These are a few of my favorite things: DAY 3 – Internet delights

in Random Crap

This week we are sharing the things that are getting us through the harder times. Monday we did podcasts, yesterday we did tv and today we’re doing the wonderful internet things keeping you going. (Non-porn edition.)

The internet can be a scary sort of place where the loudest and most horrible people get the most attention but it can also be an amazing community of kind and wonderful people and it also houses most of my favorite cat videos.

So today let’s share our favorite online distractions. Maybe it’s a website or blog you love or a youtube video that makes you incredibly happy or someone you follow online who always makes you laugh or feel seen or an online group that is a second home.

I’ll start:

I spend way too much time online so one of my favorite things is falling into dark rabbit-holes on wikipedia like this List of unusual deaths, which kept me clicking on more links until 3am.

Also recommended: Atlas Obscura, which makes me feel like I’m traveling even when I can’t. (I use this site for almost every vacation I take because it gives me weird-ass recommendations that are so me.) And xkcd, which you probably already know. And reddit (once you find the subreddits that are right for you) is fascinating because there are so, so many subreddits for everything you can imagine. (Explain Like I’m Five and Submechanophobia are two of my faves.) And instagram, which uses my past likes to suggest videos for me except Hailey steals my phone and likes weird possum videos and other weirdness so it’s always a surprise.

Hailey suggests The Useless Web (which gives you random, weird websites) and we played with it for a few minutes this morning until it gave me this one which was actually very satisfying to play with.

Now it’s your turn, but first I will show you the best things instagram recommended for me today:

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The best boy

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😭 @p.aciencia @thanatos_lana @_.ashanti_

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Follow @clout9clips via: @tonybaker

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20 YEARS: Acclaimed Brazilian pianist/conductor João Carlos Martins plays piano with both hands for the first time in 20 years thanks to bionic gloves custom-built for him. Because of a degenerative disease, for decades he had only been able to play with his thumbs and sometimes his index fingers. Here he is once again enjoying what he loves best: playing the piano. Español: El aclamado pianista / director João Carlos Martins toca el piano con ambas manos por primera vez en 20 años gracias a unos guantes biónicos hechos especialmente para el. Debido a una enfermedad degenerativa, durante décadas solo había podido jugar con los pulgares y, a veces, con los dedos índices. Aquí vuelve a disfrutar de lo que más ama: tocar el piano. Portugués: O aclamado pianista / maestro João Carlos Martins toca piano com as duas mãos pela primeira vez em 20 anos, graças às luvas biônicas feitas sob medida para ele. Por causa de uma doença degenerativa, por décadas ele só conseguia brincar com os polegares e às vezes com os indicadores. Aqui está ele mais uma vez curtindo o que mais ama: tocar piano.

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cursed❤️

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Nightmare fuel 😱

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Okay. Your turn. What wonderful internet place do you love?

PS. Thank you for making this a wonderful internet place for me.

A few of my favorite things. DAY TWO: TV edition

in Random Crap

This week we’re sharing some of our favorite things getting us through at the moment. Yesterday we did podcasts and now I have a ton of new podcasts to binge while cleaning my house and avoiding deadlines so thank you! Today, it’s tv/movies. What shows have been giving you life or vital distraction lately?

I’ll go first. A few of the shows that I’ve been loving lately:

Ramy, pen15, Lovecraft Country, Raised by Wolves (please let it make sense in the end), For All Mankind, Jack Whitehall: Travels with My Father, The Boys, Love Fraud (documentary-series), Ratched (worth it for the wardrobe & cinematography), The Great, You’re the Worst, Shrill, 90-Day-Fiance, Love After Lock-Up (don’t judge me), What We Do in the Shadows and HARLOTS (which I always recommend to people but can never remember the name of it and inevitably call it “Humpers”.)

Even the monkey in Ratched is better dressed than me.

Your turn. What should we be watching?

A few of my favorite things. DAY ONE: Podcast edition

in Random Crap

You know what we need? To celebrate the happy little things keeping us going. So let’s do that. Every day this week let’s pick a topic and share some of our new or old favorites that are saving us in wonderful ways. I’ll share some of my faves and you share yours and then maybe we’ll discover new (to us) wonderful things.

So today? Let’s do podcasts.

I love podcasts because they distract me from the voices in my own head and also it feels like I’m having long talks with people where I don’t actually have to hold up my side of the conversation and since I am inherently lazy this works out well. I tend to lean toward darker podcasts and it is not unusual for me to listen to them when I walk Dorothy Barker late at night up and down my street. I am aware that listening to headphones while out in the dark is dangerous because you can’t hear cars or serial killers so I play my true crime podcasts on high volume in my pocket and have gotten used to the stares I get from neighbors who happen outside as “AND THEY FOUND HER TORSO IN THE CRAWLSPACE” echoes through our quiet street.

My newest fave is In Another Room, a scripted psychological horror podcast my sister recommended that I binged entirely within 24 hours.

A few of my other favorites:

True Crimey: The Poisoners’ Cabinet, My Favorite Murder, Dateline, Ghost Town, Rusty Hinges, Twisted, True Crime Island, Criminal, Scam Goddess, The Grift, GURU

Scripted horror: In Another Room, Relic Radio’s Science Fiction, Tales of Horror, Strange Tales, The Horror

Talk related: The Michelle Obama Podcast, Unlocking Us with Brené Brown, David Tennant Does a Podcast

Fascinating and true: Incredible Feats with Dan Cummins, LORE, One Strange Thing, The Secret Life of Prisons, Sidedoor (Smithsonian), Supernatural with Ashley Flowers, Strange Year, Radio Diaries, Pretend Radio, The Memory Palace, Hidden Brain, TRUE, Disgraceland, Love & Radio, Radio Lab, This is Love, Ear Hustle, Reply All, Snap Judgement, This American Life, SPOOKED (WNYC Studios)

Makes me laugh: Wooden Overcoats, OH, HELLO (the P’dcast), Burns & Allen Show, No such thing as a Fish, Conan O’Brien needs a friend, Off Book, Hello from the Magic Tavern, Done Disappeared, Mission to Zyxx, Unhappy Hour

Your turn. What podcast are you loving right now?

Falling apart a little bit.

in Random Crap

So yesterday all of the anxiety I’d been fighting off got heavier and heavier and I fell apart into one of those heaving, ugly-cry panic attacks where you’re pretty sure that you’re literally dying but you also suspect that it’s all in your mind. Which makes it worse, in a way.

Victor is used to my normal anxiety attacks but these big, end-of-the-world ones still freak him out. I tried to explain how I was overwhelmed with the world and decisions and how I felt like I was failing at everything and that I was certain there were important things I’d forgotten and that were falling off the edges and that soon I’d remember them all too late. And he didn’t understand (because he’s not insane in the same way I am) and tried to help by encouraging me to set goals and deadlines with the things that I’m forever behind on and that just made it worse because I don’t have the capacity for goals and deadlines at the moment and it feels so terrible to explain that something so simple for most people is absolutely too much to even think about for me at the moment.

Most of my anxiety attacks are normalish. You could watch me have one and sort of empathize. I hyperventilate. Sometimes I’m physically sick. My hands curl into claws. But they pass and other than the rag doll exhaustion that comes afterward it all seems somewhat understandable, if a bit dramatic. But a panic attack is different and the panic is so overwhelming and physically painful that I will do anything to make it stop. I look outside at the squash in the garden and have an uncontrollable urge to rip it all up so that it’s one less thing to think about. I sit on my hands to keep from grabbing the clippers and shaving off my hair so that I don’t have to think about it anymore. I am overwhelmed with impulsive thoughts and I know that it will pass but I have to keep myself safe until it does. I hide in my room. I make Victor watch me when I feel like I can’t trust myself. I feel like a burden but I also know that he knows that this will pass.

And then it does.

After an anxiety attack I feel drained and exhausted. After a panic attack I feel keyed up and paranoid and ragged and brittle. Anxiety attacks are like a good long cry you didn’t know you needed. Panic attacks are like the first cry when you’ve lost a family member. You don’t know when the next one may come and what will set it off.

Today I am better. Still jagged and a bit broken, but less likely to listen to the illogical lies in my head. More likely to forgive myself for my limitations. Trying to give myself the same level of acceptance and love that I’d give anyone else in this situation. Reminding myself that I am not alone. And that this idea that we are failing and drowning is not real. We thrive more than we fail. We just don’t celebrate it as much. We notice the (sometimes imagined) frowns when we let someone down so much more than the (very real) smiles we fail to recognize when we put them on other people’s faces.

This morning I washed the dishes to feel like I was actually doing something. I have real work to do but I needed something mindless to distract me…something that would make me feel some sense of accomplishment…and while I was working I felt Dorothy Barker drop something on my foot.

It was a small, uneaten part of her milk bone and I suspect she dropped it on my foot because they’re stale and she was giving me feedback but I thought that it was entirely possible that she just wanted to share with me. And then I realized that the piece was gnawed into a heart.

Dogs don’t know what hearts are and she definitely didn’t do it on purpose and frankly it looks more like a shark’s tooth than a heart. so technically if I’m being scientific it’s more likely that she’s threatening me but you know what? Fuck that. I’m taking this accidental heart as a sign from the universe that things are going to be okay.

Because they are. We’ll be okay. Me and you. Even when life feels like too much of a struggle, remember that this passes. Remember that fear and reality aren’t always the same. Look for the small signs of love and kindness. Have faith that brighter things are coming. They are. In ways you never expected.

It’s Friday. Let’s celebrate.

in Random Crap

It’s Friday and you deserve something to make you smile so here are the things that did it for me this week:

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If I die, use this as evidence @quincyvines

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rock lobstah 🎸 via @queenb_aker @stevenoooch

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My first thought was Shrek 😂

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Fuck it, I’ll do it tomorrow (@sadpeaks)

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It is never too early for Halloween.

in Random Crap

Some people might say it’s too early to decorate for Halloween but I don’t listen to those people because I’m literally that person who intentionally leaves Halloween decorations up all year. Halloween is a state of mind, after all, and it is my favorite holiday in the whole world.

This year will be different, of course. Hailey and I will still dress up and watch scary movies and I’ll leave a bucket of candy and children’s books on my porch for anyone who ventures out but that’s about it. However, this was the first year that I had a whole eerie window display to plan out for Nowhere Bookshop and it is my new favorite thing.

I was going to make ghosts reading books (ala “DYING FOR A GOOD BOOK?”) but then I thought maybe that was in poor taste during a pandemic and then I thought maybe a fire breathing dragon but I wasn’t sure if the fog machine would fuck with the books so I ended up with a fortune telling theme because I collect tarot cards and oracle decks and I already owned almost all of the props that I’d need.

And after a few hours of work…it was done!

(Those aren’t real owls, by the way. It know it’s illegal to taxidermy owls here. Please don’t call the game warden.)

And I was very, very proud of myself for finishing my very first window display.

And then I remembered that window displays should actually face the window.

So maybe not a perfect victory, but a victory nonetheless.

PS. I did manage to rearrange everything before I left so technically I think this counts as TWO window displays.

PPS. Want to shop for the books in the window and support Nowhere? We have curbside pick-up if you’re local and we ship everywhere if you’re not. Click here to see them all! (We have a giant selection on our website but these were just a choice few I loved.)

MY BOOKS:


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