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A pair of marbled salamanders (Ambystoma opacum) in North Florida, USA

Big Leaf Season goal unlocked: embroidered a life-size bigleaf maple. This one is based on a leaf I collected in Forest Park, Portland, in August 2023 while I was playing hooky from the ESA annual meeting after getting back from Concatenate Fest and just wasn't ready to conference yet. 100% hand-stitched, no gods no masters no sewing machines.

A nice lady with many wings and a dragon's tail. Travelers' Tales: A Book of Marvels. 1927.

This entire process selects for homework-doers, personal entrepreneurs, and individualistic bureaucrats. It's why, like I said, the oracular outsiders, the Pauls of the world, who can't conform to society's expectations to check boxes and become legible to the powers that be, aren't in these programs and aren't getting the opportunities that are downstream of them. It's why you end up with tons of fiction about "my white boyfriend" and "everyone online is mad at me" or "anxious strivers in NYC" or "my annoying polycule." These are the obstacles this class encounters. You can't spend time, like Cormac McCarthy did, living in an unheated cabin in the Smokies, or embedding with the Mujahideen like William T. Vollman, or working as a psychotherapist like Olga Tokarczuk. You must move from strength to strength, always turning in your homework on time, and certainly never suffering a psychotic break.