Knotting The Wind

one: as long as you aren't hurting or, like, being a dick to anyone, just staying in your comfort zone isn't an immoral action. if you just want to read one type of book (or just fanfiction), or just eat one type of food, or just watch one type of movie, or not go to new types of social events, you aren't being a bad person for that, and if people say that, they are soundly wrong and just trying to get a self-righteousness kick.

two: trying new things because you want to expand yourself feels a hell of a lot different than trying new things because you're being forced to. you'll feel better about trying new foods if you know you have a back up familiar one in case you can't stomach the new one, it's easier to read new books if you can experiment with audio versions or reading it in little five-page chunks by yourself, you can breathe a lot easier going somewhere new if you aren't chained there for three hours because your parent is your ride home, etc.

☽ Memory becomes absolute garbage. Like “why am I in the kitchen?” garbage. “What was I saying?” garbage. Their brain is running on buffering screens and regret.

☽ Fine motor skills? Ha. They’re dropping everything. Pens. Phones. Entire moral compass. They’re basically a malfunctioning claw machine.

☽ Hallucinations creep in. That jacket on the chair? Suddenly a person. That noise? Definitely doom. Everything becomes mildly haunted.

☽ Time gets weird. Five minutes feel like a year. A full hour disappears and they swear they blinked wrong.

☽ Irritation skyrockets. They get mad at chairs. At air. At gravity. At the audacity of other humans continuing to exist.

☽ Their voice sounds weird. Slow, scratchy, like they swallowed sand.

☽ They walk like a drunk baby giraffe. Walls suddenly jump closer. Floors rise unexpectedly. Coordination said: “I’m out.”

☽ Zoning out becomes a hobby. They stare at random objects like they’re trying to understand quantum mechanics.

☽ Vision blurs in and out. Like someone smeared Vaseline over their eyeballs out of spite.

☽ Their body just hurts. Not a dramatic pain, just the “why does my skeleton feel like it’s buzzing?” pain.

☽ Food cravings go feral. They’d fight someone for a stale cookie.

☽ Terrible choices. They will absolutely say “I’m fine” while making decisions that end in disaster.

☽ Random emotional implosions. Crying because their sock feels wrong? Yes.

you’re welcome

Please do not get health information from the CDC for the foreseeable future. If you are an American, depending on your state, the state health department may have more accurate information. States in the Governor's Public Health Alliance are relatively trustworthy.

I've personally been using Dr. Kaetlyn Jetelina's newsletter as a less-grim way to keep up with US public health news. It's on substack unfortunately, but the information is solid.

Yale School of Public Health's POPHIVE is also a good way to track population health trends in the US.

Purpleheart Wood: Peltogyne genus, native to Central and South American rainforests. Freshly cut it's light brown, then turns into rich shades of purple. It turns brown in UV light so it has to be finished with a UV inhibitor to keep those gorgeous colors.

Namnu (various): A type of precious wood found in China/South Asia, sourced from various different species of trees, hence the different examples shown here. High grades of the wood are known for the optical effect shown in the video. Unfortunately the types of trees that produce the wood are all critically endangered, which is why the examples shown are all items or pillars or fragments of pieces. The species are all strictly protected and new trees cannot be harvested.

That example in the video is just that one video that goes around with the inside of a tree that's been struck burning while it still stands, but sometimes trees that have been struck by lightning and are cut down can have neat burn patterns in the wood (example), as the lightning goes to ground, so some people might want that. Who am I to judge.

Chicken-blood vine wood: Species is Spatholobus suberectus and it's only that bright when it's cut, it dries to a more woody color. Here's a page with examples of what the wood looks like when it's dried and some things made with it.

Amber wood: This one took a while. There's a video out there claiming this is "petrified amber wood". That's not possible, I'm a geologist I would know. Since the video is in Chinese originally I presume, "amber wood" must be a translated local name. It's sandalwood, which has that gorgeous bright red color. Even tracked down the video the clip is taken from. "Chandan wood" is another name for sandalwood. Which smells amazing.

Rosewood: The most well known of the woods here in my opinion. There's a number of rosewoods, all in various shades of pinks and reds. True rosewoods are from the genus Dalbergia. Sadly they're all endangered, but illegal harvesting continues.

Purple hainan huanghuali: Dalbergia odorifera, the Chinese rosewood.

Pink oak - Likely pink ivory (Phyllogeiton zeyheri). You need a permit to cut down one of these trees, but it really is that pink. One of the most expensive woods in the world, up there with sandalwood.

Burmese huanghuali: Rosewood...3! This is either Dalbergia oliveri or Pterocarpus indicus, but given that Pterocarpus indicus is descripted as having purplish heartwood, I'm guessing it's Dalbergia oliveri. Though it's not a true rosewood, Pterocarpus indicus is also sadly endangered.

either way, she always has at least three kids, sometimes more. you don't want to ask when she had them, but she had to have them young because her youngest had to have been born when she was at least seventeen based on how time works. you just watch it happen. you can't save her.

she's smiling but there's something missing in her eyes - a spark that should be there. there's no passion, there's just the movements of the day. sometimes she'll give an interview where she says she barely feels like getting out of bed, and other times she says nothing. you just watch it happen. you can't save her.

her world isn't real - it's neat kitchens and made from scratch cheese. she tells you how she doesn't need feminism because she likes this life, she likes wearing pretty dresses, don't you dare pity her. you just watch it happen. you can't save her.

you scroll up to an ex tradewife in her forties talking about how her husband divorced her and left her for a younger girl, leaving her destitute and penniless and twenty years out of the workforce. you scroll again to a pretty young girl saying she doesn't need a job, her husband will take care of her. you scroll again. you just watch it happen. you can't save her.

another woman, this time in her early thirties, talking about how she just managed to leave her abusive husband and has nothing and he took the kids, warning and pleading young girls to not fall for tradwife lies. you scroll again to a young tradwife girl saying that would never happen to her, and you're just jealous of her. you just watch it happen. you can't save her.

you scroll again. a teen girl tells you that she'll just track her period, she doesn't NEED a toxic chemical like birth control. you scroll again to an obgyn pleading with young girls to understand birth control is just hormonal, and that period tracking isn't effective. you just watch happen. you can't save her.

you scroll again, and it's jd vance saying how women belong in the homes and shouldn't be allowed to vote. that their husbands should decide how they should vote. you scroll again to a domestic abuse counselor telling women their vote is private and they can lie to their husbands. you just watch it happen. you can't save her.