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litafficionado · 3 years ago

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Four Questions with Garielle Lutz:

I’m extremely beholden to Garielle who took the time to respond to my silly, garbled, childish, intrusive questions. You can purchase her latest book Worsted here and here, among many other sites. --------- Q. You've attributed the resuscitation of your literary career in quite considerable measure to your teacher and editor Gordon Lish. It seems like you guys are particularly close, even as you seem to have largely confined yourself to Pittsburgh(mostly driven by your erstwhile teaching career but also by your liking the city over time). How does it feel to hear someone like Gordon speak so highly of you, “I think there’s more truth in one sentence of my student [Lutz] than in all of [Philip] Roth. Lutz gives [herself] away. “The speaking subject gives herself away,” says Julia Kristeva. I thoroughly believe that. What you see in Lutz, [her] lavish gift, is [her] refusal to relax [her] determination to uncover and uncover. It is, by my lights, quite wonderful, quite terrific.[…]Lutz is entirely the real thing?” Does one feel vindicated? How do you navigate the waters of self-effacement and self-indulgence as a writer and as a person? A. I haven’t had a literary career before or after studying with Gordon Lish. I don’t think one finds one’s way to him in hopes of launching a career. Anyone with vulgar ambition along those lines would have been shown the door pretty quick. I would never presume to be close to Gordon or to feel that I am part of his life other than in my role as a student. He dwells in another realm entirely. I attended his classes and tried to grasp, to the best of my abilities, the things he was saying about how to get from one word to the next. He also talked about how to free a word from the constricting range of its permissible behaviors, how to drain it of every sepsis of received meaning, until there is nothing left of the word but the skeleton of its former self, just the lank, gawky letters sticking out this way and that, and then how to fill the thing up again, to the point of overspilling, but this time with something that would never have been allowed to belong in there before, and then see whether the word, now close to bursting, can hold up and maybe have a new kind of say. I’m always surprised and relieved whenever Gordon says anything approving about anything I write. I think that for a lot of his students, his opinion is the only one that counts.

Q. You've said, "A typical day goes like this: noon, afternoon, evening, night, additional night, even more night, furtherest night, then bedtime, though I don’t have a bed or furniture of any kind.” Have you always been a lychnobite, sensing the overwhelming superabundance of life after the sunset or is it a relatively recent development facilitated by your retirement from teaching? Do you consider yourself in any way to be a minimalist? Does your room bear any resemblance with a sparsely lit opium den where all exchanges happen at the floor level?

A. I think the pandemic has had a lot to do with it. Lately I’ve been up until five, sometimes six. But I’ve always found mornings the harshest and ugliest part of the day (maybe it’s just because of the place where I live, but I never open the blinds anyway). There can be something awfully scolding about a sunrise the older you get Evening seems to extend every form of leniency, and in the dead of night, expectations go way down, which is where they maybe ought to stay. I do spend all of my time on the floor, but my apartment doesn’t bear any resemblance to an opium den. It’s more like a crawlspace or the back of a dollar-store stockroom.

Q. Even with your reputation of being a page-hugger than a typical page-turner, how do you decide which books to read apart from your line of work? Do you try to keep it largely in the familiar territory, like exploring the oeuvre of a time-tested writer? How does one unshackle oneself from this constant niggling that one ought to read so many books? Here's Ben Marcus: “When I was in graduate school, there was this sort of cautionary adage going around by the poet Francis Ponge that we can only write what we’ve already read and one way to hear that is you’re just sort of doomed to kind of regurgitate everything you’ve read and so if you’re just reading all the popular books, the books everyone else is reading, in some sense you’re maybe unwittingly confining yourself to a particular literary practice that’s gonna look pretty familiar. I remember at the time thinking, okay well if that’s true, if I’m just fated to that, then I’m gonna read things that no one else is reading. I loved to just go to the library and pretty randomly grab books, because I think for a little while, and I’m kinda glad this passed, but I really just had this feeling that a writer just consumes language and just sort of spits it out. So it didn’t matter. Like it didn’t have to be a great novel for it to be worth-reading. And I still read very little fiction in the end compared to non-fiction, essays, works of philosophy, science. And the other sort of dirty secret is: I don’t finish a lot of books. I just don’t care enough. I only finish a book if I have to or if I really want to. And, often, I’ll stop reading a book three pages from the end. I think that as writers, we probably feel a lot of pressure about what kind of a reader to be, what kind of a writer to be in, and we feel this shame, like “I haven’t read DH Lawrence, I’m such an asshole.” You begin to feel like you’ve these deficiencies and you gotta make them up and you never will and a lot of it is just kinda tyrannical. Of course, obviously, we must be naturally motivated to read and read and read and read but I guess I just started to notice that…I got a lot of my ideas by just reading…e.g. a gardening book…like the weird way a sentence was structured.” Then there's Moyra Davey: “Woolf famously said of reading: “The only advice … is to take no advice, … follow your instincts, … use your reason.” A similar thought was voiced by her elder contemporary Oscar Wilde, who did not believe in recommending books, only in de-recommending them. Later, Jorge Luis Borges echoed the same sentiment by discouraging “systematic bibliographies” in favor of “adulterous” reading. More recently, Gregg Bordowitz has promoted “promiscuous” reading in which you impulsively allow an “imposter” book to overrule any reading trajectory you might have set for yourself, simply because, for instance, a friend tells you in conversation that he is reading it and is excited by it. This evokes for me that most potent kind of reading — reading as flirtation with or eavesdropping on someone you love or desire, someone who figures in your fantasy life.”“What to read?” is a recurring dilemma in my life. The question always conjures up an image: a woman at home, half-dressed, moving restlessly from room to room, picking up a book, reading a page or two and no sooner feeling her mind drift, telling herself, “You should be reading something else, you should be doing something else.” The image also has a mise-en-scène: overstuffed, disorderly shelves of dusty and yellowing books, many of them unread; books in piles around the bed or faced down on a table; work prints of photographs, also with a faint covering of dust, taped to the walls of the studio; a pile of bills; a sink full of dishes. She is trying to concentrate on the page in front of her but a distracting blip in her head travels from one desultory scene to the next, each one competing for her attention. It is not just a question of which book will absorb her, for there are plenty that will do that, but rather, which book, in a nearly cosmic sense, will choose her, redeem her. Often what is at stake, should she want to spell it out, is the idea that something is missing, as in: what is the crucial bit of urgently needed knowledge that will save her, at least for this day? She has the idea that if she can simply plug into the right book then all will be calm, still, and right with the world. […] Must reading be tied to productivity to be truly satisfying […] Or is it the opposite, that it can only really gratify if it is a total escape? What is it that gives us a sense of sustenance and completion? Are we on some level always striving to attain that blissful state of un-agendaed reading remembered from childhood? What does it mean to spend a good part of one’s life absorbed in books? Given that our time is limited, the problem of reading becomes one of exclusion. Why pick one book over the hundreds, perhaps thousands on our bookshelves, the further millions in libraries and stores? For in settling on any book we are implicitly saying no to countless others. This conflict is aptly conjured up by essayist Lynne Sharon Schwartz as she reflects on “the many books (the many acts) I cannot in all decency leave unread (undone) — or can I?”” What way out do you suggest? Do you deem it worthwhile to eschew any shred of obligation and be propelled in any direction naturally? Like you said you found grammar books and lexicons more engaging and enjoyable than the novels.

A. I seem to remember that in some magazine or another, James Wolcott once said “Read at whim.” That has always sounded like the best advice. And I assume it means to feel free to ditch any book that disappoints. Like Ben Marcus, I’ve had experiences of abandoning a book just a few pages from the end, but I often don’t make it that far in most things anymore. I came from a long line of nonreaders, so I’ve never felt any guilt about passing up books or writers that so many people seem to talk about a lot, and I don’t expect other people to like what I like. Some books I’ll start about halfway in and then see whether I might want to work my way back to the beginning. Others I’ll start at the very end and inch my way toward the front, one sentence at a time, and see how far I can go that way. I seem to remember that in The Pleasure of the Text, Roland Barthes recommends “cruising” a text, and maybe something like that is what I’m doing at least some of the time, if I understand what he means. And every now and then I’ll read a book straightforwardly for an hour and afterward wonder whether the time might have been better spent staring off into space. Too many books these days seem ungiving. It’s the ungivingness that disappoints the most. A lot of contemporary fiction has the gleam and sparkle of a trend feature in a glossy magazine, and I can appreciate the craft and the savvy that go into something like that, but I am drawn more toward stories and books that demand being read slowly and closely, pulse by pulse, the kind of fiction where everything--what little might be left of an entire blighted life--can pivot on the peal of a single syllable. Q. I'd like to ask you so many questions. But let this be the last one for matters of convenience. Also, in a capitalistic world, one's enshrouded with guilt for taking one's time without being remunerative in any way. Among the books and films that you recently encountered, which ones do you think deserve rereads/rewatches? A. I used to feel like the woman you’ve described so movingly above, someone who questions her choice of books almost to the brink of despair. At my age, though, I no longer have a program for reading, a syllabus or a checklist, and I’m okay with knowing there’s a lot I’ll never get around to. I’m happy being a rereader of a few inexhaustible books and chancing upon occasional fresh treasure. The one book that has shaken me the most in the longest time is Anna DeForest’s A History of Present Illness, which will be out next August. It’s a blisteringly truthful novel written with moral grace and unsettling brilliance and an awing mastery of language. A couple of recent books I have read in manuscript, books that totally knocked me out with their originality and uncanny command of the word, are Greg Gerke’s In the Suavity of the Rock (a novel) and David Nutt’s Summertime in the Emergency Room (a short-story collection). I haven’t watched many movies in the past few months, and the ones I watched aren’t ones I’ll probably be rewatching anytime soon.

#Garielle Lutz #lit #Worsted #Moyra Davey #Ben Marcus #Gordon Lish #Anna DeForest #A History of Present Illness #Greg Gerke #In the Suavity of the Rock #David Nutt #Summertime in the Emergency Room

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joshslater · 5 years ago

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Wet Dreams

Let’s end the month weird. I’ve never done a diaper story before. Other transformation stories and bonus material on my Patreon.

The first two weeks are the most important, and the first day is crucial. While every new boy is different, I have the process pretty well down by now. The most important thing is to have his mentor at the house already when he arrives. The new arrival is usually a full week before the semester starts, so I have to arrange for the mentor to be a little early as well. The mentor is someone one or two years older that welcomes him and helps him through his first college year. It’s one of the reasons why I get so many interested in renting a room in my house. There are only seven rooms I rent out, although some are big enough to share, but I think privacy is important, at least for the first year or two. That allows for personal, one on one sessions without any interruptions.

The mentor is with the new arrival at all times during the first day. He’s fully indoctrinated by now, but in addition I give him some coaching the day before on how to build trust. Most important is to project a confident, aspirational facade, so the new arrival has someone to look up to, someone they would like to become. Someone they would like to emulate. Someone whose suggestion they would follow. Someone whose opinion matters and information they trust. There is a long list of small gimmicks, like asking to borrow something, repeat words and phrases back to him, and so on. All of them useful later in life to make anyone follow your lead and do what you tell them. But today it is all about getting the new arrival to do one specific thing.

We spend the day setting up the new room, getting to know each other, doing some sightseeing. Lots of situations with liquid in one form or another. “Would you like a soda before you unpack?” and “It’s tea break. Come down to the tea room.” and “This is the best ice cream in town. Let me buy anything you like”. Everything is high in water and low in sodium. It’s soup for dinner, lots of vegetables. High in water and slow to release it. I always insist on having a small wine tasting first evening. “There is so much more to education than what you get from your curriculum. I insist you know something about all the major wine grapes before you graduate”. It’s usually three bottles of red. That way I can pour a little in three different glasses. Then it doesn’t look that much, but still it would be rude of him to not empty it. Not that that has ever been a concern. For some it’s the first time they’ve even had alcohol. Then fruit for dessert.

This is what it has all lead up to. He has a new friend who he looks up to and trust. He’s more hydrated than ever before in his life, not just with straight-up water, but also with water-soluble vegetable fibers, and he is tipsy from the dinner beverages. This is were I ask him to get to his room and get ready.

They go to his room and his mentor tells him the secret, well-rehearsed of course. He talks about how great this place is, what a great support I am, and how every parent is proud to have their child selected. It’s just that I have a small little weird kink, the reason why I run this house to begin with. I don’t have any children so I want to treat the new arrivals as such. It’s just some harmless play.

The new arrival is anxious by this point, wondering what sick perversion I have that he is clearly getting pressured into. The mentor then reveals I want him to put on nappies and read a bedtime story for him. The new arrival sighs of relief. He was worried he would have to call home to his parents and ask them to drive back half a state and pick him up. He’s heard of much worse hazings at frat houses. “Is the bedtime story a euphemism?”, he asks. No, it isn’t. “Do I have to pee and shit the diapers?”. Only if you want to, he answers laughing.

The mentor shows him the items in his bathroom, and tells him how to put the nappy on. Once done, and the new arrival is tucked in bed, I show up with a children’s book and a pacifier. I act as if it is the most natural thing in the world to put a pacifier in the mouth of a teenager. I sit down and read a short story while he falls asleep.

The mentor wakes him up the morning after and asked how he slept. There is no way he hasn’t wet his nappy during the night, so the job of the mentor is to dismiss it as inconsequential. Of course he wet himself, he was drunk from all the wine! Some people wet themselves when they are stressed or have anxiety, like moving away from home, entering a new school. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you even had nappies on, so no damage done. Throw it in the trash, take a shower and none is the wiser.

This works as a segue for having a morning swim in the lake a short walk away. I have basic swimming as a requirement for all applications, under the guise that the house is so close to the lake, and I don’t want to have a drowned student. In practice 30 minutes of swimming is how all the boys start their mornings. It’s bonding, it’s cardio, it’s slimming, and most important of all, it is in water. It’s the only exercise they do, save for some light weights in our tiny home gym, but they do it diligently.

I welcome them back with breakfast. Tea, orange juice, oatmeal porridge, watermelon, boiled eggs, avocado. Nutritious, and rich in protein and water-soluble fibers. Then I leave them to explore the city on their own. This is more or less the template for the entire week. They start out with swimming and breakfast. Then I’m hands off until the evening, letting them visit friends, the campus, shop books and equipment, and whatever else they need to do to prepare for the new school year. Then I serve up dinner. I’m not as extreme as the first day, but I try to keep water content high and sodium low, and showcase a few new types of wine. When it’s bedtime he puts on his nappy, goes to bed. I give him the pacifier and read a little story.

I bring a freshly coated pacifier every evening. The binding agent looks and feels just like rubber, but slowly dissolves during the night, releasing the sedative and psycopharma mixed into it. First night is all about strong sedative, to fall asleep quickly, relax the muscles and not wake up to relieve the bladder. The sedative part is then slowly dialed back to low enough dose to just create an addiction, while more focus is given to the psycopharma and some of the physiological effects. The vibration sensors in the bed can roughly track what part of the sleep cycle the boy is in, so that the right track can start to play in the speaker at the right time.

I want him to feel good and safe, so that is always the first thing he hears. How he is loved by me and his brothers, how good he feels to be here with us, how nice it is to fall asleep in his bed in this house. How this is a safe place, both for him and any secrets he may have. No one will know what he does here, unless he tells them. He can relax, mind, body, and soul. Get that deep rest that lets everything that happened during the day sink in and be part of him. Let his mind relax fully and let go of all worries for the night. All brothers are loyal to each other. Let his body relax fully, let go of all stress and become rested. Listen carefully and remember everything that is being taught to him. Let his bladder relax fully and let go. He is safe and secure, wearing his nappies. No one will know.

The pacifier and nappy is completely normalized within days, and compulsively needed to even fall asleep within two weeks. He doesn’t even notice that it happens, and with all the other boys back for school it all feels normal. He doesn’t have his parents around, no other friends, no classmates yet. It’s just a bunch of well mannered, good looking, A-students that he lives with. And every morning they put on bathrobes and run to the lake, all of them wearing their night nappy. They throw it in the bin by the shore, and swim naked for half an hour.

The rest is easy. Step by step, one more once the previous is fully accepted and incorporated. I have a barber they can go to for free, but only if I chose their hairstyle. They can go somewhere else if they want to, but they all take me up on my offer. It’s free, and they’ll look like the other boys staying here. It’s not even peer pressure, but a longing to belong. I have an esthetician show up once a month helping them with pimples, skincare, and massage, if they wish. No one has ever said no to free massage, especially not if everyone else tells you how amazing it is. She’ll give them all the lotions they need to keep their skin looking prepubescent. They are eager to learn how to take care of their skin. The voices at night have made it so.

It takes them different time, but always well before Christmas break he is unable to control his bladder even awake. It’s an important milestone, and it would be such a hard transition if he didn’t have the support of his brothers. They show him how it’s not a big deal. The day nappies are slim fitting and don’t show under normal clothes. They tell him how he doesn’t have to worry about bathroom breaks. They tell him that while he won’t be partying out, they are here to study after all. They are in this together. They tell him it will all be fine.

Christmas is the real test, and the new ones are concerned about if they should tell their parents, or if they should keep it a secret. They all go for keeping it a secret, if nothing else to be loyal to their brothers. It’s such a great joy when they return, because they both feel accomplished making it through Christmas, but happy they can be themselves again. It creates a mental breaking with the past.

It’s that feeling of belonging that propels them through the final push. They get subtle hints all around to keep their body smooth. It’s what swimmers do, and you’re a swimmer aren’t you? It makes it so much hygienic when wearing nappies. I’ve made it easy for them to make the decision on their own. Just talk to their esthetician. I never raise the question of laser hair removal. It’s like a mini graduation that they have to work up the urge themselves to ask me about it. I happily pay for it, of course.

Once we reach this milestone, usually before the first summer break, but never far after, having lived through a sweaty summer with itchy stubble all over, I make no more changes. Subtle adjustments perhaps, but by large I want them to feel stability, to really make these changes their own. I don’t mean just in the psychological sense, but have their bodies adapt. Lush, youthful skin that stays that way for decades. Lean, nutritious habits that lead to lean, lithe bodies. Constantly keeping a bottle near to always hydrate, and constantly filling their nappy, until the kidneys know nothing else.

The real reward comes later, after they have graduated, whenever I see an alumnus on TV. The leader of a think tank, or the CEO of a traded company, my boys tend to do well. The reward is to see them agitate on TV or give their expert opinion, and know that below that crisp suit is a body smooth as a soap and a cute little nappy.

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etraytin · 5 years ago

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Quarantine, Day 57

Tonight's journal is starting a little late because the kiddo had a hard time going to bed. I told him at bedtime how proud I was of how good and helpful and loving he was being for Nana and all of us while we're here and things are tough. He admitted that sometimes he has to bite his tongue to keep from crying. I know the feeling, but it hurts like a punch in the stomach to hear that from your child. I told him that he could talk to me when he felt that way, and even if I couldn't help, we could feel it together. He came out of his room a few minutes later and we talked about the sad, scary things that are happening in our family and in the world, and how he misses his friends and how we don't know when things are going to be better. I didn't have a lot of answers to give, but I told him that it was normal to feel that way, and that I feel that way a lot too. I told him that eventually things are going to be better, even if we don't know quite when, and that I think it's very likely that by the fall, he will be able to go to school again. We talked about what we think will be the last places to open (Disneyland, professional sports), and how school will look when it opens again.

Then we started talking about better things, how it was nice to be with Nana so we can help her and Papa, and how we are happy that Nana has a very nice house with a garden and a big kitchen. I told him about Pinterest, and how we can maybe find some strange recipes to experiment with, and he volunteered that he was happy to be here because Nana has a lot of board games and books. We looked through some of the books on the shelves in the living room, which are mostly handsome bound collections of great works of history and fiction. We found an old Bobbsey Twins book that I read when I was little, and Treasure Island, and a collection of the Little House books. He was intrigued, and has decided that when he runs out of stuff to read in his current pile, he will try some of these treasures that have been under our noses this entire time. I said that sounded like an excellent idea, and we made plans for a popcorn and reading afternoon. Then he told me about some of his favorite YouTube videos he's seen recently, and by then he was starting to feel better enough to go back to bed. I don't have any answers, but at least we can do this and it seems to help. It's good not to feel alone.

Today was overall a pretty good day, though we haven't made much progress in resolving any of the continuing problems. I drove into the city and picked up the last pieces of paperwork we needed for my FIL's various applications, and while I was out I also did a pickup order at the bakery of some extremely large croissants and cookies. I ate one while I was running errands, but it was okay because I sanitized first. Then I went to Publix, where I was able to secure additional tampons as well as way, way too much chocolate to sate the gibbering hormone demon inside me, plus the rest of the items on our list. Publix is hecking expensive, and I think I may end up going to Walmart next time just because I feel guilty about spending that kind of money, even if Publix is demonstrably cleaner and better distanced. Almost everyone I saw today was wearing a mask, which is somewhat reassuring.

I tried to cook steaks on the grill tonight because we had some in the freezer, but I am not very good at it. We only have steaks when we are with my folks, because the in-laws are not huge steak people and when we ourselves happen to score a steak or two, I make fajitas or stir fry or something else to make it go as far as possible. My dad is super good at grilling steaks and likes to do it, so while I often watch, I basically never do. Long story short, my steaks were okay, but probably a little too rare and not salted enough. We ate them anyway, though! The kiddo made cheesy Rice a Roni (some fancy brand, but basically Rice a Roni) for lunch, and my husband made a cake with the fruit that was going over. MIL made pancakes for breakfast and promised that she would sit down much more during the day if she could do something useful first thing. (Final verdict on that promise: ehhhhhhhhhhhhh.) The pancakes were, admittedly, excellent. Tomorrow I'm going to do sauerkraut and sausage again because it's too near Mother's Day to stop me. Mua-ha-ha!

My FIL has proved he can use the phone and Facetime on his own by calling several times throughout the day for long conversations, plus another window visit this afternoon. He does okay during the day, but the evenings when he is tired, he gets very disoriented, sometimes belligerent, sometimes despairing. He does not remember well from call to call or visit to call and usually thinks he has been there alone for a long time. My husband and MIL are tag-teaming on the calls so neither one has to bear the full weight of them, but it is still hard. It is one area where I am of basically no use, which is frustrating, but I can help in other ways so I try to do that. I have also been talking with my own parents by phone several times a day. It is nice to just talk with them about everything that is going on; they have had to go through it all before with their parents and even if they don't have answers, it is nice not to feel alone. That's funny, that's a lot like the situation I'm in with my child right now, and I didn't even think of the parallel til just now. Literature! I also called my dad for tips on cooking the steak, but didn't do it til I'd already started cooking it, which was a bit of a mistake. Missteak.

Anyway, I think tomorrow is going to be a day for fun times in the kitchen. I got some vanilla porter today for beer bread that should be very nice, and the kiddo and I have an appointment for adventure and mystery with Pinterest! And of course there's sauerkraut and sausage to be had. I really do need to start getting some exercise, I'm going to have to see if MIL still has that recumbent bike in storage. I hope you are all doing well and eating well as we continue this grand experiment in not making each other sick.

#quarantine #cooking #pinterest #i could use recommendations for good books in the 4th-6th grade range #he's reading a lot lately!

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legattus · 5 years ago

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Code of Conduct

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Mun has 10+ years of roleplay experience, and before last December was on Tumblr for at least 8+ years.

Mun works a full time job in addition to being a part time college student (lawd help me), so activity is sometimes sporadic at best. This also means I have a designated bedtime, so if activity suddenly disappears that is likely the reason why.

I do not do or participate in ooc drama. Period. Leave the drama for the threads.

Mun is basically an opossum, permanently anxious, concerned, and perplexed

#ooc || psa #ooc ( i meant to post a mobile version earlier and I didn't orz )#ooc ( pls actually read my rules tho )#ooc ( because yes I do have them and yes I do adhere to them )#ooc ( a lot of this is common courtesy stuff but I've found in the past that people still tend to ignore stuff so yeah )#ooc ( also if stuff is bolded in here def pay attention to it because that usually means people ignore it )#ooc ( and by ignore it I mean either don't read the rules entirely or they flat out ignore my rules )#ooc ( both of which will not put you in my good graces )#ooc ( I try to be as relaxed and laid back as possible but there are some things that will likely result in an insta-ignore )#ooc ( bolded stuff in my rules is one of them )

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mental-health-advice · 7 years ago

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When I was a kid, I had undergone sexual/physical/mental abuse for about a year. And I think to cope with it, I ate a bunch of food. I now want to become more healthy so I want to ask: how can I become more healthy mentally? I can’t really afford mental help, and no one else knows this but me. I want to be comfortable with myself be for I become more healthy physically.

Hello! Thank you for sending this in, and I really hope I can give you some ideas or inspiration. I’m so sorry for what you went through, but I believe in you and you can become stronger. You are not your past, but your future.

It is perfectly okay to want to be healthy, but it is just as important to be safe and realise what we are doing. There are lots of ways to focus on our mind, and I think to work on our mental health before physical health can be beneficial!

My first point is that you could make a routine. Perhaps a daily or weekly routine, with simple things such as a wake-up and bedtime or meal times. Keeping to a routine can really split up your day, and give you something to follow if one day you feel a little less motivated. I write mine on a whiteboard, but you could set alarms for meal times, break times from work or even keep the routine in your mind. Whichever works best for you!

Loving yourself as you are is an important lesson. Our personality, our fashion, hobbies and how we feel about our bodies. It is okay to change, and it can be refreshing and a new start for some. You can always change who you are, as long as you are safe and it is making you more comfortable. One thing which I have done is write down points I like about myself, and those which I wish to change. This helped me see what stage I was at in learning to love myself, and what I could safely change to make me feel more like me.

I would just like to say, nobody is perfect but we can learn to love ourselves. The aspects we do not like about ourselves which we cannot change make us who we are. We can be proud of them, and show them off because it is our thing. Physical or not.

Staying positive throughout the whole process goes hand in hand with motivation. While working on your mental health, a little positive message or reminder can go a long way. You could write positive sticky notes and place them around your home, or set reminders on your phone to smile or breathe and relax for a moment. I often have various playlists I listen to which are full of songs that make me feel motivated and happy.

I also have a playlist for when I need a moment to be sad. It is okay not to feel okay, and we have to acknowledge our feelings and embrace them. Sometimes we are sad, that is okay. We just have to know that we deserve happiness and it will pass. We must dust ourselves off and pick ourselves up again. Listening to my playlist gives me that moment to embrace what I am feeling and to focus on something else.

Surrounding yourself with things you love is another good way to clear your mind and focus on positives. Tidying my room helps me, as it gives me motivation and allows me to feel as if my working space isn’t cluttered. Do you feel tidying the area you spend most time would help? Opening a window or making schedules, arranging your notebooks and pens can give you that nice space you can spend time on your laptop or artwork. In addition to this, I sometimes open a window to let in some fresh air. It may sound silly, but fresh air helps a lot when you are inside!

Being okay on your own is a personal challenge for me, but it is incredibly valuable. Being on your own often sounds scary and isolating, but learning to be okay on your own for a little while can help a lot with your moods and how you think. I like to stay busy and switch things up often, whether that be watching a TV show for an hour and then baking a cake, or going for a bike ride. Do you feel this would be something you could benefit from? Being on your own does not have to feel overwhelming, and taking it a day or few hours at a time can really help with the process. It is also important to socialise, whether that be at work with colleagues or family and friends. A balance is key!

There are lots of resources out there, for both physical and mental health. For mental health, there is an app I use called Headspace which gives you short meditations to do each day. These focus on you relaxing and just taking a moment to breathe which can break up a day, stressful situation or negative mood. If you cannot use the app, there are lots of free YouTube videos with calming sounds, music and meditations.

For physical health, there are also lots of apps and YouTube videos. I use Strava, which can track where I go on a run or bike ride and how far I go. A lot of physical activity is actually down to our mental health, though. I encourage you to continue working on your mental health before physical but remember that both are equally as important and you must be safe about how you are doing improving them.

If you have any questions about staying safe, healthy or would just like some more techniques to work on your mental health, please don’t hesitate to drop us another ask. I hope some of these ideas have helped or inspired some of your own, and I believe in you to make this progress. We can do it together!

Rosie

#mharosie #health #mental health #working on mental health #mental health tips #physical health tips #mental health advice #advice blog #Anonymous

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jeffersonhairpie · 7 years ago

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all of them

This was sitting in my inbox and tumblr did not tell me - rude. I assume this is for the ask meme yesterday so I’m gonna go ahead and stick all of these under a cut bc they are a LOT

1. things that inspire you

This is so vague and the answer is also vague - lots of things. Most of my ideas start out as small questions that spiral out into bigger concepts rather than starting from a concept and working backwards. Anything that gives me a Big Feel generally makes me want to write though

2. things that motivate you

The knowledge that I will have many more ideas and I will never write them all but if I write fast I will get more of them out

3. name three favorite writers

William Shakespeare, Barbara Kingsolver, Salman Rushdie

4. name three authors that were influential to your work andtell why

William Nicholson - The Wind On Fire series is the single most underrated bunch of YA novels and they made me wanna write shit that no one else could have thought up

Michael Rosen - I have been at several of his talks by nature of being a person who grew up in Oxford when I did so he was one of the first authors that I had direct contact with

Tolkien - My mum is a massive Tolkienite and I got the full Middle Earth saga as bedtime stories as a kid in addition to stories my mum would make up to tell me which a) helped me realise how easy it was for a person to string a story together and b) I now totally realise was her trying to be like Tolkien. What a nerd.

5. since how long do you write?

Since I knew how to make letters do things on a page

6. how did writing change you?

It helps me get shit unstuck from my brain. I wish I could say it made me more verbose but it decidedly has not

7. early influences on your writing

The Chronicles of Narnia were the first high fantasy thing I ever read and they got me good. Greek and Norse mythology had me enraptured as a kid. It’s hard to not put Harry Potter here when Philosopher’s Stone was the first chapter book I read all by myself as a kid

8. what time are you most productive?

Depends what for! My writing is better in the mornings and at a sweet post-dinner spot at night and I edit better in the late afternoon

9. do you set yourself deadlines?

No because I never know how long it’s going to take me to reach the end of a story. I have a daily word quota though

10. how do you do your researches?

Typically in a rush when I realise there’s something I don’t know. Then I get sidetracked and spend a lot of time falling down an internet wormhole

11. do you listen to music when writing?

Absolutely not

12. favorite place to write

In a comfy chair in a room by myself

13. hardest character to write

I assume this means in fic? Probably Wade Wilson to my eternal irritation. I’m just not that kind of funny

14. easiest character to write

Kind of depends on the day. Bruce Wayne is delightfully easy though

15. hardest verse to write

I haven’t really tried any universe that really makes me work for it but my brief forays into Watchmen fic have been surprisingly difficult to do well

16. easiest verse to write

I’m really good at writing for Gorillaz

17. favorite AU to write

Anything sci-fi. Or anything that lets me do fairytale shit with characters

18. favorite pairing to write

Reeeeaaallly depends on the day and the kind of thing I am in the mood to write. BatJokes is probably the top OTP at the mo but that doesn’t mean it’s always what I wanna be writing

19. favorite fandom to write

Again, depends on the day.

20. favorite character to write

All these questions are so mood dependent!!!

21. least favorite character to write

I haven’t ever really hated the experience of writing a character

22. favorite story you’ve ever written

Oooooo this is hard. Obviously MFTJ is my baby but I also really like There Will Be Water, A World In Which, Chew Me Up Or Spit Me Out, Legend Has It, Through Dark Forbidding Waters, Out Of The Forest I Come, Up The Walls And Down Again and Equilibrium

I like a lot of my stories. I’m my own favourite fic author.

23. least favorite story you’ve ever written

I once wrote Supernatural incest. I have a dark past

24. favorite scene you’ve ever written

I picked like ten fav fics - i woud struggle like hell to pick a single scene

25. favorite line you’ve ever written

AAAHHH!! Idk i don’t normally pick out individual lines? And lines that I do like really need full context to be cool so it feels mean to pull them apart and leave them all alone

26. story you’re most proud of

MFTJ for sure. Kinda wanna go back in time to this time last year and tell past me that that lil project they’ve just started is gonna turn full novel length and lead to many friendships and cool shit like woah

27. best review you ever got

I’VE GOTTEN A LOT OF REALLY LOVELY REVIEWS!!! I still get people telling me that Equilibrium helped them feel some measure of peace with their gender which never fails to get me choked up bc it’s so great that something I wrote entirely for my own gender demons speaks to other people. I’ve had people telling me that my stuff feels like an extension of canon, people comparing my work favourably to published fiction in the same genre, people telling me that my stuff is the best fic they’ve read in the fandom. I have gotten a lot of nice stuff, I’m lucky to have only had a handful of not nice comments.

28. worst review you ever got

One time someone got angry with me for not killing off Thomas Jefferson in a Hamilton fic.

It’s a Hamilton fic

It’s about a lot of dead Americans who were into slavery and misogyny and classism and racism and a whole other bunch of shit that manifested in ways that would be completely unacceptable now but were considered fine in the 1700s.

And someone got angry that I kept Thomas Jefferson alive bc he was a slave owner as if most of the characters in the story were not also slave owners. Like if you have a problem with how Hamilton tells that side of the story you are very much justified by mayhaps don’t expect fic to be different???

29. favorite story/poem of another author

There are so many. I’m death. Like really and forreal I have a whole rec list and I would struggle to pick anything off it as being better than anything else so please go read the whole thing.

30. hardest part of writing

Getting started

31. easiest part of writing

The hundred words before you get to a scene that you’ve been REALLY itching to write (but then inevitably you’ve been so excited about writing the scene that you can only struggle and fail to make it as good as you want it to be in your head)

32. alternate title for (insert story title)

There is no story suggested so I shall suggest Made For The Journey as Batman Americana

33. alternate ending for (insert story title)

Again, no suggested story so you can imagine A World In Which only Burr dies and Theo and Marte leave and Eliza is left miserable and alone

34. alternate pairing for (insert story title)

AGAIN nothing suggested so I will inform everyone that Trouble In Paradise was almost a YoonJin fic rather than a NamJin fic

35. single story or multi-part story?

No strong preference. I like the AO3 series function where you can come back to universes at your leisure though

36. one-shot or multi-chaptered story?

It depends on the story but in general oneshots are a lot less hassle

37. canon or AU?

Generally I’m a canon or canon divergence sort of person but that’s not a hard preference

38. do you reread your own stories?

All the time

39. do you want to be published some day?

Yeah and I really need to do more to make that happen

40. which one of your stories would you most like to see as amovie/series

Suga We’re Going Down would make a really great party comedy film I’m just saying here

41. one song that captures (insert story title)

Still no suggestion. Babe You Turn Me On by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is an MFTJ song though and you cannot change my mind

42. do you plan or do you write whatever comes to your mind?

I plan minimally. I daydream my way through stories but tbh that rarely has much bearing on where they’re going

43. would you ever write a sequel for (insert fic title here)

I’m gonna answer this for Rose Gold - hell fucking yeah and I plan to

44. do you write linear or do you write future scenes if youfeel like it?

Linnearly always

45. share the synopsis of a story you work on that you haven’tpublished yet

Hangover AU, DC comics, no capes. Bruce Wayne accidentally pays for his gf, her roomates and her roomate’s shitty bf to have a wild one in Vegas, fresh out of college

46. share a scene of a story that you haven’t published yet

This is unedited so who knows how the scene will look when its published but:

It’snot until he’s had his second cup of coffee and the sun has started its journeyto the other side of the world in earnest that Bruce puts on his suit and goesout to look for her. He finds her in the graveyard of Saint Michael’s, a relicfrom yesteryear that has hung on downtown long after everything else from itsera fled the scene. She’s instantly recognisable from the orange of herjumpsuit, the slack of her shoulders. Her hair is unstyled and ratty, the dirtyblonde she tries so hard to hide under her jester’s hat. Her shoulders shakeand it’s possible to hear her sobbing from half a block away, loud wails thatdon’t seem so out of place amongst the shriek of the emergency services dashinghopelessly from one end of the city to the next.

Inhis head, Bruce has already decided that he will pin her with force, tie her upand wait for the police to do the rest. If he stretches everyone thin enoughsoon enough someone will snap and then he can come by to pick up the slack.

Buthe flubs the landing, approaching slowly but not particularly quietly. Harleyglances over her shoulder when she sees him coming, eyes ringed red and mouthstretched wider than he’s ever seen it.

Bruceremembers a flower blooming amid razor sharp teeth and how it had beenbeautiful, if only for a moment. He stops a short way away from her.

Harleyshakes her head. “Please. Just lemme have this. I’ll come quietly, I just…”

Lookingpast her, Bruce sees a fragile wooden cross held together with string and thewords RIP Mr J scrawled across it in sharpie.

“Ijust…I mean…” Harley gulps down air at an alarming pace before bursting into arenewed round of sobs. “N-no one was gonna g-give him a proper funeral! And Idunno if they’ve even…if they’ve even buried him yet so I just c-c-c-came here.Because he used to like it, ya know? He thought it w-was creepy.”

“Youshouldn’t be here.” Bruce scolds her.

Harleynods, wiping her eyes. “That’s what Ivy said. It’s stupid, right? I haven’tbeen in love with him for years. But it’s not like anyone else cares, ‘ceptmaybe you, Mr B. Kinda feels like you have to care enough for everyone, don’tit?”

“No.”Bruce tells her. “I’m taking you back to Arkham.”

He gives her ten minutes before he makes thejourney to the asylum himself, Harley sat in the front seat, sobbing into heruncuffed hands.

47. how many unfinished ideas/stories are you working on at thesame time?

I try really hard to keep this shit to a minimum but total ongoing projects rn is like four smh

48. three spoilers for (insert story title)

Guess this has gotta be What Hath Dreams To Do With Sleep bc nothing else is really ongoing so

1. it takes place further into the lifetime of dream technology than Inception does

2. It will contain a wide array of characters (and if I were specific here that would be way too much of a spoiler)

3. Nothing about the real world in it is as presented in the comics or the Nolan films

49. writing advice

- The best cure for writer’s block is to kick your own ass and make yourself write - If you can never stand to re-read your shit then your shit needs rewriting - You can’t be a good writer if you’re not reading good books. Read widely, don’t just read fic, think about what you like about stories and prose - Write what you want to write. This includes going for themes and motifs that your audience doesn’t pick up on as much as it includes being self indulgent and coming up with stories that are tailor made for yourself. Believe that your writing can be as smart and profound as you want it to be and run with it. You will have more fun and like your writing more in the long run. - That being said, if your audience consistently fails to pick up on things that you really want them to or are important to the understanding of the plot, that’s on you and you should work to correct that. Being too vague for people to understand what you need them to understand is not being clever. - when in doubt, write the scene out in the most functional language possible to sketch the shape of it and jazz it up later - Remember that there will be good writing days and bad writing days and that writing takes practice and you may not be the writer you want to be yet but stick with it and you’ll get there

50. open question to the writer

This question is so open it doesn’t actually exist

#writing #fuckyeahashes #ask

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nookishposts · 4 years ago

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Chicken Diaries June 21/20

We’ve had our hens almost 4 weeks. As first-timers we thought we would play it safe and get 6 ready-to-lay 18-week-old pullets instead of hand-raising cute baby chicks. They arrived in a green plastic crate and there exists a video of me opening that to release them into our carefully constructed chicken coop. Let’s just say they needed some encouragement. The process involved considerable cussing and laughter, some of it even came from me. But a few minutes effort and they began to come out of their conspiratorial little huddle in the corner and explore their new digs.

Instead of building a new free-standing structure, we decided to modify one end of the good-sized shed that came with this property. We cordoned off an 8 x 10 ft section , building a wall with wooden pallets and chicken wire, also wiring in the ceiling so nobody would be tempted to roost in the rafters and small prey birds wouldn’t have access. We installed 4 nesting boxes on a shelf approximately 3 feet off the ground, using plastic bins on their sides and screwed into the wooden framework. I’ve seen others screw plastic buckets to the wall, or use old record bins, milk crates, etc, and all research suggests it doesn’t really matter what they are made of as long as they are dark and cozy and quietly out of the way. I lined them with shavings and chopped straw and put a ceramic egg (golf balls can also be used apparently) to give the juveniles inspiration. I even hung an old towel cut into fringes over the top couple of inches of each opening, just as I have seen farmers do. Feed and water dispensers sit on a small platform. The next addition was a large cedar branch along one wall to serve as a roost. A 40 gallon feed bin full of laying mash was tucked tidily beneath. For someone with zero decorating or fashion sense I was quite pleased with myself. A good thick layer of wood shavings on the concrete floor. And the piece de resistance was the chicken door...cut into the side wall of the shed, about 18 inches up, snazzy ladders on either side lovingly crafted by my sister-in-law. It has a hatch that clips open and shut, and even a little shingled flap to keep out the weather. The outdoor pen to which this leads is a reclaimed dog run frame courtesy of neighbours down the road who just wanted rid of it. We cut it to a 8 x 12 x 6 foot size, freshened the wire and top against predators, added another roost, a water trough and a tarp for shade. Oh, and yes, there are human accesses to each area. I couldn’t fit through a chicken door even in my salad days. So, the birds had good food, water, shelter, and a nice new home. Eggs would come by the time the girls reached 21 weeks old according to the experts.

Thus our education began. Notice I said “our”.

First step was teaching them how to get out into the yard. It made sense to trail a little mash up the ladder rungs. They just stood alongside and pecked it off. So I gathered one girl up and put her on the little landing just inside the hatch. I got cussed out and flapped at for my efforts , but she calmed down enough to think it over, and then fell out the other side into the pen. Let’s call it a partial success. As chickens can fly, I figured I would just shove them out the door; they could soften their landing in feathery parachutes and then just figure out how to get back in on their own. It took a few tries but we all grew into it. They practically tap-dance up and down their ladders now, the little show-offs. Each morning when I open their hatch they shove one another out of the way in a race to be first into the yard. And like any other young-ins, they lead me a merry chase to get them to go to bed at bedtime. When they do get settled in, they are all lined up and fluffed out, 6 feathery dirndle skirts in a row on their roost, drowsy-eyed and singing one another to sleep. It’s pretty adorable.

I try to spend a little quality time with them each day, sitting on a block in the chicken run with treats, so they readily hand-feed and get used to being handled. I can keep an eye on the health of beaks and claws and general well-being. There have been times when there’s a bird on my shoulder, another on my knee and a third on my foot. I have yet to be pooped on, but that too will come in time. Not that I am in any rush. They love rotten bananas, strawberry tops, and cheese curds. They are nuts for radish greens and lettuce. Potato peels are ignored and cucumber kicked aside. Most chickens will eat a variety of kitchen scraps but we seem to have 6 little Kardashian divas on our hands...picky girls demanding quality. I am merely a vending machine in crocs...as I approach they see me coming and get all coo-ey and sweet. Unless they see me on a water run but otherwise empty handed. Nobody here will fess up to teaching them that kind language. Divas they may be, but they ain’t ladies. I serve, they lay.

And now we come to our biggest point of contention.

Those are damned nice laying boxes. Clean, soft, cosy, basic black. Add a string of pearls and you could wear them anywhere. At the correct height. Softly bedded. A little snack in the corner of each one, because, you know, delivering potential offspring is exhausting work. Or so I’m told by my own Mother Hen. Anywho....at 20 weeks we had our first egg and I managed to find it while it was still warm from the oven, tucked neatly into a low corner of the coop. I ran with it into the house, proudly showing it off like a first grader with a finger painting. My Beloved and I celebrated with a three-way selfie; us and the pretty little peachy-brown perfect orb of poultry protein. We had been warned not to eat the first few eggs if they were at all soft, misshapen, or in any way unusual. This one was Oscar-worthy and it sat in pride of place on the kitchen island for days while we sighed in admiration and patted ourselves on the back. We’d have displayed it on the fridge door if we could have figured out how.

For a few days, I gently lifted the growing girls into the 4 nesting boxes, praising and petting them, making sure they saw the ceramic examples. To absolutely no avail. We found eggs everywhere; in the corners, on the frames, behind the feed bin, next to the water dispenser, even one in the yard. The boxes remain undisturbed by volunteers except the odd scrounging chipmunk cleaning up maternity snacks. A few eggs have been bomb-dropped from the height of the roost and decoratively splattered onto the floor. Chickens clean these up themselves thankfully. We told ourselves they were still young and learning. In one particularly popular corner, I stuck a cardboard box filled with shavings, out of curiosity. Sure enough, a couple of little gems glistened there the next morning. Aha! So logically I took one of the fancy boxes from it’s ledge and stuck it in the same corner, leaving the cardboard box on top out of the way. Yay!

This morning, entering carefully as always in order to avoid stepping on or in anything untoward, I peeked around the door to behold the following: one hen perched in the cardboard box, having just delivered her duty, whilst a second girl perched directly on top of the first was doing her best to comply. We had layered layers. Sure enough, egg number 2 dropped into the butt feathers of the bottom girl and rolled gently off into the bedding next to egg # 1. The hens smiled. There may even have been a winged high-five, I’m not sure.

I surrender.

We are averaging 6 eggs per day every day now, with only the odd misfire. Serving a frittata to my Mum, (who is here to visit for the first time as we could keep things pandemically safe enough to do so), from eggs laid the very same morning was a stupidly proud moment for me. I no longer care where the birds deposit their booty, as long as I don’t have to step in it. There’s a For Rent sign on each of the four custom nesting boxes.Perhaps there’s an introverted mallard out in the wetlands looking for a new home. I’ll just continue to be the vending machine with the poopy shoes. I know my place.

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newsiegirlscout · 7 years ago

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FHFIF Headcanons

HEADCANON TIME!!! Woo-hoo!

Today, I was thinking I’d ramble on a headcanon roll about this show by the name of Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. It was really amazing while it ran, and all-in-all was completely underrated. I just finished the last episode two weeks or so ago and, since I’m still in shock over it, well....the best thing to do with sadness and joy and nostalgia is to give it to the Internet, right? Right! So-onto the headcanons!

MAC

--When Mac gets older, he gets a job at Foster’s, much to the delight of the friends. (He used to joke about his shift ending at 2:59 just to freak out Bloo. Frankie still cleans everything, so Mac’s job is mostly cooking and messing around anyway. Y’know, keeping the more active imaginary friends busy. That, and reading bedtime stories-he has an awesome “scary” voice, but in a silly way, like Mojo Jojo.).

---Mac’s favorite flavor of ice cream is chocolate fudge with caramel and milk chocolate sprinkles. He gains control of his sugar intolerance somewhat when he’s around fourteen....but still goes hyper if he has too much. (Say, the normal sugar-hyped slight bounce for anyone else is Mac’s sugar rush.)

---Mac never actually retired his bookbag. It was intentionally way too large for a second-grader’s homework load, so he could hide his most prized possessions from Terrence- or, at least, always keep them on his person. (On a regular day, his bag can be found holding his laptop, wallet, pictures of Frankie, library card, marbles, key chain, and water pistol. Yeah, that’s the water pistol that makes him look like an Ironman villain.) When he left for college, everybody at Fosters signed his bookbag.

---He skipped more than a few grades. In fact, he was in a school for gifted children during the length of the series-which explains why an eight-year-old was writing an essay on the presidents.

---Mac writes the most flowery, beautiful free-verse poetry you have ever seen. Once, it got published and he won a reward for it, but was still utterly embarrassed when the newspaper arrived at Fosters. He even snuck out around four AM to grab both his and Foster’s papers, but found Mr. Herriman calmly reading it in his study. (Herriman gave his highest stamp of approval-i.e; straightening his monocle, cleaning the lens, and remarking, “By jove!”

---He tends to wear his hair long when he gets older-that, and typically going unshaven until Mr. Herriman tells him he looks like he’s about to attend a woodstock festival.

---Additionally, Mac has fluffy, perpetually-askew hair because of his tendency to run his fingers through it when in stress or when he’s thinking. (Frankie’s hair is spiky for the same reason.)

---He’s a hugger. Always has been, always will be.

---Mac, even as an adult, only prefers (as reading material) Science fiction, action, comedy, and comic books; for viewing, he prefers old movies, comedy films, and cartoons. A lot of cartoons. As in, about 63.547% of the animated films in the DVD case are movies that Mac hauled over at some point or another during his job and intentionally left there. (They all have his name in sharpie on a neat label pressed onto the back.)

FRANKIE FOSTER

--Frankie more or less decided a long time ago that she’s aromantic. The closest thing she’ll allow to love is the filial bond between her and the imaginary friends.

--Her favorite ice cream flavor is pineapple rum. (Yes, that’s a thing.) If any of the younger friends are with her, though, she orders mango.

---She possesses a secret love for the color pink. She tends not to show it too much, as she feels it’s demeaning to her maturity, but otherwise, it’s her favorite color in the world.

---Frankie grew up with the Foster’s imaginary friends. Her job started when Madame Foster occasionally asked her to do little chores around the house- say, rocking a baby friend to sleep or washing a pot -so that, by the time she turned fifteen and wanted to get a career so as to earn more cash, she was a first choice caretaker for Foster’s Home.

--Frankie used to love those little toys that come in cereal boxes. She would eat bowls upon bowls of Choco-Frosted Sugar Bombs Trix and Captain Crunch, etc., until she was on sugar rushes to put Mac’s to shame so she’d get the toy and be able to get another box of cereal as soon as possible. (Her favorites were the superhero rings;((Does anybody else remember those? I feel like those were really big for a while, little plastic rings with superhero emblems?)); she once got so many, she could hook them together into a crown.)

--She loves the arcade games in an almost abnormal way. When she was about nine, she got the high score on Tetris, Paperboy, Centipede, and quite a few others. She is most often the one who will drive friends to the arcade and treat them to tokens partially so she can show off her gaming skills at the classics. (Bloo: “So by classics, you mean Halo and Call of Duty?” Frankie: “ No. The real classics. Defender. Pac-man. Astroids. Games you play in an arcade which was a building outside of your house. You would go there with your friends, listen to music, cute guys everywhere. In ancient times, they call it 'socializing'. “)

Madame Foster

--There are quite a few episodes in the series where an imaginary friend spends money. That was Madame Foster at work-when the house first opened, she distributed around five hundred dollars among the friends. With the addition of a hundred dollars every two years or so, that same cache has been circulating for years. (The trick being that they only spend it inside the house.)

---Madame Foster’s favorite ice cream flavor is butterscotch with caramel, chocolate syrup, rainbow sprinkles, whipped cream, and frosting. (What, you’ve never put frosting on a bowl of ice cream before? My sincerest sympathies.) Typically, she’ll get the chocolate-dipped cone, then have the server put it in a cup for her, so she has a large bowl of ice cream with all the toppings and a fancy cone on top of it all. (Mac starts to shake just looking at it.)

---Madame Foster has managed to scare the horror buffs senseless with her dramatic readings of existing stories, not to mention re-tellings of her own writing.

---Her room is full of stuffed animals. Enough stuffed animals to bury herself in. It is not exactly uncommon to find a stuffed animal hiding somewhere in the house. (Looking for a book? Whoop! A plush cat already beat you to it! Want some pancakes? Seems a small rainbow llama is already on it.)

---Madame Foster also harbors a love for cartoons. The other 44.453% of the animated films are hers. For reading material, she enjoys comedies, including a lot of old storybooks. (Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Black Beauty, Treasure Island, Little Men...et cetera.) She also loves reading the occasional horror story or adventure. (Do you think she’d enjoy All the Light We Cannot See? Yeah, I think so too. Then again, that was an amazing and beautiful bit of literature. Everybody go read All the Light We Cannot See.)

Mr. Herriman

---Mr. Herriman gives the cuddliest hugs. Receiving a hug from Mr. Herriman, especially when you’re somewhere around stomach-level, is the equivalent of sticking your face into a litter of warm kittens. Unfortunately, he’s not too big on hugging.

---Eduardo is by far his (secret) favorite.

---His favorite ice cream flavor is butter almond, (and yes, he does take all the almonds out individually before consuming it), though he usually prefers a slice of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

---He doesn’t actually understand Coco’s “language”. He tends to get the gist of what she’s saying primarily through another friend, Madame Foster, or Frankie, but otherwise feels a bit lonesome in that he’s the only person in that universe who isn’t fluent in it.

---He’s a fairly pleasant conversationalist, though he likes things to be run in such an orderly manner to the point of everyone seemingly hating him in a not-exactly-inconspicuous way. This in turn can make him slightly irritated, gaining him a reputation for his short temper and high standards.

---He LOVES bad puns on an almost-sinful level.

---He also prefers classic tales, romances, and adventure dramas in both viewing and reading entertainment. And yes, when watching a movie, he is That Person ™ who insists on popping popcorn over the fire and turning on subtitles.

BLOO

---Bloo was originally created as a vehicle for Mac to say and do whatever he wanted without having to worry about getting in trouble. (For example, getting to give the snarky response to Terrence and getting away with it.) He also created Bloo as a way to prove to his mom that he was responsible enough to take care of something. (This is NOT my headcanon, though I strongly support it.)

---Bloo was the one who found the secret passages to the Secret Library, the Secret Gaming Room, and The Secret Secret Room. He also found all nineteen secret drawers in each (One of which concealed a stuffed canary named Rod Tango!) on various Adopt-a-Thought Saturdays. (Once or twice, Mac didn’t actually find him and ended up playing with the B-team-or, in other words, the members of Pizza Party.)

---Bloo’s favorite ice cream flavor is cookies-and-cream-birthday-cake. (No, that’s not actually a flavor; he usually just gets two orders and shmushes them together into one BIG ice cream ball). Additionally, if possible, he’ll top it with M&Ms, whipped cream, chocolate syrup, caramel syrup, butterscotch, gummy bears, rainbow and chocolate sprinkles, crushed Oreos, mini peanut butter cups, and, of course, frosting- but never, never, never, Coconut. (”If you want to get these things done at all, you have to get them done right!”) So far, the only one who’s willingly treated him was Adult! Mac and Madame Foster-otherwise, he has to go by himself.

---His ideal adopter would be someone with year-round passes to lots and lots of amusement parks, a paddleball collection including the Automatic Paddleball, pizza every Friday, a 25-inch television with a ton of video games (”No, 50-inch! Wait, is 75-inch a thing? How about we just do like in that nerd book Mac likes, the dys-zopia, and have the TV replace one of the walls?”), and a large freezer just for ice cream, including a retractable shelf for toppings. (I blame @askblooqkazoo for this one) :)

---He loves the Powerpuff girls. Loves, loves, LOVES it. (Bubbles is his favorite.)

WILT

---Wilt’s favorite ice cream flavor is mocha swirl, with chocolate sprinkles and a maraschino cherry. He’s always the one who treats everyone else and waits patiently until everyone has their flavors before ordering, though he tries to exclude Bloo in the most polite way possible. (”I’m sorry! You see, I can’t afford all your toppings, which I’m honestly really sorry about, I mean..I can’t apologize enough for this, really! Maybe Mac will take you out for ice cream if you ask him nicely?”) He refuses to let someone else buy ice cream for him, so behind his back, Adult! Mac and Madame Foster built a mini freezer that looks like a backpack and has a special rack for ice cream, not to mention the extra two canisters of whipped cream and carton of chocolate sprinkles, just so they could treat him to an ice cream cone without his objection.

---Nobody ever actually put a nameplate on Wilt’s bed, because he always prefers to sleep under the floor. He always has ever since Bloo came-Wilt mainly just wants a monopoly on a bed so he can steal the blankets off it in the winter.

---He is fully aware of how brash he can get in later episodes, so he builds up his “Sorry!” to compensate, until it became, “I’m sorry-if that’s okay!”

---He once got a PhD to help out a struggling college student by tutoring him in neuroscience and quadratic equations. (Yes, he never quite got the hang of it until Wilt taught him.)

COCO

---Coco dabbles in the dark arts. (Check the Wiccan Spellbook she was reading in “Fools and Regulations.”)

---Coco knows something the rest of you don’t. Don’t believe her? Look again, she may have noticed that detail you completely passed over. Maybe it’s just the orange juice in the fridge that’s a day past the expiration date; maybe it’s the ending of the world before your eyes.

---No one is quite sure what ice cream flavor Coco likes the best. Whenever she goes to the ice cream parlor, she’ll say a few phrases and give a slight nod to the server. No matter who, they always come back with an elaborate sundae, topped with a firecracker, at the price of a regular ice cream cone.

---Coco is an amazing actress. Just amazing. She once got a role in a high-budget movie for her acting skills. (Not to mention that, once the director came to the door asking for her, she laid a pair of reading glasses and went through every single page of the contract. Then, once satisfied, she laid a silver ballpoint pen and signed it-though by then, the director was on his phone, scrolling through random web pages. “Ya done yet?” “CoCo Cococo Co!” “Well, of course I’m not going to put you in a cage and make you perform for long hours with no sleep! Whaddya think I am, the guy from those Deo commercials?”)

---Nerds (See the “Good Wilt Hunting” Nerds) believe that she was created by a very confused islander child, possibly one who has never seen contact with another human being. She is part plane because of the occasional air crafts passing the island, part bird because of the exotic tropical life, and does not speak English because the child never learned how and instead made up a language that only they could understand.

EDUARDO

---Once, Eduardo got his picture taken with the actress of Lauren Goes Explorin’. (And got it autographed!) He was super excited about it, and eventually got it framed with the same heavy-duty frame that Frankie used to mount her cereal-box ring crown.)

---His favorite ice cream flavor is bubblegum, partially because of the color (”Pink is my favorite! I like it muy, muy, much!) and partially because of the fact that it’s candy as well as ice cream, so he can take out the bubblegum balls and put them in a separate cup for his Malibu Mimi dolls.

---Wilt is his favorite, though Adult! Mac comes close. (He eventually learned to settle petty disputes, Frankie-style (A la’ Destination Imagination), so he takes care of most of those-often tipping a Bloo/Eduardo argument in favor of Eduardo while still making Bloo satisfied with the outcome.)

---Eduardo’s tears do not dehydrate him, nor are they made of salt water. He doesn’t even sniffle beforehand, unless he’s trying really hard not to cry-whenever he’s upset, he just gives a stream of fresh water from his eyes.

---Yep. He’s a hugger. Was there ever any question?

---Eduardo’s strength was added so he could pick up and cuddle people easily. Nina’s parents have quite a few photos of him carrying her home from a late, late rehearsal, school play, or day-long trip to the park while she sleeps peacefully in his arms.

---No, he doesn’t run out of energy when walking long distances or running. His feet sometimes hurt slightly from pounding the floor too long if he’s been running, but he always has the energy to run, or fight.

GOO

--Goo has actually wrapped her lunch like a present before. (Her usual lunch consists of a bag of chips, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a cupcake she injected with more icing in the center, an apple, and a juice box. It has been observed by Mac jokingly as being “strangely normal.”) She only does it for special occasions, (It makes everyone jealous around Christmas until they see why she brought it to lunch.), though Goo includes “The third Tuesday of March” and “August thirteenth” as major holidays.

---Goo likes to celebrate her birthday at Foster’s whenever possible. She additionally actually likes Cheese, because she thinks he’s funny and she’s good with him, so he’s almost always helping her open presents or eating streamers as she decorates the table

---Her favorite ice cream flavor is rainbow sherbet, but she also likes (”blueberry, gold ribbon, cookies and cream, and birthday cake! Well, really I like almost every flavor except not coffee since that one’s really gross and I also sometimes make up flavors that I think they should have, like gummy bear sprinkles, and then sometimes there are flavors that sound made up except they’re really not, like pizza and pear with blue cheese, ew, isn’t that gross? Oh! And did I tell you about my idea for an ice cream burrito where instead of the cone, they make it a tortilla instead with the sugar cone stuff?”) She’s definitely the person where, if she’s alone with a month’s allowance, she’ll try to stack the scoops as high as possible and roll each one in a bowl of toppings. (She prides herself on the fact that she once got the server to coat three scoops in gummy bears, rainbow sprinkles, and chocolate chips respectively, and even got him to pour some gummy bears in the cone.) If she’s with someone else, and they’re treating, she’ll just get rainbow sherbet.

---She’s not a hugger. She’s affectionately physical in other ways-friendly slaps on the back, pats on the head, fixing someone else’s shirt collar-but doesn’t really hug a lot. She’s more of a high-fiver, to be honest.

---When she gets older, she has everybody write a story about Foster’s in an anthology she publishes under the name “Hillary-Britney “Lollipop” Starr”. (Involuntarily included? Mac’s poetry.)

---Goo is the karaoke queen.

GENERAL

--The soda fountain guy has been through everything. (If you need further proof, just look at the way he casually throws out Mac when he orders all those milkshakes...all, “Dude, I make seven bucks an hour. I’ve seen it all.”)

---Cheese was created with an innate sense of technology. He actually knew full-well what he was doing when he memorized the code to the electronic security system, and sometimes, Frankie has to ask him for his help when fixing her computer. (Usually with her head in her hands while Cheese jumps up and down on the chair and says “No no no, you put too much stuff in the computer! Throw some away! See in the hard drive? See, see, see, see, see? That’s why it’s so slowwwww!”)

---It is impossible to accidentally create an imaginary friend. It’s more of a left-brained thing than a technical thing, and you usually have to have a pretty clear idea of their personality beforehand. Goo’s imagination works at ten miles a minute, so she is the one exception.

---Imaginary friends do not age. Friends like Scrappy (Remember that little guy with the Brooklyn accent and Victorian clothing? That was one of my favorites..) are deemed older by how long they’ve been at Foster’s and how much they’ve matured emotionally.

---Larry John McGee (Goofball’s creator) had a very silly sense of humor in creating Goofball. He wanted his friend to act as a big brother, and knew that if he ever got lost, he’d go to Foster’s for help and weird out the staff. Goofball did almost all of what he was doing with a straight face to make everyone else in the house laugh when Frankie pulled off his rubber nose to reveal...an imaginary friend.

---Youngman Rivers actually turned out to be a pretty cool guy when he got older.

---Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends did not go away after the series finale. Foster’s lives on with many more adventures of its own, including more and more characters as time goes on, until Mac grew into an adult, still coming to tackle Bloo on the first floor every day.

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cosmosogler · 7 years ago

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hello everyone. today was friday.

i woke up and only delayed my alarm by 5 minutes even though i was very grumpy about it. i didn’t feel that light-headedness that i’ve been experiencing for the past several days so i took that as a hopeful sign that the extra 20-30 minutes of sleep was what i needed.

snoopy likes to start meowing as soon as she sees dawn crack and that wakes me up every morning for a few minutes. i usually just say “hi snoop” or meow back and go back to sleep, but it does disrupt the morning a little bit.

aw man. i was gonna talk about my dreams because they were different last night but now i can’t really remember more than a little bit.

oh, ok. there was some stuff about cleaning up after the dogs while trying to prevent dad from exploding anger-wise. and then... man, i can’t explain what was going on in ten minutes. there was an elevator that was rising alongside a skyscraper using an air current instead of a pulley system. the skyscraper is in a harbor with a sidewalk sort of dock hanging over the ocean. voldemort was waiting at the top. there were some other people in the elevator but i don’t remember who. they didn’t really... i don’t think they made it. i survived by playing dead, but i ended up falling in the ocean and washing up in the trash heaps. and there i was stranded!

i had a pretty leisurely morning, although i decided to call disability resources when i had about 15 minutes before i had to leave. it ended up taking the whole 15 minutes because the person on the other end seemed kind of out of it? so i had to rush out the door anyway even after giving myself enough time to lounge around.

classes were fine. all of my professors have accents that i have trouble parsing. also the building is kept at the most perfectly uncomfortable temperature i’ve ever experienced. by the end of second period i was fidgeting at my desk nonstop. it was mostly my fingernails that were making me so uncomfortable... they were making it impossible for my hands to sit right. the back of the chair was pretty rough on my back too.

immediately after second period we went in the lab for the ta prep. the instructor ordered pizza for everyone again, and once again i got a stomachache so bad i was dizzy for short spells. but what can you do. it feels wrong to reject free food, even though i did pack my own lunch. i can always save the non-sandwich parts for another day... i was kinda bummed that i didn’t feel hungry enough for my sandwich afterward though.

the prep period was supposed to run for 2 hours but because of the pizza it was actually the full 2 hours even though the lab was for vector addition. i liked the experiment well enough- i had to re-learn how to use a compass and work with the radial diagram and everything.

after that i had a free hour so i pulled up my project app and did a 45-minute study session that i fell asleep at the end of. i don’t know why my brain shuts off as soon as i try to push it. it’s not that i CAN’T understand the material. but as soon as i sit and look at formulas my brain pushes the “no” button and i pass out. even in class! even in my favorite classes!

i know physics is hard. i’m willing to put in the work. i can understand the material and i can make sense of the reading. but i have so much trouble putting the information in my long-term memory because i can barely hold it in my short-term memory. my brain won’t let me put in the work. and i know it’s not a lack of sleep thing because the whole rest of the day i was mellow but not sleepy. i got a full 8 hours, or pretty near it.

i’m frustrated about that.

after the third class i hung out with keegan and jennica and taylor and one or two other guys i can’t remember right now. i joked about pulling out the grad student list and memorizing everyone’s faces. in the lab i worked with dazhi. i didn’t know his name in the lab but i was afraid to ask. i heard it during roll-call the next period.

i have so much trouble understanding what the american students are saying to me. my brain just overloads when i try to figure out foreign accents. i feel like my train of thought is too loud or distracting and i miss tiny half-seconds of the conversation and that totally loses me, or i just can’t hear words and put them in my head and push out the words already flooding in from the back.

jennica really intimidates me. i can’t seem to figure out why though. i think it’s because she strikes me as very similar in mannerisms to the neighbor’s kid back at home, sierra. and sierra usually says what she means, but she uses a deceptive sort of tone. i haven��t figured out how to read jennica’s tone and i can’t figure out if i rub her the wrong way or not. i know laughing at your own jokes can be annoying...

taylor wears my patience thin pretty quickly during our interactions. he was wearing a shirt today that said “tsundere” and had a blushing girl in silhouette. yesterday he wore a shirt that said “anime is trash and so am i” which i thought was pretty good. we got into a disagreement basically the first day we were both on the grad discord channel though. he struck me as a very surface level reader.

i get along well with keegan though. he invited his girlfriend to watch the eclipse with us on monday and i did my best to back off to make sure i wasn’t coming on too strong or anything. i think that our friendship will even out to be more like how hogan and i got along back in undergrad. mutual complainers or something like that i guess. we made jokes about procrastination to the professor and he gave me a lot of material to work with joke wise. we agreed to maybe study in the department on sunday if i could convince the others and he sort of vaguely invited me to get tea with him sometime.

harrison is also someone i need to keep an eye on. what i’m trying to do is spend time with everyone individually to figure out who i want to spend the most time with but i am concerned that some men might take the attention as an invitation. he’s nice enough right now but the vibe i get from him puts me on edge.

sorry i just wanted to organize my thoughts here. i’ve met more people of course. today rui (my and jennica’s officemate) asked to touch my hair since it is very curly. i let her kind of pat my head a few times but i wasn’t sure how to talk about hair so i just kind of stood there.

so i came home and put on an episode of taz and made dinner but threw half of it away because i lost my appetite. snoopy was very affectionate, bumping my forehead and running up every time she wanted me to scratch her chin. she sits on the table when i finish cooking even though she doesn’t shove her face into my orange juice any more.

then i did some computer stuff off my to-do list and knocked out about half of it. it was all pretty small tasks, not more than 25 minutes each (and most of them under 10). i also watched an hour-long thing on youtube which was perhaps not the best use of my time but i had a good time.

now it’s 10:40, which is past my bedtime, but i wanted to spend some time reflecting on my social situation. i’ve been... basically incapable of letting trusting friendships grow naturally the last several years. i know that. every time i’ve bonded with someone the last five and a half years it’s been a conscious decision. it takes me like a year of regularly spending time with people to start considering them “friends.” but i feel like... i don’t have that kind of time right now. if i’m going to succeed in my classes (WITH ONLY A GRADES (!!!!)) i need an environment of people who are good studiers and also i have to like them.

the main problem there is that i gotta bring something to the table myself and i feel like i’m just not there.

anyway, that’s what i’m thinking about right now. tomorrow i’m going to work out and maybe swim since i didn’t get to do much of that in the last month and a half. my incisions are getting smaller and less weird and bumpy to the touch. i also need to see if i can take some snoopy samples over to the vet even though that’ll be a long project. and i gotta run the grocery errands. good night friends.

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trywithpopchips-blog · 6 years ago

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etraytin · 5 years ago

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Quarantine, Day 54

Today's episode of Quarantine is titled "Thanksgiving in May: the Pandemic Edition." We got some quite good news about my husband's dad, he's doing well enough that he will probably be moved to a rehab facility for awhile because they are optimistic that he might be okay for a bit longer. His health is super-fragile in like seven different ways, but he's tough and he is hanging in there, so we'll just keep praying! In anticipation of that happy event, I took his phone and charger, which he did not have in the hospital because he's been sleeping almost all the time and also because of deeply arcane rules about fomites, and I wiped them both down with 70% isopropyl alcohol and then sealed them in a ziploc bag, which I marked with the date. The novel coronavirus appears to only live on hard plastic surfaces for a limited amount of time, so a phone that has been wiped down with alcohol, sealed in a baggie, and put in a sunny spot for a few days ought to be as close to safe as we can get. We really want to be able to Facetime with him!

Anyway, as sort of a celebration and because my mother in law already had a turkey breast defrosting in the fridge, I made Thanksgiving dinner. Usually Thanksgiving is a roast turkey, but we did our turkey breast up in the crockpot so we would also get turkey stock and because it is extremely low effort. I tried to make my grandmother's stuffing, but with bougie ingredients because we would've had to make a special trip to the store for the very specific and extremely basic ingredients that stuffing requires. I learned to make stuffing from all the women in my family because every holiday somehow involves all the women crammed into the kitchen and socializing or cooking or both all at once, but mostly from my mom, whose recipe is my paternal grandmother's. To make the family stuffing, you must have the following ingredients:

Cheap stale white bread in massive quantities

Imperial brand margarine (yes, the brand is important)

Frozen chopped white onion

Celery

Chicken Bouillon Cubes

Spice Classic Poultry Seasoning (this is a compromise solution, as Grandma's original blend was discontinued a couple decades ago)

The problem here was twofold, we are in quarantine and can't just be going to the store all willy-nilly, and my in-laws have a somewhat different food sensibility than my family. I ended up using:

One loaf of brand-name wheat bread, made stale in the oven

Butter

Fresh chopped sweet onion

Celery

Chicken Bouillon Cubes (I bought these myself on a previous visit because sometimes broth or "Better Than Bouillon" will not do at all.)

McCormick Brand Poultry Seasoning

It was definitely not the same as my family recipe, and of course it loses something from not actually being stuffed inside a turkey and roasted all day, but it had two full sticks of butter in it so it couldn't help but be pretty good. The gravy helped too. It was Williams-Sonoma but escaped being bougie because we bought it for 70% off after the holidays and therefore it is by definition awesome, plus it meant I didn't have to try and make gravy. Same for the cranberry relish, which was amazing. Rounded out the meal with brown sugar carrots, pineapple (because we need a fruit for Thanksgiving, I guess) and apple juice all around. We ate till we were stuffed, it was pretty great.

Today was the first day of school on the new points plan for my son. We've been pretty ad hoc for the past month in terms of getting school done, but we've got another month and a half to go (We start school suuuuper late because so many high school kids work at Busch Gardens), and fatigue is already setting in for both the kiddo and me. He is getting frustrated by not knowing exactly what he needs to do and by wanting more electronics time, I am frustrated by the whining about wanting more electronics time. So I went back and dusted off a system we have used before, one that we developed while we were homeschooling, and tuned it up. Basically it involves a point system and two lists: a list of things you can earn points by doing, and a list of things you can spend points on. The basic units of exchange are that one point can be redeemed for ten minutes of electronics usage, and six points can be exchanged for a dollar. Larger point values can be redeemed for things like fast food meals, late bedtimes, and other special treats. Special treats are kind of thin on the ground right now since standbys like lazer tag and trips to the trampoline park are not available, but the important part is the electronics time. It is what almost all accrued points are redeemed for.

He earns points first and foremost by doing school. In normal times, a full day of school earns twelve points (two hours of screentime or two dollars). Since these times are abnormal, we've revamped the school day to be a list of educational things that must be done. Finishing the list earns twelve points. A school day looks like this now (because this is dotted list day on Quarantine Journal!):

Online class session with teacher and the rest of his class

30 minutes math practice on Dreambox, (sub in coding 1x/week)

30 minutes reading a book that is mostly words

30 minutes watching science or social studies videos, TedEd or Brainpop or similar, or doing an experiment

30 minutes creative art time, drawing, painting, building, etc.

Write 100 words, fanfic or any subject, spellcheck with Mom

We both like having lists and he really likes getting points, so this went very well today. He knocked it out in a few hours, even the dreaded writing, and immediately spent all his points on the iPad. The plan also allows him to earn additional points, mostly by doing chores and helping around the house. Today was just things like carrying trash, scooping the litterbox and cleaning his room, but chores like "doing loads of laundry" and "folding clothes" are lucrative enough that he's chomping at the bit to learn. I'll get this kid ready for college yet!

Most of my spare time today was devoted to binge-watching a YouTuber I just learned about this afternoon, a woman named Micarah Tewers whose work is in the oft-overlooked niche of "comedy sewing tutorials." She is very, very funny. I still have no idea how to sew, but I feel much better about it now, and that's a good start.

#quarantine #momblr #homeschooling #micarah tewers

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lisabelkin-yahoonews · 8 years ago

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Sleepless in Seattle, and other places: Trump-induced insomnia stalks blue-state America

Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP, Getty Images

Susan Rogers, a poet and attorney in California, is “hurtling through space with no direction” on a plane that, she discovers with horror, has no pilot.

Alicia Bowman, a journalist from East Penn, Pa., is racing frantically through a train that is heading the wrong way, flinging off her belongings so she can run faster, calling frantically for her son, who is transgender.

Rachelle Pachtman, who does canine rescue on New York’s Upper West Side, is searching fruitlessly through her refrigerator for something to serve Michelle and Barack Obama, who have just happened to drop by for lunch.

And Allison Graham, a Los Angeles publicist, is in a hotel suite near her old Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood in Manhattan, being interviewed by Donald Trump for a job as a supervisor on one of his big construction projects.

“But I don’t know anything about real estate; I have no qualifications or experience,” she tells him.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be great,” he says.

Then they all wake up.

Blue America is having trouble with sleep — tossing and turning as they lie awake, then falling into nightmares. And those who are suffering tend to blame the 45th president of the United States.

To be sure, a state of heightened anxiety over whoever is in the White House is not new. Two presidents ago, columnist Charles Krauthammer coined Bush Derangement Syndrome, the symptoms of which were the “acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency — nay — the very existence of George W. Bush.” Next came Obama Derangement Syndrome, memorialized by a conspiracy-spouting satirical character on the “Stephanie Miller Happy Hour” radio show.

And now there’s what Hollywood screenwriter Sam Friedlander has spoofed as Trump-Induced Anxiety Disorder.

There is no way to quantify whether there are more sufferers during this administration than previous ones. But for those going through it this time around, it certainly seems very new and very real. And it looms largest in the dead of night, say dozens across the country who described their pillow-punching wakefulness and fraught sleep to Yahoo News.

“I fall asleep and wake up and get a snack and toss and turn and try to make sense of what’s going on,” says Linda Allen, who counsels parents of special-needs children on Long Island. “It’s unfathomable and that inability to reason with it is frustrating, and the whole situation is also enraging. Who could sleep?”

“I have not slept a full night since the election,” says New York fashion designer Ariane Zurcher. “I’m 56 years old. I have never had insomnia or issues with sleeping until this.”

What’s going through their minds in the dark?

Erika Kilborn, a training director for a software company, who has just been diagnosed with cancer, worries she will lose her job as a result of her illness and not be able to afford new insurance as a result of changes in the health care law.

Lea Grover, a Chicago writer, has spent more than one night calculating where in her home she could build fake walls behind which to hide immigrants facing deportation.

Craig Haller, who advocates with school administrators on behalf of students with disabilities in and around Boston, fears changes at the Department of Education will hurt those students.

“I’m afraid my son and nephew will be sent to a war I don’t believe in,” says Linda Cliff Derbacher, a former neonatal nurse now living in Southern California.

“I worry that even though my family members have been American citizens for generations we will be targeted … because of our surnames and our looks,” says Soraida Justiniano of Palm Harbor, Fla.

“I’m worried about the ‘Anne Franks‘ of Syria, Somalia, Yemen,” says tech industry employee Amanda Silver, who is literally sleepless in Seattle, her hometown.

“I am afraid the democratic process is under attack by a nationalist, far-right, authoritarian leader,” says Lori Rivere Rodrig, who teaches math at a New Jersey high school.

The looming prospect of insomnia at the end of the day has led to a swath of ways to encourage sleep. For some, it starts long before bedtime.

Charles Whitin has been rowing madly in Little Compton, R.I. almost since Election Day — “the equivalent of 18 miles a day for a month,” which leads to “a sore backside, but sound sleeping.” Deborah Skolnik is spending time with the plants in her new garden. (“They’re very soothing, and they help me remember that MOST living things on the planet don’t even know Trump exists.”) Lian Dolan, writer and host of the “Satellite Sisters” podcast, stopped watching the news as of Nov. 8, and adopted a German shepherd named Steffi right after Thanksgiving so that she could “walk us both into the ground, about 5 to 6 miles a day. Good for my sleep.” Her sister and podcast partner Liz Dolan is swimming. “There’s no news, real or fake, underwater,” she notes.

Others are meditating — or trying to. Lindsay Steiman, a consumer researcher for Toyota in Hermosa Beach, Calif., was all but ordered to do so by her ob-gyn after she complained of stress and poor sleep from “trying to work full time, raise a family and bring down a fascist regime at the same time,” she says. That was a week ago, and she hasn’t managed to find time to follow her doctor’s orders yet. Hasn’t slept much, either.

As it grows later in the day, every day, the distractions become more varied.

There’s binge TV watching that has nothing to do with politics (“Hallmark Channel,” specifically “’Golden Girls’ and ‘Frasier,’” says Susan Barocas, a Washington, D.C., filmmaker) or everything to do with it (“‘Quantum Leap,’” says Donna Saady. “I keep hoping he’ll leap into someone a few years ago and put right what went wrong.”)

There are books that aim for the same. Portrait photographer Mellon Tytell will only read escapist fiction before bed nowadays — John Grisham and Carl Hiaasen are favorites. Elizabeth Wade, on the other hand, a retired nurse, goes to bed in Ashland, Ore., sharing biographies of former presidents with her husband. Right now they are reading “River of Doubt,” by Candice Millard, which she found on sale at Costco, about Teddy Roosevelt’s journey to find a tributary to the Amazon.

Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP, Getty Images

“Not sure why we went this way with reading material,” she says. “Maybe just to see what ‘presidential’ really means?”

Once the lights are out, and the screens go dark, that’s when writer Sharon Van Epps, also from Seattle, begins to pray. She’s always said a bedtime prayer, but since November the content has changed.

“I ask that God will help us with this mess and show us how to help ourselves,” she says.

Of course, there are those who skip all of the above and go straight to the medicine or the liquor cabinet. Kasie Shiflett, a bartender and waitress at Dino’s Gourmet in Plattsburgh, N.Y., turns to Tylenol PM. Mary Molina, a retired clinical research assistant in Durham, N.C., rotates among bourbon, vodka, or melatonin, depending on the night.

“Medical marijuana and Glenfiddich,” quips Frederic Alan Maxwell, a researcher in Portland, Ore. “Plus nonmedical marijuana and Glenfiddich.”

And when author Cathryn Jackobsen Ramin brought up her troubled sleep with her new internist the other day, she left the appointment with a prescription for Seroquel and a two-page handout about sleep that the doctor had “just written because so many of her patients had the same problem lately.”

Do any of these strategies work? Not always, sufferers say.

Despite exercising more during the day, Bill Marcus, a venture capitalist in Chicago, is nonetheless “gazing at my smartphone at least an additional 30 to 60 minutes, lying awake at dusk or dawn, filtering through the fake and real developing stories.”

Diana Noya also finds herself staying awake late or waking up early in Yardley, Pa., because that’s when news (and presidential tweets) seem to break. “I feel like I have to consume it all in order to get my own thoughts out to my senators and representatives right away,” she says. “So I’m exhausted, but resisting.”

And when they do fall asleep, there are all those dreams.

“Last night I dreamed we were hiding people in our basement,” says Allentown, Pa., physician Jenni Levy. “Not sure what they were hiding from.”

“I dreamed I was in downtown NYC and it was gutted like Armageddon after 9/11,” says psychotherapist Donna Moss. “Everyone looked like zombies.”

Says Kelly Fincham, who co-founded the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, “My weirdest dream so far has been two lions chasing three giraffes in a disused Irish cemetery. Can you find someone to analyze that for me?”

Susannah Greenberg, a book publicist, recently “dreamt I was at a dinner. Someone accused me of leaving the ‘memory door’ open and that that was illegal. I shouted at them: ‘I don’t even know what the memory door is, so how could I have left it open? I did not leave the memory door open!’

“Somehow,” she says, “I think this was about Trump.”

Then there are those who are getting their eight hours because insomnia is not where their stress shows.

Allison Slater Tate, for instance, is having no problem with shuteye in Orlando. Possibly because she’s been stress-snacking since Election night.

“I’ve gained the Trump 15, but I can sleep,” she says.