lets ambush mama

Mel Medarda concept art

if i were an academic i would love to write a book about all the unseen human labor and lives that make it possible to produce a single quilt.

i don't use commissioned longarm services for my quilting because i can't afford it, but i also used to really struggle with the idea of having another person complete such a prominent part of my project. i thought i wouldn't be able to say 'i made this.'

but i didn't grow the cotton that got woven into the fabric i'm using.

i didn't design the printed fabric collection.

or paint the batik.

i didn't do the math and writing that went into the patterns i use.

i didn't drive any of the ships and trucks that transported the fabric.

i didn't mine the metal that turned into the needles in my machine or hand.

i wasn't the shelf stocker at the chain store or the owner of the indie shop i bought from.

quilting is an inherently collaborative art form. the creativity didn't start with me.

the father who stepped up.

GAMING RULE 1: NEVER PREORDER

GAMING RULE 2:

I think a lot of people are forgetting that on tumblr fandom used to be practiced very differently. now everyone fucks off to their discords or tumblr groups to discuss everything with a select few, making tags be nearly only used for posting some finished fanworks or not at all

a decade ago people didn't have tumblr groups. people didn't even have dms. if you wanted to talk to anyone about anything you had to make a post, or send an ask (which more often than not would get published and thereby become a post in the end too)

so next time you think "I have a fandom thought but I have to find a small group of hyperspecifically like-minded people to share it with in private" remember all the freaks you could be missing out on meeting by keeping the tags dead. use tags, make friends. fuck discord.

Drawing one of my favorite shots✌️✌️

I feel like "trump wants to throw away literal dinosaur fossils" would really turn heads if we actually had a functional opposition party in this country to get messages out, but I guess I'll just have to get a paint pen and write it on my car. fine, I'll do it.

Trump and friends are trying to get rid of IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Science, USA Federal agency). Everyone is on leave/in admin limbo while the DOGE kids do whatever and lock people out of their emails. Already-awarded federal grants (that's how I get paid) for museums and libraries are now being terminated early via executive order. Museums are already closing (to be fair it has been bad for decades) and a lot of large and delicate fossil material will need new homes with space and funding, which almost no one has. It's bad. I don't know what to do except to keep working and occasionally scream into the internet.

Not trying to be a bummer, but this is pretty much the only thing anyone at my job can think about right now. I can only speak for museums, but specimens need periodical tending or they will decay or get lost. Grant funding is how we do everything: it's how temporary workers get paid, how we get access to subscription-based software, and it's how we buy new label paper for cripes' sake. We are still fighting, but everyone is honestly loopy with stress all the time now. People should know what they are destroying.

The ALA (American Library Association) has a page on how to help the IMLS and ways to contact your members of Congress! They even have an email form that literally only takes a minute to complete!

There isn’t a ton of news coverage discussing this from a paleo standpoint but here’s the SVP letter to the senate

every time I hear overly vague “therapy speak (i.e “I’ve been at capacity recently I want to honor those boundaries so please respect my desires as a community member and re-analyze how your positionality has affected your place as someone in community with me, I’d like you to do some decentering” type of stuff) I think of my old Italian professor who’d say “I love the term “taking accountability,” it’s so funny, it’s so American. What does it mean?! Are you going to do anything? It means nothing.” She was so real for that.

I despise this kind of language because it's basically office-talk but applied to friendships and family. It just dresses up selfishness in pretty, impersonal terms so that they carry less impact.