The thing about Those White People Baby Names is the way they so poetically express the tension between individuality and rigid conformity. These parents all want to name their child something unique, because they value the concept of uniqueness, yet simultaneously they abhor it in practice… ergo, 30 different spelling variations on the most normative possible names. This homogeneity-masquerading-as-diversity is inseparable from capitalist consumer culture and in fact is directly analogous to the experience of walking into a grocery store and being asked to “choose” between 50 varieties of toothpaste with the same exact ingredients, 12 brands of laundry detergent, etc.
Somebody’s third eye is WIDE the fuck open??!!!!!!!
okay so there’s actually a reason behind this that isn’t just “white people are terrible and really really boring!” it’s to do with Mormon culture. specifically: the fireworks you get when sexist expectations and terrible petty drama collide.
most of Those White People Baby Names are originally Mormon baby names. they’re chosen (or invented) by women in Utah; they tend to filter out to the rest of the world through things like “mommy blogs” and “baby name books” and “parent forums.”
you know how every culture has a “hey, welcome to the world, lil baby!” ritual? the mormon version of that is called a baby blessing. the baby’s father, and a handful of other men in the family, go up in front of the congregation during a Sunday service and say a special prayer. it begins by reciting the baby’s full name and then saying “I give you a name and a blessing.”
It’s not something you can avoid doing- if you try, people will think that you’re trying to hide something. baby blessings are mandatory, and everyone in the congregation will watch and judge you.
because of this, your baby’s name gets a good bit more of a spotlight in Mormon culture than it does in secular culture, and that’s saying something.
Mormon women start picking out names for their hypothetical future kids in fourth or fifth grade and snipe at each other for picking “weird” or “bad” ones. it’s something that’s supposed to be in the back of your head long before you have a kid. and because people will judge you if you pick a name that’s “too boring” or “too weird”, it is already an intricate dance of finding something that’s “interesting” enough to pass muster but not so “interesting” your kid won’t survive kindergarten.
and that dance becomes even more intricate when Baby Name Drama gets involved.
see, because you’re supposed to put so much time into your baby’s name, a lot of women get… overinvested, let us say. the perfect name they picked for their baby is THEIR baby’s name and NO ONE ELSE’S. if you so much as dare to BREATHE that you’re naming your baby/pet/favourite laptop the same thing, you have STOLEN their BABY’S NAME.
so here’s the thing… say you really wanted to name your daughter Amy. You love the name, it’s classic, it’s cute, it’s perfect for your little girl-to-be… and then your sister-in-law gets pregnant and LOUDLY ANNOUNCES that she’s naming her baby Amy! and you know for a fact that she’s the type of person to throw a massive petty shitfit over you STEALING her BABY’S NAME. your family will take sides. her family will take sides.
if you want to avoid the drama, and you’re dead-set on naming your daughter-to-be Amy… well, then you name your daughter Aimee, or Aimi, or Aimy. It’s not the same name, it’s pronounced the same but it’s not the exact same name, so you can shut up, sis-in-law.
from what I understand a lot of the Crazy Name Spellings came from this root- “it’s not Kaylee, it’s Kayleigh, I swear I didn’t steal your idea”- and then once it became a trend, people named their kids that to be ~trendy~ just like they did with every other stupid trend.
but the root cause of Terrible Trendy Misspelt Baby Names has very little to do with white people being boring and conformist, and certainly nothing to do with capitalism. it’s a good old fashioned case of a) sexist expectations warping women’s behaviour into really really stupid shapes and b) Petty Small Community Drama.
This is a terrific addition to this post that I don’t think actually contradicts my main idea all that much
Curing with borax and salt. Been getting lots of curing questions.. there are posts under my DIY projects link with dry preservation and wet preservation but i figured why not do a more simplistic rambling post on home mummification. You can cure pretty much anything you want with borax and salt… from animal hides to small rodent feet….from full bird capes and skins to entire heads. Depending on what you are curing, your climate and your curing environment the process can take as little as a couple weeks to as long as a year. Right now ive got a bunch of natural remains in various stages of curing and completion, Since our move to the rainforest environment of the washington woodlands, usual curing time for me has almost doubled thanks to the perpetual rainfall and humidity ( which i LOVE!) One thing that has been such a perpetual inquiry is how long certain things will take to cure, always remember it depends on size, how much flesh and fat it has, your environment and curing set up. Hot dry places will have a faster curing time opposed to more warm wet environments… moisture tends to provoke the decomposition process so when you are curing in a wet humid environment its best to go a bit overboard with the borax/salt and exchange it out every couple weeks so the moisture doesnt stay contained within the curing solution and flesh… dry environments dont necessarily need to exchange out the curing solutions as frequently, mostly when replacing the borax/salt solutions in drier climates its for odor prevention rather than moisture prevention. Another thing to keep in mind is the size and amount of flesh…. little mice feet,bird wings, small bird feet,smaller tails and the like, take only a couple of weeks to fully cure, this is because they dont have much flesh for the curing solution to soak and extract through.
* when curing, always make sure your curing container is able to breath… last thing you want in any climate is a closed container with fleshy bits trying to cure in something that will sweat condensation… Ive done that a few times with mason jars and mice… leading to a bunch of condensation so when i opened the jar there was a nice pop,hiss and a smell you wouldnt believe.
For larger feet like cats,dogs,deer,raccoon etc will take quite a bit longer since there is a much thicker amount of flesh for the solution to work through… for anything larger than a raccoon paw… it helps to rub the borax or salt solution under as much of the skin as you can or make a small slit down the center to fill and rub down with the solution…. you can even skin what you are curing and rub the skin and flesh down before sewing and putting it back together… every bit helps when mummifying.
How can you tell your piece is done curing? Well personally i wait until ALLLLLLL moisture is gone from the flesh and limbs are no longer flexible.. I find that leaving even a hint of moisture within flesh even if its been cured , can leave a strange odor….. so to keep safe and make sure there is no odor or possibility of future decomp, i cure until everything is dried, stiff as hell and flesh is hard to the touch
Another common question is odor…. odor can come hand in hand with mummification… alot of it depends on how fresh your remains are when you start the process, moisture and general upkeep. The best thing for me when trying to keep odor down is to always mix in cedar sprigs, burn cedar, layer the curing container with cedar or even pine or use cedar and pine as a stuffer for creatures that have been gutted…. cedar is a great bug and pest repellant,it is a wonderful aid for mummification ( especially when burned or ground and mixed into the solution or rubbed on the flesh) as well as carrying great magical properties that are beneficial for working with remains. After the curing process you can take your remains and hot box them with cedar smoke to further mummify and allow it to absorb the very sweet woodland aroma of burning cedar… same for pine, rosemary and various other plants. If that doesnt take away your odor you can repeat the smoke process a few times, air dry, sun dry or give a dry soak in some loose leaf teas/herbs…. Lavender/clove/cinnamon/dried citrus peels/ dried rosemary/rose/mint and pretty much any other aromatic herb would be great for a dry herb bath!
Home preservation and mummification is a cheap affordable way to collect mementos of fallen souls and keep their memory alive.
You can get as technical or intricate as you like or keep it basic and simple. Rubbing skins with honey and resin, burning herbs to dry and cure, using the sun to naturally mummify, using salt, using borax, using alcohol, formalin, cornmeal, teas, barks so on and so forth. There are endless possibilities for curing at home.
Please keep in mind that i am NOT a professional when it comes to these things, i am self taught so my ways of preservation may be much different than the professional taxidermist and curator
Below A curing container with full racoon head. The container is nothing more than 2 plastic potting containers lined with sprigs of cedar and pine, then filled with borax and salt
The racoon head after a few weeks in the solution, notice the eyes, nostrils and even the mouth have all been filled and packed with borax and salt.
Next curing container is a plant drain tray, again filled with curing solution and sprigs of cedar. This little tray has about 30 small pieces curing, from mouse heads, to tails and feet, from raccoon paws to squirrel bits.
photo below shows 2 small rat heads, a back raccoon paw, to back rat feet, 1 forward paw and tail. looking in the container you can see the partial squirrel head, more rat heads, tails, paws and small cedar pieces.
The rat feet and tails are about done, the raccoon paw will need another couple weeks and the heads will probably need another week if not 2.
Photo below A plate filled with rodent skins, skins have all been rubbed down with salt and borax and then placed on a plate with a layer of old coffee grounds, layer of borax, layer of salt and of course some cedar. The coffee grounds are experimental for odor control and pest repellant.
A lot of people ask me what my biggest fear is, or what scares me most. And I know they expect an answer like heights, or closed spaces, or people dressed like animals, but how do I tell them that when I was 17 I took a class called Relationships For Life and I learned that most people fall out of love for the same reasons they fell in it. That their lover’s once endearing stubbornness has now become refusal to compromise and their one track mind is now immaturity and their bad habits that you once adored is now money down the drain. Their spontaneity becomes reckless and irresponsible and their feet up on your dash is no longer sexy, just another distraction in your busy life.
Nothing saddens and scares me like the thought that I can become ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes.
this fucks me up every single time
I never expected this to be my most popular poem out of the hundreds I’ve written. I was extremely bitter and sad when I wrote this and I left out the most beautiful part of that class.
After my teacher introduced us to this theory, she asked us, “is love a feeling? Or is it a choice?” We were all a bunch of teenagers. Naturally we said it was a feeling. She said that if we clung to that belief, we’d never have a lasting relationship of any sort.
She made us interview a dozen adults who were or had been married and we asked them about their marriages and why it lasted or why it failed. At the end, I asked every single person if love was an emotion or a choice.
Everybody said that it was a choice. It was a conscious commitment. It was something you choose to make work every day with a person who has chosen the same thing. They all said that at one point in their marriage, the “feeling of love” had vanished or faded and they weren’t happy. They said feelings are always changing and you cannot build something that will last on such a shaky foundation.
The married ones said that when things were bad, they chose to open the communication, chose to identify what broke and how to fix it, and chose to recreate something worth falling in love with.
The divorced ones said they chose to walk away.
Ever since that class, since that project, I never looked at relationships the same way. I understood why arranged marriages were successful. I discovered the difference in feelings and commitments. I’ve never gone for the person who makes my heart flutter or my head spin. I’ve chosen the people who were committed to choosing me, dedicated to finding something to adore even on the ugliest days.
I no longer fear the day someone who swore I was their universe can no longer see the stars in my eyes as long as they still choose to look until they find them again.
There’s bad things in every year unless something particularly traumatic and terrible happened to you saying that 2018 sucked is good memes but it’s really useless because if you say it every year eventually it loses its meaning
Like idk it’s definitely not that I don’t get the humor I mean I’ve reblogged “2018 sucked” type posts but like.. idk
Every year “this is gonna be a good year” and at the end “this year fucking sucked”
Like… I participate in that but. Seems like, /to a point/ how you look at the year effects it? Like if you focus on the negative it’s going to be negative?
Again. It’s fun jokes and I enjoy them too. But something about it seems off
You ever see a joke in a post that is mindnumbingly stupid and unfunny
ifesbob 