saying “i wouldn’t be a good parent” is a morally neutral statement and i’m sick of whenever i say it people replying “noo no you’d be a GREAT mother i know you would!!!” like… no! being a good parent requires a certain set of skills and traits and i know that i don’t have them and that’s a good thing!!! i think people should figure out if they would be good parents BEFORE having kids and maybe we’d have less shitty parents in the world! fuck!
This is the perfect soundtrack to flee in terror from a predator to.
When I was young, I never really understood my parents insistence to only use olive oil imported from Palestine. It took a long time and a great distance in a process that was neither cheap nor convenient. The oil came in old beat-up containers that did not look appealing to me at all. In my head, if they wanted to support distant family back home, they could just send them money and save us and them a big hassle. We could just use the nice looking olive oil containers from the nearby store. Yet, this was never an option in our household. The only olive oil we used at home was from Palestine.
As I grew up and started a student part-time job, I worked with olive oil a little. I knew all about olive oil imported from Spain, Italy, and other countries. I knew which ones were better and more expensive. I also learned to tell, based on the pungent taste, which ones were extra virgin. I was tempted to use my employee discount to bring home one of the fancy bottles and use at our kitchen. I could not get myself to do it, and I did not exactly know why. I felt like it would be disrespectful to my parents even if it didn’t make sense to me. It did not feel right. It was not an option.
After living in Palestine for a year during the olive picking season, something changed. The olive picking season in Palestine is holy.
Palestinians relate to the weather based on how it would benefit or harm the olives. There is well-known unspoken rule about treating olive trees with respect. There is a day off from work just to pick olives. On public transportation, it is not unusual to hear someone on the phone telling their friend to stop by for their share of this year’s olive oil stored in what used to be a Coca-Cola or a liquor bottle. A driver will stop in the middle of the way to give his brother- in- law a jar of olives that are so close to one another that they start to crush showing their insides.
In Nablus, the owner of the Nabulsi soap factory takes pride in how picky he is about getting his olive oil. He insists on filling a cup to let me smell how authentic it is and smirks as he sees my diasporic facial expressions transform in appreciation of its strong smell running through all of my brain cells.
I started noticing how olive oil is an essential part of so many dishes. “Palestinians drink more olive oil than water” I would jokingly say and they would laugh in agreement. Olive oil is truly an everyday ritual.
They fantasize about its color when it’s fresh and remind me that it starts to change as it reacts with oxygen over time. They dip their bread into olive oil, just like that and without any additions, and enjoy it more than the sweetest of all foods. I can guarantee that every lunch invitation (عزومة) I received during the olive-picking season was a chance for my hosts to share their olive oil using Msakhan (a traditional Palestinian dish).
I now have a deeper understanding of the psychology behind the burning of olive trees by Israeli soldiers and why farmers moan at the scene as if they lost a loved one.
Wherever you are, if it’s accessible to you, make sure your olive oil is Palestinian. Your ancestors would want that.
Absurdist time loop where a guy gets stuck in a time loop for absolutely no apparent reason and tries all this crazy shit and dies a bunch of times and completely reforms his life and then suddenly gets spat out the other side on a completely average loop with no idea what he did that finally fixed it and the answer is like. There was this one (1) ant that he kept stepping on every cycle without even noticing and he doesn’t notice on the last one either he just stopped for an extra three seconds bc he dropped something or whatever. And then didn’t step on the ant. Either the ant is a wizard or a wizard enchanted it to live forever just to see what would happen. The point is the man never knows about it. As far as this guy is aware time just stopped working for six months and then just as randomly started again. He can speak Portuguese and play the viola now.
Alternatively world where time loops are not uncommon as just like, random natural magical phenomena where major ones are prone to coalesce around a Big Event—preventing someone’s death, a love confession, saving the world, etc—but occasionally you’ll get mini versions that just swirl up like a localized rain shower, especially as aftershocks of a Big One, so it’s not uncommon for you to wake up to your roommate looking addled and telling you it’s been Monday for two weeks. “Hey I just got stuck in the time loop and took up crafting, we need to buy crochet supplies now” is a common occurrence. College students frequently make deliberate efforts to snare themselves in time loops to get extra time to study. Athletes and writers hate it because you suddenly have all the time in the world but none of the fruits of your effort will stick around.
For reference, the federal minimum wage would have you earning roughly on average $1,256.66 a month
It’s recommended your rent only be 30% of your total budget, so with an average monthly rent of $1,827 that would mean your average renter’s monthly income should ideally be $6,090
That would be roughly $35.13hourly or $73,080annually
However, the average renter’s household income is only $42,500 annually or $20.43 hourly (as of 2019 according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey)
This means either rent prices are too unsustainably high and price gouging or wages are too unsustainably low and predatory
Or both
(Hint: it’s both)
not to mention most apartments won’t even allow you to apply unless you make 3 times rent.
If you are a landlord I unequivocally hate you.
$7.25 was my state minimum wage in 2000, when I started working. Federal minimum wage was $5.15. That’s a 40% increase in federal minimum wage in the 23 years I’ve been a tax-paying worker.
The average rent in 2000 was $602. Average rent climbed 203% in the 23 years I’ve been a tax-paying worker.
This system never felt right to me in my 23 years of formally being part of it. It’s really sickening and I don’t see how most people can plan their futures when this is what we have to deal with. They weakly increase wages, they massively increase rents, and there’s no catching up without a system-breaking change in regulations.
