Hardcore. Punk. Alternative. Pop. My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days, a time of peace when Guy Picciotto kept balance between the Hardcore Tribes, Punk Kingdom, Alternative Nation, and Pop Nomads. But that all changed whenĀ A Fire Inside attacked.
food coloring from mashed up mealy bugs. Finally a good use for those little suckers.Ā
I remember reading about this dye and thinking that these were some strange exotic bugs somewhere deep within the rainforest that I would never see.
Then I moved to Texas and started doing nature stuff. Guys. Guys. Guys. You would NEVER guess.Ā
OKAY first offĀ let me back up a little.
Texas.
Okay, youāre here with me now, right? Texas. Iāve accidentally sat on prickly pears so many times (pro-tip: donāt do this) I have a method for dealing with it.
The Carmine dye is from Cochineal insects. They are a type of scale insects, which is a weird plant-parasitic insect that essentially becomes immobile in adulthood and fuses itself with the plant (???). Theyāre like aphids, except more stealth and harder to deal with. Because of their Lifestyle Choices, they tend to be very host-specific, so they can only live on one type of plant. And there is a cochineal insect who is quite fond ofā¦ guess?
Oh right, yeah they also look like a bad case of the dandruffs. These bugs are also known asĀ āwaxy scalesā (or something? I donāt know, itās late and I donāt feel like doing a google), because that white stuff is a waxy substance they secrete for protection, similar to planthoppers they are related to.
Remember how I said theyāre like aphids? They are very much like aphids, and yes, there are specific types of lady beetles who will eat cochineal bugs. They tend to be a bit smaller.Ā
This is where that red dye becomes noteworthy. Whenever you see another insect eating one of these guys, itās like the sequel to There Will Be Blood or something.
Above: Brown Lacewing Enjoys a Refreshing Beverage with No Artificial Colors
It has been drilled into me that asking personal questions about potentially sensitive topics is rude, so I almost never inquire about them unless they are explicitly volunteered and just live in suppressed curiosity until someone opens up to me or I piece it together from clues. Or I die, I guess.
Which means I haveā¦ a lot of friends whose important details I just donāt fucking know. You could show up at my house one day with an alligator head and I just wouldnāt bring it up in case you were uncomfortable talking about it.
A lot of the time people will be like, āOh, why does your friend need x accommodation?ā
Fuck, I donāt know. They just do. Maybe a witch cursed them, maybe theyāre half Vulcan and it reacts badly with their copper-based blood, maybe their parents were eaten by the M&M mascotā¦ all I know is they canāt have blue candy. I have theories as to why, but unless they tell me directly or invite me to ask, Iām not going to pry. If they feel it is necessary for me to know, they will tell me.
That said, Iām pretty good at putting two and two together, so there have been many occasions where a friend will make a big confession to me and Iā¦ I definitely figured that out already but didnāt want to bring it up.
i know at least a dozen people whose genders i am honestly not sure about.
I am also pretty mad at my uncle and some thoroughly ingrained scapegoating family dynamics after that mail earlier. One of the reasons I hadn’t gotten in touch with him for years before this came up, tbqh.
He’s trying to be nice, and I have never been the Designated Family Scapegoat myself. Just her kid. (I actually thought I might have inherited the role with her gone, especially as bad as I am at staying in touch. But, it’s not sounding that way.)
What got me today was that we were having an only tangentially related e-mail conversation, with him making an effort to get along because he was glad to hear from me. And that thinking is still so deeply ingrained that he had to get in a barely veiled victim-blaming dig at his dead sister anyway.
To make it even better–and more exasperating–a dig that directly echoed some horribly abusive shit my Mamaw said to my mother in front of me when I was 6 and my parents had just finally split. That scene was bad enough that I still remember it pretty much verbatim–and then my mom further got blamed for making her mother that upset š”
My uncle probably doesn’t even know where he got that specific line of crap, other than Everybody Knows. Which honestly just makes it worse. There’s not a lot of room for reflection or insight, and I just get so tired. It’s not even directed at me, but jfc I do get tired.
Anyway, I know I’m not in the best emotional state, even without that. And I know I’m a little too prone to jumping into anger as a distraction from worrying about other matters. Anger is easier to deal with in some ways. (My uncle is also the same way, whether or not he’s as aware of what’s going on with it. I recognize the pattern too well. Yay, Family OCD Brain on trauma! šµ)
One reason I am just sitting on that message for a while, yeah. Not that I think hollering at him would do much good anyway. Definitely not when it comes to behavior like that.
Besides setting myself up as Unreasonable, of course. I know that pattern too. I’m more exasperated right now because I don’t think he is always even consciously aware that he’s baiting. As was just demonstrated again.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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