just a box of rain

Botany Bay, Kent

I think the most beautiful thing in the world is when someone helps you so much with something and then they thank you for helping them. I've been going through an extremely rough time (obviously) and a friend of mine offered to let me hang out with her cat? then thanked me for helping to socialize her.

I hate feeling like a burden or like I'm asking too much. but right now I have lost that shame. and yet people reminding me that they not only love me and care and are happy to help but that I can still help them back, even now, is incredible.

like in fiction I never understood why people would cut their shitty family members slack even when they were doing horrible things but right now I'm just. it's my brother. he sucks but I still want him to be okay. fuck man. just fuck.

(this is the youngest brother whom I don't talk about online, not the middle child who is my friend & a really good person & the one featured in my "my brother" tag)

fuck this whole fucking year

my brother is peak middle child in the sense that sometimes he's very independent & stubborn & won't listen to advice from anyone who knows better, like when he's cooking and insists on following the recipe to the letter despite multiple better cooks telling him he doesn't have to be so rigid--and sometimes I have to sit on the phone with him because he's wiping a computer then reinstalling & upgrading Windows on it and is scared and needs someone to talk to.

I'm not knocking it. it's very emotionally mature to know when to ask for help and what help you need! and I was happy to be there as emotional & practical support. but also: oh my god.

here's something horrible, because that's what this blog is right now, periods of silence before I reblog a nature picture or tell you something horrible.

my dad used to eat vast quantities of Swiss cheese. every week my mom would be at Aldi buying enough to feed an army, to the point where one of the cashiers noticed, and asked her what all of this cheese was for--"you must really love Swiss cheese!"

"I don't," my mom said. "I hate the stuff."

of course she then followed it up with the fact that it was for her husband and they had a good laugh.

....

well.

guess who also noticed the next time my mom came through her line and wasn't buying any Swiss cheese.

it's that Terry Pratchett quote (as usual). “No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life is only the core of their actual existence.”

...

I hate Swiss cheese too. I'll always think of him. "I hate that stuff, but my dad likes it."

ripples.

specifically we know they eat giant squid and we have theories on how they do it, but we're not actually sure. we know it happens but...we don't know how.

the reason we know it happens: sperm whales have been found with huge sucker wounds all over their bodies and giant squid remains in their stomachs.

the reason we don't know how: it happens so deep in the ocean that it has never been observed.

giant squid have only been caught on camera, live, about two or three times (depending on who you ask). they're deep ocean animals and the deep ocean is such that we discover new species basically every time we go down there, by robot or in person.

because of this...we don't know for sure. we can say that they use suction the way they do with other animals, but like. the giant squid is large enough to fight back. what happens in those underwater battles?

this, by the way, is why this artistic depiction with the plaque reading "for the pleasure of the children in New York" exists at the Museum of Natural History here in New York City. also for the pleasure of the me.