Mal

alterhuman | ve/they/she | 20

[falidae]

I saw a massive black squirrel!

[falidae]

I let my words shrivel up. I feel haunted by what’s left unsaid.

[falidae]

My axle pins are arriving today! Back on wheels

[falidae]

I need to go to a dance hall

[falidae]

I fucking hate it here

[falidae]

The people around me don’t even know my body is disintegrating before their very eyes

[falidae]

I miss Florida so much it is making me sick.

[waspdaily]

Today's wasp of the day is the bog wasp (Pseudochalcura gibbosa)!

Credits: photo 1, photo 2

(First, a clarification: these little chunkers do not have a common name, however I saw them referred to as bog wasps due to their associated environment and am deciding to use my authority as a wasp enjoyer to help spread the moniker)

These wasps lay their eggs on the bog Labrador tea plant (Ledum groenlandicum), but they're not there for tea. Instead, freshly hatched wasp babies wait for foraging carpenter ants to pass by, hitch a ride with them back to the ant's nest, and start using the ant larvae and pupae as juice boxes. When they have their fill, they leave the nest and head back to the bog to set up the next generation of hitchhikers!

[waspdaily]

The bug from the bog. The bog bug.

[falidae]

I’m thinking about my Nini, she is my dad’s mom. I remember going over to her house. We rarely went inside. I stayed the night with her one time. I slept on a chair and foot stool. Her house always scared me a little bit, it was so dark, she kept all the lights off and the walls were wood paneled. There was a small hallway leading to her bedroom, a guest bedroom full of stuff, a bathroom, a linen closet and one last door that I never saw behind. She was an artist. She painted landscapes of the Coast. Whenever I went over to her house I brought a notebook. She would draw pictures on a random page. I wouldn’t try to look for it until I got home.

[falidae]

I miss the Suwannee river

[falidae]

On the topic of my family. I think about my great great grandmother Ebba born 1901, the first generation born in America. Her parents came from Upsala and settled into a Florida town now sharing the same name. My mother says her house is where all the family came together but after she died everyone scattered. I can recall a night many years ago I sat around the fire I heard the story of the clock she haunted. How the clock got passed between each of her sisters and how it would start and stop ticking at random times.

My family had a band. Upsala - a string band. My uncle JU and aunt W Lee are the two I know. They wrote a song about my grandfather HG. He was the Atlantic Coastline Railroad man. After his death I sat on the porch of their wooden house listening to that song when it began to pour. The rain pelted the tin roof and come running down the corners. Only rained for about ten minutes or so and the sun was back to shining.

It feels odd. Never knowing my family but hearing their voices sing their story through a cassette tape.

[falidae]

I’ve been thinking about my family recently. Especially my great grandparents and all the others that came before. After my great grandfather HG died a few of his belongings became mine: a banjo he made from a hubcap, a wooden dobro dulcimer hybrid he made, a horse tooth, and paper clippings.

I never knew him well but upon receiving these things it felt like I was looking at him, at who he was. Those instruments he carved and played each morning in his recliner before the arthritis got too bad and he had to switch to playing ukulele, they were worn with the songs he used to play.

That horse tooth, I wonder which horse it came from? Was it Copper or Valentine or one of the others? Every spring I received letters with pictures of the new fawns, foals, and colts to name. I probably named about 100 babies in the spring.

The paper clippings interested me the most. I flipped open that book and there I saw him, in his youth and glory, standing next to a car he built, raced, and won, a trophy in his hands. The next page is a yellowed paper titled “Cowboy Meetup”. They advertised shootin’, wranglin’, and a good ol’ fashioned potluck.

I saw my grandfather HG for the first time. Not as the stoic man who sat in his recliner but as the boisterous unbridled spirit he was.

[falidae]

I love being a cat that smokes weed

[falidae]

I made a disabled friend! We were both at the library waiting for the elevator. We both had our mobility aids and masks. We started chatting and exchanged information. Turns out they live really close to me and we’re going to hangout! It’s really sad I’ll be moving states in 2 weeks :(

[falidae]

I really miss my church. I miss singing in the choir and taking communion. I miss being able to discuss scripture with others. I miss the queer kids that sat with me at dinner and showed me their art.

[falidae]

All the people I’ve known throughout my life feel like threads in a cloth. There’s a few that stick out. some that I can’t help but fiddle with.

[falidae]

If these walls could talk. I would hope they don’t mind the things I’ve drawn on them, or the holes I’ve made.