~ The Irony Of Loneliness ~

Alfred T. Palmer :: A kitten aboard a floating giant Victoria water lily pad in the Philippines, 1935. / src: National Geographic Found

Long story short it is 9pm and I am furiously driving to fucking Target bc the first store didnt have any that were good enough I am

Art By IG: @dragon_arte

Speaking as a major dental hygiene enthusiast…

Great-looking teeth come from two things: luck and money (which is also a function of luck).

Dental procedures tend to be very, very expensive, and are almost never covered by insurance.

Healthy teeth aren’t necessarily big, straight or bright white. Depending on what someone’s natural teeth are like, achieving that look may require a significant downgrade in their dental health; unnecessary crowns and veneers cause damage.

Do not underestimate genetics’ role in determining teeth’s appearance, or how prone teeth are to problems. Genes and early development, i.e. things people get zero control over, can outweigh all else.

A wide range of chronic conditions impact oral health and teeth’s appearance, too, and may contraindicate various types of work or raise procedures’ cost even more.

Finally, for many people and many reasons, celebrity-looking teeth just aren’t a priority (even when they’re attainable; some people might want, y’know, a new car instead).

I know open water swimming isn’t really glamorous, but Lynne Cox is arguably one of the greatest overlooked athletes of the 20th century. 

And quite possibly a mutant. 

She can withstand water temperatures that you or I would die from because of her training and her body’s unique reaction to cold (you know how the blood will leave your fingers and toes when it’s cold, to preserve heat? her whole body does that, pooling her blood in her core and insuring her body temperature stays toasty where it counts).

She funded the Bering Strait swim herself, clearing out her bank account when she couldn’t get corporate sponsors. After she succeeded (to almost everyone’s surprise: if you get in the Bering Sea without serious gear you generally just die) Gorbachev mentioned her during treaty talks with Nixon: “Last summer it took one brave American by the name of Lynne Cox just two hours to swim from one of our countries to the other. We saw on television how sincere and friendly the meeting was between our people and the Americans when she stepped onto the Soviet shore. She proved by her courage how close to each other our peoples live.“

She wasn’t just the first woman to swim the Strait of Magellan. She was the first person to make it across. 

On top of setting multiple world records, she swam a mile+ to the coast of Antarctica, in just a bathing suit, and did not die. 

She’s swum over 50,000 miles. 

Her body type is optimized for her sport. The shape of her body and the presence of fat both provide insulation to keep her core warm while she swims.

A lot of open water swimmers aren’t this chunky, but that’s because most of them are actually triathletes, and their body type is a compromise between the ideals for the different sports.