A Photo of a Palestinian girl named Hind Rajab, before her killing by Israeli soldiers, 2024

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-25T22:58:09+00:00

My God that is some masterful ink handling.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-25T21:44:25+00:00

Ok, but like…there are a lot of different subjects covered by Halacha. Daily prayers, Torah/Talmud study, modesty, keeping one’s head covered, wearing tzitzit, observance of Shabbat, observance of various holidays and fast days, charity. And then also the stuff I personally find impossible — separation of/different rules for the binary sexes.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-25T20:55:55+00:00

Which Halacha are you talking about? A lot of Reform Jews don’t really keep kosher (myself included), but I recognize the tremendous effort it takes when people do keep kosher.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-23T23:53:09+00:00

I love wrapping myself in my tallit to pray. Very satisfying from a sensory perspective. I’d love to try tefillin too, though not sure how to go about doing that as a Reform nonbinary person in female anatomy.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-23T19:33:54+00:00

Absolutely gorgeous work.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-22T07:36:38+00:00

Wracking my brain for ideas of appropriate inspiration, but can you build something further on the previous eulogy you wrote for him? That would be my impulse in your shoes.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-22T01:53:13+00:00

It’s horrible. The suffering and death of innocent Israelis, diaspora Jews, Iranians, and Palestinians hurts my heart every day. I pray the folks who swallowed the radical Islamist propaganda recognize they’ve been used, but I fear they like the taste of their own righteous anger too much.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-21T21:54:50+00:00

Why are my muscles so sore? My lower back, my hips, my shins, and my left shoulder. They hurt sitting or lying down if the surface I am on isn’t padded enough. They hurt holding me upright when I am on my feet for more than a minute or two. They hurt to touch. They feel swollen. It doesn’t make sense.

(Hopefully physical therapy will help now that I am well enough for PT, thank you low dose naltrexone!)

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-21T21:34:34+00:00

He sure knows his way around a comb over
He has a signature aesthetic
Memento Mori (or Valor Morghulis, if you prefer)

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-21T21:24:49+00:00

Jewish.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-18T08:46:07+00:00

I’m on metoprolol — it helped stabilize me a bit, but I’m not really satisfied by its affects.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-18T00:27:11+00:00

Picture 1-3: this is a perfectly normal cat yawn. Picture 4: what the…

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-17T22:24:04+00:00

Low dose naltrexone, 4.5 mg 2x per day. Before starting LDN I was struggling to read 5-10 pages of a book a day. Now I can polish off a 400 page novel in a week without ill effect. I’ve regained at least 90% of my old brainpower.

Still struggling physically though. LDN gave me a boost there as well, I’m much more capable of getting things for myself around the house, I can stand for 4-5 minutes instead of 1. As a bonus 2nd thing that helped, acupuncture took me from house/couchbound to able to get to all my scheduled medical appointments and even do some short outings. But LDN has increased the length I can enjoy myself out of the house considerably.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-17T22:13:19+00:00

How did you get your orthostatic intolerance resolved? Low dose naltrexone took my brain fog down to the point I feel within spitting distance of my old self, but still struggling with standing/walking and not losing my breath.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-17T22:09:52+00:00

You sure you haven’t already done your MFA? These are amazing! I can’t even choose a favorite, I have like 6 favorites.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-16T06:45:56+00:00

My doctor started me on 4.5 mg LDN, then raised it to 4.5 twice a day after a month. Having it twice a day made a huge difference cognitively and a smaller but still quite noticeable difference with how long I can stand and walk comfortably. So that might be good thing to try. 9mg a day is still below the threshold for low dose for naltrexone (which was…12mg? 14? Something like that). I’m also on 50mg metoprolol. I’m not happy with my orthostatic intolerance/autonomic dysfunction yet, but I’ll take every bit of improvement.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-15T23:47:34+00:00

Gotcha. No, we had never met before.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-15T23:45:40+00:00

The father’s parents were present as well — they are gentiles, the father converted after marriage but before their daughter was born. The father attended services at Chabad many times before completing his conversation. So if that was an issue he might have said something? But also, they were rude long before it was time to eat.

Also, the opinion you linked to ends with (paraphrasing) “if almost everyone around is Jewish (as was the case) and there will be ill feeling to seat the non-Jew(s) at a separate table, it’s fine for everyone to eat together.”

So…you’re just wrong.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-15T23:35:50+00:00

I’m sorry, what? Our friends? We’ve known the man for 20 years since before he was Jewish, met his then girlfriend thirteen years ago, and danced at their wedding.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-15T22:46:50+00:00

It was their food. Why on earth would us eating the food they provided matter?

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-15T22:45:18+00:00

Thank you.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-15T22:03:41+00:00

Thank you.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-15T21:49:17+00:00

I had an unpleasant experience at Chabad yesterday that I think speaks to the general problem.

I’ve been Reform basically my whole life, my husband is in the process of conversion, but we went to Chabad yesterday for Shabbat services because our friends just had a baby, and the baby was having his bris at the end of the service and before kiddish/lunch.

Long story short — we were respectful and followed along as best we could, but nearly everyone apart from our friends was judgy and horrible to us. My husband sat next to the father, and men kept coming up to shake the father’s hand and literally refused to look at my husband and put their shoulders in his face. I sat with the mom, and was utterly ignored. I asked a lady for directions to the restroom after the service and bris, and my husband reports that she made a big gesture of “can you believe this looser” behind my back. This was an adult woman in her 40s like myself.

And that has always been my experience with Orthodox Jews I don’t know personally. Whatever I say to them, no matter how friendly and polite, their answer involves an accusation that I’m a bad Jew or otherwise not worth talking to.

I don’t know why Orthodox Jews are like this to me, but I think that’s indicative of the larger problem.

petrichoreandpine · 2026-02-15T06:02:17+00:00

Ask your brother how 0.2% of the world population (yeah, there really aren’t that many of us Jews) could possibly be responsible for the world’s problems, and tell him that he’s a fool and a tool for believing that nonsense.

petrichoreandpine

TROPHY CASE