I often refer to my bottle-raised lamb as my adopted daughter, because it’s mostly true, it temporarily keeps nosy strangers from knowing I’m an eeeevil childfree woman, and it’s hilarious when people find out. And by that time they’re usually too disturbed by the “her-daughter-is-a-sheep” thing to get on my case about the “woman-with-no-husband-or-kids-oh-the-horror” thing.
Most of my friends are aware that I do this, and will back me up in conversations without batting an eye when I reference my daughter. And the best part is that they literally never drop the story. They just 100% all the time accept that I have a two-year-old adopted daughter. The fact that she happens to be a sheep is an unimportant detail, not worth mentioning until an anecdote gets too weird to plausibly be about a human toddler.
Which actually takes much longer than you’d think, since human toddlers apparently have absolutely zero sense. “She bites if you stop paying attention to her” is believable, “she tries to eat rocks out of the landscaping” is believable, “she stuck her head through a fence and couldn’t get out” is believable. “She jumped a five foot fence and came screaming back into the house through the dog door when I left her outside in the pasture” does get some strange looks, though usually not for the right reason.
Occasionally the joke gets turned around on me, though. I posted a picture on my not-tumblr blog of her wearing my glasses, and every comment was “Oh my gosh she looks just like you!!!” “I would never have known she was adopted If you hadn’t told me!!” “Are you sure that’s not an old picture of you?!”
So apparently this is what I look like:
At least she does look cute in glasses.
[ID: a close-up photo of a brown sheep, stylishly sporting a pair of glasses. End ID]
4 non blondes were right. I DO wake up in the morning and I step outside and I take a deep breath and I get real high and I scream from the top of my lungs what’s going on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
we are losing the ancient art of full song-length amvs so bad. i keep seeing banger edits that just cut off at 30 seconds what are u doing FINISH THE SONG!!!!
saw someone on tiktok say they didn’t watch a 40 second edit because it was TOO LONG. we as a society can’t go on like this
There are only around 1,500 native Cherokee speakers left, and most of them are elders
Little Cherokee Seeds is a program where mothers and babies spend all day with first language Cherokee speakers, speaking nothing but Cherokee, so that the babies become a new generation of native speakers. They’re also teaching traditional skills and mothering practices to the mothers to pass on.
This is so so important for the survival of the language. These babies are on track to being fluent first language speakers, and they will be able to keep the language going for another lifetime.
Someone in Glasgow please go see this for me pls. I will be there in spirit 🙏
Brief report from the flute accompaniment:
It went well! At least 100 people attended, families dogs a solid portion of Glasgow’s trans community. There was a really lovely atmosphere, nice weather and a very cheerful celebratory vibe.
After short speeches from the ballhaver and the large dyke (my wife), the ballhaver was given a chupa chup and blindfolded (execution style). The balls were then duly kicked; it made a surprisingly loud dull thumping sound. She fell to the ground to loud cheers and there was a moment of silence while Taps played on the flute. The large dyke wore solovair urban hikers.
Account from the Large Dyke.
Arrived early to find the crowd already gathering, so the kick got off to a prompt start. Following some introductions from everybody and some cheery folk music from our flautist (my wife!) we got on with the kick.
I think we got good contact, the top of my boot making a good solid noise on impact. Very good atmosphere all round, people stayed to chat for a while. Were it not January it would have been an excellent opportunity for a picnic.
10/10 queer event, would happily kick anybody in the balls in the name of community.
Account from the ball haver
7am: the pressure is getting to me; I wake up and drink half a bottle of diet iron bru from my bedside table; roll out of bed, and psych myself up in the mirror - “you can do this my little pogchamp” I say to myself over and over until I decend into a stupor.
8am: I play an hour of Okami on steam to replenish my chi levels
9am: I look at my balls for a while
10am: I spend 20 or so minutes trying to decide what to wear before realising it’s the subartic in midwinter and I’m going to have to dress for -2C° regardless of what I choose and opt of my trusty black Schott thermal padded winter flight jacket and a pair of loose, warm Uniqlo trousers to give my testicles room to breathe.
11am: crashing out, texting my friends to arange a substitute kickee, an understudy, anybody so I can just become one with the crowd and not go through with it
12am: the homies have arrived, I’m drinking redbush tea in a small cafe by the park; god is in his heaven and all is right with the world
12.15: “you must be here to watch me get kicked in the balls?”
12.40: a circle emerges, from within the circle a palpable energy focuses like a lens down unto me and I feel like I’m gonna pee my pants a little
12.50: cheers begin, several complete families with dogs arrive - more friends appear and assort themselves into a gathering of ‘real heads’ ready to watch my groin be dessicated by the firm lace of a women for woman woman with a foot loosed through the gates of war as Augustus saw fit the dispatch and return of his troops from far corners through the blessings of Janus.
12.55: I think I left the stove on
1pm: Short introductions are made, grace is shown, beautiful flute music accompanies the gathering
1.03pm: what is left of my dignity disappears up my inguinal canal; I fall to the ground and languish a moment. I can feel it more in my lower chest than I can in my groin but the humour and adrenaline lift me and I’m laughing on my feet again soon. I kneel for the last post.
Some people start living at 30. Before that, they were only surviving - doing what was expected, breathing without meaning, moving through years like borrowed clothes that never fit. Some people die at 20. Not in body, but in spirit. Their laughter becomes routine, their dreams shrink, and life turns into a series of obligations they never chose. Some restart at 40. After loss. After heartbreak. After realising that staying alive isn’t the same as living. They gather themselves slowly, like broken glass learning how to reflect light again. Time is a concept humans created - a calendar to make sense of chaos, a clock to convince ourselves there is order. But life doesn’t follow numbers. In the end, it’s never about age. It’s about when a person finally chooses to be alive. ~ farah
of all the phrases we used to say in the 2010s era we need to bring back ‘what the hap is fuckening’ because honestly… what the hap is fuckening lately brother
someone just literally interrupted me mid conversation to tell me “what wonderful big dark eyes i’ve got” and on the one hand extremely flattering that she couldn’t even wait until the end of my sentence to comment on this, on the other hand did she have to say it like im the big bad wolf
