Day: August 11, 2016

beepboop-its-a-robot:

STORY TIME:

I work in a decent sized, local, indie bookstore. It’s a great job 99% of the time and a lot of our customers are pretty neat people. Any who, middle of the day this little old lady comes up. She’s lovably kooky. She effuses how much she loves the store and how she wishes she could spend more time in it but her husband is waiting in the car (OH! I BETTER BUY HIM SOME CHOCOLATE!), she piles a bunch of art supplies on the counter and then stops and tells me how my bangs are beautiful and remind her of the ocean (“Wooooosh” she says, making a wave gesture with her hand)

Ok. I think to myself. Awesomely happy, weird little old ladies are my favorite kind of customer. They’re thrilled about everything and they’re comfortably bananas. I can have a good time with this one. So we chat and it’s nice.

Then this kid, who’s been up my counter a few times to gather his school textbooks, comes up in line behind her (we’re connected to a major university in the city so we have a lot of harried students pass through). She turns around to him and, out of nowhere, demands that he put his textbooks on the counter. He’s confused but she explains that she’s going to buy his textbooks.

He goes sheetrock white. He refuses and adamantly insists that she can’t do that. It’s like, $400 worth of textbooks. She, this tiny old woman, bodily takes them out of her hands, throws them on the counter and turns to me with a intense stare and tells me to put them on her bill. The kid at this point is practically in tears. He’s confused and shocked and grateful. Then she turns to him and says “you need chocolate.” She starts grabbing handfuls of chocolates and putting them in her pile.

He keeps asking her “why are you doing this?” She responds “Do you like Harry Potter?“ and throws a copy of the new Cursed Child on the pile too.

Finally she’s done and I ring her up for a crazy amount of money. She pays and asks me to please give the kid a few bags for his stuff. While I’m bagging up her merchandise the kid hugs her. We’re both telling her how amazing she is and what an awesome thing she’s done. She turns to both of us and says probably one of the most profound, unscripted things I’ve ever had someone say:

“It’s important to be kind. You can’t know all the times that you’ve hurt people in tiny, significant ways. It’s easy to be cruel without meaning to be. There’s nothing you can do about that. But you can choose to be kind. Be kind.”

The kid thanks her again and leaves. I tell her again how awesome she is. She’s staring out the door after him and says to me: “My son is a homeless meth addict. I don’t know what I did. I see that boy and I see the man my son could have been if someone had chosen to be kind to him at just the right time.”

I’ve bagged up all her stuff and at this point am super awkward and feel like I should say something but I don’t know what. Then she turns to me and says: I wish I could have bangs like that but my darn hair is just too curly.“ And leaves.

And that is the story of the best customer I’ve ever had. Be kind to somebody today.

neil-gaiman:

sunspotery:

So according to an interview with Neil Gaiman in the back of Good Omens, before Terry Pratchett became a full time writer he wrote at least 400 words a day.

I’ve been trying it out for a couple weeks now and let me tell you 400 words is a totally awesome goal. It is very approachable and not intimidating, often leads to more than 400 words cause well now I have to finish this scene. 

Seriously I probably would have written nothing in the last couple weeks, instead I’ve written 1000?s of words. 

10/10 would recommend.

Terry was a very wise man.

jordanlhawk:

naamahdarling:

kyraneko:

animatedamerican:

gokuma:

thepreciousthing:

gracielovesjesus:

2015: Man-on-man marriage
2017: Man-on-child marriage
2019: Man-on-dog marriage
2021: Man-on-car marriage
2023: Hopefully the world ends by then tbh

Two consenting adults, be they man and woman, man and man, woman and woman, or any other combination not specified by the above, are now granted the right (as they always should have had) to enter a legally binding contract and obtain all its attached benefits.

Children cannot give consent. Children cannot legally sign contracts. Children cannot get married.

Animals cannot give consent. Animals cannot legally sign contracts. Animals cannot get married.

Optimus Prime is a sentient being and leader of the entire Autobot race and I don’t think you have any place telling him who his people can and cannot marry. If he is okay with Rewind and Chromedome or Astoria and Powerglide then you need to step off.

WELL SAID

It’s very easy to make Gracie’s mistake here if you persist in thinking of marriage as “a man and his chosen marriage object” rather than, you know, “two people choosing to marry each other.”

Says something about how some people view heterosexual marriage.

DING DING DING DING DING we have a winner.

None of these people have ever expressed a worry that dogs will start wanting to marry men, or that houseplants will start wanting to marry cars.

This way of thinking only makes sense if your view of straight marriage depends on “man actively choosing, woman passively chosen” and gay marriage only fits into your worldview as the distortion “man actively choosing wrong thing,” as though it’s a Sesame Street comedy sketch with Mr. Noodle trying to marry a pocket watch by mistake, presumably with his pants on his head.

Interestingly enough, I’ve never heard someone warn us about women wanting to marry anything, either.

thank you for that mental image.  and yes, this is exactly right.  i’ve never seen any anti-marriage assholes talk about what they’re afraid WOMEN will do.

It’s very easy to make Gracie’s mistake here if you persist in thinking of marriage as “a man and his chosen marriage object” rather than, you know, “two people choosing to marry each other.”

This, holy shit, yes. Literally until now I never understood how people couldn’t understand “can’t enter into a legally binding contract” when it came to children, animals, whatever. And now it’s clear as fucking day. And even grosser than I realized.

songofages:

theroyaltenenblarghs:

If you’re not from Australia you probably haven’t heard this but it’s very important.

Today The Guardian released a cache of files called The Nauru Files.

This contains 2,000 reports from Australia’s detention centres which detail the abuse, self harm, mental illness and many terrible things that are happening to asylum seekers who come to Australia in hope of a better life but are instead detained offshore in conditions that violate human rights.

If you do read them, even shortened versions, prepare to be disgusted and shocked.

This is physical evidence that the Australian government is sitting back while they detain children and imprison asylum seekers while subjecting them to torturous conditions and every kind of abuse.

Don’t let The Nauru Files be forgotten or covered up. 

Don’t let the people in Australia’s offshore detention’s centre be forgotten.

It’s illegal here to even speak about what happens on these islands so that another country has been able to get these should really help raise these issues amongst the general public.

cygnaut:

kimbureh:

fadagaski:

ooksaidthelibrarian:

kaylapocalypse:

aymielia:

nuriem2:

kaylapocalypse:

I think a lot of people forget that a library is a giant room filled with free awesome shit that you can take home and play with, no questions asked. just as long as you tell them you’re gonna, and remind them if you want to spend more time with the stuff.

I think the US library system should have a once a year advertising spree where they just have the phrase

“Libraries. Don’t forget: Things are free in here.”

Posted literally everywhere.

No. If ordinary people start going into libraries, libraries are going to get robbed. They’ll spend tons of money trying to replace missing books and they’ll be loud as hell. This is a terrible idea.

@nuriem2. are you for real?!

First: there’s no such thing as “ordinary”. People from all walks of life have always used libraries. The system I work for has ALWAYS had missing lists, and always will. It’s human nature: a certain percentage of items are always going to go missing. Most libraries take that into consideration when ordering materials. 

We use strategies to curb things from walking off, of course: put video games and DVDs in locked cases, for example. But you’d be surprised how many people dont even know how that we have video games! Also, we have a SUPER EXTENSIVE digital collection, accessed for free with a library card. You dont even need the physical items! We also have a toy collection. That’s right, TOYS. For free with a library card. And they ALWAYS come back. We have access to makerspaces, audiovisual recording studios, and much more, all for free with a library card.

Still, we get patrons who walk off with things, improperly check things out (which adds to the missing list), and guess what we do? We constantly try to help patrons regain access to being able to check things out. We do a lot of fine forgiveness so that patrons can continue to take things home. We know a lot of people might not be able to pay their fines at the moment. So we try to work with them because life happens. We don’t judge or try to limit patrons. We try to help them to clear their cards. 

Fuck outta here with that “going to get robbed” mindset. Libraries are free, and always will be. They stock way more things than youd ever imagine. Try walking in one some time. I bet it’s changed a lot since youve last been there.

^^^

Also, fuck the idea that libraries have to be quiet. In half an hour, I’ll be teaching kids how to make their own intruments from vardboard and a MakeyMakey set and they will play piano, bongos and a synthesizer that does fart sounds (they’re 8-10 years old…) and we’ll be doing it right in the library. The children’s library is never quiet.

There ARE quiet corner and there always will be, for people who want to work here. But on the whole, I prefer a library where people are not talking in hushed tones and walk around on tiptoes. I want them to feel at home and that bring a certain amount of noise with it.

Also, what is ordinary in your mind? What are these ordinary people you are talking about because I don’t think I have seen such a person in my life.

Seems to me that SOMEONE is well off enough to not need to use the services of a library, and not coincidentally, they believe poor people don’t deserve access to those same resources that, in owning them, SOMEONE feels superior.

I have an infinite love for libraries and it took some time to realize they offer so much more than “just” a huge treasure of books even though I visited libraries daily for years.

I didn’t expect them to offer other stuff like guided tours, public talks and discussions, workshops, help with research and computer software, etc, so I didn’t really see it at first. But libraries have a very important social role for people of ANY background! I can’t even be mad at library fees because I see them as a donation to a wonderful service that is otherwise free or almost completely free!

Libraries are for everyone