An Electric Eel From D. Marcus Elieser Bloch's, Ausübenden Arztes Zu Berlin ... Oeconomische Naturgeschichte

It's 2025 in four months and I'm still trying to figure out if I died in 2016 or not

this isn’t autism, but when I get stressed about people not emailing me back in a timely manner, I go and make a chart of their past email response times, find the average, plot the average on my calendar, and then wait for that date to be stressed

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

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The Daily Dot

King Arthur Flour is getting boycotted—after conservatives discover it has a baking program for people of color

King Arthur Baking Company is coming under fire for holding a competition exclusively for people of color-owned businesses and brands.

According to the company’s website, “Baking Pitchfest 2024” offers a product edition geared toward baking brands founded and owned by people of color across the U.S., and a bakery edition, which focuses on people of color-owned bakeries in the Northeast and Washington state. “Half mentorship, half competition, Baking Pitchfest is an accelerator program designed to foster greater inclusivity and creativity in the baking world by providing equitable opportunities for People of Color entrepreneurs,” the website states, adding that winners will receive financial support, mentorship, and exposure. But the initiative has generated outrage amongst conservatives online, who have blasted the competition eligibility rules as discriminatory against white people.

One X user critical of King Arthur Baking’s contest posted an email she received from the company in response to her complaining. “Helping build joyful, equitable communities that celebrate diversity is an important part of who we are as a company,” the email states, later adding: “We love baking with anyone and everyone. Our simple expectation is that everyone show respect for one another.”

Das Thier in der decorativen Kunst - Anton Seder - 1896 - via Internet Archive

Swiss Brassy Ringlet (Erebia tyndarus), family Nymphalidae, found in the Alps of Europe

photos by böhringer friedrich & Clarisse Dayer Micheloud

Oh sunk-cost fallacy, we're really in it now. We are in fact so really in it that if we quit now then everything we did would have all been for nothing and so we have to keep going in

does it ever get better? has it gotten better? will it get better? when will it get better?