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everyone meet Pickles

Realized I never actually posted Pickles on here once he got his button eyes. Pickles is 100% hand knit on circular needles from a nice mystery fingering-weight merino yarn that was gifted to me. The only sewing on Pickles is the yarn holding his eyes on, everything else was knit into his form. 18 inches long and about 9 tall, Pickles took about 230 hours to create.

He is soft and traps heat well when held. Stuffed with nice high loft filling, he gives a solid and comforting feedback when hugged.

Pickles has NO pattern, but instead was inspired by/adapted from African flower crochet plush patterns using knitting techniques. (if you aren't a thread artist, imagine you heard a song and so you decided to write out sheet music for a completely different instrument)

a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck near the southwest part of haiti. there are hundreds of casualties and the number will probably rise. this is reminiscent of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in 2010 that caused widespread devastation.

those that remember the 2010 earthquake also remember the responses by the un and the red cross, each a callous disregard for the haitian people.

despite the donations of roughly $500 million given to the red cross for rebuilding after the 2010 earthquake, only 7 houses in haiti were built. the red cross never even said where the money went. 

additionally, after the earthquake, haiti suffered an outbreak of cholera. this cholera was brought to haiti by the un, something that took them more than 5 years to admit and killed more than 10000 people. 

all of this is to say, do not donate to the red cross, the un, the clinton foundation or usaid. there will be those who say that these are reputable organizations with which to trust your money, but don’t fall for it. these imperialist organizations failed and caused suffering in haiti and should be met with suspicion when they ask for your money.

instead, focus your support on the actual haitian people and organizations run on the ground by haitians in haiti, not ngos organized without any connection to the country. support haitians in the diaspora to support their families back in haiti. one example of a trusted organization is the haiti emergency relief fund supported by the haiti information project, they work directly with organizations in okay (les cayes) that were impacted by the earthquake. send $$$ there or to other trusted anti-imperialist orgs before any kind of usaid type of situation. 

Anti anxiety.

hi, a lot of you need a perspective reset

the average human lifespan globally is 70+ years

taking the threshold of adulthood as 18, you are likely to spend at least 52 years as a fully grown adult

at the age of 30 you have lived less than one quarter of your adult life (12/52 years)

'middle age' is typically considered to be between 45-65

it is extremely common to switch careers, start new relationships, emigrate, go to college for the first or second time, or make other life-changing decisions in middle age

it's wild that I even have to spell it out, but older adults (60+) still have social lives and hobbies and interests.

you can still date when you get old. you can still fuck. you can still learn new skills, be fashionable, be competitive. you can still gossip, you can still travel, you can still read. you can still transition. you can still come out.

young doesn't mean peaked. you're inexperienced in your 20s! you're still learning and practicing! you're developing social skills and muscle memory that will last decades!

there are a million things to do in the world, and they don't vanish overnight because an imaginary number gets too big

Pointless LOTR headcanon of the day: Frodo & Merry both take after their mothers, meaning Frodo looks more like a Brandybuck than a Baggins and Merry looks more like a Took. This is a constant source of petty contention.

here's some more unsolicited adult advice as someone in her 30s who knows there are a lot of twenty somethings and teens that follow her: if you're trying to build a new habit you really want, and are struggling, you have to break it down to the smallest building block possible. If you're failing, you haven't thought small enough. I know it's possible to hear stories of people who just snapped into new life mode one day by "just deciding", but truly what's happening there is a confluence of events and experiences that force the brain into some sort of epiphany. You cannot will an epiphany. It'll never work. For most times of your life, you will need to build habits intentionally, and that means not working against yourself and to set micro goals. like laughably tiny goals. because once that easy tiny goal is met, you can build off it, tiny goal after tiny goal until you reach your big goal.

so for example, if you want to be a morning person that gets up at ass crack dawn so that you can work out, eat brekkie, shower, and get to work at a leisurely pace, and you're not that person because you will hit your snooze button 800 times, you have to get the big picture goal out of your head. think smaller. "I want to get up 15 minutes earlier than I normally do." If you can't do that, make it 5 minutes. "I want to cook breakfast every day" hell no too big. "I want to eat something, anything, before I leave the house" hell yeah, fantastic. When you go to the grocery store to make sure there are things in the house for breakfast, if you keep buying bagels and microwave sandwiches that you ignore, you gotta think smaller. SMALLER. What's something so easy to eat that you'll never say no to. Is it a yogurt? Is it a handful of grapes? Is it a hostess ho ho? is it hot cheetos? FORGET the big picture of the fantasy put-together woman preparing a full nutritious meal that you'd be proud to admit to. Think only of the smallest goal you can achieve. If you know you can't say no to an ice cream sandwich, put a ton of ice cream sandwiches in your freezer and have one for breakfast every day until it's so instilled in you that you gotta get up to eat something you can start diversifying.

It sounds like, from the lack of habit place, that must take forever. But really it doesn't take too long to form the habit once the discipline kicks in. the trick is that you have to give your brain something easy to become disciplined to. If it's too hard, think easier and smaller. No one has to know. Literally no one in the gd world has to know that for 4 weeks when you were 22 you had an ice cream sandwich for breakfast every day. who cares. If it gets you eating oatmeal with fresh fruit in a few months who cares. you did it, yay. smaller, easier. if you can't do it, think smaller and easier. smaller!! EASIER!!! You are not thinking smaller and easier enough. break your brain thinking how small and easy you can go. SMALLER. EVEN SMALLER, SIS.

The Outbursts of Everett True was a comic strip that ran in papers from 1905 to 1927, wherein the aforementioned Everett True regularly beat the everliving shit out of rude people as a warning to anyone else who might consider being rude. Men have not only been taking up too much room on public transport for about as long as public transport has existed, but the people around them have been irritated about it for at least a hundred years. The next time someone tries to claim that manspreading is a false phenomenon, please direct them to this strip so that Everett True can correct their misconceptions with an umbrella upside the head.

If, like me, you struggle with long zoo days because there’s nowhere to sit - especially not near where you can see the animals - I have a suggestion for you. Bring a folding camp stool! I’ve started doing this regularly and oh boy does it make a difference.

The specs I looked for were lightweight & collapsible, because I’m also already carrying camera gear and don’t want to be hauling extra or heavy bulk. I went with a GCI Outdoor PackSeat Camping Stool Portable Folding Stool (not linking out, but you can find it at REI as well as that other site) because it was the only one I could find with a weight limit of up to 250lbs. It looks like this!

It collapses down into a pouch that hooks to your belt or a backpack or whatever, and ends up being about the length of my forearm but weighs less than a full reusable metal water bottle. I basically don’t even notice it on top of my gear.

With some sort of collapsible camping stool, you can rest anywhere. I set it up in front of three exhibits with no benches this morning while I hung out and waited for good photo conditions. What I really like is that it’s very lightweight and easy to pick up and move out of the way, but also sturdy enough I don’t feel it’s going to break under me.

It’s not a perfect solution: if you’re short you might not be able to see over every secondary barrier, and my model doesn’t have a backrest (although some by that brand do) so you’re still actively sitting instead of able to totally relax. But man, I was able to spend an hour hanging out and waiting for a snow leopard to appear instead of giving up after ten minutes because I had to stand on concrete.

I didn’t get any guff from the many zoo employees who saw me using it, and a ton of other guests commented what a good idea it was. It might not be ideal for super busy zoo days, but if there’s not a ton of people, it’s a lifesaver to be able to bust out a seat where you need one.

Windmills by Ivan Laliashvili

A goblin and an elf have decided to defy tradition and get married. Their ceremony will be held in the magical forest in accordance with elven tradition.