Oh, floors… I have had writing foiled by floors before. I wish you all of the luck getting the flooring finished swiftly so you can focus on the words!

Oooh this is neat! I’ve been writing a solarpunk/cli-fi sci-fi novel lately, as well as a serial romance that will hopefully help fund my sci-fi. My goal right now is just to keep writing weekly, and so far I’m on a 7 week streak of writing at least once a week, which is massive for me. There’s even a 23-day streak hidden in those 7 weeks that was only thwarted because I came down with a stomach bug.

I guess my other goal is for my romance to be accepted by the serial publisher that I want to work with. But I’ve submitted my sample, and now it’s just up to them to deem if I’ll meet that goal or not, heh.

I would also love to figure out what I’m actually doing with the cli-fi. I have vague theme and plot concepts kicking around, but I usually discover most of the story as I write it.

Oh geez this. My parents never let me try out new things if they would be messy or might fail. I wanted a veggie garden, nope. Baking, too messy. Tons of craft things were vetoed for a very long time too. Thankfully as an adult I’ve rekindled these desires, and i have a garden I cultivate and a sourdough starter going (as examples). But I do mourn the learning I could have done as a kid.

I’m determined to let my kid do messy things. Right now the messiest thing she can do is spit up, but when she’s older she can have so much play doh and dirt time and baking time.

(Play doh only if she’s not eating it)

Ear plugs =/= can’t hear. Loops specifically are designed to allow you to hear but not have hearing damage.

My baby is colicky AF and will scream while we’re in the process of making her a bottle. Or while we’re burping her. Or when we have to pull the bottle away to wipe spit up. Or while we’re in the process of soothing her but not soothed yet.

I’m pretty patient (with children, not judgy parents though) but I’m not perfect. I can parent better and be more present while not massively overwhelmed by a noise designed by evolution to be horrible and intolerable.

I can see the concern, as a trans and nonbinary person, about the phrasing of the headline. Casual readers will totally think the actual guidance says “if you fuck up a person’s pronouns, you go to jail” or whatever.

But not the guidance itself. We need more protections against intentional, malicious misgendering as verbal harassment. Which is usually less “she said— oops, they said—“ and more stuff like “(female coworker) put has pronouns in her signature? I thought she was a REAL WOMAN”

(The second being a real example from a friends work place. Funny thing is, friend is stealth trans and the coworker being misgendered is cis, but i digress)

But yeah all that aside I think the real context is misgendering when someone needs the bathroom, e.g. “you’re in the wrong bathroom” type comments. Where we really need stronger protections.

God I’m so afraid of (inevitably) becoming consumerist. Even if I’m 100% prepared for the Needs, there will be a tenth, hundredth, millionth time a kid just Wants something and I will not be able to say no lol

I just want to say that I love that this book isn’t on Amazon (or is but I just can’t find it). I’m an author as well and the amount of focus there is on “get your book on Amazon!!!” drives me bonkers. Evil evil corporation, as we know (here anyways).

Anyways that aside, cover is gorgeous, and the blurb is super intriguing. Like, a murder in a place full of things you can murder someone with? That’s a neat premise.

I’ll set a reminder to grab it from smashwords on the 8th!

It’s tricky. I’m bipolar, and I need my medication to thrive, so we’ll need ways to compound those kinds of medications that aren’t at odds with solarpunk. What that looks like, I don’t know. I’d need more knowledge on how aripiprazole is created and a definition of “solarpunk” enough to combine them…

But also, I used to have severe issues with social anxiety. I still have the underlying anxiety predisposition, but improving my surroundings and the people around me helped with the anxiety.

I think a more solarpunk society will benefit the general mental health of a lot of people, but there are still going to be mental illnesses that need medical intervention.

But I think it’s also important to note that Solarpunk isn’t handed down from any governing body. There’s no strict dictation of what is and isn’t solarpunk and what does and doesn’t fit. We have general consensus, but it comes from the ground up, and it comes from what we talk about and how we talk about it. In short: If you want to discuss how mental health will be handled in a solarpunk society, the ball is in your court. It’s up to mentally ill folks and our advocates to determine our futures here.

Final caveat: I think there are some people in the solarpunk community who overlap with the… “natural is better” community. The “anti-chemical” community, or the “the only antidepressant you need is trees” community. That’s a problem we as individuals should definitely address. But again, how? Up to you and us.