NOLITE TE BASTARDES CARBORUNDORUM

Once there came a freezing scream which seemed to revel horribly in its release from sanity.  

[stainedglassgardens]

I turned 33 last month

... and I’ve had this Tumblr for more than ten years at this point.

It’s time to leave it behind, together with the trouble and insecurity of some of the worst years of my life.

If you want to keep up with me please message me (off anon) and I’ll be glad to let you know where I might be posting from in future.

[illyadarling]

Poly Styrene, 1977

[stainedglassgardens]

In reality it’s been a year and seven months and we still haven’t argued once. I wish “making concessions” wasn’t an excuse used to get women to accept everything their garbage partners put them through. Not saying that it’s not normal to argue sometimes in a long-term relationship (in fact I almost have trouble believing it’s never happened to us) but I just wish women would refuse to make concessions more often.

[stainedglassgardens]

Pros and cons of office life being back in full swing after the holidays:

Cons:

Piss everywhere in the loo

Cologne you can smell from another room

Noise! So many voices

Pros:

There are none

[upandoutcomic]

Secretly posting this here, shhhhhh 🤫

I dated a wonderful boy for awhile who unfortunately just wasn't quite the right fit for me. Gotta stay true to your feelings even if it's uncomfortable in the short term. I made this comic as a lil keepsake.

[stainedglassgardens]

August 2021

I’ve been taking care of myself and trying to improve on the way I live more generally. For instance a few months ago I purchased some fucking 14€, pharmacy-grade moisturiser after spending my whole life thinking my skin was so terrible it was unfixable. More recently, after seeing some videos on YouTube, I decided to finally admit that I had curly hair and start wearing it the way it grows out of my head, an I purchased a bunch of stuff to take care of it.

It’s not about the money. I’ve been all right with money for a few years now (although very fearful about it while I was unemployed last year). I think before, I used to have nearly two hours’ commute every day so of course that didn’t help, but more than that, I hated my life so much that a significant chunk of my time was dedicated solely to forgetting. So reading books and watching films was forgetting, but of course, taking good fucking care of myself was not, because it required thinking about my needs, of which there were too many to count.

So I’m in a better place now. Today I even bought some kitchen equipment to replace the things our flatmate is taking with her when she (finally) moves her stuff out. An update on that: there is no update. She found a job in Paris so she’s definitely staying there, but her things (and her cat) are still in the flat, and I’m still paying rent to her mum, who in turn pays the agency. We’re trying not to push her out even though we want to sometimes, not because we don’t like her (we do!) but just because we want to finally make the flat fully ours.

I’m back to my pre-pandemic weight now. Lost three (3) kilos in August. Work is... going. Therapy is... going also. You know how I feel about both of these things. I feel good most days. My days are full. My week-ends are often amazing. When I get into bed at the end of the day I often think how lucky I am. I don’t think I’ll get used to this, not for a long time yet.

[stainedglassgardens]

Watched in August

The Last Black Man in San Francisco Ikarie XB 1 The Beaches of Agnès (Les Plages d'Agnès) Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds Titane The Unseen River (Giòng sông không nhìn thấy) The Recorder Exam (리코더 시험) Brother (Брат) Lina from Lima (Lina de Lima) Cave of Forgotten Dreams

WTF

Titane (Julia Ducournau, 2021): Granted, I had high expectations after Raw but even now, a few weeks after seeing this, I’m still not sure what it was. So it wasn’t bad, but I’m not sure it was good either, just really... what????

OK films

The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot, 2019): This is one of those very American films where I understand what’s being done and I support it but the storytelling is just so formulaic it leaves me just feeling “meh”

The Beaches of Agnès (Les Plages d'Agnès, Agnès Varda, 2008): This was the last Varda film on Mubi France that I had not seen. It was all right? Not her best. Might work well as an introduction to her work and/or documentary style.

Brother (Брат, Alexey Balabanov, 1997): Was really excited for a 1990s Russian gangster film. It was all right but not amazing, and also, there is something in the plot that I didn’t understand?? I’m an idiot

Lina from Lima (Lina de Lima, María Paz González, 2019): Another one of those films I’ll forget. Visually very good, also loved the music intervals, but I didn’t connect with it

Films I really enjoyed

Ikarie XB 1 (Jindřich Polák, 1963): A Czechoslovakian 1960s space film with a robot named Patrick... Need I say more?

Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds (Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer, 2020) and Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog, 2010): Herzog documentaries never disappoint

The Recorder Exam (리코더 시험, Rikodeo siheom, Kim Bora, 2011): This short film centers on a little girl’s fast-approaching recorder exam at school as a way to explore the dynamics of her family. It is very good

Favourite of the month

The Unseen River (Giòng sông không nhìn thấy, Phạm Ngọc Lân, 2020): I watched this because it was on Mubi, I was in the mood for a short and it looked nice. I really loved this, it is beautiful, atmospheric, and the two storylines provide these amazing slice-of-life nuggets in a way only the best short films do.

*

I watched ten films in August which should feel like enough but I still feel like I’m neglecting films in favour of other things. Maybe because this month’s crop wasn’t particularly good? I feel like since the year started I’ve watched very few super-good films.

*

Follow me on Letterboxd!

[stainedglassgardens]

Read in August

Jessica Townsed, Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow

Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness

Leanne Shapton, Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry

Currently reading

Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half

Liu Cixin, La Mort immortelle

I devoured Hollowpox as soon as it arrived. I loved it! I love the Morrigan Crow book series and I think it is for certain going into my top ten of 2021. I don’t usually read or enjoy children’s books but this truly is something special. I don’t really know what I can say to recommend this to adult readers, except to say that it’s wonderful and magical but never takes the reader for an idiot and always pushes forwards the boundaries of imagination.

I read The Well of Loneliness next, which took me two or three weeks to finish, partly because it is almost 500 pages long but mostly because I’ve been busy and never made time. Radclyffe Hall was a right-wing asshole that reminds me of Anne Lister in all the bad ways, but she was also a talented writer. I was afraid that this book would be just a novelty, an event -- “the first lesbian novel!! 1928!!” but it reads just like a good Victorian novel. Yes, it is very sad. Yes, the main character is too much like the author herself to be truly likeable. Still I really enjoyed reading this and found it unexpectedly deep in places.

Important Artifacts... is a fiction book written like an auction catalogue. I believe it works, in that it manages to tell the story of the two main characters and make them sound like real people, and I was delighted to find a book like this. It’s about rich white people in New York so, not exactly my thing, but I still enjoyed this as an experiment.

I’m not going to talk about Liu Cixin again, especially since we’ve made so little progress in the book in August.

I started The Vanishing Half a few days ago and I really like it so far, even though I think the story moves quite fast and doesn’t spend enough time with its characters. We’ll see how it goes.

I wish I had read more in August, and in particular spent less time on Radclyffe Hall, but I still had a very good reading month overall.

*

Be my friend on Goodreads!

[stainedglassgardens]

Lina from Lima (Lina de Lima, María Paz González, 2019)

[stainedglassgardens]

Lina from Lima (Lina de Lima, María Paz González, 2019)

[stainedglassgardens]

Still not a hundred percent sure how I got here, but I think I’ve become my friends’ stable friend now? The other day my bff said “You’re happy now, how did you do it?” and another time another friend asked me for tips on how to make it through the worst days of depression (which... there are no tips. You just get through the goddamn day). On top of which, people seem to look up to me for advice on food and exercise... So weird.

[stainedglassgardens]

My boss stood up for me at work today and I thought “Is this what it feels like to have a mum?”

[stainedglassgardens]

I got street-harassed again by one of the male customers at the loser bar I (used to) pass every day on my way to work so I decided to change my route. But. It’s fine.

[stainedglassgardens]

The Recorder Exam (리코더 시험, Rikodeo siheom, Kim Bora, 2011)

[stainedglassgardens]

The Unseen River (Giòng sông không nhìn thấy, Phạm Ngọc Lân, 2020)

[stainedglassgardens]

The Unseen River (Giòng sông không nhìn thấy, Phạm Ngọc Lân, 2020)

[stainedglassgardens]

The Unseen River (Giòng sông không nhìn thấy, Phạm Ngọc Lân, 2020)