mountain goat in a flat land, doing a PhD in Micropaleontology. This blog is a symphony of the stuff I am fond of, including ... dragons & mermaids ... ... feminism & science ... ... art & animals ... ... my super deep thoughts ... (she/her)
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OK SO a frozen baby Homotherium mummy has been found in Siberian permafrost and everybody is going nuts (including me).
I had to make another installmente for this series with a figurine that has long been debated to either depict either a lion or Homotherium; Despite anatomical details pointing to the latter, there was no record of surviving Homotherium from the time the figurine was dated to have been made, so it was mostly believed to have been a cave lion.
However, the frozen cub closes that temporal gap and makes it more likely that this was in fact the subject of the sculpture. So even though it’s not a painting, here it is brought to life.
A remake of the first ever piece I did for the series, the Megaloceros, given that although the piece of cave art I chose is often labeled as being that species, a more critical look to the antlers in particular makes me think it’s a red deer instead. I picked a more agreed-upon depiction of Megaloceros and also took the opportunity to make it a little more anatomically accurate.
This is all GREAT. I turned 40 last week, so permit me to add what I learned in my 30s:
keep on not working for startups
sometimes there comes a point where the thing (fandom, hobby, friendship, romantic relationship) you loved no longer brings you joy. And that's okay. Try to mourn the loss, take joy in the memories, and don't burn any bridges in case ten years go by and you find yourself back in that fandom/hobby/relationship again
it turns out that (ugh) moderate regular exercise is (spit) good for you. The sooner you make it part of your life, the easier it'll be
related: if you throw yourself into a new exercise regime too hard and too fast, without stopping to rest or consider whether a particular move is good for you ... well, shoulder injuries are painful and consults with orthopedic surgeons are expensive
knees are bastards too
don't even get me started on ankles
there may come a time when your digestive system is too fragile for ibuprofin. I'm sorry
one day you're gonna wake up and realise you no longer give any fucks about some things that used to bother you
on the other hand, you might be alarmed to realise what you still give a fuck about
never get down on the floor without an exit strategy for getting back up
I turn 50 this year. what I have learned in my 40s:
"loving yourself" is less of a feeling and more of an action. you can start doing it any time and it will make your life better and better as you go on
this will happen incrementally - be patient
along those lines, if you haven't started making an active effort to quit shit-talking yourself, suck it up and do it
no, shut up. do it. "but it's haaaaard!" don't care. do it.
whether you like it or not, you are mortal and you need to go to the doctor for an annual checkup
stretch regularly - your future self will thank you
at some point you will encounter people much younger than you arguing passionately and incorrectly about history you personally remember and experienced
this will be infuriating and annoying
otoh, most other things just... will not matter to you as much
at some point you will shift from wanting to go out to being like "eh" and deciding to stay in. this is okay.
you will have absolutely no idea what The Youth are talking about and you will not care
but if you keep your mind open to new ideas you'll never be irrelevant
your company still doesn't love you - don't give them more than they pay you for
get a fucking hobby, especially a hobby that involves physically creating/handling something and/or moving your body in physical space. it will do you more good than you can imagine
I'm talking that massive, never-ending Discord chat with your bestie? The one that makes you giggle through the day? It's not a "waste of time," it's what time was made for
If that's fanfic for your favorite characters who never even met on screen celebrate that!
If that's building a tiny fleet of snake villagers for your snake town and they just cover your mantel hell yes!
If that's collecting pillows and making a fort of them every weekend I'll be right over
you can’t believe what you think about yourself after sundown and you can’t believe what you think about yourself on your period and you can’t believe what you think about yourself when you’re hungry and you can’t believe what you think about yourself when you’re tired, the only time you can believe what you think about yourself is the split second after you’ve made someone laugh but only if it’s something other than “i should be a standup comedian”
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I went to 1 Bob Dylan concert, like two years ago. And if you have never been to one, I recommend to not ever go to one. It will be a disappointment. It's unfortunate, it's sad, but it will not be what did expected or hope for. It's a shadow of an idea, with a sound mixing. The times have changed.
Getting a little tired of people who move to Germany from abroad and then complain about the "rude customer service"... when it's literally just neutral customer service.
Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of rude customer service here too - but I'm talking about someone in a café who doesn't smile at you, or answers only the question you asked without volunteering more information. That's just... normal, my dudes. That's neutrality.
And the fact that people working in customer service in this country can be neutral - can be real human beings who don't necessarily feel like beaming and fawning all day every day - without having to fear losing their job for it... I think that's pretty great. And that's a big part of the reason I moved here, and the reason I feel more comfortable in this society than in the US.
I studied Germany for years before making the big decision to move here (I literally majored in German Studies in the US), and I visited this country multiple times, for increasing amounts of time, before making the big move. I knew (to a degree) what I was getting myself into, and therefore I've never regretted it.
But I meet multiple people every year - newcomers to Berlin whom I already know won't last - who decided to move here spontaneously, based on very little knowledge of the country or culture (let alone the language). And then they get so shocked and disappointed by Germany being... German... that they soon leave again. WHYYYYYYY
Not five minutes after I made this post, I was eating my orange cake and I fumbled my fork and it fell out of my hand. Barely had it made contact with the floor when the guy behind the counter called over to me "Gabel?" [Fork?]
Me: "Bitte?" [Sorry?]
Him, holding up a fresh cake fork in his hand: "Gabel?"
Me: "Oh! Danke schön :D" (I dash over and grab it)
This guy rarely smiles. He's always busy doing about ten things at once and he speaks brusquely and abruptly. But he knows how to take care of his customers. He noticed the MOMENT I dropped my fork and had a new one ready for me in the blink of an eye.
THAT'S what I call good service. The kind that matters. And yet some people call this guy "rude". Ffs.
@ilikesallydonovan This is adorable and I love it haha <3
Also, my own "fun fact" about that: Back when I was first learning German, being a typical rude American, if I didn't catch what a German had said to me, I'd just reply "Was?"
You can imagine how horrified my very polite elegant-old-man German professor was, and how rapidly he trained that out of me :'D
Tbh, I use "Was?" if I feel polite (or "Entschuldigung?" for really polite situations), otherwise it's just different inflections of "Hä?"...
But that's really just regional variation at play (another example is "benützen" which to me sounds terribly posh and uppity but I'm told is just a normal word in Austria). And of course language teachers are (rightfully!) cautious and teaching a form that's recognised as polite pretty much everywhere.
This is great and I loved when I was in Germany for work but also when I went through German TSA I was openly laughed at because I had a liquid one ounce over the limit (I didn't argue about it, I was like 'oh sorry about that' and they were laughing about how I was a dumb American) and then they proceeded to "randomly select" my black co-workers *three times* to the point where my black woman co-worker was crying and they legit did not give a fuck about it. Both co-workers were also opening gawked at and followed the *entire time* we were there.
So yeah. Sometimes when people say that customer service is rude in other countries they aren't just being "dumb Americans" 🫠
That's racism, not "bad customer service". Two different concepts. They can overlap, but the overlap is not what this post is about, as I made explicitly clear in my original post.
And believe me, there's plenty of racism in Germany too – don't even get me started on that. The most horrifically racist political party has been doing frighteningly well in elections here recently.
But that's not at all what this post is about. This post is about a customer service culture that grants employees the right to be human and have moods and bad days, even when on the job. That does NOT include or excuse racism, period. Racism is something a hell of a lot more serious. And I don't appreciate the implication that my original post is defending or hand-waving racism in any way.
(Every single person I've ever heard complain about rude customer service in Germany was white, btw. So that's what I'm talking about in this post.)
Tbh I didn't even know that word existed, so I've learned something from this post! In my vernacular, "benutzen" is a normal everyday word (although that could just be because I hang out with a lot of language-people? dunno) but I had no clue that there was a version of that word that had an umlaut... tja, man lernt nie aus.
Getting a little tired of people who move to Germany from abroad and then complain about the "rude customer service"... when it's literally just neutral customer service.
Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of rude customer service here too - but I'm talking about someone in a café who doesn't smile at you, or answers only the question you asked without volunteering more information. That's just... normal, my dudes. That's neutrality.
And the fact that people working in customer service in this country can be neutral - can be real human beings who don't necessarily feel like beaming and fawning all day every day - without having to fear losing their job for it... I think that's pretty great. And that's a big part of the reason I moved here, and the reason I feel more comfortable in this society than in the US.
I studied Germany for years before making the big decision to move here (I literally majored in German Studies in the US), and I visited this country multiple times, for increasing amounts of time, before making the big move. I knew (to a degree) what I was getting myself into, and therefore I've never regretted it.
But I meet multiple people every year - newcomers to Berlin whom I already know won't last - who decided to move here spontaneously, based on very little knowledge of the country or culture (let alone the language). And then they get so shocked and disappointed by Germany being... German... that they soon leave again. WHYYYYYYY
Not five minutes after I made this post, I was eating my orange cake and I fumbled my fork and it fell out of my hand. Barely had it made contact with the floor when the guy behind the counter called over to me "Gabel?" [Fork?]
Me: "Bitte?" [Sorry?]
Him, holding up a fresh cake fork in his hand: "Gabel?"
Me: "Oh! Danke schön :D" (I dash over and grab it)
This guy rarely smiles. He's always busy doing about ten things at once and he speaks brusquely and abruptly. But he knows how to take care of his customers. He noticed the MOMENT I dropped my fork and had a new one ready for me in the blink of an eye.
THAT'S what I call good service. The kind that matters. And yet some people call this guy "rude". Ffs.
@ilikesallydonovan This is adorable and I love it haha <3
Also, my own "fun fact" about that: Back when I was first learning German, being a typical rude American, if I didn't catch what a German had said to me, I'd just reply "Was?"
You can imagine how horrified my very polite elegant-old-man German professor was, and how rapidly he trained that out of me :'D
Tbh, I use "Was?" if I feel polite (or "Entschuldigung?" for really polite situations), otherwise it's just different inflections of "Hä?"...
But that's really just regional variation at play (another example is "benützen" which to me sounds terribly posh and uppity but I'm told is just a normal word in Austria). And of course language teachers are (rightfully!) cautious and teaching a form that's recognised as polite pretty much everywhere.
This is great and I loved when I was in Germany for work but also when I went through German TSA I was openly laughed at because I had a liquid one ounce over the limit (I didn't argue about it, I was like 'oh sorry about that' and they were laughing about how I was a dumb American) and then they proceeded to "randomly select" my black co-workers *three times* to the point where my black woman co-worker was crying and they legit did not give a fuck about it. Both co-workers were also opening gawked at and followed the *entire time* we were there.
So yeah. Sometimes when people say that customer service is rude in other countries they aren't just being "dumb Americans" 🫠
That's racism, not "bad customer service". Two different concepts. They can overlap, but the overlap is not what this post is about, as I made explicitly clear in my original post.
And believe me, there's plenty of racism in Germany too – don't even get me started on that. The most horrifically racist political party has been doing frighteningly well in elections here recently.
But that's not at all what this post is about. This post is about a customer service culture that grants employees the right to be human and have moods and bad days, even when on the job. That does NOT include or excuse racism, period. Racism is something a hell of a lot more serious. And I don't appreciate the implication that my original post is defending or hand-waving racism in any way.
(Every single person I've ever heard complain about rude customer service in Germany was white, btw. So that's what I'm talking about in this post.)
The only thing I have to say for myself is: Songs in podcasts my beloveds <3
IDs in alt text and under the cut
[ID: Front cover of a zine. In the middle of the page there is big red heart with text in it: „Songs in podcasts my beloveds”.
Page 1. Text saying: „I love songs in podcasts! They are so cool and great and amazing and wonderful and fun and fabulous and excellent and brilliant”
Page 2. On the top of the page there is text: „Me when there is song in podcast:”. Below there are three doodles of a person. First is singing dramatically, other two are dancing. There are colourful musical notes around.
Page 3. Text saying: „Some of my fav songs from podcasts with honest and totally not biased rating:
„Die Berliner Luft” from The Amelia Project - 10/10
Songs from Roguemaker - 10/10
Theme song from Night Shift - 10/10
„Magistrate’s daughter” Travelling light - 10/10”
Page 4. Text saying: „Musical episode of Mission rejected - 10/10
Folks songs in Camlann - 10/10
Songs from The Strange Case of Starship Iris - 10/10
„It’s all made up!” from Victoriocity - 10/10
Musical episode of The Bright Sessions - 10/10
Song in the last episode of Trice Forgotten - 10/10”
Page 5. Text saying: „”Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” from Midnight Burger - 10/10
Songs from Re: Dracula - 10/10
Cabaret Night at Cosmic Lounge from Stellar Firma - 69/10
Theme song from Dark Ages - 10/10
Songs from Welcome to the Brass Eagle - 10/10
The Ballad of Anne & Mary 1000/10”
Page 6. At the top of the page there is text saying: „”To be an Undertaker” from Wooden Overcoats - 100000000000000000000000/10”. Below there is doodle of a person playing on a mandolin.
Page 7. There is a doodle of a person holding a big sign with text: „You should add song to your podcast!”. At the bottom of the page there is text saying: „#fiction podcast zine event”. End ID]
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Anya is LIVE right now
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Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
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