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Yesterday's group-egging to donate to the Minneapolis Bail Fund was really moving and exciting -- you can see the thread here: https://twitter.com/daniel_m_lavery/status/1266015008686817283

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

A story in three acts:

Me, 3:40 PM: uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my boss just texted me and asked if we could "connect for a few minutes" in an hour or so

Me, 4:04 PM:

cool cool cool I managed to focus enough to finish up what I was working on but once I hit send, my brain was like LET'S JUST BE NERVOUS FOR THE NEXT HALF HOUR so I guess that's what I'm doing

Me, 5:10 PM

LOL ALL THAT WORRYING AND I'M GETTING A $500 BONUS

Bosses, man.

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I don't want to turn this into Danny's Pet Projects Hour, but if any of you are able to donate money to the West Brooklyn Waterfront Mutual aid, you can do so here (https://opencollective.com/westbrooklynwaterfrontmutualaid/donate), or if you're interested in volunteering, you can do so here (https://www.wbwmutualaid.org/volunteer). We've been expanding our range because we get a lot of out-of-network requests for other neighborhoods that have been harder-hit in Brooklyn, so any help contributing to our grocery fund or offering to help run errands/make deliveries would be immensely useful. Thank you!!

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

I've given up trying to logic myself out of anxiety and have made an appointment with a mental health provider.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

tryin to feel blessed that my job is still paying me to work from home, functionally paying for me to have an extremely private, extremely long term coming out about being non-binary to family i'm isolating with. the cat being out of the bag is a good feeling........but not having a lot of control over material changes i can make to my physicality right now ofte have me feeling like everyone is kind-heartedly playing along with a very polite farce--my wife included ;-;

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

I have a serious autoimmune disease so I haven't been out of the one bedroom apt I share with my dying mom and my dad who is still working. My aunt and uncle have been hit with covid; my uncle is on a ventilator and his wife, my aunt, doesn't know. Nobody can come see them, and they took care of my disabled (MH/MR) uncle when he had cancer. It's very, very sad. My mom is dying from congestive heart failure. My dad's heart is broken. I try to get through every day with little things; tea, cannabis tea, lemon tea (wow that's alot of tea). I look forward to your posts, Danny, and admire your writing. I do have a book of my own coming out in August, and I am trying and failing to be excited for that as the world burns.

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Somewhere between 'Meh, Not too Shabby' and 'Could be Better I Suppose, but Pandemic?' Two of my pet tarantulas moulted last night, including one of my much-beloved Fire Red Bird-Eaters (I told her she was a good spider, and a pretty spider). Unsnarled a complex admin issue at work. My breakfast wrap was nice and crispy with not too much sauce. Remained crushed beneath the psychic weight of the knowledge that the human condition is soaked in misery that could easily be prevented if it humans were capable of possessing power and empathy at the same time. So, a solid C+ / B- all around.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

I just finished my last exam! Technically I have a bachelor's degree now! (Well, not technically for a number of reasons, some of them pandemic-related, but in my heart, I guess.) The news is horrifying and I am on the wrong side of the Atlantic and relatively helpless; it's at times like these I wish I could believe in prayer. Hope you and Grace are well and have recovered. I finished your latest book a few days ago and adored it- thank you so much for your work.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

I got laid off for being insufficiently productive. during *gestures* all this. It sucks. It wasn't a job I liked and it didn't pay well but now I don't have a job and I'm anxious and angry and just, all the feels.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

I am terrified of NYC reopening. You guys, quarantine is not being grounded. I feel like the folx with disabilities and compromised immune systems are just being thrown to the curb. Since quarantine started, my career is honestly not bad at all, and people have been communicating with me with such a degree of respect that I have never experienced before. I guess it was too good to last.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

I'm in Saint Paul, so it's both heart-breaking, frightening and beautiful. The community has come together in amazing ways to support advocacy for the arrest of George Floyd's murderers, but it's horrible to watch it come to this after so many years of repetitive police violence against black Twin Cities citizens.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

Fully shit! Turns out breaking up during a pandemic sucks a lot, messes with my sleep schedule and my motivation to do pretty much anything. Although the weather's good and I got to go outside AND I saw some baby chicks so I should count my blessings (she said begrudgingly).

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On the plus side: it's a therapy day, plus I have kefir and sourdough a-fermentin' on the counter and the weather is perfect for it. I'm about to give up trying to work for the day and just ferment things and watch Home Fires and drink diet soda.

On the minus side: Eightish weeks in and telehealth therapy still feels awkward and less helpful, so every week I just feel anxious all day up until my appointment, and then after my appointment I feel frustrated.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

My wife’s uncle died yesterday of coronavirus, and her mom is putting the Catholic guilt full court press on her siblings to attend the funeral. It’s so unfair that he was a good man who should get to be memorialized by his family but it feels like watching her mom put them all at risk and it’s very upsetting.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

Trying not to chicken out of breaking up with my therapist before I just default to going to my next session! I hate disappointing people! Trying to talk more about blackness last session helped me realize how things really weren't working...

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

Today is one of those days I miss the old internet where people were anonymous and we didn’t have to be social to interact with others. Then this link appeared and reminded me of the old forums and I’m glad for that.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

I have been on testosterone for a month now and it is Interesting, by which I mean I am so, so horny and also hungry and right now eating some store brand Coco Pops as my second dinner of the night, but not that much is changing externally yet. Which is surprising me as my bloodwork showed that I had low estrogen and I've always been hairier etc than the cis women I know, so I sort of imagined things happening more quickly. But I'm using the gel which is a lot less common in the UK, so maybe it's because all the UK based transmasc support groups have a different experience based on sustanon being by far the most common option here because it's cheaper. Also literally nobody warned me about the hot flashes!!! I don't know anyone else who got them! All of this is to say that it's all a rich tapestry, and living alone and also avoiding social media right now means that it's just A Lot and this comment has no actual purpose or structure to it sorry! (FYI I finished my NHS allowance of therapy a couple of weeks ago and it really helped and I'm not feeling *bad*, but I can't afford anything private)

Also I watched Julie & Julia while eating my first dinner (Keralan seafood curry and lemon rice) and now extremely committed to (like Julia) thoroughly enjoying life and spending it cooking with lots of butter and having lots of sex, but also wondering how food bloggers have mostly not become any less irritating in the years since Julie's day!

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Feeling really down and overwhelmed about everything going on right now, and sad that I can’t attend my city’s drive-by protest because I don’t have a car.

Finished reading your book a few weeks ago, Danny, and loved it, even though I didn’t have the background knowledge for some of those pop culture references. Your chapter on top surgery has had me thinking a lot — I’ve been talking to my therapist about top surgery lately, and how the scariest thing is that I don’t really have any family and friends who I feel comfortable talking to about it, who could help me while I’m recovering. It’s weird to think that I could go through such a major procedure and be totally alone in the aftermath, I honestly don’t even know if that’s feasible, even if I made my apartment super accessible. I have been contemplating surgery for eight years now, and it just feels like at some point, I have to take the leap.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

Seconding the C+/B- from a previous comment. Just ordered from a Black-owned restaurant and donated to the Minnesota Freedom Fund. Feeling impotent and sad. Trying to focus on the good while also trying not to feel bad about trying to focus on the good. Weird day!!! Sincerely hope you and Grace are as well as possible.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

The news is breaking my heart. In personal news, I would really fucking love it if these plumbers coming over to my apartment multiple times this week could rub two brain cells together between them and stop my bedroom ceiling from becoming a fucking waterfall.

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I just gave myself a steam burn ironing mask fabric :/ but it's much less severe than the last time I burned myself, so that's good

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

Time has no meaning and we're getting increasingly feral. My hair is two colors because I haven't bothered to dye it.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

Minor fretting over video-tours (this is not an ideal time to need a new apartment). I'm a nice person!! but do I SEEM nice on video?? Is hissing "DO NOT PERCEIVE ME" an acceptable response to questions. Should I put on a costume...

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

I'm applying for jobs today because my current one has told me I might not have mine next year - it's been many months now, exacerbated by pandemic, of "maybe", "not sure", and "we can't say yet" and my contract ends soon so the only thing I can do is wait and shore up backup plans which is emotionally exhausting.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

It’s days like today when I wish I hadn’t been deposed in a popular uprising.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

STMSADY kicked off a real crisis for me back in February, where I finally faced my life not being "different and that's okay :)" but in fact deeply experientially impoverished. I only had a month's worth of baby steps before the lockdown hit. While that's given me a unique space to explore some things I couldn't before, it's mostly just left me with way too much time in my own head. Life's gone back to being about 'getting through' each day as passively as possible, and I feel like even When Things Open Back Upâ„¢, I'll still be the same person who just opts out of everything life has to offer while living vicariously through other people.

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I'm doing OK. Things are moving ahead regarding my transition; I got my readiness letter for hormones this week, I came out to a few co-workers, and am being referred to an endocrinologist. Watching the news from the States in horror, though.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

Well, a bit down from reading Twitter and the news, but a bit optimistic because I'm about to have a consultation call with a new therapist. Fingers crossed!

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

having on of those days where everything feels extremely surreal and if my wrist didn't hurt and my sports bra wasn't too tight I might be worried I was actually still asleep

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May 30, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

put a new mattress on the bed. idk if it's a great mattress but it's 1000% less gross and misshapen than the old one so it's like 61% less bleak in my bedroom. those are solid numbers.

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This day is more afraid of me than I am of it!

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

I live in NYC (Harlem) and I am petrified of the city reopening. I understand the whole "economy" argument, but I feel like people with disabilities and compromised immune systems are just going to be thrown to the curb. Since quarantine started, my career actually has been pretty great and people have been interacting with me with so much respect and grace. It was too good to last.

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Bored with the pandemic reason I can’t see my girlfriend, so writing her a letter from the universe where I’m going on an interstellar survey instead.

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

that's what I'm doing, after procrastinating all morning!

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May 30, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

Pretty good, for me - I just finished a Zoom reading of a Shakespeare play with some friends and friends of friends - the plan is to get through all of his plays in the next couple of months, and today was my first time joining them. I had a really great time!

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After being defeated by some bureaucratic hurdles and generally dismayed at any bit of news that comes my way, I'm at about #2 on the Kate Bush scale:

https://undergradhist.tumblr.com/post/619406829339934721/post-semester-quarantine-ennui-led-to-this-how

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

Discovered the Everything Changes in the End album by the Vistas and the humidity is down so I don't even feel gross dancing to it in my room. Today is pretty good

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

This is incredibly insignificant compared to (gestures) but I have the worst UTI of my life

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May 29, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

That movie is so formative for me, it’s why to this day I think that floppy haired men is the height of attraction!

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it’s been the worst time to start watching the Wire

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I've been watching Antiques Road show because it makes me feel like I'm thrift store shopping with a bunch of weird uncles and aunties.

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Today is... Okay! Been in work for the second day this week, but had homemade pizza and watched Normal People with the missus. Good and bad.

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I'm admitting that insomnia isn't something I can just "power through" and I am contacting my doctor for medication. Also my cat is being very cute.

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Today is... apparently asking random internet people for resources/groups to help my transmasc partner deal with body dysmorphia?

Anyone? xo

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