30 // taurus // a playlist raccoon, hoarding songs like trash // queer in every way // (en: they/them | nl: zij/haar/die/hen)
attempted art / propmaking / DIY / tarot / terrible puns / many plants / solarpunk & folk punk / probably a corvid / random shit and relentless optimism
- Everything is connected. - The world is good and we belong here. -
MAKE BAD ART - Do no harm, take no shit. - Assume ignorance, not malice. -
need a smile?
if I think too hard about Chimney and Tommy working together and saving each others lives and growing as individuals and staying friends over the years even when working at different stations to eventually date two siblings I'm gonna cry
Something that literally changed my life was working with a friend on a coding thing. He was helping me create an auto rig script and was trying to explain something to me but his words were just turning into static in my brain. I was tired and confused and there was so many new concepts happening.
I could feel myself working toward a crying meltdown and was getting preemptively ashamed of what was about to happen when he said, “Hey, are you someone who benefits from breaks?”
It broke me.
Did I benefit from breaks? I didn’t know. I’d never taken them.
When a problem frustrated or upset me I just gritted my teeth and plowed through the emotional distress because eventually if you batter and flail at something long enough you figure it out. So what if you get bruised on the way.
I viscerally remembered in that moment being forced to sit at the table late into the night with my dad screaming at me, trying to understand math. I remembered taking that with me into adulthood and having breakdowns every week trying to understand coding. I could have taken a break? Would it help? I didn’t know! I’d never taken one!
“Yes,” I told him. We paused our call. I ate lunch. I focused on other stuff for half an hour. I came back in a significantly better state of mind, and the thing he’d been trying to explain had been gently cooking in the back of my head and seemed easier to understand.
Now when I find myself gritting my teeth at problems I can hear his gentle voice asking if I benefit from breaks. Yes, dear god, yes why did I never get taught breaks? Why was the only way I knew to keep suffering until something worked?
I was relating to this same friend recently my roadtrip to the redwoods with my wife. “We stopped every hour or so to get out and stretch our legs and switch drivers. It was really nice. When I was a kid we’d just drive twelve hours straight and not stop for anything, just gas. We’d eat in the car and power through.”
He gave a wry smile, immediately connecting the mindset of my parents on a road trip to what they’d instilled in me about brute forcing through discomfort. “Do you benefit from breaks?” he echoed, drawing my attention to it, making me smile with the same sad acknowledgement.
Take breaks. You’re allowed. You don’t have to slam into problems over and over and over, let yourself rest. It will get easier. Take. Breaks.
Save a Native-owned local farm & the homes of the four people who live there
Laurae has built up Gray Fox Farm with her blood, sweat, and tears, and she needs help raising legal funds to defend it from a wealthy white lawyer who is leveraging his power to demand she pay more than the market value of the property plus give up half her infrastructure, claiming that’s “50%” of the equity.
Please support someone who truly deserves it. Laurae houses me, my partner, and another individual here, and she works so fucking hard making it by on barely anything. She deserves to be left in peace with everything she’s worked so hard for.