This is my very unpopular opinion. When I see 50 is the new 30, I want to scream. Take the compliments, but think about whether it supports valuing youth only, or celebrating getting old.
To me, it just reinforces the toxic culture that suggests being young is everything. I’ve been there, done that. Now it’s time to embrace my inner beauty and confidence, and rock this middle life crisis in style.
So please spare me the “you don’t look a day over 50” comments. I’m rocking this half century mark, I’m not trying to pass for anything younger. My age spots are earning their keep, rather than chasing some elusive 30. I choose to embrace the richness of this chapter. I’m here to tell you 50 is the new 50. I am 53, I look 53, I own 53, and I’m proud of 53.
I feel this. SO. MUCH. I’m turning 45 this summer and recently I was out and about with my almost 20 yo niece and her friend and I made some offhand comment about being old (I’m sure my knee or ankle was complaining as we walked or something similar) and my niece, in her well meaning and kind way, declared that I was NOT old. And I laughed and said something about how “No, I AM. And that’s okay.” Because I’ve lived a LIFE and had all kinds of experiences that take time to have, so I’m cool with getting older, even if my ankle pisses me off some times. And my niece’s friend said the best thing that reminded me that just because a person might be young, doesn’t me that they can’t get it. They said something like “Yeah. Getting old doesn’t have to be bad. Think about all the stuff we can do over the next 20 years.”
And it’s like YEAH. That’s it exactly. You got time on your side kids, USE IT. Meanwhile, I’ve earned every ache and pain and stupid ankle issue I’ve accrued over the past 4.5 decades, and I’m not going to do anything but OWN it, because they make me, ME, and that’s not a bad thing at all.
Or in the wise words of The Amazing Devil:
“And these lines aren’t wrinkles, dear heart
They’re just dollops of paint on a new work of art
And as I walk away I know, I’ve been through the wars
But that creaking you hear in my bones, it’s not pain, it’s applause.”
Beautiful, right? When they first started laying this stuff across the Atlantic during the late Victorian, people made this stuff into souvenir jewelry:
been going insane over Bruce in his eating dome for 24 hrs now
There is so much story telling here. A person got this pacific parrotlet named it Bruce which in and of itself is amazing but then this person went here my little bird friend a raspbebe for you to enjoy and Bruce said hell yeah and went cataclysmicly and irreversible ape shit ham on that berry. And that probably happened more than once. So instead of never again allowing this little dinosaur the joy of the succulent flesh of the delectable raspberry they went what can we do for our little baby boy. and then boom they got some kind of cake cover type deal and cut a door into it so that Bruce would Not Be Trapped in a fruit prison (altho truely it is the berries who are trapped in there with Bruce but none the less) and so he may go to his pent house and freak it as crazily as his little bird heart desires.
Anyway i love pets they are each distinct little guys who are carred for by the funniest ape to ever exist bc we love animal so much
I’m in this group and Bruce’s human posts eating dome updates when he’s done a particularly good job!
Two months after NASA crews reestablished diagnostic communications with Voyager 1, they just recently received scientific observational data as well. Transmitted via the last remaining instruments still operational aboard the furthest man-made object from Earth, the data provides critical observations on plasma and magnetism in interstellar space. It’s been 46 years and 7 months since […]
I normally tag these posts “specific ass machines” after a minor meme that blew through Tumblr, but I was tempted to tag this one “specific boob machines”.
EDIT: fine, if you won’t go looking for it, I’ll add the gif myself.
My friend is looking for a candle that’d smell like being on the old PotC ride would smell:
“I am looking for specifically the ambient smell of the PotC ride; which is, honestly, in some ways not a good smell. That ride smells like bromine (to keep the water clean), gunpowder (they pipe this in), maybe something swampy??, and the musty smell of damp dust / old book”
So uh, you know those people who insist Russian psy-ops never happened?
Me three years ago being Cassandra as usual
But there are none of these on Tumblr, nooooope, anyone who claims we’ve got Russian bots on tumblr is drinking the Biden kookaid, amirite? No way a single one of those accounts telling you not to vote is running chatgpt under the hood.
its 1am and i am overwhelmed with love for a person who kindly and knowledgeably answered questions on a forum about niche topics. this is not the first time and it absolutely will not be the last
I wanted to figure out how to identify/describe a silver blade vs a steel blade for a fic, and I found a post on silver-collecter.com from 2010, and answers from a man named uncle_vic:
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in this same thread, olewheat asked about another silver piece; uncle_vic explained that blades were not made from silver, because it’d be too soft - often carbon steel would be silver plated, and eventually get pitted.
after a volley of questions, several users asked if they could contact uncle_vic directly. vic responded, very kindly:
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I am always, always charmed by a clearly veteran hobbyist helping out new people on a forum, and i wanted to see what else uncle_vic posted, what other nuggets about his life i could learn, and it turns out he was a pillar of the community:
He joined in 2006, when the website was only 2 months old, and throughout the next 6 years, he helped many identify their silver pieces, and welcomed them all with: “Hi there and thanks for joining us”, and always ended with a “Regards, Uncle Vic”
He helped so often, he’d post on the social thread to let people know he’d be gone without internet access for an extended period of time!
These often didn’t get many interactions, but he did so anyway, like a journal made public: one about how a hurricane was reaching him in Baton Rouge; several about his fishing trips, like this one in 2011:
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A year later, he wrote a similar vacation post, which became his final topic on the forum, titled: “Gone fishin’”.
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In May 2012, 3 months later, a newer user asked Vic what type of fishing he liked.
Vic replied: (content warning for cancer)
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This was Uncle Vic’s last post on the silver-collecter.com forums. Unflinchingly honest, and this time, instead of his usual “Regards”, he ended with “Keep the Faith”.
According to the obituary posted in the same thread, he passed away the next day, at his camp on the Tickfaw river – well known for fishing.
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This isn’t the first time I’ve come across kind, dedicated forum users, usually knowledgeable retirees, who suddenly stop posting; it certainly won’t be the last. But everytime I fall in love with them, and in turn, with humanity even more, to see what we leave behind.
A retired Cajun lawyer from Baton Rouge found a silver collecting forum from a hobbyist magazine in 2006, and decided to spend the next 6 years, up to his dying day, sharing his life, his love, and his knowledge with strangers.
Thank you, Uncle Vic, for the forum users you helped; thank you for the countless, anonymous users who found your posts through search engines like me.
I’m glad your corner of the internet exists so that, 12 years since you’ve been gone, I can visit and you can still teach me a whole lot about identifying silver and silver makers.
Victorian ingenuity: a mahogany “reading station” crafted by Charles Hindley & Co. circa 1890. It features a double wing-back seat with an arm divider, each seat equipped with an adjustable reading stand, various compartments, drawers, and bookshelves.
So as a continuation of this post I made in frustration about how anglo-centric most “must-read” book lists are, I went and found a few lists with a focus on non-English speaking authors (sorted by number of books listed):
49 Incredible Books From 49 Different Countries (Huffpost - has amazon links to all the books, which is great to find the editions but please please please support your local bookstores!!!!)
100 Must-Read Classics in Translation (BookRead - Amazon links again. Most bookstores will offer to order books for you if they don’t have them, please utilise their services and support local shops whenever possible!)
All these lists have reviews and feature books from a wide range of countries. I haven’t read every single review but I browsed the lists to make sure they wouldn’t all just name the same books and they don’t!!
I hope you’ll find inspiring new reads on those lists! :)
“My deity has been spending much more time with me… He has given me food, water, shelter, things to chase and things to bite, a paradise to explore and be safe within… I sense my time is drawing near, and I am comforted by the presence of my deity. They sense my end is drawing near, and they show me how they, too, bite into their prey. Together, we share a holy meal of understanding, between my small self, and their colossal, incomprehensible, mostly unknowable existence.
"Perhaps we aren’t all that different from the gods…and as my life draws to a close, I find that thought comforting.
you can’t support autistic people and support the police. No amount of paint jobs or sensitivity training can stop police from killing with impunity
And fuck the jigsaw puzzle imagery advanced by the eugenicists at Autism Speaks. We’re not a “puzzle” to be “solved“
Half of all people killed by cops have a disability, because cops aren’t trained to recognize or deal with people with disabilities and very few places have people who are trained for those situations easily accessible during emergencies. So the cops come in and do what they’re paid to do - murder anyone who’s inconvenient to the state
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