It has teeth.

Sure. Just make sure you get everything out of it before you dry it, and again after you dry it.

He is whistling a full ass aria through his nose and I? Am unmoved.

I would like to elaborate that I knew about it because I had to go up and hustle him away from it back on Friday, when my hip didn’t hurt and it was still people-are-awake hours. As punishment for my negligence, I have endured the foulest of dog farts since then.

He had the midnight munchies and suddenly remembered where a bag of blood meal had spilled in the garden, so he went out and lapped it up at his leisure for a solid… 10 minutes? 15? I don’t know. Clearly I need to clean the spill if any remains. But holy shit my dude, we feed you twice a day.

Asked my mom, a retired priest, what she would do if her faith compelled her to break a law. She was honestly confused.
Me: if it is against the law to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the sick, would you still do it?
Her: when would that come up?
Me: alphabetically or chronologically?

I’ve tried audiobooks and I just can’t. I’ve tried kindle on my phone but can only read shorter books that are overly violent, overly sexual, or a distressing combination thereof. I seem to be able to read YA novels. I struggle with adult novels, genre fiction other than romance, and all nonfiction.

Before divorce was legal, it was that or quiet murder. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I try to listen to whole albums in order instead of whatever iTunes or YouTube thinks I might like. I’m gradually working around to making my own visual art again. I’ve started (5 years ago) gardening and I’m very, very slowly improving. I’m looking into a float tank visit.

We live way out in the country where it’s easy to feel like we are disconnected from humanity if we don’t constantly pet the glass rectangle. (This is how we think the animals view doomscrolling.) I’m reading a YA novel I should finish this weekend and it’s delightful, but nonfiction is languishing.

I’m not sure how to solve this other than gradually disengaging from addictive types of media. I avoid short form content. I step away from the phone. I’ve taken up putting together puzzles. I’ve stopped listening to or watching things fed to me by algorithm, where possible. It’s hard out here.

It’s not even as long as most two act stage plays, which it is based on! She prefers to read a chapter or two here or there and set the book down and read from a magazine, or website, or different book. In the attention economy, we the people are broke!

What I’m saying is it’s not the children. It’s not kids today. Other adults, including other adults who went to the same gifted program I went to, are having trouble with focusing on long-form media. My mom, who still does read for hours a day, opined that Wicked and Wicked 2 in one day was “a lot.”

My husband has taken up comic books again. And I love that! I think they are a brilliant art form. But he has admitted he just cannot handle sitting down with a novel or nonfiction book the way he used to. Not that he doesn’t read anything, because he does read. Just not books.

I am surrounded by piles (exaggeration) of books I have purchased and haven’t read. This is from someone who, prior to having a child, could and did drop $80-100 at a book store and finish everything in a week, including swapping books with my husband and also visiting the library.

You know what has helped more than anything? Putting down my fucking phone. I know. I know. I’m on it right now. But the only way to access the parts of my brain that can dive deep into a narrative has been setting my phone down at one end of the house on silent and walking away.

That has not happened. I spent weeks struggling to finish a book I was actively enjoying before giving up and moving on. I realized at about 80% done that this wasn’t a standalone novel and I knew I would never purchase or read the sequel, and that was when I gave myself permission to stop.

I struggle to finish books now. It started after I had my son and dealt with several years of profound sleep deprivation that shook the foundations of my sanity. But I was sure that once the demands of parenting eased up, I would get “back” to reading the way I used to. That was my baseline.

Me too. There is no position that is comfortable. The best I can do is 4/10 on the pain scale with one leg hanging off my bed and no pressure on that hip, knee, and only a little on that foot.