Wow

Wow

I grew up with a grandma who quilted, but she’d never been interested in passing along the hobby, so when she finally kicked it I was the grandkid who got all her materials, ‘cause I was the only one who knew how to use a sewing machine. Then, in 2015, a friend had a baby and I figured I’d make her a quilt, ‘cause how hard could it be?

oh

my

god

Luckily I am the stubbornest human alive, ‘cause I never woulda finished otherwise. I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know the terms to look up how to do anything, I musta reinvented the wheel like eight times and it took ten months, BUT I DID IT.

Figured I’d suffered enough and would never do it again and now I’m on quilt #9 smdh

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I’m hyperventilating.

Holy shit. Holy SHIT.

This is INCREDIBLE.

Oh my god.

I’ve gotta go lay down holy shit look at this how do we just walk by other human beings every day and live our separate lives when there’s a person sitting next to you on the train or in line for coffee who goes home and makes things like this what even IS being human holy shit.

GOOD FUCKING JOB.

Happy Clair Cameron Patterson day! And less environmental lead pollution day.

TIL that the reason lead levels in children’s blood have dropped 85% in the past thirty years is because of an unknown scientist who fought car companies to end leaded gasoline. He also removed it from paint, suggested its removal from pipes, and campaigned for the removal of lead solder from cans.

via ift.tt

There really isn't that tight a correlation between egg size and adult size. I mean we're not expecting something big, but some of the biggest of these came out of mid to small eggs. It's so cool!

Bugs & Bunnies

These are brilliant

Take advantage of donation doubling etc, if you can, but donate. It's better that you donate $100 now without it being doubled or tripled, than to decide to wait and forget to donate at all.

MFS are saving lives.

I know I've said this a hundred times but if you're worried about palestinian fundraisers being scams at least consider donating to MSF. It's a highly reputable organization which has broken its long-standing neutrality to denounce Israel in front of the UN. Here's all the aid MSF is providing to Gazans (documentation available in multiple languages).

I know it's not cool to remind folk that we're in an ongoing pandemic, but while COVID doesn't reset the immune system like measles, it can turn on and off certain genes in stem cells, altering how your immune system behaves in future.

VACCINATE YA KIDS FFS

EXACTLY!

It's also okay to describe what the active character is looking at. For example, "I saw her eyes starting to water, and as the first tears fell, I reached across the table and cupped her face in my hand. She looked down and leaned her face into my pain. I wiped her tears away with my thumb, across the ridges and valleys of her crows feet.

Or

Uncomfortable at her tears, Adrian reacted across and held her face in his hand. Her tears ran over her face, highlighting the wrinkles exacerbated by the upset tension in her face.

In writing, epithets ("the taller man"/"the blonde"/etc) are inherently dehumanizing, in that they remove a character's name and identity, and instead focus on this other quality.

Which can be an extremely effective device within narration!

They can work very well for characters whose names the narrator doesn't know yet (especially to differentiate between two or more). How specific the epithet is can signal to the reader how important the character is going to be later on, and whether they should dedicate bandwidth to remembering them for later ("the bearded man" is much less likely to show up again than "the man with the angel tattoo")

They can indicate when characters stop being as an individual and instead embody their Role, like a detective choosing to think of their lover simply as The Thief when arresting them, or a royal character being referred to as The Queen when she's acting on behalf of the state

They can reveal the narrator's biases by repeatedly drawing attention to a particular quality that singles them out in the narrator's mind

But these only work if the epithet used is how the narrator primarily identifies that character. Which is why it's so jarring to see a lot of common epithets in intimate moments-- because it conveys that the main character is primarily thinking of their lover/best friend/etc in terms of their height or age or hair color.

This is really sweet.

A Bond That Transcends

My skin prickled, the hair on my arms standing as straight as a pin. Putting the kettle on the counter, I looked over my shoulder towards the door of my parlor. I was used to this feeling, it had happened so many times throughout my life, but it always filled my veins with adrenaline. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him, a young man, maybe twenty, with brown tight curls and piercing green eyes. His skin was dark and his clothes were torn up. Blood was splattered across his body. My breath caught in my throat as I turned around to face him.

“She’s coming. Rounding the block now.”

“Who is she? What happened to you?”

“She’ll explain when she gets here. She’s been researching you for weeks.”

“How long have you been with her?”

“All my life. My baby sister, brought to a place like this,” He looked around the room and sucked at his teeth, “All because of me.”

“I take it you didn’t like mediums while you were alive?” I took a seat at the large round table I placed in the front of the shop. It used to be my dining room table, but I hadn’t eaten off it in years. “How does it feel? Being here now, knowing that I can see you.”

“Almost as hard to process as dying.” He sat down in the seat furthest from me.

“Is there anything that I shouldn’t bring up? Something that will hurt more than it will help?”

“There’s someone else who’s been watching her. Don’t tell her he’s here, ignore him if you can.”

“Who is he?”

“Someone from her past that she tried desperately to escape.”

“Okay. I’ll do my best.” As I finished speaking, the bell attached to the door chimed.

A woman no older than eighteen stepped inside. She was the spitting image of the man sitting across from me. She was elegantly dressed with small pearl earrings poking out from her long curls. I smiled at her, her nervous energy filled the room from wall to wall. My skin prickled again as I looked at the large man who towered over her. His face was cut and his arms seemed to be disjointed. He was angry and volatile and his blue eyes burned with hatred. My smile faltered and I snuck a look at my mysterious friend. He nodded at me and looked back to his sister.

Small teardrops were running down her face. My heart ached for her, but there wasn’t much an old crone like myself could do for the pain of a lost loved one. I could bring only so much peace.

“Hello, my dear. I’ve been waiting for you.” Her brother scoffed at me, but I only smiled in return. I stood, heading back towards the kettle. “Would you like some tea?”

“Yes, please.” Her voice was quiet as she looked around the room. I could admit the room was a bit jarring. I had shelves full of herbs and tarot cards, crystals, and bottles that assuredly looked like potions. They were only lotion. I found that the gift of communing with the supernatural came much simpler to me than magic tricks. Tarot cards were helpful in the case of mute spirits or divination of the future, but when you have the source at your fingertips you don’t ignore it.

“Take a seat.” I heard the chair squeak out of place and silence filled the room. My hands shook slightly as I carried the tray of tea and sugar to the table and sat across from the young woman. “Now, what can I do for you tonight?”

“My brother, he passed-” She stopped herself, more tears surfacing. “My brother died a few weeks ago and I’m having a hard time dealing. I’d like to see if there’s a way to talk to him or check on him. I’m not sure if I even believe in an afterlife, but he was too special to be nowhere.”

I smiled at her, trying my hardest to ignore the energy coming from behind her. My eyes stayed glued to her and her brother. “Okay, that’s simple enough. As far as I understand it, there are two planes. There is “Heaven” and “Purgatory”. That’s not really what they are called, but that is what we would understand them as. Those in purgatory walk amongst us until they have completed their journey. When they have completed their journey, they go to heaven. After that, I’m not privy to much of the inner workings. My specialty is this world.”

The young girl seemed to relax, her shoulders drooping slightly and she exhaled slowly. I looked at her brother and he understood me.

“You can tell her I’m here.” He said, placing a large hand on her shoulder. She stiffened slightly and looked to the floor.

My eyes widened slightly, not many could feel the touch of those beyond. I hesitated before asking, “What is it?”

“Well, lately, I’ve been getting this weird sensation. Right here,” She pointed to his hand, “And I can’t shake it. It like tingles.”

“That’s your brother, my dear. He has been with you since the day he passed.”

Her eyes widened and she looked into the empty air in front of her. “No, it can’t be.”

“He is here. Ask me some questions, I will prove it to you.”

“Okay,” She nodded and began to think quietly to herself. “What’s my mother’s name?”

His laugh was deep and hearty, “Jasmine.” He said and I repeated.

“Where is my potted plant right now?”

I raised my eyebrow and looked at her brother. “On the windowsill in your living room, but he said that as soon as you shut the door, your little kitten knocked it down. His name is Oliver.”

“How can you know that?” She whispered, more to herself than to me. It was typical in this line of work. People come to have their questions answered, but they all expect it to be a scam, and yet they willingly waste their money on it.

“It’s okay, my dear. It is normal to feel the way you do. I’ve seen the dead since I was a child, this is nothing new for me, but for you, an entire world has just opened up.”

“So, he has unfinished business?”

“He seems very worried about you.”

“He’s stuck here because of me?”

I laughed to myself, they were just so similar. Bonds like theirs could not be broken by anything, not even death. “Not because of you, but he is your older brother. He wants to protect you in death, just as he did in life.” She began to cry again and her sobs tugged at my heart. “I don’t mean to upset you, dear.”

“He was the best brother.”

“Do you mind if I try something?”

She shook her head and watched me move around the room. I grabbed herbs, a candle, a book of matches, and a small sand-filled zen garden that I repurposed as an altar of sorts. I placed them in the center of the table and began working on a banishment. I looked at the siblings but focused my mind on the man surrounded by hot anger. The brother looked confused and he grabbed his sister’s hand.

“I need total silence. This will take about five minutes. You are going to feel the energy in the room shift at around three minutes in, but you cannot interrupt me. Is that okay?” They both nodded, looking slightly more scared than before. I piled the sand around the candle, holding it in place. I sprinkled drops of herbs throughout the garden. In a single flick, I lit the match, holding it to the candle’s wick.

I chanted in my mind for five minutes straight. I kept my eyes closed, but I was listening closely to the man who had attached himself to this poor young girl. He began to scream in agony, getting as close to me as possible, trying to frighten me into stopping, but I would not. He was not the first angry man that I had banished from my home and he would not be the last. I could hear small whimpers coming from the girl, but she did not move from her seat.

I finished in five minutes, as promised, and looked around the room. The angry man had disappeared and the candle had burned down to the sand. “There, that’s much better. How do you feel?”

She breathed in deeply, releasing the air in her lungs and relaxing into the chair. “I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. What was that? Is my brother still here?” The young man looked at his sister in awe.

“Yes, he is. That was a purification, of sorts. The removal of negative energy so that the two of you may feel a more positive bond until your brother feels that he has finished his duties in protecting you. That is at his discretion.”

“How will I know that he’s still with me?”

I looked at her brother and he smiled. “Ladybugs. Every time she sees a ladybug, she will know that I’m still with her.”

I laughed, telling her what sign to watch for.

“Ew, he’s going to send me bugs?”

The young man howled with laughter. “She hates bugs. I used to leave crickets in her room when we were children.”

“It could be crickets,” I said, winking at her.

Her lower jaw dropped and she looked to the empty air beside her. “No way, he told you about the crickets?”

“You can talk to him whenever you’d like. You may not be able to hear his response, but you will know that he is always there.”

The young girl began to stand. “Oh, thank you. This has been amazing. What do I owe you?”

“Not a penny. My payment is knowing that you will go home happier than when you came in. And don’t forget to clean up that plant.”

She laughed and walked to the door. “I’ll be back someday soon, maybe I’ll take you to lunch as payment.”

“That would be quite nice, I hope your brother can join us.”

The three of us smiled in unison and our hearts felt slightly lighter than they had yesterday.

If you would like to read more of my work, check out my Patreon! Currently all of my writing is public access.

I cannot express how important it is to brush your teeth and floss regularly. It's especially important as so many people don't have dental coverage and that preventative work saves you so much pain and money in the long run. I know it sucks and it is so hard, but you'll also feel so good after doing it. And when you start doing it regularly, you'll find your mouth and gums feel so much better. If you've already done it today, good job! I'm so proud of you and so happy for you!