Widdershins @something-sings - Tumblr Blog

Flowers out front this morning

i saw this somewhere else but reply / tag what you did today so everyone can see that we all did something different today

#drove the toddler to daycare #drove the six year old to her friend's house to catch the bus to summer camp #drove myself to a dermatology appointment #sent reminder emails and calendar invites for an online course I'm teaching #made myself a snack plate to nibble during office hours for that online course #and we'll see how the afternoon goes

It's been really validating starting to follow more and more Baltimore/Maryland residents on tumblr, snowball sample style. Like, it really is Like That here: sweaty like an armpit and crowded with aggressively friendly delightfully weird people and just A Lot. Like, no thank you Maryland propaganda, sure the state has beautiful beaches and mountains but most of us can't afford to go to them because 85% of them are privately owned and the remaining 15% that are public land require you to make reservations six weeks to six months in advance. But we're here and we're doing our best to live our messy colorful lives amongst the horrors and take care of each other and be kind to our neighbors and let our neighbors be kind to us and not let the summer blues get us down.

#maryland #Baltimore

depsidase

theaceofwords

It's called the Global Justice Report, it is here. This is an actionable plan which can be sent to legislators and demanded of political parties. We could save the world within our lifetimes.

It has always been possible. It is still possible.

#hopepunk #we didn't start the fire #climate change #climate crisis #fascisim #apocalyptic slide

lastoneout

Ya know when people told me "when you're finally safe enough that you can leave survival mode and start to let go of and process your c-ptsd/trauma things are probably going to get really, really bad before they slowly start to get better" I thought that was reasonable. I did not understand that by "things are going to get bad" they meant "you're going to find yourself in the worst mental state of your entire life, but dw, that means it's working" and tbh I simply wish someone had been more clear.

lucineblue

Not letting these stay in the tags, damn. Let yourself be Goop.

basuralindo

This is a beautiful and accurate analogy, and I'm glad to see it.

But in the spirit of being more clear on what to expect:

You will feel more lost and hopeless between the first 6 months to 3 years of safety than you ever have in your life.

You will likely be at your highest risk of suicide and addiction during this period.

You will have to relearn how to socialize, and that may feel like you'll never make friends again.

You will most likely, either consciously or unconsciously, attempt to reintroduce yourself to traumatic/dangerous environments/situations. Because that familiar horrible feeling will make the new, worse feelings stop for a while.

You can become dependant on a frequent reintroduction to abuse and trauma as a means of easing those early symptoms of recovery. The unbearable process will start all over again once you stop.

You may end up clinging to abusive/toxic people from your past, or getting attached to new ones, and making every possible excuse to convince yourself and others that it's not so bad and you're just not ready to lose them etc.etc.etc. It will feel like an addiction, because the frequent little doses of abuse will make the horrible feeling ease up. And it will make the process take longer.

Like an addiction, falling into these patterns isn't your fault. The won't make you weak or hopeless or a failure. They are a trap everyone falls into now and then, and it's good to be aware and try to avoid them. Forgive yourself if it happens, but also fight to get out of it.

You will be gaslit about the severity of your trauma. You will gaslight yourself about the severity of your trauma. People will doubt and undemine and be irritated by your trauma. They will wonder why you're "suddenly making a big deal about it when you've been fine this whole time". They may not care about your answer. It sucks. You will doubt yourself. It'll get easier to stand your ground with time. Be patient with yourself but be stubborn.

You will probably spend the next decade or so discovering new ways in which your past was even more fucked up than you thought. These little revelations will get less disturbing with time.

Despite everything, it's worth it. Brace yourself.

#holy shit #having some realizations

homunculus-argument

If any part of your plan involves the words “nobody could be that stupid”, please be prepared to be proven wrong at any minute at a moment’s notice. Pay in mind that the person determined to prove you wrong may already be aware of this assumption, and is already approaching your current location at an alarming speed.

the-real-seebs

“it will be fine if people just”

people will not just

alarajrogers

In 2011 I attended an event called Bmore Fail, in which entrepreneurs in Baltimore talked about their failures and what they learned from them.

What I learned is that there is an inflexible rule about how people interact with systems. If your system would work perfectly if people Just Would, and yet they Don’t, then your system is bad and you should feel bad. Systems must be built with an eye toward “will people actually do this”?

Recycling was a thing when I was a child. (The 70’s.) In my home in New York State, you could carry recyclables to a recycling center. Nobody did. Now in 2024 Baltimore there is a trash truck that comes every week to pick up my recyclables, and I and my neighbors fill our cans with objects that can be recycled, because a system was developed that was easy for busy people to do, and there’s a lot of social pressure to do it – but the social pressure wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t easy to do. Only the most crunchy granola people bitched at you if you didn’t recycle in 1979, when it required a lot of effort. Now it is considered kind of on par with spitting in the street or leaving a dirty diaper on the diaper changing table in the bathroom instead of throwing it out, if you don’t recycle.

Your job as the system creator is to make it as easy as possible for people to do the right thing, and as hard as possible to do the wrong thing. This is why web forms have data validation (but too much data validation actually makes the forms harder, so hit the spot in the middle.) And if you want people to adopt social change, whether it’s environmentalism, accepting gay people, or whatever, make it as easy as possible. And don’t guilt people about not doing it until it’s as easy as possible; instead phrase things more like “wouldn’t it be cool if”. It’s not the fault of the individual that they can’t get things done in a bad system. Fix the system.

the-real-seebs

if users regularly fuck up using a tool you made, and your answer is “you’re holding it wrong”, the next question you should ask is “why did i make this tool so it’s easy to hold it wrong?”

thesplendidsnout

moshi-tehkitty

That’s the problem with making animal proof trash cans for parks. The animals tend to be far more motivated to open the difficult mechanism than the tourists do.

taavicleric

I have heard Park Rangers describe this as, “There is a not insignificant overlap between the dumbest humans and the smartest bears.”

something-sings

@alarajrogers you're right and you should say it.

I can't tell you how many times someone at work has said "But people SHOULD..." and I've had to argue with them that no, people will not, not unless you make whatever you want them to do the easiest and most obvious option.

foxglovedforest

The kids are aight

catchinghammers

#those workers are not being paid enough to enforce this and it was a slightly funnier day at work

#boys will be boys

hollow-head

it's mouth season

(95º and 77% humidity)

endivinity

Saguaro redraw from some years back! good ol long cactus

#art #biology

headspace-hotel

My version of "doomscrolling" nowadays is just going to iNaturalist, browsing pictures of animals and fantasizing about where I would introduce them outside of their natural range if I was some kind of ecology-focused evil scientist. I do this when I'm depressed. I don't know if it helps.

i-love-hyenas

Bring hyena to Texas put Texas in hyena paws humans can trust Texas to hyena pack yesss

headspace-hotel

How could I disagree with such a trustworthy source

chekhovs-raygun

animals i really want to introduce to the USA:

-red pandas in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. they can live in those you-pick orchards and delight tourists, and in the winter the big ones can be harvested by the farmers for food and fur. america also has native bamboo, as well as plenty of escaped invasives.

-koalas in southern california. we already have a lot of feral eucalpytus in the state and it makes our wildfires way worse. let's put koalas in there too. coyotes can hunt them like dingos do.

-cheetahs in colorodo, wyoming, nebraska, and oklahoma. we had cheetahs here once, that's why pronghorns are so fast. let's give them something to really haul ass about.

-spotted hyenas in texas and new mexico. did you know there's actually a shit ton of oryx already roaming around new mexico? they were brought in for a game preserve. oryx can fight off lions, but spotted hyenas are actually superior pack hunters with some of the highest kill rates of large cooperative predators in the world. we might have a problem with ranchers, but like: fuck ranchers. they already decimated the mexican wolf populations. they deserve hyenas.

-pangolins. i would drop these guys in arizona honestly. everyone in arizona hates and fears fire ants. i think entire neighborhoods would throw ecstatic parades for pangolins (which smell much better than giant anteaters) at least until a pangolin dug straight through their pasteboard condo.

-new zealand's little penguin in louisiana. they burrow into mud and sand banks during the day and tolerate quite hot temperatures! i think they'd do fine, and louisiana is sliding into the gulf anyway. let's have penguins there. i'd also try them out in new england in case lousiana is just too swampy for them. i feel like new yorkers would go insane with pride over having penguins around. they would act like they invented the whole concept of penguins. we should let them.

-water buffalo. georgia and the carolinas. i just think it would give everyone there some interesting new problems.

-i firmly believe that asiatic elephants would do great in the southeastern united states. it's a subtropical climate that's only going to get swampier as things heat up, and there's plenty of kudzu and tall grass species for them to munch on. they're also smart enough to learn to navigate and negotiate with people, and to follow set routes around human farms rather than tromp through them, so disruption to existing human infrastructure would be minimal but occasionally hilarious. i think it would be so cool to have an american subspecies of elephant. if i ever win the lottery this IS what i am going to be doing with my millions.

derinthescarletpescatarian

Animals I would introduce to each continent:

Europe: Wombat

We've had enough of your fucking rabbits and foxes. Here, have a huge badger type thing that can destroy cars with its arse. It'll outcompete your badgers and where will you be then. Haha.

Asia: Wombat

We've had enough of Indian camels ruining our deserts. Here's something to ruin your terrain for a change.

North America: Wombat

We've had enough of United States tourists with no manners. Here's some tourists with even less manners.

South America: Wombat

WE'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR FUCKING CANE TOADS. WOMBATS FOR YOU.

Africa: Wombat

The feral ostriches aren't actually all that much of a problem right now, but in revenge for the problem they will probably become in the future, have some fucking wombats.

Antarctica: Wombat

I'll take it right back home and warm it up I promise I. I just really want to see a wombat walk and dig in the snow.

Australia: Wombat

The populations of all three species of wombat are dangerously low.

hollowedskin

Let This Man Undermine Your House

derinthescarletpescatarian

#HOW FUCKING BIG ARE WOMBATS?????? I THOUGHT THEY WERE SMALL#They are so cute though

Nothing in Australia is the size you think it's going to be

sroloc--elbisivni

i am aware they are different marsupials but i DID think of this post when I found out there are roughly 500 wallabies loose on the Isle of Man.

derinthescarletpescatarian

#i thought wombats were rabbit-sized? but they're actually hugelarge?? wow???

RABBIT-SIZED??

#delightful #biology

torstherapy

maruti-bitamin

One summer's eve

watercolour on arches paper cold pressed

cara/insta/bluesky/ store

#art

loish

This one started as a drawing in my sketchbook, and then she blossomed into a digital painting 🌸 Still on my lifelong quest to paint the roundest, chunkiest, most squishable roses.

#art

yuumei-art

It's wild blueberry season in Sweden and I've been picking and eating my fill everyday from the forest behind my house! The entire forest floor is covered in wild blueberry bushes and the tangy taste is so cosmic, I had to paint them✨ Photos of the berries I picked!

Painting process~

#art

pangur-and-grim

we have to write poems in my creative writing certificate program, so I pieced something together from Belphie's medical reports

pangur-and-grim

my professor really liked this and said that it should be 'the nucleus of a chapbook' (so like 15-30 poems of the same theme that I would attempt to get published) but now I feel awkward because I think that she thinks HE DIED? but it turns out, everything will be alright! his heart recovered! the FIP meds are working!

pangur-and-grim

if I do make a chapbook, this will be the next page:

pangur-and-grim

and then this will be the page after that:

pangur-and-grim

I couldn't believe how fast he went from death's door to running and playing once we got the GS441525 into him. I am so incredibly grateful to everyone who's spent their time researching and legislating it!!

pangur-and-grim

Belphie is over two years old now, and sometimes when I look at him, I still think he lived.

#i am crying

coffee-khaleesi-deactivated2020

When I was training to be a battered women’s advocate, my supervisor said something that really blew my mind:

“You can always assume one thing about your clients; and that is that they are doing their best. Always assume everyone is doing their best. And if they’re having a day where their best just isn’t that great, or their best doesn’t look like your best, you have to be okay with that.”

Any now whenever anyone in my life, either a friend or a client, frustrates me, disappoints me, or pisses me off, I just tell myself They are doing their best. Their best isn’t that great today, but I have days where my best isn’t that great either.

bogfox

Op I’d like to thank you for sharing this. Ever since the first time I’ve read it I’ve held it in my mind and it really has helped me to be kinder to others and to myself.