Meanwhile, In The Bayou...

Chai tea bag + lil but of brown sugar + apple cider packet + 16 oz. mug of hot but not quite boiling water

it will not Fix You but like. maybe. maybe.

do you have any reading recs for someone who wants to learn about bugs?

Oh absolutely! There are so many lovely popular science entomology books. I'll name a few, but there are tons more for specific bugs you might be interested in if you search around! I've got four in mind that I've read that I think provide some nice variety.

Buzz, Sting, Bite by Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson

I so enjoyed this book. It's not about any specific insect, but it's a delightful tour of a bunch of cool adaptations and the like in the arthropod world. I think it'd be a good choice if you're new to the whole thing as it's fun, light, and has lots of different groups represented. I learned about a wild interaction between ground-nesting bees and blister beetles from this one that I ended up making a little video on.

Never Home Alone by Rob Dunn

I love the household ecosystem! This book isn't just arthropods — it also covers bacteria and other organisms you might find in your home. But it's so neat! And tonally it's refreshing because it doesn't attempt to scare you about what's in your house. Rather, it invites you to engage with your fellow home inhabitants.

Honeybee Democracy by Thomas D. Seeley

This is such an interesting deep dive into honey bee behavior. I think a lot of people know bees are smart but don't quite realize how complex their social behavior gets. I also am charmed by any book that includes a chapter on incorporating another animal's behavior as a lesson to our own human society (the last chapter is basically "what can we learn from the voting system of honey bees?", an adorable thought).

The Sting of the Wild by Justin O. Schmidt

The Schmidt pain scale is a bit infamous. Dr. Schmidt made a whole collection of insects sting him, and rated them on a scale based on the pain he felt. With descriptions like "someone has fired a staple into your cheek," it's definitely not the most objective, but it is a good time. And following his journey getting stung by everything (including his grad students that followed in his footsteps in some very funny ways) is entertaining.

✨Shiny Stag Beetles⭐️FriskieWolfieCustoms✨

Oh hey, do you know what time it is? It is highly specific resource time!

Today we have the Royal School of Needlework Stitch Bank! There are HUNDREDS of stitch types in the RSN Stitch Bank.

And more added regularly, let’s look at a recent addition

I picked the first one in the 25 recently added Elizabethan stitches, the Elizabethan French Stitch

The stitch bank provides written and photo tutorials as well as a video option to learn to do it yourself. There are examples of the stitch in use, resources, references, everything but a needle and thread!

rsnstitchbank.org

when i say my gender changes to the tune of the bit i mean a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do and if he can’t then god forbid women do anything

Martial arts? Go on!

Hello!

I love martial arts. Unfortunately with the lockdown, I haven't been able to attend classes, but it's still a love of mine.

It all started with taekwondo. I spent about three and a half years there, and achieves my black belt. I left because I was doing more teaching than I was learning, and so I decided to switch to karate. I did wado kai karate for two and a half years, and in that time I achieved my blue belt. I was a month away from testing for my brown belt, but I had to move for school. I then did a little mma and jujitsu after I moved.

I'm hoping to do some kung fu after this lock down has been sorted out. I picked out a place that does wing chun and northern shaolin. I think it'll be a lot of fun and that I'll learn lots!

Thank you for the ask, I love any excuse to talk about martial arts!

i dont consider myself a 'fashion guru' by any means but one thing i will say is guys you dont need to know the specific brand an item you like is - you need to know what the item is called. very rarely does a brand matter, but knowing that pair of pants is called 'cargo' vs 'boot cut' or the names of dress styles is going to help you find clothes you like WAAAYYYY faster than brand shopping

if you want to see an amazing Star Trek "musical episode," it's The Abduction from the Seraglio staged by the Pacific Opera project. Complete with redshirt orchestra, horny Spock, a Gorn battle, and Klingons doing bat'leth dance choreography.

The plot and score is the same, just rewritten into English and Trek-ified. (Spock's got a whole aria about his human vs. Vulcan struggle. “Yes, my blood is really green. But how much does that mean? Still, I cannot deny my fears. Am I human with weird ears? I’m a Vulcan. I'm a Vulcan!”"

and if you don't have the patience for a 2-hour opera, someone put together a 30 minute highlight reel of a different performance (by the same company, just a different year. there's some casting changes too):

video essays about horror, fear and dread

Films That Feel Like Bad Dreams

The Nightmare Artist

Fear of Big Things Underwater

Control, Anatomy, and the Legacy of the Haunted House

House of Leaves: The Horror Of Fiction

Monsters in the Closet: A History of LGBT Representation in Horror Cinema

The History of Insane Asylums and Horror Movies

The Saddest Horror Movie You’ve Never Seen

Fear of Forgetting

Slender Man: Misunderstanding Ten Years Of The Internet

The Real Reason The Thing (1982) is Better than The Thing (2011)

The Bizarre Clown Painting No One Fully Understands

The Little Book of Cosmic Horrors

The Disturbing Art of A.I.

Fear of Depths

Goya’s Witches

David Lynch: The Treachery of Language

The True History That Created Folk Horror

The Existential Horror of David Cronenberg’s Camera

a few more and the youtube playlist are below the cut. as always feel free to share your recs as well!

Keep reading

Moon Mascot Needed!

Have you ever wanted to design something that could fly around the Moon? This is your opportunity. The Artemis II astronauts will use a zero gravity indicator during their mission to demonstrate when the Orion spacecraft has reached microgravity. This plushie needs to be soft, small, and importantly, remind us of home. The Moon Mascot contest challenges people of all ages from all over the world to submit a design to be made by NASA’s Thermal Blanket Lab and flown aboard Artemis II. To submit a design for the contest, visit: freelancer.com/moon-mascot