theoryoftheworld-mi - Tumblr blog

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"Guy" and "man" have different connotations with adjectival nouns. Like "tree guy" = arborist but "tree man" = he lives in a tree, or maybe he is a tree.

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really factual recounting with no embellishments whatsoever

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When you accidentally remove the load-bearing pierogi and the entire contents of the freezer come spilling out

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stickwork - patrick dougherty (2010)

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A recipe in progress:

I’m living in an unfinished house (against local zoning and housing code) where I have as heating elements: a hot plate, a slow cooker, and a grill. When I tell you that I, as a queer woman, am rising to the challenge.

Start your pearl couscous. First, boil 1.5 times the amount of pasta you want in water. I did 1.5 cups water to 1 cup pasta. Either use broth in the first place or add 1 bouillon cube (I use chicken). Boil for ~5 minutes, throw a plate (ceramic) on your pot, lower temp to low and leave on heat for another ~15-30 minutes. Take plate off, stir your flavorful, cooked, and vaguely dry couscous so it can cool and dry so it doesn’t melt your feta or make any vegetables sad.

I grilled zucchini and bell pepper (red, most of the pepper). I grilled bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. I chopped about 4 mini cucumbers, some green onions (green& white/bulb), some of the red bell pepper small (less than 1 cm diameter).

I added feta cheese and the juice of some of half a lime (most of the lime juice went to a stellar gin and tonic).

Mix everything together and add salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, oregano, and cumin to taste.

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Here’s the thought I wanted to capture that sparked the whole new blog.

Flora wants to have a job and to learn things. She has allergies that make it difficult to reward her with treats. She has anxiety, and doesn’t always like strangers and/or children. My office is open to the public and will become a destination for the public very soon. She is only about 10 months old, and while I tried to socialize her, she doesn’t really like people. It took her several (2.5 months for one person) months to warm up to some of my co-workers, and she knew them from the age of 8 weeks old. Puppies are their most welcoming and outgoing at a young age, and so by about 10 weeks I knew she had anxiety. I also knew that I wanted to bring her to the office and have her in public spaces. I had lived in NYC for almost 3 years and knew what it took for an anxious dog to live in a city even if we were living in a relatively rural area.

Flora has been brought to the office nearly every weekday since she was 8 weeks old when I bought her from a couple in a rural area, from an oopsie litter, allegedly a lab, collie, German shepherd mix.

I had wanted a dog since the 2nd grade. I started accumulating cats in undergrad. I knew I couldn’t handle raising even the happiest and most well adjusted dog so I filled the void with my beloved kiddos. I love these cats. Let’s not forget that I love them, and find them adorable, and enjoy caring for them and petting them, and playing with them. But Flora could come with me places! And she could understand so many things! And I was so clear that she wanted to understand and to do me a solid ( the most wonderful part about a loving and loyal dog is that she is only ever doing you a solid. It’s just that she loves you. ), so we could teach each other how to communicate.

Again. This poor dog has so many allergies. So doing something fun, not having something that tastes good, becomes the reward.

It took a while to teach her fetch, but once she understood that she got to chase something (herding instincts) and run (SO MUCH ENERGY), and get praise, she was hooked. So we played so much fetch.

But she’s smart, and I had read about fetch causing joint issues in dogs, and so we needed to figure out more ways to do training and play time. So we started figuring out how to take breaks ( I can tell her to take a break, she can decide without permission with me to work every day to go lie down). We started with very basic commands every 5-20 throws. Now, she is 10 months old doing strings of actions/commands/tricks. She is investigative and wary, but not aggressive. She trusts me, because she believes I am there as her mentor and supporter.

I may be optimistic, but I’m hoping this brand of dog training for anxious dogs ( relationship building, praise dense, communication oriented) works well for Flora, so I can document it, so other anxious dogs get the support they need.

Note: I am NOT a dog trainer. People who volunteer at humane societies etc. know MUCH MORE than I do. I just have a very smart dog and lots of time that I want to spend. Again, this is documentary, not prescriptive. Nothing should be taken as advice unless explicitly stated as such.

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Outline:

1. Philosophy

2. Thoughts on dog training

3. Sustainable living

4. Dumb shit I find funny or interesting

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So, what is this thing. I’ve been on tumblr since approximately 2012, but I’ve always been a lurker that occasionally reblogs a fandom post or something I find interesting since then. I’ve wanted to make a “theory of the world” (officially) since I got the idea wandering around my college campus at 3 in the morning with my coffee shop co-worker, but I’ve known this was a necessary project since I was in high school in 2009 when I decided that not only was I not a catholic but that I wasn’t going to replace my family’s Catholicism based moral code with another religion’s version. I was going to have to figure this out, and I was going to have to put some effort into it.

This blog is mostly designed to capture my thoughts as I work on generating a theory of the world (worst description/title, I know, but I’ve been calling it that since 2015 and can’t let it go now)

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Part II

Blah blah blah, maybe I’ll figure out how to write the rest later. I’m living in a partially furnished, unfinished house. I have 3 cats and a very smart dog. I firmly believe that my environmental policy job is a matter of national security. I’m trying to figure out how to start a garden while starting therapy while fighting with people about septic systems while I raise the smartest dog(?) ever (?), who by the way has so much anxiety and so many allergies. What a metaphor for life.

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Disclaimer post that I’ll have to edit later:

In approximately 2011 I learned, or maybe it was the first time I understood, that my godmother had breast cancer and that was a thing that could kill her.

I was in high school, and I had moved around a lot, and I was in a very competitive high school and my parents were very busy. I applied for an internship summer position where I would get to do real, fundamental molecular research at a leading world class institution. I was exposed to world class science. I was also living in a city where the gross inequality was apparent between the people living in a wealthy neighborhood and shopping at the expensive boutiques and the people who loitered at street corners, with open sores and living in tents beneath the underpass, who were desperate for resources, comfort, dignity, and hope.

I decided to study molecular biology, and joined a radiation oncology research lab. It was an amazing experience for many reasons—I worked with real scientific professionals, we had to solve problems when a protocol from the internet somehow didn’t translate to our laboratory setting, we had to discuss when we would test drugs in cells and when it was necessary to test them in mice, and what types of procedures and required were in place to make sure that decision was ethical. I had to learn precision, because fucking around meant that samples were contaminated and real money was at stake. I learned that people cared deeply about what they were doing and what problems they were trying to solve. I also learned that this process wasn’t really solving the problem.