no boys allowed in the room!!!!

Hmm I'm getting stuck on the shipping address, it won't let me proceed.

xxp Yiiiiiiiiiiiikes

xp I shave extremely inconsistently and I apply lotion after every shower. No issues. Why, what's happening for you?

i think it just means that i need to use lotion -- like i generally don't use it, except like immediately post shave, or during the few days after when the stubble comes in. It's just itchier -- but I don't think it means my skin is drier, just that it is more noticeable feeling-wise?

xxp He's only interested in Republican Goddesses who are English-fluent, which I admit is more than I expected. He doesn't seem like the type to be interested in a talking woman.

sarahell: Huh. Maybe I never get to that point because I do use lotion after every shower even if I didn't shave, which I only do like 1x a month?

there is so much to ridicule on this site

"I seek an extremely intelligent woman with a university degree or equivalent strong education. But if you are university-educated, you were not fooled by (or you have subsequently recovered from) academia's incessant indoctrination of liberal, Democrat, progressive, atheist, feminist, global-warming/climate-change and socialist/Marxist/communist propaganda.

I'm grateful to have learned advanced skills at emotional processing from my main spiritual teacher, who is a living enlightened master from India. As a result, I have become nonjudgmental (most of the time) and rarely get angry (maybe 3 times per year and just for a few minutes, then it's gone). He also taught me extreme patience...

For strong male function, I take herbs that work better than Viagra and are entirely healthy.

My two greatest living heroes are my spiritual Guru and Donald Trump. In very different ways, each has hugely contributed to my personal development including my understanding of the world, the problems."

when i shave i don't use shaving cream, just a little bit of soap? I also am very bad about moisturizing my legs. But my legs never itch?

some of the pictures that come up in response to the questions are just ... whoa ... this is ... not as grotesque and painful as watching videos of animals in pain ... but it's pretty grotesque and painful

he has a bit of Harry Anderson going on.

I only shave my legs periodically and in the summer but in winter I lotion after every shower and exfoliate w one of those scratchy towels in the shower.

I like the Body Shop olive oil body butter but it’s so expensive — I found a decent off brand substitute that’s like 4 packages for the price of one Body Shop package! Lotioning is annoying but absolutely required. DNW itching/dry skin 🤮

i have scabs that make me look vaguely tweakeresque

Yikes, and also, ouch!!

I'm working on C to get him to use lotion. His arms and legs also get so dry that they spontaneously break out in scabs? And look all papery. He seems immune to any discomfort but it practically hurts me to look at it so I applied some pressure. He's much more hydrated-looking now.

I know it's a tiresome Twitter convention, but it really makes me feel that meme: "Are the _____s okay?" for any group of ppl. Like are the straight (white) mens okay? You don't have to effectively harm yourself through neglect, you know...taking care of yourself is a valuable life skill.

i mean, it's also been cold, so that it isn't like anyone can see them -- also trying to work out whether some of it is sock-related? I'm not super sensitive to fabrics in terms of itchiness, but I am somewhat sensitive.

I am very annoyingly a social grooming person. Anything I put on myself, I put on F. I can smell when he's dehydrated which is I know is me being gross and also annoying when I constantly push water on him. But yeah seriously, straight white men are a whole mess. xpost

Now that you bring it up when I take off socks I sometimes do get super itchy around the elastic part.

xps to in orbit: getting stuck how? Do you have anyone living in Europe that you could arrange for them to act as intermediary?

in orbit they had 5 in stock all of which are now on their way to me and shortly to you!

WHAT YOU DIDN'T!! lol I was going to get around to it! Oh both of you are just the loveliest, thank you!!

ljub, tell me what the shipping costs, please! Or come back for coffee, which would be even better. <3 <3

teamwork!!!

All in for coffee when I'm next back there or when you undertake your LONG overdue Northern Soul pilgrimage.

Ok, I started that questionnaire on the Republican Goddess and

We are not a match.

Thank you for your time.

Good luck to you!

Goodbye (no kiss)

Very happy with the way this has played out, discontinued products are the worst and it’s such a joy when they turn out to be available in another market.

Whenever I remember to do it, the Superdrug own brand lip products are good for overnight use. Esp cos most are cheap enough to really slather on. I had the We ❤️ Shea Butter one on last night and it was good; the little relieving tin (green) has tons of lanolin in and is similarly good. Both cheap and really good!

yiiikes at Choose Your Own MAGA Bride

also boo for discontinued cosmetics. for some reason my body hates most deodorants, and previous brands that worked for me either got discontinued or came out with a new recipe that no longer worked, and it is not good having to start the search all over again and worry that you may never find a new one.

(I've got one and a spare now from my current good brand but I noticed I couldn't see it in the shop last time I went down that aisle, buh)

taking care of yourself is a valuable life skill

I think I need to repeat this as a mantra, because I am not very good at remembering to do all the little positive things, all the way up from moisturising, flossing, taking vitamin pills etc up to eating better, going for walks and remembering to do useful/educational/cultural things (or just a little more housework to make the place look borderline liveable, ha argh) instead of just sitting like a potato in front of the internet all evening. It's a good mantra!

(ok, fuck the housework part, all the rest is good, and I shall use this good mantra only for good things)

I don’t toot my horn very casually but self care is where I am a Viking. It’s also how I know something is very very wrong if I start to let it idle or stop altogether (see fall 2018)

Who else will take care of me if I don’t?? No one. Gotta do it myself.

It is my only survival skill tbh

You are a goddamn superhero. I respect the hell out of your boundary-setting and self-care stills.

Early this fall/winter, it got to seem like too much work to take showers anymore, because it was easier not to take care of the body that had to go to the job and receive the physical & emotional damage. Easier not to acknowledge having a body. Glad that's over.

Xps I don’t trust anything endorsed by EWG - they’re shady as fuck and their “science” is often bullshit. I’d be interested in something designed by respected cosmetic chemists, though.

I’m the opposite of being a Viking about self care. I *want* to and *like* being moisturized, and having clean hair, and shaved pits/legs, but when I’m feeling down (which is often) it feels so hard to do any of it.

Oh, sorry! I don't know anything about EWG but on your advice I cancel and rebuke them and all their works.

But also hey let's not re-frame self care as being all about hygiene stuff, although it can be! It's also being intentional with our time, and boundaries, and feeding ourselves, and having the right dosage of the right people around, and making sure we can get enough of what we need, whatever that is. I mean we all know that and no one is saying that it's not, I just wanted to say it. Face masks are great but they are only "self care" if they are to you in that moment for your own reasons.

I am fairly Vikingly when it comes to being intentional with time and setting/maintaining boundaries, but the eating when I'm probably hungry and using lotion on dry skin stuff -- that is where I'm a ... Saxon? Pict? one of those olde tribes that were swiftly conquered by other tribes with better weapons, armor, and attention to the importance of supply lines in protracted warfare?

I’m really bad at housekeeping in the best of times but taking care of ME (not my surroundings) is second nature. I think it’s a product of neglect tbh. Not that I was left wanting for food/shelter but no one was ever looking after me. I had to do it myself.

it's kind of crazy how many parents left their grade school kids alone all day. latchkey kid club.

I think the shitty cultural thing I never learned was that I was “supposed to” take care of others around me before myself. There was never anyone else there so that was not a lesson I ever learned! It worked out for me in one way I guess. Protected me in some ways.

i was raised with the expectation that i would grossly neglect my personal hygiene and spend all my time in pursuit of fleeting hedonic pleasure, but also that i was profoundly bad and evil for doing so

so if something feels good i tend not to do it; there are a lot of really rewarding and beneficial things i avoid doing because i'm "too tired" and would rather, i don't know, say stupid shit on the internet

Just bumping for something utterly trivial: after years of searching, I think NYX’s #thisiseverything lip balm might be the best one I’ve ever used? Lips stay soft and smooth long after it’s worn off as well. This sounds like an ad but honestly, if something works it works.

THE WORST.

I thought that endometrial ablation procedure two years ago was supposed to drastically reduce my periods? I'm practically back to my old heaviest flows. I don't even cramp noticeably, it's just a hassle to keep up and replace my latest soaked-through tampon (especially when I have long bus rides to and from work).

And I assume I am not the first to notice that classical performance of femininity requires pretending that normal body phenomena aren't happening to YOU (sweat, periods, body hair)?

Yep! Basically you should pretend you don't have a body or specifically a vagina that exists in any context other than when someone else wants to fuck it and then it goes away and doesn't cause them any problems.

It's all nonsense, of course, and fatal to believe on any level. It's annihilation. I try to push back in a tiny way by telling everyone I'm having hot flashes so could they please open the window?

<3 that’s absolutely the spirit

I have been getting night sweats for the past 6-8 months ... probably medication side effects and not "the change" ... I end up having to do more laundry though ... on the plus side, it is a rationale for buying more clothes

I thought I was through mine - went 3 months without a period over last year - theryve come back now and theyre worse than ever, and Im constantly fatigued and forgetting things a LOT and dropping stuff and it is exactly how my mum had it (she called it "the dropsies" for years) and I already hate this.

I've been on hormones for 4 months now. (Which is a weird thing, in and of itself, like, if you want the trans hormones, you have to go on a waiting list for several years and be examined by a billion cises going "but are you *sure*!?!?" but if you're an AFAB of a certain age, just look at a doctor and they will shove you out the door with a prescription.) And they did help with a lot of things.

And now I am coming off hormones cold turkey, because there are nationwide shortages, and no chemists anywhere in my neighbourhood even seem to have any in stock any more? I mean, it should be a national scandal how an entire class of medications can just disappear from the shelves, and this has been known to be going on for nearly a year - but literally no one gives a shit because the two groups it affects are AFABs over the age of 40 and trans people, and our government sees these groups of people as completely disposable non-persons?

I'm fucking furious (and oh, hey, the hormones were one of the few things that ever helped with the anger) and also I'm so tired I just want a nap.

from over here in an informed consent state in america, yeah it absolutely is a complete fucking outrage. the nhs has a systemic policy of denying (through artifically restricting access) what is proven to be the most safe and effective treatment for gender incongruence, which is an easily and cheaply treatable condition which, if not treated, has serious health consequences for those affected, up to and including death. i understand why nobody has gone full larry kramer over there about it yet - there are significant costs to being larry kramer - but my feeling is that it's the only way shit is gonna change over there.

K8, you probably already know that I am just endlessly disgusted with our shitty government's endlessly shitty treatment of trans people. But this current situation goes well beyond that - like I'd honestly be the first person to say if I thought this was deliberate. But most research seems to indicate that this is sheer incompetence and government mishandling and the law of the unintended consequences and bad decisions at every stage of the supply chain:

https://members.tortoisemedia.com/2019/11/28/the-great-hrt-scandal/content.html

But the reason that no one is bothering to do anything about it, is because... who gives a shit about medication that only affects old women and trans people?!?!? Certainly not anyone in this government.

It's beyond incompetence at this point. Where, with this government, you have to start wondering if the incompetence is deliberate. But it's also exhausting to think this way.

i wouldn't really say that there's necessarily an overt conspiracy against trans people and afabs either, but the term "depraved indifference" tends to pop up in my darker thoughts a lot. :( the sort of people who in america if you asked them to say "black lives matter" instead would say "all lives matter" or "blue lives matter" or something like that because they can't bring themselves to say it... saying "trans lives matter" or "women's lives matter" seems like it would be difficult for a lot of people as well.

the posts about tara reade, y'all

this shit never ends

i am EXHAUSTED

I know. I feel for you, esp as a person who works with survivors/recovering people. I had my huge freakout about it a few weeks ago when Bernie dropped out. I read the interview and it fucked me up. Since then I’ve been stoically sending her interview to anyone I think needs to see it. Beyond that I need to shelter my brain from it bc Im vulnerable :(

Sending a ghost hug to anyone who needs it

ive been tbh pressuring my agency to make a statement about it and some folks' reticence to do so is also demoralizing

like the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house yall

The most demoralizing thing for me is seeing people desperate to malign the survivor and deny their account/truth/reality — I can’t put myself through that over and over. It’s corrosive for me to the point of being debilitating.

Your post on fb summed it up for me entirely. The problem is YOU — the people who demand a full nitpicking to the death of the survivor. It’s awful beyond comprehension.

yes. i totally feel you on the putting yourself through it over and over. it's been taking a legit physical toll on me.

Kinda feeling this

...ok, but if the only time you ever seem to care about sexual abuse is when talking about it might take down one of your enemies, people might be right to accuse you of weaponizing women's oppression to suit your own ends.

— love one another (@girlziplocked) April 28, 2020