untagged nsfw and venting randomly !

Some things you can do to save space include growing plants in stackable towers rather than flat rows. Not everything can grow this way, but growing herbs or even strawberries or some kinds of tomatoes in them can save a lot of space. Bonus points if you can get some vertical vining plants like beans or tomatoes to grow up the sides of them to maximize the space used.

Hanging planters can also be used for things like tomatoes, herbs, some berries, etc. The people who grew up watching TV in the 2000s may remember ads for the topsy-turvy tomato planter. I can’t vouch for the effectiveness of them, but it may be good inspiration for creative DIY hanging planters.

Many people don’t seem to know this (to be fair, it’s not very intuitive), but small melons and gourds can be grown vertically on a trellis. You will need pantyhose or something else that can act like a sling for when the fruit gets large enough, and you’ll also want to make sure the trellis is very sturdy. Here is an example of a watermelon growing on a trellis, with squash growing in the background:

Other good options that require a bit more DIY are hydroponics towers and walls. It’s basically just a series of pipes with holes for plants to grow out of. The only downside is they will require very regular fertilization and supplementation with other micronutrients that are essential for plant growth, because the plants are typically grown in either a non-nutritious medium like coconut coir or nothing at all.

Planter walls are the next step down, basically just building shelves with pots in them to fill with soil. Put these on a wall that gets good morning sun and some afternoon sunlight for best results. These and hydroponics both also have the advantage of being able to hook up to your gutters so that rainwater will go towards watering your plants rather than just being wasted.

If you want to get really fancy, aquaponics is the next step up. With aquaponics, you create a system that circulates water between plants and a tank full of fish. The fish waste provides fertilizer for the plants, and the plants help filter out the waste so the water stays cleaner. I’ve heard they’re a bit tricky to establish, but once you find the right balance, all you’ll need to do is feed the fish. This has the added bonus of providing a source of fish for people who can’t eat things like nuts and legumes but need protein. Here is a link to an article explaining what aquaponics is, how it works, and how it differs from hydroponics.

Most of us can’t do it ever even if we use all our space perfectly. Some of us can do it after years of building those skills, and we might still have bad years. And in the end, what does it get us? Self-reliance is a right-wing preppers dream but it isn’t what we should be aiming for.

If we’re thinking about collective survival and we’re looking at food as part of that survival, there’s two things that work:

Start a community garden. Bring together the resources, time and skills by getting together in a big group. 

Or learn to grow a few crops really well and share them with all your friends. 

If you have a lot of nice soil and can do physically exhausting work? Potatoes, pumpkins, zucchini.

If you have a green house? SOOOO many tomatoes. Fruits that require warmth. etc.

Are you a gardening nerd with time and an interest in learning complicated plants? Take on the challenges like broccoli, cauliflower and depending on your needs, location and options, maybe cannabis? Or build a permaculture garden if that’s your thing.

If you have a balcony or window sill or prefer to do light work in high mobile planters due to limited space or mobility? Leafy greens, herbs, radishes, carrots, maybe a small tomato plant.

My contribution for @poketcg-art's Hoenn redraw (or in my case, repaint) project. Glad I got a chance to break out my paints for the first time in over a year and had a lot of fun with this one!

Original card by Misa Tsutsui

My worst fear coming true in real life was less unpleasant than the anxiety and panic attacks I had been struggling with every day just THINKING about my worst fear. When it actually happened, I rated the worst fear as a 4/7 discomfort, and a really bad mental health day as a 7/7.

Having a few rough days did not mean that all was lost and I was at the bottom again. Recovery isn’t linear and setbacks are normal and should be expected, even years after recovery. It does not mean that you’re starting all over and it isn’t a sign that something is going wrong.

I was not capable of letting a lot of things go when I first started treatment. It would have been like asking someone with a broken leg to run a 10k. Letting things go takes time and exercise when you’re struggling with OCD, just like healing and strengthening a broken leg takes time and exercise. Start as small as you have to and advance to bigger things. You can get very strong if you keep practicing, and you will feel a huge positive difference in your day-to-day life.

Every time you push against what your OCD wants you to do, you get a little stronger. The strength adds up and it is crucial for getting out of the OCD cycles and living a better life.

Feeling anger at myself and hating my thoughts and fears didn’t change them. I wasn’t wrong to feel that way, but it didn’t make any positive difference, it just felt bad. What actually made things better was acting in opposition to my obsessive thoughts and doing the exact things I was afraid of doing.

Magical thinking compulsions are just as harmful to the brain as physical compulsions. I had to realize when I was using magical thinking, and then purposefully act in opposition to it. This was very tricky but I was able to do it with practice and guidance from an OCD therapist.

Not every therapist is trained to help someone recover from OCD. Different therapists have different specialties and areas of experience, and a treatment that works well against a different disorder could be unhelpful against OCD.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

Rainbow Creature Universe

really good tiktok

Transcript:

But I have made mistakes in the past.

When I was in high school, the cost of these mistakes (usually an accidental overstep of boundaries or a misinterpreted situation or just displaying ND traits) was social ostracization. My former friends spread rumors about me around school so nobody wanted to be friends with me. I was a social outcast for things that were simple mistakes or just being autistic.

I was accused of sexually abusing a friend because I hugged her and acted flirty with her when we’d been play flirting for months. I was accused of being a transphobe because I stumbled often learning my partner’s they/them pronouns. I was accused of being abusive for playfully punching people in the arm. I was forced into an intervention groupchat where all my “friends” joined forces to tell me how bad of a person I was and how they didn’t want to be friends with me anymore.

On top of that, I grew up in an environment where I was rarely given the benefit of the doubt. Any misstep had to be actively malicious on my part. Other kids, teachers, even my parents always assumed I was the one causing problems for no reason.

And with being introduced to social justice through tumblr and learning through shame, it’s no wonder I developed moral OCD.

Along with being a Vivziepop fan and seeing people bring up stuff she did or said like 10-15 years ago as a “gotcha” and constantly harassing her and her fans about it… Yeah.

I have this deep, debilitating fear that when l finally put stuff out under my real name, when I finally gain traction, those same people who smeared me all those years ago are going to come out of the woodworks again. And nowadays, with the lack of nuance and critical thinking skills among the general population, I fear being harassed and made a pariah for every single mistake I’ve ever made.

I already got chased off tiktok basically because I said “hey saying you want/someone should get an abortion specifically because the kid might have a non-life threatening disability like Down’s syndrome is ableist actually” and people accused me of being a Trump supporter and a pro-lifer.

I’m so, so worried about all of this coming up again. I’ve even tried drafting a post to pin as an overarching apology/repentance for all my missteps. I’m so afraid of putting myself out there now because of this.

I’m not seeking reassurance because I know it’s bad, I’m just seeking a place to throw all this. Maybe this is my apology? I dunno. It’s nice to have a dumpster for this.

I'm really sorry you're going through that!