it was good while it lasted

[j-k-i-ng]

“That morning light” by // Daniel Casson

Peak District, Derbyshire, United Kingdom

[the-hearth-and-the-wild]

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.

Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

[rosarrie]

redid this drawing soo many times that i think i hate it now…

[morepeachyogurt]

marlena by julie buntin

[flowerytale]

"I wish you joy" Jane Austen, from a letter to her brother Frank (26 July 1809)

[basic-appblr]

Lifelong foodie, and now a...(wannabe) food blogger?

I used to hold on so tightly to my identity as a creative writer and poet. I’d started writing around the age of five or six; to me, writing was never just a pastime. It sustained me, felt vital to my sanity. From 2020 to 2021, I wrote one poem a day to prepare for my senior thesis. And then, shortly after I turned that thesis in, I was beset by writer’s block. I thought it would pass in two months, then six, and before I knew it, it was 2023 and the words still refused to come. 

Recently, I launched a food blog. It started on a whim; although I’ve always loved food, I didn’t really have the means to eat out frequently until I started working. I’ve dined out a lot since I moved to New York City two years ago—partly because discovering good food is such a joy, and partly because I was lonely, and breaking bread is a good way to meet people. A lot of these people would jokingly ask me if I had a blog when I rhapsodized about the characteristics of good ramen or my favorite speakeasies in the city, and I’ve finally decided to take the leap.  Maybe I’ll never again agonize over enjambment or dream up particularly beautiful turns of phrase, but writing about food, I’ve felt the stirrings of that familiar excitement--that obsession with honing words, sending them into the void. I’d be honored if you all checked out my first piece, a review on a Korean- and southern American tapas restaurant called C as in Charlie: https://smallfoodieinthebigcity.substack.com/p/c-as-in-charlie.

[assaultmystic-archive]

im like if a girl was {undefined variable}. im like if a girl was [fragment missing]. im like if a girl was (editor’s note: the author’s invocation of the word “girl” in this context is idiosyncratic, perhaps metaphorical) im like if a girl was im like if a girl draft deleted! im like if a girl You have reached your free article limit! Subscribe now to continue reading. im like if a girl was [THREAD LOCKED] im like if a girl (ENDING EXPLAINED!) im like if a girl Unusual activity detected, please highlight all the pictures of bicycles. im like if a girl I don’t respond to prompts that could be deemed offensive, and so I am unable to carry out the request. im-like-if-a-girldeactivated03092023. im like if a girl we are unable to take your call at the minute. im like if a girl isn’t registered under that name. im like if a girl could give you her date of birth. im like if a girl oh yes we have you under […]. im like if a girl LOST CONNECTION

[ruhlare]

love shouldn't make you question or doubt. it should make you trust and believe that you are loved and deserve to be loved.

[typewriter-worries]

the inherent pain of wanting to start again but also the inherent joy of getting to start again

[typewriter-worries]

literally these two

[lifeinpoetry]

— Brenda Hillman, from "::[untitled]::," In a Few Minutes Before Later

[northwindow]

Joanna Klink, from Raptus

[vermilionight-deactivated202302]

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

[diasdelfuego]

language is literally so beautiful like in english "i miss you" comes from being unable to locate someone in the field after battle, it's "i look for you but i can't find you" but the french "tu me manques" is also about absence but it's not something i do, it's something that happens to me, as in "you are something essential lacking inside me", in portuguese it's either "sinto a tua falta" as in "i feel your absence" or, from solitude you get "saudade de você" as in "i am lonely [of] you", and in spanish the word comes from stranger and it's something one does, "te extraño" as in "i am making a stranger out of you", and, and, and

[lifeinpoetry]

I like listening to sad music when I’m sad. It doesn’t make me feel happier per se, it just improves the quality of the sadness.

— Elisa Gabbert, from "The Quality of Nothing (After This Nothing Happened)," Normal Distance

[realhumanbaby]

Ok, so you seek out unhealthy sources of validation. But deep down you really feel like making, like developing a skill. You don't feel like browsing or organising. You feel like flow state. You feel like writing but you always feel like writing. You feel like writing is the only way out of this collapse. You write the story you're about to start living. You write to remember who you are. You write for yourself in the future. You write yourself into existence. Without making a mark you are barely existing. I suppose okay, sure, you might have been wrong about everything. You might have malignant narcissism, and you might only be causing pain for the people you love. You might not love anyone at all, not really anyway. You might know love only from a distance. You might have a pathological obsession with knowing yourself. It might be OCD. You might have given up 7 years ago. You might be searching forever. You might lose everything you've ever worked for and that might be the second best thing to happen to you. I might be the first. You might not have the right venue, the right medium, the right stage, just yet. You might have to build one for yourself. Maybe you're supposed to focus not on the delivery but on the content. Maybe you should find new channels to communicate your perspective. You said, what's the point if you're not the one in control. But what is the point if no one ever sees it. You said consistency is the only prerequisite to success. You said you hate routine. You try to write a routine but spent must of your time optimising. Always too busy planning to carry out the plan. You said you don't know how to start. You start by letting go of the plan. The plan will emerge when you're in the middle of it, stitching together the past with the future, you find direction. You know the only healthy source of validation is in letting go, in vulnerability, in welcoming pain. We share our pain and are met with affection. We throw the ball back and forth.

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

[ahuara-deactivated20250412]

Olga Tokarczuk Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones

[Text ID: Irresistibly – that’s a beautiful, powerful word; when we use it, we shouldn’t really need to provide any further explanation. End ID]