this earthquake state of mind.

RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE. 

When I was at one of my lowest (mental) points in life, I couldn’t get out of bed some days. I had no energy or motivation and was barely getting by.

I had therapy once per week, and on this particular week I didn’t have much to ‘bring’ to the session. He asked how my week was and I really had nothing to say.

“What are you struggling with?” he asked.

I gestured around me and said “I dunno man. Life.”

Not satisfied with my answer, he said “No, what exactly are you worried about right now? What feels overwhelming? When you go home after this session, what issue will be staring at you?”

I knew the answer, but it was so ridiculous that I didn’t want to say it.

I wanted to have something more substantial.

Something more profound.

But I didn’t.

So I told him, “Honestly? The dishes. It’s stupid, I know, but the more I look at them the more I CAN’T do them because I’ll have to scrub them before I put them in the dishwasher, because the dishwasher sucks, and I just can’t stand and scrub the dishes.”

I felt like an idiot even saying it.

What kind of grown ass woman is undone by a stack of dishes? There are people out there with *actual* problems, and I’m whining to my therapist about dishes?

But my therapist nodded in understanding and then said:

“RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE.”

I began to tell him that you’re not supposed to, but he stopped me.

“Why the hell aren’t you supposed to? If you don’t want to scrub the dishes and your dishwasher sucks, run it twice. Run it three times, who cares?! Rules do not exist, so stop giving yourself rules.”

It blew my mind in a way that I don’t think I can properly express.

That day, I went home and tossed my smelly dishes haphazardly into the dishwasher and ran it three times.

I felt like I had conquered a dragon.

The next day, I took a shower lying down.

A few days later. I folded my laundry and put them wherever the fuck they fit.

There were no longer arbitrary rules I had to follow, and it gave me the freedom to make accomplishments again.

Now that I’m in a healthier place, I rinse off my dishes and put them in the dishwasher properly. I shower standing up. I sort my laundry.

But at a time when living was a struggle instead of a blessing, I learned an incredibly important lesson:

THERE ARE NO RULES.

RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE!!!

they start as little anglerfish babies until they’re thirty and their skin sloughs off and their teeth fall out and once they’re done molting they can walk on land with small bodies and long tails and long ears and teeth still sharp but not quite so drastic until tailfall when they’re seventy and they finally start looking like humans - shorter ears and squarer teeth but eyes still black and unsettling - and those are their wandering years, the century they can travel among men until they start to grow horns and have to go back into hiding in the secret cities of elves.

they age like lobsters, getting bigger all the time, getting slower, until they’re so big and so slow that plants grow on them and they barely move at all. they reproduce by stealing away genetic material to keep in storage in weird organs near their throats and when an elf gets in a fight and licks the blood from their knife it means something very different and when an elf is aroused they can’t eat and pretend it’s because they don’t like the food. then when an elf gets big enough all the material they’ve collected over their lifetime goes into outgrowths that burst from their skin as horrifying little merfolk.

a human finds elfspawn and the elves say “yeah that’s a weird mermaid” and the humans find a hissing little tailed elf and the elves say “that’s a gnome” and the humans find someone breaking into rooms to drink the blood of pretty women and the elves say “that’s actually just a weird dead human” and the humans find a huge horned elf and the elves say “that’s an orc” and the humans find an even bigger one and the elves say “probably a troll” and the humans find an elf so big they’re covered in plantlife and the elves say “that’s an ent” because humans breed so quickly and there are so many of them and they kill so much and they have such strange rules about when it’s okay to kill people and there are so few elves by comparison that they have all agreed en masse that humans must believe that elves are just like humans so that they can be friends.

elves aren’t allowed to be wild and feral and any elf who breaks the rules is considered fair game whether they knew the rules or not, because they put every other elf in danger. elven cities are massive with great big towers but each tower holds just one huge elf and no human is ever allowed to enter and discover that the population is under one hundred instead of the thousands they assume. elves don’t laugh because the laugh is the hardest part of the accent to get rid of, laughing like dolphins long after they’ve managed to stop singing like whales. elves don’t touch, because humans have rules about how siblings are allowed to touch but the way elves breed makes it hard for them to understand what kinds of touching are acceptable in what contexts and it’s easier and safer to just never do it than risk letting humans think elves are breaking their taboos. elves put on airs, because if they do it just right then humans will defer to them in the same way they do their own upper classes and they won’t ask too many questions or look too closely. elves have undertones of blue or of green but if they don’t look enough like what an elf is supposed to be they’re called half-elves because it’s easier than explaining the truth.

they trade in magical reagants that grow on their elders and wear sleeves over the tips of their ears and collect momentos of their travels like charm beads and never teach their language to outsiders so outsiders never know when they’re talking shit. they’re foul-mouthed and violent and like to eat crickets and sometimes they start wars because the alternative is explaining to their human allies that actually their city was destroyed because grandpa decided to try to go for a walk and they had to eat him, and it’s always easier to blame other different humans that the friendly humans already hate.

Dildo carnival: a HUGE sex toy giveaway!

Step right up: I’m throwing a DILDO CARNIVAL! 🎪 Forget lousy stuffed animal prizes; this huge giveaway is the biggest of the year, featuring over 60 sex toys plus all kinds of fun attractions.

I’m giving away the best sex toys on earth – everything from vibrators to dildos to butt stuff to penis toys to harnesses to gender products to porn and gift cards! Most prizes are available to international folks as well.

This year, in addition to the usual giveaway widget, I’ll be running an array of mini giveaways on social media! These attractions will be unveiled as the giveaway goes on, so keep your eyes peeled!

Okay, so I just got these proof sheets from Llewellyn Worldwide (the publisher distributing my tarot deck) and I have one set to give away on each of my social media places. The sheets are infant tarot cards, basically — after this, they get laminated and cut and boxed and whatnot.

Fighting Words

Skinny Apple Mug Cake

Lemon Cloud Mug Cake

Strawberries and Cream Mug Cake

Cookies and Cream Mug Cake

Red Velvet Mug Cake

Candy Cane Mug Cake

Smore Mug Cake

Pumpkin Cinnamon Mug Cake

Coffee Cake Mug Cake