Hell Yes

hell yes

polyamory!! polyamory!! polyamory!! polyamory!!

fuck it let's try this again

I think the whole “we all end up disabled” thing is particularly frustrating to me because I was born disabled and will die disabled and will become increasingly more disabled between those two points. I understand that ageing happens, accidents happen, etc etc

but when I was talking about having a right to imagine disabled futures, I was talking about the right for disabled babies to be born and to grow into happily disabled adults. and I shouldn’t have to justify that desire by scaring ableds about how soon they’ll become one of us. it should be enough that I exist and people like me exist, and we all deserve the right to live happy lives

Just read about the study that looked into the connection between the sound resonance of human-marked caves and the location of cave paintings. They discovered that the cave paintings were most commonly located in the areas with the clearest resonance, the best acoustics. The ideal places to sing. Scientist are bound by a duty to commit to facts, to stick with what is known and can be known. They aren't allowed to just wildly speculate, jump to conclusions, or romanticise the connections they make. But I am not a man of science and I can say whatever I want.

We called them "cavemen" at first, when we knew even less of them than what we do now. They were hunter-gatherers, nomadic people who wouldn't have stayed in one place for long, not even a place as good as a cave. A cave is a maw full of blackness, cold and dark, unless you bring fire. They brought fire with them, that we know. They painted the walls in light of torches, beasts that appear to move in the flickering light. They painted the walls in places where one could best sing.

A cave is a place of darkness, unless you bring fire. And quiet - perhaps save for the bats - unless you bring your voice. What did they sing about? The same songs every year, that one sings that time of year When We Return To The Cave, or new ones made up on the spot? Were they sacred? They must have been. One does not go into an unfamiliar cave alone, there are too many ways you may die. You go together, someone shows it to you. Brings you to the paintings to sing. To sing in the dark underworld that looks nothing like the world above, and where even the weakest voices carry, amplifying like nowhere else in the world that they knew.

Is that what we still yearn for? To go with your kin to the hollow halls of sacred places, where the echo compels you to reverent silence, until it's time to sing? To hear the familiar tune, amplified by the echos of stone, urged to join the song just as wolves are called to join the howl? Our urge just as natural as theirs, like migrating birds yearn to leave and return?

Why else do we have churches, but for our yearning to sing in the caves?

Despite knowing better, I had given myself a deadline. Today. A big project that I've been working on for months and needs to be Finished already, thank you very much. It's all going well, I think I'll get it done and then ... I get lost in some very very specific sauce.

My therapist is in my ear as I slowly dig myself a deeper pit. Perfectionism, the bane of my existence. Well, one of them. It's at the origin of this particular time-lapse. I want to be Accurate and Complete. Before I know it, I'm covered in mathematics, percentages, statistics, graphs. I become very intimate with a graphics editor, discover functions and shortcuts that were a still a mystery to me three hours ago.

It's almost done when I realise it's wrong. Not inherently but vaguely, marginally, circumstantially. So I delete the work. Start again. It's all or nothing. It's a chore, a mountain, a this-and-then-that-and-then-thus-and-then-so, a finish line somewhere but not visible, not yet.

Then it is Done. I copy, I paste. Then I have something to eat. I've already decided, this deadline today, yeah, will be for tomorrow or the day after that. Time to relax and then go to bed. And then. My brain. Just realises. Out of nowhere. There's something not right. I check and my brain is - of course, flawlessly, inevitably - correct, for fuck's sake. It's fine, I fix. Re-copy, re-paste.

And I kid you not, this exact same thing happens as I am writing this post. So I've just, a minute ago, gone back into the graphics editor. A-g-a-i-n. I do the thing. I copy. I paste. Now, now, now it must be right. Please let it be so. But for all I know, my perfectionism-soaked brain will see it tomorrow and go, "Wait a minute ..."

Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)