My dad drives a bookmobile, and one year for Christmas I made him a calendar for the bookmobile using WPA book posters. There’s one for every month! They’re in the public domain and freely available online! I highly recommend doing this for the hard-to-shop-for-but-interesting person in your life.

This is my experience too. Nobody thinks I’m particularly involved because I hate marches (I’ll show up sometimes, but mostly I skip it) and I have a hard no on chanting. But my city and county commissioners know me at least by sight,if not by name, because I’ve spoken at so many meetings on so many different issues.

You can come join my misandrist wine snob club! We’re hella sexist against men and we make and drink the good shit.

Ugh, machine learning people like nothing better than a data set with no context. My job is basically to poke holes in people’s datasets and all the ML/AI people I work with hate me.  I’m such a downer, bringing real-world complications into “but it’s in the data so it’s real!”

Thanks! I might lose some points on my application due to age before things open back up, sadly.  And getting a job in my field is often 6 months between application and job offer (at least here) and the state of the economy doesn’t bode well.  I’m feeling discouraged about it- we put off our applications for 2 years…

I think you have to live there for some period of time before you’re allowed to buy property if you’re not a citizen. Too many tech/WallSt bros were buying up tons of farmland for bunkers, and making it impossible to afford for actual farmers.

I’ve been going through the visa application process, and it’s simple by comparison to other countries, but still pretty complicated. My partner and I qualify for different kinds of visas- he’s on the immediate skills list (he works in tech) and I’m on the long-term skills list (I’ve got a PhD in environmental…

It’s exhausting for women to continually have to prove there are successful women in the field when it’s information that’s widely available (please, allow me to google that for you).  There’s even a quote from the article about THAT EXACT PHENOMENON.

I have book club tomorrow (via Zoom) and this sounds SO MUCH BETTER than the terribly trite murder mystery that we read this month.

We had takeout from a West African restaurant last night (if you’re in Portland, Akadi is still doing pickup and delivery, it’s so good!) so we had leftover okra stew over rice, and then my partner fried some eggs to have on top.  I’m eating so well under self-isolation.

Someone seeking asylum- by definition- cannot get protection from their home state.  So why exactly would they be applying to their home country for asylum?  

I’m really good at making delicious cakes, but I’m terrible at decorating cakes anything. When a really good friend graduated from her graduate program, I decided to really go for it and and made a beautiful 2-tiered cake and then tried to write “Congratulations Claire” on it with icing. It went terribly, but finally…

I just spent a month in Italy and hideous fur vests are all the rage there right now! So many women were wearing vests that look very, very similar to this. I cannot explain it. Women who were otherwise very elegant with chic, expensive clothes and haircuts are wearing this vest on top of everything.

I do this at work every time someone tells a sexist joke.  The trick is a) to not let it go (no really, I don’t understand!  Someone explain it to me!) and b) to ride out the awkward silences.

You wanna do a park run?  She’s got a plan for that.

We’re headed to Italy in 2 weeks, so I’m glad to hear that!

OMG I just want to kiss that fuzzy little face.  That is one cute dog.

*Exactly* how I felt when my mental disorder was diagnosed.  I am not the only person in the history of people who has felt this way!  It has a real name and is a real thing!  Suddenly there are options for dealing with it!  I cried with relief.

This is really interesting!  I’d never heard of cibiphobia before.  Thank you for sharing!

Age of the father affects the probability of autism, but it’s not “the cause”.