I think I’m a lifelong cryptid enthusiast because I’m nearsighted. Like what do you mean the Zapruder film isn’t crystal clear. That’s how bigfoot would look to me anyway.
I MEANT THE PATTERSON-GIMLIN FILM. NOT THE ZAPRUDER FILM. THERE IS NO BIGFOOT SIGHTING IN THE FOOTAGE OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY’S DEATH. I’M SO SORRY.
When my kiddo finally decided (at age 20) that it was time for (most of) his enormous Lego collection to go, it was a gut-wrenching moment for me (goodbye childhood!). However, we used this service, which was simple and hassle-free.
The new layout it a whole mess. Thankfully Xkit can already help with a bunch of this! I’m sure it’ll give more options soon.
Vanilla Tumblr: (I have marked in red what can be removed. The tabs can be set not to stick, so you will really only see them at the top of your dash. Empty box on the left for hidden notifications and shop sparkle, i just didn’t have any. I’m EU so no Live for me).
If I can recommend you do 1 low-effort thing for the love of God it is this:
Keep 5 cards in your pocket. One will say “yes”, the second will say “no.”
If you lose your voice, or lose speech, or want to make a dramatic embellishment at the right time, it is an elegant and efficient solution that is right there at hand.
But what if people question you from there? “Why do you have that card? Why would you do this? How long have you had that in your pocket?” For this, or whatever else they say, the third card: “I don’t have a card for that.”
“What the fuck,” they ask. They laugh. They are bemused. You bring the energy back down with the fourth card: “I have laryngitis. I’ve lost speech. My throat hurts”. Whatever you expect to occur.
The joke is over. Rule of threes. Now they are curious. YThey wonder about logistics. “How did you know I would say that? Is everyone so predictable?”
As a three-part bit, nobody ever sees the fifth card coming.
it obviously makes sense, but one of my friend’s kids is going into swim class, and all the parents got an email today going, “when little ones are scared, they cling on to instructors. PLEASE trim their nails.”
i don’t know why that’s so funny to me, but just. the idea of this poor, scratched swim instructor having to make sure to email before each class as a reminder to please declaw the children SENT me.
When I taught swim lessons I remember trying to delicately ask parents not to cover their child in shea/coconut/olive oil before lessons.
“I understand your skincare regimen and wanting to protect their tender baby flesh from the pool chemicals, but COULD YOU NOT OIL YOUR CHILD LIKE A GREASED PIG before tossing them in the POOL? Thanks EVER so much!”
everyone’s like wehhhhh why doesn’t doctor house gets suuuueeed! like my man. literally every patient he sees is someone that’s been trying to find a diagnosis for ages. i could live with a little medical malpractice if it were coming from someone ready to break into my home to look for allergens and not simply half heartedly listen to me before suggesting I lose weight and take ages of back and forth arguing to order a single test
“it’s medical malpractice” have u ever been a doctor? most medicine is malpractice. let the man limp around chewing vicodin doing 50 invasive tests please
Once Taub (derogatory) derisively said about a patient with unexplained chronic pain “7 doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with him, what does that mean?” and House replied without even thinking “it means they’re idiots” and proceed to work his ass off to diagnose the patient Taub wanted to write off as a faker or something. If a doctor had said that when that patient was ME, I wouldn’t dream of suing them in a million years
my favorite doctor who thing I’ve ever seen was an interview with the special effects guy for the first doctor where they asked him if he was proud of the work he’d done on the show and he just straight up said “no”
“When Daddy comes in, he carries you to bed. Is there anything you feel like you could eat, Pokey? Anything at all?
All you can imagine putting in your mouth is a cold plum, one with really tight skin on the outside but gum-shocking sweetness inside. And he and your mother discuss where he might find some this late in the season. Mother says hell I don’t know. Further north, I’d guess.
The next morning, you wake up in your bed and sit up. Mother says, Pete, I think she’s up. He hollers in, You ready for breakfast, Pokey. Then he comes in grinning, still in his work clothes from the night before. He’s holding a farm bushel. The plums he empties onto the bed river toward you through folds in the quilt. If you stacked them up, they’d fill the deepest bin at the Piggly Wiggly.
Damned if I didn’t get the urge to drive to Arkansas last night, he says.
Your mother stands behind him saying he’s pure USDA crazy.
Fort Smith, Arkansas. Found a roadside stand out there with a feller selling plums. And I says, Buddy, I got a little girl sick back in Texas. She’s got a hanker for plums and ain’t nothing else gonna do.
It’s when you sink your teeth into the plum that you make a promise. The skin is still warm from riding in the sun in Daddy’s truck, and the nectar runs down your chin.
And you snap out of it. Or are snapped out of it. Never again will you lay a hand against yourself, not so long as there are plums to eat and somebody-anybody-who gives enough of a damn to haul them to you. So long as you bear the least nibblet of love for any other creature in this dark world, though in love portions are never stingy. There are no smidgens or pinches, only rolling abundance. That’s how you acquire the resolution for survival that the coming years are about to demand. You don’t earn it. It’s given.”
excerpt from Cherry by Mary Karr, context being after a suicide attempt at age 13
Some context: Texas and Arkansas share a corner border. Now, Texas is FECKING HUGE and there are many, many parts of Texas that cannot visit Arkansas overnight, but there are parts where it’s no trouble at all.
However, those places of Texas that are close to Arkansas, do not include “close to Fort Smith, Arkansas.”
The closest Texas gets to Fort Smith is about 185 miles (about 300km), at “a little closer than Texarkana.” (Dallas, fwiw, is about 275 miles/450km from Fort Smith.)
So the dad in this story drove at least SEVEN HOURS round trip, to pick up a bushel of plums for his little girl, in the hope that some almost-out-of-season fruit would convince her to go on living.
Okay.
It’s bigger than this.
According to Wikipedia, the poet Mary Karr was born in 1955 and grew up in Groves, Texas and “lived there until she moved to Los Angeles in 1972.” So she would have been there when she was 13 and attempted suicide.
According to Google Maps, the shortest driving distance between Groves, TX and Fort Smith, AR is 439 miles (or 706 km for metric using folks).
That’s almost 8 hours of driving.
Almost 16 hours roundtrip.
(I assume he broke every speed limit he could.)
That’s how much this man loved his daughter.
May we all be worthy of such love.
May we all be capable of giving such love.
May we all have people in our lives with which we can share this love.
