He picks his pond, and the soft thicket of his world. He bids his lady come, and she does, flirting with her tail. He begins early, and makes up his song as he goes. He does not enter a house at night, or when it rains. He is not afraid of the wind, though he is cautious. He watches the snake, that stripe of black fire, until it flows away. He watches the hawk with her sharpest shins, aloft in the high tree. He keeps his prayer under his tongue. In his whole life he has never missed the rising of the sun. He dislikes snow. But a few raisins give him the greatest delight. He sits in the forelock of the lilac, or he struts in its shadow. He is neither the rare plover or the brilliant bunting, but as common as the grass. His black cap gives him a jaunty look, for which we humans have learned to tilt our caps, in envy. When he is not singing, he is listening. Neither have I ever seen him with his eyes closed. Though he may be looking at nothing more than a cloud it brings to his mind several dozen new remarks. From one branch to another, or across the path, he dazzles with flight. Since I see him every morning, I have rewarded myself the pleasure of thinking that he knows me. Yet never once has he answered my nod. He seems, in fact, to find in me a kind of humor, I am so vast, uncertain and strange. I am the one who comes and goes, and who knows why. Will I ever understand him? Certainly he will never understand me, or the world I come from. For he will never sing for the kingdom of dollars. For he will never grow pockets in his gray wings.
“But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.”
New vet today asked me if my eyeless dog was blind and like ??? oh god I hope so????
Did you all have a good rest? Did you do as you were told and log off? Nope. Of course you didn’t, you horrible hounds. What’s the big idea? We tell you to go to sleep. You ignore us. We ask you nicely. You ignore us.
Anyway, it’s National Puppy Day. And to show you that we do actually have your best interests at heart and aren’t always telling you what to do—even if it is for your own good—we invite you, if you please, to enjoy these cute fluffy dogs.
I’m now legit curious what’s up with tumblr staff these days. There was a fair amount of visibility into what tumblr work culture was like back in the @david days when they thought intrusive horror movie gifs were perfectly legit interstitial ads to stick in our dashes with no way to avoid them. They don’t do that anymore (which, yay), but there does seem to be a smallish uptick lately in weirdly non-corporate-sounding output from @staff.
Is it real? Or a simulation?
Real: the ongoing losses tumblr has imposed on whomever it is that owns it these days have reached a point that the people who care about things like revenue have all moved on to other pursuits, leaving the weirdos to do what they want.
Simulation: the money types are still in charge, but they see big brands on that other dumb site hiring social media managers to troll other brands and think, hey, that’s what we used to do; we should do more of that.
