Fidget toys can be really hit-or-miss. For me especially, since my tactile sensory issues can quickly make something that once seemed fun into my personal sensory hell. Here are the ones I’ve found that have worked for me.
I really like these stress balls that have Orbeez-like things in them. They’re not too difficult to squeeze, so they aren’t great for coping with anger since you might break it, but the little balls inside are really satisfying to feel and squish. Great for distracting yourself during tough conversations or to absentmindedly hold while doing work.
I call them my worms. I like to whip them around. They’re squishy and all have different textures, which is nice for variety. Having them inspired a friend to get their own. 10/10 recommend.
You literally don’t understand how satisfying these things are. The noise they make is indescribable. It stimulates some part of my brain that I didn’t even know existed. I want one of these so bad.
Kinetic sand – especially this color and texture – is amazing. It kind of sticks together with glue-like strands separating it, and I love it so much. I like letting it stretch out than grabbing the glue strands. It’s super nice to feel and play with.
I’ve totally gotten back into rainbow loom bracelet making in the past two weeks. I’ve made over 10 bracelets so far. It’s not exactly a traditional fidget, but it really works for me. I’ve used it as a coping skill for breakdowns, too, and it works pretty well, especially if you make it on your fingers instead of a loom. Plus, you have something tangible to keep with you when you’re done!
Anyways, those are my favorite fidgets right now. I’ve been using them almost every day to get through the difficult stuff. I definitely recommend getting fidgets if they sound interesting. Most are pretty low-budget, but they work super well. I, for one, have used them much more than their low prices suggest they should be used.
There I was, a passenger in my mom’s car at night, on my way to my grandparents’ house, when I saw him.
I noticed a shape out of the corner of my eye, but I hardly thought anything of it. I’m a naturally curious person, though, so I turned my head to look at it from a better angle after a moment.
At first I thought it was a cat. However, if it were a cat, it’d be a very short one, and it had toes that were unlike any cat I’d ever seen. My next thought was that it might be a huge rat.
And then it hit me.
I quickly exclaimed to my mom, “We have to turn around! I think I just saw a possum!”
My mom whipped a three-point-turn in the middle of the road and stopped just in front of the driveway of the stranger’s house. In the illumination of the KIA’s headlights, I saw him.
It was an opossum.
Over my mom’s warnings of, “Don’t you dare get out of the car and chase him!” I whipped out my phone and started taking pictures of the beautiful little guy. A second later, he heard our engine (for opossums have bad eyesight and the lights didn’t bother him) and scurried away. And he was fast!
See, most opossums are pretty slow. They meander at their own pace through yards and forests, and when confronted, they aren’t fast enough to run away from predators like mountain lions or bears, so they have a freeze reaction and play dead.
But this little guy went running like he had been training for this moment his whole life. In the blink of an eye, his short little legs went flying and he sprinted up the driveway at the fastest trot I’ve ever seen and proceeded to climb the outdoor stairs into the person’s yard.
He was out of sight – but certainly not out of mind – in just seconds. And then my mom, my grandparents, and later my aunt had to listen to my happy cries of, “A possum!! Oh, a possum!!” for the rest of the night.
I named him Bruce Banner.
Photo Credit: me (treefroggy)
Sorry for the wonky quality– the best quality picture I got showed too much of the street around the house for me to comfortably post it. Privacy, and all that. You can still see Bruce’s beauty and his speedy legs.
So I’ve been reading books for fun for the first time in about 4 years now, and I just finished Song of Achilles.
One word: devastating.
That’s not to say it’s bad- in fact, it was one of the best books I’ve ever read. However, it was horribly sad, which is expected with Greek myths and renditions of them, since everybody dies in most myths.
A quick synopsis of the book would be “two boys fall in love then go to war and die,” but there’s so much more to the story than that. It’s exciting, sweet, sad, and heartbreaking. There’s a ton of angst in it, especially during wartime, which is honestly my favorite part. It does end with a bittersweet happy ending, though, so it’s not just emotional torment to read.
If you read the Percy Jackson books, you’ll probably love this book. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes Greek mythology, gay love, and angst. It’s got a ton of all three.
I’ve been traveling a lot recently, and it’s just reminded me how terrible traveling is for me. I really can’t ever travel healthily. It always ends up with me needing days to recover and feeling completely out of it both mentally and physically.
Mostly I hate flying on planes. The altitude really affects my ears, so I’m popping them for even weeks after I fly sometimes. Not even eating something or chewing gum helps. I have to be wearing the special pressurized earplugs and chewing gum to even feel somewhat okay when the plane takes off or lands.
Besides my ears hurting a ton, I get super swollen from flying. My fingers get too big for my rings to fit on them and my feet swell up so I have to loosen my shoeslaces a ton for them to fit into my shoes. Probably because I don’t drink enough water, but I lose my appetite and feel sick when I eat or drink anything when I fly, so I can’t really force myself to drink. Also, nobody likes going to the bathroom on planes. I avoid it if I can.
photo credit: tibco.com
When I get to my destination, I’m always so exhausted that I can barely even remember the events that happened when I look back on the memory. I get overwhelmed so easily when I travel that I’m on the edge of having a meltdown. It’s not super fun to go through a ton of pain just to forget why I was even there and only remember being agitated.
When I get back home, I need several business days to rest before I really feel like myself again. It takes a long time for my body to readjust to being home, but it takes my mind even longer. I have super realistic dreams every time I sleep, and when I’ve just traveled they’re even worse because I wake up and don’t even know where I am. It’s hard for the fact that I’m home to register in my brain, and I’m still in fight or flight mode from the new environments freaking me out, so I just end up in a terrible mental state for a week or two after traveling for even just two days.
Needless to say, I need a good few months of being strictly at home again. Honestly, that was one part of lockdown that I didn’t mind- I didn’t get to travel anywhere.
It’s no secret that I love opossums. I would do anything to have one as a pet. If I could wake up and be holding an opossum’s little toes, I would never have any problems for the rest of my life. I seriously am obsessed with those little guys. Every day I dream about coming home to an opossum and kissing its little forehead and petting its soft fur. I fantasize about finding an opossum on the side of the road and getting to hold it on my lap while I drive it to the vet. I just want to love on an opossum.
If I had an opossum, I would spoil it so much. I would give it little hats and feed it all the food it wanted. Any opossum that lived with me would live the best life ever. I would give my opossums cuddles every day and take them on walks so they stay healthy. Seriously, just give me a chance to have one of those little guys. I would take amazing care of them. I think I deserve a pet opossum.
A year or two, I had a puzzle games hyperfixation. Instead of going on TikTok or watching YouTube, I would listen to music and play puzzle games for hours. They’re actually super fun. Here’s my favorite ones.
Connect
The connecting games are definitely my favorite ones. When I got a new puzzle game, I would be done with every single tier of difficulty (each having around 100 levels to play) within an hour or two. They’re super fun and I don’t know why. There’s just something so satisfying about figuring out the way that they all go together after thinking about it and trying different combinations.
App: Puzzledom
Car Parking
The car parking puzzles are addicting. There’s a game I have that’s just car parking puzzles and as far as I can tell, it has an infinite amount of levels. (I’m on level 1,466, so I’m pretty sure there’s not an end to the levels.) The escape games can be included in this category since it’s exactly the same game, but I prefer the ones where you’re moving around cars instead of just blocks.
App: Let Me Out
Tangram
I first played with tangrams in, like, second grade. Tangrams seriously felt like a fever dream until I found a game that had a tangram category and I realized that I hadn’t made up the concept and gaslit myself into thinking it was real. Anyways, they’re fun.
App: Puzzeldom
Blocks/Hexa Puzzle
These are kind of the same as the tangrams, but a little different. I like them. That’s all.
App: Puzzledom
Word Shatter
For some reason, I really like word puzzles. The word shatter kind is my favorite since it’s like a word search but less frustrating. An honorable mention is the word soup kind of game where you make words from a certain collection of letters.
App: Numpuz
I play most of these on apps that have a collection of different puzzle games. My favorite apps like that are Puzzledom and Numpuz (not sponsored by them, but I wish). I play my car game on an app called Let Me Out, which is just the car puzzle. Go check the apps out, but be warned- they’re addictive.
I’m from the U.S., so it shouldn’t be surprising that I have a vendetta against England. There’s literally no way to explain how it started other than that I’m from the U.S.. I’ve just uncontrollably despised England since I was born. Anyways, here we go.
They drive on the left side of the road
Driving on the left side of the road is just fundamentally wrong. It doesn’t make sense. The majority of people in the world are right-handed, so theoretically, people should drive on the right side of the road. Also, pretty much every country other than the ones that used to be controlled by England drive on the right side of the road. By the law of “majority rules,” England is incorrect.
Hear me out on this one. Yes, the metric system makes a lot more sense for generic measurements, HOWEVER– using kilometers per hour is stupid. I know that pretty much all of Europe uses kilometers per hour and Celsius, but this article is about England specifically so I’m gonna pick on them. Using Celsius and kilometers per hour is dumb because they have no standard of what’s too much or too little. Hang in there, I’ll explain. 0 degrees Fahrenheit is way too cold, and 100 degrees Fahrenheit is way too hot. And 0 miles per hour is too slow while 100 miles per hour is too fast. Celsius not only doesn’t apply to the human body, but it has no reasonable standard of being too hot or cold. Like 0 degrees Celsius isn’t incredibly cold, but a human would die at 100 degrees Celsius. Celsius was a measurement system created for water, not humans. And I think it’s convenient that there’s the same metric of what’s too big or too little between Fahrenheit and miles per hour. This reasoning might sound stupid, but I’m sticking by it.
This one is really dumb. I’m not even gonna try to defend myself. I just think their accents are unattractive. Australian accents? Wonderful. Scottish accents? Great. German accents? Really pretty. English accents? Gross. The only good thing about their accents is that they’re really easy to mock.
Like, in this economy? Something’s gotta be wrong with them if they think having a monarchy and a democracy at the same time is a smart idea. I mean, I don’t know much about how a monarchy works, but I know that it didn’t work out well for France, so I’m gonna assume it’s a bad idea overall. Plus, the royal family mostly works as a publicity stunt. They should just get rid of it.
Boris Johnson sucks so much. To be fair, I’m pretty sure that a good amount of people in England agree with me, but I’m still gonna hold it against them. I don’t like him.
Since I’ve already hated on them so much, I guess I’ll put in something I like about England.
Russell Howard is from England
Russell Howard is a comedian with his own show from England. He’s really funny. I love him. He’s probably the only good thing that came out of England.
I hope you enjoyed reading my passionate ranting about hating England. I don’t get super patriotic very often, but I definitely whip out the stars and stripes when England comes up in conversation. I will never stop arguing for why I don’t like England.
I’m a big animal person. When I’m an adult, I’m probably going to have a ton of pets that I either own or am fostering. Here are some of the pets I want the most.
A cat (hairless or otherwise)
I’m allergic to cats, so if I get a cat in the next few years, it’ll probably have to be a hairless cat or a cat with hypoallergenic hair. I recently started allergy shots, but it’ll take a few years before I get to a point where I can actually have a non-hypoallergenic cat without problems. In the meantime, I’ll keep feeding my neighborhood cat so that my house is his favorite house on the block.
I have one dog right now, but I want to have a lot more in the future. I really like bigger dogs like retrievers and shepherds, so I’d love to have a few when I have my own house. Small dogs are super cute too, though. Honestly, I love all dogs.
This one shouldn’t be a surprise. I wouldn’t keep them as pets, but I would like to care for disabled opossums that can’t live in the wild. Besides, opossums actually live longer in captivity than they do in the wild. I’ll give them fun outfits.
Photo credit: @itsmesesame on Instagram
Rats
Rats are really cute, and they actually make pretty good pets. They usually have to live in bigger groups so they don’t get lonely, so I’ll have a rat colony. They don’t live super long, which is really sad, but I still want to give them good lives.
My best friend has leopard geckos and crested geckos, and I’m in love with them. Most lizards actually live for a really long time– leopard geckos live about 15 years and crested geckos can live 15-20 years. They also have pretty dynamic personalities. Some of my friend’s lizards like to be left alone in their enclosures, and some like to be held and played with. I think they would make for really fun pets.
Honestly, I could keep going on about the pets I want, but I’ll probably have my hands completely full if I end up getting all of these animals.
I started watching Attack On Titan a few days ago and I really like it so far. I’m not super far in – I’m on episode 11 right now – but I thought it’d be cool to list my favorite characters so far and see how the list changes as I keep watching. I’m not gonna make a specific order because honestly a lot of them are tied for their rankings. There might be spoilers in here, but only for like the very beginning of the series.
Mikasa
Mikasa is probably my #1 right now. I really like her. She’s super powerful and hardcore, but she shows her emotions too. I like how she’s basically a big sister to Armin and Eren and loves them like they’re her family but she will also smack them if they’re being stupid. Eren especially just needs to be smacked sometimes, and Mikasa will do it without hesitation. She’s so cool.
I love Armin. He’s almost always scared and crying, but he’s also brave and really smart. I also love his relationships with Eren and Mikasa. They’re always encouraging him and telling him how important he is and he’s always managing to save them with his smart plans. Poor Armin is just a little insecure blond boy. He needs more confidence. I’m excited to see how he grows throughout the series.
Levi has only been on screen like two times so far but I like him. Mostly because he’s super powerful and really caring. Also, he’s hot. I don’t know, he hasn’t really been developed yet. I’ll probably have valid reasons to like him further into the show.
Jean is cool. I first started liking him when they were in the boot camp and he was pretty much the only person who wasn’t a jerk to Eren, Armin, and Mikasa. He’s had good character development so far, too. He’s definitely a leader, even if he denies it.
Those are my favorite characters so far. Eren isn’t in there because I think he’s whiny and kind of annoying. I’ll make an update of my favorite characters after I finish the series so I can see what’s changed.
I haven’t really been into Taylor Swift’s music since elementary school, but I really like the 10-minute version of All Too Well. Here are my favorite lyrics from it.
“Til we were dead and gone and buried Check the pulse and come back swearing it’s the same After three months in the grave”
Love the metaphor here. I feel like I’ve also been in a toxic, loveless relationship when I hear this lyric.
“You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath”
If your partner is trying to hide your relationship when you’ve told them you don’t want to, that’s a red flag. They’re definitely doing something shady if they’re completely against having a public relationship when you want one.
“And you call me up again just to break me like a promise So casually cruel in the name of being honest”
This lyric is really pretty. I love it. I don’t like people who say mean things and then try to excuse their words because they’re “just saying” or “just being honest.” Like, it’s not that hard to not be a jerk.
“You said if we had been closer in age maybe it would have been fine And that made me want to die”
This lyric definitely sums up the fundamental problem with Taylor’s relationship with the unnamed man (who is Jake Gyllenhaal). Taylor was only 20 when she started dating a 29-year-old. It might not seem like a big gap because they were both legal adults, but that’s the same age gap between a 16-year-old and a 25-year-old. That perspective makes the age gap clearly inappropriate. Also, Taylor was barely an adult. She had only been of age for two years, whereas Jake had been an adult for over ten years. She realizes later that he took advantage of her because she was young and is ashamed of it.
“But you keep my old scarf from that very first week Cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me”
Here’s another lyric that points out the problem of their relationship. Her scarf reminds him of innocence because she was barely an adult when he started dating her. She was young and innocent, and she didn’t realize that their relationship was inappropriate until it was over. Jake went after her because she was young, pretty, and didn’t know any better.
“Wind in my hair, you were there You remember it all”
This lyric is a reprise of the end of the first chorus. Taylor changes the lyric from “I was there I remember it all.” to address Jake and say “you were there you remember it all.” It points out that Taylor wasn’t solely at fault for ending up in a bad relationship with someone too old for her. Jake was also there, and Jake knew exactly what he was doing. He remembers everything too, but he doesn’t have the same shame around the relationship that Taylor does. Taylor didn’t know that the relationship wasn’t okay, but Jake did and he pursued her anyways.
“And I was never good at telling jokes, but the punch line goes I’ll get older, but your lovers stay my age”
I love the blatant call-out. It’s also completely accurate. Jake’s current girlfriend, Jeanne Cadieu, is 25 years old. He’s 40 years old. It doesn’t take a psychologist to realize all the reasons why this isn’t okay at all, but for reference – Jake would be 21 years old (the legal drinking age in the U.S.) while Jeanne was 6 (in 1st grade in the U.S.). With an age gap this big, it doesn’t matter if they’re both of legal age right now because it doesn’t change the fact that there’s a huge gap in maturity, experience, and understanding of right and wrong. The age gap is completely ridiculous and frankly disgusting.
In conclusion, Jake Gyllenhaal is a creep and a borderline pedophile. If this statement seems like an exaggeration, consider the fact that if Jake was attracted to a 25-year-old when he was 40 and a 20-year-old when he was 29, it’s reasonable to assume that he was attracted to minors when he was in his early and mid-twenties. He has a pattern of dating people that are much younger than him.
I really like this song even though the content is sad. I reccomend listening to it.
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