Deviant Dispatches

Let me start with this: Life is fucking hard and I don't blame you for skipping right down to the recipe. Lately (as in, since March 2020), it's been one thing after another. Staying home, avoiding people, doing what we thought was best for the kids, realizing that was not best for them or for us, and trying to survive hour to hour in the onslaught of anxiety, uncertainty, and decision fatigue. The kids are dealing with reintegration now, and it's hard in different ways for each of them. One is loving school and hates being at home, and the other doesn't know how to be social anymore. This morning, I felt tired, unappreciated, guilty, and broken all before 8 a.m. So I made cake for breakfast. The kids love pancakes, but the youngest only likes them with syrup or honey, and the oldest is never interested in a healthy side dish. Drop the "pan" though, and it's a different story. I added an extra egg to my favorite pancake mix, and poured it over a layer of f...

This has been one hell of a week, and it's only Thursday. On Sunday night, I got very little sleep. Monday morning, I learned that come September, I will be forced to work five extra hours a week for no extra pay, right after we had this extravagant remodeling done, when we were told there would be no pay cuts. (I hate being salaried, I hate sliminess, and I hate, hate, hate technical truths.) Monday afternoon, I either caught a cold or had a sudden onset of allergies that is still around now. Tuesday was fairly mediocre, but on Wednesday, a coworker backed into my car and left a "dent" the size of both of my hands, spread out. He's covering everything, but this is already an obnoxious headache - plus the car is still new to us, since we've only had it for one year. All of these things could be worse, of course. There are no layoffs happening, I don't have a flesh-eating virus, and my car wasn't hit hard enough to fall over the embankment and roll in...

Something ridiculous can be found here . Daylight savings drives me nuts. At this time of year, we get back a little of that precious morning darkness. It allows us to sleep more deeply in the morning, but also makes us more lethargic. That hour, originally stolen in ancient times (alright, only the idea is from ancient times)  for the benefit of farmers , will eventually provide us with more light in the evenings for baseball games. But that's where its benefit ends. It used to be fairly important for energy conservation, but with the advent of different lighting systems and HDTV, we use energy at different rates for different reasons. We're breaking with the natural cycle of the day because that's what suits us. (Also because humans are strange creatures.) So why are we still following this archaic tradition? Just as with the penny, we're still using it because we're stuck in a rut and wouldn't know what to do without it. The other thing I can...

Source I've been trying to write an important blog post all week. I keep pushing it off because it's a really dense, heavy topic that needs to be done well, and I haven't had adequate time to get it out there. So here's the plan: you love the hell out of this picture, pretend I posted something absolutely amazing, and I will reward you all with a deep, insightful post next week. How's that sound? I'm off to tidy the kitchen. Adventures in daily living... hooray.