hey if you are 14-17 It does get better you are just in your caterpillar goop era

Also sometimes the goop era lasts a little longer than other people's goop

Reporting in just 6 weeks shy of 50 years-old:

You will re-goop several times in your life, often emerging with different wings and maybe even different skills.

You're gonna be okay.

Fuck I needed to hear this today.

There's many goops but things do generally get better with each goopening. Especially that first one.

are therapists using this post as advice for their patients??? hello???

that 50yo saying we regoop again and again is giving me much-needed hope. I'm definitely re-goopening and re-emerging, and hearing that this is growth and not just suffering is empowering <3

gwyneth paltrow stealin all her ideas from this site

I showed a new batch of students how to use the microfilm reader/scanner and they were absolutely FASCINATED by the fact that we used to have to look up the movie times (ie what movies were playing when in which theaters each week) in the newspaper.

As a protocol, we have to submit an IT ticket before we can order any tech stuff.

Which does make sense

HOWEVER

The printer for my microfilm reader was malfunctioning and I needed to try ordering another refurbished part.

My printer is from 1998.

IT came as part of the process and stood there marveling at this mid 1990s microfilm reader and printer

“I have literally never seen one of these outside old movies! Wow”

“Want me to load it up and show you what is happening?”

“You can do that?! Wow!”

“So can I get the ok to order stuff so I can fix try and fix it?”

“Oh, yeah. I don’t know how to work this let alone fix it. I can’t wait to see how to do this”

(I glued a piece of it back together. IT, once again, gobsmacked)

Oh man. Microfilm and microfiche were the dead sexiest parts of researching anything. The whir of the microfilm machine? Hnnngh. Made you feel like you were about to uncover some conspiracy that went ALL THE WAY to the TOP! (Even if you were just, y'know, reading about manatees.)

Microfilm was always more my thing than microfiche, though saying microfiche instantly makes you feel like you have a degree in an obscure branch of alchemy. Better name, but less satisfying.

I have such affection for tech that relied on some aspect of the physical.

The kids, man. I want them to hear that microfilm machine SOUND. The whir. The chunk-chunk. Perfection.

hopelessness, latching onto the one modicum of influence or even just the appearance of influence which can be harnessed by you all by yourself, performing it, policing yourself and policing others until you don't feel contaminated anymore, repeat. i know it too well.

link to an article from scientific american on bird flu, not sure if it is the one referenced

Far more bird flu damage is inevitable, but the extent of it will be left to the Trump administration and Mother Nature.

now there's a fun sentence