Catholicism is just: believing everyone is worth saving, prayer beads and candles, seeing God in nature, seeing God in yourself, in others, in bread and wine, the sea and the stars are a reflection of our mother, there is divinity in the disgusting, God is not some abstract idea, he is real and touches you physically, he crawls inside you and you are made holy, the dead are your family, you have never felt more loved by God, you have never felt more hated by something else you can’t place, what even is catholic guilt, if this is guilt I’m feeling I never want to be absolved, I need to be forgiven and I already am, the world tells me I don’t need Him, but I’m sick to my bones with the ache of it.
Emergency cleaning: Unfuck your whole house in the shortest time possible
So, your landlord/parents/home inspector/favorite movie star is dropping by, and your place is a disaster. You don’t have much time to clean it up. You’re in emergency mode. Let’s get started.
Don’t panic. Panic leads to fear, fear leads to procrastination, procrastination leads to the dark side. You can do this, but you have to stay calm.
Unlike maintenance cleaning, we’re not looking to completely unfuck one space at a time. Instead, we want to decrease the overall mess in stages, spread evenly across the whole area that we’re concerned about. If you think your home is at Level 10 filth, we want to bring the whole thing down to a Level 9, and then down from there. One really clean spot in an otherwise messy home is not going to be helpful here.
Get prepared. You’ll want to shut the computer down (or turn the modem off if you need your computer to play music). Trust me. Get your music going. Gather up trash bags, your vacuum and mop, some rags or paper towel, sponges, and other cleaning supplies. Use what you have on hand. Don’t get distracted running to the store and spending an hour browsing cleaning supplies. A multi-purpose cleaning concentrate or a jug of vinegar will be just fine.
Breaks are very important. Depending on your time constraints, work in 20/10s (20 minutes working, 10-minute break) or 45/15s. But take breaks because otherwise you’re marathoning, and marathon cleaning is no one’s friend. Keep hydrated, don’t forget to eat, and check in with yourself frequently to make sure you’re physically doing OK.
Make your bed. This will be your home base if you get overwhelmed or need somewhere clear to take a break.
Start with the garbage. Going from room to room, throw out anything that is obvious trash. Once you fill a bag, take it out. Repeat as many times as necessary.
Move on to dishes. Gather the dishes from all over your house and bring them to the kitchen. If you can, start them soaking in a sink of hot, soapy water or start loading the dishwasher. After the dishes are all in one place, spend one 20/10 getting started getting them under control.
Now it’s time for your flat surfaces. Countertops, tables, dresser tops, etc. Clear them off and wipe them down. Don’t get distracted in too much sorting and organizing. We’re in crisis mode here. There will be time to get in-depth once this is all done. The same applies to cabinets and closets. Unless you have reason to believe people will be opening closed doors, leave these alone for now.
Attack the floordrobe and shoe pile. Get your clothes either put away or in the hamper. Start a load of laundry if you need to, but keep in mind that laundry and dishes have three steps: wash, dry, and put it away, goddammit!
Get random stuff up off the floors. If something is trash-worthy, throw it away now rather than just move it around a bunch of times. Otherwise, put stuff where it belongs.
Take another 20/10 or 45/15 to catch up on more dishes, if needed.
Head into the bathroom. Pour some cleaner in the toilet bowl, fill the sink with hot water and cleaner, and either spray the tub and shower with cleaner, or fill the tub up with some hot water and add cleaner and let it soak. Put everything away that’s out and shouldn’t be, clean the mirror, counters, and toilet seat. Sweep or dry mop the floor. Wipe down the sink and tub/shower, and give the toilet bowl a scrub. Mop the floor.
Sweep and mop the kitchen floor.
Vacuum everything you can, and sweep everything you can’t.
Walk outside of your house (don’t lock yourself out, please). Walk back in and see what catches your eye first. Go and deal with that.
If you’re being inspected or your landlord is coming in for repairs, spend time on whatever area they’ll be focusing on.
Give the whole place one more once-over and pay attention to anything you’ve missed so far.
It’s an old trick, but if your place is a little funky-smelling, put a pan of water on the stove on low heat and add some citrus or cinnamon or vanilla. Don’t leave it unattended or forget about it.
Take a shower, put on something clean, and eat something.
You can do this. It’s overwhelming, yes, but it is not impossible. You just need to do it. You have a list. You have directions. You have a whole bunch of Internet strangers who have been there before and who are cheering you on. You can do this, but you need to get started.
the number of times in my past that I desperately wanted/needed someone to sit me down and tell me this stuff. I will never get back the hours and hours lost to headless-chicken mode, but it’s nice to know that in the last year I’ve learned so many coping mechanisms :D
Intelligent alien species based on bugs but specifically those moths that don’t have mouths and only live for a week after they pupate. This species’ whole conscious life is actually in the larval phase; larvae are the ones considered people, larvae are the ones with conscious and complex brains who build society, and each instar of the larva is treated as a different phase of life. Larvae become emotionally and socially and cognitively mature without ever becoming sexually mature. When they pupate, they metamorphose into something different and strange and close to mindless, with no mouth and no digestive system, whose only instincts are to mate and then quickly die. Metamorphosis is treated, functionally, like a person’s death, and the imago phase is a kind of proto-afterlife of majestic flight and the continuation of the species. Birth and death inextricably intertwined. Sex is not something people do during their lives, it’s a thing that is done as an imago after you’ve passed on from your life but before you return to the soil in death. Resultant eggs are collected by family members to raise. I think this would be fun.
What helped me write trauma better is remembering that the nervous system learns predictions. If danger used to come after quiet, calm can feel threatening. If kindness used to come with a price, kindness can feel suspicious. So healing is not just “they know they’re safe now.” Healing is the slow, annoying, deeply unfair process of teaching the body that the old prediction is not always the present truth.
I wish that critics had half as much to say about Mary Price as they do about a certain other Mary in Mansfield Park, because the fact that Fanny has lost a sibling--one she was close to, no less--is actually quite important to understanding her character.
In the third volume of Mansfield Park, quite late in the novel, after we've spent all this time in Fanny's head, getting to know her quite closely, we learn out of nowhere that one of her siblings died years ago.
As she [Fanny] now sat looking at Betsey, she could not but think particularly of another sister, a very pretty little girl, whom she had left there not much younger when she went into Northamptonshire, who had died a few years afterwards. There had been something remarkably amiable about her. Fanny in those early days had preferred her to Susan; and when the news of her death had at last reached Mansfield, had for a short time been quite afflicted. The sight of Betsey brought the image of little Mary back again, but she would not have pained her mother by alluding to her for the world.
This is what we know: Mary Price is around four or five (about a year younger than Susan, the second Price sister) when ten-year-old Fanny leaves Portsmouth. Of the two younger sisters (Betsey wouldn't have been born yet), Fanny is closer to her. We know that Fanny while still at home is in the role of "playfellow, instructress, and nurse" to her younger siblings, which should give us something of an idea of what her and Mary's relationship would be like. Fanny finds her "remarkably amiable," a precious quality in a world full of people who aren't kind to someone like her. But a few years after Fanny leaves home, Mary dies, probably around age seven or eight. It's unclear what she dies of, besides that it's an illness that lasts at least six weeks.
Fanny, who might be around thirteen or fourteen by then, does not get to go back home even to see her dying sister. She is "quite afflicted" at this loss, but only "for a short time." Knowing Fanny, I don't think that this indicates a lack of love for her sister. I think it's more likely that Mrs. Norris or whoever probably got on her case about grieving too obviously. Isn't she over that all ready? It was just a sister whom she hardly saw, nothing to be that upset about. Children die all the time, after all, and she's still got seven other siblings. What's one less? Besides, it's ungrateful to the Bertrams to go about with that long face when they've done so much for her!
So my guess is that Fanny is never allowed to fully grieve her sister, and she probably has no one to talk to about her loss while Edmund's away at school/university. And she learns to bury her grief.
We aren't told much about the exact nature of Fanny's feelings regarding the loss of Mary, but I wonder if there was some guilt. Guilt that she left her sister and wasn't there to help nurse her through her illness. Guilt that she was the one to leave. Was Mary prone to illness like Fanny? And if so, if she had been chosen to live at Mansfield, could she have received better medical care and survived? (Which might then have left Fanny to be the one who died in childhood. But she, with her low self-esteem, might consider that fate as much as she deserves.)
Given Fanny's tendency to anxiety, there might be fears too. Fear that she might lose more siblings before she ever sees them again. Fear that everyone she's close to will leave her, one way or another. If that's the case, then Fanny's determined closeness to her brother William, the other sibling she's particularly close to, makes further sense.
Surely it would be helpful to Fanny to talk about her late sister with someone who would understand, and who better than the people who knew and loved Mary too? Instead, Fanny feels that she cannot bring up the subject of Mary to her mother without grieving her. So she's left alone with her grief and denied the potential bonding she could have had with her mother over their mutual loss.
Right after Fanny is recalling Mary, she finds out that Betsey, the youngest Price sister, age five, is holding something of Mary's.
It was a silver knife. Up jumped Susan, claiming it as her own, and trying to get it away; but the child ran to her mother’s protection, and Susan could only reproach, which she did very warmly, and evidently hoping to interest Fanny on her side. “It was very hard that she was not to have her own knife; it was her own knife; little sister Mary had left it to her upon her deathbed, and she ought to have had it to keep herself long ago. But mama kept it from her, and was always letting Betsey get hold of it; and the end of it would be that Betsey would spoil it, and get it for her own, though mama had promised her that Betsey should not have it in her own hands.”
Susan, now fourteen, is upset that Betsey has appropriated what she considers her rightful property, and the vehemence with which she expresses herself about this suggests that for her it isn't simply about having the knife just to have it--it's an object with sentimental significance for her. It's all she has left of her late sister (whom she very likely was close to, considering the nearness of their ages). This situation of being denied something important to her must feel emblematic of the injustices that Susan is constantly subject to in this household that doesn't care for her. Susan isn't afraid to stand up for herself (her upbringing has given her a very different trauma response from Fanny's), but she tries to look to Fanny as a potential advocate because usually no one is on her side. Mary is gone. For the last eight years, Fanny has been gone. Susan's been fighting alone for a long time.
Fanny doesn't come to her aid. Not yet. She has a somewhat ambiguous reaction.
Fanny was quite shocked. Every feeling of duty, honour, and tenderness was wounded by her sister’s speech and her mother’s reply.
Is Fanny shocked at the injustice that Susan reports or at how petulantly and forcefully Susan expresses herself (something that Fanny has been raised to believe is always out of line)? Or perhaps both?
As for Mrs. Price's reply...
“Now, Susan,” cried Mrs. Price, in a complaining voice, “now, how can you be so cross? You are always quarrelling about that knife. I wish you would not be so quarrelsome. Poor little Betsey; how cross Susan is to you! But you should not have taken it out, my dear, when I sent you to the drawer. You know I told you not to touch it, because Susan is so cross about it. I must hide it another time, Betsey. Poor Mary little thought it would be such a bone of contention when she gave it me to keep, only two hours before she died. Poor little soul! she could but just speak to be heard, and she said so prettily, ‘Let sister Susan have my knife, mama, when I am dead and buried.’ Poor little dear! she was so fond of it, Fanny, that she would have it lay by her in bed, all through her illness. It was the gift of her good godmother, old Mrs. Admiral Maxwell, only six weeks before she was taken for death. Poor little sweet creature! Well, she was taken away from evil to come. [...]”
Their mother acknowledges that Mary intended the knife for Susan, yet she denies her daughter this heirloom, preferring to hold onto it herself or let Betsey appropriate it. She refuses to listen to Susan's grievances and blatantly takes sides with Betsey. No wonder Fanny is shocked. This is really no different from the favoritism that her cousins have always received, while she herself has been in Susan's position (albeit without the courage to raise her voice) all these years.
It's clear that Mrs. Price is grieving Mary too. Perhaps that's why she has kept the knife from Susan; she wants a memento of her lost daughter. Betsey's physical resemblance to Mary might account for why Mrs. Price is so partial to her while uncaring toward her other daughters, and this might be why Mrs. Price allows her and not Susan to take possession of the knife.
Mrs. Price's grief further comes through in her idealized memories of Mary (had Mary lived, would her mother, who typically favors her sons, regard her so fondly?), and she's coping with the death by considering a means by which Mary "was taken away from evil to come." Does she mean that Mary has been spared a life of being ill? Or that she has avoided something dreadful that has happened/will happen to the family? Or that she will never have to grow up and inevitably follow in her mother's footsteps of making an unwise marriage and living in overcrowded poverty? Or is it simply a platitude of the "in a better place now" sort, as a way to shut down having to process the grief?
And still Fanny says nothing, even when her mother has given a potential opening to address their loss--the subject changes back to Betsey.
Fanny, Susan, and Mrs. Price are all heartbroken, in their own ways, after losing Mary. But the family is so fractured that they are unable to bond even over this shared feeling.
At least, not all three of them at once.
Fanny finds a solution to the knife problem.
Her influence, or at least the consciousness and use of it, originated in an act of kindness by Susan, which, after many hesitations of delicacy, she at last worked herself up to. It had very early occurred to her that a small sum of money might, perhaps, restore peace for ever on the sore subject of the silver knife, canvassed as it now was continually, and the riches which she was in possession of herself, her uncle having given her £10 at parting, made her as able as she was willing to be generous. But she was so wholly unused to confer favours, except on the very poor, so unpractised in removing evils, or bestowing kindnesses among her equals, and so fearful of appearing to elevate herself as a great lady at home, that it took some time to determine that it would not be unbecoming in her to make such a present. It was made, however, at last: a silver knife was bought for Betsey, and accepted with great delight, its newness giving it every advantage over the other that could be desired; Susan was established in the full possession of her own, Betsey handsomely declaring that now she had got one so much prettier herself, she should never want that again; and no reproach seemed conveyed to the equally satisfied mother, which Fanny had almost feared to be impossible. The deed thoroughly answered: a source of domestic altercation was entirely done away, and it was the means of opening Susan’s heart to her, and giving her something more to love and be interested in. Susan shewed that she had delicacy: pleased as she was to be mistress of property which she had been struggling for at least two years, she yet feared that her sister’s judgment had been against her, and that a reproof was designed her for having so struggled as to make the purchase necessary for the tranquillity of the house.
It seems so simple: just get Betsey her own knife so that Susan can have the one that means so much to her. But Fanny has been so stifled by her emotionally abusive upbringing that has policed everything she does and thinks that she struggles to act on her own behalf. She has a hard time giving herself permission even to do something kind and generous for her sisters--is it okay for her to do that? Will it make her seem too condescending? But being away from Mansfield is slowly making Fanny more independent, so she makes up her own mind to do the right thing.
Betsey is thrilled with her gift. She doesn't care about the original knife's connection to Mary--she probably wasn't even born at the time Mary died (her being born afterward would further explain Mrs. Price's special attachment to her as the first child born after the death of another).
So Susan gets to keep this symbol of her connection to Mary and develops a new connection to Fanny, who has demonstrated that she is on Susan's side and understands what's important to her and shares her love for Mary. No one else in the house really sides with Susan, so this is a huge relief for her. And there's more to Susan than rage at unfairness; she's genuinely worried that Fanny will be upset with her for having raised such a fuss in the first place. Which leads to honest conversation and vulnerability between the sisters, and ultimately bonding. Fanny feels good about doing her sister some good and having someone in the house who is open to receiving the love she is so eager to give. In a way, Fanny is doing for Susan what Edmund did for her as a child, albeit with much less condescension. (And unfortunately, Fanny still isn't past thinking of Edmund as the Moral Standard and is starting to pass some of that mindset on to Susan, but that's another issue). In a way, Fanny and Susan are finding in each other something of what they lost in Mary.
Anyway, Fanny's having lost a sibling should further color our understanding of her reaction to Mary Crawford's "jokes" about Tom dying so Edmund can inherit.
And Mary Crawford's overbearing and manipulative efforts to act in "sisterly" ways toward Fanny and trying to pressure her into letting them become sisters(-in-law) must feel like a slap in the face. Like a mockery of the Mary whom Fanny sincerely loved and lost.
I will never forgive texting for killing personal emails. I want to send you a book, I want to read a book in return. I want us to take our time. I want to get something in my inbox that doesn’t include a “coupon” or excel file. I want this email to truly find you well.
but really i’m so glad that there’s so many higher quality pictures out there of quark’s outfits because now i get to see every detail of what i call the “grandma couch” jacket
I wonder how this looked like in real life. It seems Quark’s costumes appear way less bright on screen because of the quality issues with DS9. This costume is called ‘Aztec Cherry’ by the way, and we see it being sewn by Garak onscreen in the episode ‘For the Cause’. Here’s ‘Aztec Cherry’ on Quark, behold.
Also apparently all Quark’s costumes have names (it shouldn’t be surprising, but it kind of is?). What do you think about Purple Zebra Striped? Or Cranberry Stripe? (You apparently can never go wrong with stripes if you’re a Ferengi).
More info on the costumes from the guy who now owns them can be found here.
