Each Day Feels Like Another Scene In A Tired Play

Must be so so hard to be a professional writer and write something with just BANGER narrative architecture like just incredible symbolism and foils and parallels and thematic consistency and dramatic irony and then just silently release this into the world and hope the audience Gets It.

"Maybe I crave your attention, maybe I just want you to be creepy and weird with me, maybe I want to make you happy and hear you laugh. And maybe, just maybe, there is a part of me that wants to hug you, run my fingers through your hair, read you books so you fall asleep easily, make breakfast and black coffee for you, hold your hand and watch you sleep early in the morning, give you little kisses on tip of your nose because it tickles funny and I'd love to hear you giggle, watch you draw, bring your favourite treats back home, watch you dress up in the morning and put your make up on, and let you sit on my lap while putting on mine, lighting a candle for our TV dinner because it is special when it's with you."

- my diary entry, 11.11.2020

My wife and I have a little game we play called "Speaking From Ignorance."

To play Speaking From Ignorance, all you need is a phone with a voice recorder, and another person who knows considerably more or considerably less about a topic than you do. The topic can be anything: from "how to bake a quiche" to "what happens in the Peter Jackson Hobbit movies" to "who is Florence Pugh" to "how does the traveling salesman problem work." All that matters is that one of you has a firm grasp on the material, and one of you absolutely the fuck does not.

Then the person who knows about the topic turns on the recorder, and says to the person who knows barely anything: "Hey - tell me everything you think you know about [X]."

The speaker is then not allowed to ask any questions. Nor is the expert allowed to volunteer any information. The expert is allowed to pipe up with a faintly incredulous "Oh--really? Do you--do you think so?" from time to time, but for the most part, the expert's job is just to sit there and make encouraging sounds while the speaker digs their own grave.

This is never not funny.

The reason you record it is because, very often, the first thing the speaker wants to do after finishing the recording is find out how you actually make a quiche, or whatever. Then you both get to go back and listen to how wrong they were.

We have a small library now of Speaking From Ignorance recordings, and I'm going to be listening to them until I'm eighty.

ch4 of inspiral is up!!

yes the chapter title is a shitty pun😌 now, onwards!

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Making the people you adore laugh is literally everything

Felt like drawing these two, so I did >:)

youre really fucking weird

stop flirting with me

katsuki haters are the enemies of nuance and whimsy

Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix (1991)

Recognizing Abuse Masterlist

Signs that you’re living in abuse:

Behavioral patterns of living in abuse

Was I abused? Checklist

Not knowing you are a victim

Signs your family is abusive

Making excuses for your abusive parents

Experience of living in secrecy

What they taught you was abuse

Emotional experiences of living in abuse

Shame and guilt: how abused children feel

What makes parents abusers (actions)

Have I been manipulated into believing abuse was my fault? Checklist

Am I being held hostage by abusers? Checklist

You are not allowed to mention the past

Why you still love abusive parents

Parental behaviour that isn’t normal

Shit parents aren’t supposed to say to you

Experience of “not belonging anywhere”

Red flags for abusive parents

Healthy vs Abusive Chores

Was my childhood abusive or just had some bad parts?

Rules always change (unpredictable environment is abusive)

Breakdown of abusive parent’s behaviour:

“This is my house” rule

Start living in the real life!

Why all the children aren’t abused equally in an abusive home

Common abuser hypocrisies

Do your parents want you to be happy or look happy?

Why do they try to convince you that you’re worthless

Why do they pretend you’re a burden? Controlling behaviour

Why your abusers are not good people

Abusive parents are keeping you in false hope they’ll change

Are your parents preventing you from succeeding?

Abusive parents pretending “it wasn’t that bad”

Double Bind (why every choice you make ends wrong)

Incorporating trauma in raising children

Abusers will not allow you to call them out on abuse

Signs your parents are narcissistic:

Stuff delusional narcissists say

Shit narcissistis parents say

Recognizing emotional immaturity of narcissistic parents

Examples of narcissistic behaviours

Being punished for growing up by narcissistic parents

What children of narcissists go thru

Signs you’ve been thru sexual abuse:

CSA (Childhood Sexual Abuse) Symptoms

Signs you might have endured CSA

Was I sexually abused by adults as a child? Checklist

Signs of abusive friendship/relationship:

How to tell if a friend is not a friend

Am I in an abusive relationship/friendship? Checklist

Manufacturing insecurities

Red flags for abusers

Have I been thru social abuse? Checklist

You can recognize abusers by how they make you feel

How abusive childhood teaches you to stay in abusive relationships

Recognizing abusive friendship

Signs you’re struggling with trauma

Trauma processing information

Experiences of traumatized children

Signs you’re recovering from long term abuse

Things abuse survivors think/say

Thoughts of victims of child abuse

Your brain on trauma

How long term childhood abuse develops into complex trauma (comic)

Ups and downs of trauma