SINGINā IN THE RAIN
1952
dir. Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
šŖ¼

izzy's playlists!
dirt enthusiast
occasionally subtle

Kiana Khansmith
$LAYYYTER
Show & Tell
Jules of Nature
trying on a metaphor

romaā
Stranger Things
will byers stan first human second
tumblr dot com
DEAR READER
Monterey Bay Aquarium

if i look back, i am lost

Origami Around
sheepfilms
I'd rather be in outer space šø
seen from Spain

seen from India

seen from United States

seen from France

seen from South Korea

seen from Australia

seen from Mexico

seen from Malaysia

seen from United Kingdom
seen from China
seen from United States

seen from T1

seen from United Kingdom

seen from Slovakia

seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia

seen from United States
seen from Greece
seen from Venezuela

seen from United States
@mostfleshystephy
SINGINā IN THE RAIN
1952
dir. Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen
lets lay down with baby
lets lay down with mama
lets lay down with mama
lets lay down with mama
itās 11:57pm march 24th, 2026. the last time i wrote was before adamās birthday. i was able to cook them things they like. the food turned out well. they were happily surprised. we went to their parents house and it was all fine.
the following day was their real birthday. it didnāt go as well. we shopped around at some stores adam likes but we didnāt have a clear plan, which i struggle with. my anxiety, or perhaps neurodivergence, makes me struggle when i donāt have a plan, steps to follow. i also struggle with making choices. i need to defer to others, i honestly find it painful to pick anything, ever.
i decided the plan would be āno planā because thatās how adam likes it. the first place we went to went great. somewhere adam had been looking forward to opening back up. i hate shopping, but we stayed for ages. stayed so long my back started to hurt. but adam loved it. but we didnāt know where to go next. i put too much pressure on adam to think of fun things theyād like to do. they wanted me to drive and we would just go wherever, but i canāt go if i donāt have a destination. they wanted me to just go, but i couldnāt. i could just give them more options. birthdays can be hard for people, and since adam was having some birthday blues they needed me to make some choices. but i still couldnāt. i tried. i was still too afraid of doing the wrong thing, going the wrong way. adam was of course an angel as always, and didnāt mind that i was struggling, but i failed to make it perfect, and like every other day, it was hard.
the āno planā plan ultimately failed.
i remember being little, riding in the backseat of the car with my brother, my mom and dad on the front. they asked what we should get for dinner. i remember thinking āwhenever i say what i want, they have to either say no, or go somewhere they donāt want to go. i donāt want to make them do either of those things. so i will do what my brother does.ā so i said āanywhere is fine with me.ā and ive said it every single time someone has asked me a question like that since.
itās grown inside me all these years. now i cannot say what movie iād like to watch, what music iād like to listen to, where iād like to sit. only when i am alone do i make choices according to what i want, not according to what i think other people might want. if someone tries to force me to pick what i want i physically cannot. i cannot ask for things. i start to panic. i get hot, flushed. i have to fight my anxiety, my emotions, which begin to choke me. my boss pressed me to choose where we got lunch from today, i started listing the places i know she likes. she asked me what i was in the mood for, and i said the things iām used to saying in these situations⦠āiām not very hungry, and i can get something i like from anywhere! i just ate a few hours ago. you are much longer ago, what are you feeling hungry for? iāll just grab something from there!ā thankfully, mercifully, they always let me get away with it.
i feel like i need to relearn how to think about what i want sometimes. i have to learn to not be hurt when someone isnāt enthusiastic about what i suggest, or shoots me down, or suffers through something they like less. i eat at places i donāt like, i watch movies and videos i donāt want to watch, i listen to music i donāt want to listen to, i do things i dont want to do. as im writing this i donāt see myself really changing. i will always be afraid to ask for what i want. right now in my life i feel like i deserve to even less.
adamās birthday ended up with me sick in the bathroom. i ate too much of leftovers from their birthday dinner. homemade hummus and baked pita with zataar and baked brie and homemade tzatziki sauce and goofy puff pastry pinterest creations.
when we had gotten home from shopping, aunt patty was still at our home, she had made dad lunch. he was sleeping, she was cleaning in the kitchen. she is not subtle in her disapproval of our living conditions. (she later texted me to clean out old food from the fridge. food that was 3 days old and that was going to clean out the next day when adam and i were planning on taking garbage to the dump. adam canāt clean out old food from the fridge because they canāt tolerate the smell of cold food.)
mom had cut a slice from adamās birthday cake. i still put candies in it and sang to them anyway. it felt awful. we both cried. then we got high and i ate until i was sick.
me apologetically calling to adam on the other side of the bathroom door to tell them to quickly play some music because i was about to yarf and i know they canāt stand the sound of retching. them asking to come inside to be with me, and me refusing to let them because i know they hate it. them turning the music up louder when i actually started puking.
dad has asked to go back home. about a week ago, uncle bill was talking to dad and discovered that dad had forgotten that he has brain cancer. dad has been so sick, but we didnāt realize he had lost grasp of what is happening to him. uncle bill had to break the news to dad that he is dying. dadās mood has changed since, and he wants to be at his home, not mine. iāve wasted so much time not being with him while heās been here. so many days when i avoid his room because itās too hard. iāve left him alone with mom too much. iām a coward, a bad person, a bad daughter, a bad friend, a bad employee, a bad partner.
when dad is in the hospital or a facility, i am with him day and night. getting him water or adjusting his pillows or calling for a nurse at the slightest sign of greater need. but at home, i am useless. i sit by him and try to act normal try to be cheerful. i have no idea what to do. i sit by him and feel like ants are crawling under my skin, like i want to sob. i feel like i am iām not strong enough to be by his side. i help in all the ways i can, but itās not enough. i am constantly on the phone, constantly working and worrying from the moment i wake up to the early hours of the morning when i finally fall asleep, but i have failed to support my dad emotionally through this for the past 2 months since he came back from rehab bed bound. uncle tommy was here the other day, we visited for a while and then he went in to see dad. i heard uncle tommy say āi hear youāre going back home soon!ā and i heard dad say āi hope so. wanna get out if this place.ā
i know that dad has never liked this house. it was my grandparents house, and they were a whole ānother story. dad always hated being here. i know he wants to be at his own home, with his things. i know he loves me and wouldnāt want to hurt me. i know he knows i love him. i changed the room he and mom are staying in. we made it unrecognizable. totally changed all the furniture, the lighting, the window dresssings. we put pictures of family on the walls and a hung digital photo frame of more family photos and installed a huge tv. we tried to make it different, make it nice.
it is safer for him here. this house is more accessible, EMS can get up the driveway. but that doesnāt matter as much anymore. dad hasnāt walked in two months and he has asked to go home. where i will see him even less. cleaning the kitchen wonāt help him anymore. making him breakfast wonāt be happening anymore. i will bring meals and medicine to his house and i will continue to be his primary secretary for doctors, therapists, nurse practitioners, insurance, equipment, and transportation. but none of that will make my dad feel better.
itās 1:46am on march 25th, 2006. what i want is to sleep. i want things to be easier. i want someone to tell me what to do. what i want isnāt relevant.
Cibo Matto on Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 2 Episode 1 - When She Was Bad 1997
itās february 27th, 12:16 am. i know things will get worse, and i think about that a lot.
today when i got home from work mom was outside with the dogs. i dropped my work bag full of storytime books down on the porch to make room for her in my arms, where she sobbed. quiet, pained, high pitched, desperate, angry, sobs.
something has to change, she says. she canāt take dad being so sick. she needs more help.
the thing is, we have so much help, but no one can save us.
we have family and medical professionals at our door every day. we have so much help, but we are still drowning. we have no idea if anything we are doing is right.
i wish i could ask dad what was right.
monday is adamās birthday. adam, who i have trapped. adam, who lives in this house with my dying father and grief broken, schizophrenic mother. with our animals who all need to go to the vet for various ailments. in our house which is filthy and has more broken things than functional things. in our house which has mice poop on the countertops, mold on the sunlights, dead light bulbs in every fixture, squirrels scratching in the ceiling.
yet adam remains here with me. they help me get through each day. i wish i had the energy, the money, the capacity, to give him a nice day on his birthday, something unforgettable to pay them back for everything they do. but i cant, so i will try to cook some things he likes and i will give him small gifts and i will try not to cry at all.
i will hope that when the worse times come and go, that he will be less burdened, that he wonāt resent me for these months of constant agony and upheaval, that we wonāt be too scarred to be happy.
everyday is very hard. i take dad breakfast and then i clean until i have to go to work or until someone arrives at the door. i make phone calls, i answer phone calls. āok thank you maāam we will expect you sometime between the hours of noon and 2pm, thank you so much.ā āno, we still do not have those suppliesā āwhat does pallative care mean?ā āis occupational therapy coming this week?ā āwhat is the status of the urology referral?ā āwe think dad has lost hearing in his right ear.ā āadam baby please donāt quit your jobā ā¦after work i come home to mom and dad and adam and whoever else may be there and eat and help with dad and if i have any energy i will clean or put whisky in some soda and watch a movie (in which someone will inevitably have cancer) which adam may make it halfway through before they succumb to their exhaustion and then itās time to lay in the dark and spiral.
when i sit in the room with dad i feel intrusive. he cannot speak to me. iām afraid to turn on a movie or show to watch with him, for fear that he wishes for quiet or dark but cannot ask for it. afraid to talk to him because he has difficulty understanding. i donāt want him to have to try to understand. i hate talking to him like he is a child. i hate feeling like i donāt know how to talk to him. if i stay out of his room, i feel cowardly. stupid for wasting what little time i have left with him. thereās a knife twisting in my heart either way.
my mother needs help turning dad over to keep him clean. she will not allow adam or i to help. dad should be in a skilled care facility, but he wasnāt improving and they told us he would need to be transitioned into long term care. it came to the point were we would have to sell our house, so we brought him home. maybe we shouldāve sold the house. maybe we still should.
mom is in charge of dadās medicines, and currently every other aspect of his care as well. dad is bed bound. mom was a nurse, like him. she is in that room with him almost all day, every day. she is paranoid schizophrenic, and she is also on quite a lot of pain medication. so much that she falls asleep sitting up, falls asleep mid conversation, buys things in her sleep, eats chocolate in her sleep. i help as much as i can, but i have to be careful, she turns into a teeth bareing, hissing, hazard if you donāt play your cards exactly right.
you cannot ever show doubt in her ability to take care of dad. you may try to say something like ācan i grab you his insulin from the fridge?ā because you know she has forgotten to check his blood sugar before a meal. or maybe, ācan i empty his cath bag for you?ā because you see that it is full, but she will not be grateful, she will be angry. you have to though, and you have to suffer whatever she puts you through in retaliation.
dad married her to save her from her abusive family. he was always loyal to her, even though they are very different, even though they have opposite dispositions, even though she has always been difficult. he has been her protector and teacher their whole lives together. she has always been nonsensical, childish, stubborn, paranoid. i never knew she was schizophrenic until this year. i am so afraid of what she will become when he is completely gone.
we need so much help, but mom is suspicious of all help we receive. when people bring food over, mom begs them to stay longer. but she is upset and annoyed when we get a message from anyone asking to come by. when they try to help with dadās care, mom feels as if they are over stepping, that they donāt think she can handle it, like they are going to take him away from her. maybe they should.
i thought my situation was bad before. before all this, i laid awake at night worrying about my job at the library. worried about managing my anxiety as i sang in front of families at story time, tried to manage my anxiety enough when interacting with patrons and my coworkers to seem stable. working at a library seemed so idyllic, but not only does it involve public speaking which i am borderline incapable of, but the local libraries are under attack from a hostile library board full of homophobic shitheads. everyday when i go into work i get bad news. more drama, more fuckers hatemongering in the community in order to say they are protecting children, when of course we know they just want to perpetuate a world where queer children would rather die than suffer the discrimination of the world their family enables. theyāve told us we have to remove as books containing āgender ideologyā from our shelves. this is not hyperbole, this is what is actually happening in at least 4 libraries in east tennessee right now. books are already off the shelves and they are demanding more be removed.
now the teeth vibrating brain scrambling hands shaking anxiety which iāve coped with for two years has a new companion. my dad has terminal brain cancer and i will never have another normal conversation with him again. i donāt know if he will ever get a little better again. mom and dad and adam and i will keep getting through each day and we know that things will only get worse. my brother has been sick for two months with a cold and cannot help because dadās white blood cell count is too low. i miss my brother. i worry about him everyday.
i have missed so much in the time since dadās diagnosis. it feels like i am still in september of last year. i havenāt been able to see my friends, havenāt been able to show up for them. i havenāt be able to leave my town. i fight tooth and nail to do the best i can at home and at work. each day is so long, but thereās never enough time to feel like i got enough done.
a home health social worker is coming tomorrow. iāll be at work, so i am making a list of things for mom to ask about.
i will make a walmart delivery order to get ingredients to make adam bread and hummus and dolmas and spanakopita on monday.
it is now 2:23am february 27th, 2026.
i will get though tonight. i will not have a panic attack and wake adam. maybe at 4 am i will wake up enough to return the kiss they will give me before going to work. i will make mom and dad breakfast. i will finish the grocery order. i will finish the list of questions for the social worker. i will clean. i will sing to the babies at work. i will show compassion and patience with strangers. i will not give in to the desire to scream and collapse and break things. i will decorate the bulletin board at work with cheerful ducks for march. i will receive aunt judy at dinner time and hope dad eats some of the meatloaf she is bringing. it will be a friday so i will be able to see adam for more than 4 hours total. i will get through tomorrow. i will take it hour by hour.
My resolution last year was to do one thing before bed that would make my morning feel easier, and thatās become a daily habit that Iām carrying into this new year.
Some nights even filling up the kettle and setting an empty mug out for my morning tea felt hard. But I was always thankful for it in the morning.
Other nights, one thing would lead to another, and Iād wake up in a clean house with everything ready to go.
And, on a rare few nights, the one thing that I could do to make my morning easier was going straight to bed and allowing myself to rest.
What stayed the same each day is that I would take a moment to think of what I could do for my future self and do it, even after a hard day. And I would wake up knowing that I had done my best and any effortāno matter how smallāwas a kindness to myself.
Iāve been doing a lot of āa treat for future meā moments lately.
Thatās a great way to look at it, and I love this artist! (Anna-Laura: instagram / website)
all i want for christmas is a will to live
me, unloading a fitted sheet from the dryer: *squinting* what's that you've got in your mouth
fitted sheet: nothing :)))))))
me, prying open its twisted jaws: na-ah!!! give it to me RIGHT now!!
fitted sheet: *resentfully spits out a wad of 3 very damp dishtowels, a pillowcase, and a pathetically sodden washcloth*
Kudos to this post, I think of you every time I do my fucking laundry
dad asked me to cut his hair tomorrow. he needs me to cut it short with an electric razor. his treatments have made it start falling out in big patches. we still donāt even know if the treatments are helping. thereās too much swelling in his brain to see if the tumor has gotten smaller.
the heat isnāt working in our house. it stopped working on friday. uncle tommy came to look at the unit but couldnāt figure out the problem. he came back later with a truck full of firewood.
things keep breaking. nothing can be fixed if you have no money. if dad were healthy he would be able to fix everything like he always has.
itās 28 degrees outside. he and mom are warm in the guest bedroom, uncle tommy also brought two space heaters.
i donāt know how i keep going. i just focus on getting through each day as they come but i canāt prepare well for tomorrow while iām just trying to get through today. my anxiety coping strategy has always been to overthink and over prepare. now i spend my time skirting around thinking about anything because i get instantly overwhelmed and start crying/having panic attacks. itās exhausting. iām so overwhelmed and scared and furious. all i do is take care of my people but i still feel useless and whiny and mean and miserable. i cry all day and night or i make myself be like a robot. it wonāt get better. i havenāt had a good happy restful day since the diagnosis. every single day has been hard and i am falling to pieces.
this could be my last christmas with dad. they said 2 years or less. thanksgiving was grim. we worked so hard. dad ate well but he didnāt talk because he canāt. we turned on return of the jedi and he watched it some. he thanked us for dinner as he was going to lie back down.
i have been trying to plan homemade christmas gifts for him and everyone but i havenāt been able to do anything christmas related. thinking about it makes me sick. i had to decorate the library for christmas last week. it all feels like torture.
i canāt begin to process my job right now. i canāt think about it. iām so fucking stupid. iām teaching and playing and performing for children and families at the library. i couldnāt do this shit before the stuff with dad and now i get to do it when i can barely fucking function. i canāt believe i have to do my literal fucking nightmare of public speaking three days a week. i just need it all to stop.
i know i should be counting my blessings instead of whatever this is. fuck that.
in a few hours i will wake up on december 1st in an empty bed in a house with no heat. i will call thompson oncology to schedule dad an iv infusion before his next round of chemotherapy pills next week. i will get into a shitty car with no heat and go get momās medicine in oak ridge when the pharmacy opens. i will buy marshmallows to roast over the fire. i will come home and make breakfast. uncle tommy will come back with a new thermostat but that wonāt fix the problem. i will shave dads hair. i will clean the rust from the wood stove vent to hopefully help with adamās headaches and asthma. i will bathe the dogs. i will get that far and then figure out what comes next.
it cannot be december.
āstart your free trial nowā what if i told u i am already experiencing trials. and the cost is more than i can bear
Maya Perry (American, 1994) - A Longing Towards an Unknown Entity That Some Call Safety (2025)
I am constantly thinking about this
This mild Wikipedia sentence is like the understatement of all time
Here are some crazy grasshopper mouse facts for those who are not familiar with the most badass mouse species on the planet
- They are primarily carnivorous, and their diet is made up of not only bugs but also snakes, lizards and other mice.
- They hunt like true predators, slowly stalking and creeping up on their prey before ambushing them. They will sometimes let out a screech as they attack.
- Like wolves, they howl to establish territory and have a specially developed throat to produce louder vocalizations. They will stand up on their hind legs and throw their head back to howl- a sound that can be heard from 100 meters away!
- Grasshopper mouse behavior is linked to lunar cycles and they are more active during a full moon.
- These mice have been hunting bark scorpions and evolving alongside them for so long that theyāve evolved a mutation where scorpion venom that is lethal to other animals is converted into a painkiller in the grasshopper mouseās body.
Sword w cellphone charms