mwah

How did it get up there

It’s difficult to tell - typically light fixtures are installed using some combination of screws and brackets to affix them to the wall, but in this case the actual point of connection is obscured by a cat.

so last year during a period of intense suicidal depression i made this necklace that i always wear, right, and the thing is it's genuinely brought me a lot of comfort and relief and i've developed a strong sentimental attachment to it, to the point that i can inarguably state that it's had a net positive effect on my mental wellbeing. however i did now just have to stop to almost throw up laughing because i realised that i've succumbed to the amulet.

if you spend your life bitching and complaining about the fact people are 'expected' to engage in the dreaded pointless banal '''small talk''' instead of learning to trade pleasantries with the people around you, you will never know the true and heady joy of doing a dumb bit with a complete stranger and as a result your soul will remain small

#my favorite bit is when i wear my wrist braces in public and someone asks if I got hurt#and I tell them something patently insane #'I got into a Kung Fu Battle with the local canada geese' insane #and realizing that We Are Playing A Game #they will Yes And me #'Oh yeah they've been taking lessons from the squirrels' they nod #and within two minutes the lady cutting my fabric at the quilt store and I have a whole bit about the urban animals all being in rival dojo #The grandma behind me chimes in that the fat raccoons under her porch must be doing Sumo

I think part of getting better is complete ego death. Like you’re not above setting a timer for 5 minutes and focusing on a task. You’re not above doing a very simple 3 minute workout to start. You’re not above reading for 10 minutes a day when you first get out of your reading slump, even if you used to read for hours. You’re not above starting slow and then building up to where you want to be/where you once were. What you are above is total inertia. Doing something really is better than doing nothing. Radically accept where you are, radically accept your limits, and go from there. Don’t let your ego get in the way.

this is going around again and the tags are full of people talking about printing it out to put in their breakroom or cubicle or sending it to their coworkers, which fills me with great joy. vast diversity of professions represented also. zoos. labs. summer camps. restaurants. garden centers. libraries. schools. many reports from the brave warriors of assorted retail. a truth universally acknowledged: if there is a sign a customer will not read it <3 and they don't read emails either <3

a thought for handling "can't tell if using personal examples to relate to somebody's situation is helping or making me look self-centered" is to bring the personal examples back to the situation of the person you're talking to. name why their thing reminded you of your thing ("it made me feel alone/scared/angry/abandoned/whatever") and then ask if you're on the mark with the parallel or not. possibly straight up tell them that you're not trying to make the conversation about yourself; you are trying to see if you are reading what they're going through right. connect the dots for them of what you were trying to accomplish by sharing your personal anecdote so they can tell you if it's helpful or not