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Carrion Luggage

Carrion Luggage

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Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem.

This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it.

It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans.

It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier."

I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination.


August 18, 2025 at 9:35am
August 18, 2025 at 9:35am
#1095491
An important message from Self from two years ago:

    What to Do When You’re Super Cranky and Hate Everyone  Open in new Window.
When the group chat ping instantly makes you irrationally irritated, it’s time to take a beat.


Wait, I thought that was the default state for everyone. No? Just me? Fine. Go away.

Once in a while I wake up inexplicably cranky. There’s nothing specifically wrong, per se. It’s just that, for whatever reason, everyone around me gets on my nerves.

They used to just call that "waking up on the wrong side of the bed."

My husband will come into our home office and distract me at the exact moment I start writing effortlessly after struggling with writer’s block.

What? That's his JOB.

My mom will call with some gossip about a person from high school I haven’t thought about (by choice) in 18 years.

What is this supernatural ability to choose not to think about someone or something?

A friend will send me 10 photos of their baby that I just don’t feel like looking at (I’m terrible).

Nope, you're normal. Babies are ugly to everyone except their parents, and sometimes, I think even they are lying.

My dog, it seems, is the only creature I can tolerate being around, and that’s because he’s perfect.

And yet, if there were a human who acted exactly like the dog: finding some way to wag their tail, for instance, barking at nothing, begging for walks, whining, licking your face, etc., you'd be enraged at them, too.

Adjoa Smalls-Mantey, MD, a psychiatrist based in New York City, tells SELF that there are lots of reasons why you might suddenly feel so irritated with the people around you—sleep deprivation, for example, can put you on edge, as can feeling stressed out about work or school.

As can living and/or working in New York City.

All of these things can influence the amount of cortisol—the primary stress hormone—in your body, Dr. Smalls-Mantey says, and turn you into a real-life Scrooge.

Oh, yeah. Cortisol. The latest buzzword in pop biopsych.

When I’m peeved, the last thing I want to do is reflect on and accept how fundamentally frazzled I am, but this can actually help you perk up a bit, according to Tom McDonagh, PsyD, a clinical psychologist at Good Therapy SF in San Francisco.

If the quoted person didn't go on to compare this favorably to mindfulness, I might be inclined to agree.

When I’m having one of these days, I’m miffed before anyone actually does anything to annoy me: I’ll see a text pop up on my phone and be like, Ugh, this is going to suck! without even seeing what the message is about. Rather than assuming your interactions with people are going to be dreadful, try to flip your POV and consider that they might be tolerable (who knows, they could even be positive!), Dr. Smalls-Mantey suggests.

Or, and hear me out here, just accept that it's going to suck. That way, either it doesn't, and you're pleasantly surprised, or it does, and you're pleasantly smug because you were right.

Another way to get through this testy time: Come up with a game plan that’ll make your hangs less irksome, Dr. Smalls-Mantey recommends.

Apparently, they're calling casual social interactions "hangs" now. This irks me.

Dr. McDonagh says that irritability, in general, is a result of shifting into fight-or-flight mode—the stress response that occurs when your body perceives some sort of danger or threat. As a result, he says, certain hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline, flood your system, and that can temporarily make you tense.

To cope, he suggests taking some deep breaths.


Bullshit evo-psych "fight-or-flight" speculation. But hey, if the controlled breathing works, then it works. Unless you're in an area currently blanketed by pollutants and/or wildfire smoke, it probably can't hurt.

Sleepiness is one of the top reasons people get cranky with others, studies show. “If you’re tired or exhausted, you have to stop and rest,” Dr. Smalls-Mantey says.

This would be at the very top of my personal list. But then, I'm not in a situation where I have to interact all that much with other people, and can sleep more or less when I choose.

Now, as the disclaimer at the bottom of the linked article states, this isn't medical advice. Personally, I accept that I'll be in a bad mood from time to time, and I call it another opportunity to convince people to leave me alone.

There's a doormat I need to obtain somehow. I saw it in the Marvel series Ironheart. It reads:

Live.
Laugh.
Leave.


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