Becca Z
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ziebra.bsky.social
Becca Z
@ziebra.bsky.social
🐶 📚 🧶 🏀 🐻 🐦‍⬛ 🐿️ 🦝 etc.
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I'm not a Dune fangirl, but this line from Frank Herbert feels ominously prescient: “Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
Read an Excerpt - Dune - Penguin Random House
Read an excerpt of the science fiction classic DUNE by Frank Herbert.
sites.prh.com
We adopted Olive 15 years ago today! (These pics are from a recent "senior portrait" session by a talented photographer friend.)
November 27, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Gotta love auto-generated captions on knitting tutorials. Twerking around = to work in the round.
November 16, 2025 at 8:49 PM
I've spent the last five and a half years thinking, "It will feel safe to fly again soon, right?" And it just keeps getting worse. 😮‍💨
November 9, 2025 at 8:45 PM
This whole thread and the replies give me anxiety even though I don't have kids and graduated from high school almost 30 years ago. I was an overachieving nervous wreck in the halcyon pre-email days of physical textbooks; I might really lose it in this environment. Poor kids (and parents).
I'm sure this has been written about somewhere, but as a parent I am struck by how much greater my high school kid's executive function is expected to be versus what was expected of me - and it's entirely because all his work is online. He has to not only do the work but submit... 1/8
October 22, 2025 at 5:50 PM
This is the second weekend in a row with a hailstorm in Seattle. Very strange.
October 19, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Dr. Planey, thanks for posting this earlier; I'm tuning in from the west coast. I appreciated you sharing your work and insights (and masking up). 💜
Looking forward to this!
Absolutely stacked lineup for tonight's event at @uvmvermont.bsky.social:

"Federal Cuts to Global & Public Health Programs: Effects and Responses"

Speakers include: @arrianna-planey.bsky.social @gregggonsalves.bsky.social Salmaan Keshavjee ++

Online registration: events.uvm.edu/event/federa...
October 16, 2025 at 10:40 PM
I grew up hearing conservatives talk derisively about UNC, e.g., calling Chapel Hill "the land of nuts and flakes." And now the assholes are destroying it. I hate it so much.

(My parents called it that, too, but they sure did jump at the chance to send me there instead of a private school. 🤡)
October 9, 2025 at 11:17 PM
At a brewery playing 90s rock. That "she is everything you want, she is everything you need" song was on while I was ordering. The bartender remembered the artist, but I was stumped—and mad about it.
Me: "I'm gonna remember in 10 minutes, you watch."
...
Me, 10 minutes later: "VERTICAL HORIZON!"
October 6, 2025 at 1:37 AM
I just arrived at a busy medical clinic with a full parking lot. Two different cars were parked badly, taking up two spaces each. I noticed one of those cars had a driver inside, sat playing on his phone. I parked in the lane, went up to the window, and asked him to move his car so I could park.
October 3, 2025 at 9:10 PM
For the first time in 25 years of online shopping, I received a box with my packing slip (in a plastic sleeve on the outside) and what was clearly someone else's entire order inside. Papercraft supplies instead of yarn. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often, honestly.
September 24, 2025 at 10:35 PM
This is one of my favorite Brooks Falls bears, 820 Wallflower. He's so handsome.
820's Worlds Longest Yawn.
September 11, 2025 at 4:55 PM
I'm going to have to turn off autocorrect. "Ducking" was funny, but it just changed "marks" to "masks"—no idea why. Some kind of predictive text algorithm run amok, I'm sure. Still can't fix half my actual typoa (like that one, which seems obvious) but swaps out whole words. Over it.
September 6, 2025 at 12:33 AM
Reposted by Becca Z
If you think Wuthering Heights is a romance novel you need to seek the help of a professional
September 5, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Whenever I buy something online, I *always* say no when asked whether I want to receive future emails from the company—and every single company starts emailing me incessantly anyway. What a stupid f*cking marketing approach. I tried unsubscribing for a while, but now I just report them all as spam.
August 27, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Welp, I enjoyed the break from constant Sw*ftie content while it lasted.
August 13, 2025 at 8:09 AM
I was just searching for something skincare-related and stumbled upon a seemingly normal page that recommended using "grass-fed tallow balm as part of your paleo skincare regimen."

This nonsense has gone too far, y'all.
August 9, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Hang in there.
August 6, 2025 at 9:32 PM
I spend a LOT of time just watching these magnificent, ridiculous creatures. It's good for the soul. 🐻
Saturday at Brooks Falls.
August 2, 2025 at 6:42 PM
They can take Benadryl from my cold, dead, red, itchy hands!

Seriously, I've been on allergy shots more than half my life, and I supplement with the other, safer medications they recommend...and sometimes I still need Benadryl. Maybe I should start stocking up.
Common allergy medication’s risks outweigh its usefulness, experts say | CNN
In a new review, experts call for the removal of diphenhydramine from over-the-counter and prescription markets in the United States, saying it’s outdated, dangerous and eclipsed by safer alternatives...
www.cnn.com
August 1, 2025 at 8:34 PM
No matter how many times I listen to Dark Side of the Moon, the alarm clock *always* startles me. Every single Time. ⏰
July 31, 2025 at 6:21 PM
I love all dogs. I really do. But I hate my neighbor who has a giant Doberman in a tiny apartment and lets him bark all afternoon with the windows open.
July 24, 2025 at 11:40 PM
I'm not a Dune fangirl, but this line from Frank Herbert feels ominously prescient: “Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
Read an Excerpt - Dune - Penguin Random House
Read an excerpt of the science fiction classic DUNE by Frank Herbert.
sites.prh.com
June 19, 2025 at 8:22 PM
1, always (would also accept a windswept moor)
Where would you rather be?

1. faraway windswept shore
2. dive bar in Zanzibar
3. haunted riverboat casino
4. secret goth Legoland
June 17, 2025 at 2:49 AM
In honor of the French Open gentlemen's final, I had to revisit one of my all-time @theonion.com articles, from 2007.

"Come with me. Come into my world of clay."
Rafael Nadal Credits French Open Success To Living In A World Of Clay
MALLORCA, SPAIN—In a relaxed group interview given immediately following his record-tying third consecutive French Open victory, world No. 2-ranked tennis player Rafael Nadal attributed his astounding...
theonion.com
June 8, 2025 at 3:56 PM