Heaped spoonful of the cosmos splatted onto melamine cafeteria plate

I'm old and crochety but words like "neurospicy" make me so tired I know it's supposed to be a cute funny in-group thing for people to describe themselves. But no, bro, I'm autistic and have a complex panic disorder. We're going to use those words to describe my experiences of the world

I'm going to need you to use those exact words, because those are the exact words I'm using, because it isn't cute. It's a fact about my material reality and I'm going to confront you with that reality when needed

That doesn't mean I can't crack a joke about this shit (because I do! all the time!) but the cutesy nomenclature obscures the details in a way that I feel just makes other people comfortable And I don't like that

Tomorrow is my 40th birthday. If you enjoy my work, I just ask that you share my newsletter post below 💜 That would be a gift to me, to help me share my work with others and hopefully find an audience who appreciates it

Today is the day! Just launched my shop for my stickers, magnets, mini zines and small items! Also there's a digital download for a new splotch art sheet! ko-fi.com/pandakong/shop

For those that want to do a deeper dive into climate, environmental justice, and impacts, here’s a chapter from the U.S. National Climate Assessment nca2023.globalchange.gov/chapter/20/

This is life or death. Heat waves kill, especially elderly, the very young, & the vulnerable. More green infrastructure can help save lives. Research by our former student, me, & @destenie.bsky.social found climate disproportionately impacts low-income folks. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Post-Heist is LIVE on Kickstarter now! We're so excited to finally make this game a reality! Please give it a look, and back early if you want some limited quantity, genuine playtest materials! www.kickstarter.com/projects/hap...

My partner’s card game is live on Kickstarter! It’s full of original illustration and design by Jules and carefully designed and developed through many years of play-testing and tweaking mechanics. Jules and Ender are childhood besties and I’m beyond proud of them. @postheistgame.bsky.social

@watsoncomedian.bsky.social will you give me a topic to make a mini zine about today while I’m sick with a cold? I desperately need a distraction!

Oenosandra boisduvalii - Boisduval's Autumn Moth One of the more frequent visitors to our Perth Hills moth light currently is this rather striking Boisduval's Autumn Moth. This is a male of the species, the female looks quite different. #teammoth #ausinverts #wildoz #Lepidoptera #inaturalist

'She turned her focus sharply to identifying and exposing the presence of bias in psychology. Her core thesis was that it was flawed because most research was based on men’s experiences and treated male behaviour as the “normal” standard, leading to distorted and damaging views of women' ...

Got a notification from a medieval copyright lawyer

Just woke from a dream in which I was staying at a hotel with a mob boss family wherein I ate their leftover pizza and Italian food like a little rat and when I went to sleep I was crushed to death by a girthy skeleton. Not to worry-I came back to life, had a romp round the hotel and learned to kill

“When light conditions are constant, the cell is stable and firm, and chloroplasts remain in place. When a change in light intensity prompts activity, the dense cellular contents behave more like a liquid.”

Okay, okay. So far, since arriving home last night: got sick (a cold, it seems), had a fully flat tire (took like 3 hours, but it’s good now), and have spent far too much time daydreaming about [redacted]. I really need to take a long shower and have some more tea, I think.

The art of arranging marine algae into designs, bouquets, and even sometimes intricate little scenes, was surprisingly popular in the 19th century. See an album of such pictures by a woman named Eliza A. Jordson here: publicdomainreview.tumblr.com/post/8167995...

Going to get a whole gaggle of apple-headed cats and call my home The Orchard.

What if I tread the path of my greatest enemies and got an MBA just so I could go work at some hotshot company in the UK. (This is an attempt to shake myself out of the daydream of becoming a semi-successful writer and/or comedian-entertainer and going to the UK. Business seems more realistic.)

Intermittently I remember that most/many comedians just mine their friends and family for funny moments/characters/turns of phrase and I feel a lot more confident about writing a standup set.

Is this it? The beginning of my early riser period? All it took was traveling overseas?? (Hi, it’s 5 am and I’m having tea. I’m going to try to keep this schedule bc early waking is v helpful in the summer here!)

If a comedian isn’t needy, I’m not interested.

I have survived the flight home and have greeted my cats!! I don’t think I’ve ever been on a flight with that many audibly sick people before. Yikes! So much wet hacking.

I’m late to posting this but @vixleyton.bsky.social was uproariously funny, made me feel like her special audience pet with all the eye contact I was lavished with, and was such a sweet angel. Thank you for my Ea-nāṣir bag! I shall treasure it.

I’m going to want to dump a LOT of thoughts out of my brain this weekend before her surgery and hospitalization Tuesday-Wednesday. Huge note to self. Do not just move forward without processing pls!

I’m going to need all of my UK friends to know that Jules misread Lemsip as “Le Simp” once at the start of the trip and continued to say Le Simp with a little flourish every subsequent time we passed some of it on shelves.

The moment I get home I’ll be driving my mom to the hospital so she can have surgery to install a pacemaker, then staying with her for a few days to help with post-op care. Life is crashing right back in before I’ve even gotten to the airport. Still grateful for the trip and how well it’s gone.

I’m not as sad as I thought I’d be leaving the UK. I’ll miss it terribly and I long to stay, but it’s been quite possibly the most perfect trip. I couldn’t dream up a better one if I tried. I have so much to mentally sort through and reflect upon and I’ll wear a huge grin on my face all the while.

I’m going to need you all to know that the second a performer on a stage declares, with full conviction, “I’m weak!” I am immediately approx 70% more endeared to them than I was at the start of the day.

Lichenspotting!

That hail caught us by surprise! I worried before this trip that it might be annoyingly warm for May but we’ve been given some Arctic chill. I still can’t help but long to live here despite the poor weather. It’ll be heartbreaking to return home.

Getting to have a sincere convo with John Kearns last night, to make him laugh, and to compliment his show and see his sincere appreciation was something else. He’s such a sweetheart. I got to give him a hug!!!!

I’m so proud of Jules and Ender! They’ve been working on this game for ages and to see the original art, text, and mechanics evolve over time has been incredible. Please follow the campaign and share!!

“Mark Watson is also there.”

Had the time of my life at @computinghistory.org.uk yesterday!! I wish I lived nearer so that I could come to their events. What a treat!!

Stayed with this absolute gent of a cat, Freddie, who I found out is 16 years young. He was an angel and purred instantly when I greeted him. Walked around Cambridge; had a beetroot latte that matched my outfit. Saw Tim Key and got my little book signed.

I really wanted to be grumpy about the woman blasting dance music from a speaker off the back of the pram she was pushing but she was so kind and genuine and bouncing a bit to the beat. I wound up loving her, instead.

Visited the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge yesterday & had an absolute blast. Saw Tim Key perform in his hometown. Met him: was, as ever, overly earnest. Managed to give him a copy of my fan zine and a letter. Felt like a fool but it was worth it. Now, on to London for bday celebrations!

This is despicable and also not unique in anyway. Eugenics language around COVID has been pervasive since the start. It was very literally the Biden CDC position. No party is exempt from societal loathing of disabled and chronically ill people and the celebration of our deaths.

Lit fic authors be like: “vicissitudes.”

mark and watts (y'know, the demon from that drawing i made in january) #art

Cochrane USA left the sample of the deadly floating barrier at the entrance the last 3-days. On the main vendor floor they are showing off an even larger floating barrier. They’re also handing out a deck of branded playing cards that show off where their barriers are including the Rio Grande & Gaza.

People refuse to believe it and most who do believe it usually shrug it off but US prisons and jails are in fact torture chambers. Conditions are HORRIFIC across the board. People are OK with this on the whole.

“a survey by the center [UW’s Latino Center for Health] shows 41.2% of agricultural workers experience long COVID – one of the highest rates among professions studied. Overall, 34% of Latinos report experiencing long COVID, the highest rate among the racial groups examined.”

This is only a big deal if you’re into food.

It’s been well established that Blueberry Bunny is an apple head, but it should also be known that Teeny (aka Tahini) is a single black sesame seed.

If you're enjoying guac today, thank a migrant farm worker

Truly, everyone needs to come around to the understanding that RFK jr and the MAHA movement do believe that many people are unworthy of life

Well I guess I’m deleting chrome