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clicking on âcallout postsâ here is wild because thereâs like, a 90% chance itâll be something like âthey once reblogged a post from someone who follows someone who drew amethyst as whiteâ and a 10% chance that it will be like âstole a human beingâs kidney in an alleywayâ
honestly though there is something very deeply and sincerely odd about making posts or google docs or entire blogs linking screenshots of every slightly questionable thing a person has ever said, sometimes stretching back to their early teenage years, and using this as a sign that they are a Deeply Bad Person and that anyone in their radius is tainted by being in their presence. like. this is abnormal behaviour, folks.
some of you will make post after post about the importance of kindness and community and then suicide bait someone for using a questionable word a decade ago when they were thirteen years old and i need you to understand that you are not the good guy in these interactions
Thing is, that socially-awkward person who said a shitty thing back in their teens grows up to be a socially-awkward adult, who hopefully is embarrassed by how their teen self acted. I got a friend request from a person who bullied the hell out of me. She contacted me, made a sincere apology, explained what she was doing to work on herself, and offered to try to make things right. Sheâs a really cool person now, and a nurse. So sometimes people do the work and need a second chance. It doesnât invalidate what they did, but sometimes they do try to make things better with the rest of their lives.
Sourdough oatmeal bread
From Bernard Claytonâs New Complete Book of Breads (which I heartily recommend)
Sponge:
1 c. Starter of choice
1 c warm water (105-115)
1 1/2 c bread or all-purpose flour.
Dough:
1 c hot water
1/2 c. nonfat dry milk
2 tablespoons hone
1 package dry yeast
1 c quick oatmeal
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2-4 cups bread or all-purpose flour (might need more, depending upon your hydration, humidity, and how much you need for the bench.)
Night before mix up the starter, warm water, and flour into a large bowl. Cover and put in a warm place for 8-10 hours, or overnight. Starter should double.
To make dough: stir down the sponge, add water, dry milk, honey. ADd yeast, then oatmeal, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Then add in flour 1/4 cup at a time until you have a shaggy mass that clears the sides of the bowl. (It should come into a dough-like substance by now, but be on the wetter side. If itâs goopy, add some more flour.)
Knead for 10 minutes. Rest for 10 minutes.
Divide and shape into two loaves, and put them into prepared bread pans. Loosely cover, hen put in a warm place. Let rise until doubled or risen above the pan, about 1.25 to 1.5 hours.
Preaheat oven to 400 20 minutes before baking. Slash the tops of the loaves.
Uncover, bake in the hot oven for 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake another 25 minutes until done.Â
Remove from pans and let cool.
Sourdough bread
If you don't already have a starter: Get a jar, make sure it's clean. Â Put in 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup water. (If it's really chlorinated, boil and let it cool) Â Let it sit out, uncovered. Â If you live in a dryer climate, you might need some commercial yeast. Â (I currently live in a swamp, so I was getting bubbles after a day or so.) Next day: Â feed it with another 1/2 cup of flour, 1/2 cup water. By the 3rd day, the critter should be making some liquid (which should be clear, brown, gray, or any color but orange or pink.) Â Dump out half, feed it. And so on for a few more days or a week, depending on how active your yeast is. Â If it smells like feet, your starter isnât ready. Â Keep feeding it, or inoculate it with store-bought yeast. Once it's established, you can keep it in the fridge and feed it every few days to a week. Â If you keep it out on the shelf, it'll need to be fed every day. Â It should be kind of sour/acidic tasting, and shouldn't smell spoiled. Â (If it turns pink or orange, toss it out, sterilize the jar, and start over.) Â To actually make bread: Take a half a cup of starter and feed it so you've got a whole cup. Â Let that get nice and bubbly. Â (I generally do this step in the morning.) Then several hours later (I do this before bed), make a dough out of the starter, another cup of warm water, a pinch of salt, a few splashes of olive oil (can use butter), and enough flour to make a dough that's wet, but holds its form. Â Careful with how much salt you put in--always add it with the flour, because it can harm yeast. Â Knead it only enough to get it to hold together. Â Cover, stick in a draft-less, warm place overnight. You can add anything you want, but this is just a basic recipe. Â (I've made it with a couple tablespoons of sugar, replacing flour with whole wheat, honey, etc.) Â If it doesn't rise much, you might need to add some commercial yeast, depending on the activity of your natural yeast. Next morning: Â shape into a loaf and let rise again. Â (It may be more watery and need a bit more flour). Â Again, you shouldn't have to knead it much (if at all). Â Over-kneading produces dwarven battle bread, as I've found out. Â 2nd rise should take a couple of hours or so. Â Parchment paper is definitely a help, as is some sort of bread pan, since it'll rise expanding out instead of up (like other kinds of bread.) Bake at 350. Â (About 40 minutes)
You know you're an abuse survivor when...
Finish the sentence. Write a bunch of sentences after that if you want.
Reblogging this will work. Liking this will work. Messaging me will not work. Email me at [email protected]
Youâre terrified of making people upset.
You constantly apologize.
Youâre a perfectionist and a people-pleaser.
You donât take criticism well (although youâre trying to get better at that and not take it personally), and when authority does something to remind you of your abusive parent you instantly lose all respect for them.
Making toast or opening a pressurized can of dough is a high anxiety activity. Constant apologies. Learning whose vehicle makes which sounds. Jumping up when hearing a car turn off outside.
Jumping whenever a freaking door opens
Immediately lose all ability to properly breathe when hearing someone shout/slam a door in the house
Hearing the sound of your friend opening his snacks makes you flinch
You do things as quietly as possible to avoid getting yelled at even in situations where you wouldnât get yelled at.
You wonder what kind of abuse theyâre suffering when you see a kid walk past you anywhere.
The sound of keys outside makes the air get out of your lungs so fast it softly hurts up in your chest and your heart beats quickly.
You can recognize people by their footsteps
You creep around the house at night to avoid creaking the floors and waking people up, therefore angering them.
canât say no
When you have a habit of lying even about the small things, even about the things that you really wouldnât get in trouble for, because your heart speeds up and you feel like youâve done something wrong even if you know youâve done nothing wrong
Deep down, you still canât help but feel like your abuser is a poor, innocent individual you have to protect and whom you are not allowed to be angry at - lest guilt and disturbing intrusive thoughts take over. To the point where OCD develops from that.
You canât apply the sentence âI wish you went through what you put me throughâ to them. It goes to show what they did to you, the way they crippled you was horrible and inconceivable⌠but you canât stand the idea of them getting hurt. Not because you actually love them, but because they installed guilt and fear into you before you were even old enough to think for yourself. God forbid they go through something as horrible as what they put you through. It disturbs you to think about it.
You think about how angry that extent of manipulation, the amount of torture that was needed to cause this, should make you, and itâs scary that you canât even tap into that reservoir of anger. Itâs hard to apply the truth even when you know what it is.
Hide whatever youâre doing for fear of having it taken away from youâŚ
Every single time your friends try to high five/fist bump you it registers an immediate flinch. And when they laugh about it you cry.
When I see an adult Iâm scared and immediately do everything to make them like me.
When I talk to adults I always feel nervous and if itâs adult men I only feel safe around other kids.
Every time my mother yells at me I flinch and cry and then run and lock my door.
Iâm scared of being alone with adult guys.
I lie to adults for fear of being hurt
Youâre scared of parents (especially strict ones)
You flinch when someone only wants to do a high five
You canât handle fights without panicking, but also donât let anyone see that and just stare
When you dare them to slap you because itâs at least you not someone else.
When you openly tell counselors not to talk to your guardians because they will brainwash the counselor.
When you canât leave an argument because if you do they win and then will pounce on you.
Are terrified of getting mail.
Intentionally avoid the people in your house because of how exhuasted they make you.
Put on a protective front/ instantly shut down when you do see them.
Reflexively block specific areas of your body because youre hit there so much.
Shut off your own emotions to avoid making a situation worse.
Hate asking for favors because you think theyll be mad or annoyed at you
Avoid talking because there is always some sort of consequence.
Hate certain people in your space
A sudden noise causes you to have a two hour breakdown. The sound of yelling or violence makes your eyes cloud over and you tremble on the floor, remembering what happened.
Even the smallest thing can trigger flashbacks and a panic attack
Leather belts or a loud snapping sound can send you reelling into a sudden panic attack where you end up crying and apologizing
Meant to reblog this with something but had to scroll past bc your mom got in the car
Will actively go out of their way, even if itâs itâs MILES, to avoid seeing a building of the church that sent you to conversion therapy
When you have meltdowns just with the mere reference of hitting children for educational purposes
âŚYou flatten your emotional responses to reduce manipulative and threatening behaviour of others
You forget how to understand your own emotions, the sort that is you and not what was created to avoid the abuse.
An authority figure ddoing even the slightest small thing to remind you of your abuser makes you despise them for seemingly no reason and get mad at everything they do.
Oversharing with everyone as much as you can and feeling overwhelming guilt after seeing their pitying faces.
When youâre around other survivors you canât talk about what happened because you think that they wonât beleive you were really abused.
See little kids playing happily with their parents, and wondering why you didnât get that kind of life only to make yourself feel guilty and end up thinking that thats why. Self blames a bitch.
Throwing yourself at older men online because you want validation.Â
You apologize for having emotions or flunch at sudden movements.
Just the mention of rape is enough to send you into an emotional shutdown, ruin your day
The sight of needles immediately makes you think of the drugs they used
Feeling the need to defend your opinion no matter how much the other person tells you that you donât need to give reasons
when next door shout at their kids u get uptight, paranoid and sweaty, you also have to put headphones in to block it out
every time someone raises their hand near you, you cower away and flinch, only for them to ask you âdid you really think i was gonna hit you?â
The sound of dishes being washed when youâre sound asleep will make you wake up in a cold sweat and a panic 20+ years after you lived at home.

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How do you protect yourself from being stalked online by your parents?
I often get messages from teens living with their abusive parents telling me about how terrifying it is for them to even look at my blog in case their parent finds out. I was a teenager before social networking on the internet. Honestly, when I was a teenager there was barely an internet yet. So, I donât know how people protect themselves but I feel like probably there are ways. If you know please do share! A lot of people would find it helpful.
Advice for keeping your phone safe in toxic environments:
Keep things in google apps
Everything is saved to your account, ex. you can delete google photos when your phone is checked, and download it again afterwards and get all your photos back
Also because itâs on your account you can log into google on a friendâs computer or a library computer or something if you need to
Iâm not sure about other apps but I know you can put a password on google docs
People are more likely to check notes but assume you have google docs for school assignments and not check that
A lot of people monitor texts/use programs that monitor texts, but whoâs going to remember to check Google Hangouts?
Use the internet on apps that arenât Safari
Download another browser and put it in a different folder, because most people can check your safari history but wonât find another app and then figure out how to check the search history of that app
Also use the internet when you click the link in social media ex. If you click a link on a Pinterest pin it can take you to that link on the internet but stay in Pinterest, so it wonât show up in search histories
Inform your friends and if you want to be really sneaky use code when texting
Sending messages as code helps. Ending sentences with certain letters can work. Need something? Definitely use code. Friends can help you. Or other family. Or teachers. Donât hesitate to reach out. (the first letter of every sentence spelled out SEND FOOD)
Literally just google pigpen code or ceasarian cipher or whatever you want and you can find a way to talk that most people wouldnât understand
Awesome info. Thank you!
There are more responses too that I canât reblog. Check out the notes to see them.
I was in this situation a while ago, another thing to do is you can make second accounts on your social media and block your parents account so they donât find it
For social media, I either go by a different name/photo w/e and block my family or I just make a second account and block them all again.
And Iâve always had a password on everything, so they canât go through it and I wonât let them.
Do yâall use two-factor authentication? Use two-factor authentication. You can get a cheap burner prepaid cell that you can use for it. Print out backup codes and stick them with someone you trust, like your best friend for life. Â
All the flavor, none of the bigotry!
Side note: I always knew that chicken tasted vaguely of pickles.
Also you can recreate Chick-fil-A sauce, too:
Âź cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard (optional)
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons BBQ sauce
PSA FOR THE GAYS STILL EATING HATE CHICKEN!
A few years back, I was a waitress at a breakfast diner. On the menus there are pictures of omelettes. The omelettes pictured are yellow.
Itâs 11 at night, I get the last table before closing, and itâs a girl my age. She asks for tea and an egg white omelette. So I bring over her egg white omelette, and she starts screaming. Why? Because itâs not yellow like in the picture on the menu, itâs white, so something must be wrong. I explained that the yolk is what makes omelettes yellow, and she didnât want egg yolks. Sheâs still mad, and yells again. And then realizes she could eat while sheâs yelling, so she does, and I get to watch her chew with her mouth open while she rants about eggs. Iâm exhausted and dying inside. She finally stops. I ask if she wants a refill of tea, and she says yes. Sheâs quiet for the rest of her meal, for which I am very grateful.
After she paid and left, I collected her receipt. On it, she wrote in all caps âI DONâT UNDERSTAND HOW EGGS WORK BUT IT WAS YUMMY.â She left a $20 bill on the table as a tip. She also left some pills in a bag that my manager sent to the police, which were identified as some sort of amphetamine.Â
Donât do drugs kids, youâll forget how eggs work.
But, hey, at least she left a decent tip.
I was walking through the toy aisle at Target when I found this thing and had a VIOLENT AND IMMEDIATE FLASHBACK to when JP first came out and they had a bunch of REALLY COOL T Rex toys that I would have sold one of my scrawny small-child limbs for but my mother wouldnât get me one because they were âtoo violent and also ate peopleâ :(
hnn I WANT IT SO BAD
on closer inspection, it makes a lot of really obnoxious noises and is also Too Expensive. BUT FEAR NOT I found this slightly smaller dude wedged in the back!
IT HAS BITE ACTION, AND THATâS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS
now we enter the testing phase
yup. looks good.
Extreme Chompin T-Rex says ITâS NEVER TOO LATE TO FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS
Can we take a moment to appreciate that we can use this as a rosetta stone to say âEXTREME CHOMPINâ â in four languages?
OH SHIT YOUâRE RIGHT, let me check the garbage to see if itâs still there! hopefully I didnât destroy it in my excitement
*roar sound effect*
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
update update: I re-sized her collar and found a bag of toy bones at the craft store. I havenât put this much effort into a non-school thing since my last job search, help
(secret bonus: the other side of her tag)
Thereâs more!
Show some respect, people.
THANK YOU
The story of Balto is interesting. He led a team of sled dogs across the Alaskan wilderness in the dead of winter with diphtheria antitoxins to stop an outbreak in Nenana Alaska. Diphtheria is a deadly infectious disease that could wipe out a third of a townâs population. It is mostly unknown to the public today because of vaccines. Baltoâs body is preserved in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
Heâs a big hero of mine!
Letâs not forget Togo! Who, at 12 years old during the serum run, lead his team 200 miles through much more dangerous conditions during the first leg of the journey before Balto ran the last 55-mile stretch.
Togo and Balto didnât bust their asses for dying children for you to turn around and not vaccinate your damn kids

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As a 90â˛s kid, it blows my mind that origami youtube videos exist. You can look up any model and watch a pair of manicured hands assemble the thing in real time, in full color, in 3D, with cheerful flute music in the background. When I was little, you had a library book with no words and these esoteric little dotted lines and arrows and it was just you, your hands, your paper, and the cruel, uncaring eyes of God.
I feel this so deeply you cannot imagine.
Learning how to make the frog, probably because of some goddamn unusual mountain fold and itâs crap illustration, was one of the more aggravating moments of my childhood.
Yes, this. I had a book and a package of like cardstock. Not sure why my parents bought that for me, when thinner paper is better and cardstock is nearly impossible to fold.
One company bought all the retail outlets for glasses, used that to force sales of all the eyewear companies and jacked up prices by as much as 1000%
If you wear glasses, you might have noticed that theyâve been getting steadily more expensive in recent years, no matter which brand you buy and no matter where you shop.
Thatâs because a giant-but-obscure company called Luxottica bought out Sunglass Hut and Lenscrafters, then used their dominance over the retail side of glasses to force virtually every eyewear brand to sell to them (Luxxotica owns or licenses Armani, Brooks Brothers, Burberry, Chanel, Coach, DKNY, Dolce & Gabbana, Michael Kors, Oakley, Oliver Peoples, Persol, Polo Ralph Lauren, Ray-Ban, Tiffany, Valentino, Vogue and Versace); and used that to buy out all the other eyewear retailers of any note (Luxottica owns Pearle Vision, Sears Optical, Sunglass Hut and Target Optical) and then also bought out insurers like Eyemed Vision Care and Essilor, the leading prescription lens/contact lens manufacturer.
Controlling the labs, insurers, Â frame makers, and all the major retail outlets has allowed Luxottica to squeeze suppliers â frames are cheaper than ever to make, thanks to monopsony buying power with Prada-grade designer frames costing $15 to manufacture â while raising prices as much as 1000% relative to pre-acquisition pricing.
Itâs even worse for lenses: a pair of prescription lenses that cost $1.50 to make sell for $800 in the USA.
LA Times columnist David Lazarus wrote a column about skyrocketing eyewear prices and was approached by Charles Dahan, who once owned one of the largest frames companies in America, Custom Optical, which supplied 20% of the frames sold at Lenscrafters prior to the Luxottica acquisition. Dahan describes how Luxottica cornered the horizontal and vertical markets for eyewear and pushed out or bought out every other company (Oakley refused to sell or lower prices, so Luxottica boycotted it from its retailers, forcing the company into such a precarious position that it Luxottica was able to buy it for a fraction of its peak book-value just a few years later).
This is a good example of how decades of far-right ideologically driven antitrust malpractice has hurt everyone. After all, glasses arenât just a fashion item: theyâre a necessity for people with poor vision, a prerequisite for driving, walking, cycling, reading, getting an education or doing your job.
Luxottica grew through acquisition, by buying up its competition. This was banned under classic antitrust law, until the Reagan years. This pattern has been repeated in many other domains: beer, whiskey, retail pharmacies, and so on. In every one of those domains, we are getting screwed, as are small businesspeople and the families they serve.
https://boingboing.net/2019/03/12/luxottica.html
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0116-prescription-glasses-and-contact-lenses If youâre in the US, your eye doctor has to give you a contact lens or glasses prescription *by law* for no extra charge. Donât let them try to convince you otherwise. In college one summer I worked for an eye doctor doing filing, and they did all sorts of shady shit to weasel out of it.
Have you cut contact with your abusers?
Please, tell us about it.
The second most common question I get from followers is if itâs ok/helpful to cut contact. So please, if you are willing, share your experience because there are a lot of people out there who need to hear this particular story.
Going on 12 years, here. I was reducing contact for months beforehand, which made the guilt trips and manipulation ramp up more. Finally, I laid out a clear set of boundaries that needed to happen, such as âIâm 35 and will not be calling you every time I leave the city I reside in 2000 miles away from youâ or âI donât want to hear about your sex life.â This was met with another feelingsexplosion and guilt trips, so I blocked phone numbers and emails. Â
Iâve moved a few times, and sheâs contacted me since. The last time she threatened suing me, if I didnât respond. Over what Iâm not sure, but I havenât responded to her outbursts when she finds my new contact info. I havenât heard anything in a few years, which is fine. Sheâs likely still happy with her current relationship, so Iâm ignored. When that relationship goes south, Iâm sure sheâll be looking for a new punching bag.Â
I donât miss the constant guilt trips, the triangulation, the splitting black if I should have a perfectly reasonable expectation of privacy or boundary. I donât miss being expected to be a therapist, priest (for confessions), a sex therapist, or best friend. Â
But, yet, if I tried to find moral/emotional support (a perfectly reasonable expectation for offspring to have of their parents, regardless of age), it was met with stony silence, reasons why I should get a third or fourth job, or any number of condemnations about my choices in life. She was âtoo busyâ to go to my grad school graduation. When I called to tell her how I won a prestigious award for some research, I got to hear how she called her latest paramour the wrong name in bed. Â
In short, my mom is a combination of mean girl and wire monkey mother. You canât miss what youâve never had.
AAAAAAAAAAAĂAAAAHHHHHHHHH
gdx t cd hsjdkgkguajrjdhfjalfivyau
This is a great time to remember that Notch isnât involved in Minecraft at all and the people who work to continue to develop that game have turned it into something that a lot of people really love.
So itâs a perfect example of divorcing the art from the artist. Yes, Notch is a terrible person who doesnât seem to have a problem with nazis and was a prominent GamerGate supporter, but Minecraft isnât his anymore and we can enjoy it without worrying about giving him any support through it.
The rest of the devs and Dinnerbone seem to be decent people. Now watch, Milkshake Duck. There's always the tactic of donating the purchase price to a charity that works against the kind of toxicity that Notch represents.
The 1969 Easter Mass Incident
Content Warnings: Religion, food, symbolic cannibalism, symbolic gore, penis mention, Blasphemy, SO MUCH BLASPHEMY, weapons, war mention. Mind the warnings and your health always comes first. Its a HILARIOUS story, I promise.
As always, all the names have been changed to protect peopleâs identities. This is a long one, so Press J now if you want to skip it.
When my dad was a young man and still a practicing catholic, he participated in a small church communion that nearly got him and six other people excommunicated.
Father Patrick ran a small church outside of California Polytechnical and tended to be⌠rather more liberal in his interpretations of scripture than most of the church was, which made him something of a hit with the local students and liberally-inclined populace.  Pat went to all manner of civil demonstrations, condemned the shit out of the vietnam war and the politics that lead to it and so on.  In January of 1969 a series of incidents lead him to start exploring ânontraditionalâ means of holding Mass as a means of reaching out to his community and exploring his own faith, which ultimately culminated in the 1969 Easter Mass Incident.
For those of you who werenât raised catholic, Communion is this ritual where you become one with Jesus by eating a really horrible bland wafer cookie and taking a shot of wine (called hosts), which then *literally* become the flesh and blood of jesus in your mouth, allowing him to become one with you. Â Itâs big McFucking deal, and you have the opportunity to take communion at every mass. Â All this had to be explained to me second-hand because after this and Dadâs 51 days in the army, Dad decided he wouldnât inflict religion on any children he might have in the future.
*
âHey dad,â Six-year old me asked the first time he told me this story after my practicing friends were talking about getting wine at church. âIsnât that cannibalism?â
âWeâre getting to that.â Â He waved.
*
The First Incident in January when, due to a serious cock-up by the church, all the hosts Father Pat received were moldering and spoiled and probably would have killed someone if heâd actually fed anyone them. Â But it was the first mass of the year, when a peak number of people came in after vowing to got to church more for new yearâs. Â He couldnât NOT have communion.
âIâll bake.â offered Maria, the parish secretary and probably the best baker in the county. âSo we have hosts. Â Jesus will understand.â
Father Patrick, not one to pass up the chance at Mariaâs cooking, immediately agreed.
A Host is supposed to be composed solely of unleavened wheat flour and water, which is why they taste terrible. Â Itâs a theological point of some importance relating to Exodus or something but Maria had an important theological counterpoint: Jesus both divine and loves all his children, ergo, Jesus would neither be a nasty bland cracker nor want his children to suffer as such and so instead, she made Mexican wedding cookies.
They were a SPECTACULAR hit. Â Many praises were heaped upon father patrick for the Much Better Wafers and that theyâd be sure to show up next week as long as Maria kept making them. Â Father Patrick figuring that hey, anything that gets people in the doors is good and really, if it was turning into Jesus once inside the parishioner, did it really matter what the wafers were made of? Â So he continued to let Maria bake the Hosts, and encouraged her to try out new flavors, like nutmeg and cinnamon.
This went on swimmingly for a few weeks until The Bishop showed up for a surprise visit the same week Maria decided to experiment with rainbow sprinkles.
Dad remembers hearing the bishop through the windows roaring âTHE HOLY BODY OF CHRIST DOES! NOT! CONTAIN! RAINBOW! SPRINKLES!â
The matter went clean up to The Archbishop, who decided that while Pat was probably right to not feed spoiled hosts to his parish, he should attend some remedial classes to remember what Communion was all about, so that if it happened again, heâs come up with a more suitable substitute.
Father Patrick returned in late March, full of spite and some fascinating new ideas.
*
âIs this where the Cannibalism happens?â Six-year-old me asked, eager to get to the good parts.
*
At his remedial classes, the teacher had stressed the importance of transubstantiation, aka âThat bit where the wafer and wine, Actually, Literally, become the flesh of Jesus Christ and we expect you to swallow.â Â Also on the syllabus was understanding the importance of Christâs suffering and sacrifice.
âSo, I was thinking about Easter Service.â Â Said father Patrick one afternoon while dad was doing his computer science homework at the church because his dorm was a barely-standing fire hazard and the library was where you went to have sex.
âWell, we do re-enactments for christmas. Â Why not on easter? Â Why not re-enact the crucifixion of Christ right here? Make it real for everyone. Â Traumaâs great for bonding a community together.â
âWhoâs playing Jesus?â asked Maria, always one for a good laugh.
âThatâs the thing- A Host, it doesnât look much like flesh, right? Â Doesnât look like much of anything, really. Â Not great for reinforcing oneâs belief.
What if, instead, we- and I mean you, Maria, I canât cook to save my life- make a man-sized loaf of bread, maybe in the shape of a T, and we have some of the boys dress up as romans and whip the bread and we pour the wine on so itâs bleeding and them- then we make a big wooden cross and actually nail the bread to it with, I donât know, railroad spikes, more wine all over. And we raise the cross, all while telling the story of the crucifixion.â
He paused to take a drink, Maria slowly crumpling onto the floor in horrified laughter and Dad now thoroughly distracted from his homework.
âThen we lower the cross, and invite everyone who wants to take communion up to tear a hunk of Jesus off. Â Just descend into his corpse like vultures. Â I think thatâd really be a good bonding experience for the church.â Â he nodded thoughtfully. Â âThe hard, part, I suppose, will be finding enough romans.â
âI WANNA BE LONGINUS.â bellowed my father, barreling into the room.
And so, the plan was hatched. Â Dad hit up every other guy in the Church and eventually rounded up four more romans, three of them from the Education Department of Cal Poly, and one guy from Chemistry, who just liked to watch things burn.
This, being a play, naturally meant that there was a rehearsal, and test Bread jesus. Â Maria had decided that if they were going to start being extra-literal, she needed to make the most lifelike Bread jesus possible, and made a distressingly buff and human-proportioned Jesus by Advanced bread-braiding, complete with plaited hair, quailâs-egg-and-raisin eyes, bready muscle groups, and an eight-pack because why not make the lord completely shredded?* Â She also made the important theological decision that since Jesus loves everyone and was happy to die in spite of all his suffering, he should be smiling, and had a toothy corn-kernel smile. Â He was Wonderful and Terrifying all at once.
âMaria,â asked Father Patrick after a few minutes of delighted and horrified cooing over Jesusâ toothy grin and abdominals. âWhy is he wearing a tea-towel?
âWell, heâs the Son of God. A Man.  With all that entails.â  She said, pointedly staring at Father Patrick while everyone stared at the suspiciously lumpy tea-towel.  âAnd he might have⌠burnt, slightly.â
Everyone nodded and agreed that the tea-towel was the best course of action. Â The rehearsal goes splendidly and everyone agrees that this is the most delicious Jesus theyâve ever had.
*
Easter Sunday arrives and the Church is PACKED, from the more lapsed Catholics showing up for a high holiday, parents visiting for spring break and a whole horde of newcomers who had gotten wind that something was up and they ought to come.
Dad is a lanky as hell 21-year old composed mostly of technical jargon and acne but he is STOKED to be playing Longinus, the roman that speared Jesus on the cross, because he gets to do the BEST technical effect in the whole parade. Â Since he came in at the end me missed a good portion of the sermon, but did hear the âooohâ from the crowd as the massive cross was dragged in by the other Romans, followed by horrified gasps and high screams and a discernible âWhat the FUCKâ as they brought in Bread Jesus 2.0, whipping him enthusiastically, and hammering him into the cross, the sound of wine splashing onto the floor loud in the terrified silence of that Parishioners.
Finally Father Patrick gets to the part about Longinus, and Dad comes sprinting down the aisle as hard as he can, because in order for Bread Jesus to be seen by everyone, his middle had to be about 10 feet off the ground, so Dad had to run, shrieking latin curses, Â down the length of the church, with a big honking spear and take a flying leap at Jesus in order to spear him in the gut.
Please take moment to imagine you are some normal god-fearing catholic who has decided to visit little bobby or maybe patricia at college and youâre all going to church together like a nice family and this Fucking madman has decided to go all Silence of the Lambs on mass and now thereâs some sort of underfed translucently pale man in ill-fitting Roman armor and cape flying at a horrifying glutinous effigy of your lord and savior, with an actual fucking spear, screaming like a madman. Â Donât you feel yourself drawing closer to God already? Defensively, perhaps, like an octopus trying to ooze itself into a crevice against the horrors of the ocean.
However, two things happen that were not planned on
1. Dad misses.  In his defense, Bread Jesus is close to but not quite the size of a man- more like the size of a doughy teenager, and his middle is a small target 10 feet up in the air and dad is has a computer science minor, not an athletics scholarship.  He misses by about 8 inches and instead very solidly stabs Bread Jesus right through the groin, leaving a big hole in Mariaâs tea-towel and the spear jutting out at a decidedly⌠attentive angle, as Bread Jesusâs Bread Dick drops to the floor with a splat.  Nobody notices this, however because
2. In rehearsal, Dad had managed to get the spear right in jesusâs navel but neither Father Patrick nor the other romans could get the wine up there to make his middle appropriately bloodied. Â
Maria come up with the Genius solution that since wine is made of grapes and Jam is made of grapes, she could make a jelly-filled Jesus for Dad to stab. Â There was a normal-sized test loaf and when dad stabbed it on the table, it had a nicely gooey dribbling effect.
However, this time the loaf was torso-sized, still hot from the oven and upright, so when dad speared the very end of the loaf, all the steam-pressured jam had collected at the bottom and a spray of lukewarm smuckers exploded out from bread jesus, turning the first three pews into a splash zone of symbolic entrails.
There was  a hot, sticky minute of complete silence in the church after that.Â
Then, Father Patrick indicated it was time for the cross to be lowered, and continued on with the normal preparations of the Host, he himself covered in hot smuckers, as though nothing particularly ordinary was occuring, quietly kicking the bread-dick under the altar. At the end of it all, Father Patrick and invited everyone up with the Last Oration:
âThou, O God, has kindly allowed us to have a part in this Holy Sacrifice; for this we give Thee thanks. Accept it now to Thy glory and be ever mindful of our weakness. Amen.â
âŚAnd everybody came up, shuffling like terrified zombies, pinching off tiny bits at first but then the madness took them and they began tearing apart bread jesus by the handful, weeping as they partook, scattered prayers and begging for forgiveness.  The whole congregation was kneeling about the altar, tearful and united in their guilt and their need for God.
*
âIS CHURCH ALWAYS LIKE THAT?â six-year-old me asked, absolutely stoked. Â Iâd convert on the spot if I got a show like that.
âNo, itâs normally bland wafers and lots of chanting in latin.â
âWell thatâs boring as hell.â I remember muttering and Dad snorting the coffee he was drinking out of his nose.
*
As people filed silently out of the Church to a gloriously sunny California afternoon, faces wan and smeared with wine and jam, Father patrick turned to Maria and asked âYou donât think that was too much, do you?â
âNo.â Â Said Maria with a sarcastic deadpan so intense it was hard to tell from sincerity.
It was the exact same tone she used when the Archbishop and Six other high clergy showed up, clutching a letter someone had written, Livid and almost foaming at the mouth, demanding to know if such blasphemy had transpired.
âNo. Â Thatâs crazy.â Â She said, staring down the archbishop like he was an idiot.
âSuch imaginations some people have!â Said Father Patrick, much less convincingly.
âAnd you-  you didnâtâŚÂ Spear an effigy of our lord and savior?â  the archbishop demanded of my father.
âDo I look like I can jump that high?â Â Dad asked, having in the interim been drafted for 51 days then nearly died of pneumonia from it, and therefore no longer afraid of the Church, the Law or God.
Somewhat relieved that heâd only received the extremely detailed ramblings of a doddering parishioner, the Archbishop sat down and complemented Maria on her most excellent Mexican Wedding Cookies, may he please have another plate for his nerves? Perhaps the ones with sprinkles?
Dad went on to help build the internet, Father Patrick converted to Buddhism and Maria became a Nun.
*For those of you wondering, Jesus was made of Challah.
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full offense but none of you would have ever survived fanfiction.net in 2009
bold of you to assume I was not forged in that dark crucible
Iâm almost 40 and this site is full of children.
Writers, remember this.
âŚyou guysâŚ
Just read an excerpt from a productivity/goal setting book that concerned Tolkien.
His publisher mentioned that people wanted more about the hobbits after Tolkien published The Hobbit.
So Tolkien started another novel.
And apparently bounced between the depths of despair and the height of confidence for the entire process (he said that: âhis âlabour of delightâ had been âtransformed into a nightmare.ââ)
He gave up multiple times.
That book? Fellowship of the Ring.
You know what kept him going? C.S. Lewisâ support.
First lesson: if youâre stressing over your book, remember that Tolkien did too.
Second lesson: Writers have to support each other. Seriously. It might be the difference between a book that becomes beloved by hundreds of thousands (maybe even millions) even existing or not.
 This is fair! This is so nice! I love this!
You know what else kept him going while he wrote Lord of the Rings? Well,Â
having an income while he wrote, that he didnât really have to work for. In fact, he held his dream job (Professor of Literature) with a full-time income, that came with a pleasant private office. He sat at work, for which he was being paid to do something else, and actively avoided doing his actual job while he pursued his own unrelated novel.
having a stay-at-home wife to run his entire home and family for him.
having servantsâŚ. that helpsâŚ.
having a large, pretty house within a pleasant 25-minute walk of work.
never having to do:
household maintenance
laundry
cooking
cleaning
Life Admin
the not-fun gardening
the not-fun childcare
The work day of Men of His Time ended when they came home. Women of His Time, and Staff, existed to run the rest of his life. And thatâs what they did. Jonald Ronald Rolkien Tolkien was the center of his household universe, which existed to support him in every possible way.
Letâs be real: he was not the person who was up in the night with a teething baby. That was what the nanny was for, followed by the wife. It would have been unthinkable for a man of his time/class to do his own childcare.
Actually, itâs worth noting that he had in particular a Very Intelligent Icelandic nanny, who lived in his house and looked after his four children all day, and was never given a holiday, and told the children lovely bedtime stories about trolls and the Icelandic Edda, and who provided a useful resource for the language and myth he used in LoTR, until his wife became too jealous.
I mean, what could YOU do if you had that much support? Write an epic! probably!!
Because nobody was forcing him to do anything, ever, he slept late and woke up late. sounds nice
Tolkien did not do laundry. He did not cook meals. He did not clean the house. He did not wrestle rice pudding down the necks of his screaming babies, while calmly and lovingly answering his schoolchildâs questions. He wasnât making a cake while talking to his boss on the phone and wiping up the dogâs sick. He did not spend hours every day in the process of keeping his home together, or sorting the affairs of his four children, or sorting out the wifi. The Care and Keeping of Tolkien was outsourced to wife, servants, scouts, assistants, waitstaff.
He would have received free meals at work, although he usually walked home for lunch, where he was served food and alcohol that he took into his private study. but if he didnât want to do that, Oxford profs of His Time could just get free lunch. He could ring a bell to be brought tea and snacks at work. And then he would go home and be served dinner.
Going to the pub with his friends, who supported and admired him! Sure!
not having to go home in the evening to his four toddlers and children, because he was a Man of His Times! and he could totally just spend evenings holed up in a pub with his admirers, because he was not required at home to help, or parent, or do anything in the home, except be served a glass of beer and go into his study.
god, imagine spending hours in the pub on a work night with a bunch of highly qualified literature professors telling you how smart and lovely and amazing you are. heck YES youâd be encouraged.
The Hobbit was already popular so it was probably quite helpful to know that while writing the next work.
Working and writing in a place that is generally considered to be an inspiring setting for academia and literature. Want to write Elrondâs Council? Sit down at a beautiful old stone table and start writing about the table. Want to write about a tree? Go write under your favorite ancient tree in the Botanical Gardens. Want a snack? Ring a bell and a scout will bring you toast and a cup of tea.
I mean, he wasnât exactly spending his 40 hours a week under a managerâs baleful eye while he manned the self-checkouts at the Tesco in Coventry, or pumped gas for minimum wage in Montauk, scribbling notes into his phone. He floated around The City of Dreaming Spires, dreamily making art, while several people labored very hard so that he would be untroubled by Real Life while he floated.
Letâs be real. Tolkienâs literary accomplishments are very impressive, but he L I T E R A L L Y
was doing them on his work clock with the full support of a pit crew.
To be fair, I love the man. And I love the huffy apologism in the Tolkien Gateway: âWriting [The Fellowship of the Ring] was slow due to Tolkienâs perfectionism, and was frequently interrupted by his obligations as an examiner, and other academic duties.â
Iâm ??? sorry that writing a novel on the company dime was frequently interrupted by occasionally having to do his job???? oh my god I love and hate this so much,
Dianna Wynne Jones, of Tolkienâs students at Oxford, commenting âof Tolkien, they said he was wasting his time on hobbits when he should have been writing learned articlesâŚâ
maybe because thatâs what academics are SUPPOSED TO DO, it is their job,,,
He would also deliberately mumble incomprehensibly, ignoring his students, deliberately delivering terrible lectures, so that they would all go away; but Dianna actually wanted to receive some of the education sheâd been promised:
âI imagine I caused Tolkien much grief by turning up to hear him lecture week after week, while he was trying to wrap his lectures up after a fortnight and get on with The Lord of the Rings (you could do that in those days, if you lacked an audience, and still get paid).â
God love the man! Deliberately teaching so badly because he planned to alienate his students and collect a paycheck! He would be flayed on social media for less, today. There would be news articles about the Lazy Professor. He would be fired, and buried, and dug up, and fired again.
In conclusion: yeah, CS Lewis was very encouraging and that helped immensely! But probably so did a secure income, freedom from chores and labor, and a crew of support staff. Who knows what we might do, if we all had that kind of encouragement. Weâd probably be very productive.
A choice Diana Wynne Jones quote on Tolkienâs mumbling, from her essay âThe Shape of the Narrative in The Lord of the Ringsâ:
âWhen I was an undergraduate, I went to a course of lectures he gave on the subjectâat least, I think that was the subject, because Tolkien was all but inaudible. He evidently hated lecturing, and I suspect he also hated giving his thoughts away. At any rate, within two weeks he succeeded in reducing his substantial audience to myself and four others. We stuck on, despite his efforts. He worked at it: when it did appear that we might be hearing what he said, it was his custom to turn around and address the blackboard.â
Itâs a lovely essay about The Lord of the Rings, but you can tell that she was still very salty about the manâs lecture style, however many years later it was that she was writing this essay.
One of my Uni tutors had also gone to lectures by Tolkien, and said more than once that whatever else he had learned, the most important was âThis is how not to give lecturesââŚ