#to me and nobody else

[spacespore]

Bruhh top hats look so fucking stupid but apparently nobody stopped wearing them until jfk showed up to his presidential inauguration without a hat my kaz brekker design is ruined!!!!!

[madlori]

My ankle journey

I am sharing this with all you good people on the dash because I am so fucking mad it took so long for me to learn it and if I can spare one (1) person the agony it will be worth it.

So for like...oh, 8 or 9 months, I've been struggling with pain/inflammation/tendinitis in my left Achilles tendon. I don't know what caused it. It just started up (welcome to middle age, this shit happens). It wasn't severe enough to be debilitating, but it was annoying and limiting. It was also intermittent, in that some days it would be very painful and other days hardly at all. The kind of shoe I was wearing affected it a lot.

Now, I have bone spurs on both heels (it's just a thing that happens as you get older sometimes). I'm also aware that heel pain is usually the result of tight calf muscles that pull and irritate the tendon. I tried stretching that calf muscle. You know the stretch, this bitch right here:

I did it all the time. I also iced the ankle after walking for awhile, hoping to avoid inflammation. Results were...unsatisfying.

I went to:

A chiropractor

A podiatrist

A physical therapist

A bodywork coach

They all gave me some variation on the "strengthen your calf muscle, stretch your calf muscle" advice. I continued doing this without results.

I was getting frustrated, and a little afraid that this was just my life now. Finally, I thought...maybe some targeted massage might help. I asked for rec on a local FB site and was pointed to a woman who specializes in therapeutic massage including cupping, etc.

I went to her a week ago.

She spent over half our first session working on my left lower leg. Within about 10 minutes of making my eyes water, she uttered the sentence I did not know I had been waiting to hear:

"Oh, it's your soleus."

Excuse me, what?

"It's your soleus that's the culprit. It's all tied up and stiff." She started digging into it and I felt literal sparks run up my leg as she released adhesions and got the muscle moving a little. When she finally put the leg down, it felt like it was on fire with all the blood rushing into it.

She said, "You'll need to stretch your soleus. It'll clear up, but it'll take a bit of time - tendons take ages to heal."

But I HAVE been stretching.

"No, you haven't. The usual straight-leg calf stretch only stretches the gastrocnemius, that's the big belly muscle in your calf. That's not your problem. That stretch doesn't stretch the soleus. Don't worry, I'll show you how to stretch it."

My mind is spinning.

So here are the muscles in question:

The gastroc (as the pros call it) just attaches down the back but the soleus runs underneath it from the knee around the side to the heel. The lower part above the ankle is where it typically gets tight and forms adhesions.

To stretch it, you do the same calf thing where you put your foot back and press your heel to the ground, but you have to do it with your KNEE BENT:

The bent knee keeps the gastroc from engaging. It's one of those selfish muscles (like traps) - if you give it an inch, it'll just take over and prevent other muscles from working or stretching. There are other ways to stretch the soleus but this is the easiest and you can literally do it anywhere. I've been doing it while standing and waiting for things (the elevator to come, the toast to toast). You just put the heel back and bend the knee. It's kind of like curtseying.

The minute I did this stretch, I could FEEL where it was pulling on my tendon. I knew that THIS had been the problem.

The massage therapist also told me to stop icing my heel. She said icing is for an acute injury, but a more chronic aggravation needs heat, to increase blood flow for healing. She recommended elevation with heat every day (I've been doing it in bed during "phone before bed" time).

I have been doing the soleus stretch at least half a dozen times a day for almost a week, and the ankle is at least 70% better. It is still a little tight and tender, but the improvement is significant. I think a few more weeks will have it feeling normal.

I am...blown away by this. This massage therapist was able to pinpoint an issue in only a few minutes that eluded all the other professionals I saw. I can't wait to go back to her and have her solve all my other problems, tbh.

[cozylittleartblog]

Columbo and the Knight (1984)

put me in the universe where Columbo ran through the 1980s and had a crossover episode with Knight Rider. I think they deserved it, and I am not just saying that because they're my two favorite Old Shows. @telebeast wrote a little fanfic blurb about it and I HAD to visualize it into a comic (which is also the longest comic I have finished thus far at five pages...), so writing credit goes to them.

Autism W!

[lovebunnie]

“i love being aromantic” i say as i feel my chest cavity rotting from the inside at the unquenchable desire for love in a way that is truly a secret third thing but its not a secret i want to keep it is a secret nobody is willing to listen to and im trapped in a state of isolation of my own making because no matter how much love i have to give it will never be enough. it will never be enough. it will never be enough.

[wis-art]

this piece is about being transgender

my ko-fi

[apricior]

i remember when i was a child internet safety was like "if you even hint at the country you live in, you're gonna get kidnapped and murdered", and nowadays it is encouraged or even necessary to give corporations every single personal detail if you want to use anything because if they can't sell your information they cry so hard they throw up

[notsogoodangel]

Purple and Red.

The gods and their loved ones.

[taffywabbit]

i have lots of flaws but i do at least take a fair amount of comfort knowing that, if i were a customer NPC in a fast food/retail management game, i would be one of the chill early-level ones that can wait a super long time before they start getting impatient, and you breathe a sigh of a relief when you see them show up in a harder level

[diamondvic]

I love Brackenpaw in the graphic novel so much oh my god. He’s so polite and he only speaks in normal (by normal, I mean not-all-caps lettering you’d see in day to day) lettering. It’s probably to contrast him with how excitable and loud Cinderpaw is, but since Every Single Other Character always talks in all caps it just makes him seem like such a polite quiet little guy.. I adore him so much

[egophiliac]

this is basically what happened, right?

(these guys are very lucky that everyone at NRC 1) has the combined intelligence of a sack of bricks, and 2) is easily distracted by shiny things.)

[bixels]

tarpit site.

[adamsrcnan]

imagine kevin came back with the foxes instead of staying in west virginia after riko died and he's looking around their dorm room in despair after he sees the damage that jean's rage induced grief inflicted. he's helping clean up & goes to throw stuff in the trash when he see's a pile of andrew's candy bars in there. it's so ridiculous & such a jean thing to do that he actually laughs and suddenly he misses his first and longest best friend so much that he feels sick with it

[gate653]

[sheerricetorrent]

I rewatched watership down and noticed some similarities in themes to rainworld

Enjoy the scugrabbits :^)

[heartorbit]

i want to know everything that makes you happy! 💫🪐🎇

[unlimitedbutchworks]

it’s fascinating how trans women on here are tokenized to signal people’s comraderie with trans (terfs dni in bio/trans women are loved here), while at the same time we’re also harshly ejected from communities and painted as predators for piecemeal grievances that are handwaved away when done by non trans women. you can say all kinds of nasty stuff about someone, and as long as she’s a trans woman, people will believe it! people love the ideal of a trans woman but haven’t worked on their biases enough to do anything but grow to despise actual trans women