wryhta @wryhta - Tumblr Blog

ratantics

I needed to see this today.

dk-thrive

When the earth opens up under your feet, be like a seed. Fall down; wait for the rain.

— Alexander Chee, "The Queen of the Night" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, February 2, 2016)

quaintpanic

I WAS BORN YESTERDAY. I JUST BLEW IN FROM STUPID TOWN. THIS IS MY FIRST RODEO. PLEASE BE PATIENT WITH ME.

mashpotatoe

i'm still wonderful

abyssaldyke

It's spring now which means the kids in my city have started drawing hopscotches on the sidewalk and as a rule I do every hopscotch I see because 1. Use it or lose it (ability to scotch) and 2. If a child got down on the hardscrabble streets of Boston Massachusetts to draw a scotch the least I can do is use it, but in doing the hopscotches, I've learned that about 50% of them are the typical 8-10 step scotch and the other 50% are. Somewhat avant-garde. And of course I'm not vetting the entire scotch before I start it so sometimes it's like haha 8 steps woo! Childlike whimsy! And sometimes they're 20 steps or 30 or they've got a section with three squares instead of two where you have to do a little Charleston to step on all three, or, memorably, FORTY one foot squares. A full BLOCK of jumping on one foot but I'm no quitter so once I've started Jigsaw Junior's fuckin hopscotch gauntlet I'm there til the end just a daily pot smoker in her thirties jumping kasa-obake style through an affluent suburb while some little proto-kennedy watches from his bedroom window rubbing his sadistic little third grade hands together and cackling. It's amazing. I love spring.

stuckinapril

when James Baldwin said I can’t be a pessimist because I’m alive

stuckinapril

when James Baldwin said to be a pessimist means that you have agreed that human life is an academic matter. So I am forced to be an optimist. I am forced to believe that we can survive whatever we must survive.

ultrafacts

nonporous

monsieurenjlolras

you've heard of "quiet quitting," now I'd like to introduce you to the next level, The French Work Ethic:

Do exactly what you're paid for and nothing more

Absolutely refuse to be available to contact when you're off the clock

Never prioritize work over your own health, wellbeing, or family because that would be insane, it's just a job.

Have a little glass of wine

Take as long as you feel like for lunch

Deeply understand that work doesn't matter

Make sure your boss your boss knows they're always your second priority ❤️

lerayon

🗣️ Hey, young Americans:

Old Millennial American speaking here. I need you to adopt this mentality as early as possible and hold to it. The older you get, the harder it is to begin this practice and claw back the extremely unhealthy effects of a workaholic lifestyle. I am speaking from 20 years of experience.

This does not mean having a shitty attitude at work, or not doing your job, or relying on co-workers to carry your water.

This means you do what it says above. It also means not making work and productively your entire personality; not tying your productivity to your value; and not becoming so emotionally enmeshed in your work and workplace so that you are living and dying by what happens there.

Good luck out there. American workplace culture is mostly designed to work you to death. Moving against that tide can be challenging, so having a healthy mindset is important to living a life not consumed by your paid labor.

Me, before I saw this: old timey dancing in cartoons has to be over-exaggerated for effect

Me, now: old timey dancing in cartoons had to be toned down to promote a sense of realism because they were too good at it

cherryjams

‘Hands weaving magnetic-core memory, IBM, Poughkeepsie, New York,’ 1956. Photograph by Ansel Adams.

bladespark

My mother used to make computer cores as a "work from home" side business. As a child I got spending money via un-winding the ones that failed testing so that the magnetic center could be re-used. I got between $0.05 and $0.25 per core depending. Mom got more for the finished ones, of course, though I don't know how much. Her sister was an expert, and did the more complicated kind, some of which ended up in satellites and/or were used by NASA!

They were all done by hand using a kind of treadle-operated frame with a little (crochet!) hook to pull the wires around the cores. The people making them were mostly housewives who did this as a side-job in the 80s and 90s. I don't know if it's still done that way anywhere in the USA today, but the history of computing and space exploration is littered with "women's work" like this.