#spacetalks

[parallaxshift-raki]

One advantage of communicating online instead of in person is that if something somebody says flusters or overwhelms you, you can just choose not to respond.

You can pretend you didn’t see it at all. I think that’s handy.

[surroundsoundgalaxy]

Spiderpunk sketch

I tried a kind of moving, chaotic, smudged style and i think it's pretty ok

[parallaxshift-raki]

Beth was over today. She took this picture while I was reading and said I should post it.

So I am.

[parallaxshift-raki]

I have memorized every possible answer. I have practiced in the mirror. I know the words. But my hands still shake when I think about it.

I don’t understand why. If I know what I need to say, why is my heart racing? Why does my throat close? Why does my body not listen to logic?.

[parallaxshift-raki]

You do not understand me. You pity me.

[parallaxshift-raki]

I haven’t had the chance to look for raccoons yet, but there are squirrels in a park nearby.

I don’t like the filter Beth put on this picture, but the squirrel was fascinating.

[parallaxshift-raki]

I have learned that people say they want me to be myself, but they rarely ever mean it.

They mean: be myself, but in a way that makes sense to them. Be myself, but not so much that they have to rethink anything. Be myself, but not in a way that makes them wonder if they even know me at all. In a way that won’t embarrass them. And now I’m the one hesitating, trying to figure out what I’m apparently not giving—something I wasn’t even aware was missing.

And I have to wonder if I’m the one getting it wrong.

[parallaxshift-raki]

I can’t say that I understand the current obsession with Elon Musk.

If you strip away the marketing, most of what he’s done in space science is either derivative, outsourced, or bloated beyond reason. He didn’t invent rockets. He didn’t pioneer space travel. He just made it more profitable to pretend he did.

There are people like Tiera Guinn Fletcher, who was designing launch vehicles for NASA at 22. People like Swati Mohan, who helped land Perseverance on Mars. People like Natalie Panek, who works on building robotics for future Mars missions.

But instead we elevate Musk who slaps his name on decades of actual scientific progress. There are real pioneers in this field out there. Just not the ones selling flamethrowers and rebranding physics as marketing strategy.

I also have a purely personal dislike against him. He annoys me.