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one of my galaxy brained besties said that the way he argues with AI "artists" who post entire rants about how AI art has merit / demonstrates skill / etc etc is by just. posting a picture of a pencil. like a plain pencil on his desk. you do not have to waste your time debating them, you post a picture of a singular pencil, no text, and let me tell you, they fucking hate it.

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The older I get the more I admire people who are earnestly, genuinely into whatever their thing is. I know it sounds like an annoying cliche but unless you're being cruel or hurtful there is really no need to be normal about things. The dude with the bad fake accent at the renaissance faire is having the time of his life. The people having photoshoots with their fashion dolls are loving it. The old lady with a yard unreasonably full of tacky ass lawn ornaments is having a blast, HOA be damned.

Don't waste your time being too cool to have fun, y'know?

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we've been living in this apartment for two months now, and while we've observed most of our new neighbours (my slavic Windowsill Watcher Grandmother gene already activated), I don't think they had the chance to see us often enough to recognise us yet.

I do know, however, from my observations, that the tiny funny dog upstairs is called Gucio. I've passed him once or twice during his walk and heard his owners use the name - and, while both the dog and his owners are oblivious to our existence, Gucio became an apt topic of discussion in our house. you know, we hear barking, ha, that's Gucio, he must be home alone again! or there's a stick left by the building door, that must have been brought by Gucio and he was forced to abandon it before entering! a household name, really.

yesterday as I was leaving to go to the store, walking down the narrow staircase, there he is! tiny funny looking dog, slightly startled by me suddenly appearing on the floor he just reached on his tiny funny looking legs.

"good morning Gucio!" I say joyfully, the most natural thing in the world.

well. remember that Gucio doesn't really know me. so he looks at me in the most flabbergasted way a dog can look at a person. he is positively aghast. agog! not sure how aware dogs are of their own names but he seemed genuinely puzzled at the apparent stretch of social convention.

and as I try to contain my laughter, I see his owner standing on the stairs below. the woman is sort of awkwardly frozen, speechless, and she looks at me.

"you... know each other?" she asks.

is that not the funniest way to phrase it. is this not the funniest question she could have asked. ma'am do you know my dog? you went to school together perhaps? you've met? do tell, are you old friends? maybe you worked together? you know each other, my dog and you? this dog? you know him? he knows you? he never mentioned you I'm afraid

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The Good Place (2016-2020)

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source

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A custom painted shirt I completed for a client to wear at their wedding. Flowers on the collar and placket hand painted with textile paint. My custom painted garments are open! Website | Instagram | Shop

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3rd annual good friday pizza party (mines the first one)

before the oven to be reborn

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Retrospective

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I was asked to officiate the wedding of my very dear friends and while that was like the highest honor imaginable a close second was being asked to host an informative nature walk for all of the out of town guests the morning before the ceremony to give them a taste of the local ecology.

Not to brag but I picked the best spot and we got to hear an absolute orchestra of alligator bellowing in addition to witnessing this big guy

Highlight of the morning was probably our Sandhill crane courtship dance impersonation contest, which was fiercely competitive and even drew a small crowd of unrelated spectators. Our winner absolutely became a Sandhill crane for 30 seconds and his vigorous leaping and flapping won him a brand new pair of binoculars as a trophy.

I also made these custom stickers to hand out as prizes for trivia questions and spotting challenges during the walk, and everyone wore them around the reception with great pride.

I love sharing the ecology of my home with others and this was such a fun way to do it! I had a very joyful weekend and I may have even converted a few new birders 😏

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Salmon Sun!

She's finally done, my sewing and printing project! It's a faux quilted jacket with raw edge appliqué fish and a bit of embroidery <3

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Another fish jacket?! Another fish jacket <3

This time I tried flat felled seams for the sleeves which was fun and it totally didn't almost kill my sewing machine.

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some of my favorite online resources for nautical/maritime/age of sail things - this is a longish post full of links and i spent a bit of time putting it together from my various bookmarks and collections!! please enjoy!

this blog (christine demerchant) and its many lists of terms and informative pages, for example: sails & rigs & sailing, hull & construction terms, anchors & anchorage, types of boats & ships, points of sail - at the bottom of every page there is a list of books on the topic as well!! this blog is INVALUABLE and has basically everything, and if it doesn't have something it certainly has a link to another blog or a book that has what you need. there's also lot of interesting articles about the author's adventures in making her own sails and building boats and experimenting with sailing. the site is a little difficult to navigate but the information on it is incredible and all very experience-based!!

there's also this blog (roland's model ship building) which is SUCH a delight - it is mostly model ships as the name would suggest but it is an incredibly close look at the little complicated parts of ships and a great resource for the more "how does this look" aspect if a little less "how does this work". my favorite page is the process of building model HMS surprise - it's SO fascinating and even just a quick look through makes visualizing and understanding the physics of it all easier. this in particular is a very good drawing resource for tall ships!

the ever-famous shipindex.org is a completely invaluable resource as well. pretty much anything you want to know about a specific ship can be found here, or at least it makes a spectacular jumping-off point!

another famous resource is falconer's marine dictionary, or: "A New Universal Dictionary of the Marine; Being a Copious Explanation of the Technical Terms and Phrases Usually Employed in the Construction, Equipment, Machinery, Movements, and Military, as Well as Naval, Operations of Ships: with Such Parts of Astronomy, and Navigation, as Will be Found Useful to Practical Navigators" by william falconer and expanded by william burney - the whole text is here online but it can be a little hard to read and understand so i would supplement with the other resources here!

there is also the oxford companion to ships and the sea which i do not have a copy of nor do i have online access to the full text, BUT you can search and find keywords and it will show you excerpts which is surprisingly helpful!! especially good if you don't have time to read the whole dictionary trying to find one specific term.

in the same vein is the oxford encyclopedia of maritime history - same deal as the above and i do not have access to the full text but this is SO useful for looking up specific people and places and ships and battles and such!!! there's TONS of information in this one.

also, a super interesting primary source: digital collections of midshipmen's letters and journals in the united states naval academy!! these are hefty, each link contains a ton of stuff:

Richard Mueller Nixon Letters (1926-1930)

Henry Mylin Keiffer Scrapbook (1907-1911) (one of my favorites of all time, absolutely worth at least a cursory glance)

John Porter Merrell Johnston Letters (1932-1937)

William Frederick Durand U.S.S. Mayflower journal of practice cruise (1879)

Roscoe C. Bulmer Journal (1894-1896)

Josiah G. Beckwith Letters (1853-1855)

this is not my whole collection but it is a fantastic set of jumping-off points and i tried to include the widest & most general databases that i could. if you have a great online resource to add please let me know, and if you have book recommendations i would appreciate those too!!!

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So anyways with the rapid rise of fascism I feel it’s a good time to point out that it’s perfectly legal to follow unjust orders slowly, badly, or inefficiently

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new trope just dropped