So Apparently It Should Only Take You 30 Minutes To Fall Asleep Not 1-2 Hours

If you are scared to listen to a viewpoint, because it might change your mind, you need to reevaluate your own viewpoint.

I was babysitting for my mom’s cousin and there were supposed to be a couple more kids than hers. I was not told I’d be looking after about 9 kids (fortunately 2 of them were old enough to mostly look after themselves) while the adults were outside having free time. I had only ever babysat my two cousins who were enough of a handful so adding five kids to the mix was a lot for me.

Anyway, one of my cousins and her three friends come in to the playroom. They are upset and two girls are crying. I get the story that they were playing with a microphone and there was a little bit of a fight over who got it next. One of them accidentally hit another with it. The other girls are saying it was on purpose. Eventually I am able to get the girl who was hit to calm down and get everyone but the girl who accidentally hit her friend to go downstairs for a bit. The last girl is crying and telling me it was an accident. I immediately tell her I believe her.

And guys, she looked at me like no one had ever said that to her. There are plenty of details from that night I don’t remember but I will never forget her face. I felt like I was the first adult (pseudo adult? I was like 19) to tell her that I believed her.

So don’t automatically assume kids are lying or anything. Or that they are upset for some stupid reason. Even if it is a stupid reason to you, it isn’t to the kid. They have a lot less life experience to pull from and their brains are still growing.

I sat with a crying second grader today. (The age range is outside my wheelhouse but I was the most convenient adult.) He was crying, the other adults said, because his brother took a phone he was playing on. “Phone addicted,” everybody said. “If he would get up and play games with the other kids he wouldn’t be crying.”

He told me everyone lets his brother take things from him because his brother is younger, and doesn’t know better. He told me he doesn’t want to play because he’s tired, he has too many extracurriculars this summer and can’t get good sleep because “everyone in my camper is so loud when I’m trying to sleep.” He’s exhausted and only eight. His mom’s an acquaintance and told me she and the kid’s father are going through a separation — mom and four kids left the house to stay in a camper.

But people will seriously not listen to kids crying over seemingly minor things because on the surface it looks like a tantrum. If kids are given the space to articulate themselves they often will.

He had failed and now his bones would turn to ash. It wasn’t supposed to be a simple mission, but he figured it was more likely he’d get a sword in the gut or fried by some electricity than burned by the dragon he tried to save.

The Rafel Alliance was a stunning beacon of justice. If your definition of justice was black and white. Even the Mor Actin Spire had a more nuanced definition of justice and they were a dictatorship. Still, dragon fire for a drunken revelry was a bit much. He probably should have stayed low after the mission. Probably shouldn’t have gotten drunk out of excitement of not having a sword in the gut, but he did. One fistfight later, and he’s thrown in jail. A week after, death by dragon flames.

Obviously he’d failed the mission. He administered the antidote to the Alliance’s chemical control of the dragon, but they all knew it might not work. Which was why he stayed in town. He got drunk, because getting in and out of the central prison and dragon grounds was a feat worthy of a legendary thief.

Which he one hundred percent wasn’t. Now, he wasn’t a bad thief, but he was more of an undercover operative than a stealth operative. So making it out with all his organs was a better result than expected. Again, why he got drunk.

The first prisoner was up, and the charges were read. The man had stolen some food and was charged with the sin of gluttony. Funny considering, the man didn’t look like he had a good meal in years. Hard to be gluttonous without stuff, but that’s how the alliance works. You get charged with a sin and you burn in dragon fire.

For his part, the man bravely faced the maw of the dragon. It was over before the smell could even fill the ground. Where the man had been was a pile of ashes already dispersing in the wind. The sentencer grinned and began reading the next sentence.

It continued. A sin of pride for illegally preaching. Raging heat encompassed the grounds. Refusing to pay rent, sin of sloth. The ash pile grew. Envious enough to burn a building. Burning flesh filled his nostrils. Greed, sloth, wrath, greed, pride, lust, lust. On and on. The ash pile rose even with the wind dispersing it. Finally it was his turn.

“Fineal Taygen, you are sentenced with the sin of wrath for assaulting innocents. Your punishment is death by dragon fire.”

Fineal was tossed onto the ash pile by the guards. In front of him was the magnificent animal reduced to a slave. The dragon’s eyes devoid of the intelligence they should have. He failed. The antidote didn’t work, and now he wouldn’t have a chance to try again. Hopefully when the dragon was awoken, they would know that he did not blame them.

He prayed for the dragon’s freedom, and for his friends’s safety before staring at the dragon’s eyes. If he was to die, he’d face it with courage. Yet as he stared into the dragon’s eyes, they stared back. He almost stepped back in shock. The dragon was waiting. All the others had been immediately incinerated, but the dragon hadn’t burned him yet. Slowly he stepped closer. The dragon just watched him. He took another step, and his nose was touching the dragon.

The dragon finally opened their mouth and he realized this was his end. Even though he wanted to have courage, he found himself unconsciously wincing for the pain that was coming. It wasn’t until he felt a warm tongue that he knew he hadn’t failed. Fineal had succeeded in his mission.

You’re a prisoner in a fantasy world. After a week in jail for (YOUR CHOICE), your true punishment has come. Death by the Dragon’s flame. One by one, you watch men be scorched. It is finally your turn. The dragon reaches its head down, but instead of death, you get a warm lick on the forehead.

It’s absolutely valid to spend time questioning your identity and decide that you aren’t LQTBQ.

Ed Sheeran and live (bad) country is not a combination I thought I’d hear in my life. And now I wish I hadn’t.

There was a girl sitting on the bench

Her hair fell into her face

And covered her eyes

everyone who sat next to her asked her why

Why she let her hair mask her beauty

She answered simply

“You would drown in my eyes”

They laughed and asked her to show her face

“no” she replied every time

They taunted her, and grabbed her hair

She had long since stopped trying to stop them

When her eyes were uncovered

They stopped laughing

Her eyes held oceans beyond comprehension

Her left held a furious image

of the waters revolting

Her right held a serene scene

of the waters relaxing

They all ran before they drowned in her eyes

I watched this happen time after time

One day I sat beside her

I did not ask her to move her hair

“Why are you silent”

“I only want company”

I sat next to her everyday

We spoke of many things

But I never asked her to move her hair

And she never asked me to move mine

I sat beside her, but she looked different

Her hair was pulled back

“You won’t drown. I won’t let you”

All I did was move my own hair back

And let my night skies mix with her oceans

Jesus (God) can be my rock, but they have to be able to shake

I wonder how the prevalence of revolution stories in our (United States) literature and media (hunger games, divergent, etc.) has introduced the idea that revolution is the first thing to do when a system is broken. How has that idea convinced people that rioting may be the correct thing to do (Capitol riot, George Floyd riots, etc.)?

This is going to be an unpleasant post but I need to talk to y’all about heat stroke in dogs. I am an ER vet and I am seeing firsthand the death toll that this heat wave is taking on our pets. In the past two weeks, for every single weekend shift I have worked, we have had at least one DOA with a body temperature over 107 degrees. One of them had simply been on a 20 minute walk at 5pm. All of them were brachycephalic (short faced breeds like pugs and french bulldogs). Their owners were in shock that this could happen so quickly, and their grief lingers with me.

If you have a dog, and especially if you have a brachycephalic dog, you need to familiarize yourself with the signs of heat stroke. Do not take your dogs out in the heat of the day, be aware of the pavement temperature, and always have fresh water available for them. When I am outdoors with my dog I am checking on him constantly. This heat wave is extremely serious; I need you to keep yourself and your pets safe.

America tends to not care about collectives of people. Like, a lot of people were antivax because they didn’t care enough about others, but in other countries that put families, groups, and others first that wouldn’t fly. You’d have a duty to get vaccinated to protect others whether you care about protecting yourself or not.

Which actually explains a lot of strict lawn practices in neighborhoods and stuff. Suddenly the decision of others affects YOUR property value (even if that is stupid and silly and most people love seeing gardens). So there’s strict rules so that no one being individualistic can affect you cause the USA doesn’t care about groups of people.

That’s rambly but maybe it makes sense. I’m sure there’s a better way to put it. But strict HOAs and city ordinances protect the collective from individuals in a country that doesn’t have a culture of caring for the collective. It’s for stupid reasons and all. A garden doesn’t hurt anything and actually helps but remember this is a country that has awful pollen (I literally live in a place nicknamed the pollen capital of the world though it isn’t on the list for 2022. Yeaaaa) because they only planted male trees (of species that have male/female categories) because city planners didn’t want fruit/nuts everywhere on the sidewalk.

not to sound crazy or anything but the fact that HOA's and city ordinances about how you can manage your garden and yard exist is so insane to me. you're supposed to spend your life doing thankless back breaking work so you can own a house with a yard—which you are forced to manage to an exacting, generic, hostile aesthetic appearance according to others preferences, even if it makes the space useless to you?

You can't even have a vegetable garden. or plant a tree. or plant fucking flowers. in YOUR OWN YARD that you paid for and own? this is the american dream?