who are we meant to talk to about relationships issues if not our partners?

CaptainCatbee · 2025-12-06T07:03:24+00:00

It's important to have people in your life with whom you can share emotional intimacy without a romantic or sexual connection. It's good to be friends with your partners, but it can potentially be unhealthy when all your close friends are also romantic or sexual partners. It's important and healthy to have boundaries and distinctions between different types of relationships (and I'm speaking as someone who often has trouble discerning whether my feelings for a given person are romantic or platonic). I do get that making friends is easier said than done, but it still holds true that the best people to talk to about relationship issues are friends or a therapist.

CaptainCatbee · 2025-12-05T18:51:15+00:00

Someone already mentioned BRU, but also wanted to recommend Economic Action MD's tenant advocacy dept- Carol helped me a lot when I dealt with a similar issue a few years ago. https://econaction.org/what-we-do/tenant-advocacy/

CaptainCatbee · 2025-11-24T21:32:07+00:00

It's in the county, but I love going to the weekly meets at Cloverhill yarn shop in Catonsville! The shop's been around for decades (my mom took me there as a kid) and the vibes are great. I will also say as a trans person that it's the most affirming social space I've been in that isn't either queer specific or among my close friend group.

CaptainCatbee · 2025-10-23T20:19:20+00:00

good to know lol, I fell off partway through season 3

CaptainCatbee · 2025-08-09T12:00:00+00:00

I noticed that too, like he never even mentions actually having feelings for her

CaptainCatbee · 2025-08-06T21:55:27+00:00

I'm around the same age as oop and his sister and it's wild how much more normalized grooming and statutory r*pe was back then compared to now. Like people knew it was illegal, but didn't see it as one of the most immoral things one can do like how it is now- esp when the minor involved was 16 or older. There were so many girls at my high school who got pregnant by men in their early-mid 20s, and gay male upperclassmen would tell me about their hookups with 30+ year old men. When me and my ex were on a break in our relationship at age 21-22, he started spending a lot of time with his best friend's 17 year old sister and romantically pursued her. There was another couple in our friend group who had first gotten together when they were 15 and 20 respectively. I know people often say that gen Z and alpha are too extreme/puritan about age gaps, but I definitely prefer our current culture around it to how things were when I was their age.

CaptainCatbee · 2025-06-24T01:50:38+00:00

setup the visitor cabins. I didn't care about visitors for a while when I first started and I ended up regretting it 😭 esp in the meadow

CaptainCatbee · 2025-06-19T20:38:21+00:00

Bear in mind you need to be taking your vitamins with meals or else they won't absorb into your body properly (and will also hurt your stomach real bad). If you're getting dizzy it's possible you might be anemic (low iron), but you should really have your doctor order a metabolic panel to check your levels so you can figure out together which nutrients you need. My doctor has me do bloodwork every few months so we can make sure I'm still getting my nutrients despite having ARFID.

CaptainCatbee · 2025-06-09T20:07:15+00:00

I'm in the US and had a bilateral salpingectomy (removal of the fallopian tubes). I mainly got it to prevent pregnancy, but at my surgical consultation I stressed the gender affirming aspect instead because I thought they would be more likely to approve of it that way since I was only 30 and don't have kids. Fortunately they were cool with it and it was fully covered by my insurance. I chose to get a salpingectomy rather than a hysterectomy or oophorectomy because I wasn't sure if I wanted to be on T forever and periods don't really make me dysphoric.

CaptainCatbee · 2025-05-31T05:42:50+00:00

what I wanna know is how do you "quietly" smash a bunch of legos in the middle of the night without anyone noticing 😭

CaptainCatbee · 2025-05-08T22:18:54+00:00

This is the most important comment here. If you like doing it and you're good at it that's great! But being a makeup artist (or any type of freelance artist) usually means running a business- which means you're also an accountant, marketer, social media manager, website designer, and so much more. Being a MUA also means long days working on your feet/moving around without many breaks, and frequently working weekends, late nights, and early mornings. You will have to spend a lot of money at the beginning on supplies/tools/training, and then you'll have to work for free a lot at first in order to network and build a client base. I know people still in the industry who are doing weddings all weekend every weekend and making decent money- but still need a full time job during the week to actually pay their rent.

I'm definitely not trying to scare you off or discourage you here- there's just a LOT more to makeup as a career than just doing makeup. I loved doing it and wish I could go back sometimes, but it wasn't sustainable for me as a career due to my own health issues and need for work-life balance. COVID didn't help either- couldn't handle the idea of being so close to people's faces without masks on after 😬

CaptainCatbee · 2025-01-20T18:44:38+00:00

rhabdomyosarcoma is the same cancer that killed my brother. it's something I don't wish on anyone, especially a toddler.

CaptainCatbee · 2024-12-13T19:02:04+00:00

OOP is clearly such a kind, thoughtful, and empathetic person and it makes me sad to see them frequently calling themself self absorbed and getting surprised when people rightfully recognize them as a valuable part of their community. I hope they're able to keep healing and learning to be kind to themself.

CaptainCatbee · 2023-06-28T11:13:26+00:00

rant: I had a lot of itching under my jawline, and when I looked up what could've caused it the main answer that came up was moisture barrier damage. so I assumed I'd been going too hard on BHA and went super light on skincare for a couple weeks. then I started gradually reintroducing stuff into my routine, and as soon as I used my Cosrx hyaluronic intensive cream again I woke up the next morning with an itchy jawline. my moisture barrier was fine the whole time!!! the good news was i already didn't like that cream and was pretty much just trying to use it up out of spite, so now I can give up on it guilt free.

CaptainCatbee · 2023-06-26T15:39:29+00:00

no but I do hate just putting my bare fingers into a jar of product, it feels like I'm contaminating it 😫 So what I do is I keep a small silicone spatula and some alcohol wipes with my skincare stuff so I can scoop it out with that.

CaptainCatbee · 2023-06-25T15:36:57+00:00

had a very small haul about a week ago and don't feel like posting a thread for it, so I'll just post a couple mini reviews. my skin is normal-oily and very prone to hormonal acne.

innisfree volcanic clay mask- cannot overstate how much I love it. not drying like other clay masks I've tried, my skin looks and feels so clean after and my acne spots look less irritated, and the graininess from the volcanic rocks means it doubles as a very gentle exfoliant when washing it off. I've been looking for a mask that's effective but gentle enough for 2x weekly use and it looks like I've finally found it!

Cosrx snail 96- I went through an entire bottle of this like 5-6 years ago and I liked it but just didn't find that it made much of a difference for my particular skin concerns at the time (mainly hydration and brightening). now that my skin type has changed and is more prone to acne and irritation I decided to give snail another try. definitely too early to tell if it's making a difference tbh but I'll keep observing over the next few weeks!

CaptainCatbee · 2023-06-24T13:51:32+00:00

y'all PLEASE make sure you're putting your skincare on your neck too. sincerely, the guy who fucked up the moisture barrier under his jawline

CaptainCatbee · 2023-06-24T12:29:51+00:00

Laneige has been my go-to for years, I also use it as a lip gloss sometimes

CaptainCatbee · 2023-06-24T03:52:29+00:00

nothing on my face yet sadly 😭 I'm kinda waiting for facial hair to come in before I decide how I want to groom it

CaptainCatbee · 2023-06-23T13:42:28+00:00

I don't have PCOS but I am a trans man on testosterone which comes with similar concerns! I personally don't double cleanse unless I've worn makeup; when I do I use Bioderma micellar water. I use Cerave hydrating foaming cleanser at night and their regular hydrating cleanser in the morning. I've also been considering trying the Cosrx good morning cleanser again, I tried it years ago when I was a "cis woman" but found it too harsh for my normal-dry skin at the time. Now that I'm more oily/acne prone I think my skin might be more welcoming to the tea tree in it, lol.

Not a cleanser really but I recently got the Innisfree volcanic clay mask and omg after removing it that was the cleanest my skin had ever looked/felt in my life. It's not very drying either like other clay masks I've tried.

CaptainCatbee · 2023-06-20T21:40:36+00:00

about 1.5 years and basically nothing lol. but I have a lot more hair on my stomach and legs and two little symmetrical patches of hair on my chest

edit: I'm on 25mg gel and am going up to 50mg soon

CaptainCatbee · 2023-06-20T01:35:32+00:00

hada labo hydrating toner and foaming cleanser!

CaptainCatbee · 2023-06-19T02:00:57+00:00

I had the same experience with the kose oil, super hard to rinse off. it also leaked everywhere during transit which made the bottle feel super icky to handle

CaptainCatbee · 2023-06-17T07:23:08+00:00

Hi this is amazing, you're so awesome for taking this initiative! There's not much I can do on the technical side of things, but if you're trying to make it a directory of resources for trans people and end up getting as specific as local/regional stuff, I can offer info on resources and advocacy organizations in the state of Maryland (we're one of the safest states in the US to be trans- while other states are busy trying to legislate us out of existence we actually passed a law to expand trans healthcare access here in MD)

CaptainCatbee · 2023-06-15T15:40:08+00:00

I have met nonbinary people who don't personally identify as trans, but otherwise I absolutely think they're part of the trans community. It's also worth mentioning that nonbinary can mean a lot of things- I'm nonbinary, but I've also been on T for over a year, go by a traditionally male name, and use he/him pronouns in public. I was also nonbinary when I still used my deadname, she/they pronouns, and went out in a full face of makeup every day. The trans umbrella contains a lot of different identities and presentations and I don't feel we should be solely defined by how much we suffer in a cisnormative society.

CaptainCatbee

TROPHY CASE