Far too tired to fall asleep

anyways, this woman called and without even saying hello after i said the usual “public library, how can i help you?” spiel, she said, “i have a very important question: when you shelve books, do you push them all to the front of the shelf or all the way back?”

it took me a second to process the question and then i answered that, at the library, we always shelve them so that they are even with the front edge so they’re easier to grab and see. she was obviously delighted by this answer and then, as if an afterthought, she asked, “okay, what about you? what do you do at home with your books?” i said i did the same thing. she hummed in obvious agreement and then just like that she said “thank you!” and hung up.

so i had been having a string of very time-consuming, draining calls. my line rings again, i steel myself for another angry caller, and i pick up. “[redacted] roadside assistance, how can i help you?” i chirp, in my Customer Service Voice.

“yeah, hi,” a gentleman with a thick southern accent responds. “my motorcycle won’t start.”

i brace immediately for another long call. motorcycles were notoriously difficult to work with - a lot of insurance companies wouldn’t insure them, and a lot of tow companies refused to pick them up because they require a specific sort of trailer.

“i’m sorry to hear that, sir. what’s your current location?”

“oh, i’m just at my house. i was wondering if it would be okay for me to just load it into my trailer and take it to my buddy’s shop. would that interfere with my insurance?”

i click through his account and am Relieved to discover he’s in the clear. “No sir, it looks like you’re good to go. Can I help you with anything else?”

A pause. “Have you heard the good news?”

My Anxiety, which had been receding, suddenly spikes into the fucking stratosphere. I live in the rural south. The “good news” usually means “Jesus” and i was in no mood to be proselytized to for god knows how long.

i steel myself for the Religious Talk. “What news, sir?”

“McDonald’s is now serving breakfast all day!”

I’m not kidding.

One kid had a bag of goldfish crackers, and everyone somehow started to yell at each other about if the main fish is yellow or orange.

I became one of the spearheads for yellow, and my argument was that yellow was the base color and the orange is being used as shading, so it’s not actually orange. But the kid who was the spearhead for orange (let’s call him David) WOULD NOT listen to me. (he was always an asshole though, so it’s not too surprising)

This got so heated that the one guy who was in my grade (let’s call him Paul (half the kids had bible names anyway)) was looking at the back of the bag and found a phone number. I think it’s supposed to be there if there’s a problem with the food or something, but he thought he’d try to call to see what they’d say about our dilemma.

I don’t know exactly what the person told him at first, but Paul explained the situation to them and then they put him on hold for a couple minutes while we waited in suspense. I have no clue what they did to fact check this for us, but they pulled through, AND IT WAS YELLOW!!!!!!!!!!! EAT SHIT DAVID!!!!!! >:DDDD

If we need someone to do a job, that job is a role in the community and deserves not just a salary but cultural respect for the role.

"high" ambition jobs are all jobs that involve domineering and controlling others. "low" ambition jobs are all jobs that involve service to others. Have you noticed? Because I have noticed.

is actually more needed

than controlling them.

Anyway apparently Mr. Eclipse made 5000 years' worth of solar eclipse graphics, which you can find the simpler versions of here

The eclipse: (goes on)

The birds: (go quiet)

The Hamlet group instead had Claudius place hidden cameras in potted plants and pat the leaves saying, "I'll call you 'Rosenplantz' and you 'Guildenfern.'"

It was very clever wordplay and my favorite part of all the productions, so now and then I doodle them bc it makes me giggle.

But what if they don’t. They’ve spent god knows how long in their own personal hell, captivity, torture, isolation. For what felt like an eternity, they held onto the idea of finally being freed, rescued, released. And one day it just happens. Political pressure, a hostage exchange, a rescue. Whatever happens, one day they’re just free.

But they come home and everything’s different. They never had a huge network to begin with, and now the people who still care just don’t know how to deal with them and their trauma. It’s all too much. They’re not the person they used to be, the person their friends used to love.

Sure, they’ve been given medical treatment for their obvious wounds but the doctors just don’t seem to understand them when they say that there’s a pain that never quite goes away. They’ve had the mandatory counselling, but the therapist’s empty platitudes made them feel all the more disconnected from their reality.

The world they're in now doesn't match the one they just survived.

Actual recovery is slow. And grinding, and grey, and hollow. It doesn't happen overnight. Sometimes it feels like it will never will.

But eventually it does. In little moments, alone in the kitchen at 6am watching birds outside the window. In the quiet company of strangers on the bus. In little gleams of laughter that, for only a moment, feel like flashes of something you had before you were hurt. In conversations that gradually become more effortless and more comfortable, until you realize that for a few minutes, you weren't faking your interest.

Recovery isn't always walking out into the sunlight. Sometimes it's being awake through the night, and slowly watching the dawn turn the sky into shades of silver and pink until at last— at last— you feel the very first gleams of daylight on your skin. It's ups and downs that make you feel like you're slipping back into the grey and darkness. But then the sunlight starts coming out more often. Inconsistent, unpredictable, until one day you look back and realize that it hasn't been dark for days.

A Meditation : 68 Capybaras