June's Blog

They're bike trails, clearly used and maintained, but I can't tell by who. They're on what I think is city propery, alongside a public waterway, but they have no signage anywhere and are not listed as part of any park. They have no labeled entrances, just kind of veering off from the sidewalk into the woods, and definitely no parking to speak of. But someone is building very well made bike bridges over every small creek that flows into the river. How mysterious...

danger sign

small guy

Celastrina sp. mating.

Papilio glaucus, eastern tiger swallowtail

Prickly pear flowers :D

Strange abandoned basketball court just off the path

Polistes carolina

No id, but I saw this guy catch a bug right out of the air in front of me and then eat it on that branch.

Green anole chilling in a tree. It let me take pictures for like 5 minutes straight

Female Plathemis lydia, common whitetail

Male Plathemis lydia. why do they call it whitetail when the tail is blue or brown. I thought I saw two of these mating but after learning about their sexual dimorphism I guess they were fighting. or gay.

No id.

Mangora placida eating a buge

Junonia coenia, common buckeye

No id :(

Lycosidae, carrying egg sac.

Beautiful flower field and a sulphur (clouded?)

Thistle about to bloom

Male Lyssomanes viridis. I started taking pictures of this guy and didn't realize I had accidentally switched my camera to infrared mode, but the photos go kind of hard I think. I might start doing this on purpose more often, It seems like in IR mode theres more light available and I can maybe close down the aperture a little more for more depth of field. That being said identification is basically impossible in black and white (plus I almost missed the enormous front facing pair of eyes that should have given away the family immediately)

Orthoptera

no id.

Its wisteria season!

Underneath the bridge

Saw turtles in the river!

Very small butterfly, no ID. It's colored like a skipper but was like half the size of all the ones I've seen, only the width of a blade of grass.

Random field

Little clearing full of flowers

Mangora placida. Had a moment taking the second photo above when I was like, "this camera is not taking the picture I want. I can do better" and turned it to full manual. I think it came out looking pretty professional. I'm starting to get the hang of this.

Deer skeleton

Unknown Lycosidae species

The path was super unmaintained, so I followed it until it I couldn't make it out in the scrub anymore and turned around. On the way home, I took a shortcut by wading across the river. Felt great to get soaked after getting all sweaty.

me after getting very wet

Eastern bluebird in the snow. I'm very proud of this picture.

Young pine tree encased in ice

Snow on berrie bush

I bought a macro lens and taking pictures with it has been a blast. Taking bug photos with my phone has been annoying me for a long time. This lens has a 1:1 reproduction ratio and like 7.5 inches of working distance which means I can get higher magnification and still not have to block all the light holding my phone like one inch away from anything.

When it warms up here and I don't have to go literally digging to find insects you all are gonna be seeing SO many bug photos.

Click the images to see them in full.

Earwig that was sleeping under a rock. I love that you can see the droplets of water and even the individual eye segments in this photo

Unknown species of FUNNY BUG that was also sleeping under a rock.

Sweetgum seedpod

It can do birds too! Even though its a macro lens it can focus up to infinity just fine, and the 150mm focal length makes it not too bad at taking bird photos at a distance. Still not as good of a tool as a dedicated zoom lens I think.

Fully yellow bird in the first photo, and a yellow and white bird in the second. possibly a male and female pine warbler?

snapped tree

One thing that is hard with this lens is that the focus is very selective. As in if you have the focus off even slightly, you can only see soup through the viewfinder. I guess the actual term is that the depth of field is very small? I think thats to be expected from a macro lens.

WOOOOO DOWNY WOODPECKER!!!!! Everybody give it up for downy woodpecker!!!!

THREE birds. and I don't know what any of them are!

Part of my goal to listen to new albums of music that I've never heard before. First part here.

This was a really fun thing to do this year and I'd say I succeeded in my goal of finding more music to listen to and varying my tastes a bit. I listened to 113 albums over the whole year (not counting new releases from bands I had already heard of) and many of them are going to stick with me for a very long time. Magdalena Bay, about tess, Sweet Trip, Mount Eerie, NEMOPHILA, Underscores, Lorn, so many others. Plus the new The Beths album came out this year... what a great year for music all around.

I don't think I will continue keeping track of my album listening via blog posts this year, but I plan to make an effort to keep discovering new things.

July

• LIGHTS by WOLFGUN: 👍
• Get to Heaven by Everything Everything: 👍 this is a fun album, I liked it more than I expected but probably won't be a regular listen.
• McCartney, It'll Be Ok by UNIVERSITY: 👍 the guitar in this sounds incredible
• Black on Both Sides by Mos Def: 👍 this guy has crazy bars, I liked this one
• How This All Ends by Nuvolascura: 👍 I love the screams and vocals in this
• Blakroc by Blakroc: Collaboration project between the black keys and a ton of hip hop artists 👍
• Monarch of Monsters by Vylet Pony: 👍 Banger after banger. This is one of my favorites so far, huge fan of this album. Really like sludge and play dead.
• Girl with Fish by feeble little horse: 👍 really good album I like this one a lot

August

• Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair by La Dispute: 👍 Love some edgy music about a guy who gets cheated on/ broken up with
• Velocity: Design: Comfort. by Sweet Trip: 👍 extremely good. many excellent noises
• Night Palace by Mount Eerie: 👍 much to think about... There are a lot of really beautiful metaphors in this.. I think I Spoke With a Fish is my favorite song on this album
• Out To Lunch by Eric Dolphy: 👍 this shit crazy good
• Wallsocket by Underscores: 👍 wowww this one is really good I can't believe it took me this long to listen to more underscores music
• Rat Saw God by Wednesday: 👍 pretty good but I don't think I will come back to it
• Aethiopes by billy woods: 👍 holy fuck really good album
• 3+5 by Melt-Banana: This is good music but I think the vocal style will stop me from listening to it more
• Gut by Baths: 👍 good tracks on this one, I especially enjoy Eden and The Sound of a Blooming Flower
• God Gave Him a Wolf's Heart by sun is poison: I dont't have a ton of thoughts on this one, Torch I Hate to Hold goes pretty hard though
• Beheading Party by sun is poison: it was ok
• New Long Leg by Dry Cleaning: 👍 Despite being mostly spoken the vocals are surpisingly rhythmic and it makes an interesting pairing with the shoegazish guitar.

September

• Sunshine and Balance Beams by Pile: 👍 Wikipedia said this was a "hard listen" but I actually found it quite pleasant
• No One Was Driving The Car by La Dispute: 👍 Really really good, I this one more than Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair. I Dreamt of a Room with All My Friends I Could Not Get In hurt me.
• GET STICKBLOOD by Roxy Radclyffe: A kind of interesting project about the artist's poor relationship to the media she consumes to fulfill her ever expanding artistic vision at the expense of her personal relationships, however I had to dip after like the first hour or so of this due to not being able to handle another 4 and a half hours. Filtered, as was I think the intention.
• Aqua Fantasy by Yoichiro Yoshikawa: 👍 yay whale noises
• EVOLVE by NEMOPHILA: 👍 banger. I'm a real big fan of this band.
• Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco: 👍 pretty good
• MOONDRIFTS by GHASTLY CITY SLEEP: 👍 really good. wow i Really like this album.
• the whaler by Home Is Where: 👍 this album immediately landed in my regular listening rotation. skin meadow was in my head for days after.

October

• SONGS TO PUT ON YOUR IPOD by Maple: 👍 not the biggest fan of the vocals but I think the edm isn't bad.
• Ghastly City Sleep by Ghastly City Sleep: 👍 I think moondrifts is better but I still really like this
• Colour Of The Trap by Miles Kane: 👍 Homie chose the worst song on the album to lead with but the rest of them are pretty good. Squid was right this does sound like artic monkeys.
• Creative Spaces by Inland Knights: 👍 yay house
• The Light That Burns The Sky by Arion: its normal
• Wind's Poem by Mount Eerie: 👍 I like how this album is noisier but still with poetic lyrics like Night Palace.
• See You Soon by The Brudi Brothers: 👍 its no Simon and Garfunkle but I liked Chasing Paper

November

• Tensei Jingle by Sotaisei Riron: 👍 good stuff
• Choke Enough by Oklou: 👍 goes hard, very pleasant electronic music.
• Stardust by Danny Brown: 👍 bangerrrrr. underscores features go crazy. I really like this album. The fact that its a bunch of hyperpop features is really funny.
• 無罪モラトリアム by Sheena Ringo: 👍 incredible screams
• † (cross) by Justice: 👍 extremely daft punk inspired. Honestly I think this sounds incredible.

December

• The Window by Ratboys: 👍
• RAVEPOP by russelbuck: 👍 I should listen to more rave music, I enjoyed this.
• CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs: 👍 This is pretty good I think.
• I Love My Computer by Ninajirachi: 👍 Goes pretty hard. Both lyrics and style on on this are very rooted in nostalgia.
• alpha testing by 8485: 👍 really good.
• FIXION by THE ORAL CIGARETTES: 👍 This band reminds me of the pillows in a good way.
• Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt: I guess this one is a classic for a reason. Don't Speak always goes hard as fuck. I don't think World Go 'Round is a very good song.
• Second Nature by Ninajirachi: 👍 I like this one more that I Love My Computer I think.
• A Place Where Mountains Hide by acloudyskye: 👍 really good sounds. I like this one a lot. Kinda spooky at some parts as well. I really like the whole atmosphere of this album.
• :3 by ISSBROKIE: 👍 Smoking on some shit that looks like Dende is a really good line.
• rendering... by kitty hell: theres so much Internet in this. I think the screams are just ok. neocities and kroger parking lot deathmatch go pretty hard.
• Remnants for Rememberance by Vials of Wrath: 👍 I enjoy some atmospheric metal but I'm not huge on the vocals.

Top favorites:

• How This All Ends by Nuvolascura
• Monarch of Monsters by Vylet Pony
• Girl with Fish by feeble little horse
• MOONDRIFTS by GHASTLY CITY SLEEP
• the whaler by Home Is Where
• Choke Enough by Oklou

Starting to really enjoy taking wildlife photos. Managed to get MULTIPLE in focus pictures of birds while on a walk. I'm honestly really proud of these.

Click through for full photo.

Great Blue Heron

Great Blue Heron in flight

Downy Woodpecker

Huge fan of downy woodpeckers

I recently got a digital camera and have been slowly figuring out how to use it. I have a 18-55mm lens and a 200mm lens for it and switching between them for different shots feels really cool. I've also figured out how to adjust the aperture and shutter speed on the fly for different lighting.

Click each picture to see it in full. I usually put the entire uncompressed photo behind the click but does that actually matter? Not gonna do it this time cause I feel like it doesn't even make that much of a difference so I might as well save the space and not bother including two versions of every photo.

Zooming all the way in and pulling the focus all the way back makes a really short depth of field so I can get a spider photo with none of the background even remotely visible.

red cardinal in a tree

brown cardinal in a tree

The 200mm lens can also take bird photos, which is something I have never done before. Really hard to get a bird in focus before it moves and the autofocus isnt quite fast enough so you kind of just have to freehand it as fast as possible and hope the picture turns out good. These two photos were the closest I could get to an actual in focus bird.

unknown orange fungus

unknown white fungus

The river in question

mossy log

These last two are not camera pictures, just phone pictures but I'm including them because they're pretty.

and i did. also secret deer cameo

Some butterflies that I've seen around along with my best attempt at identification.

I find butterflies hard to photograph because they can be kind of skittish and I like taking pictures really close up, so I have to sneak up on them or predict where they will land. Sometimes you can tell when they are trying to drink from a patch of mud and you can get set up by it for a picture.

Click images for full view.

Papilio glaucus (Eastern tiger swallowtail), dark morph and yellow morph females.

Ocola skipper, or brazilian skipper, or salt marsh skipper, a bunch of these species look almost the same.

Epargyreus clarus, silver spotted skipper. I see these all over the place.

Junonia coenia, common buckeye

Epimecis hortaria, tulip tree beauty. I know its a moth not a butterfly who cares its still a lepidopteran

Agraulis vanillae, gulf fritillary

Hemaris thysbe (hummingbird clearwing) - I LOVE POLLINATING MOTHS!!!!! This one landed on my face for a second after taking this picture >/////<

Zale genus I think

idk

Enallagma geminatum - I know its a damselfly not a lepidopteran who cares it still has fly in the name

Strymon melinus, gray hairstreak

Thorybes pylades (northern cloudywing) (i think). it is also possible that these photos are of two different species.

Vanessa atalanta, red admiral

Phoebis sennae, cloudless sulfur

Possibly another type of sulfur

Hylephila phyleus, fiery skipper

I was originally going to have the whole year in this list, but it started getting really long so I'm posting the first half now and will post the second half at the end of the year.

This does not count bands that I already like who release a new album since the point was to help me find new music. Onwards from around April I started trying to write at least a little bit of my thoughts on each album instead of just leaving a thumbs up or down.

January

• Brand New Eyes by Paramore: 👍
• Imaginal Disk by Magdalena Bay: 👍 I keep coming back to this album and every time I like it more.
• beautiful by about tess: 👍 love this one
• Song of the Bird by about tess: 👍 banger, apparently this band is friends with World's End Girlfriend, another musician I really like
• shining by about tess: 👍 another banger does this band ever miss
• 呼吸 by Lily Chou-Chou: it was ok, I felt like I was missing things from not having seen the movie
• From Under the Cork Tree by Fall Out Boy: 👍
• Tristwch Y Fenywod by Tristwch Y Fenywod: 👍
• Lost Kids by Stick and Poke: 👍
• Freshman Year by Hop Along, Queen Ansleis: 👍

February

• No Title- by Reol: 👍
• Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven by Godspeed You! Black Emperor: 👍 it was good but I spent most of it wishing I was listening to MONO
• Cowards by Squid: 👍
• Generative Music 1 (this version) by Brian Eno: not something I will listen to a lot but theoretically interesting I guess
• Neon Golden by The Notwist: 👍
• Jubilee by Japanese Breakfast: 👍 I like this one a lot
• Parcels by Parcels: 👍
• This Won't Be The Last Time by acloudyskye: 👍 very good
• Die For You by okameP: 👍
• Ghostholding by venturing: 👍
• Alligator Bites Never Heal by Doechii: 👍
• 幕の内ISM by Passepied: 👍
• Diaspora Problems by Soul Glo: 👍 saw this band live and it went so hard

March

• Queridão by DJ Anderson do Paraíso: 👍
• 風街ろまん by Happy End: not really my thing I think
• Give Up by The Postal Service: 👍 very good
• SOUND & FURY by Sturgill Simpson: 👍
• Helium by Transwave: 👍 I am mostly past my trance phase I think but this was ok
• Songs of a Lost World by The Cure: 👍
• The Clod by No Party For Cao Dong: 👍
• boneyard aka fearmonger by underscores: 👍 I wasn't familiar with underscores when I first listened to this but I enjoyed it. Will be listening to some of her other albums
• Dogsbody by Model/Actriz: this is the horniest shit ive ever heard 👍 you go guy. I came back to this one again and it actually goes really fucking hard.

April

• Summer Make Good by múm: 👍
• Good Bye by Flied Egg: 👍 seems like its playing with a lot of the hendrix/king crimson stuff from around the same time, didn't expect Masayoshi Takanaka to be here hiii
• When The Raven Has Come To Earth by Strawberry Path: same band as above but without Masayoshi Takanaka. Somebody get that guy in here he'd do great
• Bark Your Head Off, Dog by Hop Along: 👍 very pleasant to listen to I enjoy this album a lot
• for a moment i saw myself as inexorably beautiful by smiling broadly: 👍 banger, fake blood recipe goes hard
• Sound of Silver by LCD Soundsystem: 👍 extremely vibes music
• DROWN THE TRAITOR WITHIN by Lorn: 👍 this music feels like the night sky to me
• Ok, maximalist dream by Agate Flow: 👍 maximalist is right this music has every noise at the beginning but it turns super chill good stuff
• Shadow Academy by Shadow Academy: 👎 Dan Avidans ten thousandth musical project that releases one album and then goes quiet. Unfortunately I still don't like his voice his musical style him.
• VESSEL by Lorn: 👍 This album has so many good noises dude I love noises
• Strange Pop by Mao Sasagawa: 👍 this album bangs, I like WAIT WHAT WAS THAT LAST SONG WHAT

May

• 祝祭 by Kaneko Ayano: 👍 I love the vocals on this album and the songs are so cheerful
• SEQUENCE 01 by f5ve: 👍 banger songs, they're very silly and not too long which is a positive since they don't overstay their welcome. Except firetruck that song sucks
• BODIES by Thornhill: 👍 this album goes hard
• Emergency & I by Dismemberment Plan: 👍 This one is ok, it doesn't really stick out to me
• 11100011 by Asian Glow: 👍 banger
• Maid-san and Witch by gaburyu: 👍 very good music, I like UMO in particular.
• Piroutte by Model/Actriz: 👍 I like this album a lot, a whole lot of passion and ends on a song that resonates with me a lot.

June

• Downfall of the Neon Youth by Parannoul, Asian Glow, and sonhos tomam conta: 👍 very good this one is gonna go in my regular rotation
• Blew Blue by GING NANG BOYS: 👍 pretty good album, I think I like Juventus best
• oil by kendall :3 : 👍 really good
• Self-Traitor, I Do Bring the Spider Love by Bull of Heaven: 👍 This was a very enjoyable listen
• みんな死ね by Shinsei Kamattechan: 👍 The crusty ass guitar at the beginning reminds me a lot of panchiko and I wouldn't be surprised if the vocals were an inspiration for Haru Nemuri, one of my favorite artists of all time
• Daydream Twins by Daydream Twins: 👍 this is good shoegaze
• The Glow by Gold Celeste: 👍
• Apple of my eye by Nemophila: 👍 This goes hard as fuck
• Content by Joywave: 👍 pretty good, Joywave is pretty popular I think so I had heard a couple of these songs already but never gone out of my way to listen to a whole album
• Ashes of the Wake by Lamb of God: 👍 now I see why they say Daisuke is a big fan of Lamb of God, the inspiration is pretty clear
• Empyrean by Mechina: 👍 Love a classic '10s symphonic metal. Especially like the part where they start chanting in latin.

TOP FAVORITES:

• beautiful by about tess
• Give Up by The Postal Service
• Bark Your Head Off, Dog by Hop Along
• DROWN THE TRAITOR WITHIN by Lorn
• Piroutte by Model/Actriz

This was the first con I have ever been to. I didn't entirely know what to expect but I had a blast the entire time. Most of my time was spent in the artist alley buying many many stickers and charms and trinkets and such. I loved seeing my friends and seeing other nerds cosplay. I hadn't been to Seattle either but we walked around and saw the famous capitol hill furry graffiti and transgender stickers. There were even a few fursuiters at the con which was pretty cool.

the finished product!

Making the costume took somewhere between 40-50 hours over the course of the three to four weeks before the con (procrastination works). This was my second sewing project ever (the first one was not successful, but thanks to it I was able to avoid so many mistakes)

Supplies:

• 3 yds white fabric
• 2 yds pink fabric (I needed slightly more)
• 2 yds black fabric (I needed slightly less)
• 2 yds of 1.5in wide black belting
• like an inch or two of green fabric
• 2 yds black ribbon
• 1 bag of polyfill (like barely any tbh)
• 1 hook and loop fastener
• 2 belt D rings
• 1 belt buckle
• 4 black buttons
• 5 4.5m red self adhering bandages (I used 3 for the leg and 2 for the arm)
• 1 package of bandage clips
• various threads and such

A lot of in process shots of this project are missing because I forgot to take them teehee. I started by cutting out all the teeth shapes and stitching a line on half the pieces, then cutting out green cloth for the crosses on the front two teeth. The folding and ironing strat worked fairly well to keep these smaller pieces straight before sewing them.

process of creating the individual teeth

I didn't have any chalk or anything so an awesome trick I learned from the internet to mark on black fabric is to cut a sliver of soap and use it to draw. The rest of the fabric I marked on with a washable marker. I'm sure there are better tools, but at the end I was able to clean most of it out with hot water in the sink so its fine.

I filled each tooth with a bit of polyfill to give them some volume. This went a long way to improving the final look in my opinion. Next I cut half circles of both white and pink fabric, and laid the teeth inside, pointing inwards because this will get turned inside out.

hi my living room floor

You can see in the second photo above my pink fabric was not wide enough for my measurements, so I had to sew in extensions out of the corners of the circle that got cut away. This ended up not being very visible at all. I sewed around the curve of the semicircle but NOT the straight edges yet (important).

I cut scraps of the black fabric to make the shoulder crosses in a similar way to the green ones from earlier. I decided to forgo the smaller black crosses on the collar because they are really small and it sounded like a pain. In order to make the collar, I cut a 9 inch slit down the center of the back of the white fabric only, allowing the sides to be folded out.

Once the shoulder crosses are on and the white epaulettes are on (not pictured) (one is at the shoulder and one is partway down the arm) (these will be to hold the belt in place) you can sew the straight edges of the white and pink fabric together. In between I sewed in loops made of black fabric with the D rings to act as the buckles that go down the front of the cape.

The cut from earlier left a empty space in the back of collar, so I stitched in some extra white fabric and cut it into a curve. Then I lined the whole thing with the black ribbon. (This was not the right material for this job and I ended up having to redo it in several places).

I also hand sewed this hook and eye fastener to keep the cape closed around my shoulders.

Making the belt was simple, just cut the belting to the appropriate length (a little less than 2yds for me) and sew the buckle on. Since its a synthetic material I was able to use a lighter to fuse the cut ends and stop them from unraveling.

The same goes for the belt holes, I heated up a nail in a candle flame and used it to melt the holes into the belting.

With the cape finished, the vest took much less time. I cut three squares of the same white fabric, two for the front and one for the back, and cut them into vaguely vest shape.

The blue circles show where I plan to sew the buttons.

Initially the front panels were sewn straight, but it was too tight around the chest so I unstitched and resewed it at an angle for extra room.

I bought some white shorts from the clothes store and some ears to round everything out and used the bandages as her leg and arm wraps. The bandage clips kept falling off during the con but it was fine since I brought the whole box with me.

I look down at my finger. Its swollen like a bug bite, but something seems different about it. I can feel something moving inside, and when I hold it up to the light I can make it out-- a wasp. This is not concerning to me but elating. I tell my partner. A life is growing inside me and I happily use the word “pregnant” to describe it to my friends.

The child crawls out of my finger. I put a bandaid over the exit wound. It circles around me in the air and I feed it sugar water as if its a hummingbird or something. It follows me everywhere. When I go to a barbecue it stays in a bush nearby to avoid the smoke. I would give anything to ensure this being lives a full life, and somehow within me I know that it is happy.

We all know a wasp lives a shorter life than a human, so no one is surprised when it happens. My partner and I hang a photo in the living room, crisp and macro. But there's another lump on my finger. Did it come from the same wasp, or a different one? It doesn’t matter. My family is still growing. Eventually more photos line the walls. When I wake up I miss them so much I start crying.

This shit is so much work!!! Even after all the bullshit legal stuff and I have my court order in hand its still a huge pain! I have to make a million phone calls and replace all my IDs and schedule a thousand appointments AAA

Have to change name on the plane tickets I bought months ago, have to change name on every bank account and every insurance company and every single utility it never ends!!!!!! And every phone call has to start with navigating their god forsaken autoattendant get me oute!!!!!!!

It freaking snowed!!!! This is a very rare occurrence for me. This is basically the first time I have seen snow since I was very young and I was blown away by how beautiful it was. I ran around and had the time of my life.

(Click through to see the full photos)

a deer in the snow!

snow on the ducks!! wow!!!

The next day the snow was melting but it still looked so pretty...

no snow in this picture I just think its neat

The daffodils are starting to sprout!!!! Its almost spring!

New blog post with a few chosts I liked from the site. Not gonna copy them here just click the link.

I finally learned how to hand write my rss feed! it wasn't actually that hard, the key was using cdata tags so I can copy and paste the html of my blog posts with very little changes and have the formatting still apply. This is also my first rost, there will possibly be more or maybe just regular blog posts, who can say.

Wolf spiders have higly developed eyes and hunt by vision at night. If you wear a headlamp it is possible to see the light reflect off their eyes at a distance while walking in a grassy area. Last month I went out at night time and came across several different species of spider.

Click the pictures to see them in full.

unsure of id, likely Lycosidae possibly Pardosa milvina

Rabidosa rabida

Tropical orb weaver, Eriophora ravilla

Opiliones, probably Leiobunum. I don't really know how to tell the difference between sclerosomatids

Probably Hogna or Schizocosa

A fairly large Rabidosa rabida

I have a hand lens that I got years ago to look at tiny rocks or something. Its a little 18mm lens with a fair amount of magnification, and I recently realized that I could use it to take some even more macro photos than usual by attaching it to the front of my phone camera and holding it in place with a rubber band. I like the results a lot. Luckily there was a spider patient enough to not be bothered by having a phone shoved right in it's face. I even accidentally bumped it a few times and it didn't seem to mind.

click images to see them in full.

Triconephila clavata, as are the rest of these photos

My favorite photos from October 2024. Click through to see them in full.

Ocola skipper (Panoquina ocola)

the underside of the above mushroom

Neoscona domilciliorum

Another angle. I love the way the light makes its red legs glow. This is one of the most beautiful spiders I've ever seen.

These are some of my favorite pictures from September 2024. All of them were taken on my phone. Click through to see them in full.

All the identifications are me making my best guess.

Ailanthus webworm (Atteva aurea)

some kind of shield bug idk

Ladybug!!! with train tracks in the background

Honey's bee (on the same plant as the ladybug)

Opiliones on my house one morning

tetragnatha, species unsure

female cloudless sulfur, Phoebis sennae

The last few pictures were taken during a rainstorm. I had my phone in a plastic bag to keep it dry, which made picture taking difficult, but luckily because of the rain the spiders were much less skittish when their webs were bumped so I got plenty of chances. I love seeing the water droplets cling to their legs.

Triconephila clavata

Triconephila clavata

unidentified fungits

I am a coyote. Furry, therian, whatever you call it, human society was not made for me. I would feel more at home in a body with a snout and a little wet nose and four paws and eyes that shine in the dark. I need to feel sharp teeth in my mouth and the wind in my fur and to twitch my ears at the sounds of the forest.

ΘΔ

What I truly desire is not something I can ever attain. Of course there are facsimiles, but at the moment I have no interest in fursuits and virtual avatars. I wear a collar, the only aspect of my animaldom that stretches into real life. Collars are clothing made for those who are not human. It says that I am here to visit, but this place is not where I belong. I belong in the woods and the prairie and the swamp and the jungle and the mountain.

ΘΔ

This is not to say that I do not have a home. If a wizard offered to instantly grant all my wishes, there is no way I would choose to give up my relationships with the people I loved in order to live in the woods. I have a life that makes me happy with people who accept me for who I am.

Recently I got a longboard and I've been having a lot of fun learning to ride it. I thought it would look super cool with a trans flag on the bottom so I decided to try my hand at spray painting.

Instead of removing the trucks I just covered them with plastic bags and tape. The hardest part was applying the tape to the sides of the board.

I used a plastic shower curtain as a drop cloth to not get paint on the driveway. Below is the skateboard after the pink stripes were painted:

While painting the pink stripes I realized that the white stripe is actually thinner than the tape I was using. I had to fold each strip of tape in half while leaving a bit of adhesive exposed in order to cover the middle space while being thin enough. But after painting the white stripe and a clear coat, it was done!

I'm really happy with the way it turned out and I think it looks awesomezors.