... a Coach House

oh my goodness, one of dian fossey’s first close up observations with gorillas happened when she was trying to climb a tree to see them better, but so badly that by the time she’d gotten up the entire group had come out of hiding to look at her: “Nearly all members of the group had totally exposed themselves, forgetting about hiding coyly behind foliage screens because it was obvious to them that the observer had been distracted by tree-climbing problems, an activity they could understand.”

hello, fellow apes

[Image transcript: porch. The group had been day-nesting and sunbathing when I contacted them, but upon my approach they nervously retreated to obscure themselves behind thick foliage. Frustrated but determined to see them better, I decided to climb a tree, not one of my better talents. The tree was particularly slithery and, try as I might, no amount of puffing, pulling, gripping, or clawing succeeded in getting me more than a few feet aboveground. Disgustedly, I was about to give up when Sanwekwe came to my aid by giving one mighty boost to my protruding rump; tears were running from his eyes as he was convulsed in silent laughter. I felt as inept as a baby taking its first step. Finally able to grab on to a conveniently placed branch, I hauled myself up into a respectful semislouch position in the tree about twenty feet from the ground. By this time I naturally assumed that the combined noises of panting, cursing, and branch-breaking made during the initial climbing attempts must have frightened the group on to the next mountain. I was amazed to look around and find that the entire group had returned and were sitting like front row spectators at a sideshow. All that was needed to make the image complete were a few gorilla-sized bags of popcorn and some cotton candy! This was the first live audience I had ever had in my life and certainly the least expected.]

imagine some freakish not-a-human alien THING has shown up out of nowhere and is trying to get into your office building to study you. but it has no idea how to get past a revolving door. it tries for three hours. by the time it finally understands the concept of a revolving door and squeeze into the building everyone in the office is crowded into the lobby to watch and call helpful suggestions. it’s conclusively determined that the alien is definitely not a threat, except maybe to itself.

This is about as unrelated as it gets, but I was once on a cooking competition show as background. I had a prep list, and while the contestants were front-stage, I was in the back of the shot, doing the prep list, looking chef-y, alongside some other BG. The prep list was double-duty, it was also making stuff for the contestants to use later, but our main job was just to make the kitchen look busier. I imagine that in most shots I was in, I was at best an out-of-focus blur behind the main shot. So at the beginning, the contestants are showing off their knife skills and making little fruit sculptures or whatever, IDGAF, and they were being interviewed at the same time. "What does cooking mean to you?" and that kind of stuff. I . . . was not supposed to be interviewed. I was BG. The interviewer apparently, did not know who was a contestant and who was BG, so they came over to me. And after all of these eloquent long-winded philosophy-and-dream guided answers, they come to me, and go "What is cooking?" And me, deep in focus on looking professional and getting the prep list done and not listening to the interviews, aware that I'm not supposed to talk or be talked to (I'm not paid for speaking lines!), but also aware I am the focus right now, but also aware that they will cut this out of the televised part and I can relax and shrug him off, but also suddenly aware there's still a live audience and I can't just shrug him off, but also confused because I didn't realize he was fishing for a deep philosophical answer: "Cooking is making food". Well. I got a laugh out of the live audience, and they must have decided to keep the line because my pay was upgraded from "SSE" (Special Skills Extra) rates to "Speaking" rates.

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The sheer roundness of this kitten must be admired.

after a couple hours chopping dried sea urchins into tiny pieces with a razor blade you start referring to the razor blade as yourself in your thoughts. a little while afterwards you'll inevitably think something along the lines of "i'm getting a bit dull, i'm going to have to throw myself out & get myself a new self" at which point your internal monologue has pretty much returned to baseline

This happens with mobility aids too. I bump into shit with my forearm crutches and say "ow" before I realize those are not, in fact, More Legs. Then when I get up and try to walk without them for a second there's a moment of feeling like a dog walking upright

I think there’s a teaboot(?) post about this with a huge security cam system

Yeah I get twitchy when I don't have my eyes

Grad school is wild because you'll spend 5 straight months minding your own business and trying to fix a very specific problem, and then someone will come up to you one day and just drop the most feral departmental drama. What do you mean one professor probably murdered another? That girl you don't like is getting fired for drinking ultrapure lab water? There's a guy stealing toxic chemicals from other labs "to banish demons?" I'm over here trying to improve my standard deviation for months on end and across the hall there's a whole HBO show going on, apparently.

new chess piece called the jester which can move anywhere on the board but can't capture anything. it just gets in the way to annoy your opponent