The Eternal Optimist

Reblog with your Halloween pet costumes! Let's see them, and get a huge post rolling for Halloween!

After all this time?

(secret bonus: the other side of her tag)

it’s been a few weeks, I suppose we should check up on the AHSGSHGAFB?!

ajdhf.

well that’s just,,,

REXCELLENT

HELL

YES

HELL

FUCKING

YES.

This week, a mass grave was discovered at a former Indian Residential School, in Kamloops, BC. The grave contained the bodies of 215 Indigenous children.

For people outside of North America, residential schools were places that Indigenous children were sent to, to have their language and culture stripped away from them. They were literally stolen from their families, and scattered across Canada, to ensure that they would be surrounded by children who didn't speak their language. They were given Christian names and forced to speak English. They were horrendously abused, and the survivors have been traumatized.

Hundreds of children never returned. The assumption has always been that they died. This has now been confirmed.

The school in Kamloops closed in 1978. They are now trying to identify bodies to inform family members. The last residential school closed in the 1990s. There is growing demand to search all of them, but the government hasn't responded to that, as of yet. Ottawa JUST gave in to pressure to fly the Canada flag at half mast. They weren't even going to do that.

Paleontologists completed a life-sized replica of Sue, the most complete T. Rex ever found.

And she is freaking GORGEOUS!

As I read more about this beauty, I found out some new details regarding things I thought I previously knew about the beast that was Tyrannosaurus Rex, and I’m going to share them with you.

First, and most obvious, her size:

This is nothing new, we all figured T. Rex was big, but I for one never stopped to consider exactly how big it was. Nobody ever really knows what to imagine when they read about something the size of a whale that walked around and ate everything it could kill. 

Speaking of eating things, I just want to remind you all that T. Rex had–by miles–the strongest bite of any terrestrial animal living or dead, somewhere around six and a half tons of force. That’s over six times greater than the current estimate of what Allosaurus was capable of, and three times what was delivered by the highest measured reading of the living title holder–the estuarine crocodile. It didn’t have to waste time swinging its head open-mouthed like Saurophaganax for a little extra oomph, or grow fancy serrated teeth like Carcharodontosaurus to cut pieces out of its prey. It opted for the simplest approach: get its mouth around something and crush it to death; imagine the full weight of an elephant on whatever was between this thing’s jaws.

“How did it find something to eat?” I hear you asking. “It can’t see something if it doesn’t move, right?”

Listen, I love Jurassic Park too, but that’s a big crock of shit.

Notice how both her eyes face forward. That gives her binocular vision (the ability to focus both eyes on one target, like you and I). More importantly it means she has impeccable depth perception due to overlapping fields of vision from each, large, eyeball. Researchers agree that T. Rex not only had incredible vision, but that it was probably better than most modern animals–including eagles, hawks, and owls–and that she could likely spot something three and a half miles away. If something that big can see that well, it doesn’t matter if you move or not, she’d be able to tell if it was an animal trying to hide or a piece of vegetation. So pray she isn’t hungry if she lays eyes on you. And even if by some miracle she didn’t see you, she’d still smell you. 

If she decided you looked tasty, you probably wouldn’t hear her coming as much as you’d feel her. Modern science indicates that T. Rex didn’t roar like in Jurassic Park, but rather bellowed or maybe even hissed like crocodilians. If she were on to you, you’d most likely feel this sense of unease creep up your spine as a low-pitched rumble in the air permeated through you. You wouldn’t know what it was or where it was coming from until you hear her footfalls. By then it’s too late–you could try to run but she’d probably catch you. There’s plenty on YouTube that reconstructs what T. Rex may have sounded like, and it’s legitimately haunting.  

To wrap all of this up, the one bit of good that came out of the cursed year that is 2020 is that this wonderful child of science and art came into the world, and reaffirmed my respect and admiration for the eight ton slab of muscle and teeth that is this magnificent creature.

You’re probably sick to death of me reblogging my GoFundMe post, trust me I’m sick of reblogging it too. So I’m making this one, which is an updated one, because a lot of thing have happened since I was admitted into the hospital with a mystery lung infection, the most important being I was discharged with a cancer diagnosis.

I have Stage IV Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

It’s spread to my lungs for sure, and I have a bone marrow biopsy next week as well as a PET scan to see where else it’s spread. It’s not looking super great for me, though I haven’t been given an expiration date and even if I do I’m going to ignore it because I refuse to be taken out by something called lymphoma. I have an expected chemo start date of 4/27, if not 4/20, in order to aggressively fight this. I’ve already shaved my head ahead of chemo because it’s important to me that I take charge and be active in my treatment and my recovery so I don’t just give up.

“Stage IV” is a scary phrase, and I’ll admit I had a bit of a breakdown after my oncology appointment because for all my nihilistic “just let me die lol” humor, being confronted with my own mortality is a heavy and hard thing to handle. I had another breakdown after taking the scissors to my hair to make shaving it easier, and yet another in the shower. It’s good to cry and scream and let it all out because this sucks! This sucks so much! I’m only 30, goddamn! Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is one of the most treatable cancers with a five year prognosis that’s at least above 50% so statistics are in my favor right now. Even knowing this, sometimes I think about what’s happening and I feel like I’m going to start screaming and never stop.

I’m not working; my funeral home made me redundant as the newest mortician on the seniority ladder, though I haven’t been officially laid off or let go. At least then I could collect unemployment, so being stuck in this “having a job but not having a job limbo” sucks. I still have health insurance, which I’m sure is a major contributing factor to why I haven’t been officially laid off, but it’s still $200 every two weeks and without an income, obviously this sucks. Even when the shelter-in-place orders end and businesses are able to reopen like they were before the pandemic, I’ll be in the full swing of aggressive chemotherapy and unable to work so the shittiness continues.

I’m asking for help, because I want to survive this.

Here’s how you can help:

I have a GoFundMe here. So many people have already generously given and all the money is going to bills, bills, groceries, bills, rent, and medications.

If you would rather send something physical, I have an Amazon wishlist specifically for dealing with this here. I didn’t actually know what to put on there so the first thing was cat food.

I also have a paypal.me

If you want to help but are broke as shit like me, reblogs are appreciated just as much.

it’s now in my spleen, my right lung, and the lymph nodes in my neck, between my lungs, and behind my heart.