Calamades

I don't think it is univerally okay to make assumptions about someone's personal identity before you know it. I am happy calling someone sir or ma'am after I know their gender identity. But in a casual interaction between strangers, there is no need for it at all and it is just an ingrained and outdated social convention that I personally am striving to move past.

This is great and something I also strive for. I find often that I gravitate towards other neurodiverse folks, and knowing that someone else is having difficulty navigating a given situation often makes me feel like not only that I can step up and help them, but that I want to do so. I wouldn't if it was just me, but I will always order coffee for my BFF rather than making her have a social interaction I know she is worried about. I'll also happily make phone calls to doctors or to set appointments for friends and I would rather die on the floor than do it for myself. This might be a clue to ways around my social anxiety, if I could learn to treat myself as a friend who needs help.

Yesterday was my first day back at work after vacation (just chilled at home knitting and listening to audiobooks for a week) and it actually went incredibly well. I'm on a new ADHD medication that seems to be working without much side effects at all wbich is a huge relief and hopefully will really positively impact my productivity at work.

Me and my partner had a good and productive talk about our communications, and that was great.

It is absolutely ridiculously humid AF outside so the little thunderstorms we've been having this week have been a nice little break, with the added excitement of wondering if the power will go out and if so for how long.

I've read three books so far this week and am on a great series by Samantha SoRelle that I'm really enjoying.

Hope everyone is having an awesome day.

I've been trying to degender my language. I grew up saying "thank you (or excuse me, yes/no, etc) sir/ma'am" and then being in customer facing positions for years just absolutely cemented that in my mind to the point where it is an absolute knee jerk reaction to make assumptions about the gender of others. It's an awful habit and makes me cringe every time I do it. I try to either just avoid the gender identifier ("thank you.") which to my mind sounds impolite, or use gender neutral terms like "friend" which REALLY sound impolite. It's tough but I'm working on it! The real trouble is getting my brain to stop gendering others and as a quite elderly millenial who actually identifies as Agender it is an annoying and difficult task. I'm envious of younger folks who won't grow up with these kinds of ideas as a default.

I collect special interests, usually related generally to weird history and hobbies. Currently my obsessions are M/M historical romance novels (I've read/listened to ~60 this year so far), knitting lace shawls, and succulents, but only two specific genuses (Haworthia and Crassula). These things take up all my non-work waking hours and most of my waking thoughts.

I hate ribbing and I have been knitting for 17 years. It is annoying. Everyone has their little knitting thing that they just dread (a lot of folks hate purling, apparently).

I recommend The Serpent Gates duology by AK Larkwood! Incredibly creative and crazy fantasy world, has that same laugh out loud then swift kick in the gut feeling of TLT. Also Muir and Larkwood have delightful headcanons of their characters hanging out.