justalot

[issainwords]

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with a friend about how I just want to be cold-blooded and go live at the bottom of the ocean far, far away from humans. And I was completely okay with that idea.

[neckkiss]

North by Northwest (1959)

[inkskinned]

it's hard to explain because inevitably you sound like an asshole, but some people are allowed to lose their temper, lose their mind - you're not, though.

when your friend never texts you first and misses your birthday and never makes an effort; you don't mind. you know she's struggling, and you want her to get the help that she deserves. you give her every excuse and every chance.

it shouldn't matter to you so much that people are always coming through for her. you want her to be happy, you love it for her. you love that her community rises up to the occasion. why does it bother you that when she snaps at someone, says horrible mean things - but two hours later, everyone is comforting her while she's crying. you know she's stressed. why do you kind of hate that she is welcomed back to her job, that her parents are endlessly wiring her money.

and you're - fuck, are you envious?

but when you don't text back, someone sits you down and says i know you're struggling, but you're being a bad friend. when you're too numb to show up for work, your boss just shakes his head. i'm sorry. i can't approve more time off. we have the company to protect. when you finally snap back at your family for making that shitty comment again, you're forced to apologize for being too sensitive.

god forbid you need something. people aren't used to you being the one asking. you're the giver like the book you hated; your pages all open and rumpled. you always have the answer, always have the solution. you are reliable, trustworthy. people like you don't struggle with things. you're supposed to be lifted by tragedy. you are given a maximum of 24 hours to grieve, and then you need to just behave at the party.

you can't read the giving tree without feeling like crying, and even that feels like it's too much emotion. like, nobody looks at you and assumes you're the tree; they'd name five other people before even considering you in the running. you're just there, never-asking.

your friend gets to say mean shit, that's just her personality. when you make a snide comment, you're just being petty. people laugh when your friend stands you up for another event; they say she's just like that. you were 5 minutes late to a meeting with friends and they were mad about it for the rest of the evening. your friend sets everything on fire; everyone applauds her through the ashes. you so much as light a candle: and suddenly now you're an arsonist.

you don't want your friend to suffer, though. the thing is that you just wish that the empathy and kindness your friend gets - you wish you had that option, that everyone offered you grace and money and a gentle reception.

the other day you were fighting down the bad urge; the void call, the end note. you tried-anyway. you went to the family event, tried laughing at the right moments. nodded and smiled and all of it. one of your siblings threw a fit, but she's allowed to, so everyone just rolled their eyes about it. you took 3 whole minutes to stand outside when you got overwhelmed. you literally set a timer about it.

in the morning you woke up to a text from your parents: you were a complete disgrace last night. idk what your attitude problem is, but you really need to fix it.

[issainwords]

My grandma died.

Such a loaded sentence. Three words that can go anywhere. To my childhood. To the days I used to come late as a 7 year old. To that day I hid by the road and watched her walk by with my mom. They never did get along those two. Like two people in different war paths. To the days I got stung by a bee while doing the dishes.To the days when I was cooking dinner as an 8 year old while her precious daughter wandered around the yard teasing me for being such a good boy. I was the oldest. It was my responsibility to cook. Responsibilities. for an 8 year old. God such a long time ago. She knew how to make you feel good and bad about yourself that old crook. She raised me and my brother till I was 11 before she moved back to her home town. To the day I travelled alone and showed up at her door at thirteen years old without anyone directing me to her.Then came the days I barely saw her or talked to her. Alienated myself from the family. To the days of my turning into a not so much a good boy anymore. To the days I stopped being a boy. To the days I kept pulling farther away from everyone who could peel back the later upon layer of loneliness that was hiding my heart. To the days I became a rebel and she forgot the little boy who drove her crazy. To the days I showed up with shaggy hair trying to curve out an identity for myself. To the days she suffered a stroke and became part of the furniture. She fought hard. 6 years in a half vegetative state. Then came yesterday evening when her body finally gave up.

Thanks for holding your family together.

Thanks for teaching me being alone isn't such a bad thing.

Sorry for the years I disappeared.

The family didn't give me much choice.

And the choice is still mine.

I intend to keep pulling away till I become one with the earth.

Rest in peace old one.

[lonelycigs]

[abnormall]

i dont talk anymore. i dont want to. i have nothing to say. i have nothing to contribute to a conversation. words escape me and i dont care that they do. i can go entire days without muttering a word. i just want to be left alone, now. 

[obit]

I had not thought about you for some time. But yesterday when visiting a new friend’s home, I saw a bed made up with a one eye’d bear tucked into red and blue and a deer patterned down sheet. Of course I remember this bed is similar as to what you did every morning after we left the bed those years back. Square, set, and home. The bear almost had the same worn skin from two decades of love. The blankets were tucked nearly the same. It fucking made me tear up. Had to press my palms into my eyes and feign allergies. I walked to my car and sat in it enriched under the thoughts of you, old friend. I thought adulthood would better train me to deal with these moments. It did not.

I passed by your home a year back, the one you had rented on S—–. St. I remembered the color of your bathtub and the poor faucet and the cigarettes you used to smoke. I tasted them and smelled them in the slow way, kind of the way someone realizes they will be coming down with a cold, it seeped my day. I didn’t mention to anyone else that you had lived there. It was a coincidence we passed. They wondered what I had come down with.

You should be alive. You would not believe how much changes in half a decade at our age. Nothing can be the same and when it is, it is hard. It is hard to come back. It is hard to see you looking at me the way you did. It is hard to write for you again. It is hard to hear the voice of a friend who will never again say anything new. Repetition resonates greater in irresolution or regret.

But you are everywhere. I only notice in the more unexpected places and expected ways. Catch me again. I miss you friend.

Whatever happened to your bear?

[inkskinned]

i have been thinking about how we say it was nice knowing you when we are joking about leaving.

down the street from me, a nursery has a sign that says don’t panic! and nothing else. i am hoping they are referencing hitchhiker’s guide and not referencing the pandemic. i drive past it on the same day we hear about the impeachment.

it was nice knowing you. there’s a carl sagan quote i love: we are how the universe knows itself.

it is hard. we make a plan together where we both only have 5 dollars and a box of tissues. how do we make bread from stone. i tell him - i will have to resort to eating my tongue. he says - i will help you cook it so it tastes good.

it was nice knowing you. like dark and stormy night, i only hear it when we are being purposefully overdramatic. when we are feigning our ending. our final words, movie-theatre lights.

this time last year, there were people i said see you soon to. and i turned around and walked away and didn’t say i love you.

my teacher asked me once: if you can imagine the last words you’d say to a person, why not say them first. love doesn’t need to hide in the epilogue. sometimes love should take the whole stage up. sometimes you should look to a person and tell them - my life is more beautiful for having known you. thank you for letting me in.

no waiting, then. it is nice, knowing you. anyway, i love you and it is a good day to love someone and we are going to make something beautiful in this book long before we get to the end. it is nice knowing you. it is nice being your friend.

[obit]

When I am alone, I am 16. At work, I am 29, bursting with assured energy. On Sunday, I am 45, pensive, lazy, homebody. With my love, I am 19, hopeful, handsome, horny. With my babies and dogs, I am 5, we will run forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever – With my father I am 30. With my mother I am 20. In the mornings, I am always slightly younger. Late at night, with all these thoughts, I don’t know. I am some point away from here. After death maybe. Really old. Really young.

[perrfectly]

“Hell is other people.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre (via neckkiss)

[just-shower-thoughts]

An electric toothbrush and an escalator are two things that can stop working and still accomplish their original goal.

[randomslasher]

Ah, wonderful! This post can help me illustrate something I’ve been trying to articulate for awhile: the concept of benign or unintentional abelism.

Escalators and electric toothbrushes are perfect examples of things that many able-bodied people assume exist for their own convenience, and this post is a perfect example of that unconscious assumption.

An escalator that has broken down is still perfectly functional, right? 

Well, sure–if you could have used the stairs to begin with. 

But for people like me, for whom the escalator was not a convenience but a mobility device, a broken down escalator is not functional. 

An electric toothbrush might seem like something that could be just as easily used turned off as turned on, but for someone with Parkinson’s, or any other number of nerve, coordination, or grip issues, the function of the electric toothbrush is a necessary feature, and without it, the task at hand becomes far more arduous (or even impossible). 

I’m not angry or trying to point out why this post is “bad” or “wrong”–I’m simply trying to point out that people who assume every time or energy-saving invention was created as a means to help able-bodied people be lazier should consider re-examining those assumptions. It might help you become more compassionate toward your disabled friends and family, or at least more aware of the struggles we face daily. 

I’ve had plenty of folks ask for examples of abelism and I am terrible at coming up with them on the spot, so here you go. This is a great one: assuming every modern convenience is only a convenience for everyone, when for some, it is, in fact, a necessity. 

[adaswordlace]

^ When I heard that this is why all those infomercials show “impossibly clumsy able-bodied people” - that these random convenience devices are really made more for people with troubles like randomslasher describes, and it’s just able-bodied actors trying to act those mobility issues out - I kinda had to stop making fun of those clips.

[notactuallyasuperhero]

And the reason they use able-bodied actors instead of showing real people with disabilities use the product is because if they did that, able-bodied people would see it and be like “oh what a neat product for people with x disability” and not buy it because they assume it’s not for them. And even though that’s true, the companies need able bodied people to buy it so they can make enough revenue to stay in business and continue to produce the product for people with disabilities.

[dnd-apothecary]

^^ also the more able bodied people that buy or have a product intentionally designed for someone with disability is that it helps destigmatize it. Which is super important. 

Remember Snuggies? The blanket with sleeves? It was designed for wheelchair users/people with mobility issues so they could be warm and still use their arms without being trapped under a blanket. They were SO popular for a while, and everyone had one… which meant that if someone who was able bodied came over to your house and saw you had one too, it was less of a chance of being made fun of for it, and more like an opportunity for a conversation on about how they want one too. 

The slap chopper is also another great example. I know so many people who are able bodied that had/currently have one and sure it makes things quicker and easier for them, but someone with motor control issues or bad arthritis can use it. It won’t be an awkward “why do you have this thing” conversation. It is a “woah, I have one too!” or “I love mine, so glad you love yours too” sort of thing 

By selling/marketing them to able-bodied people, this makes it better for those of us who are disabled. It can destigmatize, which in turn normalizes it, which helps us become less Other and more Accepted. 

[neckkiss]

 "I don’t believe in luck. I do believe we’ve known each other since forever, though.“

[neckkiss]

Breaking Bad: Season 1

[quotemadness]

“I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the stregth to start all over again.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

[ninasdrafts]

“If I have learned one thing, it is that grief does not stop for anyone. It does not ask if you can deal with any more pain right now before it digs its claws into your skin. It does not ask if your eyes already hurt during daytime because you cry yourself to sleep every night. It doesn’t care about the colour of your skin or the money in your bank account or your education. It doesn’t check in on you and inquires after the last time you were confronted with a stroke of fate, or bad luck, or some other blow life has to offer. It comes knocking on your door at the most impossible times and even if you don’t invite it in, it will find its way into your house and into your head: it will squeeze in through the cracks in the wall, filter in through your blinds. It will hide in the nooks and crannies, concealed by shadows, and on a sunny day, when you least expect it, it will show its face. It will find you even if you try to get away from it. Sometimes it won’t release you again for a month or two or for several years. Have you ever looked at a person and thought “they don’t look like they’re grieving at all”? Have you ever found yourself judging others for how they deal with the things life has thrown at them? Most of us don’t wear our grief on our sleeves for everyone to see. We don’t keep it in our mouth - we keep it in our pockets. We carry it on our backs and shoulders. We take it with us wherever we go, and it weighs us down, but it doesn’t always show up on our face. Sometimes we don’t want to talk about it, especially not to people we barely know. The words taste like ash. Like bile. But sometimes grief takes a step back for a heartbeat, for a light moment, and it allows a soft smile to break through. Don’t judge these smiles. Don’t feel guilty if they’re your own. Because smiling, laughing despite the pain, means that you haven’t given up yet. That maybe you’re not ready yet to get back up again and to pick up the pieces, but that eventually you will be. And maybe realising this doesn’t make things easier or better, not right now. But perhaps it makes them more bearable. It makes them a little lighter. And maybe that can be a start to finding your way out of that black abyss.”

— grief / n.j.

[omghotmemes]

Madlad employee

[creatingnikki]

“There are too many things to be sad about but let us discuss poetry instead. Let’s get two cups of coffee and go to a place where our phones will be out of network coverage. I trust you to not be a psycho killer. I hope you can trust me too.”

—