Nonex-on-the-way - I'm A Punny Excuse For A Human

i hope everything gets easier soon. or at least funnier. amen

I hate it when I talk wistfully about the ancient world and then people are like “you wouldn’t survive back then” yeah obviously I would die immediately but do you think achilles would be able to survive in the modern world if he had to send one polite email? no

RYAN GOSLING "I'm Just Ken" wins Best Original Song at the 29th Annual Critics' Choice Awards (January 14, 2024)

i’ve mentioned this here before, but it will remain one of the most ideologically influential experiences of my life: when i was in fifth grade i did a report on post traumatic stress as manifested in veterans of the vietnam war, and my father did me the huge favor of connecting me w/ a vietnam vet friend of his who was diagnosed with PTSD, assuring him that while i was only ten i was bright and curious and he should be as honest with me about his experience as possible. 

i remember entering his office with my tape recorder, sitting in a chair that was too big, and asking him questions about war, and his life after war, while swinging my legs over the edge of the chair. i remember being very, very quiet as he spoke of pulling the car over on the highway for fear of crashing when his hands would shake uncontrollably in response to song on the radio or a smell that he couldn’t be sure was real or sense-memory. and of ruined relationships and anger and american hypocrisy. 

and i also remember that was the day i learned what “valor” meant. he used “valor” in a sentence and i didn’t know that word, and when i asked him to explain “valor” he became very quiet. and i can’t remember precisely what he said, if he ever offered me the dictionary definition or not, but i do remember him looking very sad, and saying something about our country’s idea of “valor”, and also something about a broken promise. and there was an edge to his words that i couldn’t parse at the time that i would later come to understand was bitterness, that he sounded bitter. 

to this day i can’t hear or read the word “valor” without seeing sunlight coming through his office window at a slant, close-to-sunset light, and feeling the kind of quiet, confused, completely internalized panic a child feels when they sense that a grown up is trying very hard not to weep in their presence. 

ok kids repeat after me

vinegar and bleach makes chlorine gas, which is highly toxic

ammonia and bleach makes chloramine, which is highly toxic

rubbing alcohol and bleach makes chloroform, which is highly toxic

hydrogen peroxide and vinegar makes peracetic/peroxyacetic acid, which can be highly corrosive

be careful about your cleaning products and dont get yourself injured or potentially killed ok

Everybody stop what you’re doing RIGHT NOW and celebrate the last Out of Touch Thursday of 2020

commentators giving me kudos for good driving and they also read the "about me" on my registration sheet. i didnt think they would do that

Twitter and tiktok are like a coral reef

It’s loud and bright and productive and glamorous. It’s fast-paced and things cycle through the environment in hours. Everyone is trying to fight for their position in the food chain and stay Relevant. There are lots of pretty things to look at. If something gets Popular it has an impact on everything around it, for a brief time until the next big thing arrives. To an outside observer it’s chaos but to those involved it has order, reason, a Purpose.

Tumblr is like a deep-sea ecosystem.

Things are slow and weird. Memes bounce around for years and even decades. People exist in their little isolated hydrothermal vent communities of mutuals. Sometimes something big happens (suez canal, November 5th, Queen Lizzie kickin’ it) and we all gather around like a whale fall but for the most part we’re just snootling around in the sand doing whatever the fuck. Occasionally someone comes down and shines their flashlight around and immediately leaves and tells their friends about what freaky shit we have going on in the depths. We don’t care. We’re very busy talking about Our Friend Jonathan from a book published in the 1800s like worms slowly digesting the bones of a long-dead organism.