Dealing With The Worst Case Scenario

There's something hilarious about how so much subsequent media has positioned Vampires and Werewolves as, like, binary opposite entities, and then you read Dracula (1897) and realize that wolves are that guy's preferred solution to every problem. You'd say something to Dracula about "ah yes, werewolves, vampires' great eternal enemies," and he'd just be like "you mean my subcontractors?"

“I very proudly entered the forestry school as an 18-year-old and telling them that the reason that I wanted to study botany was because I wanted to know why asters and goldenrod looked so beautiful together. These are these amazing displays of this bright, chrome yellow and deep purple of New England aster, and they look stunning together. And the two plants so often intermingle rather than living apart from one another, and I wanted to know why that was. I thought that surely in the order and the harmony of the universe, there would be an explanation for why they looked so beautiful together. And I was told that that was not science, that if I was interested in beauty, I should go to art school. Which was really demoralizing as a freshman, but I came to understand that question wasn’t going to be answered by science, that science, as a way of knowing, explicitly sets aside our emotions, our aesthetic reactions to things. We have to analyze them as if they were just pure material, and not matter and spirit together. And, yes, as it turns out, there’s a very good biophysical explanation for why those plants grow together, so it’s a matter of aesthetics and it’s a matter of ecology. Those complimentary colors of purple and gold together, being opposites on the color wheel, they’re so vivid, they actually attract far more pollinators than if those two grew apart from one another. So each of those plants benefits by combining its beauty with the beauty of the other. And that’s a question that science can address, certainly, as well as artists. And I just think that “Why is the world so beautiful?” is a question that we all ought to be embracing.”

— Robin Wall Kimmerer, “The Intelligence of Plants”, from the podcast On Being with Krista Tippett

In high school one of the common fund raisers was carnation flowers for a dollar during prom season and valentines and a couple other times of year. And you could “order” flowers to be delivered to kids during their homeroom times so it was always a big deal to get flowers and it was super fun

But one of these fundraisers I had a guy friend who commented he never got any because he was always single or his girlfriend always expected flowers but never gave him any

So my senior year valentines I decided I was going to buy all the guys in my homeroom (which he was in) a carnation and said they were from “Anonymous Girl in your homeroom”

So the day came and all the guys started getting flowers and they all realized they were from the same one girl and all got super excited and giddy and protective of their flowers and all day long I saw the guys in my homeroom wear flowers behind their ears or stuffed in their notebooks and they flaunted them around to other guys that didn’t get flowers. One guy tried to see if it would make his girlfriend jealous. A couple of them tried to play detective to figure it out who it was.

Then the next day apparently they all (or at least most of them) got together and bought all the girls in homeroom a carnation as a thank you to whoever it was so every girl in my homeroom got a bouquet of one from every guy (so it was a bouquet of about a dozen) and every single girl was smiling and happy and bouncy as the guys were the day before

And no one ever knew it was me but I was always super proud of that

You know what the second I stopped saying “I wish I had a friend who-“ and started being “the friend who-“ my life has gotten 100% more fulfilling

tag yourself

inspired by my awesome talented wife @grrlterrier❣️

So this is just a PSA, y'all should never sign a contract until you read it. I’m talking in rl right now. I just got through reading my employee handbook/service contract and my bosses slipped in a lot of bullshit like telling me I can’t complain about my job on social media, demanding I work off the clock in the name of good service, expects me to show up on time during inclimate weather, and considered disability or religious accommodation a direct threat to the company.

These are all things I took issue with and brought to my employer for further discussion before signing the contract. Most of my coworkers signed without reading, treating it like an internet terms of service contract.

Tl;dr real life is serious shit, lawyers write contracts to protect your employer FROM YOU, read contracts before you sign them - fucking ARGUE about contracts before you sign them

when the wellerman comes

the origin of the letter 🇦

(from the documentary The Secret History of Writing, 2020)