the yard onions could have been inconsequential to the sick thing. had a lot of other Sick factors at play. too many variables to definitively blame consistent multi-yearlong consumption of septic tank overflow onions. but sometimes i think about it, maybe. maybe.

actually googled it. not good that i was eating the bulbs with the dirt on them (didnt know you were supposed to wash produce at that age). not good that it was a root vegetable in general, considering the septic thing. cant tell if it ever made me sick bc i was always sick. hm.

he also thought soccer and tennis were "for faggots" so i very quickly shut up about those being the only sports i enjoyed in gym class. guess i cant say he didnt prepare me for the real world. thanks to him i know how all these assholes talk in private. i guess. yay.

he really embodies the typical jackass who opposes trans participation, in the sense that his previous opinion of womens sports was seriously "these bitches arent even real athletes, womens sports are like a type of kids league" (his words, circa 2010s)

"i dont have any of the info you guys need in spreadsheets. but i do have all the budget numbers written down on sticky notes" i am going to start summoning demons

i have urgent work to do rn but i kind of want to revisit this later to share a thought. dont have time to format it atm. just very... ugh. having a lot of Feelings about growing up where i did. i think some of this is lowkey a blind spot for people who have only ever lived in progressive areas.

the shit so many of my trans friends' parents did to them, and the shit mine did to me... it's not that rare... please don't dismiss the worst offenders as outliers just bc you think it's uncommon. a lot of us don't make it out of those environments, so you don't hear the worst of it.

this goes beyond transphobia too. some people come from reasonable families and thus understandably have a kind of "mental floor" for how bad they can envision parents being. but there is no floor for a lot of parents. worth remembering, especially when discussing trans kids.

seeing all the ways i totally obliterated the initial vision of the sketch. smashing my computer with hammers. it's fine. art improvement is iterative. let's leave this one behind and try drawing number 3.

the sketch looked better in some ways but i got lost in the sauce somewhere around 3am

my stupid ass was like "yeah, so ive hardly drawn in months, i should do something low barrier to entry, i should do something low stakes" and then immediately started trying to wing some bullshit perspective painting. yeah ok. ok. at least maybe it'll loosen me up.

but yeah it's fucking exhausting when the bulk of the effort is coming from you regardless. im so sorry. there are people out there who will Try, but god i wish it was easier to fucking find them. best i can manage is wearing my heart on my sleeve hoping to bump into others who see themselves in it.

Yeah. the peace i've tried to make with it so far has been in trying to take solace in relating to Bits And Pieces of things with others, bc sometimes that's the best there is. it's no replacement for someone truly getting it, but it can help to incrementally validate parts of some struggles, ig.

i hope you're able to find others who Get It. i know how isolating it can be. people treat it like a skill issue instead of acknowledging that some ppl live through objectively alienating shit, and that even healthy coping won't necessarily make it easier to relate to others. ugh.