Valuable Lime Lessons

Hello!

This is my blog, Valuable Lime Lessons. I am very happy that you found it! Sometimes I write things. You may read them here. For your convenience, here is a list of some of the things that I have written:

ESSAYS The Ephemeral Nature Of Everything An Open Letter Now Homer, Don't You Buy That Sponge: An Exercise In Futility What Are The Rules?

POETRY Ode To Maxelander Woofington

One day I will learn how tumblr works. For now, please visit lobo-schobo.tumblr.com for an Official and Enhanced Blog Experience! (You may already be here...)

Those golden moments when you're lying on your back

On the stage, or on the floor, or on the couch in someone's basement

And everyone's sitting and chatting softly, and someone's playing the piano, maybe it's you that's playing the piano

(And you stop because you don't want to disturb anyone, but someone turns around and says no, keep playing)

And you won't be here for long, any of you - you're all just waiting for

A ride home, or the start of the improv tournament, or the bell,

But somehow the moment feels infinite,

But at the same time you're so impossibly aware that it is finite, and you know that one day, maybe very soon, you will be missing this exact moment, right here

Right now

And you catch someone's eye and smile

And you sort of put all of that into the smile.

11/05/26

I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something a little atypical, in some way, about my brain. I try not to be one of those “I'm-so-quirky” self-diagnosing people, and when I say that I feel like I'm some flavour of neurodivergent, I know I sound exactly like that, but let me explain. Sometimes I feel like most everyone else is following a script that I just do not have. It's like everyone but me has seen a certain movie and is constantly quoting that movie, and I'm following along trying to contribute to the conversation where I can. I’ve felt this way my whole life, but I’ve never really cared about it until recently.

When I was a kid, I always got the sense that I was a different kind of girl than most of the girls in my class. It’s like I was a knock-off girl - you know those off-brand products that do most of the things that the original version does, but aren't quite on the nose? Yeah. I don’t exactly know how to explain the difference between myself and Real Girls, because it’s not that I was gay (which I was, but I also had a mutual crush on a boy in grade four!) and it’s not that I was a baseball-playing, princess-eschewing tomboy (which I was, but I also willingly wore dresses until the age of eight!)... it was more that I just didn’t know the rules. The rules of being a girl, I guess? Girls who knew the rules had certain ways of talking to each other. They listened to Katy Perry and they liked to do Just Dance. They experimented with lip gloss and training bras as they moved through elementary school; they began to flirt with boys. They started smiling prettily in pictures rather than toothily. They started becoming motherly with younger kids (my best friend at the time, who was a Real Girl, was often a little motherly with me.) Even their freaking handwriting was the same - bubbly letters made with a Bic’s mechanical pencil, 0.75 lead. And I… I was this geeky little thing who played Spy-Dogs, on all fours, every single recess for about five years straight. I adored school and was a bit of a teacher’s pet. I had no interest in make-up, or looking even remotely pretty, or bathing. I was verbally precocious but socially a little inept, although I think I was generally well-liked by my peers. I didn’t know the rules, is what I’m trying to say. Even the non-cool girls (as much as that’s a thing in elementary school) were firmly rooted in the world of girlhood, whereas I just had no freaking clue what was going on, shrugged my shoulders, and went back to playing wolves with Declan, the second-weirdest kid at school, and Sam, who would later come out as transgender.

None of this bothered me! I was so oblivious to the wider world when I was a kid that most of society’s gender programming went compleeeetely over my head. But I definitely noticed these differences, even though I didn't realize that I was supposed to feel shame about it. And years later, when I gained consciousness, I started identifying as non-binary. That label has stuck to this day, though it has evolved a bit; when I first came out, I went through a serious boy phase, categorically rejecting anything girly and preferring the term gender-fluid. I would feel very masculine some days and much more androgynous on others. But now I’m back to Girl Lite: at home in my female body and generally more comfortable among the ladies, but floating somewhere above the gender binary, missing some sort of hardware drive containing the instruction manual for girlhood.

So my gender - and my queerness in general - definitely plays a big role in this feeling of being different. And so do other things, like not getting social media for a long time, being an only child, my taste in music, my hobbies, my fashion sense. How much I value authenticity, how sensitive I am, and how I have never stopped thinking once in my entire life. The fact that I took a little longer to grow up than other kids, but that I’ve always been a little more developed in other ways. There are lots of things that make me different that don’t have anything to do with neurodivergence, and lots of things that might have everything to do with neurodivergence. It’s just that I’ve spent years and years of my life constantly dealing with assumptions about who I am, made based on my age and gender. Lots of it is benign stuff, like Kids Don’t Like Vegetables, or Teenagers Are Obsessed with Social Media. Or, Girls Like Princesses, which, now that I’m a teenager, has turned into Girls Like Makeup, Girls Like Lululemon, and Girls Like Boys. So many of these assumptions don’t apply to me, and when you have to keep telling the world, “Oh, actually, no - that’s not me”, it gets tiring. You do ultimately start feeling like you’re a little, well, fundamentally different in some way.

Now that I'm a teenager, I’m noticing these differences around all my friends and acquaintances, not just girls. I still feel like I’m constantly - just a little bit - on the outside. I never get invited to parties, for one thing. House parties. And it’s not because people don’t like me (I’ve done a lot of social research and I can say that with 100% certainty), it’s because they see me, they get to know me, and they assume that I wouldn’t be interested in something like that... because they can tell that I don’t know the rules. I’ve evolved from the feral, dog-obsessed kid detailed in paragraph two into a happy-go-lucky, cheerful, sunshiney person who’s “so kind to people”, “always happy”, always positive”, “just so positive” (did I mention that I’m always positive?? Holy cow, do I get this one a lot), “too pure for this world” (not my words, I swear), et cetera. I really like the person that I am, and other people do too, which is nice. But good lord, is it ever obvious that I don’t know the rules.

In my first year of high school, I was treated sort of like a mascot by the older kids and even the other grade nines, whom I came just short of actually befriending: we all really liked each other, but I sometimes felt like I wasn’t quite seen as a real person who could be a friend, instead of just the object of “Awww, Wolf! We all love Wolf! Who doesn’t love Wolf?!”. In grade ten, I realized that some of that was genuinely my own fault, so I turned down the happy-go-lucky just a touch and focused a little more on acting like a fifteen-year-old person who wants to be friends with other people. (I’d like to note here that authenticity is extremely important to me, and I have never changed who I am in order to be more friendable. However, I am constantly evolving, and I use the very many observations I make about the world around me - and the people in it - to inform what kind of person I want to be.) Things got a little better after that, but I still had so much trouble breaching the inner sanctum of a couple of friend groups that I was on the fringes of, groups containing some lovely girls who very much knew the rules and who were super tight with each other. I was pretty jealous for a while. Now that I’ve done a little more growing up, I’m very comfortable with my friendships with these girls, even though we’re not as close as Grade Ten Me would have wanted us to be. There’s just this divide between us, a divide that sometimes feels like a big gaping chasm and other times seems so tiny that I can almost, almost (but never quite) jump across it. They’re Real Girls. They’d be hopelessly intimidating if they weren’t so kind to me, which I’m forever appreciative of, but I still don’t know how to talk to them in the way that they talk to each other.

And it's not that I choose not to be this kind of person (a Real Girl, a Real Teenager), it's that I genuinely can't. Like I went to my first party ever last year and, as a social experiment, decided to act like a party person - talk the talk, walk the walk, drink the drinks, etc. - and I just could not pull it off. I handled the drinking part pretty well (I mean, how hard is it to drink a Twisted Tea) but then I didn't know what to do with myself. Do I just join a conversation circle, I guess? What do we talk about? What do I do with my hands and also with the rest of my body? And why the hell does everybody else seem to not only know what’s going on but also be having a great time? It was bizarre. And that's what I mean when I say that people are following a script that I've never had the chance to read. How did people at the party know when to say ooh let's take a picture and then all make the same face, and how did the host know who to invite without being weird (surely he's not close friends with everyone he invited?), and why do people all text like thatttttt 😛 and know how to use slang without sounding like they’re faking it, and remind me again why we all want to get drunk?

I’ve considered the possibility that everybody else also has these questions and reservations, but is just more willing than I am to go along with it all. That’s fairly likely, actually, especially given that I like to know why I’m supposed to do something before I do it, whereas I think most other people are able to confidently just… start doing what other people are doing, and not ask questions. If I were to somehow pull off any of these things without understanding them, I’d maaaybe pull it off, but I'd feel like I was pretending, or being satirical. But then again, I might not pull it off, even if I let go of needing to understand. I tried it at that party. I couldn't do it. I don't know how.

And that’s fine with me, truly. I like who I am, I refuse to change who I am, and I’m a part of many wonderful social circles that include a handful of really close, true friends. And I never feel like I'm on the outside when I'm with them. I’m okay with being gaggle-adjacent, a term that my beautiful friend Amelia (one of the close, true ones!) coined in reference to our mutual inability, or perhaps inclination, to be anything more than on the fringes of our group of theatre friends. It just gets a little tiring, is all. Being constantly reminded by the world that you don’t know the rules, and having to work so hard to keep up with everyone who does. But I love the unique perspective it gives me, and I love getting to laugh about it with the people who get me. I may or may not look into the neurodivergence thing. I’m not sure yet. Really, though, I don’t know how much it matters. Because I do have people who get me, which is the most important thing, and the people who don’t are kind to me anyway. What more could I ask for?

Little doodle I made! It's not very good but it makes me happy :D I don't know who Tilly's yelling at, but boy I'd hate to be them

Has ever a creature embodied more grace Than my sweet little dog, with his sweet little face? …Well, probably so, for although I love him My baby boy is undeniably dim.

He barks all day long and has neuroses abound He can be such a pest, that tightly wound hound. He digs in the yard more than I would wish His coat’s full of leaves and his bum smells of fish

He can make me so mad (when I’m not at my best) (And then I feel like I’ve failed some test.) Maxie pokes me with his sharp little snout I look down and sigh. I rise to let him out.

He bounds through the door, full of joy, full of life, All tension forgotten; he bears me no strife. He skitters and scampers, galumps and galomps, He dances and prances, he jumps and he romps.

He begs me to play, and when we are done He’ll lie there for hours, outside in the sun. When we’re ready to sleep, he sprawls on my bed His paws in a heap and his rump by my head.

12/03/26

I get really frustrated when people talk about my efforts to be environmentally sustainable as though they’re a personality quirk, or a hobby, instead of something that everybody should be doing so that our planet remains liveable.

People have described me as being “really into sustainability”, and my friends will talk about my “zero-waste kick”. But I don't make the choices I do because I find sustainability interesting, or enjoyable, or personally fulfilling. I make them because I AM TRYING NOT TO KILL THE EARTH. You know. That place where we live. (If we're talking about sustainability as something you're “into”, I don't understand how you could not be into it.) And this is quite a strong opinion of mine. While I could (and will) write a lengthy blog post about the false dichotomy of individual versus systemic climate action, I do argue that it is everybody's personal responsibility to put at least a modicum of effort into making sustainable choices.

Sometimes when I'm overwhelmed with all the *gestures wildly at everything* in the world, I like to think about everyone having a “cause” - one issue, like homelessness or food security or the plight of the giant panda, that you are actively working to improve. I really enjoy this idea, because this way, the weight of Saving The World doesn't rest on one person's shoulders. Instead, we can collectively chip away at world issues by each having a cause to which we pay special attention. Environmental sustainability is my cause, and while I think it's an extremely worthwhile one, I am not asking everyone to make it their own! There are other problems worth solving in this world; not everybody can or should spend as much time as I do on this particular one.

However.

It is so demoralizing to put so, SO much time and effort into making a difference, and then seeing my friends and family make the choices that they do. I get that this isn't everybody's cause, but I’m not mad that people aren't organizing more rallies, I'm mad that people are actively choosing plastic cutlery and bottled water when it is so freaking easy not to.

Sometimes it feels like nobody else cares about the environment. Wake up, I want to yell. How can you not care? I know that most people do, in fact, care, but there's such a disconnect between their values and their actions that I just don't understand. One of my friends recently bought a 6-inch pink plastic Christmas tree from Dollarama because she “just couldn't resist”, and as I tried frantically to arrange my face into a non-judgemental grimace, I was struck by the dystopian absurdity of the situation. This girl is smart and passionate and almost certainly cares about the environment, just like me, so why do we have such different attitudes towards this hunk of plastic?

I know I sound judgemental - it’s because I am, because I'm mad. I don't mean to single out this friend in particular, because I’m sure I’ve made choices that other environmentalists wouldn't approve of. It's just the lack of thought and care that I find so frustrating, because I put so much thought into my consumption, and I wish the people I know would put in even half as much. When I see people reaching for plastic cutlery, or bagging a single lemon in one of those single-use produce bags (true story), or buying plastic bottles of water when the water fountain is *right there*, I look at my little portable cutlery pack and my cone'd-not-cup’d ice cream and I try not to scream. It takes such little effort to use less single-use plastic, which is a thing that most people agree is important, so why don't people do it? Why do people talk the talk but not walk the walk, even when walking the walk is so easy?

I'll give you another example. I recently got a book from the library about green cleaning, and learned about alternatives to all the toxic cleaning supplies in our house. I spent literally an entire weekend going through all the cleaning supplies in our house, throwing out what was too toxic to keep using, mixing up sustainable alternatives. I bought plant-based sponges and castile soap from a refill station. I made handwritten, easy-to-read notes for my family about how to use our new cleaning products, reminding them gently to please not buy any new ones! I will handle it, I said. You don't have to do any of the work, just don't buy any more plastic stuff! Yesterday, a member of my family came home with plastic sponges for our aquarium. Apparently aquariums require heavy-duty sponges. Reader, I bought us heavy-duty sponges.

We argued briefly, and because I love this member of my family more than I’m angry about the sponges, I let it go. But my god. I am willing to put so much work into sustainability. I am creating new systems, and educating you about the systems, and making sure you're okay with the systems, and assuming all responsibility for the systems. And you can't… not buy a sponge? And now, coming back to sustainability being treated as a cute little hobby, these sponges are jokingly referred to as the sponges that “I don't like”, as if it's a personal preference bordering on bizarre neurosis that's behind my frustrations.

I guess this all boils down to not understanding why people don't care about the very real and terrifying climate crisis that we are in. And if they do care (because apparently, a lot of people do), why can't they extrapolate that passion into some form, any form, of action? It doesn't have to be your cause: alternatives to single-use plastics exist, are cheap, and are easy to use if you just care enough. My family cares, and my friends care, and I'm sure the lady in the supermarket with the lemon cares, but… …see above? Like, I don't know how else to implore us to act.

Am I being unreasonably judgemental? Possibly. I welcome your thoughts, friends; please share them with me. Am I ignoring the importance of systemic change? Almost certainly. But change starts at the personal level, and I'm a firm believer that you don't need to make the difference to make a difference. Besides, I'd rather be a tiny part of the solution than the problem. It just sucks to feel like I'm alone in this.