moved!

I'm now posting over at https://marnanel.tumblr.com

[tjathurman]

...and lead you round the Tower of London

[CW ghosts, death, suffocation, tobacco; parody of "Streets of London" by Ralph McTell; repost] Have you seen the old girl

Who walks the Tower of London

Face full of grace with a queenly charm?

She's no breath for talking,

she just keeps right on walking

Carrying her head

Right underneath her arm. So how can you tell me you're ghostly

And say your life's run out of time?

Let me take you by the hand

And lead you round the Tower of London

I'll show you something

That'll make you lose your mind. And in the topmost turret

You'll meet Sir Walter Raleigh

Cursing at his fall like an angry tar

Looking at the world

With a chip on his shoulder

Each and every midnight

He smokes a mild cigar. So how can you tell me you're ghostly

And say your life has run out of time?

Let me take you by the hand

And lead you round the Tower of London

I'll show you something

That'll make you lose your mind. And have you seen the playroom

Of the pair of ghostly princes?

There's endless games in a place like theirs.

Careful where you sit if you

Accept their invitation:

They don't have ghostly cushions

On all their ghostly chairs So how can you tell me you're ghostly

And say your life's run out of time?

Let me take you by the hand

And lead you round the Tower of London

I'll show you something

That'll make you lose your mind.

References: - Anne Boleyn was decapitated

- Raleigh introduced potatoes and tobacco to

Britain - "a mild cigar": ref to a famous commercial

for Hamlet cigars, featuring Raleigh - the princes were allegedly smothered with a

cushion by Richard III

[tjathurman]

Nuclear waste can be dangerous for a long time. How do you tell people 10,000 years from now to keep away? The message is pretty terrifying: "This place is a message...and part of a system of messages...pay attention to it! Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture. This place is not a place of honor...no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here...nothing valued is here. What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger. The danger is in a particular location...it increases toward a center...the center of danger is here...of a particular size and shape, and below us. The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours. The danger is to the body, and it can kill. The form of the danger is an emanation of energy. The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited."

[erikalynae]

Gather round kids while I explain this manipulation tactic that men perpetually try to use and why it’s bullshit.

If someone is openly showing interest in you by making disparaging or disappointed comments about your age, they’re trying to put you on the defensive. This guy wants me to try to quell his discomfort, to bring up that I’m only a month shy of 20, etc. - he wants me to try to prove myself to him, that I’m mature and adult enough for a man like him.

His goal is to establish a power imbalance right off the bat. If we were to date, I would constantly be on the defensive, constantly striving to be an equal, constantly trying to prove my “adult” credentials. Anything he says or does or wants from this point on that I object to would just be seen as a strike against my age, proof that he was right and that I’m not mature enough for him. This is how SO MANY men pressure younger individuals (primarily women and girls) into situations and relationships they aren’t comfortable with. If he truly thought I was too young for him, he wouldn’t have messaged me. This is a very calculated move, and it’s fucking gross.

Adult relationships with age gaps are completely fine, but only if all parties view each other as equals. If someone is trying to set you up in a way that ensures that’s never a possibility, run far away.

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

READ THIS SERIOUSLY READ THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^

[webelieveyou]

This this this.

[princessofthewhitemoon]

Reblogged for the commentary.

[fuckyeahsexeducation]

This is really important because I think that educating about power imbalances and how to spot that manipulation is a lot better than saying “young people don’t date older people”. I had people use this kind of tactic on me when I was 18/19 as well and it is really damaging.

[the-map-community-is-dangerous]

It be really satisfying to see what happens after you say something like “Get over it then. I wasn’t gonna date you in the first place.”

[violent-darts]

For that matter: they will try this shit with stuff other than age when you are, in fact, the SAME age. The Pick-Up Artist trash “negging” is a species of this. And it’s still about trying to get Power over you, to put you in a subordinate position, trying to appease/impress. 

Which is not to say that older guys (or girls) pulling this shit isn’t bad. It’s to say: keep note of this tactic, because they keep doing it. They just find other ways. And it’s just as much of an indication of “DANGER WILL ROBINSON RUN RUN AWAY” (or “mock the shit out of this guy”) then as with this stuff. 

[ithelpstodream]

[politicalcdnmama]

@allthecanadianpolitics Some flag/symbol information so you can know the racists.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Thanks for the heads up, and before anyone goes ‘There’s no nazi’s in Canada!”, yes, yes there are:

Right-wing extremist groups ‘prevalent’ across Canada, study warns

Canada not immune to right-wing extremism

Far-right extremist groups on the rise in Canada, expert says

[tjathurman]

knowledge is power

[tjathurman]

I learned something about squirrels recently: they have no fear of failure. The terminal velocity of a squirrel in air (i.e. the fastest speed a falling squirrel will reach) is not enough to injure the squirrel. You or I would die. The squirrel can practice jumps as difficult as it pleases, as high as it pleases, and risk nothing but having to climb back up the tree. So they become very good at jumping between trees: they have no reason to fear failure. (Link for more: http://thewannabescientist.com/death-by-fall-not-for-a-squirrel/ )

[marnanel]

The River Teg

And through thick woods one finds a stream astray So secret that the very sky seems small… – G K Chesterton

In 2009 I was working in a dull grey cubicle, in a dull grey office, in a dull grey office park. And I was very bored.

After a few months, on my lunch break, I was walking along the grass verge beside the car park. The verge was neatly mown, but beyond its edge there was unkempt woodland.

So I began to wonder about the woodland. As far as I could tell, it had grown up by itself because nobody was looking after the land. I determined to explore, next lunchbreak.

I had to fight my way through the overgrowth at first. My path was blocked by brambles and plenty of poison ivy; fortunately, I’m immune. But after only a minute or so, I couldn’t see the office park any more. There was nothing but me, the trees, and the sky.

I came back every day to explore. Soon I discovered an almost dry streambed, which led me to a stream. I don’t know whether it has a name, but I named it Teg. (That means “beautiful” in Welsh.)

Every lunchbreak from then on, I’d come down and sit by the stream to eat my lunch. It was the most peaceful place I knew, and it almost made that job worthwhile. I never saw another human there. Sometimes, when I was sure nobody else came down to the stream, I used to bathe in it.

A few months later, when I was offered a better job, I left with no regrets– except for my river. About half a mile downstream, there’s a road bridge that crosses the stream for a moment, though you’d never notice it unless you knew to look. As I crossed the bridge on my last journey home, and said goodbye to the Teg for the last time, a bright white egret stood drinking from the stream. He saw me, and flew away.

[tjathurman]

Hey responding to your post about psoriasis..I also have then (for less than a year actually) and I find what bothers me isnt so much the redness but the flakes I leave everywhere and how uncomfortable it is (itching and burning). I admire your attitude and am struggling to accept it myself. I was wondering what helped you get to be in a such a good place with it?

It's been a long journey (maybe it always is, for body image). I think you get to be happy with your body when you know that people you value accept you, and you learn not to care about the opinion of anyone who doesn't.

One particular event made a big difference. I was talking to a friend of mine, who was a photographer, about how much I hated my body. And they said, I think you're beautiful; will you model for me, and maybe you'll see yourself through my eyes? I was a bit nervous because I'd never done nude modelling before, but the pictures were beautiful and I couldn't deny it.

[americanpsycho1991]

i’m now seeing posts that are basically accusing therapists of being the same as ““““neurotypicals”””” who tell you that doing yoga will cure your depression

and it’s fucking killing me because ???  the idea of being annoyed by people telling you that stuff is because those people honestly think that doing yoga and “looking on the bright side” will magically cure your depression, because they can’t imagine happiness not coming as easily to someone else as it does to them.  the idea isn’t that getting exercise and practicing positive thinking are useless ways to treat depression.  but that’s what i’m seeing a lot of now and i just want to say…. i got some fucking bad news, cause that is the treatment for depression.

therapists telling you to get good nutrition and exercise are not the same as your yoga-instructor aunt on facebook posting pictures of the sunrise and wondering how anyone can be depressed when the world is so wonderful!!! thats not just an anti-recovery attitude, it’s an anti-treatment attitude, and it’s unbelievably ignorant.

there’s sort of this interesting circular form to dealing with mental illness, where you start in a place of “i just need to think positively and push myself out of this ditch” and then you move to step 2, which is “depression is a real and very serious illness and it’s not my fault that i’m tired all the time, stop telling me to just “think positive” all the time.”

But then there’s step three, which is where you size up your situation and say “look, i understand how serious my illness is, and i’m no longer blaming myself for it.  And it sucks, and I don’t “deserve” this, and I didn’t bring it on myself.  But regardless of how unfair it is, the truth is that I’m the only one who can actually do anything about it.”  And so in a lot of ways, you end up with parallel ways of thinking as before, but this time you’re coming from a completely different source of understanding.  People who don’t know anything about mental illness say “depression is a choice.”  People who are fed up with being depressed and realize that wallowing in the comforting embrace of self-pity is useful to erase guilt, but ultimately won’t help them lead a better life say, “recovery is a choice.”

The first group means that if you’re depressed, you can just magically decide not to be depressed.  The second group means that depression is a crushing weight on your back determined to make your life as miserable (and as short) as possible, and that you didn’t do anything to cause it, but that ultimately you have the choice of giving up and accepting being depressed for the rest of your life, or you have the option of making an effort to improve your quality of life.  Similar statements, totally different meanings.

But I think a lot of people are sort of seduced by the comfort of giving up, and with the good intention of creating communities of understanding and non-judgement between mentally ill people, social media has unwittingly created communities of mentally ill people encouraging each other to give up.  To just accept that this is the way their lives are, and there’s no possibility of getting better.  And that’s how it’s gotten to the point of people dismissing actual mental health professionals as being no different than some ignorant person who doesn’t know the first thing about psychology and thinks an avocado smoothie will solve all your problems.

Avocado smoothie people are coming from the first perspective, that being depressed is a free choice that you can easily opt out of.  Therapists are coming from the second perspective, where mental illness is a horrible reality, but given that you’re seeing them, a provider of mental health treatment, of fucking course they’re going to give you advice on how to treat your mental illness!  Your therapist isn’t going to sit around and say “yeah man that sucks, haha look at this funny meme about how much you want to kill yourself.”  Your therapist is going to give you recommendations of activities and habits that will help you recover.  And they understand that these activities are not easy!!!  They get that!!!  The reason they’re there is to help you introduce these activities and ways of thinking into your life!!!  Otherwise they’d just hand you a pamphlet and walk out!!!

But you can’t access that kind of help - the kind where you say “getting out of the house is a real problem for me, I never have the energy to get out of bed” and your therapist says “okay let’s figure out how to break this down into small steps, we’ll set a small goal for this week, and next time we meet you can tell me if it worked out, and if it did then we can figure out what the next goal will be, and if not then we can figure out why it didn’t work and try a different approach” - if you immediately dismiss any mention of recovery as “neurotypical bullshit.”

Anyways please please please take your healthcare seriously, get treatment, and realize that giving up and normalizing your depression/anxiety/etc as something that will never ever get better (yes, even if it’s a chronic condition that you’ll never fully cure, you still need to treat it) is not okay.  Try to get good nutrition. Try to get sunshine and exercise.  Try to be social.  Making an effort to do things that will help you is not the same as thinking mental illness is a switch you can easily flip.  Getting treatment is not the same thing as pretending your mental illness doesn’t exist or isn’t serious.  On the contrary, getting treatment is taking your mental illness seriously.  I’m not saying you should never make a joke or reblog a fucking meme or anything, I’m saying don’t use social media as your mental health care provider.  Social media can be a way to vent, but venting is not the same thing as recovering.

Honestly it can take a very long time to get to that “step 3″ perspective but it’s a vital step.

[killerblackberrypie]

THIS.

I’ve got my boyfriend calling me at 8am every weekday morning to get me out of bed so that I *get out of bed*. I then tell him when I’ve gotten to the gym.

We have worked this out between us, consensually, because I can’t fucking make myself do it. Because depression. But when I get up and go to the gym, suddenly my days get way, way more functional. I eat real food, I run errands, I cook- instead of laying on the couch feeling like my diaphragm got nailed to the floor. (They don’t all necessarily happen every day, but they become at least theoretically feasible.) This isn’t part 1, it’s part 3. Because dammit, I am fucking sick of this shit. I don’t deserve it and it’s a real issue- and for me, having someone to basically hotwire me because my starter is broken is how we’re gonna get a routine that takes minimal spoons to run.

Sometimes depression is cureable. Sometimes it’s just treatable. But dissing treatment because “gah neurotypicals” is shooting yourself in the foot.

Sometimes self-care is baths and Netflix and junk food and Tumblr. And sometimes self-care is an arranged phone call at 8am.

[p0pcornpr1nce-deactivated201712]

this is so fucking important, i hate the culture on this site that dissmisses all treatment as ‘advocado aunts’ telling you to stop lying in bed all day and just be happy. recovery is a choice, a hard one, but a choice nontheless.

[tjathurman]

please follow at the new tumblr

dear people: I have moved to https://tjathurman.tumblr.com . Please follow me there instead!

[time-and-again]

4. St Pancras and King’s Cross

Once upon a time there were two railway stations who lived right next door to one another. One was called St Pancras and the other King’s Cross. They were always quarrelling as to which was the better station.

“I have diesel engines as well as steam engines at my station,” said St Pancras.

“Humph! So have I!” said King’s Cross.

“And I’ve got a cafeteria,” said St Pancras.

“So have I!”

“Open on Sundays?”

“Yes, open on Sundays!”

“Humph!”

There was silence for a few minutes, then King’s Cross said, “Well, I’ve got ten platforms and you’ve only got seven.”

“I’m twice as tall as you are!” said St Pancras. “And anyway, your clock is slow.”

The King’s Cross clock was furious and ticked away as fast as it could to catch up. It ticked so fast that soon the St Pancras clock was away behind, and it ticked as fast as it could too, so as not to be out done. They both got faster and faster; and the trains had to go faster too so as not to be late.

Quicker and quicker went the clocks and faster and faster went the trains, till at last they had no time even to set down their passengers, but started back again as soon as they had entered the station. The passengers were furious and waved their umbrellas out of the windows.

“Hi, stop!” they called. But the engines wouldn’t.

“No!” they said. “We can’t stop or we’ll be late. Can’t you see the time?”

By now the clocks were going so fast that almost as soon as it was morning it was evening again.

The sun was very surprised. “I must be going too slow!” it thought. So it hurried up and set almost as soon as it had risen and then rose again. The people all over London were in such a state getting up and going to bed, and then getting up again with hardly any sleep at all— and running to work so as not to be late, and the children running to school and hardly having time to say twice two are four and running home again.

Finally the Lord Mayor of London said to the Queen, “Your Majesty, this won’t do! I think we ought to go and give a medal to Euston Station, then the other two will be so jealous they may stop quarrelling.”

“That’s a good idea!” said the Queen. So she set out from Buckingham Palace with the Lord Mayor and the Horse Guards and the Massed Bands of the Brigade of Guards, and in front of her walked the Prime Minister carrying a gold medal on a red velvet cushion.

When they got to King’s Cross the two stations stopped quarrelling and looked at them.

“Do you see what I see, St Pancras?” asked King’s Cross.

“I do indeed!” said St Pancras. “A medal being taken to Euston Station, just because it’s got fifteen platforms! It’s not fair! Why, you’re a better station than Euston!”

“And so are you, St Pancras,” said King’s Cross.

St Pancras was surprised, but it thought it would be nice to be friends again after all the quarrelling, so it said, “Let’s be friends.”

“Yes, let’s!” said King’s Cross.

So they became friends and stopped quarrelling, and their clocks stopped going too fast and their trains stopped having to hurry. Everyone was very pleased.

“You are clever, Lord Mayor!” said the Queen.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” said the Lord Mayor.

[time-and-again]

8. Nelson’s egg

[CW food]

One warm summer’s day, Lord Nelson was standing on top of his tall column when a little cloud came sailing by.

“Please wash my face,” said Lord Nelson.

“Certainly,” said the cloud, and it rained on Lord Nelson till his face was clean.

“Thank you,” said Nelson, “I suppose you are a magic cloud, aren’t you?”

“Well, my lord, I suppose I am,” said the cloud.

“Of course you are,” said Lord Nelson. “Only magic clouds can talk and that proves it. But, you know, little cloud, I get rather lonely up here, just being a statue, with no one to talk to.”

”You just look through your telescope,” said the cloud, “and if you see anyone you’d like to talk to I’ll go and tell them.”

So Lord Nelson put his telescope to his good eye and looked all round Trafalgar Square and up the Strand and down Whitehall and along St Martin’s Lane and there, in St Martin’s Lane, he saw a chicken crossing the road.

“Why does a chicken cross the road?” said Lord Nelson to the cloud.

“I don’t know,” said the little cloud. “Shall I fetch her?”

“Yes, please!” said Lord Nelson.

So the little cloud went and said to the chicken, “Lord Nelson would like to talk to you.”

The chicken was very pleased and went over to Nelson’s Column and Lord Nelson let down a piece of string and the chicken climbed until she got to the top. Nelson was pleased to see her.

“What is your name?” he said.

“Martha, my lord,” said the chicken.

“Now, why,” said Lord Nelson, “why does a chicken cross the road?”

“Well, my lord,” said Martha, “when I lay an egg on one side of the road so that someone on that side can have an egg for breakfast, to lay the next egg, I cross the road so that someone on the other side can have an egg for breakfast too.”

“An egg for breakfast!” said Lord Nelson, dreamily. He gave a big sigh and a tear rolled down his cheek.

“Don’t cry, my lord,” said Martha, “I’ll stay with you and lay you an egg for breakfast every morning.”

And so she did.

Sometimes the little cloud passes and rains so that they can wash their faces, and sometimes they have a little chat. Lord Nelson isn’t lonely any more and he always has an egg for breakfast.

[tjathurman]

Jargon obscures

In 2012 the Bishop of Leicester wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian called "There is no place for homophobia in the church." Someone in the comments asked whether an imam would be writing an article called "There is no place for homophobia in the mosque."

There's a lot to say about that, but I want to point out something about jargon. Turning "church" into "mosque" shows that the commenter thought the bishop was talking about a building. But the article's context shows that the bishop meant "the community of all Christians". (I believe the Muslim equivalent is "Ummah"; please do correct me if I'm wrong.)

I hadn't even considered that the headline might mean there was no physical place for homophobia in a building. I suspect the bishop hadn't either. I wonder how much more of what Christians say is obscured by jargon and misinterpreted by almost everyone outside the church.

[tjathurman]

Salford Royal

[tjathurman]

"me" as typo for "men"

[HIV mention]

this typo never stops being wonderful

(Text: "When should #gay #bisexual and other men who have sex with me test for #HIV? find out more here: startswithme.org.uk/when-to-test/ ")

[tjathurman]

me explaining my dyspraxia to someone at a party

*grabs invisible mic* "I'm MC Dyspraxic, and I'm here to say..." *mic hits floor* "...well, shit"

[tjathurman]

at party. someone doing rabbit ears on my selfie

[time-and-again]

7. The tiger who liked baths

Once upon a time there was a tiger whose name was Bert. He had big, white, sharp teeth and when he growled it made a noise like thunder.

But Bert was a very nice tiger, always kind and gentle, except when someone else wanted to have a bath.

He loved having a bath and lay in the water all day until Mr and Mrs Smith and their baby daughter, who lived with him, were very cross. Because every time they wanted to have a bath Bert growled and showed his teeth.

“Come on, Bert! Do come out and have your supper,” said Mrs Smith, holding out a big plate of bones.

“No, thank you,” said Bert, and growled.

Poor Mrs Smith nearly cried. “It’s time to bath the baby,” she said, “and there’s Bert still in the bath. Whatever shall I do?”

“I know what we’ll do,” said Mr Smith, and he went and bought twenty bottles of black ink and, when Bert wasn’t looking, he poured them into his bath. It made the water all black so that Bert got all black too.

A few hours later Bert decided it was supper time so he got out of the bath.

“Oh, look at that big black pussy-cat,” said Mr Smith.

“Oh yes, what a beautiful pussy-cat!” said Mrs Smith.

“Pussy-cat?” said Bert. “I’m not a pussy-cat. I’m a tiger.”

“Tigers have stripes,” said Mr Smith. “They are not black all over like you.”

“Oh dear!” said Bert. “Perhaps I am a pussy-cat after all.”

“And pussy-cats,” said Mr Smith, “don’t like having baths. You know that!”

“That’s true!” said Bert.

After supper Bert went into the garden. And Prince, the dog next door, who liked chasing pussy-cats, saw Bert, and said, “ There’s a pussy-cat! I’ll chase him!”

He felt a bit nervous because Bert looked the biggest pussy-cat he had ever seen. Still, pussy-cats had always run away before when he barked at them, so he ran up to Bert, barking and showing his teeth.

Bert turned his head lazily and growled just once, like this: GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Prince had never been so frightened in his life, and he jumped over the fence and ran home.

A little later, when Mr Smith came into the garden, Bert asked him, “Am I really a pussy-cat? Don’t you think I’m too big?”

“Well, you’re not really a pussy-cat,” said Mr Smith. “You’re a tiger. A special kind of tiger, who never likes staying in the bath for more than half an hour. And that’s the very best kind of tiger.”

Bert was pleased. “That kind!” he said to himself. “The very best kind!” And he purred and then licked all the black off till he was a lovely yellow tiger again with black stripes.

Then he went into the house and said to Mr Smith, “I think I’ll just go and have a bath.” And he turned the water on and had a lovely bath. But he stayed in the water only for half an hour, and Mrs Smith said he was a very good tiger and gave him a big bucket of ice-cream.

Bert put his head in the bucket and licked. “Yum! yum! yum!” he said. “I do like ice-cream.”

[tjathurman]

and then he had to have another bath to wash the ice-cream off his face?