Inspiration! Roundup: Minister of Loneliness, dignity, askew notebooks, and more!

This Week's "I want to go to there": Saying yes to things!
Photo by Jon Tyson.

Loneliness 

The UK may have its issues right now, but here's a fascinating move: they now have a Minister of Loneliness. Imagine taking human connection that seriously?

Dignity
"You will never regret offering dignity to others."
-Seth Godin

Askew Notebooks

I wish I had thought of this, and it delights me to no end: a notebook called Askew, where every line is hand-drawn. The results are as you must be expecting.

Generous Luck
“Generosity is luck going in the opposite direction, away from you. If you’re generous to someone, if you do something to help him out, you are in effect making him lucky. This is important. It’s like inviting yourself into a community of good fortune.”
– Twyla Tharp

Nature is Huge

The waves off the shores of Tofino, BC are always something incredible to behold, but recently they had a storm that resulted in some spectacular waves and stunning images of the power of nature. Here's one:

A post shared by colorsofthewind (@cjeffers1) on

Unexpected Improvements

You know when something simply is the way it is, and it doesn't even occur to you that it could be better until someone makes a change? Enter the newly-designed flushable pregnancy test. Not only does this increase privacy (which can be vital, say, in abusive relationships), but is better for the environment. Cool!


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This Week in Church: community, emergent oppression, and unity

Welcome to the series wherein I share my take-aways from church. The things that, I think, are beneficial to all of us to know or think about, whether or not we believe in any church-related things.

I think that church can teach things that are beneficial to everyone, whether or not we believe in church-related things.

This week in church, we talked about community.

"Community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives."
-Henri Nouwen

If we are going to be in any kind of real community, we need to be able to hang with people we really don't like, because a community that self-selects for total agreement is... well, there is always something to disagree about.

This week in church, we talked about emergent oppression.

When do we think we have the right to be cruel, mean, and teeter on the edge of oppression? When we feel we are defending something that is right, of course. If I am defending (for example) the right interpretation of scripture that could result in the loss or saving of other people's soul, I will default to more totalitarian-like behaviour. I will tell you what you can and can't do, forcefully. For your own good.

Westboro Baptist Church is an example. Parents also do this, to keep their kids from running into oceans or failing school.

This week in church, we talked about unity.

While the message was clearly about unity in the Christian faith, I couldn't stop thinking about how it applies to feminism. (Those thoughts are still filtering through my brain, but more on that to come!)

A framework was presented to help us maintain unity, even with the people who anger us or disagree with us: it's a simple 1, 2, 3.

Start with 1: these are the absolute core convictions. The root beliefs that everyone shares. For Christianity that would probably amount to something about Jesus dying to save people from their sins.

Jump to 3: these are the things that people who agree with and deeply care about the core convictions will disagree about. In Christianity that would include things like who to baptize and when, how to administer communion, birth control, gender roles, pacifism, use and pursuit of money, etc. These are not core, but they are the things that churches split over.

2 is unity. It is supposed to be more important than our views on the 3's. It allows us to be angry, fight, disagree, and stick together.

This model requires a lot of forgiveness. A lot of seeing things from someone else's perspective. A lot of allowing people to pursue a path that you deeply disagree with, because unity is more important.

So here are my questions:

How do you enact this in a way that doesn't just keep existing oppressor/oppressed dynamic in place? How do oppressors become equally invested in this kind of unity instead of the status quo? 

I think that those who have been oppressed are already forced into this model just by remaining a part of society. The 3's they/we forgive include everything from microaggressions from teachers, employers, partners, and friends to outright racist, sexist, homophobic, etc, policies from those same sources. Oppressors (also they/we), on the other hand, have little practical need to forgive or recognize other perspectives.

How does this work with someone who we not only disagree with, but who we perceive to be actively working against the 1 we share? Do we disentangle our 3's from our 1's and view them as separate? Is that possible? 

We tend to see our 1's and 3's as deeply interconnected. The 3's are not just extras, they are the way we live out, express, and work to advance the cause of our 1's. So while some 3's are things I can simply agree to disagree on, others I will see as actively harming or working against my core beliefs. That is a lot harder to let go.


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Cute! Roundup: The eyes will get you, and if not the eyes, the ears!

I recently visited my local Catfé (the cat cafe, where you get to hang out with a bunch of cats), and had a delightful visit with a few beauties, including this one!

All the cuteness, all in one place


OTHER CUTENESS:

Look at those EYES! That FUR!

Forget eyes and fur, check out these EARS!

Unlikely buds: cow and dog edition.

These seem like some useful meds!


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Singalong! Lovely Day by Bill Withers

This song is simple and light and lifts my heart every time I hear it.


LOVELY DAY
by Bill Withers

When I wake up in the morning, love
And the sunlight hurts my eyes
And something without warning, love
Bears heavy on my mind

Then I look at you
And the world's alright with me
Just one look at you
And I know it's gonna be
A lovely day
A lovely day

When the day that lies ahead of me
Seems impossible to face
When someone else instead of me
Always seems to know the way

Then I look at you
And the world's alright with me
Just one look at you
And I know it's gonna be
A lovely day
A lovely day

When the day that lies ahead of me
Seems impossible to face
When someone else instead of me
Always seems to know the way

Then I look at you
And the world's alright with me
Just one look at you
And I know it's gonna be
A lovely day
A lovely day



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Learning! Roundup: Unfamiliar laughter, MONKEY CLONES, sleep, victim blaming, and more!

Photo by Charles Etoroma.

Unfamiliar Laughter

We are very good at recognizing other people's voices, but not when they're laughing. If it's a real, spontaneous, genuine laugh, then we can't tell who it came from. Apparently this is linked all the way back to the early days of humanity, before we developed speech and the identifying characteristics that come with it. Back then, vocalizations were more about communicating information than identity.

MONKEY CLONES

Ummmm.... THEY HAVE CLONED MONKEYS. Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Neuroscience used the same technique used to create Dolly the Sheep. Proving how rough it is to be a monkey in captivity, they planted 79 cloned embryos in 21 surrogate mothers. Six became actually pregnant, and two were born.

Also, yes, this does mean we are a lot closer to cloning humans, which is just terrifying.

Animal Culture

Did you know that bottlenose dolphins enjoy their own fashion? They do! Animals have culture, too!


To Do: Sleep

This one came up a TON in my feeds over the past week: writing down your to do list before bed can help you fall asleep. It seems to be more effective than writing about the day that already happened.

How to Stop Victim Blaming

If you've ever been a victim of anything, you'll know that we victim blame a LOT in our society. It's kind of a thing. This video does an excellent job of explaining where that comes from, and an easy way to fix it. (HINT: The easy way to fix it is to describe events from the perspective of the perpetrator, not the victim. We put ourselves in the shoes of the person whose story is being described, and imagine how we "would have done things differently" - if we do it from the perspective of the perpetrator, the blame falls in the right place.)


Low Self-Esteem Romance is Worse

A new study says that people with low self-esteem have partners who are less responsive to their problems, but that it might be due to the way they share their bad news.


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This Week in Church: Tolerance, intolerance, and tearing down walls

Welcome to the series wherein I share my take-aways from church. The things that, I think, are beneficial to all of us to know or think about, whether or not we believe in any church-related things.

I think that church can teach things that are beneficial to everyone, whether or not we believe in church-related things.

This week in church we talked about tolerance, intolerance, and tearing down walls.

We talked about how to build walls between us and what it means to tear them down. That victimization and interrogation and polarization are symptoms of both supremacy behaviour and traumatized behaviour (as per Sarah Schulman).

We talked about how Jesus dying was an example of major reconciliation. Not just to God, but to each other. He lived in a world of oppression and betrayal and, when he was betrayed, died instead of fighting back to show us what the path we were on lead to. (Cynical note: did it work? We didn't exactly turn away from our oppressor/oppressed dynamics in the wake of his sacrifice, even those who follow him.)

Quote of the day: "It takes zero grace to relate to someone who looks, thinks, acts, and believes just like you." (And then something about grace being the key in tearing down walls.)


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To Our Health: Getting stressy with it

Image by Spencer Imbrock

Last night I started a course on health. It is four weeks, and it will focus on managing stress, nutrition, sleep, and physical activity. Guys, I am super-nerdy-excited for this! (All credit for everything I learn and share here goes to Alexia Gillespie, our instructor who also does health coaching.)

In the first session, we talked about stress management.

Here are my notes:

Our bodies are a land of contradictions. They are both filled with wonder and rife with limitations.

At some point we "learn" that our bodies are more about appearance than about how we interact with and make our way through the world. Sad, right? Is it possible to unlearn that terrible lesson? Not sure.

Our goal is to change habits, not to the point where we're used to making ourselves do them, but to the point where it's harder to not do it than to do it.

Questions to get at the heart of things:

What is your current state of health costing you? (Financially, relationally, emotionally, etc.)

What can you let go of in life?

What practices for dealing with stress were a part of your childhood or built into your family life?

What are your top three stressors in life? What are some of the ways you deal with them that are positive? Negative?

Of all the ways one could deal with stress (including the things you wrote down), what do you naturally gravitate towards? What actually appeals to you? What do you feel resistance to?

Takeaways and homework:

There is a "duh" moment in here that we will maybe be more successful at building in healthy practices if we lean into the things that we naturally gravitate towards and not worry too much about the things we feel resistance towards, even if they are good things that we should be doing.

Small daily practices are better than larger practices every week. (So 10 mins of walking a day will be more beneficial than a 3 hour walk on the weekend, when it comes to overall stress management.)

You have to actually look at your schedule and plan for the change. In the class, we are all assigned 20 minutes of rejuvenating/stress-reducing activity every day. We can split that up however we want (5 mins and 15 mins, 10 and 10, all 20 at once, whatever). The key is to plan ahead and find a low-barrier way to work it into our daily schedules.


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Inspiration! Roundup: Things organized neatly, powerful clouds, the duke of woollington, and more!

This Week's "I want to go to there": ANYWHERE SUNNY!
Photo by Vicko Mozara.

Things Organized Neatly

Looking at Austin Radcliffe's images of things organized neatly makes me feel instantly relaxed.


Hold it All

“We are constantly trying to hold it all together. If you really want to see why you do things, then don’t do them and see what happens.”
― Michael A. Singer


(via Swiss Miss)

The Power of Clouds

This video by Mike Olbinski, capturing gathering storms in glorious black and white, is fully stunning. BEHOLD, THE POWER OF CLOUDS!


Children and Social Media

Normally when I read articles about the vile dangers of social media, I get kind of annoyed. Yes, there are inherent dangers there, but it's also how you use it. This account from a mother re-evaluating her social media practices around posting photos of her daughter feels different to me. She is honest about the problems and confronts herself with tough questions that get to the real heart of things: why does she post, for whom, and what could they do with the information?

Wallflower

Photographer Joseph Ford and knitter Nina Dodd have partnered to create this joyful little art project: people wearing hand-knit sweaters that blend them into their backgrounds. I love it!

Also, Nina Dodd calls herself "The Duke of Woollington" on her website! Beaut!


Stick it to the Man

Artist Nikolas Bentel is going to ruin a piece of original art, for the sake of art. As a statement against the financial and corporate focus he sees in the fine art market, he will sell off advertising space on an original Robert Rauschenberg, sticking logos and ads all over it until it is completely covered.

When I first heard about this, I rolled my eyes at the artsy stunt, but now I'm on board! If you think the art market is ruining the value of art, then use the market to ruin a piece of valuable art! Do it! Damn the man!


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Money talks are HARD!

Image Source: Giphy

Once, I was asked at work how much money I wanted to make. I had no idea what to say: I was surviving (on a baked potato lifestyle) off what I was making, but an amount that I actually wanted to make would be impossible for the company. Should I say a realistic number? A big number? Was this casual conversation the start of a negotiation? What did that even mean?

I panicked and joked, "ALL the money!"

Sigh.

This answer was moderately better than the time the boy I really really really liked asked me what I saw for my future, romantically, and I said, "I'm not really looking for a relationship right now." (That was, believe it or not, an attempt to be flirtatiously coy. Romantic flirtation is similar to a negotiation, where you say things related to what you want but not what you actually want, and I am very very bad at that.)

If only I had this article from The Washington Post about negotiating. (Wow, from how I wrote that, you'd think they were paying me to do this post. They're not.)

Here's the main takeaway: instead of asking, "am I making enough?" Ask, "how can I make more?"

Honestly? I don't like it. It sounds selfish and capitalist and privileged and as if you can never be making enough money and I think that's a dangerous framework. But you know what else is a dangerous framework? Never thinking you deserve anything, especially if you live in a city where housing costs are a pile of insane bananas that grow exponentially every few months.

Besides, I think that if you really ask yourself, "how can I make more?" Your answers will not always be, "force my employer to pay me more and more and more and more for no good reason!" Nope, maybe you need to angle for a promotion, find a new job, or start a side hustle. You may have to work for it. A lot.

Then you might decide, "actually, I see what it will take to earn more money, and it's not worth it to me right now," and that's okay, too. Because getting more and more and more and more has a cost, and sometimes it's too high.

Of course, this is advice coming from the girl who joked for five minutes about wanting all the money in a job where she was getting paid in peanut shells instead of requesting a reasonable raise, sooooooo... maybe just read the article and we'll learn things together.


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Cute! Roundup: Freaking mom out, unexpected babies, fluffy baby donkeys, and more!

This is what happens when I wait to try to get a picture of Gertie begging to come back inside, and instead she just stares something invisible on the glass.



OTHER CUTENESS:

That moment when your kid scares the pants off of you.

A very unexpected brood.

I didn't know baby donkeys were so FLUFFY!

This rooster goes to meet its girl every single day after school.

This pup reminds me of those British soldiers who never smile.

Personality test: what kind of dog would you be? (I got pit bull!)


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Singalong! Fast Car by Tracy Chapman

OH! My heart! This song! The longing, the hope, and the letdown. Bring this one out at karaoke when you want to really dampen the mood.


FAST CAR
by Tracy Chapman

You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
Anyplace is better
Starting from zero got nothing to lose
Maybe we'll make something
Me, myself I got nothing to prove

You got a fast car
I got a plan to get us out of here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
Won't have to drive too far
Just 'cross the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living

You see my old man's got a problem
He live with the bottle that's the way it is
He says his body's too old for working
His body's too young to look like his
My mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said somebody's got to take care of him
So I quit school and that's what I did

You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so we can fly away
We gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way

So remember we were driving, driving in your car
Speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
I had a feeling that I belonged
I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone

You got a fast car
We go cruising to entertain ourselves
You still ain't got a job
I work in a market as a checkout girl
I know things will get better
You'll find work and I'll get promoted
We'll move out of the shelter
Buy a bigger house and live in the suburbs

I remember we were driving, driving in your car
Speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
I had a feeling that I belonged
I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone

You got a fast car
I got a job that pays all our bills
You stay out drinking late at the bar
See more of your friends than you do of your kids
I'd always hoped for better
Thought maybe together you and me would find it
I got no plans I ain't going nowhere
So take your fast car and keep on driving

You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so you can fly away
You gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way

Image Source: Giphy



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Learning! Roundup: How to be funny, meditation, art education, sweexts, and more!

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez.

Explaining the Joke

If you don't get a lot of humour, here is a thorough breakdown of being funny.

Meditation and the Brain

A chat between a molecular biologist-turned-monk and a neuroscientist about meditation seems worth the read.

Arts Education Still Matters

Perhaps it's because I work in the arts, but I feel like everywhere I turn there is another study on the value of arts in education. Sometimes I want to shout "DUH! WE ALL KNEW THAT!" at the people who seem amazed by this revelation that art is valuable, but part of how research works involves slowly and repeatedly testing assumptions.

Anyways, here's another study on how art is the best thing to teach young kids how to be ready for school.

Sex Tweets (Sweexts?) Predict STI's

The headline says it all. New analysis has shown that the prevalence of sexual tweets in an area can predict STI rates. I admit that I am a bit surprised people tweet that much about their actual sex lives.

Lifetime Personality Traits

A huge metastudy of personality traits across a lifespan has come out saying that we do, indeed, change as we age. Basically, we get more and more dull: our ratings on four out of the "Big Five" personality traits declines as we age. (The Big Five are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and agreeableness is the one that remains constant.)

How to Stop Blaming Muslims for Terrorism (if you're not Muslim)

Researchers tested various ways to stop people from blaming Muslims, as a whole, for terror attacks, and they found one clear winner: pointing out the hypocrisy of blaming all Muslims for the extreme actions of a few, but not all Christians for their extremist violence. This, of course, assumes you are talking to someone who is from a Christian (or Christian-sympathetic) background, but the principle could be applied to many groups.


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On puppet shows and Aziz Ansari

Photo by Pablo Hermoso.

Last night I watched a puppet show. It was awesome. The pieces were quirky, funny, and imaginative. I was filled with joy and wonder by the end of the whole thing.

Except that there is an except.

The except is this: two of the pieces included sexual violence and manipulation that was presented completely uncritically and without an ounce of nuance. One ended with a woman being killed by her date because she left him for someone else. In the other, a woman is emotionally manipulated into agreeing to have sex and then her head literally disassociates from her body while it happens.

These pieces were comedies. They were absurd and quirky, piling the fantastical, strange, and weird one on top of the other. It was, largely, delightful. I laughed, until I realized what I was laughing at.

It hit me, the week that we learned about a woman named Grace and her "bad date" with Aziz Ansari, that nothing is ever going to change until we stop thinking it's perfectly okay to treat rape, coercion, and sexual violence in this way.

I believe Aziz Ansari when he says he thought the events that night were consensual, just like I believe that the creators of those puppet pieces were in no way trying to say that sexual violence and coercion is okay. It simply never occurred to anyone involved in either situation that there could be a problem, because why would there be? On stage, and in real life, a woman's agency, safety, and desires are of such little concern to us as a whole that they are easily and unquestioningly set aside, whether for the sake of a joke or because someone is too busy to notice if they're there.

Whether or not you think what Grace describes on her date as "that bad" or you are convinced you would have done something differently or that the original reporting was shoddy, I don't care. Here are some facts:

1) Going into someone's apartment at the end of a date does not automatically mean you want to have sex. Walking across a threshold is not consent. (And you know what? Neither is taking off all your clothes.)

2) If a person is feeling uncomfortable or forced in a sexual situation, five minutes of "chilling on the couch" is not likely to turn that around (if it does, they will be sure to let you know), and trying to start things back up is a clear demonstration on where their desire and comfort ranks in your decision-making process.

3) If you are so caught up on your own passion that you don't even notice that the other person is pulling away or not kissing you back, you are not thinking about your partner at all.

All these things point to one simple interpretation of the events: for whatever Aziz Ansari did do, he did not respect Grace. At all.

While I can't identify with the specific details of her story, I, like many women, fully identify with the basic premise. So much so that, when I went on a date with a man who actually fully respected me and my boundaries, it was so surprising an experience that I wrote about it. IT SHOULD NOT BE A SURPRISING EXPERIENCE TO BE RESPECTED.

And yet, here we are. Again. On stage and in real life. Cool.

Current mood:

Image Source: Giphy


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Inspiration! Roundup: Step back, interesting weights, the future, revenge, and more!

This Week's "I want to go to there":
I have been doing a lot of think-work lately and I am craving to work with my hands.
Photo on Foter.com

Perspective

“I don’t think it is possible to contribute to the present moment in any meaningful way while being wholly engulfed by it. It is only by stepping out of it, by taking a telescopic perspective, that we can then dip back in and do the work which our time asks of us.”
-Maria Popova


Weight Talk

I recently came across this article called How to Have an Interesting Weight. It's actually about the artwork of Françoise Grossen, but the headline made me stop. What if we could reframe the way we think about our body's weight? What would an interesting weight be? Probably not some averagely thin weight.

The Future

Seeing this comic gave me an unexpected, deep hope. (It's also a very good idea to add Poorly Drawn Lines to your daily reading, if it's not already there.)

A post shared by Poorly Drawn Lines (@poorlydrawnlines) on

Big and Little Hearts

Brain Pickings' reading and analysis of the story Big Wolf & Little Wolf warmed my big/little heart.

Revenge

"of course I’m terrified. Of course I’m a shroud.
And of course it’s not fair but rest assured,
anxious America, you brought your fists to a glitter fight.
This is a taco truck rally and all you have is cole slaw.
You cannot deport our minds; we won’t
hold funerals for our potential. We have always been
what makes America great."
-Elisa Chavez

(Read her entire, awesome, inspiring poem at The Seattle Review.)

On the Value of Sadness

If you feel stuck in a world where you're supposed to be constantly happy, serene, joyful, or generally feeling positive things, then this article might be a good read for you. Here is a quote from the article:

"Usually the question I get most often is, 'How can I be happy all the time?'" he says. "That's easy. You can't, and you shouldn't try. It's not about looking at the world as either all positive or all negative. What you start to realize is, the glass is neither half full nor half empty. It's just refillable."

YES INDEED, SIR! This is a bit of a reflection of what I was saying in my "your doing gratitude wrong" post. As tempting as it is to try to banish negative feelings, that's not life. Sometimes we are sad because things are sad.

Problem Areas

Thank you to my friend Lisa for sending me this post!

A post shared by graceclubyvr (@graceclubyvr) on


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Seriously, though, why can't I watch Murphy Brown anymore?

Every once in a while, I check back around the internet to see if I can somehow access the backlog of Murphy Brown seasons that MUST exist SOMEWHERE. Inevitably, I am left thoroughly disappointed.

GUYS!!! Why have we forgotten about Murphy Brown? Why has she been left behind???? She should be a star in the online feminist/90s nostalgia world!

Here's what I remember:

She is SMART. She is FUNNY.

She CARES about her FRIENDS.

She is AMBITIOUS. She is TOUGH.

She never stops RENOVATING HER HOUSE.

She STOMPS on the PATRIARCHY every chance she GETS.

She has a bad habit of being MEAN to her assistants, and that's NOT SOMETHING TO LOOK UP TO.

She LEARNS LESSONS. She HOLDS PEOPLE ACCOUNTABLE.

She has a MORAL COMPASS.

And SHE IS FUNNY.

It was a funny show!!! Why can't we have this funny show?

Here is a funny quote that shows nothing has changed in the world and we still need Murphy Brown:

"Why do you guys need a movement in the first place? Tired of getting higher pay for the same jobs?"

And here is a gif that is also funny and inspiring if you have some rage to deliver:


Chant with me: BRING BACK MURPHY! BRING BACK MURPHY!


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Cute! Roundup: Tail confusion, cat zombie, pups on a plane, and more!

Gertie seemed confused the other night of whether her tail was something to clean or attack.


OTHER CUTENESS:

This cat might be interested in your braaaaaaaains.

I want to be on whatever plane they are waiting for.

Snuggle bomb.

Life with a fox appears to be the best thing ever.

Is it weird that I mainly want to know where they got those hedgehog-sized sunglasses?

Also, this cinnamon roll cat:

Image from earthandworld on Reddit.



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Singalong! Piece of My Heart by Janis Joplin

In high school, loving Janis Joplin was a go-to way to show that you were a genuine, deep person with excellent taste in music. Or at least I thought so. Now that I look back, I'm not sure that my friends agreed with my assessment of Janis Joplin's music, or if they just put up with it because I had a car and drove us places.


PIECE OF MY HEART
by Janis Joplin

Oh, come on, come on, come on, come on!

Didn't I make you feel like you were the only man - yeah!
An' didn't I give you nearly everything that a woman possibly can ?
Honey, you know I did!
And each time I tell myself that I, well I think I've had enough,
But I'm gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough.

I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it,
Take it!
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby!
Oh, oh, break it!
Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, oh, have a!
Have another little piece of my heart now, baby,
You know you got it if it makes you feel good,
Oh, yes indeed.

You're out on the streets looking good,
And baby deep down in your heart I guess you know that it ain't right,
Never, never, never, never, never, never hear me when I cry at night,
Babe, and I cry all the time!
But each time I tell myself that I, well I can't stand the pain,
But when you hold me in your arms, I'll sing it once again.

I'll say come on, come on, come on, come on and take it!
Take it!
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby.
Oh, oh, break it!
Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah,
Oh, oh, have a!
Have another little piece of my heart now, baby,
You know you got it, child, if it makes you feel good.

Image by ABC Television. CC.


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Learning! Roundup: Friendship and aging, clutter, line-switching, rotten apples, and more!


Friendship for Life

There is a lot of research out there about the importance of a secure social circle, and now there's more. In a recent study of "superagers", or women over 80 who are just as (or more) vibrant and cognitively sharp as 20-30-somethings, they found that the one place these women stood out was their close friendships.

Clutter Anxiety

There is now research to back the idea that clutter causes anxiety. I already relented to the fact that my mom was right on this one when I admitted to myself that I prefer a tidy home, but now she's got research on her side.

Line-Switching

In general, I have given into the fact that I almost always choose the wrong line in the grocery store, but every once in a while I think I can game the system and get ahead, jumping from one line to another. New research shows that I am need to just give up on my queue-hopping dreams: switching lines almost always backfires.

Soft Skills

Google, also known as mecca for our STEM-obsessed society, has recently learned that its employees needed soft skills more than STEM knowledge. The most important skills for people who were hired, promoted, and succeeded were being a good coach, listening well, empathy, critical thinking, and the like. Looks like my theatre/psych degree SHOULD be getting me a job on Google's campus, then!

Rotten Apples

Want to watch movies that weren't made by known sexual predators? Visit Rotten Apples!

All the Single People

Researchers used to ignore single people, because they were just in a holding pattern until they found their way into matrimony. Turns out, some people like being single, and so they get research now to. Here is a collection of six new things researchers learned about single people in 2017, including the fact that single people have higher self-esteem than those in bad relationships, teenagers are less interested in sex, and single people hold a lot more power in society than ever before.


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Bots to auto-like your friends' posts: giving social media a bad name

Image Source: RawPixel

Okay okay okay, I realize that social media doesn't need external help in dragging its name through the mud. What with its algorithms that induce silos and hide meaningful information in favour of the sensational and reinforce our moods and perspectives, it's pretty muddy on its own.

But here is something just insane: a bot that auto-likes your friends' posts on Instagram.

It was invented by a guy so that he could like his girlfriend's posts without having to put the effort into actually looking at them.

The weirdest thing is not that this exists, but that I came across it in an article about how useful it is.

Do I even need to say why this is terrible? Okay, I will:

One: It is patronizing. It assumes that you need to appease someone by liking all their posts.

Two: It is manipulative. It tricks someone into thinking you like their posts, why? So that they will like you more? So that they will think you like them more?

Three: It is deceptive. You don't actually like all their posts, nor do you like this person enough to a) bother looking at their posts or b) respect them and not trick them.

Four: It feeds into narcissism. If your friend/partner really does need to be appeased by having all their posts liked, it just feeds into that insanity. If someone is really asking you why you didn't like every single one of their posts, they have a problem, not you.

Five: It sets you up to look stupid. What if you like a post about their dog dying? Or where they say something like "if you like this, that means you agree with _____"?, which I wouldn't put past the type of person who demands all their posts be liked. What if they say something in reference to the post you liked and you have no idea what they're talking about because you didn't actually see it?

Six: Just stop it. Stop it. No. Put it down. Stop.

Image Source: Giphy


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This Week in Church: Better together and the roots of change

Welcome to the series wherein I share my take-aways from church. The things that, I think, are beneficial to all of us to know or think about, whether or not we believe in any church-related things.

I think that church can teach things that are beneficial to everyone, whether or not we believe in church-related things.

This week in church, we talked about being better together.

This one is not exactly a surprise: we need each other. Our deepest hurts may come from other people, but so does the deepest, most fulsome healing. If we want to get something done or be better in some way, it's going to be more effective if we do it in a state of togetherness.

This week in church, we talked about change.

What if, instead of changing ourselves based on fear, guilt, discipline, or trying harder, grace and love were at the basis of our drive to change? What the heck does that even mean?

I think it boils down to embracing that we are creatures worthy of love and acceptance, independent of our actions, non-actions, appearance, or whatever else we think gives us worth. If you want to put God in there (which makes a lot of sense if you're at church), then it's the idea that God loves us no matter what.

So if we accept that love and grace as a baseline, and then find our growth and change through that, what would be different? I think a lot of the things we do might be the same, but the motivation would be so different.


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Inspiration! Roundup: Time's Up, hell for everyone, kindness, unexpected choreography, and more about resolutions!

This Week's "I want to go to there":
I want to move into a big, old, lavish theatre and dream all the dreams.

Time's Up

You probably already know about Time's Up, the powerhouse anti-harassment organization from the queens and duchesses of Hollywood. What I love most about it is that these rich and powerful women are not just making a statement: they pooled their money to create a legal fund for women who don't have their power. Also, you can buy merch that goes to the legal fund, so guess what I'm buying as gifts for everyone from now on???

If We're Lucky

If we are lucky, we will be as old as this woman one day. Here's her sweet advice:

"Some day you may be as old as I am. Please take my advice, and don't waste your short life. Invest your youthful vitality in your art. Share the best of your spirit with the world. Your body will die, but you cannot die. So, don't worry about petty things like bodies, money, and possessions. They pass with the body and are meaningless. Don't worry what anyone thinks of you. Don't seek approval, except form yourself. Your art and ideas are signs of your spirit. Your beauty endures forever, as do you."

Image found on Reddit.

Hell for Everyone

These descriptions of hell for each Myers-Briggs personality type made me laugh.

Fully Equipped

“Let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.”
– Carl Sagan


Something Bigger

Love this illustration by Teo Zirinis.

A post shared by Ohh Deer (@ohhdeer) on

Unexpected Choreography

Artist William Forsyth's installation at the Grande halle de la Villette in Paris forces museum patrons into a dance as they try to avoid hitting the swinging pendulums.


Tiny Changes

This roundup of tiny changes that have made a significant impact on people's lives is really interesting! I like one of the commenters' commitment to only purchase things after she has completely used up the thing it would replace. If you're still looking for some new year's resolution inspo, this might be a good place to start!

Speaking of Resolutions

Have you tried an itty-bitty resolution? Things that are entirely achievable, will add up to something valuable, and yet are so small they are almost embarrassing to tell people. The example given i this article is a process goal: instead of committing to write a novel, commit to write 100 words a day. Yeah, 100. That's a long-ish Facebook update. In fact, do it on Facebook.

They call it the "foot in the door". When I wanted to start writing again, I started by carving out one hour a week at a time that didn't require much sacrifice (between work an a regular weekly even where I usually just hung out at my desk for an extra hour anyways). It worked!

Enough Talk

Okay, now that thing you want to do that there are a bunch of excuses why you can't do it?



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If depression and anxiety are gifts, they are the worst gifts ever

Image by Emma Darvick.

I have been reading a lot of things lately about anxiety and depression and how maybe they can be seen as a blessing in disguise or a gift, and, well, I have a reaction to that.

ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION ARE NOT FUCKING GIFTS.

(Sorry, mom and dad. I feel very strongly about this one.)

If someone asks me whether my depression was a gift, I just sit back and wonder what I could have done with myself if I hadn't been smothered in darkness for most of my life.

Depression is a dark, horrible pit of emptiness and self-loathing. Anxiety is a swirling fire of never-ending, fear-driven questions. They both leave you feeling entirely cut off from the rest of the world. These are not blessings.

Just like overcoming any hardship, learning how to manage depression and anxiety might result in something positive: I may have more compassion and drive to follow dreams as a result of my efforts, but it could have just as easily gone the other way. Depression's expertise, after all, is selfishness, detachment, and meaninglessness, not compassion and dreamy hope.

Any blessings that can be attributed to depression or anxiety are just strengths people already had that emerged during the struggle. It's like the ending to The Wizard of Oz, where everyone learned that they had heart, brains, and courage all along. Sure, they discovered it thanks to this journey, but any number of circumstances could have brought them out.

Listen, I get it. It sucks to be depressed and it can feel good to reframe it as at least partially positive. That's fine if it helps you as an individual. Just be careful when you talk about it publicly - imagine being told that depression is a gift while you were living in the bottom of that pit. Would it give you hope? It sure didn't for me.


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Cute! Roundup: Wholesomeness, disappointing children, baby sea turtles, and more!

This is the last Christmas-related thing, I swear! It's just that Gertie tried to eat the gingerbread houses, and I couldn't let that go unphotographed.


OTHER CUTENESS:

Is it wholesome?

When your kid just can't figure something out.

A man helps a cat drink water from a fountain!

Baby sea turtles in training.

Dog suspicions.


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Singalong! One Hand in My Pocket by Alanis Morissette

I know I could use this anthem to simplicity right now. How about you?


ONE HAND IN MY POCKET
by Alanis Morissette

I'm broke but I'm happy, I'm poor but I'm kind
I'm short but I'm healthy, yeah
I'm high but I'm grounded, I'm sane but I'm overwhelmed
I'm lost but I'm hopeful, baby
What it all comes down to
Is that everything's gonna be fine, fine, fine
'Cause I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is giving a high five

I feel drunk but I'm sober, I'm young and I'm underpaid
I'm tired but I'm working, yeah
I care but I'm restless, I'm here but I'm really gone
I'm wrong and I'm sorry baby

What it all comes down to
Is that everything is going to be quite alright
'Cause I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is flicking a cigarette

What it all comes down to
Is that I haven't got it all figured out just yet
'Cause I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is giving a peace sign

I'm free but I'm focused, I'm green but I'm wise
I'm hard but I'm friendly, baby
I'm sad but I'm laughing, I'm brave but I'm chicken shit
I'm sick but I'm pretty baby

And what it all boils down to
Is that no one's really got it figured out just yet
I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is playing the piano

And what it all comes down to, my friends, yeah
Is that everything is just fine fine fine
I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is hailing a taxi cab

Image Source: Giphy 


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Ivanka Trump's All-You-Can-Eat Sushi

Last night I dreamt that Ivanka Trump was the co-owner of a sushi restaurant. It was all-you-can-eat, but there was a twist: you had to take off clothes before you could do the eating so that once your body expanded from all the sushi, you didn't get stuck. HOWEVER, it was also, for some reason, very difficult to remove any layers of clothing once inside. It was some kind of worthiness test.

I woke up and thought to myself, "That would be a much better use of her time."

Sigh.



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Learning! Roundup: Imagine yourself full, money and awe, peak human, universal basic income, and more!

Photo by Peter Hershey.

Imagine Yourself Full

Add this one to the body of research on how we can imagine ourselves into physical states: a new study shows that people who imagine the feeling of being full subsequently opted for smaller food portions. This could be the funnest way to bring portion control into our lives.

Money Buys (Different) Happiness

Wealth may impact (to a degree) how happy you are, but it also impacts what makes you happy. People who are richer tend to get more joy from their accomplishments and status, whereas those with less money enjoy their relationships more and have greater experiences of awe. Of course, this is correlational: do people who are happier with things and status seek more wealth? Or does having wealth change what makes you happy?

Peak Human

Researchers now think that we may have reached the pinnacle of human ability. All that's left are computer upgrades!

Universal Basic Income

I'm a big fan of the notion of universal basic income. Here's a video explaining the concept:


Fasting Diets

As much as we are all loathe to prove smug people on trendy diets right, it looks like fasting may actually improve brain power. An experiment with mice showed that those who fasted every other day (but ate overall the same number of calories as the control mice) had increased levels of brain chemical BDNF that enables increased brain connections.

Emotional Diversity

Sure, most people want to be happy all the time, but it turns out that life doesn't tend to foster one consistent emotional state and experiencing a diverse array of emotions is actually healthy for us. This article brings evidence for how this is most important in children, especially boys who are later socialized to express very few emotions.

Gendering the Environment

Here's MORE evidence that gender norms are screwing us over: men are less likely to participate in "green" behaviours because they are perceived as more feminine.

Diet and Age

Another round of evidence is coming up on the benefits of eating vegetables: the more plants on your plate, the healthier your brain will be as you age.

Breath Printing

Once I wrote a sci fi story where instead of doing retinal scans or fingerprints to get into spaces, people had their breath pattern analyzed. I took it out because it sounded dumb, but it turns out that I was right! The sound of our breath is actually unique and can identify us.


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