[andywarnercomics]

In honor of Day of the Dead, here’s a repost of my comic about the San Francisco Columbarium and the man who spent 26 years restoring it.

This comic originally appeared on Medium at The Nib. Go check out my other work there.

[true-me-snafu]

Emmitt and the Columbarium.

[kriestewart]

kristen stewart on the tonight show with jimmy fallon

[ithankthevirgin]

May you be blessed, Saint Sebastian, because Marta came to live with me. We are happy together because we love each other very much and aren’t afraid to be who we are.

Marta and Luisa, Tacubaya, 1987

[studyspiration-coffee]

what to do when everything’s a mess

Wash your hair. Don’t worry about all those articles online about the best haircare products of 2019 and whatnot, get in, wash it like you usually do, get out. Leave it to air dry, it’s less work for you.

Brush your teeth. Even if you brushed them this morning and are probably going to brush it tonight, do it anyway. Especially if it’s exam time, all that tea or coffee you’re most likely downing (props to you if you only study with water) probably makes them feel kind of gross.

I know most of these lists tell you to run a bath, but let’s face it, for those of you who even have a bath in the first place, the thought of filling that tub and sitting there in complete silence for a couple hours seems like a trek. And ironically exhausting. So instead, just brush your hair, take a nap (set a nice soothing alarm) and once you’ve gotten out of bed, wash your face or at least splash cold water on your face.

CLEAN clean clean clean CLEAN. Easier said than done, but at least start by clearing one messy component of your area; it could be your floor, your desk or your bed. You don’t need to clean and re-organise your entire room marie condo-style for you to actually have a reason to take the time to clean in the first place. A little goes a long way, and you don’t ALWAYS need to do the hard yards ya know.

I would say read a book, but sometimes your brain is melting or buzzing so it can’t really focus on anything lengthy. So instead, find someone reciting a poem online, and just listen to it. I recommend Jeremy Irons and his voicing of tons of T.S Eliot poetry, or Allen Ginsberg reciting his own poetry (Howl is a classic).

If you’re one of those people who drowns their sorrows by listening to music, don’t listen to music!! Don’t reinforce your pain!! So to that I say, listen to a podcast. If the classic podcast genre of true crime is a little too stressful and you’ve already cried twice today, listen to interviews with actors, screenwriters and directors. It can be really refreshing to listen to people you already enjoy the content of talk about their work. I recommend Awards Chatter and Happy Sad Confused.

Stop staring at screens! Just physically sit outside for a bit, you don’t need to go for a jog or do a general workout, just…sit. People-watch, try and memorise the exact scene in front of you, from the mis-en-scene to all the colours and sounds and the way the sunlight feels on your eyelashes. Write it down if you want to, you could even denote a single notebook to your little outdoor descriptions. Or just write on a napkin. To each their own.

Have you eaten today? And I mean something hearty, something that isn’t primarily made out of air and salt. Something that falls under the umbrella of snack does not count; meal is more like it. If not, eat. Preparing food might feel exhausting, but so’s going a relatively long amount of time without something nutritionally substantial.

If you’re feeling emotionally heavily, get out a notebook or even just a scrap of paper, a pen and cry until your eyes are as blurry as can be. With tears down your cheeks, scribble out how you’re feeling. Don’t bother with how neat or messy it is, whether the sentences even stay on the lines, it’s not about being aesthetic. In fact, it’s about being as messy as possible. Let all of it out, and let is act as a physical manifestation of what’s going on in your head. Don’t fight it or deny it, relieve yourself by both constructing and understanding yourself. 

[nikeypapi]

don’t fuck with my feelings while knowing i’m down as fuck for you

[merrybitchmas91-deactivated2019]

Why "doing something relaxing” does not help your anxiety

A lot of the time when people give advice intended to relieve anxiety, they suggest doing “relaxing” things like drawing, painting, knitting, taking a bubble bath, coloring in one of those zen coloring books, or watching glitter settle to the bottom of a jar.

This advice is always well-intentioned, and I’m not here to diss people who either give it or who benefit from it. But it has never, ever done shit for me, and this is because it goes about resolving anxiety in the completely wrong way.  

THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO when suffering from anxiety is to do a “relaxing” thing that just enables your mind to dwell and obsess more on the thing that’s bothering you. You need to ESCAPE from the dwelling and the obsession in order to experience relief.

You can drive to a quiet farm, drive to the beach, drive to a park, or anywhere else, but as someone who has tried it all many, many times, trust me–it’s a waste of gas. You will just end up still sad and stressed, only with sand on your butt. You can’t physically escape your sadness. Your sadness is inside of you. To escape, you need to give your brain something to play with for a while until you can approach the issue with a healthier frame of mind. 

People who have anxiety do not need more time to contemplate, because we will use it to contemplate how much we suck.

In fact, you could say that’s what anxiety is–hyper-contemplating. When we let our minds run free, they run straight into the thorn bushes. Our minds are already running, and they need to be controlled. They need to be given something to do, or they’ll destroy everything, just like an overactive husky dog ripping up all the furniture. 

Therefore, I present to you: 

THINGS YOU SHOULD NOT DO WHEN ANXIOUS

–Go on a walk

–Watch a sunset, watch fish in an aquarium, watch glitter, etc.

–Go anywhere where the main activity is sitting and watching

–Draw, color, do anything that occupies the hands and not the mind

–Do yoga, jog, go fishing, or anything that lets you mentally drift 

–Do literally ANYTHING that gives you great amounts of mental space to obsess and dwell on things.

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO WHEN ANXIOUS:

–Do a crossword puzzle, Sudoku, or any other mind teaser game. Crosswords are the best.

–Write something. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Write the Top 10 Best Restaurants in My City. Rank celebrities according to Best Smile. Write some dumb Legolas fanfiction and rip it up when you’re done. It’s not for publication, it’s a relief exercise that only you will see. 

–Read something, watch TV, or watch a movie–as long as it’s engrossing. Don’t watch anything which you can run as background noise (like, off the top of my head, Say Yes to The Dress.) As weird as it seems, American Horror Story actually helps me a lot, because it sucks me in. 

–Masturbate. Yes, I’m serious. Your mind has to concentrate on the mini-movie it’s running. It can’t run Sexy Titillating Things and All The Things That are Bothering Me at the same time. (…I hope. If it can, then…ignore this one.) 

–Do math problems—literally, google “algebra problems worksheet” and solve them. If you haven’t done math since 7th grade this will really help you. I don’t mean with math, I mean with the anxiety. 

–Play a game or a sport with someone that requires great mental concentration. Working with 5 people to get a ball over a net is a challenge which will require your brain to turn off the Sadness Channel. 

–Play a video game, as long as it’s not something like candy crush or Tetris that’s mindless. 

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO DURING PANIC ATTACKS ESPECIALLY:

–List the capitals of all the U.S. states

–List the capitals of all the European countries

–List all the shapes you can see. Or all the colors. 

–List all the blonde celebrities you can think of.

–Pull up a random block of text and count all the As in it, or Es or whatever.  

Now obviously, I am not a doctor. I am just an anxious person who has tried almost everything to help myself.  I’ve finally realized that the stuff people recommend never works because this is a disorder that thrives on free time and free mental space. When I do the stuff I listed above, I can breathe again. And I hope it helps someone here too. 

(Now this shouldn’t have to be said but if the “do nots” work for you then by all means do them. They’ve just never worked for me.)

[lovelyplot]

This would’ve been great an hour ago

[h0lyhandgrenade]

This is good advice for anxious peeps and peeps with anxious friends. Seems obvious now but I hadn’t thought about it this way before.

[randomslasher]

oh heck this is…really really useful advice.I wonder if it would also help when my brain does that ‘too fast can’t settle’ thing and flips from activity to activity at ludicrous speeds.I think I’ll try it next time. <3

[academicssay]

[schizophrenicarchivist-remade-d]

me watching the met gala every fucking year

[filmbutch]

if you read this section on someone’s wikipedia before the other sections you’re gay

[gothvibes-deactivated20180324]

bi culture is making subtle comments about multiple genders to hint at your sexuality so maybe they’ll just Get It and you won’t have to tell them

[julianavido]

Don’t Get a Nose Job

[animusrox]

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018) Spider-Man 3 (2007)

[teathattast]

the holy grail

[processintegrated]

wrong

im sure i am missing some but we’re getting there

[processintegrated]

[weirdmageddon]

[slowjamastan]

[ryumako]

[autisticadvocacy]

The $15 Minimum Wage Doesn’t Just Improve Lives. It Saves Them.

A living wage is an antidepressant. It is a sleep aid. A diet. A stress reliever. It is a contraceptive, preventing teenage pregnancy. It pr

A major percentage of people with disabilities live below the poverty line. This is critical when we think about how the minimum wage has the potential to save lives.

[dukeofbookingham-deactivated202]

It’s amazing what you can pull out of your academic ass when staring down the barrel of a deadline

[autumnhobbit]

worst part of adulthood so far is definitely the fact that people have the ability to contact me and i have to respond in a timely manner

[modelsof-color]

Paloma Elsesser by Mayan Toledano