Very true. But, to extrapolate on Plath’s metaphor, you must select the ones that look best and harvest them, dry them to properly preserve them, and store them in a way to prolong their shelf life until you are ready to eat them. Without that planning, they’ll simply rot.

I’m so sorry about your friends,. How painful to lose either, let alone both in such a short time.

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

–Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Not my choice for sure, but since I have to live in it, committing it to memory seemed worth it.

Good to know a few phone numbers even if you aren’t at a protest, though. Everyone should memorize the phone number of at least one partner/family member/friend who lives local to them in case of an emergency. Lawyer is a bonus.

If you cook, bake, brew, anything with food and drink.

Common volume conversions: 3 teaspoons in a tablespoon, 4 tablespoons/2 fluid ounces in a quarter cup, 8 fluid ounces in a cup, 2 cups in a pint, 2 pints in a quart, 4 quarts in a gallon.

Common weight conversions: 28 grams in an ounce, 16 ounces in a pound, 2 pounds and 3(ish) ounces in a kilo.

And common volume to weight conversions based on ingredients you use. For me: 200 grams in a cup of sugar, 125 grams in a cup of AP flour, 6 grams in a tablespoon of cocoa powder.

Makes it a lot easier to halve/double recipes, or use a scale for a volume written recipe.

It’s not about the specific year though, it’s just that the average life expectancy includes infant and child mortality, which used to be a lot higher in most countries. This pulls down the average but there were still plenty of people who lived to 50-60. Our upper life expectancy is higher now, but not 50 years higher.

Feeling like my body is fat and gross and there’s nothing I can do about it. (Even though I know I can.)

Yes, exactly. But also when I have to force quit my browser and it asks me if I want to reopen the tabs, I immediately click no. It’s like I’ve been released from an evil wizard’s curse. Then I can start a fresh tab hoard.

Yeah, I was thinking the 30 from your original post is rookie numbers.

So you hang up and practice the voicemail, and when you call back to leave it, they answer

Okay Satan

Yo I called in sick to work today after I posted this and put in an 8 hour shift on Silksong instead aaaah

wut

Lol why is this so relatable. All or nothing

Not to be dramatic but I would kill for Pepper if she asked

And “sorry can you repeat that?”

I’ve been actively suicidal before and it sucks, so I’m not gonna give you any “permanent solution to a temporary problem” bullshit. But what I learned in my extensive research is that it’s really hard to effectively kill yourself. If anything goes sideways, it’s pretty likely that you not only won’t die but your life will be way way worse. You think you’re unhirable now, just wait until you have a hypoxic brain injury.

As the kids on tiktok were saying for a bit: suicide is cringe, don’t kill yourself

Do you have anyone in your life you trust to talk to about this?

What kinda of things get them banned arbitrarily?

I’m currently in “do a week’s worth of work in 2 days” hyperfocus. Building up my nest egg for the next time my brain says I need to spend several days spending less than 15 minutes on actual work.