STAY SAFE AND HEAL WELL FRIEND, SENDING YOU WELL WISHES AND HOPING YOU GET BETTER QUICK

Okay, buckle up buckaroos, because today I met an honest-to-goodness cryptid.

I was out running errands and I made a stop at Intimate Books (…for a friend), and on my way out I realized that the bookshop next door was open.

This bookshop has existed for more than a hundred years, and in all my life it has NEVER BEEN OPEN. I mean, I assume it has to be open sometimes, but never at any normal, reasonable hour. Everyone says it’s a front for the mob or something.

So what do you do when the weird mafia bookshop is open? You go the fuck inside.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. You know that smell when you accidentally leave your towel on the bathroom floor all day and you come back to that mildew funk? The shop smelled like that times a thousand. I expected to see stuff growing on the walls, but the books were pristine. We’re talking first editions, rare editions, weird Bibles and books inscribed to really famous dead people. Librarians would weep for the chance to accession this place. In the first two minutes I found a signed copy of The Crucible and what I think was a first edition of Blake’s Book of Thel.

Then a clerk showed up out of nowhere—honestly nowhere. He looked EXACTLY like a bookseller should look, kind of fluffy and bewildered and really, really gay.

“Are you lost?” was the first thing he said to me.

“Nope. Just browsing, thanks.”

“Browsing, I see. Erm. How do you feel about snakes?” he asked. And without waiting for me to answer, he just walked away and vanished around a shelf.

I figured it was a metaphor, or a code phrase for the mafia. Until I turned a corner like ten minutes later and found a little reading nook. It was really pretty, although I feel like that particular window should have been on an interior wall? Anyway, curled up in an armchair in a patch of sunlight was the biggest fuck-off black snake I have ever seen.

Like, I don’t mind snakes in general. But in their normal context, right? Outside. On the ground. Not six feet long and sitting on a threadbare velvet armchair like it owns the place.

I was about to turn around and leave, but I saw a gorgeous first-edition copy of Leaves of Grass on a shelf, a little too close to the snake for comfort. But I had never needed anything so badly in my life.

So I went back to the counter to buy it, but the clerk was nowhere to be found.

While I was waiting, I noticed a collection of pictures hanging on the wall behind the counter, dating back to the very dawn of photography. A couple were of this rock-star looking guy from the 70s that I should probably have recognized, but there were authors and landscapes and stuff, too. There was even an old tintype portrait of Oscar freaking Wilde, sitting in this very shop with a guy that I would ACTUALLY SWEAR was the clerk from before. Like, I know my family all has the same nose, but this guy had the same everything.

After approximately one year of waiting, the clerk came back out to the desk. By now I’ve realized that he’s too bad at his job to be anything but the owner of the shop.

“I saw your snake,” I told him.

“Did you? Was he behaving himself?”

“He was sleeping.”

“Yes, he enjoys that.”

“Does he just stay out in the open like that? What if he gets out?”

He shrugged and smiled. “He always comes home again, the dear boy.”

Right, a homing snake. That’s totally normal.

Then he cleared his throat and asked, in a weirdly reluctant voice, if I was going to buy the Whitman.

“Yes, please,” I told him. “I saw it on a shelf by the snake, and it was just too tempting.”

He sighed. “Oh, yes, I expect it was.”

When I started to hand him my card, he went all fluttery and said that they didn’t take cards.

All right, fine. I had some cash on me, but I told him that he’d sell a lot more books if he got a Square or something.

He got this scandalized look on his face and went, “Why would I want to do that?”

Oookay. I handed over the cash and he popped open the ancient till and started making change.

In shillings. Shillings! I swear to god I saw Queen Anne’s face on one of them. The silver value of the coins was probably as much as I paid for the book.

But I had to have proof that this happened—at that point, all I had was a book in a plain brown wrapper, not appreciably different from what I bought next door. So I asked him for a receipt.

He looked delighted and wrote one up for me.

By hand.

With a fountain pen.

And that’s the story of how I met a bookseller cryptid and his pet snake.

spiders.

Very excited to share a new comic I made with @annasellheim (The first part by Anna, the second part by me)

We both really believe that @plannedparenthood is vital for women’s health, so to show our support we made a comic about our lovely experiences there. 

If you have any questions or just want to support PP, visit https://www.plannedparenthood.org/

Find more of my work on my website or twitter

Find Anna’s work on her website or twitter

The triumphant goodmorning tale of ME versus the extra sleep trap. After over a week of shameful losses I finally won today!

Hello, I´d like to share with you and your followers something I got from a writer in my fandom years ago. They left already but their words stuck with me. I´m going to share the wisdom with you in my own words.

Every time you get notes/kudos, imagine real people standing in front of you. Did you get 20 kudos? It might seem like it´s not much but would you fit so many people into your livingroom? It´s 20 REAL PEOPLE who decided to read your work and liked it. Imagine giving each of them a hug!

Did you get 50 kudos? Giving 50 hugs would take some time but you could give them cookies instead. Imagine 50 cookies. It´s a lot!

Did you get 100 kudos? Go to a mall and count 100 people, you´ll see it´s actually a lot more than you thought when you saw the number.

Did you get 500 kudos? 1 000? Well, it starts getting a bit overwhelming when you imagine such a crowd but it´s AMAZING that you made so many people happy with your writing. And you´d need a living room the size of a cncert hall to fit them all in :)

“lions aren’t expressive”

ADOPTION FUN FACT

If you’re adopted internationally into the United States, BY adoption LAWS you’re legally a citizen, but you still have to apply for documentation and if it’s not done by the age of 18 you have to pay over $500 and get a judge to reopen your adoption case. 

Even More Fun Fact: No one actually tells adoptive families, this so many find out after they’re 18 when their kid needs to get a passport, wants to apply for financial aid, get certain jobs, vote or some other shit that requires proof of citizenship and now it’s too late because they’re 18 or over. 

AND EVEN MORE FUN FACT! You can sometimes even be deported because you can be considered foreign-born, non-citizens! 

Oh and they won’t accept adoption papers or a birth certificate as proof. 

Adoption is FUN. 

please help my mom not die 07/13

hey i know i literally just made a post earlier today but something horrible has happened. my mom is suddenly super sick and i’m scared. she might have to go to the emergency room at this point and i don’t know what to do! we are currently homeless, have no income, no insurance that works here, and i’m disabled (with declining health) and rely on her. i don’t know what to do and i’m sobbing. please help us. anything would help, and even if you can’t, please reblog. i’m sorry but this is horrifying. she is without her medication with no way to get them too and together they come around to 500 dollars. i’m scared she’s actually going to die please please help. 

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My roommate’s boyfriend is playing DnD (online? Facetime? Idk) in the next room and mostly he’s quiet but he just erupted out in a scratchy character voice “Where are my socks? Are they in your mouth? Spit them out right now!”

What kind of campaign is he playing