Here's To Being Happy

they/them | as ace and gay as can possibly be | I just really love people ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Hope you're happy and having a wonderful day :D

[notatzimisce]

I will never shy away from the word goon. goon is the only way to describe a particular type of henchman, lackey, or thug. look at these guys. they're goons.

[purr-in-ink]

🐾⚔️🤍

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

They should invent a cat who doesn't want my baked beans

[nowamamamia]

Can we also invent some that don’t steal my potato chips?

We have now renamed Remington to Chipington

[persianpenname]

This little bastard

keeps trying to convince me she's an obligate carbivore

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[fairy-wren]

Fiery Throated Hummingbird

(photos by Sam Bobbing)

[artist-refs]

EDIT:

… And this is why I always try to read the tags :V

[caawvids]

Loon

[internetgreatesthits]

[lookatthiscoolanimal]

Turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) (1) (2)

[thesingingbullfrog]

Always exciting to get a chance to photograph Brown Thrashers. I was really excited to see this juvenile with one of it's parents. The juvenile, in the front, has blue eyes, as it ages they will turn the bright yellow of the adults.

[pangur-and-grim]

yeah, that’s not allowed

[todaysbird]

the beautiful nuthatch is a large member of the nuthatch family, found through most of southeast asia’s mainland. the nuthatch is named for its vibrant coloration, unusual in the nuthatch family. like its relatives, the bird feeds on mainly small insects. the species does not exhibit sexual dimorphism, with both the male and female showing brilliant plumage.

[sturionic]

"Learn the fundamentals first" seems like really sound universal advice, and as a former classical musician, I can vouch for it. You will have a more solid foundation for increasing complexity if you put in the time to study in a structured way. If you don't, you'll have a lot of shit to fix later.

As a former music teacher, I can also say that "learn the fundamentals first" is the death knell for a vast percentage of beginners, especially adult learners.

I've run into this with drawing several times, where some well-meaning artist has lectured me on needing to study anatomy properly or not use shortcuts like CSP brushes. And oh, believe me, I know. I know exactly how to learn an artistic discipline in a structured way. I just...don't want to!

The thing is, I'm not aiming to be a professional artist. I want to draw my gay little anime guys. I would undoubtedly improve at art much faster if I approached every gay little anime guy drawing as a study exercise. But I would also have quit drawing a decade ago if I couldn't just let myself enjoy drawing imperfect fucked-up little guys with whatever shortcuts I needed to body myself across the finish line.

With my adult piano students, my approach was always "What's your goal?" If their goal was to learn exactly one Elton John songbook to play at parties, then...that's what we did. We'd put tape on the keys to label the notes, and just fuckin go for it. Learning exactly one Elton John songbook is a good and noble musical goal, full stop.

Some of my students needed and enjoyed a more structured approach to learning; if they wanted to be able to play classical music, then yes, scales were going to have to enter the equation at some point. And yet others would learn the Elton John songbook, catch their white whale, and realize they wanted to explore more of the ocean. The scales were still there for them to learn!

Often the choice isn't between "learn art well" and "learn art imperfectly" - the choice is between "learn art imperfectly" and "don't do art at all." To which I say, learn imperfectly! Or, what the hell, don't 'learn' art. Just do, and enjoy the doing of it.

You have official permission from your local pretentious classical music snob: fuck the fundamentals. You can always unfuck them later (but only if you want to).

[sleebyjam]

Okay, I'll bite. Hawm

[inbabylontheywept]

my wife's hours are bonkers right so, and its been messing up my sleep a little because im not used to sleeping without her around. so i only got about four and a half hours of sleep last night. and then today i came home and i wanted a snack and i sort of accidentally ate an entire large deli container of bleu cheese crumbles + a mangesium vitamin gummy + a melatonin before realizing that the last time i went to sleep after eating Extraordinary Amounts of Psychoactive Cheese i met the ghost of my grandfather who told me that he wasnt upset at me for not being there when he died. and i am not actually in a headspace to deal with that right now. but im also not really able to stay awake. so im just kind of talking to the one crumble i have left like, hey, man, i know i kind of fucked up here, but take it easy on me. im. im scared. no ghosts this time. it actually meant a lot to me last time but i dont want two ghosts in one year thats way too many ghosts. maybe just make this one kind of wacky. nevertheless. not my will, but thine, be done.

[inbabylontheywept]

yeah no i dont think this is a genre of post i think this is a very specific problem for me.

[inbabylontheywept]

@disaster-for-the-aesthetic

no ghost in that night's dream. totally ghostless. i spent the dream wandering around a big warehouse trying to find ghosts, and dream-me was getting really stressed out because he knew there had to be a ghost in there somewhere and then my wife woke me up while covered in flour from her midnight baking shift and in my groggy half-awake half-asleep state i was like, ah, there she is. the ghost of my dreams.

(i may have hollered a little.)

i have a couple tales of grandpa hank. but his ghost story is here.

[toroidalearthtruther]

there seems to be a fundamental disagreement between microwave oven manufacturers and the producers of microwave meals over whether the customer should know the wattage of their microwave or if such details should be abstracted away from them

[toroidalearthtruther]

the microwave rice demands 800 watts of power for 2 minutes, but all the microwave can offer me three settings: one low, one high, and one somewhere in the middle. I turn it to the one in the middle as I happen to know 800W is the average power of most microwaves. the light comes on and the bag of rice starts slowly turning, but rather than hearing the usual rumble of the microwave, I instead start hearing short snippets of conversation - words snatched from the ether. the lights flicker and a chill runs up my spine. the voices remind me of those "spirit boxes" ghost hunters use. I double check the setting on the microwave. "ah," I say, remembering that I had set it to medium,

[abirddogmoment]

Vibes were good out there this morning 👌

[brucemanimean-batwayne]

every time it rains i have the urge to say “well our plan to stand alone in a field with a metal rod is out” which no one ever recognizes is from phineas and ferb but usually kills anyway