It gets everywhere. No lies, I have placeholders in my manuscripts labelled TODO. 😂

No kidding. I wish everyone believed in basic trans rights, but man, sometimes I would settle for people just recognising their own self-interest and realising that gender policing can hurt them too.

I have never and may never see any Mission: Impossible films. Despite this, I have strong vicarious opinions about Ilsa being alive, based solely on your detailed posting.

My god, you're right, the puns would be magnificent.

I swear to god, in my head it made some kind of sense that all of these comics were about people being reborn in fantasy farmland and... I don't know, levelling up their crop rotation? I knew there was levelling involved in a lot of them.

I’m aware it’s not definitive, but thank you! Just have to start somewhere.

Like, I know it's shocking, but severe symptoms tend to stress you out?? Who knew.

I'm hoping for perimenopause, because I know that endo is the other obvious culprit, and I Do Not Want That. 🫂

Yeah, I have the referral but I'm waiting to do the endocrine tests until a specific point in my cycle.

You have all of my empathy. Things have only really gone wonky for the last few months, and I'm already done with it.

Based on chats with other women, it does seem like perimenopause is pretty likely. I am 100% ready to take some synthetic hormones and get rid of these symptoms, if so.

I have learned to go in with suggestions ready. It does not make me happy, and it makes me feel like a weird Dr Google patient, but it's better than wasting everyone's time.

I mean, legitimately, by the time I go to the trouble to make an appointment with a doctor, I am by definition pretty stressed about whatever is going on. I would otherwise still be at home going "whatever, maybe it'll go away and I won't have to schedule anything".

I couldn't even get this one to understand basic causality. He was like "so your period is making you more stressed" and I'm like "yes, because my period has changed, the change CAUSED the stress, I can draw you a timeline if you like".

I joke, but this legitimately gets women killed.

(I did indeed get some endocrine tests, but I cannot emphasise enough how verbatim the above conversation was and how much my respect for doctors in general continues to plummet as I get older.)

(Like, just as a for-instance, rape jokes should disqualify you from all human interaction until you grow at least the average toddler’s level of conscience.)

I think discernment in what you consume is great. I even think that some work is objectively (morally) Bad, and people who enjoy it should be ashamed.

But I bet the Guardian would be horrified at who I trust to draw those lines. Because it’s def not them or anyone of whom they’d approve.

Not right now! And this is likely to be a strike to the bitter end, given how badly the government has soured their relationship with unions.

Yes, but they're also just terrible. Every time I see that a company has chosen to send me a package via private carrier without asking me, I cry a little bit. I have STORIES.