doubly funny that I saw a compilation of all the corporate accounts like "aw thanks elmo, we're doing well" meanwhile all the flesh and blood real human people are extremely not okay
Not a scholar at first, but the guy who wrote Jaws hated that people used it to justify hating sharks so much he dedicated the rest of his life to shark research and advocacy.
(afaik- the woman who popularized gender reveals did so because she had a long history of miscarriages. The reveal was a celebration of the fact that one of her pregnancies had gotten far enough that there WAS a physical sex to reveal. It was never intended to be like... *gestures at modern gender reveals* all that. That same kid later came out as trans and yes, the family had a second gender reveal for that lol.)
my friend told me that her boyfriend got her a super cool rock while they were on vacation together and you would not BELIEVE my disappointment when i realized she was talking about her engagement ring
When my mom or her sisters did crochet growing up, their dickhead older brothers thought it was hilarious to snip the yarn somewhere in the middle of the bundle. I suspect mom would've found a trick like this really handy.
1) find the end of both pieces. I’m using an off-white and a variegated green so you can easily see what I’m doing, but this can be used to join any two pieces of yarn that are the same weight as each other whether they’re the same color or not.
2) wrap the ends around each other like this. You don’t actually have to lay them down, I did it for clarity in the photos.
3) you’ll need a needle like this. They’re sold under the names “tapestry needle” or “yarn needle.” If you ever manage to find them made out of bamboo or wood, PLEASE TELL ME.
4) thread the yarn through itself as shown in the video above. HOWEVER, where that video shows strand #1 being threaded into strand #2, with the Russian join you’ll thread strand #1 back into itself, using the wrap around strand #2 as an anchor point. I use my toes as a “third hand” when doing stuff like this, but I’ve also seen people use the heel of their hand or a convenient paperweight or even nothing at all. Whatever will let you create a tight join is what you want to use.
Make sure you get this loop as small as you can.
5) repeat on strand #2. Trim the remaining ends.
6) you’re done! This is one of the strongest joins in crochet and knitting. It’s virtually undetectable in a finished project, and because of the wraparound shown in step #2 it can’t pull apart like a knot will.
Actually, wait…
7) don’t forget to put away your needle! “I’ll just stick it in the ball for later” is a comforting lie. The needle will disappear into the ball and you will never see it again, unless your foot finds it later. Don’t do it to yourself. PUT IT AWAY.
You can also make yourself a 'knitting pincushion' using worsted yarn and needles far tighter than normal - you want like, a size 5, or a 3.75mm needle, for a light worsted yarn, so it's quite tight. Make two rectangles, block your work, felt it if desired, and sew the rectangles together into a little bag, stuffing the bag with scrap yarn and quilting it if desired so the yarn doesn't move. Now you have a place for your needles and will not stab yourself, without having to fiddle with the stupid little card.
This a Moonmelon, scientifically knows as asidus. This fruit grows in some parts of Japan, and is known for its vibrant blue color. What you probably don’t know about this fruit is that it can switch flavors after you eat it. Everything sour will taste sweet, everything salty will taste bitter, and it gives water a strong orange-like taste. It’s also very expensive…costing about ￥16000 JPY (which is about 200 dollars).
This is the Peppermeloni. (seriously gosh just look at that sexy mother fucker) Its scientific name is Tumblrous Pepperonus.
The only known specimen is in a pot in David Karps treasure dungeon. It is a tradition that a single slice is given to every tumblr blog that reaches 500,000 followers.
It has the remarkable property of being as healthy as watermelon but tasting like cheesy pepperoni pizza.
If you cut this watermelon a certain way you will find that it has seemingly regenerated. You can do this an infinite number of times and will have a neverending supply of melon.
Hi my name is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Ravenmelon and I’m ebony black (that’s how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips, and a lot of people tell me I look like watermelons (AN: if u don’t know what dat is get da hell out of here!).
And penguins lack large terrestrial predators, so their reaction to humans tends to be, “HELLO STRANGE GIANT PENGUINS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DO YOU HAVE ANY FISH?”
There is an international treaty that says we’re supposed to stay 6m away from penguins, and it’s really difficult because no one told the penguins, and they all desperately want to wander up and say hi.
she was dead silent on the drive home, but that was okay. sometimes, after band practice, she was just out of words. it was a short drive to her house. the only part where it actually felt weird was after i pulled up her parent’s driveway.
after that, the silence stretched so far it smeared and left a weird residue. she kept looking at the car door like she wanted to leave, so i looked at the door too, then she looked at me, and i looked at her, and my first thought was that she was going to tell me that the door was stuck. i was used to that car always doing some damn thing. it was the car me and all my siblings had learned to drive in, and it was really beat to hell. there were dents all over the body, which we’d unsuccessfully tried fixing up with spackle. it had looked nice for maybe a week, but then the sun wrecked it - the spackle cracked up like the mud on the bottom of a dry riverbed and turned a sort of off yellow-white that made the car looked like it had been molded out of chicken shit. it also had a bullet hole it through the cabin that whistled like a toothless old man whenever the car went above 40, so loud it could drown out the radio, and a cabin that smelled so strongly of bugspray that even the arizona summer we drove everywhere we could with the windows down.
(if you have kids one day, you will maybe, possibly, begin to understand how much i loved that car.)
anyway, i was thinking about what else could possibly be wrong with the chickenshitmobile, and she just kept looking at me, and then i wondered if there was something on my face, and she just kept looking at me, and then the penny dropped and i realized she was trying to work up the nerve to break up with me.
now, i’d seen her work up the nerve to do things like this before – it could take quite a while. and knowing it was about to happen made the waiting immediately unbearable.
so i said hey.
and she looked at me, very startled, and said hey back real small. like she’d been caught. and in a way, i suppose she had.
and i said it’s okay. you can just say it. i’ll be okay.
i’m always okay.
and she said: i’m really sorry.
i loved her, you know? it was highschool, but teenagers are capable of love. the way people love changes over time just as much as the way they stand, or the way they talk, but things don’t stop existing just because they're different. opposite really – a thing only stops changing when it's fully gone.
and i said, nothing to be sorry for, and i meant it. she looked a little relived, and i was happy to give her that peace. then she left. i watched her make it through the front door, because that was just habit at that point, and then i sat there a while afterwards, checking how i felt. and the answer was not good, but good enough to make it home. good enough to limp on.
so i put my car in reverse, took my last look goodbye, and immediately backed into her neighbor’s car.
crunch.
air bags didn't go off, which was good. i left a decent dent in the bumper of the other car. genuinely couldn’t tell if i did anything to my car – anything wrong with it just kind of blended together into the general ecosystem of hand mottled, sun cracked, chickenshit spackle.
i checked my glove box, and my car insurance info was, of course, out of date. my phone was dead too. as a teenager, my phone was less my lifeline to my friends, and more my tether to my parents, so i wasn’t particularly conscious of keeping it charged. both my fault.
i sat there a few minutes, trying to think of the best way to handle things, and there was only one answer i could think of, and i hated that answer, so i spent a few more minutes trying and failing to think of a better one, and then a few more coming to peace with what had to be done.
then i went back to knock on my now ex’s front door.
her dad opened, which i was very relieved over, even if he seemed less than thrilled. he looked me over, and in a firm, but slightly apologetic way said: she does not want to see you right now.
(i think he assumed i was going to try and talk her out of the break up?)
and i said not here for her. i just backed into your neighbor’s car, and i need to call my dad, but my phone’s dead. could i borrow yours?
and he looked at me, then back at his neighbors car, which sure enough was dented, then he looked at the chickenshitmobile, and if there was something wrong with it, it just kind of blended into the general Wrongness of the car, then back to me, and i could see him imagining the last ten minutes from my pov: getting broken up with, backing into a car, having to walk up to your exes door and borrow a phone, calling my dad to tell him that i just reversed into someone.
and his expression shifted from stern and apologetic to truly sad, which felt more kind that i deserved. things only got here because i kept fucking up - forgot to look behind me, forgot to replace the insurance forms, forgot to charge my phone. it was my mess, but his sympathy meant the world to me. i probably would’ve cried if he said sorry, or patted me on the back or called me sport, but instead he said
stay out here – i’ll bring you a phone.
and then he left.
i found a nice spot on the lawn in the shade under a sycamore, then settled into his grass.i was trying not to freak out, and was doing an okay job. he came out a minute or so later, not just with a phone, but a juicebox and a jar of green olives, which really threw a wrench in the whole try not to cry thing. soon as i saw those, a few tears squoze out. i was still hoping i could pass them off as Manly Tears but then he told me that he’d gotten the olives a few weeks before and had been meaning to hand them off to me, and that this was his last chance for that. then i made a sound like a horse drowning in a bog, and he patted my back pretty rough, four solid thumps, like he wasn't sure if i was crying or choking on an olive, and was trying to cover both bases at once.
then he went back inside, and i made a few more bog horse noises while finishing off the rest of the entire jar of green olives, and then i called my dad.
he was about ten minutes away that day, and luckily was home. he drove over, and we went to the neighbor’s house, and from there things actually went quite nice. the neighbor was a retired man who actually said he could fix the dent himself, no need for insurance. he said he appreciated that i didn't just drive off, and i said i was really sorry about his car, and he said he was really sorry about my car, and then he gestured to the chickenshitmobile and i laughed because it really was a disaster on wheels.
then we left.
i thought we were going to head straight home, but instead we went to a gas station, and we both got several slim jims that we folded into thick enough coils that we could put them on a hotdog bun because the growing up mormon equivalent of having a sad brewski with your dad is just choosing to make bad decisions sober. then he took me to the canals and we watched the sun turn all orange and pink, and he looked over at me and said:
brains are good at remembering bad days. so you gotta make sure that a bad day has a good part in it, so you can remember that too. remember that when you have a kid. try to do a good job on days like that - they're going to be a big part of how they remember you.
and then he gave me a big hug and said he was never going to eat another slim jim again.
---
the year after that i went to college, which kicked my butt in new and exciting ways. and on a lot of those bad days, after a test that went sour, or a faux paus that was particularly embarrassing, or some other hardship of my new adult life, i’d stop by the gas station and pick up leathery, half jerkied hotdog before heading to the canals to watch the sun set. i’d take a bite and imagine my dad next to me, grimacing through the slim-jim wad, asking what good thing i was going use that time to remember.
