Quiet moments are dangerous. That’s when the melancholy sneaks in and catches you. The whale tour is running very late and I’m stuck on a picnic table with nothing to do except let my brain gnaw itself raw, and I don’t have the battery life to compose mediocre poetry about it.
this is why i have as many tabs of fanfic open on my phone as possible at all times
Remember when we had to read fanfiction on our desktops… Not even laptops. having to get get plopped down in the family computer room to pull up your naruto and yugioh self insert stories on lunaescence archives and fanfiction dot net with god & everyone watching you.
Every day during lunch there will be several parties of two straight men having lunch together, that insist I seat them at a table for four even though there are only two of them. Because I guess homosexuality can be transmitted through accidental undertable foot contact now? Who knew?
Right now you might be asking “What happens when four straight men are having lunch together?”
Well what do you think?
They ask for a table for six. I shit you not.
I was airing my humorous grievance to our daytime bartender who only nodded and said. “They order wine and ask me to bring it in a pilsner glass.”
The cocktail server corroborated this saying some straight men will demand he show them the glass a drink comes in to make sure it’s suitably “masculine” looking before they order it.
And the dishwashers hate this because it makes their jobs much more complicated. It’s really not fun to have to drop what you’re doing to scrub dried red wine out of the bottom of a narrow pilsner glass. Especially when they have literally THOUSANDS of other dishes you have to do in a short amount of time.
Straight men ask for special accomodations for their straightness all the time.
That being said, Disabled folks, chronically ill folks, folks with severe allergies and other special needs:
NEVER feel ashamed to request the accomodations you require to enjoy your time at a restaurant. Hand to God we are happy to do it for you- a person who actually needs it.
It would honestly be a nice break from catering to all that fragile masculinity.
im putting together a couple of scottish folk mixes bc that’s what i do and im honestly curious if anyone in my country has ever been unequivocally happy about anything ever
scottish trad music genres:
Everyone I Love Is Dead
The English Have Stolen All My Sheep
You Want To Be My Boyfriend? First You Must Answer These Riddles Three
The Protestants Have Stolen All My Sheep
I Love You A Lot But You’ve Left Me And It’s Raining [fiddle solo]
The Sea Is Treacherous, Just Like The English
One Time Bonnie Prince Charlie Punched Me In The Face And It Was Awesome
The Fairies Have Stolen All My Sheep
We have of course the traditional Irish music genres to go with them:
* Everyone I Love Is An Allegorical Representation of Ireland
* The English Stole My Farm And Put Sheep On It
* You Were My Boyfriend But Now You Won’t Even Come To The Window To Look Upon Me And Our Dead Infant Child (In The Rain)
* Whack Fol Too La Roo Umptytiddly Good They’ve Stopped Listening Now Let’s Talk About Revolution
* Something In Irish, I Think It’s About Fairies, Or Maybe A Cow
oooo can I add to this? don’t forget Appalachian folk balladry, the American cousin of Scottish and Irish traditional music and just as uplifting as its Anglo-Saxon highland forbears!!!
genres include:
I Left Everyone I Love Back Home In The Holler To Be With This Guy Who Doesn’t Wear Shoes Or Have Teeth But He Plays A Mean Jug
The English Told Us Not To Move West Yet, We Ignored Them, My Entire Family Was Killed
You Were My Boyfriend But You Tied A Sack Of Rocks To My Petticoats And Threw Me In The Creek (And My Baby Too)
Mama Loves All 14 Of Us A Lot But She’s Weary Of Our Shit And Now She’s Dyin’ (Gather Round)
The McCleans Stole A Firewood Log From Our Pile So We Won’t Rest Until The Last Of Their Male Kin Is Laid In The Cold Ground
We Knew The River Would Rise But We Still Didn’t Fix The Levee
The River Rose, The Levee Broke, Everyone Died, It Was Just As We Reckoned (dulcimer twang-a-lang)
When The Rebels Come A-Marchin’ I’m A Southern Man And I Feed Their Horses My Best, When The Yankees Come A-Marchin’ I’m A Northern Man And I Feed Their Horses What The Rebels Left
The Tennessee Valley Authority Killed All My Sheep Somehow
Don’t forget that old standby “The Mine Collapsed and Everyone Died”!
I think someone needs to put in a word for the English folk tradition though:
I Met a Girl and We Went Hunting (It Was a Metaphor for Sex)
I Met a Girl and We Caught Some Birds (It Was a Metaphor for Sex)
I Met a Girl and We Found Her Lost Pet (It Was a Metaphor for Sex)
I Met a Girl By Staying At Her Parents’ House and She Made My Bed (It Was an Especially Thinly-Veiled Metaphor for Sex)
I Am a Girl and I Regret Engaging In Metaphors for Sex Because Now I’m Pregnant
I Met a Girl and Bribed Her Into Sex But She Stole My Horse and Ran Away With It
I Met a Girl At an Inn and We Had Non-Metaphorical Sex But She Stole My Stuff The Next Morning and Now I Have Syphilis
Your Fiance Died Either at Trafalgar or Waterloo, Let’s Get Married, I’m Glad You Said No Because I’m Really Him In Disguise
Lord Nelson Sure Was Awesome
The Press-Gang Dragged Off All the Important Men in My Life (And Now They Are Dead)
Farm Laborers Are The Salt of the Earth And Are Never Grindingly Poor
Begging Is a Completely Viable Career Option With Flexible Hours and Unlimited Access to Alcohol
behold mongolian folk music genres
I Went Out Riding and Noticed Mongolia
We Fought a Bunch of Guys (On Horseback)
Witness My Many Ungulates
(While On a Horse) I Met a Hot Girl Who Reminded Me of a Plant
On Three, Say What That Terrain Feature Looks Like to You (One, Two, Three, A Horse)
Witness My Many Ancestors’ Many Ungulates
I Also Enjoy Heavy Metal, Especially If It’s Made of Horseshoes
Oooorrrrweeeeuuurrrreeeeuuuuwwwwwrrrrrrrr (Is Tuvan for “Horse”)
You Might Not Know This About Me, But I Own a Horse
THE MONGOLIAN FOLK SONGS MADE IT BETTER.
now with more okinawan!
We Must Plant the Crops, Let’s Get Drunk!
We Must Harvest the Crops, Let’s Get Drunk!
There’s No Crops Right Now, Let’s Get Drunk!
Sex On the Beach Is Awesome, War Is Bad
There Are Ghosts in the Trees
The Japanese Exploit Us (And the Americans Do Too)
I Love the Sea, This Island Is Beautiful, War Is Still Bad
Hey, There’s an Old Man, Let’s Get Drunk!
Respect Your Parents Or You Will Be Lost at Sea Forever
As the daughter of a folksinger and spouse of a folklorist, I love this SO MUCH. Here’s some from the sub-sub-genre of French folk songs of the Midwest…
I Am A Brawny-Armed Lumberjack Who Loves a Town Girl, Oh No!
Oh Fuck, I Slept With a Fur Trapper, What Shall I Tell Maman?
Hauling Logs, Rolling Logs, Driving Logs, All Day, What Ho!
Like Hell You’re Marrying That Good for Nothing Bambocheur!
Fetch My Gold Ring That Fell Into the Sea! Now!
I Met A Sailor While A-Strolling, And Now We Are In Love!
I Want to Kiss the Sailor I Met A-Strolling, But I’m Afraid My Father Will Find Out!
Oh Fuck, I Kissed the Sailor I Met A-Strolling And Now We Are Doomed!
Some Italian Folk Music Genres
A Spider Has Bitten Me And If I Do Not Dance I Will Die, Alas
I Am A Very Fancy Man With A Very Fancy Hat
The Cable Car Is A Thinly-Veiled Metaphor For Your Feminine Torture, O Woman
Rome Is The Very Best Place And Every Other Place Is Just Awful
I Love You, But You Are Married
I Love You, But You Are Fickle (Why Did You Dance With The Baker’s Son, Thou Vixen?)
I Love You, But You Left Me All Alone On This Romantic Wind-Swept Hillside, Which Is Actually Very Pretty, But Not As Pretty As You, Foul Temptress
Rome Is Still The Best Place And Every Other Place Can Go Right To Hell
Seriously Once You Have Been To Rome You Will Just Be Sick At The Thought Of Being Anywhere Else, You Will Pine Away And Die
I Love You, But You Are Dead (Or Maybe You Just Went To Live In A Slightly Prettier Place)
Rome, Rome, O Rome, Ah Rome, Rome Rome Rome, Have I Mentioned That I Love Rome?
Venetian Special Genres:
Women Are Like The Ocean: Salty And Full Of Drowned Sailors
Women Are Like The Ocean: I Cannot Figure Them Out At All
I Saw You One Time At A Party And I Have Designs Upon Your Feminine Virtue
I Love You, But You Are Married To The Ocean (For Some Reason)
I thought I would add some Dutch ones, because I saw no one had added any: – That Girl Is A Prostitute (But At Least She Goes To Church)
– That Incompetent Sailor Is Actually A Girl, But She Will Have Sex With You If You Don’t Kick Her Off The Boat
– Someone Of Any Occupation Is Doing Something, But Unfortunately They Are Now Dead
– Fuck You Spain (Haha, We Sunk Your Boat And Stole Your Silver)
– Fuck You England
– We Might Be Small, But We Will Fight You
– Life Isn’t So Bad, If You Just Go Outside
– Fuck You Winter
– Look At That Guy (Wild Racism)
– We Like Going To Other Countries (More Wild Racism)
– Drinking Is Fun
– Drinking Makes Me Long For Sea
– God Is My Dad
– My Province Is Great And Full Of Nature
Some nice Russian folk songs:
There Was A War And Everyone is Dead, There’s Also a Symbolic Bird
There is Going to Be a War And Everyone Will Die, There’s Also a Sybmolic Bird
The Dyeing Is Happening Right Now, There’s Also a Symbolic Bird
I Had a Dream About Us Dying (No Birds Involved)
Alas You Are Dead
I’m a Bird, I Drink Vodka
Fuck It’s Cold
Frost Do Not Freeze Me Do Not Freeze My Horse Do Not Freeze My Wife Please I Have Children
And my personal favourite:
Ayy Lmao This Guys Head Just Got Shot Off, We Are Going to Die Hahaha
I just couldn’t miss an opportunity to provide you a comprehensive summary of Ukrainian folk music genres.
~ I Married To A Man And Moved Far From My Home But I Want Fucking Back On My Fucking Land To My Parents And A Guy Whom I Actually Planned To Marry Before My Society’s Patriarchal Structure Destroyed My Life
~ A Guy Whom I Loved Loved Me And Also A Some Other Bitch So I Poisoned Him So That Nobody Gets Him
~ This Is My Land And I Love It Very Much, Period
~ I Made A Traditional Kupala Wreath And Released It On Water To Find My Love, No Sexual Hits Involved
~ I Have A Veeery Deeeeep Well In My Garden, And Also A Veeery Curly-Wurly Cabbage, And Also A Veeery Sweeeet Carrot Growing There, Come On Guys Check It Out, Oh, And There Are Totally No Sexual Hints
~ Graphic Descriptions Of Lesbian Sex
~ Everybody Is Dead After A Battle But There Is One Particular Cossack Whom I Am Especially Obligated To Mourn About Because He Is A Representative Of Our Entire Nation’s Young People
~ The Couple Cannot Be Together Because Of Various Reasons And Everybody Cries
~
The Couple Cannot Be Together Because Of Various Reasons And Everybody Cries And It’s Compared To Some Sad Shit Happening In Nature
~ Let’s Kill All People Who Threaten Ukraine Hahaha Yay!
~Let’s Kill All People Who Threaten Ukraine And Involve Some Couple Who Cannot Be Together Because Of Various Reasons And Everybody Cries
Adding these well-known Cajun hits
~ I have a boat and have procured many crawfish do you love me?
~ I sure do love crawfish, boats, the bayou, and also dancing
~ My girlfriend can cook, and is therefore superior your girlfriend, who cannot
~ my girlfriend cannot cook and is therefore inferior to all other girlfriends
~ I saw you over a pile of crawfish and knew I was in love (on the bayou)
~ a list of regional dishes set to the tune of kitchen utensils
Sadly I’ve never listened to many Malaysian folk songs because they were never my parents’ speed but I’d like to contribute:
– Where the hell is your goat, sir? x8 and my love looks like a peeled egg
– There’s an old parrot on the windowsill x4 and my grandma only has 2 teeth left
– Check out that hot girl over yonder, now pick the fruit (it’s really a poem about manners), check out this hot girl, now let’s ripen a different fruit while sailing (it’s about gratitude)
– We’re now singing about water spinach by the marsh and more foodstuff to be eaten
– LET’S GO HOME x9
– We’re singing about a river now and boy it can beat out the seasons
– This is our mountain and it’s super tall and blue!
❤
❤
❤
– The frog is sitting by the well, croak croak, and now he fell in and DIED, croaked croaked
– I’m soaking in the pond because my joints hurts, I hope the harvest turns out well; nope, it’s all weeds and my love broke my heart
My current job has me working with children, which is kind of a weird shock after years in environments where a “young” patient is 40 years old. Here’s my impressions so far:
Birth – 1 year: Essentially a small cute animal. Handle accordingly; gently and affectionately, but relying heavily on the caregivers and with no real expectation of cooperation.
Age 1 – 2: Hates you. Hates you so much. You can smile, you can coo, you can attempt to soothe; they hate you anyway, because you’re a stranger and you’re scary and you’re touching them. There’s no winning this so just get it over with as quickly and non-traumatically as possible.
Age 3 – 5: Nervous around medical things, but possible to soothe. Easily upset, but also easily distracted from the thing that upset them. Smartphone cartoons and “who wants a sticker?!!?!?” are key management techniques.
Age 6 – 10: Really cool, actually. I did not realize kids were this cool. Around this age they tend to be fairly outgoing, and super curious and eager to learn. Absolutely do not babytalk; instead, flatter them with how grown-up they are, teach them some Fun Gross Medical Facts, and introduce potentially frightening experiences with “hey, you want to see something really cool?”
Age 11 – 14: Extremely variable. Can be very childish or very mature, or rapidly switch from one mode to the other. At this point you can almost treat them as an adult, just… a really sensitive and unpredictable adult. Do not, under any circumstances, offer stickers. (But they might grab one out of the bin anyway.)
Age 15 – 18: Basically an adult with severely limited life experience. Treat as an adult who needs a little extra education with their care. Keep parents out of the room as much as possible, unless the kid wants them there. At this point you can go ahead and offer stickers again, because they’ll probably think it’s funny. And they’ll want one. Deep down, everyone wants a sticker.
This is adorable and true. Also for age 1-2: get the correct flavour of medication or suffer the consequences.
This maps quite closely onto my pediatrics experience. Especially the part about getting medication falvors right. GOD but have I been spraypainted too many times with “strawberry”-flabored ampicillin. (And is it ever a pain in the butt to get out of a white uniform.)
Am I the only person on the planet who instantly gets along with 97% of toddlers? See, here’s the thing about kids age about, oh, 9 months to 2 ½ with a LOT of “squish” into other groups at the ends of that time gap. Mostly kids who are okay at walking but still not super functional with expressive speech.
Kids that age are SMART. They understand a TON of their native language. They don’t have really good ways of expressing things, but they’re super aware of body language and detect fear and nervousness almost instantly.
So being confident of yourself is GOOD. It is reassuring.
Talking to them as you would to any person who you know understands you is GOOD. It’s okay to emphasize the important words. Pick up some baby signs if you’re working with this group, LOTS of babies are being taught rudimentary ASL signs (not grammar, just one word nouns and verbs and the occasional two word phrase). They won’t use them with you if they think you won’t understand, but the sign for “hurt” is important in a medical setting anyway. Hurt goes wherever the hurt is (you sign it over the tummy or at the ear or whatever for tummy aches and earaches.) You don’t have to go squeaky or fake with this age group, but repeating important words if they don’t seem to understand right away helps kids learn language and they like people who help them learn language.
Being honest and not emotionally loading things is good. “We’re going to do a shot and it might hurt for a second, but it’s going to be really fast and then we’ll be all done.”
Kids this age respond well to silly surprise. Peek-a-boo and funny faces are good. You’re looking for surprise and unexpected, not fright.
They also respond to people getting on their level. I find myself repeating what they say a lot, for clarity, and this is not patronizing, it’s letting them know that you understand. Never underestimate the value of showing kids you understand. I’ve seen kids throwing frustrated tantrums absolutely stop when I said, “Are you really upset because you can’t say the words and you have something you want to tell us?”
And the response? The kid chilled out completely and said, “yes.”
When there are choices, use Choice Hands with not-very-verbal kids. If you have the physical things to choose from, you say, “Do you want x” (present thing) “or do you want Y” present thing in other hand.
But you don’t have to have the actual things. “Do you want a sticker”(hold out hand) or a toy (hold out other hand). If they get the concept, they’ll point at the hand that represents what they want.
Sample conversation with a crying child might be “Do you hurt” “Or something else” (something else) “Are you sad” “Or something else” (something else) “Are you afraid?” “Or something else” (afraid)
I’ve seen 18 month olds speaking in complete sentences, the main difference between those kids and other kids who aren’t isn’t necessarily smarts, it’s more often motor control. The brain is in rapid wiring mode and what gets installed/pruned in what order varies from kid to kid, but language comprehension usually leads language expression by a lot.
I’ve seen medical professionals walk into a room and frighten my children almost instantly, and I’ve seen medical professionals walk in, set my kid at ease and have them laughing through an exam. I would say the biggest difference is that the ones who get the kids laughing genuinely like and respect children and show them that.
Awesome stuff from @jenroses (as usual). One thing I want to point out is this bit:
Sample conversation with a crying child might be “Do you hurt” “Or something else” (something else) “Are you sad” “Or something else” (something else) “Are you afraid?” “Or something else” (afraid)
It also applies to autistics that have been trained to say “yes” (ABA therapy) so the “or something else” is really important. Give them (children or autistics that have been trained) ways to say “something else”. Yes/no questions are a starting point, but probing gently will give you more accurate answers.
just moving along like everyone else 