Eurasian Red Squirrels/ekorrar Photographed In Värmland, Sweden (April 18-20, 2025).

continuing my research into "what is the most bullshit thing you can call a 'book'", i present: one sheet of paper and three pinback buttons.

pretty excited by these, i've wanted to do a turkish map fold zine for a while and the little case is cut from the same sheet of paper so the whole zine can be printed on one 8.5x11 page. i'll have these at seattle art book fair at washington hall next weekend!

i was just thinking earlier in vague terms about a specific but weirdly prevalent thing which consistently bugs me, namely: when cis men attempt to be self-deprecating about their unfamiliarity with feminine things, except that of course it's not actually self-deprecating to bring up how categorically distant you are and have always been from a stigmatized practice…

and then ran into this post, in which a presumably-white anon attempts to be self-deprecating about their unfamiliarity with the racialized genres of hip hop and rap (specifically by characterizing themself as a[n implicitly uncool] 'blorbo enjoyer,' which of course—as @‍batmanisagatewaydrug correctly points out—has the knock-on effect of framing fandom as Not For People of Color, which, not to put too fine a point on it, is racist), which illustrates exactly the same dynamic along a different axis…

anyway i guess my point here is just (1) to note that yeah, this really does seem to be a pattern! and given that, (2) to underscore in my own mind that this is probably something for nerds vel sim. in particular to look out for, because we often have insecurity modifiers that makes us feel like we're not ~really~ solidly part of the privileged group, which seems to make us feel like disclosing our ignorance can somehow constitute a self-deprecating self-own, rather than an offputting humblebrag about the privilege that made it possible…

アオバト

look, was this towel ““worth mending””? debatable. did i however have fun applying my silly little patches to the hole in it? yes. :)

"marriage is the ONLY way to get these protections" "there is NO WAY to hack a legal arrangement to cover everything that marriage grants" "kiddos you don't remember what it was like before we could get married, we finally got rights because we could get married" Okay But You Recognize Why That's Bad, Right. Like that is really, really bad that you have to enter a specific type of relationship to get legal rights. That is A Problem. You recognize that that is Not A Good Thing, Right

like, okay, this clearly would have been a better post with excellent hires photos to illustrate it, but like. i'm still thinking about the beautiful rich black-tipped chestnut of the (huge!!) tail feathers and the bronze-and-verdigris of the breast and the way the down trailed up the back of its mostly-naked little neck and head like a tiny turkey mohawk, and the smooth sudden grace with which it flew up to perch on the railing, like a cat gathering itself and then in one smooth sudden motion: transit! only the creature is a zeppelin; and how facing away from me with the wind ruffling its feathers up in great soft ridges it looked like nothing so much as an enormous, astonishing pinecone…

holy shit turkey on the deck. god they’re SO beautiful and SO shockingly large. junoesque

gotta say tumblr's little pro-cursive revival has really reactivated early middle school memories of being forced to write up assignments in crabbed horrible cursive and hating it more with every letter whose setup i failed to properly anticipate far enough in advance to connect it smoothly (possibly bc adhd but like. hashtag guy who's only ever had adhd so what do i know.)

i do wish my experience of having feelings (this isn't me being Vague, i do very generically mean 'having literally any feelings at all about anything ever') didn't automatically involve a meta-layer of feeling viscerally humiliated by the fact of my having them

like any time i get irritated or upset about anything it almost immediately tips into 'well okay but probably i'm the problem here bc i'm Oversensitive and Irritable bc i've failed to construct a life for myself which makes me happy in a way that would cushion me against being bothered by these irritants, which in the philosophical scheme of things i recognize i should Rise Above' (in this framing i am apparently an oyster and happiness = nacre). and it's not that there's no potential truth to this line of thinking but it also feels a little like i imagine having one's emotions blamed on one's menstrual cycle would feel (disrespectful & humiliating)

with things like sadness-about-everything-and-nothing-in-particular or, idk, private delusional romantic hopefulness abt people (nothing recent in this category but i have been known to experience it from time to time) it's slightly different bc there the meta-feeling is less about my failure to respond appropriately to other people and more about, like, why am i not advanced enough to have evolved beyond these feelings. like 'i understand intellectually how unfounded and ultimately laughable i look right now and yet. despite my ability to observe myself i still continue to experience this (unpleasant, humiliating) experience. why can i not think my way out of it.' and of course this is more or less equivalent to saying 'why can't i think my way out of the human condition' which. hello. and yet!!

anyway i think none of this is helped by the fact that my nearest and dearest are largely deeply phlegmatic, pragmatic people, at least in terms of the affect they present to me, and so by comparison i feel deeply histrionic and stupid and childish at essentially all times: Local Man Secretly Dancing Bear (unlike aubreyad where dancing bear secretly man). the answer is presumably 'don't compare yourself! you are a different variety of Creature! #IDIC!' but unfortunately the comparative impulse is i think. again. pretty deeply human (for feelings on which, see above)…

what is your eye color. what is your favorite color. what is the color that appears most frequently in your wardrobe. what color is your favorite blanket. what color is your water bottle.

cracked open the glossaire érotique (1861) and was immediately floored by the very first word in the dictionary being "abailardiser" (verb). definition: "to leave someone in the state the canon fulbert left abailard" (castrated)