diff --git a/blog/2021/september/not-harmful.html b/blog/2021/september/not-harmful.html index d1d89bc..ea77cca 100755 --- a/blog/2021/september/not-harmful.html +++ b/blog/2021/september/not-harmful.html @@ -49,10 +49,5 @@

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 © Vane Vander

- - diff --git a/blog/2022/february/SHUTUP.html b/blog/2022/february/SHUTUP.html index a2089a8..4bdf2b0 100755 --- a/blog/2022/february/SHUTUP.html +++ b/blog/2022/february/SHUTUP.html @@ -26,7 +26,7 @@
  • too fast for any meaningful conversation, so only shitposts can get any airtime;
  • full of cookie-cutter white men who are very angry that women and minorities happen to exist.
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    It's this last point that pains me the most. Because on Lainchan, the only imageboard I bother to check in on anymore, there is a recurrect webring thread. (As I write this, it's on its seventh iteration due to bump/reply limits on each thread.) I joined on either the first or second one, and as a result, most of the sites that joined have my banner on them... most, since some of them apparently got dropped on their heads as children and don't understand that, when you join a webring, you have to link to other sites too, not just drop a banner and link and collect free advertising.

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    It's this last point that pains me the most. Because on Lainchan, the only imageboard I bother to check in on anymore, there is a recurrent webring thread. (As I write this, it's on its seventh iteration due to bump/reply limits on each thread.) I joined on either the first or second one, and as a result, most of the sites that joined have my banner on them... most, since some of them apparently got dropped on their heads as children and don't understand that, when you join a webring, you have to link to other sites too, not just drop a banner and link and collect free advertising.

    I don't bother participating in webrings anymore because the vast majority of personal sites I've found are, to be frank, boring as shit. HTTP/S, Gemini, Gopher: nowhere is an escape from personal logs that would be better kept in a paper journal and far away from the corrosive and cruel eyes of the internet. Nowhere is an escape from the bitter irony of the types of people who laugh at NPC memes and then make yet another Lain-themed website where their "about" page states that they proudly use Linux on a ThinkPad and hate JavaScript and Cloudflare and proprietary software and want to suck on Richard Stallman's jam-filled toes. I look at the "interests" sections and see the same anime and video games ad nauseam. I look at the blogs (that is, when the websites have blogs and aren't just landing pages for one's contact info) and see the same entry-level posts about "privacy good" and "Google bad" and "social media bad" and "Small Internet good". (I mean, I agree, but do you have any original opinions...?) And when I do bother to reach out to some of the ones who manage to escape the doldrum, or have them announce themselves in my inbox hoping to start a friendship, they inevitably end up being incorrigibly sexist and automatically assume my complete incompetence in everything to the point where I believe my spam filters catching their messages was an attempt to protect me before the problems started.

    And then I, hungry for dopamine, pull out my phone and look at my RSS feed reader again. There's something unread in the "autism" folder. Something I like. Something that took time and effort to make. Something that can't be replicated by anyone else.

    And I think a horrid thought to myself. Not by my standards- I'm too busy having a "villainess" character arc- but by anyone else's who subscribes to the Small Internet ideology.

    diff --git a/blog/2022/july/android_darknet.html b/blog/2022/july/android_darknet.html index 319a1c2..1500ca2 100755 --- a/blog/2022/july/android_darknet.html +++ b/blog/2022/july/android_darknet.html @@ -125,10 +125,5 @@ make build

    CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 © Vane Vander

    - - diff --git a/blog/2022/july/web3.html b/blog/2022/july/web3.html index abd5249..bf4304e 100755 --- a/blog/2022/july/web3.html +++ b/blog/2022/july/web3.html @@ -72,10 +72,5 @@

    CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 © Vane Vander

    - - diff --git a/blog/2022/october/email.html b/blog/2022/october/email.html index 9ab85c5..d1450d0 100755 --- a/blog/2022/october/email.html +++ b/blog/2022/october/email.html @@ -115,10 +115,5 @@

    CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 © Vane Vander

    - - diff --git a/blog/2022/october/yggdrasil.html b/blog/2022/october/yggdrasil.html index 39b2fc8..888aa4c 100755 --- a/blog/2022/october/yggdrasil.html +++ b/blog/2022/october/yggdrasil.html @@ -81,10 +81,5 @@ AllowedPublicKeys:

    CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 © Vane Vander

    - - diff --git a/blog/2023/november/foodshelf.html b/blog/2023/november/foodshelf.html new file mode 100755 index 0000000..b297c61 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/2023/november/foodshelf.html @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ + + + + + I'm alive, and I'd like you to feed me something other than cans of peas - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + + + + +
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    I'm alive, and I'd like you to feed me something other than cans of peas

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    published: 2023-11-01

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    I moved out of my parents' basement a few months ago. I promised that I was going to write an update post, and I had one kinda-planned and half-baked the first few weeks of living by myself, but it essentially boiled down to me making a series of word-based soyfaces:

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    "My ISP lets customers text support for basic problems!"
    + "The government gives me a free credit for Internet every month because I'm within 200% of the federal poverty line!"
    + "My landlord doesn't give a shit if I park my bike inside!" (I'm afraid of my neighbors stealing it...)
    + "My local food shelf has more things than just cans of peas in it, and they don't even make me submit proof of my income!"
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    And then I decided that enough of the things I was excited about were region-specific to make it easy to dox me if I gushed about them in too much detail. So I'll spare you the folderol and simply state that I'm alive and doing fine.

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    I've been able to survive these past few months despite my relatively low income- I can't work full-time due to being disabled- mainly by getting large swaths of my food intake from the local food shelf. Don't get me wrong, I still have to buy some of my own groceries; it's meant to be a supplement instead of the whole thing. But if I plan my meals carefully, and I accept the occasional extra loaf of bread or jug of milk from my mother when she has too much for her own fridge, I can spend less than a hundred dollars a month on groceries. Which means more money left over at the end of the month after I've paid rent. Which means more money saved up for me to survive on in case my disability gets worse and I can't work anymore. (Please don't worry about me. I have more than enough to ride out the remainder of my lease should that happen anytime soon.) I could get food stamps as well if I wanted; I technically qualify due to my income being close to the aforementioned federal poverty line. But that requires setting up a phone interview with a county worker, and while I've largely kicked my fear of phone calls, I work too weird of a schedule to not be a huge hassle to the clerk handling the scheduling. I got approved! My card came in the mail a few days ago! Twenty bucks of toilet paper, here I come!

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    When I was in elementary school almost two decades ago, "food shelf" was something that bothered the teachers multiple times a year for a "food drive". And "food drive" was a sheet of paper I'd give my parents in our Wednesday newsletter folders that would make them groan and open up the pantry and pull out several cans of green beans and peas. I'd have to give a sagging plastic bag full of these cans to my teacher, who would count each can as an entry in a raffle for a pizza party for our class. (My class never did win any pizza parties.)

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    So cue my surprise when my mother and her friend took me to the food shelf for my first time- the two of them had been going for a while, so for me it was like a rite of passage- and I saw shelves overflowing with bread and fresh fruit and cans of soup and fridges of still-good deli sandwiches and gallons of milk and freezers with turkeys and homemade casseroles... and a small selection of canned peas. I thought, "Whoa! This is actual food! I'm not consigned to eating canned vegetables for the rest of my days!" And I filled up several cardboard crates with all the food they allowed me to take, and my mother's friend drove me home and helped me put everything away, and after they left I sat on my floor and cried for how grateful I was.

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    Because, you know, poor people are people too. And we like a variety of food just as much as you do. I know I'm lucky to have such a well-stocked food shelf nearby, but a lot of people in the USA aren't. So next time you donate, depending on what the individual shelf accepts, here are some things we'd really prefer you donated instead of canned peas that are still shelf-stable or at least freezable so they won't go bad for a long time:

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    Occasionally I feel bad about "living on the dole" and being dependent on the goodwill of others- I mean, I could afford groceries, but then I'd have no money left at the end of the month after rent- but then I look at my paystubs twice a month and see how much money is being deducted from my paycheck for taxes and Social Security and I realize I'm getting less from the state in benefits than I'm paying in, even factoring in the whole "being disabled" thing. Which shuts down the guilt pretty quick. And honestly, even if I was getting more out than I was paying, where would you rather have your tax money go: to disadvantaged people like me so we can survive, or the American imperial war machine to make people on the other side of the globe die? ("B-b-but Vane, you're conflating state and federal programs-" And who do you think is funding a large portion of those state programs?)

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    I'd really like it if you picked the former. And if you gave us something to eat other than canned peas. The healthier we are now, the less we'll cost you in medical debt later.

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    CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 © Vane Vander

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    2023