#lupus advocate

[thelupuslady]

Needed my own reminder for my stubborn ass.

[narcoticwriter]

Me, officially hopping into the "Cyno and Razor are long-lost brothers headcanon" camp:

[windysjourney]

Unraveling The Mysteries of Autoimmune Diseases

In the intricate tapestry of the human body, the immune system stands as a vigilant guardian, defending against invading pathogens and maintaining overall health. However, in some cases, this defender turns against its own host, giving rise to a category

In the intricate tapestry of the human body, the immune system stands as a vigilant guardian, defending against invading pathogens and maintaining overall health. However, in some cases, this defender turns against its own host, giving rise to a category of diseases known as autoimmune diseases. This blog post aims to unravel the complexities of autoimmune diseases, exploring their causes,…

[daybreakwarrior]

I’m fucking tired of advocating for myself with my doctors. Neuro shrugs every time I’ve had a migraine, which is becoming weekly. My primary won’t do anything about it, because they expect Neuro to handle it, which they are ignoring.

I’m going to try again with my primary. Maybe they can get ahold of Neuro?

[atinylittlepain]

Well well well…

I’ve had a bit of a change in my summer plans and without getting into too much detail we can all thank lupus for sending me home not even a week into my internship.

Yeah.

Yesterday as I was on a three hour bus ride to the airport, I couldn’t help but feel like I failed, like losing this internship was going to ruin everything (yes I am an all or nothing thinker, how could ya tell?)

But you know what? Tonight, home and clean and convalescing on the couch, I’m grateful actually. Grateful that I could recognize the limits of what I’m capable of as someone living with a chronic condition, grateful that I could speak up for myself and advocate for myself all the way back across the country, and also grateful for my partner who supported me and helped me get back (but don’t tell him I told you that)

I’m posting this bc I know I’m not the only one living with something that can be a little too heavy to carry sometimes, something that makes very normal and positive things difficult and even impossible. You’re not alone in having to know your limits and having to honor them, I’m right there with you and I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t make us any lesser for having to take things slower, for having to pull back, and, of course, for having to rest.

Yes I’m still worried about what I’ll do for my summer, and yes I’ve already made plans and sent out resumes and all the fun terrifying stuff. And now I’m gonna rest, because I know that I need to. And I’m sending care to everyone else who’s choosing that radical option today, tomorrow, and forever afterward.

With care.

Gin

P.S. i’m still on hiatus - just might shorten it / might be around hyping up my friends in the meantime

[crippleprophet]

Wait holy shit

AS describes exactly the pain I have

oh boy okay as i’ve mentioned i’ve got an extensive document on AS symptoms & mythbusting coming soon but i’ve been wanting to do a quick summary of “wtf is that?” for a while and this is the perfect opportunity! most stats in this post from this 2022 summary article (link) but note that their gender stats are questionable as recent studies show equal prevalence regardless of ‘sex’. so!

wtf is AS?

ankylosing spondylitis is a systemic autoimmune disorder characterized by inflammatory back pain. it’s estimated to be 1.5 times as common as rheumatoid arthritis and over 6 times as common as lupus (SLE) but is incredibly underdiagnosed, which is why i’m super loud about it!

key symptoms of inflammatory back pain:

most frequent onset in early 20s but can be juvenile or later. articles say onset is prior to age 40 but seeing as i’m deeply skeptical of all things medical establishment i wouldn’t rule later onset out

either no history of mechanical trauma or unrelated (for example, i have a herniated disk but had AS symptoms for years before then)

pain gets worse with rest and better with movement - most sources say “exercise” but in the experience of me and other folks with AS i’ve talked to that’s debatable at best. my pain gets worse after remaining in the same position and better with rotating, stretching, etc; sitting upright is most painful for me, but on typical days i need to alternate laying down and standing / walking briefly

morning stiffness and back pain that wakes you up at night

alternating buttock (butt) pain

articles say inflammatory back pain improves with NSAIDs but i’ve never met any chronically ill person whose pain has been made manageable with NSAIDs

AS can also include (usually asymmetrical) joint pain in other locations (especially large joints like the hips, shoulders, neck, and knees - juvenile AS commonly starts with pain in one or both knees prior to spine involvement), fatigue, peripheral neuropathy, and enthesitis (inflammation of tendon insertion points, especially plantar fasciitis).

testing and diagnosis:

CRP and ESR for inflammation. 40-50% of people with AS do not have elevated inflammatory blood markers.

HLA-B27 gene marker. less common in people with non-radiographic AS (doesn’t show up on an x-ray) and more common in white people. only 6-10% of people who are HLA-B27 positive develop AS and plenty (10-30%) of people with AS are negative for HLA-B27 - myself included!

x-ray and MRI for spine inflammation. both of mine were negative; the absence of clinically visible inflammation does not rule out AS. there is a growing body of literature and education about non-radiographic AS; my rheumatologist put me on 20mg prednisone for a week while waiting on my bloodwork and scan results and when that helped my back pain immensely, said “yep it’s definitely inflammatory then” and that this is the standard of diagnosis/care rheumatological associations are advocating for

i wish you the absolute best of luck in finding an explanation and treatment for your pain 💕 if you (or anyone reading this who suspects they have AS!) have any questions feel free to reply, send me an ask, or dm me!

[firespirited]

Having to advocate for yourself takes so much time and energy. having to wait before things get really bad probably increases risk and decreases your lifespan by quite a bit.

I have had candidiasis of the tongue and gastrointestinal tract for a year but because the first normal person treatment failed, I had to investigate other options until the pain in the guts was shaving four hours at least off my sleep every night but now after a six month waitlist: I've seen a dentist, aka a professional, who found that my teeth were fine but I clearly have oral candida. duh but from a professional.

On the 15th, when I get boosted, i need to make the case for a treatment that's at least twice as potent as the one from a year ago even though the evidence that it wasn't enough was there all along. I may have to go through bog-standard doses then re-see the doctor for a second treatment.

It's annoying because there are years when she gets it and if a treatment fails, we repeat it. I think it's because her main patient base is elderly folk who do get these sorts of low immune system junk infections like immunocompromised folk do but either their age automatically gets them the stronger protocol or they don't need the stronger treatment to get rid of it.

We need new protocols for the autoimmune, fibro, post viral, long covid, CFS that match the elderly or MS/lupus so that each and every patient isn't having to beg, fight or whatever to get medicine that matches the problem because it isn't obvious to doctors.

and before anyone says anything: of course I did the candida cleanse and every home remedy available, I'm going to eat yoghurt even though it's the one taste that works on this wretched tongue and I hate it. (╯•_•）╯︵ ┻━┻

[joy-haver]

In response to: “hey, I think I may have hEDS too, what do I do?”

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Others with this condition or similar conditions,P L E A S E chime in with your own advice and critiques of what i said (and add whether you want credit when I put this together as a saveable and shareable resource)

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Cw: medical ableism, manipulation.

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Legal disclaimer: I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice

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Personally I’d look thru all the diagnostic criteria before hand just so you know what to expect and what to advocate for. take pictures of yourself doing the Beighten criteria stuff, that way you may not have to do it as many time later. Take pictures of any other “party tricks” (joint hyperextensions and dislocations that appear noticeably odd to ppl), and then never do them again unless it’s the only way a doctor will believe you.

Also, be aware that most doctors (at least that I have interacted with in the USamerican south) view hEDS as a “fakers and malingerers disorder”, if they’ve heard of it at all. This makes it very hard to get treatment. And if you have any other identities or conditions that make them not believe you, it’s even worse. The only way most of them will even consider it is if they think it was there idea, and manipulating them into thinking so is one option, but it is rather fraught. The other option is you find a doctors whose willing to do the testing parts, and then you manage on your own.

But that’s where the double edged sword comes in; which is, doctors can’t do much for most EDS. Which means that even if they don’t take you seriously, you might still be able to manage your condition on your own. That said, you do need the doctors to rule out other conditions that you *cant* manage on your own. And also to help rule out other forms of untreatable conditions that have different outcomes.

If you’re getting tested for EDS, get the genetic tests. They can check for everything except hEDS. Depending on your symptoms, You should also be evaluated for lupus, autoimmune conditions, disautonomia, and anything else that could explain them. None of those are mutually exclusive to hEDS, but they all have different management than hEDS alone would, so you need to be aware of that. Also, you may get diagnosed with “joint hyper-mobility syndrome” instead of hEDS. In my personal opinion, the difference is pretty much arbitrary and changes depending on whose talking about it, and makes no functional differnce for people living with either condition.

But Basically, what I’m saying is, go in knowing what tests you need. Do whatever you can to get them. Don’t hurt yourself too much along the way. Do not expect the doctors to be kind or helpful.

And remember that diagnosis is a tool. That’s it. It doesn’t change your symptoms. And being undiagnosed doesn’t mean that your symptoms are fake. These conditions are meant to describe reality, and if none of them adequately describe what’s happening in your body, that’s a failure of the medical system. Your symptoms almost certainly aren’t some misperception of your own self. And even if they are, they are real to you, and you deserve kindness and help.

Have self compassion towards what you are dealing with, diagnosis or not. Diagnosis won’t change whether or not you are disabled, it changes what rights and tools you have access too. Diagnosis is also a spectrum. Diagnosis is also a trade off. So is treatment. If it becomes so taxing to get diagnosed or treated that it actively makes your condition worse, consider if it’s actually worth while.

At the end of the day, it may not matter if you have EDS.

It does matter that you are in pain. And it matters that you find out exactly what you can and cannot do about that pain.

[artoflifehealingarts]

Inspiration

In the case of Ophiocordyceps, an infected ant's behavior can be thought of as fungal behavior. The death grip, summit disease, these are extended characteristics of the fungus, part of its extended phenotype. Can the alterations in human consciousness and behavior brought about by psilocybin mushrooms be thought of as part of the extended phenotype of the fungus? The extended behavior of Ophiocordyceps leaves an imprint in the world in the form of fossilised scars on the underside of leaves. Can the extended behavior of psilocybin mushrooms be thought of as leaving an imprint in the world in the form of ceremonies, rituals, chants, and the other cultural and technological outgrowths of our altered states?

Do psilocybin fungi wear our minds, as Ophiocordyceps &Massospora wear insect bodies?

Terence McKenna was a great advocate of this view. Given a sufficiently large dose, he asserted, the mushroom could de expected to speak, plainly and clearly, talking 'eloquently of itself in the cool night of the mind'. Fungi have no hands with which to manipulate the world, but with psilocybin as a chemical messenger, they could borrow a human body, &use its brain & senses to think and speak through. McKenna thought fungi could wear our minds, occupy our senses & most importantly, impart knowledge about the world out there. Among other things, fungi could use psilocybin to influence humans in an attempt to deflect our destructive habits as a species. For McKenna, this was a symbiotic partnership that presented possibilities 'richer &even more baroque' than those available to humans or fungi alone.

From: Merlinerlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, And Shape Our Futures

This Digital piece along with other Fungi @ Healingartsforthecure.square.site & @redbubble🐉 Dive into the Chillosophy, magic and art at Healing Arts for the Cure Direct link here

🎨So many ways to experience our connection

[switchcase]

I was wondering what the diagnosis process looked like for you in regards to me/cfs? What tests were done? (Only asking because I suspect I may have it, however my general doctor got my blood drawn (even though there are no known tests to diagnose cfs/me), and tests results came back normal. They blamed it on my medications, but I've been experiencing the symptoms way before I took the medications.)

Now I'm having to call and ask them what I'm supposed to do, since I'm struggling.

Have you struggled getting an evaluation?

How did you make others believe and advocate for you?

Not forced to answer at all btw!

Fatigue is a symptom of so many things that if you don't have any other diagnosed chronic conditions adjacent to it, you are looking at a very long list of tests since CFS/ME is a rule-out diagnosis. None of the tests you get will be for CFS/ME, it will be for things like lupus and your thyroid health, and if you have CFS/ME (or honestly any other rule-out diagnosis), all these tests will come back normal. If they came back outside of normal then you would likely have either whatever they tested for or something adjacent to it. Depending on your country and how your insurance works, it may be a very very slow process because Drs have to justify to insurance why they are ordering a test and mass-ordering tests usually does not get approved by insurers. Meaning you may be doing a series of getting x test, coming back, "it's normal," and moving onto the next test.

I don't try to make anyone believe me or advocate for me. The most advocacy I do for myself is communicate as clearly as I can, know my patient rights, and sometimes I bring a white person to my appts if I know or suspect the way the Dr is treating me has a bit of a racist angle. I just tell doctors what I'm experiencing and how it is affecting me, they'll suggest a potential answer, if it doesn't make sense (eg, symptoms occurring before whatever thing they think caused it) I will say why it doesn't make sense, otherwise I generally go with whatever test or treatment they suggest. If they don't suggest anything then I will directly ask them what would help improve how whatever it is is affecting my day to day life.

In all honesty, I do not have many problems with doctors in the states refusing me treatment or refusing tests/evals. If treatment or evals/tests are refused, I have historically asked for a referral to whatever specialist deals with the symptoms I'm dealing with, and I will ask that they write down the denial in my chart so the specialist knows not to order those. In reality the specialist will often look at my chart and order the test/eval/treatment they refused, or it will turn out that test/treatment is some years out of date and they'll suggest the newer ones.

I was diagnosed with CFS/ME after already being diagnosed with fibromyalgia and POTS. Fibro is already a rule-out diagnosis, so many of the tests that they would have needed had already been done--it took about a year of a bunch of tests before Drs diagnosed me with fibro.

[thelupuslady]

[lingshanhermit]

Lingshan Hermit: We discuss the clouds in the sky, the tea in our cups; we refrain from worldly chatter.

Today, almost every Buddhist seems to be advocating the Rimé philosophy, which has nearly become a diplomatically correct term. This isn't just within Buddhism; politicians globally are also striving hard to showcase their embracement of Rimé sentiments. You seldom hear any religious or political leaders (except Trump) saying, "We only consider our own sect or country, and never others." But in reality, their actions contradict their words. Even within Buddhists, those who genuinely embody the spirit of Rimé are extremely rare. Many Buddhists are not even aware of what Rimé truly signifies.

Many people ask me what Rimé is. Rimé is an attitude; it means all Buddhist teachings, irrespective of Tibetan or Han traditions, originate from Buddha. They appear so distinct or even contradictory because they are spoken to different audiences, or have been shaped by various traditions and styles across different regions. Not everyone requires the same teachings, nor should all teachings bear the same facade across regions. You may not understand for whom a particular teaching is intended, but it will undoubtedly prove beneficial for some practitioners. Therefore, we must respect all teachings and traditions, for they are all Buddha's teachings. Each lineage has proven its significance; countless enlightened beings have emerged from each lineage. It's akin to a visit to a pharmacy: we may only need aspirin, but that doesn't mean all other medicines should be discarded, or that every patient, be it an AIDS or lupus patient, should take aspirin. Nor should one think that they must take every medicine simultaneously. All medicines demand respect; you might only need one kind, but many others need different ones to treat their conditions.

It's said that when Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo was giving teachings, if he was teaching the Gelug school's Dharma, he would put on the Gelug hat and follow the Gelug tradition to show respect for the Gelug school.

Rimé does not imply everyone should celebrate together, forgetting their differences. Rimé is a sentiment only very advanced practitioners possess. Although everyone says they should be non-sectarian, it does not mean everyone who says so truly embodies it. In fact, it's quite the opposite; most people are not Rimé at all; they are merely pretending. But the issue is, you can't fake Rimé; it's the result of spiritual practice. The more advanced your practice, the more Rimé your attitude. If you are honest with yourself, you should realize you don't care about the survival of other sects. You don't see all teachings as equal. Even if others are eloquent, you don't think their sect is better than yours. Among Buddhists, everyone is talking about Rimé, but Rimé is increasingly becoming a politically correct diplomatic term. Buddhists speaking of Rimé increasingly resembles politicians lying for political correctness. This is precisely my concern.

You know, I've always discouraged gathering people from different sects together—those who like doing this might have had a stroke—even if everyone is a Buddhist, there will be a lot of unpleasantness resulting from it. Maybe you won't see Buddhists shooting at each other with AK47s due to displeasure. But the problems triggered by various emotions aren't few. Why bother? Therefore, I strongly advise against people from different sects becoming friends or getting too close—unless they never discuss sectarian practices, unless they are enlightened beings. In fact, I've had friends from other sects, and when we were together, we only talked about things unrelated to Buddhism. We would discuss the clouds in the sky, the tea in our cups; we didn't talk about sectarian matters. Our sectarian views are very different; only a fool would try to explore these.

But you should know, not every Buddhist knows how to get along with people from different sects. When most people are with others from different sects, they actually do one thing—try to prove that their sect is better or promote their sect. This is bound to invite resentment. More often than not, it leads to a counterattack.

In early 2015, many Europeans naively thought they could live with Muslim refugees. I don't know if they still think the same. Let alone getting Christians and Muslims to coexist peacefully. Even Buddhists, who are generally considered very mild, would generate a lot of friction if they lived together, even if they are from the same sect, even if they share the same teacher. And what about different sects, different civilizations? We are all humans, and we all have human flaws.

For Buddhists, staying where they should be and practicing their Dharma is enough; there really isn't much need to get too close to each other. Based on my limited observations, most inter-Buddhist socializations end up in disagreements. Because everyone thinks they are right, everyone thinks the other should listen to them, everyone thinks the other is insignificant, and everyone thinks their Dharma is better—because it is "theirs." This is exactly the attitude Rimé aims to eliminate—we favor our own Dharma, our own sect, because we love ourselves. Therefore, keeping a moderate distance from each other is a beneficial attitude for both parties.

Written by Lingshan Hermit on July 24, 2016.

Copyright Notice：All copyrights of Ling Shan Hermit's articles in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, English, and other languages belong to the natural person who owns "Ling Shan Hermit". Please respect copyright. Publishers, media, or individuals (including but not limited to internet media, websites, personal spaces, Weibo, WeChat public accounts, print media) must obtain authorization from Ling Shan Hermit before use. No modifications to the articles are allowed (including: author's name, title, main text content, and punctuation marks). We reserve all legal rights.

灵山居士：我们会谈天上的云，杯里的茶，我们不谈论见地

[cripple-council]

Hey lavender! any tips for advocating for myself in order to get knee braces, and a cane? Or advice on picking a cane and learning to use it?

I have knee and hip subluxations, that causes my knees to be kinda unstable and just have weak and painful legs in general. Also dizziness due to some form of syncope (fainting)

I’m currently homeschooled due to heath but want to back in person next year, but know id need mobility aids to be able to go consistently. I am afraid of being invalidated and ignored by doctors though, especially since I don’t have official diagnosis for my main conditions (EDS with a sister, thats prob either pots, lupus, or fibromyalgia )

hello!

i’ve tried answering this ask like five times now and my brain stopped working every time so i’m just gonna pass this one to my followers and hopefully they can help you out!!

[windysjourney]

Unraveling The Mysteries of Autoimmune Diseases

In the intricate tapestry of the human body, the immune system stands as a vigilant guardian, defending against invading pathogens and maintaining overall health. However, in some cases, this defender turns against its own host, giving rise to a category

In the intricate tapestry of the human body, the immune system stands as a vigilant guardian, defending against invading pathogens and maintaining overall health. However, in some cases, this defender turns against its own host, giving rise to a category of diseases known as autoimmune diseases. This blog post aims to unravel the complexities of autoimmune diseases, exploring their causes,…

[whilereadingandwalking]

I finally seem to have a diagnosis. Those who have been following my journey will know that this one is hard-earned after a two-year journey that started with my pericarditis and led me here. A journey of dismissal, anxiety, fear, and justified but still painful paranoia about my health—a journey of diving into literature about dismissal of chronic illness and medical sexism, racism, and fatphobia, and a journey of advocating repeatedly for myself. 

At first, the rheumatologist just listed things she had ruled out, and numbers that looked good. Any chronically ill person will know that hearing “everything looks good” is a double-edged sword. I don’t want lupus, or arthritis. But I do want an answer. I want to be believed. And often, when everything looks good, the doctor ends up telling you that it’s just stress, or they put you off to the next appointment, or they send you to yet another specialist. 

A diagnosis isn’t everything. It’s not the end of a journey by any means. My illness is not well-researched. Its cause isn’t known. There’s no easy cure, only management. But if fantasy has taught me anything, it’s that names are powerful. A named thing is easier to pin down, to track, to manage. A named thing is a little less feared. So: fibromyalgia. 

I’d read about it, suspected it, but now I get to know it. The big moment of affirmation was when I saw the map of common “tender points” where most fibromyalgia patients feel pain, and realized it could have been an exact map of my own pain. So much matched, so much rang true. Fibro causes awful brain fog. It can be triggered by bodily events—making my pericarditis a likely candidates—and is exacerbated (but not caused) by stress. 

And now I get to move forward knowing: this is not in my head. It is real. It is nameable. I’m not dying. I knew, in my bones, that the collection of symptoms that have popped up in my body for the past 2 years were not random coincidences. I get to know that I was right, and that I do know my own body. That on its own is tremendous to carry with me as I move forward.

[davidmariottecomics]

It's All in the Execution

Hello again! 

Today is the Trans Day of Remembrance. It caps off Trans Awareness Week. It's a somber occasion. And, content warning for gun violence, hate crimes, injury, and death, this year it is particularly somber as we're reeling from the tragedy at Club Q. It is doubtless that these two incidents are connected. And so today we remember Daniel Aston, as well as the others who were killed. We remember the countless other trans lives that've been ended prematurely. This is going out awfully late into the evening, but please take some time to mourn and grieve and hope for peace and justice for those we've lost. 

In terms of practical action, tell a trans person you love them. Maybe send them some money. You can also donate to the Colorado Healing Fund. Or Trans Lifeline. Or the Transgender Law Center. Share this map of informed consent HRT facilities. Follow up with your representatives on any anti-trans legislation in your area. Advocate for your communities and be willing to protect the people in them, by force if necessary. 

To get the other serious matters out of the way up top, there are a few comics creators who could really use your help right now. My friend Jeffrey Veregge was diagnosed with Lupus last year and is still hospitalized and his family needs assistance. Tess Fowler and Chris Gutierrez are currently dealing with their own medical emergency. And those are just the ones directly on my radar. 

And, finally, our attention turns to Owasso, Oklahoma, where a public school library did one of the dumbest things I can remember hearing about in recent memory: at one parent's complaint about one book, Blankets by Craig Thompson, the school pulled ALL the graphic novels from the shelves for two months and are planning on returning them and adding new ones, but only after every single book is examined page-by-page by an adult who can flag any possibility of sexual or other offensive material. I can only hope that Tim Reiland's daughter grows up to be a more thoughtful individual than he is and that the people in charge of this library are reminded of their duty to present challenging material. 

With that all said, I'd also still like to talk a bit about the execution of thematic goals in your work, but if you're too drained, I get it. You can come back later. 

This year, Becca and I have been seeing a lot of horror movies. In college, I started getting more into horror and now it's probably the genre most likely to get me into a theater. So far, the two best horror movies we've seen this year are neck-in-neck: Pearl and Barbarian (with X, the other movie in Ti West and Mia Goth's trilogy landing as a solid 3rd, and TBH, we still haven't seen Nope though that's on the agenda for the coming week). I could and will gush about Pearl and X at some point soon. I'll also throw in a good word for House of the Devil, which I feel is a very closely related movie, also by Ti West. Sorry, getting distracted already! Anyway, the point is that A LOT of the movies we've seen this year have been thematically very similar, including those two. But the other three perfectly illustrate a sort of Goldilocks scale of execution of an idea. 

The Poppa Bear of the group is Men. I know this movie's very divisive. Some people quite like it for reasons I can't explain. Like Poppa Bear's soup which was too hot or his bed which was too hard, Men was an unpleasant experience. The premise is Alex Garland read a couple articles about feminism and decided he should make a movie about how scary men are to women, forgetting that he already made that movie, Ex Machina. A traumatized woman working through a violent incident in her life goes out to a small English town and all the men in town are portrayed by one actor (an actually impressive feat, but not so much so as to outweigh the movie's flaws) and she thinks she's going crazy because they're all one guy and then the last third gets supernatural, but more importantly, super stupid. "Men are scary" is a really simple theme to build a story on and a worthy one because they are (see above). But one of the things that makes men scary is that they are capable of so much in the real world. That's what Men forgets. Sure, it recognizes that men abuse women physically and emotionally, particularly through gaslighting, but one of it's biggest failings is that as the story continues, the horror becomes removed from that reality. Is it gaslighting if all the men look the same because they're actually played by one guy and also are after you personally? What's the deal with the big "horror set piece" of the story being all the men who are the same guy birthing each other out of the mouth and other assorted made-up holes? It's clearly chosen because there're historically strong connections of womanhood and childbearing (reinforced by the ultimate arrival of the pregnant friend), but uhh... other than her friend being pregnant, it has no bearing on the main character's lived experience. It's just seeing a man do a "womanly" thing like giving birth that's "scary". And that's not scary, nor is it particularly smart commentary because it doesn't actually have anything to do with why men are scary. Anyway, do yourself a favor and don't watch Men. It's the pits. You can watch Ex Machina instead. Or maybe you could watch...

The Momma Bear of the group is Don't Worry Darling. Another divisive movie. This one's debatably a "horror", it's more psychological thriller, but I think those're inter-related enough to count. Like Momma Bear's bed, it's not firm enough. The premise is Harry Styles and Florence Pugh live an idyllic 1950s-esque planned community, organized by the mysterious Chris Pine. While Harry, Chris, and the other men go off every day to work on a mysterious project, the women are restricted to the community and to lives as housewives. But all is not what it seems... Spoilers: The men? Slightly scary. Unlike Men (BTW, hate that as a title because it makes talking about other men in the same analysis so hard), rather than turning the systemic oppression of women into a tête-à-tête between one woman and one many-man, it actually explores things on the levels of real communities and the power dynamics that men have both historically exercised and that many men seem to still fantasize about. Genuinely, the highest praise I can give this movie is that the female-gazed horror is a male-power fantasy. It indulges in the reasons why men act the way they do and in doing so actually gives it a reason to be scary. In terms of it not being firm enough, it's a bit unevenly paced and toned, so the stakes don't really feel material for most of the movie--there's too much mystery about what's going on that even when the audience knows something is wrong, they don't feel that the danger is imminent. It's a solid 6.5 or 7 out of 10, but again, you'd probably be better off watching the director's other movie, Booksmart. Or, you could watch... 

Barbarian is a movie you should go into with very little knowledge. The Baby Bear of the group all you need to know is that it is just right. Nah, but like, if you usually check content warnings before horror movies, do that, otherwise, the only description you're getting from me is a woman of color shows up at her AirB&B only to find that it's already occupied by a man claiming he rented it who invites her in to sort things out and from there things happen. And, hey, that premise--already more realistically scary than either of the other two because that's shit that could actually happen. It is a complex movie that manages to actually have something to say--and was written and directed by one of the Whitest Kids U' Know (which I just found out, the twists keep coming with this one!). But, suffice to say, by the end of the movie, you'll get that men are scary and why and have that layered with so much more. It's a masterpiece of filmmaking and of using your story--the location, the cast, the pacing, the plot elements--to tell a cohesive story that not only covers the thematic message you want to convey, but embodies it and grows into something more as it continues. 

This is going awfully long again, so let me conclude with two last things. 

1. The live reenactment of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip by Alec Robbins, Grace Freud, and friends was AMAZING. Some of the funniest comedy I've ever had the pleasure of seeing live. If the TV show had been half as good as this one-off reenactment, I actually think it would've lasted more than a season. I don't know that anyone will ever be able to see it if you weren't there, but it was magical! 

2. Becca's got their last artist's alley of the year on Tuesday. It's NiteNite Night with Biz Baz Club and New Motion Brewery. There'll be artists selling cool stuff just in time for the holidays and karaoke! Becca's going to have some new merch debuting! It'll be a good time! I'll be there too, but only to help Becca. More info in the image! Hope to see you there! 

Pic of the Week #2: As promised with the other post this week, here's a not great picture I took of Tiansheng and I cuddled on the couch when Becca was out of town earlier in the week. He's cute!