Talk to God Phone Booth

 

Talk about a random throwback!  This pic popped up in my Pinterest feed and sent me hurtling back to Black Rock City, 2010.  Picture it:   Burning Man, 2010.  Sunset.  My 3 friends & I happen upon this phone.  "Talk to God".  Hah!  No way did this dusty old contraption work.  At best it probably spat out a pre-recorded message saying "Fuck your Burn" or something.  I inserted a quarter and started dialing.

Lo & behold, I got a dial tone!  So I decided to call the most un-godlike person I could think of: my mother.  Just to let her know I wasn't dead in an LSD-related accident of some kind.  (Burning Man averages about 1 death per year, which isn't that bad considering the 70,000+ person attendance rate at the one I went to).  I rode a giant flashing pirate ship one night only to find out that it had run over a person the following night--that was our 1 death in 2010.  Or so I thought.  I can't find any details about a death in 2010, but I remember it plain as day.  A dehydration-induced delusion, or was it just not recorded?  Who knows. 

I have no memory of what we talked about on that rickety old phone but needless to say I was impressed it worked, and I'm fairly sure it gave me my quarter back after hanging up, though that may be another sun-induced delusion.  We didn't have cell service out there in the middle of nowhere, yet this analog phone somehow worked like a charm.  That someone found it cool enough to share a picture of online says a lot because there were so many mind-blowing art installations at that event, and I'm sure at every Burning Man since.  That the picture then found its way to my feed after all these years feels like maybe God did receive my call after all.  

Would I want to attend Burning Man again?  Ehh, no.  Conditions are too harsh for my wimpy ass.  Too hot/dry in the daytime and too cold at night with far too much alkaline dust (my lips were swollen to thrice their size by Day 8 when we left; some kind of allergic reaction).  But I'm grateful I got to go for the experience.  It's one of the most memorable and insane things I've done to this day.  And I'm sure glad I got to experience this once-in-a-lifetime trip before the billionaire set took over.   When asked to describe it, I'm always at a loss for words so maybe these photos taken from around the 'net will tell the story better than I can:

The camping setup (aerial view)

Art installation




People of Burning Man





Night time in Black Rock City





Nudity is common, yet you rarely hear of sexual violence on the playa

The Temple, which burns on the final night

Can you hear me NOW, God? 📞.

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Boundaries vs. Bigotry (with Bad Visual Aids!)

* "Biracial" in this article refers only to people of African and European descent--the most common type of biracial people in the U.S.  And before anyone says it:  Not All Biracials/Not All Bisexuals, etc.

It's no big secret that I royally SUCK at explaining things verbally, so I decided to whip up some equally shit-tier quality visual aides to help explain a concept that's been bugging me for ages.  It's not a 1-to-1 comparison, mind you, but it's the best I can come up with, and it also highlights the drastically different ways we view racism vs. sexism in this country when both should be treated as equally abhorrent.  Because they are.  

What other group is subjected to this deliberate erasure & slander?

In every comment section of every lesbian discussion and site on the www, you'll find bisexuals and their male partners tone- and content-policing lesbians, again, IN OUR OWN SPACES, calling us bi- and transphobic for sharing our opinions and experiences, venting our frustrations or laughing about things so we don't cry.  Most of the topics they're commenting on center on lesbians' refusal to date/sleep with bi women--  something not every lesbian subscribes to, mind you, but many of us do.  They refer to this boundary as "biphobia," a form of discrimination & bigotry on par with homophobia or misogyny.  Allegedly.

Since when is having personal boundaries, standards & deal breakers in one's personal life comparable to denial of basic human rights in the public sphere?  Everyone has their own lines in the sand, and I regret to inform you that they don't have to make sense to anyone else.  They're YOUR deal-breakers.  That's how dating and attraction work.  Hell, they may not even make total sense to you, but refusal to honor them generally leads to dysfunctional, toxic relationships & resentment down the line. 

If I don't want to date you because you have a mole or birth mark in a certain place, that's my right.  It may seem cruel or petty to you, but you have to accept it.  You don't have to understand or like it, but lying to cover up the truth so I'll sleep with you when I've already shared this boundary is tantamount to rape. We're all experts on our own limits, and it's disrespectful to question or pressure another adult person about theirs.  Obscuring the truth to get in their pants is sexual assault, full stop.  As long as I'm not actively campaigning to deny you equal rights in housing, employment, marriage or other parts of public life, it's not discrimination, hate or a "phobia".  




No Means... Keep Arguing

...except when you're lesbian.

In my day, the anti-rape slogan "no means no" was popular among teens and on college campuses, and if you heard it you could be about 99.5% sure you were the bad guy.  No does not mean no anymore, it apparently means "keep pestering and prodding until you either get a 'yes' or the last word.  Women are often the worst offenders, doing the heavy lifting for trans-identified men or their own bisexual selves.  We have exactly 0 all female, all lesbian dating apps because the owners keep getting sued and shut down by litigious rapey tr00ns who won't take no for an answer.  Yet Blackpeoplemeet.com, JDate and the hetero-exclusive E-Harmony remain unchallenged despite their blatantly exclusive nature.  Where's the bisexual outrage toward that?  

And now for the bad visual aides.

Similar but not the same, and certainly not more oppressed.

The whole "biphobia" brouhaha can be compared to a biracial person joining a discussion group for Black people on the evils of colorism & shaming them for reverse colorism, attempting to police their tone & the direction of the conversation.  In this upsidedown world scenario, the biracial person accuses the dark-skinned Black folks of "biracialphobia" because of some anecdotal experience they had when they were 10 years old, claiming that biracials who can pass for white actually have it worst of all.  For reasons. 

Told you it was gonna get fugly.  😆

There are several pages like this around the 'net and the similarities to the bisexual-lesbian phenomenon are striking in at least one glaring way:  this biRACIAL cohort always punches down exclusively--never up at whites who deliberately created colorism by putting lightskinned slaves in the house & dark slaves in the field & continuing the divisiveness to this day in the courts, media & other levels of society. They're angry at the dark-skinned Black people who were rude or exclusionary to them, which is totally fair but not the same as racism/colorism.  

This is exactly what biSEXUALS do, barging into lesbian spaces and calling us bigots for having boundaries & discussing issues affecting us (punching down) while letting heteros off the hook entirely.  Never mind that plenty of straight people flat out refuse to date bisexuals for personal or religious reasons.  The straight men who do date them often do so for self-serving reasons, viewing them as more likely to be open to polyamory, threesomes and all manner of kinky shit... The kind of girl you date casually but never bring home to mom..  But do bisexuals ever call them bigots, misogynists or biphobes for this vile behavior?  About as often as the trans community calls out the violent straight men actually killing them.  So no.  🚮

What's the problem, you ask?  Bisexuals indeed may face hurdles with both gay and straight people when it comes to dating & relationships.  The difference is in the numbers: upwards of 85% of bi women end up marrying and reproducing with men.  And the comment sections speak for themselves, with accusations of "biphobia" only flying in one direction--toward lesbians.  Not at straight or bisexual men; not at other bisexual women who quietly prefer dating hetero men or lesbian women instead of their own kind.  It's a nearly identical situation in the trans community--straight men who actually commit violence against them are given a pass while women who simply say "no, we'd rather you not be put in prison cells with us or compete against us in sports" being called TERFs and other sex-specific slurs.  Other transwomen who quietly and suspiciously prefer to date "cis" women are never called out for their internalized transphobia.  The problem is the fucking disproportionate double standard, the misogynistic lesbophobic bullshit that gives men a pass regardless of how they identify or who they fuck while holding women's feet to the fire even in the few safe spaces we've got left.



Rejection ≠ Hate Crime

No one is saying biracial people OR bisexuals don't face their own unique issues due to their identities.  But that's just it: we're not interchangeable, any of us.  The sexes, the races, the sexual orientations.  Our struggles may overlap in places like the Venn diagrams above, but we all lose when we start playing the Oppression Olympics, especially in other peoples' spaces.  Biphobia is the "reverse racism" of sexual orientation.  Transphobia is the "All Lives Matter" of civil rights.  Both are shallow, narcissistic ways of dancing around women's & lesbians' boundaries and not taking 'no' for an answer.  If biracial people face oppression in society at large, it's due to their Blackness, not their whiteness.  If bisexuals face oppression, it's due to their homosexual attractions, not their heterosexual ones.  Yet to hear them tell it, it's the other way around!  

Minorities and oppressed groups (they're not always one and the same--women make up 50% of the Earth's population and are most certainly oppressed) deserve spaces to vent and speak openly about our unique plights without being shouted down by a chorus of entitled hashtag-tivists looking for a reason to be offended.  Maybe what's being said IS rude and potentially hurtful on a personal level, but brash does not = hate or phobia, and we have every right to say it.  You're a guest on our turf so start acting like it or get booted.  If lesbians come into bi spaces and give unsolicited opinions,  we should expect to be challenged too because that's how that works.  Being offended doesn't make you right.  Either come with facts and stats or save your virtual outrage. 

When lesbians say we've been hurt by bi women or simply prefer not to date them for other reasons, that's it.  Conversation over.  Y'ain't gotta like it but you do have to accept it.  Maybe start taking our experiences (and the raw statistics) seriously & address the people on your side of the fence about these issues if you truly want to heal the divide.  Also:  rejection is a natural part of dating and sex, and it can happen for any reason or seemingly no reason.  It's never hate or bigotry because no one is entitled to another person's affection or attraction to start with.

Sexist Conservatorships & the Reward for a Lifetime of Loyalty

 

Love her or hate her, Wendy Williams' life story is a heartbreaking and enraging reminder of what women going through a hard time in America can face at the hands of those who supposedly love them.  After her husband and long-time business partner Kevin Hunter cheated very publicly with a younger woman, Wendy went down a serious spiral into alcoholism.  She'd previously overcome a crack addiction and went on to become a major force in daytime TV after alleging that Diddy had her fired from her radio show in 1998 for joking about his homosexuality.  She always spoke highly of her husband Kevin and their son Kevin, Jr. on her talk show.  They were the loves of her life, her pride & joy.  Even amidst the cheating rumors and tabloid photos of him with another woman, Wendy came to his defense on national TV.    

They were also her downfall.  While already dealing with the loss of her mother, her talk show and marriage, Kevin Jr. apparently told her he wanted to rent "a boat" for his graduation.  She gave him her credit card.  He rented a yacht.  This triggered her bank, Wells Fargo, to file for a conservatorship under the belief that she was being taken advantage of financially.  Which, to be fair, she was.  By this point, Wendy was in bad shape cognitively:  it was clear her speech was affected like someone who'd maybe had a stroke or something.  She put out a video claiming repeatedly that it "wasn't fair" and "wasn't right" that Wells Fargo had frozen her account.  But the worst was yet to come.

Showing signs of Thyroid Eye Disease and dementia in 2024

Eventually Wendy was placed in an old folks' home for people with dementia after being diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD)--the same disease Bruce Willis was diagnosed with in 2022.  FTD is a 100% progressive and fatal brain disease that tends to strike younger than Alzheimer's but follows a similar path of memory loss, personality change & eventual loss of all bodily functions.  A 2024 documentary Where Is Wendy Williams? showed what looked to be a person in the middle stages of this disease, with Wendy even exhibiting sundowning typical of many dementia diseases.  She briefly met with her son at the end for a moment (he showed up late and seemed annoyed with her the whole time, claiming she'd been diagnosed with alcohol-induced dementia, something I noted as contradictory and odd at the time). 

Overall, most fans found the whole thing exploitative and heartbreaking, assuming it was the last "production" we'd ever see Wendy appear in.  Her eyes were huge, she made no sense when she talked, lashed out randomly at people and had horrific lymphadema among other issues.  And she drank throughout the movie.  A LOT.  

But then she turned up on The Breakfast Club morning radio show sounding damn near like her old self.  And she kept making appearances and sounding like she'd improved, so much so that she was tested AGAIN for dementia and determined NOT to have FTD!  Indeed, while dementia patients may have moments of clarity amidst the fog, they don't go backwards and regain previously lost function.  Once those brain cells are dead, they don't regenerate.  So why tf is she still in a memory care home with 80 and 90 year olds and a frozen bank account?  Even if she's doing better because she's not drinking, isn't it her choice to destroy herself if she so chooses?  



Alcohol-Induced Dementia: A Under-Recognized Affliction

Alcohol + the brain = a deadly combo

Unlike FTD or other dementias, alcohol-induced dementia is not inherently progressive and fatal if the person stops drinking and gets nutritional support.  It may not be 100% reversible depending on several factors (duration of drinking, severity of neuron damage, age, etc) but it won't progress to death on its own without continued alcohol consumption. 

Alcohol impairs every function of the brain from reasoning and judgment to memory, language, personality & spatial understanding, making symptoms of this dementia hard to distinguish from other types, especially in older people with multiple chronic illnesses like Wendy has.  But a history of alcohol abuse should serve as a major clue.  Thiamine (Vitamin B1) deficiency plays a large role in this condition; some professionals have even suggested adding the vitamin to beer and other alcoholic beverages as an easy solution to prevent the condition.  Because women metabolize alcohol less efficiently than men, we're more prone to developing this and other harmful outcomes of drinking than men consuming the same amount of alcohol. 

Apparently we're also more prone to being institutionalized for having public mental health/cognitive crises, as evidenced by the conservatorships of Britney Spears and Wendy Williams while maniacs like Shia Lebouf, Kanye West, Andy Dick, Ezra Miller, the Tate brothers, Charlie Sheen & Chris Brown repeatedly act unhinged, violent & mentally ill on the public stage & maintain control of their bank accounts/freedom.  The amount of drugs, sexual assault and arrests between these men dwarfs that of any list of female celebs you can throw together, yet here they are, selling out shows and living it up while we tear down Chili of TLC for her voting habits & Chappell Roan for maybe putting up a privacy boundary with a fan.

Wendy's mast err, guardian: Sabrina Morrissey

If prison is for poor people, conservatorships are for rich women surrounded by greedy opportunists who bleed them dry and then refuse to get off the gravy train when it goes off the tracks, as trains tend to do after decades of chugging along without rest  Apparently Lindsay Lohan came THISCLOSE to being put under one in her party days too, and it was the same lady that initiated Britney's who came up with the idea.  Like Wendy & Britney, Lindsay's family consists of unrepentant stage parents and greedy types whose main concern is getting at her money.

A Lesson for All Women

Domestic servitude in the 1950s.

The lesson here is one I've witnessed in my own life many times: you can devote your whole life to being loyal to a man and giving your kids everything only to be tossed aside like yesterday's leftovers when they get bored or you hit a rough patch & need support.  It's often the most loyal women who get trampled on the hardest--the ones who were actually codependent and put up with too much, enabling bad behavior under the guise of love, putting the "sanctity" of marriage or shame of divorce above their own dignity and happiness.  I have no idea where that misplaced loyalty/martyrdom complex comes from but it definitely missed me. 

It never ends well for these women for one reason: we teach people how to treat us, and once you've set the bar low it's almost impossible to raise it with those people in that situation, be it the home or work or wherever.  Low key users will subject you to household labor inequality or small things like "forgetting" anniversaries; the pros will cheat, lie, steal and abuse overtly as long as you stay.  These types will calculate how much mileage they can get out of someone before discarding them, which usually happens when the effort becomes greater than the reward, such as during menopause or a mental health crisis.  The antidote is for women to stop fearing loneliness and start embracing solitude.  Only then are you able to walk into relationships from a place of calm dignified openness rather than neediness.  "I want this, I don't need it energy."   

As for alcoholism, it does make people impossible to be around.  Constant mood swings and lashing out, erratic and embarrassing public behavior, loud sloppy puking-redfaced-yelling-crying-sweating-trembling-stumbling-passed out-forgetful-aggressive outbursts.  It frankly makes a person more insufferable than heroin or even meth in some cases.  There's nothing more wicked than an angry drunk's tongue; something I know because I am one.  Which is why I don't drink.  At all, ever.  I'm not drug-free but I know better than to fuck with substances that make me feel and behave WORSE because this is where it gets you: locked up, either in prison, a psych ward or a dementia home for the elderly.  It may take a while but eventually that's where it leads, either that or the morgue.  And you'll wreck a lot of good relationships and opportunities in the meantime.  

...so yeah, keep living those Tradlives that slowly steal your spirit, staying drunk to get through the day.  Spin it as social drinking, call yourself a "Wine Mom," joke about how your family "drives you to drinking".  But make no mistake:  you're incurring brain, liver and other organ damage with every glass.  The legal status of booze has no bearing on its risk to your health.  If you doubt this, just watch Where Is Wendy Williams? or look at her current reality.  (Can you even imagine if cannabis or any other drug had put her in this situation?  There is no other drug that causes literal dementia--only alcohol). 

Or perhaps you'll end up like Diane Schuler, villain of "There's Something Wrong With Aunt Diane" who killed herself, her daughter & 3 nieces as well as another innocent family while driving drunk one morning going the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway.  (Diane was a hardworking overachiever with a bum husband who likely got mad at him on the camping trip that weekend and did what she did for revenge FWIW). Instead of just splitting up and getting the mental help she could easily afford, she took 8 lives to "teach him a lesson".  Or because she couldn't wait to get home and drink to the point of blackout.  Or whatever.  

The bottom line is, there's nothing heroic or admirable about putting yourself last and tolerating repeated blatant disrespect.  It's not a sign of strength or character but an unhealthy coping mechanism that will lead to others, like drinking to excess.   And yes, people can tell even if you're "functional" and working a full-time job.  It's obvious in the little slips of memory, the repetitive questions and slurred speech.  The sudden mood swings and bursts of anger that seem to come from nowhere.  The red eyes, the disheveled look by the end of the day, the way you have to hold onto others to steady yourself in photos.  That's not judgment, it's just real.  And shame on you if you drive in that condition.  That IS judgment because you have no right.

Just remember Wendy Williams' plight when you stay in that bad marriage or pour your next drink.  Your outcome could be even worse.

🍾🍷🍺🍹🥃🧠🔥🫥⚰

2009 Taconic State Pkwy crash that killed 8 

Super Mario World: Dots of Disappointment

 
Let me describe to you the biggest disappointment of my childhood.  It wasn't finding out Santa wasn't real or breaking my favorite toy; it was when I found out the colorful dots at the top of Super Mario World's Special Zone didn't actually do anything or lead anywhere.  Random, I know.  After completing all 8 super-hard levels and ending up right back in the mainland, albeit a bit altered, I was so upset I even considered calling the 1-800 number on back of box to find out what I was missing.  But I'd already been in big trouble for calling paid "hotlines" of another variety and decided against that.  😬

Sure, Special Zone is cool and all, but I assumed those dots were worlds of their own or portals to yet another undiscovered zone such as "GENIUS" or "GODLIKE".  If this was outer space, maybe the next level was Heaven!  Or maybe they were lights on a spaceship that would lower & beam you up out of Super Mario World into Super Mario Neptune or Super Mario Mars...   🪐

Alternate reality

A tiny part of me still holds out hope this is possible, that a glitch or hack will send Luigi moonwalking up there to discover a hidden version of Polybius or a map to where all those ET Atari games are buried.  Heck, it was only recently I discovered all the glitch Yoshis in this classic game, which already has more secrets than Area 51.  If I had hacking capabilities like all these Youtubers, I'd go straight for the 4 dots and make them "playable".  Perhaps they'd lead to 4 different universes that look like this:

Still not that impressive, but at least I TRIED.  😤

Perhaps the theoretical post-Special levels in the dots could've featured some of the glitch Yoshis but without having to do weird complicated glitchy shit to obtain them?  (I favor the ice blue one and the black one personally).  Throw in some more bonus level games and rejected levels from this or past Mario games and viola--DotWorld.  Maybe give them backward names like repuS, sreknoB and !rezwoW.  

Okay, I'm just giving away brilliant ideas for free at this point.  🙃

Someone please tell me I'm not the only shut-in nerd child who thought these dots led somewhere or did something?

P.S. - I know they're just the colors that represent the 4 elements/color scheme of the game now... I get that.  No need to reiterate.  But they still feel out of place in Special World as mere decoration to me, especially with all the other hidden aspects of this game.

The Demonization of Estrogen

Are you... aN iDiOt?

Anyone notice how everyone, medical professionals and science folks included, talks as if male hormones--androgens like testosterone, DHT and DHEA--are the default, rarely linking them to disease or states of mental unwellness the way female hormones are spoken about?   It's always those pesky female ones (estrogen, progesterone, prolactin & Co.) that catch all the blame for causing serious illnesses.  Women make up 90% of all autoimmune diseases cases?  Must be the lady hormones!  Women are more likely to get dementia?  Lack of lady hormones after menopause!  Women are the slightest bit moody, fatigued, anxious or irritable any time after puberty?  PMS/PMDD, obviously!  (Hormones!)  Feeling down after pregnancy & childbirth!  (Hormoans!)  Peri-menopause! (Whore-moans!)  MENOPAUSE!   

(W̶̛̦͇̾͋̐͐ h̷̢̭̒ ŏ̴͈̺̱̫̮̊̔̄̈͘͝ r̵̨̧͈͙̪̥̰̼͍͑̇͆̇̓͒́̈́͘͜͠ é̴̮͉̺͖̭̀̅̍̉͐͜ m̴̡̨̬̗̺̘̜̐̍̚͘ͅ ǫ̸̮̪̬͙̋̈́̐̂̊̊̓̈̓͝ a̷̧͚͓͛̿̅̃͛͘̚͠͝ ṉ̷͇͂ s̵̮̙̩̳̞̩̀̑̃̈͗!̷̢̤̬̾͐̄́͒͒̓̚͝͝)  

Aside from all the contradictions, this loosely constructed "theory" of women's dis-ease comes off as incredibly dismissive and may even be dangerous.  More on that in a minute.  First, let's get into why none of this makes a damn bit of sense.  Women aren't the only ones who make female hormones, though men only produce them in small amounts.  But men are also more sensitive to their effects, exhibiting more severe toxic effect at lower doses.  (The same is true for women and androgens, which our bodies produce in small amounts naturally as well).   

Estrogen, like THC & other compounds, is stored in body fat, which is a big reason obesity increases the risk of several reproductive cancers in women.  Many of these are estrogen-responsive, containing receptors that signal them to grow when activated by estrogen... or anything that resembles it.  This is where things get hairy, because the number of "estrogen-like" compounds in our environment seems to be growing by the year.  Just consider the explosion in the number of estrogen-containing meds in the 21st Century.   Imvexxy, Premarin, the countless name brand and generic estradiol/progestin combo contraceptive and HRT pills on the market....  

Actual screenshot of what I assumed was satire.  Nope.  A gramme in time saves nine 

Then you have the Big Dogs: the cross-sex hormones taken in heroic doses by transgender people of both sexes.  All the above end up in the water supply when we urinate/defecate/flush them down the toilet, having disturbing effects on fish & other aquatic animals we eat.  Cow's milk from pregnant dairy cattle--which is nearly all of them in the U.S.--is a major source of estrogen (and progesterone) that's been linked to precocious puberty in girls and potentially a host of human cancers including breast and prostate cancers.  (Milk and its derivatives are in practically all processed foods these days).  I'm not talking about rBGH or rBST--I'm talking about the natural estrogen that female animals produce when pregnant).  Apparently milk may also contain Bovine Leukemia Virus which just sounds... fucking yikes.  

Got milk?  What's REALLY in your dairy products.

Still with me?  Good, because we've got a long way to go.  There are another class of estrogen-like compounds floating around in our air, water, food & consumer products.  These are more "dirty" in that they may affect a wider range of endocrine systems and hormones such as insulin or thyroid function, thus the name "endocrine disruptors".  These include chemicals like BPA, DDT, phtalates & dioxins.  The aforementioned cow drugs recombinant bovine growth hormone (rGBH) and rBST are other examples. 

All of this has unique health consequences for males, females & children of both sexes as well as every other living thing.  Each one has a different "strength" or binding affinity for the estrogen receptors throughout the body, the most potent being a 1970s Rx drug called diethylstilbestrol.  It persists in the water today because, well, I'll just let you read this little screen cap yourself because I don't wanna get side tracked.  Needless to say, if this was the only bad guy on our list, we'd all be cooked.

DES:  Destructive & indestructible.

 

The Math Ain't Mathin'

Hey waitaminute...

With all these factors:  all-time high obesity rates, potent estrogenic compounds in our food, medication, water and environment, why aren't men, who are naturally less tolerant of female hormones, developing the health complications doctors and scientists blame on these hormones in women?  Or seemingly any health problems at all?  Even prostate and other male reproductive cancers don't get blamed on estrogen exposure in men like so many women's health conditions do.  Only when the fairer, weaker, more "emotional" sex gets sick is the cause chalked up to these pesky hormones. 

Estrogen is a powerful substance, no doubt.  But no more powerful than the androgens.  You know, the ones that cause cardiovascular disease, male pattern baldness, acne, mood swings and rage, adrenal gland & testicular tumors and growth of a micropenis if a female infant lies on her father's bare chest after he's used testosterone gel there.  (Ahem, testosterone, I'm looking at YOU).  IDK about you, but those are some pretty serious fucking health effects.

And why is nobody talking about the obvious whopping doses of cross-sex hormones transgender people take on the daily?  We're warned about the detrimental effects of anabolic steroids, yet "transmen" (aka females) are given massive amounts of synthetic testosterone even after horror stories of vaginal atrophy and fusion of reproductive organs like that of trans porno star Buck Angel and the elevated death rate of transgender people on cross-sex hormones.  Remember, both sexes are uniquely sensitive to the opposite sex's hormones, and we have the data proving increased death rates.  WHY IS THIS STILL CONSIDERED ETHICAL?!

But back to the point of this screed.  How does it make sense to blame women's health problems on female hormones that are SUPPOSED to be in women's bodies?  We tolerate them better than men, yet even when men are exposed to massive amounts of synthetic and exogenous sources of estrogen agonists, they don't come down with these (or apparently any other sex-specific) diseases.  This is dangerous because it misses other potential causes, like all the toxic products marketed specifically to women:  cosmetics banned in other countries, tampons found to be contaminated with 16 heavy metals & poisons including dioxin, household cleaning products, hair dyes and chemical straighteners that cause fibroids & cancer in Black women, herbal weight loss concoctions & other unregulated supplements, nail polish, prescription medications tested exclusively on male test subjects and much more.  Or the fact that we're pushed to work in "helping" professions where we're made to act as human shields in school shootings when the cops don't show up or wear trash bags as PPE or any other number of hazardous shit for insulting pay.  Might these things plus the stress of household labor inequality and the bodily trauma of pregnancy/childbirth contribute to higher rates of dementia or autoimmune disease in women?  No?  Okay.  Lady hormones it is.

Any one of those things may be fine in isolation, but none of this shit happens in a vacuum.  You can't walk into a public building without being smacked in the face by the smell of cleaning solution and 10 different perfumes; walk outside and car exhaust fills your nostrils.  If you choose to drink water from the tap, you're likely ingesting a host of things those cheapo Brita filters don't really remove, yet bottled water is full of microplastics we can only assume do very bad things.  That's cool; most people rarely drink water anyway, opting for carbonated/caffeinated sweet poison.   You'll probably get diabetes but hey, that's what GLP-1's are for.  You already take a smorgasbord of medications and supplements, many of which the FDA has warned may not be safe due to lack of regulation or being made overseas.  You can't currently afford to see your doctor but you found some cheap Vietnamese birth control pills online that look legit.  The reviews are good anyway.  They're cheaper than your regular brand anyway, and you need that money to get your hair dyed before Memorial Day!  

All the bold words above are potentially toxic or endocrine disrupting substances we encounter every day.  Some are avoidable and others are not.  Cancer charities like Susan G. Komen focus on finding a "cure," but we need to be focusing more on finding the cause and getting these filthy substances out of our environment/minimizing unnecessary exposures.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure--while catching cancer "early" is better than late, making sure it never forms in the first place is far better still.  And we'll never do that with scientists, doctors and everyone else shrugging off women's health as some mysterious unsolvable riddle.  Men aren't the default; we aren't some infinitely complex version of the original model. Maybe you'd know that if you included us in your studies.  

Oh, and in case you wondered what high doses of a chemical like dioxin can do to a person, here's perhaps the best living example:  Viktor Yuschenko, who was poisoned by the KGB/Putin in 2004:

Yuschenko exhibiting chloracne, a known symptom of dioxin poisoning.

Dioxin was a key ingredient in Agent Orange and the other "rainbow" defoliants used in Vietnam, and it's a known contaminant in tampons.  Here's the full scary story on THAT.  But no, ladies, your Sjogren's/lupus/migraines/depression/thyroid disease is a result of those female hormones that are supposed to be present in your body!  And when they exit after menopause, well, that also causes problems.  Neither testosterone nor estrogen cause such problems in men, but that's just the way it is!  Oh the joys of being a woman!

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The Real "Gateway" Drugs

Weed is not a gateway drug.  If such a thing exists, that honor goes to caffeine, alcohol & tobacco, which are generally tried LONG before cannabis due to their wide availability & the way they're promoted and advertised to young people. 

Caffeine and tobacco are stimulants and alcohol is a depressant.  While caffeine isn't as deadly as the other two, it is physically addictive and causes painful withdrawal symptoms upon cessation such as headache, fatigue, cravings & irritability.  Tobacco is the most addictive drug perhaps known to man, harder to quit than cocaine, amphetamine or heroin according to a 1987 Surgeon General's report.  Even with all the patches, gums, vapes and other nicotine products to help people quit, it remains one of the hardest drugs to stop, which is why it's often allowed in drug detox and inpatient rehab centers.  And like alcohol, it's a Group I carcinogen known to cause 13+ types of cancer among other serious health problems.  It's the only drug I've encountered that will leave you talking through a hole in your neck.  Yet like alcohol, it's unscheduled & remains available over the counter to anyone 18 or older.  

Alcohol is the true gateway drug in that it drastically alters mood and thinking.  In low doses it produces euphoria and relaxation--in higher doses, loss of coordination, memory loss, slurred speech, impaired judgment & unpredictable mood changes that may include happiness, rage or depression.  In overdose it causes total blackout & amnesia, respiratory depression & vomiting which can result in aspiration and death.

Alcohol is involved in nearly HALF of all violent crimes in the U.S. (see stats below) as well as a significant portion of car accidents & other forms of accidental self-injury.  The World Health Organization has recently proclaimed that there is NO safe type or amount of alcohol for anyone, as it's toxic to every cell of the body even at minuscule doses.  It's the only recreational drug with its own "syndrome" in pregnancy, making it the most toxic drug to ingest while pregnant.  It even causes its own uniquely horrific brand of psychosis and dementia (Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome).

via Google

Despite this, cannabis constantly stays in the news cycle as a "gateway drug" that causes psychosis and all other manner of social ills.  While no substance is without its issues when abused or taken by the wrong cohort (i.e. children or the severely mentally ill), this fear-mongering just hasn't proven true in the real world despite millennia of use all over the world.  The same is true of kratom, another plant drug that's not profitable to any "big" industry in its whole natural form (but VERY profitable when its individual components are isolated, patented & sold back to us after the plant is banned).  To be clear, I'm talking about the plain leaf being used by healthy adults, not potent extracts guzzled by kids & poly-substance addicts.  Same with whole unadulterated cannabis, not the insanely potent extracts, vape oils & other "crackish" forms with virtually no history of human use before 2012.

ABC's "Will & Kate" interview came before exposing child sex predator Epstein.

Who Shapes the Narrative?

Might it be that these legal drug industries are the ones pushing all this anti-drug hysteria?  We know it's "the media" behind the fear-mongering every time a new drug hits the streets, but who advertises & sponsors the news media?  Lots of industries, among them alcohol, big pharma, junk food (sugar) & caffeine-pushing  companies.  While individual journalists may be well-intentioned, the news stations themselves are armed with teams of legal advisors who kill stories before they even get started if they smell potential lawsuits or problems with sponsors. 

This affects all kinds of stories, not just drug-related ones.  The Epstein scandal was common knowledge among journalists years before it became public knowledge as evidenced by this hot mic moment with ABC's Amy Robach, who discussed her interview with Prince Andrew survivor Virginia Giuffre and being "threatened a million different ways" by the Palace when they found out about the interview & allegations.  If you wonder why topics like climate change, the Palestinian genocide & our scammy for-profit healthcare system rarely make headlines, you can thank the corporate media which doubles as the propaganda arm of the State Department... when not doing the bidding of their corporate sponsors.

No, friends, the true "gateway drugs" are untreated mental illness, childhood trauma, hopeless/stressful environments & a genetic predisposition to addiction--not any one substance or event.  But IF we were going to pin that title on any drug, it makes sense to give it to the first drug(s) tried by a person, which in a vast majority of cases is not cannabis.  The obvious solution is to do everything in your power to keep kids--YOUR kids--from using substances of any kind until they're legal adults when they can make the decisions for themselves, not to strip away rights from consenting adults en masse which obviously doesn't work anyway judging by the availability of highly potent, toxic substances on every street corner, gas station and website in America, not to mention the appalling overdose/addiction rates in said country which dwarf those of every other nation on Earth.

Hey, You! Get Off the Fence!

If there's one thing I ain't fucking with in 2026 and beyond, it's 2-faced fence riders.  Boldfaced backsliders. Loud, proud ignorant reality deniers.  DGAF what it costs to keep my soul.  Name your price--my integrity is worth that and then some.  My conscience is my only master.  All I have is my word so it has to be my bond...  

Not all of us can pay, suck or fuck our way out of a tight spot, and, try as I might, no drug or other vice has ever allowed me to reach the level of utter delusion so many Americans have achieved that allows them to live so thoroughly immersed in escapist fantasies that they ignore basic survival needs.  My brain fights to the death to maintain its shitty homeostasis--depressive realism.  And that reality is one in which things like  lack of health insurance, abusive deadbeat partners, repeated scammy phone calls/bank account lockouts, that troubling growth on the back of your neck and other ticking time bombs must be attended to NOW, in the present, to avert certain disaster.  No amount of consumerist distraction or celebrity LARPing will allow me to not be eaten alive by the fact that my small circle of friends and family are going to die premature, senseless deaths and leave me truly alone in this world... often due to their own short-sighted bad choices.  The self-induced slaughter has already begun. 

I lost my last living grandparents in 2023 and 2025, then in early 2026 a college friend passed (somewhat) unexpectedly due to major conditions he basically ignored for years (to our horror), leaving behind a wife and kids.  Then a family member of mine died a painful and drawn-out death of vascular dementia in his early 50s a month or so later.  He wasn't a drug user or obese so I'm still not sure WTF happened.  A tad anorexic maybe.  I have one old friend a couple years my junior who's a double amputee (diabetes) and just boppin' along as if everything's hunky dory due to her untreated mental illness which, had she treated it long ago, would've likely allowed her to keep her limbs.  It's THAT bad.  Last but certainly not least, I have a very close friend living with a rare, progressive brain disease that is ripping my heart out every day and another dear friend who will have to be monitored for multiple cancers for the rest of her life (she lost the genetic lottery big time).  She's moving out of state again next year.  My small circle just keeps on shrinking...

Speaking of cancer, my sister is nursing a virus that is currently producing cancer "proteins" again as well as a chronic heart condition that randomly causes her heart to beat over 200 bpm.  This would be worrying enough, but she no longer has health insurance because her piece of shit baby's father has intimidated her into not filing for child support, which happened automatically when she filed for Medicaid for herself and her child, causing said sperm donor to fly into a rage.  So mom & baby are both uninsured.  (She had to quit her job after falling asleep at the wheel from exhaustion and driving off into the ditch & now works from home while raising the child alone, but she doesn't make enough to afford healthcare in the richest nation on Earth).  My brother was dropped from Medicaid when my state decided to cut funding, causing him to quit his blood pressure and cholesterol medications abruptly.  He works as a janitor at the same hellhole we all graduated from and (understandably) weighs over 400 lbs, which makes the lack of healthcare especially dangerous.  

Sorry, was I boring you? 🥱

I could go on but I'll just... not.  My friends are incredibly insightful and receptive to discussing these things, but my family?  Belligerent is an understatement.  When I try to address ANY of it or the 50,000,001 issues currently facing them to find solutions, they flip into Shoot the Messenger mode, acting like I'm the problem.  "Stop overreacting".  "You don't know what you're talking about!"  "The FDIC will reimburse me if I lose my life savings to an internet scammer." (LMA fucking O)."

You'd think I would've learned to keep my big yap SHUT over the years, but no.  Maybe it's the OCD; the intrusive thoughts and incessant worry that drive my compulsion to speak up about things like this even when I know it's beyond futile.  Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment (nope, definitely not that.  I fucking hate drama).  It's not like I don't have my own problems to deal with--surprise landlord inspections with little notice, chronic health shit of my own, being gay AF in a blood-red fundie state with no community or viable dating options whatsoever, not being rich or having it all figured out... 

But does anyone ever ask about my life?  Besides my friends, no.  And when I ask about theirs, they go HAM.  Best to stick to superficial small-talk or shut the fuck up, I guess. 

My biggest struggle in life is not being believed.  If I talk about a subject I'm knowledgeable about with the sole intention of helping loved ones not die or lose everything they have, they're dismissive, condescending to me like a naive child who's out of her depth even when confronted with literal evidence of their wrongness.  On the flip side, if I ask for extra help with something I DON'T understand, they tell me I couldn't possibly be that stupid and am just being lazy.  I'm constantly forced to "prove" myself and I'm fucking sick of it.   Why not just say what you really mean:  "I don't care.  Leave me alone, I'm busy shopping/sleeping/binge eating/gaming/watching Reels.  I'll kill myself if I want to because it beats taking advice from YOU.  And no, I won't help you because it's too much trouble.  But I WILL chastise and demean you when something goes horribly wrong because I refused to do even the bare minimum to help you."   



Persistence is Futile.  And Yet...

Me.

Yet when the day is done--even when everyone I love is dead and gone, my conscience will still be there, checking, double-checking & septendecuple-checking to make sure I did everything possible to avert disaster & prevent the worst-case outcome.  I'm not delusional enough to think I can control what another autonomous adult does, but I DO control what I say and do.  And I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't speak up about things that matter.  Literally.  So despite the lifetime of gaslighting, yelling, insults and ruined family occasions, I'll continue speaking the truth and playing the role of scapegoated Debbie Downer if it means I can look at myself in the mirror and live without suffocating guilt for the rest of my days.  (OCD really is the devil, y'all).   But don't think for a second I don't envy the HELL out of y'all normies who can sit comfortably next to that screaming siren and carry on like everything's normal even as the mushroom cloud spreads in the darkening sky.  It must be so peaceful. 

What's my point?  Oh yeah, life's a bitch and then you mercifully die.  Of course it's only "merciful" if reincarnation isn't real, in which case I'll probably come back as a Siamese twin with Minamata Disease or something.  Maybe I'll be a woman in a Muslim country who dies in a menstrual hut or from a botched FGM ritual, or from giving birth before my body is developed enough to accommodate life... so many horrifying possibilities, many of them inflicted on humans by other humans. 

See?  That's the difference between someone like me and the grandiose normies who assume they'll come back as the next Queen of Sheba or billionaire oil tycoon in the next life.  The depression supplies the dark, ugly reality of existence and the OCD supplies the endless broken record soundtrack of vivid thoughts and images that never, ever shut off... even when you're asleep.  They just morph into nightmares.  It's a big reason I decided not to take the genetic gamble of bringing kids into this world.  You can do everything right and still have a very sick child. Or lose them to a freak accident.  Or gun violence in school.  Or... 

Sorry, I'm doing it again, aren't I?  Enough about me, let's talk about you!  What're your plans for the weekend?  Watch any good movies lately?  Find any good bargains?  TGIF, y'all!   

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