My mum and I had a shared period calendar when I was a young teen and still getting used to tracking my cycle, she hung the calendar and pen in the bathroom to model how I could track my cycle in a diary as I got older.

We invented a key/symbol system so the calendar wasn’t intrusive for my brother and father to see, and one of the symbols we used for the luteal phase was a sort of hourglass ⏳, it was originally my mums poor doodle/sketch of a panty liner to indicate “you might spot a bit this week” but it looked like an hourglass so I joked that symbol meant I’m “just waiting for the storm to arrive”.

It was the perfect symbol for me, because when people ask about the tattoo, and I don’t want to go into the real reason I say “it’s a visual reminder” and if they ask more I can say “it’s an hourglass, because there’s only a little time LEFT, it’s on my left hand - I get my lefts and rights mixed up. Plus it reminds me to put my watch back on after I get dressed, so it helps remind me of a lot of different things”

Yuuuup, I ended up getting a tattoo on my wrist that is essentially a personal period joke.

At one stage it was crucial for my survival, it was a kind of grounding token to snap me out of hormonal suicidal insanity when my PMS was at its worst. Something I’d see that would bluntly remind me “it’s not you, it’s your hormones, you don’t actually want this”

When I say the urge came and went zero to sixty back to zero in 30 seconds flat, sometimes that was an understatement. I really struggled because in addition to suicidal ideation during PMS, I had undiagnosed and untreated ADHD, which often gets worse with PMS thanks to the way oestrogen and progesterone play off each other.

Guess who’s got major impulsively issues. Guess what two symptoms really shouldn’t be combined.

I have zero desire to kill myself.

But my hormones seemed desperate to try and make me do it every month, especially as a teen.

It didn’t help that I had endometriosis and at 17 developed a uterine prolapse, on top of a rectal prolapse I’d had since I was 12. I was in agony when I was on my period, so sometimes the desire to make the pain stop overlapped with the suicidal ideation. That sucked. Hard to reason your way out of physical pain.

I’ve had a hysterectomy (from 17-24 my uterus just kept trying to make its own escape anyway despite attempts to sew it in place) and no longer suffer menstrual dysphoria because it turns out that was gender dysphoria not true PMDD. But I still get suicidal ideation as part of PMS, fortunately my ADHD is much better managed so now my tattoo is less a suicide detterant and just a reminder that I still have ovaries (sometimes I genuinely forget, and it takes me a few days to work out why I’m bloated and irritable and why I’m anxious about my sore boobs)

In Australia Google maps has issues with routing cyclists on 80km busy truck transit roads that have no bike lanes, footpaths or shoulders. You’ll regularly get stuck behind lost uber eats cyclists whose map took them through a motor vehicle only underpass.

The other day google maps decided to reroute me from a quiet, wide street with no bike lane that was otherwise perfectly safe, and tried to send me through a nightsoil alley, down a heritage stock run that was paved with cobblestones and crossed over a storm drain 4 times in a zig zag.

Yeah, “safer” because there’s no cars I guess, but not suitable for bikes at all.

Yes and no, if you scambait hard enough your number can eventually be added to a blacklist for larger scam organisations that bought your data for use in multiple scam attempts.

In my experience that has really cut down on the calls.

In 2020 the department of human services accidentally posted my personal phone number on a list of support services for people experiencing housing or food insecurity. This number was then circulated by every major news source in my state. I couldn’t change my number at the time because I had no legal ID (still don’t… Can’t figure out how to get ID without ID, but I have a new number now at least) at first I didn’t really notice the ratio of spam calls to genuine calls for the wrong number (ie, people calling my number because they needed housing/food) . I just remember getting 40+ calls a day at many stages.

But as the actual number for the food relief service was circulated, I eventually stopped getting genuine calls and I was getting 3-5 scam calls every single day.

After a year of scam baiting, I was getting 2 a week.

Now, I’ll do something online that requires sharing my current number, within a few hours I get a scam call because my data has been sold, but I bait the heck out of that first call and I usually don’t receive any further calls which suggest my number was blacklisted by a larger scam organisation, and I won’t be hassled until my data is sold again as a new item.

It’s hard to avoid getting your number on scam lists when the largest health insurance company, and the second largest telecommunications company in my country both had major data breaches where millions of customers identifying information was accessed and sold to scammers…

Having had a defecography this is very similar to the encouragement the radiologist gave me…

Ah, thank you! I’ve been thinking about moving over to Aussie zone - I had very little understanding of federation when I first signed up so just went with whatever instance seemed the most general, but I think this confirms it, time to get a new account.

I hope they roll this out to the proof of age cards too! I’m happy to carry my physical card when I know I’ll need it, but sometimes I’m not expecting to need it and I just need to check the expiry or permit number for some quick process and it’s a PITA.

I never got my pen license.

I remember starting highschool and my teacher questioning me for using greylead on all my assignments, I told them I never got my pen license and they laughed and told me to use pen.

They didn’t explain that a pen license wasn’t a real thing, it wasn’t like you legally required a permit to use a pen.

But all through primary school “getting your pen licence” was such a big deal I genuinely thought it was some big formal process.

I had so much anxiety that first year of highschool thinking I was breaking the rules using pens without a licence until my mum explained that it’s just a fun motivational tool for young kids learning to write and I’m an idiot.

I’m a two finger typer, I did have formal typing lessons in school but I never learned to touch type, my teachers used wpm and accuracy to determine if we were on track and passing, and my two finger method was working for me in those metrics.

I’m missing a knuckle and have bradydactyly, so my teachers sort of gave up when I asked for extra advice in learning to touch type, and I had no motivation to learn because everyone just had this attitude of “oh they’re disabled so they have to type weird, don’t bother teaching them the right way”. But I probably am fully capable of learning to touch type if I tried.

I’m not sure what my method would officially be called. It’s similar to hunt and peck because I’m only using my index fingers, but I’m not looking at the keyboard when I type, so there’s no real hunting.

Though if I have to borrow someone else’s computer I do need to hunt and peck for a few hundred words until I get a feel for that specific keyboard.

My handwriting is also shocking, and that I do blame on my hand deformities and disabilities. I’m dyslexic and dyspraxic and was diagnosed late in life so never had any support with handwriting growing up. My journals look like a serial killer because each entry starts of nice and tidy, with even spacing and kerning and text in line, then as it goes on the spacing gets uneven, lines get slanted, I’ll use 3 totally different fonts in the same word, like writing “anɴɑ” instead of “anna”, oh and naturally I write the “n” first then have to go backwards and fit that first “a” in. It happens because my cognitive ability to write fatigues so fast but my motivation to keep writing and writing fast never wanes so I just power through it and my handwriting suffers, and then my hand spasms because even with an adaptive pen grip, I still have functional issues in my hand.

But I love typing and I love writing by hand even if I’m not good at either, and I think that’s the important thing - not giving up on one method entirely.

He was a good boy. He still is, but he was one, too.

There’s something in the air today, my brain is rotting from boredom but I can’t tear myself off the couch to do any one of the 200 things I should be doing, including some reports for work.

I also can’t seem to find the motivation or even focus to play a video game, or get out the sewing machine (my favourite hobby).

I’ve been doom scrolling for 3 hours. Even though I know it’s making me feel worse, and it would take me 2 minutes to put a yoga video on and grab my mat, and I would feel better…

But apparently my brain just wants to sit here feeling guilty over all the things I should be doing but aren’t.

Its my day off so I’ve half convinced myself it’s okay to still be in my pyjamas at almost 4pm, and do nothing today, not even cook…but I’m not enjoying it, it’s not relaxing. I’m paralysed by the complete lack of motivation, and self imposed shame over doing nothing.

Im going to blame my ovaries for this unfocused, unmotivated mood.

I’m hard of hearing and terrified of standing in the wrong place at an airport and missing the visual cues to board the flight. Once boarding starts and people start queueing up, I usually get in line because it’s helpful to see what everyone in front of me is doing - the order that they hand over paperwork or get carry on double checked. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to hear the attendant if they ask me questions at the gate because it’s so noisy, so I like to at least feel like I’m prepared.

One time I was flying with crutches and qualified for early pre-boarding because I needed the plane wheelchair (skychair). I sat right next to the gate desk and waited, then I started seeing people queue up so I quickly joined the line, wondering how pre-boarding works when the whole plane of passengers are already vying to be at the front of the line.

I get to the front, the attendant looks at my ticket then after some awkward back and forward eventually I realised they were telling me I’ll have to wait till everyone has boarded to get the sky-chair on. I should have come to the desk when pre boarding was announced. I pointed that I was sitting right in front of them… Apparently they were called my name 3 times over the loudspeaker.

Apparently airports can only comprehend one disability at a time (if that!) they knew I was hard of hearing (it’s on my ticket) but still thought calling me over the PA was the best way to get the attention of the deaf person sitting 80cm from their desk.

So I sat back down and waited for the line to clear, then I got back up when there were 2 people in line, and after another back and forward I learned that they had tried calling my name again about halfway through boarding because they only had one skychair and it was now or never because the chair had told fly with the other passenger because their arrival airport didn’t have a chair, or something, I dunno, anyway I kind of had to crawl down the ailse to get to my chair because in the past I’ve just used the backs of chairs to swing myself along, but the plane was full so I couldn’t do that.

A beautiful day launching the new kids club at our neighbourhood house. We had almost 40 families join us and all the snags got eaten.

This was the first event I took a back seat on and I initially felt really guilty “leaving everyone else to do all the work” (even though my stepping back was planned and carefully negotiated, as I’m still dealing with mystery health issues) but the entire team remarked that it all came together easily as “many hands make light work” and for once we had enough funding to bring on the appropriate number of staff for the project!

The weather held out and I met so many amazing locals, I couldn’t have asked for a better day.

And the timing worked out perfectly with the MRI I’d been scheduled for. Packed up after the event jumped on the bus, and got there at the exact right time.

Am I the only one who finds getting an MRI relaxing? It’s an excuse to lie down and be still while zoning out and pretending I’m being faxed somewhere. The technician tried playing me some Muzak over the headphones and laughed when I asked her to stop because it was messing with my ability to enjoy the magnetic dubstep.

Tonight is the night I asked my partner “wait, when did the clock stop working?” and he responded “huh? We have a clock?”

Who knows when it stopped working, neither of us have looked at it for 2 years 😂

And knowing us, neither of us will bother taking it down to fix or chuck for another 2 years. It’s just wall decor now.

Oh definitely, he knows, but I also know and understand his perspective. For him, masking and unmasking when texting his boss then texting his family is exhausting and incredibly emotionally taxing. While I don’t meet the clinical criteria for an autism diagnosis, I do struggle with a few of the same things my brother and dad struggle with, particularly around processing, emotional regulation, and burn out, so I’ve been in his shoes where I know I’m doing something the hard way, or I know we’d all be happier with another method, but changing the task or changing the routine or process is even harder, even though the process I’d be changing to would be easier and better, initiating that change feels like an insurmountable climb.

Besides, my dad had to try and put up with my hyperlexia when I was growing up - before I had the emotional maturity to understand my dad’s needs, I can’t even imagine how much he suffered from my frustrating communication style being imposed on him. Now he’s older, it’s my turn to suffer 😂 (that is, it’s my turn to let him explore the ways he wants to communicate, even if it’s not what I want.)

My dad now uses AI to write all his texts to me.

He’s autistic and dyslexic and texting was always a massive struggle for him, so he’d leave voice messages, or just call me, and they’d be rambling and non linear, but it was my dad and his voice, his personality.

A few years ago he’d use dictation to send texts, and it was pretty funny because he hadn’t no way of proof reading them and dictation is never great for people with accents or speech problems… but now he will just use the microphone to ask whatever AI assistant is built into his phone the same rambling question he would have previously just voice messaged me.

And Copilot re-writes his rambling question and spits out a message that sounds like some formal business email. So now there’s an extra level of misinterpretation, an extra level of being removed from communicating with the human being.

I’ve asked my dad if he finds AI easier than just leaving a voice message (because I personally think sending a voice memo is easier) and he says he likes it because it makes him feel like he’s “normal” and can do the things everyone else has always been able to do with ease, even though he knows its not perfect.

I can definitely see the value in AI as an accommodation tool, and it has helped my dad a lot in his professional life where previous accommodation tools haven’t been adequate to “keep up”.

But I do miss hearing my dad, or reading his personality come through in the poorly dictated texts. My brother has gotten really annoyed at dad for this because my brother it’s also autistic and it’s actually harder for him to communicate with dad with an AI middle man, they’ve lived together for almost 30 years and they basically have their own language, so the AI texts my brother gets from my dad drive him nuts, when he and my dad have never had issues communicating.

I’m also worried that it’s effecting the limited literacy skills he does have, he’s getting rusty because he no longer has to try at all most days.

If you’ve been using weed pretty heavily for a while, I’d give it a month T break.

For me the first week is insomnia, muscle pain and brain fog worse than when I’m actually stoned, the second week is depressive symptoms and feeling “dopamine withdrawal” (ie: nothing is fun, nothing is motivating, everything is empty), hyperemesis/diarrhoea, and hypersomia.

It’s not until the third or fourth week of a T break that I feel human and begin to think “this is fine, I don’t need weed, it’s nice, but so is having some time off to be sober”

Better than the system being used by the department of human services in Australia. If the servers and service centres are overloaded, you basically just get told “tough shit, try again later, hope you’re not desperately trying to get out of a DV situation or protect an elder from abuse, cause we’re not paying for more servers”

At least with a digital queue system there’s a sliver of hope that you might get through.

Or just broadly financially literate people. I only make $34k AUD.

I’m incredibly fortunate that my parents were able to teach me financial literacy. I’m also incredibly lucky that I have the personality type to be happy “slumming it”, almost taking a sick pride in how far I can make a 50c bar of soap stretch to clean my entire body, house and laundry, so living within my means has been possible even when my means is a couch in a 4 bedroom share house with 10 roommates. (some of the best years of my life, which is far from the usual sharehouse experience)

Because of a congenial illness, my start in the work force was delayed and is still partly inhibited. But I made a point to put a bare minimum of $20 from every pay cheque straight into a term deposit that I couldn’t touch. When it hit $1000, it moved into a more accessible emergency account, and began saving up the term deposit again. When things are easy I bump that savings contribution up as much as I can. The emergency fund is now a comfortable 5k, with another 10k in the term deposit, that’s 15 years years of savings. The only reason it’s as much as it is, is because I’ve been incredibly lucky to have very few genuine emergencies that require immediate payment. If I can put an unexpected expense on a payment plan, I do.

There are “emergencies” I have ignored because the cost wasn’t worth it. I’ve had 9 teeth extracted, I probably could have saved them all if I forked out a few thousand for a root canal, but it made more financial sense to just let them get bad enough that I could get them extracted for free at the dental school, since now I will never have to worry about those teeth them (I’ll only have to worry about jaw bone loss).

I’m lucky that I never had to get involved with credit card debt. I didn’t have “the bank of mum and dad”, but between my 60 cousins and 20 friends, I can borrow $10-20 from everyone to cover something big, and pay it back slowly interest free, and I make sure I do the same for them, it’s only $20 after all. I relied on that a lot when I was young and still building my emergency fund, and that’s certainly a privilege not everyone has.

I’m privileged to be financially educated and have a social safety net, but by the living standards set by my country, I’m far from wealthy.

It’s been my music streaming service of choice for several years after moving over from Spotify.

But I’m starting to move back to physical/owned media because of the way YouTube interprets COPA.

You can’t save music to a custom playlist if it’s “for children”, you can’t play it in the mini player.

I’m a teacher, making curated playlists with children’s music is important for me, as I imagine it’s equally important for parents who want to put all their skills kids favourite songs in a private family playlist to keep car rides sane. It’s baffling that YouTube won’t let me do this.

And because my algorithm is so fucked up if I start a “radio” from something like Aladdin or the Lion King (you know, show tunes that are appropriate for kids) it will start playing Beetlejuice right afterwards, because I listen to that album in my own free time, and the algorithm recognises them both as soundtracks, and doesn’t understand how that might not be appropriate for me to have as background music in my classroom.

I’ve set up a children’s profile to avoid this radio issue, but then it limits music that is children appropriate but not marketed as such, songs like the Carpenters “Sing” or even Beetles here comes the sun, are “not for kids” so I can’t play them on a kids profile.