Alvaro @OMGTehAwsome@queer.party

Better rip off the old #introductions band-aid so people don't think I'm a poorly written bot.

I'm Al. I'm an old school bisexual, just because they didn't have the word "pan" back when we were driving our hot rods to the malt shop and getting an egg cream for a dime.

I love indie comic books, comedy and cooking. My TV is always blaring something, since otherwise I get lonely.

I'm as broken as everybody else and my coping strategies are pretty terrible, but I make do.

We got 8 inches of snow in my part of Austin, Texas yesterday. We're lucky to still have power, and have plenty of provisions to keep us fed with the roads shut down.

We did try and have a little fun, considering that my partner has never played in snow.

I put the "stud" in "astudingly bad at spelling".

We've been mulling over the idea of moving to North Carolina to be near my family, but I told my partner that if we did I'd want to replace all of my drinkin' jars with upcycled Topo Chico bottles. Y'know, to bring the spirit of eating breakfast tacos in downtown Austin from a greasy food truck next to your concert venue at 11PM with us.

She made me this for our anniversary. 😭

After having so much fun designing bits and bobs for another card, I've decided to maybe try actually designing my own ideas.

This is my current WIP, a tear-away hidden message card. I used it for on-demand affirmations, and it could make for a cute, random coupon-book style thing, but I think it would also be fun as a prop for tabletop RPGs (like a physical deck of many cards.)

There we go! I...
* readjusted the base to actually fit correctly,
* moved the window kitten so they could reflect off the koi pond
* add a layer of cut paper ripples
* added tissue paper curtains with little yarn tie-backs

Now I just need to draw on their house number and glue some bushes on the other side.

In-Progress Crafting!
Trying to make my friends a "congrats on the new house" card. I learned some valuable lessons about foil embossing and vinyl (don't) and taught myself a lot of Inkscape (enough to break things.)

The execution needs another iteration, but damn if the idea isn't exactly what I'd hoped for.

How in the name over everloving hell do you manage to lose a giant-ass trackball but not the teeny-tiny dongle it uses?

Greg finds out that Allison moonlights as a porn start. He decides to decorate the office he shares with Jonathan with posters of her films. He asks if Allison can sign them for him.

Is this sexual harassment?

No! Allison is not ashamed of her role in those films. Greg did not hang them to shame her, but because he's a fan. Jonathan is also okay with them, as are the other employees at the company.

Do you:
A) Point out the team's conversation is inappropriate, making your quirky and over-caffeinated boss Elena feel like she can't properly manage the team even thought she's clearly on the edge of a nervous breakdown?

B) Ignore the remarks and resume the planning meeting, even though it makes the gay, genius engineer Greg lose the self-confidence he's been building by working out, the only glimmer of hope he has after the passing of his long-term partner?

C) Try to fight the ninja

They apparently went all out on this year's sexual harassment training. It's a fully written, acted, and interactive choose your own adventure. Like with fully-developed characters with their own motivations and character arcs? This is wild.

While I'm on the subject, if someone who does identify as genderfluid can tell me how to cope with feeling like I'd look ridiculous with pierced ears one week, but feeling like I'll literally die if I don't get them pierced the next, I'd appreciate some gosh dang protips.

My partner and I had our long-overdue-since-the-move check-in. Like honestly 3 hours of hard, emotional talking.

At the end I finally sat down, gritted my teeth and put to words my weird and fluctuating relationship with gender. And how I needed room in my life to explore it and express it.

"Baby... do you have any idea how badly I've wanted to take you dress shopping? Oh! I've got whole bag of dresses I was going to donate that might fit you."

(Whatever, I'm not crying, you're crying. 😭)

Huh... I just realized you can sing "complicated gender feelings" to the tune of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

(Just in case it's not obvious, the artist for the tiefling isn't me. Reverse image searching didn't help me find them either. If anyone knows who actually drew them please let me know and I will boost it so they get credit for this rad grandma.)

My Pathfinder-loving partner made herself a homemade bubble bath, and I decided to sneak in today and make a label for it while she wasn't looking.

I also wrapped up our meal prep board tonight! I'm pretty happy with how this big boy came out.

I caught my mom referring to herself as my new nephew's "mamama" which was our pet name for our own grandma. When I saw my sister with a shirt that said "mama," I realized I had to extend the pattern...

So there's a little riff in Wicked, during Defying Gravity, and apparently there's an official version and then every singer gets to make up their own. There's a compilation video of all of them, and its the audio equivalent of a Diet Dr. Pepper vs Mr. Thunder Lite taste-off and I love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMHHXzGYCwQ

"For the love of God, Montresor!"
"Yes, for the love of God!"