Still-I-Rise
Internet Inspiration – May 30, 2014
May 30, 2014
6.13.2014
Internet Inspiration – June 13, 2014
June 13, 2014

Internet Inspiration – June 6, 2014

The first job I got after college was in the call center for a finance company. While I loved it, I can tell you that this post is entirely accurate.

Excellent advice from Liz Gilbert on traveling solo.

While there are certainly dangers, I have found that the same factors that make you vulnerable as a woman also make you powerful. What I mean to say is, a woman on her own does not telegraph a threat to anyone—which means that strangers all over the world will welcome you and trust you. They will let you into their houses. They will let you play with their babies. They will tell you their stories. They will give you a place to sleep. They will offer you assistance, food, directions, affection. I feel that, as a female traveler, I have had much more intimate experiences with new people than any man could ever have. Strangers know that I’m not going to hurt them, and so they open up to me. I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything.>

Everybody stop, drop, and listen. Dentists have figured out a way to regrow teeth. I volunteer as tribute.

Well, it’s true that I’m not a natural redhead. To quote the Anne That Matters, Anne Shirley, “My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.” And maybe one day scientists will be able to regrow my hair and make it huge and red and curly, but until then I dye it, and I regret nothing. In case you weren’t aware, redheads are awesome.

Tattoos are also awesome. Particularly literary tattoos.

As always, Reddit brings it with two-sentence horror stories. The current horror story of my life is, “But seriously. Where the hell is that mouse?” (*edit: I found him. sigh. The only thing worse than having a mouse is having to dispose of a dead one.)

Loved this essay on poverty.

When you are down to your last dollar, give it away. Every time.

Do not mistake your generosity for selflessness. Sure, you’re kind. This is true. You want to help the homeless grandma on the off-ramp, but you are also doing this for yourself. Engineering karma. What you give away will come back to you ten-fold from places you cannot anticipate.

Remember this. It will help you live with yourself when a woman you barely know offers you a job you are not remotely qualified to do, and your brother buys you a plane ticket to say goodbye to your dying father, and your best friend gives you a car, then buys you a computer. It will help you when you are invited to stay in places you can no longer afford to be, and when you feel like a worthless, bottom-feeding free-loader piece of crap because you have lost track of all the gifts and gifts and gifts that allow you to keep living this remarkably middle-class looking life.

When you have been given so much it’s hard to reconcile taking anything any more, when you are so sure you do not deserve these continued kindnesses that it’s hard to lift your eyes to say thank you, just do it anyway. Pick up your head. Give thanks for every person who still believes in you long after you stop believing in yourself. Try to see what they see.

Remind yourself that even if you can never repay them, all the goodness they have shown you will come back to them ten-fold from places none of you can anticipate. Believe that this is how it works.

In case you missed it, John Oliver killed the FCC Net Neutrality topic and may have crashed the FCC’s comment site. This is important, folks. Watch the video.

Good evening, monsters. This may be the moment you’ve spent your whole lives training for. […] Ralph Macchio, you’ve been honing your skills—waxing cars and painting fences. Well guess what? Now it’s time to do some fucking karate. For once in your life, we need you to challenge that anger—that badly spelled bile—that you normally reserve for unforgivable attacks on actresses you seem to think have put on weight. Or politicians you disagree with. Or photos of your ex-girlfriend getting on with her life. Or non-white actors being cast as fictional characters. […] We need you to get out there, and for once in your lives, focus your indiscriminate rage in a useful direction. Seize your moment, my lovely trolls. Turn on caps lock and fly, my pretties, fly!

Anyone who wants to make me chocolate chip zucchini bread certainly will deserve a special place in heaven and my heart.