We have exactly one Christmas tradition in my house, and it feels very important to share it. I’ve been a cat person basically forever and for most of my adult life, my house has had more cats than people in it. They’ve all liked sleeping under the Christmas tree and all that, but other than that, they always just sort of ignored it.
But in 2018, we got Natasha.
There are about a dozen pictures like that, but I always adopt adult cats, so we figured this just came with having a kitten in the house. She was just this tiny little fluff who still fit in my cupped hands despite being about six months old, so we put away the ornaments, shrugged it off, and took advantage of the opportunity to have a really cute Christmas card the next year.
Then, 2019 came around.
Natasha escalated to sleeping in the tree in between trying to eat all the branches, and honestly, it was too funny to make more than a cursory effort to stop her. My partner and I assumed that since she was still pretty tiny, she had more growing to do and would surely get to a point where her own body weight would keep her from doing this. In the meantime, we left the tree without ornaments that year and just called it good.
But then 2020 came around, forcing us to acknowledge that:
Natasha was not going to get too big to do this. At this point it had become clear that she wasn’t developing slowly. She was just a really tiny cat. She’s less than half the size of any other cat I’ve ever had.
Natasha was also not going to chill out enough to stop doing this.
But hey. Who needs ornaments with a face like that poking out of the branches at you all the time?
Sure enough, 2021 Natasha also had zero chill about the tree, but at this point it would have been weirder if she did leave it alone.
I thought I had seen everything, but this year I’d been kind of down and my partner decided to surprise me by setting up the tree and stuff while I was at work. It was an incredibly sweet gesture considering they don’t actually even like Christmas decorations. It also meant I got to come home to this.
I kept expecting her to fall out, but she just chilled there, surveying the room until she got bored. And yes, that is absolutely a big, fancy cat tree she’s ignoring in favor of scaling the Christmas tree.
Two days before Christmas, she has finally gotten bored enough that I’m making my first attempt in ages to actually put up ornaments. At this point, I’m not sure if I’ll be more disappointed if they have to come down or if they don’t.
[ID: three photos of Brennan Lee Mulligan sitting at a desk with earbuds in talking to the camera. The captions read, “Self-loathing has never motivated anyone to do anything other than loath themselves. You will not hate yourself into being industrious.” / end ID]
i am shrunken down and brought to the gnome world and when i attempt to assimilate to their culture I use an acorn cap as a hat and they all laugh cheerfully at my silly mistake of wearing what they use as a bowl like a cap and though this is a transgression that would have humiliated me in my human life I am instead laughing alongside them at my humorous misunderstanding
they ask me what I would like to eat and knowing that gnomes enjoy fruit i ask for my favorite fruit, an apple, and they all laugh raucously and say that i must be very hungry indeed to desire an entire apple rather than just a small chunk, and i go along with their joke and say that while my body may have shrank my stomach has not! and they all guffaw with delight until their faces turn red and see that my request is met and we all sit around a toadstool and share many apple slices together
over my time spent with the gnomes, my antics are still regarded with much delight. though i am past the age in which i am confused by their customs and norms, i occasionally pretend to be clueless about simple and easily understood things, such as shock at how toads are as tall as I am. they all continue to laugh at my feigned surprise, and sometimes join in, asking me if I need any help distinguishing what berries are for eating and which are for painting. i laugh, too. there is a sense of grace that comes with my shortcomings amongst the gnomes. they are entertained by my misunderstandings, yes, because life is to short to not be jolly.
i wake up one morning back at my original size. the small cavern in the roots of a tree that i lived in is destroyed in my sleep. my clothes, tailored from cut-up scraps of fabric, are shredded around me. i am a human again. i am horribly embarrassed.
the gnomes of the community gather around where i sit, all looking at me and exchanging glances with each other, none of them speaking the obvious. i can no longer stay here, now that i am not their size. but i was part of their community. i became one of them, indistinguishable from these people only from my past. how am i supposed to return to the world of the humans now? there is no life left for me there. that is not a life where i may fish for minnows in a babbling brook and feast off a bounty of raspberries. i am distraught. i cry.
my community comforts me. friends, all minuscule to me now, pat me wherever they can reach, nimbly dodging the tears that fall from my face. one of them offers me water. they don’t have any containers that are big enough for me, they apologize, so just this acorn cap filled with morning dew will have to suffice.
i take the acorn cap and look at it in my hands. it is so small now. with a sniff, i put it atop my head.
the gnome chuckles. then laughs. then bends at the waist, bellowing with laughter, supporting himself on my knee. then i am laughing too, face red, tears still falling, and my community of gnomes laughs with me as well, so loud that a flock of birds takes off in the distance, and i am still laughing even as i stand to my feet and lumber away, back to where i once came.
saw an absolutely hilarious animal crossing theory that i now 100% accept and it’s that in the animal crossing world, humans are going extinct, and so all the animals have locked you in an elaborate zoo enclosure and are trying to give you enrichment. and that’s why they give you infinite pointless tasks, hide money in trees and rocks, invented debt that doesnt matter etc. it’s why they always act so happy to see you even after you raze the entire island, relocate their houses twice, and always act so pleased about your choices no matter what. it’s all to keep their little endangered human healthy and enriched. and thinking of it this way has genuinely improved my experience of the game
“People are inherently terrible” no!!! Have you ever seen a child wait for their friend while they tie their shoelaces? Have you ever known someone who would bring hurt squirrels and rabbits and mice to the nearest vet just so it doesn’t suffer? Have you seen someone grieve? Have you ever read something that hit your heart like a freight train? Have you looked at the stars and felt an unexplainable joy? Have you ever baked bread? Have you shared a meal with a friend? Have you not seen it? All the love? All the good? I know it’s hard to see sometimes, I know there’s pain everywhere. But look, there’s a child helping another up after a hard fall. Look, there’s someone giving their umbrella to a stranger. Look, there’s someone admiring the spring flowers. Look, there’s good, there’s good, there’s good. Look!!!!
“We took in a kitten that was starving, injured, and shot with a pellet gun.”
“Oh my god, people are awful!”
“They’re not. A person rescued her, other people who are trained in helping animals treated her injuries to make her healthy again, and so so so many people contributed to pay her medical costs, I don’t even know how many. That she was hurt by…what, one person? Three? Certainly not many. Is honestly maybe the least important and least meaningful part of her story.”
“…Oh.”
I am holding a triumph of human kindness in my lap right now and her name is Fancy.
You know, that Mythbusters post legitimately changed my life. Before seeing it, I had exponentially more guilt and stress about not being able to sleep, which of course, further exacerbated my inability to sleep.
Now, every time I wake up about three am, knowing I have to get up at 6.45, instead of stressing and panicking about how my day is going to be sleep deprived and miserable, I just tell myself ‘Time to activate Mythbusters Protocol’ and lie there with my eyes closed safe in the knowledge that I am measurably reducing later feelings of exhaustion.
And when this happens, about 70% of the time the reduction of guilt and stress means I actually do fall back asleep, so all in all instead of getting only three or four hours sleep, I get five to six and a half.
Which y'know, major improvement in health and energy.
On a related note, that post also opened up the world of naps for me. I used to think that napping was mostly pointless for me, because I’m pretty much incapable of falling fully asleep in the middle of the day. But when I redefined naps to include “lying down with my eyes shut for an hour,” even if I just spent the whole time brainstorming fanfiction, that was often enough to get me from “exhausted and running on 4 hours of sleep” to energized and refreshed
The post (?) as found on Reddit with bonus explanatory Reddit comment.
You know what, since I’m thinking about it anyways, let’s talk formalwear accessories. Most of these are traditionally menswear but a bit of gender fuckery is good for the soul, and frankly most of these are about making your mass-produced clothing fit and lay properly without having to go to the tailor.
Shirt stays: these go around your thighs to hold your shirt down, so that it stays smooth and tucked in. They’re usually elastic, with 1-3 clips, and if you wear skirts frequently this is a GREAT way to make sure your top doesn’t ride up. The clips will be visible if you’re wearing something tight, so loose pants or skirts are where these do best. There’s also an insane version that clips to your socks, but that is for lunatics. If you wanted, you could also use one of these clips to hold up thigh-highs.
These do a great job of smoothing and narrowing the waist area by keeping your shirt from bunching there.
Sleeve garters: usually metal, leather, elastic, or silk. These are usually worn with button-down shirts to adjust where your cuff falls on the wrist or hand. They’re properly worn on the upper arm, and you pull the fabric of the sleeve above the garter until you cuff is where you want it. Because this creates a puff of sleeve at the bicep, it also broadens the appearance of the shoulders. It’s great if you’re working with your hands or if your sleeves are often too long for your preference.
Waistband clip or belt adjustment clip/buttons
Three different ways of tightening the waistband of a pair of pants or a skirt. You’re not going to get more than an inch or so tighter without weird bunching, and for most of these you’d want them to be hidden under a shirt or jacket, but they do the job if that’s something you’re having issues with.
Collar pins: There are so many fun ones out there, both with and without chains. They’re not terribly practical, though the slight weight may help keep your collar where you want it. Also consider collar tips, which pin (surprise) to the very tips of your collar points.
Sweater clips/guards: meant to hold your sweater or cardigan mostly closed. Great if your cardigan doesn’t button, or if you don’t like it to be buttoned all the way.
There’s tons of other stuff out there like this–etsy is a great place to find this stuff. A lot of these are old solutions to the very modern problem of mass-maufactured clothes not being as one-size-fits-all as advertised, but they’re also a fun way to put a bit of personality into businesswear.
Okay I love shit like this and have to add: if you don’t like the garter shirt stays for any reason, next best is the stirrup kind.
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But menswear doesn’t get to have all the fun! Here are a few traditionally womenswear accessories:
Hem weights keep your skirt from flying up. You can get sew in and temporary ones.
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Lingerie pins keep the straps of your dress and your bra together! They can be hidden or very cute. You can go for vintage ones if you’re obsessed like me or just find either fancy safety pins or small bar pins.
Some also come in groups of three with chains that keep the straps from sliding off your shoulder.
(Often these will get mistaken for baby or doll pins because they are very small, 2-3 cm in length.)
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Glove clips hold your gloves to your belt or purse whole you aren’t wearing them, but keep them close at hand (ha).
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There are SO many things like this and I love discovering more of them. Humans like to be comfortable and not fussing with their clothes all the time. We’ve forgotten so many ways that people have solved common problems in the past.
You know the Grimm version of Snow White makes more sense than most versions if only because in that version Snow White was like 7 years old.
Like imagine you find a 7 year old in the woods and she’s like my mom is gonna kill me because I’m prettier than her and she’s not kidding. You know this queen is that sort of person. So you and your roommates adopt the kid and tell her don’t talk to strangers. And she keeps talking to strangers and getting poison combs stuck in her hair and whatnot.
Like yeah that’s kinda stupid but also she’s seven. She likes apples.
Also imagine it from the hunter’s perspective. The queen tells you this bitch is prettier than me I need you to take her out in the woods and kill her. And then you see who you’re supposed to kill and it’s a 2nd grader. Like how are you supposed to react to that sort of situation? Kill a human child? No. Because you’re not a brainless evil minion you’re just some guy dealing with a cartoonishly evil monarch. Of course you let her go.
Bad look for the Prince of course. Even if she did age while she was in that glass case. He saw a dead woman and just decided to keep her. And once she stopped being dead he was like we’re married now
He did cause the evil queen to dance to death in red hot shoes though. That was kinda cool.
With the acknowledgement that I’m grasping at straws, is it ever directly confirmed that the Prince wasn’t also 7?
See, I think that still works.
You are the guardsman assigned to protect the eight-year-old Prince. You are currently in the middle of the forest because he absolutely had his heart set on “going hunting”, and the royal second-grader should definitely not be traipsing around the woods on his own. You let him go a little on ahead and he comes running back talking about how there’s a dead girl in the clearing and there’s no-one else around and he wants to take her home because she’s really pretty, Hans, and she’s all alone!
You let him drag you to said clearing and okay, that is one angelic-looking dead child alright, and on the one hand the quality of her clothes and the craftsmanship on the coffin (who builds a see-through coffin?) speak to potential Consequences if you simply carry her off, but also for the amount of vines that have grown on the coffin she looks extraordinarily un-decayed, so you should probably get the court alchemist’s opinion on that, and there’s no way he’s going to come all the way out here in his embroidered velvet curly-shoes. And also this kid is technically assigned by God as your natural superior, or something.
So fine. You hoist the coffin onto your shoulder (it’s not like the Prince can do it. He’s eight.) and head back toward the castle, Prince chattering blithely all the way. And then you turn your ankle on a rock and suddenly there’s a thump and a cough and a lot of shouting from inside the coffin and you have now become a key player in a tense political incident with the next kingdom over.
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