Catskill Collective

*takes your face gently in my hands and looks sincerely into your eyes* listen. your home does not need to look like a showroom. homes are meant to be lived in, and that means a certain amount of mess. it's okay if there is clutter on your desk or if you don't remember the last time you cleaned your oven. mess is morally neutral. but at the same time, you deserve to live in an environment that is safe and comfortable, and that means someone has to clean sometimes. things like mold, spoiled food, and dirty litter boxes are genuine health hazards and need to be dealt with before they make someone sick. think of cleaning less as "my home needs to be completely spotless" and more as "I am an animal and I need a habitat that is free of hazardous material." it's okay. *kisses you on the forehead and tucks you into a blanket*

if you read about any biology you can quickly lose touch with what is astonishing and miraculous vs what is mundane, from animals that steal chloroplasts to become photosynthetic, to cloning technology being old hat, to trees that didn’t biodegrade for tens of millions of years, to naturally occurring lateral gene transfer between vastly different species, to the creation of gametes from adult cells, to the ability of some cancers to induce blood vessel growth, to desert shrimp that lie dormant for years, to the sensitivity of human touch receptors, to the fact that human hardware has a latent ability to see UV but their corneas block those wavelengths, to birds that echolocate and live in caves, to human skin being covered in enzymes that destroy RNA, to individual trees becoming genetic tapestries branch by branch, to life forms that gain energy from the electron potential of metals in their environments, to plants that recognize their siblings and adjust their behavior accordingly when growing next to them, to metamorphosis

I told the story wrong. My mom is incensed. Her corrections: