Clever Manka is dressed and undressed

Documentary recommendation

2025-11-07T18:13:03Z

Yesterday I watched the documentary Patrice: The Movie based on jesse_the_k's recommendation. I'm heartily seconding the recommendation--it was incredible. Important, touching, honest, and artistically striking. Thanks jesse_the_k for also sharing the acceptance speech from when it won this year's Emmy for Merit In Documentary Filmmaking.

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Music rec

2025-07-11T19:47:25Z

I just found out about this band and I'm sharing the joy everywhere I can

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In times of trouble, fanfiction comes to me

2024-11-10T20:14:30Z

I posted a thread of comfort re-reads on Bluesky if you're looking for fic recs.

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Parallel World questions

2024-10-28T18:39:57Z

Okay I'm on episode 16 and I have some questions. ( Cut for spoilers )

Spoilers in the comments, obvs.

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Another Penzeys Spices post

2024-09-13T23:59:17Z

From their email that just hit my inbox:

Donald Trump called Penzeys “Terrible, Over-Priced Product” this week. Fox News called Penzeys “the meanest spice shop in America." Much of the rest of the right wing media repeated those words or worse. All this because we welcomed Vice President Kamala Harris into our Pittsburgh store this past Saturday.

They really do want to boycott Penzeys out of existence. They want to make an example of us and leave every other retail store out there too frightened to welcome in Kamala like we did. They want us to be the next Bud Light trophy on their wall to show off the costs of going against their will.

And as much as you know we won’t back down, if you don’t make the effort to support us right now this will be crippling. Yes, email subscribers have known who we are for years. But among our store customers we have hundreds of thousands who are not on our list. Among those there are no doubt tens of thousands, maybe more, under the Fox/Trump influence.

You know the hypnotic power Trump and Fox have over their followers. When they say do something their crowd does it. We’ve already had thousands of customers quit. You can imagine the language they’ve used to do so.

We don’t like to push the discounted $50 Gift Cards for $35 offer past two-days, but knowing store customers need a little extra time to make plans to get in, and the stores being where this is hurting us most, we thought best to get this all started Friday night.

No coupons or codes are needed for $50 Gift Cards for $35, a free $4.95 Hug Coin to anyone coming into our stores or placing an order online, and a free $24.95 Care gift box with the purchase of 3 Gift Cards/$105 spending.

To get half off Orange Spices and Seasonings in one of our stores, just be ready to show this email or the printed-out coupon from above. Online at penzeys.com, simply enter FUN in the apply code box at checkout. It’s easy.

And as much as we will have fun with all this, the stakes, as they say, are frighteningly high. We all have an old friend or relative who has fallen under the influence of what the right wing world has become. You know they will do as they are told.

It really does help when you forward our emails or if you like or comment on this weekend’s Facebook post, but this time that alone isn’t enough. We need you to buy something.

Buying and sharing a bunch of $50 Gift Cards for $35 is the best. But even giving away a few half price Seasoned Salts or Bold Taco Seasonings gives us the chance to pick up a new customer to make up for those they are driving away.

TLDR: Donald Trump is trying to drive us out of business because we welcomed Kamala Harris into our Pittsburgh store where she hugged one of our customers. Please send us your money :)

Either they silence our voice right when it’s needed most or you step in and turn that around. Please help!

Thanks for saving us,

Bill
bill@penzeys.com

I've still got a while before the disability benefits arrive, but if you're in a position to buy some spices or gift cards, now's a good time!

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Romance Novel Rec

2024-09-13T14:28:34Z

I'm really really picky about media and there are more books/movies/shows I've noped out of than finished. So when I say I intentionally put down Shelly Jay Shore's Rules for Ghosting several times bc I didn't want to finish it too fast you know it's a solid recommendation from me. FOO and Found Family vibes? Check. Friends that don't fade into the background once MC and Love Interest hook up? Check. Racial inclusivity? Check. Quality queer representation? Check. An MC that has issues (like we all do) but isn't an inept, emotionally ignorant mess? Check. Seriously, so good 👍Oh, and also, obviously, GHOSTS 🧡👻🧡

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Got it

2024-09-11T18:51:33Z

I've been approved for disability.

Have progressed from disbelief to shaking/crying to numb in record time and expect to alternate between those states for the rest of the day.

I don't know how much I'll be awarded or when to expect the first payment, but that's okay. Just knowing I've been approved for some amount is such an incredible relief.

Thank you to everyone who supported me (emotionally, financially, whateverly) through this excruciating process.

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Movement thoughts

2024-09-07T14:29:51Z

I was a late arrival to the movement/exercise crowd and I'll forever be sad that my time with it was cut short due to chronic illness. I don't know that I'll ever not be a little angry at a world that taught me the only way to be active was to be involved in group sports. If I'd known about the joys of yoga, dance, and weightlifting earlier, I might have been able to enjoy them for an extra decade or more. I like to encourage other people who are prone to sedentary lifestyles in the hopes that maybe the things I learned during my short-lived joy of body movement might help someone else find it sooner than they might've, too.

I left this as a comment on someone's post about needing to engage more with their body and it was not at all helpful for them, but maybe something in it might work for someone else?

( Cut for advice )

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Passive watching

2024-08-22T13:51:01Z

I don't know why I'm surprised at how wiped out I still am post-hearing. Any sort of thinking beyond base-level conversation is rough for me these days but whew. There are things I need to focus on--things with actual deadlines--that require significant cognitive capability and I just...don't have it.

Bless the friend who gave me access to watch Interview with the Vampire. It's beautifully produced, well written, exquisitely acted, and not at all the type of show for me to get emotionally invested in. Plus I don't have to spend any energy reading subtitles, which is a plus right now. It's a rare piece of film media that makes me say "this is so much better than the book" and this is so much better than the book (and I liked the book!).

Just typing that up tired the poor hamsters keeping my brain wheel turning so that's all I'll say about it. Thanks again to everyone who sent well-wishes about the hearing. Thank you for continued prayers and crossed fingers.

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clevermanka @ 2024-08-20T13:56:00

2024-08-20T18:57:08Z

Hearing's over, lawyer says I did a good job. I can expect 30-60 days before I hear the result.

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clevermanka @ 2024-08-20T10:32:00

2024-08-20T15:32:22Z

Today at 1:15 US CST is my disability hearing. Anyone who wants to send up a prayer, light a candle, or cross fingers for me much appreciated.

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Contrasts

2024-08-11T18:09:38Z

Things are still not great, but now with a side order of knee pain and a (so far) two-day headache. 👍

Spent some time last week going through my Watch Laters on YouTube and loved the contrast between the Hot Ones episodes with Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman vs the one with Ariana Grande.

Really wish I could see Deadpool & Wolverine in the theater. If anyone here has, any fun thoughts about it? Also god damn I would love some wings.

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Still not great

2024-07-24T13:41:16Z

Still fatigued, now with a side order of anxiety, sometimes to the levels I was experiencing while on sertraline. I often wake to a surge of anxiety/adrenaline before I even come to full consciousness. My ability to focus is pretty much shot and even conversations are getting difficult. I have to take a nap after talking with people for more than half an hour or so, and I'm going to bed around 8, sometimes earlier, because I'm so tired I'm lightheaded bordering on nauseated.

On top of that, my application for financial assistance from the hospital was denied bc I didn't want to work with the company they partner with to apply for Medicaid bc my lawyer agreed the application might be in conflict with my current disability application. I've been asking the hospital for other options for two weeks and never heard back until today when I was just told that I was denied back in June (?) and I could have applied to Medicaid on my own but now I have to reapply all over again (including getting new bank statements, etc) and I'm just like... this is so incredibly cruel. And also unsurprising.

I'm so fucking tired of fighting this hard to continue a miserable existence in a society that would rather I was dead.

A nice thing tho: Someone agreed to watch The Untamed with me so we're gonna try a Discord co-watch thing starting next week. They've never seen it before so I hope they like it 🤞

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Help with an Adobe Illustrator file

2024-07-17T23:26:12Z

Do any of y'all have access to Adobe Illustrator or another program that can edit .ai files? I need to adjust the text of the tagline on my book cover but Photopea screws up the shading on the title text and I'm not good enough with the program to fix it.

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Fatigue tracking

2024-06-29T22:18:07Z

Was still pretty worn-down after my post-lunch nap today. No idea why. I took things pretty easy this morning and yesterday after going to the post office yesterday the morning. Thought I could handle a movie but half an hour after finishing it, I'm starting to get the lightheadedness and ringing ears that presage a bad fatigue spell. Maybe I shouldn't have watched something that required subtitles. 😩

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Sunday

2024-06-23T14:47:46Z

I've been searching for ways to meet people in person and have found two so far that are feasible for my limitations (must start before 4pm and be free). One is a queer book club, one's a walking meditation, both offered through the public library. Both only meet once a month. I've been looking forward to the meditation thing especially for weeks and it's today!

This morning I went to the library website to see where it was being held (when I originally saw the info about the event it said location TBA) only to discover it's a registration-only event and is also full. I don't remember seeing that info when I first saw the notice for it. So now I have a big sad instead of the excited nervousness at a new opportunity. I clicked on the "join wait list" button so maybe I can get in early for next month? But then the whole library website went down.

In other, better, news, I posted the last existing chapter for The Price of Redemption, sequel to The Deconstruction of Hei Pao Shi this morning. It's unlikely I'll ever finish the fic, but the chapter I just put up ends on a hopeful note and a sex scene, so nicely on brand for me.

Gonna go run an errand just to get out of the house before it gets too hot.

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Mask up motherfuckers

2024-06-19T23:29:23Z

This Scientific American article about denialism and society's insistence on returning to normal is enraging, terrifying, and validating.

If the COVID situation is tracked and the public warned, things don’t feel normal. But if we don’t monitor or mention it, then things can feel “back to normal”—fine, even.

Another tactic is minimization. How we describe and measure things shapes how we feel about them. Which is why it’s important to notice when neutralizing language enters the chat. For some time now, turns of phrase like “endemic” and “during COVID” have been common vernacular. So have refrains like “lower hospitalizations than last year.” All of this gives off an “it’s just a cold,” “mission accomplished” vibe, casting the disease into a worry-free zone that’s safely behind us.

This minimization keeps the quiet part quiet: that “the world is still in a pandemic” per the WHO; that more than 73,000 Americans died of COVID in 2023, a higher number than from car accidents or influenza; among those infected, 9 percent and counting have long COVID, a serious and often disabling condition with a disease burden comparable to cancer or heart disease, and an economic cost rivaling the Great Recession, and for which there are no approved treatments. What’s more, each infection is associated with a substantially increased risk of health issues like cognitive dysfunction, autoimmune disease and cardiovascular problems, even for mild infections.

Pre-pandemic, these statistics would have been eye-popping. Now they constitute “back to normal.” We think we no longer have a problem, when actually we’ve just changed the standard by which we deem something concerning.

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"But you look great!"

2024-06-14T15:08:48Z

This Instagram of how chronic illness looks vs. how it feels is so gd accurate.

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That would explain it

2024-06-04T18:28:15Z

A couple weeks ago I got a prescription for Low Dose Naltrexone. Because the compounded low dose is more expensive than buying the full size pills, I split the tablets into four pieces. Haven't seen any change in my focus and fatigue after two weeks, and in fact I've been feeling worse. Anxiety and depression to the point where I can't focus and sleep doesn't come easily or well. Similar to how I felt on the Setraline but not quite as bad.

Just now when I was cutting up tablets for the week I realized I was cutting the Setraline into quarters instead of the Naltrexone and had done so since day one.

So that's where my mental capacities are these days. How are yours?

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Focus help, please?

2024-05-02T14:02:04Z

Does anyone have suggestions or resources on rebuilding one's ability to focus? My executive function is tapping out around noon these days and that's not a sustainable situation.

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Sigh

2024-04-23T19:57:17Z

Siding work continues today after a three-day break and Twenty-Something Fuckboy is parading around my lawn shirtless.

I'm fine. This is fine.

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🧡🚬🧡

2024-04-19T16:14:50Z

I'm very used to people (almost always men) trooping through my yard with various tools and equipment since the neighborhood trunk line for AT&T fiber is right behind my house. So when two young men walked through my patio and past my front window with giant boxes of tools I didn't think much about it. Then the hammering started. I popped out to ask what was going on (since I had a phone call scheduled this morning) and apparently they're replacing the house siding. My landlady had warned me this was happening but hadn't told me what day.

The call wasn't a huge deal and wasn't a tarot reading so okay whatever. The vibrations knocked one thing off my mantle so I have to keep going over to it to push everything to the back again once in a while but it's no big deal.

One of the guys is kinda hot, and looks not unlike my facecast for the love interest of my novel. Every time he walks by the window I'm like "gosh you sure are a cutie" but it wasn't, you know, distracting or anything. Until he passed by smoking a long brown cigarette. And now I shall sit here consumed with lust for the rest of the evening (and it's not even noon).

ETA: Curly-haired smoking no-doubt fuckboy has now set up a table saw on my patio and is slicing up planks of siding. My blue collar worker kink is being unfairly and horrifically served. Help.

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The Scarlet Opera

2024-04-02T15:43:47Z

Welcome to my latest musical crush.

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Responding to apologies

2024-03-09T16:25:22Z

I've worked hard (and continue to work at) at improving my ability and skill when it comes to apologizing. I used to be really, really bad it. A lot of us are, thanks to precious few good examples. I don't remember ever seeing a collection of meaningful ways to respond to a good apology, though. This reel on Instagram came up on my feed today and I wanted to share it with anyone else who could use a similar resource. ( For posterity: )

And if you're looking for an excellent, incredibly in-depth read on apologies, I just finished On Repentance and Repair by Danya Ruttenberg. Absolutely 10/10 recommend.

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It's 10pm...

2024-02-26T17:16:27Z

I know the mentality of the generational divide(s) is a problematic construct and often detrimental to building and cultivating inter-generational communities but omg these public service announcements explain so much about why Gen X is the way it is. As one commenter says: "Gen X. Raised on hose water and neglect!"

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