sprockets-and-glitter

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I met a girl at Barnes and Nobles last night who gave me a butt ton of good recs. I was initially there just to kill time, but by the end of our conversation I had 4 books and a new friend. Make those unwise financial decisions!

whenever i'm trying to talk myself out of buying something i don't need i always hear my old russian professor's voice echoing in my head: "WHAT??? WILL YOU DIE THE RICHEST MAN IN THE GRAVEYARD?" and then i make an unwise financial decision

#new books #new friends #girl math #here for a good time not a long time

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when you download a pdf and it's called like 1328723486basdf12.pdf but then you gently rename it to what it's supposed to be. that's forming a bond with a hurt and wild mythological creature and reminding it who it is.

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I just want you all to know, that if and when this site does experience a real exodus and/or get sunsetted for good, even if we don't keep in touch I'll remember you so fondly. You're the online equivalent of the other kid on the beach where we built sandcastles together; the girl at the campsite where we explored the trees. You're the drunk person who shared kind words in the bathroom at the club, you're the talented artists at the life drawing class or the poetry night in a city where I don't live anymore. It makes me sad that maybe in the future our paths won't cross so easily, but even when we leave this little shared piece of cyberspace, carried away on our briefly intersecting trajectories, just know I still love you

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☀️Eclipse🌙

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bic pen, my beloved

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“Oh boo hoo you shouldn’t ask your friends for favors we’re all adults”

I just spent three hours pulling up carpet and staples for a friend’s home renovation and we all did nothing but chat and joke and have wonderful conversation the whole time.

Helping somebody move or renovate or giving them a ride to the airport is functionally the same as going mini-golfing or playing a board game: it’s an activity that you do that is made more fun by having good company, and which provides something to talk about when the conversation lulls.

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a cow and i have probably shared the same thought about how the sun hits the wild grass

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Something that literally changed my life was working with a friend on a coding thing. He was helping me create an auto rig script and was trying to explain something to me but his words were just turning into static in my brain. I was tired and confused and there was so many new concepts happening.

I could feel myself working toward a crying meltdown and was getting preemptively ashamed of what was about to happen when he said, “Hey, are you someone who benefits from breaks?”

It broke me.

Did I benefit from breaks? I didn’t know. I’d never taken them.

When a problem frustrated or upset me I just gritted my teeth and plowed through the emotional distress because eventually if you batter and flail at something long enough you figure it out. So what if you get bruised on the way.

I viscerally remembered in that moment being forced to sit at the table late into the night with my dad screaming at me, trying to understand math. I remembered taking that with me into adulthood and having breakdowns every week trying to understand coding. I could have taken a break? Would it help? I didn’t know! I’d never taken one!

“Yes,” I told him. We paused our call. I ate lunch. I focused on other stuff for half an hour. I came back in a significantly better state of mind, and the thing he’d been trying to explain had been gently cooking in the back of my head and seemed easier to understand.

Now when I find myself gritting my teeth at problems I can hear his gentle voice asking if I benefit from breaks. Yes, dear god, yes why did I never get taught breaks? Why was the only way I knew to keep suffering until something worked?

I was relating to this same friend recently my roadtrip to the redwoods with my wife. “We stopped every hour or so to get out and stretch our legs and switch drivers. It was really nice. When I was a kid we’d just drive twelve hours straight and not stop for anything, just gas. We’d eat in the car and power through.”

He gave a wry smile, immediately connecting the mindset of my parents on a road trip to what they’d instilled in me about brute forcing through discomfort. “Do you benefit from breaks?” he echoed, drawing my attention to it, making me smile with the same sad acknowledgement.

Take breaks. You’re allowed. You don’t have to slam into problems over and over and over, let yourself rest. It will get easier. Take. Breaks.

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You guys just have to trust me on this one and click here okay?

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Fifty books is not a lot.

Amy Santiago Moodboard

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Eternal Flame Falls sounds like the coolest concept for a fantasy book. A path you follow down into a ravine until you find an ever-burning flame inside of a waterfall? That’s fuckin metal! But it’s not in a fantasy book it’s like an hour away from my house I can literally go see it any time! I remember it like once a month and lose my shit over it every time

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There's nothing more honest than working on an old pickup truck. Unlike today's pickup trucks, old ones are basically just a chunk of steel bolted to an engine and an axle. Anything you can do to them is basically in the spirit of the original factory workers, even more so if you're drunk and/or high on things that aren't futuristic research chemicals. They hadn't invented those yet.

Now, you might also think that old pickup trucks are expensive. Sure, running and driving ones with all of their body panels have been enjoying a resurgence lately. With all the cool old luxury cars, muscle cars, shitty jeeps, and base-model commuter cars hoovered into the selfish grasp of exploitative capital, it's only a matter of time until they come for the humble, working man's pickup truck that was abandoned at the bottom of some farmer's field when the distributor finally exploded, now getting shot at periodically by his grandkids.

There's a lot of old trucks out there, because "old truck" used to mean "vehicle I grudgingly drove in order to accomplish actual work." The moment they stopped being reliable, they were gotten rid of, or relegated to chicken-coop duty. And, back in the day, there were more people who did actual work than there were folks who pushed spreadsheets around.

Supply is on your side: you can still get a deal. And if your standards are low enough, the range of "a deal" becomes very wide indeed. If you ask professional car restorers and collectors, they tell you to get the "best truck you can afford." That makes sense: if your goal is to end up with a working or at least semi-attractive truck, you'll spend less money and maybe fewer divorces starting with a 5/10 rather than a 3/10. Me, I'm not that picky. I'll take a 0.5/10. I'm all about the process.

All this is to explain why I just came home with a 1952 Mercury M100 pickup truck that consists mostly of the serial number plate and the rear axle (which is seized.) I figure I just need to sit on this thing for a few years longer, until prices really go nuts, and then I'll be able to sell it to someone whose business card says "Excel Astronaut" for the approximate price of a two-bedroom condo. And in the meantime, I'll have a cool project to work on that I don't have to worry too much about. If you help me get this chicken out of here, I'll cut you in on the deal.

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I was in line at Aldi and this girl with two toddlers in front of me had her card declined and she looked so fucking sad and said “let me call my husband real quick” and it was only 18 dollars, so I just paid for it, and she was very sweet and then as she walked off, the lady behind me said `”You know that was probably a scam, right?” and like, even if it was, like what a sad fucking scam, right? 18 dollars at the Aldi. If you’re “scamming” me for some Tyson chicken and apple juice and cauliflower, then just take my fucking money. 

“A scam” people are fucking wild.  

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My capstone/senior project is coming along nicely... and also not. Wish I had more of a knack for this.

#engineering #female engineer #stem academia #electronics #capstone #senior project #mechanicalengineering #imposter syndrome #machine design