it is for me!! i’m in iowa, so all our lichens are made to withstand the winters and stuff, which means you usually get lower diversity, smaller size, and more crustose (the weird patches of brown/green/blue discoloration you might see on branches or concrete, but if you look closer you’ll see that it’s an organism!!) or foliose (kind of fluffy, but not having a huge wild ass time; usually on trees) lichens. we have NO fruticose lichens here (those are the full on partying lichens that are like, dangling and stuff). usually the pallets are more brown/grey/blue/green, with one or two orange ones, and you’ll notice that the lichens leave space between each other where i come from; there’s just less of them unless you get into a forested area where they’re less disturbed.
here’s a visual guide to the main three lichen types, since its kinda hard to describe:
so we have a lot of the first two, but almost NONE of the last one.
lichens are crazy because once you start learning about them, you will see them EVERYWHERE. its impossible to avoid them, the crustose species especially.
My coworkers complain when we can’t assign homework over Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. As if somehow this interferes with their ability to teach their classes.
My coworkers complain that our Muslim students get to leave class to pray Salat at noon. Like, we have maybe one Muslim student every two or three years – thus far, all extraordinarily respectful and lovely kids! – and they slip quietly out of class to pray.
My coworkers find all this infuriating. “Imagine,” they cry, “If a Christian kid asked to do that.”
I calmly explain, every single time, that a Christian kid would never HAVE to do that, because every single Christian holy day is a day off school. Good Friday. Easter Sunday. Christmas day. Our entire country interrupts its financial and educational systems – schedules its WEEKS – around the Christian prayer customs and seasons.
God forbid we temporarily unclip the rope barrier and leave an opening for someone whose religious traditions vary from our own.
Heck, the only holy day we DON’T get off is Ash Wednesday, and that only involves a church service if you’re Catholic.
If you’re asking someone who is neurodivergent a question, please give them time to respond. This applies to all ND people, including the ones who mask or seem “mostly NT.” And it doesn’t mean a second or two, it means as long as they need.
Because if you don’t, conversations end up like this:
“Do you want to get food?”
“Um…Hm. Ma—“
“Ok you need to say if you do now because we’re not coming back for food.”
“I—uh—I don—“
“Do you want food or not?”
“Uh—no?”
“Alright then, let’s go.”
Then, later, the person may realize that they did indeed want food. They were, in fact, hungry, and now they feel ashamed of themself or feel like they can’t ask. Plus, the sort of stress this causes doesn’t exactly make them like you any more.
Please. Give us time. We need to process the question, process our answer, and put that into words. That process may be harder for us than it is for you. Please respect that, and give us time. Thank you.
I’d say give that consideration to everyone regardless of disability or not. It’s just basic politeness.
i was walking barefoot around our campsite and had my feet ambushed by like 5 of these. i have no idea what kind of seeds they are but I can’t even be mad like that’s some real ingenuity. like I fell right into their trap and my bitches don’t even have feet or anything….I’m just a dumbass…that’s natural selection bay bee
There are a bunch of people for whom bubble baths, scented candles, and chocolate is self-care.
There are a bunch of people for whom early-morning yoga, vegetable smoothies, and aggressively minimalist redecorating is self-care.
There are a bunch of people for whom playing with kids is self-care, and a bunch of people for whom dressing up and going to a fancy restaurant where no kids are allowed is self-care, and a bunch of people for whom sleeping in late is self-care and a bunch of people for whom getting up early is self-care.
Lately I’ve been moving from ‘yeah, humans are vast and varied’ to a sense that there’s a similar underlying thing in all of these cases.
I think something tends to be more restorative – to be an activity that leaves you more energized than you started it, more okay than when you started it – the more of these criteria it meets:
– restorative things are often things you associate with being prioritized, valued and valuable. This is why some people find chores restorative – it hits ‘valued and valuable’f or them – while other people find them draining – their association with doing chores is being incapable or not-good-enough or ordered-around,
– restorative things are usually things that don’t draw on the resources you feel constrained on – if you’re tired from being on your feet all day, running sure won’t do it, and if you’re lonely and isolated then bubble baths probably won’t help. Dong stuff that causes you anxiety won’t often be restorative.
– restorative things tend to fit into your understanding of what a good life for you looks like. early-morning yoga works for people who find it empowering to think of themselves as someone who does early-morning yoga. prayer and attending religious services tends to work for people who are like ‘my best self attends religious services’ and not so well for people ho are like ‘ugh I’m supposed to do that’ or ‘doing that just reminds me how much I disagree with my community about what my best self looks like’
– restorative things are pleasant in their own right. It’s astonishing how often this one gets passed-over. If you do not enjoy something – if the experience of doing it isn’t a good experience – then it’s really unlikely to be restorative. Making yourself do yoga when you find every minute awful will not be restorative. It might sometimes be valuable but it won’t be restorative. (Things that are unpleasant to start, but pleasant and rewarding once you’re doing them, can be restorative).
I think there are a couple takeaways from this framework. One is hopefully to make it easier to identify things that’ll be restorative for you. The second is that people attach a lot of moral valence to which activities other people find restorative – accusing people of being consumerist or selfish or lazy or privileged – and I’m hoping that there might be less of it if people are aware that the things that work for them won’t work for everyone. (Related to that,of course privilege plays a role in which things you experience as making you valued and valuable, and which things you conceive of as being part of your good life. So it’s a terrible idea to try to impose one version of ‘self-care’, like employers signing employees up for exercise programs in the name of self-care; people of a different class background get particularly screwed by this.)
As someone who just bonded with another anxiety haver over “exercising until the brainweasels are too pooped to eat all my happy thoughts works for ME TOO OMG,” this post is timely and I love it.
(It is of course okay if this does not work for you, I hope you have something else that does instead)
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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