knotty pine

Old Pines, the old old person with a critical case of the oldie olds a photo of a masculine presenting individual with a half-white beard raising a mug that reads “Plant Parent”.

Yay! I still get to say I’m old!!

An illustration by Spindle of the character Ottilie, a human with short brown hair, standing and pulling her arms to her face. She's wearing a form-fitting black (greenish) top

💚

a photo of OSHA classroom materials on a table

Finally getting around to taking the OSHA #511

A fire pit blazes under an almost full moon.

an old photograph of a little boy in overalls with a bubble pipe and a lighter, doing a great job of mimicking a great uncle who smoked a pipe

Ending the weekend right with a lovely fire and a nearly full moon.

Since that’s not all that exciting, here’s an oooooold photo of me playing with a bubble pipe and a lighter, as if I knew where life would lead me.

A wake-up call that can’t be bleat…um…beat.

Still extremely off my antidepressants, so I’m out farming serotonin like an insufferable cunt.

Share something that made you happy recently.

Had you beat by ~30° a minute ago. Sun’s up and bumpin’ now, so we might be tied.

a photo of a 44yo twat with a beard leaning against the upright of a carport, wearing a fleece jacket and a ball cap with an embroidered puma face on it. In their hand is a coral-colored mug with “Plant Parent” on the side wall.

Bright dawn, cold morning. Here’s hoping y’all’re well. Remember to check in with yourself from time to time and pull back from the hellish maelstrom when it gets to be too much. Our bodies may have evolved to consume, but our souls evolved to love. That starts with yourself.

…I’m not looking for solutions here. I have the solution that has worked for literal decades: doing nothing. But I do wonder who else has experienced this. Commiseration is the best medicine?

I dunno.

Sorry to shit on y’all’s weekend.

…Otherwise, I’m stuck with myself, and I don’t receive love from myself at all.…

…The minor reason I am not inclined to leave is that, even as a “grumpy asshole”, I crave SOME human contact. And she was the only one that ever showed any interest in me. I know that if I stay, I’ll still receive some love that feels like love.…

…25 years is a long time to be treated like a child. The bruise on my heart feels like it’ll never go away. But I feel like two main things always hold me here: I don’t believe my own feelings and I made a promise with my hands in hers that I would stay. I sealed it with gold.…

…It feels like being thrown a bone. But the bone lands at your feet and there’s no meat still on it, no gristle, no marrow inside. It’s just a dry ass bone tossed like it’s a treat.

I can’t even say anything about it to her, because I don’t trust my emotional response.…

…She started saying things like “you’re my favorite husband”, which…sure, once in a while, that’s cute. But once a day? Once every two days? And I’m the only one she has or ever has had. So, I also have to be the least favorite and everything in between.…

…When she’s angry, I bear it. I treat it like it’s a serious matter. I meet her on a mature level. But when I have a burr under my saddle, it feels like I’m being told I am grumpy/cranky little toddler who’s late for their nap. It’s deeply hurtful and that sits and festers in my heart.…

…It’s almost never “hey, are you ok?” or “is something bothering you, babe?” It’s almost always “are you done being grumpy?” or [to one of the pets, randomly] “daddy’s just grumpy”. And I can’t…like, how can you express to someone, “can you not belittle my emotions? I don’t do this shit to you”?…

…You ever have a partner tell you you’re acting “grumpy” when you’re upset about something? Or when you’re in so much pain that you can’t spare the mask to act like you’re processing life normally at the moment? I’ve had that for 25 years.…

…some is cPTSD from an emotionally abusive stepfather. I spent my youth knowing one thing: I’m not allowed to express emotion, because my emotional response are not acceptable to other people. That’s internalized now and continues to be reinforced.…

…I have a tendency to be pretty distant and lack a lot of the trust in others that’s really necessary to form a close bond. My emotional regulation is tuned so high that I don’t express emotion well…or much at all. Some of that is undiagnosed autistic traits, some is clinical depression,…

I’ve been with my spouse longer than a lot of people on here have been alive. Twenty-five years…a while-ass person worth. And there is a lot of love there, but there’s also a hell of a lot of patience.

I’m not a great person. That’s not the depression talking, though it is nodding in the corner.…

Really wish it didn’t hurt so much all the damn time. A day without feeling like I’m one minor inconvenience away from completely breaking down would be nice.

A triangle alignment chart with “decent people”, “decent politics”, and “decent scenery” at the vertices.

I operated off a loose mental version of this. However, some of the Maybes, Willings, and Reluctantlies are borderline with each other.

I feel like my selections are probably unfair. However, there are a lot of places whose political climate, religious extremism, or just boring-ass flatness turn me off so hard I don’t even want to visit them.

Obviously, I currently live in NM, but I moved here on purpose and wouldn’t change that.

Really having a “everything hurts, right down to whatever I have that passes for what people call a soul” night. Tired of never being enough. Never having time for myself. Just tired.

Not keen on the idea of dying, but a forever nap sounds like it’d hit the fucking spot right now.

#artstuff

blanket bunny

In a world full of as much shit as this one, there’s gonna be an abundance of assholes. Fuck ‘em, darlin’. You deserve better and they deserve worse.

[Not an experience I’ve been personally involved with, fortunately.]

General industry OSH guy, here. I feel you. It’s appalling just how many people look at the regs, look at the standards, look at the company policies and just go, “man, I dunno why we need all this! It just gets in the wa—“ and then you’re venting a confined space to retrieve a body.

I still love everything about this.

The tone, the feel, the softness, the peace.