Another rec for libraries - brilliant places for exploring. And also one for LIBRARIANS. When you go in to sign up for a library card, ask the librarians for suggestions. You will probably make someone’s day to let them help you get into reading. Librarians are really cool like that :)

Also look around for a wee display of curated selections. Those will change every month or so and feature recommended books.

E-books are another possibility and there are many sources of free ones - another low cost way of exploring and experimenting. I read free fluff from the book store app built into my tablet when I’m not up to anything serious, go to Project Gutenberg and Standard E-books for out-of-copyright classics when I am, and sometimes find something on the e-book system I have access to with my library card sign-in. (I rarely buy e-books as I prefer to put my book budget to subscriptions from small presses because they need our support and an unexpected book arriving in the post is a delight.)

Some of the high school curriculum will always be dry, but some of it is just forced on us when we’re still too young to really understand what’s going on and it’s much more interesting when we have enough experience and maturity to get it. So if you come across something you have bad memories of but it sounds interesting, try it again.

For a specific rec, I’m going to suggest Death and the Penguin by Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov. 1996, but shouldn’t be hard to find in translation given the recent western interest in Ukraine. This was my review: “Quietly absurdist, yet feels well grounded in the realities of time and place. Pacing, flow and details are excellent; exceptionally well written and translated. Don’t find out more about it, wondering what is going on is part of its appeal, just read it :)”

I like the idea of this very much and I hope someone has made/does make it.

What’s the book? Who knows, you might find the core of your group just by sparking interest in the book. Good luck :)

The current climate of “discourse” in the US works against effective teaching. I do know what I’m talking about here; teaching emotionally charged subjects was my strength but it’s nearly impossible to online these days.

I have no idea how you get out of this dynamic when it’s become so deeply embedded in how things are done, just that for every person who manages to learn something amidst the shouting, another is driven further away from what you wish to teach. But this is where we are and what we have to work with.

This can be true along with the unfairness of putting the burden on the disadvantaged side. I don’t know the answer. Perhaps there isn’t one.

I’m part of the We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it generation, so for me it will always include everyone, even if fashions change.

I tend to set things down if it’s not working for me at the moment, because sometimes later I’ll come back to it and it will. But in this case, where it’s part not the whole you’re struggling with, maybe you just need to know what the point of the bits you find uninteresting is? The writer will have included all of it for a reason.

Did you not read what I wrote? Was this reply meant for someone else?

They seem to be applying the correct gender retroactively, with a key difference being that there’s a women’s protected category and an open category. Women, cis or trans, can play in the open category so change in gender status for someone who competed as if they were a man (and thus necessarily in the open category) is irrelevant to the titles.

At present I’m inclined to disagree with this apparent retroactive application so I’m not defending this, just explaining my understanding of their thinking. It’s about open and protected categories. If it was men’s only and women’s only, it would be different.

So a protected category for women only, because of social factors rather than inherent physical differences.

This makes some sense to me based on my own experiences in other areas like mathematics and science competitions. The boys in my school who knew me were mostly alright but it was still a very strange environment to be a teenage girl in. I was always keenly aware of being an outsider. And it was so much worse in rooms full of strangers at competitions. Intimidating and overwhelming.

For all that I was consistently at or near the top in our school, I always fell at the outside competitions. Felt horrible too, that I was letting everyone down. I was too young to understand the sexism at play so I just beat myself up about it and stopped participating.

In general, I support protected categories for women. We haven’t come anywhere near far enough in reducing sexism to make them unnecessary. I don’t know if it’s a big enough issue with trans women in competitive chess to make this sort of ruling. It might have the balance wrong. But it would be good if there was more understanding of what these kinds of environments can be like for cis girls and women.

this is their website: https://bluemoosebooks.com/books

My tablet, in part because I didn’t expect to take to ebooks so well (yay dark mode!) and because I don’t want more devices (cost to the environment + need to keep charged etc). An e-ink I can also listen to podcasts on might be my ideal. I use a laptop for social media and general internetting, which means minimal distraction problem on the tablet.

I would really love to get one or two small press subscriptions again. I had one from Fitzcarraldo for a bit and it was such a delight when a new one, completely unknown to me, arrived in the post.

But I had to be rehoused into pensioner housing last year and it’s a tiny cottage. For every thing which comes in, something has to go.

Books are hope. And we all need more of that.

Might try a month’s sub to Netflix for some Korean drama this winter. Will keep this in mind if I do. Thanks.

Thank you for the suggestion. This is another reason to get a better computer :)

Thank you, I will give this a go :)

This does sound very good. I’ll need something better than the weak laptop I’m using just now. Something to think about. Thanks for the suggestion.

Something with environmentalist and sustainability goals and principles rather than forms of destruction. I don’t want to kill things or chop down trees or blow stuff up. The world is difficult and I am tired.

There are 15 LGBTQ+ specific instances on the joinmastodon list. More which aren’t on the list, but any of these are a place to start. https://joinmastodon.org/servers

6 on calckey’s list https://calckey.org/join/#lgbtq+. The main devs for Calckey are very LGBTQ+ friendly.

You can browse the local feeds of instances you’re considering to see what others on that instance tend to post. More important IMO is that you find an instance whose moderation policy suits you. But you can always migrate to another server so don’t over think picking one. Sign up, follow lots of hashtags and groups (in the Explore box, type in # or @ followed by various keywords for your interests to get started), follow lots of people.

Basically, you’re spoilt for choice. Dive in. :)

Bifocals that I don’t get on with. Then a downturn in my health which affected my concentration. Only upside to middle age is that my eyes have changed such that I can read without glasses now so that’s what I do.

I’m old enough that it was pretty simple when I was figuring things out and felt the need to define and label myself. It was straight, gay or lesbian, and bi. I was attracted to women so not straight, men so not lesbian, ergo bi. The term covered a lot of ground back then.

I’ve never considered “pan” for very long because so many people who identified as pan a few years ago when it was being talked about a lot defined it as if attraction to things like personality and character weren’t the norm and the very idea was a novel concept discovered by themselves. Rolled my eyes, adjusted my bifocals and let the young folk get on with it. 😋

Now I’m old enough my orientation is basically the social and sexual invisibility of post-fertile middle aged women, compounded by the invisibility of chronic illness and the online nastiness towards middle aged women in general. Too much frustration trying to make myself seen as a person in most spaces.

I keep “bi” as a nod to who I used to be and times past, rather than anything others might find interesting or useful to know.

Sitting at a bus stop near a stop light. Police car stops at the light. My brain’s first reaction is to think we should hijack it. Cause GTA of course.

I didn’t even play that much. It was just a good game to fail at. Spectacularly. Its police cars were especially useful in that regard.