when lucifer first created the world,

You cannot pretend you give a shit about people who suffer from OCD or other compulsory disorders, and then turn around and declare people have to feel guilt about their thoughts to be a good person.

No one has to punish themselves physically, verbally or mentally for having intrusive thoughts, no matter what those thoughts are about.

And expecting people to do grand gestures to prove they really are sorry for having intrusive thoughts is vile and abusive. No one has to perform remorse for your entertainment.

More bubbline clowns previously available as prints 

my grandparents have to lock their car doors when they go to sunday mass because people have been breaking in to unlocked cars and leaving entire piles of zucchini

i feel like i should’ve added more context when i posted this. my grandparents live in a rural area where farmers and casual gardeners alike are, at this point in the year, suddenly being hit with unexpectedly abundant zucchini crops. there aren’t just some random vandals leaving zucchinis in people’s cars for the hell of it, this is the work of some very exasperated, probably very elderly, folks who have more zucchini than they know what to do with

Yep. You can also expect to find a bag of zucchini on your porch.

My grandfather once found his neighbor stealing his tomatoes out of his garden at three in the morning. Red-handed, with a basket of the nearly-ripened ones.  He thought he was going to find gophers or something, but no, here’s Henry, taking his tomatoes. The best ones.

There was a long pause between them.

My grandfather (allegedly) said, “Henry… it’s OK.  You can take some tomatoes if you want them.”

Henry sighed in relief.

“But,” my grandfather said, “you have to take two zucchini for every tomato.”

There was another long silence.  “That’s a harsh bargain, John,” said Henry.  “But I accept.  I’ll tell Joe up the street, too.”

My grandfather said, “Tell Joe he needs to take three.”

a friend of my dad’s came by in the middle of the night, he seemed very nervous when my dad answered the door. he wouldn’t come inside but he leaned in and whispered to my dad in spanish, “i have some fresh grapes for you.” and then this happened:

the melon was a special bonus.

MY DREAM

A friend of mine lives in a rural area and he has been surrounded by zucchini for most of May, June, and July.

At one point he was so done with the whole zucchini madness that he came to classes actively begging people to “Please please please!! Take some my family’s damned zucchini!! I’ve been eating zucchini for weeks!! I’m going insane!!!”

Having grown up in a rural area and having come home to zucchini on the front step or in the mailbox, i find it highly amusing the OP had to clarify.  I’m sitting here nodding “yup.”

I have a friend with a garden in Oregon who literally made Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies and sent them to me in Indiana. I texted her back “I SEE WHAT YOU’RE DOING HERE”

I’m waiting for the day when someone will hear about my background in Botany and ask me for advice on what someone who’s just wanting to start exploring planting vegetables should try.

I know fuckall about gardening because my background is wild plants and not agriculture, but I’m gonna tell them

“Zucchini. Definitely try Zucchini. Just plant plenty of them and you’ll get a decent sized crop! They’re very rewarding to grow.”

It may be a bit of a long game, but I’ll enjoy their screams of despair from across the void as they realize that they will eat zucchini forever

This is NOT an exaggeration, guys. Zucchini (and most squashes, really) will outgrow you so fast. Let our tale be a caution– or an encouragement, whichever. You decide as you hear the story of Squish.

When we were so broke we had to choose between gas and store-bought-food (I think I was about 10?), we had a garden so we could eat regularly (we also had chickens and pigs and hunted, but that’s beside this point). One summer, we planted 6 rows of yellow squash and 6 rows of zucchini. Each row probably had 10, maybe 12 plants in it. We created this giant squash-block in our garden plot so it was all right there together in the middle, and the needier plants like tomatoes were on the outside of the whole plot. We thought we were clever, til the first crop started coming in.

The outside two rows of each squash, yellow and zucchini, were normal. High yield, of course (because squash), but standard size for both summer squash and Italian zucchini. The inner 8 rows, however, created this hybrid monstrosity that we called Squish. It was pretty– a nice swirly yellow and green combination that made it clear the squash and zucchini had interbred.

Squish became a living nightmare for us. Something about the hybridization caused them to forget how to stop growing, or at least how to grow at a normal rate because those suckers were longer than my dad’s forearm, and bigger around than my (albeit child-sized) thighs. They didn’t get all hard and nasty on the inside, either, for some reason, like most squash will at that size. And they just kept coming. I don’t even remember seeing that many flowers, but every day we were pulling upwards of 20lbs of Squish out of the garden, only for there to be more the next day, or sometimes by the end of the day if we harvested in the morning. I don’t know where they were hiding, but it was like some sort of squash portal had opened into our yard and started crapping out Frankenstein’s Squashes.

At first, it was great. We could eat all we wanted and not worry about rationing it. But the growing season in Arkansas is long, and we had incredible weather that summer, so those darn things kept alternating flowers and fruit. Pull off a few Squish, new flowers budded out, and they ripened super-fast in the heat. We were absolutely swimming in Squish, because they were so big that even gorging on them meant only 1 or 2 got eaten per meal. (I think I recall using a few particularly enormous ones as swords for a duel with my sister, if that says anything about their size. I cannot overemphasize how absolutely, heinously gigantic they were. You probably don’t believe me but I am not kidding. Those things were bigger than a newborn by several many inches and a couple pounds.)

We had (luckily) a big deep freezer, and someone gifted us a bunch of freezer ziploc bags, so we started chopping them up and freezing them as we pulled them off. We ran out of bags real fast, so we caved and bought a ton more. We filled that deep freezer near to bursting. It was probably 3-4 feet deep, (as I remember barely coming up to the edge of it), and at least 4-5 feet long, about 2.5 feet across, and we filled it to the top with Squish. And that’s while we’re eating fresh ones every day with dinner! But still more Squish came before the first frost, so we started packing the fridge. And my grandma’s freezer. And my grandma’s fridge. And feeding them to the pigs and chickens. And giving them away at church.

Do you realize how big a deal it is that people who were so broke that they had to choose between gas and the power bill were GIVING AWAY FOOD??? That’s how much gosh darn Squish we had. And little did I know, but apparently, my dad HATES squash. He only planted them because they were a cheap, quick source of food and my mom loved squashes. And he got stuck with the folly of his decisions. For over a year.

Yep. We had Squish in the freezer for over a year. Eating it regularly. It lasted for over a year. A family of 5, plus often feeding my grandmother, we ate off a single garden’s haul for over a year. Of just the Squish. I tell you, if we’d had a farmer’s market back then, that Squish could probably have single-handedly lifted us out of poverty. Well, maybe not, but you get the idea.

We never planted both again, probably because my dad would have combusted out of rage if he’d ever seen another Squish in his life. But man those were the days for thems of us what loved squash.

So survival tip: If you need an absolute crapton of food, plant you a row of yellow squash and a row of zucchini, and keep that pattern going for as many rows as you like. You too can drown in Squish and love it.

Oh wow.

The last story is well worth the read. It might be long but I found it absolutely delightful! Thank you for sharing your childhood Squish gardening adventures!

Meanwhile, people are starving to death.

Ands What do you expect poor rural farmers who just have excess zucchini to do about that exactly? Mail them to Africa?

I was just talking to a friend today about gardening and she said “I’ll plant zucchini for this project.”

“Oh dear… what’s your damage control plan?”

“Oh,” she said, intuiting what I meant. “Eating the blossoms. Love stuffed blossoms. Pumpkin, squash, zucchini. It keeps the crop down, and you get lots of mileage out of them. You keep a mixed crop that way, too. Plus, people don’t always welcome gifts of zucchini, but they find gifts of blossoms exciting.”

This struck me as absolutely game-changing.

My problem is that I legitimately love zucchini. “Lizard,” you ask, “why is that a problem? Just eat the zucchini!” The problem is that in the middle of the growing season, there will be a point where I physically can not consume enough zucchini to keep up with what the plants are producing. It does not matter how much I chop, freeze, fry, bake, etc– there will always be a point where I have more zucchini than I have time in the day to do something with that zucchini.

But eventually it runs out. Like summer, it’s as intense as it is fleeting and come November I want for some zucchini fried with onions. By January, when I’m planning out the spring garden, there’s always that thought, that voice of hubris whispering in my ear… “maybe I should grow more zucchini?”

Children, it is a trap.

It’s getting on planting season so this is your annual reminder to ignore the siren song of zucchini.

you guys know about the hobby lobby smuggling scandal right

hobby lobby’s hammurabi robbing hobby

i demonstrated great social competence at the bar recently when the bartended mentioned shopping at hobby lobby and i said i never did this because of the trafficking in looted antiquities.

They are extremely homophobic and transphobic - each year they give millions of dollars to the National Christian Foundation. The NCA then uses that money to fund 23 different non-proffits which have been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups, they also make huge campaign donations to conservative Christian political candidates, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

They have funded successful campaigns in other countries to make homosexuality illegal and punishable by death. They strongly support conversion therapy.

They went to court and won the right to only offer employee insurance that does not pay for birth control or abortion, and because of this lawsuit any business can also deny women the right to control their own bodies because "religious beliefs".

so I saw someone just today, re: the Joann Fabrics closings, saying "you're not a bad person if you shop at hobby lobby because you don't have anywhere else nearby to buy craft goods in person"

and like. I don't think shopping at shitty stores makes you a bad person. but consider that in order to live according to our principles sometimes it may be necessary to accept inconveniences. whether that means shopping online or driving a further distance than we'd like, or saving up to buy more expensive supplies, or whatever.

I'm the first to say hobbies are important to our well-being but also we will not shrivel up and die if we have to wait an extra couple weeks for more yarn. I'm also the first to say there's no ethical consumption in late capitalism but there is also definitely a difference between standard shitty corporations and these weird imperialist fucks.

Some alternatives:

For yarn:

https://hobbii.com/yarn

https://www.yarn.com/pages/yarn

Art supplies:

Also, you can find supplies on places like Facebook Marketplace & craigslist! Also search Mercari! Plenty of gently used or brand new stuff out there if you know what you're looking for!!

And at I've noticed a few local shops outside main citys. Check your suburbs!

this might be one of the worst things anyones ever said to me

​tumblr has some competition in the hate mail game

I’m all for fucking around and finding out but in this situation (trump & the billionaires trying to drag america into tech bro fascist hell) too many people are being hurt and too many more WILL die if things do not change. you do not need to forgive those who voted for him, you do not need to find the sympathy to feel bad for them now that they’re being affected by his policies. but we cannot turn them away once they turn on trump— and they are. too little too late, maybe. studying for the test after they failed, sure. but I’m so serious when I say this is not the time for perfectionism. this is the time to push a dictator & his cronies out with any hands that are willing to shove

for some of them it’s elon, for some of them it’s the national parks, for some of them it’s farm land, for some of them it’s veterans

the funniest is trump calling himself a king and town halls being filled with people shouting “no king!” bc it seems like a sleeper agent being given a code word a lot of ppl said brb shifting into patriot mode

also want to add — the second some of you see a poor or blue collar white person you IMMEDIATELY say FAFO. babe not gonna lie but ur classism is rearing its ugly head. saw a woman on tik tok get bullied relentlessly bc she posted about possibly losing benefits. turns out she was democratic & voted against trump. but even if she wasn’t “red states are uneducated and poor that’s why they’re so dumb and were indoctrinated so easily” so you agree. they might now be perpetrators but they were / are victims to the system.

these conversations need to have nuance. they need to have flexibility. we do not need to agree & we can hold people accountable but we gotta allow people to join the ranks against a common enemy. because let me tell you, they not only want but NEED you divided

On Saturday, Yosemite National Park workers hung an upside-down American flag — traditionally a symbol of distress or a national threat — thousands of feet off the ground on the side of El Capitan.

The flag was hung from El Capitan near Horsetail Fall to protest the thousands of federal job cuts made by the Trump/Musk administration.

Statement by Yosemite NPS workers: “These losses, while deeply personal and impactful, may also be invisible to visitors and members of the public — we are shining a spotlight on them by putting a distress flag on El Capitan in view of Firefall. Think of it as your public lands on strike.”

Tracy Barbutes/Special to the SFChronicle

Imagine how much scarier zombie movies would be if the zombies smiled when they saw you because they were excited to finally eat. Imagine walking into a building to go and find shelter, scavenge, whatever, and you shine your flashlight into a room only to find several zombies idling there. Your light catches their eyes and they turn to look at you, their expressions desolate and empty. However, the moment they spot you, their open mouths turn to wide uncontrollable smiles and their eyes disappear into slits. They almost look friendly. Maybe even some of them manage to laugh instead of groan. How would you feel after months and months of losing people you know to smiling hoards? How would you feel after every encounter with a joyful zombie leaves you shaken and tired and fearful? How would you feel after hearing the sounds of laughter mixed in with the sounds of screaming and flesh being torn? After everything, what would your brain's wiring process do to you when you see a friend smile? Would you hate smiling? Would you feel rage? Would your brain devolve back into a time where showing one's teeth always meant a threat? What would you do if the joy of the human race was now only kept by the dead

hey this is fucking horrifying

One thing that has made me a much more well-adjusted person is a clip I once saw of Hank Green saying that anyone can be in amazing shape as long as being in amazing shape is one of their top three priorities.

(This is obviously a generalization that isn't true for everyone. But it is true for most people and I'm proceeding from there.)

This "top three priorities" framing has genuinely reduced my tendency toward jealousy and self-comparison a lot. Now when I feel envious of someone’s spotless, aesthetic home, I think to myself, “Having a spotless, aesthetic home is probably one of their top three priorities. It’s definitely not one of mine, so I shouldn’t expect my home to look like that.”

Or when I see an influencer with a body that takes a ton of work to maintain: “Maintaining that body is obviously one of her top three priorities, because it’s her livelihood. My livelihood is my brain, so I’m never going to prioritize my body like that.”

It also helps me to identify areas that I actually DO want to prioritize more. I realized in recent years that my envy for my friends who prioritized writing more than I did was NOT going away, so I started to prioritize writing more. (Not top three, but higher priority than it has been in the past.)

I love doing notes for therapist-posting on tumblr because I get tags like this.

i wonder how brennan felt being on "The Extra Credit Show That Is Rigged In Your Favor" after so many years of game changer

happy birthday to large boulder size of a small boulder

Achol Kuir by Aaron Crossman for Kultura Magazine November 2024

Never let this die