I’m A Procrustinator: I Compulsively S T R E T C H Out Or Cut Short Any Task So That It Fits Exactly

me to baby, after twenty minutes of trying to get him to chill: …and if that purple yacht gets sunk, Mama’s gonna buy you a pickup truck. And if there’s a pickup truck recall, Mama’s gonna buy you a wrecking ball. And if that gets CPS involved, Mama’s gonna buy you an age-appropriate doll -

me to baby, after forty minutes: …and if Olympus Mons gets razed, Mama’s gonna buy you some flying sleighs. And if the flying sleighs get banned, Mama’s gonna buy you a Congressman. And if he still won’t pass your bill, Mama’s gonna buy you a Silmaril. And if that starts an awful war, Mama’s gonna buy you a dinosaur. And if your dino won’t ride to battle, Mama’s gonna buy you a magic saddle -

toast / digital painting by dansedelune

at society6 and redbubble.

“The people who cling most tightly to this “punching up vs punching down” paradigm are those who really, really want to punch people, and want to know which people it’s okay to punch. Remember, this was originally a moral principle for regulating comedy. Insofar as comedy involves ridicule and mockery, comedy is “punching” as an art form – as entertainment – and “punching up vs punching down” is a professional ethic for comedians, people who “punch” others for a living. As such, comedians have an a priori desire to get on with the punching, and thus a need to identify which targets are fair game. But there’s plenty of other people who just want to get their “punching” on, and are delighted to have this “punching up vs punching down” principle because otherwise they didn’t have any principle at all which said that punching was ever acceptable. As far as they knew, being mean was always morally bad, which is a total bummer if you really, really, really want to be mean but also want to not think of yourself as someone who does morally bad things – or don’t want other people to think you’re bad for being mean. For people nursing this kind of covert aggressive impulse, this moral principle, that it is totally licit to “punch” people of more privilege, was like a declaration of open season. I expect there will be a lot of yowling and hissing about this post from people whose favorite toy I just took away, like cats protesting being deprived of their half-dead mice. Yowling from people who aren’t actually standing up for social justice - just getting their vicious jollies on.”

—from “The Problem with Punching Up”, siderea

she walked into my office uninvited, and I gotta say it was a relief to have a client that wasn’t a vampire for a change.

Poem: I lik the form

My naym is pome / and lo my form is fix’d Tho peepel say / that structure is a jail I am my best / when formats are not mix’d Wen poits play / subversions often fail

Stik out their toung / to rebel with no cause At ruls and norms / In ignorance they call: My words are free / Defying lit'rate laws To lik the forms / brings ruin on us all

A sonnet I / the noblest lit'rate verse And ruls me bind / to paths that Shakespeare paved Iambic fot / allusions well dispersed On my behind / I stately sit and wave

You think me tame /   Fenced-in and penned / bespelled I bide my time /   I twist the end / like hell

* “lik” should be read as “lick”, not “like”. In general, the initial section on each line should be read sort of phonetically.

Written for World Poetry Day, March 21, 2018. When I had this idea earlier today, I thought it was the worst, most faux hip pretentious idea for a shallow demonstration of empty wordsmithing skill in poetry ever. So I had to try to write it. I mean, how often do you get to fuse the iambic dimeter of bredlik - one of the newest and most exciting verse forms - with the stately iambic pentameter of the classic sonnet?

I think a lot of people just... don’t take things literally? The other day I saw on Instagram a post of someone’s tweet thread absolutely ripping into men with no exceptions, yesallmen and how dare anyone say otherwise, and the same person also had an Instagram account and near the top of her grid she’d written a loving Father’s Day post about her wonderful dad. I think to a great extent it’s rhetoric, words as war, arguments as soldiers, not meant to be *true*. And the people who get really hurt by this are those who find it hard to conceive of discourse/argument where truth isn’t the point. I’m probably not diagnosable with autism but feel like my ways of thinking are... autistic-adjacent? (please don’t let that land me in in identity hell) and I do think it may be partly an autism thing.

On the other hand I think some people really get off on being cruel to others under the guise of moral purity. And there’s a symbiosis between these people (natural born inquisitors?) and the ones who genuinely want to promote being kind and doing the right thing and don’t see a problem with using hyperbole, generalisations, false arguments and contradictions if the cause is just.

Also, @funereal-disease, I’m crying from reading your post because it resonates so much. Also I’m utterly terrified to post this but I’m going to do it now.

You are a whole person 100% of the time, not just when you are fashionable. You are not a collection of Identities that can be alternately platformed and deplatformed. This is what intersectionality was supposed to mean, but in almost all respects it has failed miserably.

Star systems follow a standard blueprint that keeps their orbits stable.  They are organized in a hierarchical setup. What that means is that each set of orbits is on a different size scale.  The sizes of stars’ orbits do not go 1-2-3, they go 1-10-100. Any one star is only really close to one other star.  After that, other stars are much farther away.

Here is a cartoon of a hierarchical 8-star system:

This system is hierarchical because each close pair of stars (stars a and b, b and c, etc) is much closer to each other than any other stars (or pairs of stars).  The separation between stars a and b is much smaller than the separation between stars a+b and c+d, which is much smaller than the separation between stars a+b+c+d and e+f+g+h.  Let’s say that the separation between the closest binaries is 0.1 Astronomical Units, the separation between each pair of close binaries is 1 Astronomical Unit, and the separation between clumps of 4 stars is 10 Astronomical Units.

Demonstration Of Constant Velocity With A Moving Trampoline

An Astronaut’s Tips For Living in Confined Spaces

One thing astronauts have to be good at: living in confined spaces for long periods of time. 

Nearly 20 years successfully living on the International Space Station and more than 50 flying in space did not happen by accident. Our astronauts and psychologists have examined what human behaviors create a healthy culture for living and working remotely in small groups. They narrowed it to five general skills and defined the associated behaviors for each skill. 

For many of us in a similar scenario, here are the skills as shared by astronaut Anne McClain: 

Skill 1, Communication

Share information and feelings freely. 

Talk about your intentions before taking action. 

Discuss when your or others’ actions were not as expected. 

Take time to debrief after success or conflict. 

Admit when you are wrong.

Skill 2, Self-Care

Balance work, rest, and personal time. Be organized.

Realistically assess your own strengths and weaknesses, and their influence on the group.

Identify personal tendencies and their influence on your success or failure. Learn from mistakes. 

Be open about your weaknesses and feelings. 

Take action to mitigate your own stress or negativity (don’t pass it on to the group). 

Skill 3, Team Care

Demonstrate patience and respect. Encourage others. 

Monitor your team (or friends and family) for signs of stress or fatigue. 

Encourage participation in team (or virtual) activities. 

Volunteer for the unpleasant tasks. Offer and accept help. 

Share credit; take the blame.

Skill 4, Group Living

Cooperate rather than compete. 

Actively cultivate group culture (use each individual’s culture to build the whole). 

Respect roles, responsibilities and workload. 

Take accountability; give praise freely. Then work to ensure a positive team attitude. 

Keep calm in conflict.

Skill 5, Leadership/Followership

Accept responsibility.

Adjust your style to your environment.

Assign tasks and set goals.

Lead by example. Give direction, information, feedback, coaching and encouragement.

Talk when something isn’t right. Ask questions.

We are all in this together on this spaceship we call Earth! These five skills are just reminders to help cultivate good mental and physical health while we all adjust to being indoors. Take care of yourself and dive deeper into these skills HERE. 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.