For those of you who aren't familiar, I live in an exceptionally flammable part of the United States, and despite the fact that every goddamn year multiple parts of my state catch fire, destroy homes and kill people, the local assholes insist on getting drunk and setting fire to a bunch of illegal explosives anyway.
In 2023, God granted me a Miracle that prevented my house from burning down.
Last year, I had to resort to Psychological and Chemical Warfare to keep the patriotic arsonists at bay.
This year is apparently An Important Birthday for the clusterfuck we have the nerve to call a nation, so despite the fact there is so much smoke in the air that the sun has literally been blood red for the last week, the pyrotechnic fetishists are out in force.
Last year, I hit upon the concept that if my neighbors were going to act like problem animals, it would make sense to use the management techniques on them that you might use on say, a Bear that was doing serious property damage. Thusly, I created The Stench, a nontoxic but FOUL smelling concoction that I could discretely spray around the flammable gatherings and render the area extremely uncomfortable to occupy for the rest of the night, forcing them to give up or move on.
If this seems harsh:
There is no story from 2024 because a grass fire was started by fireworks less than 12 miles from me and the high winds put me in the evacuation zone in under an hour.
Over fifty people lost their homes.
Errant fireworks burning my house down is a very real possibility, and I pay the price in anxiety and insurance premiums.
The Stench is noxious but harmless, and also very effective at building a buffer zone around my home. But sneaking up to parties on foot in this heat is both exhausting and nerve-wracking. There have to be more effective ways to do this
-And there is!
It involves Weeds and Business Cards :)
All of this spring, I've been battling Bindweed and my City Code Enforcement Officers.
The city code people have been professional, but the truth is that one of my neighbors is calling them on use because one of my housemates is transgender. It's extremely grating to get these notices, having to explain repeatedly that I *AM* working on the weed situation, I just have a heart condition and No Money. It's also deeply paranoia-inducing to know that the city is regularly coming by and photographing my house.
The Solution to the Bindweed is 1 gallon of high-concentration vinegar, half a cup of Borax, a quarter cup of salt, and a couple tablespoons of dish soap. Get one of those weed sprayers from a hardware store and mix it up in there. Spray it on your thistles, bindweed, kudzu, garlic mustard or whatever your local herbaceous invasive is on a day with bright sunlight, and in a few hours the entire part of the plant above the soil is Deceased. It's non-toxic to insects, pets and wildlife (just wait a few months before trying to plant anything in the area for the traces to wash out).
The only real downside to this stuff is that it smells HEINOUS.
Sure, The Stench is nauseating, but WeedFucker 5000 is genuinely painful to inhale. Again, it wont hurt people- even my asthmatic housemates can use the stuff- but boy howdy it sure smells toxic. I've got the ingredients for about 40 gallons of WeedFucker 5000 prepared and ready to go.
I've also got a disposable hazmat suit, rubber boots and gloves, respirator, goggles and a shitty little golf cart from the free section of craigslist to haul my shit around in.
I also have Business Cards!
See, the very nice officers from the City Code department left some Very Nice business cards so that I may contact them about "the fucking bindweed is gone, get off my back".
So I scanned the business card into my computer, fired up Clip Studio, and made my own business cards. I've turned my City's Abstract Triangle Logo into an Eye of Providence and the slogan of "E Pluribus Unum" to "E Plurbis Anus", Changed my city's name to a dumb pun, and stated the card originates from "The Department Of Public Nuisances".
Crucially, where the name and contact information of the real city employee has been replaced with the name and business email of the neighbor who has been bragging on facebook about calling the city code department on my home because he hates my housemate :)
It looks, at a glance, very much like the business cards of city employees. If you look at it for like 5 seconds though, there's no way it could be mistaken for the real thing.
I've printed out 500 of these bad boys and will have them on hand as I, a put-upon employee, am forced to work overtime on a national holiday doing weed mitigation, because my boss can't manage deadlines for shit.
You're mad about it? I've been out here since 5 AM! But if we don't finish by the deadline we lose the contract and I could get fired. You know what the economy is.
Here, this is my Boss's Business card- how about you send him an email about how this has ruined your barbecue?
It's golden hour now, so I'm Suiting Up and preparing to embark on some civil service in the form of Noxious Weed Eradication, and by coincidence, Fire Mitigation.
I'll report back later Tonight🫡
(If you'd like to support your local disabled storyteller in their Acts Of Public Service, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or supporting me on Patreon)
Finally a hand sewing tutorial on a hemline that isn't just the ladder stitch! the ladder stitch disappears when you tighten it, but it's not meant for hemlines because it breaks really easily! The overlock stitch is more stable, so it holds much longer, and it won't pucker or warp the fabric!
It's nuts how common it is to not allow children to be angry, even (especially) in households where adults are angry all the time. As a child I knew my own anger was unacceptable--not just expressing it outwardly but feeling it at all. So now as an adult my immediate reaction to my own anger is often to feel guilt instead of like. Noticing when someone is being rude or unfair or my boundaries are being violated or whatever. fucked up.
On both tumblr and insta I have seen a sudden massive increase in Jacanaposting in the past few days. Did I miss something? Is now the time of the jacana?
THE UNIVERSE IS TRYING TO TELL YOU TO DEDICATE YOUR LIFE TO JACANAS!!!
Comb-crested Jacana (Irediparra gallinacea), family Jacanidae, order Charadriiformes, Australia
photographs by Christopher Wynn & Roger MacKertich
African Jacana (Actophilornis africanus), family Jacanidae, order Charadriiformes, Kigali, Rwanda
photograph by Will Wilson
Northern Jacana (Jacana spinosa), father with chick, family Jacanidae, order Charadriiformes, Mexico
In this photo, the yellow bone spur on the wing is visible. They use these to defend their chicks and themselves.
photograph by Juan Miguel Artigas Azas
Wattled Jacana (Jacana jacana) standing on a cabybara, family Jacanidae, order Charadriiformes, Panatanal, Brazil
photograph by Guilherme Battistuzzo
Bronze-winged Jacana (Metopidius indicus), father with chicks, family Jacanidae, India
photograph by @samim_wildlife & @niroshansilvaphotography
Pheasant-tailed Jacanas (Hydrophasianus chirurgus), males getting spicy w/ each other, family Jacanidae, India
You asked for it: metal heron tshirts are up for preorder! If you've ever heard a Great Blue Heron call, you know how terrifying they sound. Preorders come with a heron sticker!
The idea for this shirt came from a comic I made about Bird Sounds. Many birds make lovely sounds. Herons make furious dinosaur sounds.
According to the CDC, in 10 percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch the child do it, having no idea it is happening. Drowning does not look like drowning—Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard’s On Scene magazine, described the Instinctive Drowning Response like this:
“Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled before speech occurs.
Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.
Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.
Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.
From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.”
This doesn’t mean that a person that is yelling for help and thrashing isn’t in real trouble—they are experiencing aquatic distress. Not always present before the Instinctive Drowning Response, aquatic distress doesn’t last long—but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in their own rescue. They can grab lifelines, throw rings, etc.
Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are in the water:
Head low in the water, mouth at water level
Head tilted back with mouth open
Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus
Eyes closed
Hair over forehead or eyes
Not using legs—vertical
Hyperventilating or gasping
Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway
Trying to roll over on the back
Appear to be climbing an invisible ladder
So if a crew member falls overboard and everything looks OK—don’t be too sure. Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning. They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck. One way to be sure? Ask them, “Are you all right?” If they can answer at all—they probably are. If they return a blank stare, you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. And parents—children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.
Can I just say thank you to OP for putting such a detailed description on this?
I’ve been a lifeguard for 6 years now and of all the saves I’ve done, maybe two or three had people drowning in the stereotypical thrashing style. And even those, like the save I made last weekend, it was exactly like OP describes where the person’s head is going in and out of the water but it isn’t long enough to get any air. Mostly you recognize drowning by the look on someone’s face. If someone looks wide eyed and terrified or confused, chances are they’re drowning. That look of “oh shit” is pretty easily recognizable. And even if you can’t tell for sure: GO AFTER THEM ANYWAY. I’ve done “saves” where a kid was pretending to drown and I mistook it for real drowning, but that’s preferable to a kid ACTUALLY drowning.
Also please remember that even strong swimmers can drown if they have a medical emergency, get cramps, or get too tired. If your friend knows how to swim but they’re acting funny get them to land. And even if someone can respond when you ask them if they need help, if they say they do need help? GO HELP THEM.
However . If the victim is a stranger, I can’t recommend trying to get them. Lifeguards literally train to escape “attacks,” because people who are drowning can freak the fuck out and grab you and make YOU drown as well. If you do go in after someone, take hold of them from the back and talk to them the whole time. IF YOU ARE GRABBED: duck down into the water as low as you can get. The person is panicking and won’t want to go under water and should release you. Shove up at their hands and push them away from you as you duck under. Don’t die trying to save someone else.
Please guys, read and memorize this post. Not all places have lifeguards. Being able to recognize drowning is such an important skill to have and you can save someone’s life.
In a water park once, I was suddenly grabbed by a child and he dragged me under the water without warning. I was going to get angry with him when I resurfaced because I thought he was being an ass, until I looked at him go back in and out hyperventilating the entire time. I grabbed him under his arms and began trying to drag him out while screaming for the lifeguard.
When the lifeguard got us both out, a woman came running down and accused me of harming him and said he had been completely fine in the water. That there was no reason to drag him out of there. The lifeguard had to explain to her that her son had been drowning, to which her response was to say that she didn’t hear him call for help.
I'm laid off, I'm tired, I have applied to jobs, and now I'm going to tell you about some stupid books I read trying to find some dumb joy or something.
I read mostly these days from library apps, especially Hoopla. Maybe not every Hoopla from every library is like this, but mine has an amazing selection of comics from major and indie publishers, and a selection of books which has brought joy, humor, and a lot, A LOT, of puzzlement.
Hoopla in my town gives eight checkouts. After that, you have to wait to the next month. Some months, I will have an extra slot by the end of the month, which I will risk and burn on something ridiculous I have found.
Buuuuut if I run out of slots, during the final seven days of every month, there is also the Bonus Borrows.
I have no real concept of what qualifies a book, comic, movie, or whatever to be a Bonus Borrow. Some of the reads are, like, pretty normal - there'll be two or three popular lit books, some Hallmark-esque movies, a few comics... And then there's some romance novels and audiobooks which just call to me.
So, altogether, I have checked out a pile of very stupid books, some of which I could recommend as being good-bad enough to read, but now I just want to opine about the bottom of the barrel. Here's the latest list from most normal to least normal on my scale of weirditude.
Into Their Woods by Ann Denton; and Rain of Shadows and Endings by Melissa K. Roehich
These are both DNFs, but I did get over halfway on both, so I'm including these as shining examples of starting with something interesting and somehow making it the boring-est thing ever. So much promise, and then, kaput.
Into Their Woods was a promising reverse-harem Little Red Riding Hood retelling kinda deal, but every man in this book sounded EXACTLY the same. What is the point of a lady with multiple men if every dude is just a clone of the other dude?? Also, the world building was taking 15,000 years, and the number of chapters where protag was like "I don't understand!!" and refusing to, like, ask questions or listen was driving me bonkers. Sorry if this yucks your yums, but please, God, do something with your word counts.
Rain of Shadows and Endings lives in infamy in my mind, as it dragged me along for thousands of words, and only JUST started really doing anything by the time I gave up. This was just a cycle of the main characters having the exact same conversation over and over and over again, and that conversation was why the female protagonist can't choose what she wanted to eat or see her friends, and I was supposed to believe that somehow they were reaching new conclusions every time they fought when she was STILL not really allowed to decide what she wanted to eat or see anyone besides the main love interest and his very boring brother and slightly-less-boring best friend. Let the girl eat pizza, and don't lie to me that literally anything is happening when nothing was changing at all. The world building looked like it was maybe going to go somewhere, but it was taking SO LONG.
The Never King by Nikki St. Crowe; and A Match Made in Hate by Morgan Bridges
While one is a dark romance retelling of Peter Pan and the other is a mafia romance, these are basically the same vibes - sex first, talk later, weird metaphors and word choices, move on. At least these both are cooking with gas, and even if the final dish is kinda meh, there are some lines which are pure hilarity.
The Never King starts strong, but the rest of the books in the series fall off, slowing down and not really exploring its true potential. Winnie Darling, a descendant of Windy Darling who is yanked into Never Land so Peter Pan can read the memories of her ancestors locked away in her blood (yeah, it's a thing, should have been more fun than it was), is a lovely character to spend time with, but she only spends time with four dudes and their female fuckbuddy who literally disappears from the story. As much as the book keeps hounding that Winnie is here to fuck Lost Boys, she never actually does, just this specific inner circle of Peter Pan's best friends - in fact, Pan makes a point of never really caring or associating with his Lost Boys. What is the point of talking about or really trying to say it is about Lost Boys, when it is Pan, two guys who are part of a different kingdom but are exiled to Pan's lands, and Pan's moody security guard/best friend who isn't from Never Land? Minor gripe, but like, book could have had more fun with the world it wanted to be in. So. It basically is just a mafia harem romance with more bells and whistles. Ha, there was a reason I grouped these two together.
In good news, The Never King is the shortest in the series, has the best sex scenes and goofy lines (Winnie's determination to get things going is quite funny at times), and you can head-canon a better ending for Candy, the side piece who deserved better. So, if you have a spare four hours and you read the tags and are fine with it, I recommend.
A Match Made in Hate is basically the story of Emilia, a twenty something head-cannon-autistic lady who can quote entire Wikipedia pages at the drop of a hat who has been locked away for four years, and Maximus, a thirty something high ranking mafia guy who does not understand that Emilia, his now-wife, is (again, my impression) autistic and cannot read his emotionally-frozen face. The book is at least forward about what kind of sex stuff it is going to do, and Emilia and Maximus make progress in talking about how they show or don't show emotions, and while Emilia deserves, like, infinitely better, it isn't straight-up the worst thing ever. I was hooked to the cheesiness of the book when Emilia said that veil and evil were, gasp, one letter swap away! That sprinkling of purple-prose helps a ton.
This is also the first book in a series, and it in itself is, at least, mostly fun, I cannot recommend the rest of the series, like, at all. The second book drags a bit, and while the relationship is better, I refused to read the third book once I realized that it would be the BIGGEST and creepiest of age gaps between the main romantic pair (a 40 something very powerful man to an exactly-20 year-old girl) AND THE FEMALE LOVE INTEREST IS SO TRAUMATIZED SHE IS MUTE AND INCAPABLE OF SHOWING EMOTIONS. No. Bad. Bad book. I do not care how it turns out, there is going to be non-con, no, bad.
Scarlett by Shelly Ferguson
Just... just look at it. This is in that special class of its own, the small or self-published romance book that dreamed and ended up on Hoopla, and I want everyone to read at least this book. I will do a separate post on the first three Love in Somerset books once I finish the last book, but I gotta get this one out the door.
I just want to digest the cover first before we get into the text. We have baby's first photoshop of stock photos, in which the human and bear are too large for the cover, and the starry night sky tells us, like, nothing at all about where this takes place or what is going on. This is a shifter romance, but I have only seen wolf-shifter books use the-guy-in-shift-mode on the cover - having a straight-up cute-looking polar bear on the cover is just... it tickles my funny bone. Somehow the covers in the series get weirder. I will save this for future-later-post.
Naming the book after the female protagonist is... a choice. Which I do respect, but like, also tells us very little. And the way Scarlett is described in the book only has a passing resemblance to the stock woman on the cover.
The story could only be described as a fever-dream that badly needs an editor, but it isn't so choppy or messy that it is not fun to read. Au contraire, this thing is both so fun to read, and even when it is maddening, hilarious and also charming. There is vision, world building, character design, witticisms dragged from the depths of the author's brains, and just, like, possibly, too much going on, but it leads to so much weirdness and hilarity.
Our heroine, Scarlett, a thirty year old teacher, has moved to work at a small high school in a sanctuary town for magical beings, Somerset, in rural Georgia. She is from a shifter family, and had a Fated Mate, but her Mate Mark turned black before she could magically summon her mate, which she assumes means her mate is dead, and she is on her own now. She goes to the grocery store in Somerset, gets bonked on the head by someone else's cart while bending down to buy shampoo, and when she looks up to see who bonked her, voila, there is her mate! Alive! Not dead! And wearing a wedding ring! Oh no!
Scarlett runs away, drives needlessly back and forth from Atlanta to Somerset, and eventually (half the book later) has a normal conversation with her mate, Ian, about how he is actually single just wearing the ring so no one flirts with him. They plan to get married, Scarlett gets kidnapped but frees herself IN A SINGLE CHAPTER, and then they get married.
You may now be asking yourself, what does it mean to have a Fated Mate? What does a Mate Mark look like? Can Scarlett shift into anything?
The answers are the following:
Fated Mates are each other's soul-bound love, chosen for each other at birth a la magic? or something? and if the fated mates, uh, mate, they both can casually live, like, two hundred more years, but also, either Fated Mate can just turn down the other, fake-die to avoid it, or be far enough away that they can't show up... which contradicts the whole soul-bound thing??
There is no explanation on what the Mate Mark looks like in this book, just that it can turn black? Also, it can be tricked into turning black?? Who or what controls Marks?? No idea!!
Finally, in this universe, only cis-men can shift, and the only thing a cis-woman with a mate mark can do is cast ONE spell to summon her mate, and get mated. Then live 200+ more years, I guess, but also, again they could just get turned down, because...
But but but but hear me out... there is something... charming... about how this thing is written. The author is clearly from the American south, loves the nature and diversity of the area, and even though the plot veers between canned basics and repetition, she clearly cares about the fictional town she is writing about and for this to be a comfy read. She also takes time to define random magical elements from the outset, she just, uh, forgets other things to explain until later?? But so far, it does all get explained!
I want to wax poetically about some more of the hairbrained shenanigans of this series, but I will save that for later. Needless to say, NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE HAVE READ THIS BOOK! Please! It deserves love, or if not, some love-hate. Please. Please. Just. Google the covers. Go mad. Please please please. Go crazy with meeeeeeeeeeeeee
