isn’t it disgusting how american society only expects people to grieve for a few days until returning back to their everyday lives? that we should either overcome or repress our trauma of losing a loved one before the week is over with?

now im not saying that we should bring back the mourning periods of the victorian era BUT

Hospice workers and other related professionals ABSOLUTELY think we need to return to year long mourning periods! Structured time lines aren’t perfect (grief isn’t linear; it comes in slowly lulling waves) but a year is a hell of a lot better than a week. Moreover, it was a set of rules for the rest of society to abide by and that helped tremendously. Grief and shared grief make us panic; we aren’t certain what to do. Structured mourning periods help. Its pre-laid boundaries and guidance from the past. 

So anyway bring back mourning periods. 

Jewish tradition has a very structured mourning period, and it’s structure could be useful to others. I believe it could help as a guide for others, especially since it’s not only structured for the mourners, but for their community. 

The first thing we do is sit Shiva. Shiva is very intense mourning for those closest to the deceased (usually relatives but I would argue if you are close enough to the person it will hit just as hard). It lasts 7 days, where those closest to the deceased do not leave the house, and do not cook or clean. Instead the community brings over food and takes care of the normal day chores, as well as sit with the mourners to support them physically and emotionally. (For more religious folks there are prayers throughout the day at the house). We wear specific clothes for this week as well. It is deep deep mourning. 

After that week begins the Sheloshim (30) for thirty days (in reality it is 23 days as the 7 days of Shiva count towards the 30 total days). The mourners return to society in terms of taking care of themselves and going to work and such, but avoids socializing/parties/concerts/seeking entertainment, to focus on the loss. For religious folk, there is a prayer said every day (mourners kaddish) during this time. This can still be done with other friends and family to give emotional support even just by being present. 

For those mourning a parent (though I think this step is crucial for losing anyone close), the 11 months of mourning begins. You no longer are sequestering yourself from society, but you still spend time each day remembering the person. (in jewish tradition this means you keep saying the mourners kaddish every day for 11 months).

Why I think this is so so so important is the community aspect. Especially during Shiva. I remember a twitter thread that was posted here a while back about someone who lost their father and how they wouldnt have made it through if their friends hadn’t come to support them as they were so deep in sorrow they couldn’t take care of themselves (friends brought food, cleaned the house, etc). It almost exactly described Shiva, minus a religious aspect. And they described slowing being able to re-join society afterwards, like the 30 days. 

Grief shouldn’t be done alone, and mourners should be given support from their community to give them time and help them properly grieve and re-integrate with society. 

huevember day 14 - goth/alternative angel <3

I’m trying to think of a name for her, any ideas?

ppl who oppose gender affirming care for kids are nuts like the extent of medical intervention for trans kids is maybe puberty blockers but they’ll still be like “SO UR SAYING WE SHOULD LET TODDLERS HAVE TOP SURGERY???????” barbara toddlers do not have a top to surgery

Saw someone asking "so do you endorse giving puberty blockers to five year olds?"

Friend, a five year old should not have puberty to block. If they do that's called precocious puberty and is the original reason puberty blockers were invented. If a five year old is going through puberty I absolutely endorse them being given puberty blockers

Never forget, a five year old not having access to puberty blockers is half the reason why this happened:

Lina Medina, the youngest person to ever give birth, which happened when she was five years seven months and 21 days old. (I say half the reason because obviously she also had to be assaulted).

So even if you hate trans people, you can't tell me you can't see a reason why a child might need such a medication.

So my friend’s kid has celiac and dyslexia and reading labels is difficult for them (also they’re like 7) so he’s teaching their pigeon, Grey Boy, to read the labels and identify ingredients with gluten. It’s going well, other than Nick thought it would be a good idea to make the behavior when the pigeon does find a bad ingredient to just fucking…wing slap the box. Just beat the shit out of it like, “no! BAD gluten! BAD!”

I see a lot of “they taught a pigeon to read?” comments and thought I’d explain a bit more.

So it’s not really like their friend’s pigeon now knows how to read. He’s not going to be terribly interested in a novel you hand him (unless he decides it looks like a good nest.) However pigeons are remarkably good at pattern recognition, especially visual patterns. They out-perform humans when it comes to things like identifying artwork/distinguishing between different artist’s works. So it is pretty easy for them to recognize a visual arrangement of ink, such as a printed word, and be taught to respond to that particular pattern. So when looking at an ingredient list the pigeon learns to pick out the specific pattern(s) he’s been taught to react to among the other patterns (words.)

So he sees “wheat” and doesn’t read it the way humans do (w-h-e-a-t spells wheat), but rather sees the arrangement of pigment that he has been trained to slap. So he slaps it.

He will have to be taught every single gluten containing ingredient for it to be super useful, but it is definitely possible, which is super cool! Plus it makes a little kid’s life easier, and enriches Gray Boy.

Skinner did experiments with pigeons that showed how a pigeon can learn to respond to a visual pattern cue, if your interested more in the science behind it.

Oh yeah wasn’t there a study a while back about pigeons recognizing cancer cells from photos of cell close-ups better than doctors could?

Yeah, I shared a version of this post earlier, and this is a nice succinct explanation of how a pigeon is supposed to be “reading.” Pigeons are really good at pattern recognition, and they have great eyesight! And they’re very trainable. There was actually a coast guard search and rescue program for years that used trained pigeons mounted in capsules under helicopters to locate shipwreck survivors in turbulent waters. They were trained to peck a button if they spotted rescue orange in the waters below the helicopter, and they did it faster and more accurately than humans by a substantial margin. The program was only discontinued when digital camera tech surpassed both humans and pigeons.

and the universe reaches out with little babe hands and says hello!! hello i missed you!!

[ID: a drawing of a person in a spacesuit holding a childlike yellow glowing figure in their arms. The glowing figure's head has a spiky outline that resembles a shining sun as well as short hair. There are multi-colored sparkles around it's head. It reaches up to the astronaut's helmet with both hands, smiling excitedly. The astronaut smiles back tearfully. /End ID]

If you get any dms on Discord about playtesting a game called "SkyWorld", BLOCK AND REPORT THE ACCOUNT.

This is a virus that takes over your Discord. The website looks like this:

DO NOT DOWNLOAD THE FILES ON THIS SITE. YOUR DISCORD WILL BE HACKED.

Please reblog this so no one else gets this virus.

This is what the DMs typically sound like. Block anyone who has this conversation with you.

It is true. Two of my accounts as of now have been targeted and hacked by this group. They are currently taking over my group chats and spamming them and attempting to hack my friends. Please be extra careful on discord, everyone.

It’s likely more than just your accounts. You need to run a virus check and May have to format your computer.

I already did, thank you for your concern - also changed all my passwords as well.

What I like about this comic is that it doesn’t “trivialize” mental health problems in and of themselves. It’s clear that the koala IS genuinely traumatized by what’s happened. But it does emphasize that the mental health problems are a symptom of some real tangible problem that needs to be dealt with immediately.

also like... sorry man, but there's actually a reason it is generally considered asshole behavior to shit on people's religion-related beliefs.

you know how you are super convinced atheism is The One True Belief? that's kind of how every religious person also feels.

and you know how you think you should try to convince everyone else that you are Objectively Correct and they need to give it up and believe you instead? that's how annoying proselytizing Christians feel.

that's why attempts at conversion fucking suck! and nobody likes it!

you don't just dislike when Christians proselytize because they're wrong and you're right; you dislike it for the same reason literally everyone else does: you didn't ask, you don't plan on changing your mind, and you very likely have formed a chunk of your identity around your existing beliefs/community, which means that even if you did want to consider new ones, you'd probably want that to be a process you go through with people you trust and at a pace you determine.

if you think you should get to be exempt from the "forced conversion is bad, don't do it" rule because you're More Correct than everyone else, well, guess what! lots of other people think they're Objectively Correct too, and lots of people think it is their moral obligation to do the exact same thing for their religion.

so we have a social contract that normal, reasonable people have agreed to follow: don't try to convert people.

and if you want to break that social contract, that's your choice- but you're not gonna keep a whole lot of friends around.

the point of what I've been saying is that atheism should be considered an equal among beliefs; it isn't the absence of what everyone else has, it is neither special nor an outlier, and it's actively damaging to view it as this Other Thing that doesn't follow the rules or get the same grace and respect as theistic beliefs.

and like, pay attention. religion and culture are very much tied in a lot of ways; they're not entirely one and the same, but religious conversion has been used as a primary tool of cultural genocide for a reason.

reminding myself to say these things consciously and more often👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

- “that’s a good point and i appreciate your input but i disagree”

- “i don’t know enough about xyz to form an educated opinion but i can share what i do know”

- “i have actually spent a lot of time studying/interacting with xyz and my opinion is informed by this close study”

- “sorry, i lied because i was afraid you would think badly of me. here is the truth”

- “i enjoy your company and would like to spend more time with you”

- “this task is beyond my ability at the moment”

- “can you explain precisely what you mean by xyz, i don’t understand”

- “i need to go home and rest/i need a break before we continue”

- “this conversation/activity isn’t pleasant or productive, let’s talk about/do xyz instead”

-“i’m having a really good time, thank you for joining/inviting me”

You’re laughing. This chair is showing CLEAR signs of distress, and you’re laughing.

Moth

MELBA ROY MOUTON, a NASA mathematician and key figure in the Apollo era, is being honored with the naming of a mountain on the Moon's South Pole.

Mons Mouton is the future landing site of VIPER, NASA's rover set to explore the lunar surface for Artemis. (read more)

it’s time to look at some photos of pikas carrying plants and flowers in their mouths

i haven’t drawn anything i wasn’t contractually obligated to draw for a long time due to a mix of burnout and holiday stress, but after i returned from holiday house sitting i took a deep breath and spent a few days making this comic/fanfic chrimus present for a friend i rp with starring two of our least dysfunctional children. i had a real good time making it and it’s great practice for something i want to do in the future.

comics strictly for fun? what a concept!

hope y’all enjoy this ultra rare probably one time view into the Pearl universe! sorry for going ghost for like 2 months! the internet was making my brain bad!

reminder for everyone to stop treating the harry potter issue as one that is only about trans people, please do not forget to listen to and stand up for jewish voices speaking out against this franchise and its creator.

Characters & Relationships I Want to Read More Of

I don't know who needs to hear this but you've probably got vegetables in your fridge that are starting to go a little off so you should probably plan on making a frittata or a pot of soup in the next couple days.

I don't know who needs to hear this but almost every bit of fresh produce you've got that might be about to go off can likely be safely frozen for use later if you want to keep it, and that the amount of waste generated by consumers is a tiny portion of food waste generally and you're not a bad or wasteful person if you forgot your veggies or you weren't feeling well enough to cook.

This post is almost a year old and my favorite thing about it is that it is still circulating and periodically someone will tag it #MY PARSNIPS or some other forgotten vegetable and I get a tiny little snapshot of harried people living their lives and making dinner.

The notes on a recent post got me thinking

By nature, I’m a fan of having 2 beers and meeting strangers at a bar somewhere you’ve never been, which is a thing that we don’t do in 2023 between COVID and being afraid of one another because of the prevalence of gun violence and regular violence and misdirected road rage and the million other little deadly social erosions of the past 10 years or so.

You have got to let go of this idea that any place is a complete nothing-burger full of nothing-people.

You have to.

Its vitally important that you navigate that airport with a stranger in Denver and realize he’s got a tattoo of lyrics from your favorite song. To sing House of the Rising Sun with four people you’ve known for 2 hours (and somehow managed to get into the DNCs private bar with) in the back of an Uber in DC when it’s pissing rain and entirely too cold for your southern blood. It’s important to cooperate and solve problems together and go about it laughing and singing. We are silly little creatures that love a puzzle and a story.

It’s also important to flee a tornado in the back of a shitty red pickup at pride in Oklahoma City and feel the sky break wide-open against the lazy /tick-lok/ /tick-lok/ of the windshield wipers while racing down what once was Rte 66. Its important to know that in the face of creeping fascism that place, of all places, has entire gay neighborhoods. It’s important to wake up in an apartment high, high up in NYC and watch the sun through the buildings and boulevards and watch the glorious great goddamn of that impossible number of people all cooperating and all not. To say Hyoo-stun, that way, on purpose just to get a rise of your born and bred NY friend who does NOT think you’re funny but will make coffee for you.

You need to see a beach full of people cautiously approaching and flinching away from a floating, dead horseshoe crab on Tybee Island, Georgia the way any troupe of wild animals approaches an unknown alien thing. Cows in a field, fish in the ocean flinching from a diver. Little children squealing and wide eyed behind their parents legs. You need to be the person that walks out and picks it up and watches the rest of the crowd creep in to investigate.

I don’t get to travel a lot in the way that most people do, when I go to a place it’s usually because something bad has happened there, but I have found it universally true that most people just want to tell you a story or show you a picture on their phone of the craziest thing they’ve ever seen and they don’t particularly care who you are or what your accent is. Sometimes they do, and those people suck, but those people are not the majority.

Sometimes if you let an old redneck talk he’ll tell you everything you never wanted to know about forensic accounting. Sometimes you’ll meet someone in the middle of the biggest city in the US who knows everything about show pigs. I’ve been to the smallest Kansas towns and the biggest cities in the US and I’ve found none of them were full of nothing.

That's one of the things I love about my bus trips. Stressful and occasionally bordering on traumatizing though they are, I was on a bus home from two months in Pennsylvania and met a girl my age with a service dog who was going to a different part of Oklahoma and she immediately trusted me and we spent 95% of that trip together and then with another girl who was in the early months of pregnancy. We talked and sat and moved together until we had to split. I watched her dog for her while she went to the bathroom and he trusted me too.

I was crying on the bus another time because my headphones broke and I had no cash and an older woman started talking to me because of my punisher hat. She gave me a handful of crumpled ones to buy food before she left on her next bus because I had sat crying in Arkansas thinking I'd be stuck there for a full day.

My first bus trip, a handful of us became layover family after being stuck at the same layover cities for hours. In Philadelphia a black girl got on the bus and called someone saying 'Hey, are you X's mom? I just called to let you know I gave your son some sweats because the security guard was harassing him and I didn't want him to get in trouble' before she went to sleep. There was a guy in the seat behind me who was talking to his girlfriend about how much he loved her and wanted to start a family and how he and his sister were starting a restaurant that would donate food to the homeless and how his sister was the soul of it.

And beyond all of these people being from nowhere and going nowhere else, people get it into their heads that the place they live in doesn't have that camaraderie. My mom helped an old man who fell on the curb. I stayed by a car crash that happened in front of me to try and help. A cashier at Waffle House said to not worry about it when we were a few dollars short (that same WH had a waitress named Miss Purple who sang to everyone). A woman gave me a ride home after a day of volunteering in the hot sun and bought me a soda and gave a homeless man a care package and a prayer.

There is not one place on this planet that doesn't have love in it and that love is shown in the hands that help and the laughs you share.

I met another customer at the craft store trying to repair/remake his mom's favorite ornament and we figured it out together.

Our waitress the other day got married by accident and had the same name as me.

A stranger approached me at a gas station and said "Jesus wanted me to tell you that it will be okay. You're going to have a problem with your heart, but it will be fine." She was, uhh, she was right. It was a totally benign arrhythmia. She was also the first person I gave my new, trans, non-legal name to.

I wear queer and neurodivergent pride pins on my hat and SO MANY people have given me a "me too", whether whispered or out loud. (That is why I wear them.)

I once sat on a plane next to an elderly woman whose husband had died in a plane crash and wow her attitude was amazing and it was weirdly reassuring to have her there as I was trying not to have a panic attack because we were flying over Nevada and there was a huge thunderstorm under us with red lightning.

I had a really cool conversation with a random patron at an Egyptian burial exhibit about the artists who made the exquisite little miniature grave goods.

The white as milk Midwestern dude at the gas station spoke fluent Tagalog and was a fuckin low key philosophical genius.

I just love people. Their stories, these moments, all the stuff that makes up the web of our social relationships to each other.

Yeah the world is scary, I get spooked in public sometimes. But man, most of it really is just us sharing a wild fucking ride with absolute strangers who for the most part are pretty chill. Pets, kids, music, travel, there's just about always a way into someone's good conversational graces. I never get tired of it.