Getting ready for his manicure.
Month: August 2017
baku:
the worst memories of being bullied is when ppl would pretend not to be bullying you and ask you questions and u thought they were just asking u stuff but they were actually laughing at you the entire time and u had no idea bcos you were young and you didnt understand why people would be mean to you when you didnt do anything wrong.
I spent a lot of my childhood in a constant state of “this is a trap but I don’t know how”
This stayed with me. Sometimes when people are nice to me, I still think they have bad intentions.
see also: autism.
As an adult I often find it really hard not to be made of “ … .” when a more clever version of this catches someone I know.
And I realize: that person didn’t grow up with this. They didn’t actually have to develop the reflex of wondering what game was being played. They don’t spot the signs, they don’t have a whole check-list of tell-tales and they definitely don’t now live (as I do) in an equilibrium of “well in terms of how I ACT from here it’s honestly best if I take this all at face value, with a bunch of secondary plans in place for if and when it turns out to be a trap, including several to make sure that they’re the ones who end up looking bad for it because that’s shitty behaviour.”
No they actually got to get this far in life assuming that people who were nice were actually just nice.
It is a really weird feeling.
Are you guys ever dumbfounded by the impossibility of life with animals? I just was. This exact thought ran through my head:
“I live in a house with four carnivores of varying sizes, and all of them are sitting here next to me because they want my pita chips.”
But having aquatic animals is super weird because like I’ve constructed a very very very small lake so my water beings can live in my land house.
I live with a sharp-fanged, needle-clawed predator of superior grace and agility. Sometimes it sits in the corner and screams, sometimes it trips over its own paws, sometimes it sits in my lap, and sometimes it falls off the couch. Amazing.
To study the behavior of musk oxen, a wildlife conservation scientist dresses up as a grizzly bear.
Musk oxen are not the only charismatic creatures perfectly suited to the wind-blasted, tundra of the Alaskan Arctic. Meet Joel Berger, Wildlife Conservation Society senior scientist, Colorado State University professor – as well as expert on hoofed mammals. In addition to gathering photos to track how fast musk oxen are growing, Berger conducts a seemingly hazardous test: He dresses up as a grizzly bear, approaches the herd, and gauges their reactions. Berger uses this unusual technique to find out whether the presence of more male oxen makes the herd safer from bears. Watch the video to learn more!
This is an important thread on Twitter, looking at some of the history of collective racial violence in the US. And why racist mobs aren’t harmless–which shouldn’t really need to be pointed out, but here we are.
I can’t help but get kind of frustrated and disappointed again, though, at the absolute lack of mention some other recorded instances get.
Including things like the Paxton Boys mess (which is still getting described there as vigilante retaliation). There’s plenty more, but I was reminded of that specific example because of the murderous mob marching on Philadelphia. Plenty more recent than that too, of course.
Definitely not interested in getting into some kind of gross one-upsmanship game, or suggesting that the history talked about there is somehow less important. Not at all. There’s plenty of ugly history to go around, unfortunately.
But, it doesn’t seem helpful to ignore other large chunks of ugliness. Especially with a view to recognizing some worrying patterns.
Isn’t it satisfying when big cats fit perfectly in small boxes?
You are always so unfailingly polite to people who suggest things that are either incorrect, deadly for you, or “hello, this is a chonic thing do you REALLY think I haven’t tried that?” goals, tbh
I try to operate on the basis that people want to help, and that is a very good and kind thing. They don’t have to care, they don’t need to try and help someone in some small way, but they try anyway, and that’s to be encouraged.
Sometimes the information is wrong or just doesn’t work for me, but however mildly frustrating it is for me to have to repeat myself, it’s infinitely preferable to dealing with people who don’t care and would step over someone suffering, or worse, dig the boot in.
I get a lot of…bad messages, on tumblr. From people who are willing to show the world just how cruel they can be because I don’t allow for anon messages. So they’re bold in their hatred for a sick person, wishing they would “shut up or die already” because in their mind I either deserve this or I talk about it too much and I’m not their idea of how a sick person should be (whatever that means)…and I tell them sincerely I am sorry for whatever they are going through that prompts them to act as such, and wish them well. Sometimes I’ll get a hearty “fuck you cunt” in return and that’s my cue to hit the block button. Other times it opens up a dialogue that other person has been needing and they will usually apologize and move on. But some of them stay, and I get to watch them learn, and change, and understand what it means to take light into dark places.
I can still lose the rag sometimes and need to vent, but I always try not to lash out directly at that person unless their rhetoric is truly abhorrent. Sometimes I’ll say, you know your message really hurt me, but I thought about it and realized you must be hurting worse to want to do something like that to another person, so whatever you’re going through I hope you find peace.
Because for every awful message, I get ten good ones, from people who want to help. So even if they are wrong, or I know it already, or I’m having to repeat myself for the hundredth time that day…I’ll take the world where people care, rather than one where they don’t.
You are amazing and a light in this world, Joy.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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