Month: December 2013

triplash asked: I’ve free bled by proxy (not having products and lol not leaving the house for that) i have no strong feels on it? I dont like it that much personally but just because its messy and i dont even like being sweaty so theres that, how do you feel about it so far?

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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slepaulica:

brin-bellway:

slepaulica:

triplash:

fucksteelydan:

ahhh no that’s the worst!!! when you need the products but you gotta just sit here and be anxious…
this far I feel pretty good tbh I’m not looking or anything I’m just letting it happen. I guess it’s alright since I want it, like, I more or less planned it. it’s just good not to have anything in the way you know???
 freedom!!!!

FREEDOM

I am also super interested in moon cups and also cloth pads? 

Tampons are a pretty happy event for me because i can just put in and forget about it for ages /10 but leekage & cost, hence moon cup interest! But i have major leekage/other irrational fears on it, even thoguh my friends all love it! 

Cloth pads interest me as I don’t ever desire to use pads unless leekage reasons, but occasionally use panty liners just to protect nice underwear during period times 

but i feel super icky about the whole washing process but yeah we’ll see aha! 

Are you planing on washing off free bleeding completely from undies or having spesific free bleeding undies? (or no undies?!) 

i use cloth pads and here’s how i deal with them:

when i need to change them (which isn’t that often because you can put as many liners in them as you want, and three will last me about 24 hours even with heavy bleeding — they’re really absorbant) but when I change them, I just put the dirty one into the washing machine.

i don’t necessarily start a load, but i leave the lid open so that nothing mildews and just toss them in there to be ready for the next load of laundry.

and then that’s it. at some point when i’m not in excruciating pain i’ll put some other clothes in to fill up the washing machine, run it like i normally do, and then hang them up to dry.

if it’s a good period and i’m not in too much pain, i can get completely caught up on my laundry that week. if it’s a bad period, they may sit there for a few days, but they dry (i don’t care if my menstrual pads get menstrual stains on them so this isn’t an issue) and they dont smell noticeably, and they get washed eventually and they’re fine.

i always wash at 60°C to kill bacteria and any fungal spores that might be lurking. (we’ve had ringworm with the cats, so i pretty much have to wash everything at a high temperature to stay on top of it).

Anyway, I do this because it’s easy and for me it is the least gross way of dealing with it. I know a lot of people recommend keeping a little bucket by the loo filled with water to soak them in, but that water will give off the worst smell you have ever smelled within like an hour, so you have to change the water more often that you’ll be in the mood to when your ovaries are tying themselves into knots and you can barely move, and the water gets slimey and gross — even if you’re changing it multiple times a day, and sometimes i just cannot deal with handwashing them.

the only reason to do the bucket thing is to keep them from staining, but i just accept that my menstrual pads will be stained just like my period panties (would be) stained (if they were not already black).

they make cloth tampons too. i haven’t tried them. they’re pretty easy to make though (if you crochet or knit), just make sure you use unbleached cotton, not acryllic (which is not very absorbent and it is plastic and the reason i use cloth pads is that i’m really sensitive down there and i get diaper rash for plastic pads and commercial tampons make my cramps worse, and it’s a very sensitive part of the body and i don’t want it absorbing dyes, or getting scratched (by certain types of fibre), and you might have similar concerns.)

The reason I do the bucket thing is because there are two flights of stairs between my bathroom and laundry room, and since I change the pad right before bed, when I’m not planning to go back down, I don’t want to bother with four flights of stairs (there and back) for a single pad. I never change the water during a period, but I put a bunch of liquid hand soap in and rinse the pad first if it’s particularly bloody, and the smell isn’t that strong even if you don’t get around to laundry for a while. (But then, I don’t actually mind the scent of menstrual blood, so I might be remembering it as better than it is just because I didn’t care. The bucket having a lid might help somewhat as well.) I use a disposable glove when fishing them out to throw in the wash after. (Conveniently, there is a sink right next to the dryer to dump out the old water.)

(Also, they may or may not stain more otherwise, but they definitely still stain.)

hm, maybe soapy water would be better than regular tap water.

our tap water stinks on sulphur anyway, and while i don’t generally mind the smell of menstrual blood all that much, this was something…much worse. it smelled like a rat died of cholera in that bucket and then decomposed for a week. it was really really horrible. not normal “i’m bleeding” smell.

for me, the loo is about a metre or so from the bathroom so it is not a long walk.

does the soap help prevent water slimies?

Not having tried non-soapy water, I can’t compare it, but there is some sliminess.

I seem to recall that the last time we were talking about coping with slimy things (I think it was raw meat that time), we had the following exchange:

Me: Yeah, it’s pretty gross with bare hands, so I use disposable gloves and it’s fine.

You: I don’t like glove-texture either, so that wouldn’t help me any.

I expect it will go the same way this time.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #menstruation #blood

triplash asked: I’ve free bled by proxy (not having products and lol not leaving the house for that) i have no strong feels on it? I dont like it that much personally but just because its messy and i dont even like being sweaty so theres that, how do you feel about it so far?

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

slepaulica:

triplash:

fucksteelydan:

ahhh no that’s the worst!!! when you need the products but you gotta just sit here and be anxious…
this far I feel pretty good tbh I’m not looking or anything I’m just letting it happen. I guess it’s alright since I want it, like, I more or less planned it. it’s just good not to have anything in the way you know???
 freedom!!!!

FREEDOM

I am also super interested in moon cups and also cloth pads? 

Tampons are a pretty happy event for me because i can just put in and forget about it for ages /10 but leekage & cost, hence moon cup interest! But i have major leekage/other irrational fears on it, even thoguh my friends all love it! 

Cloth pads interest me as I don’t ever desire to use pads unless leekage reasons, but occasionally use panty liners just to protect nice underwear during period times 

but i feel super icky about the whole washing process but yeah we’ll see aha! 

Are you planing on washing off free bleeding completely from undies or having spesific free bleeding undies? (or no undies?!) 

i use cloth pads and here’s how i deal with them:

when i need to change them (which isn’t that often because you can put as many liners in them as you want, and three will last me about 24 hours even with heavy bleeding — they’re really absorbant) but when I change them, I just put the dirty one into the washing machine.

i don’t necessarily start a load, but i leave the lid open so that nothing mildews and just toss them in there to be ready for the next load of laundry.

and then that’s it. at some point when i’m not in excruciating pain i’ll put some other clothes in to fill up the washing machine, run it like i normally do, and then hang them up to dry.

if it’s a good period and i’m not in too much pain, i can get completely caught up on my laundry that week. if it’s a bad period, they may sit there for a few days, but they dry (i don’t care if my menstrual pads get menstrual stains on them so this isn’t an issue) and they dont smell noticeably, and they get washed eventually and they’re fine.

i always wash at 60°C to kill bacteria and any fungal spores that might be lurking. (we’ve had ringworm with the cats, so i pretty much have to wash everything at a high temperature to stay on top of it).

Anyway, I do this because it’s easy and for me it is the least gross way of dealing with it. I know a lot of people recommend keeping a little bucket by the loo filled with water to soak them in, but that water will give off the worst smell you have ever smelled within like an hour, so you have to change the water more often that you’ll be in the mood to when your ovaries are tying themselves into knots and you can barely move, and the water gets slimey and gross — even if you’re changing it multiple times a day, and sometimes i just cannot deal with handwashing them.

the only reason to do the bucket thing is to keep them from staining, but i just accept that my menstrual pads will be stained just like my period panties (would be) stained (if they were not already black).

they make cloth tampons too. i haven’t tried them. they’re pretty easy to make though (if you crochet or knit), just make sure you use unbleached cotton, not acryllic (which is not very absorbent and it is plastic and the reason i use cloth pads is that i’m really sensitive down there and i get diaper rash for plastic pads and commercial tampons make my cramps worse, and it’s a very sensitive part of the body and i don’t want it absorbing dyes, or getting scratched (by certain types of fibre), and you might have similar concerns.)

The reason I do the bucket thing is because there are two flights of stairs between my bathroom and laundry room, and since I change the pad right before bed, when I’m not planning to go back down, I don’t want to bother with four flights of stairs (there and back) for a single pad. I never change the water during a period, but I put a bunch of liquid hand soap in and rinse the pad first if it’s particularly bloody, and the smell isn’t that strong even if you don’t get around to laundry for a while. (But then, I don’t actually mind the scent of menstrual blood, so I might be remembering it as better than it is just because I didn’t care. The bucket having a lid might help somewhat as well.) I use a disposable glove when fishing them out to throw in the wash after. (Conveniently, there is a sink right next to the dryer to dump out the old water.)

(Also, they may or may not stain more otherwise, but they definitely still stain.)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #menstruation #blood

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Image ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

archaicwonder:

The Oldest Known Map: The Map of Nippur

This ancient clay tablet dates to the 14th-13th century BC. It shows a map of the countryside around the Mesopotamian city of Nippur, located in the middle of the southern Mesopotamia floodplain, near the modern city of Diwaniyah, Iraq. The inscription on the tablet is in cuneiform.

The University of Pennsylvania was excavating in Nippur from 1889 until 1900 and during that time they discovered thousands of clay tablets. This map may have been discovered at that time, but its importance was not recognized until quite some time later.

Tags:

#awesome #for some reason the names of Kish and Nippur #got stuck in my head when I was learning about Mesopotamia #good to see you again Nippur

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

alwaysfaithfulterriblelizard:

this egg fucking froze because our fridge is too cold

 

o-bellaciao:

Why would you keep the eggs on the fridge?

 

alwaysfaithfulterriblelizard:

we keep our eggs in the fridge…so they don’t denature? do you not refrigerate your eggs?

 

nanner:

Because of the way our eggs are processed and the prevalence of salmonella in american chickens, americans have to fridge their eggs.

http://io9.com/americans-why-do-you-keep-refrigerating-your-eggs-1465309529

 

colorschanging:

Wait, they don’t refrigerate eggs in other countries?

 

ladyoflate:

wait what people in other countries dont refrigerate eggs???

 

wewishyouamurphychristmas:

wait a second eggs in other countries aren’t refrigerated?????????

 

agathaheterodyne:

Waht.

 

slepaulica:

yeah, we don’t refrigerate them here. they keep like a month or two, even in summer, just crack it into a cup in case it’s accidentally taken you too long to use those eggs, give it a whiff, if it smells okay you’re good to go even if it’s really old.  don’t use the float test — that turns up a lot of false positives and sometimes you end up throwing away perfectly good eggs, which is not cheap. just turn your eggs upside down every now and then to help keep them fresh and yeah.

also chicken eggs do not look anything like those things you see on american tv shows. they have brown shells and the yolks are orange.

 

triplash:

Americans refrigerate their eggs..

America..

 

slepaulica:

if you read the link though, there’s actually a reason for why they have to do it, a reason that doesn’t apply anywhere else in the world.

 

slepaulica:

we should organise a charity drive to mail european eggs to americans. we can send them uht milk too, i read on the internet that they only have the kind of milk that has to be refrigerated

Canadians refrigerate eggs too. And re: colour, every Canadian grocery store I have ever been in carried multiple brands of eggs, some of which were white and some which were brown. (We usually buy the brown: the last time I bought white it was because we realised at the last moment we were out of eggs and Mom sent me to the white-egg-only convenience store to get a dozen to tide us over.)

Who told you Americans don’t have UHT milk? I don’t know about big ones, but there are definitely single-serving ones that I think are intended for kids’ lunches. I used to go through multiple single-serving boxes* of Parmelat chocolate milk a day when I was a kid.

(Come to think of it, did they say “no room-temperature milk” or “no UHT milk”? Because while I’ve drunk well over a thousand cartons* of milk (all bought in America) that appear to fit with the definition of “UHT milk” I just looked up, I had never heard the term before.)

*The Canadian term for this is the genericised trademark “tetra pak”, but since I’m talking about my experiences as an American in America I figured I ought to use the terminology I would’ve used at the time, despite its relative lack of precision.

P.S. Maybe I should look into the possibility of larger tetras of milk, considering I just had refrigerated milk go lumpy nine days before its sell-by date (beating the previous record of six days). Bagged milk sounds like a neat idea, but it’s terrible for preservation, and the manufacturers won’t even admit it.

Tags:

#food #regional differences #reply via reblog

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agnesfieldforest asked: hst, in response to that ‘birthday dinner’ ask and because you seem to be fairly skilled at navigating the vagaries of ‘having difficulty eating,’ i was wondering if you had general food suggestions for a human who can only manage maybe one meal a day right now?

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

neednothavehappenedtobetrue:

francesetherealgumm:

halfsquaretriangles-deactivated:

oh friend, i am definitely also in the only reliably managing one meal a day right now zone. it is not a great place to be for the long-term but it also is what it is, and there is no point berating ourselves for being here temporarily. here are some advices that i have gotten from my acupuncturist and doctor and hard-won experience:

1. literally anything you put in your mouth today is a triumph! also known as the “doesn’t matter, had lunch” principle. in the one meal a day zone, anything is a step up from nothing.

2. if you can, it is a good idea to find ways to sneak more calories, fat, etc. into whatever you are drinking throughout the day. drink plenty of water too. but if you can find a “meal replacement” shake or protein shake that is palatable to you, do it! not to “replace” “meals”, but to supplement them. very heavy cream or full-fat coconut milk are good to stir into coffee or tea.

3. see if there are any low-stress snacks that you can at least somewhat reliably eat, and that won’t require any preparation whatsoever, for the between-meal times when you’re feeling on the edge of dangerously woozy. the current thing i can usually manage is rice crackers. nuts are awesome because they are pretty calorically dense and you don’t have to eat a ton of them. whatever! snacks are great!

4. if you are in the zone where you can only eat a really limited amount of stuff before you become nauseated from being overly full, frontloading a lot of vegetables into your mealtime can backfire, if you end up being stuffed full of salad and still dizzy from hunger and not able to eat any more. i am a big proponent of dressing vegetables in a generous amount of a tasty oil (olive or coconut) and roasting them, partly because roasted vegetables are sometimes easier to eat (do you get worn out from having to move your jaw? i do) and partly because that is a good way to ingest some oil to keep your hair and skin from getting too sad.

5. if it has been a while since the last time you ate and you can tell your stomach will rebel at having anything introduced to it, it sometimes helps to prime the pump with something sugary. a glass of ginger ale and a thirty-minute wait has been the difference between being able to eat and not being able to eat for me a lot of times.

6. for the medium- to long-term, if you have access to a doctor who will order blood tests and keep an eye on where you are deficient, that is a great resource and you should take whatever vitamin and mineral supplements they point you toward. a nutritionist who can help you prepare meal plans with an eye toward fulfilling the needs your doctor has identified is also great if available.

7. if you eat meat, fatty cuts of meat cooked at low temperatures for a long time are amazing (braised whatever, stew, carnitas, etc). this is especially true if the preparation also includes a way to eat the fat that was rendered out of the meat as it cooked (in the form of braising liquid turned into gravy, braised meat fried to a crisp in its own fat, etc.). also i have gotten rid of any “low-fat” version of anything and procured its full-fat equivalent instead, like, if i am only going to be able to have two tablespoons of coconut milk in my coffee it had fucking better not be a reduced-fat simulacrum.

8. are there any situations during which you have noticed you can usually eat? i have a way easier time eating in social situations with other people around, and diner breakfasts/dinner dates are usually times where i can eat more than i would have been able to by myself. who cares why in the teeth of the one-meal-a-day monster, it is not the time for exploring etiology, it is the time for figuring out what works in the present tense and going with it. it also helps me to be brought things to eat and have them plunked in front of me. my partner just went out and bought me a mcrib and i inhaled it. fuck yeah.

9. no pressure, but it is good if you can sort of keep an eye on when it feels good (or at least less bad) to eat, and identify what the common features of feeling-good times are, and exploit them. for me that is diner breakfasts, or coming up with a limited palette of tastes and choosing foods within those parameters to make things mysteriously more appetizing. bitter-smoky-salty-sour is my favourite palette; those are days with rye bread and salted tomatoes and sharp marmalade and lapsang souchong.

this is not comprehensive but i hope it is a little helpful!

wow yes

gpoy

Tags:

#food #disordered eating #things that might have been helpful during the Stomach Bug from Hell last year #but over the course of about two months my appetite gradually improved #I never fully recovered #but I can eat enough to sustain myself now #and even miss out on a time period where my stomach is willing to accept food with no harm done #as long as I’m careful not to let one go by too often #(I do miss having appetite to spare) #(maybe it’s a microbiome thing)

Big Finish – Official Soundcloud

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

{{Title link: https://soundcloud.com/big-finish }}

geekgirlintraining:

Interested giving Big Finish’s audios a try, but not sure about shelling out money for them? Want to taste before you buy? Big Finish’s Soundcloud offers everything from previews to full episodes to podcasts to soundtrack music! 

Reblogging because it’s legit.

Tags:

#Doctor Who #Big Finish #duuuuude #(that is the noise I make when I encounter something amazing) #I have *definitely* been a bit worried about the money-up-front thing #not used to that with entertainment #so #awesome

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

sittingonalog:

Tags:

#I want to liiiiie shipwrecked and comatose #drinking fresh #mango juice #goldfish shoooooals nibbling at my toes #fun fun fun #in the sun sun sun #(to those of you unfamiliar with the Red Dwarf theme song) #(it is not supposed to make sense) #Red Dwarf #my childhood #I have been watching this show since I was a pair of uncombined gametes #and I think it might be time for the umpteenth rewatch

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

textsfromdeepspacenine:

The joke is all well and good, but more importantly, it tells me that 519 is not reserved for landlines like I had previously assumed. (I suspect that 519’s are indeed disproportionately landlines and 226’s disproportionately cells, but clearly it is not a sure thing.)

Ah, here we are. Go, bask in the light of knowledge.

(I keep meaning to learn more about how ID numbers (phones and license plates mostly) work and what information one can glean from them by looking at them.)

Tags:

#Star Trek #DS9 #Garak/Bashir #(I think) #the more you know #(I already knew you could tell my town from the middle three digits of my home phone)

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

slepaulica:

brin-bellway replied to your post:There should be a google maps game where you get a…
Yes! I was just talking yesterday about coping mechanisms for a bad sense of direction, and I think something like that would be helpful for me. (I’d do terribly at first, yes, but it would encourage me to study and show me how I was progressing.)

Does google maps have street view where you live? Maybe you could make your own game (not coding something, just loading google maps and wandering around with a goal in mind) where you put yourself down somewhere in the city (near home to start) and have to find your way home?

Level 1: start a block away from your house, different direction each time. google maps will have you facing in a random direction probably. try to find your way home.
Level 2: start a couple blocks from home. same goal: try to get home.
gradually proceeding to about as far as you’d reasonably end up walking, then move on to:
starting from home, walk until you find the nearest [place]. time yourself and try to beat previous times if that works for you. don’t time yourself if that’ll make it worse. different place each time.
example places: the grocery store, the library, the gas station, the park, the movie theatre, the river (if you have one), the pond (if you have one), where your friend lives, your favourite tree (if you have one. i do; it’s one of the ones downtown. i say hi to it every time i see it.), your favourite restaurant, a restaurant that is near home, the hill (if you have one), the train station, the nearest tram stop, the ice creamery. any place that is meaningful to you really.
another thing you can do (level: hard): find the nearest tram stop for a tram you’ve taken before and try to trace out its route.
—
+ it actually might be possible to take a screenshot of your neighbourhood on satellite view on google maps, photoshop the street names out, print off a bunch of copies, and work from there with a pencil. you’d have to grade them yourself though.
+ another thing you could do: take a camera with you and take a photo every ten steps while you go somewhere. then later you could look at the pictures of the story of how to get somewhere. i used to do this for my girlfriend before google maps did street view in my city. it was pretty fun. we had “going downtown to pay rent” and “going to my favourite restaurant” and “going for a walk with the cat”. and then we’d look at them on skype together.

Street view? I wish. They haven’t even updated the satellite view since spring 2006. My driveway has the previous owner’s car in it, and my dentist’s office is an empty lot.

I’m okay with the stuff within walking distance (except the housing development, but I only go there for trick-or-treating (so it would still be useful one night a year)). Trouble is, I’ve been learning to drive (no public transit pick-ups and few stores within walking distance, so I pretty much have to) and realising that even after being driven around this county often for over six years, my knowledge of the parts outside my village consists of a bunch of disconnected pockets a few blocks long. I’ll know when I’m close to, say, the grocery store, and I’ll know when I’m close to the computer repair shop, but how to get from one to the other? No idea.

(Actually, they might have street view in the city proper. Let’s check a couple example places.

Walmart: yes, image taken April 2009. Grocery store: yes, image taken August 2011. This might be a workable idea after all.)

Tags:

#fun with Google Maps #useful things #reply via reblog