I have to stop at the grocery store on the way home for some iceberg lettuce - the most expensive means of transporting water across the country - and I am pre-wincing at the cost. I expect it will be more. I expect I will pay it. Oh, I could go all the way to Aldi’s, that alternate universe of fake brands and brusquely truncated bagging experience, but I don’t want to. So the boutique grocery store it is, for some vegetable reaming.

Sounds like a dish. Vegetable Reaming. You want to look it up on a gastronomy site, and learn that Reaming is a translated term, from the German, Reamung, a stew of sudden violence. Old men would speak wistfully of the dish, of the days when they’d come home from school to a good hot Reamung. Nowadays, they make it different, it’s not the same. I think Mother used paprika. Of course, we controlled Hungary then.

It’s Tuesday at work, and the lights are on. The office is full. The skyways are buzzing. It’s Pretend Day. I like it, although it makes me wonder if I’ve gone mad and am finally hallucinating the old world. For all I know I’m in a coma somewhere and this is just a dream that repeats without variation every few hours. Don’t think so - I just washed down an Aleve with cold coffee, and that’s something I’ve never done before. No precedent in the data banks.

When I bought it at the downtown Walgreens the clerk asked how I was and I said Fine, that’s why I’m buying pain pills. But it was said with a smile. Nearby was a man asking if they sold lottery tickets. The manager did not understand him and had him repeat it three times until the man finally said it with careful enunciation, which he was apparently capable of doing all along. Whereupon he was told no. The drug store has never sold lottery tickets. There’s no sign in the window giving you the amount for the next drawing. No logos at the register. No signs proclaiming the big winners who’ve bought their magic pass to financial relief at this very spot, which might be lucky! Unless all the luck was used up. You never know if luck gathers and redoubles, or can be drained away by a single win.

Made me wonder if I should buy a ticket. But I know I won’t win. Still, it’s just a dollar. But it’s wasted. But it might not be. What if I won a million?

In the old days, that would set you for life. A million dollars! I mean, that’s Jed Clampett money. By the way, I always thought he struck oil because he shot a bullet in the ground, having missed his target. As if there was a thin crust between the vast deposit of the Texas Tea and the surface. I wonder if that’s canon.

Ah:

The series starts with Jed Clampett, an impoverished and widowed hillbilly living alongside an oil-rich swamp with his daughter and mother-in-law. The start of each episode shows Jed discovering oil while shooting at a rabbit.

However, in the first episode the oil is discovered by a surveyor for the OK Oil Company who realizes the size of the oil field, and the company pays him a fortune for the right to drill on his land.

I’m much more comfortable with that. Okay, enough stalling, finish the column and go work out.

The great thing about the internet is the worst thing: learning about something you wish you had no need to know about, and wish was not a thing, as they say. The danger comes from confusing the loud and confident subcommunities with significant cultural forces. But (ah, the weaselwordy but) these things start small and get ridiculous. Even if they don't, they provide a look at how big ideas abroad in the culture fracture and turn into nonsense. The only question is how much legitimacy they'll have in a year.

		Today: transage. I think it'll go over about as well as transracial.

		This was inevitable, no? Transage. As for the rest, we'll get to that. I will note that when someone says they are "nonpracticing" in these contexts, it raises eyebrows. Surely you think this is a one-off. There isn't a Transage Community, is there?
		Of course there are others. They identify with being younger.
		Not a map BUT Big but there, sport. Especially when you're talking about "minor attracted person." Para? We'll get to that.

What to make of "transage," other than someone who just doesn't want to be their age, and seeks some comfort in the idea of childhood? Depends on what dominant idea you want to unseat. You could say:

Temporality is a construct, imposed by the usual suspects. The idea of linear time is a colonial remnant, since the colonialist powers had to use the idea of progress and civilizational advancement to justify their looting of subject nations. But in a sense, this very idea supports transage, no? The colonized people were regarded as infantile. They were regarded as children, even though they had the bodies of adults. So colonialism is both to blame, and evidence of the truth of the concept.

Keep going until you have your PhD thesis.

I encountered some terms in the discussion that were unfamiliar, so I googled, warily. Found a Tumblr that explained all these terms, written by someone who seems to believe this stuff, but draws some lines. The lists were assembled to warn people about others who seem like allies but actually are not, and MAY CAUSE HARM.

		Mogai: marginalized orientations, gender identities, and intersex Liom: Labels, Identities, Orientations, Other Identities There’s also GRSM, for Gender, Sexual, and Romantic Minority (or Minorities) Critinclus? It means Critical Inclusion. Let’s google that.
		Exclusionist safequeers can misuse critinclus, so maybe radinclus is better?
		No, of course not, it's not as good as pazqueer, which trumps hazardqueer.

Back to the warnings about safequeers: they're against transabled and transage people, which is hurtful. I think.

“Aracial may be used by nonhumans.”

Here’s some shocking news:

Anti-endo, you say. What? "Endogenic Systems is a non-clinical term which seems to have originated on Tumblr."

You don't say.

It refers to people without trauma-based dissociation who claim to have alternate personalities that were consciously created.  These individuals acknowledge their personalities were willfully created, and describe them as having their own likes, dislikes, personality, and lives.  The key difference is there there is no amnesia between parts, since there is no clinical dissociation happening.

Tulpas are also included when discussing Endogenic Systems, but they are somewhat different.  The creation of a Tulpa is a spiritual experience, and the relationship the person has with his/her Tulpa can be quite impactful.

Okay. We move along: The list also says . . .

Paraph1lias and proshippers - the creator misdefines what being pro-para is as well as what being proship is, whilst we may not support proshipping in its entirety it's still important to fight back against blatant misinfo.

They define pro-para/paraph1lia as such: "A term used to defend zphilia, pphilia, nphilia, etc". This is blatant misinfo as the term pro-para works to support those with these paras, not encourage acting upon them.

Ohhhhkay, I think we’re getting close to something here, no? “These paras.” What are these Paras, and why do they have to misspell the word? Wikipedia: “Paraphilia (previously known as sexual perversion and sexual deviation) is the experience of intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, situations, fantasies”

I’m guessing that the Z is for zoophilia. The P and the N, you don't want to think about it.

Again, it's an elaborate scaffold built to defend people and their right to have a particular . . . interest, but certainly not a defense of the activity itself. Oh heavens no.

A reader has a request:

Each of these is a distinct gender.

Is it really such a burden for people to use and respect cottoncandyself pronouns?

Paging all moody teens, all moody teens to the courtesy phone:

Remember, this isn't just a personality. It's a gender.

But what if you're not particularly angelic, and want a list of rabbit identities? On it!

It seems that the Rabbit System is not a particular gender, but a gender system. As for that last one:

There's really only one that seems to be honest:

		"Clownbungender is a gender connected to bunnies and clowns it may feel energetic and silly. It can be used a combination of clowngender and bungender."

It goes on and on, an eternal scroll.

It is beholden on the people who believe a little of it to explain why they do not believe all of it.

More on this next week, when we consider the Flags of the Unsafe Posers.

It’s 1975. Fergus Falls has a daily paper. Still does!

I wonder who came up with the idea to run a story alongside the masthead. Looked unusual, caught eyeballs - but looks odd today.

Good question.

Joe died at the age of 96 in 2006. Never saw a Super Bowl Vikes win. He was a math teacher.

From the 1970 paper, this:

		I wonder if it’s the Spot up there in Staples. It’s only an hour’s drive. Don’t think so.

Erv died in 1986 at the age of 85, his wife 20 years later. They lived in Detroit Lakes, too - lake country mid-state folk all the way.

		Funny gal, Janice!

Demolition, you say.

Let me quote from another story:

(A) vacant state hospital is dividing the community of Fergus Falls, leaving bad feelings some worry will linger far into the future.

A last-ditch effort is underway to save the historic structures as the city seeks state funding to demolish the massive buildings.

"It is an emotional issue," said Otter Tail County Historical Society executive director Chris Schuelke, who strongly advocates for saving the entire hospital. "I think the state hospital is a jewel and a treasure that needs to be saved, it's not going to happen overnight it's going to be phased."

That’s from 2008.

		The venerable and outmoded structure:

Well:

The Fergus Falls State Hospital quickly became overcrowded, even though it had been intended to solve overcrowding problems. Patients could be admitted voluntarily but many were sent by court order. Most stayed for life. Over the course of the twentieth century, hospital leaders were on forefront of treatments like occupational therapy and shock treatment. Still, the court system treated the hospital as simply a convenient way to isolate social outcasts. Most patients were poor and had few resources in times of trouble.

After World War II, drug therapy led to better outpatient care, and the entire Minnesota hospital system was scaled back.

When, you ask, was it razed?

It still stands.

Now and then an editorial cartoon is just completely inscrutable.

I’m thinking it’s not J Edgar, but the underperforming Herbert. The collar is the clue.

The editorial page carried this fellow . . . .

Chicago man all the way.

He attended high school with Saul Bellow, who was his lifelong friend. In 1934, at age 17, Harris began his newspaper career with the Chicago Herald and Examiner and studied Philosophy at the University of Chicago. After university, he became a drama critic (1941) and a columnist for the Chicago Daily News (1944). He held those positions until the paper's demise in 1978 and continued to write his column for its sister paper, the Chicago Sun-Times, until his death in 1986.

		Hard to imagine someone making points like these today. They’re so disrespectful of the wonders of popular music! But the U of W seems okay about it.

Remember the Skitchster?

As his career developed, Henderson often claimed to have been born in Birmingham, England, also adding "Cedric" to his name. However, he was born in the town of Halstad in northwest Minnesota in 1918 to Joseph and Josephine (Scheie) Henderson, both of Norwegian descent.

Also:

Henderson's major break came when he was an accompanist on a 1937 MGM promotional tour featuring Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. Henderson later said that as a member of MGM's music department, he worked with Garland to learn "Over the Rainbow" during rehearsals for The Wizard of Oz and played piano for her first public performance of the song at a local nightclub before the film was finished. However this account is at odds with the memoirs of the tune's composer, Harold Arlen, who said he first performed the song for the 14-year-old Garland.

Something of a fabulist, perhaps.

As for the problems:

Henderson was indicted on July 2, 1974, on charges of tax evasion for the years 1969 and 1970, concerning claims about the value (allegedly $350,000) of a music library he donated to the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He further claimed he had consulted with Leonard Bernstein and Henry Mancini about the value of his collection, both of whom denied this in testimony at trial. A signature on an acceptance letter from the library director was also deemed a forgery. Henderson was convicted on two counts of filing false tax returns. He was acquitted on the tax evasion charges and obstructing a tax audit.

Henderson was sentenced on January 17, 1975, to six months in prison, and was fined $10,000. He began serving his sentence at a minimum-security Federal prison on April 9, 1975, and was released after four months, on August 4, 1975.

OK JACK IF YOU SAY SO

		OK GUESS THERE’S NOTHING HERE

You got your Otter Tail county, and you got your part of Otter Tail county that’s off in the west there.

		Well, yes. That is an option.

		Now two ways to chip in!

That'll do. That was a lot. Sorry. And I hate to say it but there's more below at the update link.