Just realized I’m never at a 0 on a fatigue scale, at my best I’m at like.. a 1-3?
I always feel like.. kinda dozey? (Like when you get yawny but not really tired) and my legs and arms feel kinda like how they might feel after a workout or smth.
Wack how people just don’t feel at least a little tired.
shadow, ai am begging you to tell me right now that being fatigued at all time is typical. please. because ai am always at least a two.
If you live on the US east coast, specifically somewhere along the Appalachians, September/October is time to start cruising farmers’ markets and watching out for North America’s largest fruit, the paw paw.
Paw Paws used to be a tremendously important fruit, both to Indigenous people and white settlers. They’re a major source of fresh calories in late fall, because they fruit in October and are large and sweet. You never hear of them these days for the simple reason that they’re nearly impossible to mass market. They’re very soft and spoil very quickly. So, you can’t ship them for shit.
Nonetheless, in my area, they’ve continued on in the background, gaining strength as one of the few things that remains truly seasonal, making gains as a specialty crop. Most excitingly, several breeders in the West Virginia and Maryland area have been making enormous strides breeding for flavor, size, and ratio of flesh to seed. I’m not totally clear on why I’m so blessed, but I think literally all the major breeders and growers of paw paws are within a two hour radius of my house.
Not everyone I’ve had try paw paws has immediately liked them. I think it’s just because they’re really like nothing you’ve had. Usually, when you’re trying a totally new thing, you have to try it at least three times. First try is for “wow that was….sure a thing.” Second is for “but it’s kinda interesting!” Third is for “Why do I keep thinking about this thing? I…kinda want more?” Paw Paws, to me, are dessert that comes off a tree prepared. They’ve got an indescribably sweet tropical flavor and the texture of custard. They’re amazing.
So if you live in the Midatlantic US, I really encourage you to get a few to try. They’re a part of our history, and they could be an incredibly valuable sustainable crop in a more decentralized, more seasonal version of agriculture.
There are also some festivals. The Ohio Pawpaw Growers Association has an events page, if you’re looking for a place to start.
presented without comment: the covers of 6 books that released within 3 years of each other (!) by the same NYT bestselling author, and then two quotes by said author.
make of this what you will.
actually fuck it i will comment: this has less to do with the author and more with the industry. the tiktokification of fiction is actively harming not only publishing but also the audiences who seek this shit out. major publishers are prioritizing fic tags and shorthand tropes for the sake of sales, and it’s rotting the literary landscape from the inside. when you pick up a book from a major bookseller that has one of these stock-image-ass covers, you’re not so much reading a work of literature as you are a corporate-concocted combination of buzzwords. authors deserve better, and you as a reader deserve better. and if you say something like you prefer the pre-bottled story-by-committee stuff, then i really just don’t have all that much to say to you.
“natural=good” is a bad lens for viewing the world, but it is also true that you need to observe nature and have a frame of reference for what is “natural” to make decisions about best practice for many things
if your attitude is “nature has nothing to teach me” that’s how you get people chopping the roots off their trees because they look “ugly”
So because parkour is such a ridiculously male dominated sport, the “correct technique” for a lot of these movements that you’re taught when you become an instructor plays to a male body’s strengths: upper body strength, higher center of gravity, etc.
She demolishes this course by moving in ways that make sense for her body. She doesn’t muscle her way up to her over a wall, she just throws a leg up over the wall. She doesn’t use upper body strength to do the salmon ladder, she uses her hips!!! And it’s fucking incredible.
So many girls and young women walk away from parkour because every movement caters to the strengths of men, because doing what makes sense for their bodies is seen as “bad technique” to be trained away.
If pre-transition me had seen this I would have cried tears of joy.
hyena positivity that focuses on spotted hyenas only is so fake. if you don’t love brown and striped hyenas then get out. if you don’t love aardwolves I can’t even look at you oh my god
