Berry's Notebook

[clearly flustered, about to cry, and out of any other arguments to make] well good luck proving that when the abyssal serpent swallows you and your stupid hometown

the worst thing about those fancy pears is that you think “there’s no way a pear could be worth that much” but if you actually make the mistake of tasting one you will be forced to confront the fact that what you thought was pleasure is but a shadow of a shadow and there is a world out there more real than real that your senses have been waiting for, where the colors are richer and the water is wetter and sleep is refreshing. and you’re not invited.

being an everything crafter is great but also sucks. like i want to get my watercolors out but i need to put away my microcrochet first. i want to do some leatherwork but my oil paints are on the table. i want to whittle but i'm using the bucket i catch wood shavings in to hold my papermaking mush. i want to write my book but my hands are too busy knitting a sweater. i want to code another video game but i'm too busy studying nalebinding. do you see my problem. the problem is that i need more hands

This is how I realized i was neurodivergent. My diagnosis of ADHD shocked no one.

not now sweetie, mommy is watching how the massive girlbossification of female characters has led to the belief that weak and vulnerable female characters are badly written characters because apparently every woman needs to be outspoken and witty and snarky and brave in order to be considered “complex” and have any value in a piece of media!!

Graced by Geckolepis typica from Madagascar. I love that they’re quite round creatures and then they have these dainty little toes. Also, their scales are full bone and both scale and skin come off when they get grabbed, which is…unpleasant. Consequently, catching these geckos for research without damaging them requires special techniques. 19th century researchers used bundles of cotton wool, but I imagine this wasn’t very effective, because cotton still has a lot of friction and the friction would pull the skin and scales off. In my (quite extensive) experience, the best technique is to carefully and quickly flick the geckos from their tree trunk or branch into an open dry plastic bag using a finger or stick.

Not only do they grow back, but they come back so well that we cannot even tell where they have ripped off before. This is very weird, because when a lizard loses its tail, it is very obvious where it has been lost and regrown. Not so these chaps. They seek out a humid place to hide, and within a few weeks, skin and scales have started to regrow. The fact that they can do this so well is the reason a team has just sequenced their genome. I believe it is hoped that the skin regeneration tech they have built into their cells could eventually be harnessed for human skin grafts.