#verbforverb

Oh gosh don’t worry about it! I was happy for everyone who was able to come, but I definitely didn’t EXPECT anyone to come, especially given who knows what time it was over there. 

Sparkle Sparkle, @verbforverb !  I took your prompt of Mina 'helping' Haruka plan a date. Ficlet under the cut:

Where Are You Finding These it's hard enough to get short enough legs even in womenswear

I don’t know if you’re looking for an answer, but I’m answering just in case! Keep in mind that I can only speak from experience, and also that my experience is strictly American.

The two big things that help me find pants are 1) primarily shopping in young men’s/teen sections and stores, and 2) not fucking with anything that has a size label instead of a waist and inseam measurement. #2 is hugely helpful when you need one of the measurements in a less common size, because it’s much easier to glance through and see “Oh, 31 is the lowest number in this section, I’ll move on” than to try and figure out what s/m/l etc means for a particular item (there is still variation I find in how things fit with the numbers, but it’s better, it mostly has to do with the material rather than whatever dice roll other sizing goes by), AND pants that measure that way pretty much always have more sizes available. 

For #1, I should also note that the more “fashionable” a store is, the more likely it is to have smaller sizes. This is more drastic for waist sizes, but it reflects in the inseam too. For example, Express runs a lot smaller than your typical JC Penny menswear (though don’t discount the boy’s section, for small stuff there can not only be great fits, but things like suit pieces can be much cheaper). If there’s an H&M near you, I’ve found their size range is really good without being as expensive. 

I didn’t even think about it this way, but you’re right--it’s so bizarre to me when people can’t wrap their head around the idea of the same text being taken multiple ways by multiple people. How do you even live without the idea of midrash? I always thought it was so weird in college when people in my lit classes would be like, “But what is it SUPPOSED to mean?” genuinely wanting Word of God type clarification, when honestly, I don’t ever want that! I’m very sola scriptura about my text interpretation, most of the time. 

I can only assume being so used to the idea that people can take the literal words of God, and be like, “No no this is what it means” “no, THIS is what it means” and they can both be right and both be wrong. It’s kind of similar to another thing I love about Judaism, that things are the Tanach are TRUE, even if they aren’t strictly FACTUAL. I was never taught that Jonah was like, a literal man getting swallowed by a literal fish, but I was taught that the story is TRUE. As an adult, I think the story is about our relationship with God, how we cannot sometimes avoid being the person we are meant to be, how our role in the tapestry of the universe is more important than our individual desires. 

The things we live our lives by, whether they be religious texts or stories or whatever, are as much personal to us as they are anything else, and I think it’s so important to realize that our window to the world informs our view, and looking out of other windows has immense value. 

And I too, get SUPER WRAPPED UP in my own readings, in Torah, in fiction, in TV, whatever, but I guess I’m just used enough to sitting in Torah study listening to someone else’s reading and going, “I mean, okay, I guess” and having them do the same, that even the idea of fanon being taken as gospel offends me on some base level. I can LEARN something from someone else’s reading, even if I don’t like. I can have an emotional response to something without that emotional response being a sign of my ineffable correctness. 

let me add, I am NOT perfect, either, in any way. When I first got onto tumblr I too drank the Social Righteousness juice and found myself using good ideals--inclusivity, diversity, representation, anti-racism, etc--as fucking bludgeons. I was verbally clever, so using those things I could make myself “right”. But when I searched my motivations, what were they really? Was I seeking to improve the world? Or was I seeking for my way of seeing, you know, a fictional fucking character, to be the ‘correct and morally upright’ one? It’s embarrassing and so easy to fall into and I’m glad I grew up a bit. Once I came to, I was pretty deeply ashamed, since I fucking know better,  and it quickly becomes Cry Wolf. 

I haven’t watched any Eurovision related because I don’t know, it’s just a lot of me with everything being wrong in a way that I confess I think is odd even in myself. My mom was asking if we were going to have our Eurovision party this year, and i was basically like, “I don’t think we’re having it again until things are Right again” so WHO KNOWS MAN but it is a weird empty hole in the vein of THings I Really Look FOrward To 

regrettably, homemade (well made) puff pastry is better than the frozen stuff. This is just an unfortunate truth of life, and OH HOW I DESPERATELY WISH it were not true, because making puff pastry is a son of a bitch. 

That being said, there is a cost to everything in life, and one may not find that it is worth it to you, personally, to go ahead and make it. It is difficult and time consuming to make honest to god puff pastry, and if you’re making something filled, like a cream horn or a wellington...you may not notice.