my feature article on christian bale thats wasting away, being unseen

The KonMari Cure

[originally written April 9 2019]

Tidying Up with Marie Kondo took the internet by storm, and naturally received critics against the KonMari Method in return. But the 15 minutes of fame glossed over the deeper meaning of the method— something established centuries ago, long before Marie Kondo ever even tried vertical folding.

I set the timer for 20 minutes. My face, stripped bare from two consecutive facial cleansers, feels like it’s being deeply pampered with this Glossier Mega Greens Galaxy Pack detoxifying face mask. Of course, my skin turns a bright shade of red every time I use it and I break out the next day, but this thing was not cheap, so maybe the seventh try’s the charm. I sit on the corner of my bed, folding the pile of clothes that’s been growing on my chair all week. To feel productive and smart, I put on a Spotify podcast telling me how to build the habits of successful people and prioritize my mental health, or something along those lines. I usually get bored around two minutes into the podcasts anyways, so I eventually turn to Netflix instead.

Ringing in the start of 2019, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo has taken over not only Netflix home screens, but nearly every part of online media. The signature approach to decluttering known as the KonMari Method claims to deep clean a house in such a way that it will never have to be deep cleaned again. By discarding possessions from easiest to most difficult (clothes, books, papers, miscellaneous, sentimental items) and subsequently using unique tricks (such as folding clothes vertically) for organization, Marie Kondo intends to rekindle the joy and gratitude in people for the things that matter the most. Given this, the KonMari Method’s widespread popularity and supposedly “life-changing magic” are usually the two criteria necessary for my next attempt at a self-care trend. I’m a total self-help junkie. The “Treat Yo Self” mentality has trapped me in this endless cycle of constant destressing, leaving me to wonder whether the consistency itself proves that it doesn’t work. A one-time, everlasting change such as the KonMari Method therefore seems like it would be my cure. It’s just my luck, then, that this one-time cure has already been tried before. 

Three years ago, Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, was gifted to me on my birthday. After that initial rush of inspiration, I quickly dove into purging my closet. This closet consisted of four separate hanger rods, five additional shelves of folded clothing, and overhead storage packed with bins of everything from old schoolwork to stuffed animals, to gift bags and book collections. The senselessness of this organization could make a grown woman cry— and it did. My mother would wince every time she opened my door, as if the bursting amount of clothes induced slight physical pain. I knew that most of the things in that closet were kept for sentimental reasons rather than actual use, but the stress of the clutter had finally outweighed the good memories. After three long summer months, I had filled four garbage bags with my middle-school wardrobe, and packed cardboard boxes with old school supplies and unappreciated toys. I was just about done decluttering this section of my life, when my mother stopped me from tossing it out. For whatever reasons — sentimental, financial or perhaps logical — she refused to let these goods go to waste by giving them away. That was three years ago. The bags still sit in our spare room today, as the literal embodiment of my emotional baggage.

These feelings against the KonMari Method aren’t uncommon. Many people criticize the minimalist lifestyle for being bougie and unrealistic, or something exclusively for rich white people (although KonMari and minimalism are two distinct ideas, both include the fundamental step of throwing things out and living with less). In truth, some of these criticisms may be valid— out of every self-help method I have tried, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is without a doubt the most abstract, most arbitrary, and most spiritually-based thing I’ve never completed. However, it’s this very unrestricted element that makes it so easily applicable to more than just decluttering your space. KonMari isn’t just a passing trend or some falsely advertised miracle cure— it’s a mindset that has ancient philosophical roots, which speak to much more than just some trendy Ikea furniture and Apple MacBook aesthetic. 

Minimalists at first glance seem to be just one of the many types of people in the world, like those who fill their daily Vitamix smoothie with chia seeds, goji berries and acai powder before their morning 5k run, and those who don’t. The minimalism undertones of KonMari, namely the mass decluttering and disposal of your possessions, are often criticized to be classist and irrational for those struggling to make ends meet. After all, the problem of having too much can only arise if you have something in the first place. Furthermore, minimalism (and by consequence, KonMari) has been associated with white privilege in developed countries. Those raised in developing countries (and their children) often have different cultural views of materialism, which can continue to thrive even after starting life in a developed country. Clearly, KonMari critics are coming from all angles to prove the problematics and “cancel” the next big thing. Though it’s easy to simply dismiss the criticism as overthinking, the real life impacts of class and culture on materialism do not stray far from the critics’ messages.

“Minimalism typically arises in circumstances of plenty,” Rachel said. Given such a lofty subject, Rachel MacKinnon, a philosophy graduate student at the University of Toronto, helped me trace the roots of the KonMari Method all the way back to Ancient Greece. In general, ancient minimalist philosophies avoided attachment to material goods to rule out any possible pain that would arise were they to be taken away. “But these philosophies were all written by pretty wealthy people,” Rachel explained, “who were happy to give the illusion of being able to live without their wealth, knowing that they won’t actually face conditions of scarcity anytime soon.” The image of an old philosopher living only on bread and water by choice, knowing that he has the means to indulge in delicacies if he ever chooses to do so, is not far off from our modern day idea of the “minimalist” with a small closet full of high-end, monochromatic designer clothing. Even at its origins, minimalism appears to have been an elitist lifestyle. “Minimalism didn’t appeal to me when I grew up poor,” Rachel added, casually. Coming from a humble maritime home to her current downtown apartment, she admits to thinking about how her values have changed. “Now that I live in Toronto, it’s suddenly very compelling— I only need minimalism because I have stuff.”

The living room had stacks of plastic storage bins lining the walls, which shrunk the already confined room. Inside the bins sat old phone books, TV guides, receipts, school supplies, and various papers. The narrow hallway to the bedrooms no longer served as a hallway, but rather as home to rows and rows of these same bins. The only way to bed was through the kitchen, since the dining area was lost in even more piles of paper. With five people living in a two-bedroom apartment, the bedroom wasn’t much of an escape either. “I hated it,” Joanne said. “I hated that we didn’t have a dinner table. I really wanted a family dinner, but we never had one.”

“If you asked my dad what sparks joy for him, he would say that everything sparks joy.” Joanne Banh is in her fourth year at the University of Toronto, and is the Co-Vice President of the University of Toronto Vietnamese Students’ Association. Her family struggled in the past with her father’s intense hoarding problem. “My dad was a Vietnamese refugee whose family lost everything while moving to Canada. Obviously it’s not the case for everybody, but maybe there’s that harbouring fear that he’ll lose it all again. It’s hard for me to understand, because I didn’t live through that.” About 8 years ago, Joanne, along with her brothers and her mother, took a year to clean out the apartment, but her father slowly grew his collection again. “I guess it just became habit,” she said. “It’s easier to just throw it in the bin, forget about it, and have it pile up.” Given that they lived in the predominantly white city of Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Joanne would use the excuse that her home was just too ethnic to have friends over. She would avoid the topic, and they would avoid the space.

The KonMari critics may have a point, to some extent. KonMari isn’t a guaranteed miracle cure for deep-seated issues with materialism such as hoarding, nor is it typically impressive to those who already involuntarily live with less. Even as a certified KonMari consultant, Michele Delory admits that the KonMari Method has not worked for everyone. “I once had a client who was going through personal things in her life,” Michele said. “Sometimes she would leave me in her home, and obviously it doesn’t work when the person’s not there. She was the only one who couldn’t follow through with it.”

Be that as it may, to say that KonMari isn’t for everybody is not to say that it’s worthless. Those who do complete the KonMari method rarely, if ever, revert back to their previous ways of life. Living her own minimalist lifestyle for the past three years and doing KonMari consultations in and around the city of Toronto, Michele has never lost faith in the method. “With every change that you make in your life, you have to first change your mindset, or else it won’t actually happen,” Michele said. In regard to that particular client, Michele believes that her mindset was the issue: “She was seeking happiness, but she wasn’t looking for it in the right way. She thought that I would just magically do it for her.” Michele still keeps in touch with past clients who regularly show her images of their organized homes, months after her consultations. Though the KonMari skeptics may remain unsure of Marie Kondo’s seemingly paradoxical anti-consumerist business model, they can’t deny the reality of Michele’s joy as a living, breathing minimalist and KonMari expert. What better way to understand the KonMari Method than straight from the horse’s (or the certified horse consultant’s) mouth?

“The philosophies of minimalism and KonMari are very similar to each other because it’s all about having a more meaningful life,” Michele explained, “but KonMari is considered different because if you really want to have 100 pairs of shoes that spark joy, you can.” This is where KonMari is often dismissed as unreliable, for its extreme subjectivity. Yet, this concept was not simply pulled out of thin air by a single peppy, 4-foot-7 Japanese woman (not that there’s anything wrong with being a single peppy, 4-foot-7 Japanese woman, just that historical evidence of the same argument can often provide more support than a single individual). The idea of minimalism in philosophy began close to the Roman Era near the end of Greek political stability, and if Marie Kondo were alive then, she might’ve been labelled as a bit of an Epicurean.

Contrary to popular beliefs of minimalist philosophies (if any beliefs of philosophies can even be said to be popular), Epicureans thought that pleasure was the good. “The point isn’t to deprive yourself,” Rachel clarified about the school of thought. “It’s to give yourself a comfortable life.” Epicureans divided pleasures into different categories based on their level of disruption, defined by how much further pain the pleasure could cause down the road. Keeping something that you love and use regularly, for example, is much less disruptive than keeping something unappreciated that constantly has to be stored and reorganized in the future. The absence of pain, for the Epicureans, also counted as a pleasure. In KonMari, the disposal of unwanted material goods is better than the stress of keeping them stored somewhere in your household. “As long as on the whole, you’re enjoying your life more than you’re not,” Rachel said, “the Epicureans gave you a much more general guideline.” Thus, although you could be a perfect Epicurean and live on only bread and water, they wouldn’t mind if you had a bit of tea — a bit of extra pleasure, like a cherished shoe collection — so long as it wasn’t too disruptive. No one said that you had to be an Epicurean, just that if you wanted to maximize pleasure, this was their way of doing so.

In the same way, the KonMari philosophy is much more lenient than most minimalist methods. “There shouldn’t be rules to the amount of stuff you have,” Michele said, “because then it becomes very competitive. It should be a positive experience when you’re going through a change like that.” Michele wears a couple basic pieces in her wardrobe, which she continues to style over five years after their purchases. She lives with her non-minimalist husband and eight year old son, who is by no means deprived of his own collection of books and toys. Her mother has not embraced minimalism or KonMari either, which Michele attributes to her cultural values back in the Philippines. Michele is not a radical minimalist living out of a backpack, but she is a genuine woman that seeks to have less stress, less anxiety, less material goods, more gratitude, more experiences, and more purpose in her everyday life. She is minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure. The KonMari Method does not claim to be the only path to happiness, but like Epicureanism, if you want the things that bring you joy, why not just choose them? History truly does repeat itself, and the KonMari Method is the ultimate revival of an age-old philosophical idea that’s finally getting its moment in the spotlight. 

The real question of it all is: do I pick the rejuvenating, refreshing, or revitalizing face mask today? At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them had life-changing magic slapped across the label, either. I could also pick none of them. Instead of adding another mask, another podcast, another quick fix to my chronic stress, I could step back and focus on why I’m driven to so much self-care in the first place. Clearly, these methods don’t bring as much pleasure to me as I thought, but maybe I’m going in for the wrong reasons. Maybe I’m seeking happiness, and I’m expecting these things to just magically do it for me. Maybe instead of choosing the right pleasures, I’ve been dealing with disruptive pain. Sure, vertical folding doesn’t solve everything, but maybe changing my mindset to one that cultivates the good instead of running away from the bad is what KonMari is all about.

Whenever people are about to come over, my mother goes into a berserk state of cleaning to the point where it seems like no one actually eats, sleeps or breathes in that house. Out of all the minimalism achievements and KonMari success stories that Michele told me, the one that struck me the most was this: Michele is an Airbnb host for one of the rooms in her home. She has guests coming and going every day. “There’s no clutter in my home, to be honest,” she said. “I’ve been able to create a space that I feel good about, and I don’t ever have to worry about guests coming in. I don’t have to say ‘let me clean up first’, I never have that excuse.” If that doesn’t sound like the closest thing to a cure from chronic stress, to me, I don’t know what will.

i'm something of a comedic genius, actually

Recipe for Green Bean Casserole with Pumpkin Seed Crumble Eat Clean for Thanksgiving Eating clean during Thanksgiving is so easy with this green bean casserole that's tossed in quick roux and topped with pumpkin seed crumble. 1 tablespoon minced garlic, 1 package baby portobello mushrooms stemmed and roughly chopped, 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds, 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil divided, 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon sea salt, 2 tablespoons white whole wheat flour, 1 pound fresh green beans trimmed, 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper or to taste divided, 1/4 cup whole wheat panko bread crumbs, salt to taste, 2 tablespoons whole milk

Tulo ng dugo

Iyak nang iyak si Alexandra  sa kaniyang kwarto dahil pinagalitan siya ng kaniyang ina dahil nakita niya ang mga sugat ni Alexandra sa kaniyang kamay.

Bata palang noon si Alexandra ay mabigat na ang kaniyang dinadalang mga problema. Ang kaniyang tatay ay palaging nasa inuman at ang kaniyang ina naman ay palaging nasa sugalan.

Ayon sa Department of Justice (DOJ),  ang mga batang may mga di magandang magulang ay nagiging ribelde lalo na kapag hinde nabibigyan ng oras ang kanilang mga anak dahil hinde napapalabas ng mga bata ang kanilang mga problema at naghahanap ng mga tropang kayang ipalabas ang kanilang mga problema sa kanila.

Kapag iniisip ni Alexandra ang kaniyang mga problema, palagi siyang naglalaslas, sugat sa kamay na ginagamitan ng mga matutulis na gamit, isa na dito ang blade na palagi nilang ginagamit sa paglalaslas.

Habang si Alexandra ay naglalaslas, siya'y nakita ng kaniyang nanay. Laking gulat ang kumorte sa mukha ng kaniyang nanay. Mabilis na tumakbo si Alexandra sa kaniyang kwarto habang sumisigaw ang kaniyang ina.

Ayon kay Ciara Jean Palacios, isang bata na naglalaslas kapag may problema, ang paglalaslas ay ang kaniyang susi upang makalimutan ang kaniyang mga problema. Sabi niya na ang paglalaslas ay nakakatulong sakanya magpakalma sa kaniyang sarili kapag siya'y inaatake ng kaniyang mental breakdown.

Nung nakita ng kaniyang nanay ang mga sugat ni Alexandra, kaniyang napagtanto na sobrang nagkulang sila sa kanilang anak. Mabilis niyang tinawag ang kaniyang asawa at humingi ng kapatawaran kay Alexandra. Inabot ng halos 15 minuto bago binuksan ni Alexandra ang pinto dahil siya'y nagtampo. Ngunit, pagkatapod ng 15 minuto, kumalma na si Alexandra.

Pagkatapos nito, sinabi ni Alexandra kung gaano ka bigat ang kaniyang dinadalang problema sa kaniyang mga magulang. Gulat na gulat ang kaniyang mga magulang pagkarinig nila nito. Ngunit, dahil sa mainit na puso ni Alexandra, kaniyang pinatawad ang kaniyang mga magulang. Sa mga sumusunod na araw silay'y palaging magkasama, kumain, magsimba at iba pa. Pagkatapos ng pangyayaring ito, sila'y nagkaroon ng isang masayang pamilya.

Green Bean Casserole with Pumpkin Seed Crumble Eat Clean for Thanksgiving Eating clean during Thanksgiving is so easy with this green bean casserole that's tossed in quick roux and topped with pumpkin seed crumble.

Feature: Meet Wokingham Artist Vic Delaney 

“I hope if my ancestors are on ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’  I’d be one of the ancestors they investigate, not one that they skip over. I want them to go ‘Check this woman out..she did good stuff!’” It is 7:03pm and I’ve been table-hopping in Sedero Lounge for four minutes. Attempting to find the quietest spot in the restaurant, I’ve knocked over a sizeable lit candle in my haste to make a…

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The Iconic “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” of Audrey Hepburn is Still Paving!

A lot of people are still remaking and doing inspired outfits by Audrey Hepburn’s iconic outfit in her film “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” 

Many people are still wearing sleeveless black dresses with their black long gloves and black heels. Pairing it with the big necklace, earrings, and a tiara. 

Audrey Hepburn is known for being an icon in the fashion industry but a lot of people do not know that she is more than a fashion icon. 

Her original name is Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston. Her mother changed her name Audrey into Edda as she thought that her daughter’s name could be a problem for the occupiers in the war. But she took her name Audrey back as her government name again and soon enough to change her last name to Hepburn. 

She is known for her gracefulness as she had a beautiful poise and elegant beauty. She became a role model of the women in the 1950’s, she is known for being modern but still what she does is still attainable for people who wanted to be like her. She thinks anyone could be beautiful like her. 

She was born in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium on May 4, 1929. She has been exposed to war since she was little as her father is one of the governors of their place. She suffered from malnutrition as the war continued and they had to hide from places  near the war. She enjoys dancing and she knows how to do ballet. She studied ballet as a teenager and became a model and a dancer in her early 20’s until she was casted in a movie as her acting career was the job she chose. 

She is known for roles in Roman Holiday (1953), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), and My Fair Lady (1964). And she admitted that she likes clothes and fashion that’s why she is known in the fashion industry as she contributed a lot until now. 

She tends to keep her life private but the media won’t let her. All of her relationships were seen to the media and they all saw how it ended. A lot of people meddle with her relationships and what she was up to. It made her struggle as she wants to protect her children and her family but the situations won’t let her.

After being in the film industry for years, she finally stopped filming and went to Switzerland. She does not have a husband and just lives a soft life in her garden. She is with her best friend, Robert Wolders, who stayed and helped her when she was working in UNICEF. Her socializing, empathizing, and caring characteristics were more seen when she was helping kids who have malnutrition in Africa. She was serving people until she died of cancer at the age of 63. 

Audrey just wanted to feel love as she lived. She lives for loving people. She dreams of feeling the hole in her heart that her parents gave her but she had her broken heart twice. She wanted peace so she decided to stop looking for a husband. She decided to help children instead. She wanted to help people and she had faith in changing the world as she poured the love she has in her heart. 

Many people love her for her contributions in the film and fashion industry. But people know she is more than just an icon. She was a loving person who only wanted love and peace not only for herself, but also to the world.

References

“The Consensus of Media”

Mark Duffett, the author of the book titled, ‘’Understanding Fandom’’, undertakes a deep study of the modern-day, media fan culture, Fandom is a sociocultural phenomenon, largely associated with modern capitalist societies, electronic media, mass culture and public performance. The term fan first appeared in late seventeenth-century England, where it was a common abbreviation for “fanatic”. It became significant in the United States a century afterwards, where it was used by journalists to describe the passion of baseball lovers and spectators. The term was later adopted to describe dedicated audiences for films and music. Later, during the nineteenth century, the advent of photography, sound recording and airwave broadcasting laid the foundations for the electronic media business that supported vast audiences and fan phenomena that dominated much of the twentieth century. As sociologists, Ferris and Harris explained “there would be no fame if there were no fans and there would be no fans if there were no media”. It is widely believed and accepted that fans' demands have helped shape much of Hollywood and the other film industries worldwide to a large extent. Similarly, the comic book genre, which began as a supplement to newspapers, contributed to the fan-following traditions. As young people began to be a recognised population segment, fandom gradually became more identified as a youth phenomenon.

Over decades, actors, dramatists, singers, comedians, politicians, authors and other celebrated personalities of the day have carefully cultivated young people as their fans, who constituted a prominent demographic and often the most visible section of the media audience. The Beatles, Blues, James Bond films, Rock-n-roll group, Star Trek sci-fi movie series, Alfred Hitchcock suspense movies and Comic-Con are a few examples of old iconic music, songs, films and television series and comics, which have inspired fans from each succeeding generation of listeners, viewers and readers. In the late 1990s, with the advent of non-linear media platforms like video games, fans began to expect a different entertainment experience, giving rise to the trend of narrating the same story to fans, through different electronic media. This gave rise to the commercial exploitation in a systemic manner of fan following, leading large corporations to offer frenzied fans, their favourite subject of following in extended versions and genres spanning movies, music, games, television, merchandising outlets and lifestyle brands. Computers had been a domestic fixture for over two decades by the end of the twentieth century and they were already integrated into the entertainment industry. A large mass of fans used the internet since its earliest days, playing interactive theme-based games in multi-user fan groups or debating their favourite singer, film, musician, actor, politician, author, television show, game etc on bulletin boards, chat rooms and other electronic fora. The fandoms created fan pages, posted fan fiction and set up virtual fan tours and shrines of their favourite celebrity personality.

Alongside accessing news and information, many computer users also began to upload, stream and share video files in the new era of the internet. This led to the turning point of the development of fandom as a shared social experience. Video uploading sites such as YouTube, which gained mass popularity since the mid-2000s, allowed free instant access to vast archives of uploaded footage that included clips, old footage and amateur productions by a multitude of fans, giving further boost and momentum to nostalgic fandoms. This also gave rise to amateur producers and prominent fans who developed their troops of fans. In the new In era of digital extravaganza, novel cultural forms blossomed. For example, ‘bloggers’ and ‘new age influencers ‘ have claimed their own space as citizen journalists and commentators and command a loyal army of fans.

 Fandom has become more visible, prominent, mainstream, normal, respectable and importantly formidable today. In this environment, fans today wield considerable influence in all spheres of life and dictate policy formation, country and local politics, intellectual consensus, consumer preferences, legal and business practices and all economic and commercial activities. Challenging the old stereotype, fans have emerged as thoughtful, productive and powerful creative people.

The Real Implication Behind Transformation of Nerds 

When protagonists of shows or movies are nerds, they typically go through a ‘transformation’ within the first half of the plot. This transformation is purely physical and superficial in the sense that their looks are completely changed. A prime example of this is the famous movie The Princess Diaries. In that movie Mia Thermopolis, a 14 year old high school student finds out she's actually a princess of a small kingdom. She refuses to believe that her grandmother is a queen and that she would grow up to rule a country one day. This all changes when the royal stylist gives her a makeover and her otherwise frizzy curly hair is changed to be more sleek and manageable. Her glasses were removed and the stylist put makeup on her which served to make her look more beautiful. 

The issue with such scenes in popular movies and shows is the message it sends to young children who watch and consume such media. It basically creates a standard of beauty on screen and if anybody in the audience doesn't reach that standard, they tend to feel bad about themselves. The prevalence of insanely high beauty standards in the society is fuelled by these movies and shows that show physical transformation is the only way an ‘ugly’ character can become desirable. 

‘Nerdy’ fashion is often related to having a quirky and weird dressing sense. Anything which isn't the mainstream trend is cast out and grouped as ‘other’. The style transformations are usually, hence, from quirky fashion into more trendy styles. These also help with the capitalization of trendy outfits because viewers want to dress up like their favs and are more likely to buy such clothes. 

Although there is nothing very unrealistic about people changing their fashion styles as they grow, the fact that these scenes are specifically made to downplay some aspects of people’s looks that society has deemed less worthy of appreciation makes me question whether the physical makeover is necessary at all. It serves no purpose for the movement of the plot and deepens the beauty standards in society. A character will still have their development arc if they continue to dress up the same so why waste time and effort into the so called beautification.

Feature Article

As I went through this week's readings, I came across a few helpful tips on how to be an engaging writer. Clarity, conciseness, and correctness are important when engaging with the audience. If the audience doesn't understand the writing, they're not going to be intrigued. I usually struggle with clarity and correctness. I find it hard to explain myself, and my grammar isn't the best. Peer edits help me see my mistakes and allow someone else to re-word my work in a way that makes sense.

My target audience is staff and employees of the Ordinary. They would enjoy reading the feature article because it paints a picture of who the CEO was, how he passed away, and a little background of The Ordinary's values. A limitation is that some readers may not like the delayed lead. To avoid unengaged readers, the first paragraph must be intriguing and interesting.

Thank you for the feature! The Big Takeover!

do you like becoming tumblr famous or is it scary

So far, it's pretty good. I get an astonishing number of asks, and I feel bad that I cannot answer or address them all, but other than that, practically everyone has been lovely so far.

I have a bit of an odd relationship with fame. For much of my childhood, I idolised people who were famous, and dreamt of one day being famous, too. As I grew up, I met or interacted with more and more famous people, and later even got to know some very well. When you see it up close, it is often not desirable at all. It is in fact a huge strain on these people. And that's something I think we often forget; these are just people. Just apes wearing silly scraps of fabric and worrying about their families and their health, just like everyone else.

And so, I have no real interest in being famous, tumblr or otherwise. But I do enjoy having a wonderful, large, and continuously growing audience who revel in and enjoy the weird and wonderful creatures that I spend so much of my time thinking about, working on, and pursuing. I hope that it continues to grow! As I say, you have all been really lovely so far, and I could not find a better community on any other platform—of that I am sure! 🐸