#moss writes things

[saxigenouscorviform]

artist’s dilemma, to paint or eat:

van gogh more or mango vore

[saxigenouscorviform]

i don’t know why night vale called the weirdest game “esoteric bear” when they could have called it “esobearic”

[saxigenouscorviform]

did not start crying at work today solely through the judicious application of very loud music and shitty shitty puns. i’m glad i can work at a place that lets me listen to music. i’m glad that i can put on a phone voice to sound cheerful and end up feeling a little better from it.

i sold a grand total of one print after having to ask my brother for help with paying for the prints in the first place

still, it’s not the money - that was then, and this is a different month (that i apparently completely forgot to go grocery shopping during)

it’s just that little voice inside my head that tells me my art is good to like on facebook, but not good enough to spend money on who’d actually want that?

also the person i’m doing a commission for rn is really bad at getting back to me, and i’d be like “alright, i’m out” but i’ve sunk a lot of work into this and if i just drop it then i probably won’t get paid

fuck, it’s not art that’s hard, it’s everything that isn’t art that for some reason comes with it

[saxigenouscorviform]

was super distracted at work today

usually my binder is fine as long as i take it off when i get home, and get (my roommate’s) heating pad on it, but every once in a while my entire rib cage is a single dull ache, and if i move too suddenly, it reminds me of the time i popped my shoulder out while trying to hold a door open. 

today was one of those days

luckily, it’s cold, so i’ve been carrying a sweater in my bag recently, and i just wandered over to the bathroom and re-remembered how to breathe. 

i’m glad no one noticed. the conversation of “this hurts you and you know it’s, long-term, pretty damaging, why do you still wear this”, is a conversation i continue to not want to have, even in the hypothetical, especially not at work, even if I Am out, even if I’m literally working on a class about gender for work.

[saxigenouscorviform]

today i met a lovely dog with blue eyes

“she’s beautiful!” i said

the owner told me that she was a border collie, and that she was very shy, and that her name was Blue

i knelt down and offered a palm, and she lunged at me - for pets

.....my actual life goal is to be the sort of person that shy dogs like, and i think i’m getting there

[saxigenouscorviform]

I’ve been thinking about this post a lot lately, and trying to think of the next chapter for it

-terrified of stagnancy, of stepping backward, and right now it seems like the things in my world are getting dragged away. walking east while the train travels west still means that you go west.

i look at the blank page and i want to begin, but every time i look at the page, it seems as though it has already been scribbled out, that when i lift my pen something indefinable will shift in the gravity of the world and the pen will run dry before i can begin. i think this even though i have begun, even though sometimes the mess of heavy scratched out lines will rise and i can see a wobbly but sharp line cutting through the dullness of the white page.

i am afraid of failing before i start even when i have started, even when all we can do is begin and begin and begin again, because every second that we go on is another beginning, is another slow step east

but the train still hurtles on west, and i don’t know how to reconcile that, the feeling of making slow and sure progress up a mountain in the middle of a rockslide. what good is it to reach the top when the top no longer exists, when i no longer exist. if i were watching someone climb a falling mountain i would tell them to get off the mountain, but the mountain is the world and the gravity runs the pen dry even as i scratch out a heavy and sure line on the page

i want to end my attempts at beginning, i want to know the point of the middle, to see the end clearly, but every step is just the beginning of another step, and every word is just sounds-

[saxigenouscorviform]

today an older lady i’m taking work classes with sits next to me

“i love your name!” she says, gesturing at my nametag

“haha, thanks!” i say. i get more excited now when people say they like my name.

“do you have siblings? what are their names?” she asks, and here i pause for a bit. my siblings have very normal, faintly biblical names. some of the people who are in this meeting are originally from the south, and i know i shouldn’t judge based on where people are from, i still do.

still, fuck it. i’m trying to be more honest with who i am. “uh, they have pretty normal names, actually; B_______ and B________. I, uh, actually chose my own name.”

She pauses, and i don’t know what she’s thinking (not that she’s unreadable, i just project my own fears. it’s weird how introducing yourself can be a stepping stone these days) “How did your parents feel about your changing your name?” she asks, and it’s fine. her voice is light, genuinely curious. no one queerbashes in seattle, not in a building with this many pyjamas and pets.

I laugh. “well, i think at some point, i made it pretty obvious that my name didn’t really fit me. they had to have picked up on it,” i say, thinking about how many times i pretended my name was aerynn or kazien or bremon, how often i’d rejected my name. how resentful i’d feel correcting its pronunciation to substitute teachers and strangers. “and when i changed it, i think they felt that, well, it was mine. i certainly went to enough trouble for it,” i add, thinking of 156 dollars, a court visit, and so many lines. So much paperwork. (i still haven’t sent the paperwork in to my old school to change it in their records).

(I don’t really know what my parents thought of it. i never asked. i tend to worry about Ruining Christmas too much - and what would I have done if they’d hated it? what would have happened?)

she smiles. “what was your name before you changed it?”

it’s simple curiosity, and i still pause. this conversation is filled with weird pauses, and they’re almost all on my end. still, she’s known me for two days by Moss, she’s not going to change it up now. 

in the end i tell her, wishing that one day my old name won’t have that feel of almost familiarity in my mouth, that i won’t have to write my name into phone scripts so i don’t accidentally say the wrong one. other people tell me it’s hard to get used to the name change - haha, i don’t say, imagine how it feels for me.

She looks at me carefully. “It doesn’t suit you at all. You look like a Moss, not a B________.”

I grin. “thank you. it’s much nicer being complimented on it now, too. I’ve done all the work this time.”

[eviltoxicmosssauce]

For the one word prompt- 2 👀

2: this was a mistake

"This was a mistake," Jon spits, shoving away the hand they offer to help him up. "I shouldn't have trusted you. God, I've been so stupid-" "We can do this later," Ren reasons. "We have more important things to worry about-" He scoffs incredulously, turning to them with wild eyes. "More important things than the fact that you've been lying to me this whole time?!" "Jon." It comes out like a plea. "No. No. I don't have to-- Christ. I'm not listening to another word you say." "Jon." "What else did you lie about?" he demands. "Did you even mean anything you said?!"