danceling

[danceling]

Just June

I've been putting off writing this post for a while. In June, we lost our sweet baby girl, Gracie.

Gracie was 17 and 2.5 years into a kidney disease diagnosis, so we knew this was coming eventually, and that eventually was probably sooner rather than later. Because Hercules died from kidney disease a year before, we also had a sense of what the signs of the end stage disease looked like, which meant we had a good sense of what "the right time" looked like. Even so, saying goodbye was heartbreaking.

June also brought another challenge: an extremely stressful 1-month delay in putting our house on the market, which now has us selling it in a more difficult market than we initially thought we'd be selling in. For my own sanity, I've decided to pause my financial tracking until we have sold the house and things feel more stable. Honestly, I think it probably didn't make sense for me to start tracking when I did, just because the goal for me of tracking is to have a sense of what our expenses will be *typically*, and this is an extremely atypical moment in our financial lives. So, I'm resetting, and I'll pick that back up again once we've sold the old house and paid down our mortgage here.

At any rate, it's been long enough that I don't recall a lot of what we watched, ate, or did in June aside from books (which I track on both Goodreads and StoryGraph), so I'm going to focus on that and on the one new activity highlight worth talking about (running).

Running

For a long time, I've had a love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with running, but over the past month I've started running, well, slowly. YouTube fed me some stuff about Zone 2 training, and I decided to give it a try. There's a caveat here, which is that since I haven't been running regularly for several years, it's basically impossible for me to stay in Zone 2 because my body isn't adapted to running. But with a bit of effort, I'm able to keep my average heart rate within Zone 2 levels for me, and doing that has allowed me to get through my runs without feeling totally exhausted or injuring myself.

I only started on a more consistent (3 days/week) regimen at the very end of June, so I only clocked a total of about 19 miles in the month, but I'm really seeing those habits pay off in July, both in terms of my stamina and in how much I'm enjoying it.

I think the next, natural question is "why bother?" I'm a swimmer with a pool, and I walk plenty, so why do I even want to run and what do I want out of it? Some of it is health-related: when I got COVID in Feb., it really messed with my cardiovascular fitness, and while I have been seeing some improvements just with time, I'm impatient, and I know that running can get me back in cardiovascular shape faster than if I stick to what I was already doing. The other piece of it is that running is a really easy way to get exercise: all you have to do is put on your shoes and go outside (or hop on a treadmill if the weather is a pain in the butt).

Don't worry, I'm not about to become a marathoner. My distance and pace goals are pretty modest: I want to get to a point where I can run 5-6 miles at a time, at somewhere between 10-12" per mile. Basically, I want to get to the point where I can comfortably run for an hour at a time without taking walking breaks, and then do that regularly. I've signed up for a 10k at the end of September, a few weeks my training plan tells me I should be able to get to that point. I plan to treat it like a regular run, though, putting absolutely no pressure on myself to go faster than I have been for my easy runs. I'll let y'all know how it goes!

Books

I was in a bit of a reading rut in June, and I only ended up finishing 2 books as a result: Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freire, and Rewitched by Lucy Jane Wood.

Neither book especially impressed me — the Freire felt pretentious and inconsistent, and I found that Rewitched didn't hold my interest well, and I kept having to go back to things I'd already covered to remember what happened. One thing Rewitched DID do for me, however, was remind me of the value of a propulsive, plot-driven audiobook. So once I finished it, I checked out the latest Hunger Games book, Sunrise on the Reaping, and listened to that over the course of several runs.

That's about it for June, to which I say: good riddance. See you in probably a few days (lol) for my July recap.

[danceling]

May moments

May felt so long, my dudes. In the absence of classes to keep me busy (except for swing dancing with L), I was definitely feeling the lack of structure in my days. That said, I did find some things to do.

First and foremost, we opened the pool at the start of May, which was...gross. For a day or two before and after, I was just running the pool vacuum nonstop trying to get all the plant matter and algae remnants out. But it was worth it — within a few days of the opening, the water looked swimmable, and within 2 weeks of the opening, it actually *was* swimmable, aside from the temperature.

We had a few new adventures in May, too. Our town had its annual town meeting this month, where residents vote *in person* on the budget and various local policies and articles. It took about 6 hours over the course of two days, and it was pretty much exactly like an episode of Gilmore Girls, only way less entertaining:

We also took two trips: one to Maine to see the lupines (we failed; too early in the season) and one to Virginia for my 20-year college reunion. I had mixed feelings about going to my reunion, in large part because most of my close friends weren't there, and while I did feel a little awkward for the first day or so, but ultimately I'm really glad we went. One of my professors was working on an oral history project with his students, largely centered on the school's decision to move from single-sex to co-ed instruction several years ago, and being part of that — both as a participant and as an observer — was wonderful. The trip also gave me the chance to reconnect with my longest-term college roommate, who I adore, and another friend I'd only really kept in touch with over social media.

There are a few things that happened near the end of May or like, half in May half in June, that I think I'll save for next month's update. But all in all, a good month, even if it lacked structure. As usual, there's more below the fold.

Activities

I finally heard back about my summer community orchestra audition, so I've spent a lot of May practicing and preparing for that. It's gone... medium... but hey, if I don't get in this year, there's always next year.

I also added a new volunteer gig to my rotation this month. Now, in addition to working at our local food pantry every other week or so, I'm also doing invasive species control work in the wildlife refuge near our house. I don't know how much more I'll do that over the summer, because SUMMER, but while the temperatures are still mild, I'll plan to keep it up.

Books

I finished 6 books in May: The Trial by Franz Kafka, Daughters by Kirsty Capes, Lurking by Joanne McNeil, a collection of Lenin's writings, Stag Dance by Torrey Peters, and Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement by Chris Blackwell and Debbie Zalesne.

I've already talked about The Trial, though I'll add that the end of the novel definitely feels more unfinished than the earlier bits. Aside from that, my favorite was Ending Isolation, which combines personal narratives from incarcerated individuals with legal analysis and a discussion of the long-term impacts — medical, psychological, and environmental — of solitary confinement. I read a pre-print copy (the book doesn't come out until September), but even in its not-yet-fully-edited form, Ending Isolation was incredibly compelling. I highly, highly recommend reading it when it comes out.

Other Media

We finished Righteous Gemstones, and while I do think the final season was a little cheesy, it was also a lot of fun. We also started Murderbot (though we won't get to finish it as we've canceled our Apple+ subscription), which is fun, but by far the highlight has been the new series of Taskmaster. Every series is hilarious, but this series feels like the best one yet by far, and not just because of Jason Mantzoukis. Anyway, highly recommended, check it out, free on YouTube, etc. etc.

Food

I honestly don't remember a lot of the food we made this month, but a few highlights I do recall are this bean & pea dish that L made right before we left on our trip and this quinoa, sweet potato, and black bean soup that I made in quantity and froze. It's not exactly new, but I also started adding unflavored / unsweetened protein powder to our usual pumpkin bread recipe, mostly to use up some kind of grassy protein powder L got a while ago (that weirdly has almost no protein in each serving), but now I'm excited to use an actually good protein powder in it when I make it in the future.

Finances

Like April, May was expensive. That's partly continued improvements on our house here, but also because we're preparing our old house to go on the market in June. It's going to be a pricey few months, but at the end of it we'll be able to substantially decrease our costs.

The other part, of course, was the reunion trip. The reunion events & lodging were themselves around $600, and we spent another $400 on pet care. On top of that, we had gas and tolls, food at the reunion, reunion souvenirs, and gifts.

We did spend about $1000 less in May than April, but that's still a lot more than we'd been spending before that. I was also pleased that our food-at-home habits are so well engrained at this point that we still stayed under budget for the month when it comes to dining out.

[danceling]

Springing into April

You know, the whole "April showers brings May flowers" things is kind of a ruse. Almost everything bloomed in April here. Our Japanese maple went from bare to budding to completely full of luscious red leaves. Our ornamental plum budded, flowered, and then shed all its petals and is now sporting its own (much smaller and less full) red leaves. It's true that the hostas and hydrangeas have not yet bloomed and that the blueberry and blackberry bushes we planted last year — which we thought had died — are only just starting to sprout leaves, but all in all many of the flowers I associate with spring came and went in April.

I also wrapped most of my classes this past month: I finished ASL 1 and missed the deadline to sign up for ASL 2 (I plan to sign up for it in the next cycle), finished woodworking (I made a tiny bookcase!), and we had our spring concert in orchestra (which went surprisingly well). That's meant that for the back half of April, I haven't had much in the way of structured activities to do. That's been mostly okay, in no small part because there have been plenty of unstructured activities (opening the pool was a bit of a saga), but I definitely miss having places to go. I'll be auditioning for a summer community orchestra in early June, and if I get in, that will give me some additional structure. I'm also meeting another early retiree from tech who lives in the area this week. I'm hoping that will lead to enough of a friendship that I'll have someone to tool around with at museums and public gardens in the middle of the day.

More below the cut, as usual.

Hobbies

Much of April has been occupied with my radio show. I've been a bit lax in my planning for that over the past year or two, but this month I got organized and arranged interviews for May, June, and July. And it looks like I may have September sorted out now, as well! In addition to planning who I'm going to interview, I also have to read the book for each interview, prepare questions, and edit the episode afterward, all of which takes time. Still, I feel good about where things are.

Books

While I only finished 3 books in April, I read quite a few. I mentioned Private Rites, which I finished 3 days into the month, in March's wrap-up. In addition to that, I finished Torn from the World: A Guerrilla's Escape from a Secret Prison in Mexico by John Gibler and Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, but I also started Franz Kafka's The Trial (for absolutely no reason whatsoever 👀), Aja Barber's Consumed, and Joanne McNeil's Lurking before I had to set them aside to focus on radio deadline-related reading.

Of these, my favorite was definitely Homage to Catalonia, which is Orwell's account of his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War. I had read it sometime in college, but I don't think I had the sophistication, politically, to really appreciate it at the time. Reading it now, though — whew! It was one of my dad's favorite books, and I can see why. Orwell's ability to hold onto hope and idealism despite everything that he experiences and witnesses is remarkable. And, of course, he's an excellent observer of humanity. I think he and my dad would've been good friends, had they had the chance.

Other Media

I'm struggling lately to find video games that pique my interest, but there were two standout shows of the past month for me. First, L has been trying to convince me to watch The Righteous Gemstones with him for literally years, and in April, I decided to start it. We're almost through Season 2, and I can admit that I'm enjoying it in a way I didn't the first time I tried.

I also watched all of the final season of YOU after it came out in late April, and the casting this season was *chef's kiss*. Charlotte Richie (who was also in Season 4), Anna Camp, and Madeline Brewer? Yes, very good.

Food

I struggled to find motivation to cook in April, which isn't to say it didn't happen so much as that it was a lot of repeat meals and a lot of easy meals. We did order / eat out more than we have for a bit, but still managed to keep it under budget. The big exception to the "no motivation" rule was passover. I reprised the Mexican Matzo Ball soup I made last year (with from-scratch broth) and handled all the ritual foods myself plus "matzo crack" (IYKYK). Family who attended my seder brought a potato kugel and a salad. Perfect!

We did also discover one new recipe that's going into the repeat queue — this pasta e ceci recipe with confit cherry tomatoes and garlic. Absolute perfection.

Finances

This month's finances were weird. While our official spending* clocked in at about $3000 more than last month, our non-essential spending was about $300 lower, and we actually netted close to $10k in additional income this month. Almost all of this boils down to tax season, with a side of some home maintenance work that we've been planning since October. While I adjusted my withholding down in the last year of my job, the combo of changing states, buying a new home, renting out our old home to family for the second half of the year (which we were actually able to claim as a fairly substantial loss on our taxes — further reason to hate landlords), and a few other oddities, we got a very substantial refund. We also paid more for our tax prep this year because our taxes were more complicated for the reasons mentioned above. (The maintenance work is a spring clean up for the yard + fixing the top of the stairs into our house, which have loose stones, and adding a railing because snow + no railing = bad.)

One oddity is how much more expensive groceries were for this month — they clocked in at about $300 more than last month or the month before. I attribute this partly to passover (holiday meals cost more in general, and passover in particular involves a lot of produce), but that doesn't fully explain it. Something to keep an eye on, for sure. Meanwhile, we were just under budget for dining out, meaning about $200 less than last month. These things plus the fact that our quarterly water & sewer bills came in April, help account for the increase in essential spending and the drop in non-essential spending.

*L was reimbursed for work-related travel spending from January, which we used to pay off the credit card for the same amount. Because we'd paid those expenses already, and because the income from the reimbursement was bonus income, I excluded the paydown from our monthly expenses.

[danceling]

"Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., because without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning."

--Franz Kafka, The Trial

[danceling]

"And then England—southern England, probably the sleekest landscape in the world. It is difficult when you pass that way, especially when you are peacefully recovering from seasickness with the plush cushions of a boat-train carriage underneath you, to believe that anything is really happening anywhere. Earthquakes in Japan, famines in China, revolutions in Mexico? Don’t worry, the milk will be on the doorstep tomorrow morning, the New Statesman will come out on Friday. The industrial towns were far away, a smudge of smoke and misery hidden by the curve of the earth’s surface. Down here it was still the England I had known in my childhood: the railway-cuttings smothered in wild flowers, the deep meadows where the great shining horses browse and meditate, the slow-moving streams bordered by willows, the green bosoms of the elms, the larkspurs in the cottage gardens; and then the huge peaceful wilderness of outer London, the barges on the miry river, the familiar streets, the posters telling of cricket matches and Royal weddings, the men in bowler hats, the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, the red buses, the blue policeman—all sleeping the deep, deep sleep of England, from which I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs."

-- George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

[danceling]

Marching toward spring

After a pretty quiet February, March felt exceedingly busy. In addition to hosting regular, twice-weekly rehearsals, my orchestra played in two concerts this past month: one that was really a choir concert with us as accompanists, and another with a bunch of other campus music ensembles as part of the music department's decennial accreditation process. Aside from orchestra, I've been taking an ASL class (which I started at the end of February), and I just last week started taking a woodworking class (where I think constantly about how all my other hobbies require dextrous use of my left hand, so why did I sign up for this again???). Add to that a few visits with friends who were briefly in town, the first meeting of my new book club, therapy, taxes, regularly exercising out again, volunteering, working on my radio show and the worker's rights podcast I edit, and, y'know, sleeping, and I'm starting to feel like I'm doing too much. (Seriously, how is anyone bored in retirement? I truly don't get it.)

This is, frankly, a great problem to have. My goal now is to figure out what I want to prioritize over the next few months — and also to find a better balance of daytime activities so I have more of my evenings free to do things like hang out with my partner and have people over for dinner. I'd love to keep up with orchestra, though whether I'm able to will be somewhat contingent on how my audition goes for the one community orchestra in the area that runs during the summer. Either way, though, I plan to continue practicing and playing on my own.

Okay, that's the main update. Highlights below, as usual.

Hobbies

I covered most of this in my life update, but I want to reiterate how much I've loved playing with an orchestra again. It's been such a true delight and I don't want it to end, so I reached out to the one community orchestra that runs over the summer to see if I can get an audition slot and maybe, if I'm lucky, join them. I'm not sure I'm good enough to anything that needs an audition right now, but I'm doing my best to prepare because dang it, I don't wanna stop.

Books

My reading was a bit less focused this month, partly because I had a ton of holds come in at the library, and partly because I had deadlines for finishing Border & Rule and Proto. As a result, while I only finished 5 books (three of them quite short), I read 7.

Of these, my favorite was Private Rites by Julia Armfield, which I finished last night. It's Lear, sort of, where Lear is a narcissistic architect who raised three queer daughters, badly, as the UK began sinking into the ocean. That description makes it sound messier than it is — it's remarkably subtle and clever, and I keep having to look up words but in a way that feels like "oh, this really was the only word she could have used here" and not "wow, what a pretentious asshole this author is."

I also really enjoyed An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, a sentence that is sure to make me sound like a pretentious asshole. Oh well, I yam what I yam, and I definitely have a bit of an intellectual crush on Georges Perec (but not a crush crush — the man looks way too much like Abbie Hoffman for that).

Other Media

Just to balance out the pretentiousness of my reading habits, this month we got really into The Courtship, which is basically just Bridgerton: the Reality Dating Show — regency-era dress included.

We also started Paradise, which is basically low-budget Silo at the moment when they go underground instead of many generations later. The writing is...mixed...but it's entertaining.

Food

I'm back to eating normally this month, and it's been nice. I've been trying to figure out ways to be more flexible - keeping store-bought pasta sauce in the house along with frozen veggies and quorn pieces, making easy tofu dishes from what we have instead of going to the grocery store to make sure I have all the ingredients a recipe calls for, and keeping pantry staples (like chickpeas, white beans, coconut milk, and pasta) stocked so we're always able to throw *something* together.

Finances

Much to my surprise, we spent about $500 less in March than in February. That's despite spending more on both dining out and groceries than we did the previous month — in part because I was feeling better and wanted to make up for lost time on the food front (SUSHI PLZ), and in part because we had more visitors and overall did less actual planning, food-wise, than we had in February. Much of this is because February had a surprise large, non-essential expense (from our nephew cashing in on his graduation present) and that was gone this month, so March's numbers reflect what feels like a more normal trend for us since I left my job: our spending is going down a little bit every month. That trend will likely continue, with minor blips, for at least a few more months as we establish our new normal.

[danceling]

Events are tricky to remember in constituent pieces, a symptom of submerged chronology, of a timeline moving fast and incoherently, too much unpleasant daily news.

Julia Armfield, Private Rites

[danceling]

February was a doozy

February started out nice enough. In late January, I went to Seattle to spend two weeks with the bestie and her family, which as of October includes a smol beeb. The whole trip was lovely and affirming. I got to witness baby's first snow and baby's first time rolling over, and it felt good to help out (mostly by cooking tasty meals for the new parents). I have always been a huge proponent of platonic love and community care, and the trip felt like one big exemplification of my values. I loved it — no notes.

We had friends staying with us when I got back (they actually arrived before I did thanks to a canceled flights), and unfortunately, one of them brought COVID, ending our 5-year (!) streak. I tested positive 3 days after I got back, and L tested positive 2 days later.

I'm not going to sugarcoat it — COVID sucked. It isn't the sickest I've ever been in my life, but it was close (the only times I was sicker were when I had mono in high school and when I had pneumonia as a kid), and it was DEFINITELY the most anxious I've been about being sick. I had the full complement of symptoms, including GI issues, losing my sense of smell, and the worst, driest congestion I've ever had. I hoped that finally getting COVID would feel like a relief, but it was so bad for me (to be clear, still a "mild" case) that I don't really. I'm told the first time is the worst, and I hope that's true, but I would very much like to avoid testing that theory.

As if having COVID weren't enough by itself, a few days into it, we got 12" of snow followed by freezing rain. If you've had COVID, you know there is no way we could have managed that without help. I feel very, very fortunate that we were able to get that help from our community in the form of a neighbor and his fifteen year old son spending TWO HOURS shoveling our driveway out of "the heaviest snow [he'd] ever seen," because if they hadn't, we would've run out of groceries and had no way to get more for literal weeks. If that's not mutual aid and community care, I don't know what is. And I am so, so grateful.

More highlights below the cut.

Hobbies

The big one for February is orchestra (I technically joined in January, but we only had one rehearsal before I left for Seattle). I love having an excuse to play again, and the regular rehearsals and practice mean I'm actually improving for the first time in a long while.

Books

I finished only 4 books in February, but at a total of 1647 pages, they were chonkers. My favorite was Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte, and the biggest disappointment was Mina's Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa.

TV, Movies, and Video Games

While White Lotus tops the list for new viewing in February (thanks to a thoroughly mid season 8 of Love is Blind), I'm also enjoying the new seasons of Heartstopper and The Sex Lives of College Girls.

We only watched one movie this month (The Haunting of Venice), and it was fun but forgettable.

In terms of video games, I picked My Time at Sandrock back up after a long hiatus. I'm enjoying the plot-forward parts, but I'm in a pretty late stage of the game, so large swaths are pretty grindy. I also played Winter's End (short and sweet) and Pineapple on Pizza (more prank than game).

Food

Because I had GI issues with COVID, food was a little fraught this month, but a week of bland diet reminded me just how good toast with PB, banana, and honey is as a breakfast. I'm taking a few days off from it now that my stomach is behaving normally, but I suspect that meal will stay in the breakfast rotation.

Finances

I thought I'd add a section here on finances, since part of the deal this year is that we're trying to save, so here are a few highlights:

We spent about $800 less in February than we did in January. That isn't a huge difference given that February is 3 days shorter, but it's something!

Our non-essential spending was about the same across the two months; however, most of that is because our nephew cashed in on our graduation present to him (a plane ticket anywhere in the world). If we remove that from our calculations, we actually cut non-essential spending by about half in February.

Food spending was way down in February. We halved our dining out costs and cut our grocery bill by about $500! Those both feel like big wins, and ones I hope we can carry into the rest of the year.

Alright, that's a wrap! See you in a month, tumblr.

[danceling]

*dusts off ye ole tumblr blag*

It's been almost a month since I left my job, and I really want to keep some kind of record of my time during this career hiatus. So, here we are, back on tumblr (hi, @musicalheart168!).

What have I done with the last month of my life? A lot, actually. Right now, I'm visiting the bestie. She had a baby last fall, and it's been so nice to have the time to fly out for a few weeks to hang, help out, and generally get to know the new beeb. I even got to witness a baby first (snow)! There's something really satisfying about finding ways to be of service — no matter how small or localized — when the state of the world (TM) is absolute dogshit.

Before I left for [location redacted], I also spent some time figuring out my schedule for the next few months. I joined an orchestra, got signed up for two classes (ASL and woodworking), and set up some regular volunteering shifts (one with a local food pantry and one with a local infoshop). I also started getting into more of a routine with exercise, getting short (10-20m) yoga sessions in a few times a week, along with a daily hour-long walk.

Finally, since a much-reduced income comes with the territory when you abandon your lucrative career, I've spent a lot of time reviewing our finances in detail, figuring out when different bills come out (and shifting some around), targeting areas where we can cut down our spending (pleased to say we cut down our dining out expenditures by half in January), and generally ~sorting out the financial details~.

That's pretty much it, but since I realize this is all quite boring, I've included a highlight reel of books I've read, recipes I've made, and tv shows I've watched below the cut for your amusement.

Books

I finished 6 books in January: On Civil Disobedience, The Spell Shop, Cassandra in Reverse, The Salt Line, Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit, and Year of No Garbage.

Of these, my favorites were The Salt Line (dystopian climate fiction about killer ticks that reshape society) and Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit (a collection of lyric essays by Aisha Sabatini Sloan, many of which mix personal experiences and observations with art criticism).

Food

We ate out sparingly in January, which means we did a lot of cooking. Most of that was repeats of favorite recipes, but we tried several new things. Among the highlights were my first attempt at cinnamon buns from scratch in about 15 years, a few loaves of spiced pumpkin bread (I halve the recipe to use up extra pumpkin puree from this pumpkin rigatoni recipe I've made every few weeks since it started to get cold), Yuxiang Tofu with copycat Din Tai Fung green beans that I had been meaning to make forever, and pasta e fagioli.

TV Shows

The return of both Silo and Severance (Apple+) in January made the month a bit more drama-heavy than usual, but we also binged Laid (Peacock) over the course of two or three days, followed by Traitors and Traitors UK (though my trip means we haven't finished either yet), and a solo binge of XO, Kitty for me while L was out of town at a conference.

[danceling]

The Peninsula by Seamus Heaney

When you have nothing more to say, just drive For a day all around the peninsula, The sky is tall as over a runway, The land without marks, so you will not arrive But pass through, though always skirting landfall. At dusk, horizons drink down sea and hill, The ploughed field swallows the whitewashed gable And you’re in the dark again.  Now recall The glazed foreshore and silhouetted log. That rock where breakers shredded into rags, The leggy birds stilted on their own legs, Islands riding themselves out into the fog. And then drive back home, still with nothing to say Except that now you will uncode all landscapes By this; things founded clean on their own shapes Water and ground in their extremity.

[danceling]

why does it matter if the definitions of bisexuality overlap with the definitions of pansexuality or polysexuality or other multisexual identities??

there are over 50 words that are synonyms for beautiful (or have similar but slightly different definitions/uses), but we don’t go around policing people for using words like stunning or gorgeous because “people might get confused and what you really mean is beautiful” 

[danceling]

that is some prehistoric fucking flower shit

Pholisma sonorae is a parasitic plant in the same family as the forget-me-not (Boraginaceae) which grows in the Sonoran desert. It only emerges from the ground to flower. Like some other subterranean parasitic plants, it only emerges above ground to flower. The fact that the flowering shoots resemble mushrooms seems like a pretty good example of convergent evolution!

(via)

[danceling]

my therapist says make friends with your monsters, josé olivarez

[danceling]

if you’re lgbt reblog this with your mbti type and moral alignment? i’m just curious 

[danceling]

This is Apollo 🐶 he’s a 10 week old Great Pyrenees who loves meeting people and chasing ice cubes

[danceling]

[danceling]

Under more ordinary circumstances, the cover of our Anniversary Issue—marking 92 years—would feature some version of the monocled dandy Eustace Tilley. This year, as a response to the opening weeks of the Trump Administration, particularly the executive order on immigration, we feature John W. Tomac’s dark, unwelcoming image, “Liberty’s Flameout.”