#unrelated me and my dad have this joke where when i feel like my academic life is not too great/i maybe should have done something else

[meirimerens]

got the tldr of the vid that I'm Not Watching All That & somewhat amusing how the straw breaking the camel's back for people over James Somerton is his blatant and unashamed plagiarism (as it should be genuinely i don't think you can nor should recover from this) like he hasn't regurgitated for years vile, unempathetic, ahistorical and Purely Just Wrong information about gay history including about the fight for legal same-sex marriage in the US and the AIDS crisis. like an alarming amount of people truly heard his ass say "all the good fun funky artistic and radical gays died of aids and all those who were left were unfun stuck-up prudes and conservatives also the fight for legal same-sex marriage was an assimilationist ploy by the latter who just wanted big gay weddings" as if the gay men who survived the epidemic didn't literally lose lovers and friends and entire communities and long-term partners who they shared a life with and who were denied any crumb of this previous life at their death because there was no legal recognition for same-sex cohabitation and unions and their homophobic family could tear everything from the surviving partner thanks to this lack of recognition and let it slide.

some people out there were truly so eager to shit on the boring assimilationist prude gays who survived aids by being stuck-up prudes and who just wanted "big gay weddings" they made up in their minds to get mad at that they turned their brains off and let it slide. they could've used their smoothed-out brains for ONE minute & found out that surviving took 1) plain boring luck and 2) radical, loud, proud gay activists campaigning for safe/safer sex and the information campaigns they led, as well as the protests and demonstrations they undertook to make the government fucking care for once. and that legally-recognized unions [be they civil or religious] were a matter of survival for the partner left behind. some people out there truly let a business major with a turtleneck (possibly the definition of boring) passing himself off as cool and radical and an intellectual tell them homophobic bullshit. and did not blink. like OF COURSE this guy's gonna be a plagiarist. he needs to get his information from SOMEWHERE. because when he tries to formulate his own stuff it's complete fabrications or the frankensteining of multiple sources that he manages to misunderstand/misrepresent threefold over. trying to fit a knit sock over the foot with the inside out and wonder why that itches.

i know many people in his audience are likely very young and also likely american and as such did most of their growing up in a world where their country (1 out of 195. give or take.) had legalized gay marriage but i cannot even begin to describe 1) how Young legalized gay wedding is, even in ""the west"" and 2) how many. other countries there are. my country legalized same-sex marriage before the US did. i am not even 25 and i still remember the hordes of catholics marching down the streets chanting homophobic slogans, implying the only reason two mommies or two daddies would want to raise a child together is for nefarious, vile purposes. i still remember families having to drag their asses into court to argue that, yes, a woman who raised a child for its whole life with another woman she's in a long-term committed cohabitated relationship with should have the right to be considered a direct guardian even if she's not biologically related to the child, and spending thousands of bucks having to argue their case in court. this might be shocking to some, but there are countries where homosexuality is punishable by death. in others, not by death, but by imprisonment. in others, not by imprisonment, but by ""medical intervention"". in others, not by ""medical intervention" but by fines. and in some others still, you can be gay (yay!) but you still cannot get married or civil-unioned, and the very same shit that was discussed in the 80s is still discussed now. the right to stay a guardian of your partner's child if your partner dies or is ill, so the kid does not go into foster care. the right to inherit your partner's property according to married rights instead of having through long annoying time- and money-consuming legal processes. the right to arrange your partner's funeral or have a say in their medical choices if they're incapacitated instead of their (potentially homophobic) families.

like We Are Not There Yet. we are not in a world where any homosexual can truly, fully, wholeheartedly assimilate, whether you consider it a good thing or not. fun gay artists and boring uninteresting gay office workers die the same death that we all do. the one you don't wake from. and guess what. all types of homosexuals, regardless of which ones you pick and choose to be mad at, are affected by homophobic legislation. not just the ones you think should be spared because they're oh so fun. and oh so radical.

donate to the rainbow railroad org if you can. they help LGBT+ people escape state-sponsored violence. a singular nail on one of their members' hand does more activism and real-life good than any mfer making video essays could do in his entire life.

[maklodes]

I don’t usually do tumblr sadposting, but I guess maybe the holidays are getting to me and such. I already posted this on /r/trueoffmychest. I’m not sure whether posting this stuff or bottling it up (my usual practice) is better, but I thought I’d give this a shot. I may decide this makes me feel worse and go back to bottling it up. I have no strong feelings about whether you reblog this or not. Potentially distressing content below the cut. 

I just feel like it's too late to form real relationships or succeed in life in conventional terms.

Background: I am thirty-five year old man. I don't really have any real friends, and feel like I haven't really since high school (and not many then). I am a kissless virgin straight guy. I am back living with my parents. I have a very spotty employment history, sometimes working with startups that never went anywhere, sometimes doing part time work doing things like Solidworks CAD design stuff. I followed a weird path academically, got a bachelors in economics, then a masters in mechanical engineering. I'm starting a new CAD job in January. The money is okay ($30/hr), but it is part time with fluctuating hours, and generally my résumé is as holey as Swiss cheese.

I have been getting therapy, and have been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. My therapist and some other people have recommended resources to help me try to get out more. I started going to a group that hosts events for people on the autism spectrum, and I went to vocational rehab which connected me with MERS Goodwill which has provided employment counseling that I felt didn’t help much in getting a job (I got my new job primarily through an unrelated personal connection), but maybe did help me in overcoming the severe anxiety I feel around applying for jobs. I also started going to a kind of Jewish young-adult oriented group.

It just doesn't feel like it helps. I can't really connect with people, whether allistic or autistic. I feel like in primarily allistic gatherings, groups of people are already engrossed in their own circles before I know how to break in. I can talk a little bit, but I feel like often the conversation goes into areas I just can’t relate to. In autistic groups, well, I don’t really like to say this, but I find a pretty large fraction of fellow autistic people annoying. Even on weeks when I have a fair number of events that I’m involved with, I feel like I “go to events” rather than “have a social life.” Even when I talk to people, I feel like it’s okay as a one-off conversation, but don’t know how to build deeper relationships.

When I look outside myself, trying to see the world beyond my personal problems, I also feel depressed about the state of the world. I feel like Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and their friends are destroying my country. I feel like we are missing the chance to keep this planet livable, and now maybe it’s too late. I think about the horrific abuse of animals in factory farms on the scale of tens of billions per year.

I’m not really doing anything to solve these problems or make the world a better place, but I feel like I have to at least try not to make them too much worse. I’m vegan, and I avoid driving when I can, usually bicycling or taking public transit. It’s not enough, CO2 levels are still rising, billions of chickens are still being slaughtered, etc, and more systemic solutions are needed, but I feel like even that bit of harm-reduction I do further alienates me from people, and makes me more of an awkward weirdo in social situations, bringing my own food to pizza parties and stuff. I feel scared of a lot of left-leaning activism, because a lot of social justice rhetoric isn’t good for me psychologically.

I have a hard time using “real-name” social media like Facebook, or online dating. I have a Facebook account but use it about once a year. I’ve never tried any online dating. I think a few women have expressed interest in me in the past that I was largely too oblivious to pick up at the time (e.g., a girl who mentioned that she like guys with eyes the same color as mine), but I find it really inconceivable that any woman would be attracted to me with my life in its current state. (Physically, I’m okay-ish, but at my age, well, my nasolabial folds are starting to get deeper, etc.)

I’m into some nerd stuff, but I feel like I can’t get into a lot of the “mainstream nerd” interests like Star Wars, Marvel, Game of Thrones (I read the ASoIaF books, but only watched about one episode of the HBO show), etc. One mainstream nerd interest I enjoyed was some tabletop RPGs that I played with online friends a decade ago, but I feel like I don’t know how to get into a scene like that IRL.

I play too much multiplayer Mount & Blade: Warband (9 hours over the past 2 weeks, according to Steam), and really nothing else in my Steam library. People on a server there recognize me and sometimes talk to me, and I sometimes chat there too,  but I tend to shy away from forming real relationships. I always feel a little uncomfortable when people recognize me and want to talk at a personal level. I also look at a fair amount of hentai and furry stuff, and play some pornographic games. Sometimes laughing at jokes and stuff I see on Tumblr makes me feel happy for a time. The discussions are sometimes good too.

I feel that I’m in a lot of ways like the standard image of the Loser Bad Guy that I see in the media: the socially alienated guy who goes on a shooting rampage, the hateful misogynist incel, the isolated, downwardly mobile angry white male who posts Pepe-in-a-MAGA-hat memes on 4chan. I’m not planning on doing a shooting rampage or anything, but sometimes I just look at myself, and think: what a creep. What a waste of food and water and air. Sometimes I fantasize about getting into an accident that leaves me braindead so my organs can go to people who would make better use of them than I am.

I wish I could be more happy and grateful for the ways in which I am blessed. I am in decent health. I have enough to eat. I have a roof over my head. I am not locked in a battery cage where I can’t stretch my arms out. I am a straight able-bodied white male from an upper-middle class family living in a first-world country. Maybe I just have an unwarranted sense of entitlement, but I don’t know how to be happy with me life as it is.

Sometimes I just feel really angry at myself, for not being smarter, for not being more mature, for not taking advantage of more opportunities I’ve had in the past, for not being more motivated to change, for not doing more to help the people I could. Sometimes I just feel angry at myself for being angry at myself, for my own futile, unproductive anger over my own flaws.

I don’t really feel I talk honestly about this stuff with anyone I know. Sometimes I talk to my therapist, and I don’t lie to her, and she knows the core facts that I laid out here (difficulty with employment, relationships, etc), but I feel like I always shade toward something a little brighter than how I feel -- or, at least, how I feel at my worst moments. Maybe it’s just that my moments with her really aren’t my worst moments, so I’m not in the frame of mind to say how I actually do feel in my worst moments. With my dad, I feel like he thinks I’m just being overly dramatic and irrational. Maybe I am, but if so I don’t know how to be rational, at least consistently. With my mom… well, I usually don’t talk to her about this stuff. I feel like when she sees weakness, she goes in for an attack.

So, I thought I’d give the whole Tumblr sadposting thing a shot. Maybe baring myself like this will be mortifying, maybe cathartic, IDK. Try everything once, right?

[fundeadasylum]

This Photo of Us Part 1: Lips Like Strawberry Wine

To literally no one’s surprise it’s more Micoverse. Let’s just say I listened to Blake Robin’s Unhealthy Obsession one too many times. 

Warnings: none for this chapter

Part 2 / Part 3

**********************************

On a wet, rainy autumn afternoon, Jacob Pierly disappeared.

----

Months before, just as spring was nudging aside the last, clingy vestiges of winter and stubbornly sprouting flowers against the still chilly mornings, Jacob Pierly met a girl. He’d ducked a coffee shop, eager to warm fingers cold from poor circulation and a breeze that had been biting since the early afternoon. Instead he got a shirt soaked with piping hot coco and a frantic, scrambling apology from the young woman who’d spilled her drink on him.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I wasn’t paying attention--it was a total accident--I’ll pay for the cleaning! I’ll--I’ll buy you a new shirt! I’m so, so sorry!”

“I, uh, n-no, it’s f-fine, it’s just--it’ll come right out. It’s not a big deal,” Jake stepped back, awkwardly raising his hands to fend off the woman’s frantic cascade of paper napkins, “It was my fault, I was distracted. Let--let me buy you another one.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t--”

“Please?”

The young woman bit her lip, dirty blonde hair in disarray, twenty or so napkins clutched in her grasp, “I...okay.” She smiled, shy and relenting, straightening up and trying to compose herself.

Jake’s heart skipped a beat for reasons entirely unrelated to preexisting medical conditions.

----

Her name was Rosanna Pearl and she was studying for a medical degree at a nearby college.

“With a minor in chemistry,” She added as they sat at a table in the cafe, each anxiously clutching at their drinks and avoiding direct eye contact, “And you can call me Rosie. Everyone else does.”

“Jake Pierly,” He said, the corner of his mouth twitching in an awkward smile, “Stay at home editor.”

Rosie giggled, “Pierly. Sounds like Pearl. Our last names kind of match. That’s a little funny. Maybe it’s fate we ran into each other.”

“Ah, maybe,” Jake could feel his ears burning as he chuckled, “But next time fate intervenes, I hope it involves less spilled hot chocolate.”

Rosie laughed, a real, resonating laugh that made her cheeks turn pink. It was such a sweet laugh that Jake found himself laughing too.

“What do you edit, if you don’t mind me asking?” Rosie asked when they had settled down.

Jake swallowed a mouthful of decaf, shrugged one shoulder and looked out the window so he didn’t have to face his problems, “Nothing special. Usually whatever anyone throws my way. Creative writing, mostly. Sometimes academic papers but there’s a lot of jargon I don’t get in those so I have to decline a lot of them. I can’t tell you how many awful books get handed off to me by these wanna-be novelists that think they’re going to be the next Stephen King or something.” He rolled his eyes, caught Rosie’s glance, and flushed, “D-don’t tell them I said that, I mean, I do the work. P-pays the bills, you know. Heh.”

“Oh no, don’t apologize, I’m pretty sure I know the type,” Rosie raised her eyebrows, “I used to work at a salon and you would not believe the bitches--the kinds of people who came through there! Awful people. Just. Terrible.”

Jake hid a smile behind the lid of his coffee cup, “Sounds like you’ve got some horror stories.”

Rosie smirked, “I’ll regale you with them sometime.” She glanced at her phone sitting on the table next to her, “But right now I really have to head out. Tell you what, coffee’s on me next time and I’ll spill all the dirty client secrets. Deal?”

Jake hummed, “Deal. What’s your number?”

----

“DAD! DAD! JAKE HAS A DATE! JAKE HAS A DATE!”

Dan looked up from the stove so fast he banged his head on the cabinet. Head smarting and eyes watering, he turned to face the teenager spilling head over heels into the kitchen, “Ow! What!? Milo, stop shouting! What did you say?”

“He didn’t say anything!” Jake shouted, spilling into the kitchen and nearly wiping out on the tile as his socks slid underneath him.

“JAKE’S GOING ON A DATE!”

Dan stared at Milo and then looked at Jake who appeared as though he’d like nothing better than to vanish through the floor, never to show himself again. His face was bright red and he was twisting his shirt into knots between his fingers, gaze darting across the room, shoulders hunched to his ears as he curled in on himself. In contrast, Milo was bouncing up and down, a wide grin on his face, snickering madly at having shared a piece of juicy gossip.

“Jake?” And even though Dan said it carefully he could still hear the eggshells popping under his feet.

“Ih-it’s not a date!” Jake said to the floor, “It’s just a coffee…meetup. Thing. To talk about work. Strictly--strictly platonic. M-maybe even business related. We only just met today and barely know each other but sh-she seems nice and stuff and we were joking around and so we’re just--just going to meet for coffee next week. It’s not a date! It’s nothing!”

Dan winked at him, “Of course, Jake. Not a date. Strictly professional. Got it.”

“You both are the worst.” Jake groaned and Milo cackled with glee.

-----

Dan and Milo left him alone about it for the time preceding the coffee meetup (though Jake suspected Milo only did so with much bribing and pleading from Dan). Jake was grateful for that much because he honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten out of the house with friends apart from Dan and...well, these days it was just Dan. So this would be a nice change of pace from the usual fanfare.

Still, that didn’t stop him from fretting the morning of and changing his shirt three times. He couldn’t help it, he wanted to be presentable. That’s just who he was. He only settled down when Milo caught him trying to match ties and asked him what “his date’s favorite color was”. Dan had to stop Jake from chasing the teenager around the house with a dress shoe and threatening to smack the smile right off his face.

“When do you think you’ll be home?” Dan asked as he ushered Milo away to find something more productive to do with his time.

“Um, no later than 5?” Jake hazard, pulling on a jacket, “I’ve got a video call with a client I don’t want to look like roadkill for tomorrow, so I’ll be home in time for dinner and a decent night’s sleep.”

“Call me if you need anything.”

“Yes, dear,” Jake chided gently, “I’ll keep my phone on and I promise not to sleep with any strangers.”

“Jake…”

“Whoa! Dad’s cheating on dad!”

“Milo, go to your room!”

“This house is a nightmare!”

Jake could only laugh as he stepped outside and pulled the door shut.

The drive to the cafe was short but enough for Jake to work himself back up into a nervous frenzy all over again. He nearly shut his leg in the car door and tripped over his own feet as he stepped into the cafe.

A glance around and he met Rosie’s pretty brown eyes at a seat near the back, private and away from the crowd, sheltered mostly by a bakery display. She smiled and waved and he made his way over, slinging his jacket over the back of the chair as he sat down.

“Hi, um, hello Rosie, sorry. I hope you haven’t been waiting long. You haven’t, have you? It’s just I had to wrangle Milo and--”

“No, no, you’re fine, I’ve only been here a couple of minutes,” She assured him with a smile, “Who’s Milo? Your cat?”

Jake choked on his own breath of air and struggled not to laugh, “Oh my g--no, if he heard you call him that--good lord. No, no, Milo’s my son. Adopted son. My roommate Dan and I are looking after him since his dad, our friend, um…” He swallowed, the lies tasting foul in his mouth.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to explain. I’m sorry I asked.” Rosie said quietly. She shifted in her seat, glancing away from him, “Wow, what a way to start the day. Good job, Rosie.”

“Ah, it’s not...a big deal. It’s been ten years.” Jake pushed his finger across the linoleum tabletop in an absent manner, “Anyway, weren’t you going to--what was it?--regale me with epic tales of your worst clients?”

Rosie smirked, “I don’t think I said it quite like that. But why don’t I get us our drinks and tell you about this lady who wanted every shade of pink in her hair.”

----

It carried on, as these things tended to.

Every few weeks, Jake and Rosie would meet up at a cafe or a restaurant, and share drinks, a meal, and stories of their lives. Jake told her about college, about the red head father of his adopted son, something he hadn’t talked about to anyone for ages. In response, Rosie admitted her crippling fear of academic failure and disappointing the legacy of her dead parents. They got along incredibly well for a pair of mostly introverts, enthusiastically discussing music almost every time they met up. It made Jake light up in a way that even Dan couldn’t remember seeing before.

So of course, it had to end and end badly. Because life just couldn’t be fair to Jacob Pierly.

Dan came home from his shift one evening to find Jake slumped bonelessly on the couch in the sitting room, his expression tired and forlorn, his shirt unbuttoned and rumpled, and an empty package of Oreos open beside him. The television was stuck on the retro channel, playing old reruns of shows from the 70’s and 80’s, audio muffled by age and then cleaned up by modern tech.

“Jake…?” Dan asked tentatively, setting his coat down on the back of the couch, “Hey, buddy, you okay? Is Milo sick again?”

“Huh?” Jake blinked, coming back to himself with a small jolt and looking around as if unsure of where he was, “Oh, no, he’s over at Cody’s right now. He’s fine.”

“But...you’re not.” Dan said, easing onto the couch as if afraid he would startle his friend away, “Wanna talk about it?”

“Mm...I dunno…” Jake sighed, letting his head roll back onto the couch cushions, “Not really, but…” He sighed again, “I screwed up, Dan.”

“How’s that?”

“I...I asked Rosie out.”

Dan brightened but then immediately sobered, “Ah, that was, um, real brave of you.”

“Tch,” Jake snorted and his lip curled and for a second, Dan saw a flash of forgotten bitterness and old anger bubble to the surface, “Yeah, sure. Would have been great except she...she said no.” He deflated all over again, staring at his fingers curled loosely in his lap, looking more drawn and tired than ever, “Said I must’ve gotten the wrong impression, that she never wanted to be more than just friends. Said...we should probably...not see each other for a while.”

“Aw, Jake,” Dan murmured, “Jake, buddy, I’m sorry.”

Jake shrugged and sniffed as if he could dismiss the dreary atmosphere hanging in a cloud over his head, “‘S whatever.”

“Nooooo, no it’s noooottt,” Dan cooed, scooting closer to his friend on the couch, “Come here, Jake, let Dan hug all your sorrow away. Hug Machine Dan is here for you.”

“No, no, no Hug Machine Dan!” Jake backed up, but Dan pinned him against the arm rest and crushed him into a hug, “DAN! DAN LEGGO!”

“Are you done being sad?”

“YES!”

“Lies. I’m gonna keep hugging you!”

“I’m going to tell Milo to eat your cookie stash.”

----

Jake’s funk lasted for weeks.

But, eventually, as summer tumbled awkwardly into autumn, apologized, and politely stepped out of the way, he got over it. Jake tended to hang onto things and hang onto them hard and it took work for him to let them go. But he was trying and Dan could see he was trying and told him he was proud and Jake shoved him and they laughed and tried to pretend they didn’t miss the echo of a third laugh that should have been there but wasn’t.

Things were getting better. Things were looking up.

And then, on a wet, rainy autumn afternoon, Jacob Pierly disappeared.

[thelittlegreenprince]

Story time. 

(Content warnings: derogatory language regarding LGBTQ community, mention of depression, trauma.)

I had a bad day at work last week. Like, really bad. Crying-in-the-back-room-and-wishing-desperately-not-to-exist-kind-of-bad. But let me back up.

I had a shit time finding a job after I graduated from college. I moved to two different major cities, interviewed for several dozen positions ranging from research assistant to barista, and eventually had no other choice but to move back home with my dad.

I grew up in a really conservative part of rural white Pennsylvania. It was pretty normal to hear classmates use homophobic slurs, racist language, and rape jokes in everyday conversation at my high school. Trying to figure out all of the beautifully weird things that I am was really difficult when I was a young person. Trying to cultivate a sense of self-worth was next to impossible.

Fast forward to the summer after my first year of college. My dad, a pharmacist, had just opened his own drugstore (potentially jeopardizing my family’s ability to front the fraction of tuition that I hadn’t managed to cover with financial aid, scholarships, and federal loans) and I was obligated to return to my hometown to help him run the place. It was hands-down the worst job that I have ever had. Anyone who has ever had to work for their parents knows how awful it is to be micromanaged by someone who has it in their power to not only hold your paycheck over your head to make you do whatever they want, but who also controls your ability to go home and feel safe and secure after the work day is over. 

I was pretty much the store’s only full-time employee, often working overtime (though paid minimum wage!), and our customers were the county’s most infamous. And since it was just my dad and me in there, they would come in and feel entitled to pretty much do and say as they pleased. I remember one nasty old woman who would sidle up to the counter, order her prescriptions with a glare, and pointedly say to me, “You know, you remind me of my granddaughter... She looked just like you... Used to be such a sweet person, and so smart too; she had gotten her PhD you know. But then she left her husband and became a disgusting LESBIAN. What a waste. Now she’ll never amount to anything! Sick in the head, that’s what people like her are.”

It’s difficult to reproduce the viciousness in her tone through a Tumblr post, but believe me, there was venom in those words. This happened each time she came in. Like clockwork. And like clockwork, I would look over to my dad, pleading silently for some sort of support -- to see him laughing. Cracking up! I talked to him about it after work one time. Got really upset. “It would be really nice if you didn’t laugh at me when someone said something that offends me and insults who I am. In fact, it would be nice if you stood up for me and told them not to say those kinds of things to your employees in your place of business.” He blew his lid and shouted at me that he was not going to make his drugstore a political battleground.

Anyway, after that summer, I swore to myself that I would never again work for my dad. Six months after I graduated college, two cities, and more than a few burned bridges later, right back there I was. If I didn’t have so many problems with the word, I would say that it felt emasculating. Instead, I’ll just admit that crushing depression pretty much consumed me for those first few months. But that’s a pity party I’d like to keep somewhat private.

Fast forward to last week a few minutes before I wound up in the closet crying like a ninny. My coworker Heather was talking about a gay man that her husband knew at work and called him “gayer than a three-dollar bill.” Now, Heather is the kind of straight person who manages to convince other straight people that she’s gay-friendly. But when you go around doing things like calling gay men “flamers” behind their backs... Look, if you’re not willing to say it directly to a person’s face, then you know that you’re saying something offensive, and you should really just stop.

So, I got annoyed, and said that I didn’t quite understand the phrase “gayer than a three-dollar bill.” At which point, the staff pharmacist, Harry, cut in. Harry is what some people would call crude. I call it meanness thinly veiled as humor. He said loudly, “Well I think the real phrase is QUEERER than a three-dollar bill--”

Alarms started going off in my head and I tried to stop him from talking by saying, “well, historically, that’s a pretty offensive term, and I’d prefer if you didn’t use it.” I didn’t even get the first word out. He steam-rolled me every time I’d try and his voice just kept getting louder.

“--you know, that’s what people would say, QUEERER than a three-dollar bill, but it’s because you’d never see one of those, QUEERER than a three-dollar bill, she’s saying he’s QUEER.”

He tacked on the end as an afterthought, “But yeah, that’s definitely more offensive.”

Allow me to pause here and mention that I don’t... really have any inherent problem with the word ‘queer.’ Hell, I identify as queer. I majored in Women’s Studies in college. We throw that shit around all the time! It’s a noun, an adjective, a verb, an adverb, and a whole body of academic theory. But... as with any word whose origins lie in oppression, despite the work that has been done to reclaim this term by the communities it was once used to hurt, the weight of the word is still incredible. It is still, in many contexts, a derogatory term. And this was one of those contexts.

After my experiences working at the drugstore that summer after my first year of college, I learned not to expect my dad to advocate on my behalf with regards to pretty much anything -- least of all my identity as a queer person. This is difficult when I am also his employee. At another place of employment, I would have gone to my manager, spoken to them about this upsetting incident, and worked out a solution. If necessary, I would have quit. But those things aren’t options in this scenario, where my boss is also my dad. Which means all of those years of mustering the self-worth to feel angry, to self-advocate, to know that I deserve to *not* be reduced to sobbing and ashamed of myself for it in the back closet at my place of employment -- just have to be quietly put away for another day, another year, however long. 

I can’t expect anyone to advocate on my behalf. And you can bet that Harry isn’t facing any repercussions for his behavior. Apparently, he brought it up with my dad at the end of the work day after I had gone home and said, “your daughter is really sensitive, isn’t she?” and my dad just shrugged and said he didn’t know what had happened. No apologies. To the contrary, I was implicitly blamed for having gotten upset.

However, I am surprised to find that I am being given the option to opt out of having to work with him this week (I can’t say anything about future weeks). In other situations, I’ve not been allowed to change my work schedule at all. To digress, there’s an assistant pharmacist who comes in once a week to help out. He’s an old man who never fails to trigger trauma-brain relapse for me whenever I have to work with him because of his tendency to get... touchy. My complaints about this have been dismissed, and I have had to keep working with him until very recently, when I managed to argue my way out of working on that day of the week for unrelated reasons.

Anyway, I am allowed to take off for the two days that Harry works this week. This is good, because I would rather not deal with the tension of working with this person. But I am upset at the idea of sacrificing my hourly wages because of this asshole.  I am angry with myself for letting him get to me enough to make me cry. But I’m more angry that his derogatory language goes without so much as an apology while my paycheck gets reduced in what feels like an awful concession to my own marginalization as a bisexual nonbinary person.

I am sorry to say that there is nothing in this story that I have heroically overcome. There’s no moral, there’s no hidden meaning, there’s no inspirational message. There’s just a microcosmic example of systemic oppression, the personal experience of traumas being triggered, and the lack of financial autonomy to declare independence from relatives or move away permanently. If you’ve taken the time to read all of this, I appreciate you.

[realestate63141]

Is Photography the Best Educator? Here’s Why I Think So

It’s been said that in 2017, everyone is a photographer, and from the unrelenting firehose of pictures that fill every inch of digital real estate and social media these days, I can see why folks would think that.

Of course just taking a picture doesn’t make you a photographer any more than microwaving a bag of popcorn makes you a chef. So while everyone can (and does) take pictures, actual photographers are a rarer breed.

Burn it. Burn it all. Vancouver, 1997.

In my time, I have made a good living as a photographer, and no matter what my job is currently, shooting photos is still what I’m best at. That’s not to say I want to go back into the world of photography being my sole source of income. Imagine a world in which every bag of microwaved popcorn was a good enough meal for 90% of people. Noooo thank you. But it occurred to me the other day that being a professional photographer instills one with a unique set of skills and traits that are perfectly suited for modern careers.

I started reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Marc Manson after my fiancé Kim and friend Peter both recommended it in the same week. It has provoked a lot of conversation in our house and among friends about the nature of success happiness, and the timely and ubiquitous discussion around entitled generations. All of that I’ll leave in the book for you, but I read one passage that sent me down a rabbit hole:

A lot of people are afraid to accept mediocrity because they believe that if they accept it, they’ll never achieve anything, never improve, and that their life won’t matter… The rare people who do become truly exceptional at something do so not because they believe they’re exceptional. On the contrary, they become amazing because they’re obsessed with improvement. And that obsession with improvement stems from an unerring belief that they are, in fact, not that great at all…because they understand that they’re not already great—they are mediocre, they are average—and that they could be so much better.

And if there has ever been a career that is a poster child for incremental progress, it has got to be photography. I will now make the case that successful photographers are well positioned to take on the pressures of modern careers based on the specific set of skills that are mandatory in our world.

Failure

To be successful you have to fail. Photographers fail every single day.

Failure is a defining factor of successful photographers, and it’s one of the reasons that digital fundamentally changed the game. To make a good picture you first must make a bunch of terrible pictures. When you find success in an image, you learn, and evolve into a better photographer, a process that used to take years. The cycle of learning was made quick and cheap by digital. With instant feedback from an LCD screen and no film costs, new photographers learned at a pace that was unheard of a few years prior.

Laughing crowd: Vancouver, 2016

But every one of those leaps forward came on the back of a series of failures, and of photos that didn’t work or didn’t connect.

Critique

And once a photographer feels like they have succeeded, it’s time to test that theory in the real word. Part of photography is “critique”, the process of receiving feedback on work from respected authorities in the aim of making better work. It can be a brutal, withering process that takes a toll on ego. The goal, of course, is not to break down a budding talent, but to build them up.

We live in a thin-skinned world of passive aggressive feedback and fear of hurt feelings that doesn’t set people up for the realities of the modern workplace. Photographers who have found success in their practice have weathered many storms and typically develop a thick skin for criticism. They are able to navigate a landscape of hurt feelings with relative ease and understand a basic truth: critique is just like, your opinion…man.

George Bowering flips the bird: Vancouver, 2013

This also is a real line of demarcation between photographers and Instagram celebrities. Instagrammers have substituted little red hearts for critique. And within that ecosystem there is room for great success based on that metric, but it is different from critique in that it is a reward from an unsophisticated audience and therefore elevates a populist vision. As we have seen this breeds homogeneity and “bright shiny object” worship, but doesn’t necessarily create great work.

A post shared by Dano Pendygrasse (@danopendygrasse) on Mar 27, 2015 at 11:59am PDT

Problem Solving

Every picture is a problem to solve. We are given a set of problems and have to come out on the other end with a defined result. Terrible light? Ugly subject? Outdoors in the winter? No problem, I have three ways to get you the photo you want.

You want a picture of a climber on the side of a 1200-foot wall of granite while he lunges towards a ledge in the shade? Ask Jimmy Chin, he eats problems like that for breakfast.

You know what cameras hate? Seawater! So I figured it was important to learn how to shoot scuba diving photos. Be far the most challenging undertaking I had taken on at that point.

Scuba diver: Roatan, 2011

These may seem like specific examples that don’t relate to anything outside of photography, but it’s not so much about the subject, it’s about the process. And after solving problems like that for years, your brain becomes adept and solving any kind of problem.

Problem solving, like all abstract thinking, doesn’t come easily to everyone. As we all know, repetition is the parent of skill. If you are forced to solve a problem once in a while, you probably will never be that good at lateral thinking. But if all you do all day long is find a way to get from A to B with a specific set of assets, odds are you’re going to get pretty good at it.

A Mix of Technical and Creative Thinking

It took a long time for me to realize why photography and I bonded so well but after a decade or so it all came into focus for me. (Yes, I do dad jokes)

Prior to the digital revolution there was no art form that required such a mastery of mechanical and technical skills, as well as a strong creative vision. It’s been said that “photography is the only medium where you can accidentally make a masterpiece,” but I prefer the view that a great body of work is the result of genius and hard work, not chance. And still, photography combines a mix of right-brain and left-brain expertise that isn’t found in many other disciplines.

Hang Ten and Crowd. Tofino, 2012 Confidence

We sometimes mistake the loudest voice at the table for the most confident voice, but confidence isn’t about the ability to speak over others. True confidence comes from an ability to trust in yourself and believe you can excel. Not because you know how to do everything, but precisely because you don’t. I really want a good accountant to do my taxes, they have a very specific knowledge that takes a lot of time and attention to excel at. (See? Dad jokes.)

But if you want someone who can take on just about anything, you don’t go running to the accounting department. What you need is someone who can listen, ask the right questions, look you in the face, and say; “I got this.”

That’s why we like the strong silent types. Because we trust that they will get s**t done. We believe in them precisely because they don’t waste time talking about what they can do, but get to work doing it.

Snowboarder Kevin Jones: Skagway, Alaska. 1999. Finally

I’m not trying to suggest that it’s only photographers that have any of these skills, not by a long shot. Hell, academics and scientists live and die by critique. Lots of people are confident in their abilities. And god knows there is a lot of failure out there in the world.

I submit that as a trade, photography is an underrated springboard to success, and the people who do it well are probably well-suited to win at whatever they attempt to. Or maybe it’s just me…

What do you think?

About the author: Dano Pendygrasse spent almost 2 decades behind a camera, mostly in the mountains. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. On January 15th, after running the photo and video program for Arc’teryx for 3 and a half years, he launched a new venture with a partner. He is finding that all of the lessons from photography are coming in very handy. He still takes pictures compulsively. You can find his work on Instagram at @DanoPendygrasse. This article was also published here.

Image credits: Header graduation cap illustration by Fred the Oyster. All photographs by Dano Pendygrasse.

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