saw that queen again but to this day i am convinced i met an angel.

so yeah. pride is for you. pride is for all of us.

lots of times if I tell my boyfriend that I am proud of him for dealing with a situation, or that I'm sorry he's having to deal with a situation, he will say "no it's my own fault." meaning that he feels like he doesn't deserve praise or comfort for dealing with a situation that is his fault. (for example a financial problem caused or exacerbated by him having been too anxious or absentminded to deal with the situation sooner.) and I tell him this and I will tell y'all this, that I don't believe that. I think you are even braver and stronger for taking steps to deal with a mess that is of or partly of your own creation, because you have to cope with guilt and shame on top of the thing itself, and because you're fighting against the same ingrained dysfunction in yourself that caused the mess. that's like the bravest and most constructive thing you can do and you should be proud and I am proud of you.

i cant get over the king charles portrait. they made that thing to age in his place. that painting hangs in the house of a too-friendly family you find in the post apocalyptic wasteland who inexplicably has a ready supply of fresh meat. if mario jumped into that painting he wouldn't find a charming platformer he would be flayed and hanged like a medieval criminal by an unseeable force in a droning red void. that painting is a color blindness test for people who work in IT but believe in the divine right of kings. that painting is going to weep the sequel to blood. after he dies charles is gonna crawl outta that thing like sadako.

I can’t stop laughing at this 🤣😂🤣

I'm sorting clothes. Throwing away anything I can bring myself to part with. Does it have a stain? What if there's a cat on it, though?

And Marie Kondo came to mind. Full disclosure my only exposure to her aside from the "I love mess" meme is the Gilmore Girls miniseries, so I fully admit I have no idea if my understanding of her approach to getting rid of clutter is accurate.

I was just thinking how the "Does it bring me joy" question just wouldn't work. I just put a tee shirt I got when I was 13 in the trash, not because I don't love it--not for lack of it bringing me joy. I have memories attached to that tee shirt and it's such a product of the fashion of it's time! But it has a stain and it's coming apart at the seams. It has to go.

Reader, I kissed it goodbye.

Trying to chart out a border element from embroidery in a historical context

Accidentally created Godzilla instead