The Princess who Spins

[spinningprincess]

What if we were allowed to strive for "enough"

For background, I'm a shop owner. I own a small brick and mortar (ok, plywood and LVL and weird fake brick, but whatever) yarn store in a suburban town. 

I keep getting emails from review sites, my point of sale system, random cold calls: "increase your sales!" "advertise in more markets!" "unchecked growth!" "people always need more!"

Okay, those last two were paraphrases, but the first two aren't.

And like. We're a small shop. I have a relatively large staff and it's still under ten people. Only two or three of us can actually get a package in the mail. Mostly we have to have a whole conversation with a customer who comes in. I don't want unchecked growth, I don't even want a ton of checked growth. I want steady sales with a stable number of regular customers who buy yarn when they have a new project, and a medium number (maybe 25%?) of new customers who are themselves a mix of people who will become regulars and one-off tourists who will think of us fondly when they go back home. I want a medium number of online sales, again a mix of regulars who know and like us (maybe some of those tourists!) and people who are frantically looking for one last skein to finish a project. 

Unchecked growth is BAD. It's unsustainable for us, the humans who actually package and sell the yarn, and it's unsustainable for the customers, who will soon be drowning in yarn that they don't have time to work with because they're too busy buying yarn, and it's unsustainable for the YARN MARKET since there are people who have a finite number of people hours each. Slow, small, steady growth that doesn't balloon out and create a problem for us later is my ideal.

I do understand that the many many MANY people who are trying to sell me advertising don't really care about this, they have been told that their job needs unchecked growth and that they need to keep making their sales numbers increase, despite the fact that that's wildly unsustainable for them, but.

Guys.

What if there was enough. Not too much, not too little, but enough. What would the world look like if we strove for "enough" rather than "more all the time"? Wouldn't that be nice?

I know that Tumblr doesn't think this is weird and radical, but maybe MAYBE one of the people who's got a horrible sales job at an unnamed review site will happen across this post and think "hmm, maybe it's not me, maybe she just really doesn't want any advertising."

I live in hope, I guess. Hope and a constant state of "no thank you we've got plenty."

This post brought to you by my point of sale system trying to get me to advertise in more markets.

[agnesmontague]

ive invented (note: dubious claim) something i call the bear diet which is mostly fruits and vegetables with fish as the main protein source and something like once a month you eat a few hyperprocessed foods of your liking because that is when you, the bear, raid a dumpster in the suburbs

[stellarskyes]

after the hyperprocessed foods, do you take tranquilizers to simulate getting captured by animal control and returned to the wild?

[agnesmontague]

i would settle for melatonin gummies but well. knock yourself out

[mxnrique]

HAPPY PRIDE

[toast-the-unknowing]

@saywhatjessie

[userfish]

this pride month we’re all going to be radically pro transgender. or else.

[userfish]

hey so this means radically pro ALL transgender. don’t put limitations on this. all trans people are radically accepted here.

[lastoneout]

I do think it's helpful to remember that most of the USA is way hotter than Europe and that's part of why we like big bevvy so much. We aren't just hedonists, we're also too fucking hot!!

[thearcade945]

(disclaimer that this post looks like it has History behind it [by which i mean i assume a previous post prompted it] but we haven't seen any context if it exists, sorry if i miss the mark with my comment due to that)

no cause i speak as a european, big beverages started making SO much more sense now that like. well one, shit's getting warmer bc of climate change, and two, our own heat tolerance is getting worse, in no small part because of the meds we're on. and, honestly dude, even if it WAS just hedonism, i basically always end up wanting more beverage when i finish mine, even in large sizes, so like. i'm with y'all on this one, big beverages fuck

[lastoneout]

For real!! It's all "why do you need a drink that big" but when it's 95F/35C and cloudless sometimes you just gotta replace your blood with two liters of cherry coke.

[lastoneout]

Oh my god I figured it out. Europeans don't get this because their cities aren't usually car-centric in the way cities in the US and Canada(from what I've heard) are. All that extra asphalt with limited public transit and yes, naturally hotter weather all on it's own, and barely any safe places to walk or rest outside...yeah, we need big drinks guys. It's common fucking sense, you need a gallon of water a day when you're hiking here at the bare minimum, a 2 liter big gulp from Circle K could save your life. I've read too many stories of people dying from dehydration on hikes bcs they figured a liter of water would cover them for two days to pretend big bevvy isn't justified.

I honestly think a lot of the misunderstanding of why Americans are Like That from people in Europe comes down to North America being really fucking weird.

[multishipperpirateking]

America is really fucking weird you're so right - love the way you've paved over such a massive percentage of your heat-sink natural surfaces becuase of cars. Nobody's doing it like you. But at least you have large beverage

[lastoneout]

Most of us have reached a point where we're about one bad day away from ripping up the road in front of our house with a sledgehammer so the big bevvy really helps. Emotional regulation in the face of complete societal abandonment is hard but iced coffee? Yay <3 <3

(Though even without ass city planning and car supremacy and global warming some places in the US are just hot enough all on their own that you need big bevvy. No amount of good city planning is going to make it safe to spend a day out at 90F/30C without a big drink. It's always gonna be over 90F in Tucson in the summer. We just got a lot of heat over here, not enough ocean to balance it out.)

[lastoneout]

Seen a few people make this point and I love the optimism but this would truly be a nightmarishly bad idea. Funny, but extremely bad. Mostly for the same reason people climbing Everest and mountains like that have to wear sunglasses and sunscreen on any exposed skin despite being in some of the coldest climates in the world, white reflects UV radiation. Everyone would be going snowblind all the time, and it would also probably be a lot harder to make out what color the lines are and read street signs. Black makes more sense, but what makes even MORE sense is getting rid of the fucking roads and building trolleys and other forms of public transit that don't need black asphalt under them.

Interestingly tho, this is why it's really common for houses in the desert parts of Arizona to have white roofs.

[insanepixels]

There ARE solutions to dealing with high temperatures caused by urbanization (that isn't tearing up asphalt, much as I would also like to do that). For example:

Urban/suburban vegetation: any amount of vegetation can aid in lowering the temperature by increasing evapotranspiration rates, especially trees which also provides a canopy, creating shaded areas

Shaded sidewalks/benches: we can't realistically shade the entire sidewalk, both because of scale issues and also sunlight is, in moderation, good for you, but having shaded areas, especially where rest amenities are like benches, can go a long way into making cities/suburbs more accessible in the heat

Shaded parking lots: I haven't seen an example of this irl but I know there's parking lots where the majority of it is shaded using solar panels, which is really just beautifully efficient

Underground paths/walkways: Toronto, for example, has a system of underground tunnels (imaginatively named PATH) which spans about 30 km and connects various office buildings, restaurants, etc. This helps pedestrians avoid the heat AND the cold in the winter, AND rain/inclement weather!

Non-reflective glass: less relevant for suburbs, but non-reflective glass absorbs solar radiation rather than reflecting it towards street level, which helps tremendously in keeping cities with lots of tall glass buildings cool. It does require more cooling within the building to balance it out, though, so it's not a perfect solution

Lots of other solutions like green roofs/walls, designing cities to allow airflow, dedicated vegetated areas/water features within cities (parks), permeable pavements, reflective roofs (as previously mentioned in this post)

The important thing to note is that these solutions are rarely, if ever, universally applicable, but the flip side of that is that at least some of these WILL be applicable no matter where you live, so it's a matter of figuring out which ones work and which don't.

The other important thing to note is that by no means are any of these a replacement for the Big Beverage. No amount of shade will save you from dehydration, it just means that hopefully you take longer to get to that point. The recommended daily intake of water for a person is like... 2 litres. That's a lot of water so you gotta get started. Always Be Hydrating.

[lastoneout]

The fact that every single parking lot and bus stop in my city isn't shaded by solar panels is a fucking crime. 365 days of bright ass sun, as far as I'm concerned the city should mandate it, parking lot hits a certain size threshold and it needs solar shaders. It would spare the places with lots way too small for them and for tiny stores that can't afford them, though I also think the city should just pay for it then. The usless cops have enough money, take it from them. It makes 100% perfect sense in every way and would basically eliminate the surrounding buisnesses' power bills but I guess spending money to spend less to no money is bad somehow. And the city doesn't force it.

Tucson could do a lot better in terms of shade, there are so many stretches of road with no plants or sidewalks or shade at all for miles sometimes. Outside of specific areas you can approach traveling here by foot as closer to hiking than walking. You need TONS of water, sunscreen, clothes that cover your skin, a hat, and ideally something to restore electrolytes. It's why one of the most popular local food chains sells these giant fuck off slushies for like $3.

Also to sell the importance or bevvy to the Europeans, in AZ at least there are laws stating that all buisnesses that serve food have to offer free water to anyone who asks regardless of if they're a customer or not. So people don't die because people die if you don't make that a law. That's the importance of bevvy here, it's genuinely life or death.

I also find people really overestimate their heat tolerance and it's why so many people die hiking here. You assume someone saying you need a gallon of water a day is being silly bcs people really only need 2 liters but no, once it's in the 90/40s and above you need more water especially if you're doing anything physical, you will be sweating buckets even in the shade and a gallon a day is the bare minimum. If you don't have enough water you get a heat stroke and if you're lucky get found fast enough you get to spend the day in the American ER getting pumped full of fluids. If you aren't lucky you die. There's a reason Trump not shading the line into his stupid rally ended with like 10 people having to go to the hospital with heat stroke. They're lucky no one died.

We should also have underground paths. I think the university has them but the rest of the city doesn't, they would really help, hell Tucson building a full subway would make everything easier and better but the construction would be insane and take like a decade probably. Still worth it, and better than the damn trolley that only goes to the rich parts of downtown and the university.

But yeah, curbing urban heat is important, but it will not save you from needing Large Beverage, especially in the desert.

[should-be-sleeping]

You are 60% water and every lake, river, pond, swamp, creek, and ocean you encounter wants to reclaim it desperately. Be careful out there.

[should-be-sleeping]

[should-be-sleeping]

Good, I hope it haunts everyone about to enter a body of water so bad that they wear a life jacket. 🙌

[should-be-sleeping]

Every single person I knew (past tense) who has drowned was "a strong swimmer." Water in the wild does not care how good you are at swimming.

[should-be-sleeping]

I mean this with all due respect:

You are not going to pass a skillcheck against a rip current once it has you.

Waves will not bow to your physical prowess no matter how impressive.

Shock does not care that you used to be on your school swim team.

If you hit your head, being good at swimming isn't going to turn you face-up while you're unconscious.

You may be unable to return to shore. Rescue may be unable to find you quickly.

[joanthreatt]

Scheduling this for when weather starts warming up. Be careful swimming this summer

[magnetothemagnificent]

So tired of the American culture around oral hygiene. You see it most in toothpaste or other similar dental products commercials. It's not "buy our toothpaste because it prevents painful infections", it's "be dentist ready" and ads showing people doing the "tissue test" to see how white their teeth are, as if the only reason you should practice good oral hygiene is because you're worried about the approval of others.

It's just...so harmful.

Oral hygiene is important, not because your teeth have to be perfectly white or because your dentist will judge you (they most likely won't), but because your mouth is part of your body and your health is important. The state of your mouth can impact the rest of your body, oral infections can become life-threating or impact your ability to properly eat or speak without pain. That's why you should care about oral hygiene- because it's your body and you deserve to live with as minimal pain and discomfort as possible- not because of some shallow beauty ideals.

I'm just so tired of the mainstream message of oral hygiene as being purely aesthetic. It's not. It's healthcare.

[discoursedrome]

The opposite of “the elephant in the room” is “the centipede in the room”: something that’s not actually an issue but everyone is freaking out about

[thatsbelievable]

[fadedlovemp3]

rb to relieve the back pain of the person u reblogged this from

[boringkate]

You listen to music regularly? Why? Have you even tried quitting? Could you quit? You get music stuck in your head? Wow. You're so ruined and music brained. I bet you make your partners listen to music with you when you have sex. Music addiction has really ruined a whole generation. You know it's not realistic to expect reverb in real life, right? You're probably so desensitized that you don't even feel anything anymore when you hear a bird singing that it wants some fuck.

[paradigm-adrift]

I don't have a problem with people listening to music per se, but I do have a problem with the music industry exploiting & mistreating artists.

Personally, I abstain from all music in order to keep my hands clean but really music should just be illegal outright to protect musicians from abuse.

[terramythos]

holy shit this person in the notes

[discodyke-dogthing]

[only-cat-memes]

[pending-trans-action-2]

Mutuals are a lot like cats in that you kinda have to harmlessly pester and annoy them sometimes

[virtualgirladvance]

*brushes all your fur the wrong way so you look like a feather duster*

[auternadelaide-deactivated20240]

reblog to pet your mutuals the wrong way

[stonegoddex]

what if we admitted to each other that it's not always really romance that we want. What if we admitted that what we're really craving is intimacy and society taught us romance is the only way to get it.

[loveridden1999]

[papyrussuggestions-archive]

DON'T ASK YOURSELF "AM I A GOOD PERSON?" ASK YOURSELF "IS WHAT I AM DOING GOOD?" OR EVEN! "WHAT'S A GOOD THING I CAN DO RIGHT NOW?"

DON'T WORRY ABOUT JUDGING AND SORTING YOURSELF! JUST MAKE YOUR BEST CHOICES!!

[tinkerbitch69]

Ok but pls actually do this people. There is no such thing as a good person. Stop trying to be one and starting trying to do good instead

[ecrivainsolitaire]

[beeftea78-deactivated20200113]

“I would eat his heart in the marketplace” is legit the most savage line I have ever heard, I’d like to personally thank Shakespeare for putting into words that feeling of rage and protectiveness women get when some fuckboy hurts another woman

[aeleolus]

Okay first off, I will always reblog this post, but secondly, I went to Shakespeare in the Park tonight to see this and all the women cheered *so loudly* when Beatrice said this line, and the guy in front of me looked around all shocked and a little scared and said “… oh wow” and it was ICONIQUE