@Fragarach I look like I’ve been burgled by someone who doesn’t like plants

@MaksiSanctum At 64 years old, I am pretty confident in my life choices and what I require for comfort. My sense of self is pretty firmly rooted by now..

I am interested in your apparent (perhaps I'm not reading it right?) opposition to doing/changing things for other people to make them comfortable in your environment.

As if somehow it is a betrayal of one's own sense of self to make any change that might make another person more comfortable. M

@EvelineSulman I can see how it could, although I don't understand it on an emotional level. Maybe a little messiness makes people feel relaxed?

@CartyBoston hahahah. Will you come mess my place up?

Of course, today I'm prepping for some guests coming for lunch tomorrow, and I'm thinking.... should I mess the place up a bit?

Do I live in a sterile environment? If mess could make me feel uncomfortable, does excessive order make other people feel uncomfortable?

Yesterday we went to visit some friends up the coast, and after lunch we went to their apartment.

It hit me like a ton of bricks that I might be a tad obsessive, because their apartment was so full of stuff, so scattered with THINGS, so disordered and messy that I almost couldn't breathe.

I didn't think I was that way. It's not that I judge them by it, but that my own senses get totally overwhelmed by it. I can't focus on a conversation, even.

@janeishly A long time ago, when I lived in Vancouver, I was a volunteer interpreter at refugee claim hearings. At that time, in Vancouver, it was mostly people fleeing El Salvador.

"A Devon and Cornwall police spokesperson said: “The Devon and Cornwall police professional standards department carefully reviewed the complaint, but as the interpreter was employed by a third party and not the force, no further action was taken.”

Do the police no longer consider fraud a crime?

Because pretending to be an interpreter, and not faithfully interpreting IS fraud.

This is the most unforgivable sin that an interpreter can ever commit.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/may/30/chinese-dissident-says-he-was-berated-by-pro-regime-interpreter-for-uk-police

It's not that I'm a huge fan of Cuba's current government.

It's that it should be up to Cubans what government they have. And since they managed to have a revolution once, they are entirely capable of having another, if they wish.

What the US wants shouldn't fucking play into it.

@vruz Good point.

You know, you need clay, a piece of smoothed wood or plastic, a bent piece of sharpened metal, a tiny piece of old cloth and a piece of fucking string.

You need some glaze you can make yourself, and a few oxides.

And you can make the most breathtakingly wonderful things.

@teadrinker Exactly this Bec. It is something that bonds us all together.

To me there is a profound and inherent dignity in this. To make vessels that hold water, hold food, cook food, hold oil, etc.

I do not know why it touches me so deeply, but it does.

Having every specialised tool identified by brand name just shits on all of that for me.

But if you live somewhere rural with some space, even building your own kiln is not that hard. Many people around the world fire pottery in fire pits in the open air.

Women, primarily, all over the world making cooking pots by coil building. Clay and water, and maybe a bit of sand.

@NicksWorld Exactly. That's definitely the object, of course.

@CartyBoston I'm referring specifically to the ceramics community, and to instructional videos.

What I love most about pottery is how universal it is. How little it requires in terms of materials. You can gather and process your own clay, you can repurpose kitchen utensils, plastic cards, etc. for tools. You can hand build on a kitchen table. You can mix and refine your own pigments and glazes. Firing is really the only thing that requires something complicated. Especially if you live in the city.

One of the things I've noticed in pottery videos from the US is just how often they name brands. Brands of clay, of glaze, of forms, of tools. It's like one long ad.

This offends me at such a primal level, that I cannot concentrate on learning anything from the tutorial. The constant encroachment of consumerism triggers a blind refusal to listen.

This must be a European thing, because Americans don't seem bothered by it at all.
#pottery #ceramics #consumerism

@SuneAuken @askekammer

Some days it feels like half my timeline is in Finnish.