Glyphs and Cycles

at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. the instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain amt of time. your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go, "hm, this doesn't look thick enough. maybe i'll let it go for another 10 minutes." this is the devil speaking. it's only so liquid right now because it is at boiling point. it will thicken when it cools down. learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you

at some point in your life you will be making a sauce or a stew in which you need to add cornstarch to thicken it. and you will prepare a slurry of starch in cold water and think "this looks like way too little starch to thicken this amount of liquid." this is the devil speaking. cornstarch instantly polymerizes at 95°C and if you add too much it will turn into an impossibly thick goop.

at some point in your life you will be making some sort of cream based dessert that requires gelatin to thicken it. and you will soak some gelatin sheets in water and think "this is too few gelatin sheets for this amount of cream." this is the devil speaking. it will thicken in the fridge and if you add too much you will end up with milk jelly

at some point in your life you will be baking cookies. you will take the sheet out after twelve minutes as the recipe instructs and the cookies will still be glistening and soft. "these don't seem cooked enough," you will think to yourself, "i should place them back into the oven until their edges are nice and golden." this is the devil talking. this is how you get dry, overdone cookies. the cookies will continue to bake on the warm sheet for several more minutes and then harden up after sitting on a rack for a while. trust the process. trust the process.

at some point in your life you will be adding a small pasta to a soup and you will think "that is not enough small pasta." this is the devil talking. the pasta will absorb the stock and expand. this is how you end up with a soup that is a solid mass of soggy ditalini.

At some point in your life you will be adding garlic to a dish and you will think "that is not enough garlic." These are angels speaking. They are correct. Add more garlic.

It'd be so evil if everything we've given Grace stacked. Imagine you wake up from a coma in space with no memory and along with everything else you figure out you have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, Tourette's, dissociative identity disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, autism, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, dependent personality disorder, fibromyalgia, pes planus, narcolepsy, seizures/epilepsy, chronic sleep paralysis, insomnia, migraines with auras and auditory hallucinations, nerve damage, chronic wrist pain, Raynaud's syndrome, and then you go blind from ammonia burns, get gangrene and have to amputate your arm, develop avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, and get endometriosis. AND THEN you get scurvy and beriberi and "a raft of other maladies" and arthritis later.

And chronic wrist pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, alexithymia, chronic knee pain, an allergy to the cold, lumbar hernias, chronic scar pain, multiple sclerosis, dermatillomania, degenerative disc disease, aortic valve stenosis, multicystic kidney dysplasia, astigmatism, an auditory processing disorder, respiratory issues, transient global amnesia, chronic muscle fatigue, tinnitus, iron deficiency, vitamin-d deficiency, magnesium deficiency, hypermobility, chronic nosebleeds, irritable bowel syndrome, heterotopic ossification, a chronic ear infection, thoracic outlet syndrome, lactose intolerance, a urinary tract infection, asthma, scoliosis, bipolar disorder, hypothyroidism, hypoglycemia, congenital cataracts, dermatitis, chronic back pain, seasonal allergies, trichotillomania, Crohn's disease, a colostomy, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, thalassophobia, motion sickness, chronic pain from a past appendectomy, and familial hypercholesterolemia. AND THEN develop post-traumatic stress disorder, get phantom pain from the amputation, get asbestos poisoning, and then die of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. And you can't even eat peanuts. But hey, at least you don't have strep throat.

And trypanophobia, gastroesophageal reflux disease, hyperhidrosis, knee pain from fluid build-up, intestinal nonrotation, neurofibromatosis, urticaria, brain fog, acrophobia, agoraphobia, vertigo episodes, muscle spasms and nerve twitching, bilateral ulnar nerve subluxation, polycoria, polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, photophobia, photosensitivity, allodynia, restless leg syndrome, depersonalisation-derealisation disorder, hip dysplasia, dermatophagia, abdominal migraines, sleep apnea, emetophobia, dyspraxia, time blindness, retinal detatchment, soft tissue sarcoma, aphasia, rickets, hyper-empathy disorder, chronic fainting spells, face blindness, situs inversus totalis, chronic fatigue, a temporomandibular joint disorder, vestibular migraines, one-sided sciatica dorsopathy, a stutter, leg cramps, celiac disease, a heart defect, painful acne, vasovagal syncope, gastoparesis, and long COVID. And then you have to go through withdrawal for an accidental opioid addiction, get brain damage and spinal damage, and develop breathing issues from chemical burns permanently damaging your lungs. And also you're allergic to bananas, bees, and penicillin. And then you arrive at an alien planet and discover you somehow still get hayfever there.

yall think Grace ever got zoochosis. I’m imagining him walking in circles counting exactly how many steps it takes to go around the entire perimeter of his Dome ten times over while staring into the middle distance. meanwhile Rocky is shaking Adrian’s shoulders (?) going Honey We Have To Add Enrichment To His Enclosure. Adrian His Squishy Human Brain Is Melting. Do We Have Any Space Middle Schoolers To Throw At Him.