seonaxus

y’all:

Name-sayers: Don’t gawk at the spellings of uncommon names or mangle them for humor. Make an honest attempt at reading them, and at pronouncing them when you’re informed how to say them.

To start off, some facts:

-White wine is made from sweet pulp inside of the grape (minus the seeds).

-Red wine is made from both the skin and the grape (and the seeds and stems…sometimes? Can’t remember).

-Tannin is the substance found in red wines, coffee, dark chocolate. Tannins are responsible for the bitter taste in those foods.

-Tannins are found in the skin of the grape, as well as the seeds and the stems. Therefore, most red wines will have tannins, versus most whites will not have tannins.

-Red wines vary in level of tannins, depending on variety of grape, climate, and fermentation process. Pinot noir tends to be very low tannin. Shiraz/Syrah, choice of poison for our beloved brunette surgeon, is very heavy on the tannins.

-Some white wines (most commonly Chardonnay) are aged in oak barrels instead of metal containers. Oak barrels have tannins, which seeps into the wine during the fermentation process. That’s why Chardonnays tend to be “drier” aka it has tannins.

-White wines like Sauvingnon Blancs are usually fermented in steel barrels (aka no tannins. Aka usually very fruity and light and sweet).

Your ability to taste tannins is genetic.

There is a genetic marker determining whether your taste cells are sensitive to tannins.

Basically two people can drink the exact same wine and have wildly different reactions because: 1. Person A can’t taste tannins, so they taste the actual wine flavor. 2. Person B can taste tannins, and that tends to overpower ALL the other flavors in the wine. Basically all they taste is tannins and none of the wine.

I am super tannin sensitive, so if I drink a wine like Cabernet Sauvignon (very tannin heavy, aka “very dry”, it tastes like bitter ethanol alcohol to me, whereas my best friend can’t taste tannins so the same wine is maybe a little bitter but they can actually taste the grape and different flavors. To her, a wine like Sauv Blanc is too sweet, tastes like sugar water. But to me it tastes good.

So unless it’s the taste of the alcohol or all wines you hate, chances are you might hate the taste of red wine, especially the heavier red wines, because taste the tannin overpowers everything else. And all you taste is bitter bitter ethanol bitter more ethanol. 

More tannin info: -Tannins bind to fat.

-This is why tannin heavy wines are recommended with fatty foods (Shiraz and steak). Whenever you eat food with high fat content, the fat builds up on your tongue. A sip of red wine will bind with the fat on your tongue and clear it away. That’s why the sip of wine between bites of fat heavy foods is considered a palate cleanser.

-By that logic, this is why white wines are recommended with low fat foods, like fish. Salmon is fattier than most fish, which is why Chardonnay (tannin heavy white wine) or Pinot Noir (low tannin red wine) is recommended with salmon.

-People who are sensitive to tannins can drink tannin heavy red wines with fatty food and generally the wine won’t taste gross. The fat on your tongue (from that steak) will bind with the tannin and neutralize the tannin taste. Aka the only time I ever drink Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz is with a steak or heavy, creamy pasta. Aka never bc I don’t often eat either.

-The reason dairy helps coffee taste better is because the fat in milk/creams binds with the tannins in coffee and neutralizes the bitter taste. This is why people who can’t taste tannins can generally drink coffee black without milk (sugar is a different story). It’s also why almond milk in coffee is the worst idea (almond milk is already bitter and has no fat).

More wine facts: -90% of the “aromas” of wine are marketing BS

-You know the labels that say like “cherry with a hint of blackberry?” There’s no real way to infuse cherry or blackberry into grape wine without screwing with the fermentation process. It’s all created by the wine marketing industry to sell you win. Sometimes if you smell cherry before you drink the wine, you might taste it in the wine (because majority of flavor comes from smell). Or if you think there is cherry flavor in the wine, your brain can trick your taste buds into tasting it.

-The only true flavors found in real grape wine are grapes (obviously), oak/earthy flavor (the barrels), vanilla (barrels, oak sticks), tannins. (There are a few others but can’t remember. I think maybe cinnamon?).

-People’s perception of wine often affect how good it tastes to them. Social psychology studies show that people will rate the exact same wine differently if they’re told the wines are different in price. (They rated the more expensive wine as tastier).

today, friday 13th, i had two things scheduled to happen. 1 was taking my drivers test (not really relevant to the purgatory thing but i feel the need to include it on the basis of friday 13th fuckery), 2 was picking up my diploma. as it turns out, somewhere between home and the dmv a taillight went out, so the administrator wouldnt let me take the test, and rescheduled me to NOVEMBER. so thats how my 9am went. 

with that under our hats, me and my mom went to find my diploma. 

it started bad. google maps did not recognize the address as existing. it took us several tries to convince it there was a west school avenue in anywhere but california, and when we finally did, the street names didn’t match. some of them just didn’t match the physical signs, but others changed or disappeared in the map itself. and as we approached, we discovered that the facility we were looking for was not only off the road, but the only way to get to it was through a backwoods neighborhood, inhabited EXCLUSIVELY by hicks sitting on their porches and judging us for some unknown sin. 

finally, google says we’ve arrived. surely not, we whisper. please no. jesus christ. we’re faced with what appears to be a small penitentiary, the front of which is plain white with massive blinded windows, and the only parking in sight is through a gigantic chain-link fence. there is no signage anywhere whatsoever to indicate whether we’re allowed in, but there’s nowhere else to stop without blocking the teeny little road, so we pull in. the energy of this place is absolutely befuckened. we’re talking deserted. the parking lot is jam-packed, but there’s not a human in sight. it’s not a closed building either, more like a campus, with dozens of doors opening onto little courtyard areas. the doors are all either unmarked or covered in seemingly arbitrary words and numbers. some of them have strangely large locks and no knobs. some of them have keypads. 

well by now we’re both thoroughly fuckin spooked, so my mom calls my dad to explain we were gonna be a little uh late and i go to find. something. anything. civilization, perhaps. i find a little hallway to the front of the building, where i can now see a gigantic sign declaring the name of the facility. the letters are two feet tall, but the exact same color as the roofing behind them. they are not faded. they were painted that way. beneath them is an easily 4-meter-tall arched metal gate, which is the only opening on the entire front of the otherwise clean building, and, therefore, logically represents the main entrance. 

directly inside and left of the gate is a door with a cartoonishly large keypad lock and a sign which reads ‘NOT AN ENTRANCE.’ there are no arrows and no directions. 

i turn around and head the opposite direction, down a long hall. at the end of it is a set of double doors which are shrouded in darkness. i’m about 30 feet away when there’s a flicker of movement behind the doors. then, out of the shadows, steps an old hick. “you look lost.” he says. “y-eAh” i reply. he enquires what i’m there for, and i explain my diploma. he directs me to a door next to a blue car. there is no logical way for the car to be inside the buildings courtyard, but it is no less next to a door. as i turn to see where i’m being directed, a young woman seemingly materializes in the middle of the hallway perpendicular to us, walking briskly. without slowing she turns to me, says “she’s making a pb&j sandwich,” and carries on her way. when i turn around the man is gone. when i turn back, she’s gone too. i run for my mom. 

ngl at this point im dead fucking sure she wont be where i left her and when i find her the car will be gone and we’ll be trapped in this hellhole if we don’t get out before sunset, but she’s there, and we go and enter the door. inside we can hear idle chatter from an adjacent office. after a few seconds a woman comes out. she does not ask who we are. she asks whose diploma we want. we tell her mine. she pulls it out of a stack of loose paper, hands it to us without another solitary word, and bids us farewell. 

FRESH NEW INCREDIBLES TRAILER

straighten your back

go pee goddAMN IT STOP HOLDING IT

go take your meds if you need to

drink some water

go get a snack if you havent eaten in a while

maybe wander around the house/stretch a little if you’ve been sat at the computer a while (artists especially: sTRETCH THOSE WRISTS)

reply to that text/message from earlier you’d forgotten about

woman then makes deal with witch and offers her first born for like, riches or something

woman dumps demon baby on witch, absconds with her winnings and leaves witch and demon fighting for custody