I Do It All For You, Kid

Sometimes (lots of times) (all the time), I have the urge to do a thing but i dont know what. Or, I feel weird, but can't figure out why or what to do to fix it. ADHD, executive dysfunction, how I feel, and the phase of the moon can all make it really hard for me to think of a solution to the issue -- or even know what the issue IS. And while meds and regular sleep certainly help, for better or for worse my brain just isn't wired for this.

So, I decided to outsource my brain.

I couldn't find an app that did what I wanted or was customizable enough for me to fake it. Therefore I built an analog external brain to do my thinking for me.

First, I bought a small, 100-or-so page notebook. It was about eight bucks at my Local Corporate Book Retailer.

Then, I logicked out all the possibilities I might have trouble braining, and started adding each step to the book -- kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure novel.

Here's an example path, which starts with me knowing what I want, and the analog brain telling me how to get there. I twisted my ankle a couple weeks ago and keep forgetting to do things to make it better, so here's my solution:

[image: Do you know what you want? Yes -> 1, No -> 32. Yes is circled]

Yes, analog brain, I know what I want! Let me flip to page 1.

[Image of Page 1: What do you want to do? Exercise -> 2 is circled. Other options include Read -> 13, Watch something -> 20, Eat ->31, Be creative -> 25, Have an adventure ->26, Clean something ->28, Learn something->29.]

Still know what I want, so I flip to page 2.

[Image page 2: What kind of exercise do you want to do? PT -> 5 is circled. Other options include Weights -> 3, Cardio -> 4, Yoga -> 9, Something quick -> 10, Hiking -> 11, Adventure -> 12]

Skipping some pages now! Since this is meant to bounce me around, it doesn't make sense to try and read it in order. (On the plus side, that makes it super easy to add new options to any part of the tree).

[Image page 5: What kind of PT? Ankle ->6 is circled. Other options include Knee->6a, Neck->7, Shoulders->8.]

(When I first numbered the pages, 6 and 6a werw stuck together, whoooops)

[Image page 6: A list of ankle PT exercises]

Eyyyyy my external brain showed me how to do my flippin' PT so my ankle stops hurting! Yay!

But what about when I don't know wtf is wrong or wtf I want? There's an app analog brain for that! (Yes I'm aware its called a decision tree or process flow or what have you. Let me have this).

[Image: Do you know what you want? No->32 is circled]

No, spacebook, idfk what's wrong, I can't brain today.

[Image page 32: How are you feeling? In pain ->33 is circled. Other options include Overstimulated->37, Understimulated, Panicky->43.]

(As you can see, I have plans to add a page for overstimulated but have not done it yet.)

Oh yeah my ankle kinda hurts, maybe I can do something about that...

[Image of page 33: What kind of pain? Knee/ankle/neck/etc ->35 is circled. Other options include Menstrual nonsense->34, Head->38.]

[Image of page 35: Joint/old injury pain: Take advil, Ice or heat, Massage, Foam roll, Warm bath, PT exercises. Under the last option are subsets Ankle->6 (circled), Neck->6a, Knees->7.]

...Aaaand now I'm back around to my list of ankle PT exercises! And I didnt have to think at all!

Anyway -- all it takes to make something like this for yourself is a notebook and some time to think the logic through. You can start by making lists (not in the notebook) of questions you have trouble braining in the moment, and what some solutions are. Then number your pages, and get started!

He asked me when I fell in love with him and I knew it sounded dramatic to say the moment I saw him, so I told him this story of my grandma who had Alzheimer's- she forgot her name and the words for fruit and food, she forgot her address and how to use the washroom, all her life lost to the disease. The only thing she remembered was her son's name and when that began to fade, the one thing she always remembered was that she loved him, even in illness, even in insanity. She saw this 6 foot 2 man with a scrubby beard and she didn't know him but she said she trusted him, she asked him to hold her hand when she died. When does memory end and love begin? All I know is- she loved him before she remembered him.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

comic about someone’s strange dream (and daydreams)

longing for a home that doesn't exist ࿏

giovanni's room, james baldwin / the girl who chased the moon, sarah addison allen / @electraheart2012 / mercy, mercy, me, john murillo [art: @heavensghost] / my tears ricochet, taylor swift / the graveyard book, neil gaiman / biome, ryan galloway / there is a light that never goes out, the smiths / don't throw out my legos, AJR / mad, bad, & dangerous to know, samira ahmed

image descriptions below the cut

1. Blue text on a white background reads, "you don't have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back."

2. Black text with yellow highlight on a white background reads, "I'm homesick all the time... I just don't know where home is."

3. Black text on a white background reads, "being alive is like: you want to go home. you don't know where home is. you want to go home. you don't know where home is. you want to go home. you haven't known for a long time. you want to go home but you don't know where you'd go. you want to go home you want to go home you want to go home"

4. A grid of six images. Clockwise starting from the top left, the images show: a hand holding three white flowers on a blue background; dark green leaves; a green bush with white flowers; a blue sky with clouds; a house with an empty porch; the side of a building and adjacent sidewalk. Individual words in various colours and fonts are pasted over the images. The words read, "Maybe memory is all the home you get"

5. Black text with grey highlight on a white background reads, "And I can go anywhere I want / Anywhere I want, just not home"

6. Black text on a white background reads, "bod said, “if i change my mind can i come back here?” and then he answered his own question. “if i come back, it will be a place, but it won’t be home any longer.”"

7. Light coloured text on a dark green background reads, "and… that’s what i fear. that nothing will ever make me feel like i'm safe again. that once you leave home, you never get it back."

8. An image of a white car driving on a road, facing the camera. In the background, there are green trees along the horizon, and a dark, cloudy sky. Lines of black text on a purple background is pasted onto the image. This text reads, "Driving in your car / I never never want to go home / Because I haven't got one anymore"

9. Black text on a white background reads, "Oh no, I'll come by when I'm grown / It won't be the same though / I can't go even go home, go home"

mary oliver I’ll be honest I have not endured loneliness with grace

being asexual with a lot of aesthetic attraction is like no i dont wanna fuck you im just gonna keep stealing glances and accidently walk into a door

unfriendly reminder that demisexuality and demiromanticism are both very real orientations 

same with greysexuality and greyromanticism

same with every single one of the different ace- and arospec orientations that exist

and if you even fucking try to fuck w any of my aspec sibs on this

I. WILL. FUCK. YOU. UP

“Art differs from nature not in its organic form, but in its human origins: in the fact that it is not God or a machine that makes a work of art, but an individual with his instincts and intuitions, with his sensibility and his mind, searching relentlessly for the perfection that is neither in mind nor in nature, but in the unknown. I do not mean this in an other-worldly sense, only that the form of the flower is unknown to the seed.”

— Herbert Read, The Origins of Art (via mesogeios)

@fairycosmos / Comic by @shhhitsfine / Comic by @incendavery

sources: ophelia, act IV, scene V // traci brimhall, dear eros // unknown // suzanne scanlone, promising young women // destiny, fieldplates gauntlets // camille rankine, emergency management // fatima aamer bilal, being unwanted is a language // unknown