writtenwolves

[writtenwolves]

It’s summer and that means the kids are going to camp! Last week the kids were at gymnastics camp at the place they take lessons. This week they’re at kosher culinary camp at the local Chabad.

The difference could not be more stark.

Last week, I drove up outside the front doors for pick up and drop off, shouted their first names through the window of my car, and either received a thumbs up at drop off, or had the kids walk out unaccompanied at pick up.

This week, I had to walk them inside (adults have to present ID to be allowed in the building) and check them in with two separate sets of adults. I had to present ID again (separately from getting into the building) to be allowed to pick them up. If someone who is not their legal guardian is going to pick them up, paperwork needs to be filled out in advance.

Last week, the only people outside the building were a couple of teenagers in orange vests to make sure the littlest of kids got inside the building ok.

This week, the only people outside the building were security guards with walkie talkies on one hip and very obvious pistols on the other.

My kids are signed up for three different Jewish camps this summer. All three of them have sent emails outlining the security measures in place to protect the children. No details, because the more people that know the details, the easier it is for someone with ill intent to discover and subvert them, but I know that there will be armed security personnel at all three camps and they will be coming with on field trips. I know that staff at all three camps have been conducting safety drills in the weeks leading up to camp, and I know that all three camps are partnered with local and federal law enforcement to stay up to date on any threats or recommended security changes.

I have never received information like this from any non-Jewish camp. I have received information like this from every Jewish camp.

This is what Jews are talking about when we say that antisemitism impacts the way we live our lives even when we are not being directly targeted by antisemitism. Summer camps shouldn’t have to hire armed guards to keep kids safe. Going to camp at the JCC should not put you at greater risk for violence than going to camp at the YMCA. Requesting that non-Jews help us live in a world where that’s true is not a ridiculous thing to ask.

And before anyone tries to say “Oh just because you feel like you’re not safe that doesn’t mean you’re actually not safe,” I’d like to point out two things. The first is that the Chabad my kids were at today has received multiple bomb threats in the last couple of years. We feel like we’re not safe because people have made it clear that they would like to attack us. We are, in fact, actually not safe.

And the second is that even if we were actually safe, and all the people out there who were saying that (((Zionist))) institutions should be attacked were just running their mouths and were not going to act on it (disproven by recent (and not recent) violent attacks, but we’ll accept the premise for the sake of argument), isn’t it pretty messed up that antisemitic actions have made Jews feel like this is necessary? Like, if one person in a couple was constantly so verbally threatening to their partner that the partner was 1) fearful for their safety and 2) felt it necessary to reach out to law enforcement, we would rightfully call that abuse. Why can we easily recognize that behavior as being immoral in that scenario, but find it acceptable in the local/national/fucking global treatment of Jews?

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tiktok chow : (noun) a trendy food item prized solely for the social currency it provides online when you post yourself eating it or otherwise make content about it. usually far more ornamental than satisfying in an epicurean sense

"we wanted to go get pizza, but conan insisted on getting tiktok chow at some place that sells buttercream frosting in plastic seashells for $28.99"

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no animal was harmed during the making of this video. not one. for the few minutes that we were shooting film, the guns of each hunter fell silent. the industrial bolt throwers observed a moment's peace and the jaws of every predator hung softly open. no fish bit any hook and the bait worms held off on drowning only until the cameras stopped. the tails of ruminants ceased to flick just as their attendant flies, in unison, landed on their flanks to catch their tiny breaths. a spider instantly stopped winding silk around a wasp, patiently waiting for the caesura to end. a young veterinarian paused with the syringe in their hand. somewhere, a colicky baby stopped biting its mother's nipple and nursed happily for the very first time. we're sorry. we're sorry it couldn't have been longer. we didn't know this would happen.

[writtenwolves]

[writtenwolves]

i ❤️ my phone so i made it a bedroom to go to sleep in when i want to reduce my screen time

[writtenwolves]

The North Sea, by Patrick von Kalckreuth

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i don’t give a fuck if i “sound like chatgpt,” you will pry—my em dash—from my cold—dead—hands—fuck you fuck you fuck you

[writtenwolves]

Oh, to be a sleepy red fox in the sunshine ☀️

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another underappreciated tumblr feature that you dont get on other sites is the queue. i love it when something i thought was funny six months ago and then forgot about a week later crawlts its way out of the processing vortex and i get to see it all over again.

[writtenwolves]

did you know you can create a whole fictional world and nobody can stop you and its not illegal

[writtenwolves]

It’s so easy to label people these days. From the way folks have been talking, you’d think everyone falls into two buckets: those who voted against the mayor who promised to blow up the city and those who voted for the mayor who promised to blow up the city. And now that the mayor, whom I voted for, is blowing up the city, as he promised, I’m one of many people who are being unfairly blamed for something I didn’t want. Okay? I didn’t want the mayor to blow up the city like he mentioned many times; I just wanted him to fix the old bowling alley like he promised in passing once. Anyone saying I’m partially responsible for the explosions is just a sign that they have no argument.

Before you rush to cancel me, try to remember the mayor made lots of promises, and I didn’t expect him to keep them all. Yes, he promised to turn our playgrounds to glass and take a blowtorch to the schools; yes, he said that he was going to use napalm on every grocery store, but, as I said, he also promised he was going to fix the old bowling alley.

Oh, how I loved that bowling alley as a kid. It’s been closed for twenty years, so when the mayor mentioned he’d fix it if we elected him, I had to give it a chance. To be fair, he was also the mayor a few years ago, made the same promise, and failed to fix the bowling alley then. But he did live up to his promise to reintroduce smallpox into local daycares, so at least you know he can get things done, unlike the other guy who did neither of those.

I’ve seen all the attacks online. You use the mayor’s own clear statements of purpose against me just because I consciously chose this. “The mayor said he was going to blow up the city.” Yeah, metaphorically. “The mayor brought up his desire to see the residents of the city cleansed by flame in every speech.” Sure, if you take it out of context, maybe. “The mayor’s election slogan was, ‘Blow It All Up and Watch Them Suffer,’” which is scary only for people stupid enough to take him seriously. The fact that he had to go so far as to pour gasoline all over the Burger King before throwing a Molotov cocktail through the window shows what his opponents have pushed him to do. It’s really his critics that have kept him from fixing the bowling alley.

Let me reiterate: I do not approve of the mayor locking the doors of the mall and igniting a bus full of C4 in the food court. I may have worn a shirt that said, VOTE FOR THE MAYOR WHO WILL BLOW UP THE MALL FOOD COURT, but that was just my fun way of saying I only cared about the bowling alley. It makes me sad that you think I wanted people to get hurt by this. Especially when it’s something that directly affected me for the first time in my life, when my nephew was accidentally trapped in that mall when it exploded. Give me a little grace here. Plus, my nephew voted for the other candidate, so it’s kind of his fault that he ended up there to begin with.

Is it so bad that I wanted the bowling alley back? Maybe that’s what you’re really mad about. You wanted the mayor to fail. The negativity around the smell of roasting pig is just a facile attempt to distract from his potential future successes. I bet the mayor is about to fix up the bowling alley, and I’ll walk in, and I��ll be twelve again, and all the adults will be so tall, and it will be my party, and everyone—even the kids who don’t like me—will have to sing happy birthday. The previous mayor said that rebuilding the bowling alley wouldn’t make it 1996 again, which, to me, is unacceptable.

It’s disgusting and, frankly, counterproductive to point out that I voted for this. To imply that I had personal free will and agency when I walked into a voting booth and picked Mayor Bomberman is insulting. Here I am, admitting that I did not actually want the mayor’s biggest promise to happen, and you’re criticizing me for directly being part of the reason it’s happening. You should be praising me for being able to admit that—well, not that I was wrong, heaven forbid—but perhaps my faith in the mayor who was arrested thirty-four times for arson was misplaced.

At the end of the day, you can imply that I “wanted this” as much as you like. You don’t know what’s inside my heart. The mayor said he’d fix the bowling alley. Just because he hasn’t fixed the bowling alley and announced that he’ll never fix the bowling alley, doesn’t mean I’m dumb or a fool. And while he may have also promised he’d re-segregate the city, crash the city’s economy, and turn the city’s only remaining functional hospital into a big Jersey Mike’s, I can guarantee that I only wanted the Jersey Mike’s.

So, no, I’m not “happy now” that our zoo has been turned into an open-air animal mausoleum. But of the options I had, only one mayor promised to completely change the city. And you know what? At least he is doing something. It may kill a lot of people. It may leave others without homes or jobs. But I respect a man of action, regardless of what that action is and whether or not it’s going to make things better or worse.

Now, I’ll just sit back and wait for the bowling alley to get fixed.

[writtenwolves]

Joy is stored in the Spaniels. Joy is coming for you. Here they come!

[writtenwolves]

random anecdote for father's day: one time during a long car ride my dad asked me, "you're familiar with Murphy's Law, right?" and i was like "isn't that the one about how anything that can go wrong will go wrong?" and he said "yeah, exactly" and i said "why do you ask?" and he went "well, have you heard of Cole's Law?" and i said "no, actually, what's that?" and he said "it's mostly lettuce and carrots with a little dressing mixed in"

[writtenwolves]

After many springs by Langston Hughes

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[writtenwolves]

'The Lady of the Lake', The Sword Excalibur Arthur and his Knights, illustrated by Thomas Mackenzie, 1920

[writtenwolves]

Stamps printed in Oman dedicated to cats