I Carry With Me

This is where I put photos of broadway actors and cute dogs and blog about my ~feelings~. Enjoy your stay!

[canadianstuck]

One of the funniest things I ever experienced was when I went to go see John Mulaney live, and halfway through a bit about how expensive college in the States is, he looked down at the sleeve of his suit jacket and just. stopped. dead halt, mid sentence.

And after like three seconds, where we’re all trying to figure out the punchline because the story clearly hadn’t ended, and John Mulaney quietly says, “Has there been tinfoil on my buttons the whole goddamn show?”

He’d taken his suit to the drycleaner, and they’d wrapped the buttons on the sleeves and the coat with tinfoil to protect them, and John Mulaney didn’t notice until half-way through his set, and was SO FLABBERGASTED that he never did finish the story about college and instead did five minutes on how stupid it was that his buttons were reflecting the light and he just didn’t notice, and in that moment I understood more about John Mulaney as a person than I ever have.

[ournameisfun]

during one of his portland shows, he noticed this like 7 year old girl in the front row and asked her (and her parents) if she ‘is aware that she is physically here right now’ or if she was just brought along. turns out her favorite john mulaney bit is the “and I’m new in town” bit and that she’s seen all his stuff. He was so shocked and discomforted by the fact a SEVEN YEAR OLD has seen his shows, that he couldn’t get through a bit about donating to charity without interrupting himself at least three times to import good life lessons on this small child, as if that makes up for all the horrible things he’s said that she heard

[sammysausage]

When I saw him in Ft. Lauderdale, there was a bar in the lobby that people kept leaving to go to. At one point, a guy in the front row just got up and BOOKED IT to get drinks. John Mulaney looked over at a woman who was next to the empty seat and asked, “Are you with him? What’s his name?”

She was, in fact, with him, and she did tell him her date’s name. John Mulaney considered this, looked around, and unplugged his microphone. Leaning in to us, he told us that we were going to trick this guy so fuckin hard. He said, “At some point during the show, I am going to stop and say, ‘Well, you guys know what they say here in Ft. Lauderdale,’ and then you guys are all going to scream back ‘WE LOVE MILKSHAKES!’ He’ll be so confused.”

He then continued on with the show as normal, the drinks guy returned to his seat, and that was that for quite a long time. We thought he had forgotten about it until, at some point during what I believe was his McDonald’s drive-thru bit, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “You guys know what they say here in Ft. Lauderdale…”

Naturally, we erupted with “WE LOVE MILKSHAKES” and John Mulaney SWUNG around to face the drinks guy and said, “I bet you’re real confused now, huh, JASON?!”

[windyvalleyzone]

ah so john mulaney is a chaotic neutral cryptid

[friendlyfrankenstein]

This all makes me so, so, so happy. 

[tibby]

i think my age group is just going to have to live with the fact that half of us are always going to be burdened by the glee covers. we’re never going to be able to listen to a bunch of songs without thinking of the glee version. i envy those who don’t have this curse. those who don’t hear rachel berry and finn hudson singing together in the background of so many songs, while mercedes hits a high note and kurt or puck sings a verse with one of the unholy trinity. those who can hear jump without thinking of the mattress commercial. those who can listen to a song as iconic as bohemian rhapsody and don’t have flashbacks to vocal adrenaline performing it at regionals intercut with shots of quinn fabray in labour. who don’t close their eyes at night and hear “this one’s for you artie!” vogue by madonna is forever tainted by “will schuester, i hate you.” i’m never going to willingly listen to run joey run but if i ever heard it in public i know that the only thing i’d be able to thing about is rachel’s terrible music video. there are people out there who are able to listen to rumour has it without hearing naya rivera as santana lopez cut in with lines from someone like you and you know she keeps glancing at brittany s pierce played by heather morris as her life falls apart. walking on sunshine played on the radio the other day and i was surprised when i didn’t hear halo mashed up with it and ALSO ANGELS. don’t even get me started on faithfully, any way you want it/lovin’ touchin’ squeezin’, let alone don’t stop believing. this show and all it’s covers are burned into my mind and i envy those who don’t face my struggle.

[filmeditors-deactivated20230605]

[krabbydon]

The anatomy of a cow poem, or ‘bredlik’

The poem is generally first person and begins with “My name is…”, unless part of a series; series are structured as dialogues.

Cow poems are in strict iambic dimeter.

A cow poem has the scheme *A*A*B*B.

The cow stanza is a 6-line stanza followed by a 2-line ‘punchline’, varying on “I [do the thing]//I lick the [thing]; much like Benadryl Cabbagepatch, the closer the conformity, the better the effect.

Spelling is more-or-less phonetic, especially for vowels, with some exceptions (classical cow poems make exceptions for “I”, notably) and certainly no numbers; the effect is often described as ‘pseudo Chaucerian’. The grammar too is fairly standard.

Or to put it another way

My naym is pome And wen you noe The rouls that mayk My strukchur floe And poeits bend Tou hone ther art

I mayk you smyl I tuch the hart 

[vaporize-employers]

ok OP im sorry but this is misinformation and i can’t just let it pass. cow poems do NOT abide my iambic pentameter, and the punchline is NOT a couplet, it is a MONOSTICH. this is NOT cow poem structure.

THIS is cow poem structure, based on the original: 

“my name is Cow,  and wen its nite,  or wen the moon  is shiyning brite,  and all the men   haf gon to bed  i stay up late. 

i lik the bred.”

so actually cow poems have a rhyme pattern of: abcbdefe;  this rhyme scheme is known as a LENTO. 

cow poems also break with conventional lento structure because it does not separate the 8 lines into two quatrains; ONLY the last line/”punchline” is separated into its own stanza for emphasis.

HOWEVER i also would argue that the last line, while traditionally considered a monostich stanza by the line break, is really just emphasis, and italicized or bolded last line would also work here, and still be acceptable cow poem form. 

i would also argue that OP’s poem itself isn’t quite right; cow poems do not use y’s as replacement vowels, but in addition to vowels, and quite sparingly, although the latter judgement is def subjective. generally you REMOVE letters that are unnecessary to phonetic spelling, not replace them, and definitely not adding them.

there’s also a bit of “cow accent” pronunciation reflected in the phonetic spelling that i think is very important, but again, subjective. 

[bortoukali]

[tomhardysteeth]

have i ever told y’all about the greatest moment of my academic career

i was a freshman in college and i had this history teacher who was ~edgy~ and his hotness level on ratemyprofessor was off the charts and he was the first teacher i ever heard use the word “fuck.” anyway he would do this thing every so often where we’d have a “quiz” and the first two questions were always really easy and the last one was hard - they were all similar questions, and the point was to show what you learn about history and what you don’t. 

so one day he’s like okay kids time for a quiz and the first question was who killed abraham lincoln. the second question was who killed JFK. third question was who killed william mckinley. 

we all take a few minutes and write down our answers, and then the teacher asks the questions again so we can shout out the answers. everybody answered the first two with really no problem.

now, keep in mind that this class was at 9 a.m. and i was exhausted All The Time during my freshman year of college so i sat in the back in my sweats and never said a word and the teacher definitely had no clue who i was. 

so you can imagine his surprise when he asked the class who shot william mckinley and without missing a beat i said, “czolgosz,” pronounced correctly and everything. 

my teacher froze and in a very stern voice asked, “what was that? what did someone just say?”

i repeated: czolgosz.

my teacher: “who said that?”

i raised my hand, and my super cool history teacher glared at me. he then asked me how the hell i knew the answer. he said that in the TWENTY YEARS he’d been teaching this stupid class, nobody, not A SINGLE PERSON, had ever known the answer to that question.

i then had to quietly explain to a room full of people that there’s a musical called assassins and there’s a song about czolgosz shooting william mckinley at the great pan american exposition in buffaloooooooo (in buffaloooooooo)

[jimprideauxs]

An ounce of bargaining, a pinch of trickery, a soupcon of intimidation, et voila! The perfect recipe for a towering reputation without ever having to spill one drop of blood. Ever try to get blood stains out of a silk shirt? Nightmare. — Stardust (2007) dir. Matthew Vaughn

[dogsuggest]

Baby dog has huge feets!? Born With so much love for you already, has to be stored in The Toes

[dogsuggest]

[rannellstan]

this lip syncing is better than all of my skills combined

[bessette-deactivated20190517]

I know I tell this every 5 minutes but the best day ….of my life…was talking to two elder gays when I was 14 and one of them told me that he put a hex on Patti Lupone to not win the Tony in 2011 because she wouldn’t take a picture with him at the Albuquerque airport

[awwww-cute]

[joshsundquist]

The day I met my solemate

[juelzsantanabandana]

Pure post

[jddominick]

I was playing around with my camera and I took this and i can’t stop laughing

[asitravelon]

@thedelicatehandsofascholar

[gallusrostromegalus]

Mom Adopts a “Dog”

So y’all keep blowing up my notes with the various Family Lore stories I’ve been telling, so I guess I should tell one on my parents now.

My Mother’s Father was part of the United Auto Worker’s Union, and during the 50′s and 60′s, was on strike a lot. My point is, grandpa got himself an entirely deserved reputation for being a sucker who loved animals, so people would dump thier pets on him. Hence, my mother grew up in a house with pets such as Picket the one-eyed tomcat, Tweety the Bald canary, Dummy the cat, Stupid Son of Dummy, Spooky Garbage Dog and Chiquita the Tarantula.  Eventually Grandma put her foot down when Grandpa brought home Gerta the Saint Bernard.

I say all this because it provides some context for how the following occured.

Mom and Dad had just moved in together (my parents dated for six years and were engaged for 13 days, driving everyone on both sides insane), and unfortunately, My mother’s German Shepherd, Cops, has just passed away due to bone cancer.  After mourning for a bit, Mom and Dad decided to get a dog together, as a couple.  

For context, my father had never owned a dog in his life.  His mother had ‘Pretty Bird” the budgie as a child but parrots are alien life forms, not pets.

So they go to the Palo Alto Animal shelter to adopt.  The year was 1987, and at the time, Palo Alto was… not a great place.  Lots of drugs, gangs and poor civic managment.  Mom told me that she learned to identify different types of gunfire while living there. They get there, and mom explains that she’s always had a preference for Big Dogs, and the guy’s face lights up.  Oh Yes, he says, We have a Big Dog.  For expirienced owners, yep, adoptable today, here we’ll give you a discount even-

Somehow my parents were not suspicious about this.

They were shown to the Animal in question, a Gorgeous blue-sable beastie with pretty golden eyes who immediately pressed herself against the fence and gave them the best PUH-LEEEEEEASE TAKE ME HOME puppy eyes 100lbs of canine can do.  Mom and Dad fall in love instantly.  They sign all the paperwork and take her home for $10, and name her “Mazel” as in “Mazel Tov.”

Within the hour, it becomes clear that something is amiss.

Cops had lived with his kibble stored in a plastic garbage can in the garage for six years without incident.  Mazel figured out how to open doors and got the locking lid off the can in six minutes, horking down about four pounds of the stuff before my mother notices that it’s been weirdly quiet.  Most dogs bark at or chase squirrels.  Mazel stalked and caught one the second day, presenting it to my mother like an offering.  Mazel knew all her commands but would clearly stop to consider before obeying, and trained my dad to give her good treats within a week.  The locks on the side-yard gate were undone, and she took a stroll around the neighborhood, but always retuned home for dinner.

After a week of gradually realizing that Mazel was smarter than most of the professors my mom worked with, they took her to the Vet for a routine checkup.

Dr. Hamada walked into the exam room, dropped the clip-board and said “Where the HELL did you get a Wolf?”

After a bit of prodding and a very-angry-dr.hamada-calling-the-pound, they determined Mazel was a high-content hybrid, probably with a husky, but was going to be a lil shit her entire life.  OK, said Hamada, I don’t like destroying animals and you’ve got a lot of expirience with dogs, so I’m okay with letting you keep her, but you should keep her away from small children because her Prey Drive could kick in.

Two years later, mom got pregnant with me.

Mazel noticed instantly, and reacted by digging a large hole in the yard and catching even more squirrels for mom, because she needed the protein or something.  That what you do when the Alpha Bitch is preggers, right?  Dig a den and ply her with food?  On the advice of my grandmother, my mom stayed overnight at the hospital once I was delivered, and dad went home with a shirt that had moms and my scent on it.  Mazel spent the whole night puzzling over it.

The next morning, when mom came home with me, there was the sudden and instantaneous recognition of PUPPY!!!!!! :D:D:D!!!!! PUUUUUUUPPY!!!!!!  and Mazel turned into the most aggressively maternal being I’ve ever met.  Playing with me on the blanket, sitting under my chair at meals (I was a messy eater), sleeping under my crib, teaching me to walk by letting me hang onto her fur and shuffle around.

Dr. Hamada thought mom was a madwoman, until he saw me holding Mazel’s mouth open and sticking my face in so i could look at her teeth.  He gave up when my mom announced she was pregnant with my sister.

I’m making living with a Wolfdog sound awesome, but it did come with some drawbacks:

Mazel did have to be muzzled at the vets, because she had Opinions about having things stuck up her butt.

HAIR.  One of my chores growing up was to brush her out every week and I’d frequently end up with more hair than animal.

the only way we could reliably get her to stay in the yard was with an overhead tether with a STEEL cable, which she chewed through anyway.

Do you like waking up by being hit in the face with half a dead animal? No? Wolfdogs may not be for you.

More than capable of opening the fridge and eating everything if you’re not watching

Will get into everything if not otherwise occupied.  Including eating your tax forms.

Howls along with sirens at 4 AM.

PROS of growing up with a wolfdog, as a small child in the 90′s

I was afforded a degree of freedom normally associated with a pokemon trianer. It was no big deal for me and my sister to walk three miles through my not-really-good neighborhood to the Froyo if I took Mazel with us. People tended to leave us alone when we had 100lbs of overprotective Apex Predator following us around.

WINNING at Pet Day at school.  There wasn’t actually a compettion but Billy’s hamster sucks in comparison to an animal that is perfectly willing to demonstrate how she can snap an oak branch in half on command.

PTA moms losing their shit because Mazel would walk down the block by herself to come pick ups up from school.

Grew up associating the word “Bitch” with teeth and the willingness to rip an asshole’s face off for being rude.  Never changed the definition.

Learned the I-Own-This Strut and Murder-Stare from the absolute best.

When she was 17, Mom and Dad decided to add another room on to the house.  They rigged up the overhead tether so she could be outside but not underfoot for the contruction guys.  One morning, mom came out to notice them all milling in the side yard entrance, muttering worriedly.  When mom asked what was wrong, one of them explained that Carlos forgot to bring the Hamburger.  What do you need a hamburger for?  Asked mom, and they pointed down the side yard to where Mazel was sitting, doing her best Viscious Alpha Bitch Stare.

Apparently they’d never realized that she was on the VERY end of her tether there and couldn’t actually get to them, and had been scamming them for a big mac a day for a month.  Mom had my six-year-old sister pull her away to show she wasn’t dangerous and tired her best not to laugh but kind of failed.

Mazel ended up living to be 19 and a half, and except for some minor arthritis, remarkably hale until the day she passed away in her hole in the back yard while taking a nap.  I maintain that Death had to wait until she was sleeping to get a crack at her, or she would’ve taken his scythe for a chew toy.

[tofightandfly]

psa: this is my most successful Instagram selfie yet

[youdoyousium]

just wow

[thejusticethatissocial]

[twitterlols]

[sheafrotherdon]

Remember

The present U.S. administration wants you to be overwhelmed.  They want you to burn out.  They want to swamp you with bad news so that you don’t know where to turn or how to fight back, or whether you have the energy to be effective.

A suggestion: for every piece of bad news you reblog, reblog something about resistance.  Reblog something about how people are building something, in direct contrast to those who are trying to tear us down.  Reblog something that lifts your spirits and reminds you why we fight.

Do not do their work for them.  Consciously choose to reblog light as well as the important news of what the administration is up to. 

They do not get to make us despair.