Spent a big chunk of the morning figuring out how to make a gif from a video of my shrimp. Things that were super easy 10 years ago can become a challenge when you don't keep up with the tools. But I did it!

I just realized the week is most definitely NOT almost over.

Yesterday was two months long.

Shai-Hulud has little desire to come out of the sand. African sand boas spend something like 95% of their life in the sand. He makes a big show of it when he does come out, though!

The Aqua Dragons and Sea Monkeys have now been moved into a tank together and will just be "my little shrimp".

https://youtube.com/shorts/hgCoTPAlYDU?si=H88TzXnz1QfxEC-9

When someone asks, "What song were you playing?"

I grew up listening to mockingbirds. That song is the intro to "Dueling Banjos", the intro to "Hallelujah", a verse of "Dust in the Wind", a verse of "Scarborough Fair" melting into "The Hanging Tree", a verse and chorus of "Margaritaville", and it ends with "Leave Her, Johnny".

I finished writing about the "Star Trek: TNG" tarot deck, looking at Minor Arcana this time. The Romulans/Klingons/Wands/Swords relationship has me looking at some things from a different perspective than before I got the deck.

https://open.substack.com/pub/diydiv/p/star-trek-tng-tarot-part-ii

I'm preparing to move my brine shrimp to a legit tank, so doing lots of reading on how to do it right. Pleasantly surprised to discover the Sea Monkeys reddit might be one of the most wholesome places on the Internet!

People give good advice and resources, cheer each other on, and console each other when shrimp die. I was not expecting that.

It's day 150 for my Sea Monkeys! 🥳

https://youtube.com/shorts/vSjzGkHXQhM?si=F2uj2opBQCufAg3M

Because I'm not weird enough...or maybe because I like learning weird stuff... I've gotten some resources from people and will finally start seriously learning about astrology.

I had someone explain it to me as planets and stars not controlling things, but making pictures in the sky that we can look at as patterns of events in cycles. Kind of "well, here's what happened the last few times this was going on". That interests me.

It looks like the people who don't like being called weird are fighting back with, "Oh yeah? Well, I think YOU'RE weird!"

So I still get to be proud of being weird.

My post about the Star Trek:TNG tarot deck was getting much longer than I intended, so part 1 is about the Major Arcana cards I chose to highlight. I'll write about Minor Arcana cards next week.

https://open.substack.com/pub/diydiv/p/star-trek-the-next-generation-tarot

It's been a long day, and in case no one else has told you...I love you. Every one of you. All that is necessary for that is that you exist. Even if we wouldn't get along and be friends, I can still love you. You are a living being. You are worthy of compassion, healing, growth, and so much more. Go back far enough and we have shared ancestors. You are family.

My spouse ordered a Star Trek:TNG tarot deck for me, and it's here now! I was going to write about something else for my Substack this week. But...new cards!

I'm not usually excited by fandom decks. There's a history of just throwing popular characters on cards whether they really match the meaning or not. Star Trek has rich lore, though, and I feel the characters were chosen well for this deck.

Said in household debate about why someone cannot climb into a space someone else can:

"Because my body is not a flat, finely trimmed carpenter's board! MY body is a fine art sculpture made from mashed potatoes!"

We have the best non-arguments around here. 😄

Being able to say that about myself with love and joy was a big step in my healing. And even though I'm not a kid anymore and I do understand what's really being said, some unconscious part of me wants to go hide in my school library and cry while the librarian covers for me again and says she asked me to help with something and my teacher must not have gotten the message.

Kids aren't going to get it. Not all of them. Most likely not the younger ones. Many of them will pick up, "It's not nice to call people names, and it's okay if I'm weird, but weird people shouldn't be President." By the time the do understand it, that still will have done harm.

And I'm kind of afraid that proudly saying I'm weird will turn into people thinking I'm saying that's who I voted for. Again, they embraced "deplorable".

I have realized over the past few days that this whole "weird" thing is raising my anxiety. The people it's aimed at might just embrace it. (Remember "deplorable"?) And I have spent a lot of my life learning to love being "weird". Learning to stop trying to bend myself into fitting others' expectations so they won't give me That Look and say, "You are WEIRD..."

How do we tell kids it's okay to be weird while they also hear, "Don't vote for the weird guy"?