Three and half years ago I decided it was time to escape the US south and I moved to a new city with no contacts, and just enough savings to stay at a motel as I searched for a job and an apartment. I managed to find both, although I wound up with a long commute. I really liked the walkable neighborhood my apartment was in, and the job was alright, and I managed to work it out to commute with public transit so that was tolerable.

But after about 2 years, my landlord sold the apartment and I had to move. Meanwhile, I was getting frustrated/bored with work, I'd been transferred to a more technical role with a promise of a raise if I did well at it - I did great but around that time the company got bought out and the promise was forgotten. I also wasn't out as trans and felt awkward coming out there. On the one hand it was an opportunity to relocate closer but I didn't really want to, instead it kinda forced a decision point where I felt like I was as empty-handed as when I first moved up.

My parents wanted me to come home for the holidays, my brother was offering to let me stay while I sort things out and think longer term than just paying the bills, and I was ready for a vacation, and I wanted travel around to visit some friends I hadn't seen in a while. So I decided to move in with my parents for a bit - a decision that I instantly regretted.

Suddenly dropping myself into an environment where I was closeted and also didn't know anyone or have any interest in left me confining myself to my room retreating into video games - to the point that it became difficult to do anything, including, y'know, leaving. The "for the holidays" I had originally planned on stretched out a lot longer than it had any right to, I felt trapped, and I just sort of dissociated.

Finally I got around to moving in with my brother, who I was also not out to, but I did at least have some more privacy and could connect with him a bit more. One day, I finally stopped retreating into games and realized that there was no way forward except through coming out, and I was able to do it.

It went poorly. He kicked me out. But I had steeled myself for it, I knew that was a possibility, and I had survived on my own before and could do it again, and having my back against the wall might have been what I needed to get my ass in gear, so I accepted it in quiet resignation. Then he changed his mind. I was confused and disoriented, things were super awkward between us, and I tried to avoid him. Then he changed his mind again. At that point I was just pissed, yelled at him, and was ready to storm out. He offered to help me with relocation expenses and if I wasn't broke I would've spit on it, instead I swallowed my pride and made peace - although we haven't spoken since.

Fortunately, as luck would have it, my elderly uncle had moved out of his house in the suburbs outside of the city I'd moved to, and I was able to talk my mom into letting me stay there. It's not the best location and the water isn't potable, and my mental health was not the best and I'd developed some bad habits so even back on my own I was just playing a bunch of video games for a while. But just as my savings were drying up, I managed to land a new job.

It's not the best job for a number of reasons, and it's just a temporary warehouse position, but it's connected to something worthwhile (science education). And, it's the first job that I've ever worked where I'm out! In the past I've always been hesitant about being out in the professional sphere. And it feels good to get out of the house and get some money rolling in (although my paycheck doesn't come til next week ), and to remind myself I'm capable of being more than a shut-in

Hopefully once I've made some money through this I'll find something else closer, and ideally fewer hours, and be able to find a happy medium between not having income and being extremely averse to spending money vs being tired out and not having enough time to enjoy life, because frankly 40 hours is too much time to spend working unless you really need it.

But for now, I'm back on my feet ~~(literally)~~ and that's a big step forward, I can feel my independence and self-confidence returning, and my desire to push away reality and retreat fading.

Never knew who the institute was named after

I've never actually made tofu because I don't cook often, but today it was on sale for $0.88/lb (limit 4) so now I have 4 pounds (1.8 kg) of tofu (3 firm, 1 extra firm) that I have no idea what to do with. The oven/stove at my place is broken, so I just have a microwave, but fwiw it has a convection option.

I know there's something about cutting it into cubes and pressing out the moisture, and I know it's really good at absorbing flavor but doesn't have much on its own, but that's about all I know. I guess I can look up recipes, but idk how to adapt them to a microwave and also online recipes are a pain because of SEO.

Thanks.

By giving white an extra half point, they would win games that would otherwise be tied, giving every* game a clear winner.

It's been rough. But at my weakest moment, a voice in my head reminded me, "You can't give in or internet communists will call you a cheesebreather." I would like to specifically thank @Angel@hexbear.net as well as anyone else who I might have seen throwing it around for keeping me honest.

My friends did pick up breadsticks for me which helped because it's basically the same kind of slop but without the cruelty.

I'm usually eating on my own where I never struggle with controlling my diet, but those social situations when it's free and I'm the only vegan in the room can be super challenging. But I know if I'd made an exception I'd feel guilty later and it would make it harder to assert in the future. Now I really need to reward myself and splurge on like the best vegan pizza I can find.

Pic of cow as a rememinder of what it's all about

Somebody had to do it.

That's it. Our instance requires us to stop responding if you explicitly ask us to. It's right here buried in our Code of Conduct

Any discussions may be opted out of by disengaging.

In the past, this rule has only applied to the specific user you say it to. I'd like to suggest going forward that if someone on another instance uses it, we treat it as applying to all of us.

Unfortunately this rule wasn't communicated clearly before, so I'm making this post for visibility.

Edit: As the comments clarify, this has to be done in good faith, typically just a one word "disengage" comment. If you add more stuff to the discussion and then say "disengage" at the end, you're not disengaging, it's a way to put a stop to a toxic argument not to get the last word in.

I don't usually use forums or Lemmy, I usually just post comments on SocDem blogs but they didn't seem appropriate places to post my story. So here goes, I just wanted to share this with all of you.

Aug 8 I checked out Lemmy, I did lemmy.world then lemm.ee then hexbear.net next. I am an SocDem so I wanted to see socialists in these places. Yes, I know they are different kinds of "socialists" and not really full socialists like us. I went to Hexbear, which everyone knows is famous for its revolutionary socialism.

We started talking about politics and socialism. I was trying to talk about the right, they were like yeah no doubt the right was bad. But they wanted to talk about Western hegemony, Western hegemony this and that. This is when we started to get into a debate.

I told them that what they called Western hegemony is different from the rules based order. They said the rules based order is Western hegemony. And I said I agreed. That is what I am saying. Real Western hegemony is a rules based order. And they said yes, that is what we are trying to get rid of. And I said no, but we don't even have that right now. We need more Western hegemony. And everyone at the same time was like "nooo" we are socialists, we are against Western hegemony. Socialists oppose Western hegemony. And I said but not social democrats. Social democrats are the socialists who support NATO.

I think that is when it started to get a really bad vibe, really tense in the air. The hegemony thing was funny, we disagreed but I think they thought I was just confused. Everyone was uncomfortable now. Then someone said the rules based order won't allow international solidarity. And I said exactly, that's it, international solidarity is against the rules based order. And they kind of agreed, and said yes, we don't have real international solidarity, just imperialism, and we needed to respect Russian security concerns. I said no, we need less support for Russia, Russia is the enemy. And we need to defeat Russia to have socialism. Then they were all like "noooo" again. You know that thing people do in groups when everyone all says "nooo" or expresses some disapproval at the same time.

And one of them said "but Putin is a neoliberal transphobe" and then they kind of spoke back and forth in emojis. I didn't really understand it. And they asked me what I meant.

So I said okay, I had the floor, I was going to tell them about social democracy. I tried to explain to them that Putin was exactly like Hitler and that China is genociding Uighurs. I said the democrats have our best interests at heart and they had to increase military spending to counter foreign threats. They are trying their best. They said what do we want instead of communism. I said we want to defend the international order against anyone who defies it. They said that is what we have now. I said no, it would be even better. One of the guys said it was imperialism. And I said it is not imperialism.

Eventually one of the posters spoke up. He said he knew what social democracy was and that we were basically fascists. He asked me if the IMF should be the only choice for developing counties. And I said yes. And he asked me if I thought people outside the imperial core were brainwashed. And I told him yes. He said what about immigrants and racism. And I said that that wouldn't happen under Western hegemony. But yes, Democrats could put immigrants in cages if they wanted to. They had to respect Western hegemony.

Then he called me a fascist again, and someone else said I was a fascist. And then they basically all started shouting fascist at me, and one of them posted a pig with shit on it's testicles and told me to go fuck myself. I remember yelling "you're being authoritarian!" and things like that. "Stop suppressing my free speech." Then the mods banned me for 1984 years.

So they were rude and authoritarian. I knew the tankies were not real socialists, but I never knew they would do something that bad.