Seriously. I live in NYC, and I wear shorts almost every day above 68 degrees- so, at least three months out of the year, usually more like five. I sometimes wear tights under them, but if I don’t, my legs have probably been in contact with some kind of nasty surface, like a subway seat or a dusty stoop or a park…

This slightly renews my faith in humanity, and also in the total fuckedness of the NYC rental market.

The question should be ‘would you have sex with a guy living in a crawlspace if he were hosting’.

(Answer: no, because I like room to move, plus I’d get worried about getting stuck. I would probably be reticent to have a guy who lives in a crawlspace back to my house if I already knew, though I guess the foreknowledge…

People always suggest lactose-free on these threads, which is fine. But, I live in NYC, and I *never* encounter lactose-free milk/creamer in restaurants or coffee shops, other than the odd boba joint (which, BLESS THEM)- it’s soy/almond or nothing. Little groceries, delis, and chain pharmacies are also much more…

In my experience, as a person who sometimes uses ‘folx’ but is also aware it can come off as kind of precious: you’re right about ‘folks’ as a gender-inclusive collective noun!

I really want Kotaku to keep going- not least bc an old acquaintance of mine works there now, and I kind of trust him to be another person at the site who’s boosting feminist/queer-positive/anti-racist gaming journalism, even though the commentariat over there’s probably not gonna take it without a fuss :/

I think it’s a specific thing that works when you have a small population of people who have common institutions, landmarks, points of reference AND a kind of non-geographical commonality. I’ve always called the gay/trans version ‘queer Kevin Bacon’- it works REMARKABLY. Such as: going to a femme clothing swap in…

That is SO depressing. I know someone who’s friends with Carol Queen and I may need to twist their arm to talk to her about that, because YEESH.

I get those feelings- I’ve heard people talk that way and I’ve felt similar things at times.

I have a few other recommendations located elsewhere in North America if you’re interested!

Come As You Are in Toronto is a worker-owned co-op! I haven’t heard any unsavory dirt about them (yet), and they have *awesome* stuff.

It’s admirable that you’re being mindful about that, and by all means, carry on. But, really, Babeland is a place that is (at least nominally) designed to center women / queer folks / trans folks, but not exclusively for them. (I mean, sometimes I wish it was, not gonna lie, but it’s functionally not, and that’s kind…

In the West, sure. In the Eastern Bloc, not so much- if you lived in the USSR, stuff made in the DDR was considered top-notch, some of the highest-quality commercial goods you could get, with the possible exception of Yugoslav stuff (they had shit like commercially-available home computers and synthesisers in the…

BUT... BUT...

Okay, I’ve been trying really hard, as a trans person who is not a trans woman, to not be unnecessarily mad in public about Caitlyn Jenner, despite her being a butthead, because she’s kind of a lightning rod for terrible transmisogynist opinions that are only kind of about how she, specifically, sucks, and also for…

Have you ever heard of kumpir? It’s basically like your taco-potato concoction, only Turkish instead of quasi-Mexican- a boiled/baked potato broken up and loaded with various meze and condiments of your choice, like beans and carrot salad and ajvar and beets (and couscous, for some weird reason), and usually a fair…

Wait, Penguindrum is about Aum Shinrikyo???

Seriously, I think it’s pretty obvious CJ is coming around, veeeery slowly, to ‘oh whoops, buying into the kinds of bullshit I bought into for years in order to convince myself that I was actually a man and to protect myself from violence is probably not tenable anymore’- but at the same time, because she’s rich as…

Re: coffee- I have acid reflux and a host of other digestive problems, including moderate lactose intolerance, which make me *super fun* at dinner parties.