I have just reluctantly reopened my GoFundMe for Eugenides, and posted a long update (scroll down to find it) on how his medical situation has changed and why we still need help, as well as how the original donations are being applied. My poor sweet boy. www.gofundme.com/f/gen-sad-ki...

One of my neighbors has been putting up these fish facts posters. All kinds of different fish, marine, freshwater, deep, shallow, all kinds. This is a good one. “Stg this real fish” took me out. Good work, neighbor.

Floods of fundraising messages are especially hard to cope with when you're in the middle of a period of financial hardship (in my case, due to ongoing pet health crises).

When you see this, post an image from your gallery describing your mental health

Things are pretty bad right now. I'm struggling with Gen's insulin dosing. Mistakes were made, he had a terrifying (and expensive) hypoglycemic crisis last week, his BG is all OVER the place, my vet has been either sick or mobbed, and now I'm in trouble with my asshole boss. I'm choking on anxiety.

They're BACK. 🪶 Visiting the American Coots at Chestnut Hill Reservoir has become a significant highlight of November for me. Just as everything is getting really cold, dark and bare, these delightfully goofy #birds arrive and delight me with their antics. (Something I really needed this weekend.)

From Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, we’re saying “We Ain’t Buying It” and asking Americans to hit pause on buying from corporations that enable Trump’s fascist agenda: weaintbuyingit.com/?utm_source=ind_wabi

Hey friends. So, I just posted an update on Gen's GoFundMe: www.gofundme.com/f/gen-sad-ki... The tl;dr is that his surgery has had to be postponed because he is in diabetic relapse. This is ... very frustrating and exhausting, and also expensive. That said, we have a plan and it's not a disaster.

A little recent #birdart, as a treat?

Time to swear in Adelita Grijalva, let her cast the final vote to release the Epstein files!

10/10 take. No notes.

LRS: I will admit, I got a state ID with an "X" on it, because I was so tired of feeling like I didn't exist. But I've come to believe that the thinking was flawed. I still refuse to change it BACK to an F, because that feels painfully invalidating, but I want the whole field gone.

This is why when folks were fighting to get an X gender marker on government ID, I went so hard on the idea that government ID ~shouldn’t have any gender on it at all~ It serves absolutely no purpose other than discrimination.

Zohran was polling at six percent in January. Nothing is impossible

I'm so happy for you, NYC friends. Thank you for showing all of us that no really, it IS possible to get it right.

It feels a little early to be calling Weird Duck Time just yet, but then again ... hooded mergansers are here now. And they're quite possibly my favorite weird/winter resident ducks of all, with their delightful hairdos and absurd courtship displays. 🪶

Why does S.T. Gibson keep writing vampire books which imply that they are adaptations of classic works, but actually have absolutely nothing to do with those works except character names or a bit of set dressing? Leave Stoker and LeFanu ALONE and just let your books be YOUR BOOKS, please! /grump

Perfect afternoon: an hour and a half walking around a sunny pond surrounded by fall foliage, with the first hooded mergansers of the season working hard at their courtship displays, followed by several hours cozy art/crafts time with good friends and company. Bike rides in between. I needed that.

(Age is not the enemy. No, really.)

Happy Halloween! 🫰🏻🫰🏻

Tough week. Here are a few shots from a restorative walk I took on Sunday, featuring a great blue heron (with lunch), maple foliage, an American red squirrel (I love them! it's not mutual), and a surprisingly late black-and-white warbler. I would like to be back there now. 🪶

"I DON'T NEED YOU TO FUCKING REWRITE WHAT I'VE JUST WRITTEN!"

It’s still remarkable that Disney produced - and released - this segment in 1940. A horror short that should rank with its Universal monster movie contemporaries… The animation is lush and experimental, and really shows off the Disney special animated effects team…

Help Babs move and get some handy art reference! Plus, feel good about helping someone delightful!

Please help if you can. ❤️ RB is a delightful human as well as a talented wildlife photographer and she and her daughter are in a tight spot.

Subscribe to this list 👇 and preemptively block the GOP .gov accounts who have suddenly appeared over here en masse - before they can screenshot and hassle you here and/or elsewhere: bsky.app/profile/did:...

Time to step back from upsetting things for the rest of the night and do something fun and indulgent. Maybe do my Yuletide sign-up on the first day for possibly the first time ever.

Incandescent rage.

"You make the best of it all and hope you can help make it a little better for the gurl after you." - Miss Major, 2023 💔

Doing some sketching at home today ... to color next time I'm at my studio (where my markers and color pencils live).

The earliest vanguard of Weird Duck Time has arrived! Delightful diving ducks that we only see from October-March or April: ruddies and ring-necks. #birds 🪶

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched this TikTok since yesterday. Sherman was stressing those ladies out.

Silly to be proud of the city where I was born, given that I've barely spent any time there as a fully sentient human (we left when I was under a year old and I've been back exactly once), but heck.

This is the best thing I’ve ever seen Ribbit ribbit motherfuckers

I love going through the Yuletide tag set. Somehow, there are 18 nominated characters for the Lord Peter Wimsey books. How? What kind of coordination was involved? What random combinations are people hoping to receive(/write)? 🧐

It cannot be made clearer. If you continue to support the Harry Potter franchise in any way, you are directly funding the removal of trans people's human rights in the UK.

Can you believe there is a contingent of people who think this Supernatural Season 7 villain is the future and a bunch of them post on here

Being an agender human who has to get a mammogram is already a dysphoria minefield. Did they really have to decorate this waiting room with pink plastic pumpkins?

I just saw someone use the abbreviation “AI;DR” and I’ll be laughing for a while.

I will admit that as an urban cyclist, I occasionally lose my temper with someone for parking in the bike lane. It's not nice and it's not effective, and I nearly always regret it. I realized something last time, when someone said I was in the wrong, not him, because I was being RUDE.

Made some new #birdart this weekend - a common grackle, and an ovenbird. Both based on my own photos.

"The fights for trans rights and Palestinians are over and we lost" is something I'm seeing over and over from cis white progressives. And I'm seeing variations of this popping up about racial justice, marriage equality, and disability rights too. Sorry, but fuck that.

At the end of the college-wide communications meeting, the director of career development told me I look very "dark academia" today. 🤨

It's officially October 1st so that means you all have to repost Assorted cheese hell.....yes

Someone heard me leaving my reps slightly emotional voicemail messages, got up, came over and got in my face to demand attention. ❤️

I need a quick mood boost, and maybe you do too, so - here are some excellent #birds and other critters from a walk around Mount Auburn Cemetery on Saturday. The hawk was TINY - I thought sharpie, but I guess he's just a very small Coop. 🪶

I usually deliberately call my reps' offices after hours so I can leave a voicemail, because not only do I have social anxiety, but when I'm anxious, I tend to go off-script and lose at least some of my cool (such as it is). So that sucked. But hey, it was still over pretty fast. Your turn, please.

I just called Chuck Schumer’s office and, for the first time EVER, a person answered, who then politely entered my complaints into their call log. This tells me two things: 1) They’re not getting enough calls over there, and 2) If you want to yell at Schumer, today’s the day. (212) 486-4430

You guys ... you did it. Gen's GoFundMe is at 100%. (I have closed it to further donations.) I can breathe easy, knowing that I can fully cover his surgery in November. Thank you so much to those of you who donated and/or boosted. I can't begin to tell you how much this means to me. 😭💖