Hey, if you’ve bought something from my Redbubble shop, like, ever–thank you. You’ve helped me buy groceries or gas or takeout lately, and I really appreciate it. I didn’t expect very much to come of selling stickers on the Internet, but in the past couple of months I made enough pocket money from them that I felt like I could buy a frivolous thing or two for myself. So, yeah, hold that thought.
Last fall at a meeting of Tape Club (which is, by the way, exactly what it sounds like: a gathering of people playing entertainment roulette with a trash bag full of unlabeled VHS tapes) I encountered an unusual object.
On the bedside table in the home of our host was a stuffed gorilla (sort of) with the head of a rooster. It bore a tag that said, “My name is Bernard. I love to eat corned beef sandwiches.” It radiated chaotic energy.
Since I was rapidly losing interest in our current tape (an hour-long instructional video about excel spreadsheets), I decided to look up Bernard’s origins as stated on his tag. I found the website of a creative Young Frankenstein, a local middle schooler who specializes in “giving homeless stuffed animals a new life!” by decapitating them and sewing their heads onto other decapitated stuffed animal bodies. I got terribly distracted from the Excel spreadsheet video looking at her amalgamated creatures and their names and occupations.
For example.
There are a lot of them and they are all great. My favorite by far was a creature named Denise, a vulture/cat hybrid who mysteriously bore no description. I considered buying her, but I didn’t know if spending ten dollars on a weird object was the right decision, financially, so I put off my purchase. After a few days of thinking it over I assured myself she would find a home eventually.
Last week I ran into the person who had hosted Tape Club so many months ago, and it reminded me of my encounter with Bernard, and also of Denise. I went home that evening (fine, it was closer to 3:00am) and found that she was miraculously still listed on the Wild and Wacky Pets website. I could think of no better way to support local business while also getting a bizarre gryphon-like creature (which was especially fitting) in the process.
She arrived in the mail two days ago and frankly I was even more delighted to receive her than I was my recent shipment of earthworms, which is saying something (perhaps it is saying a lot of things, at least about me and my interests).
Anyway, this is Denise and she loves baklava and showtunes.
Today I got curious about nutmeg and wound up learning something I never would have expected: it looks Incredibly Cursed™️ when raw!
The outside fruit is normal enough, but the nutmeg seed itself is encased in this strange scarlet webbing, called the aril, and looks exactly like the demon-infected heart of a video game monster. That haunted webbing is the source of mace, an apparently common spice that I have literally never heard of but which is the source of the classic doughnut flavor, among other things. (It’s not related to the self-defense aerosol.)
I think most people know you can also get balls high off freshly-ground nutmeg and possibly die after the absolute worst trip imaginable, potentially lasting several days.
So, that’s fun! Doughnuts are flavored with Deeply Cursed Monster Hearts and I find this utterly delightful.
ALARMING! I love it!
When I took a trip to Dominica, a cab driver once spontaneously pulled over to the side of the road, hopped out of the car, ran off into the bushes, and returned carrying a handful of fruit.
“I bet you don’t know what this is!” he said excitedly as he split one open.
He was right, I definitely did not.
(He also did this with several other fruits and vegetables–apparently one of his major sources of amusement was how few foods Americans can actually recognize in their natural state.)
Ripley’s favorite phrase this week has been “what’s this?” which he mostly says about food, but also sometimes just to get us talking about whatever’s in our hands. If he says “what’s this?” while holding something in his feet, we tell him about whatever he’s holding.
Just now he started asking “what’s this? what’s this? what’s this?” while staring worriedly behind the couch. I said “I dunno” because I wasn’t sure if he was actually asking about anything in particular. Maybe he meant the couch? The darkness behind it? The marimo next to the couch?
Then he said, “it’s wood?” which I figured he was saying because I had been making him a toy from wood blocks a moment ago. So I said, “I’m not holding wood anymore.”
But he kept staring intently over the arm of the couch, so I had to go over and see what he meant.
An important read for everyone, but especially important for fat folks because many of the health conditions that are covered in this article disproportionately affect fatter people.
“they” (1 word) is shorter than “he or she” (3 words)
“they” is more inclusive than “he/she”
“themself” flows more naturally than “him or herself”
“they” is less clunky than “(s)he”
it’s time to replace the awkward “she or he”
“hey can you go ask they what does they want for dinner, and when is they coming over to watch movies with they?”
“Hey, can you go ask them what they want for dinner, and when they’re coming over to watch movies?”
Step one is learning how to talk like a human person.
Friendly reminder:
“I shouldn’t like to punish anyone, even if they’d done me wrong.” —George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860)
“A person can’t help their birth.” —William Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1848)
“But to expose the former faults of any person, without knowing what their present feelings were, seemed unjustifiable.” —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)
“Every Fool can do as they’re bid.” —Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation (1738)
“So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.” —King James Bible, Matthew 18:35 (transl. 1611)
“God send every one their heart’s desire!” —William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (~1600)
“Now this king did keepe a great house, that euerie body might come and take their meat freely.” —Sir Philip Sidney, the Arcadia (1580)
“If … a psalme scape any person, or a lesson, or els yt they omyt one verse or twayne…” —William Bonde, The Pylgrimage of Perfection (1526)
“And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame, / They wol come up and offre a Goddés name” —Geoffrey Chaucer, The Pardoner’s Tale (~1380)
“þan hastely hiȝed eche wiȝt on hors & on fote, / huntyng wiȝt houndes alle heie wodes, / til þei neyȝþed so neiȝh to nymphe þe soþe [Then hastily hied each person on horse and on foot / hunting with hounds all the high woods / ‘til they came so near, to tell the truth]” —William and the Werwolf (transl. ~1350-1375)
“Bath ware made sun and mon, / Aiþer wit þer ouen light [Both were made sun and moon / Either with their own light]” —Cursor Mundi (~1325)
We’ve been using they/them/their pronouns to indicate a person with unspecified gender for a long ass fucking time. The only reason it’s become a big issue lately is because it can be used as a semi-respectful term for trans and non-binary folks and we can’t have that can we
These fucks are literally trying to change our language to hurt trans/nb folks, and claiming that’s just the way its always been
![catsofinstagram:
?From @FloydTheLion: ?Ahh, wind in the fur! � #catsofinstagram [source: http://bit.ly/2G4ZOvE ]
?](http://web.archive.org./web/20190410101841/https://66.media.tumblr.com/4424d59d680ebb6939e12792cf89fad2/tumblr_ppkso6rrTs1rd8qzho1_500.jpg)
