My grandfather and my godfather (a beloved neighbor and dear family friend) had a long standing bet- for one dollar- about who would die first. Both of them being slightly pessimistic (in the funny way), they both insisted that they themselves would be the first to die. Any time my grandfather had a health scare, he’d gleefully call up my godfather to boast that he’d be passing “any day now” and he was sure to win the bet. It was a big family joke and they were always amiably sparring and comparing notes about who was in worse shape, medically speaking.

When my grandfather was in hospice care dying of liver cancer, my godfather was quite ill also. It took him great effort to make the journey to see his dying friend. As he came into the room, supported by a family member, he shuffled to my grandpa’s bedside and silently handed him a dollar bill. He was ceding his loss of the bet, as they both knew who was going first. My grandpa had been in quite bad shape for a while and was no longer able to speak but let me tell you he snatched that dollar with unexpected strength and literally laughed aloud. He knew exactly what the gesture meant and he couldn’t help but find the humor within the grief. It was the last time any of us heard my grandpa laugh, as he passed shortly after.

When I talk about my appreciation for “dark humor” I’m not so much thinking about edgy jokes, but rather the human instinct to somehow, impossibly, both find and appreciate the absurdity that is so often folded into the profound grief of life and death. When I tell this story I think it kind of perturbs people sometimes, but it’s honestly one of my favorite memories about two men I really deeply admired. I could never hope for anything more than for my loved ones to remember me laughing until the very end, and taking joy in a little joke as one of my final acts.

Tumblr Code.

that way we know we’re from tumblr without revealing anything

I’m just going to say this to strangers until i find a tumblr person

must keep reblogering!! Im going to be so suspicious if any one tells me this now!

Remember the answer is: I stole them from the president.

always reblog tumblr identification

good god this just crossed my dash in the year of our lord 2023

I LIKE YOUR SHOELACES??? IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2024??

Let’s take it to 4 million, folks!

almost there!

TO 4 MILLION!!!!!!!!!

THE ORIGINAL SHOELACES POST?? ON MY DASH IN 2024??

the only person that understands me is richard siken

i'm always a bit unsettled by disdain for intellectual or creative labor in leftist spaces. there's this commonly held belief that academics are a bunch of rich old white men, rather than a wide variety of people who are barely getting by. most lecturers in universities are adjuncts living paycheck to paycheck. authors make very little money as a general rule. most researchers are overworked and underpaid. and yet there's still this idea that academics are overcompensated to sit around and smoke cigars together while making shit up

publishers are not writers. publishing companies are not the academics who submit to them. Science and Nature and all the big, rich journals academics have to submit to are Not the researchers who submit papers to them! your average academic is not the one asking for money to access their paper, and it is unfair to lump them in with those journals when you complain about barriers of access to information

it’s kinda fucked up that you’re only an age for a year. I didn’t know how to be 23 yet, let me try again

i hate people who purposefully make you feel stupid in conversation!!!

side eyeing other people when you speak. replying to you with nothing but a smirk or an "i guess?" even when you've just said something entirely mundane. turning their back to you so you're standing outside the group. die

Unreal

Puerto Natales Mágico, Patagonia Chilena.

She’s so funny 😭

everyone always sayin to me "not to be weird" you have to be weird. you have to be weird for your health

They are so proud of it..

(Source)

I love desire paths. There's something so wonderous about seeing an echo of humanity. Depending on it's location, a desire path can mean so many different things.

In a city, like the pic above, they represent rebellion, and efficiency. The messiness of humanity. We like to imagine we're oh so logical and neat so we design our cities to be logical and neat an then real humans literally trample on that idea. The ego required to think you can design something perfect that checks every box. Life is all about compromise and patching stuff when some new problem arises. Though people have certainly tried! Ohio state univeristy let students carve their desire paths, and then paved them over. It looks pretty artsy.

Some people will try to discourage desire paths, but this is almost always going to fail.

Eventually, people just have to accept them. Humans are too dang stubborn.

Certain desire paths are just adorable. A 0.5 second time saver. You just can't design for maximum efficiency, humans will always find shortcuts!

Though on occasion a desire path can actually be the least efficient way...especially if you're superstitious.

In a wilder area, such as below, they show us the curiosity of humans. A desire path somewhere natural often tells you there's something interesting just ahead. (Though remember some ecosystems are fragile and will suffer if trampled! Stick to paths in these sorts of areas)

And how about desire stairs? I always think these look so cool. We get see humans determination to climb, to traverse every kind of terrain.

And for something really crazy...a desire path used for centuries will create a 'holloway'

All of these pics are off the Desirepath subreddit, check them out for more examples! And many thanks to the users who submitted these photos.

I always wondered if these had a name. Now I know. :)

This made my day

If you watch Doctor Who on Disney+, it gives you a 'skip intro' button, and if anything shows that Disney does not understand the appeal of Doctor Who, it's that. Who skips the Doctor Who intro. It's the least skippable intro in television history. It never even occurred to me to do that.

crying over a picture of a dog watching the northern lights

Sneaky