[vivinky]

hi........

I quit doomscrolling on Instagram 83 days ago, and I quit doomscrolling on Reddit 33 days ago! I only check them on my laptop now, ~0-5 minutes a day. I don't check my Reddit homepage at all actually; I just end up on random threads when they appear in search results.

I used to spend 2-5 hours a day scrolling and it gave me so much long-lasting anxiety and frustration. Even the most harmless communities, like my favorite r/AquaticSnails, would make me feel so vulnerable any time I asked a question, because it's normal to treat people with less respect on the internet. And I'm not even gonna get into the dwindling attention span, shame, and intellectual laziness.

Now, the looming fear of strangers' abrasive reactions to me, the news, etc. has mostly subsided! However, I'm still very new to this journey and it'll take a while to figure out the healthiest alternative to scrolling, if seeking a replacement is even the right way to frame it. My current replacement is reading newsletters, which help me stay informed about world events and my interests without an infinite pile of commentary attached.

Anyway, I miss throwing stuff into the void so I'm gonna do that right now.

[all-mammal-creechur]

Andean Cat Leopardus jacobitus

The Andean mountain cat lives only at high elevations in the Andes, from 1,800 m (5,900 ft) in the southern Andes to over 4,000 m (13,000 ft) in Chile, Bolivia and central Peru. This terrain is arid, sparsely vegetated, rocky and steep. The viscacha makes up 93% of its diet. It is traditionally considered a sacred animal by indigenous Aymara and Quechua people.

img source

[vivinky]

My roommate's boyfriend who I've been talking shit about for months just saw me walking down the street, hung up his call to talk to me, and very kindly invited me to hang out with them both this evening. Now I'm realizing the only reason I hated him is because of my social anxiety. Deep down I just wanted to rationalize my fear of him so I could keep indulging in my avoidant behavior, alleviating my anxiety but never reaching the root cause.

I was spiraling so badly, staying out 12 hours a day just to avoid my roommate, but now I feel like I've been given a second chance.

Whatever triggered this random encounter... thank you thank you thank you

[seabeck]

Mossy boulder on the far shore

[horsefigureoftheday]

Horse figure of the day: Gene & Rebecca Tobey "Dust"

[vivinky]

Pleurocera canaliculata from the Duck river

[vivinky]

This guy was from a more polluted area and you can see the acid damage on the end of his shell. I miss my mossy old man

[vivinky]

Maybe I'll draw every day and post here

[rosmaryne]

Dead Space 2 (dev. Visceral Games)

[vivinky]

I CAN'T WAIT to go home and see the river. This'll be the only thing getting me through finals. I can't wait to help my sister practice driving by forcing her to take me to the river.

[vivinky]

This is my pink pleurocera (or elimia) laqueata. Most of the laqueatas I see irl and on iNat are yellowish brown, so I think I was pretty lucky to find this one.

Pleurocera laqueata are only found in a few rivers in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. I found this one in the Duck River, which is the most biodiverse river in North America. I'm SO grateful to live near it because I'm obsessed with its 80+ mollusk species. You can look down and see like 5 snail species on one rock! I wish more people talked about the amazing species in this river because they're all adorable even if most of them have muted colors.

[snailspotter]

Today's snail: Naticarius hebraeus | Hebrew Moon Snail

(source)

[acecroft]

TOMB RAIDER: LEGEND | Menu

[vivinky]

I had a dream that there was a political movement called “pull down his pants and spank his ass” and yeah it was self explanatory

[icecolddoot]

The Enclave

[vivinky]

The Age of Scorpius drama has made me consider learning to write just because I know I could do better than Winter.

I do feel kinda bad for him though; imagine being a young adult sharing your cherished paracosm with the world only to be told it's objectively shit. Especially when you have an ego the size of a planet. DAMN that must hurt.

[lew-basnight]

I wish I could find the original post but many years ago I was crashing at a high school friends house and he had me sleeping on some couch cushions that unfolded into a “bed,” except the cushions kept shifting and separating as you slept on them. So I had this elaborate dream that everyone on the planet had at some point been forced to sleep at my friends house, and the situation with the cushions separating was a single common experience that every living human had. And world peace was achieved through a movement called “push them together,” accompanied by a motion like pressing your open hands together as if to pray. Rock stars were doing it on stage, politicians were signing historic peace accords and doing the “push them together” motion, it saved the whole world

[marine-gifs]

A nudibranch. From The Mating Game (2022).