[movementnudge]

Movement nudge! Just do something!

X

Not gonna lie. Everytime I see her face on my insta feed, I immediately get up and do something. She has me trained.

[squid-socks]

This is a hard thing to hear but i genuinely say it with care and best wishes:

Keep using your brain and trying that hard thing no matter how foggy. Feel stupid! It's ok! I promise you are not stupid. I promise your brain will appreciate it. And that with time it will be valuable that you tried.

It's so easy to lose a whole week to brain fog. But your brain and body don't just stop existing that week (though it can feel that way). It's so important to try to incorporate puzzles anyway. Cook a meal from a scratch, do a jigsaw, the wordle, sudoku, use your other hand, learn a new card game, watch a brand new show, do simple math equations, write words backwards, learn a new language (or even just random phrases from a few), play a podcast, read a fun article or magazine, try a new creative project. Something! To help you feel better longer and keep your brains synapses synapsing.

Find a way to push yourself into it. Ask a friend to do it with you, set a timer, build it into your routine, have a bunch of fun games on your phone, puzzles by the bed, set your google to open straight to wordle.

TO CLARIFY: neuroplasticity is magic. And CONTRARY to prior belief it does not just stop after like 25. The brain can recover in exceptional ways so if you feel behind, or feel like you lost so much of what you knew due to a deep spell of illness or depression or injury; it's never too late. Never too late to nuture your brain to a better state of health.

So have a glass of water, take a deep breath and please join me in feeling really stupid trying to finish a "simple" puzzle and know we are all doing a very good job. ❤️

[rohirric-hunter]

We laugh at how The Art of War is basically just, "An army can't fight if the soldiers aren't eating," but I'm reading this document about conservation of ancient yew trees and it legitimately says, "You should never fill the center of a hollow yew with concrete," so I think that probably making blatantly obvious statements is just the bane of being a specialist in anything

[v-spicata]

Ah yeah, that's actually not so bizarre when you know the reasons behind it. Still extremely wrong but understandable at least.

So yew trees are weird. They are extremely long lived with basically no known upper limit to their age. They do this by simply being extremely good at not dying like other trees do.

When a normal tree gets to an old age what usually happens is a fungus gets into their heartwood and takes hold. Their internal, dead wood rots away and they hollow out, lose structural support and collapse. Depending on the species this process can take decades or a good few centuries or so.

While yew trees do hollow out in this way they simply keep going afterwards. A ring shaped yew tree with most of its trunk missing is actually just middle aged and the most ancient yews get even weirder than that.

Wikipedia has this image of a Scottish yew where the start of this hollowing process can be seen. To be clear - for most tree species this would already have been fatal.

The thing is seeing a very old yew in this condition looks wrong to a tree surgeon, it's like the tree is constantly on the verge of death. So, if it's a well loved tree you try and do what you can to stop it from falling apart entirely.

A hundred years ago people tried all sorts of things like chaining up branches and also, yes, plugging the hollowed trunk with concrete. We know better nowadays.

Funnily enough there are even yews that survived this treatment and are still alive today.

This is a picture of the Tisbury yew in 1998 from the Ancient Yew Group, barely a minute ago from the tree's perspective.

Yews are fascinating plants with roots in European culture as ancient as the trees themselves. A few individual specimen trees are even estimated to be around five thousand years old - literally prehistoric in age.

Oh also they do weird things with sex as well sometimes. One of the oldest UK trees, the Fortingall yew appears to partially be turning from male to female on one side. It'll be interesting to see what becomes of it in the next few centuries of its life.

Sorry if this is all stuff you already know, I couldn't resist a chance to infodump about one of my favourite species.

[creekfiend]

How autoimmune conditions can unexpectedly drive mental illness

Antibodies mistakenly attacking the brain are linked with conditions including schizophrenia, dementia and OCD, prompting a revolution in ho

it may interest some of you to know that there is likely an autoimmune/inflammation component of many mental illnesses that we do not fully understand yet. the immune system and the nervous system are very connected both to each other and to all our other systems in ways that, again, we do not fully understand

reminder that psychology is both a very new and also a very SOFT science. if someone in psych is confidently positing that science understands the way the brain functions and malfunctions, they don't know enough to know how little they know. we do NOT understand the brain like we act like we do.

[so-many-ocs]

*voice of someone craving even the tiniest sliver of control* i could make a spreadsheet,

[missandryifyourenasty]

I often think about that post that was a fake dating profile for a cat that was all about chickens, like wanting someone with posable thumbs for opening chickens.

[notogdenjesse]

This is one my favourite things the internet has ever made.

[missandryifyourenasty]

!!!!!!

[bioluminescently-unfolding]

This remains one of the great art objects of modern times and nobody will convince me otherwise.

[thevirgodoll]

[audible-smiles]

My memory of The Birdcage (1996) is always that it's more dated and more difficult to watch than it actually is. You hear "drag-themed comedy from the 90s based on a musical from the 80s based on a play from the 70s" and you brace yourself just a little, right? But the film has a strong gay perspective, so the fruity fag jokes mostly come off as warmly affectionate. There is a surprising amount of poignancy in Robin Williams' portrayal of Armand, grudgingly agreeing to his beloved son's request that he go back into the closet for an evening ("do me a favor and don't talk to me for a while"). The drag club's staff attempting to redecorate the apartment with stuff straight people might like (a taxidermy moose head, an enormous crucifix, and Playboy magazine) is extremely funny. Albert's histrionics are a point of tension because he does often come off as a stereotypically pathetic/comic figure, but towards the end of the movie he makes it very clear that he's aware of how people see him, and asserts that trying to copy a stoic masculinity he doesn't possess for the sake of social approval would be more pathetic. In the 1983 musical adaptation, they give "Albert" (Albin) the only good song in the whole show, "I Am What I Am", which Gloria Gaynor covered to the delight of gays everywhere. Apparently Nathan Lane wasn't (publicly) out yet in 1996, which is amazing because it means that at one point in this movie you're watching a gay man playing a straight man playing a gay man playing a straight man, in a movie about how it's important to be yourself, an absurdity that does seem to encapsulate the state of gay America in the 90s.

[silverhand]

I'm seeing a couple of posts circulating about the gay 90s and this movie. The above is a very good summary, and I think it's worth adding a few other points.

This movie got made because Robin Williams said yes to it (and it's important that Gene Hackman did as well). Williams in the 90s was a mega-star of a type that's not present in the current media environment (maybe Tom Cruise, but I personally think that's echo from his salad days). Even his flops made money on the back end in the video rental market, which also doesn't exist anymore (streaming is different). Hackman was on the other side of his A-list career but still Hollywood nobility if not full royalty.

Playing gay was considered career suicide in the 90s. There had been a number of actors who put lie to that belief stretching back decades, but this was Williams and Hackman (yes, being on screen next to a gay character was enough to get you blacklisted) saying "screw that" and doing it anyway.

Being gay and out was career suicide in the 90s.

Nathan Lane had a really nice gig going for himself. The Lion King put him into the Disney rep company with people like Williams, Bette Midler, and Whoopie Goldberg (check their IMBD list from the 90s--they were making bank at Disney).

Lane didn't come out until several years later (nice summary: https://deadline.com/2024/06/nathan-lane-robin-williams-advice-coming-out-birdcage-1235975010/).

I don't want to imply that this was a Sorkinized moment where everything changed because of one thing, but this was a very important movie that caused real movement in the needle on queer acceptance.

It also proved that there was a market for films with gay characters, which had the knock-on effect of gay filmmakers being able to find distributors of their gay-themed films. Which meant that more people than ever (queer and non-queer) got to see representation on-screen.

[theblackroseink]

The Birdcage (1996) actually has an insane production story. There's loads of crazy details about both the history of the play and original movie as well as the production of the 1996 american version.

There's a great story about Williams covering for Lane in a Oprah interview.

Lane, who wasn't a well known face because he was known for his work on the Lion King, was working on another production and The Birdcage team asked for the play to be postponed so Lane could perform in the movie. Which helped convince a very hesitant Lane.

It was kinda Mike Nichols' comeback film after he made Day of the Dolphin in 1973. If you're not familiar with this spectacular flop: a man accidentally teaches a dolphin to kill the american president.

A co-author of the original French farce had the life goal of becoming a clown.

If you're curious about any of this I highly recommend Matt Baume's video which I almost always watch whenever I rewatch the Birdcage. Or more recently there was a Kill James Bond podcast episode of the movie which I found to have very interesting insight into the movie making/queerness overlap which happened.

[teathattast]

[carnelianfoxx]

[whatyouvegotunderyourskirt]

[churrotowns]

since it’s pride month, throwback to this beautiful cover and this wholesome interaction between two icons

[brightlotusmoon]

[nonaferatu]

This would have had me crucified on tumblr 10 years ago but maybe we are ready for this conversation now:

If you are a socially anxious person, you have to socialize. Your panic/anxiety attacks will only get worse and trigger more frequently if you constantly avoid contact with The Public. Not saying that you need to be a social butterfly- but there is a genuine problem with not being able to order your own meal at a restaurant. And it cannot be solved by always having someone else do it for you.

This is a PSA to about 3/4s of the Portland Youth populace

[nonaferatu]

everyone who reblogs this and is like "I ordered my own tea this week" or "I only barfed once when I had to give a presentation'- you are doing amazing sweetie. Have patience with yourself, you are relearning a skill so difficult that people get 4 year degrees to do it professionally.

[animentality]

[arrowandaxe]

[bee-in-your-binnet]

Coyotes trying their damndest to get domesticated

[shiverandqueeef]

how measurements work in canada (ie/ badly)

[your-dads-filing-cabinet]

@/teaboot

[teaboot]

This isn't even a joke it's just what we do

[tokkibean]

i do not “delete sentences” when they start “hindering the plot” i COPY PASTE THEM into a SEPARATE DOC made just for keeping all my USELESS LINES that i will also NEVER USE so therefore i should JUST DELETE THEM but i DONT because id FEEL BAD if i did

[harpyharpyharpy]

You don't actually have to kill your darlings. You can just put them in the oubliette #myoubliette

[cheaphalloweencostume]

no fucking way

[eggmeowth]

[cheaphalloweencostume]

[hellenhighwater]

Should I be saving my money for a down payment on a house and getting rid of furniture so I have less to move? Yes. And also yes.

But consider:

She's $300 and I need her

[hellenhighwater]

You guys are a terrible influence.

[hellenhighwater]

Some close ups, and the seller also had these candlestick salt and pepper shakers that I got for $2.