#effort posts

Luckily, my city has a fantastic Parks and Rec department who installed a LifeTrails™ system in at least the park closest to where I live. Designed to help improve activity levels for elderly people, they are very inclusive exercise bars and machines that exist outdoors and are free to the public to use. Each station has signs with Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced exercises using that piece of equipment, showing you how to do the exercise, how many reps and sets to do, and what muscles you will be working out. A sign at the start of the trail explains basic exercise safety tips like not pushing too hard or far and to keep breathing as you expend effort.

(Mine don’t have the little roofs, I think it might be an older set)

On a short walk, I can get a quick full body exercise in before going to bed a few hours later and sleep like a baby. It’s been great for my IBS symptoms. And I’m not completely exhausting myself trying to do a “quick” spinal strengthening yoga session meant for an able-bodied adult without a ton of free time and not for someone trying to NOT use up all their available spoons (and often more than what’s available) on one activity for the day.

This is a real video that you can watch here

I immediately had too many thoughts to keep to myself so these are my notes:

This NY Times article, published in December, provides some pretty bleak statistics on published authors. They chose a sample of 8,000 English-language books, based on their publishers & distribution, and found that - of the authors for whom they could find demographic information - 95% were white.

95 percent!! 

This study is larger than the US, but just as a point of reference - 60% of the US is white. And yet, an incredibly, disproportionately high percentage of English-language mainstream books (published by major publishing houses, and widely distributed) were written by white people.

I bring this up because I think it’s incredibly valuable for writers, especially white writers, to consider the effects of this overwhelming whiteness! I think it matters that, unless you’ve intentionally sought out books by POC, most or maybe all of the writers you’ve read, admired, and wanted to emulate are white people. I think there’s value in considering how your writing has been shaped by this, and how it has affected the writing communities you exist in, and the ways you navigate them.

Timeline chart of the presidents and their wives' comparative ages:

The left chart indicates age difference between each president and his wife (duplicates if there were multiple marriages.) There is an order within the tiers, Harding having been the youngest comparatively, Jackson having the age closest to that of his wife (92 day difference), etc. The right chart states the age at which their wives were wed to them (duplicates for the same reason.) Yellow dot indicates when it was the woman's second (or in Jane Wyman's case third) marriage. There is no order within the tiers themselves.

My info sheets for perhaps less digestible but more all-encompassing information

Yellow highlights used when a member of the marriage was under the age of 18, or when the age difference was larger than one of the person's (always the woman's) age.

Green highlights used when the ages at marriage were the same.

I cannot recommend a power scrubber that has an adjustable-reach handle enough to my fellow spoonies. I got the tub so clean and I just feel like I… I don’t know, folded some laundry?

Mine looks like this, if you aren’t sure what kind of tool I’m talking about:

Thank you so much for asking, @opalite-illusions, love to get an excuse to make these types of posts. They're so fun for me. And sorry for taking so long to reply. I tried to revisit the Klein biography but was so busy this past week that I didn't accomplish as much as I intended. But I think I can give you a decent answer from what I know (and more specifics within his early life.)

I believed I've talked before about a trait that endeared Buchanan to some. His eyes' unique defect (one being nearsighted and the other being farsighted, to my understanding) made it necessary for him to tilt his head and shift his focus entirely upon the person before him, creating the impression that he took a particular interest in the one with whom he was engaging.

Some didn't like him because they would learn that their experience of intimacy was far more of an invention on their end than an actual connection, and feel a sense of rejection. But that is hardly the main factor that caused many to dislike him. It's very easy to pin down why some were polarizing (ex. Jackson's hot temper and extremities) but Buchanan, being a subtler man, is a subtler case.

The reasons are both political and personal. Buchanan certainly had a vanity to him. A perfect example is how he behaved in his college years. Dickinson, the college he attended, was incredibly small and underdeveloped, and the student body, it appears, would mock classmates on the straight and narrow. Buchanan, overcompensating, perhaps by a need to fit in with his peers or the necessity to socially survive college, engaged in misconduct, the severity of which resulted in his expulsion. He begged for readmission, which he attained after enlisting the help of his mentor Reverend John King (he also lived on a King street in Lancaster, this name follows him), but was, naturally, still denied the privilege of speaking at his graduation (which he was elected to do by his fraternity [of sorts, I don't remember exactly what student organization it was.]) His rejection was natural... because he had been expelled(!) He made a fuss, demanding a compromise upon the issue and ultimately getting to speak but not as valedictorian.

This event would foreshadow in a few ways his future political career: Influence from others inducing his conduct, an unbecoming ambition and vanity, and, somewhat, his jump for a compromise.

Politically, he was "wishy-washy," as my friend puts it. Interesting to know, he was raised a staunch Federalist. However, as his career developed as a lawyer in Lancaster, his response to disassociating with his party (that he was differing from increasingly) was to double down and give a "July 4th speech"* that lambasted the Democratic-Republicans. His disagreements with Federalists in some areas caused some Federalist discontent with him as well. For a moment, he felt opposition from both parties. He was elected to Congress as a representative for the growing Federalist/D-R amalgamate faction of Pennsylvania. This history carried into political life as a Democrat, something that, indeed, as you mention in your ask, caused Jackson to dislike him (he did not think he was loyal, even trying to implicate him in the Corrupt Bargain. The accusation was received with resistance from Buchanan and a weak apology. My opinion is that the Corrupt Bargain was hardly real and Buchanan didn't have much to do with any election thievery... but would Jackson have cared lol?) Buchanan was ambitious, uncertain and, personally, I struggle to call him a Jacksonian Democrat. Naturally, those political and personal features made Jackson uncharitable to him. When Polk made Buchanan Secretary of State (the event that triggered Jackson to tell him the North Pole thing ["I would have sent him to the North Pole if we had kept a minister there,") his means of subsequent course correction was to direct Buchanan's power away from where his ambitions led. Buchanan was unhappy. When Buchanan was involved in policy, as he was with some questions of Manifest Destiny, he could express support on an issue (i.e. Canada expansion) one day and reverse it the next time he was engaged on the issue.

After having sought the presidency repeatedly, he was finally nominated by his party. The only reason that the convention was able to settle upon him was because had been the minister to the United Kingdom during the Pierce presidency and, though he faced opposition for his involvement in the failed Ostend Manifesto, he was thus out of the country during Bleeding Kansas and the debate around the Lecompton Constitution, etc. (which he would then go on to have a horrible opinion about lol! Just like Pierce!) I said this all without mentioning that he was also a Doughface. He was absolutely a compromise candidate for a country that was so split that nearly no faction would be sufficiently pleased by anyone. The country was seeing record low voter turnouts in these decades, the country was electing presidents it was unhappy with before they even had the chance to screw up the office. After all, Lincoln, his renowned successor, was so divisive that his election was the straw that broke the camel (Union's) back (unity.)

Good question, very fun. I'll invite all of the ones I like, and whichever ones I'd like to see in a party setting.

James Madison is chronologically the first that I would invite. I think it'd be funny to see him at a party. I think of "nearly gets trampled on the dance floor..." I, myself, will trample him unless he brings Dolley.

Jackson is invited and I hope he leaves cheese around the house in secret spots like he did at the end of his presidency.

Van Buren is invited unless @presidenttyler continues to insist that I have to marry him or he'll summon a deadly fog (please die, Mr. Tyler.)

I would invite William Henry Harrison, but tragically, as I'm sure we've all heard, he is no longer with us </3.

John Tyler is invited unless he tries to insist I marry Martin Van Buren lest a deadly fog be summoned. Also I swear to God he's not allowed to use my bathroom. I hope he and Jackson start fighting (no weapons allowed in my house) and I get to see their skinny bones fall out.

James K Polk is invited. I want him to bring his Lady Presidentress as well. Double invited if he is the presidentress.

Zachary Taylor is invited. His daughter can come too. His daughter's husband cannot come. His daughter's husband's dog, Bonin, can come. The murderer who shares a name with Zachary Taylor's daughter's husband's dog cannot come.

Millard Fillmore is invited. He can bring the whole boiler room with him. It wouldn't be a party without him.

Franklin Pierce is invited, of course. As an old @/deadpresidents posts that I can longer find clarifies, he would indeed be a welcome party guest, even if people on Reddit don't seem to think so (I have beef with 90% of reddit tier lists, save for any of them made by @starlight-tequila.) As I've come to understand, there're no less than 4 fictional interpretations of Pierce where he's being haunted. I request he keeps the haunting at home; I don't want the watchmojo demmons to mess up the vibe.

James Buchanan is invited. I want to see him in his worst outfit, behaving as he did at Dickinson before his expulsion. He needs to bring Harriet too. WRK too, unless I decide that he's also dead.

Andrew Johnson can come because I once saw an image of him smiling.

Ulysses Grant can come. He may play with the non dog animals (unfortunately, they're all just different Martin Van Buren government assigned rodentsonas in a pen.)

As can Hayes. Hayes can bring his wife, Lucy. She actually allowed drinking in the White House on special occasions, so she would not be a party pooper.

Garfield may come, but only as Lucretia's plus one. It's what he deserves. Since Guiteau did so much for Garfield's election (and was basically the president, let's be real, guys) he can come as an honorary president. So can David Rice Atchison, even though that story is complete bs. Dr. Doctor Bliss will be shot on sight by Boston Corbett.

Arthur is invited, but Julia Sand needs to pre-approve everything that he does. Conkling may come as a plus one, but he will go in the pen with the Martin Van Buren government assigned rodentsonas (it's okay, that's where Grant is anyway.)

On no other day would I ever allow Benjamin Harrison and his shortness within my sight, but I just found a song about him and it's stuck in my head, so I think it's only right that he attends 1 single time before my kind feelings toward him dry out.

McKinley is invited. He must sing to me.

Wilson is invited. But I will lock him in a room like a creature. You-know-who gets the key. The second female president, Edith Wilson, may attend.

Warren Harding gets to come. Gaston Means may, as well. Also Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. That's about it. If Nixon were to show up I wouldn't turn him away.