friendly neighborhood soft pretzel

I'm pretty sure that as much as anything this skill boils down to frustration tolerance. I see people melting down at the first sign of needing to search for instructions all the time. Teaching them to get through it becomes as much about teaching them to handle the emotional experience of not knowing as anything else.

teamwork makes the dream work. and dreamwork. makes shrek

they should allow you to report posts for being gauche or passé

Maybe I should channel my inner Phineas and Ferb and discover something that doesn't exist this summer.

dump his ass. move to a walkable city. start hormones. get into fiber crafts. dye your hair weird. grow an herb garden. foster a distrustful cat. take a welding class. invite your friends over for tea and cake. get way too into obscure media. explore a new cuisine. lie to the police. protest in the streets. life has so many possibilities don't it?

make out with a frenemy. buy noise cancelling headphones. wear office inappropriate attire. quit a toxic workplace. improve your apartment. start a dog walking sidegig. get on first name basis with your local librarians. bully politicians at town hall meetings. get an unexpected piercing. cultivate farmer's market connections. trade recipes with a gossipy old neighbor. unionize your apartment complex. move to the countryside. let a friend take you larping. keep a sword on your mantleplace

get a tattoo on your 40th birthday. be tempted to buy a loom. do a charity drag show. sue your landlord. buy a really nice kitchen appliance. volunteer at an anarchist soup kitchen. rediscover a tv show you watched when you were 8. spam your state senators. shop at asian grocery stores. do cosplay. buy trans flags in bulk and mount them along the highway. go viral for unexpected reasons. move in with your best friend. make lemoncello with leftover lemon rinds. run for school board membership. explore pegging.

update: i'm delighted to report this post has been responsible for at least one person dumping his ass

update: three four people

give me your most controversial music opinion

the beatles were one ugly guy moving really fast

i love pitting classically trained magic users against self-taught magic users in sci-fi/fantasy but it shouldn’t be snobbish disdain for them it should be terror

“WHO TAUGHT YOU LIGHTNING BEFORE BASIC TELEKINESIS. LOSING MY MIND WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU JUST DID IT. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAST WITH YOUR BARE HANDS”

World Heritage Post

bad news everyone: i have a take

the loneliness epidemic/gen z dead-eyed stare/poor socialization of younger generations and increasing rudeness of older ones is kinda an internet thing and kinda a pandemic thing but it is also the well-meaning chickens of the Stranger Danger movement coming home to roost

something something everybody thinks violent crime is at a high when it’s at a 30 year low, something something training your children to see everyone outside of their family as a threat until you yourself believe it, something something. again this was well-intentioned, people want their kids to be safe, but when you’ve heard “dont talk to strangers” all your life it’s hard to kill that instinct as an adult

but yeah if you’re an early 20-something person, it might be helpful to be directly told this: talk to strangers. that rule only applied when you were a child. you not only should but must talk to strangers