akiameko

[akiameko]

The closest experience I've ever had to discovering "the vitamin" was buying a 100% wool outfit and wearing it in the winter.

Not only was I not freezing anymore, I was not sweating and overheating either. The horrible sensory nightmare of winter clothes disappeared.

In particular, I bought a pair of wool pants. They were a thrifted pair of fancy dress pants like you would wear at an important office job, and they were easily the most comfortable pair of winter-appropriate pants i'd ever worn. I wore them Every Single Day.

From that point on I realized a lot of my clothes were making me feel bad, and the common thread was polyester. Especially polyester blends.

It's a trap because the polyester clothes are the ones that always feel sooooo silky soft when they are in the store, whereas cotton, linen and wool can feel comparatively rough and scratchy. But when actually wearing them for hours throughout the day, it's the natural fibers that feel more comfortable.

Maybe the secret to sensory comfort is not about the presence of softness, but the absence of overloading sensations. Or maybe the sensory stress and agony is not triggered by texture of the fabric, but by how it breathes and regulates temperature.

Then there's the problem of clothing life span: polyester blends, no matter how soft they seem at first, become rough and scratchy and covered in hard, itchy pills after wearing them 10 or 20 times, whether or not they have been tumble-dried or even washed at all. (I tested it!) Linen and cotton become softer and more comfy the more you wear them, polyester but ESPECIALLY polyester blends become a constant stressor. Polyester blend t-shirts I used to love for their softness now feel bristly and irritating.

So now I'm trying to change my wardrobe to as many natural fibers as possible, and the more natural fiber clothes i have the more I realize that the plastic fibers stress me out. It's so easy to overheat or freeze in them and they're always degrading and becoming less comfortable and it sucks.

[akiameko]

When I am appointed to represent a child, my first action is to separate them from their parents and tell them the following things:

1. I am their attorney. I do not work for their parent or the judge or the cops. I don’t care what any of those people want.

2. My job is to listen to them and try and make what they want happen in court. (At this point I make a joke about how most people want me to get them out of trouble but if someone wanted to be in trouble I would do my best.)

3. What they tell me is confidential. It goes nowhere unless they agree to it. (If old enough, I talk to them about mandatory reporters, and how I’m a mandatory non reporter.)

4. I will give them lots of advice because I’ve been doing court for a while and I know a lot about it, and they don’t. It’s all really complicated, and if they don’t understand what’s happening it’s my job to help them figure it out.

5. They will make the decisions. (At this point I usually have to reassure them that I’ll help, I’ll speak for them in front of the judge, and I’ve got their back. It’s scary to have an adult say you’re in charge, most of the time.)

6. I tell them I know it’s absolutely wild to have some stranger come in here and say “hey, you can trust me!” and that I get if they don’t believe everything right away, because I plan to show them through my actions and my words that I’ll fight for them.

7. But nonetheless, I will treat them like a person who can make decisions, because they are living their life and I am not.

I do not:

Pretend to be cool.

Try to be their BFF.

Overwhelm them with detail.

Let their parents in the room until the kid asks for them. (I provide openings for this, and ask if the kid wants their parent to help them remember and understand.)

I want to emphasize I went into this job knowing nothing about how to interact with vulnerable populations, especially children. The training was minimal, and my role means that I can literally walk into a facility and get an unmonitored visit with a minor client one on one.

In my years of practice I have never felt threatened by a child, even one that was “violent” and “unstable.” It turns out just saying “hi, I think you’re a person with thoughts” is wildly successful? Now people treat me like I have special Child Whisperer powers. My powers are that I ask the child what’s up and I’m not scared to say things that are objectively awkward. I know nothing about anything.

[akiameko]

I know that some British people take umbrage at Americans calling the Great British Bake Off relaxing, but it's just because GBBO is such a different kind of stressful from American baking shows.

American baking shows will be called something like "Cupcake Knife Fight", there's horror movie lighting everywhere and dramatic stings every 5 seconds. All of the contestants are shit talking each other and fist fighting over the one single deep fryer provided by production. It will show the judges all whispering to each other at their super villain table overlooking the whole kitchen, and one will be like, "Oh my god. Everyone look at Brenda right now. She's straight tanking it." And it will cut to Brenda, who is running around covered in flour and crying and also bleeding for some reason. Then you get a clip from an interview with one of the contestants, and they're like, "I really need to win this. Without this award money, I'm gonna need to close my restaurant, sell my dad, and live out of my car. AGAIN." Then the giant digital doomsday clock overhead lets out a horrid klaxon, the judges tell half of them that their cupcakes taste disgusting, and one of them gets eliminated and sent to walk down the dramatically-lit shame hallway never to be seen again.

Meanwhile GBBO is in a lovely, brightly colored tent, there are delightful and friendly hosts/jesters there to keep everyone entertained, and all of the B Roll is of like... a bumblebee going into a flower, or a lamb running in a field. And yes, there will be moments where someone will mess up their timing or something, and they'll be looking at their bake through the oven door like, "oh gosh I don't think this will rise in time!" Then they stand up to find Paul Hollywood directly behind them ominously. His creepy whitewalker eyes will glow white, and he'll say something like "the 12th of June. 2035. Drowning." And his eyes will go back to normal and he'll walk away. Then the baker gives a playful grimace to the camera and says "that didnt sound great, did it?". Cut to a sweet looking older woman sipping tea on a stool and she says "oo I do hope that Prue enjoys the taste of my sugary, sticky baps!". Then, at the end, someone gets a gold star for doing good, and the loser of the episode gets in the middle of a giant group hug. You see all of them at the end of the series at a giant carnival with their families and the post credits informs you that all of the contestants have become a Partridge Family-style traveling band and stayed friends forever.

[akiameko]

I'd still trust you with my life doctor tbh

[akiameko]

 🌙 | cr: circlebujo

[akiameko]

growth (idea stolen from a friend of mine)

[akiameko]

Pictures taken before disaster

[akiameko]

cat laziness is so contagious. you'll see your cat flopped on its back in your bed a completely comfy cozy baby and you'll be like. you're right. you make a compelling argument.

[akiameko]

Experience: Learning the right way to connect the dots.

[akiameko]

🤗 i dont like this emoji. this is not a hug to me. this is someone doing condescending jazz hands in my general direction when i am in need of affection. not comforting.

🫂 i love this emoji. this is a hug. we are hugging and its nice. and as a special bonus they appear to be my old friends from the msn messenger logo? very comforting.

[akiameko]

for a long time i lived alone, but then i got a service dog. after a lot of training, the service dog came to live with me—except, the same day the trainers brought quincy, an orange tabby tomcat also showed up.

"you didn't tell us you had a cat!" said the trainers, both very upset (because they hadn't trained quincy to live with a cat).

"i don't have a cat," i said. "I don't know who this is."

the cat never went away. i named him poe dameron and he lived with me and quincy. they got along fine, in their own way.

we had our quiet adventures. poe was very cuddly but sometimes he just took off for a day or two. once he got into some paint.

after a while, i found out that poe dameron really lived across the alleyway, and belonged to my neighbor elizabeth's teenaged son, and his real name was PUMPKIN. but poe apparently didn't like the teenaged son (probably not least because he named him PUMPKIN), so he had come to live with us instead. elizabeth was fine with it.

the years went by and one day poe dameron crossed the rainbow bridge too soon. i took his ashes to elizabeth. we were very sad.

a few weeks later, she asked me to come over to see something.

it turned out that poe dameron had also lived with a THIRD lady, a few streets over. this lady, whom neither of us knew, was a painter, and she had made this painting of poe dameron. i don't know what she called him, but she painted him like one of your french girls.

"i think you should have it," elizabeth said, tactfully. "after all, he spent the most time with you." i was quite sure she just didn't want this hideous painting in her gabillion-dollar house, but i agreed.

the painting now hangs in the kitchen over my stove—not least because its brick-red frame matches my curtains. and because it delights me to see poe dameron every day, looking so fluffy and sultry, like an orientalist renaissance odalisque.

[akiameko]

silly banner i made for another one of my blogs :)

feel free to use it if ya want

[akiameko]

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my family and how I was treated as a child, and honestly, my father has never seemed more amazing in my eyes.

I used to love Luigi(Mario's brother) when I was little. Like, he was my favorite character ever, and I had multiple plushies of him. Didn't give a fuck about Mario, vaguely tolerated Peach, but I loved Luigi.

On my first day of kindergarten, my dad gave me the number for his work phone and said it was Luigi's phone number. "If anything happens at school, call Luigi."And not even twenty minutes into my first day, I was having a panic attack. So I went down to the principal's office and called "Luigi."

Now, at the time, my father was in a meeting with his manager and his supervisor, along with most of his coworkers. And when I called, he picked up before he even left the room.

And he put on a very awful Italian accent and said, "Itsa me, Luigi! Whatsa the matter?"In front of his boss and coworkers. Without telling them what was going on. So they were absolutely bewildered, and he carried on like they didn't even exist. He only explained what was happening after I had calmed down and hung up, to which most of them responded with "Aww, cute."

I continued to call him whenever I got upset at school, and eventually his coworkers got in on it. I distinctly remember one of them impersonating Toad. I don't know why I'm telling you this, I just thought it might make you smile :)

this is so delightful I love your Luigi dad

[akiameko]

I cast Animal Friendship.

[akiameko]

celestial emojikitchen combos!

cr: emojikitchen

[akiameko]