Lauren Royal

For #LongCovid Awareness Day, @patientled.bsky.social has released the 2026 Long Covid Fact Sheet!

This is a list of key statistics about LC, using recent data to reflect contemporary risks.

#LongCOVID

patientresearchcovid19.com/2026-long-co...

A black and white photo of a man suffering from smallpox. His face is riddled with pustules.

I posted a 1912 photo of a man with smallpox and someone asked if it was AI. That says something about the moment we’re living in: because of vaccination, we’re now so far removed from this virus that real images of it look fake. #medicalhistory #vaccines #vaccineswork #skystorians

I am lucky to have a wonderful husband and family and a couple of great friendships. I still try to enjoy my life. But I will tell you frankly: Vlad the Impaler could not come up with a more sadistic form of torture than severe Long Covid. It is worth avoiding, and it is worth your attention.

A woman in a light purple wig sits in passenger seat of zamboni, holding a banner which states "no ICE, no more, no kings, no fear" in same font and colors as Minnesota Frost team iconography.

Absolute Queen behavior from the Zamboni Rider today at the Minnesota Frost game.
No ICE
No War
No Kings

No Fear.

Ossoff is good on this stuff

Jews are targeted in shuls & online.

Brown & Black people are abducted and sent to concentration camps.

Muslims are openly targeted by politicians.

Activists & journalists are targeted by the FBI.

Trans & queer people are being outlawed.

We are in this together. This is why solidarity matters.

It is very easy to read statements like this as a joke.

This is not a joke.

We have proven with AI, completely by accident, what knowledgeable people have been saying for decades: the environment that rich people live in gives them a very specific personality disorder.

I think we need to do away with the word "germ" as it conflates things unhelpfully.

For decades I believed exposure to "germs" was healthy.

It was only after covid that I was forced to learn there's a vast difference between exposure to a healthy bacteria biome in the garden and viruses

These issues only seem complex when you engage them in the abstract. Once you ground them in two real-world facts:

1. Trans women rarely victimize cis women.

2. Men victimize trans women in most of the ways they victimize cis women, but at much higher rates.

Everything gets a whole lot simpler.

Last year I decided to stop doing surveys unless I'm offered some kind of reward. The reward doesn't have to be big—I'll take a discount, a credit, even just the chance to win something (assuming I actually want it)—but no offer, you get none of my time. This has saved from me doing so many surveys!

Too many people, including some news media, let the truth be trampled upon without thought for what is happening to us and our nation.

I keep seeing people ask about the 25th Amendment.

Guys. His entire Cabinet is walking around in shoes that don’t fit because they’re scared to take them off.

The 25th is never happening.

Trans people existing is more important than eating at chili's or watching Harry Potter on HBO. I have no problem throwing all these companies in the dustbin

Everyone knows our offensive capabilities are unrivaled. No surprises there.

One thing that worries me is that we’ve failed to learn the lessons from Ukraine.

Warfare has changed, and we’re behind the eight ball. We should have been pouring money into counter-drone technology.

I wish I could say I was surprised

www.axios.com/2026/03/10/u...

Frankly, if this comes as any surprise then you really need to start paying attention.

If you’re roughly my age, it’s wild to reflect on the optimism for the future Americans felt when Obama was elected — young Americans spontaneously took to the streets to celebrate! — and contrast with what we face today. The falloff over the past 18 years is hard to process.

I worked out a while ago that it would cost less than a week's supply teacher wages per school classroom to put a HEPA filter in it, to stop the regular teacher and the children getting ill.

The covers of three books. Left to right: Gandolfini: Jim, Tony, and the life of a legend, about the late Sopranos actor. The cover shows Gandolfini looking shy, peering offscreen with one unobstructed eye and another that peeks out between the fingers of his right hand. CENTER: The cover of Cinema Her Way, a coffee table book by Marya E. Gates about female directors. On the cover is actress Michelle Rodriguez as the boxer heroine of Karyn Kusama's sports drama Girlfight, about a woman boxer. RIGHT David Hockney's painting collection The Arrival of Spring in Normandy, showing a painting of a verdant field. In the background of the field is green grass. in the upper foreground are the branches of a tree sprouting white, cottony buds.

A screenshot of the pre-orders section at mzs.press. Three screenshots of books that have not yet been released. I Am The Night, Daniel Dockery's book about Batman the Brave and the Bold, has a silhouette of Batman stretching from the top to the bottom of the cover, with the title of the book and a nighttime Gotham skyline circumscribed by the borders of the Batman silhouette. CENTER The cover of The Ring Cycle, Matt Zoller Seitz and Odie Henderson's book on the Rocky and Creed films. The cover is white except for a pair of black boxing gloves floating there RIGHT The cover of Documentary Now!, the 600-page, 7-pound coffee table book celebrating the aforementioned IFC Channel series parodying classic documentaries.

Screenshot of three books carried at mzs.press arts bookstore: LEFT: Cover of Lead Sister, a biography of Karen Carpenter, featuring a closeup of Carpenter playing and singing with The Carpenters. CENTER: The cover of Anthony Hopkins' We Did OK, Kid, a memoir of his life and career. On the cover is Hopkins in closeup as he looks presently, narrowed blue eyes looking directly at the spectator. RIGHT: Cover of Louis Armstrong In His Own Words, a collection of the bandleader's correspondence. The cover image is a photograph of a probably fortysomething Armstrong seated at the wooden desk in his office where he often wrote letters.

Screenshot of the covers of 3 books carried at mzs.press Arts Bookstore. LEFT: The cover of Gotham City Cocktails, a book of mixed drink recipes inspired by Batman. Art deco-style flowing border lines flow around and around the interior of the dust jacket. At the center are drawings of two tall cocktail glasses and between them, a shot glass and a tumbler with a sword-pierced cherry in it. CENTER: The cover of Downton Abbey Afternoon Tea Cookbook. Green cover, white writing and graphics. The central image is a teapot with stem lines coming out of it, and at the pot's base, a teacup and saucer and a separate plate of biscuits. RIGHT: Bob's Burgers "The Re-Recipe Box," a set of recipe cards inspired by the joke hamburger names featured on the small board at the front of Bob's joint. Red sides with small graphics, cover image of the restaurant.

Greetings, new friends! You may know me as an author, a prolific Bluesky poster and 4th place finisher on So You Call That Dancing? But you might not know that my partner Judith (@mzpress) and I have an online arts bookstore that's growing every day. Full inventory here: mzs.press/EVERYTHING-W...

High percentage because they don't let them rest.

Little ivory elephants?!

From what I understand, his birth name *was* Mark Wayne. He changed it himself.

There is an incalculable toll being taken on our mental and emotional health, watching what would be administration-ending scandals for any other president happen on average 2 to 4 times every single week, month after month after month after month.

And it keeps getting worse.

Lucifer has a point

Bessent says the Trump admin may now lift sanctions on even more Russian oil to try and reduce oil prices during Trump’s war. This would provide a massive injection of cash to fund Putin’s war machine.

I *so* needed this laugh!

the_thinking_great_ape You know what WON'T get stuck in the Strait of Hormuz? Sunlight and solar panels. @nickofnz