Carrie 📚🌱

A double A5 spread in my hand written journal with coloured pencil drawings. It shows photos and drawings of butterflies, moths and birds. Also pictured are Faber Castell pencils and a fineliner

A double A5 spread in my hand written journal with coloured pencil drawings. It shows photos and drawings of butterflies, moths and birds. Also pictured are Faber Castell pencils and a fineliner

Nature journaling ✏️🍃

💙📚 #booksky

Charts from my StoryGraph account show a reading wrap up for March, including 6 books and 1389 pages. Highest rated reads are They Called Me a Lionness and My Pen is the Wing of a Bird

Pie charts showing 50/50 fiction non-fiction. Most books were <300 pages and 66/33 print/audio.

March wrapped! 2 books read towards the Trans Rights Readathon as well as excellent reads from Palestine and Afghanistan

My white hand holds a copy of Lost in Work by Amelia Horgan

This week we had a work get together with an escape room and food (I normally WFH full time) it was super fun. But now I'm in bed because I've had migraines since and my neck has flared up so bad I can barely move. ANYWAY I'm gonna read this next:

I know this is a capitalism issue and not uniquely a chronic illness issue, and I am immensely lucky to be able to work full time to begin with. But boy, if it doesn't still sting. Sometimes weeks go by without responding to friend's messages because I'm too mentally burnt out.

I want to go out for walks. I want to sit in the sun and read and write book reviews. I want to draw and paint and play video games and see friends and family. But much of my time will go on napping and dealing with all the chores and tasks I was too exhausted to even look at in the week.

chronic illness: I have the 'perfect' job - love my colleagues, treated well, given flexibility, fairly compensated, and my work is enjoyable and stimulating. Yet every Friday after I finish, the depression hits bad when I realise my weekend simply exists to replenish spoons to go back on Monday. 😭

Robot spraying a human with water: “STOP READING ARGUMENTS ON THE INTERNET! YOU'RE MAKING YOURSELF UPSET!” The human looks back and hisses.

Future iteration of a screen time warning that I need

drawing of a large skipper butterfly

Now joined by a butterfly fren 🥹

A coloured pencil drawing of a green woodpecker on a tree, outlined in fine liner. The page it is on shows some decoupage (ripped patterned paper) and stamped flowers.

Sunday scribbles - working on this page of my nature journal featuring this European Green Woodpecker

Care Work (which I am listening to on audio, read by the author) is a series of essays and personal reflection exploring how disabled QTBIPOC can reimagine and radicalise community care with a focus on intersectional disabled justice. Leah identifies as non-binary and uses they/she pronouns.

Variations is a collection of short stories/writings inspired by real stories found in British archives. Jacques, a trans woman, uses different formats incl. letters, newspaper clippings and academic texts to illustrate the lives of the British trans people of the past. I'm really enjoying so far!

A photo of the book Variations by Juliet Jacques lying on a blanket. The cover shows the pink and blue of the trans flag with a half black, half white circle in the middle.

An image of the cover of Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. There is an illustration showing limbs of a person intertwined with twigs and plant growth

Here are my picks for the 🏳️‍⚧️ @trreadathon.bsky.social
I plan on reading more throughout the year to cover all the categories, but heres what I can realistically read this month! 💙🩷

20 recommended trans-representing books with the title caption "My Absolute Faves": I'm A Fool To Want You - Camila Sosa Villada Bad Girls/The Queens Of Sarmiento Park - Camila Sosa Villada Hammajang Luck - Makana Yamamoto Thorn - Intisar Khanani Celestial Monsters - Aiden Thomas The Death of Vivek Oji - Akwaeke Emezi You Made A Fool Of Death With Your Beauty - Akwaeke Emezi Detransition, Baby - Torrey Peters Sasha Masha - Agnes Borinsky Iron Widow - Xiran Jay Zhao She Who Became The Sun - Shelley Parker-Chan Felix Ever After - Kacen Callender They Bloom At Night - Trang Thanh Tran This Feast Of A Life - Cynthia So I'm Afraid Of Men - Vivek Shraya I Shall Never Fall In Love - Hari Conner The Deep - Rivers Solomon The Passing Playbook - Isaac Fitzsimmons We Deserve Monuments - Jas Hammonds Content Warning: Everything - Akwaeke Emezi

20 recommended trans-representing books with the title caption "My Immediate TBR": Hell Followed With Us - Andrew Joseph White Little Rot - Akwaeke Emezi Dragonfall - Laura Lam Bellies - Nicola Dinan Stag Dance: A Novel & Stories - Torrey Peters Paul Takes The Form Of A Mortal Girl - Andrea Lawlor Time And Time Again - Chatham Greenfield Chlorine: A Novel - Jade Song Hijab Butch Blues - Lamya H Dandelion Daughter -Gabrielle Tremblay Heavenly Tyrant - Xiran Jay Zhao The Black Tides of Heaven - Neon Yang Model Home - Rivers Solomon The Subtweet - Vivek Shraya He She They Us - Charlie Castelletti Girlfriends - Emily Zhou The Bruising Of Qilwa - Naseem Jamnia Prince of the Sorrows - Kellen Graves Life As A Unicorn - Amrou Al-Kadhi Her Majesty's Royal Coven - Juno Dawson

20 recommended trans-representing books with the title caption "My Friends' TBR" Light From Uncommon Stars - Ryka Aoki Second Chances In New Port Stephen - TJ Alexander Sorrowland - Rivers Solomon Womb City - Tlotlo Tsamaase The Unbroken - C.L. Clark Under The Dragon Moon - Mawce Hanlin Man o' War - Cory McCarthy What Happened On Roslyn Street? - Elle Lavendelle Brainwyrms - Alison Rumfitt Drag Me Up - R.M. Virtues Just Happy To Be Here - Naomi Kanakia Bad Habit - Alana S. Portero Making Love With The Land - Joshua Whitehead Godly Heathens - H.E. Edgmon The Thirty Names Of Night - Zeyn Joukhadar Sir Callie And The Dragon's Roost - Esme Symes-Smith Cemetery Boys - Aiden Thomas The Earl Meets His Match - TJ Alexander The Companion - E. E. Ottoman A Two-Spirit Journey - Ma-Nee Chacaby

20 recommended trans-representing books with the title caption "Community Recs": The Wicked Bargain - Gabe Cole Novoa Vicky Romeo Plus Joolz - Ely Percy The Flowered Blade - Taylor Hubbard Disintegrate/Dissociate - Arielle Twist The Deep & Dark Blue - Niki Smith Fine: A Comic About Gender - Rhea Ewing Home Body - Theo Parish Manhunt - Gretchen Felker-Martin She Who Earned Her Wings - Micah Iannandrea My Body Is Distant - Paige Haylott What It Feels Like For A Girl - Paris Lees The Human Origins Of Beatrice Porter & Other Essential Ghosts - Soraya Palmer Fallen Thorns - Harvey Oliver Baxter Ikarys The Damned - Taylor Hubbard Starting From Scratch - Jay Northcote Trans: A Memoir - Juliet Jacques Some Strange Music Draws Me In - Griffin Hansbury Calling My Deadname Home - Avi Ben-Zeev Yr Dead - Sam Sax A Trans Man Walks Into A Gay Bar - Harry Nicholas

I present to you, 100 books with trans rep (trans umbrella, author/MC) ahead of the @trreadathon.bsky.social including some from the community recommendations event I hosted with @gracereadsaudio.bsky.social - thanks to everyone who came. Last box and alt will be in comments! 💙📚🌈 What's on your TBR?

Can you *imagine* the international outcry if Hamas had killed 174 kids in one night for no better reason than a stall in ceasefire negotiations?

Love this bookshop!

LGBTQIA+ Fiction Masterlist A masterlist of queer fiction books which can be sorted and filter by preferences such as genre, age group, representation, and romantic pairing.

Now seems like a great time to reshare my LGBTQIA+ masterlist. 3,200+ books with a queer MC, that you can filter and search by multiple preferences, such as genre, target age group, representation, pairing, and additional tags like "dragons" #booksky

beffynicolereads.wordpress.com/queer-fictio...

No big deal, she says, we'll just have to make 2 incisions. And when she put the new implant in, it slid right in with very little pain and was done in a matter of seconds. So clearly, it wasn't just 'pressure' the first time. I was in pain as it forced its way in, and should have been listened to!

Well, I go today and the woman is lovely. She can see I'm anxious and she is really caring with how she approaches me to make sure it's the least discomfort as possible. When she came to my arm to remove it though, she realises the first one was put in the wrong place. (5/-)

..and push through. Was like this for several minutes and then finally, it was in. My arm was throbbing for a long time after, and the bruises lasted weeks. I thought that I was just being over-sensitive to the pain, but I've been so anxious for when the time would come to get it replaced. (4/-)

It was like I could feel it being pushed into the tissue as if there was no space and it was being forced through despite resistance. I told her and she said 'it doesn't hurt, it's just a feeling of pressure'. Ok, well it hurts for me but I guess I'm just being a wimp, so I'll grit my teeth.. (3/-)

When I first had it put in 3 years ago, I informed the practioner about my heightened pain sensitivity due to FMS. She said not to worry as it won't hurt anyway with the anaesthetic. Once she'd made the incision and was putting in the implant, it really fucking hurt. Loads. (2/-)

Fed up of being gaslighted by medical professionals as a woman/person with chronic pain/illness. Just one minor incident in a line of many. Go to get my implant removed/replaced today. This is a procedure that 'doesn't hurt' according to the NHS website... (1/-)

what a stunning bird

The Aurora Borealis and the Milky Way taken at Cairngorm mountain.

The Aurora Borealis and the Milky Way. Taken half way up Cairngorm mountain, which sounds impressive right? Until you realise that you can actually drive almost half way up. 😁

Goodnight #bluesky enjoy the rest of your day, evening, night and stay safe.

A fair and just society should be one that supports everyone to thrive, not allows them to barely survive...

A close-up of the post's author, a white woman, dressed as Geralt from The Witcher, including make-up to add scars and facial hair. A half smile suggests an invitation...

A fuller length picture with the same outfit, the poster is leaning against the wall with arms folded

I don't usually like posting pictures of myself, but oh boy, I felt sooo good this weekend channelling my inner Geralt of Rivia for a party. Cobbled together with second-hand finds, stuff from the back of the wardrobe and a cheap and nasty white wig I cut and restyled. Where's my Yennefer at?

Counter Protesters at the LWS transphobic hate rally in Aberdeen 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

Trans rights will forever be women's rights! 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

#booksky #audiobooksky PSA: