rest in pieces

i dropped by my favourite secondhand bookstore and found what is possibly the most incredible knitting book iver ever seen. that teaches you how to knit little gardens and sew them into a massive quilt 3d. the photos i took are atrocious and do NOT do this book justice

thats a PRIORY GARDEN WITH MONKS

IT EVEN TEACHES YOU HOW TO MAKE ALL THE TOOLS ABD BASKETS AND POTS AND PLANTS

LOOK AT THE SOME OF THE FOLIAGE

i have never been more upset to not have $30 ready to buy this. its incredible. i have to find it online somewhere. i knew the moment i saw this i had to share it with EVERYONE

Hey op, is this the one??

In addition to being available on the IA as mentioned, the author is actually on Ravelry!

Luis Xertu (Mexican, b. 1985, Mexico City, Mexico, based Rotterdam, Netherlands) - Two Men on a Branch, 2024, Paintings: Plants, Acrylics on Canvas

do not say delulu in my presence

you just said it in my presence. Get ready

Nicht lustig, aber wichtig, wenn ihr nicht wollt, dass Deutschland vollkommen zum Polizeistaat wird:

Thinking about the homeschooling family who frequent my library and who pulled their teen son out of public school because they wouldn't accommodate his learning disabilities. For context I am in the American South, that mythical land where the education system is so bad that it's not anyone's personal fault that they never learn anything, because they're so helpless and stupid.

Anyway, they were doing basic math and reading and writing at home and had their standard curricula for that, but their project for a year and the reason I saw them every week for a year is that he was learning about 1 country each week. They would get three books, one about the country's history, one about her food, one about language (if possible) or travel (if not). They would read select chapters from all three (he rarely cover-to-covered them, especially if I didn't have books meant for young readers about a particular country, as our collection for such matters is often 'not great buddy') and make up a worksheet of basic facts and history at the end of the week, when the family would also cook something form the cookbook together to eat for dinner.

South of the USA. Public library with books that were not ideal. He didn't even read the whole book if it was too big. They didn't even go looking for the books themselves, they went to a local building with free services, asked a worker there to find them the books, and went home.

You can learn about the world around you! It can be fun and delicious! Your local librarian will not say a word if you want easy books and no one will ever know if you don't read the whole thing! If you have been waiting for a parent or teacher or pastor to tell you what to learn, REBEL! GO LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD AROUND YOU ON YOUR OWN!

i mean this in the nicest way possible but some of you need to learn how to be annoyed

people are going to annoy you and that’s not a reason to burn bridges or blow up relationships

some people will even annoy you often! some people aren’t good at social cues and will therefore be frequently annoying! still not a reason to blow everything up!

part of developing your sense of community is learning how to tolerate people being annoying to you

it’s no great hardship to include even the people you find a bit irritating in your community

this post is about everyone who’s kind of annoying (which. everyone is annoying sometimes) but it’s also specifically about neurodivergent people who are just trying to exist in their communities without being ostracized for not doing every social interaction perfectly

Delicious. We love to see it.

One day I woke up and everybody knew what a labubu was

TIL the reason you don’t find much Lyme’s Disease in California is not because we don’t have Ticks, or Lyme Disease Vectors; but rather: because the Western Fence Lizard (if you live anywhere in California this is your regular Garden Variety Lizard) has adapted a passive immune response that makes their blood lethal to Lyme Disease Bacteria. Any Tick that feeds on one gets its gut cleansed of Lyme Disease as a side effect.

Fucking neat.

There is a new vaccine going into Phase 3 trials from Valneva and Pfizer as well as a monoclonal antibody-based prophylactic treatment being researched at UMass!

"the only cure for this weird disease is the special lizard blood" is a Star Trek TOS plot that escaped into the real world

America has a weird relationship with cults where they’re terrified of small cults (or organizations they think are cults) but completely normalized massive cults that hurt many more people (eg: LDS Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Amish, Scientology, most Megachurches)

To anybody asking if the Amish are a cult, the answer is yes, very much so.

They’re a high control group that isolate you from society. The cult decides how you dress, how you behave, who you marry and how. They control what you know, blocking all information from the outside world. They control how you feel and what you’re allowed to think with threats of both social and supernatural harm. They’re a cult.

The best method to determine if a group is a cult, in my opinion, is Steven Hassan’s (cult expert and former cult member himself) BITE model.

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

This is a great example of Thought Control used by cults whenever they’re confronted with criticism.

#you might notice that there are a lot of similarities between cult techniques and those of abusive partners#and that is an important thing to be aware of

yah that goes in the post

The creator of the BITE Model considers abusive relationships to be two-person cults.

It’s important to note that almost every sect of evangelical christianity in the US today fails the BITE Model.

This was the post that lead to breaking my JW mindset. Been a while since I seen it.

I’m glad I could help in your deconstruction, if only a little bit. I wish you all the luck in your journey moving forward.

Just made some BULLLLLSHITTTTTTT

hey followers. have you ever wanted to know how it feels to be inside a bag of cornflakes

ye

enter the cornflakes domain

I fucking hate this website because not only did I click this goddamn link expecting it to be a joke of some sort, but it wasn’t a joke and I sat here spinning the screen around enjoying myself in a stupid bag of cornflakes like the dumbass monkey I am on Tumblr.com, enthralled by being in a bag of corn flakes in

Have you ever vomited so hard you not only wrecked your throat but dislocated your collarbone?

How about a migraine so bad it triggers your mast cells into a pre-anaphylactic reaction and you start breaking out in hives all over your body?

Yeah. Me neither until 4 o’clock this morning.

New level of hell unlocked.

And the migraine is still ongoing. I’m just no longer blind and dry-heaving.

I hate this.

Having vague flashes of memory which include going for a walk around the park at 3:50 am with Mothman because sometimes walking helps. (It did not)

Holly Mop licking my forehead relentlessly.

Mothman packing heat packs around me in bed and holding onto me because he couldn't get me to stop shaking and warm up.

But, y’know, it’s just a bad headache.

And I thought migraines so bad I'm reenacting the exorcist. This has unlocked a new fear.

I’m legitimately terrified. This is the worst a migraine has ever affected my other illnesses.

I’m lucky my MCAS is so well managed right now because otherwise I probably would have tipped into anaphylactic shock. I’m not unconvinced I wasn’t.

Joy, I dunno if this will help, but I figured I would share the knowledge in hope it might help you.

You said you popped your collarbone out of joint due to vomiting. I'm gonna guess that means it dislocated at the sternum end (which, rare as far as I know, and dear gods, OW!), which implies that your SCM (sternocleidomastoid muscle) completely spasmed and wigged out on you. SCM is a freaking brutal migraine trigger, and the trigger points (special massage word for evil knots of doom) are very much known to cause migraines/head/facial pain.

All that to say, if you can get your neck/SCM to relax and get that collarbone back into place, it might really help reduce that migraine. Maybe have Mothman Google some SCM release techniques, since I'm gonna bet he'll be way more able to figure out what you can tolerate better than I could. Heat on those muscles (the front of your neck) might also really help them chill out.

Apologies if this is all useless for you. I hope you feel better soon.

Thank you for the reminder. I looked up my medical notes because that name pinged a memory and the sternocleidomastoid on my right side was one of the areas badly affected by my chiropractic injury when a whole bunch of muscles ruptured and tore.

There was a violent spasm happening on that side of my neck last night while I was unable to stop throwing up, at least now I know which muscle it probably was.

My collarbone slipped back in without too much trouble (yay, EDS...), but I can feel it threatening to pop every time I move or cough. It’s also tender af so I’m trying to support the area but it's hard when my neck and shoulder have frozen to splint the area. Basically everything hurts and I’m dying but at least I know which muscle to swear at so thanks for that.

SCM is one of the muscles that ruptured and tore in your chiropractic injury?!? 👀 Bloody hell. No wonder you have chronic migraines. And vicious ones to boot. Just look at this referral pattern for the trigger points...

X = trigger point locations

Red = pain referral areas. The denser the dots, the more commonly it is that pain is reported there.

And with an injury like that, you're going to always be fighting the muscles spasming back up on you. Gah. I'm so sorry you have to deal with this. It's a special kind of hell.

If you want pointers for getting the shoulder to chill the hell out, let me know. I can easily write a small dissertation on what to look for, the likely culprits, how to protect your own joints when applying pressure to knots (or, to be truthful, Mothman's joints in this case, since I don't think your fingers would be up for it), etc. Shoulder tension directly feeds into neck tension; release the shoulder and the neck will calm down. Not completely, but usually enough to stop the pain cycle. Releasing the shoulder also usually reduces the pain in the neck muscles, which then allows them to be worked. So something that can't be touched without screaming (SCM) will just be mildly tender after the shoulder gets released.

I'm holding back the rabid info-dumping monster because I know unwanted medical advice can be very upsetting (and I think you're cool and don't wanna get blocked). So yeah. Let me know if you want additional info and I'll put something together.

Yeah, those are all my migraine spots. It's excruciating. I used to work on this trigger with Magic Physio Man until covid made him stop and now I try to do it on my own. But yeah. Yeah. Don't recommend partially rupturing your SCM. It's not good.

My migraines usually only acts up with hormonal triggers these days, but considering hormones affect my joints/muscles (thanks, EDS) that doesn't surprise me that the SCM could be linked.

The problem with relaxing the area too much also means ny joints slip out, which causes more soft tissue trauma which makes things tigthen up more which yeah, vicious cycle.

I’m contemplating getting a body braid to see if it will help take the strain of holding everything together off my soft tissue. I mean, it's worth a shot at this point. I just need to find the money for it.

And if you want to drop that dissertation at me I’ll gladly read it. I used to get a lot of benefits from bodywork. I just can't afford it/don't trust a lot of people near my neck after the whole chiropractor thing...

Alright. Extreme rough draft accomplished. I have literally done zero editing and instead just word vomited as much as I could think of onto the page. Is it done? Also no, but it's got all the main stuff in there, and the primary target muscles. Hopefully it's clear enough to get everyone started. I will go back and add more to it later. I tried to downgrade everything so that you can understand what is being asked with zero massage knowledge. I guess we'll find out if I succeeded or not.

I do have an issue where I can randomly skip entire words and such in sentences. My apologies for that, as I haven't taken the time yet to reread it four times and try and catch all the errors. I wanted to get the main bulk of the info out there because I know people are in pain and access to this could mean a lot for folks.

Without further ado: Google Drive Link to the PDF

Tagging commenters who mentioned wanting it: @airmidcelt @thewildsarecalling @borealislaura @daftari @ceanothusspinosus @thestorywitch

Thank you for taking the time to do this. Even at a quick glance, I've spotted several areas I used to work on with Magic Physio Man that are going neglected with my current care routine, so this is excellent and gives me the language to pinpoint which muscles are being bastards so I can better direct my care.

do you ever look at a friend and feel soooooo affectionate

i’m glad this is the post of mine to get a degree of notes, fuck yeah friends