Recipes for Adventure, Romance, Science, Nerdiness, and other plans you wish you had thought of first. #Who am I kidding #Nothing here is original #Hoarding all the posts that make me smile #Or say ooo pretty
I'm just going to leave this here, because this woman said what I've been trying to articulate for ages much more effectively and succinctly than I've been able to
“The painting was inspired by my Alutiiq family and the women who worked the salmon canneries in my mother’s native village of Karluk. Kal’ut is the Alutiiq name for Karluk, a once thriving Alutiiq/Sugpiaq village with an abundant salmon run on the Karluk River. My mother was born in Karluk and my great grandmother and grandmother spent a large portion of their lives there. As Alaska came under Russian rule, my ancestors processed fish for a wider Russian population. My great grandmother married an Estonian immigrant and only spoke Russian and Alutiiq. She died at a young age from tuberculosis. This painting is dedicated to my Alutiiq ancestors, my family from Karluk and the sacred salmon that sustained them for over 4,000 years.”
Sometimes you just have one of those moments where the progress we've made as a culture get thrown into stark relief. You look at something and go "Holy shit, that would never have happened when I was a kid."
Today, I had one of those moments when I realized that the teenage boys I'm working with are just. genuinely, openly enthusiastic about going to Build-a-Bear for their outing.
These are sixteen and seventeen year old boys! They just had a whole conversation about what to name their "cute", mostly new squishmallows! They're genuinely excited that they're going to Build-a-Bear this weekend and asking other kids to pick up specific accessories for them!!
Holy shit, that never would've happened when I was 16. None of the boys would have dared to be visibly interested - and neither would most of the girls! There would have been a million gay jokes and "Haha, you're a girl" jokes and "What are you, a baby?" jokes. Teenagers weren't even supposed to care about anything back then!
Less than 15 years later, and I'm watching three 17 year old boys treat all that as not even worthy of comment.
So let's call that a reason for hope. Even when the kids aren't alright, in some ways apparently they are alright. Go Gen Z, honestly. It's so lovely to watch you guys just openly doing and saying stuff that, when I was a teen, would've been a social death sentence.
“Nobody’s going to want to sit on high-speed rail for fifteen hours to get from New York City to LA.”
Me. I will sit on high-speed rail for fifteen hours. I’ll sit on it for days. I’ll write and read and nap and eat and then do it all over again. I’ll stare out the windows and see America from ground level and not have to drive. I’ll see the Rockies and the deserts and cornfields and the Mississippi River and your house and yours and yours too. I’ll make up stories in my head about the small towns I see as we go along. I’ll see the states I’ve yet to see because driving or flying there is a fucking slog and expensive to boot. I’ll enjoy the ride as much as the destination. And then I’ll do it all over again to come the fuck home.