I'm Mik. Model, mother, moron. Future meta-magician. Former logic clinician.

My better half and I own Brainfood Bookstore in Longmont, Colorado. It is the only exclusively indie- and local-lit bookstore in the nation. We meet a lot of crazy folks.

Testimonial from a former roommate:
"Living with you was like living with a quiet little opinionated deer person who floated around like a ghost and said smart/nutso things and ate seaweed. "

I love Colorado. I love mountains. I love hiking. I read and write. I raise my children to the best of my ability. I have lupus and have defeated early-stage cancer twice, so I pretty much fully support the use of medical marijuana.

 

Anonymous asked
Do you make proceeds off of your book, "Turtle"?

Of course! I make about $4 for every book sold on Amazon, $9 for every book sold in my store, and $2 for every ebook I sell.

My favorite thing in the whole world is kids who refuse to break the rules, so when they find a rule they don’t like, they just change it. 

That 17-year-old kid who hosted an Open Mic Night at our store. He published his first book at 14. His prepubescent pal is his ‘literary agent.’

These kids out there discovering ways to diagnose leukemia. The fucking Rocket Boys.

They weren’t trying to break rules. They just said, “No, I don’t like that rule. I’ll make my own.”

wired:

motherjones:

kqedscience:

Teen Develops Computer Algorithm to Diagnose Leukemia
“Brittany Wenger isn’t your average high-school senior: She taught the computer how to diagnose leukemia.
The 18-year-old student from Sarasota, Fla. built a custom, cloud-based “artificial neural network” to find patterns in genetic expression profiles to diagnose patients with an aggressive form of cancer called mixed-lineage leukemia (MLL). Simply put, this means Wenger taught the computer how to diagnose leukemia by creating a diagnostic tool for doctors to use.”

Rock.

Eff. Yes. This girl is such a bad-ass.

fuck yeah

wired:

motherjones:

kqedscience:

Teen Develops Computer Algorithm to Diagnose Leukemia

Brittany Wenger isn’t your average high-school senior: She taught the computer how to diagnose leukemia.

The 18-year-old student from Sarasota, Fla. built a custom, cloud-based “artificial neural network” to find patterns in genetic expression profiles to diagnose patients with an aggressive form of cancer called mixed-lineage leukemia (MLL). Simply put, this means Wenger taught the computer how to diagnose leukemia by creating a diagnostic tool for doctors to use.”

Rock.

Eff. Yes. This girl is such a bad-ass.

fuck yeah

thispageisahorcrux:

amen.

I actually have been here for so long that I forget to think of it as porn

thispageisahorcrux:

amen.

I actually have been here for so long that I forget to think of it as porn

(Source: modernizing)

klainestiel:

kilehfileh:

sixtrenchcoatsinthetardis:

Can I just say that I love how West Collins is 2 years old and basically has his own fandom already

Like has any other toddler accomplished this ever

image


 

Well this just fucking sucks…

I’m pretty sure Sophie has a UTI or something :/ 

bestnatesmithever:

thedailywhat:

Happy Graduation, Class of 2013
We’re proud of you all. The world is your oyster, go get ‘em!

LOL Nailed it!

bestnatesmithever:

thedailywhat:

Happy Graduation, Class of 2013

We’re proud of you all. The world is your oyster, go get ‘em!

LOL Nailed it!

Women are afraid of meeting a serial killer. Men are afraid of meeting someone fat.

When Strangers Click, a 2011 documentary about online dating.

It reminds me of that famous Margaret Atwood quote: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” It also reminds me of something written by one of the mods of Sex Worker Problems: “Misandry irritates. Misogyny kills.”

I mean, it’s just true.

(via tealeafprincess)

“Misandry irritates. Misogyny kills.”

That’s it.  That’s it right there.

(via oddpicturesoddpeople)

humansofnewyork:

“After this I go to work at a pizza shop. My wife and I were college professors in Bangladesh. I taught accounting. But one dollar in America becomes eighty dollars when we send it back home.”

jesus christ

humansofnewyork:

“After this I go to work at a pizza shop. My wife and I were college professors in Bangladesh. I taught accounting. But one dollar in America becomes eighty dollars when we send it back home.”

jesus christ

May is Lupus, Arthritis, and Invisible Illness Awareness Month. At 20 years of age, I went to the emergency room for a hematoma caused by lupus. The intake nurse asked how long it had been bad enough that I couldn’t walk (John was carrying me), and I told her that I couldn’t walk due to arthritis— Not the hematoma. Her reply? “You’re too young for arthritis.”There are still nurses— and doctors— across the country who think that there is such a thing as ‘too young’ for arthritis. How many lay people think that there is such a thing as ‘too young’ for arthritis? How many think that this little girl is ‘too young’ for arthritis? Please share this photo to help the world understand— There’s no such thing as too young to be affected by an autoimmune disease. Awareness isn’t a cure, but people have to be aware of the problem before public pressure will be enough that doctors start looking at other options besides dangerous chemotherapy, immunosuppressants, steroids, and experimental chemotoxins like hydroxychloroquine.

May is Lupus, Arthritis, and Invisible Illness Awareness Month. 

At 20 years of age, I went to the emergency room for a hematoma caused by lupus. The intake nurse asked how long it had been bad enough that I couldn’t walk (John was carrying me), and I told her that I couldn’t walk due to arthritis— Not the hematoma. Her reply? “You’re too young for arthritis.”

There are still nurses— and doctors— across the country who think that there is such a thing as ‘too young’ for arthritis. How many lay people think that there is such a thing as ‘too young’ for arthritis? How many think that this little girl is ‘too young’ for arthritis? 

Please share this photo to help the world understand— There’s no such thing as too young to be affected by an autoimmune disease. Awareness isn’t a cure, but people have to be aware of the problem before public pressure will be enough that doctors start looking at other options besides dangerous chemotherapy, immunosuppressants, steroids, and experimental chemotoxins like hydroxychloroquine.

(Source: arthrmyalgia)

the-hunger-festivities:

magicalorphanboy:

bronzebasilisk:

ryunwoofie:

sonneillonv:

autumn-and-eve:

erinsmomma:

How can someone stand behind abortion, when you have a life inside of you that God created for you? How can you say that this life isn’t worth it? If you can’t take care of the baby for whatever circumstances than there is always adoption available to couples who can’t conceive, but still want the joy of being parents. OPEN YOUR EYES! God has bigger plans for us all that we don’t even realize the picture.

Excuse me but it appears your baby is actually upside downDid you take Sex Ed freshman year because babies come out headfirst

Hi, OP!  As someone who was given up for adoption, allow me to call bullshit on your little post there!  You see, when I was adopted, I was a white-skinned, healthy, neurotypical infant, which basically put me at the top of the list, right underneath white-skinned, healthy, neurotypical MALE infants!  There’s only one kind of infant people wanted to adopt more than me!  I was SOOO lucky!  But if you actually bothered to look at the information readily available on the interwebs, you would be aware that the majority of people who are forced to rely on abortion for family planning are poor people and people of color.  Of course, those two demographics intersect, thanks to the institutionalized racism of our society!  Neat huh?!
Of course, even babies of color are not in high demand with couples looking to adopt.  Many who do want to adopt outside their race choose to go outside the country, where laws are less strict and the process is often less expensive.  Of course, most of the infants adopted this way are obtained in unscrupulous fashion, but who cares about that when you’re saving a little Korean or African baby from the horrible fate of growing up in Korea or Africa???  And all those children who have birth defects, are born with diseases or disabilities, or have other issues… WELL.  Who wants to invest that kind of expense and time?  Why would you adopt someone broken, LOLOL?!
Granted, there are some wonderful people who understand the system a little better, and make it a point to try and give POC and disabled children a good home.  But they make up a very small fraction of potential adopters!  This difference in supply and demand leaves a lot of children stuck in the foster system, where their chances of being adopted diminish with every passing year, and their chances of being physically or sexually abused INCREASE!  Isn’t that wonderful?
And of course, we haven’t even talked about the person who is giving birth to the baby!  I know you probably think pregnancy is a wonderful, happy time, and for some people it is, but it is also one of the greatest health risks a person can take. I love my son very much, and from the day I found out I was pregnant with him, I wanted him!  But I also nearly died giving birth to him.  You see, I had pre-eclampsia, the most commonly fatal birth complication in the world.  My blood pressure was 180 over 130!  At twenty-two years old, I was actually headed for a stroke, hah hah!  How funny is that?  And all it took was missing a single pre-natal appointment during which my blood pressure rose to dangerous levels and my body tried to kill both me and my son.  Those seizures sure were fun, as was the emergency c-section performed without anesthetic!  And being chained down while the operation was performed, because I was delirious and wouldn’t stop trying to fight off the doctors, that was a BLAST!  It was great for my husband too, since he almost lost his wife and child in just forty-five minutes.  You can imagine how thrilled he is at the prospect of me ever getting pregnant again.  Babies are certainly cute, but pregnancy can have massive health complications, and I know it’s such a bummer, but they are PERMANENT.  :(  My abdominal muscles never recovered from being hacked through with a scalpel, and the flood of hormones caused by late pregnancy have changed things from heartburn (never used to have it, now, all the time!) to my emotional reactions (I cry when I see pictures of kittens now.  I used to be tough).  These are changes I did not ask for, cannot control, and cannot fix!  And many people go through worse!  I know, right?  Unbelievable, but go look up the word ‘episiotomy’ and then look up ‘birth rape’ and I’m afraid you’ll find some stuff that just isn’t very shiny.  Plus, the studies actually show that people who carry a baby to term, give birth, then give it up for adoption suffer HIGHER rates of post-pregnancy complications like post-partum depression and post-partum psychosis, general depression, and other mental health issues.  Adoption actually isn’t good for the person giving birth at all!
I’m afraid the picture you chose to use there is also pretty disingenuous.  I know, I know, it seems like nitpicking.  I’m not trying to be mean!  :(  But that picture shows a fully developed, viable infant, and most abortions are performed when the fetus isn’t even a fetus - it’s a blastocyst.  That’s just a clump of cells.  Seriously! You can totally find pictures on the interwebs and they’re not even gross, LOLOL!  Later-term abortions are usually performed because of health complications, though some of our intrepid state legislators are trying to change all that!  They care so much about people who are pregnant, you see, that they want to force them to carry dead or dying fetuses inside them until their body either becomes infected while it rots in their tummies (this is called sepsis, and it makes people very sick, and can even kill them!), or forces it out naturally in a gush of blood and fluids!  Isn’t that so caring of them?  I’m so glad they’re around to make those decisions for me!  And if a pregnant person is not allowed to terminate an unviable fetus, in some states, they have to carry the child to term, give birth to it, and then watch it die in their arms because its lungs weren’t developed, or its brain formed outside its skull, or any of a million possible birth defects that will kill you just as quick as lickity-split!  Isn’t that wild?!  Of course, these people go through terrible grief, and as I mentioned, some of them may get sick and die from not being able to abort dead or dying fetuses.  But I guess that’s just A-okay with you, huh?
Basically, I think before you suggest adoption as a universal alternative, you should actually go do some research on adoption.  And before you condemn abortion, you should do some research on abortions - not the stuff your church is giving you, the stuff the real doctors are saying.  Go to Planned Parenthood (if they haven’t all been closed down, ROFLMAO!) and request whatever information they have on the process, the statistics of who has abortions and why… and actually, all of that is on the interwebs!  Isn’t technology AMAZING?
And in closing, since I’ve been asked this question many times and I know it’s coming?  Yes, I realize I am here talking to you because I was not aborted.  But the thing is, if my mother had chosen abortion, I wouldn’t know the difference, so it wouldn’t matter to me.  And if she decided that choice was best for her, then that choice would have been best for her, and I would never want to take that choice away from her.  As it is, since I was given up for adoption, and since I have seen the statistics on how badly people who give their children up for adoption suffer, I have spent much of my adult life worrying about her, whether she’s healthy, whether she’s okay, and feeling that if she did suffer from any of the common post-birth symptoms, it is at least partially my fault, even though she made that decision on her own.  Which is silly, I know, but at some point, all children have to stare down the consequences of their parents’ having them.  For some, that’s poverty.  For others, a life-time of their parents struggling to treat and care for a severe illness or disability.  For others, it’s wondering if their mother ever got over giving them away, and wishing you could reach out and assure her that it’s okay, she doesn’t have to be haunted.
May your birth control never fail!

Pro.

Sonneillonv deserves a mother fucking standing ovation here.

Slow clap.

this is my favorite post because i think it’s the strongest argument for how abortion isn’t wrong and adoption is not always a solution so people should start researching and not just believing what ever is being shoved down their throats at church. This is not a slow clap this is thunderous boom of people all over the world saying thank you

the-hunger-festivities:

magicalorphanboy:

bronzebasilisk:

ryunwoofie:

sonneillonv:

autumn-and-eve:

erinsmomma:

How can someone stand behind abortion, when you have a life inside of you that God created for you? How can you say that this life isn’t worth it? If you can’t take care of the baby for whatever circumstances than there is always adoption available to couples who can’t conceive, but still want the joy of being parents. OPEN YOUR EYES! God has bigger plans for us all that we don’t even realize the picture.

Excuse me but it appears your baby is actually upside down
Did you take Sex Ed freshman year because babies come out headfirst

Hi, OP!  As someone who was given up for adoption, allow me to call bullshit on your little post there!  You see, when I was adopted, I was a white-skinned, healthy, neurotypical infant, which basically put me at the top of the list, right underneath white-skinned, healthy, neurotypical MALE infants!  There’s only one kind of infant people wanted to adopt more than me!  I was SOOO lucky!  But if you actually bothered to look at the information readily available on the interwebs, you would be aware that the majority of people who are forced to rely on abortion for family planning are poor people and people of color.  Of course, those two demographics intersect, thanks to the institutionalized racism of our society!  Neat huh?!

Of course, even babies of color are not in high demand with couples looking to adopt.  Many who do want to adopt outside their race choose to go outside the country, where laws are less strict and the process is often less expensive.  Of course, most of the infants adopted this way are obtained in unscrupulous fashion, but who cares about that when you’re saving a little Korean or African baby from the horrible fate of growing up in Korea or Africa???  And all those children who have birth defects, are born with diseases or disabilities, or have other issues… WELL.  Who wants to invest that kind of expense and time?  Why would you adopt someone broken, LOLOL?!

Granted, there are some wonderful people who understand the system a little better, and make it a point to try and give POC and disabled children a good home.  But they make up a very small fraction of potential adopters!  This difference in supply and demand leaves a lot of children stuck in the foster system, where their chances of being adopted diminish with every passing year, and their chances of being physically or sexually abused INCREASE!  Isn’t that wonderful?

And of course, we haven’t even talked about the person who is giving birth to the baby!  I know you probably think pregnancy is a wonderful, happy time, and for some people it is, but it is also one of the greatest health risks a person can take. I love my son very much, and from the day I found out I was pregnant with him, I wanted him!  But I also nearly died giving birth to him.  You see, I had pre-eclampsia, the most commonly fatal birth complication in the world.  My blood pressure was 180 over 130!  At twenty-two years old, I was actually headed for a stroke, hah hah!  How funny is that?  And all it took was missing a single pre-natal appointment during which my blood pressure rose to dangerous levels and my body tried to kill both me and my son.  Those seizures sure were fun, as was the emergency c-section performed without anesthetic!  And being chained down while the operation was performed, because I was delirious and wouldn’t stop trying to fight off the doctors, that was a BLAST!  It was great for my husband too, since he almost lost his wife and child in just forty-five minutes.  You can imagine how thrilled he is at the prospect of me ever getting pregnant again.  Babies are certainly cute, but pregnancy can have massive health complications, and I know it’s such a bummer, but they are PERMANENT.  :(  My abdominal muscles never recovered from being hacked through with a scalpel, and the flood of hormones caused by late pregnancy have changed things from heartburn (never used to have it, now, all the time!) to my emotional reactions (I cry when I see pictures of kittens now.  I used to be tough).  These are changes I did not ask for, cannot control, and cannot fix!  And many people go through worse!  I know, right?  Unbelievable, but go look up the word ‘episiotomy’ and then look up ‘birth rape’ and I’m afraid you’ll find some stuff that just isn’t very shiny.  Plus, the studies actually show that people who carry a baby to term, give birth, then give it up for adoption suffer HIGHER rates of post-pregnancy complications like post-partum depression and post-partum psychosis, general depression, and other mental health issues.  Adoption actually isn’t good for the person giving birth at all!

I’m afraid the picture you chose to use there is also pretty disingenuous.  I know, I know, it seems like nitpicking.  I’m not trying to be mean!  :(  But that picture shows a fully developed, viable infant, and most abortions are performed when the fetus isn’t even a fetus - it’s a blastocyst.  That’s just a clump of cells.  Seriously! You can totally find pictures on the interwebs and they’re not even gross, LOLOL!  Later-term abortions are usually performed because of health complications, though some of our intrepid state legislators are trying to change all that!  They care so much about people who are pregnant, you see, that they want to force them to carry dead or dying fetuses inside them until their body either becomes infected while it rots in their tummies (this is called sepsis, and it makes people very sick, and can even kill them!), or forces it out naturally in a gush of blood and fluids!  Isn’t that so caring of them?  I’m so glad they’re around to make those decisions for me!  And if a pregnant person is not allowed to terminate an unviable fetus, in some states, they have to carry the child to term, give birth to it, and then watch it die in their arms because its lungs weren’t developed, or its brain formed outside its skull, or any of a million possible birth defects that will kill you just as quick as lickity-split!  Isn’t that wild?!  Of course, these people go through terrible grief, and as I mentioned, some of them may get sick and die from not being able to abort dead or dying fetuses.  But I guess that’s just A-okay with you, huh?

Basically, I think before you suggest adoption as a universal alternative, you should actually go do some research on adoption.  And before you condemn abortion, you should do some research on abortions - not the stuff your church is giving you, the stuff the real doctors are saying.  Go to Planned Parenthood (if they haven’t all been closed down, ROFLMAO!) and request whatever information they have on the process, the statistics of who has abortions and why… and actually, all of that is on the interwebs!  Isn’t technology AMAZING?

And in closing, since I’ve been asked this question many times and I know it’s coming?  Yes, I realize I am here talking to you because I was not aborted.  But the thing is, if my mother had chosen abortion, I wouldn’t know the difference, so it wouldn’t matter to me.  And if she decided that choice was best for her, then that choice would have been best for her, and I would never want to take that choice away from her.  As it is, since I was given up for adoption, and since I have seen the statistics on how badly people who give their children up for adoption suffer, I have spent much of my adult life worrying about her, whether she’s healthy, whether she’s okay, and feeling that if she did suffer from any of the common post-birth symptoms, it is at least partially my fault, even though she made that decision on her own.  Which is silly, I know, but at some point, all children have to stare down the consequences of their parents’ having them.  For some, that’s poverty.  For others, a life-time of their parents struggling to treat and care for a severe illness or disability.  For others, it’s wondering if their mother ever got over giving them away, and wishing you could reach out and assure her that it’s okay, she doesn’t have to be haunted.

May your birth control never fail!

Pro.

Sonneillonv deserves a mother fucking standing ovation here.

Slow clap.

this is my favorite post because i think it’s the strongest argument for how abortion isn’t wrong and adoption is not always a solution so people should start researching and not just believing what ever is being shoved down their throats at church. This is not a slow clap this is thunderous boom of people all over the world saying thank you

♀: mothafuckin-mel: HE SAID YES WE ARE MOVING FORWARD WITH MY...

mothafuckin-mel:

HE SAID YES

WE ARE MOVING FORWARD WITH MY TRANSPLANT

I AM GOING TO GET BETTER AND HAVE A LIFE AND LIVE UNTIL A MEDIAN AGE OF 62

Which might not seem so great to some people but I’m currently in the “any day now” category with a max shelf life of 27, so 62 sounds great to…

I DON’T EVEN KNOW YOU BUT I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU RIGHT NOW SO YAY

“I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”   

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

Um yeah so I call bullshit…

(Source: greenwichpips)

Remember this name: John Dorsey.

We had our poetry tour event tonight, and I only knew one of the poets in advance. He had hosted an Open Mic night with us, and John and I both love his work. So we didn’t hesitate at all when this guy suggested we host a stop on his poetry tour with some of his buddies. Well, one of his buddies was John Dorsey. A fantastic post who writes about trailer parks and steel mills and his friend who owned a restaurant but got shot by police in a stand-off when he got caught trying to burn down his business after the economy went bad.

Also, did you know that James Franco recently got into poetry? Well, he did. He has readings at his house. John Dorsey is going to one next week.

As John Dorsey left, I thanked him profusely for coming to our bookstore. “You should come back again! And bring James Franco with you,” I joked. “I will,” he said. I accused him of messing with me. “Well, not next week or anything, but I bet I could convince him to, like, next year or something.”

But even if James Franco doesn’t ever come, I’ll be happy with John Dorsey.