Relish

I always thought that human skulls for cups was kind of an impractical idea.

 It’s not a flagon, it’s not a goblet, it’s kind of a cup, I guess, but more of a mug, which is surprisingly hilarious to me. The initial cleaning would be a pain in the ass unless you lived near the ocean and could let the crabs and little fishes do it for you, but that takes a while (I know this because I’ve done it with a Pelican skull, which I never tried to drink out of), and I imagine that a large part of the entire thing about drinking out of the skull of your enemy, or whatever they were to you, is relish, and relish has a pretty truncated shelf life. It’s pretty much a ‘when the blood is hot’ kind of emotional condiment, and I don’t see it keeping fresh for the month or so that a marine cleaning of a human skull would likely take. It’s got holes in it, too, so you’d have to patch those up, and lace the jaw so it doesn’t keep falling off, and then it’ll sit all crooked, so you’d be wise to keep at least a couple of the c-spine vertebrae around to prop it up on. If you had six or seven vertebrae, I guess that’s the whole neck, attached to the skull like a stem, you could probably get away with calling it a goblet, but then you’d need a sturdy base of some sort, like maybe a foot, but then that’s approaching an artisan level of skullduggery that ill suits the profile of a mug mug user unless you’re religious. They’re. Unless THEY’RE religious. I’m not religious. Skull mug mugs are stupid. Think about it, even if you get it all sealed up, and scrubbed, and laced together, and are unconcerned enough about (likely) a lot of murders, it’s still going to be too uncomfortable in your hand to properly relish if there’s even any of that left in the jar. Part of the joy, for me anyway, of a good mug, is how it feels in the hand, and how evenly and slowly it dissipates the heat of your drink, and I just don’t see that happening if you’re drinking out of a human skull, so if you’re drinking out of a human skull, you’re probably a fucking idiot.

 It’s good to relish things, and I like the idea of emotional condiments. Relish is a gross word, though, like moist, which is why nobody uses it, but it’s good to do things that make you uncomfortable sometimes, as you may have just experienced. If you feel called out for your choice of mug, I’m not sorry.

 I often ignore that there is a process to everything that I witness and experience. Sometimes I forget, but more often I ignore because it’s a lot to think about, and it can make me unwell by way of taking me away from simply enjoying, and just having as opposed to trying. It’s peaceful when I’m able to narrow down my attention to what’s in front of me instead of operating like a good antenna coupled with a crappy radio that receives all input, welcome or not, and makes awful, unenjoyable noises with it, and I’ve been doing that a little too much lately. It’s unsettling how far your behaviour can slip out of normal if it happens slowly enough, and your attentions are diverted. It’s easy to blame it on a short sleep, or the pressures of school, or a sore back, when, in fact, it’s your mental health that’s in need of you. I have been a challenge to be around for a bit, I’ve been struggling, and without purpose. It took my counsellor less than two minutes to see that I was in a poor state. I hadn’t seen her for months, so it was obvious to her that I wasn’t managing life as well as I had been. It’s tough when your life changes a lot, when you move around as much as I have, but there’s a fine line between taking ownership of your life, and the choices that you’ve made, and being unnecessarily cruel in response to your own shortcomings.

I’m coming out of a dark time. If you know anything about struggling with mental health, you also know that it’s rarely a solitary endeavour. There’s always someone that’s hoping you’re going to be ok, and that your behaviour will improve, that your pain will ease, and that you will be able to ease theirs so that you can enjoy the small pleasures of life together again. I have someone like that.

I let things slip. I acted like a version of myself that I thought I had left behind for good. It’s not good, and I didn’t like it.

There’s a process to things. I need to remember that improvement is never a steady incline, and even if everything in the universe is set up for you to succeed, no one gave you any instructions for being you. What you got was a menu, and it’s in a different language, and you ordered a shitty sandwich because you took your best guess because you didn’t feel like asking what was recommended. Again.

Good thing you’ve got relish.

Use it while it’s fresh.

Then ask for seconds.