thinking about when I TAed for the lichen class at our university and sometimes we’d find two really common lichen species (from the same genus) oozing together so they fused into one lichen with one half being green and the other half being blue or brown or something because they are Soups Of Creatures On A Branch In A Parking Lot and have no regard for what we think a correct organism should act like. may all our boxes be broken and all our rules be challenged etc etc I think
You guys . . . No. If the only thing I ever teach you is that lichens, moss, and algae are not hurting trees, then this entire endeavor will have been worth it. Who out there is looking at a fucking tree, seeing something growing on it, and stewing over it? I am imagining some man noticing a tree trunk for the first time in his godforsaken life and thinking "hmmm . . . That can't be right." Like not looking at a single other tree trunk, just worriedly turning it over in his head. Lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, can't stop thinking about that weird fuzzy stuff they saw on a tree earlier. Then he googles and sees this and can finally relax. The world is right again. Maybe next time he is out he looks at another tree and *gasp* there it is again! And suddenly it's everywhere: moss in the cracks of the sidewalk, lichen on the telephone poles, a slime of green algae on the subway wall. Suddenly the world is alive, and he no longer has to worry.
