• 2 Posts
  • 61 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • Couldn’t be better. Returned to work with no issues after completing a partial hospitalization program.

    Figured out I need to connect with the trans community again IRL to cope with the gestures at the news and the United States political discourse.

    Fortunately, that’s not so hard to do in the Twin Cities.

    Might write like a gonzo article about the Kafkaesque experience of trying to pretend everything is fine while the youth are dying and there’s real question about continued access to lifesaving medical care.

    That all probably sounds a bit dark but I am coping and maintaining optimism. I’m not ashamed of not being cis anymore and that’s a big deal for me.


  • It’s just good to know true joy and exist in my body more often. It was really heavy for so long. I made small talk at a lab appointment prior to and at a haircut following group today.

    The hair stylist ended up being a specialist in sensory issues so it was very nice to have that kind of chill, mindful haircut. I nearly fell asleep!

    Oh! And I’m doing all this while dog tired from insomnia but I’m in a pretty good mood and getting more sleep every night 😸




  • Probably by design, to be honest. Jobs tend to be very anti-parent, especially in US states where FMLA is legally protected.

    I’m fortunate to work for a company that has a culture of prioritizing real life so you can do your best work. Sadly, that’s antithetical to next quarter thinking, so it’s not the norm.

    The dumb thing is (in my experience) parents seem to work harder and stay at companies for longer than childless folks. They’re just shorter on free time and need some basic flexibility to address emergent issues. Not to mention being better at teaching and managing in general.




  • I used to be a researcher in hypoxia and wanted to clarify this for folks.

    The way your brain and body detect low oxygen is indirectly via the drop in pH, or increase in acidity, that high carbon dioxide causes. They call this hypercapnia. Without hypercapnia, there’s none of the pain or distress of asphyxiation because your body can’t actually detect oxygen or its displacement directly.

    At 78%, nitrogen is the overwhelming majority of air you breathe.

    After 1-2 breaths of 100% nitrogen, humans lose consciousness.

    This is why working with inert gases is so dangerous - you’ll asphyxiate without even knowing you entered a room without enough oxygen to sustain life. Had to do a whole training to get our liquid nitrogen tank into a smaller animal isolation room for our study for this exact reason.

    If I had to choose a way to die, I’d choose nitrogen displacement without question.








  • Dude, it must be your social circles. I’m related to, work with spouses of, or am friends with no less than 5 stay-at-home guys. Also, most men with families at my company take on significant child care responsibilities due to being able to work from home. It comes down to making things work so food’s on the table and good humans are raised (or a stable household is kept). Gender is impertinent.

    When I got married I was just happy my wife had a non-negative net worth. This sentence and its paragraph really read like a spouse is an acquisition or earnings 😬