Keep in mind, it’s not a batam chicken, it has some birth defect that makes it smaller than an average small chicken, we think. I don’t know. We didn’t expect this.
This is Cicero.
We thought Cicero was a rooster, mostly from fear of him being a hen and trying to lay an egg, only to end up egg bound.
Well, today we learned that Cicero the Rooster is actually Cicero the Hen.
AND LOOK
AT WHAT
SHE LAID
A TINY EGG.
I’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT.
IF WE HATCH IT WOULD A TINIER CHICKEN BE HATCHED??
WILL IT CONTINUE UNTIL WE HAVE THE SMALLEST CHICKEN IN THE WORLD??
WHY DID MY SISTER NAME THE CHICKEN AFTER HER MATH TEACHER??
My brother was diagnosed with depression years before I was, and because of that he started therapy years before I did.
I still remember when I was a young teen and he was playing a Nirvana song and he stopped it at this one line: “I miss the comfort of being sad”
He told me that when you start to get better, there’s a part of you that misses being sad and that if you start feeling that way you have to be extra extra aware and careful because if you indulge the feeling you’ll go down a self-destructive spiral
And even though that was years and years ago, I think about it all the time. Especially when I’m reading discourse on the idea of getting so attached to mental illness as an identity that you don’t want to improve things because you feel safe in it and don’t know who you are without it
I always think of that line “I miss the comfort of being sad” and my brother’s warning
This is like finding a stray journal page in a ruined city that talks of some grand festival and the date of the entry is the day before the city was destroyed
Target is where you go when you’re gonna try to restructure your entire life with 100 bucks, and you’re counting on a shoe rack, thumbtacks, a whiteboard, and new stationary to do it.
Everyone in here is looking for forgiveness and they’re trying to find it in a tasteful desk lamp and minimalist day planner
The term “useless lesbian” may be a meme, but it’s rooted in the very real phenomenon of compulsory heterosexuality, which causes lesbians to confuse crushes on women with platonic feelings, and confuse platonic feelings for men with romantic interest. So when a lesbian is being “useless” and not taking the hint that her crush likes her back, it’s showing the very real effects that comp het has on women.
Here’s something I wanna say real quick, while I’m feeling salty: Amazon has totally contributed to the devaluation of literature. Those prices you see, the $13 they’re asking you to pay for a hardcover book? Those are deep, DEEP discounts that they’re able to implement because they don’t collect sales tax if they can get away with it, they don’t contribute money to the communities where they have a physical presence, they have shitty labor practices, Jeff Bezos has more money than god, etc.
They’re so omnipotent at this point that they’ve normalized the discounted prices for books as the standard. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had someone come up to me and tell me what the price on Amazon is, expecting me to match it. The number of times I’ve been told, “Oh, it’s cheaper on Amazon, I’ll just get it there.” Even at author events, where book sales DIRECTLY CONTRIBUTE to whether or not that bookstore will be able to get more authors in.
So when you go into a bookstore, and you’re asked to pay $27 for a hardcover, remember: THAT IS THE COVER PRICE. Set by the publishers. The bookstore is not upcharging you. They are asking you to pay the value of the book. Amazon’s low prices come with a cost. Please, just keep that in mind.
(I made a post with options for buying books online that aren’t Amazon. Check it out!)
This is a great post, and I just want to point out: publishers aren’t upcharging you either.
The cost of the book is the advance for the author, it’s the salaries for all the people who work on it (including editors, yes, but also designers and marketers and publicists and lawyers and accountants and everyone else who makes sure publishing works). It’s the cost of printing the books and the materials to print those books on and the warehouses to store those books in.
It’s keeping the literal lights on.
No one in the book business, from the author to the publisher to the bookseller, is making themselves rich off your money. This is the cost to survive. Amazon is running at a deficit because they can make up the cost with other things they do, and because once they run everyone else out of business, they’ll be the only game in town and can charge whatever they damn well please.
And please, please do not ask a bookstore (especially an indie bookstore) if they “price match.” It’s so insulting.
Amazon routinely sells books at or *below* wholesale cost. Meaning that when you ask a bookstore to ‘price match’ Amazon, you’re literally asking them to give you the book for free, or even take a financial loss on it.
‘So how can Amazon do it?’ you ask? The answer is Amazon does not care about losing money. It sells goods at a loss continuously. (Don’t believe me? Just search “Amazon quarterly losses” and you can find article after article about this) Why? Because its goal isn’t to sell the most things, it’s goal is to be the only place where you CAN buy things. They gouge prices on goods to a point where brick and mortar retailers absolutely cannot compete and they do it with the singular goal of eliminating competition.
Things have value. They represent many people’s time and labor. For books, specifically, they represent tremendous cultural worth that extends far beyond the value of the paper they’re printed on. We have to appreciate the value of goods and be willing to pay a fair price that will support and nurture industries.
It’s ok to be upset that you can’t afford $26 for a new hardcover, but make sure that that anger is directed, not at the people whose labor makes books possible, but at the people on top (like Jeff Bezos) who have devalued your own labor such that you can’t afford it.
^^^ if anyone is wondering this is LITERALLY the exact same strategy that Walmart used to destroy any small business and fuck over local economies.
Might I suggest Indie Bound for those who still need the option of home delivery?
