Hey tumblr, I’m Mel. I’m an old millennial who works in public parks. In the past I’ve been a ranger and a technician. Sometimes I post pictures of the animals that I get to work with. I also post art, comics, and weird dreams. Here's some FAQ.
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The White Knight (2010)
Hard to believe I never posted these old comics here. Revisiting them now as I reflect on grief, healing, and forgiveness, and how much @huduvudu and I grown as people since we were teenagers.
This is why I don't provide much of an explanation! These are comics about my feelings told in the language of dreams, but they are less about my experiences than they are about reaching out to those feelings in other people.
The White Knight (2010)
Hard to believe I never posted these old comics here. Revisiting them now as I reflect on grief, healing, and forgiveness, and how much @huduvudu and I have grown as people since we were teenagers.
What if a dog was also a caterpillar
Hey you know how I said I was going to make a workbook on the kind of bullshit you need to do when someone you love dies? I actually did that.
Featuring Helpful Sections such as:
This is an eighteen page book that you can print out, download, share, and give away; it is meant to be used to collect information about funeral planning and account management after a death OR you can use it BEFORE you die and give people information so they’re not stuck playing Nancy Fucking Drew while trying to keep seventeen cousins who crawled out of the woodwork from gutting each other in front of the fucking casket as they argue about who’s inheriting grandma’s favorite dentures.
It’s not exactly cheerful and it’s full of things that are probably going to feel really fucking raw if you’re processing a fresh death.
I’m sorry! I love you! Death is shitty! I’m trying to laugh about it a little and I hope you can laugh a little too because otherwise we’re all just going to cry together.
Good luck!
(in memory of my weirdo mother and her weirdo siblings who all died too fucking young and left me holding this flaming bag of dogshit)
Death sucks, hope you’re doing okay out there.
90s movies: Psychopharmacology is as good as a lobotomy. If you take pills to treat your mental illness it will literally murder your imaginary friends and you will become a boring, lotus-eating conformist drone.
Me after taking my meds: drives the scenic route home to see if there are any geese on the pond and does a little dance in line at the grocery store and comes home to throw everything in my fridge into a stew pot because I can finally taste food again while singing songs at my birds in which I replace all the instances of "she" with "Cheese" and doing a Dolly Parton impression on the phone to my sister
"What were you like before taking the meds tho"
Two weeks ago I was posting about eating cake frosting for dinner.
I feel like it's worth mentioning that being on The Wrong Meds can indeed do the 90s movie thing to you.
Like, if you go on meds and that happens, it's not because whatever's going on with you is jut Too Severe or that you're doomed or only people with Other Illnesses get to have meds that make them feel actually good and you have to settle for "miserable but somehow so hollow I no longer care about the misery" and be grateful you're no longer actively suicidal or whatever.
If that shit happens to you, tell your fucking doctor. And if your doctor doesn't take you seriously, or acts like That's Just How Being On Meds Is, ditch them! Find a new doctor!! Because that is NOT how being on meds is supposed to work! That means the meds are not working correctly!!
Reblogging to agree and say that what was happening to me was (and to an extent still is) severe and was the result of manifold health problems and has taken the better part of a year to effectively treat. I did not expect medication to be this effective. But it is. So if you think that you are untreatable, get a second opinion.
90s movies: Psychopharmacology is as good as a lobotomy. If you take pills to treat your mental illness it will literally murder your imaginary friends and you will become a boring, lotus-eating conformist drone.
Me after taking my meds: drives the scenic route home to see if there are any geese on the pond and does a little dance in line at the grocery store and comes home to throw everything in my fridge into a stew pot because I can finally taste food again while singing songs at my birds in which I replace all the instances of "she" with "Cheese" and doing a Dolly Parton impression on the phone to my sister
"What were you like before taking the meds tho"
Two weeks ago I was posting about eating cake frosting for dinner.
no but seriously I still get chills thinking about turning off my headlamp in the cave and The Hand That I Did Not Actually See, and it’s been twelve years since it happened
it’s such an unreal experience
like
you turn off your light in a cave and wave your hand in front of your face
and
you can see this shadowy thing moving in the black space where your hand is
it looks like the same shadowy thing you would see in your room at night if you waved your hand in front of your face, it’s there and vaguely hand-shaped, and your brain recognizes it as your hand because your brain is aware of where your hand is and what it is doing
But You Are Not Seeing Anything
Inside a cave, there is No Light. No matter how far your pupils spread, there is no light for them to draw in, no light to put an image on your retina.
But your brain just Fucking Assumes that because it knows where your hand is and what it is doing, clearly it can see it.
So it creates a shadowy thing for your eyes to be seeing.
Brain is like “there’s a hand there”
Eyes are like “yup sure thing brain I can totally see it”
Brain is like “nice”
but there is no hand, you cannot see the hand, you are seeing a literal actual hallucination in the cave because your brain thinks it knows best
Caves are awesome, but also terrifying. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
we once went spelunking, and a our guide said that once he was in a cave with a stream, so he could hear running water, and his brain was like ‘oh, running water? that means there must be Ducks out there’. and he saw like…low light shadows of ducks. that his brain just Put There.
As a cave guide: we call that ‘cave blindness’! True darkness absolutely wigs your brain out - we’re such visual creatures that after a while our brain throws a hissy after not seeing anything. Sensory deprivation is a very real kind of torture. We have a huge, deep cave system at work and there are a lot of places where you’re hundreds of meters in solid rock in this tiny, dark, still space.
I like to turn my torch off, sit down with my back against the wall, and wait to see how long it takes before I start seeing things or feeling like the ground is moving, or hearing things. Because I know I’m not - I’m in complete darkness, utter silence, sitting in rock that hasn’t moved in hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Proof that brains are Ridiculous and over-react to a lot of stuff!
During the most recent caving trip I went on, our little group took a break in a large chamber to sit down and turn off our head lamps and wait in silence until we started hallucinating. It only took a few minutes for most of us to start "seeing" lights, shadows, or one another. I like to imagine this was a pastime for paleolithic people as well.
90s movies: Psychopharmacology is as good as a lobotomy. If you take pills to treat your mental illness it will literally murder your imaginary friends and you will become a boring, lotus-eating conformist drone.
Me after taking my meds: drives the scenic route home to see if there are any geese on the pond and does a little dance in line at the grocery store and comes home to throw everything in my fridge into a stew pot because I can finally taste food again while singing songs at my birds in which I replace all the instances of "she" with "Cheese" and doing a Dolly Parton impression on the phone to my sister
Cheese looking at snow.
on the phone with god rn to make sure im not on his “strongest warriors” list again for 2025
Based on traits from real pigeon breeds. Lower values = smaller part, or in the case of frillback normal feathers rather than curly ones
Your spouse facts list was very cute! I can’t help but wonder, as someone who has also often lamented the imprecision in water temperatures for proofing yeast, what was the result of the experiments? If you and your spouse are willing to share, of course!
Thank you! Unfortunately the answer is mostly "it depends on the brand of yeast," AND "the temperature at which the yeast produces the most carbon dioxide is not necessarily the best temperature for proofing bread dough."
Fleischmann's active dry yeast produces the most CO2 at 120° F. However, 110° or so is generally a little better for proofing dough, if you don't want huge vacuoles in your loaf. If a recipe does specify a temperature, I would go with it.
Exhibit A: this disappointing loaf of store brand bread.
Your spouse facts list was very cute! I can’t help but wonder, as someone who has also often lamented the imprecision in water temperatures for proofing yeast, what was the result of the experiments? If you and your spouse are willing to share, of course!
Thank you! Unfortunately the answer is mostly "it depends on the brand of yeast," AND "the temperature at which the yeast produces the most carbon dioxide is not necessarily the best temperature for proofing bread dough."
Fleischmann's active dry yeast produces the most CO2 at 120° F. However, 110° or so is generally a little better for proofing dough, if you don't want huge vacuoles in your loaf. If a recipe does specify a temperature, I would go with it.
After hearing about the edible dormouse’s naming I would not be surprised if you told me the Romans stopped their marching to consume hillside ant colonies
A Roman will see a mouse and be like "aliquis hōc edet?" and not wait for an answer
Since you all had so many kind things to say about my spouse on this post, I will provide you with ten Spouse Facts:
Thank you for subscribing to Spouse Facts. Here are five more:
Thank you for renewing your subscription to Spouse Facts. Here are 5 additional facts.
This tag is really funny to me because he did watch most of The Untamed and he summarized it for me and if you met him I think you would agree he is definitely more of a Wei Wuxian
Since you all had so many kind things to say about my spouse on this post, I will provide you with ten Spouse Facts:
Thank you for subscribing to Spouse Facts. Here are five more:
Thank you for renewing your subscription to Spouse Facts. Here are 5 additional facts.
