T'was a tale of Sound and Fury

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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
seananmcguire
mkeanarchytect

If you are thinking about it on paper, the bus running every half hour doesn't sound so bad, until you're waiting at the stop and you miss a bus or it's delayed. Then you're waiting a very, very long time. To people who never take transit, that's probably fine. Why do you care. To people who only take transit, they're expecting it, it's baked in their lives. But the important part, what really impacts our cities, is what happens to people for whom transit is an option.

The spiral goes like this. You go to take the bus instead of driving, thinking "I'm going to o have a couple drinks" or "I don't want to worry about parking where I'm going." So you take bus. First bus is right on time. But then you transfer from your neighborhood line to the line that takes you where you actually want to go. And your bus is delayed. And it only comes every 30 minutes. And then you're waiting, 40 minutes later, wondering where your bus is, knowing you could have driven there in 20 minutes.

Why would you ever chose to take a bus again? The bus made you waste precious time on your day off just sitting there. So next time you drive. Ridership goes down. When the transit authority asks for more money for more buses and more drivers, people point to the ridership numbers and say "why should we pay for this instead of paying for our schools/police/baseball stadium/parks/police again (let's be real that's who's taking all the money)?" If we want to increase ridership we need to actually design and fund functional transit networks. If we want people to actually ride the bus we need to make it a better option than driving, which means reliable service, which you don't get with a bus every 30 minutes.

Every 15 minutes, everywhere, all of the time.

elodieunderglass
electrificata

wish i had a bit going where whenever i said "the prophecy" like three of my friends would repeat "the prophecy" in different tones while squinting into the distance and rubbing their chins like sages deep in thought. i would also do this for them, im a team player

shanastoryteller

okay, so, be me, 27 years old at the time, an adult by any definition in the world

be me at the los angeles zoo, one of my very favorite places in the world, because i love animals. i am immedietly 8 years old when presented with a little creature. i can’t help it. 

okay, wait, go back. we must establish two things for this to hit right

first: 

the year before, i’d gone to the san diego zoo with my aunt and grandma and! they let you feed giraffes there!! 

how wonderful a world and how wonderful a life, where for $10 I can hand feed a giant creature three crispy biscuits. i go “i am feeding the giraffes right now” and go in line to buy the biscuits and return moments later triumphant, 3 biscuits in my grasp

“oh good!” my grandmother says, “one for each of us!” 

“yes,” i say, despondent, “one for each of us.” 

i wanted to feed all three to the giraffes myself but since i am an actual adult and not a child i do not say this and share the biscuits 

second: 

my friend group echoes. a lot

someone tells a story and ends it with “and that’s what happened!” and the rest of us will repeat “and that’s what happened!” 

often in unison. and it’s constant, all the time, even to little stuff. often said in the tone of “they don’t even have dental” 

ok, so we’re back at the los angeles zoo. they have opened the giraffe feeding 

i am not going to be thwarted again 

my two friends (K and M) get in line to feed them and i go to buy the biscuits. i return with nine biscuits because i am going to give the giraffes three biscuits myself and i do not want to hear a word of protest. i am being fair. i am being equitable. i am sharing. no one can judge me 

“wow!” says K. “that’s a lot of biscuits!” 

“the cult provides,” i say generously, handing over their share, because what is a friend group if not a small cult 

and then, automatically, in unison, like they have so many times before and thinking nothing of what exactly they’re saying, M and K reply, “the cult provides” 

two different people in line turn to stare at us while we all blink at each other and then M nervously shouts, “we are definitely not in a cult!” which sounds like something someone who is in a cult might say 

and ever since it’s been a running bit where one person says “the cult ____” and everyone echoes it as seriously as possible, no matter where we are or who we’re around

which is to say, OP, that you could be living the dream if your friends weren’t cowards 

seananmcguire
xiaq

Small Town Grocery Store Stories: LGBTQ+ friendly edition

Me: minding my own damn business in the grocery store

One of my students and a few of his teammates enter the dairy aisle. 

My student is holding hands with one of his teammates. 

My student: Oh hey, Professor X!

Me, who has both my student and his girlfriend in my class: …Hello

My student, looking at his hand-holding partner: Oh! Don’t worry. My girlfriend knows. Not that I’m cheating! I’m not cheating. I’m not gay.

Hand Holding boy: Not that being gay is a bad thing! It’s a good thing!

My student: Right! But no, listen. We aren’t together, we just hold hands in public sometimes.

Hand Holding Boy: Especially on Friday nights. And weekends. And at away games.

My student: Because sometimes people will say shit and then we can punch them! And if the fight started because someone was being homophobic, coach won’t get mad at us.

Hand Holding Boy: Always nice to punch a homophobe. And [gesturing to another boy in the group] maybe they’ll think twice about saying something to [other boy’s name] if he ever gets a boyfriend and wants to hold his hand for real.

The Gay One, resigned but smiling: I’ve decided it’s sweet and not really fucking weird.

slytherin-dropout

This is what “boys will be boys” is meant to be

chaoticevilbean

This is the best thing I’ve seen in a while.

pangur-and-grim
spookyloop: “ citizen-zero: “ beyond-the-canvas: “Hugo Simberg, The Garden of Death, 1896. ” Every time I see this I always wonder what the painter’s intended message was. It looks so pleasant, that middle skeleton looks so happy with its...
beyond-the-canvas

Hugo Simberg, The Garden of Death, 1896.

citizen-zero

Every time I see this I always wonder what the painter’s intended message was. It looks so pleasant, that middle skeleton looks so happy with its work.

Maybe it’s supposed to be a memento mori, but a comforting and encouraging one.

spookyloop

This is one of the most famous paintings in Finland. There are multiple interpretations of it but they all share the same base idea:

“According to Simberg, the flowers represent people’s souls, the skeletons are aids to Death, and the Garden of Death is a purgatory of sorts for souls waiting for entrance into heaven. This artwork invites the viewer to consider the afterlife, to take comfort in his or her own passing, and to not fear what happens after the body fails to function.”

“It depicts Simberg’s thoughts on afterlife, which is not run by angels but skeletons who take care of the heavenly garden with a gentle hand, while waiting for more “gardeners” to arrive. It is derived from the medieval belief that the dead sleep in a blooming garden.”

“In Simberg’s garden the humble Death-like figures struggle against harsh conditions; the landscape around the garden has burnt yellow, it is dry and barren. The cherished flowers grow in exotic shapes, slowly, requiring constant care. The black-clad figures love their nurslings. The garden is a place where Death is allowed to realize its feelings of affection. The Garden of Death can be seen depicting the impossibility of this love; maybe the flowers are tender and fragile because they can not handle the love of Death. Love has two faces: one of them is the face of devastation.”

seananmcguire
leveragehunters

Photo of the cover of Feed by Mira Grant. The background is speckled and dirty industrial grey, resembling concrete. A large RSS feed symbol that looks it was smeared in blood is at the top of the cover. The title, Feed, is underneath written in the same blood smeared font. Under that in black typewriter font it says: The good news: we survived. The bad news: so did they. Mira Grant is written in larger black typewriter font at the bottom of the cover, followed by New York Times Bestselling Author in red typewriter font.ALT

Feed is on sale! For 2.99!

Amazon link.

This is a bloody incredible series, and it hits even harder now that we've experienced a full blown pandemic. It's takes place in a world where we won a zombie apocalypse, but I describe it as: "It's about zombies the same way Animal Farm is about pigs."

Seanan McGuire AKA Mira Grant gives an overview of the series in this fantastic interview (from 2012):

The basic concept behind the Newsflesh trilogy is that in 2014 the Zombie Apocalypse happened, and it took us about three years, but around 2017, 2018, we actually managed to win. A lot of people died, a lot of land was permanently ceded, but we came out on top. So 20 years pass, and you have an entire generation of people that’s grown up in a world where zombies just are. They’re not something special. They’re not something exciting. They just are. And people go on, people do what they do.

It also includes gems like:

I would call [the CDC] back and say, “If I did this, this, this, this, this and this, could I raise the dead?” And every single time they would say, “No.”

And I’d say, “OK,” hang up, and go back to working. After about the 17th time, I called and said, “If I did this, this, this, this, this, this and this, could I raise the dead?” And got, “Don’t … don’t do that.” And at that point, I knew I had a viable virus.

empressledge

Cannot recommend Feed enough. It got so much right even while it got so much wrong about how people would react to a deadly pandemic. It’s SO much fun to read.