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Well shit, the Republicans brought a certain anti-online porn bill back to the table.

The Interstate Obscenity Definition Act.

This should alarm you guys.

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If you like to talk about a world of mutual aid and hopepunk and whatever, I want to tell you about my day today.

I got up at 4:30am to volunteer with a nonprofit. They save unsold produce that wholesalers had too much of, and distribute it in large quantities for a small donation. I spent my morning sorting good tomatoes out of moldy tomatoes and getting a sunburn.

I also got 30 pounds of onions, along with tomatoes, bell peppers, squash, cucumbers, and watermelon.

The location I volunteer at is an LDS church and the community contact is a Mormon Republican.

After taking my absurd amounts of produce, I went to visit a man I'd found on Nextdoor. His wife died a few months ago and he's going through her things. I got two pairs of sandals and a pair of low-heeled dress pumps for free, and selected a couple of her wall hangings that he's holding for me until I get paid on Friday to pick up for $15.

The cost of these shoes was an hour's conversation, sometimes stilted and awkward, sometimes happier.

Then I went to dinner with my dad. I'd found a teen, also on Nextdoor, who needed a new dresser because hers was decade-old Walmart trash and now a pile of chipboard. So we ate, and then took her my old dresser. It's easily at least 50 years old, and probably more like 60 or 70. It's also solid wood. It'll last her for life, if she takes care of it, and it's now hers for free.

We had to drive a big pickup truck about 20 miles round-trip to get her the dresser.

I came home. My roommates had a friend over who helped with housework, including my dishes, so I gave her several pounds of onions.

We're not the same religion and she's actually a little weird about mine, in that way where she wants to be respectful but doesn't have the playbook so she's feeling her way through it.

Tonight, after dark when it's safer for the plants, I'm transplanting some corn and squash into outdoor pots using the Three Sisters method. (I don't have any beans. That's a project for next year me.)

I got some of my seeds from a library, but others came from Home Depot, and still others from an Amazon liquidation warehouse.

I tell you this story not to make myself look good or harangue you for not doing more. Much of this is a case of being in the right place at the right time with the right tools.

I tell you this story because you'll notice every single thing I did today had a tradeoff. I had to drive to my volunteer work and my shoe pickup and the dresser donation, creating emissions. I had to work with someone with radically different religious and political beliefs than me, and some of those beliefs are downright hateful. I shared with someone else outside my social circle who's trying to reach out, but needs someone to reach back to really make it happen, and I know she's sharing further with other people who may fundamentally hate my existence. I've given money to an evil corporation. And I suffered personal injury and lack of sleep.

Do those things, those tradeoffs, cancel out that dozens of people are fed and hundreds of pounds of good food were saved; that I am shod without creating more waste; that a child in need has had her need met in a way that will benefit her for years; that this summer I will feed myself, and several other people, out of my own ground while doing some small part to clear air pollution from my city?

If you want to truly do good and create change, you have to start by being willing to abandon concepts of ideological purity and recognize that perfect is the enemy of good. I did not feed every person in Phoenix, but more people are fed. These shoes will still wear out and have to be thrown away, but it's one pair--worn first by this man's wife, now by me--rather than two--each of us purchasing separately. My Liberty Garden will not stop farm worker exploitation or the evils of factory farming, but it will mean just a little less dirt in the air and a smidge less money to Kroger.

Reach out. Accept good and work with it instead of waiting for perfect, which will never come.

But it might come a little closer, if you're willing to get moldy tomatoes on your hands before dawn.

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https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTjyvPhan/

Figured that people on here would appreciate this info as well!!

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With JoAnne Fabrics going out of business I feel it is my duty as a cosplayer, historical costumer, and general sewing gremlin to help teach y'all how not to be reliant on evil overpriced mediocre big box stores for fabric and cosplay supply, cause if I catch y'all going into Homophobia Lobby to get cosplay fabrics imma have to start throwing hands. And frankly you guys all deserve better.

- Find a neighborhood full of brown people. Probably a slightly poorer neighborhod. I know, I know, but they will have small independent fabric stores. Selection in each may vary. Hispanic and Caribbean areas will give you prints that EAT. Muslim areas will give you fabrics with amazing drapery. Indian and Southeast Asian areas will give you beading that would make the House of Worth wet with envy. (Try to avoid oldwhitelady quilting stores unless you are a knitter or are specifically trying to cosplay Kirsten Larson.) (Also ask while you're there for lunch/dinner spot recommendations. Your fabric store guy usually has a buddy with a joint nextdoor with the best *insert relevant ethnic food here* you'll ever put in your mouth.)

- DEVELOP A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE OWNER OF SAID STORE. This I cannot stress enough. Abdul, my fabric guy, can and will get me whatever I want cause he knows me, knows I bring in other young people, and knows I will be back every month for more. Indie fabric stores tend to have older clients. They are anxious to see faces under 60. Just chat with whoever is in there about the kind of stuff you want and need and they will help you. This also frequently leads to discounts. I have not paid listed price for fabric in years and just walked out of Abdul's with 7~ yards of gorgeous teal satin for 10 bucks. Not a yard. Total.

- Do not be afraid of mess. The best shit comes from stores that look like a hurricane went through them. Don't try to understand the organization. (One day, 4 years into your relationship with the store, suddenly the fabric gods will reveal the knowledge to you.) Again, talk to whoever is in there about your project. They'll help.

- Give up on one stop shopping. Get your crafting supplies elsewhere. Like a small independent hardware store. There's usually an old guy in there that reminds you of an uncle who will also help you.

-Worbla and whatever other Cosplay Specific Material you're using is a fatphobic material straight from Satan's hot taint, you do not need it, and any old hardware/tractor supply dad will help you find better, more durable armor/weapon/detailing material. Don't snub your nose at paper mache and plaster of paris. Venetian Mask makers have been using it for years. Balsa wood is also your friend. Hardware store Uncles will teach you to work with both.

- Elderly people are your bffs. If you see an old person TALK TO THEM. They know how to do all kinds of shit. I know there's a hesitation around old people because of the political climate and a fear that they may be homo/trans/whatever-phobic, but hey....minds are changed by making friends. My elderly Muslim fabric supplier is an Our Flag Means Death fan because of me gushing about the teal I needed for Stede Bonnet. He wishes me happy pride now. He put bolt of rainbow in the window in June and kept it up all summer. And he'd never had a thought about queers before me.

- Don't feel limited to Craft and Fabric stores. Hardware stores are cool. They stock outdoor fabrics and umbrella and furniture covers that are very durable....my first cosplay was made out of patio furniture covers. Also upholstery stores and upholsterers have velvets and damasks and faux leather and real leather and all sorts of rich textures. Most of them will part with a few yards pretty cheap. Second hand sheets and bedspreads and curtains also make some really cool garments. A significant amount of my ren fair garb started as household goods.

- If you are forced to order fabric online, please for the love of all that is holy DO NOT BUY FROM MOOD or any other famous store. You're paying for their branding and their place on certain reality shows I will not mention. Indie is always cheaper for the quality and usually not abusing their workers.

- If the fabric/hobby/hardware/upholstery/etc store you develop a relationship with is inconveniently far from you, see if said owner is willing to take your order via phone and send it to you. You'd be surprised how accommodating people in the crafting and sewing world can be.

It all really comes down to having to form a community. I know finding multiple small stores is a lot less convenient than Joannes. But forming a relationship with a local supplier will, in the long run, yield you much better results AND put money and good back into a community near you.

(And if you're in the NYC area DM me and I'll put you in contact with Abdul. He's the absolute best and I'd do anything to help him and his business grow!!!)

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Help My Friend Survive In A Refugee Camp

My friend Abdul is an African LGBTQ+ refugee who needs more help than I can give him to survive at his camp.

$6,000 seems like a lot, and it is, but he would really be grateful for anything. If you have $1 to spare he would absolutely appreciate that. this is not a circumstance where not reaching the goal means it was pointless. I don't get paid much because I'm a full time student but he always appreciates and needs what I can give him.

He needs everything you can spare.

If you can't use GoFundMe for any reason I also take donations through these other money transfer services.

Ko-fi: Nervesnebula, Cashapp: nervesN, and Venmo: @nervesnebbin

I'll try to update this post with how much I've raised through these apps at the end of every day. I'll also try to post updates I get from him tagged as #Abdulfund on this blog, if he has anything he wants to say. Thank you.

$492

raised via ko-fi, venmo, and cashapp

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Help My Friend Survive In A Refugee Camp

My friend Abdul is an African LGBTQ+ refugee who needs more help than I can give him to survive at his camp.

$6,000 seems like a lot, and it is, but he would really be grateful for anything. If you have $1 to spare he would absolutely appreciate that. this is not a circumstance where not reaching the goal means it was pointless. I don't get paid much because I'm a full time student but he always appreciates and needs what I can give him.

He needs everything you can spare.

If you can't use GoFundMe for any reason I also take donations through these other money transfer services.

Ko-fi: Nervesnebula, Cashapp: nervesN, and Venmo: @nervesnebbin

I'll try to update this post with how much I've raised through these apps at the end of every day. I'll also try to post updates I get from him tagged as #Abdulfund on this blog, if he has anything he wants to say. Thank you.

$492

raised via ko-fi, venmo, and cashapp

[slow-apocalypse-zone]

Help My Friend Survive In A Refugee Camp

My friend Abdul is an African LGBTQ+ refugee who needs more help than I can give him to survive at his camp.

$6,000 seems like a lot, and it is, but he would really be grateful for anything. If you have $1 to spare he would absolutely appreciate that. this is not a circumstance where not reaching the goal means it was pointless. I don't get paid much because I'm a full time student but he always appreciates and needs what I can give him.

He needs everything you can spare.

If you can't use GoFundMe for any reason I also take donations through these other money transfer services.

Ko-fi: Nervesnebula, Cashapp: nervesN, and Venmo: @nervesnebbin

I'll try to update this post with how much I've raised through these apps at the end of every day. I'll also try to post updates I get from him tagged as #Abdulfund on this blog, if he has anything he wants to say. Thank you.

$492

raised via ko-fi, venmo, and cashapp

[slow-apocalypse-zone]

Help My Friend Survive In A Refugee Camp

My friend Abdul is an African LGBTQ+ refugee who needs more help than I can give him to survive at his camp.

$6,000 seems like a lot, and it is, but he would really be grateful for anything. If you have $1 to spare he would absolutely appreciate that. this is not a circumstance where not reaching the goal means it was pointless. I don't get paid much because I'm a full time student but he always appreciates and needs what I can give him.

He needs everything you can spare.

If you can't use GoFundMe for any reason I also take donations through these other money transfer services.

Ko-fi: Nervesnebula, Cashapp: nervesN, and Venmo: @nervesnebbin

I'll try to update this post with how much I've raised through these apps at the end of every day. I'll also try to post updates I get from him tagged as #Abdulfund on this blog, if he has anything he wants to say. Thank you.

$492

raised via ko-fi, venmo, and cashapp

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I am an… Ungrateful son.

I am not grateful for the millions of American Guns. So much steel. Could have been anything else but Tools of Death. Could have been the frames for houses. Could have been plows.

I am not grateful for the Enclosure Of The Commons. I cannot walk to the store! I cannot walk to the beach! If I lose the ability to drive, I become a prisoner! I am not Free!

I am not grateful for Enshittification. For thinner blankets and lighter meals that cost more and warm you less. For a Prosperity that feels more like miserliness.

I am not grateful for wasted food, thrown away just because people are too poor to afford it. The greatest sin our civilization could commit: to callously discard the gifts of the trees and vines and bushes because of Christian Miserliness.

I am Ungrateful. I am Furious.

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Ayoo just to preempt the inevitable dumb takes we’re about to start seeing;

I am PRO-WOOL

I am PRO-LEATHER

I am PRO-BEES

Fuck the idea of replacing durable, sustainable animal products with cheap, flimsy plastic that doesn’t bio-degrade. Agave nectar and other artificial sweeteners are expensive, labor-intensive, and destroy the environment to be farmed.

Do not buy into pernicious marketing campaigns pushed by dickhead organizations trying to stay relevant, like PETA.

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Alalā are being released into the wild?!?

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Nature is healing.

I burned the Meadow a couple weeks ago. At first it looked like nothing but charred ashes and dirt, with a few scorched green patches, and I was afraid I'd done something terrible. But then the sprouts emerged. Tender new leaves swarming the soil.

My brother and I were outside after dark the other day, to see if any lightning bugs would emerge yet. We had been working on digging the pond. That old soggy spot in the middle of the yard that we called "poor drainage," that always splattered mud over our legs when we ran across it as children—it isn't a failed lawn, and it never was.

Oh, we tried to fill in the mud puddles, even rented heavy machinery and graded the whole thing out, but the little wetland still remembered. God bless those indomitable puddles and wetlands and weeds, that in spite of our efforts to flatten out the differences that make each square meter of land unique from another, still declare themselves over and over to be what they are.

So we've been digging a hole. A wide, shallow hole, with an island in the middle.

And steadily, I've been transplanting in vegetation. At school there is a soggy field that sadly is mowed like any old field. The only pools where a frog could lay eggs are tire ruts. From this field I dig up big clumps of rushes and sedges, and nobody pays me any mind when I smuggle them home.

I pulled a little stick of shrubby willow from some cracked pavement near a creek, and planted it nearby. From a ditch on the side of the road beside a corn field, I dug up cattail rhizomes. Everywhere, tiny bits of wilderness, holding on.

I gathered up rotting logs small enough to carry and made a log pile beside the pond. At another corner is a rock pile. I planted some old branches upright in the ground to make a good place for birds and dragonflies to perch.

And there are so many birds! Mourning doves, robins, cardinals and grackles come here in much bigger numbers, and many, many finches and sparrows. I always hear woodpeckers, even a Pileated Woodpecker here and there. A pair of bluebirds lives here. There are three tree swallows, a barn swallow also, tons of chickadees, and there's always six or seven blue jays screaming and making a commotion. And the goldfinches! Yesterday I watched three brilliant yellow males frolic among the tall dandelions. They would hover above the grass and then drop down. One landed on a dandelion stem and it flopped over. There are several bright orange birds too. I think a couple of them are orioles, but there's definitely also a Summer Tanager. There's a pair of Canada Geese that always fly by overhead around the same time in the evening. It's like their daily commute.

The other day, as I watched, I saw a Cooper's Hawk swoop down and carry off a robin. This was horrifying news for the robin individually, but great news for the ecosystem. The food chain can support more links now.

There are two garter snakes instead of one, both of them fat from being good at snaking. I wonder if there will be babies?

But the biggest change this year is the bugs. It's too early for the lightning bugs, but all the same the yard is full of life.

It's like remembering something I didn't know I forgot. Oh. This is how it's supposed to be. I can't glance in any direction without seeing the movement of bugs. Fat crickets and earwigs scuttle underneath my rock piles, wasps flit about and visit the pond's shore, an unbelievable variety of flies and bees visit the flowers, millipedes and centipedes hide under the logs. Butterflies, moths, and beetles big and small are everywhere.

I can't even describe it in terms of individual encounters; they're just everywhere, hopping and fluttering away with every step. There are so many kinds of ants. I sometimes stare really closely at the ground to watch the activities of the ants. Sometimes they are in long lines, with two lanes of ants going back and forth, touching antennae whenever two ants traveling in opposite directions meet. Sometimes I see ants fighting each other, as though ant war is happening. Sometimes the ants are carrying the curled-up bodies of dead ants—their fallen comrades?

My neighbor gave me all of their fallen leaves (twelve bags!) and it turns out that piling leaves on top of a rock and log pile in a wet area summons an unbelievable amount of snails.

I always heard of snails as pests, but I have learned better. Snails move calcium through the food chain. Birds eat snails and use the calcium in their shells to make egg shells. In this way, snails lead to baby birds. I never would have known this if I hadn't set out to learn about snails.

In the golden hour of evening, bugs drift across the sky like golden motes of dust, whirling and dancing together in the grand dramas of their tiny lives. I think about how complicated their worlds are. After interacting with bees and wasps so much for so long, I'm amazed by how intelligent and polite they are. Bumble bees will hover in front of me, swaying side to side, or circle slowly around me several times, clearly perceiving some kind of information...but what? It seems like bees and wasps can figure out if you are a threat, or if you are peaceful, and act accordingly.

I came to a realization about wasps: when they dart at your head so you hear them buzzing close by your ears, they're announcing their presence. The proper response is to freeze and duck down a bit. It seems like wasps can recognize if you're being polite; for what it's worth, I've never been stung by a wasp.

As night falls, bats emerge and start looping and darting around in the sky above. If the yard seems full of bugs in the day, it is nothing compared to the night.

I'm aware that what I'm about to describe, to an entomophobe, sounds like a horror movie: when i walk to the back yard, the trees are audibly crackling and whirring with the activity of insects. Beetles hover among the branches of the trees. When we look up at the sky, moths of all sizes are flying hither and thither across it. A large, very striking white moth flies past low to the ground.

Last year, seeing a moth against the darkening sky was only occasional. Now there's so many of them.

I consider it in my mind:

When roads and houses are built and land is turned over to various human uses, potentially hundreds of native plant species are extirpated from that small area. But all of the Eastern USA has been heavily altered and destroyed.

Some plants come back easily, like wild blackberry, daisy fleabane, and common violets. But many of them do not. Some plants need fire to sprout, some need Bison or large birds to spread them, some need humans to harvest and care for them, some live in habitats that are frequently treated with contempt, some cannot bear to be grazed by cattle, some are suffocated beneath invasive Tall Fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, honeysuckle or Bradford pears, and some don't like being mowed or bushhogged.

Look at the landscape...hundreds and hundreds of acres of suburbs, pastures, corn fields, pavement, mowed verges and edges of roads.

Yes, you see milkweed now and then, a few plants on the edge of the road, but when you consider the total area of space covered by milkweed, it is so little it is nearly negligible. Imagine how many milkweed plants could grow in a single acre that was caretaken for their prosperity—enough to equal fifty roadsides put together!

Then I consider how many bugs are specialists, that can only feed upon a particular plant. Every kind of plant has its own bugs. When plant diversity is replaced by Plant Sameness, the bug population decreases dramatically.

Plant sameness has taken over the world, and the insect apocalypse is a result.

But in this one small spot, nature is healing...

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I don’t think you’re ready to have an adult conversation about politics until you’re able to admit that there are things you love and enjoy that would not and should not exist in a just world. $8 billion dollar budget movies every other month don’t exist in a just world. New 900 GB AAA video games every year don’t exist in a just world. Next day delivery doesn’t exist in a just world. 80 different soda brands don’t exist in a just world. 

All of those things come from exploitation on some level, and if you wouldn’t trade those for a world where everyone can eat and have a home no matter who they are or what they do, I don’t know what to tell you. 

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If you get caught up in the mindset of "we are doomed because most humans are too dumb and selfish to solve climate change" I really encourage you to watch the first 12 minutes of this video.

I've also done my best to condense the most relevant quotes below.

"The biggest reason why we have a problem, is love. It's that we want to have children, we want them to survive, and so now there are 8 billion of us. And now that there are 8 billion of us, we want all 8 billion of those people to have pretty good lives." "[P]eople are so caught up in [...] the current moment, that you can't see how hard all of our ancestors worked to provide us with a world that has plenty of food [...], climate controlled shelter, and pretty easy transportation to anywhere within [...] 400 miles." "Humans are remarkable. We are very powerful. Give any species this level of power and they will provide opportunities for thriving for themselves and for their children. They will try and prevent their children from dying.[...] For the most part they will walk through fire to make sure that their children don't die. They will destroy the Earth to make sure their children won't die." "I don't want my son growing up thinking that the species that he's a part of is in some way evil. I feel like that's the root of a lot of [...] arm chair environmentalism. I want him thinking, humans are problem-solvers and solving problems creates new problems." "When we solve the global warming problem, we will have created new problems. And we're doing it right now. Renewable technologies use way more land [...], they impact the environment by being there [...]. And I think in the future we will uninstall a bunch of those things because we'll have other technologies that are better [...]. And the people in the future will be mad at us for the work that we did and that's fine. Just like we're kinda mad at all the people who made the world a better place by burning a bunch of coal so that we could have refrigerators [...]."

You can't hate yourself and your fellow humans into saving the world--and if you believe that all other humans are short sighted and selfish and doomed by their very nature then you are far more vulnerable to doomerism and hopelessness and giving up.

As Hank says in the video, the only reason we even know that climate change is a problem at all is because a lot of very intelligent humans were concerned about the possible impacts of fossil fuels on the future and did a whole lot of modeling and research so they could warn future humans about the risks. And we are primarily in this climate change situation in the first place because our ancestors wanted to use the readily available energy from fossil fuels to give their children and their communities better, safer, healthier lives.

Now we are trying to use brains that evolved primarily to deal with relatively little, immediate, tangible problems in small communities to solve a very large, long-term, largely intangible problem on a global scale. As frustrated as I am that we aren't solving this problem faster (and that there is small number of greedy fossil fuel executives trying to stop us from solving it for personal gain), most people are doing their best under very challenging circumstances.

Humans are driven to solve problems for the love of other humans--themselves, their families, their communities, humanity as a whole. We shouldn't base the drive to solve our current problems on disdain for ourselves and our fellow humans.