you deserve compassion, always

Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

between friends has become a

cultural icon.

An antiviral pill has, for the first time, been shown to prevent COVID-19 in people exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus at home, according to trial results published today in the New England Journal of Medicine1. The drug could be a lifeline for those who still face real danger from the virus, such as care-home residents or transplant recipients on immune-suppressing medication.

And there are so many articles and videos and discussions. Like, the scientific community is buzzing about this.

So much research will have to be redone because the data was absolutely compromised, off by orders of magnitude, by using standard lab gloves.

The world is probably not horrifically contaminated by microplastics. Sterile laboratories, however, are contaminated by latex and nitrile gloves.

“The first rule of love,” her mother says, voice crackling over the phone, “is to never take more than they can give.”

Finola’s eyes dart to the shoebox under her bed and then back out the dorm window. Her room is on the second floor this year and she can see more of the trees than she can see of the grassy space preceding the dining hall. “I know, Mom.”

“Remember.” Her mother’s voice is sharp and Finola can almost see her heavy, thick brows lowering until shadows cover her eyes. “No clothing. No bags. Never any jewelry.”

Finola wraps her free arm around her waist and closes her eyes. The light breeze rolling through the window smells like eucalyptus and mint. Her mouth waters. “I know, Mom.”

“Those are the big things,” her mother says, “but remember that too many of the small things can amount to a big thing.”

The shoebox under the bed gleams in a stray ray of light. Finola licks her lips. “I know, but—I need something. I have to. I feel like she’ll disappear if I don’t.” The words are inadequate for the sick fear in her stomach each time she loses sight of her. The horrible certainty that something bad will happen if she’s not by her side. She rubs a hand over her mouth.

Her mother’s tongue clicks. “That’s old instincts, Finola. Fight it. You don’t want your father and I to pull you out of school, do you?”

The memory of watching her high school fade out of sight surfaces and, in that moment, she’s sixteen again. She can feel her heart beating too fast, the scream ripping out of her throat, the way the ropes chafed her wrists. She can smell her first love’s perfume, cloying peach, in the air. She can feel their separation like a death in the pit of her stomach, radiating up into her chest, her throat, her head.

1. Do not do age verification.

Oh no I dropped my link, what a horrible thing! Sure hope this doesn't get reblogged until it reaches users from the UK and Brazil!

@vividaway​ Randall Munroe is an internet cartoonist who runs the ‘xkcd’ online comic series, which has run from 2006 up to today, with new comics every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Xkcd isn’t an ongoing story, just a series of funny, wholesome, depressing, or oddly scientifically informative comics.

In 2010, Randall’s fiance was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. He didn’t share too many details at first, but things tended to bleed into his comics: sometimes funny, sometimes sad.

Often in this time, other cartoonists would write in guest comics for Randall, or he’d put in short filler pieces, to try and fill space while nonstop cancer treatments took up most of his time.

In 2012, he posted a comic called ‘Two Years’, about the time since the diagnosis. It’s the one that hasn’t yet been posted here (although parts of it are included in the other comics), and it commemorates some of the things that had happened in the two years since the diagnosis.

There are representations of Randall and his fiance being together for her treatment, worrying together, traveling the world, and getting married. It’s still depressing, but it’s a lot more hopeful, showing how they’ve still managed to have happy moments together, and things will still get better.

Themes of cancer continued in xkcd, but they increasingly became less about fear and nihilism, and more about hope, or just cool facts related to cancer.

At the top of this post is the comic posted in 2017: Seven Years. In it, Randall and his wife are traveling more, trying to have fun and continue old and new hobbies, with cancer ever-present in the background of it all. At the end, the two of them observe the 2017 solar eclipse, and despite all the uncertainty that comes with the thought of another seven years, agree to watch the 2024 eclipse together too.

There are just about no cancer comics between that one and the most recent comic, the one I posted: Ten Years, written in 2020. It’s by far the most hopeful of the three in the little series: the two of them are happy, they’re playing with rabbits and riding on handcarts and going out hiking and stargazing, together. At the end, Ten Years breaks the format with a conversation in which they talk about how unbelievable it is that it’s been so long, and share their worries as well as their hopes. It even ends on a much more lighthearted joke about immortality.

It’s a good comic. Definitely in my top two comics wherein internet cartoonists express emotions about an illness suffered by their wife.

The first time I reblogged this it was three years after large bastard's heart attack and quad bypass and one year after his transplant.

Now it has been five years since his transplant, and seven years since his bypass.

eclipses and drove to see

the aurora too.

2017, seeing the eclipse in Oregon. 2019, 9 months after bypass. 2022, 9 months after transplant. 2024, seeing the eclipse in Texas. 2024, the Aurora in California.