asking the internet for suggestions

[rax]

I have a few problems/goals I want to ask the internet for suggestions regarding. So, hi Internet! There are a jillion things I could be doing, but these particular things are taking up a bunch of space in my head, so I want to get them resolved or at least in progress so they won't do that anymore. These issues include the emotional and the logistical.

• I'm making awesome friends in Tucson who do not share the value with me that you should refer to people by the pronouns that those people prefer. This is obnoxious. I don't want to not be friends with them, and occasional requests for correction are doing jack all. I've been trying to present more neutrally with them so that there is some kind of physical cue, but everything I do just codes feminine or butch to them as far as I can tell. Is there something clever I can do here? If I say "I prefer they and would appreciate if you used that pronoun," they sort of nod and say yes and then just don't, and they aren't really open to talking about it. I don't expect to get it 100% of the time and that's fine, but I'd feel more comfortable with it if it happened sometimes, or if I felt I'd exhausted my options. (Maybe I'll ask Zury to pull them aside or something? I don't feel like it's done much good coming from me.)
• I have this water feature --- a little circulating pond and waterfall thing --- and it's full of nasty plant gunk and algae and whatnot such that the thing is kind of clogged and also gross. That's fine, I can clean it! But... how? My current plan is to drain it, let it dry, sweep it out, pull stuff out with gloved hands if necessary, and then fill it back up. This feels pretty reasonable, but how do I drain a pond? I am considering some sort of shopvac, but I don't know what kind to get --- I probably want something where I can just suck up the water and let it go into the ground, not have to fill the tank, empty it out, fill the tank, empty it out a billion times. Who do I even ask this question? A hardware store? (I can't redirect the pump I already have elsewhere because the piping is all underground... I think. I should doublecheck that when it's not dark out.)
• How stupid of an idea is a king-size bed? (I have a lifestyle that occasionally but not often calls for three people sleeping in a single bed, or I would not evenbe considering this.) If it's not stupid, how expensive of an idea is it? I'm used to platform beds with futon mattresses, and knew how to shop for those mostly, but then Dream On Futon in Cambridge closed and it turns out all I know how to do is buy things from them that are good and buy things from Amazon that look good but are actually kind of shitty. It's not even that I expect the Internet to have the answer to the question "what bed do I want, if any" --- that's a synthesizing-information thing that I'm good at --- but I don't even know where to start. Bonus points for things that aren't "go somewhere where people will try to sell me something," although I guess at some point if I decide I want to upgrade I will need to patronize an establishment and disburse funds.
• I think I answered this last one with a duckduckgo search, so nevermind.

Thanks for reading, even if you don't have any suggestions. :)

Comments

[movingfinger]

I don't know how big your pond is, but our water-feature-water-reserve thing is not that big and can theoretically be hand-bailed. I bought one of these instead

http://www.hayneedle.com/sale/becksonindustrialhandwaterpump.cfm

at the local drip irrigation and backyard pond supply place.

I suggest you figure out why the algae happened---if you don't know, it will come back. I have seen something called "pond shock" for sale at the drip irrigation and pond supply place that apparently nukes... stuff in your water. If you have such an establishment around you, maybe talk to them before doing anything.

I found that just keeping debris out (a running battle, I use a mesh skimmer-strainer from the kitchen aisle at the supermarket) and replacing the fabric filter part of the water filter for the pump intake made our most icky pond problems go away.


King sized beds are great. Kind of a pain to make. The mattress is essentially un-flippable and difficult to turn head to foot. Go to a big place and take your time lying on mattresses. Most people rush through it and you should spend like 20 minutes lying and moving a bit on any mattress you are considering seriously. There will be a lot of NOs and enough UM MAYBEs in mattressland to keep you thinking. Try to shop over a couple of days and revisit the candidates. Don't let them pressure you. You're going to be spending a lot of time with your new friend.

[frith]

If you have a waterfall thing hooked up to your pond then you have some kind of pump going. That pump could be used to drain the pond, perhaps into a garden hose that empties into a ditch? Don't let the pump run dry, it'll heat up and break. Or, if the pond is on higher ground (than say, a nearby ditch), you could fill a garden hose with water, without spilling any water from the hose, plug both ends, put one end in the pond, one end in the ditch. Unplug the ends (first the end underwater in the pond, then the end low down in the ditch) and gravity will pull out the water from the pond. For just a few gallons of water, yeah, a shopvac is what I've used at work.

Best thing for eating algae are freshwater shrimp. Crayfish might do in a pinch, too. Waterlilies would cut off light in the pond and slow down algae growth.

[rax]

Waterlilies proooobably wouldn't grow in the desert --- I've had people recommend koi, so I might try those and/or shrimp. I worry about running a coyote snack bar, though.

The pump was able to drain some of the pond, but it's not at the lowest point, so there's still a bunch of water. Unfortunately I do not have any lower ground than the pond, so I think it's off to find a pump for me (or possibly to give up on this being DIY and paying someone off craigslist to clean it out, but I want to put a bit more work into this before I decide it's not worth it). Thanks for the suggestions!

[rainfae.livejournal.com]

It sounds like they are more interested in being perceived as awesome than actually being awesome. Or in knowing how awesome you are.

[daharyn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this. "Awesome" and "disrespectful of pronouns" aren't synonymous.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Well, I agree, but that's a value I hold and not a value they hold? And while if they're still doing this in five years I'm not going to have the patience, I don't want to give up on cool people just because we don't share that. It's not even that they care that I'm trans --- they know and don't care --- but they don't get gender-neutral pronouns, it's outside their experience, and it's not something they were taught or believe in strongly.

[sylvanstargazer.livejournal.com]

Among my current group of friends I'm the only one who can even somewhat consistently use gender-neutral pronouns and I still have trouble sometimes, despite working to incorporate them into my vocabulary for more than a decade. I just don't stop to think when I reach for a pronoun in every day conversation. Swapping to "they" is easy for me in a way that "zie" or other options aren't, but I know for other people it isn't. (I grew up in a place where, for some reason, people routinely used "they" as a gender-neutral third-person-singular pronoun.) However, for other people who didn't hear it used that way, it isn't going to be in the "bucket 'o pronouns" when they reach for a pronoun.

I do think exposure to other people using the correct pronouns helps, and possibly helps more than corrections. Corrections don't necessarily lead to internalized "this is how that word is used". That is, I don't think it's necessarily personal to them. Obviously it is personal to you, and reminding them of that may provide the motivation for them to figure out some way to add this pronoun to their vocabulary, but they might not know how to do that and if they don't have some technique that works all the reminders in the world won't succeed. On the other hand, if there is some way to immerse them in a world where "they" is a 3rd person singular pronoun it will eventually start sounding normal.

I do think language learning and modification is a skill. When I was learning German, my German teacher had us recite conjugated verbs over and over in a sing-song voice until they just started to sound right. That's the approach I took with zie, practicing using it until it stopped sounding notable. If I don't use it for a while, I lose that sense of normalcy, but if I hadn't had experience with a technique that worked for me I don't even know how I'd have gone about it in that first place.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

Re: the first bullet point. Introduce new friends to an old friend who uses the correct pronouns. Better: Introduce new friends to someone posing as an old friend who is poised to use the correct pronouns and make a BIG DEAL about them not using the pronouns so that new friends remember that the reason they aren't able to hang out with your "old friends" anymore is because they offended them so badly by not using the correct pronouns for Rax.

[sovay]

but then Dream On Futon in Cambridge closed and it turns out all I know how to do is buy things from them that are good and buy things from Amazon that look good but are actually kind of shitty.

I don't think Dream On has closed, although their website is dead—it went down between the 10th when I ordered the futon mattress I am currently sleeping on and the 17th when I picked it up, but there was definitely a store to pick a mattress up from. And it's a fine mattress, even if I think I shouldn't have it on a terrible cheap frame with plywood. Someday I will be able to afford the platform bed that was the other half of this plan.

[twitch124.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they didn't have any kind of "going out of business" sign up when I walked past them last week.

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

When you get an answer to number one, let me know, because I need that answer too. /sigh/

I recently asked someone close to me to talk to a new person about my preferred pronouns. The person dodged out and wanted me to do it. I've had similar issues in other contexts. In sum, if you have someone in your life who is willing and able to talk to new people about your preferred pronouns, you're ahead of some.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

Oh god pronouns, how I hate them. I really wish I had a good solution. I have no help for you. I've decided not to go for gender neutral pronouns only because a) I hate them all and b) I really don't feel like fighting an uphill battle. And it's not worth fighting an uphill battle for a thing I don't like much anyway. (Which is totally different from hating your choice so use them. I totally support that. I just can't make myself like them enough to use them on me.)

King sized beds are definitely not a stupid idea. I love ours. However, I acquired it by marrying someone who already owned it, so, again, no help. I could ask him if you care enough...

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

I hear you on the upward battle.

Also, on hating "the pronoun issue," though I'm trying them on now and hoping to find something that fits. But... uphill battle.

[kelkyag]

I have a hard time with 'they' -- it sets off my grammar checker all the time. I do use it from time to time for a hypothetical individual of unspecified gender, but using it for a real named individual wedges my poor brain. So I use "Rax" a lot (which occasionally sets off a different but more easily ignored part of the language checking system). :-/

That said, are these people who've had much occasion to think about gender issues? It sounds like they're not explicitly rejecting your request, but rather failing to process or remember it. Dropping the right pronoun in with minimal fuss ~every time might help. (One convenient feature of geek social conventions: integrating a correction and continuing without side-tracking or griping about being corrected is common and acceptable!) I suspect that visual clues (short of writing your prefered pronouns on your forehead) won't help much at all -- certainly for myself, I might conclude "I can't tell" about someone I don't already have data on, but I don't think I'd ever actively conclude that I should use pronoun other than he or she without asking (haven't figured out the etiquette for that) or being prompted.

The water system for your pond probably has a drainage valve of some sort. Failing that, a shop vac should work fine, but I'd probably try siphoning most of the water out with just a length of hose first. You might consider getting a fish or three that eats algae to help maintain it in the future, if the pond is suitable and you don't object to keeping fish.

A king size bed is annoying if you're going to move with any frequency. Assuming you're not, if one will fit in your bedroom (and not shove other things you want there out), expecting to have three people sleeping in the same bed with moderate frequency is a fine reason to get one. If you don't already know what sort of mattress or futon you like, I don't think there's a good way to pick one that doesn't involve going to a store/showroom and lying on a bunch of different ones until you figure out what works for you. Possibly if you have a doctor/chiropractor/massage therapist with a good sense of you and opinions on the subject, they could provide useful advice?

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

Dropping the right pronoun in with minimal fuss every time might help.

If they are failing to process or even remember the request, then why do you feel that repeated corrections will overcome this? At least in my experience, repeatedly correcting people (about gender) who fail to process or remember the request has very little effect (even years down the line). Sadly. And it can be exhausting.

Also, as a practical matter, it is often not possible for the mis-gendered person to correct people every time they use the wrong pronoun, given the dynamics of social interactions (also speaking from personal experience here). These people are only using the wrong pronouns (third person) in talking about Rax, not directly to them ("you" is gender neutral). The ideal solution imo is for enough people in the social crowd to get the pronouns right that the one or two people who persistently get it wrong have social pressure to care and to get it right. Cis people need to correct each other.

but I don't think I'd ever actively conclude that I should use pronoun other than he or she without asking (haven't figured out the etiquette for that)

I think the etiquette is to ask the person what pronouns they prefer, or to ask their friend if you don't want to ask them directly. "Oh, by the way, what pronouns do you prefer?" is a completely OK question, and may even be really appreciated!

[kelkyag]

If they are failing to process or even remember the request, then why do you feel that repeated corrections will overcome this?

If their intentions are good (or at least neutral), but it's not something they think of as important and thus forget / let it slip, reminders will both help it set and emphasize that it is important to Rax. Training indifferent humans requires a lot of consistent work -- and yes, that it is tiring and frustrating.

If they're rejecting the idea but unwilling to say so, correcting them probably won't help.

Yes, obviously, it isn't possible to make corrections in conversations one isn't at. And yes, the support of people who do have Rax's pronouns right and are willing to step in with corrections would help with both the tiring/frustrating, and the consistency, but I don't know if that's an option in the social circles in question.

is a completely OK question, and may even be really appreciated!

There are people who'd take it badly.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

I realise this is not helpful but I have been saying, carefully and politely, "I don't *have* a Christian name" for about 34 years, without it making the blindest bit of difference.

[blushingflower.livejournal.com]

Point 1 - Have someone else speak to them. A lot of people aren't used to think about their pronouns, and certain speech patterns are ingrained in us. Using a singular "they" may be throwing them off (which isn't to say that you're wrong to ask for it, some people are just slow to adjust). But at a certain point, people who don't even show an effort in terms of making you comfortable at virtually no expense to themselves aren't really awesome friends.

Point 3 - The only context in which a king-sized bed is stupid is if the room you intend to put it in is too small. They're great, not just for when you want to put three (or more) people in the bed. My partner has one and it's nice to have the room to not have to be touching each other while we sleep (as wonderful as snuggling is) and it's great to be able to nap and sprawl and take up the whole thing.

[ab3nd.livejournal.com]

I don't know how to people, so I'm leaving those questions to people who do.

Shop vacs, on the other hand, I know at least a little about. The one I have works by evacuating the air from a container to create the suction, so you can't get away with not emptying it by cutting a hole in the bottom for the water to fall out of. You could, however, get another pump, like a sump pump for drying basements. Put that in a bucket with lots of small holes drilled in it, to act as a sieve and not suck anything else into the pump, and it could empty the pond. Unfortunately, according to the internet, sump pumps cost ~$200 new.

Can you redirect the waterfall? Put a piece of gutter or something under it to catch the water and redirect it to someplace else?

Also, you might consider fish. I hear koi are voracious plant eaters, so you could put fish in it to keep the plants down, possibly after cleaning it some first.

[twitch124.livejournal.com]

Sump Pumps are expensive, but marine bilge pumps without a safety off are cheap. They're like $15 on amazon, and the failure mode is burning out their own engine. Put a 3/4" hose on the output and wire them up to a car battery or 9-volt.

I designed a backup grey water fountain system for a burning man camp based on them, but the primary didn't fail so they weren't tested out.

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this was going to be my recommendation. "Look for a cheap pump." We had one when we managed the pond in our backyard, and it proved helpful more than once.

[probabilistic.livejournal.com]

I second the suggestion to interact with the new friends along with other people who use the correct pronouns.

When the husband and I were looking for a new bed, we ended up going to a local futon store which sold a few other things than just futons. For whatever reason, the sales people at regular mattress and furniture stores were completely pushy and obnoxious and hovering, and the salesdude at the futon store was completely content to check if we had any questions, and then hang back and do his own thing when we said we just wanted to sit on a lot of mattresses. If a sales person can't stop giving me a "pitch" and let the product stand on its own, I figure I'm getting scammed in some way. If you're looking for product reviews (not sure if the same stuff is in Canada and the US), we got a Riposo mattress which has memory foam in it, and we're still very happy with it 2 years later. The bed frame is by Night & Day furniture, which makes futon frames and platform beds and things that didn't have the embellishments that we saw (and hated) in the bigger furniture stores. It's holding up well, and occupies some point on the quality scale between "Ikea" and "pass it down to your grandkids." Also, just a thought - changing the cover on a king-sized futon mattress might be really awkward.

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

King size beds are great ideas, and can cost in the hundreds to crazy dollars, depending. Go to more than one mattress store and tell them that the other guy said something better.

For the water feature, that is a common household problem. I do not know the answer, but I bet Home Depot does. Or your contractor. I am not sure you have to drain it. And I think you have to do something to prevent it for the future.

[sprrwhwk.livejournal.com]

And I think you have to do something to prevent it for the future.

One site I looked at on the Internet suggested sunlight-blocking dyes, to make it hard for weeds to grow on the bottom of the pond, but honestly it's going to happen with or without, and I would just budget in a pond cleaning every few years personally.

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

I think one of the answers to unsightly algae/green ponds are plants; floating plants as well as stuff along the sides can help take nutrients out of the water (which helps get rid of the 'green' color and limit some of the algae).

[sprrwhwk.livejournal.com]

Regarding point 2 -- I suspect that it will be easier to deal with the pond when it is wet -- either full or drained -- than dry, or at least that's what I would try. I don't know how big it is.

What is the pond lined with? Basically you want some kind of dredge or other implement to get the weeds and also the sediment built up on the bottom of the pond out, because that sediment encourages the growth of weeds and algae, so anything that won't damage the pond liner will work. A shovel or trowel might work, depending on the size of the pond.

(I'm surprised the pond doesn't have a drain built in, honestly. Also, you live in Arizona -- can you just stop filling it and let it evaporate?)

Your local hardware store are likely to be helpful.

[encephalogistic.livejournal.com]

I don't know if my own too-much-time-in-Texas experiences are wildly appropriate for the pronoun thing. But I will say that pronouns have been tricky for me in inverse proportion to exposure; the first is the hardest, no matter how well-intentioned I was. Also, privilege mumble mumble. People who think of pronouns as a thing they do more in isolation (without thinking about the way you experience their usage) might feel negatively about the request because, in the absence of any harm that they can perceive, it could wrongly feel more like a funky power dynamic. Or so my good ol' boy upbringing would lead me to believe. In either case, the solution would not be a trick, but rather time and emotional intimacy- if you feel like going through the trouble rather than hunting around for people that don't need to be house trained.

For the water system, unless it's very high volume a hose siphon (or little plastic specialized siphoning tools) might be your best bet. It's not fire-and-forget exactly, but it's quiet and scalable and doesn't need power.

I have no thoughts about the bed, but it made me think of this: http://xkcd.com/150/

[ab3nd.livejournal.com]

Also, I've had some experience in the "huge beds" area, but a lot of it is particular to me.

N. and I, when we lived together, did not have other people share our beds, and had two queen beds side by side on the floor. The bump formed by the edges of the mattresses prevented us both sleeping in the middle, and he found it a bit lonely to have that much space between us when we slept. I didn't have a problem with that, as the difficulty I have sleeping is more-or-less proportional to how close I am (distance-wise) to the person I'm sleeping with (literally), with a fudge factor for how tired I am. If they are in their own house and I'm in mine, I sleep like a log.

So if you want space, go for the king (or two queens edge-to-edge). If you want all snuggles all the time, don't bother. I wouldn't be able to sleep well with three people on a queen size bed, but that's how I'm wired. You may also want to consider how much having a bad night's sleep, or crashing on the couch, amortized over how often that happens, stacks up against the money for the king size bed.

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

Three people on a queen Does Not Work, in my experience. I don't think that's just you: there's a serious lack of space. (I guess *maybe* 3 Very Skinny people would work. But I can't picture it.)

If I could figure out how to fit a king size bed in my Cambridge apartment, I'd do it in a heartbeat. (Our old apartment probably could have done it, but I'm glad we didn't go that route; it would have meant we'd have to buy a new bed when we moved, because a Cambridge apartment I can afford with room for a King size bed is a non-starter.)

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

I obviously don't interact with you in person at all, but the pronoun 'they' does not fit into my mental lexicon. I might occasionally remember to use it, but it's definitely a struggle -- but it seems clear that your concern here isn't "this is a struggle", but instead "These people aren't trying." I don't really have a good answer for that, unfortunately. Good luck.