#my body is a dehumidifier

[stinkymudgoblin]

Norepinephrine, souepinephrine, easepinephrine and wesepinephrine

Try them all!

Make your sympathetic nervous system have an omnidirectional nervous breakdown, and finally get back at that bitch for making you hyperventilate in the school bathroom!

Don't dish it out, if you can't take it!

You myelin covered fuck

[theoxenfree]

LUCID

sleep paralysis demon x reader | 3k | 18+

you've never known a true, good night of sleep in your entire life. when your doctor and best friend, dr. sujay patel, offers to vouch for you as the perfect candidate for a "last resort" sleep study and medication trial, you don't have high hopes. the first night of the trial, things go sideways very quickly.

warnings; technically somnophilia, dubcon, hair-pulling, restraint, some eerie/unsettling details, breech of patient-doctor boundaries, alcoholism, implied addiction/addictive personality, academic cheating, some culturally sensitive discussion, roughly proofread.

this is the first concept piece for my upcoming sleep paralysis demon x reader story!! to help me shape the story, pls answer feedback questions + reblog!!!

Children at your daycare liked to draw you fanciful pictures of the other lives they lived in their dreams during afternoon nap time. You were shown orange tabby cats with green eyes garbed in full-plates of knight’s armor, brandishing a fish sword against a foe to save the world. Most often, they dreamed of their families and drew bright, brave versions of themselves holding hands with a parent, a sibling, a bipedal family dog with an electric collar. A few of the children never smiled in their self-portraits.

The proportions of everything were always silly: gigantic tree trunks with tiny, green bundles sitting atop of them, three enormous fruits supported by brittle vines and growth in bushes, cats and dogs with ears as tall as their bodies, Mom with purple skin instead of brown, Big Sis looking particularly volatile with a theratrically large snarl. Despite this, the children beamed in pride whenever yesterday's drawings would come down off the wall to be replaced with the new.

For some of these kids, this was their own equivalent of having art hung on a refrigerator; to you, it evoked dull, thready jealousy because they were in possession so simple, so biologically normal to them and everyone else around them that to be incapable of the same thing was, surely, a major defect.

Sleep was already a treasure you were seldom allotted the pleasure of greedily surrendering to, but to dream sounded like a terrifying experience to you altogether. It took work; a stringent routine of warm showers (hot and scalding water was forbidden), with an array of chalky, dissolvable tabs and shower gels and shampoos and moisturizers and essential oil dehumidifiers and soy candles and hot tea and special pillow sleep spray you’d seen in an online ad while thumbing through socials.

It took pajamas that were loose, soft but not silky, it took a satin bonnet and a satin eye covering (the kind with pockets for your eyelashes to move), comforters soused in lavender spray meant to magically work out the tightness in your shoulders and calves without the need of paying for a masseuse’s bony elbow. It took purchasing a battery-operated alarm clock to wake yourself for work so you could shut off your phone and leave it plugged into the wall downstairs.

You'd nearly forgotten—you couldn't have sugar after half past six, you had to stagger your water consumption after that time as well because the urge to piss would keep you awake for hours after the fact. The television needed to be off once you finished putting away dishes after dinner.

If you were lucky, this would work and you'd sleep a total of two or three hours uninterrupted—never fully tipping over the edge of wakefulness into deep sleep, but enough to keep yourself going during the day, grocery shop, wrangle the small children, scrape at a bar, get dicked down into your mattress every now and then, and visit Sujay for your usual appointments.

“How do you feel about trying something different?” he always gestured to one of the modern-looking armchairs upholstered in teal polyester before bringing you a tea of some sort. Today was a floral white tea with a spoonful of honey. “Ah, my friend, I worry for you. We've done so many studies, we've tried so many different things. Does none of it help? At all?”

“Not really.” you admitted after a sip, singing your tongue once and placing aside the cup and saucer pair. “I don't know if I can keep doing this until the day I die, Sujay. What do you recommend next?”

Dr. Sujay Patel was your neurologist, an utterly brilliant man, and a close friend from your early university days. Despite the rest of your friend group falling apart, pulled in separate directions by the strings of fate and temptation of money, you'd managed to stay in contact with Sujay throughout grad school. There'd been an intermission, probably a period of two years, where you'd forgotten he even existed.

You were out making a disaster of your life on sleepless, drunken benders because you hoped enough alcohol would either knock you out or kill you. The normal distractions came with it: your entire family dynamic corroding and combusting, an ex getting too big for their britches, and a roommate suspiciously eager to rally behind that ex.

Sujay came back into the picture following a nasty incident of alcohol poisoning that left you bedridden in the hospital for a week. You had decided then, in that uncomfortable bed with their starchy, crunchy white sheets and the bathroom being too far away to simply get up and walk to, that you'd abstain from alcohol forevermore.

He'd seen you in a state of soul-weary disarray not long after you were discharged and had decided to take you on as a patient.

“Now, you have a choice here, just remember that.” Sujay sat adjacent to you in the exact chair you were in. He wasn't daunted by the heat from his tea and took some time with it, whether to savor the subtle notes of it or to consider his words, you weren't sure. “But, a colleague of mine at a… pharmaceutical company has been working to get an experimental sedative into some studies. Testing periods, I guess you could say.”

You're convinced by his dedication to his tea to pick up yours again. “Does it work?”

“As of now, one-hundred percent of those who have participated have reported high-efficacy, or at least have claimed it to be effective in some manner.” His mustache moved as he sipped. You drank as well. “I think you should submit to the study and if you're accepted into one of the control groups—commit to it. We're running out of options otherwise. I don't want you to start mixing up your own cocktail of things. All it takes is the wrong thing once, y'know?”

The chair groaned while you adjusted your weight in it. You sighed. “Would that once be such a bad thing, though? At least I could sleep.”

“I'm a doctor,” Sujay looked over his square-rimmed glasses at you, forehead wrinkles enormous, whites of his eyes showing more than the hazel of his irises. “Behave yourself.”

“Fine.” Mesmerized by the stray tea leaves that had managed to escape the metal ball steeper, you said, “tell me what I need to do.”

Sujay had sent you away that day with a whole host of follow-up appointments and a glowing review to his colleague in hopes of skipping the line as much as possible. Sometimes, it was beneficial to have friends in high places, especially when that means you get a call two days later for preliminary, formal interviews and an offer to participate in said study once clearances came through and your blood work came back as desired.

A month to the day when Sujay first mentioned the possibility of a magical cure all to your relentless insomnia, you were brought into a minimally furnished room—the standard, bland cookie cutter type that hadn't an ounce of personality—dotted from head-to-toe in stickers for neuromonitoring, heart rhythm, and whatever else they fancied, you supposed.

It was only after you had changed into your soft, but not too soft, pajamas and covered in wires that you were handed a tiny purple pill. The color of it was obviously a dissolvable casing and food coloring, but what amazed you was the fact a drug this small was meant to induce the best sleep of your life.

“Take the pill, drink at least four ounces of water, and lie supine.” The technologists outside your room, speaking into an intercom, elaborated afterward that they wanted you to stay on your back while you slept. You didn't bother to point out that you weren't stupid—just tired. “We understand that not everyone finds this position comfortable, but to receive adequate results and to measure your vitals at all times, we ask that you try your best.”

You weren't going to hassle them about this and did precisely as they instructed. Shoved the pill down the back of your throat, drank the bottled water, and tried to get comfortable on your back.

You closed your eyes.

A part of you wondered why you had assented to Sujay’s suggestion so easily, especially where everything else had failed. He was one hell of a friend, and had always been that way for you, but as a doctor, you wondered if two years of cheating through medical school, so as to not royally piss off his parents and be disowned for failing, was finally catching up with him somewhat.

You recalled being startled when he told you he hadn’t married yet and didn't intend to as some deep-rooted act of spite against his family and the traditions they had held over his head all his life. Traditions that had been weaponized against him, rather than supplement his life as an extension of his history, of the things he loved, of a chance to explore more of himself.

You had listened wordlessly the entire time he spoke about it, still sipping on his tea, the results from your latest brain scan clamped to a clipboard on his lap—

This wasn't working.

This was so stupid.

You opened your eyes and sat up in the stiff bed, carefully maneuvering your fingers around your orbital bone to force away the puffiness and exhaustion still lingering behind them. It was only as you rubbed your eyes that you noticed your face was empty of cold stickers and a thousand wires. You didn't hear distant blips in the machine measuring your heart rate, nor track the voices of anyone outside your door.

The room was still the same—the outdated, bulky dresser with claw feet, a few gray chairs you could buy on display in a window somewhere, a low oval table, a bedside table for your glass of water and a crisp, neatly folded change of clothes for the next day.

It was only unusual that you were bare of the technologist’s monitoring equipment and sitting amid an unfaltering, deep silence that amplified the sounds of your very existence. Your slow breaths with a quickening heartbeat, blood pumping in your ears, and the coarse rustle of bedsheets as you shifted around the mattress to bring some sense to what was going on.

Would the technologists have come into the room and removed everything from your body without waking you? More miraculously, without you rousing and throwing your hands on them for touching you first?

“Maybe the drug worked?” you had to consider the possibility, even though it still felt as far-fetched as the holistic medicine practitioners online telling you that an herbal cleansing juice could regenerate organs entirely. “Did I actually sleep? I don't remember dreaming, though. Aren't I supposed to dream?”

You looked to the one, single-paned window across the bedroom to spy how far along the morning had progressed, but found yourself sucking in and holding in a breath instead.

There, standing in your view of the outside, was the silhouette of a tall man. Everything about him was indistinguishable aside from the depth of darkness that made him up. Within the confines of the dim room, alight by a single lamp with an amber bulb that seemed to weaken by the second, this man stood apart from the shadows as something deeper, blacker, but corporeal.

He was every bit a part of the dark as much as he wasn't. And you couldn't tell if he was fading you or turned to look out the window at the parking lot two stories below.

“Hi—hello. Are—are you one of the techs?” you had finally let out that breath, now focusing on gauging the guy’s level of sociability, and by extension, his friendliness and the likelihood of him lunging at you. “I, uh, just would've really appreciated it if someone had woken me up before taking off the stickers.”

You were able to see out the window from the gaps around his body, taking note that it was still dark. Very dark. Beyond that, nothing else was discernible from where you sat and what he blocked.

The study wouldn't have finished yet.

Those techs would've taken precaution to wake you up if something had happened.

“Am I asleep?” you asked the wordlese man. “Am I dreaming now? Are you a dream? Is that what it's like?

You never imagined that there could be so much lucidity within a dream, a level of consciousness so similar to a state of wakefulness. When you thought about moving, you could perfectly flex your fingers, curl your toes into the high-pile carpet underfoot, touch the airy fabric covering your body and feel it touching you in turn.

How normal was this really, though? No one had ever told you about dreams like this. Theirs were always fragmented and discombobulated, just like the kids in daycare who drew pictures of pig astronauts and flame extinguishing spatulas. You knew of a rare few in the population capable of controlling their dreams, steering the outcome in the direction they pleased, but even those people were overrode by their own brains.

This was something completely different.

You became especially convinced of this when you thought the stifled air suddenly shifted with a light breeze, a soft whoosh in your ear. A chill erupted over you, making your skin burst with goose flesh, your brain chasing a shiver down your spine as if cold fingers stroked you all the way down the length of it. Those same fingers stayed low, hovering across your lower back before pushing into you, arching you down onto the mattress.

That freedom you thought you had only moments ago was gone, stolen by this invisible hand on your body that was rounding to you and reaching for your chest. Until now, you thought this had simply been a part of the dream—something you had believed to be in control in when the reality was much different—but, as the buttons on your sleep shirt unfastened before your eyes, the thin layers opening you to the cold, inky air, you weren't sure what to think, to do.

Another hand joined the first with long, heavy fingers to knead at your body and take your pants off of your hips until you were fully exposed to the darkness and the thing still dwelling within the room. It hadn't moved an inch since you'd noticed it a while ago; it never became any clearer, any more defined in the clothes or wore, and trying to look upon its face only filled you with puzzlement and dread.

The large hands were so cold despite all their movement on your hot skin, all of the work they did to start riling you up and making you moan. One of them groped your chest, felt your throat, squeezed your jaw as though to force your gaze at one point in particular (the ceiling), pushed apart your lips to dip into your mouth and wet its fingers on your tongue.

You did so as it was the only thing you could do freely right now.

Those fingers, covered in your spit, caressed you between your legs, stroking you in motions neither gentle or harsh. The muscles in your thighs flinched, stomach tightening, your throat vibrating to produce a moan smothered by the second hand circling your throat, gripping firmly enough where you could breathe, but just barely.

The thing couldn’t stop your thoughts, as much as it seemed to try, so it took to interrupting them—distracting you but squeezing your neck, yanking your head back into the pillow by your hair, adjusting itself to thrust multiple fingers into your body, burying them to the knuckle.

You tried to win this war of willpower by thinking about Sujay and his mustache and his stupid glasses. They were green, sometimes blue; seldom did he like the tortoiseshell look.

The thing lunged at your neck again, this time taking you underside the jaw and forced your head back into the pillow while it fucked you deeper on three fingers.

You wanted to make a sound; a moan, a scream, a torturous whimper or pleasure for the way your body was rocked on the bed, creaking with the weight of a pair combined and not just how it appeared. Your nostrils flared, heart rate at an uneasy high, breaths stuck in the column of your throat behind the hand holding it.

The pressure continued to stack higher and higher, building to such a point where you knew you were about to lose it, unravel, praying that this thing would grant you the kindness of fucking you out of your orgasm.

Your abdomen was wound tight, your groin ached terribly, and your thighs started to shake. Behind your eyes, the kaleidoscopic wheels of color intermingled with the darkness and it all slowly burned to white.

And then—

“Good morning!” you were being shaken awake by one of the technologists, a middle-aged woman with blue eyeliner. she didn't expect for you to jolt upright, stick straight, and launch the covers off of your body. “Oh—hey, honey, you alright? We’re done until tonight. How do you feel?”

You were slow to respond to her, occupied by the morning light filtering in through the window across the bedroom. She gave you some time to gather your bearings and took her time removing the stickers and wires from your skin, suggesting you spend some time really scrubbing in the shower later to get off all the adhesive.

“How about now, honey?” she pulled the last sticker and wire combination off of your shoulder. “You with us?”

You didn't know how to answer that, especially not with how damp you felt inside your thighs.

a/n; thank you for reading and choosing to help me shape the story further!! this is all inspired by the fact that I have frequent bouts of sleep paralysis myself and on three consecutive occasions, after taking some questionable drops from an ex-friend, I saw something. I want to make this very clear that this story is intended to be pretty extreme psychological horror. anyway, here are the questions

sujay will be a major supporting character in the story, so what would you be interested in seeing more: 1) sujay and mc further blurring that boundary and possibly becoming a pair, but their "relationship" becomes thwarted by SPD 2) sujay, possibly, ends up with more yandere tendencies as the story progresses and with the development of the plot, could result in a terrible ending for him—but interesting 3) sujay and mc are inherently a toxic duo, but he tries his best to support mc (platonically or one-sided romantically) as they spiral out of control?

in terms of SPD's appearance, what idea do you like better: 1) him, eventually, having a definitive, solid form and features across the span of the story 2) he remains like a "black silhouette" with the invisible hands, but he has the sort of voice that's lulls and lures and manipulates 3) he takes on features that mc (you) find attractive, but they're all wrong and progressively becomes more monstrous 4) he has a physical appearance that's "all wrong", but you can never figure why or what he actually looks like despite SEEING him. if you want to choose multiple, you need to get VERY specific.

I intend for this story to be incredibly dark in terms of sexual content bc SPD is a demon/monster. he is not good. he is not loving. when you think of "dark" for smut, what would you want to see??

[nothorses]

So I'm thinking of going on low dose T, and ofc I'll get more feedback from doctors when I see them, but I know one of the changes is that you run warmer and have lower heat tolerance, and I'm already kind of heat sensitive (sweating is a sensory ick). Do you or your followers have any kind of coping strategies that have helped with that?

I ran warm before, too, and I'm definitely warmer now! I also have Raynaud's which kind of makes the whole experience a clusterfuck, but that's besides the point. lmao.

I live in a pretty cool/temperate area, so it isn't normally an issue except in the (increasingly horrible) summers, but I've found that the hardest time to stay cool has been at night. I share a bed with my partner who runs even warmer, and it's been 2.5 years of struggling to figure out how to be a comfortable temperature together.

The best advice I can give you is to just stay as far away from synthetic fibers as you can; "sweat wicking" and "cooling" and "athletic" stuff included. It's a lie. They're all plastic, and while they might feel cool to the touch at first, plastic doesn't breathe. It'll trap heat and moisture against your skin after enough time, especially in the form of blankets. (Fuck the Rest Evercool. Worst recommendation I've ever gotten.)

Look for 100% linen, or 100% cotton. I've heard wool also works well, but I haven't had luck with that personally. Woven fabrics are going to be cooler and more breathable than sateen, and waffle weave is like, the single most breathable weave afaik (it's more common in blankets, but some clothes are waffle).

Some of these things can be pretty scratchy at first, and I recommend a couple of washes on a high heat & some fabric softener before you start using them. We were able to break in our waffle blanket super quickly this way! (I know some folks recommend against softener for breathability reasons, but it's the only thing that actually worked for us, and it hasn't impacted breathability). After you break them in, though, cotton and linen fabrics are SUPER soft!

I also recommend staying away from leather. It's natural, but trust me: it's not breathable. It's coveted in outdoor rec spaces BECAUSE it's somewhat waterproof.

Outside of that, I'd really encourage you to lean towards multiple light layers that you can change/remove throughout the day to suit your needs (ex: light tee + fleece + wind/rain layer, maybe throw in a flannel somewhere), instead of one or two heavy ones (ex: shirt + big puffy cold weather jacket). It's a strategy common in the PNW that works great for regulating your temperature when you're dealing with humidity and somewhat unpredictable weather, and imo, it also really translates if you're just generally sensitive to heat and sweat.

Outside of that... depending on where you live, I really recommend having an AC/dehumidifier. Don't bother with trying to rig up a swamp cooler if you're sensitive to sweat- the increased humidity will make things worse. The general advice I heard when researching a good AC was that window units will always be more efficient than portable units (and a mini split is better than either), but if you have to go with a portable unit, go with a dual-hose. They'll be more efficient just because they don't create a vacuum that pulls in warm air from outside. This is the model we settled on- it was really highly recommended and cost effective for what it is, and it's been absolutely fantastic this summer.

Idk how you are about pits, but I wash mine with a benzoyl body wash and then use a deodorant with antiperspirant every day, and I virtually never smell or sweat. 🤷‍♂️ ymmv though

I'm sure folks will have things to add, so check the notes on this post- and good luck!

[hypnotic-kink]

For those asking how I am after the hurricane.... I can't answer all the DMs....

A week into Hurricane Helene clean up and I am fucking exhausted, every muscle in my body aches. My nose has come accustomed to the stench of fishy flood water. I've lost 12 lbs. without trying. My pretty manicured nails are long gone, my hair is in a perpetual ponytail since I don't have a lousy hairdryer. I have a black and blue mark on my cheek from stuff falling off a closet shelf onto me. Bleach and dirt stains all over my tshirt. I'm a wreck and so is everyone else here. We don't care ... all we care about is getting everything wet out of our homes and the drywall ripped out so our homes can dry out so the mold doesn't set in and destroy what's left. Then it can be rebuilt again. Fucking again, 13 months from when hurricane Adalia hit (we all just got done rebuilding from that one). My neighborhood IS A TRUE DISASTER ZONE, everywhere you look down the street is mountains of waterlogged furniture. I see neighbors and we just hug each other and cry together. A picture of a mother and her baby was in my yard, I don't even know them and it's blurred with water, the happy memory fading fast, I don't know why I just started crying for them, knowing they lost everything too. I pray they are safe. Pieces of my fence were ripped out and have floated away, hell I'm grateful a stranger returned my mailbox! Everyone on my block has to find a place to live, none of our homes are inhabitable unless they were on stilts. I found a place to rent, but for how long who knows... The goal is get the house fixed ASAP of course. No small feat when half of the state is hiring contractors etc.

The upside: I found out today the company I work for paid a months' rent and will get the 1st month power and water bill. I again, started to cry, when they told me. Tears seem to be a normal occurrence lately for me, and I thought I was one tough cookie. Ha. Mother Nature is kicking my proverbial ass. It's hard to go thru this once, let alone twice in a years time span.

95% of the house is empty so getting closer to the end of the hard physical labor, hence the weight loss. The city, state and federal aid this time has been fantastic.... they set up comfort stations with showers, washer and dryers (which I spent 3 hrs doing 2 truckloads of clothes, sheets, towels, curtains etc.) and they give us a free meal once a day. They gave us a case of emergency drinking water, and a box of pretty gross MRE'S (yes I tried it ..... the PB & J with crackers isn't bad) but it's survival food if needed. I am grateful I have friends that work for electricians and plumbers, so they got my hot water and my power working already. HUGE blessing. I've got industrial fans and dehumidifiers running so drying out the house is going well. Now I'm disinfecting anything I'm keeping as household items that will go to the rental place. Thankfully the rental is furnished. An entire home of furniture .... gone. Yes, I'm grateful I'm physically out of harm' way but to see the entire contents of your home (furniture, electronics, mementos etc.) at the curb as garbage is overwhelming esp. since I didn't have content insurance. But it kills me when I find things that have meaning and memories. I had my sons time capsule from the year he was born in the closet, and it's ruined. ugh. Stuff like that is irreplaceable. I should've remembered it was there but, in the panic, to get out you forget. I do have flood insurance though so the house will be fixed. I will be back in the house hopefully in 4 months with a little luck. I still have a house which is more than many that were hit in Tallahassee, some even lost their lives, so I am grateful. Continued prayers for Florida please 🙏🏻 thank you to everyone that has messaged me sending their love, thoughts and prayers and support. xox

[pokemonshelterstories]

What sort of treatment would you give a steel type pokemon at the shelter if one was brought in with chronic rusting issues? Purely out of curiosity, don't see too many discussions about steel type care on the blog and I think they're underrated.

great question! we don't see a ton of steel types at the shelter, but i'm currently working towards my steel type handling certification, so i've been reading a lot of recent literature on steel type care haha. the answer is that it really depends on the pokemon and what's causing the rusting issues.

in the vast majority of chronic rusting issues in pokemon with metallic components to their body, the cause lies with husbandry. poor diet is the most common culprit. steel types in the wild eat a much wider variety of metals than initially believed, and in fact- much like a gogoat- many obtain trace metal and mineral content by eating dirt/rocks outside of their main diet! fixing dietary imbalances results in the rusting clearing out over time in most cases.

sometimes chronic rusting can also be caused by failure to provide proper avenues for self-maintenance. for example, aggron are known to "polish" their metal by rolling in sand or coarse-grained dirt and rubbing up against oily plants. in these cases, providing opportunities for those natural maintenance behaviors will typically resolve the problem. some older steel types may need their trainer's assistance with polishing if they've developed mobility issues.

outside of those possibilities, it's a veterinary issue. those are tough to resolve in steel types. if it's because of a mechanical problem (such as a klinklang's gears not turning properly), it can sometimes be fixed, but otherwise the usual response is to treat the symptoms rather than cure the underlying cause. we just don't always have enough knowledge of care for some of the less organic steel types to know how to provide for their medical needs. treatment for chronic rust usually involves regular polishing with medical grade steel wool (which has been properly sanitized) and the application of some type of oil blend to help form a protective coat. custom-made raincoats to help prevent exposure to moisture as well as using a dehumidifier in spaces the pokemon frequents can also lower the risk of new rust forming.

[h3artstain]

A list of (realistic) things you can do to be more environmentally friendly

(from an earth-loving horticulture student.)

— COSMETICS

Use bar soap instead of soap bottles

Use old toothbrushes for cleaning surfaces

Try exploring and researching some homemade face/body/lip products

Use ice sleeves, sunglasses, and caps instead of sunscreen (Edit: I’ve seen people say that it is safer and even necessary to wear sunscreen at all times so try to use eco friendly sunscreen instead! In my country it’s pretty uncommon to wear sunscreen often as we usually wear ice sleeves which is why I did not know this oof)

Use coffee grinds or homemade tumeric masks instead of cosmetic products with exfoliator beads

Invest in a metal ear cleanser instead of cotton buds

Try placing more importance on skincare instead of contributing to exploitative beauty companies by buying makeup

Use cosmetic products that do not contain palm oil

— CLOTHING

Try as much as possible to rewear your outfits at least twice before washing them

Actually WEAR your clothes! I know some of y’all just wear them once for your Instagram post and let it rot in your closet forever. Stop doing that!

Thrift, stitch up holes in your clothes, and use second hand clothing instead of supporting fast fashion companies like SHEIN, H&M, Zara, etc.

Cut up your old clothing into yarn and do macramè with it

Cut patches of old clothing to turn into reusable cotton pads

Learn how to knit, crochet or stitch your clothes!

If you use tampons, try menstrual cups or discs instead. If you use pads, try reusable pads or period underwear. (Trust me, it works). Also, use reusable panty liners instead of disposable ones. They may seem expensive but you will end up saving a lot more in the long run

— GARDENING

Plant seeds/cuttings in your old bottles, jars, and containers

Propagate your plants and exchange cuttings with your friends instead of buying new plants

Make your own soil mixes instead of buying soil mixes

Better yet, don’t use soil for your indoor plants and try getting into hydroponics or semihydroponics instead. This saves so much water and doesn’t contribute to mining of soil

Fertilise plants with fruit peels, coffee grinds, and tea leaves. (DO NOT use chemical fertiliser on soil)

Plant more legume plants in your garden instead of using nitrogen fertilisers. (Look up the nitrogen cycle if you need an explanation on this)

Avoid pesticides unless really needed. Try sprinkling cinnamon powder on soil or spraying neem oil on plants and soil to keep away pests.

If you have a lawn, try looking into rain gardens and consider making one

Let the (non invasive) weeds in your lawn/garden grow! They are there for a reason!

Stop killing earthworms and millipedes in your garden. This also applies to snails native to your region. They are there for a reason.

Water used to wash fruits and rice can be used to water plants

— REDUCE, REUSE

Use the caps of jars as soap holders

Use recycled paper/notebooks

Wash and dry your glass/plastic items before throwing them in the recycling bin

Keep any plastic bags for future use

Use eco friendly or reusable dish sponges

Use reusable straws and cups

Invest in a fabric cup holder

Bring a water bottle with you wherever you go

Drink more water and less sugary drinks

Bring reusable bags for buying groceries instead of using plastic ones

Always keep a folded up tote/shopping bag with you in case you spontaneously decide to buy something

— ELECTRICITY

Set a timer on your air conditioning instead of letting it run throughout the night

Better yet, use a fan instead of an air conditioner

Open your windows! Aerate your home!

Allow natural light to enter your home during the daytime, so as to avoid turning on your lights

Switch to LED lightbulbs instead of regular lightbulbs

Turn off any switches in your house when they are not in use

Collect the water from your air conditioner/dehumidifier condenser and use that to water plants, clean surfaces, steam ironing, and flushing toilets. Do not drink it though!

— INTERNET

Delete your all of your unwanted emails

Delete your inactive social media accounts

Try not to post excessively on social media and stop scrolling excessively too. This not only reduces energy usage but also improves your mental health and productivity

Try to keep to one social media app instead of having so many

Reduce your internet usage

Save your eBooks on a thumbdrive instead of on cloud

Use Ecosia instead of Google

Stop being influenced by social media trends that only just contribute to consumerism

Download music instead of streaming

Reduce online shopping

— FOOD

Reduce intake of processed foods

Reduce intake of fish, beef, and dairy

Try eating vegan or vegetarian foods at least once or twice a week

Cook your own meals instead of eating out

Bring your own food containers when taking away food from stores

Beeswax wrap instead of cling wrap!

Buy loose-leaf tea or plastic free tea bags instead of regular tea bags

Eat more mushrooms, vegetables, and fruits and drink more water

Support local farmers

And finally, educate yourself more about ecology and the environment!

[ladyiristheenchantress]

Magic for the college witch

In honor of finding out I am set to graduate in December with my associates in science I have decided to celebrate with you all by sharing my tips and tricks I used to help pass some of my classes! Each tip will be sorted into circumstances as to where they may be applicable. Please enjoy, and congrats to all my future grads!

Reminder: In dorms and such you wont have access to many tools, but if your living in an apartment things are less strict. every time you see candles and such if you live in a dorm replace it with either electric candles or even colored stones you can rub together or place in a grid!

Registering for classes

Often times we try to register for classes as soon as possible, especially when you are an incoming freshman. When it comes to getting accepted and starting the process congrats your here.

Set up registering appointments on lucky number days, during the new moon, or on Mondays and Thursdays because those times represent readiness and preparation

Manifest getting good classes and teachers by sending off a prayer out to the universe

Do divination when registering opens to see if a teacher is a good fit or not (Also check out rate my professor)

If you are having trouble establishing classes, or just cant seem to get that *one* class you need, light a blue candle and put mint at the base of it to promote an opening

If your facing a situation where you are trying to get into an exclusive class (this also works if your presenting a thesis) put a sugar packet under your tongue to sweeten your words and make you more convincing

Getting to class on time

The commute anywhere can be a really hard thing to do, whether your commuting from a dorm to a classroom or city to campus it can be hard to be on time or find the motivation to show up to class

To motivate yourself to go to class keep a carnelian under your pillow to help you rise in the morning

Keep a consistent schedule, not only is this helpful psychologically but magically consistency helps build up magical energy towards motivation

enchant your walking shoes (or get heelies) to put pep in your step and always be on time when walking. You can optionally put a sigil in your shoe

enchant cars to avoid red lights by charging your keys in full moon light

Light a green candle before important days to make sure your morning commute runs smoothly

Setting up magical space in the dorms

Most dorms don't allow things like candles or flames, heaters, strip lights, etc. With this in mind people assume it must be hard to create a magical space without some of the key items, but we do have solutions!

Instead of regular candles, use electric ones as votives on deity altars

Instead of incense use MILD essential oil diffusers like lava stones in the corners, or a defuser. Bonus points if you use a dehumidifier

Chances are you wont have a lot of space, so opt for small placements on desks via mini figures and small stones

Set up sachets around your space and put them in clothing areas, not only do they smell good and keep moths away, they act as magical protection

Start working on energy based practices like meditation or enchantments with only your body

Navigating relationships

College can be a hard time, your adjusting to life without the friends you grew up with, most people start their dating life, and friends begin to come and go as you go through classes. Don't restrict what you experience

When you brush your teeth, enchant it to represent you 'speaking your truth' and 'biting back' so your protected from people who have bad intentions or are deceptive

When at parties and such put a sigil of protection on your left thigh, this represents protection from people looking to harm you

blow cinnamon at your door, or use a light cinnamon essential oil wash to invite new people and opportunities

Keep amber under your pillow or by photos to maintain friendships and help you let go of ones that no longer serve you

wear silver to repel energy vampires or people who are looking to use you

Studying success

Studying and how effective it is will depend on you and how you like to study, there are hundreds of posts online that look at how to find your study style, this more focuses on magic you can do for memory retention

Chew mint gum during studying AND during your test for memory recall

Draw sigils on your physical flash cards to make the information easier to retain

On the third of each month save that day to brush up on all information from the class, not only does this prep you for the final but this day is Athenas ritual day

Study the most on Wednesdays as they represent wisdom

Use a shungite worry stone during studying and testing to help keep your mind focused and stress free before tests

Test taking

Test taking can be a really hard part of college, I know it was for me. We do a lot of things to help prepare but what can we do during a test?

Create a sigil of good luck on top of your exam

Wear green on exam days

Eat and drink something enchanted (I swear by a snickers and a red bull) before a test for good luck

Create a superstition like a lucky shirt or pair of socks after your first good exam grade

Wear gold accessories to enhance your test taking skills, and speed up your test (Great when you are being timed)

Mental Health

Your mental health in college is very important, it can be hard being separated from your home town or family and just know that it does get better. College is a mix of emotions, from the loneliest point in your life, to the most social. You will be navigating new challenges, new feats, and its important to take care of yourself. Seek out the college mental health resources available to you like counseling as needed. you matter!

Use words of affirmations when you wake up and before you sleep to remind yourself you matter, my favorite is from the help "You is smart, you is kind, you is important"

Carry rose quartz and carnelian on you for self love and energy

Before bed drink lavander tea for rest and revitalization

Pray over your food to nourish your spirit as you go through college

Write down letters and petition to the universe for stability and how you feel.

I hope you all have enjoyed! Again, congrats to all my future grads, and I hope you all can come with me as I journey to getting my bachelors

Tip Jar

[zenaidamacrouras1]

Writing Modern Steve Roger's Health Issues: A compendium

AKA How do Steve Rogers' MCU canon illnesses hold up in a modern setting?  

I am writing something that is SO NICHE and so NERDY I feel absolutely, positively deviant about it. Who knew you could have this much fun while eating a burrito and sitting in the sun on your back porch? 

OKAY! This one goes out to all of you writing modern AU's with a modern Steve Rogers. (There are literally dozens of us!). Let's go.

So, I find it somewhat problematic when people write disabled or otherwise medically complicated characters and are wishy-washy about the diagnosis they have. In real life, everyone I know with ongoing medical issues is a fucking expert on their exact shit. A great tumblr reference for disabled characters is Cripple Characters, but I also use reddit threads to read about people’s day to day experiences with different issues in their own words. If nothing else, just decide what your character has and take ten minutes and read through a basic website article about it. 

So let's walk through what modern Steve's medical history and diagnoses might be. If you feel like I missed any details or got things wrong, happy to have comments to that end.

We'll start with the list of “ailments,” going with the MCU canon and combining the images from the museum exhibit and screen shots of Steve’s enlistment forms:

Asthma

Scoliosis

Fallen arches

Partial deafness

Scarlet Fever, Rheumatic Fever

Heart arrhythmia

High blood pressure

Palpitation or pounding in heart

Easy fatigability

Stomach ulcers

Pernicious anemia

Nervous trouble of any sort

Sinusitis

Chronic or frequent colds

Caveat: I am not a doctor, but I am a person who enjoys reading medical journal articles about illnesses I do and don’t have. The human body is a fascinating and terrible place to live. Talk to me about your medical complications - I will always find them interesting. I love small talk about Crohn’s disease and/or extremely graphic details about the time you had surgery because one of your wrist bones was the wrong length. 

Sucks To Your Assmar: Asthma! How has asthma changed? 

Kids who have their asthma well managed at a young age are going to have less scarring and lung damage (this is called airway remodeling). Thus a modern kid will likely have less severe asthma than a kid born in Steve’s time. Further, allergy medicines got way better from the 1990s, so kids with allergy induced asthma would have had fewer attacks. Fewer attacks as kids = less severe asthma as they age. 

I would also note that asthma is highly connected to environmental issues. If Steve grew up in a house with cigarette smoke, cockroaches, rats, or mold present, as is fairly easy to imagine, especially without dehumidifiers in a swampy Brooklyn summer, those are environmental factors that would have made his asthma much worse. 

They are also all factors that kids today certainly face, depending on how you write your modern Steve’s childhood. While people today certainly can have very severe asthma, it’s also entirely possible that modern Steve’s relationship to his asthma is pretty chill and easy to manage. (My partner has relatively severe asthma with a lot of environmental triggers; modern allergy medicine was a big game changer.)

Let’s talk about scoliosis ~~

There are a lot of variations to how scoliosis impacts people. I have very minor scoliosis and it's barely a thing in my life. I’m not trying to speak for everyone, but for what it’s worth, there are professional athletes with spinal fusion. I used Kyra Condie as my justification for writing climbing coach post-spinal fusion small Steve Rogers in one fic. My younger brother and best friend in high school both had spinal fusions. 

In reality the athletic and physical abilities of people with spinal fusion vary pretty much exactly as much as people without spinal fusion, so you have a lot of leeway for how you decide to write a character with scoliosis. I recommend reddit threads to read about people talking about how their bodies felt before and after spinal fusion, or why they decided not to have the surgery, if you want to get a sense of how it might affect your character’s day to day life.

Wait, so how tall is modern small Steve Rogers? 

You can see in this article that gains in height post scoliosis corrective surgery/spinal fusion varies, but the mean was 27 mm (1 inch) and the maximum was 66 mm (2.5 inches). 

The more severe the curve in the spine, the more height gained with surgery. 

We know Steve had scoliosis, we don’t know how severe it was (do we?). But if he was 5’4” without spinal fusion, and with all of his childhood fevers, and possible poor nutrition due to the Great Depression and untreated stomach ulcers, then it’s very reasonable that a modern Steve raised with proper nutrition and his gastrointestinal issues (see below!) properly treated and a spinal fusion could be easily 1-10 inches taller. 

I think it’s great if you want to write modern Small Steve as 5’4” - but I tend to write him as 5’7” or so. 

I think it is entirely likely that a modern Steve Rogers could end up being 6 feet tall given modern medical intervention and a healthy digestive system and adequate nutrition. As an example of how people with more or less the same genetics having different heights due to environmental factors, I know of one family of four brothers that immigrated from Italy in the 40s. Their height was 100% correlated to their age when they moved to the US/started having access to food: the oldest brother was around 5’4” and the youngest around 6 feet. The oldest was also a chain smoker and worked full time from around age 8, so you know, he was a fucking badass 5'4" Italian guy, if that's not clear.

What about fallen arches? 

Fun story, but I have fallen arches/flat feet and had a lot of foot pain as a kid, but I thought it was normal. I wear custom orthotics and/or birkenstocks and do exercises to strengthen my feet muscles and it's fine now as long as I remember to do the things I just mentioned. My dad had to have multiple surgeries on his feet, so I think it helped that they caught it earlier in me. 

Should I write modern non-serum Steve as deaf? 

Maybe! I think it’s lovely when people write characters with hearing issues. There are great blogs that cover ways to do that well (a good link, another one, and another one and I think this one on hearing aids is particularly good if you are trying to bring in subtle day to day routine differences a character that wears hearing aids may have. Another great option is, again, reddit, especially for questions around how sexual intimacy might vary in small ways that can be nice to bring in. (I am working on a fic with a seeing character whose ex is blind and also read a lot of couples first hand experience with sexual intimacy around that dynamic on reddit). 

But how likely is it that modern Steve would be deaf? 

I think that it’s reasonably likely that Steve’s hearing issues were a result of Scarlet Fever, which is a bacterial infection that can result in rheumatic fever, an inflammatory condition that develops in more severe cases of scarlet fever. 

Scarlet fever caused deafness - in fact, both Helen Keller and Thomas Edison had hearing loss due to scarlet fever infections. Further, sustained fevers of over 104 degrees can also cause hearing loss, so there is a reasonable chance that some other fever caused Steve’s hearing issues. 

Today, the kind of hearing loss caused by fevers and infections can usually be surgically repaired or never occur because we have better antibiotics and better medicines to treat fevers. However, I have a friend who has partial hearing loss and lots of other life long nervous system and fatigue issues due to complications from childhood chicken pox in the 80s (this vaccine came around in 1995).

I don’t know if it’s canon or fanfiction, but I often see Steve as having one bad ear. For what it’s worth, hearing loss in one ear is much less common than hearing loss in both ears. 

However, potential causes of hearing loss in one ear are infections that result in a high fever and some kind of head trauma, both of which are easy to imagine would have affected a Steve born in 1918, and while possible in a modern Steve, also easier to avoid. 

Heart Stuff: Heart arrhythmia, High blood pressure, Palpitation of pounding in heart, Easy fatigability

The aforementioned fevers that can cause hearing loss can also cause heart issues. I think it’s reasonably likely that Steve’s heart issues were from his fevers as a young kid, but I often write him with a congenital heart defect, because why not? 

These days, most of the time, such issues are detected at or before birth and fixed when the person is a baby, but there are plenty of heart issues that can require multiple heart surgeries at various points. Regardless, a modern Steve would most likely either have had access to corrective surgery or medication to manage these heart conditions. Which is not to say that he wouldn’t suffer mental and physical trauma from this medical complication. 

There are plenty of professional athletes you can find who have all of the above heart issues. And plenty of people with heart issues who have no interest in being professional athletes, so like, follow your bliss. 

Digestive System Stuff: Easy fatigability, Stomach ulcers, Pernicious anemia

I have easy fatigability under heart stuff too, because lots of shit can make you tired. 

My personal head canon is that Steve Rogers has celiac disease and/or lactose intolerance, it would cause all of the above. Both can also lead to poor growth - in fact falling off growth charts is one of the most common symptoms of celiac disease in children. 

While people have been aware of celiac disease since there were people, gluten wasn’t identified as the clear cause till the 50s. 

I typically write modern Steve with some kind of food allergy, and I think that addresses quite a few of his canon medical complications. 

Because so many causes of this category of symptoms are relatively easily solved with modern medical intervention/avoiding the problem, I would point folks towards Crohn’s disease if you are looking to write a modern character with medical issue that is more likely to be an ongoing source of similar medical complications today.

(Also, kids with Crohn’s are likely to have reduced height. I have a friend who has Crohn's whose 3 siblings are well over 6 feet and he is around 5'8" (so 4-6 inches aka 11+ cm shorter due to his severe childhood illness).)

Nervous trouble of any sort

Kids with medical complications and food allergies are much more likely to have anxiety. I’m so proud of all the kids making it through the day with anxiety. Luff you anxiety kids, I see you working twice as hard to be present as the non-anxious kids. Tough as hell. Give yourself a high five. I’m so damn proud of you.

Sinusitis and Frequent colds

I mean, god bless modern decongestants and allergy meds. Celiac disease and lactose intolerance can both cause sinus issues, so here is another one of Steve's ailments that can be "cured" through that diagnosis.

Other stuff

When you look at the above, you can see a lot of scenarios where modern era Steve, like many children/adults today, had multiple surgeries and serious and scary health complications as a child, but as an adult would appear as a relatively healthy able bodied person, with the possibility of even becoming a top athlete if he was so inclined.  It’s also likely that some issues like chronic fatigue etc, might linger into adulthood as relatively invisible illnesses that nonetheless affect his everyday. 

In some ways his character arc given the advances of modern medicine could mimic his arc due to the serum. 

Being medically complicated as a kid sucks. Even if you have surgeries to treat and/or learn how to live with things like Crohn’s and celiac and reduce flare ups, lingering mental health trauma can have an impact. 

Lastly and most importantly, I have a personal headcanon that young Steve Rogers of any era spent a lot of time sick in bed and staring into a mirror learning how to raise one eyebrow and perform other eyebrow gymnastics so he could more effectively sass his nurses. 

IN CONCLUSION:

I think it's actually reasonable for an author to say, "My modern Steve never had any fevers, and got his severe lactose intolerance diagnosed as a baby, and had good nutrition, had medications/clean environment that prevented his asthma."

So this Steve is 6 feet tall and healthy as long as he doesn't eat dairy and takes his daily zyrtec (cetirizine - it's an allergy med). The only medical issue he has from canon left is scoliosis, flat feet, and an astigmatism.

You can also choose to write a Steve with more complex medical issues, and there are lots of things that can be good and interesting and value about that. I think the main thing is to pick a diagnosis and write it realistically, hopefully this helps some with that!

[vykker]

Oddworld Headcanon 5/?: Vykkers Labs is Hot and Sweaty

I was gathering pictures of vykkers for drawing references when I noticed something. Why are their outfits so threadbare and nasty? And how come some of the vykkers we see in-game are ass naked? Their most valued business partners are, I assume, the Glukkons, and the Glukkons take fashion & clothing extremely seriously.

Pictured: My Favorite Boys in their tattered rags

Well, what do we know about vykkers? From an evolutionary perspective, not much. We know they're descendants of some arboreal prey species, that's about it. If we extrapolated on this, we can assume they're jungle dwellers. Jungle = big tree.

Jungles are [generally] hot and humid. A creature that evolved to live there would probably not need to wear clothes to keep warm. They might even find the sensation of clothes unpleasant if they're unaccustomed to it. If you were used to swinging around naked in the tree tops, you'd probably find clothes to be smothering and itchy.

Thus, I postulate that vykkers keep the Vykkers Lab thermostat at a comfy 80 or 90 degrees, which is about the temperature of the Amazon in spring. Not only is it a comfortable temperature to them, but it allows them to do work without having to wear clothes, which they apparently hate. I mean, look at Headley the Auctioneer and his stupid little haircut. He wants to look refined, he's dressed in his finest attire, and it's still just shirt cuffs and bow tie.

Now, there IS an outlier to this idea, and that is our beloved Doc Vykkers from Stranger's Wrath. He's dressed a little more conservatively. That being said, his outfit is still just a body-wrap type thing with a hat. He's not wearing shoes or gloves, and his legs and forearms are bare. I guess you could say that his body wrap is air-tight and made to conserve moisture in the dry desert climate, but that's basing a speculation off of another speculation to try and make my theory fit, it could be as simple as he just likes wearing clothes. [Or my theory is wrong.]

Speaking of humidity: I believe the vykkers prefer their environments nice and humid. However, I don't think they need to do anything specific to keep humidity where they want it. As we see in the first levels of Munch's Oddysee, a massive area of the ship is dedicated to a hydroponic spooce farm.

This massive flooded system, combined with the vykker's preference for warm places, would practically turn the Labs into a sauna. I imagine a human entering the labs would feel disgusted by the air in the Labs, and if a visitor were wearing glasses, they'd immediately fog up.

Having Vykkers Labs be an unexpectedly hot and muggy environment would increase the discomfort of non-vykker workers and experiments, making the Labs even more unbearable to work in, probably even nauseating. The whole place would also stink. High humidity and temperatures are the preferred breeding grounds of bacteria, mold, and funguses. If you walked through Vykkers Labs, I think you'd alternate between smelling whatever slime is growing in the walls, and the extremely toxic chemical cleaners they use to disinfect the place, trying to keep said slime from taking over. That's not even including the smell of blood and medical waste. Vykkers don't seem to have nostrils, but I think I recall Humphrey complaining about "the smell" after Irwin leaves a fuzzle on the burner. Maybe you just get used to it when you're so dedicated to pursing science.

When wealthy visitors hop over to Vykkers Labs, I imagine they're taken to special quarters of the ship that are dehumidified and nuked with air freshener.

There's more. Vykkers Labs is not exactly air tight. Aside from all the rusty paneling we see in the labs, we're also shown massive bay doors on the outside where people can exit and enter. There's also the Poop Chute, where they dump waste, and in the concept art, the bottom center of the ship seems to be hollow.

I think Vykkers Labs consumes a LOT of water. The hydroponic vats keep dehydrating, and the vykkers aren't exactly about resource conservation. I imagine that Vykkers Labs will periodically lower close to the ground in order to collect water. They probably drop a massive hose from the middle of the ship and suck up entire lakes at a time. Ecosystems have died just from them topping off the tank one Tuesday. Not only that, but on summer mornings, when the sunrise first hits the side of the ship, you'd probably see a massive cloud of steam rise from it, like when the sun hits the pavement after a rainy night. A mudokon on the ground, looking up at the sky, would see a trailing white cloud approach, something massive and dark spinning inside it.

[bomberqueen17]

car organizer

So I wanted to make myself the kind of organizer that hangs over the back of your car seat to hold your stuff, to keep the things that ought to stay in my car in, because with my old car, I hauled so much cargo and loaded and unloaded the thing so often and wound up with so much random junk in there that I lost my tire inflator, foldable shovel, and most of the rest of it. I thought, if I just attach those to the back of one of the front seats then it doesn't matter what I do with the car, if I'm hauling baby chicks or small humans, passengers or cargo or what, I don't have to worry.

I shopped around but I didn't see anything like what I wanted, so I went down in the basement and poked around.

Thus follows not exactly a tutorial, but a description of my thought process. This took forever but if I had to do it again I could do it faster, I think.

I had a weird but perfectly-sized rectangle of heavy-duty polyester canvas (twice as long as I needed, but exactly as wide, so I could use it double thickness), some suit interfacing, and then several yards of an all-plastic but beautiful brocade I bought from Jo-Ann's back when I didn't know how to shop for fabric.

So I bought myself a new tire inflator and folding shovel, and then measured the jump-start powerbank I already own, and made pockets exactly sized for those three things. I also guesstimated a pocket for my motley collection of ratchet straps. And then I laid those out on the bit of canvas, and figured I had room for a wide short pocket across the top-- gathered the bottom, and put a channel at the top and pulled elastic through, then sewed two seams down it to hold it into three separate pockets.

I did french seams on the first square pocket then realized that made it too small so I had to piece a little extension around the back of it. Then I realized that all-plastic brocade ravels horribly... unless you run a lighter along all the cut edges. Bickety-bam instant selvege. So I melted the edges of all the rest of my fabric, and no more French seams means no more excessive seam allowances.

(I didn't exactly follow this method but I did find a good tutorial here for how to make a cargo pocket. It might have worked better than what i did, LOL. I only made one pocket pleated, and one gathered, the others I tried mostly to make to size.)

[image description: a black panel of canvas lies on a table, with three pockets made of brown/black/gold polyester brocade lying atop it, chalked around like crime scene bodies.]

Laid them out, traced with chalk, futzed with the placement. Realized I didn't have to center that top one, and if I off-set it, I could fit the ratchet strap pocket next to it.

Attached the pockets to the canvas, then spray-adhesived the interfacing to the back, then folded the canvas in half, sewed it right sides together leaving one short side open, turned it right-side out, gingerly ironed it (everything is plastic). I had some of those huge thick plastic strips they seal around big boxes sometimes in the garbage in the basement so I pulled those out, carefully ironed them flat under a press cloth, and then cut lengths of them-- it was heavy-duty stuff, I think a dehumidifier had come in the package, solid plastic an inch wide-- and used those as horizontal boning at the bottom, middle, and top, securing in place with a line of stitching above and below wherever there weren't pockets. The top, I closed up by just folding the front over the back; it was the selvedge edge, so I left that raw, and zig-zagged it shut with the piece of "boning" inside, then pushed the boning up against the seam with my fingers and sewed the other side of the channel with a straight stitch.

I could not for the life of me figure out how to measure the straps. so i went out and sat in my car with a lighter, scissors, needle, thread, a pair of old shoelaces, a length of 2" wide elastic torn out of an unsuccessful earlier make (i have a roll of the stuff... at the farm, not here), and a length of heavy-duty twill tape I don't know where I got.

I held the organizer up to the seat, safety-pinned the twill tape to the top, threaded it around the headrest, safety-pinned it to the other side. Decided it needed more support, as the upper corners wanted to flop. Used a drawstring threader to pull the shoelace through the flap at the bottom of the seat, where all the cabling for the heated seat is stored-- there's upholstery covering it, open at both sides, so I threaded the shoelace through that, just to pull the whole shebang in taut against the seat instead of letting it swing freely into the knees of whoever might sit back there. Sewed it down on one side, safety-pinned it to the other. Cut the shoelace off, then sewed the remnant to one upper extreme corner, wrapped it past the headset, safety-pinned it to the other side. Finally took the 2" wide elastic, sewed it firmly down on one side, passed it around the seat, measured it, then passed it behind the seat to sew it down un-stretched to the other side, then put it on properly. So the non-stretch fasteners are only sewed on one side, and can be unpinned on the other if I need to take the thing off.

Then I loaded it up with stuff.

[Image description: the rear of a car driver's seat, taken from the rear seat behind it, with an organizer hanging from the headrest, brocade pockets stuffed full of objects. There's a green object hanging from a keychain at the top left-- it is a folding knife patterned to look like a leaf.]

Now the things that ought to just always be in my car can (mostly) just always be there. I should check that the tire inflator works, and I should periodically charge up the jump pack, but I already checked if the foldable shovel works (it does), and I carefully bundled up the ratchet straps into bags I made out of the cuffs of old crew socks, which sewn shut where I cut the threadbare foot off make perfectly-sized padded stretchy storage bags for light duty ratchet straps.

Top left to bottom right, it's got:

Ratty old work gloves, a clipped-on keychain with a decorative rosary and a functional folding knife, a sock-cuff bag containing a multitool screw driver, a little baggie of tampons, and some Kleenex The tire inflator kit, the jump pack kit three ratchet straps, a folding shovel multitool thingy, and a bag of toiletries with spare socks, chapstick, hand cream, a travel toothbrush and dry toothpaste kit, and a couple other things-- most of it is shit that was handed out the one time I flew business class on Icelandair.

Then, to the right, around my center console, I took a vintage like circa 2004 Old Navy nylon drawstring backpack, threaded those heavy-duty twist tie things they use to close disposable coffee bags through the drawstring bit of the mouth to keep it open, sewed some of the twill tape to the top, and added a magnetic catch to hold a plastic bag in place. The magnetic catch didn't do enough so I have some half-broken old hair clips holding the plastic bag in better position: that's now my car's trash bag, and the backpack's two tiny zippered pockets hold spare plastic bags.

Now the last thing I want to do is to get some hooks to hang from the passenger headrest, and get loops attached to my snow brush and squeegee, and hang those from the hooks, because otherwise they are always scattered around the floor of my car in the way of whatever I want to do.

Anyway. Ready for the inaugural road trip Sunday, when I drive back to the farm.

[no-truth-left]

1.027 - Spend the night at Jethro’s house

“That’s not weird. That’d actually be nice.” Not only does Chie want to avoid meeting another Mike, but she needs to save money. A small part of her clings to the hope that getting home is as easy as buying a bus ticket.

Jethro leads the way to his house, talking about safe, mundane things. It’s a rental, but what isn’t these days? Pardon the mess, there’s been a bit of damage recently. Hopefully having leftovers for dinner is okay. The guest bedroom has its own little bathroom, so no worries about taking a long shower. Chie nods and responds when appropriate, failing to keep her mind off how they’re approaching the ocean.

As Jethro unlocks the front door to a broken, little house, her heart sinks. This is where he lives? The porch sags from heavy wood rot, and cracks spider-web over the front windows. The siding has an algae-like mold growing on it, spreading from one part of the house to the other. Despite that, there’s no refuse littering the yard, and a worn welcome mat sits at the front door.

“Welcome to my humble home,” Jethro says, stepping inside and holding the door open for her. The open-floor plan displays dozens of Massachusetts’s renters’ rights violations. Maybe more. A hole in the ceiling, exposed wires from sockets, a door missing its knob, and many other, small things. Chie idly wonders if the water heater works, if there’s asbestos in the walls, or lead in the water.

Her face must have fallen. Jethro thumbs at his nose ring. “Sorry about the mess,” he says, ashamed.

“Why not fix things?” Chie asks, crossing the threshold. She hears a small dehumidifier running in the kitchen. Despite the horrible condition, the living room and dining room are neat. Photographs nestle between books on small shelves, the floor is grit-free, and everything has been fastidiously kept in its place. Noticing a rack near the door, Chie dutifully removes her shoes.

“Most things are the landlord's responsibility,” Jethro says, shrugging as he closes and locks the front door. “I also can't afford it.”

Chie sets her bag down on a coffee table. “And you’ve told him about…?” She lets the sentence hang.

Jethro sighs so heavily his whole body heaves. “Yup. But that’s neither here nor there. I can get dinner together, while you shower, if you want.”

[sweaterkittensahoy]

WE HAVE A FLOOR

OH THANK FUCK

So, for those of you who don't know or don't recall or just love seeing this fucking story again and again because this shit has HAUNTED me for NEARLY TWO YEARS, let's turn back the clock:

2022:

By the end of June 2022, the following things had happened to me in the year 2022:

Six sinus infections, one right after the other. Tested for Covid each and every time. Not Covid. When to the doctor on day 12, got the antibiotics, shit cleared up. And basically the moment the antibiotics cleared my system, new sinus infection.

Had so many in a row, in fact, that my my ashtma wouldn't calm down, and we had to get me on steroids for ten days to basically reset my lungs.

Went to a family wedding, first big trip since lockdown.

Came home from the family wedding and had Covid. I regularly get body pain with my fevers, and this was the worst body pain of my life. I barely remember going to the doctor for the test so I could take time off. It was bad.

Was very close to a major realization that a friendship I thought was going to last my whole life had become utterly toxic and abusive.

And then the end of June hit. And I woke up one morning to Sean cursing, which was alarming. Because I curse like a sailor, but he does not. I get up to see what the problem is.

The problem is a quarter-inch of water through most of our apartment. It was coming through our light fixtures. We are in a renovated basement of a house from the 1920s. I ran outside then up the stairs to see what was going on up there.

The house is two stories. Overnight, the toilet supply line on the second story had begun to leak. This kind of leak is a silent affair. We don't know when it started. But when we woke up, the entire living/kitchen area was flooded. The laundry room/bathroom was flooded. The water had soaked into the bedroom carpet so far that it was sopping wet from the door to about two feet in.

The office had, miraculously, not taken a drop. Still not sure how that worked.

We call the management company. We call insurance. I swear my ass off because Sean has to go to work, which means I'm stuck alone all day with the mess and a dog who does NOT understand why her paws keep getting wet.

Demo guys show up. They are very, very nice. By the time they're done on day one, there are two dehumidifiers and several large fans going in my house.

We don't have A/C by the way. And it's late June, and even in PDX, that's not great.

Three days later, the demo guys show back up to take out everything that can't be fixed. Our place looked like this:

Once they took all the wet out, we had this hole in our ceiling:

And were walking around on this floor:

That's the original cement floor that was put in when the house was built, by the way.

And then, we spent the ENTIRE SUMMER waiting for someone to FIX OUR FUCKING HOUSE. From the end of June until FUCKING SEPTEMBER we were living with an open ceiling and no actual floor.

I'd email the management company. I'd call. They'd say "Oh, we're working on it. The owner is dragging his feet."

Put a pin in that claim. We'll come back to it.

At the end of July, I ended that friendship I mentioned. I am using it as a measurement here so you understand that a month into my house being like this, I was also going through a massive emotionally fucked up situation.

Work was so fucking busy I nearly burned out. On top of trying to get some answers about when I was gonna get a fucking ceiling and floor again.

By August, I snapped and sent a terselye worded email about how it should not take this long to make some fucking decisions. I got back, "Oh, we're trying, but the owner isn't communicating with us."

Put a pin in that claim, too.

Finally. FINALLY. After FOUR contractors came and looked and gave estimates, we got told "Okay, we're gonna fix your place. In September. It'll take three weeks."

So, for three weeks, we moved into a hotel, and it was...it was fine. But it's not home, okay. I just wanted to be in my fucking house with a fucking ceiling and floor.

Finally, three weeks later, we moved back in, and we had a ceiling! And a floor!

And then I got what I thought was food poisoning. 48 hours of some of the worst pain I've ever had, and my endometriosis is severe enough I had a full hysterectomy at 31 or 32 (I honestly don't recall). Okay. I know from pain. Went to the doctor. Got an anti-nausea injection from the biggest needle I have ever seen in my LIFE. The doctor pushed on my gall bladder and asked if it hurt. I'd been continuously sick for 48 hours. Everything hurt. I said, in all honesty, I couldn't tell.

Went home. Rehydrated. Things seemed fine. They guessed it was my gall bladder anyway, and since I had no history of issues, said "Let's try to change your diet before we go through surgery."

Fine. Whatever. Didn't care.

A week later, in the first week of October, I ended up in the ER because I was sick again. So sick, in fact, I could not keep down apple juice. It took TWO DAYS to get a surgical spot. I went through caffeine withdrawal. The Try Guys released their video about firing Ned. All I wanted to do was go home to my finally fixed house and fucking sleep.

Surgery went fine. Had a full-room hallucination that Sean and I were Chucky and Tiffany from the Chucky movies. Kept telling Sean to kill the nurse so we'd get a larger cut of the money. This has never happened before, but I've also never been on Dilaudid for several days in a row to control my pain. Apparently, when that happens, I think I'm a serial killing doll.

Go home. Rest up. Things seem fine.

In November, I walk into the kitchen one day, look down, and see a space between two of the floorboards that should not be there.

I refuse to deal with it and throw a rug over it.

Over the next several months, more boards start bubbling and warping.

The floor, it appears, has some fucking issues.

I ignore it for almost a year. Yes, I know what you're thinking, "Gayle, why?"

Because 2022 was a fucking disaster, and a major part of it was the flood, and sometimes you just gotta avoid that shit, okay?

But, finally, it's bad enough I know I gotta say something. I send the management company a note. They send a guy. He's great. Says I'll hear back in a week.

I don't.

And then I don't.

And then I don't.

And then the owner asks to inspect the property to see how things are looking.

He sees the floor and is shocked. This is not good. Why is it like this? How long has it been like this? When did I put in a maintenance request? And what was the last thing I heard?

This is November.

In December, we are informed via letter from the owner that he would like to be cc'ed on every request we send to the management company because he is not pleased with their performance.

Well, okay.

In January, we get a hard freeze. And then we got a pinhole leak in a pipe. That I discovered when walking into the kitchen and stepping into--you guessed it--a quarter-inch of water on the floor.

It was comin up from under the boards, but the hole was actually in our wall. We had glare ice. No one in PDX knows how to handle glare ice. The owner made the trip from the deep suburbs to us every day he could (he got stuck once) to get the problem fixed as quickly and neatly as possible.

I heard him on the phone with the management company several times explaining what he was doing, how long he thought it would take, and thanking them for communicating with us.

Which.

It took 4 days. I got one email. At 6:30 PM. On a day I heard him call them at 10 AM.

So. Suddenly "the owner isn't responding" and "the owner won't communicate" seem like complete fucking bullshit. Because he sure as hell responded when he found out there was a leak (we cc'ed him on the email as requested), and I fucking HEARD HIM communicate.

And then we found out that the owner had not had final say on the floor, which now had to be replaced not just for bubbling but for being fucking wrecked from NEW water damage.

But for this new floor, we just went through him, and would you look at that. Clear communication. Regular updates. We were on the concrete again for about three weeks because that's just how far out contractors are booking right now. But the work was done when he said it would be, and by god, it's clearly a much higher quality of flooring.

So. It's done. It's fucking done. It looks beautiful. The owner scrubbed our bathroom before he left for some fucking reason and was worried he'd lost the knob off our washing machine (we bought it used; it's never had that knob). When I met him the first time after the big leak, I thought he was a complete asshole, and it turns out he's actually all right. He gave us money for dinner this week and is also gonna get us a few days of rent comped for having to have people in and out. I'm never renting through this management company again, but if that dude's got other properties through someone else, I'd go there in a second.

April 5, 2024. May it be the last reference I ever have to make to a fucking floor repair in this house.

[nightmaredaisy]

the discussion about maintenance of your own body for your mental and physical health is so true and real but boy nobody ever tells you about the fucking slog of maintaining the things that maintain you

remember to take showers for your health and good feeling! yeah but also remember to put up a dehumidifier and scrub the walls with vinegar for mold and unclog your drains and clean the showerhead from limescale and wash your towels and washcloths

drink plenty of water! I do but also I have to remember to clean my cups and my straws and refill the jug and clean it put and change the filter because we have hard water and I have no money to buy bottled water in this economy

like I'll do it!! of course I'll do it because I like living and living well but at least some sort of heads-up would have been nice!!

[the-haunted-office]

I was thinking about how Doomsday got her living body back after her original was killed by the Dampening mist and then (off screen) eaten by the Adventure Line™.

Doom made an arrangement with one of my other muses, Dr. Horrible from Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog, to let him use whatever Dampening energy he harvested from her, so long as he could actually harvest it from her and help her understand how to utilize it better. She really wanted help figuring out what to do with her energy. She was very bored with her existence at that point.

What he did was create a piece of machinery called a Dehumidifier (Get it? Dampening energy, Dehumidifier, har har), that would leech the energy from her ghostly body and deposit it into jars, where the idea was for him to figure out how to harness it into... whatever he wanted to do with it. Dampening energy isn't something that is well-studied, or indeed much known about throughout the universe, much less on Earth. So Horrible of course was horribly interested in studying it.

Things went wrong pretty quickly when Doom climbed into that machine, as things usually do with Horrible's inventions. It ended up leeching too much too quickly, so much that it pulled her own body back out of her by recreating it from her memory of ghostly self. It did something that was supposed to be impossible and pulled her own living body out of herself.

This was extraordinarily painful as you can imagine.

Dampening energy isn't supposed to be able to create living things. It can create things like food and objects that used to be alive, like apples that have been harvested and butchered meat, but it can't create things like living trees or living cows. It also can't create things like planets or universes. So for it to pull Doom's own living body out of her ghostly body is... something it has never done before. There remains the question as to whether or not the body she is walking around in now is actually alive or not. It certainly seems to be, as it looks and feels alive, and acts and reacts the way a living body would.

The trouble is, her soul remains in the same state it was in before she got revived. It is still a "soul soup", so to speak - basically digested soul remains mixed with Dampening energy. If something were to fully kill her body again (which is very difficult to do, because the Dampening energy inside her heals it extremely quickly), she would be right back to the way she was before, as the Reaper Doom we all know and love/hate. Her energy isn't something that can be killed. It is just a property of Dampening energy and the way it works. It's perpetual, and as long as her soul is mixed in with it, so is she.

[dragon-hoard]

riding a Fine Fucking Line with my shitty body lately bc humidity makes me nauseous and makes my skin break out no matter what I do vs having it be Too Dry gives me nosebleeds and makes me more susceptible to sinus/respiratory infections

so yes I have a Personal dehumidifier AND humidifier that I use back and forth depending on the ambient humidity

[hezzabeth]

"I believe in everything," Jay replied firmly.

"Do you believe in everything? Do you even believe that the tundras of Mars are haunted by Vetala possessing the bodies of early Mars pioneers?" Sugafana asked.

"Well, I've never been there, but it's a big universe. Anything is possible," Jay replied as they reached the top of the hill, revealing the city.

MangalRajyapura, the capital city of Mangalrajya, glowed before them. Spiraling towers in the shape of human hands, created using Martian jasper and solid gold, waved towards the sky. Tiny machine-like droids buzzed around the fingertips like drunken butterflies. And below it all lay the paper-card slum towns for the humans who remained.

"I haven't been back since the purge," Jay remarked, and Sugafana briefly glanced at him.

"I thought you grew up in a village?" Sugafana asked.

"I did, a cloud village," Jay remarked, gesturing upwards at the sky.

"Oh," Sugafana replied flatly.

During the second year of the war, the cloud villages unified to block off the sun, cutting off appliances from solar-powered batteries. A legion of dehumidifiers attacked, sucking up all the clouds' vapor. Thousands perished as they rained from the sky. It was known as the Day of Red Rain. The cloud villages were destroyed by a militia of smart dehumidifiers that sucked up the clouds within seconds.

"Is that why you make me do all the ice deliveries?" Sugafana asked as Jay began to run his hand over the baby's head.

"It's hard to appreciate the imperial gardens when you once saw the trees covered in blood," Jay replied.

"Most of the imperial gardens have been converted into kinetic movement pads. The government insisted when it started to look like the volcanic winter would last another decade," Sugafana explained to Jay.

"Do you ever wonder what the world would be like if Mount Olympus had never erupted?" Jay suddenly asked.

"Yes, most likely the sun never would have been blocked, and there would have been enough sunlight for all the plants and power batteries. It would have been a lovely fairytale where nobody is forced to spend hours walking to generate electricity for homicidal hairdryers," Sugafana said.

"Wow, you really did think it through," Jay remarked.

"I taught speculative interdimensional history. There's probably at least a thousand universes where none of this ever happened," Sugafana said as they slowed down, approaching a checkpoint just in front of the city gates.

"That would be depressing. I would miss talking to you every day," Jay replied.

"You wouldn't even know me, you wouldn't miss me at all," Sugafana pointed out as they pulled to a stop.

It was Tuesday, and on Tuesdays, Sugafana always made sure to approach turnstile number four.

"Afternoon, Radiantguard," Sugafana said to a white hard-shell mask glowing a faint red color.

"Good afternoon, human Sugafana! Are you here to make ice deliveries?" Radiantguard chirped, floating towards the pod's windows.

"As far as Sugafana could tell, Radiantguard had been built as an artificially intelligent UV light face cleaning mask. 'Not today; this is my baby, I need to bring her in for a check-up and to get kinetic pads installed in her feet,' Sugafana lied, gesturing towards Jay.

"And is this your family unit partner?" Radiantguard chirped.

"Yes," Sugafana lied swiftly.

"Anything to declare for customs?"

"Nope," Sugafana said, this time telling the truth.

"Very good! Please turn on your kinetic feet implants and enjoy the city," Radiantguard giggled before floating off.

"That was surprisingly easy! I heard the appliances vaporized refugee humans at checkpoints," Jay whispered to Sugafana as they drove through the tunnel heading into the outskirts of the city.

"Oh, they do! But they're so desperate for walkers they'll let anyone in that looks mostly harmless," Sugafana explained as the tunnel vanished, and the vehicle suddenly stopped with a faint groaning sound.

"Is that supposed to happen?" Jay asked.

"Yep, the appliances want everyone to walk everywhere! It's why they burn down the teleportation hub whenever they catch humans using it," Sugafana explained as she opened the pod's door and climbed out.

"Luckdown trash and treasure markets," Jay said, reading a filthy sign hanging from a half-bent streetlight. The road before them was a depressing smidge of crowded cracked grey concrete, surrounded by black, partially destroyed buildings. Next to the rubble, people worked at makeshift market stands, selling small containers of creation sand, bits of old junk, and piles of rags. Around them, shoppers moved in a bustling, drab pattern, talking amongst themselves. No one was standing still; people eating snacks purchased from a vendor were walking around in circles. The ladies gossiping next to an empty fountain were also shuffling their feet in a funny dance. Even the vendors shifted from side to side, their feet pounding on the pavement.

Sugafana walked to the back of the pod, and with a hiss, it opened, revealing four bags of snow cubes.

"I thought we weren't making deliveries," Jay asked, balancing the baby against his chest.

"This is strictly bribery ice. Now let's get walking! We're heading to the end of the market," Sugafana informed Jay as she picked up a bag of snow cubes and slung it over their shoulder.

There was a sudden whistling sound.

"Move your feet," Sugafana hissed at Jay as a flying electric toothbrush suddenly appeared from behind one of the market stalls. One of the vendors had stopped shuffling for a moment, an older man trying to sell bruised kiwi fruit.

"Third movement violation," the toothbrush chimed.

There was no time for protests, no screaming, no shouting. There was a blinding flash, and the vendor was gone.

"Haree Ram!" Jay shrieked.

"I said keep walking," Sugafana merely replied, pushing him forward.

No one protested, no one whispered. It was as if the vendor had never existed at all.

By the time they reached the end of the tiny grim alley, stepping out into a blinding clean plaza, appliances were zooming about a massive fountain in the shape of a hairdresser. The air was filled with the chirping drone of washing machines and music players gossiping to each other in their hidden language of beeps and whistles. Glass-fronted shops opened up into the street, selling inhuman things such as "designer surface decals," "premium color spray paint," and gold wheel rims. Above it all, there was a racing track surrounded by glass, where fit muscular humans in jumpsuits ran around in infinite circles.

"Marathon runners, they move so much the appliances pay them," Sugafana explained.