mickzilla

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Shore patrol, Karolis Janulis

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“all nazis are bad” should be literally the easiest safest most unanimous political statement you could make what is happening

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the most comforting words a father can say

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Tarantula Hawk in Southwest Kansas.

#thenatureofkansas #naturephotography #naturalhistoryphotography #wildlifephotography #insect #tarantulahawk #nikon #microphotography #cimarronnationalgrassland #Kansas #kansaswildlife #midwest #milkweedplant (at Cimarron National Grassland)

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The shortest answer is doing the thing.

Ernest Hemingway

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stutter steps

The team of adulators are no longer built-in once you graduate, Move away from the safe-harbor format of grades and trophies to Mark your self-worth.  You collect and carry your own praise, alongside your own criticisms.  I am my own arbiter and albatross, mixed together. My rib cage is held together by rubber cement, And it is caving in. I swipe through Tinder once a week, Never responding to messages, Only cultivating them as tokens of my own desirability. I stow them in my pockets, mixed with fading receipts: Quantitative analysis of my attractiveness by worthiness matrix. Still, I think of my ex: Who moved down the street, Who cheated after 6 years, Who was never smart or funny enough for me anyway: I think of his happiness and my pendulum heart swinging back and forth. I’m better without him, But some nights I miss someone who didn’t love me over no one at all. I was discarded on a work night, after squeezing it out of him like toothpaste in a stubborn tube 7 months ago; My brother told me of his girlfriend’s unexpected pregnancy 6.5 months ago; I’d discovered my ex had cheated and was now with her 6 months ago; I lost most of my weight through involuntary vomiting and shock 5.5 months ago, Concurrent to losing my hair in chunks (as a “physical response to extreme stress, nothing to worry about medically”); My first date was 5 months ago; I gained my weight back 3 months ago; My last first date was 1.5 months ago; My nephew was born in perfect, small, redheaded glory 1 month ago; I re-lost my weight 3 weeks ago; We stopped worrying my nephew would die 2 weeks ago; I realized my ex waited until I wasn’t around and did his girlfriend’s laundry in my apartment, like I existed only as some cheap laundromat, 1.5 weeks ago; My rib cage deflated somewhere along the path; And 3 weeks from now we move into our new place, unmarked by him. I am still marked by him. And yet: I remind myself, sitting in my own office, At my perfect job (while he withers in the lack of direct sunlight at his sad job in his sadder cubicle), I no longer have to hunch down in photographs to match his spiritual height. I am liberated. My hair will regrow, My rib cage will be soldered shut once more, And given time, so will the ventricles of my heart. Until then: I measure my life in days, in stutter steps: I am progressing.

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The America that I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries

Kurt Vonnegut (via goodfemalecharacters)

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@YoniApplebaum

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NASA created retro travel posters for different locations in our solar system in hopes of inspiring young people to imagine a future where common space travel is a possibility. 

Source

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i understand the historical reasons why English is the most common language

but if I was writing a speculative fiction novel

and I said “the language that most people learn as a second language, usually for professional reasons, is also the only one with a spelling system so terrible that spelling words correctly is a broadcasted competition”

you’d be like “extremely unrealistic 0/10”

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I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

Ernest Hemingway