I really have no clue what I'm doing

i have a suggestion

I love getting unaccompanied minors (kids flying alone) who so clearly just. Don't want to be here lol. Sometimes I get to know a little of their story, like their parents are divorced, or a family member died and they're heading to the funeral, but usually they just don't want to talk about it and that's fine. But I always treat the flight like it's a challenge to make them smile. I offer them snacks and soda but that's never enough, that's whatever, they could get those from an airport vending machine. Chump change. So then I tell the worst jokes. Just the most embarrassing, kindergarten teacher, annoying dad jokes you can think of. And those always get a groan, or a "Seriously??" And that's my in! Now I can say "Why, what's your idea of a good joke? No, come on hotshot, make your best joke, let's see it." And they hem and they haw but of course they eventually tell me their very best joke because kids are little competitive comedy goldmines. And it's always super funny, so I laugh, and that's where they slip up. Because you know what you almost always do when your joke successfully makes someone laugh? You smile. And I'm like. Gotcha. Rookie move. Now you're going to end up having a good time in spite of yourself. I win.

Did this with an 11yo u.m. today and he said "What did the ghost say to the other ghost?" And I said "What?" "Nothing. Ghosts aren't real."

I think the purest form of love is just wanting someone to notice life with you. "taste this. look at that. hear this song." again and again. until you can't imagine noticing life without them.

side benefit of communal all-gender restrooms is that they may be our best chance to shame cis men into washing their hands

i was in a communal all-gender restroom today and as i was washing my hands a middle-aged man came out of one of the stalls, started to make for the door, clocked me standing at the sinks, and changed course to wash his hands with a real hangdog look on his face

was doing a first aid course and it kept talking about how when applying first aid to a child you have to ask the PARENT for consent and how the child's consent is not enough unless you cannot reach the parent. and then immediately after there was a unit on shaken baby syndrome, and then mentioned abuse as a common source of children getting injured. and they didn't see the irony there. i later asked the instructor what to do about parental consent if the medical emergency was from the parent abusing the child and she was like "you still need to obtain parental consent. you can report the abuse though" not even acknowledging how fucked the whole system is. i hate it here. youth rights now

the best analogy imo for ocd is mosquito bite. its so itchy its driving you crazy and you know scratching it will make it itch so much worse later but you need it to stop right now and scratching it feels so good and even when you dont want to scratch it and you feel like you could handle the itch you cant even stop your hand from scratching the second you stop focusing on not scratching. except ☝️ what if it was inside your brain and instead of an itch it was terrifying overwhelming distress

i can't be the only person who hates being called neurospicy. it's such a weird term. i'm neurodivergent. i'm disabled. call me that.