⸻ 6/? Of mel Mondays 

The way Kaeya steps in when he sees how Jeroney and Ferdinand's arguing upsets Klee 🥺

I Imagine the Butches’ Stripper Bar

At my butches’ stripper bar you can watch butches fold laundry, iron. Objectify them while they slowly refinish a rolltop desk, take off a trailer hitch. They file taxes, wear waders, bake you a layer cake. I’ll lay her cake, my imagined patrons mutter. I think of who I eroticize, how: they’re always getting stuff done. At real stripper bars women just dance—so many things they could be checking off their lists. I guess men don’t want to see women work? They get that at home? In my Champagne Room the butches plant bulbs, build bookshelves, clean basements, write checks to the ACLU, retrain your dog. Fantastic grow the flannel plaids; they lean and squint, lick pencils, adjust a miter box. They make box lunches, chicken stock. The butches make your day.

                                                                                                                                               -Jill McDonough

daily reminders

no human being is 100% happy 100% of the time

being a person is extraordinarily difficult even in the best of times

this is not the best of times

someone is grateful you exist (don't argue, it's true)

a bad day does not predict a bad existence

it's gonna be okay

She has a wind under her sails, and I’m trying to keep up

the 5 love languages are:

- Sharing a blunt

- All forms of cooking

- Being incredibly stupid on purpose

- Collaborative hating

- Ignoring things

what this fandom needs

more f/f

be pro-aging but wear sun screen. sun protection is not beauty industry propaganda it will save you. wear it. or else.

When I’m out with Deaf friends, I put my hearing aid in my purse. It removes any ability to hear, but far more importantly, it removes the ambiguity that often haunts me.

In a restaurant, we point to the menu and gesture with the wait staff. The servers taking the order respond with gestures too. They pantomime “drinks?” and tell us they learned a bit of signs in kindergarten. Looking a little embarrassed, they sign “Rain, rain, go away, come again another day” in the middle of asking our salad dressing choice. We smile and gently redirect them to the menu. My friends are pros at this routine and ordering is easy ― delightful even. The contrast with how it feels to be out with my hearing husband is stunning.

Once my friends and I have ordered, we sign up a storm, talking about everything and shy about nothing. What would be the point? People are staring anyway. Our language is lavish, our faces alive. My friends discuss the food, but for me, the food is unimportant. I’m feasting on the smorgasbord of communication ― the luxury of chatting in a language that I not only understand 100% but that is a pleasure in and of itself. Taking nothing for granted, I bask in it all, and everything goes swimmingly.

Until I accidentally say the word “soup” out loud.

Pointing at the menu, I let the word slip out to the server. And our delightful meal goes straight downhill. Suddenly, the wait staff’s mouths start flapping; the beautiful, reaching, visual parts of their brains go dead, as if switched off.

“Whadda payu dictorom danu?” the server’s mouth seems to say. “Buddica taluca mariney?”

“No, I’m Deaf,” I say. A friend taps the server and, pointing to her coffee, pantomimes milking a cow. But the damage is done. The server has moved to stand next to me and, with laser-focus, looks only at me. Her pen at the ready, her mouth moves like a fish. With stunning speed, the beauty of the previous interactions ― the pantomiming, the pointing, the cooperative taking of our order ― has disappeared. “Duwanaa disser wida coffee anmik? Or widabeeaw fayuh-mow?”

Austin “Awti” Andrews (who’s a child of Deaf adults, often written as CODA) describes a similar situation.

“Everything was going so well,” he says. “The waiter was gesturing, it was terrific. And then I just said one word, and pow!! It’s like a bullet of stupidity shot straight into the waiter’s head,” he explains by signing a bullet in slow motion, zipping through the air and hitting the waiter’s forehead. Powwwww.

Hearing people might be shocked by this, but Deaf people laugh uproariously, cathartically.

“Damn! All I did was say one word!” I say to my friends. “But why do you do that?” they ask, looking at me with consternation and pity. “Why don’t you just turn your voice off, for once and for all?” they say.

Hearing people would probably think I’m the lucky one ― the success story ― because I can talk. But I agree with my friends.

  —  I’m Deaf And I Have ‘Perfect’ Speech. Here’s Why It’s Actually A Nightmare.