It has been about a year since I learned that the transverse abdominis exists and how it functions. This muscle wraps around your organs between your hips and ribs, behind your "abs," and helps stabilize your spine. A weak transverse abdominis can lead to back pain or injury.

It is NOT directly activated by crunches, situps, or other typical "abs" workouts. It is mostly activated subconsciously (before other abdominal muscles!), and in many people that is enough to keep it strong. However, in people who sit or lay a lot, such as people who have desk jobs or disabilities or health conditions that prevent them from standing or walking much throughout the day, the automatic activation can "turn off"! Then you get a weak transverse abdominis, even if you do abs workouts, unless you consciously activate that muscle.

I've been doing weight-training several times a week for about 21 months now. A few months after I began, I injured my back by continuing an exercise while I was feeling discomfort (it was one I had done before without incident), and I didn't understand why it happened. It took 6 weeks to heal, and I couldn't work out at all for 3 weeks because every exercise I would have done caused it to twinge and threaten that horrible pain. I now know this is because your transverse abdominis is automatically used anytime you lift an arm or leg, and I am pretty sure that is what I injured.

There are only two movements that have been found in studies to focus on strengthening the transverse abdominis: drawing-in and bracing. Drawing-in is where you pull your belly-button (navel) towards your spine. Bracing is where you tense your belly as if someone is about to punch it. Some studies show one is better than the other, but there isn't a lot of agreement about which is which. Personally there are some exercises where I can't do one or the other because it feels like rubbing head and patting belly, so both are useful for different things.

After I learned about this muscle I began tightening it every time I use a weight-training machine, and I have not had an injury since.

Last year I also began to lose fat (not weight), which made my belly sway more and lean out from my body more, because it was less dense and thus didn't stay in place. (Similar to how a very full backpack will stay in place as you walk, but a half-full one will sway from side to side) I wondered if this was creating strain on my back, but of course there is no information out there. Because no one studies the practical aspects of fat people working out, just the irrelevant and useless effects like "do you get lighter" or "do you get narrower."

I decided to believe in my own experience and give my back a "rest" after a workout (or a long walk!) by wearing a brace that wraps around my abdomen for about 30 minutes after. Since I started doing this I have had no back pain. Even more telling, I haven't had that weakness feeling where I feel like my spine might snap in half, like I used to sometimes after a workout. Once I learned about the transverse abdominis this made a lot of sense-- even before I tensed it on purpose, it was getting worn out supporting my spine as I exercised my arms and legs.

So if your back feels weak or gets achy regularly after a workout, I recommend trying a back brace to rest this muscle after a workout. And YES, losing fat can make your back hurt.

When I stopped working out 3 weeks ago because the gym is closed, my back started feeling weak again. So last week I started doing exercises for my transverse abdominis a few times throughout the day, and it is already helping. I do "bracing" while laying on my back or side and doing movements with my legs. One that I do is holding my legs out straight, bringing them up to vertical and lowering back, and another is holding my legs up vertical and swinging them side to side. With these I have to press my hand to my belly to feel the tension or else I will forget to "brace" which is the whole point.

So now, for any person I know who begins working out, especially for fat people whose belly sways or droops like mine, I would definitely suggest training yourself to tense up your belly as you do each rep (as long as this doesn't hurt). Initially I had to place a hand on my belly to give myself a physical reminder to brace, but now I do it almost without thinking. I also noticed my belly getting tired about halfway through the workday as I just sat at work, so I think it is actually starting to be automatically activated again.

After years of experimenting, I finally figured out the right temperature and cook time to make French toast with sprouted grain bread so that it is all cooked, but still fluffy.

Put it on a low heat so that the butter melts and sizzles as soon as it gets in the pan but doesn't turn brown even after it's just bubbles and liquid. Cook on one side for 4 minutes, flip and cook on the other side for 4 minutes. And of course, let the next set of breads soak in the egg bath while you cook this.

PSA: in many cases -- especially if your hands are oily -- hand sanitizer is not as good as washing your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. It does help kill bacteria and viruses that have an external membrane (like coronavirus) though, so it is worth using if you can't wash your hands.

Also! it is still worth it to rub your hands together in the water if the bathroom has no soap -- one study showed bacteria reduced by almost half from water alone.

"Bacteria of potential faecal origin were found after no handwashing in 44% of samples. Handwashing with water alone reduced the presence of bacteria to 23%. Handwashing with plain soap and water reduced the presence of bacteria to 8%."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3037063/

Show Me the Science – When & How to Use Hand Sanitizer in Community Settings
https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/show-me-the-science-hand-sanitizer.html

For most people in the U.S., being able to order food and other necessities online is an important part of modern life, where there is never enough time. But for people with visual, cognitive, and/or motor disabilities this can be almost impossible because many merchants design their sites exclusively for non-disabled users. This is true despite the fact that disabled people are a higher percent of internet users than they are in the general population.

It is obvious to anyone in the U.S. that websites which sell goods or services are as much a place of public accommodation as any brick-and-mortar store, so you might think that this sort of discrimination is illegal. But because the Americans with Disabilities Act was written almost 30 years ago, it does not specify any application to online services. So for many years, companies who wanted to exclude people with disabilities were able to get court cases thrown out for "lack of due process" -- that is, they argued that because the government didn't define how to make websites accessible, companies shouldn't be prosecuted for excluding people with disabilities.

Until fall of 2017, this "due process" argument worked, because the federal government was supposedly in the process of developing guidelines. But then the Department of Justice announced that they would not be creating them after all (official notification from the D O J), which put the responsibility for figuring out accessibility back on the people running websites. (cielo24.com has lay-person explanations about the meaning and impact of that notice: readable explanation of D O J notification) Considering that the internet is constantly evolving while laws are comparatively static, it makes far more sense this way.

So finally, people with disabilities began winning lawsuits about website accessibility because the "due process" argument no longer worked. In January of this year, a huge victory came about through a federal circuit court, who ruled that Domino's should in fact have to make their site accessible. (The Viscardi Center offers a good summary of that case) The court said that a lack of federal guidelines is no excuse when there are free, public resources on the topic, and no federal guidelines are forthcoming. The World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative has been publishing up-to-date, highly specific guidelines since 1999: this free resource has been available for 20 years.

Since the circuit court decision on Domino's, there have been a slew of class-action lawsuits against industries (like 75 galleries sued in New York, or 38 wineries sued, also in New York), as well as against individual companies. Many of the owners and leaders of these companies have whined about how they should have been given more time (30 years wasn't enough?), or how they just can't afford to make their sites accessible. Shockingly, none have them seem to have have gone out of business after being forced by the courts to remediate their sites.

In an interesting turn, Kroger was sued for an inaccessible website, but they had already been in the process of making a new, accessible site. By the time the case went to court, all of the claimant's issues had been addressed and the case was dismissed as moot. (Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner law explains that case) A company with all of their thousands of products for each of their thousands of locations listed on their website and their app managed to make their online services accessible within a year, proving just how attainable basic accessibility is.

Right now, Domino's is trying to get the Supreme Court to overturn the federal district court's decision. If they manage to get it accepted as worthy of the Supreme Court's time, this would be a resolution to the question of whether or not the A D A applies to online services. I'm hoping that the Supreme Court decides not to entertain it yet, so that we can offer more concrete evidence that the district court's decision was for the good of the public. Alternatively, I hope they do entertain it and agree with the circuit court. I'm going to be holding my breath a little bit until the Domino's case is resolved.

It has been about 2 years now since I last got my heart broken, and it has been about 3 years since I last fell in love. For a while I would fall every year or two and get my heart absolutely trampled, but I've been cautious for a while now.

I can afford to be cautious because I am fully nourished by my relationship with Topaz and I am more in love with them than I have ever been with anyone. I do want to experience falling in love with someone else again, since I know it will be such a different experience now.

I don't fetishize my relationships anymore which is a completely different experience that allows me to observe them in a much truer way. By fetishize I mean, I elevated the importance of connection far above the practicalities of helping each other get needs met.

In the past I have endured people putting no effort in, trying to push me to give to them in ways that would harm me, not expressing appreciation for who I am and what I do, not expressing encouragement for my growth, not being willing to learn themselves, and/or not trying to understand and fully know me. I did this because I felt an intuitive connection with the person and I wanted to keep experiencing that so badly that I was willing to suffer for 90% of the relationship for the sake of that 10% of connection.

I'm no longer doing this, not because I made a choice to stop doing it, but because I stopped over-valuing "spiritual" connections. It was a leftover fetish from when I was religious, and it was a really damaging one because I put that sensation at higher importance than anything else. I still love feeling an intuitive connection with someone, and it is still magical to me and something I feel super lucky to have with Topaz, but it is NOT more important than being treated with respect, appreciation, consent, and curiosity.

Before I let myself fall in love again, I will need to know that the person can be: appreciative of who I am (not just what I do), more than willing to navigate conflict with me, curious & eager to know me, independently growing, encouraging of my growth, open and honest, willing and able to invest effort in building our relationship, considering my emotions as important in making decisions that affect me, and not yearning for more than I can freely give. All of these things I offer in a relationship and for me to feel fulfilled I need to receive them as well.

If I never find another person like this, that is okay. I already got luckier than I would have ever imagined possible to have all of this and more with Topaz. And I can still build meaningful and nourishing connections without being in love.

What attitudes/behaviors have you feared inheriting from your bio family at any point in your life? How did/do you combat that fear?

I've actually never feared inheriting attitudes/behaviors from my bio family. I separated emotionally from them at a pretty young age, when my dad first told me that because they fed, clothed and sheltered me I owed them obedience. After that point I stopped thinking of them as my parents and thought of them as employers (who refused to pay me or allow me any autonomy). I stopped thinking of them as moral authorities at about age 12 because I watched them behave unethically -- and against their stated moral code -- over and over, while I obeyed my own moral code. I stopped thinking of them as any source of comfort when they gave away my cat (who was my best friend), told me to stop crying every night because it was disturbing their sleep, and when I finally made a friend, told me constantly that it wouldn't last and my friend didn't really love me. By the time I was 13, I knew that I was more developed than them in both ethics and relationship skills, and I just did what they told me to do so that I didn't get hit or sulked at. I no longer had any respect for them or thought of them as people I could or should emulate. On the contrary, many of the things I learned NOT to do I learned from my parents.

1) Don't ever try to make someone depend on you as their sole or best source of love.

So even if you think that your love is so big that no one else could ever match it, you do not say this! because if you do, you are threatening that person with never being well-loved if you stop loving them. That is something that an ethical person never threatens, and also something that only an extremely arrogant person could claim. There are plenty of people who are great at loving, and if you care about someone then you want them to be well-loved even if it is not by you. It is frankly abusive to claim that you are the best love someone will ever have.

2) Don't ever reference past gifts to try to get someone to do what you want.

This ruins the gift, crushes any sense of love that went with it, and turns it into a bribe with evil intent. It's manipulative and it reveals that you have no generosity; you are merely investing in future control. Once a gift is given, you should treat it as if it didn't even come from you: that will help keep you from tying strings to it.

3) Don't ever, EVER, reference in anger a fear, insecurity, longing, or other vulnerability that someone has shared with you.

This is a profound emotional violation which not only destroys any trust they had in you, it damages part of their ability to trust other people to hold their sharing in a sacred space.

4) Don't ever destroy someone's things because you are angry at them.

This is a symbolic violence that makes it clear you only are not hitting them because you fear repercussions, not because you actually consider it unacceptable. It is an implied threat of physical violence.

5) Don't try to bond with people without considering who they are and what they want; you cannot connect with a person if you are trying to make them be what they are not.

My dad wanted me to throw a football, play basketball, or play chess, none of which I wanted to do, none of which revealed anything about me. I think he genuinely wanted to connect, but he failed utterly because he was so focused on making me share his special interest. I don't think he ever even considered trying to learn about me in order to connect. If he had, he would have quickly learned that we shared a love of trees which would have easily leant itself to connecting activities.

6) Don't approach relationships as transactions, and don't try to get more than you give.

You cannot build a relationship with someone by trying to get them to give you something. My mom wanted me to tell her "poor baby" over how my dad treated her, to commiserate and console without asking her to make any changes. When I was really young I did pat and console and unintentionally relieve the discomfort that should have built to a breaking point in that relationship. At the age of 11 I started telling her to get a divorce, that it was not fair to force the three children in the house to have to live with a tyrant. I treated her like an adult and told her "yes it's wrong, and you have to defy, say no, take action. It will not get better if you do nothing." She never listened and just stopped talking to me at all. By the time my sister was 6, my mother had started using her for comfort and no longer had any interest in me.

7) Don't call names, and if you can't resist, never EVER use a name that reinforces the insecurities the person has about their self.

My parents had names they liked to call me when they were angry or just wanted to make me feel lesser. Some didn't matter to me because they were so obviously untrue (like when they called me a spoiled brat) but other names were used to deliberately mock the aspect I was most insecure about: my body. I watched them hurt me on purpose and I decided it was wrong and I would not do that to others. I have not been perfect but since I became an adult I have called people names very rarely, and never intentionally called a name that referenced someone's insecurity, if I was aware of it or even suspected it.

8) Do not contradict what other people say is true about their self; do not set yourself as a greater authority on them than they are.

At an early age, I saw something and told my parents about it and they told me it was impossible. That broke my sense of reality and I had to fight very hard to ever trust my own senses over what someone else says is true, if there is any subjectivity to the matter. Telling people that they are not who they say they are undermines their relationship with their self, and even if you are technically correct it is unacceptable to argue with someone about it. I have sometimes taken this aspect to an unhealthy extreme and let others define our shared experiences rather than contradict them, but I think the balance lies in not contradicting others about their emotions, motives, or identity, but still being willing to contradict them about the patterns or effects of their behavior.

The point of facebook lists is that they make it so that your feed shows every single post by the people you want to see (at least, it's seemed very reliable to me). If you want to see every single post by every single one of your friends, you can do this by adding all of them to a list. As far as I can tell, lists are not rearranged and edited by facebook when they display in a feed. You can't edit your default feed to be like this, so you have to make a list and then bookmark it. (or you can follow steps 1 and 2 every time to get to your list)

Apologies to those who use screen readers -- facebook is terrible and I have no idea how I would do this without seeing it.


1. go to facebook.com and be sure you are logged in.  Then, scroll down and look on the left side for a header that says "FRIENDS." Hover over the empty space next to that and click on the little "More" that comes up.


2. You will be taken to a page that shows all of your lists (if you already have some).  At the top is a "Create List" button.  Click this.


3. You will get a pop-up that says "Create New List." Give the list a name, then start typing names into the box below.  Don't worry if you can't think of everyone -- I will explain how to add people one by one later.  Once you have the names you want, click "Create" at the bottom (NOT the "x" at the top).


4. Now the page will refresh with your new list displayed.  BOOKMARK THIS PAGE.  If you want a 'portable' bookmark, copy the url and go to tinyurl.com. Paste in this url and name it something you can remember, like below. Don't worry, your facebook list is locked so that only you can see it, so if someone else tries to use your url they won't get anywhere. Only if you are logged in will you be able to see this list.


5. After you have saved your list url somehow, go to it (if you aren't already there). At the top of this page is a "manage list" button, and below that is a little group of icons of the friends you have on this list.  You can add new people from this page either by typing their name into the box under the little group, or by clicking "Manage List" and then clicking "Edit List."


6. If you click "Edit List" you get a popup with all of the icons of the people you have on this list.  To add someone, click the drop-down box labeled "On This List" and click "Friends," then type their name in the box at the top or scroll to find them.  To take someone off, you can click on their icon or you can search for their name and then click on their icon.  Remember to click "Finish" or your work won't be saved.


7. Now, to add someone to this list individually (say, as you add a new person), go to that person's profile.  Click the down arrow next to the button "Friends" and then click "Add to Another List."


8. Scroll to the list you want to add them to, and click on it.  A checkmark should appear and once it does, they are added.  No further steps are needed (there is no "okay" or "finished" this time).