what is it about fungi that’s so mythical and freaky and set in humanities heads as “fable and Other Folk” fodder
the lore
the vibes
the spooky feeling in the Ghosts and Aliens Section of my brain that goes off
like, look at this and tell me that magic isn’t real and doesn’t want to strip us bare and use our souls as bartering chips in cosmic games of poker
mushrooms are an ancient force of growth and decay, life and rot, collapse and creation; they have been here long before us and will remain long after we’re gone- devouring that which kills us and creating that which forgets us.
it is best you tread carefully.
I’m studying biotech and every time someone brings up mushrooms our current professor will look either extremely exited or pained and go “listen.. mushrooms are neither plants nor animals nor something in between. They elude all attempts to categorize them. We do not know what they are. Some are immortal. Some produce live saving substances. Some are so closely related to humans that eating them may cause an allergic reaction against your own body. I cannot teach you about the mushrooms”
Oh to be a biotech professor and wax lyrical about the eldritch immortal mushroom.
the largest living being is a giant network of mushroom hyphae somewhere deep in Oregon’s blue mountains, It is thousands of years old, It covers 2384 acres, weighs 35 MILLION KGs (a kg is like 2 pounds) and thrives on sucking the life out of trees. we call it and it’s cousins honey mushroom.
Mushrooms were the first beings to truly conquer land and used to grow 8m up into the air. After the great dying 250 million years ago,mushroom forests covered the earth once more.
Mushrooms developed one of the most potent toxins in the world that kills most oranisms it comes into contact with, so that they do not have to compete with them. You know it as penicillin.
The nitrogen cycle which keeps all life outside of the ocean alive is unthinkable without the mushrooms growing in the roots of legumes.
There isn’t a being as eldritch and superlative yet silly and frivolous as a mushroom.
I want a soft kind of love. A best friends kind of love. A “good morning baby, I’ll make coffee and meet you in the shower” kind of love. I want lazy Sundays spent in bed and groggy Mondays getting ready for work side by side. I want the kind of love that makes you question if you ever felt love before. I want slow and steady and I want jumping headfirst into anything as long as we’re together. The kind of love that feels like home and like a great adventure. I want that love.
If you look at the world and say “Yes, there are enough homes for people, yes, there is enough food for people, but if we give it away for free they won’t have earned it and the economy will collapse.” Then you have chosen money (a constructed medium of exchange) over living beings who only want to continue living in peace and safety.
And I have no qualms telling you, that is the wrong choice, and you have been brainwashed by this destructive, exploitative system.
So there’s this huge dudebro in my class, who, yesterday, sat next to me. And I’m sitting there sweating because like… I’m wearing my shirt with the lesbian flag on it, and he’s the most popular jock in school, and always has this look on his face that say ‘I can and will kill you’. He looks me up and down, stares at me for a minute and then goes, “So. Girls in skirts and long socks, am I right?”
To which I nodded solemnly, both out of agreement, surprise and also a healthy amount of awkward fear. He nodded and went, “You get it.”
I said, “Yep.” He fistbumped me, and on went our lives.
Oh! I forgot to mention! I saw him at lunch the same day, and he ran up to me, tapped me on the shoulder, pointed at this super sweet girl who comes to GSA and asked if she’s gay. I told him he should ask her because that’s not my place and he said he would.
I thought that would be the end of it.
Except ten minutes later he came back and told me he found out (she’s bi) and that both of us have a shot. I said “You more than me.” because he’s attractive and popular.
But this wholesome dumbass looked really confused and asked, “Because I’m tall?’
So this isn’t lesbian/jock solidarity but I thought you guys would want to know-
My math teacher was trying to fix the rolling whiteboard and he just offhand said “This would be easier with a wrench”
And deadass, dudebro said “Hang on” and then proceeded to pull a fucking wrench out of his backpack
Update- after school today he saw me in the library and he didn’t say anything? He just pointed at the book he was holding and I gave him a thumbs up because it’s a pretty good book, and he went “Yes!” Really quiet and pumped his fist and then left
Okay so today he asked me if I know how to help people having a panic attack and I was like yeah? And he smiled at me and then went “cool I think I’m having one”
And I was like what the fuck Colin we’re in the middle of Tech class sit down and we went out in the hall and sat there for a while and he told me about the test he’s stressed about so we kind of went over his study guide and when he was feeling better he kind of like… smacked his head against mine gently? And I helped him up even though he’s almost a foot taller than me and yeah
Today at lunch we walked to the football field and laid in the grass and I told him thank you for being my friend (because I don’t have that many) and fistbumped me and said, “You always looked so nice and chill, how could I not want to be your friend?”
And honestly y’all, I would’ve started crying if he hadn’t sneezed and accidentally smacked me
Sometimes I think about lesbian icon renée vivien lauging so hard she had to leave a lecture bc the man was talking about how a book of anonymously published love poetry was the pinnacle depiction of a young man’s desire towards women…… but it was her book. She wrote it. About her girlfriend.
She’s the one on the left.
She IS and I’m obsessed with this image but how could you leave out that the one on the right is the girlfriend in question
I know it’s a rough time for everyone. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Without getting my teeth done, all of my front four teeth will have to get pulled. Help me have my own Queer Eye moment.
Please help guys, this dental pain on top of my fibro is just absolutely miserable 🥺
One tooth has now abscessed. Hopefully we can still save it. Suddenly feeling a kinship with @thebibliosphere 😂
When I visited the United States Holocaust Museum for the first time, I was struck deeply by one wall with absolutely nothing on it, except for this quote:
“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”
Hitler often used it to cite how history would forget about his “final solution”, as they didn’t remember the Armenian genocide, did they?
My family is in America for the sole reason that the first Armenian genocide drove them out. My grandmother knows nothing of what happened to her cousins and aunts and uncles, and still, to this day, the Armenian genocide is not recognized by Turkey.
It’s happening again. The Azerbaijan and Armenian conflict over Artsakh, an area that Azerbaijan claims is theirs, but is inhabited heavily by Armenians, has been restarted, and the people living there are in serious danger, as Turkey is now lending their military aid to Azerbaijan as well, while the rest of the world is turned the other way.
I know we’re all so fatigued from the shitshow that has been 2020, and how difficult it can be to comprehend yet another tragedy, but if you have a moment, please just educate yourself on what’s happening in Armenia and Artsakh, educate a friend, and take a look at the some of the resources I’ll link below, I would be so grateful. Don’t let history annihilate my people again.
