things you can do when it’s night time and you’re still awake and feel bad
make a playlist of a bunch of soothing, quiet songs and listen to them
doodle on nice paper
make some lists of things you like and make separate categories for them
if you have fairy lights, use them, they’re very dreamy and soft
if you don’t have fairy lights, think about getting some, they’re very worth it
write a little story in a notebook
make a list of the things that are making you feel bad and then separate lists on what you could do to fix them in the morning
youtube videos that are nice and relaxing: cooking videos, doll repainting videos, nail art videos, candy making videos, candle carving videos, stim videos with slime or floam or kinetic sand
listen to some ambient noises like white noise or rain
fluff up all your pillows really well and then rest your head on them
look through some aesthetic blogs
start an aesthetic blog
say fuck it and bake something even though it’s past midnight
make some tea or just some hot water if you don’t like tea
write a letter to somebody
write in your diary
close your eyes and daydream about lovely scenarios until you fall asleep
ah to be 14 in your high schools GSA and we all have short or dyed hair, wearing large hoodies, same fashion sense of flannels/black leggings/graphic tees, we all wear the same thick framed glasses…
if you ever looked like this once in your life i want you to know that i love you devistatingly so you are my bretheren and our kinship is stronger than anything else
I’ve been thinking about climate change and how normalized our unsustainable use of plastics is, and the reality that we really cannot continue as we have been if there is to be a future for our society at all.
I realized that there’s a possibility that, in the future, in my life time, single-use plastic will no longer be so thoroughly available like it is today, and what that will might mean for the next generation, the ones after that, and what we might say, the stories we might tell to children and and teenagers when I’m 60, 70, 80 years old. Stories about how you could walk into any restaurant or café and you would automatically be given a plastic straw that still exists somewhere today. That you could go into any store and walk through aisle after aisle of shelves filled with plastic wrapped food items, and that plastic still exists somewhere today. That we didn’t even have the option in many cases to avoid these plastics, because they didn’t sell shampoo in glass bottles and even the things you might try to buy to avoid using plastic came packaged in plastic in many cases. That it was everywhere, in vending machines and cafeterias and grocery stores and it was all taken for granted and accepted as the normal route of progress for so long.
And if it does come about that we stop this insanity, that in my life time milk is sold once again in glass bottles and stores stock only paper and cloth bags, how might the reality of today come across to someone who is born after this change has been cemented? How would a 15 year old, someone who’s just beginning to gain this greater consciousness of a world that existed before and without them and that exists far beyond the bounds of their experience and knowledge react to hearing about all those bottles that I’ve thrown away in my lifetime? How might someone who’s only ever experienced plastic as a medical technology used sparingly and when there is great need going to react to the first person account of this normalized horror we live with every day?
I hope to become a professor in the future, which means that I’ll be spending my life teaching students, talking to and interacting with people who are at a very specific point in their lives. I can imagine having a conversation about the normalization of plastics and seeing horror on the faces of a generation for whom the mistake of it all is a given, who learned in school (or perhaps didn’t) that plastic was used for all these meaningless conveniences, but now that we know the cost, is reserved only for those times when the cost is worthwhile: to save lives, to make the world accessible, but never for mere convenience.
If things go well, maybe one day as I’m eating my breakfast, my sisters grandchildren will ask me about the early 2000s when I was growing up and I’ll tell them about the stores and the restaurants the vending machines, and I’ll see a look of horror on their faces, and maybe that is what progress will look like. Like the outrage of those who are able to see the horror of something that was so normalized as to be invisible at one point.
“you mean they knew what this was doing to the environment and they didn’t stop?”
“but once they figured it out, why didn’t they change??”
I don’t mean to say that plastic is the only problem (it’s not) or that personal consumption is the biggest problem, but the current system is set up to make each of us complicit, in many cases unwillingly, in the use of plastics that still exist and will very likely still exist somewhere when I’m 80, 90 years old. If we really do something right, maybe we will change the system.
Anyway, I really do look forward to the stories we will be able to tell one day, cautionary tales about the mistakes of the past and the reactions, the incredulity that prove something has changed and that we are doing something right.
Juli Fusina and More 