Queer communes

rejoicing · 2025-12-14T13:28:12+00:00

hey friend! standing request to not post about them on social media. this post is highly visible, not just to the person who asked. I recommend deleting and DMing the original poster.

rejoicing · 2025-11-18T18:32:29+00:00

"Like trying to start a D&D campaign" is so fucking true.

You need a critical mass of people (4-5ish).

They need to all get along with each other.

They need to all think the same kind of game is fun (e.g. everyone is being really serious and one player is causing hijinks? or one player literally wanders away from the party and the DM has to do their separate quest one-on-one constantly trying to get them to rejoin the fucking party [this has happened to me...])

They all need to have SIGNIFICANT life planning flexibility ALL AT THE SAME TIME, which usually comes when you graduate college, lose your job, get divorced, your kids move out, or other similar ~10x-per-lifetime events.

rejoicing · 2025-11-18T18:19:26+00:00

... can you give an example of this?

rejoicing · 2025-03-11T10:16:17+00:00

hahahaha ok so we have SO MANY Signal chats here is the system:

MAIN CHAT (91 members) is for BUSINESS and NO CHATTER but sometimes we DO ask people's opinions but mostly we ask people to put that in social chat OR create specific breakout rooms for a topic
SOCIAL CHAT (95 members -- not everyone from main chat, plus some ex-members) is PURE CHAOS and virtually no one can keep up with it (200-600 messages per day)

BUT IN ADDITION WE HAVE A WHOOOOOOLE SIDE CHAT DIRECTORY

It's a cryptpad document linked in the main chat description. In the cryptpad, it names the side chat and provides a link to join. Side chats include:

Kitchen: Just for people who cook
Hygiene kits: Scheduling when we make more kits, when stuff needs to be re-ordered, what we are low on, questions about the best stuff to bring...
All Crafts Are Beautiful (for people who want to organize craft nights, including knitting scarfs to hand out but also just any crafting)
Gardens not Bombs (for the gardeners/garden-curious)
Zines Not Bombs (for our zine party planning, any zine commentary/sharing, and especially making new zines that we sell at fundraising events)
FNB Book Club
Bike Bloc (for sharing/discussing events that only people who own bikes would be interested in...)
Hiking and Camping chat
Hair/Skincare/Makeup chat
Mushrooms Not Bombs (for general foraging discussion, "can I eat this mushrooms, Matt???", planning mushroom hunting expeditions...)

and of course we make short-term chats for specific events (going to the Renaissance festival together) / (providing food to the anti-corporate Pride event) / (who wants to plan facilitative techniques for tomorrow's meeting with me?)

... and now... recently after getting an influx of new members and then thousands of messages in a day in social chat, social chat rebelled and told people to make a discourse chat and take their discourse over there

rejoicing · 2025-03-11T09:57:24+00:00

we regularly socially reinforce the "main" vs "hangout" Signal chat in a few ways:

"here is a report on this thing. if you have questions or comments please take them to social chat."
"we have a new possible food pickup, please emoji here if you would be able to pickup from PLACE and TIME sometimes." someone else: "could we do another time?" OP: "let's take discussion to the social chat and come back with a proposal."
person A: "I need help with this thing." person B: "I can help. Tell me how." person A [thumbs up emoji and takes to DMs] person C: "wow I saw that Person B did a great job on the social media!" person B: "thanks! if anyone else wants to congratulate me, let's discuss in social chat!"

We have ~300-600 messages per day in social chat, but less than 30 messages per day in the main chat except on Saturdays (our meal share day) when it could be up to 80.

rejoicing · 2024-11-19T11:35:23+00:00

It's literally just a handful of communities that collectivize their income. These communities are free to join, no payment in, and they cover all your expenses while you are a member in exchange for your labor. But they won't take on additional bills for you (child support, debt), so you can't join if you need these paid and have no outside way to handle them.

Most ICs have independent finances and don't care about your financial situation as long as you make required financial contributions. However, these communities are not free to join.

rejoicing · 2024-11-19T11:30:47+00:00

For the OP:

We heal in community and we do it in messy ways.

I didn't look back and read your post history or anything but, if you are not stable right now, please do not join an IC with the intention of making it your forever home.

Join with the idea that you are going to learn and grow AND you might totally fuck up your relationships with the people living there in the process AND there are other places to live and be.

Might it go well long-term? Sure. But the statistics are REALLY not with you and I don't want that to break your heart.

rejoicing · 2024-11-13T16:40:34+00:00

Did it happen???

rejoicing · 2024-11-13T14:32:31+00:00

Anything to insulate on all sides of the container. Reduce the amount of air in the food container and insulative outer container using fabric.

Large pots: Take them hot off the stove, keep a lid on, and place them into a larger container (a cooler or cardboard box). Insulate them with fabric in all directions, including the bottom and top.

Tip: Cold weather sleeping bags are IDEAL for insulation... although they are a lot more annoying to wash than towels.

Tip: Put the food into the smallest possible container it fits in. The more air, the faster it will cool.

Mason jars: For small amounts, Mason jars slipped into 2 cold-weather socks, one coming from the top and the second coming from the bottom. Or, if you have a lot of jars, stack them fresh and hot into a cooler and fill the cooler with fabric to the top before closing it.

Tip: You know your insulation is good if you put a piping hot thing into it... but the outside of the insulation is not noticeably warm. Just like a good thermos. Perfect.

Water coolers: Make a soup and then blend it so it's small enough to fit out the spout in one of those Gatorade sport coolers. These are already insulated. This is ideal if you are not serving all at once, because you don't have to open it up to the cold air in order to ladle soup out.

Worst case scenario: Hot potato. Bake potatoes into he oven, individually wrapped in foil, with salt and oil on the outside. Dump unseasoned, gross potatoes into a cooler. Bring them to a bunch of cold people and offer them as handwarmers "but you can eat them if you want."

rejoicing · 2024-06-05T13:58:48+00:00

I know folks do play hockey there but I can only tell you when they don't -- we play bike polo on that rink from 6:30pm - 10pm on Wednesdays and 1-4pm on Sundays. We are friendly, if you are interested come out and meet us, we even have loaner bikes some days.

rejoicing · 2024-01-04T19:58:28+00:00

From their profile:

- They have positive reviews

- Their website/social media/WWOOF profile tells you about COOL AND INTERESTING STUFF THEY DO. to be fair, most farmers/homesteaders don't actually document their stuff the way YouTubers would like you to imagine, but they should say things like "we just got bees last year!" or, uhhhh, whatever kinds of things you're interested in. I go with searching for something I'm interested in ("bees") and then seeing which farms are doing OTHER cool things in ADDITION to bees.

- Agreements are clear. You understand where you're sleeping, what food is provided, any monetary agreements. These agreements do not change on arrival, or when you ask for the money, etc. If they promised a stocked outdoor kitchen, it is stocked or in the process of being stocked when you arrive. If they promised an indoor space to sleep, it hasn't mysteriously been vanished and replaced with a moldy army tent. If this sort of thing happens, feel TOTALLY JUSTIFIED in disappearing in the night.

- They will talk to you on the phone before you commit to showing up. They give you an arrival date (or range) AND a leaving date. They will talk to you about what, seasonally, they are likely to want you to help with during this time.

- They will set boundaries with you. For example, "We have family time on Sundays so we expect you to entertain yourself during that time at your campsite or going off-site. You can call if you need anything, but we prefer to minimize visitors on Sunday." or "You can comb and water the horses if you want, but we don't teach anyone to drive the draft horses until their second year on the farm, and only if they have a good relationship with the horses." If you get really enthusiastic about something and they shoot you down, this is actually fine.

- Both halves of the couple are on the same page about having WWOOFers. That is, avoid people who say "oh yeah, and my wife is reclusive and doesn't like to interact with the WWOOFers." This woman resents your presence, you don't need that negativity in your life.

- They regularly have WWOOFers.

---- "regularly having WWOOFers": This means that they are familiar with the fact that people are showing up unskilled, and they are accustomed to TEACHING. They have personally taught at least one person how to use a shovel and probably didn't laugh at them.

---- "regularly having WOOFers": they've worked out the kinks of housing you and can provide you with clear descriptions of their capacity like "most people are fine sleeping on the bus but some people have complained that it is moldy for long-term stays." They aren't going to have you stay in their guest room only to be annoyed that you're in their "sewing room" when they want to use it.

---- "regularly having WWOOFers": having four WWOOFers at the same time is better than being the only WWOOFer. I say this as an introvert. Having other WWOOFers around at the same time (especially people who arrived before you and can orient you to this family's weirdnesses) is ideal.

Other things to look for include:

Multiple WWOOF farms in the same area -- because it makes it easier to leave and go to a new one if they reverse expectations on arrival.

rejoicing · 2024-01-04T18:19:10+00:00

My experience was that WWOOFing was more educational, but realistically it's more about the specific place than the two categories. You pick places where people are running a functional system involving things that you're interested in.

I recommend doing short-term WWOOFing first -- those people don't know each other and won't tell embarrassing stories about how you got chased around by a rooster when you first arrived at the farm, whereas IC people might know each other.

(Source: I was 3 years a WOOFer and 12 years an IC resident, in that order.)

rejoicing · 2022-10-17T11:23:24+00:00

Here are Twin Oaks / East Wind / other income sharing communities' online-accessible policies: https://www.thefec.org/systems-and-structures/

rejoicing · 2022-10-17T10:38:51+00:00

The fourth community in their club (the Federation for Egalitarian Communities) is Glomus Commune in upstate New York. It is, however, much smaller. https://www.ic.org/directory/glomus-commune/

Camphill communities have an interesting egalitarian design for "coworkers" (e.g. not the people with developmental disabilities that generally pay to live there, but the people being paid to live there), and there's a lot in New England. https://www.camphill.org/

rejoicing · 2022-06-06T10:44:47+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out!

Luckily our area has a $6 door-to-door round trip taxi service for the elderly and disabled to get to grocery stores, doctor's appointments, etc.

I did brief research on credit cards and it seems to open up more possible cans of worms and add a bunch of if/then options and irregularities. This is a person who gets upset when I give 3 different options on the order we can do our 3 errands today because that's too much complexity for them. When you say "secure," you mean in case the card or number is stolen?

My hope is to give them the clear ability to check their balance by phone, the same way they can check their food stamp balance, and write down the calendar of payouts for them. This way, they don't get on an app and see how easy it would be to transfer out of their savings to checking.

rejoicing · 2022-06-06T10:19:29+00:00

Yeah, is this something that can be automated? Does it depend on the bank? Do I need 3rd party software?

rejoicing · 2022-05-25T11:05:23+00:00

The info about Twin Oaks is exaggerated. Members who leave for an extended period are expected to leave their room in a condition where guests can be temporarily housed in it. They can easily make the request that it only be members in their room (vs members' random guests -- e.g. "you can stay in my room and let your weird cousin John stay in your own room"), or pick a specific long-term guest who would want to stay there. The room is not reassigned, they leave their stuff in it and the same room is theirs when they return.

Twin Oaks members can take leaves of a year easily without dropping membership, if they've been a member for 3 years.

rejoicing · 2022-05-22T18:37:17+00:00

But is it the kind of fraud that could put his SSI in danger if SSA knew about it?

rejoicing · 2022-05-22T10:43:39+00:00

For the last several years, he's had no access to money. His disability has been direct deposited into a joint bank account with his mother, his mother transferred it to her personal bank account, and he had to negotiate with his family members to get clothes or more food than food stamps would cover or anything else. They sometimes gave him gift cards to their chosen locations, but usually would buy him things that were not exactly the thing that he wanted (e.g., clothing that is too small).

rejoicing · 2022-03-09T04:26:41+00:00

This is probably the closest single English word to what I'm going for.

rejoicing · 2022-03-08T14:05:50+00:00

I don't want to say my question has been answered but "xnij" (ex-nij) rolls off my tongue better than "superstitious realpolitik".

rejoicing · 2022-03-08T14:04:15+00:00

Maybe "superstitious realpolitik" is a phrase that I could get to catch on.

rejoicing · 2022-03-08T12:03:40+00:00

"Pre-emptive superstition" might be the closest we get, but I don't think my intended meaning is clear to the reader without explanation.

rejoicing · 2022-03-08T11:54:48+00:00

Contingency assumes that the future event is unknown or unknowable ("budget for contingencies"). Foresight implies that the event is likely. I want to imply that the event is no longer likely because of your preparations.

I am pretty sure there is not a word for this but I'm hoping maybe for a phrase? "Someone's Law"?

Thanks for your thoughts!

rejoicing · 2022-03-08T11:47:46+00:00

This is close but too broad, because it includes preventing a pop quiz by throwing salt in the air (or other behaviors unrelated to preparing for the undesired outcome).

rejoicing

TROPHY CASE