my strangest legacy - in high school, for one reason or another (I can’t remember) my friends and I wrote “34 days until March 2nd” on the whiteboard in the drama classroom. It was completely arbitrary but we kept it it up, “30 days until March 2nd” ”23 days until March 2nd” etc. It spread around enough that the entire school is buzzing about what is going to happen on March 2nd. We figure we should think of something and decide to bring in cake. There were about 13 of us in total committed to bringing a cake. On March 2nd, during 3rd period lunch we all entered the cafeteria in a line (the parade of the cakes) and laid them out—a grand cake buffet for everyone in that lunch period. We did it the next year. And after we graduated it kept going.
This past March 2nd was the 9th year they’ve done it. It’s become a school sponsored event. There are t-shirts for this thing every year. March 2nd is cake day. I am a god.
my former teacher sent me a package. it’s the 10th anniversary this year. they’re already getting ready for march 2nd. it’s january.
it’s March 2021 and i’ve been told there will be cake on the 2nd. I was recently sent the t-shirt design for this year. it’s the 16th anniversary and it will be the last March 2nd Cake Day at school for my former teacher who is retiring this year
Last month I caught Covid, and right at the start of my symptoms I saw this post. For the next 8ish days, I was HAUNTED by this song. It played on a loop in my head for hours. I would wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat singing “…mixed with Zach Galifianakis” as it bounced around in my virus-addled brain. It was literally inescapable.
Anyway as soon as that ended, the Morbin Time memes started so you can imagine how that went for me, who would be deliriously sick for another 5 days.
hey since i’m occasionally giving out adult advice. anyone wanna know my very adult and very boring and very sensible suggestion for grief gifts for friends and family when someone close to them dies
alright. this is shamelessly stolen from my godparents when they did this when my grandma passed about ten years ago, and since then i’ve been on both sides of this and it’s surprisingly thoughtful and useful. this is particularly important when people are like, in charge of funeral prep, but anyone who just heard someone close to them just died is gonna be in a certain headspace, so it probably works regardless. people are gonna be sending cards and flowers and other very nice, but ultimately useless gifts.
don’t do that. go to the grocery store and order one of those deli party platters. the ones with like, four different kinds each of meats and cheeses, maybe some sides, and veggies, and bread, and condiments. get the vegetarian version if you know they’re vegetarians. whatever. you know better than i how many people are gonna be eating it, but guess maybe, like, four day’s worth of food.
because, here’s the thing. cards and flowers are very nice, and remind you that you’re in people’s thoughts. but you know what you just. don’t even want to think about when someone dies? making dinner. going to the grocery store. ordering takeout. whatever. you don’t want to have to think about food. you just want to eat in between planning a funeral and working through your grief.
without getting too into it, when my grandma died, we were thrown for a loop. and we ate nothing but what was on that goddamned deli platter for days. because it was quick and easy and fresh and tasted good and we didn’t have to think about food. and ten years later, i don’t remember those cards or flowers, but i sure as hell remember the deli platter.
so next time someone’s going through something, when a family member or close friend just passed. go to your nearest grocery store, and if you can, walk a deli platter over to their place. as soon as you can after you hear. they may look at you weird when you hand it to them, but trust me, in the long run they’re gonna thank you.
There’s a reason the jewish tradition for mourning is that for the first week after someone dies, the immediate family doesnt do ANYTHING but mourn. No Cooking. No Cleaning. No Working. The community comes to handle those things. Bringing every meal, cleaning the mourner’s house(s), etc.
This aint a new concept. its in fact very very old.
When my partner died my friends donated money to a meal service that delivered food to my house. Some of them showed up with food in Pyrex dishes and re-purposed yogurt pots, told me they loved me, and then immediately left.
I will never get over how cared for I felt when the entire callous world collapsed around me, and there were still people in my life who made sure I was fed.
I love it when you can pick up an animator’s quirks.
I’ve read in old interviews with Milt Khal’s fellow animators that he did the swaggle to purposefully show off. Moving the head in 3-d space is an exceptionally hard thing to do but Khal upped the level of difficulty to a place many animators wouldn’t go. Not only are they all doing the swaggle you’ll notice they are all TALKING while they are doing it. This is back in the days where you had to use a timing sheet to pace your animation and a head swaggle doesn’t work if its too slow or too fast so he had to figure out the right speed so it looked natural while the character finishes what they have to say while not interfering with the distinct mouth shapes. Not only did Khal do it without any shifting weight problems or timing issues he would often do it while moving the rest of the body. This isn’t his signature move just because he was good at it.This is his signature move because he was one of the only people skilled enough to DO IT AT ALL.
Milt Khal was a MASTER.
God, I can’t express to you how fucking DELIGHTED I become whenever they Milt Khal Head Swaggle Post graces my dash with its presence again.
Research has shown that pleasure affects nutrient absorption. In a 1970s study of Swedish and Thai women, it was found that when the Thai women were eating their own (preferred) cuisine, they absorbed about 50% more iron from the meal than they did from eating the unfamiliar Swedish food. And the same was true in the reverse for the Swedish women. When both groups were split internally and one group given a paste made from the exact same meal and the other was given the meal itself, those eating the paste absorbed 70% less iron than those eating the food in its normal state.
PLEASURE IS A NECESSARY PART OF HUMAN HEALTH, BOTH PSYCHOLOGICALLY AND PHYSICALLY
this is why you should be eating your chips with salsa and guac instead of beating yourself up for not eating a salad with tomato and avocado (unless you are a salad bitch like me then enjoy both of them!)
