Ben Freeman 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

gunfire in the hills above the garden center bright red-white flowers of sound me eyeing succulents gunfire? yes and again a sparkle cough echo across the valley. two shots this time probably hunters i self-soothe sure a war is always on somewhere but never here, right? how could it when it is always we who bid it go we who slip the dogs from off the chain? if there is war loose in the world today surely it is our war surely this is merely hunting.

the lady with the change-purse lips and the potted yucca looks at me and nods she hears it too, she understands there is no reason to be alarmed. is there? surely no. her eyes decide. so too the gnarled man who clutches a ficus and thinks of the old country, the fruit trees shattered in his grandfather's war. he hears it twice an echo in his grandfather's ear the persistent aftershock of tinnitus a sound passed down through generations maybe we all hear it all the time the brutal applause of bullets the mosquito whine but i stay in line buy a new clay pot for my rootless money tree and walk out into the valley eyes shrugging the hillside.

and walk out into the valley eyes shrugging the hillside. there is sunshine. the wind is soft and from the East see how easy it is to go about the day?

Wrote a poem. Cheers.

This is just to say
I have savored the memories of when
We used to remix
The Williams poem
About stolen plums and not
The Yeats poem
About Armageddon

Forgive me
They were so sweet
And so old

Oh good tip, thanks!

Ooooo I love them! Never seen one in the wild though

I do, actually, quite a large one! I know what seagulls are, that's for sure 🤣

Omg and here I thought it would be lots of hiking 🤣🤣 this sounds doable

I had to tell them that no, they were not getting pictures of me in a pink dress, I did not recall that in the job description

Nah, just the usual, carry on 😣

Good? No.

A list of 15 MASH novels from Richard Hooker's Wikipedia page

Omfg

I only knew about the book singular!

That's pretty awesome, it's always been like Beatlemania to me, like I can appreciate the art but missed the hype

I wasn't allowed to watch it until I was 14 when I was suspended for decking a 6' football captain for using the n word for a friend of mine and I think at that point Dad decided he'd accidentally fixed my character and I ought to know how so we watched it and ate ice cream the whole week 🤣

Anyway, he passed before I transitioned, and I wanted it to be like he had named me

Hawkeye, you will recall, was named Benjamin Franklin Pierce. Hence Ben

(although later it occasionally took the form of "Dammit Hawkeye!" and something about "rigid sense of justice" or "fundamental inability to resist a thrown gauntlet" idk)

And he dreamed that Hawkeye and the gang from the 4077 were taking care of me and he knew I was going to be ok. Which, obviously, I was. So he called me Hawkeye from then on

The night of the final MASH episode, I was in NICU and my parents were told to come to the hospital and say goodbye. They would only let one parent be with me at a time, so finally it was very late and Dad fell asleep waiting for his turn

Oh yes. First aid kit, whistle, poncho, etc. Nothing makes you more paranoid than working with kids 😂

This is a great point about the local aspect, thanks

Ooo good idea, thanks

Ok so a thing I always wanted to do was learn birdwatching and now i live in a place that's going to be great for it. Are there organizations for it? First steps? Beginner equipment?

I think the thing about Target was that it isn't as cheap or have a big selection as Walmart, but it saves you from going to a home goods store, a clothes store etc and it was fun. But convenience and fun are easy things to give up. Makes it uniquely vulnerable to a boycott, I would guess?

Always

(In fairness, I knew trans women existed, but had never heard of trans men. Should have extrapolated but somehow didn't)

(Two spirit, hijra, etc). And I turned to my friend afterward snd said it must be nice to be able to choose to be something else and she looked at me real hard and was like... you're going to need coffee for this one, we need to talk

I'm on Team Born This Way, just didn't know trans people existed or that you could like. Do something about it. Went back for a degree in anthropology and had a trans girl in my class and the prof started talking about gender in different traditions

See???

OH MAN THERE ARE TWO

I and two colleagues spent all day puzzling over a defacement of a book that read, in a childish hand, "do not read, has the H word." Best we could come up with was "ho."

We all just... forgot.. abt the literal cuss word starting with h, which, while not flattering, does indicate I'll fit in here

Seriously, there's plenty for guys to read, but reading *culture* is feminine and "guy books" don't get advertised as heavily unless there's a SF movie based on them. So I do see a vicious cycle. I also see guys leaning into the cycle as learned helplessness soooo