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 …

Where’s Whoopsie #26: If Everything isn’t On Fire, I Must Be Missing Something…

I haven't posted a Where's Whoopsie in awhile. Apparently without live improv to afford me extensive time on public transit and in coffee shops, I don't draw much. My Partner noticed this and suggested I should prioritize doing something "creative" to ward off seasonal - and election and "in the house too often without other …

Orange You Glad I Reminded You?

There's no knock-knock joke here. Orange is the most common awareness ribbon color for ADHD Awareness Month. ADHD Awareness Month being in October is about the only 'awareness' anything that I can ever remain even vaguely aware of. Because there are entirely too many awareness months - and colors, and ribbons! - and my brain …

Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Write

Many things have been said about last night's U.S. presidential debate. The Times in the UK said of it: "The clearest loser from the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was America." The Guardian described it as a "national humiliation." Dan Rather at News and Guts wrote: "Who won and lost tonight …

Patience is a Mental Health Challenge

Partner (detaching a cat from his shoulder after she had climbed him, lost purchase, and ended up digging in her claws to stay on him at all): “Trauma Kitty, you were doing so well just sitting in my arms. But, for some reason, you have the instinct that when things are scary you need to …

Brevity is the Soul of Apathetically #9: Out of Context

The first session of my mini D&D campaign went well. Work, on the other hand, was fairly stressful this week. Because I have an annoying habit of dramatically announcing things that I probably am not entirely prepared to talk about in the most random circumstances possible at that workplace. Because somehow those personal things that …

Trust in Mental Health Treatment #7/Messages in a Bottle #18: Meda-Analysis

Do you ever get handed such comedy gold that it’s actually kind of intimidating? Like, the low-hanging fruit is so low-hanging that you suspect it’s a trap**?  It’s terrifying, isn’t it? I mean, with a joke so easy it writes itself, how can you possibly screw it up?! So, of course, you panic freeze and …

It’s Not Delivery. It’s Depression Pizza!

CW: Discussions of the lingering relationships between food and life events. No specific mentions of disordered eating, but please use caution if discussions of food and/or emotional eating are potentially triggering topics. All descriptions of the related life events are in the past, though they are mentioned in the context of eating those same foods …

Meteorological Misanthropy #8: Rock Me Like a Labor Pain?

CW: Puns worse than my title ahead. Also some vague allusions to where Hypothetical Future Babies might hypothetically come from in some hypothetical future. Tornado Warnings from Tropical Storm Isaias spring up in the Northeast. Lavender: "One and a half hours. There is an actual tornado on the actual ground, and Google says we're a …