Have you ever seen a twitter thread (or, in this case, two!) that so perfectly expressed everything you’d felt over months and months of harassment persistent? With all credit to @blackblobyellowcone, who is clearly amazing and completely gets it– not just why us women write and read the erotica that we do, but the history behind the censorship we, as a gender, have experienced. Bravo.
Sometimes people hit a place in their life where things are going really well. They like their job and are able to be productive at it; they have energy after work to pursue the relationships and activities they enjoy; they’re taking good care of themselves and rarely get sick or have flareups of their chronic health problems; stuff is basically working out. Then a small thing about their routine changes and suddenly they’re barely keeping their head above water.
(This happens to me all the time; it’s approximately my dominant experience of working full-time.)
I think one thing that’s going on here is that there are a bunch of small parts of our daily routine which are doing really important work for our wellbeing. Our commute involves a ten-minute walk along the waterfront and the walking and fresh air are great for our wellbeing (or, alternately, our commute involves no walking and this makes it way more frictionless because walking sucks for us). Our water heater is really good and so we can take half-hour hot showers, which are a critical part of our decompression/recovery time. We sit with our back to the wall so we don’t have to worry about looking productive at work as long as the work all gets done. The store down the street is open really late so late runs for groceries are possible. Our roommate is a chef and so the kitchen is always clean and well-stocked.
It’s useful to think of these things as load-bearing. They’re not just nice – they’re part of your mental architecture, they’re part of what you’re using to thrive. And when they change, life can abruptly get much harder or sometimes just collapse on you entirely. And this is usually unexpected, because it’s hard to notice which parts of your environment and routine are load bearing. I often only notice in hindsight. “Oh,” I say to myself after months of fatigue, “having my own private space was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a scary drop in weight, “being able to keep nutrition shakes next to my bed and drink them in bed was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a sudden struggle to maintain my work productivity, “a quiet corner with my back to the wall was load-bearing.”
When you know what’s important to you, you can fight for it, or at least be equipped to notice right away if it goes and some of your ability to thrive goes with it. When you don’t, or when you’re thinking of all these things as ‘nice things about my life’ rather than ‘load-bearing bits of my flourishing as a person’, you’re not likely to notice the strain created when they vanish until you’re really, really hurting.
Almost two weeks after reading this, and I’m still kind of blown away at what a ridiculously fruitful definition this is. Like I had no idea that load bearing things were a thing that needed to have a word for them, but now I’m like holy shit I’m so glad that there’s now a word I can use to refer to this really important class of Thing.
This is astounding. Load-bearing. Forget spoons, this concept is wonderful. I’m going to update my Spear Theory with this.
When Kara has a particularly bad night she likes to play with kitties. By now, the zoo keepers at National City Zoo don’t bat an eye when they come in in the morning and find her sleeping in a big pile with the Mountain Loins, who love her because she’s so warm. It drives J’onn nuts. Alex just laughs. Cat pays the staff for pictures and keeps an album, but never publishes them.
One thing I’ve learned in life, if you act really self-assured and confident you can pretty much get away with anything.
For example, I’ve watched someone walk on to a plane with no passport. Just walked right on.
Once walked out of a dude’s house with a pair of his pants slung over my shoulder. Did all the usual eye-contact, saying-goodbye movements and noises, just… while stealing his pants. He did not notice.
I told my English teacher that she graded my final paper(I did not turn one in) and that she told me it was well written. She scrambled 3 days trying to find the nonexistent paper, then apologized to me for losing it and gave me a 96%. Confidence is key
my dad’s mate just walked out of a shop with a canoe and didn’t get questioned
Humans are like bees: if they sense you’re an intruder all hell will break loose, but if you get inside the hive they just assume you belong there. Be confident.
Bee confident
This is funny but also true, and a huge tip when traveling. Act like you belong, and you won’t be bothered like other tourists might. Especially on public transportation… do your research ahead of time and look like a disinterested commuter and you’ll blend right in.
Fun Fact about Bees: they use pheromones to communicate and the pheromone to signal ALARMisthe same chemical that makes bananas smell like bananas so if you eat a banana and then breathe on a beehive you will regret it and this seemed relevant when i started writing it
you know whats a good trope? when a character sarcastically says “what should we do? [proposes outlandish and foolish plan]” and the next scene is them mid-execution of said outlandish and foolish plan
Question of Smoke 