occasionally subtle
trying on a metaphor
Show & Tell
Kaledo Art
we're not kids anymore.
Kiana Khansmith
blake kathryn
No title available
oozey mess
@theartofmadeline
hello vonnie
almost home
Janaina Medeiros
tumblr dot com
No title available
Keni
Sweet Seals For You, Always
taylor price
Not today Justin
YOU ARE THE REASON
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Sweden
seen from T1
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from France
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Guinea-Bissau
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from Bolivia
seen from Nigeria
seen from Bahrain
seen from Venezuela
seen from Bahrain
seen from Austria
seen from United States
seen from Tunisia
@solidscrawl-blog
My hormones, fast asleep through high school. FF to when I hit 30:
WAKE UP you guys she’s in puberty and we forgot to give her acne.
Okay on it. We covered the face, shoulders, back, arms. Did we miss--Wait, she’s 30 y’all.
Shit. We’re too late.
Should we stop the pimples? Nah we already started let’s just roll with it.
What about grey hairs?
Add lots of ‘em. Turbo speed. We’re making up for lost time here.
What about the metabolism? Kill it.
Why I’m Against Dieting and Intense Workouts
I have a unique perspective on the world of fitness and fatness because I have walked the spectrum of it. I have weighed 89 pounds and 150 pounds and everywhere in between. In a little over a decade, I have yo-yo-ed from seriously underweight to skinny to normal to marginally overweight.
My sister developed sciatica and a herniated disc after a bout of personal training at the gym. A formerly chubby friend of mine, now a gym rat, developed a host of unusual health problems after losing about 30 pounds in several months. When I met her, she was somewhat heavy, but in perfect health. After she shed the pounds, she started complaining of constant stomach trouble. She was diagnosed with acid reflux, Vitamin D deficiency, anemia. Suddenly there was a laundry list of foods she could no longer eat that had never given her trouble before weight loss. What I find a bit more troubling though, is that she works out no matter what. Sick? At the gym. Hung over? At the gym. Just donated blood and not supposed to work out? Going to the gym. Fell down the stairs and threw out your back? “I’m gonna go work out,” she says. “I think it will help.” That might worsen the pain, I caution. She does it anyway. Swears it helps. I’m not sure I believe her.
My older sister tells me of a runner friend she had, who virtually destroyed her knees running. My father, who is in peak health in every other way, pinched a nerve in his neck while working out, and it took him years to recover.
I grow suspect of intense exercise. I am not against the pursuit of a healthy and active lifestyle, diet changes for medical reasons, or exercise in general. I am, however, sick and tired of healthy women on missions to lose 10 vanity pounds, bemoaning about how midnight snacks pushed them over their calorie limit. I’m tired of watching slender people tear up their bodies at the gym on a quest for the perfect beach bod. Pinching nerves, rerouting bones.
(gets no likes on FB) just who the FUCK ARE YOU TO TURN YOUR BACK ON ME YOU SHITCAKES I AM D_O_N_E WITH THIS JOKE WEBSITE
(gets likes on FB) There is nothing more beautiful than virtual friendship
The Nine to Five Effect
It’s hard to think of things that have the same slow, dulling effect caused by full-time desk work. It’s like a river that gently, persistently softens the edges of a stone into roundness. I am always tired, sapped, yielding to the current. I wear a shirt and pants several sizes too big in attempt to hide my weight gain. The “secretary spread,” my mom called it. My sister thinks I’ve lost weight. It works.
When I approach my apartment one day after work, I inhale a smell that grabs me and flirts with my memory. I can’t identify the scent’s origin, or even the emotion it evokes. Whatever it is, it makes me…feel. Suddenly I can’t remember the last time I laughed. Or really felt anything. Being a slave to routine like this propels us into a cold orbit of numbness.
Whether it’s from age-ripened wisdom or the brand of depression that sprouts from slogging through 40 hours of meaningless work every week, life’s finitude becomes especially clear. And it’s a comfort. It’s okay to slack off. It’s okay to simply not care.
me babysitting toddlers: would you guys fucking grow up
Maybe if I stand in front of the microwave often enough I can nuke my ovaries and never worry about birth control again.
Me
Microfiction
The North Carolina air in August is so wet and heavy, Cindy absent-mindedly wondered if the film of sweat on her arms was just evaporated water. She wiped the glittering sweat-mustache on her upper lip. The oppressive heat was no bother to her. It felt…exciting? No, enlivening. She turned to face a weak but welcome breeze and grinned. Summer commands your attention, she thought. You can hardly think about anything besides how you feel physically. The hazy mugginess, the bodily discomfort; all of it helped choke out the pace of her otherwise nervous, busy mind. Her thoughts slowed and thickened, and that was fine.
She waited alone in the front yard of a white Victorian farmhouse. Val had gone next door to pick up the golf cart and would be back any minute. “Makes errand running a lot faster,” she’d said.
Bristle Road was deserted and quiet, save for the collective drone of crickets, birds and other unseen creatures hiding in shade and shadows. The South, especially at this time of year, tinged everything with a sort of antiquated filter. Cindy couldn’t articulate it, but something about the sunlight and long, yawning, carless roads made her think of a bygone era: paper fans and scarlet fever, candle-wax on wood tables, and superstitions.
Microfiction
Three witches, each kin to the other, sat on the grassy knoll at three o’clock on an autumn morning. Marot, the eldest, grinning from ear to ear, asked the youngest Dionisia to bring forth the catalyst. She plunged her hand into her pocket and stopped. The three sisters fell silent. Abruptly, the ambient warbling of the early morning insects faded.
Dionisia’s hand inched out of her pocket bearing a white handkerchief. The center glowed bright yellow. She tossed it into the center of the cold dirt. “There it is, 72 hours old like we agreed.” She announced with a scratchy tone. “From the sickness that fell upon me that stale-summer night.”
“What on earthly hell is it?” The middle sister demanded. “Her snot rag!” laughed Marot.
Microfiction
They would be at the lake by now. Do they care that I’m always late? I never cared long enough to come up with answers.
Vera and Ann materialized in my mind’s eye as they did every clammy, humid morning, sitting elbow-deep in the pink clay lake pretending not to hear the whirring sounds in their chests when they laughed.
Kohl-grey dust sprinkled the sheet I coughed into. I looked to the tablet on my floor for the weather. Wednesday, September 31st, a cool 76 degrees. I was already walking toward the Lake when I only just stopped thinking about how and when I’d muster the will to leave my bed. This happened with increasing frequency. The days grew darker in tandem with the thickening ash, and my memory lapsed for random intervals. One moment I’d be coasting under my sheets wondering how long it’d take for me to become vertical (An hour? Three?) and the next I was moving about my house or walking to the Lake to see Vera and Ann.
Writing problem identified: I care more about the climax, the plot, the single scenario in my head that inspires a story, than the characters, setting and other tedium I see as vehicles to the climax. I feel that in forcing myself to compose a fiction piece, I rush (or slog) through the establishment of characters and it isn’t as good as it could be. Then I freeze. Then I abandon the story. Then I start a new one.
Repetitious sound is 208% more annoying when you don’t know what’s causing it.
just chubby things
When I’m squeezed into clothes I’ve outgrown, focused on driving and no longer looking at my body, I suddenly feel like I’m fastened up in a corset for a civil war reenactment and that makes me feel excited.
Imagine for a moment that your furniture can talk.
My futon says it has had many butts on it. Attached occasionally to sleeping bodies, two were naked. I’m itchy from all the crumbs, it would complain. From quickly eaten dinners, the rolling tobacco of my owner’s date. I’ve never been washed.
Tfw you’re chillin with your friends and you forgot they’re all lesbians until you said Daredevil is hot af shirtless and you could hear a pin drop on a cotton ball.
Phrases that are sure to make me continue an argument: It is what it is. Agree to disagree. To play devil's advocate.
Times I hated in childhood that are now my favorite
nap-time
bath-time
bed-time
quiet-time
Let’s all just agree that the phrase “blondes have more fun” is an extension of white supremacy and should be set on fire and buried.