Yougaveyourghost

Ever since I took a class on material culture and the significance of things and objects in our lives, I’ve started taking note of relevant readings I come across. For those interested, below is a partial list:

Objects of Despair: Inspired by Roland Barthes, Meghan O’Gieblyn’s monthly column examines contemporary artifacts and the mythologies we have built around them.

Fake Meat | Mirrors | Mars | Drones | The 10,000-Year Clock

Concrete: The Most Destructive Material on Earth (more on The Guardian’s “Concrete Week”)

The Unfortunate Fate of Childhood Dolls by Rainer Maria Rilke

AirPods Are a Tragedy

Thinging the Real: On Bill Brown’s “Other Things”

Sum Effects: “Personal or real, tangible or intangible, durable, hard, soft, consumable, or perishable: my grandmother owned none of it. Goldyne Alter died with no possessions.”

A janitor rescued migrants’ possessions from a border facility’s trash. Now they’re art.

Evocative Objects: Things We Think With, ed. by Sherry Turkle

Friendly Floatees

Great Pacific garbage patch

Plastic: an autobiography by Allison Cobb

Curating the Anthropocene: “Imagine a future archeologist on a dig in what was once downtown Los Angeles, excavating, exposing layers of history, like the paleontologists at the La Brea Tar Pits are doing today, finding bones of saber-toothed cats, mammoth, and dire wolves. What does the archeologist of the future find?”

As I get older I’m starting to let go of the guilty urge to build permanent habits. Like, a while ago I decided I would start jumping rope every day. I did it for like three weeks and felt good about it. Then I got bored, because of course I did, because I’m a human person. So now I do a bit of kickboxing because that’s what I like now. The other week I cut all sugar from my diet, just for a week, to challenge myself. Now I’m back to eating sweets but I don’t crave them as much.

Growth is about stretching, trying new things, and setting small, realistic goals for yourself, not picking a “good habit” you’ve decided you will be doing always and forever from now on. That’s not discipline. That’s pointless self-torture and unhealthy resistance to change.

What’s good for you today will not necessarily be what’s good for you tomorrow.

I miss the days when, no matter how slow your internet was, if you paused any video and let it buffer long enough, you could watch it uninterrupted

One of the best writing advice I have gotten in all the months I have been writing is "if you can't go anywhere from a sentence, the problem isn't in you, it's in the last sentence." and I'm mad because it works so well and barely anyone talks about it. If you're stuck at a line, go back. Backspace those last two lines and write it from another angle or take it to some other route. You're stuck because you thought up to that exact sentence and nothing after that. Well, delete that sentence, make your brain think because the dead end is gone. It has worked wonders for me for so long it's unreal

PSA

i'm begging you guys to start pirating shit from streaming platforms. there are so many websites where you can stream that shit for free, here's a quick HOW TO:

1) Search for: watch TITLE OF WORK free online

2) Scroll to the bottom of results. Click any of the "Complaint" links

3) You will be taken to a long list of links that were removed for copyright infringement. Use the 'find' function to search for the name of the show/movie you were originally searching for. You will get something like this (specifics removed because if you love an illegal streaming site you don't post its url on social media)

4) each of these links is to a website where you can stream shit for free. go to the individual websites and search for your show/movie. you might have to copy-paste a few before you find exactly what you're looking, but the whole process only takes a minute. the speed/quality is usually the same as on netflix/whatever, and they even have subtitles! (make sure to use an adblocker though, these sites are funded by annoying popups)

In conclusion, if you do this often enough you will start recognizing the most dependable websites, and you can just bookmark those instead. (note: this is completely separate from torrenting, which is also a beautiful thing but requires different software and a vpn)

you can also download the media in question (look for a "download" button built into the video window, or use a browser extension such as Video DownloadHelper.)

refseek.com

www.worldcat.org/

link.springer.com

http://bioline.org.br/

repec.org

science.gov

pdfdrive.com

anyone can make a zine, regardless of skill level or access to materials or design programs. all you need is paper, scissors and drawing utensils (although many people enjoy collaging!) web search "8 page 1 sheet zine how to".

everyone SHOULD make a zine too, you will feel so good about it ♡ it's about putting the power of production into the hands of the people! also you don't have to sell it or anything, you can just make one for yourself or trade/give some to friends!

i really love julia grofrer's guide to analogue self publishing aka making zines on 8.5x11 paper

and jaydragon/jdragsky's thread on staple's self serve print centres (if you're area does not have a local print shop, they probably have a staples or fedex print centre)

if you can't draw, here is twitter thread for public domain art and also a mini summary of when thing enter creative commons (generally 70 years after artist death in the US and CAD)

i also have a DIY zine page on my art blog that i am dedicated to updating as i find more resources! (not accessible through tumblr mobile app, mobile friendly, just open the link in a browser)

go make some zines!!!

meal ideas!

low energy ("do not ask me to do any prep work at all, so help me god")

mozzerella cheese wrapped in pepperoni ("pizza tacos"!)

hummus and pretzels or naan (putting the naan in the microwave for like 10 seconds...heavenly)

canned chili (with shredded cheese and sour cream if you have it! boom done!)

instant miso soup (warm and lovely!)

cheese and cured meat, olives, canned fish, crackers, dried fruit, or whatever easy "charcuterie" type items you like

alternate bites of apple and spoonfulls of peanut butter (mixing honey or chocolate chips to the peanut butter is my favorite)

a "deconstructed sandwich": bites of lunch meat, pickles, cheese, cherry tomato, etc (I love roast beef and white cheddar for this)

yogurt and granola or fruit

medium energy ("I'll boil water but don't ask me to chop shit")

boiled eggs and fresh veggies (put a little salt on top of the eggs for pizzaz!)

buttered noodles (take it up to level 10 and add roasted garlic; takes 30 mins in an oven, only one swoop of the knife required)

baked potato with toppings (I like cheese, bacon, broccoli, green onion, and sour cream)

quesadilla (add some canned beans, cilantro, or avocado!)

pot roast (requires a lot of time but not a lot of actual work. I love it with peas!)

cuban sandwich (bread, swiss, pickle, mustard, ham... my favorite thing to panini-ify by far)

pan-fried tofu with scallion sauce (this sauce goes well with everything and tofu is no exception)

pancakes or waffles! (I love mine with jam)

ham, pickle, and cream cheese roll-ups

fried eggs (with toast and lots of butter...so comforting)

fruit smoothie (bananas, frozen strawberries, yogurt...or whatever!)

I hate salad but could write essays on this copycat olive garden salad (throw it in a bowl! chopping required if you use onion)

spaghetti (controversial maybe but angel hair > spaghetti noodles)

pasta salad (olives broccoli fresh mozerella... those little mini pepperonis... yeah)

high energy ("I don't mind chopping some things up!")

stuffed shells with spinach

chicken and roasted garlic (oh my god.....one of my all time favorites)

beef tacos (I like mine with cilantro and onion, and when I'm feeling especially high energy I love a tomatillo salsa)

chicken alfredo

tom kha gai (a thai soup and my absolute favorite! you just need access to galangal)

lasagna! (freezes well and then boom! low energy meal for later)

pad thai! (not as hard as you'd think, as long as you have access to tamarind paste!)

potstickers! (this is a lovely group activity if you want to cook with housemates!)

rice and beans

bang bang shrimp (ogughfhgfuh I love it. you can also do bang bang tofu!)

minestrone soup (so many nice veggies!)

fried rice (put whatever you have on hand in there! broccoli, peas, carrot, and beef is my favorite combo)

broccoli cheddar soup

spring rolls and peanut sauce

skewers (such as beef, onion, zucchini, bell pepper... you don't need a grill, oven works!)

roasted turkey with garlic parmesean asparagus

pork chop with mashed potatoes

other tips:

whenever you think of a meal you'd like to make, take 3 seconds to google search it, take a screenshot of the image results, and put it in a "food ideas" folder. instant visual menu!

if you're on instagram, there are a bajillion different recipe accounts that post videos! a few of my favorites: jipsoon_kitchen, eatwitzo, cordandthekitchen, chungeats, tiffy.cooks, two_plaid_aprons

Alternatives to Harmful Crisis Lines

What’s the issue with mainstream crisis lines? 

In January 2022, an article came out that exposed the fact that the Crisis Text Line was selling personal data to for-profit companies. The Trevor Project also was mentioned in this article for sharing data with Google and Meta. 

They aren’t the only crisis lines with issues: this article that also came out in January 2022 talks about how the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is ignoring the testimony from their Lived Experience Committee about stopping involvment with cops, and is working with the Federal Communications Comission to try to get permission to use a newer type of mass surveillence technology during their calls. 

Quote from the article: “Basically, Vibrant/NSPL argued that everyone who calls, texts, or chats through the new 988 number should have their personal information and exact current geolocation to within three meters exposed to NSPL call centers automatically, immediately, and by default.” 

Beyond these ethical issues around data collection, a huge problem with almost every single crisis line is their policies of “active rescue”: basically, what this means is that crisis lines will track your location and send police to your location if they think you’re at risk of harming yourself. This happens hundreds of thousands of times every single year. This is extremely dangerous, especially for Black people using these lines. There are examples of people being shot because of calls made to hotlines where police showed up. Police showing up also leads to forced psychiatric incarceration. I personally have had the police called on me twice through a crisis line that I thought was anonymous; they showed up, entered my room without my consent, and searched me without my consent. They literally made everything in that moment worse. 

If people want to learn more about the history of police involvment and crisis lines, here’s an article.

Avoid hotlines that call the cops: 

Crisis Text Line

Trevor Project 

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

NAMI helpline

LGBT National Hotline

SAMHSA National Hotline

List of State Crisis Lines that all call cops 

Alternatives that do not share data or call the cops 

Pretty much every national and mainstream crisis line calls the cops. A general rule of thumb is that unless it specifically mentions that it doesn’t call the cops on their website, it does. I also haven’t done a ton of research on the data sharing side for the lines I’m listing below, but if anyone has any more info please let me know and I’ll update the list.

National: 

Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860, 24/7

THRIVE: text message line at 313-662-8209, 24/7

Promise Resource Network: (833) 390-7728, 24/7

Project Return Peer Support Network: (888) 448-9777 English or (888) 448-4055 Spanish, hours are Monday through Friday 2:30 PM to 10:00 PM and Saturday and Sunday 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM

Wildflower Alliance Peer Support Line: 888-407-4515, hours are 7pm to 9pm Monday through Thursday and 7pm-10pm Friday through Sunday

Key Consumer Organization: 800-933-5397, hours are 8am - 4:30pm, Monday - Friday.

MBRLC Peer Support Line:  877-733-7563, hours are 4 pm-7:45 pm every day. 

Check out this page for a directory of warmlines by state. These are much less likely to call the cops, but it’s good to check with each individual one about specific policies.

If anyone has more info, please add on!