okay, listen…corn flakes are the best cereal b/c they’re driven by some mysterious higher power. like, you eat some and they taste like cardboard and you’re appalled, but the box is right there so you have a few more and maybe it’s not that bad? and then you’re zoned out sort of, watching netflix or reading a book or whatever, and then you realize they’re just the right amount of sweet without being overpowering and that they’re probably the best damn thing you’ve ever put in your mouth, but then you stop eating them for like ten seconds, you gotta go to the bathroom or something, and by the time you come back you have to start the process all over again. corn flakes make you work for it, but that’s part of their charm
I, your Friendly Neighborhood Librarian absolve you from all literary sins and encourage you to go and read what you like on the platform of your choosing.
Never feel guilty for reading fan fic at 3am. Everything is fanfic in the end. From fanfic you were made, to fanfic you shall return.
Read that which has been panned by literary snobs. Read novels churned out by the dozen by authors with a dozen pseudonyms.
Read your US and People. Flip through Popular Science just for the gadgets section. Read articles about the perfect chocolate chip cookie.
Read books outside your comfort zone. Don’t finish them if you don’t want. It’s the book’s fault, not yours.
Read in your comfort zone. Read a YA and romance and science if and fantasy.
Skip over the boring bits. Read it because you heard about it from Oprah or because everyone else is reading it.
Giggle yourself silly at something so poorly written and full of author wish fulfillment that you just can’t stop reading it.
Don’t listen to the keepers of taste and culture. Their reward comes every time they pat themselves on the back for their superior taste.
Don’t listen to the academics that bemoan the downfall of society and learning. They have been doing that since Socrates’ time.
Don’t listen to the tv presenters who insist you are not cultured if you haven’t read from this list of books.
Audio books count as reading. Ebooks count as reading. Fanfic of questionable quality counts as reading. Rereading books for the third time counts as reading. Reading to your child counts as reading. Reading from the back of the cereal box (and doing the puzzle) counts as reading.
TL;DR: read what you want. Don’t be ashamed. Never let someone try to make you feel bad for how or what you read and enjoy. Tell them that I, your Friendly Neighborhood Librarian have absolved you from your guilt and have given you special blessings. Go forth and read, my child.
But still interested in feeding yourself? What if I told you that there’s a woman with a blog who had to feed both herself and her young son…on 10 British pounds ($15/14 Euro) per week?
Let me tell you a thing.
This woman saved my life last year. Actually saved my life. I had a piggy bank full of change and that’s it. Many people in my fandom might remember that dark time as when I had to hock my writing skills in exchange for donations. I cried a lot then.
This is real talk, people: I marked down exactly what I needed to buy, totaled it, counted out that exact change, and then went to three different stores to buy what I needed so I didn’t have to dump a load of change on just one person. I was already embarrassed, but to feel people staring? Utter shame suffused me. The reasons behind that are another post all together.
AgirlcalledJack.com is run by a British woman who was on benefits for years. Things got desperate. She had to find a way to feed herself and her son using just the basics that could be found at the supermarket. But the recipes she came up with are amazing.
You have to consider the differing costs of things between countries, but if you just have three ingredients in your cupboard, this woman will tell you what to do with it. Check what you already have. Chances are you have the basics of a filling meal already.
Bake your own bread. It’s easier than you think. Here’s a list of many recipes, each using some variation of just plain flour, yeast, some oil, maybe water or lemon juice. And kneading bread is therapeutic.
She has a book, but many recipes can be found on her blog for free. She prices her recipes down to the cent, and every year she participates in a project called “Living Below the Line” where she has to live on 1 BP per day of food for five days.
Things improved for me a little, but her website is my go to. I learned how to bake bread (using my crockpot, but that was my own twist), and I have a little cart full of things that saved me back then, just in case I need them again. She gives you the tools to feed yourself, for very little money, and that’s a fabulous feeling.
Tip: Whenever you have a little extra money, buy a 10 dollar/pound/euro giftcard from your discount grocer. Stash it. That’s your super emergency money. Make sure they don’t charge by the month for lack of use, though.
I don’t care if it sounds like an advertisement–you won’t be buying anything from the site. What I DO care about is your mental, emotional, and physical health–and dammit, food’s right in the center of that.
If you don’t need this now, pass it on to someone who does. Pass it on anyway, because do you REALLY know which of the people in your life is in need? Which follower might be staring at their own piggy bank? Trust me: someone out there needs to see this.
i taught the cats to high five for treats, but now nova thinks highfiving will get anything he wants. i just tried to eat some pringles, he tried layin a sick five down, but no these are my fukkin chips cat! i hid my hands to stop him…. and the little fucker climbs on my lap, looks deep into my eyes, and slowly, gingerly, lifts one paw and boops me on the fukkin nose what the fuck even are cats
I swear Fury Road is made up of 90% dramatic/ironic/painful echoes by volume.
For instance, Max and Angharad both fall off of the Rig after rescuing the driver (Angharad using the boltcutters on the harpooned wheel, Max body-checking multiple polecats away from Furiosa).
And both times Capable and Dag try to save them by reaching out from the backseat. They only succeed once.
It occurred to me the other day that Angharad dies in the back of the Gigahorse, where the Organic Mechanic does his impromptu c-section. The same place where Furiosa almost dies but is saved by Max.
one thing though - what the Organic Mechanic does is not a c-section imo. a c-section is a surgery during which the woman/pregnant person is treated as a person/a patient. what the Organic Mechanic did was cut a woman open like breaking open a Christmas cracker to get the goodies inside. He’s treating her as a thing, an incubator whose only worth is to create a male heir.
It’s dismemberment, not surgery.
The reason why I’m pointing this out is that it’s not just that Angharad dies in that palce and Furiosa lives, but that Angharad is treated as a thing by OM whereas Max… revisits his own physical exploitation and being treated as a thing to treat Furiosa with infinite care.
The thing that remains the same btw is that a woman/women are with both Angharad and Furiosa, loving them and grieving them. Miss Giddy holds Angharad as she passes away, always seeing her as a person; the Vuvalini and the sisters comfort/hold Furiosa.
The major difference is the definition of humanity/masculinity the man involved is working from - are you capable of giving life of yourself or do you just take from those who can, ripping it out of them?
The final note is that OM is the man that violated Max’s body, though it’s Max’s choice that makes him different/in community with the women there not merely having been victimized.
AND ANOTHER THING
The 3 people helping Max save Furiosa are the Dag, Capable, and the Vuvalini played by Melita Jurisic. Each of them lost someone they were particularly close to during the final chase–Dag lost Keep, Capable lost Nux, and while I’m arguing Joy Smither’s Vuvalini was ‘Melita’s’ BFF we might, even if headcanon fails, say she’s lost her sisters as a whole (Valkyrie and Maadi, too!). And I’m very into the symbolism and emotional punch of having the people who are grieving most being the ones to keep Furiosa from dying, too.
I really loved that bit about Angharad being treated like a thing but Max revisits his own exploitation. Like you know when Slit throws a lance past Max’s face at the beginning, kinda using him to aim and later Furiosa uses the same side to make that awesome shot? This reminded me of that. But seriously there is so much deep thinking going on and my thoughts are just ‘I wonder if the war pup at the beginning is taking Max’s hair so he can make some kinda cuddly toy for himself’.
cygnaut asked: If Max Rockatansky was your boyfriend, he would never ask if the symbolic black scarf you gifted him is a male imperator scarf or a female one.
Look at the 2nd gif and tell me that doesn’t seem like part of some desperate wasteland wedding ceremony (also enjoy Toast, Cheedo, and Capable as the world’s most appalled flower girls.)
I’m just over here, dragging hands slowly down my face and giving up on any sort of pretense of objectivity.
I never noticed that he put his hand on the back of the metal one in that second gif, until you pointed it out. What. Even.
…true talk tho, the only way that arranged marriage fic might happen to these two is if there’s literal guns pointed at literal heads, and there’d need to be hostages involved, possibly multiple, and perhaps (given this universe) cannibalism, maybe some electrocutions.
And at least three explosions.
And a pint of blood.
Forced-Marriage-Vows Boy, bleeding gently: “By your command, shiny and chrome Immortan, we told Furiosa and the feral of your plans to force them into marriage and breeding.”
Immortan Joe, glaring: “AND?”
Forced-Marriage-Vows Boy, swaying due to blood loss: “The good news is, casualties were minimal and the pair did appear to be bonding as they stole a vehicle and fled into the desert.”
Immortan Joe, glowering: “THE BAD NEWS?”
Forced-Marriage-Vows Boy, curling into a fetal ball in a pool of his own blood: “There’s fire everywhere.”
