allthepettyart

[allthepettyart]

i hate to say it because i'm neurodivergent and a chronic-pain-haver but like... sometimes stuff is going to be hard and that's okay.

it's okay if you don't understand something the first few times it's explained to you. it's okay if you have to google every word in a sentence. it's okay if you need to spend a few hours learning the context behind a complicated situation. it's okay if you need to read something, think about it, and then come back to re-read it.

i get it. giving up is easier, and we are all broken down and also broke as hell. nobody has the time, nobody has the fucking energy. that is how they win, though. that is why you feel this way. it is so much easier, and that is why you must resist the impetus to shut down. fight through the desire you've been taught to "tl;dr".

embrace when a book is confusing for you. accept not all media will be transparent and glittery and in the genre you love. question why you need everything to be lily-white and soft. i get it. i also sometimes choose the escapism, the fantasy-romance. there's no shame in that. but every day i still try to make myself think about something, to actually process and challenge myself. it is hard, often, because of my neurodivergence. but i fight that urge, because i think it's fucking important.

especially right now. the more they convince you not to think, the easier it will be to feed you misinformation. the more we accept a message without criticism, the more power they will have over that message. the more you choose convenience, the more they will make propaganda convenient to you.

[allthepettyart]

It’s the season of giving, and billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott just announced she’s handed out more than $2 billion to 199 different organizations this year.

That brings the total amount donated by Scott since 2019 to $19.2 billion, based on her past public announcements of her charitable giving. Forbes still estimates a $31.6 billion net worth for Scott, who became one of the world’s wealthiest women following her 2019 divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Scott received a 4% stake in Amazon in the divorce settlement.

Much of this latest round of donations went to organizations focused on alleviating poverty, Scott wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.

“Roughly 75% of them are non-profits that support the economic security and opportunity of people who are struggling,” she wrote, adding that the organizations offer services ranging from access to affordable housing, healthcare and financial counseling to child development and post-secondary education.

Other organizations that received gifts from Scott focus on areas like “human rights and natural resources conservation,” she wrote.

In 2019, not long after her divorce settlement, Scott signed The Giving Pledge and committed to giving away the majority of her wealth in her lifetime. Since then, she’s routinely ranked on Forbes’ list of the most generous billionaires, giving away roughly one-third of her net worth, according to the publication’s most recent list, published in February.

[allthepettyart]

It has been way over a decade since this happened, so some details are a little blurry, but I still have to tell this story here too:

So, my dad's colleague was on a trip with their friends, who were a couple. Now, the wife of this couple was a huge U2 fan, and the highlight of this trip was going to a U2 concert. Later that night, after the concert, they went to a restaurant, and who do they see there at another table? Bono. The wife wants so badly to go and ask for an autograph, but in a typical Finnish fashion, she doesn't want to be a bother because surely Bono just wants to enjoy his night and not be surrounded by fans all the time, so she doesn't go.

Then, she notices that someone from Bono's table gets up and goes to the men's restroom, so she also gets up and goes to wait outside the men's room, until the guy comes out. She then stops him and goes excuse me, I saw that you were at the same table as Bono, would it be in any way possible that you could ask for an autograph from him for me? (because apparently it is much less mortifying to bother someone else you don't know than to bother the guy directly, I guess).

The man apparently kinda stands there for a moment, just looking at her, before he asks, sounding just a tad bit confused, if he heard her right. You want me to go and ask Bono for an autograph for you?

Yes, she says. She's being very polite about it. If you would be so kind. That would be great.

The man says yes, sure, I'll see what I can do about it.

They then part ways and go back to their own tables and continue the night, and some time later, they notice that Bono and the rest of the people who had been at that table have left.

Oh well, the wife thinks. No can do, maybe he just forgot or something or just didn't want to do it. It's okay.

They finish up their meal and ask for the bill. The waiter tells them that their meal has already been paid for, and then tells that they were left with two notes.

The waiter gives them the notes. They are both autographs. One of them says Bono.

And the other says Bruce Springsteen.

[allthepettyart]

Discover Khao Hin Phap Pha, the cliff known as 'Pancake Rock' for its strikingly layered rock formations, located along the scenic coast of Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand.

[allthepettyart]

Something that I have noticed is I know almost nobody my age that goes to a food pantry. I know people who regularly run out of money for food and in general have to eat an unsuitable diet because that’s what they can afford and they still don’t go to a food bank, im not sure if it’s because they’re embarrassed or maybe if you didn’t grow up going you don’t know much about it but if you’re financially struggling I really recommend it. And look into other options for food assistance too like community fridges and gardens and other programs that can assist you, where I live Salvation Army pays for an allotted amount of grocery delivery for low income people every month, in the summer farmers take excess produce to the library to be taken by anyone who needs it, etc. There are a LOT of resources for free food that you can look into especially if you are literally not eating because of your financial situation

[allthepettyart]

holy shit y’all should watch this one, what an admirable person

[allthepettyart]

Now comes the Putin payback: destroying and betraying America. The gutting of excellence.

All of this has negative repercussions. There is not one positive. We all die because the MAGA electorate is indoctrinated.

[allthepettyart]

[allthepettyart]

the fact that walls get dusty is ridiculous. you're vertical. act like it.

[allthepettyart]

now more than ever, it is imperative that you spend time with people you love and doing things that you love. be prepared but please please please don't dwell on things that have yet to happen. you have to have hope for a better future in order to build one. it's gonna be okay. we're gonna make it. i love you.

[allthepettyart]

in light of Trump's inauguration speech declaring multiple national emergencies that require him to take god-knows-what executive actions immediately, I'd like to remember this chapter of "On Tyranny" by Timothy Snyder:

[allthepettyart]

You can tell a lot about the health of a civilization by their warning signs. Places with a lot of dumb folks will have very broad, very dumb warnings in public. "No feeding the birds." "Stop swimming in this drainage pond." That kind of thing.

Advanced civilizations have very precise signs. They've covered the bases of their regular, run-of-the-mill idiots, and now they're working hard to cover that other end of the bell curve: the talented idiot. When I was in Germany last time, there was a big warning sign that consisted of a 76-letter-long word that means "stop bothering this particular goose, Sven." I don't know who Sven was, but the goose looked pretty calm. It worked.

Now, I have a secret to tell you. You can just make your own signs. There's no law against it, except perhaps "littering," and the municipal sign factory doesn't have very good security. If you show up there past close and put in the door code that you shoulder-surfed off one of the employees returning from lunch a week prior, you have all night to fuck around with their sign-printing machine, making the most official-looking placards you can think of.

Is this wrong? I don't think so. It's a public space, and being able to put up an aluminum sign that says wacky crank shit is your right. For instance, just last week, I banned pickup trucks from parking by the playground. The cops figured out something was going on, because they didn't get any calls for toddlers getting backed over for a couple of days and sent a patrol truck to investigate. Took my sign right down.

What I discovered after that is that nobody keeps records of what signs are supposed to be there. Why would anyone put up a sign for no reason? They cost money, after all. The city is now suing the shit out of that officer for stealing the "no trucks" sign, thanks to an anonymous tipster who called in the theft. Guy wearing a reflective vest came by and put like four more of them up after the lawsuit made the news, just out of spite. I'm not entirely sure if he's actually a city worker; we ran into each other at 3am at the sign factory and just grunted. He was working on some really crazy signs about not feeding a particular swan. Probably German.

[allthepettyart]

There are few delights in the world like having a friend start to read Jane Eyre for the first time and then as they are commenting on it you slowly realize that they don't know. They don't know Rochester's deal.

This is like the literary equivalent of meeting someone who doesn't know Darth Vader is Luke's father.

So they go "I don't understand why anyone would have a problem with this relationship! Yeah he's older and there is a class/power difference but he clearly respects her as a person and it's so refreshing!" and you just cackle, cackle, cackle behind your screen until the inevitable day you get this message.

Everyone congratulate my friend @anonymoustypewriter, they just found out one of literature's biggest 100+ year old shock twists authentically without anyone spoiling it for them.

[allthepettyart]

holy shit y’all should watch this one, what an admirable person

[allthepettyart]

everyone trying to own trump about the "he doesn't know sex isn't determined at conception" thing really fundamentally does not understand what the point of that was, and learned basically nothing from his first term. he is not invested in scienve, biology, or any rational discussion where his provably false beliefs would be subject to scrutiny. he is signaling to everyone in the country that it does not matter what you say, he will never care and he will take every action to enforce these views and embolden his followers with the same rhetoric. you cannot logically talk to a person like this when they are reasoning with emotion, not logic. you cannot dunk the transphobia away. someone post the vonnegut quote.

[allthepettyart]

kitten I’ll be honest the finality of everything in this world haunts daddy like a second shadow