Day: July 10, 2018

I am feeling slightly more human this afternoon, at least.

Hadn’t gotten any decent sleep in over a week, with the way our bedroom heats up and holds it. I know I’ve bitched about that before, but between the big window with the sun beating on it all afternoon and the (purposeful) lack of cross ventilation? It’s just not good whenever we do get some hot sunny weather.

There’s also no good way to get a fan in the little top-opening pane to force some ventilation at night. Won’t cool down again for probably a week after the outside temperatures eventually go back down, either. Can’t really try sleeping in a slightly cooler room like I used to now, either, needing the ridiculous pillow nest because trash body.

Anyway, I have never been good at sleeping hot. Never. And it was getting to the point that sweaty zombie meltdowns were starting up, besides just generally not functioning that well on like 4 hours of broken sleep a day. Especially dealing with the chronic pain bullshit.

But, apparently my body decided a reset was overdue anyway. I passed out reading in the bed last night, and slept like a dead thing for about 6 hours. And another 4 hours this morning/early afternoon, the same deal. After that, I’m almost feeling human again! (Surprisingly enough.)

More of the same weather is forecast for at least the next week. Not really looking forward to that. But, I guess I’ll take what I can get.

On the flip side, last winter, it was in the negative double digits in Virginia, which is cold even for them, but in the town I live in now in Florida, it got down into the low 30s. Which is kinda high for winter temps in Virginia. But I got a peek at someone’s power bill down here? $350 for that month. Because these apartments are made to stay cool. And because people’s bodies aren’t used to that kind of cold. They don’t have the wardrobe for it.

The commentary this came from reminded me of something I have actually run into a couple of different times here around London, and had trouble not just laughing in people’s faces.

“Where in the States are you from?…Ah, Virginia. That sounds lovely and warm!”

“You may be thinking of Florida. In the summer, definitely!” 0_o

[Optional: They do start talking about their trip to Orlando.]

Yeah, attempts at polite conversation without a lot of reference to draw on. Still hard to know how to respond sometimes 😅

(Negative double digits is not nearly as unusual in the mountains, BTW. It just doesn’t stay that low for more than a week at a time, usually. With close to the same level of general bitching that happens here when it dips below freezing. 0F and 0C have that much in common 🙄)

finnglas:

thebibliosphere:

unendingballofstress:

thebibliosphere:

revolutionaryshoe:

thebibliosphere:

thebibliosphere:

It is approximately a bajillion degrees outside (90°f) and I regret any and all life choices that lead to me being outside right at this very moment.

I am too Scottish for this nonsense.

We cannae help you fam, we’re dying here. It was 30 degrees at 6.30pm, The grass has gone brown. The Highlands are literally on fire. Nowhere has any air conditioning because of course we don’t it’s f*cking Scotland

We haven’t seen rain in weeks and we’re starting to lose all sense of identity. 

My da’ keeps telling me the garden is on fire, I thought he was kidding.

Ya’ll are weak af

I get these kind of comments are typically jokey, but these are literally dangerous temperatures for people not used to them, and the UK doesn’t typically get this hot for more than a random day let alone weeks. It’s about 20°f hotter than it usually gets in some places for this time of year, so people are a) not used to it b) have no air conditioning and c) no idea how to handle this kind of heat at all and d) you dinnae ken humidity till you’ve felt Scotland in the middle of a heatwave, it’s like wading uphill through treacle, and the air sits in the lungs like swamp water. And I moved to Minnesota for gods sake. We only have two seasons, hell and frozen hell.

So maybe gonnae no wi your non helpful comments when people who never have to deal wi this kind of thing struggle tae deal wi it.

There’s nae gold medal at the end of the suffering Olympics, only gilt.

Also like. Apart from just air conditioners, buildings are built differently in different climates. The insulation is different. Example: I just moved (back) to Florida from Virginia. Apartments here are built to let go of heat. Mine doesn’t have it, but a lot of houses have Terra Cotta tile floors because they’re cooler to walk on and don’t hold heat. Houses are built with lots of shade. Oh, and state laws allow you to tint your vehicle windows much darker than most other states. (Kellie was shocked by how dark people’s window tint is. “Isn’t that illegal?” Not in Florida. Not when the sun will literally punch you in the face in the summer.)

On the flip side, last winter, it was in the negative double digits in Virginia, which is cold even for them, but in the town I live in now in Florida, it got down into the low 30s. Which is kinda high for winter temps in Virginia. But I got a peek at someone’s power bill down here? $350 for that month. Because these apartments are made to stay cool. And because people’s bodies aren’t used to that kind of cold. They don’t have the wardrobe for it.

Honestly, not being able to see the context that makes people have difficulty with something you are personally dealing with just fine is weak af.

thebibliosphere:

butlerbookbinding:

thebibliosphere:

Baffles my mind that you can make a comment like “please be a little kinder” and people go out of their way to do the opposite. And it happens all the time.

The other day I reblogged something affirmative and people went out of their way to be mean and point out the world is cruel. Like cool story fam, I know it is, that’s why I go out of my way to try and not be, because maybe if I do, the world will be less crueler for someone else. And why would you not want that.

“Oh it’s just a joke, lighten up” nah. How about you raise the bar and stop mistaking cruelty for cynical wit. How about we try that, cause honestly I’m done humoring the nastiness of others.

Some people seem to need to see someone else being miserable in order to feel good, and that’s both really sad and hella annoying, because not only have they been socialized to be cruel, but they refuse to acknowledge it and try to be kinder??

And I get that it’s easier to be mean sometimes, I really really do. I’m not just sitting here spouting empty positivity platitudes for brownie points. For one thing my positivity is not empty, but is instead derived from years of painful mental and emotional self examination and growth.

I was raised by people who thought the phrase “cruel to be kind” was an open license to go hunting and destroy people’s self worth in the name of being “honest”. I survived years of emotional and mental abuse, and do you know what? It didn’t make me kind.

It made me cruel, and bitter and jaded. It made my humor cruel, and bitter and jaded. And it took me a long time before I was able to realize that, and even longer to be in a place to deal with it and be able to objectively look at my shit and decide to do better.

And it’s not easy. Some days are easier than others, but most are not. There are times when it would absolutely be easier to tear people apart until there was nothing left. It’d be profoundly easier to deal with this blog by being able to lash out freely…but then this blog wouldn’t be what it is. And I wouldn’t be who I want to be either.

It’s hard gods damned work to be kind. And that people mistake that kindness for nativity or stupidity is honestly so exasperating because I know you.

I know who you are, and I know you’re scared and you think in order to keep the world from hurting you, you need to lash out first.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

And it’ll hurt like hell, my Gods it will hurt. But it’ll be worth it. Promise.

So be kind, you fucking fuckers. It’s worth it in the end.

That said, my mom was friends with a woman who had recently moved from Minneapolis to where we were in the SWVA mountains. And promptly froze. Her first winter was miserable.

It may not stay frozen all winter like in Minnesota–but, that means a lot more cold damp between the snow/ice storms. She was not at all used to dealing with that.

I thought I kinda was, but then reacted about the same way to the dark drizzly fridge-temperature wind chamber that is a British winter. It’s pretty extreme in its own relentless bone-chilling way–and can also sneak up on you, because it’s not even that cold by the thermometer, right? 😨

(Tip: You may think your shoes/boots are reasonably water resistant. Better hope you’re not wrong, especially if you’ll be spending all day out in them!)

But yeah, climates you’re not used to can give you some surprises. And it pays to keep that in mind.

thebibliosphere:

emily-vole:

thebibliosphere:

unendingballofstress:

thebibliosphere:

revolutionaryshoe:

thebibliosphere:

thebibliosphere:

It is approximately a bajillion degrees outside (90°f) and I regret any and all life choices that lead to me being outside right at this very moment.

I am too Scottish for this nonsense.

We cannae help you fam, we’re dying here. It was 30 degrees at 6.30pm, The grass has gone brown. The Highlands are literally on fire. Nowhere has any air conditioning because of course we don’t it’s f*cking Scotland

We haven’t seen rain in weeks and we’re starting to lose all sense of identity. 

My da’ keeps telling me the garden is on fire, I thought he was kidding.

Ya’ll are weak af

I get these kind of comments are typically jokey, but these are literally dangerous temperatures for people not used to them, and the UK doesn’t typically get this hot for more than a random day let alone weeks. It’s about 20°f hotter than it usually gets in some places for this time of year, so people are a) not used to it b) have no air conditioning and c) no idea how to handle this kind of heat at all and d) you dinnae ken humidity till you’ve felt Scotland in the middle of a heatwave, it’s like wading uphill through treacle, and the air sits in the lungs like swamp water. And I moved to Minnesota for gods sake. We only have two seasons, hell and frozen hell.

So maybe gonnae no wi your non helpful comments when people who never have to deal wi this kind of thing struggle tae deal wi it.

There’s nae gold medal at the end of the suffering Olympics, only gilt.

When we went to the uk there was like, a weather report on the radio and they said it was a heatwave and we were laughing until we thought of the fact that we’d been frozen for half the trip despite it being summer

When etd and I got married it was May, and all of his family brought spring clothes with them, only to wind up buying winter clothes because the Minnesotans thought it was too cold.

Ours is not a hot climate.

Exploited Amazon workers need a union. When will they get one? | Michael Sainato

thatdiabolicalfeminist:

‘With a net worth of around $140bn, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is now the richest person in the world. That distinction has come at the expense
of Amazon’s workers. In order for those workers to begin sharing in the
vast wealth their labor has afforded Bezos and other Amazon executives,
they need a union.

Since Amazon’s founding
in 1994, the company has successfully suppressed all efforts by its
employees to unionize and improve working conditions. A few years ago,
maintenance and repair technicians at Amazon filed a petition with the
National Labor Relations Board announcing their intention to form what
would have been Amazon’s first union. Amazon immediately hired a law firm to suppress the organizing effort.

In 2000, after an arm of the Communication Workers of America attempted to organize
customer service employees, Amazon responded by shutting down the call
center where they worked. (The company claimed, unpersuasively, that the
firings weren’t related.)

The same year, the New York Times reported
that Amazon’s internal website for managers included instructions on
detecting and busting unionizing efforts. In 2016, the Times exposed
a manager at an Amazon warehouse in Delaware who made up an anti-union
story to scare employees off organizing. According to the Times, several
employees appeared to have been fired for advocating a union.

While Amazon has been diligently working to shut down any prospect of
its workers unionizing, investigative journalists and activists have
uncovered widespread abuses of workers. Ambulances were called to
British Amazon warehouses 600 times in three years. James Bloodworth, a
writer who went undercover at an Amazon warehouse in Staffordshire,
England, discovered that workers there routinely urinated in water bottles to avoid being punished for taking breaks from work.

Similar conditions have been reported in the United States. In a 2011 essay
for the Atlantic, writer Vanessa Veselka shared her experiences working
at an Amazon warehouse outside Seattle. She described how employees
were forced to work in robotic, fast-paced conditions. Veselka was
eventually fired from her temp position at the warehouse after she
attempted to organize a union.

More recently, warehouse workers told
Business Insider about time-crunched employees using trash bins to go to
the bathroom. Employees also described a work atmosphere predicated on
fear of missing productivity targets, and said that employees spent most
of their lunch breaks waiting in line for onerous security screenings.
Former Amazon workers have also said they are pressured to under-report warehouse injuries.

Amazon workers are not paid wages that reflect these strenuous
working conditions. In at least four states, the company is one of the top 20 employers of people dependent on food stamps. In a 2017 corporate filing, Amazon reported
that the median salary of its employees is $28,446, or roughly $13.68
an hour for full-time employees. Jeff Bezos makes more than that every nine seconds.

…Amazon’s tendency to locate its warehouses in rural areas
also makes it more difficult for workers to leave Amazon to find higher
paying work – though Amazon still has one of the highest employee
turnover rates in corporate America. According to PayScale,
Amazon’s employee-turnover rates are the second worst of all Fortune
500 companies. In addition, a large portion of the company’s employees
are temporary; the company regularly hires 120,000 seasonal employees to handle extra workloads during the holidays.

Those who do stay on as full-time employees are pushed to their
physical limits – making it all the more difficult for workers to find
time and energy to organize for collective rights.

In Europe, Amazon workers have found more success. In March, Amazon
workers at a warehouse in San Fernando de Henares, Spain, received union
support as they organized their first strike, joining similar strikes in Germany and Italy. In Italy, after strikes and protests, Amazon recently agreed to end unfair scheduling practices.

Though Amazon has suppressed union efforts in the US, campaigners in
Seattle recently made a heroic effort to push back on the campaign’s
bullying. Last month, local leaders and activists there successfully
lobbied the Seattle city council to pass a
“head tax” on Seattle corporations grossing more than $20m in revenue.

Advocates in favor of the tax argued that Amazon, which paid no federal taxes
in 2017, should contribute to funding city services; such tax revenue
could be used for affordable housing and homeless services. Amazon responded
to the tax by threatening to scale back its business in Seattle. As a
testament to the political power Amazon wields, the Seattle city council
repealed the tax with no replacement just a month after the same council members unanimously passed it.

The lesson from that episode seems to be that only unions, not local legislation, can really hold Amazon accountable to its workers…

The
reality is that the decline of America’s traditional retail industry has
left a void that corporate titans like Amazon will continue to exploit –
unless employees, unions and Amazon customers work together to raise
wages and improve working conditions.

Exploited Amazon workers need a union. When will they get one? | Michael Sainato