Food I cook is starting to taste more and more like my mother’s cooking. Moving out of home I always assumed my mums poor cooking was down to technique, boiling the brussel sprouts, steaming the peas until they were grey, water frying everything. As soon as I learned to cook properly it was amazing how much flavour everything had. Letting things brown fully, using oil, not overcooking everything.

But recently, no amount of skill can save the sad veggies sold in store.

It makes the hyperprocessed foods even more appealing when there’s nothing you can affordably do to improve the simple produce and staples. When potatos cost the same as Pringle’s, calorie for calorie (and they do, ) it’s easy to see why “just eat beans, rice, and in season produce” isn’t helpful advice - yes it’s frugal, but it’s depressing, and not as easy as it used to be. Why waste money on already rotting food that tastes bland when the same money can buy me a more nutrient dense food that lasts longer and tastes better?

I’ve got a few things growing on the 2m concrete slab my landlord calls a back yard, it helps having home grown spring onion, parsley and pea shoots to dress up a dish.

I’m a terrible gardener, I can’t even get mint to take. “grow your own” is thrown around too readily when people complain about produce quality. It’s not always an option, there is a physical skill, a cognitive skill, and resource requirements.

In Australia we call this “skimpflation” because they aren’t shrinking the final product, they’re skimping on ingredients to lower production costs.

It’s the bane of my existence because brands I know and love will change their ingredients without warning and without changing anything on the packaging (sometimes not even changing the ingredients list! If the ingredients list has always just said “starch” they don’t have to change anything going from arrowroot starch to cheaper potato starch)

I have allergies and I’ve bought two boxes of the same product at the same time, and had an allergic reaction to one, but not the other.

I used to always blame it on my housemates not washing the cooking utensils properly, but I now use separate cooking equipment and I clean down the kitchen before I start and cook at odd times so I’m the only one using the kitchen.

I’ve started emailing companies after my allergic reactions to determine if they have changed an ingredient, and 90% of the time they confirm they have changed the ingredients. Usually they put some PR spin on it about the new ingredient being more allergy friendly or sustainable (they don’t clarify “environmentally” so I assume they mean “financially sustainable for the profits of our company”)

Again, it depends on the purpose of the group you’re creating, does this person in question face discrimination for their perceived race? Then a support group for people who have faced discrimination for their race may be the right place for them, assuming the intersection of having “chosen” to present as a race they’re not doesn’t create an unsafe space for the other group participants.

However if your group is for people who have grown up POC or been raised in a non-dominant cultural group to discuss shared experiences, then obviously someone who identifies as POC later in life would not be served by that group, so would not be eligibile to join that group.

There are circumstances when even if you fit the criteria of the group, you may still be excluded due to the way various identities and experiences intersect, or because your personal actions are not serving the group.

It’s not discrimination to be told you can’t use a private service because the service can’t serve your specific needs, and your personal circumstances reduce the groups ability to serve its other members.

I’m not trying to be rude, I’m trying to understand.

As far as the language is concerned, I’m just trying to understand how a trans woman could be a cis lesbian, when my understanding is that being cis and being trans are mutually exclusive.

Am I missing something?

If you’re a private entity and there is a specific reason that having non-black people in the group would be detrimental to the purpose of the group, yes, in Australia you can make a black only space.

For example, if you want to create a support group for POC to discuss trauma around being subjected to racism, to ensure you create a safe space, making the space POC only is not only legal, but often the more ethical choice for this group.

Want to create a social and dating app for queer women to meet other queer women? What purpose would it serve to let straight people into that group?

There is difference between public spaces, that must allow access and entry to all, and a private organisation that caters to specific demographics, and being freely open would completely defeat the purpose of the private organisations goals.

I’m not an alcoholic, I don’t personally know anyone who has struggled with alcoholism. Why can’t I go to an AA meeting to talk about my feelings on alcoholism? Obviously, Because that’s not helpful, it has the potential to be harmful to the people who attend because they have lived experiences with alcoholism. I could argue I’m being discriminated against because of my medical history, but I’m not being discriminated against, I’m just not being catered to, because I don’t have an unmet need in this specific situation.

How does that even work?

I mean, to be a cis lesbian also implies being a cis woman…

I mean, given what’s happening with the women’s only art exhibit at the MONA right now, this woman definitely has a legal leg to stand on even with this being a private company.

Even if it’s just a matter of false advertising (if the app means cis women they should say cis women, not say “women” and then go out of their to exclude an entire group of women) or compensation for being given access then having access removed.

This is why they are also tell you the license plate number.

I don’t need to know what a Honda Whatever looks like to know that if the licence plate and my app both say “ABC123”, that’s my uber.

My uber is a white Toyota camry? So helpful, there definitely aren’t 7 of them parked outside the club each waiting for their uber rider and or kidnap victim.

I’m certain you understand, you are intoxicated, departing from the entertainment establishment before it closes, and you are responsible so you take it’s upon yourself to secure safe, sober transport home. The application you use to order the ride informs you that your designated driver will arrive in a “Kia Chevy Juke”. Despite being absolutely incapable of clear thought, you, or another member of your party is trying very hard to ensure you all enter the correct vehicle to avoid potential danger from nefarious individuals. Also, you have chosen to partake in this activity in a cold time of year, and as it is 4 o’clock in the morning, you are all quite cold.

Sounds like Dr Gunther von Hagen’s, he invented a the plastination method of tissue preservation that’s used in countless medical and anatomy training schools across the globe.

He had a series on BBC/Chanel 4 as part of his “Body Worlds” exhibits and that’s all over YouTube, as part of promotion for the new technique that let him preserve entire intact body systems. Fascinating stuff if you’re into general anatomical studies, or just body horror

The source of some of his older anatomical specimens is… Controversial

BBC 4 has a bunch of autopsy videos floating around on YouTube. I vaguely remember the one with the blonde doctor from supersize vs superskinny dissecting a smokers lungs and a morbidly obese heart, and an alcoholics liver.

Plus a bunch of stuff that was illegal when you were poor suddenly becomes perfectly legal if you’re rich enough to pay the associated fees.

I mean, sure the police call them “fines”…but still.

Disassociation maybe?

I used to think my hearing loss and visual impairment was the reason I got so stressed walking through a car park - I can’t hear cars and I can’t always tell if a slow moving car is indeed moving.

But that made no sense because I have no issues getting around a bus depot and public transport interchange. I’ll be fine navigating the streets with buses, trams, bikes and pedestrians, but as soon as I step into the parking lot I suddenly can’t detect obstacles properly.

My partner pointed out thatI very clearly dissociate when I’m in a car park. I’ve conditioned myself to feel anxious in car parks (from when I was younger before I learned to navigate with my disability, the fear of car parks did not make sense) so now I pre-emptively check out and try to navigate on autopilot, which makes it more dangerous and anxiety inducing, making me dissociate more.

As soon as I realised that I was dissociating and that was the problem, I started working on it and now I have no greater level of disorientation in a car park than anywhere else.

I had read so many comments on line about how intensely painful gallstone are, and how that pain is no joke.

I was in my second year of nursing school and the chronic niggling abdominal pain I’d had for several months changed in an instant to the most crippling colicky pain I had ever felt. I swear it radiated throughout my entire body. The way it “gripped” in my entire torso made me feel like my heart was seizing, but it was just my gallbladder full of stones.

I knew immediately what it was. I’d been ignoring the niggling pain because I had stage 4 endometriosis at the time so abdominal pain wasn’t unusual. And it’s a common phenomenon for medical students and nursing students to experience strange pshycogenic symptoms, especially as they learn about a new disease, and the niggling pain had started around the same time I was doing my unit on biliary and hepatic anatomy and physiology, so when my gallbladder was “grumbling” I just assumed I was imagining it.

I booked into my GP, who instantly agreed it sounded like gallstones, she ordered an ultrasound and liver function test. My gallbladder was full of stones, most were tiny, 2-3mm, but there were 4 chonky bois, and my Liver function test was all sorts of abnormal.

Up until this point, everyone had treated this very seriously. My GP was rushing around like it was urgent, when I told my teachers at nursing school that I’ll likely need time off because I was dealing with gallstones they all acted like it was a catagory 2 emergency, and everyone had this assumption that in less than 2 months I’d be gallbladder-less.

I was referred for surgery. That was April, I got my intake letter and my surgery was scheduled for October.

So I spent the next 6 months in occasional agony. I was lucky that I’d get a solid 3-4 days without pain, and then I’d get an “attack” that would last a few hours but fade out.

But as it got closer to October, the attacks were lasting over 2 days, by the end I was delirious. I went to the ER twice out of desperation. Both times they gave me buscopan and told me to go home and wait for my surgery. My GP prescribed me some muscle relaxants which helped a bit.

On the night before my surgery, I was having the worse pain of the whole ordeal by far. I was fasting for surgery so I couldn’t take the pain relief my GP had prescribed because it was an oral tablet. I wasn’t getting any sleep, so I just went to the hospital at 2am (instead of 8am for my surgery).

I went to the ER and explained that my surgery was in the morning, I’m fasting so can’t take my meds, but the pain is unbearable. They gave me, you guessed it, buscopan. I sat in the waiting room and at 7:45am said goodbye and walked over to the day surgery wing.

Everyone I told was baffled, saying gallstones were so incredibly painful there’s no way I’d have to wait that long for surgery and not get proper pain relief while I waited. Even my GP was confused, I saw her once a fortnight between August and October because I was just in such a sorry state. My skin was yellow, I was shitting clay, I couldn’t keep much food down, I’d lost a lot of weight. My GP would spend most of the appointment on the phone with the surgical intake team asking “what the fuck?”

But 9 years after my surgery, my best friend started getting gallbladder attacks. She went to the ER, they confirmed the stones with an ultrasound, and they referred her for surgery. 2 months later she still hadn’t gotten her intake letter, so when she had another bad attack she went to the ER and they gave her buscopan and advil and told her to be patient, the surgical list is backed up. She got her letter a few days after that, surgery was booked for August.

She scrounged together some money to see a private surgeon, she saw him on February 10th, and she had her gallbladder removed on February 15th, and they sent her home with endone for the 5 days between. It took a chunk out of the savings that she and her partner want to use for a house deposit, but there’s no way she could have made it to August with how much pain she was in.

That feels like a large payout for that type of injury, but that’s not my business.

Everytime I hear news like this, or stories of people who “receive support for xyz injury, but can still do abc activity so must be cheating the system” I can’t help but think how brightly it highlights that the author has never had to experience chronic pain and dynamic disability.

Anyone who has ever injured anything knows, some days it just randomly hurts more than others, and you have very little control over predicting or changing that randomness other than through avoiding certain activities when you can to preserve your health and energy for days and times when you don’t have a choice and have to perform that action.

It’s also about balance.

Because of my wrists I can’t do the dishes and do latch hooking on the same day. I have to do the dishes, I can’t just live in squalor. But some days I also “need” to take some time for latch hooking because it’s a mindful hobby I find enjoyable and it’s so good for my mental health.

Now is it wrong of me to tell my OT that my wrists mean I struggle to do the dishes and latch key, so I’d like support with the dishes - maybe I get a dishwasher, or a helper twice a week to come in and do the heavy dishes for me.

If I’m sat on the couch doing my latch hooking putting pressure on my wrists “just for a hobby” while the dishwasher runs in the background - was I lying about my injury? Was I being a cheat? Do I no longer deserve the dishwasher because I’m “abusing it just so I can run off and have fun latch hooking”

She tossed one Christmas tree at a one off event.

How does that change the pain it is causes to play with her kids or carry groceries every single day that she wants and needs to do those tasks?

Like how we can reCORD some music and release a a REcord

Or make some COMpost by putting those scraps in the comPOST

Is it a dialect training class? Because otherwise that feels like boarderline racism to penalise someone for having a different an accent.

“Da ta” vs “date-ah” is regional. If you’re pronouncing it “wrong” move across the pond and suddenly you’ll be right.

I’m using sync at the moment, I don’t dislike it but there is room for improvement. I have very low accessibility needs. I have palsies in my hands so for me it’s about having nice big icons to tap, because I don’t have the dexterity to push tiny text links or really cramped hit boxes.

My phone GUI is enlarged and sync is just the first third party app I found that scaled well with my phone, most third party apps work for me, it’s just the reddit official app that really, really doesn’t. It’s unreadable with my GUI settings.

Exactly, I didn’t have a tantrum. I used a third party app because of the accessibility features it offered that the official app doesn’t. I can’t use reddit now, so I don’t use reddit.

I mean, a little bit. I had to quit weed for a while job and so I was having a glass of wine at a party and a few people made judgemental comments about how I’m “drinking again”.

Similarly, now that I can smoke again, and as the only one in my extended social circle who can roll a joint that burns properly, I’ll ask the person who brought the gear if they want me to roll joints, spliffs, or a few of each, and how strong, and again there will be one or two people who say “I can’t believe people cut their weed with the tobacco, that’s disgusting”

But at the same time, those judgy friends would never campaign for alcohol and tobacco to be completely criminalised. They just think weed is much better.

That said, a few of us were pretty happy to see the 100% vape ban coming into Victoria, not so much from the drug side of it, but I’m sick of seeing “disposable” vapes everywhere and seeing the parking lot bins catch fire almost every day at work because people chuck them out and the batteries explode.

What if someone were to say “I care about all mammals” but they continued to eat fish and poultry?

At least that’s consistent.