I Love Hearing People Go Into A Genuine, Uncontrollable Laughing Fit. It Brightens My Soul In A Manner

She's so perfect she just goes right back to doing her thing

one of the more valuable things I’ve learned in life as a survivor of a mentally unstable parent is that it is likely that no one has thought through it as much as you have. 

no, your friend probably has not noticed they cut you off four times in this conversation. 

no, your brother didn’t realize his music was that loud while you were studying. 

no, your bff or S.O. doesn’t remember that you’re on a tight deadline right now.

no, no one else is paying attention to the four power dynamics at play in your friend group right now.  

a habit of abused kids, especially kids with unstable parents, is the tendency to notice every little detail. We magnify small nuances into major things, largely because small nuances quickly became breaking points for parents. Managing moods, reading the room, perceiving danger in the order of words, the shift of body weight….it’s all a natural outgrowth of trying to manage unstable parents from a young age. 

Here’s the thing: most people don’t do that. I’m not saying everyone else is oblivious, I’m saying the over analysis of minor nuances is a habit of abuse. 

I have a rule: I do not respond to subtext. This includes guilt tripping, silent treatments, passive aggressive behavior, etc. I see it. I notice it. I even sometimes have to analyze it and take a deep breath and CHOOSE not to respond. Because whether it’s really there or just me over-reading things that actually don’t mean anything, the habit of lending credence to the part of me that sees danger in the wrong shift of body weight…that’s toxic for me. And dangerous to my relationships. 

The best thing I ever did for myself and my relationships was insist upon frank communication and a categorical denial of subtext. For some people this is a moral stance. For survivors of mentally unstable parents this is a requirement of recovery. 

People love to talk about whether or not disabled people can work

but if you can work just fine and your disability is destroying your ability to have a life outside of work (because work takes all your energy and more)

Dead silence. Nobody cares.

Mushrooms are so fucking weird

Physiologically, the cells of a mushroom are more similar to the cells of a steak than those of a plant

You put a mushroom into a mri and you’ll get an image that shows they have as much electrical activity as any brain.

We know that the mycelium, the main body of the mushroom, is interspersed into the soil, that the head of the mushroom itself is just the flower or fruit.

We also know that most plants grow better in soil with a living mycelium, and that branches of it will create small nodes that attach to the plants roots

Large old trees have shown that they have smaller rings in years where younger plants did well. Young plants do better when there’s older plants and mycelium present, even when there is no difference in nutrient content. The older plants are using the mycelium to communicate, to detect the presence of young plants and delegate resources to them. They’ve done this for millions of years, living in communal symbiosis.

They’ll help deliver water to places they’re more dry, sugars to places with less sunlight, and even carry minerals and other nutrients from place to place. The plants access the mycelium as a social network, to communicate their needs and offer any access resources they have.

Plants have had internet millions of years before humans ever even walked the earth

Me, after forgetting to cut the top off an onion before dicing it: “Aw dammit”

The Gordon Ramsey that lives in my head: “Don’t worry there, this mistake isn’t going to ruin anything. No need to be too hard on yourself”

Me: “Wow, that’s…not what I was expecting”

Gordon: “Of course, you ought to know by now that I don’t shout at cooks just to do so. I do it because the people in hit television show Kitchen Nightmares are putting their services out into the public and claim to be good enough to have the title of head chef. You’re just some guy in your twenties making beef stroganoff for yourself and your roommate. I’m kind of a dick, yeah, but I’m not gonna scream at you for a minor mistake like this”

Me: “Oh….well…thanks”

Gordon: “You’re welcome…cunt…”

Just ate an entire pear that was so good and so juicy i started gnawing on it with both hands like an animal and the face my supervisor made when he passed by my desk while I was absolutely consumed by my pear fueled bacchanal was Something i have never seen someone look so tired and also so upset and also also so envious

poem, “there’s laundry to do and a genocide to stop,” by vinay krishnan (x). transcription in alt text

cats + nature <3