HELLO :)

bonus:

@blueshelledberry Taylor Swift is insanely wealthy and influential, I couldn’t gatekeep her even if I tried. But anyways;

And because I believed this wise and worldly adult, I went the next nine or so years fully believing that different ethnic traits were entirely determined by the geography you grew up in.

1. All humans were supposed to be brown, anyone who was white came from somewhere cold, because otherwise we’d stand out in the snow

2. Only white people got pimples and body hair because we were the only ones in razor and face wash commercials

3. Air was made of the same stuff as water because both were clear, tasteless, and vital for life

4. If you ate nothing but meat all the time, your teeth would become sharp and pointy like a shark

5. God could hear all my thoughts unless I focused really hard on going ‘LALALALALALALA’ in my head

6. If I made eye contact with a mirror, something living inside the mirror would look back and would see me, too

7. People born in other places had different accents because like how everyone has a different face, everyone also had a different mouth, so of you were from Scotland, your Scottish accent was just, like. The shape of your teeth or something

8. All liquids were just something + water. Like, bleach was made out of something toxic mixed with water.

9. Every chicken coop needed a rooster. No idea what purpose the rooster served, it just had to be there.

10. If I ate enough bone marrow I’d turn into a dog (I liked chewing open chicken bones for some reason, Idk)

11. In order to wear fake nails, women would have to pull their real nails out first

12. Everyone on the planet was attracted to men and women in exact equal amounts- they were just only allowed to date or marry someone of a different gender because idk adults made up dumb rules all the time, like keeping your elbows off the table and not wearing hats in restaurants.

13. Goldfish were psychic and could read your mind

14. The memorial stone behind my elementary school was actually a grave and there was a dead woman buried under it who made the pipes rattle in the girl’s washroom

15. If the monsters in the dark parts of the house made eye contact with me they’d own part of my soul

16. Cats could talk, they just didn’t want to.

Teloschistes flavicans

Golden hair lichen

The sun is shining, the grass is green, and I am stuck inside! So I will instead bask in the gentle, golden glow of T. flavicans. This fruticose lichen is made up of long, tufted, entangled branches that can reach lengths up to 12 cm. The surface can be gray, but is more commonly dominated by that cheddar cheese yellow-orange color. Soralia are present, along with short tomentum (hair-like structures) along the smooth surface. Apothecia are .8-4 mm in diameter, and have a lighter orange rim and a darker orange disc. T. flavicans prefers humid, tropical forests, and can be found growing on wood, moss, and rocks. It can be found in the appropriate habitat in many locations all over the planet. Sadly this gorgeous pal is sensitive to pollution, which has restricted its range to isolated locations far from urbanization. But efforts are being made to conserve this gorgeous, cheesy friend where we can (particularly in the UK). Hooray for conservation! Remember, it’s not just the big, fuzzy organisms that need our help, but also some very small, sessile, secretive organisms, too. On that note: should I make lichen conservation country-western music videos a la Joe Exotic? Hmmm, something to consider with all the free time I have on my hands right now.