Phenyx's Nest

short form writers look at people writing 100k+ fics as though this is some sort of talent given as part of a fae bargain, that the commitment required shows some sort of ungodly mental fortitude.

LET'S DO THE FORK IN THE GARBAGE DISPOSAL

LET'S DO THE FORK IN THE GARBAGE DISPOSAL

#1. You should be able to lay down on the floor (face down or back) and be able to get up without your hands. If you can't? Spend a little bit every day just doing that, laying on the floor and getting up again no hands style, then laying down again (you'd be surprised how fast it wears you out after a few times)

#2. You should be able to get up out of a chair without using your hands or grabbing on to anything. Can't? Fucking start training mother fucker! Just a few uppies every day could save your damn life when you get older!

#3. You should be able to turn your neck to the side without twisting your upper body in the same direction, you should be able to turn your head freely without moving your shoulders, chest or torso! Start looking up loosy goosy neck exercises! It makes such a HUGE difference!

#4. You should be able to motherfucking stand on one foot and keep your balance for longer then 15 seconds. Haha sounds easy right? Thats what I thought when I tried after watching that vid, i was horrified to find how hard it was! I started doing "one leggy style" standing any chance I got, when I'm in line somewhere, when I'm watching a video... just do a few rounds of 10 seconds on each leg for like 5 min every day!

You get older and you think you still have all the same limberness as you did when you were 8, but whens the last fucking time you ran around and played like an 8 year old? You loose that flexibility so subtlety and then one day when you need it? BAM ITS GONE

Fancy and I lay in the grass near the neighbor's yard at 2:00 a.m. The grass is wet, the insects are loud. I sing a sad song to her but change the words at the last minute.

I'm somewhat hard of hearing. She responds to the sound of a bird's feet as it hops up a branch. I thrive on color, work with it every day, and there's a lot of it she cannot see. Her eyes detect motion faster than the refresh rate of my TV. I can taste sweetness better than she can, but she has a whole wilderness of umami open to her that I can't even imagine. She reads the past with her nose, myriad detailed stories unfold for her in a form of chronological and spatial storytelling I will never experience. I can just ask where Daddy has been. I feel and grasp with my sensitive hands, my skin senses temperature everywhere, but through whiskers and fur, she feels the motion of the air across her entire body.

I can see the birds on the power lines at the end of the street clearly.

I'm guessing wildly at this, but this is the Large Magellanic Cloud, the best photo I could find showing visibility up to magnitude 8.

Then my approximation of a human view at magnitude 6 from a dark sky site.

Then the same for a cat with blurry vision who can't see all the colors.

Worse than napkin math, but resources for this were strangely hard to find, and I'm not an expert, so don't take any of this as accurate.

But any way you cut it, her sky is so bright and everything is soft and blurred together, like trying to concentrate on something in a dream.

The stars don't move or smell like anything. She doesn't look up while we are outside. I'd be kind of spooked if she did. Instead of stargazing, she spends half an hour cataloging various pisses from the strays and listening to what I think is the sound of the geckos that live in the stonework and creepers.

I cannot perceive these things, but they matter to her, and from the way she lies on the needlework I'm trying to finish, I know she cares about my interests also. The geckos, the pissing, the sewing, the stars, it is all equally important. It all merges in a soft, blurry, bright mass.

her name was Marsha P Johnson, and we have her to thank for so much.

remember, the first Pride was a riot, and she was one of the brave souls who endured it to help carve the path which so many of us walk today. she helped found several activist groups regarding LGBT safety and wellbeing. and she was absolutely radiant, too.

No one, *ever*, tried to persuade me to transition.