Lydia Schoch

Happy Thanksgiving! Here is this week’s list of blog posts, poems, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Son of a via MelaniesWords. Here’s hoping the author writes a sequel soon. I want to know what happens next!

Map of Thanksgiving Dinner. I’m not actually a big fan of most of the traditional Thanksgiving foods, but the Sweet Potato Peak does look good here.

Harvest and Thanksgiving via KateSpencer17. I absolutely love the sentiment of this post.

On Peeple Being Mean via CMAstfalk. Oh, I am not a fan of this app at all. No, there isn’t a typo in the title. Go click on the link to find out what Peeple is and why it’s such a bad idea.

From Faces in the Street:

They lie, the men who tell us, for reasons of their own,
That want is here a stranger, and that misery’s unknown;

From The Girls on Shit Duty:

I’m always amazed at the mess. Why does getting away from home become synonymous with guests losing their sense of propriety? It’s as if the bad, angry part of the wilderness—the part that reminds people of their feral origins—leaches into every male psyche, turns every guest into some basic and primeval version of himself.

What have you been reading?

Who else has ever dreamed about having a coughing fit when they’re sick in real life?

That happened to me yesterday. I still don’t know if my brain was waking me up to have a real coughing fit or if it was simply one of those everyday things that sometimes works its way into the dream world.

Dream coughs are much less productive than real ones, though. It felt like I was an actor who was pretending to cough instead of a real person who was actually coughing. For one thing, I couldn’t feel my lungs in the dream. My mouth and throat were coughing, but my dream-lungs were not.

I’ve spent the last day wondering why dream-me had a mouth, a throat, and the urge to cough, but my mind couldn’t also come up with a suitable pair of lungs as well. If this was a story, I’d be very curious to know why it was written this way!

These are the odd things I think about when I’m sick.

What odd things have been bouncing around in your minds recently?

Do magic shows really involve magic, or are they all a bunch of silly tricky? The boy in this short film sure doesn’t think that magic is real. Watch it to find out if he’s correct.

I just arrived home from a family reunion. A whole bunch of us packed ourselves into one house for several days. We had a wonderful time, although I’m glad to be back home now.

I have a cold.

My well of blogging ideas has temporarily run dry. I’ll be back to my old self soon, but in the meantime I have a few questions for my readers.

What are your favourite home remedies when you’re sick?

Do you prefer to be left alone or coddled when you’re not feeling well?

What is your idea of a good family reunion? Do you like squishing everyone into the same house, or do you prefer getting a hotel room?

Ready, set, discuss!

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, poems, artworks, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Theories of Autumn. I love this.

In the Bathtub. Every so often I include a link in Suggestion Saturday without telling you anything about it. I’m doing it again this week. As always, there’s nothing disturbing or scary here. It will simply be more amusing if you have no idea what to expect when you click on it.

Chrysalide. I’d like to hear my readers’ interpretations of this picture. Who has one?

The Dissection. This is the kind of science fiction story that worms its way into my dreams.

15 Simple Ways to Spread Kindness in Your World Starting Today. One of the things I really appreciate about my childhood is how much effort my parents put into teaching their kids how to be kind and empathetic even when it was difficult. They did such a good job at this. If everyone had such warm role models, our world would be a much friendlier place.

Modern Art Simplified. Is it possible to be silly and useful at the same time? I’d argue yes.

From How Utah Became a Bizarre, Blissful Epicenter for Get-Rich-Quick Schemes:

Trying to wrap your head around the concept of selling a business opportunity to sell a business opportunity to sell a business opportunity can feel like being lost in a hall of mirrors (after ingesting grainy, off-white powder).

What have you been reading?

Every once in a while I like to share some of the strange, funny, and just plain weird search engine questions that lead bots and new readers to this blog. My comments are below each phrase or sentence. A have been lightly edited to make them more legible, although all of them are 100% real.

Bonsai story.

I have never told any stories about bonsai trees to anyone at any point in my life. Now I have the sudden urge to do so.

How to leave a spouse who is doing you wrong and pretends everything is fine.

I’d do this without any explanation at all. Just go.

How to talk more when you’re quiet.

Longterm readers know that I read everything when I was a kid. Reading was my drug of choice, so to speak, and I loved almost every genre at least occasionally. One of the books I read while growing up actually addressed this question. I don’t remember anything about the characters, but I do remember one of them being told to go through the alphabet, pick something that started with one of its letters, and then ask people what they thought of it.

To be more specific, the character started asking people what they thought of apples at a party. I found it hilarious as a kid, although I do admit to giving it a try now and again when I’m truly stumped and my conversation partner is as quiet as I am.

Is it normal to read compliments over and over again?

I vote yes. Or at least I’ve done it!

Imagine a world where money wasn’t an issue.

It sounds good to me, although I’d guess we’d come up with some sort of barter system fairly quickly.

Nephew doesn’t talk to me. Should I go to his wedding?

No. There will be much better times to fix your relationship after he’s married.

Right wing asshole.

There are assholes in every wing, corridor, and magical wardrobe you can imagine (and probably a few you can’t).

Is it moral to brag?

It’s not a question of morality. It’s a question of whether or not you want to be the kind of person that other people enjoy spending time with. Bragging isn’t a good way to make or keep friends.

How talk more when you’re quiet?

I’m still figuring this one out. It’s not an easy thing to do.  Can anyone else help?

An autumn’s tale from Leonardo Dalessandri on Vimeo.

This is a video for people watchers. It’s a little over two minutes of people (and a few animals) doing all kinds of things in a park: playing, talking, exercising, hanging out.

I really like seeing how people behave in a natural setting like this. Humans are fascinating.

This has been the friendly debate in my household lately. Are surprises a good thing or a bad thing?

My opinion changes depending on what kind of surprise we’re talking about.

Presents of any shape or size are a good thing in my book. You definitely don’t need to tell me in advance that I’m getting one, what might be in it, or what it might involve if it isn’t a physical item. (I like giving them, too, although I’ll save that topic for another day!)

A surprise party? Not so much. I really want to know ahead of time if I’m going to be spending an evening or longer in a large, noisy group, There are people who would be thrilled to walk into what they thought was a dark, empty room only to be suddenly surrounded by a hundred of their loved ones, though.

A smaller surprise party can be okay if I know everyone involved in it really well.

What about negative surprises? No, thank you. If you have something bad or off-putting to tell me, don’t beat around the bush. I want to know as soon as you can possibly get ahold of me. There is absolutely no reason to delay these conversations. They only get harder and more hurtful if you do.

Everyone has different preferences, of course, so I also like to find out how others feel about surprises before I even think about giving one to them.

My husband, doesn’t like them. When I do something nice for him, he wants to know about it as soon as the idea first tickles the back of my mind. I’ve always respect that wish of his.

I wouldn’t have a problem throwing a surprise party for someone who would absolutely love that kind of thing while also sending a picture of a gift I was planning to get for someone else who really wants to know everything ahead of time. This isn’t the sort of thing that has any kind of ethical dilemma attached to it. It’s simply one of those things that two equally reasonable people can have completely different reactions to.

How do you feel about surprises? Do you like planning them? Which ones – if any – do you enjoy being on the receiving end for?

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, comic strips, photographs, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

From Why #IStandWithAhmed and Why You Should Too via shyvish:

There are two things I want to call into focus here: One is the question of racism and the other is the threat to creativity.

Yoh! When I was a kid, my dad used to point out deer to us when he was driving down rural roads. It was pretty rare for me to spot a deer before he did. This picture reminded me of those memories.

4 Misconceptions About Genre Fiction that Really Mean You’re Just Missing Out via fixedbaroque. This is a fantastic argument for reading stuff like science fiction or romance.

Hypocrites, Drugs, and Mental Health via LivinwithBATman. There’s a lot of truth to this.

Cheshire Cat. I love it.

From The “Almshouse” Story:

 I assume that most medium to large cities have houses such as the one in Lancaster, but most probably have not survived as the almshouse in Lancaster has.  Matter of fact, an easement guarantees the remaining part of the original building can never be demolished and its exterior can never be altered.

What have you been reading?

I have a challenge for you today: describe your current mood for me in the form of a gif, short video, or picture.

For example, this is how I feel:

That is, I’m insatiably curious. Lately I’ve been devouring short Youtube videos that explain certain scientific facts and theories, and I want to know much more than can be condensed into five minutes.

The site where I found it used this description: “when a post is worthwhile enough to pull a lurker out of hiding.”

That flexibility is the beauty of this kind of communication. A lot of people will use the same gif or picture to share the same emotion, but there’s always room for creativity and new interpretations.

I’ve used this gif in the past to describe my hay fever:

This one when I’ve accidentally stumbled across the weird parts of the Internet:

And this one when a conversation takes such an unexpected turn that there simply isn’t anything left to say:

What have you used for non-verbal communication online?