I hate where I live and half the people I live with.

I love getting belittled and told I'm broken, it's awesome!

I got my x-mas gifts all wrapped!

I effectively tripled what was already under the tree. :P

I bought Ryan's ticket for February this morning. It's months away, but I'm still excited. :)

I keep bouncing between self-loathing and self-acceptance without any real rhyme or reason. I think a lot of it is due to being stressed out and not having a lot of time to do good things for myself. Knowing that doesn't make it any less frustrating, however.

Related, this song has been on my mind a lot since I finally listened to it last week.

Hello. Most of you who know me personally know that I volunteer/work at In Other Words, the U.S.'s only surviving non-profit feminist bookstore/community center. I've worked there long enough at this point to be tasked with a Project to work on during my non-customer-y time at the store: a book list of subjects, subcategories, and recommended books to go within each that. The idea is that if someone wants something similar to book X, we'll be able to recommend books Y, Z, and Q. :)
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Examples:
Subject - Sexuality, Sex, & Erotica
Subcategory - Relationships
Book - The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Adventures by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy

Subject - Sexuality, Sex, & Erotica
Subcategory - How-to, BDSM
Book - The Bottoming Book: How to Get Terrible Things Done to You by Wonderful People by Dossie Easton and Catherine Liszt
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This list will be used within the store and also available on the store's website, where hopefully the wider community will find it useful. However, since I'm currently the only person working on this project, I know that there are a lot of areas where I'm not focusing enough, or don't know to focus on at all.

So that's why I would love for anyone and everyone to help me out on this.

WHAT I WANT FROM YOU
* Tell me what other subjects and subcategories I should have. What's listed is only what I've needed to create thus far.

* Tell me what books should go on this list! I much prefer personal recommendations to links on Amazon, so rec me as many books as you can! :D

Anonymous commenting is enabled, btw.
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Here are the subjects & subcategories I have:

Subject > Subcategory, Subcategory, Subcategory
Arts > Art, Film, Music, Drama

Feminist (currently the general catch-all category) > Domestic Violence, Cooking/Food, Race, Fiction, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Biography/Autobiography, Poetry, Latino/Hispanic/Chicano, Women of Color, Graphic Novels/Comics, History, Pre-Feminism, Travel, Classism, Native American, Mythology/Folklore, Reproductive Rights, Disability Studies/Ableism, Black Feminism, Zines, Pop Culture, Environment

Global Feminism > Subcategories are regions/countries

Sexuality, Sex, & Erotica > Sex How-to, Masturbation, BDSM, Relationships, Sexuality, Lesbian

Gender Studies > Trans, Masculinity

Health > LGBT, Mental Health, Aging, Parenting, Alternative Medicine, Herbal Medicine, History

Body Image > Disordered Eating, Fat Acceptance, Parenting, History

Survivors > Sexual Assault Survivors, Partners-Parents-and-Loved-Ones-of-Survivors, Domestic Violence, Child Sexual Assault Survivors, Men & Rape, Incest

Lesbian Fiction > Romance, Modern Fiction, Classic Fiction, Poetry, Sci-fi/Fantasy/Horror

Sex Workers > Feminism & Pornography

Children, Young Adults, and Parenting > Board Books, Picture Books, Chapter Books-Fiction, Chapter Books-Non-fiction, Young Adult, YA-non-fiction, YA-LGBT, YA-fantasy, YA-Graphic Novels/Comics, YA-Historical Fiction, LGBT Parenting

Queer > Coming Out, Coming Out Late in Life, Lesbian, Asexuality

Spirituality & Religion > Christianity, LGBT, Folklore/Mythology

THANKS EVERYONE! ♥

I'm sort of thinking about starting up a PCOS community for Dreamwidth. There isn't one there now and I feel like maybe there *should* be one.

*ponders*

Edit: Bah. There secretly is already one, it just has ZERO entries.

Unscientific Research Poll

I have a very unscientific bit of research that I would like to conduct and I would greatly appreciate hearing answers from as many people as possible.

Some context: I was recently reading a discussion online regarding a young woman badly wanting a boyfriend and listing possible reasons why she didn’t have one yet. Reading through the discussion, I came upon a comment from a woman saying that she’d rather give up sex and relationships and eat her chocolate in peace. This is paraphrased of course, but she said that most men only want/find attractive women who are slender and that those men who find larger women attractive are freaks and should be avoided.

There were several reasons I was annoyed with this comment/commenter, but most important was that I knew for a fact that her generalizations were incorrect. My own male friends are proof enough of that. I replied to her comment, giving my aforementioned experience with friends as an example. Someone else later replied to my comment saying that they desperately hoped that my example was the correct one.

Thinking about this topic for a few days has made me really want to get opinions from friends. Just how many women actually believe that men have no interest in them or will find them disgusting if they’re not ideally thin? How many men really think like this? Obviously there’s a case to be made, regardless of gender, for someone to be attracted to one body type when consuming media and to be attracted to another type in reality/in actual relationships.

I thought at one point I’d read an article talking about how a lot of body image pressure for girls and women is from the media (duh) and the opinions of *other* women, rather than the opinions of men. I can’t find said article now, though.

So, I would love to get some feedback from people on this:

- men who like/date women, do you find the concept of dating or being with a woman who is heavier distasteful? Do you not mind it, or ever prefer it?

- women who like/date men, what are your experiences relating to this? If possible, could you ask your male partner about this and report back?

- everyone else, I’d love any thoughts you’re willing to share.

Thanks everyone. ♥

(P.S. If you don't feel comfortable commenting in public, feel free to send me private message.)

So, I finally updated my blog and I'd be interested in your guys' thoughts, per usual. ;)

blooooog

And yes, it's still untitled. *facepalm*

Neon Heart: a polycystic perzine #1

The purpose of this zine is to inform about and raise awareness of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which is a systemic endocrine and metabolic disorder and one of the leading causes of infertility in women.

( Details )

My mom got me a bubble tea on the way home from work. <3