Categories
a better world is possible home making reviews

Lotion Quest

get your minds out of the gutter

what’s up nerds, i said i was gonna post more here. AND also credit where it’s due, this post is actually ~inspired to my friend who said in my discord chat “oh are you gonna turn this into a blog post?” so thank you caitlin ❤

the backstory

it’s november of 2023. we haven’t yet been told that “this is the most important election of our lives”, but someone somewhere is mad at teen girls for enjoying something. we’re all living our lives, as we are wont to do.

in a turn of tragedy, i realize that every single “gold bond advanced healing lotion” (my Go To, Standby, Ride or Die lotion) now has aloe added. this means obviously that they have changed the formula — thanks for nothing, shareholders! this series of unfortunate events compels me to embark on a quest for a replacement.

of course, where is a lazy bitch to acquire a plethora of smallish testing-sized lotions? to jeff bezos’ warehouse of human misery we head, and purchase every reasonably priced (and literally all different sizes, truly madness) gold bond lotion currently available.

which is the context for this photo:Image

now its now

a few weeks ago a friend asked “what have you learned about the lotions” and i literally had so many thoughts i had to clear a half an hour in my calendar to organize them + type them up. lightly edited for clarity, they are below.

OKAY LOTION NOTES THOUGHT DUMP! Remember, if you will, from November, that the whole goal of ‘buy every gold bond lotion on amazon, which are for some reason literally all different sizes’ was to find as close of replacement for used-to-be-good, now-has-aloe-and-is-shit goldbond advanced healing lotion.

by this criteria, there are two clear winners. “overnight deep moisturizing body lotion” (dark blue) is the most similar to the previous formula, BUT it is immediately disqualified from being in my life because it’s fucking SCENTED (lavender, its nice, i just hate smelly lotion). because of the disqualification, the One True Winner was the psoriasis relief (green). It has the most similar feeling to the old lotion, although it is not as thick. but also it heals my knuckles that always get dry as shit, so that’s a win.

moving from left to right in the photo,

  • we begin with “ezcema relief” (brown) with oatmeal. this lotion is SLIPPERY. it feels very hydrating, but also like you’re gonna drop your phone for the next hour after you use it. I like it, though, and wouldn’t be mad to get it as a stocking stuffer.
  • Next up is “diabetic foot cream” (pink) — this lotion reminds me of a shea butter – it is essentially a solid. you have to WORK it into your skin, like with friction/heat/effort. but damn, i put some socks over my feet for as long as i could stand during sleep, and the next morning my lil feet were smooth as helllll.
  • we discussed psoriasis relief (green) and overnight (dark blue) above.
  • “pure moisture” (light blue) is very inoffensive, but it’s too watery – every time i get some out of the tube i get WAY TOO MUCH. it’s just too thin. it does absorb quickly, tho.

honestly none of these was a bust but the diabetic foot cream being just as much work as my shea butters im too lazy to use (it’s not bad, i just dont want to work that hard).

i dont have a real conclusion here, folks, and i wanna go smoke some weed on this friday evening, so. bye, best of luck on your :rainbow: hydration journey :rainbow:

stay safe, stay warm, wear a mask (covid real bad rn), drink water, if you have my number and you are reading this you are OBLIGATED to text me a funny meme (i mean if u want to, its a joke for the content).

OK BYE FOR REAL

Categories
a better world is possible technology Uncategorized

Tweet Less / Blog More

I’ll be real with you all. I have a few goals I have been working on for literally years, including things like “read 52 books a year”, and “develop a morning routine”.

One of my technology related goals has been to use this space more for my ~posts across the web. I’m almost weaned from instagram (and can tell, as I get angry about how different it is every time I use it). I will keep my twitter until the day the web servers fall over / we see our final fail whale / they take me away … but … I don’t really spend time there any more. It’s fuller of spam and bigotry than it ever has been, and I’ve opted to time box it a lot more restrictively.

It’s wild to think a website I used to spend upwards of probably six hours a day on is now in my life for about 45 minutes a day. Nothing gold can stay, and twitter was never more than pyrite.

I still check in to see what my internet friends are up to, try to help my poorer friends get visibility for their financial asks, and see if the excellent curation I’ve put years into fine tuning has bubbled up quality journalism. Also people do post pretty good TikToks there and that’s nice, as I won’t be learning a new app.

So, in the spirit of a new year’s resolution and doing things differently – welcome to this short first post of 2024. Look forward to content this year like: book reviews, home project musing, and (coming soon!) an entire blog post about gold bond lotion. What would you like to read more of? Let me know!

In the interim, make sure you’re wearing a mask, drinking water, sleeping as much as your schedule allows, and finding a way to laugh and build community as we experience the fall of Rome. Love y’all.

(dog photo tax)

my dog asleep on me
Categories
a better world is possible unhinged thoughts

shit is so weird

I am doing my absolute best to keep my life together. We got a dog, she’s literally perfect and certainly smarter than your dog; I don’t care if your seeing eye pup won a motherfucking spelling bee, do not @ me.

I’m writing this because it’s an attempt to remember to post here! I have three goals right now

  • finesse a fuckin title change at work / be released from a horrible client
  • finish “Ready for Revolution” by Kwame Ture, Michael and I’s 2022 book (ell oh ell!). Currently on page 600 out of like 800. So. You know. Pray for me.
  • prepare to turn the new denver mayoral proposed budget into graphics so fucking sick everyone will agree we should just make the money printer go brrrrrr until we house everyone

OK I have to go fucking read now!! BYE NERDS

a tweet by @/kendrawcandraw "Me watching some high fantasy shit: I would simply not be corrupted by the magical object. If it is actively harming you why don't you just put it down. 
Idiot
Me receiving psychic damage 23 hours a day from my phone: Ouuughhhhoouuuuwwwwaaaaaaooaaaaghuuuuuhhhowwgahhhhh guuuuuwah - 27 Feb 22
Categories
a better world is possible society

A Caffeine Addiction Is Just An Addiction

Subheading: be less of an asshole!

If you need coffee to feel normal, if you require red bull to make it through another shitty shift, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is: you’re addicted to caffeine. The good news is: that’s morally neutral, because drugs and addiction are older than writing!

The issue, as I see it, with a moralistic or value judgement placed on drugs is that we are creating a two tier system, instead of admitting a fundamental truth: drugs are awesome and they help people deal with sentience. Even other animals get high, for fuck’s sake!

Choosing to view some addictive substances (caffeine, alcohol) as culturally acceptable – well, not in all cultures, shout out to the temperance religions – is that by creating this dichotomy we have created yet another avenue for punishment (and in the US, this almost always leads to / ends with incarceration).

People who smoke crack and functional alcoholics and people who take medicine to inhibit serotonin uptake are all participating in a fundamental part of being alive: to be in control of your experiences and interactions with the world. Drugs are the spice of life! Some people need them to not want to die (please take your meds) and some people just want to use them to lower their inhibitions. Others use drugs to make an intolerable life pleasurable for fleeting moments – and, as long as you realize that even when you consume drugs, you are still responsible for your actions insofar as not hurting others, there is nothing wrong with that.

In addition to the unnecessary judgement and punishment, we also make recovery so much harder for people who want to get sober. Now, again, there’s nothing wrong with not choosing sobriety. But if and when people choose to change a habit, by creating a tier of unacceptable drugs, we impose so much stigma and shame that prevents people from being successful at sobriety. It’s okay to talk about being in a twelve step program (which some employers pay for!!) but it’s not OK to admit it’s been a decade since you’ve shot heroin. And I think that’s bullshit!

Criminalizing drugs also necessitates the relationship between user and dealer, and drug dealers do not fuck around. A better world is possible, and it could start with free drugs on demand. All of them!! Abortion pills. Birth control. Ibuprofen. Opioids. Amphetamines. Alcohol. Caffeine. Allergy medicine. Insulin. Cancer drugs. Think of the hospital bill reductions. Think of the administration costs saved for insurance pReApPrOvAl.

This would end the power imbalanced dealer-user relationship, and WAY LESS people (goal: no one ever) would die from unsafe drugs, because we can make and test them before we give them away to ensure safety!! Oh my god!! DOESN’T THAT SOUND LIKE A BETTER FUCKING WORLD??

In sum: drugs are good, it’s ok if you do them, don’t be an asshole to other drug users (aka all sentient life), if you want sobriety I want you to succeed, if you don’t want sobriety I fuckin get it – we all deserve free drugs because labor is entitled to all it creates.