#all our wrong todays

[escapeintothepages]

“This is how you discover who someone is. Not the success. Not the result. The struggle. The part between the beginning and the ending that is the truth of life.”

All Our Wrong Todays, Elan Mastai

[spockvarietyhour]

Currently reading

[iscahmckrae]

Reading two brilliant books right now—one, imaginative and irreverent historical fiction, and the other, time travel romance. Just wanted to pop in here and share the first paragraph of each... because they're fun:

"So, the thing is, I come from the world we were supposed to have. That means nothing to you, obviously, because you live here, in the crappy world we do have. But it never should've turned out like this. And it's all my fault—well, me and to a lesser extent my father and, yeah, I guess a little bit Penelope." —paragraph one, ALL OUR WRONG TODAYS

"'Force... equals... mass... times... acceleration,' muttered Ada as she wrote in her notebook. Ada pondered that if you drop a hammer on your foot, it hurts more than dropping, say, a sock on your foot. The acceleration, or speeding up, is the same, but the mass, the solid oomph of a thing, is different. Oomph times zoom equals kaboom!" —paragraph one, The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency, No. 1: The CASE of the MISSING MOONSTONE

Okay, okay... I need to share another two bits (not 25¢) from the time travel romance, because, as a writer, they are so delicious...

"Today, in the year 2016, humanity lives in a techno-utopian paradise of abundance, purpose, and wonder.

Except we don't. Of course we don't. We live in a world where, sure, there are iPhones and 3D printers and, I don't know, drone strikes or whatever. But it hardly looks like The Jetsons. Except it should. And it did. Until it didn't. But it would have, if I hadn't done what I did. Or, no, hold on, what I will have done.

I'm sorry, despite receiving the best education available to a citizen Tomorrow, the grammar of this situation is a bit com-plicated.

Maybe the first person is the wrong way to tell this story. Maybe if I take refuge in the third person I'll find some sort of distance or insight or at least peace of mind. It's worth a try."

—then, the next chapter spends the first two paragraphs written in the third person, but then...

"I'm sorry—I can't write like this. It's fake. It's safe.

The third person is comforting because it's in control, which feels really nice when relating events that were often so out of control. It's like a scientist describing a biological sample seen through a micro-scope. But I'm not the microscope. I'm the thing on the slide. And I'm not writing this to make myself comfortable. If I wanted comfort, I'd write fiction.

In fiction, you cohere all these evocative, telling details into a portrait of the world. But in everyday life, you hardly notice any of the little things. You can't. Your brain swoops past it all, especially when it's your own home, a place that feels barely separate from the inside of your mind or the outside of your body."

—I'm sorry..... I can't get over a book stopping and explaining why it is written how it us written! Authors that break the fourth wall! I just...

(reminds me of my favorite autobiography, The Making of an American by Jacob Riis)

And then having the chutzpah to declare itself nonfiction while being soft sci-fi. It just....

And the other..... the historical fiction... It is the adventures of Ada Byron (the world's first computer programmer) and Mary Shelley, nee Godwin (the world's first science fiction author) as teenage girls who form their own detective agency and go adventuring together!

Reading both of these at once is rapturous!

So, yeah........ #book recs !!!

[megpricephotography]

Beach Boy! Barney, jumping for joy during a trip to the beach in July of 2012.

[artistformerlyknownasbutttrumpet]

Your election post was the most holier-than-thou, performative, bullshit I’ve ever read. Get a grip and get some self awareness.

i will take "missed the entire point" for 500, alex

[isfjmel-phleg]

It's my night to work, and I can't, and I'm very sorry. Can't argue with the campus nurse though.

I am also very sorry about the grass out front of our main building. The circumstances were desperate and hopefully it will never happen again.

[uncanny-tranny]

It's actually kind of heartbreaking how many people feel their life has ended right after high school or college, and honestly, the heavy romanticization of that period of time is so overwhelmingly predominant that it can be hard to avoid. It's insidious to constantly be told that ages 10-24 are the only worthwhile parts of life, that everything after is essentially meaningless and dull.

It's hard not to look around you and think that your life still is open and full of potential when you're told over and over again that the rose-tinted childhood is the last time you were alive. It's hard to realize that your life isn't over when you walk off the stage of your graduation.

We must realize that we will always be full of potentials. Your life won't be over until you take your final breath, and then? That's simply another chapter in your story, one of many. Let yourself realize that you're alive in the here and now. There will be good and bad, but never a complete loss of potential or hope.

[montydrawsstuff]

The chaotix crummy kitchen

It may break several health codes and contain 36 unique molds, but it's home <3

[icewindandboringhorror]

I occasionally wish to reach out to old friends/acquaintances I haven't spoken to since high school/some other even earlier time in my life, but I have SOOO little social energy even for required tasks (like making dr phone calls or etc), I never have any leftover for extra ones, and it would be very odd to message someone I haven't spoken to in like 5 years out of the blue but then take 4 entire months to respond back lol.. My natural curiosity with nostalgia/collecting details of the past/etc. (literally if I were born a little earlier I would definitely do scrapbooking or something lol) is very strong, but, alas, not strong enough to beat out the Social Issues Demons apparently

[lovesodeepandwideandwell]

Sometimes when my dad and I disagree, the amount of utter confidence on display would obliterate an unprepared observer, I think

[escapeintothepages]

“People talk about grief as emptiness, but it's not empty. It's full. Heavy. Not an absence to fill. A weight to pull. Your skin caught on hooks chained to rough boulders made of all the futures you thought you'd have.”

All Our Wrong Todays, Elan Mastai

[ticklace]

Shout-out to my chronically and/or mentally ill friends who are sensitive to shifts in meal & sleep schedules and had their routine shot to hell by the time change today.

One hour's difference isn't a trivial thing. Please be gentle with yourself this week.

Some helpful routine-recalibration things I've collected from various friends and nurses, in case they might be helpful to anyone else:

If you take medications at exactly the same times every day, be aware that your body might need to get used to the shift.

Don't be afraid to bring some extra snacks with you to work/class if you can. (this doesn't just help with delayed mealtimes - sleep schedule disruptions can also really throw your blood sugar out of whack so keeping it steady is important)

Drink lots of water.

Keep your support network close.

If you suddenly feel unbearably shitty, maybe eat a snack.

Sunlight is good for re-calibrating your circadian rhythm. Fresh autumn air is good for just about everything.

Please please please try to resist the temptation to doomscroll this week. (USA, I'm looking at you.)

Most of all, please give yourself plenty of grace. I love you. You're doing so well. ❤️

[khaotunq]

so today i spilled an entire cup of coffee over my desk, and like two hours later i spilled an entire cup of sprite over my bed and now i think i'm just going to sit here and not do anything ever again

[luke-shywalker]

I just learned about the Reylo fanfic author who renamed all the characters in her fanfic and published it as a book and it became a NY Times bestseller and it has a movie deal now (a lá Twilight fanfic becoming Fifty Shades), and I’m gonna need the HanLeia fic writers to explain to me why they haven’t had that level of hustle

[esta-elavaris]

Had a moment today that exemplifies how my family thinks but like, in a way that’s just very sad and makes me glad I don’t think that way.

Showed a relative the amazing painting that friend did for me, and her first response was “you’d be able to sell that for some good money!!!”

Like. No????

For months I’ve discussed this creative trade with this friend, we’ve talked about what the other wants, we’ve gotten excited about it and traded progress pics as we work on it for each other, gotten stoked over making plans to get to the post office and seeing the other finally get it, and it’s just been a very wholesome and very fun project. It took six weeks for us to complete these projects, and now I have something on display in my room that makes me very happy, that’s objectively beautiful, and that I know a friend put a lot of effort into making for me and was THRILLED when I adored it.

And my family’s immediate line of thinking is “make a few quid from it lol”.

I can’t imagine the headspace it must take to go through life like that.

[trentcrimminallybeautiful]

you know if we do accept the last epilogue-esque sequence as a sort of dream/wish of ted's and therefore not necessarily canon, very funny if we then simply go "yeah, trent's book is called 'the lasso way' actually. he didn't change that. nope."