Broken mirrors

"She always did put too much of herself into her creations..." My name is Lavender. I'm chronically ill, neurodiverse, a geek, a sometimes comedienne (intentionally or otherwise), a foodie and I (burnout aside) care a lot about social justice. And the WordPress community. I used to know how to talk about trauma. And, I will …

Fandango’s Flashback Friday: Messages in a Bottle #21 Meteorologic Misanthropy Miniseries Intro flashback

Fandango over at This, That and the Other has come up with a fun challenge to expose readers to some of our earlier blog posts they, "May have missed." Re-post a post from this same date (September 17th) in a previous year. This turns out to also be an excellent excuse to keep posting something …

Brevity is the Soul of Apathetically #12: I exist

Hi all, I've been in absolutely severe burnout for the past six months. Well, really for the past ten. But, I dragged myself through it better for four of those. Reasons for it will be explained...eventually. When it doesn't feel overwhelming and daunting. Because have you ever noticed how the longer you don't do something, …

Trust in Mental Health Systems #8/ Messages in a Bottle #20: OB-G-WHY?!-N

CW: Discussions of the experiences of one person who has a uterus (aka, me) attempting to receive gynecological care. I never exactly intended to write an entire series on why I joke in my Glossary of Terms that “I know trauma-informed care quite well – in the sense that the ‘care’ I have seen has …

Brevity Is The Soul Of Apathetically #11: Work Burnout

Ugh. The never-ending lessons in how to create a 'trauma-informed' and 'anti-racist' workplace that somehow manage to involve folks having to relive their own personal trauma(s) continue. (Or, as my Partner succinctly sums them up each week: "the beatings will continue until morale improves!") I'm not even just talking about me feeling work burnout in …

Messages in a Bottle #19: Trying to Conceive of Time

That same consulting firm that had us do Rivers of Life last month has been offering 'trainings' for my workplace since October. Back in October, they had us 'write a letter to a child under six in our lives' expressing what we wanted for their future. It had a handy Mad Libs style format where …

My ‘River of Life’ is the River Lethe

Hi all, Eek! I realized today that even though it feels like just "a couple of weeks ago" that I last wrote a blog post, it has actually been a full month! ADHD: it means all time is either "now" or "a couple of weeks ago." I think I alluded to the fact that my …

Brevity is the Soul of Apathetically #10: NSFW (Not Safe Family Weirding!)

It has become our tradition to make our completely oversized Thanksgiving turkey the day after Thanksgiving. The first two of the past three years, this was because we forgot to buy a disposable roasting pan, or we forgot to start defrosting the turkey. Now, though, we have simply accepted that we actually enjoy having a …

Pot Meet Another Kettle

Last time I wrote, I promised an honest review of adult psychoactive recreational substances as a solution for election-night anxieties. My review sums up to: I'm not "recreationally" affected, but they do make for slightly less unsettled sleep. My longer report is as follows: "Being the irony magnet scientist that I am, I have had …

Seeking Asylum in Faerun

11/7 Update: I formally welcome Pennsylvania back into New JersMaPennsRicutaware. Thank you. That is all! (For now!) My husband's first cousin - one of the ones we just don't speak to - got covid recently. He's younger than us, and he worked in a physically demanding job and was proud of the physical condition he …