I booked myself in for a massage tomorrow with my physio lady cause my jaw and neck are all locked up from the dentist today and it makes you fill out a little questionnaire to better tell your PT what kind of treatment you need. except when I was filling it in I’d just taken a bunch of pain killers and words were hard but then I logged back in to make sure I’d actually booked it and
Reason for your visit?
What kind(s) of pain are you experiencing?
Special Requests
I shouldn’t be laughing, I feel awful, but I’m just imagining you addressing a person this way.
Don’t feel too bad, my physio lady was pissing herself laughing when I showed up. Everytime she tried to pull up my profile to talk about the appointment she’d devolve into hearty chuckling while apologizing continually for laughing at my expense.
And for anyone wondering she was able to ease a considerable amount of the pain. Even while occasionally breaking out into bouts of barely suppressed giggling.
Put it down to natural antipathy or an ancient prejudice that has lodged in our amygdala. Or maybe it’s simply because snakes have been vilified throughout time and art from the Book of Genesis to Harry Potter (millennia of negative publicity can have that effect). For whatever reason, most people just don’t like them.
So why are so many government agencies and conservation groups, starting with The Nature Conservancy in Florida, so ecstatic about the recent release of 12 little snakes in a north Florida preserve?
For starters, the eastern indigo is not so little. The longest snake native to the U.S., it grows up to nine feet long, as sleek as a stair bannister, with conspicuous scales as black/blue and lustrous as the sky at the end of sunset. From a public relations standpoint, it doesn’t hurt that it’s non-venomous, docile (not aggressive even when cornered) and, at least as far as its diet goes, fond of its fellow snakes, particularly the venomous kind. A daytime hunter, it was once a common sight throughout Florida, right up into Georgia, southern Alabama and southeastern Mississippi. By 1978, however, its numbers had so declined it was one of the earliest entries on the list of protected wildlife under the Federal Endangered Species Act, victim to that natural antipathy, cars and the steady degradation of its habitat.
But the eastern indigo is more than beautiful, benign and beleaguered. Like every great symbol, it’s important, not just for what it is, but for what it represents. The reason it has cut to the front of the reintroduction lineup is because it’s a vital piece in a vast and intricate conservation puzzle that has occupied the Conservancy and its partners for the last 35 years.
As an apex predator, the species plays a vital role as a counterweight in the natural balance, a consumer of otherwise unchecked species, especially snakes. Eastern indigos had been noticeably absent from the party since the last ones were spotted at the ABRP in 1982, by coincidence the very year that the Conservancy began to acquire the land. Many endemic species, particularly songbirds, have likely suffered from the imbalance. While conservationists are not given to displays of unalloyed optimism, it’s cautiously whispered that the reintroduction of the eastern indigo could be as significant in its own way as the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone.
every year around christmas me and my grandma play this fun family game called “maybe you want to put jesus in your room instead, sweetie? :)”. now, it’s important to note that the jesus referred to in our game is not actually the real jesus christ, but instead a wooden figure i made in 2011 that has an uncanny resemblance to the lord and savior himself
so what happens is that i place jesus in our living room, and my grandma smiles and asks me if i don’t want to decorate my room with him instead. i ask her in return if she thinks my jesus figure is ugly (which he is), but she reassures me that this is not the case. however, a couple of days later jesus mysteriously disappears from our living room, and appear in my room instead
now, the real jesus christ might have been able to perform a miracle like this, but please remember that the jesus in our story is only a figure made out of wood. he can not move on his own, so i think we can safely say that my grandma is the prime suspect here
the first year i would often confront my grandma about this, but she would always make up an excuse and never straight up tell me she moved him because he’s so ugly it’s an embarrassment to the family
eventually i grew tired of her lies, so now we only move jesus around in silence. one second he’s in the living room, the next he’s back in my room. in a way i think this adds an extra element of excitement to the holiday season, because you never know for sure when jesus is going to be moved again
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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