#life and things that happen

[iztarshi]

Last year my parents had a pond dug at their house and it's been fascinating to watch it this year.

It was dug for great crested newts (there was official funding for having it done and everything) which means it had to be a natural pond. Which means that it spent last summer as a big hole in the ground.

Over the autumn and winter it gradually filled up. By spring it had whirligig beetles and diving beetles, then pondskaters and waterboatmen.

A little later in the spring it did get newts. Dad saw a great crested newt for sure, but the ones I saw could have been any kind of newt. Just lizard shaped shadows under the surface, showing up for a moment as they put their noses out for air or grabbed an insect.

By summer dragonflies had arrived. Broad bodied chasers looping around the pond and resting on the side. I saw a female laying eggs this weekend, flicking her tail again and again at a leaf just under the surface. Mum says she's seen an emperor dragonfly too, recently.

There are also a few plants starting to colonise the waterline now. I'm wondering what they are and whether they realise the pond is something like two feet deeper in winter. But they're the local flora, presumably they know what the water table is like in the area.

It's amazing watching a pond grow and acquire wildlife when no one did anything to it except dig it.

[twinliches]

shoutout to the guy who after unsuccessfully hitting on my sister and being politely declined asked her "is it okay if i ask your brother instead" and when she said yes gave me a long and searching look before sighing and going "no. i am not drunk enough to go for a dude. but you look like an angel" happy bisexual pride to this man and this man only. hope you figure it out soon king

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[baristabomb]

...weird amount of dunmeshi fans have been saying being a caretaker in a relationship is the worst thing ever..marcille must want to killl everyone soo bad because doing things for people suuuucks sooo muchh

it's an act of love, not just a job i promise. we all want someone who's willing to take care of us in some way, just like how senshi shows care for others by cooking for them :'|

[kensatou]

"we know how to move our bodies, but i didn't know how to manage my heart, so you need help for this"

hi we need to talk more about judo gold medallist christa deguchi.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

i would say that, mentally speaking, i'm in a good place right now! physically of course, the crows continue their chanting,

[eightspringdays]

Never forget the fact that, because he was roleplaying as his nonexistent lil sister, his twitter account got banned for a while and had to scream publicity he was, in fact, Tatsuki Fujimoto roleplaying as his nonexistent lil sister.

And no one believed him at first.

[hinamie]

unconditionally

[inthedarkofficial]

Homer, Hades 2: Sing, O Muse, of the saffron robed goddess, whose fair countenance was bathed in Selene’s light at the moment of her birth. Homer, Hades: The fire-stepping prince was lifted by Night from the cold ground, where his lord father had discarded him, outside Taco Bell.

[the-creat0r]

ITS JOEVER

[star-laboratory]

i think the funniest part of joel winning is seeing every single artist in the community stressing over having to learn how to draw a fucking car.

or alternatively downloading a png of a car, slapping it in the middle of the drawing and calling it a day

[iztarshi]

People I have met while pruning lavender as a volunteer:

Jehovah's Witnesses who made some nice small talk and left me with a card. Considering I'd also been making nice small talk with them in hopes of making them think well of the Community Garden I couldn't even mind. Ulterior motives all around.

A lady with a dog who wanted to ask whether she could also volunteer when she moved into the area.

A guy with a dog who wanted to let his dog say hello to me. Embarrassing for both of us when I backed away sharply and said, "please no". He left after telling me that he had asked and I agreed that he had (he had not although he did come towards me slowly enough for saying no to be possible).

A woman and a child who I didn't really meet, but she did stop to point out the lovely smell to her child.

A man and a woman who wanted to tell me how good the lavender smelled and say "hi", which was nice.

A man on a bike who wanted to tell me I was pruning lavender wrong and shouldn't be pruning it at all (I was doing what I'd been told, but I did stop to google just to check I wasn't going against all lavender pruning advice before continuing with what I had been doing).

A guy who wanted to know if the afternoon's event had been cancelled but didn't know what the afternoon's event would have been when I asked. (He left at that point so I didn't find out whether there was one.)

A lady with two dogs who wanted the lavender, which I was very happy to give her since we had entire binfuls of it. Unfortunately we only had one carrier bag and she didn't have her own.

And my fellow volunteers who have all been lovely.

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

Plain-text version:

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

P.S. Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

[lilybug-02]

What's everyone yappin' about? (Small Update: Only 3 pages a week from now on!)

Bug Fact: Chitin is the key structural component of all arthropod exoskeletons. It can be as flexible as a wing or as hard as a clam shell.

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