gracie abrams
Misplaced Lens Cap
Interview Vampire Daily
$LAYYYTER
Sade Olutola
NASA
hello vonnie
bliss lane
#extradirty
The Bowery Presents
RMH
if i look back, i am lost
todays bird
EXPECTATIONS
Origami Around
Cosmic Funnies
untitled
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
Monterey Bay Aquarium
sheepfilms
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@sonderfull
We’re not “just friends,” we’re friends.
Stop defining friendship as less than romance. Stop defining romance as better than friendship.
Friendship is enough, friendship is beautiful and fulfilling and good. Friendship isn’t less than. No type of relationship is better than another.
Go and love someone exactly as they are. then, watch how they transform into the greatest truest version of themselves. when one feels seen and appreciated in their own essence, one is instantly empowered.
Wes Angelozzi (via surqrised)
the watermelons were 30% off, and i thought about buying one, and thought about the price of gas. watermelons are my favorite. my birthday is the first of july - for years now, instead of a cake, we stick candles in a chilled watermelon. since it's not my birthday and i only get paid monthly: i open and close my budgeting app.
they're going to restart student loan payments soon. did we ever get another stimulus check? it's been hot in the northeast, hottest-on-record. it went up to 99 today, in may. droughts are coming.
but.
i get in my car and drive for two hours just to see my family. we share breakfast on small plates. later my mother and i fan ourselves on the couch while she watches a video i made.
one of my childhood friends just became an aunt. another one just got engaged. the stormfront is moving in and all the leaves are folding over themselves, impatient in the wind. the world is thirsty here, the birds are panting. i watch my neighbor come outside and set out plates of water for them, humming in her light way. two weeks ago, i sent out a text to my friends - wanna skive off work and come to the beach? and got oh fuck yes. i took my meetings from my car, blaming internet connectivity. we laughed around picnic foods and went in water too cold for feeling. i lost a scrunchie in the waves that crashed over me; spent the next week shaking sand out of my hair, giggling.
i pierced my ear again, just for fun. at a bar afterward, i tried to take pictures in the bathroom. a girl saw me and asked about it. she demanded i pose for her so she could get the right picture for me. there's tumbleweeds here, and i keep picking ticks off of my fawn-colored greyhound. i'm babysitting an australian shepherd this week; the two of them are sitting side-by-side, faces turned to catch the wind of my single box fan that's working overtime. i text people about swamp coolers because i grew up in the south. later i get a text saying oh before i forget, here's that recipe you asked about.
i'm full of anger and fear and loathing. the air is sticky and there's tornado conditions brewing. for weeks now i feel unfocused, lazy. too tired for sense and too awake for resting.
the bartender and i make fast friends. at the bottom of my check, he writes, "thank you for being kind. you were a bright spot on a hard night."
Crazyheadcomics
Actually I liked that quote so much I hunted down the original thread so I could screencap it in mobile mode so it’s easier to read. Here it is in case anyone else thought that was raw as hell:
“Scared is how you’re feeling; brave is what you’re doing.”
— Emma Donoghue
"you seem nervous," he said.
"i'm pretty worried." and then i laughed, high and weird and strained.
he nodded at me and i nodded at him and i pressed my hands very hard together, which is what i do when i want to be politely still but i'm nervous and want to move.
"so there's a lot of ways to think about this test," he said, "but for what i'm about to show you - well. let's picture the test is out of 100."
"okay," i said. i had begged him to give me a "half test"; one i could afford out-of-pocket. i had good insurance; behavioral health wasn't offered for me. i'd been paying for a therapist by working 3 jobs; a situation that stressed me out enough i joked she earned her keep. if i took the whole test, the pricetag began at nine hundred and thirty.
robert the learning specialist is nice. robert was referred to me by a friend. i like all his books and his nice chairs and the warm browns he decorates with.
this is a funny story. i think this story is very fucking funny.
he places his hand on the side of the monitor and looks up over it at me. "so, there are diagnostic requirements for each condition to be considered medically significant. nobody really scores lower than, in this example, 30."
okay. i was 25 and ready for this - that all the self-care, self-treatment... it was pointless. it had always been possible: i don't have adhd, im just fucking stupid. im lazy. im the worst student and a terrible friend. everyone was right about me. this was a personality kind of a thing. i was pretending. i was jumping on an internet trend.
"at 60," robert continues, "and - again, these aren't the real numbers - but at 60, we would consider that to be significant enough for diagnosis. after that, we tend to think of it as increasing in severity."
his brows are knit. he looks strained. so i probably got a 14. i probably didn't take it right. im probably the first person on earth to waste three hundred dollars just to be told i broke the test. fuck. they're going to cancel my meds.
robert turns the screen around. there's a graph on it, a bunch of lines and numbers too small for me to read. "here's the diagnostic line, this 60 i talked about". he points to a yellow band, a little bouncy wave close to the middle. "here's the average citizen, at a 37". this is a red one, closer to the bottom. then he points to a blue. "at a 75 to 78, we would consider the situation to be severe. it's not marked, but 90 would be extreme. does this make sense?"
"yes. definitely." more nodding, more hand pressing. i skitter my eyes around the grey shape, trying to find where my results are. maybe along one of the control lines?
"out of a possible score of 100," he says, "you scored ninety-eight."
he points up at the top, a sparkling lime green wiggle. i hadn't seen it; it was too close to the border of the graph. he gently points back-and-forth from yellow to green, like he is breaking bad news to me.
"well," i say. "so i won the test? or is that a bad thing."
"i've been doing this work for over forty years," he tells me, "and never in my whole career have i seen someone score so highly."
"i have adhd," i say.
"well, these are preliminary tests, and it would be unprofessional for me to confirm until we continue to -"
"i super have adhd," i repeat.
he turns the screen back around. "i think it's - i would be remiss not to say that i find it extremely impressive you've been able to structure your life around this in such a way that you have remained undiagnosed until now."
"well," i say. "i did have a feeling." let out a little laugh again. sharp like a bark. "sorry. oh my god. sorry, i don't mean to laugh. it's just. i have," i repeat, "like super severe adhd."
robert rests his hands on his desk and looks at me. he looks sad, even though this whole thing is hysterically funny. "yes. i think that i can confirm that, but, like i said, i have to encourage you to take the whole test and to -"
"i thought," i say, and for some reason i think it's funnier than anything i ever said - "i literally thought i was faking."
"well." he moves the monitor so it isn't between us. "if i might say something? if you're experiencing these symptoms so frequently that your entire life has been structured around preparing for their inevitability - my question is always; why would you be faking? when you are alone, when you are struggling, what is the point of faking? wouldn't you be able to turn it off? once you received the attention or the accolades, wouldn't you stop? you've talked to me about how much you feel this - and i'm quoting you here" he looks at his notes. "... ruins your life. why would you submit to that, without any actual payout?"
"oh my god." i have to text everyone i know about this immediately. "i have adhd. like big. like the biggest. severely."
"well," robert's brows are creasing.
"sorry," i can't stop laughing, "you just - i mean. i just had the stray thought - what if i've faked this so well that the test can't tell that i'm lying?"
“Be weird. Be random. Be who you are. Because you never know who would love the person you hide.”
— C.S. Lewis (via amargedom)
im having feelings about the uffington white horse again
so essentially there’s this cool horse drawn into the hills in england made out of chalk and it’s like 3,000 years old.
people carved trenches 3,000 years ago and filled them with chalk in the shape of a horse but what’s interesting is that if you fail to maintain the horse by adding new chalk regularly, it will disappear. for 3,000 years, we’ve been filling in chalk in this horse so it doesn’t disappear.
we’ll never know what the purpose of the horse was originally. we’ll never know if it had ritual or spiritual significance or if it was just art. but we do know that people maintained it then, and, even though the meaning of the horse has long been lost to time, we continue to maintain it now.
the people who made this horse are long dead, but they live through us still, don’t you think?
couldn’t agree more we’re best friends now
The book “100 authors against Einstein” was published in 1931 to disprove Einstein’s Relativity. When Albert Einstein was asked to comment on this denunciation of relativity by so many scientists, he told the press; “Why a hundred? If I were wrong, one would have been enough”
You know what's wild? I'm an adult. I can take the ingredients from my cupboard and make play-dough if I want. I can watch scary movies in a tent in my living room, if I want. I can paint my fingernails all different colors. I can save up and take a weekend course on pottery. I can buy a beginner's robotics kit. I can get some scrap at the thrift store down the road and teach myself circuitry. I can go on YouTube and fold an origami dragon. I can wear a cape and introduce myself as The Wizard. I can tie-dye all my underwear. Cut the sleeves off all my shirts. Make my jeans into jorts and paint fish all over them. I can become an expert on box turtle husbandry. Keep a tank full of beetles on my shelf. Raise tadpoles, dye my eyebrows blue, start a cowboy hat collection. I can eat grilled cheese and mango slices every single day until I'm sick of them. I can put my bed in my living room and turn my bedroom into an art gallery. I could start a blog about vintage crochet patterns, or start photographing the feral cats that live on my street. I could find a stranger outside, right now, and learn their whole life story. I could learn to mix drinks. Become a bartender. Find a job on a travelling cruise ship. I could drop everything, right now, sell everything I own, and assume a new identity in St. Petersburg. I could learn ASL. Start baking. Stack a domino tower up to my ceiling and then knock it over without taking any pictures to remember it. I could draw a slug in a bowler hat. Eat nothing but orange food for a year. I could sit in the dark for hours with a bed sheet over my head, waiting for the sun to rise like a ghost. I could teach myself card tricks and become a street magician. I could invent a new instrument, a new hard candy, a table that comes down from the ceiling instead of up from the floor. I could cover my ceiling in plastic flowers. I could catch a seagull and set it loose in my house. Open my cupboards and smash all the glasses I don't like using on the floor. I could set my radio to a French 80's revival frequency and leave it there. I could start burying coins in my yard, make a papier-mâché bust of the late Queen Victoria. I could set it on fire. I could melt old nickels with a blowtorch. Swallow spaghetti through my nose. Open my front door, go out for a walk, and never come back. Let my bills and possessions and responsibilities rot away until it's all gone, like a bloated deer on the side of the highway, nothing left but bones, the memory of someone who was there once but isn't anymore.
I could go diving. Build a shelf. Carve fruit shapes out of bricks and driftwood. Sing a song that goes on for so long that I forget the first words by the time the last verse comes out. Suppose I started specifically saying stuff starting softly, snakelike? Can you imagine? Can you imagine yourself doing any of these things? What's stopping you? Is it a choice, or a trap? Are you caged? Caged by who? Someone else? Yourself? You could open that cage. Open that door, tear it apart like paper and cobwebs. It's not real. You built it in your head. Maybe you had help- maybe someone bigger and stronger and far more frightening laid the foundation, but they're gone now. What will you do? Will you choose nothing? To choose nothing is to make a choice. To look at all of creation, infinite possibility, and say "no". What a powerful choice. All your choices are powerful. You Are Like God, and if I were a devil I would hate you too
Sudden wave of an immense love for humanity has hit me once again…
We all exist together… that’s pretty neat…
i'm too old, can you remind me why we stopped talking? the days are getting shorter again - i wake up before the sun, i finish work after she has already hidden again.
i saw you got a dog - i think. i saw you dyed your hair - maybe. i saw that you like the same television series i do - well, it seems. anything could be happening, i guess. it's hard to tell just looking at a screen.
i'm too old - why did we fight? i can't remember what exactly happened. i can't remember what came up. i've been getting better. i'm sorry, if it's my fault. i'm sorry even if it's not. i'm sorry even if neither of us did anything wrong.
someone mentioned you the other day, and asked me - do you know her? as if we'd never even been friends. i had to think about it. no, i guess not. i once cried on your shoulder for half an hour about a boy who wasn't even, like, hot.
for old time's sake, wanna come over? it's halloween. it used to be our season. we used to clomp through the leaves together. wanna come over? i just moved, i want to show you my tiny skein of a yard. wanna come over? my dog can meet your maybe-dog and we can drink mulled cider and get over the hard part.
i dont remember who drew the line. i don't remember if there was even a line ever drawn, or we just grew apart, the way adults sometimes do. i think to text you sometimes - but what if you're angry?
you used to come to my birthday parties. i used to throw parties for you. it's kind of hard to picture, these days, as if through a fogged windowpane. a lot has happened since then. a lot has changed for me. probably for you too.
i can't write today. i wasn't ever really good at writing for you, specifically, anyway. i felt something too mottled. something that scalded if it wasn't handled properly.
anyway. i'm too old. i hope you reach out. i am glad you look happy. i am glad that i'm happy too. i am glad we are both busy adults with our lives sparkling like glitter glue. i am glad like ice cream dinners and theme park tickets and closing a book. i am glad to my roots.
but i kind of wish you were here so i could share it with you.
i don't wanna love myself like "buy this feel good". i wanna love myself like i made a sandwich for later because i knew i'd be too busy. i wanna love myself like hang on take a breath do you actually like this. i wanna love myself like okay we're gonna set a reminder to get up and brush our teeth. i wanna love myself like - it's okay to say no, it's okay to take that nap, it's okay to go home.
i don't wanna feel sexy like tv. i don't wanna feel sexy like little black dress. i wanna feel sexy like high note during karaoke. like just got done writing 14 pages of poetry. like let me show you this scarf i've been knitting. i wanna feel sexy like hand on the back of the headrest while you parallel park. like did i tell you about that time i saved a baby bird. like don't tell her but i've been sneaking money into her purse.
i don't wanna feel pretty like expensive. like high fashion. like paid to be here. i wanna feel pretty like a bird in a puddle. i wanna feel pretty like streak of dyed hair. i wanna feel pretty like calligraphy, like new leaves, like a skinned knee bleed, like a dog running at full speed. i wanna feel pretty like lying next to you. i wanna feel pretty like the new album just dropped, i wanna feel pretty like a shower, i wanna feel pretty like a stone wall all covered in moss.
i keep saying body neutrality. that feels negative - no bad things, no good things, just body. but i mean - my body is neutral like a flower is neutral like an oil slick is neutral like a day is neutral, too. my body is neutral so a kiss can feel like lightning so a dance can feel like a hula hoop so a walk to get coffee can feel like - god, i'm so happy to just be around you.
my body is a site. not the source of the joy, just where i can find it. i don't wanna love like - finally got my body tight/forced myself through a diet/whatever trend is the current hype. i wanna love myself like - i go to this river and i find gold every time i shift around inside it. i wanna love myself like - i feel sexy because it's sexy to be alive, and laughing. i wanna love myself like - bitch, i could have died, and i didn't, and if that isn't the prettiest almost in the whole world, than i don't know what is.
wow i wanna love myself like extremely pleasing typefacing i wanna love myself like enjoyed this post i made a little art about it i wanna love myself like the little flags on the letter t love to curl themselves against their base i want to love myself like hold on mom, it's a good reason i'm crying
in rare moments, it's particularly pleasing to be called a bitch. you are standing there and the dude is fuming because you won't let him take home someone too drunk to stand. you are standing there and not letting karen yell at the barista about the mask policy and this lady absolutely wants to kill you so badly.
standing there and you're objectively, 100%, doing-the-right thing - and you're a bitch! and it's kind of like - you know what, thank you, i am a bitch right now. now you got my hackles up, bark bark. you are standing there, telling this asswipe of a person not to be a bigot - that if things have to get hairy, they will get hairy like a wolf. you've been good for a lot of your life! very well-behaved. your teachers called you a delight once. you get nervous ordering takeout over the phone.
but right now you're a bitch! you are wearing someone else's skin. you are not a name, a person. just a bitch. and it's well and truly freeing. it's rare - very - but it happens to hit just-right. and you're standing there with your ears roaring from adrenaline and you're like, oh. i'm a bitch! i'm a bitch! i'm being a huge fucking bitch! and now, my love! i'm gonna be your big fucking bitch of a problem!
“How you make others feel about themselves says a lot about you.”
— Unknown (via thoughtkick)
