Textile work and sewing. I love working with fabrics and turning a flat piece of cloth into a usable/wearable object. It also gives me a feeling of connection to the flow of human history. When I’m sitting in my craft room, hand stitching a hem or working on a piece of embroidery, I often think about the fact that the physical movements I’m making with my body have been shared across human cultures and time. The pulling of a needle and thread through fabric is a mirror of the human tapestry we all create together.

The tag that I added to the above user’s handle gives me a good chuckle every time I see them in the wild. Helps balance the rank odiousnesses of many of their comments lol the irony of a troll like them calling something rage bait only adds to my glee.

I love finding these on my feed, thank you!

Textile work! Could be sewing, weaving, dying, etc. I love working with fabrics and making them into usable 3D objects. Recently, as in the last two weeks, I’ve started working with wool felt with the vague idea of making insect brooches but I ended up making a cat toy instead lol.

If you’re interested, I highly recommend “The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper” by Hallie Rubenhold!

I had the fortunate experience of growing up with great-grandparents living, as well as some of their siblings. I got to hear first-hand experiences from 3 generations of women (mother, grandmothers, and two great-grandmothers plus various aunts sprinkled in). It was invaluable for me. Knowing their life stories and the truth of what they endured has helped me navigate life in so many ways.

It also has been incredible armor against the flood of misplaced nostalgia and outright manipulation of history that seems so prevelant. My great-grandmother was born in 1908 and died in 2002. She left her abusive husband in the 1930s and raised her kids as a single mom in a time when it was exponentially more difficult to do so. Glad she got out when she did with 4 instead of 14…

So nice, I saw it twice!

I was outted to my highly conservative and religious family by a Jesus-freak aunt who stalked my now deleted social media. I would not have chosen to come out to my family, it’s been just as horrible as I assumed it would be.

I currently work in a conservative Southern US town and I’m not out at work for safety purposes. I have been out in all my other jobs, this is the only one where it feels unsafe to be so. I’m seriously considering a career change at this point.

With my partner and my chosen family, I’m my fully queer and sparkly self✨️. It depends a lot on environment for many folks, I imagine. I’ve witnessed just as many young evangelicals spew hatred as boomers so idk how generational it is tbh. I think it’s largely a religious issue, but I have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to Christianity, so grains of salt with that last bit.

Omg, I KNEW my therapist was really a herd of sheep in disguise!

I was 11 years old when Jurassic Park hit theaters and my brother and I had our little minds blown, we were obsessed. I like a lot of Sam Neill’s films, especially the wild Lovecraft ones he did hahaha but he’ll always kind of be Dr. Grant for me, hit me in the feels a bit this one.

“It’s like my pool’s tearin’ ass around the backyard only it’s standin’ still. Still waters run deep.” Hands down my fave Carl line.

I have strong reactions to cold. My hands and feet won’t warm back up and begin to sting and ache. My back, neck, shoulders, and jaw clench and tighten to the point that it becomes painful. Once I get properly cold, it doesn’t matter how many pairs of socks I wear or if I have extra sweaters, the pain continues until I can either take a hot shower/bath to warm back up. I’ve been like this since I was a kid.

I live in the south of the US currently, and summers here are hot and humid, fairly brutal at times. I fully recognize that it gets very uncomfortable outside during the summer. I don’t, personally, think that it means we need to keep the AC at full blast on its lowest setting all day long like my coworkers do. But I’m definitely in the minority and so summers are painful for me. I usually take several walks around the block to try and warm up throughout the day. If the pain gets bad enough, I’ll use a small space heater or a heating pad to relieve the pain until I can get home.

I honestly miss living in Madrid where AC was not the general rule and, though hot at times, I rarely got the cold tension shivers that I get all the time here in the South. On the other hand, my partner and I save so much money on utilities in the summer compared to my friends and coworkers cause we use the AC sparingly. So benefits and drawbacks I guess. Crazy how different we all are!

I like to decorate mine! Our previous one rusted out so I painted the numbers onto our new one (instead of using stickers) and then painted gold ginko leaves all over it with some bugs hiding around them.

I’m legitimately glad that your personal experience of Christianity has been a net positive for you.

I was raised in a very standard First Assembly of God church until I was 12 and then my parents pivoted back to Catholicism. The experiences I had growing up in an evangelical paradigm were horrifying, especially in hindsight. I’m still unpacking the religious trauma in therapy today, nearly three decades after walking away.

So, based on my personal experience, the day to day Christians are precisely the greedy and violent ones that fucked me up, abused me relentlessly, and destroyed my sense of self-worth, not the blowhards on the news. Many of us are walking wounded from the divisive, hate-based, soul-crushing doctrines we were raised in under the guise of Christian love.

My partner and I are consistently surprised when we realize that a friend, coworker, family member etc. actively dislikes their partner and/or doesn’t consider them a friend.

Bizzare and hostile is a fitting description, I couldn’t hack it in a relationship where I didn’t feel deep and genuine friendship for the other person. I feel like it’s foundational to establishing the type of trust that feels indispensable to me in a committed partnership.

So, I’m not into words or images from pop culture etc. (that’s just my taste, I think people should get what they like regardless) but I have three larger pieces on me. All three are original artwork by the artist, I gave them an idea of the general imagery/vibe I was going for and then handed them the reins. Also chose someone who’s dominant art style correlated with the style I wanted. I love art and it makes me happy to carry beautiful and original artwork with me wherever I go.

Pretty sure his friends call him Alexander of Macedonia.

Same with my mom and cancer. One Saturday she took a long nap and missed a pain medication dose, as my dad thought she’d be better off getting the rest. Never got back up unassisted and was gone within 10 days. She never would have opted for euthanasia anyway, super Catholic, but it was crazy how fast, and then how slowly, the whole thing unfolded.

I have multiple plans in place for myself if I end up facing down the same fate. Religion wasn’t catching for me so if I get a terminal diagnosis, I’m living it up and then Irish goodbying. Really sorry about your dad.

My mom died 5 months ago from MBC at 62. I was fortunate enough to be with her for the last few days. My husband and I drove overnight to get there, my brother and his partner did the same. My father and my aunt and us all took turns sitting with her, caring for her, doing everything we could to surround her with comfort and love.

The night she passed, we were all in the living room, she was in a hospital bed at this point, and we were all seated around her, watching a movie. She had been unconscious for days at that point but, for some reason, I had this feeling that she was looking at me. Logically, I know she wasn’t and that she was unconscious etc. But it still felt that way and I looked over at her and no one else was looking, they were all glued to the screen, I’m struggling to explain this but it felt like for a moment, everything stopped and her and I were alone in the room.

I blew her a kiss and waved goodbye, it was such a tender moment and somehow felt so intimate despite everyone being there. No one else noticed, it was just her and I for that brief moment. We were close and loved each other a lot, imperfectly at times, but a lot. I’m so grateful for that memory.

She took her last breath about 30 minutes later. We surrounded her bedside, held her hands and feet, I stroked her face and whispered to her as she slipped away. Yet, it was that brief, time-frozen moment when it felt like we said goodbye to each other that really wrecks me and comforts me at the same time. I miss her a lot. Fuck cancer.