#this place is not built for it and we don't have central ac

[kirby-the-gorb]

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

To create a sustainable climate, we cannot keep using the same types and amounts of air conditioning.

Central ACs especially accelerate the climate crisis both overall and locally, raising the temperature in air conditioned cities by as much as 10 degrees, not to mention the overall greenhouse gas effect.

Me being extremely heat sensitive due to physical disability doesn't change that reality.

Ignoring it just because I personally am worried about staying cool would be short sighted. As the climate crisis worsens, ACs won't be able to keep up anyways! As price gouging capitalism gets worse, it's possible poor people (huge overlap with disabled people—I'm both!) will have even less access to AC anyways!! Power grid blackouts mean you can't use your AC even if you have it!!

Not to mention how bad it is for people stuck outdoors where ACs are cooking the city even hotter!!

I might get sick or die from overheating if everything stays the same!! We need other options!!

There are ways of cooling that aren't AC.

Individually, most of us probably don't have much choice about implementing many of them.

For instance, houses in the US are built mostly to retain heat, even in hot places, because European settlers wanted familiar house types and when ACs became available those same settlers moved en masse to even hotter places, and even more European-style homes were built there, with AC built in to many of them.

Now we're here, most of us can't afford to build or remodel a whole house. Changing architecture to be cooling IS possible though—it just requires more than individual choices.

Also, public green spaces and waterways are known to reduce heat. Asphalt makes cities hotter, green spaces and open water cool the area.

Cars are another obvious source of local heat. A robust public transit system reducing the number of cars on the road would make us all need less AC.

The conversation isn't about asking disabled people to turn off our ACs and just die.

We need to engage in collective action to make other types of cooling possible.

We need to be creative and collaborative and not just throw up our hands and say the only options are to keep burning up the earth with ACs, or giving them up with no alternative.

People telling you about a problem are giving you an opportunity to be part of brainstorming solutions.

When someone points out that something you need to survive is not sustainable, don't just jump to "they want me to die then". Maybe it just means we need to work together to figure out how to meet all our needs in a sustainable way!!

And yeah, if you can safely turn the AC a degree or two warmer or leave it off some days, that would be great! Every little bit helps!! But we need to be focused on big, systemic solutions and work together to make them happen.

[naancypants]

I think I've pinpointed the main reason I'm so viscerally unhappy with the direction the writers chose to go in with Nace -- obviously this is just my opinion, so any use of objective terms like "supposed to be", etc is not meant to be taken literally. It's just me airing out my takes on the storytelling.

For me, one of the most appealing things about Nace is how they juxtapose all of Nancy's other romantic endeavors. From the beginning, it's been different with Ace. He isn't a fast-moving hookup or a form of escapism. He gradually grows into the role of a best friend, a partner, someone she is emotionally open with, and the person who can keep her steady when shit hits the fan. Ace's presence encourages Nancy to embrace love (especially self-love) rather than facilitating her urge to push it away.

I associate Nick and Owen, Nancy's season 1 ships -- which ideally would establish a starting point for her -- with Nancy resigning to choices or circumstances that are out of her control, and having to move on from something she really wanted to make work. Both of these relationships were ripped from her grasp, thus leading to pain and reinforcing her belief that she isn't deserving of That Kind of love.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Season 4 has essentially applied these negative season 1 traits to Nancy/Ace, her supposed endgame, with the curse and how it has torn them apart. I've always believed her endgame should break down these patterns entirely, not slap a new coat of paint on them. The idea is for Nancy to learn that true love doesn't HAVE to be painful, that love shouldn't break your spirit. Not when it's the right person. There's no real reason to be rehashing angst and hopelessness and rebounds this late in the game -- not with Ace, who is narratively recognized as The One. This should be the relationship for Nancy that symbolizes joy and the warmth of falling for a friend. It should feel cozy and stable. Why would we want to validate Nancy's belief that great love must come with great suffering? I've always loved Nace for the themes of growth that it reflects in Nancy's character -- that she is learning what real love feels like, that she is embracing her most authentic self, that she has moved away from the closed-off girl we met at the start who used relationships as a distraction from her pain.

Ace is supposed to represent comfort, security, and a safe haven from the strife that surrounds Nancy's life... yet now he is the central cause of her strife. I don't want her to be miserable because of whatever is going on with Ace. I want Ace to be her solace from whatever else is making her miserable! That's how this relationship was built to function!!! That was the entire point!!!!!

I can't help but feel like this star-crossed drama sours their connection a little, when I ship them specifically for the way Ace has always been an anomaly for her; someone with whom she could let her guard down and communicate freely due to the harmonious undercurrent between them. Now they can't make it through (1) conversation without 'breaking up' or stabbing each other in the heart. It's exhausting. It's counterintuitive to everything I love about them. I don't expect a relationship without its bumps in the road, but their arc is so dramatic and heightened now, it's like the writers have disregarded why these two worked so well together in the first place.

All I ever wanted was a sweet little slowburn coworkers-to-besties-to-lovers arc where they both surprise themselves by falling for each other 💐 of course I'm still rooting for them to end up together, but it hurts to know that what was once my #1 currently-airing OTP is barely even a shell of what I hoped it would be.

[fleurcareil]

South Manitoba

I left Winnipeg not too late in the morning and finally got myself into the Prairies proper driving in south-western direction. The flat landscape reminded me of the Netherlands, but in place of church spires indicating where the villages are, here it's grain elevators that tower above the horizon... conveniently with the name of the town written on them! 😁

Funny enough, one of the villages was called Holland, complete with a tulip-sign and a windmill 🤣

First destination of the day was Spruce Woods provincial park near the town of Glenboro, but Gmaps directed me initially to a farmhouse south of the highway rather than to its proper location 10 km north! The same happened a few more times in the following days for both Manitoba and Saskatchewan parks so that taught me to ask directions - something we don't do often anymore! 😜

The highlight of the park are the Spirit Sands; the remnants of what used to be an expansive inland dune area deposited by a glacial lake 10,000 years ago. Although the dunes still shift with the wind, most of the area is being reclaimed by vegetation as, contrary to a desert, it actually receives quite a lot of rain. Having grown up with dunes along the North Sea in the Netherlands, it looked familiar but rather than a cooling sea breeze it was scorching hot! There were luckily some hand-pumped water wells along the trail that friendly hikers operated while I put my head under the cold stream 😃, however once I had seen the "Devil's Punch", a little pond filled by underground springs, I cut the hike short and returned to the car AC.

Afterwards, I cooled down some more under a tree at a picknick area on an oxbow lake (I was too tired to walk down to the water & take a pic 😅).

Having anticipated that I might not feel my best the day after Harman's wedding 😆, I only had a short drive further to the municipal campground of Souris, which has a cute swinging bridge, at 604 ft supposedly to be Canada's longest suspension pedestrian bridge (?!?), the first one built in 1906. The town had also nice sculptures of a moose and peacock, of which apparently there's many in the village although I saw none. This was the first time that I had stayed on a municipal campground and although busy with a pool & lots of running kids, I had a nice spot on the river and it was actually quite good!

That's it for Manitoba for now as I would be driving into Saskatchewan the next day, but I'll explore the central/north areas on my way back.

Wildlife: lots of grasshoppers everywhere!

SUPs: none

Hikes: one at Spruce Woods

[raspberryconverse]

This fabric is absolutely adorable, right?

Nobody ever talks about this (that I've heard, at least), but one of the most exhausting things about buying a house (that you plan to stay in for a long time) is how exhausting decorating the whole thing can be, especially if you're not the only one who lives there.

To say my spouse and I bit off probably more than we can chew with our house is an understatement. It was built in 1945 and only had one owner, so there have been a ton of things that need updating, just to live (electrical, drain tile system, roof, furnace, central AC, stove, mold removal). We closed almost a year ago and fully moved in last June.

We have hardly any artwork up, but we do have all but one of the bedrooms painted. The last room is going to be our home office (we both work remotely, though we could go to our offices if we really wanted to, but we rarely do). This room has been the last to really nail things down on because it was the one where the roof was leaking around the chimney and there was mold behind the wood paneling. We just haven't been able to figure out exactly what we want to do with it decor-wise. One of the main things it needs right away is curtains. My closet is also in this room and if the door is open the window has a clear sightline of the built-in my spouse uses. There is often nudity (though I honestly don't think anyone can get a really clear view of either of us changing, but my spouse disagrees).

Today we decided to go to a fabric store in the city (Chicago) to find fabric for curtains. We've been to Ikea and browsed what other retailers had online, but nothing really caught our eye. It was a good choice because we found the fabric above. And now we have a jumping off point.

We hit a few other places after and at some point in the afternoon, it occurred to me: this is my next cross stitch project

I plopped it in Stitch Fiddle and made some adjustments. On my last trip to Michael's, I needed to pick up more of my spouse's dress color to finish our wedding record and decided this would be my next project, so I bought all the blacks and grays and some 18 count aida cloth (I usually use 14 count, but Stitch Fiddle said it'd be enormous and 18 is about as small as I'll use because I'm old and my vision is getting worse). And now that we're going to have cute rainy day curtains, this is going to be perfect! It's probably going to take me forever, but oh well.

Nobody probably thinks this is as exciting as we do, but it has been a long ass time since we've done some house stuff and not only agreed on something so easily, but also not fought at all in the process. And this room has been plaguing us too. We are so burnt out with decision fatigue and our relationship has really been suffering because of it. But today was a really good day! We had no idea what direction to go with the office, but now we finally have something and we're both really excited about it.

[blkkizzat]

Indian reader is back here again AHSJDH I SWEAR THIS IS THE LAST ONE 🙏🙏🙏 honestly reading your post made me hungry send help

I am SO glad you enjoyed your trip here, I love it when people learn about each other's cultures it literally makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!!! I love how detailed your posts about the trip were and I really appreciate you sharing it with us <33

You knowing your tourist guide's whole story with the pharmacist to history lover is so real 😭 some people be having the wildest career paths especially the ones who've been at it for a long time and you somehow get to know their whole story in the span of 20 minutes

Personally I think summer in the US feels worse bc ceiling fans and all around ventilation isn't very common there from what I've seen and heard, while winters in India are worse for the most part since electrical heating and room temperature control isn't common here outside of the cities (inbuilt room temp control isn't a concept here at all currently, I've only ever seen it in hotels)

This was probably the best time for you to visit india cause peak summer temperatures haven't even started yet and you were already dying from the heat (me too dw)

And trust when I say you're not the only one struggling to cross the streets not all of us are built for this do or die type of shit 💔💔💔 (though I'll have to build up that confidence since you know. I live here. Don't exactly have a choice 🤡)

PS I'm going to be craving a restaurant thaali for the rest of the day bc of the pics

Omfg no please write me anytime!! <33

Awe thank you! I def love sharing my experiences! I love traveling and will def have to come back. I'm glad you enjoyed reading it cause i tend to ramble on about stuff! Yes! Another tour guide we had in Jaipur used to be a laywer. He was so knowledgeable too, he was with us all day and took us a few different places. It was fun learning about them. One thing I definitely took back from that and was inspired by was seeing people leaving "socially prominent" or high status jobs for something they loved. Seeing as I went as apart of my MBA program it was an unexpected but great reality check that sure we are all in this program to progress our careers but we really need to keep self-fulfillment and happiness in mind. Whats money or status if you are miserable? Like they had us eating out of the palm of their hand with how much passion they had for what they did and it really inspired me to find that in my own life!

Omfg yeah, it really depends on where you are. The sun feels a bit more intense in India because we were closer to the equator than in the US but the heat in India I experienced at 100 degrees F was a walk in the park compared to the time I stupidly went to las vegas in August and it was nearly 120 degrees F. Also where I live summers have been getting hotter and hotter so people arent equipped for heat waves. I've always had AC cause I have really furry dogs who need to stay cool though so thankfully ive been prepared. Also winters can be an issue here too, Texas been getting ice storms and blizzards in the past few years and as a hot area are completely unequipped. Even in places that are used to cold like NYC, when I lived there I moved into a new building paid a stupid high rent to live in a box that had central AC but was poorly insulated so I had to buy like the shiny foil insulating sheets to put over my window in the winter or I felt like the wind was passing right through.

Haha thankfully I was always in busy areas cause me and my friends when we werent with our guide would always just wait until we saw someone else who was clearly Indian cross the street and cross with them lmfao. We probably looked so stupid standing and waiting there lmfao but we never waited more than 5 mins thankfully LOL. Its funny cause looking back I've had friends here in the US scared to "jaywalk" with like one car coming thats practically crawling down the block and in India you have people boldly stopping speeding cars to cross LOL. I just imagine how funny we must look scared to cross with one car wayyyyyyy down the block coming, even I'm laughing at us.

I hope you get some resturant thaali soon! I'm definitely going to be craving it soon too. I know the next time I eat Indian food it ain't going to hit the same AT ALL lmfao.

[hustlemeanokay]

Okay, look... here's the thing about heat.

I grew up in Texas. It's hot as fuck in Texas, rightfully so. And you learn things about heat, especially when you don't have air conditioning which believe me, a lot of people still don't and I was one of them growing up at my Mom's house. Granted, it was central TX, not as hot as other parts of the state (which was where I later moved to because IDFK) but still, hot. Triple digits, many many months out of the year hot.

Air Flow. This is the absolute, most important thing. We can survive just fine without air conditioning, but air flow will make all the difference. We sweat for a reason, it's built in AC and as much as people want to complain about it - it is there to help. As soon as air hits that layer of sweat, bam cooling effect. So, fans. Fans are your friend. Fans are you long-lost friends. Fans are your most precious possessions during a heat wave.

Turn your house into a fucking cave if you do have an air conditioner. It will help, trust me. Foil the windows, black out curtains, no light in ever at all. Light is the devil. Because that sunlight = heat and it matters.

Stay ahead of the heat. Just because it's not hot in your house yet, doesn't mean it's not going to get hot later in the day. If it's still cool in your house from the night, don't open anything up yet. Keep the cool in if you can.

Hydrate. Yes you hear it all the time but it is important. Because you're going to be sweating. Yes, it's not pretty but deal with it - it happens. So drink water. Or, if you like, something with electrolytes in it. But stay away from sodas and alcohol - those are things that strain your kidneys and just dehydrate you further. And for the love of all things holy - no milk while you're hot. Trust me.

If you don't have AC, try not to turn on things like the drier or the stove until after the sun goes down. These appliances heat your home up a lot more than you think they do. Hell, even if you have AC, and it's struggling right now - keep this in mind. In the south, in older homes, the drier is always outside the home. Because it's fucking hot. The stove, can't do much about that but if you can - cook outside. I know it sounds extreme but it's worth it. Or use the microwave. While yes, it too produces heat, its nowhere near as bad as the stove/oven. Especially if you have a gas range.

Speaking of gas... if you have like a gas fireplace or something like we do, turn the valve off heading to it so you can safely blow out the pilot light because that sucker is putting off heat all the time.

If you don't have an AC, you can make a water cooler with a fan and a tub or tray of ice. There are tons of YT videos showing you how you can make an AC out of a cooler but you can also just literally put like a cake pan with some ice in it in front of a box fan. It'll blow cool air and you can park it right in front of the fan to cool off.

Use cool rags, they sell some that you can wet and they'll stay cool - wrap them around your neck. They are life savers, literally. They help cool your core temp down and keep you cool.

Stay the fuck out of the sun. Act like you're a god-damned gremlin, okay? The sun is the debil. You get hot on a whole other level when you're in the sunlight. So, avoid it.

Only leave your cool environment if you have to. Treat it like lock-down. Because it is. Heat is no joke and if you're out running around in it and you're not used to it? Yeah, it can fuck you up. If you don't have a cool environment, go somewhere that does. Don't feel like a loiter for going to the library or the mall, because those places tend to be air conditioned. And they're free to hang out at. Or, if you can stay in the shade - go hang out by the ocean if you can. The breeze coming off the water will be cool/cold. Because that water is still cold. Or like a lake or something.

WEAR SUN SCREEN. Don't forget to to do this if you hang out outside. Remember, that heat's coming from the fucking sun. Heat's high, sun's intense. Wear it.

Those are just a few things. And remember, not everyone is used to the heat. People who've never been exposed to high heat before can literally die from it. True, those who are used to it can too but those who aren't will show the signs of heat stroke and heat exhaustion much earlier. Because they haven't had the chance to adapt yet. That shit takes time. So, remember that if you're like "Pfft, 105 isn't that hot" because it is. It's fucking hot. Just because it's something you (or I) may be or have been accustomed to, doesn't mean that's true for everyone. Just like prior to moving up to the PNW, 50 degrees was cold as fuck for me because 50 in Texas - shit, that's winter temperatures, hard core! Now... 50 is tee shirt weather to me. But it's taken a few years to adapt to the temperature change. But I still sweat at the drop of the hat because my body is all like "this is not a drill! cooling systems! red alert! this is not a drill!" So, the body remembers. But I digress. Those are just a few tips to help keep you cool if you're struggling with the heat.

[1863-project]

Idk if you know anything about this, if not, I apologize.

I somehow convinced my sister that I want to go on a vacation (from canada) to New York to see the trains/subways. I've looked around the internet for some tours, and found some really interesting ones!

Though, do you know of any special places to visit? Either museums or locations that'd be interesting? Apart from the pokemon center shop of course lol

(A few years ago we went to NY and the tour guide told us to stay on the train past the last station -where it would turn around- to see an abandoned station. I spotted the entrance but that's it. Are there any other cool locations in your opinion?

Of course, only if you don't mind! Trains are just so interesting! Like, how the NY subway runs on metal wheels, compared to my city's subway tires (like a car, so rubber tires), and how the NY subway somehow chose to have the interior of the cabs have AC but all the heat is thrown out into the platforms? It's hilarious to me! And apparently they started including the Japanese point and call technique?? I love trains and subways!)

OH MY GOD, THAT WAS CITY HALL! That's my favorite subway station in NYC! It's the oldest, built when the NYC Subway opened in 1904, and it's gorgeous, with Guastavino tile on the ceilings. Here's what it looks like when it's lit up:

City Hall has been closed since the 1940s because the trains got longer and couldn't fit alongside the platform anymore, which is a shame because in my opinion it's the prettiest subway station in NYC. Right now, unless you go in via a New York Transit Museum tour, it might not be the safest to try to do the ride-through, because there's currently an initiative that forces everyone off at the end of lines (they're trying to "combat homelessness," but I suspect that isn't going to use the solution I would, which would be to house everyone so they had stability, give them access to mental health treatment and drug rehab programs, and help them find employment when they were settled).

If you're into trains, I highly recommend these places specifically:

Grand Central. You HAVE to see Grand Central in person to truly appreciate that ceiling. Check out the whispering gallery down by the oyster bar - if you stand diagonally across from someone and talk into the wall, they can hear you all the way on their side of the room! There's a library there that has the carpet from the 20th Century Limited (it's above the Apple store, which is currently trying to unionize), but I haven't even managed to get in there yet - it's by appointment and I've been busy.

If you want to cry, Penn Station. If you can find the brass rails from the original building, touch them and be sad with me. Moynihan Train Hall is an improvement, but it's not the original Penn Station and it never will be. Nothing will be.

The High Line! The High Line is a park that used to be a freight railroad. The New York Central used to own said railroad, and it used to go straight down 10th Avenue at street level to get to St. John's Depot. This did not go very well and a lot of people managed to get hit by trains, to the point that they started calling it Death Avenue. They actually hired men on horseback to precede the trains and warn the public they were coming - these men became known as the West Side Cowboys. Eventually, they figured out that they could elevate the line, which they did, building a new freight terminal (St. John's Terminal). The line was eventually abandoned, and it was rehabilitated into a park. It's a nice, relaxing walk with a lot of cool plants and art, and you get to pass through and near some old factories and drop-off points.

The New York Transit Museum. They're out in Brooklyn, so it can be a bit of a hike if you're mostly centering your trip in Manhattan, but if you like trains it is ABSOLUTELY worth it to go visit. Their collection of vintage equipment is amazing, and the station itself that the museum is housed in was a filming site for The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three. You have to register for visiting times in advance right now, so if you're planning on including them in your trip in a few months book it now! They also have a secondary gift shop in Grand Central.

Hoboken Terminal. It's just a PATH ride away from Manhattan, and the ceiling of the waiting room has Tiffany glass skylights. Absolutely stunning, and you can then take the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail to...

Communipaw Terminal, in Jersey City, which I talked a bit about in this post. Both Hoboken Terminal and Communipaw Terminal have Bush train sheds, which were considered a revolutionary design at the time and are now historically significant.

Now, if you're looking for non-train stuff...

Nintendo NYC. I’m there frequently because, y’know, video game merch. If they do a Splatoon 3 release event I’m going to try to go to it, actually. If you’re looking for Pokemon plush, go to the second floor!

American Museum of Natural History. My favorite place in the entire world and where I wanted to work as a child (I wanted to be a paleontologist). I did my archival internship and practicum there when I was in grad school, fulfilling my childhood ambitions in a way. If you like dinosaurs, this is the museum for you! (Also has a great subway stop with cool art - 81st Street!)

Metropolitan Museum of Art. If you’re more into arms and armor, ancient Egypt, or historical art in general, this is the museum for you.

MoMA (Museum of Modern Art). MoMA has free admission on Friday nights, and it has some classics, like Andy Warhol’s soup cans and Van Gogh’s Starry Night!

Take a walk in Central Park. If you want to avoid the tourists, get up to the northern part of the park.

If you like Seinfeld, you can eat at Tom’s Restaurant. I was actually there just a few days ago. It’s a good place to get the real NYC diner experience.

Get a hot dog or pretzel from the street vendors. Trust me, just do it.

The real-life Casteliacone can be obtained from a Mister Softee truck, if you happen to see one!

If you want to go to the Statue of Liberty, that has to be booked months in advance, so be warned and plan ahead.

If you’re interested in LGBTQIA+ history, visit the Stonewall Inn. There’s a cool augmented reality history project associated with it called Stonewall Forever that I recommend as an archivist.

If you’re more punk, St. Mark’s Place used to be the center of punk activity in NYC. It’s toned down now, but there’s a rather NSFW (...interesting art within) izakaya called Kenka (lit. “brawl”) that’s the best place to get a meal for under $20 in NYC. You have to get there around 4:30, get your name on the waiting list, and then be there when it opens for the night around 5 pm to get in at a reasonable time without waiting too long. The waitlist WILL get long. Kenka actually appeared in the Love Live movie, and New Yorkers who saw the movie recognized it instantly and were extremely happy.

I hope this helps, and have a great time! If you get lost underground message me and I’ll get you to where you need to go safely - I’m verrrry good at giving subway directions!

[lil-birch]

004 - Yes, I was in Washington; NO, I was not on "vacation".

Ew. You know when you look at a word for a long time and it starts to sound and look radically different in your head? Yeah, that just happened to me with "vacation". Yikes.

ANYways

I'm in the ACE van on the way back to AZ and I've managed to leave my journal inside my work bag, so consider this blog entry to be a direct deposit of my thoughts processing one of the best/worst month-long experiences of my life (if this were in a pie chart, I'd say like... 80% best/20% worst (and considering the bad parts are meant to be learned from anyways, really only like 10% bad)). Besides, how bad can life be when it's being lived in an ethereal paradise? Rejoice! Rejoice even when sh*t is whack!

One of the best things? The view of the meadow halfway through the hike up:

Let's start with the schedule of this hitch:

6 am - wake up call. gentle sun trickling through the ponderosa pines to lift the eyelids. honey-nut-oat cereal with blueberry kefir and green tea is a must.

7 am - depart camp for Blue Lake trail.

7:30 am - begin Safety Circle, which is the crew's time to review what is important for us and the climbers around us. we then ask our Question of the Day (QOTD) as we stretch, which can vary from describing the person to your left as a dinner or releasing a cathartic screech that signifies your mating call. Very fun stuff to get the ol' Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) warmed up.

7:45 - 8 am - depart trailhead for Climbing Access Reroute worksite.

9 am - arrive at worksite. the fun begins.

The central focus for this month-long hitch was to utilize dry masonry practices by building staircases into pre-existing trail to reduce erosion, social trails, and thus allow natural biodiversity to flourish since the soil and hikers aren't trampling all over them.

(Staircase #1 w/ Anna & Staircase #2 w/ Connor)

I built two staircases with my crewmates and did some digging/retaining wall work with two other staircases. The key with building staircases is to gain a ton of height in the trail, as well as provide an easy surface for water to run over vs. the water running over the plain soil. So, we set taller steps with pinners (side rocks to hold steps in place with the power of ROCK!!!) until the staircase extends through the entire section of trail. Voíla! A functional staircase that will, deadass, last 100-200 years. Regardless of whether humankind destroys the Earth in the next 20-30 years or we get smacked by a meteor or whatever... that's still pretty neat. Generations of climbers will be able to use these trails! Even the mountain goats used our staircases!

(Yes, that is only a boulder, not a staircase. BUT SO! CUTE!)

So yes. Real-life Tetris™️, with pickmattocks to dig and double jacks to SMASH ROCK and heaving boulders around in rock nets and then breaking them into pieces with a drill. Siiiiiiiiick.

And the off-days... Olympic National Park!!!!! Seattle! Twisp! (I felt very creative in Twisp. It's really smol and snug.) Bellingham! Forks, the vampire capital of the United States! Wow! There's so much to explore in this state and we only broke the surface.

To be completely honest, there was more mental exploration than physical. Posts 002 & 003 centered more around specific themes I've been writing about in my journal as pertaining to my life, but in a general sense, I think I needed this hitch to regain my Self. Now that I'm in an environment where I'm contantly physically active, eating more nutritious foods, consistently meditating and practicing yoga, and being challenged to push my limits, it's a little unsettling to look back over the past year and see how unhealthy I was. Mental illness and all that aside, I continously put the needs of school, work, and extracurriculars ahead of nourishing my body and soul. As much as I do miss college (see also: my friends and my professors and theatre and the radio), I don't particularly miss the toxic environment surrounding academia.

Its been particularly difficult trying to find peace with that unhealthy behavior. With any of it, really. I'm finding that while digging through my experiences, the guilt of how I *should have* done something or how I *handled something with very little tact or was just an abnormally evil goblin* in a situation gets overwhelming. Past me isolated myself away from a lot of people because I wanted to stop being a burden, or felt I was annoying them, or just couldn't handle the aforementioned guilt. How do you come to terms with the fact that for such a long time, you felt like a completely different person because, deep down, you were so unhealthy and unhappy?

Cultivation is a great way to start.

This is a word I overused hecka in my spring senior research capstone (thanks, plant communication!) but it's such an apt descriptor. Like, my brain, body, and soul might have been overgrown with weeds and mold and weird bugs but I'll be damned if I can't get back in there, yank those suckers out, and start a whole new garden that's ready to flourish. I've got wood chips and a fire lit under my ass. It's time to recultivate these neglected spaces, to create a new way of living that actually feels how living is supposed to. I'm tired of the past preventing me from this new era of flourishing.

The best part about cultivation is that all you need to start it is yourself. This is also the hardest part, considering that if you don't particularly like yourself it's a bit harder to get started. But one day, you'll wake up and agree with the inner calm deep inside your head that something needs to change. That day is exuberant; I wish and hope that everyone experiences it.

Here's to sunshine and self-discovery.

🌞🌿

[bisquid]

"oh I'd love to live in an old wooden house, just think of the history! And the beams are so beautiful."

Listen. Listen.

I live in an old house, ok? My house predates Shakespeare. My house is older than the English Reformation. My house is older than the invasion of America, okay?

Old wooden houses? Suck to live in. Oh if you're lucky and a) find one that's been well maintained and b) have the disposable income to continue to maintain it, good luck! But be prepared for everything from woodworm to rot to rat invasions to...etc. Hope you don't mind spiders! Insulation? Never heard of her! Double glazing? Central heating/ac? Have fun with the listing agents!

We have a fully functional wood stove but the chimney's full of creosote so we can't actually use said wood stove.

There is maybe one standard dimension window in the entire building, and the people we bought it from didn't maintain them, so now half the windows are rotting out of their frames, and we can't replace them because they'd have to be custom built to the listing office's approval.

We have ivy growing through the wall into three separate parts of the house, and an incredibly stubborn ash growing up through the floor of the kitchen behind the counter.

The only straight/flat walls in the place are in the questionable 80's extension the previous owners managed to add before it got listed.

The entire family jokes we've lost iq points from head trauma from all the low beams/doorways.

Its terrible. Don't buy a wooden house. Please. For your own sanity.