yarnings

[yarnings]

I know everyone on Tumblr is very big on "just take the painkiller, don't suffer through the headache!", but we need to acknowledge the nuance. If I take the anti-headache pill I will no longer have a fever. And that seems like an excessively high price to pay for lack of headach.

#Give it a bit of time #and I may change my mind #not a fan of headaches

[yarnings]

Do it! What matters is that you go, and have fun.

do u think improv classes could count as physical activity

[yarnings]

It's a fun fact, but not a surprising one. That's how most people react when something about their field is wrong.

a fun fact about me is when i saw the skeleton in the high-chair on the fallout show i said to my partner, incensed, "that's not how baby bones look"

[yarnings]

Here’s a story about changelings: 

Mary was a beautiful baby, sweet and affectionate, but by the time she’s three she’s turned difficult and strange, with fey moods and a stubborn mouth that screams and bites but never says mama. But her mother’s well-used to hard work with little thanks, and when the village gossips wag their tongues she just shrugs, and pulls her difficult child away from their precious, perfect blossoms, before the bites draw blood. Mary’s mother doesn’t drown her in a bucket of saltwater, and she doesn’t take up the silver knife the wife of the village priest leaves out for her one Sunday brunch. 

She gives her daughter yarn, instead, and instead of a rowan stake through her inhuman heart she gives her a child’s first loom, oak and ash. She lets her vicious, uncooperative fairy daughter entertain herself with games of her own devising, in as much peace and comfort as either of them can manage.

Mary grows up strangely, as a strange child would, learning everything in all the wrong order, and biting a great deal more than she should. But she also learns to weave, and takes to it with a grand passion. Soon enough she knows more than her mother–which isn’t all that much–and is striking out into unknown territory, turning out odd new knots and weaves, patterns as complex as spiderwebs and spellrings. 

“Aren’t you clever,” her mother says, of her work, and leaves her to her wool and flax and whatnot. Mary’s not biting anymore, and she smiles more than she frowns, and that’s about as much, her mother figures, as anyone should hope for from their child. 

Mary still cries sometimes, when the other girls reject her for her strange graces, her odd slow way of talking, her restless reaching fluttering hands that have learned to spin but never to settle. The other girls call her freak, witchblood, hobgoblin.

“I don’t remember girls being quite so stupid when I was that age,” her mother says, brushing Mary’s hair smooth and steady like they’ve both learned to enjoy, smooth as a skein of silk. “Time was, you knew not to insult anyone you might need to flatter later. ‘Specially when you don’t know if they’re going to grow wings or horns or whatnot. Serve ‘em all right if you ever figure out curses.”

“I want to go back,” Mary says. “I want to go home, to where I came from, where there’s people like me. If I’m a fairy’s child I should be in fairyland, and no one would call me a freak.”

“Aye, well, I’d miss you though,” her mother says. “And I expect there’s stupid folk everywhere, even in fairyland. Cruel folk, too. You just have to make the best of things where you are, being my child instead.”

Mary learns to read well enough, in between the weaving, especially when her mother tracks down the traveling booktraders and comes home with slim, precious manuals on dyes and stains and mordants, on pigments and patterns, diagrams too arcane for her own eyes but which make her daughter’s eyes shine.

“We need an herb garden,” her daughter says, hands busy, flipping from page to page, pulling on her hair, twisting in her skirt, itching for a project. “Yarrow, and madder, and woad and weld…”

“Well, start digging,” her mother says. “Won’t do you a harm to get out of the house now’n then.”

Mary doesn’t like dirt but she’s learned determination well enough from her mother. She digs and digs, and plants what she’s given, and the first year doesn’t turn out so well but the second’s better, and by the third a cauldron’s always simmering something over the fire, and Mary’s taking in orders from girls five years older or more, turning out vivid bolts and spools and skeins of red and gold and blue, restless fingers dancing like they’ve summoned down the rainbow. Her mother figures she probably has.

“Just as well you never got the hang of curses,” she says, admiring her bright new skirts. “I like this sort of trick a lot better.”

Mary smiles, rocking back and forth on her heels, fingers already fluttering to find the next project.

She finally grows up tall and fair, if a bit stooped and squinty, and time and age seem to calm her unhappy mouth about as well as it does for human children. Word gets around she never lies or breaks a bargain, and if the first seems odd for a fairy’s child then the second one seems fit enough. The undyed stacks of taken orders grow taller, the dyed lots of filled orders grow brighter, the loom in the corner for Mary’s own creations grows stranger and more complex. Mary’s hands callus just like her mother’s, become as strong and tough and smooth as the oak and ash of her needles and frames, though they never fall still.

“Do you ever wonder what your real daughter would be like?” the priest’s wife asks, once.

Mary’s mother snorts. “She wouldn’t be worth a damn at weaving,” she says. “Lord knows I never was. No, I’ll keep what I’ve been given and thank the givers kindly. It was a fair enough trade for me. Good day, ma’am.”

Mary brings her mother sweet chamomile tea, that night, and a warm shawl in all the colors of a garden, and a hairbrush. In the morning, the priest’s son comes round, with payment for his mother’s pretty new dress and a shy smile just for Mary. He thinks her hair is nice, and her hands are even nicer, vibrant in their strength and skill and endless motion.  

They all live happily ever after.

*

Here’s another story: 

Keep reading

#gets me every time

[yarnings]

I don't get housing arguments since the solution is pretty much always a mix of build more housing, make people live in the vacant units and a little bit of rent control

#it's a bit more complicated than just “build more housing” #please don't believe Pollieve and Ford #you can't just say “let the developers do whatever they want because they want to build houses” #what the developers want to do is make money #they don't care that they're selling overpriced crap housing #left to their own devices #there's a large number of them who will preferentially build SFD #and yes this practically requires that they build them in really bad locations #because the good locations are too expensive for SFD #and they just aren't big enough

[yarnings]

Genuinely, I don’t know how else to get the word out, but I feel like if your home-cooked dinners don’t taste right, you're missing either paprika, sugar, butter, or chicken bouillon.

#this is irresponsible #people are going to forget to check the parsley levels

[yarnings]

lmaooo

#my parents bought a Tesla #(My dad's always been an early adopter although I thought he learned his lesson with Betamax) #and let me tell you #in a family with more engineering degrees than people #there is a LOT of snark over a lot of the decisions that Musk makes #Because so much of the stupid problems are clearly an engineering failure #(Sometimes on the social side but frankly I have more disdain for those)

[yarnings]

One time, the Queen of England decided to knight a loyal member of her country who happened to be Jewish. 

This man knew that knights were supposed to say something in Latin as the Queen knighted them, but didn’t remember the line, so he quickly said “ma nishtana halaila hazeh micol haleilot”

This, of course, confused the Queen, who turned to her advisor and asked “Why is this knight different from all other knights?”

#made me lol #made me lol so hard

[yarnings]

sorry we mistook your boyfriend for a cinnamon roll and we sold him with the chametz. yeah it's just a temporary agreement, you can have him back in eight days. he'll be okay he's safe in a locked cabinet with the pasta

[yarnings]

You know what you REALLY can’t kill in a way that matters? Mint.

#I love living in USDA zone 5 #mint is not a problem here #you pull the shoots for a couple of years #and you're golden

[yarnings]

The other day I got on the bus to come home from the mall/edge of the city transit terminal, and there were a couple of Plain Mennonite ladies, obviously in from one of the routes through the townships, taking the bus to an appointment of some kind. They weren't quite sure about which bus they were taking (since they obviously hadn't used a website to find their route), and because their destination was very close to mine (and in my usual stomping grounds) I helped make sure they knew where to get off the bus and where to go once they were there.

But it got me to thinking - I grew up without bus schedules, because the TTC didn't really put them out for the routes by my house. * But once I moved (and once the undergrad bus pass came in) I got used to carrying a collection of bus schedules in my purse. (Basically every bus that I took on a semi-regular basis I carried a schedule for. The schedules listed all the stop numbers, so I could call for the real-time departure info and plan accordingly).

But buses no longer have the schedule (including the route map) in a little box at the front of the bus. There isn't even a main bus terminal anymore, but while the rack of bus schedules was still there the last time I visited, I don't think it was stocked. The new customer service centre definitely doesn't have that rack. My kids have the relevant bus schedules downloaded onto their smartphones. (At this point it happens on a trip-by-trip basis, as we plan the route that they'll take out and back). You can still get paper schedules, if you go to city hall. Given that this is also where public health is located, and where the in-person offices for Ontario Works (welfare) are located, it would be one of the last places to lose the paper schedules.

But city hall was also one of the last places in the downtown core to have a buggy shed. (It's not there anymore. And by the time I saw it, 10 years ago, I really doubt it was still being used. I have seen... approximately one buggy in the urban centre in the time I've been here). While the schedules are presumably still where they are because marginalized people need access to them, how much of the fact that they exist for my transit system is because we have many more horse-and-buggy folks using it than the average system does.

This is a long way around to say that I think that post that suggests you need to learn non-computer ways to do a bunch of things isn't wrong. However remember that a lot of those things used to be a lot easier to do, and aren't necessarily worth the investment of your time. Navigating your bus system is one of them. Does your system even still have paper maps? (Now, I would argue that learning to plan your route using the pdf maps, whether of the individual routes or the system, is worth doing. But the way to learn to navigate the system without those is to ride it a lot. While that's a useful skill, please don't try to magically jump to it, given that you don't have the tools we used to use.)

*Technically they did, but they just gave frequencies, not times, even on Sundays when the bus only came every 10 minutes.

[yarnings]

#people are saying that it looks like the comment was deleted #but I see one that makes sense for the results #“If you haven't spent any time studying the theory then you can get a say in it” #(I copied and pasted that but I'm pretty sure it should be can't)

[yarnings]

sunsets after 7pm now !!!!!!!!!!! we made it guys !!!!!!!!!!!!

#I shouldn't be surprised #that someone who writes a book that I needed a periodic table to read #makes a joke like that #but I still wasn't expecting it

[yarnings]

Anyone wanna read a 500 year old Welsh poem about Pussy?

#someone send this to Caz #Maybe cc Palli #especially if you can add a note that the poet didn't get slapped

[yarnings]

Chag Sameach to everyone celebrating.

[yarnings]

note: am v aware i have horrible taste lol

#aside from the bean one #I may disagree #but I have no complaints

[yarnings]

A little excerpt from my new foraging zine that a lot of people seem to be resonating with. My favorite part of any foraging book is always getting to talk about why I find the practice so meaningful 🌸💕

#honestly #I'm reblogging this out of excitement for the saskatoons #I think that it's an excellent choice to represent foraging #(as a city person) #because they're everywhere #and it's such a joy to find them #and they're delicious