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[i’m the question to your answer] IARINA//2nov Artist

[inkskinned]

because i love you like that. lining the baking sheet to make cookies for your parents. putting aside a cutting of my spider plant since your friend mentioned he might want one. dressed up today even though i only am gonna see you.

not good at other stuff. brain like a blender. once actually i told my mom that it's like riding a surfboard through a tornado: no matter how many flowers i plant, i find the storm coming again on the horizon, whipping up my past into my present. everything becomes a cyclone in a moment. don't know if i did my taxes right; forgot to pack my hairbrush. i'm always forgetting something, actually. rarely ever do i get my work done 100% right; there's always a double-space or a missed comma. not your dog in a fight, i'd probably cry.

but i love you like i wrote you a poem at three in the morning. i love you like your favorite brand of gingerale is always stocked. i made sure to get the pickles you like too; even though i never remember to offer. i love you like your birthday isn't even for another month and i've already made three alternative plans (weather permitting); your gift's already wrapped in a corner.

love you like: give me the wheel i'll drive, you look tired. like: actually yeah why don't you play music, your taste is better. like: you go take a nap, i got this. like: let me make you dinner. like: i already organized everything, it's set to go whenever. like: let me carry that. like: if there's something i can do to make your life better today, i'm going to do it, always. like: okay i lied i did want the last few bites but you were so hungry and this sacrifice is an honor.

giggling and with your hair in a fan on my pillow, you told me that you're going to build me the house of my dreams. low voice, glowing like a moonbeam. angel girl. foxkit. sole proprietor of my heart: my home is wherever you're gonna be.

[screenshotsofdespair]

[v11chel]

Happy birthday to Junior over here

[inkskinned]

you get home and you realize you're running low on deodorant which is annoying but survivable so you go to your local store but they don't have your specific brand and smell. you really, really, really would prefer to smell the way you like, it's a sensory thing. so you go to a store a few minutes away and it's the right brand but no smell. and you do this a few more times at a few more local places (even getting desperate enough to try the grocery store) - no luck. okay, fine. the next closest store is target but obviously you're not shopping there because of the boycott. walmart and amazon are both terrible to their employees; plus they're a monopoly. but the next store after that is a full hour away. so okay. you check online and they have it! you put on an audiobook and hike over there, and of course it's not in stock, what the fuck. you sigh and try to find a replacement, because you're here, after all. literally none of the options seem similar or good. but wait! as luck would have it! when you google it, it's in stock down the street! okay! you march on down only to discover it's fifteen entire dollars. for a single stick of deodorant. one you know usually costs 7.99. this has got to be a fucking joke. but whatever! okay! fine! it sucks but like, at this point - whatever works. so you buy it because you really need it now and it's shitty to spend that much money but at least you can close your eyes and feel a little okay about the fact you tried to spend locally and responsibly and of course there's no ethical consumption under late capitalism but you're trying, you just wish it was a modicum easier than this, because it would have saved you both time energy and money to just order from amazon but of course the environment is dying and the united states is being run by oligarchs and you really do want to do your part when you can; which is already such a massive privilege anyway

and you get home. and you realize you are running out of shampoo.

[inkskinned]

oh you don't seem to understand. i told all those people about you so i could never look back. i knew what power you had over me. i knew your name was ringing in me still. it wasn't easy. i knew exactly the size of the bridge i was burning - i told the people i knew would bring me the kerosene.

you never protected me - but they certainly will.

[opalsandcream]

biggest betrayal is when it’s supposed to thunderstorm and it doesn’t

[dogpuppy]

[la-crospa]

The Golden Raven

[youarealwaysenough]

Anyone who works a full-time+ job and either lives alone or in a situation where they're doing the majority of the household management: I'm so proud of you. However well or poorly you think you're managing this is the sign you're doing enough. This shit is hard. A no one is going to give you credit for how hard it is. No one notices a clean house, they only notice if it's dirty. But you're doing great, and it's okay to give yourself a break. You deserve it.

[inkskinned]

the little things before the story starts; between the plot points of your life. in movies the camera only pans over laughter and shock. in the real life: your best friend passes the salt. you wait in line with your brother. the doodle on your notebook is just normal - goes forgotten, not undiscovered.

you find it romantic, still. the light in your apartment scraping up the wall in a slow yellow ripple. her fingerprints on the mirror. the spider in the bathtub you google the name of. a quesadilla you manage to perfectly cut.

the unwitnessed and private beauty of the mundane. she stands over the stove and makes you a perfect salsa with peppers from her garden; only the two of you will get to share it. you have finally managed to organize one of your closets. the art supply you need is not only in stock - it's buy-one get-one.

you are delighted to find the cord you need in the first place you start looking - you thank your past self for a moment; and then that moment opens up. when you were a kid, you almost didn't get here. you were terrified of the possibility of an endless and terrible numb; a life made grey and vapid, a spirit made dull. how close you came to that precipice. how often it still calls to you; violent and unresting.

and yet here you are, and old now; older than you ever anticipated - just a normal adult. you are managing to stay somewhat on top of the dishes. today it smells like fall. your dog made friends with another dog. you had a nice conversation with a stranger; you got your grocery shopping done. the tiny liminal moments of your life; apple cider donuts and jazz music and humming along. and here you are, thanking your past self.

because you stayed. and how funny - you never pictured being safe like this, calm and centered. your most normal moments now feel like what used to be your best ones. somewhere in there, the warmth crept in. somewhere in there, when you weren't watching: you got the life you would have only ever dreamed of.

[inkskinned]

you have so much trouble finishing things. thank-you notes or homework or video games. you get mostly done - 70 to 90 percent - and then you stutter to some kind of halt about it. so yes, you've seen most of that show you've been watching. yes, you've mostly finished the work on your desk. the laundry is clean - but it's not put away yet. you know rationally that you it would maybe take you another hour or two, maximum. it would be so much easier, so much better for you. you'd finally get it off of your chest.

still. you don't want the night to end. you linger in the conversation. sometimes you pipe endless silly questions into a conversation, trying to stretch the warmth of memory, of frienship. you hold your breath. you keep watching the horizon long after the sun has set.

once it's over, it's over. some small bird in your heart begging: not yet! not yet!

[inkskinned]

i. probably the most wild thing - and this is true - was that she tried to break up with me using Chat-GPT.

ii. we hadn't ever seen eye-to-eye about this issue. i am flatly and annoyingly anti-bot. my entire thing is creativity and the empathy of the human spirit. communication should be about connection, not distortion through the lens of AI. otherwise: what is the fucking point.

iii. i am steadfastly loyal in all my personal relationships - to a genuine fault. that fault will become clear to both of us shortly. sometimes when you love someone, you give them the benefit of the doubt; even when you doubt that you benefit.

iv. however. i used to academically cheat a lot. i had all the sad-kid excuses you could possibly want - unsafe home, untreated severe ADHD, bullied at school. i skipped most of my classes, to the point that the truancy officer knew me personally. sometimes i stand on top of my own high-horse policy of why would you use AI? and then i see the hoofbeats i left behind me. didn't i copy homework? didn't i just sparknotes the reading? didn't i write multiple essays just using wiki as my main resource?

v. she started using AI for her job. admittedly it is a tedious, annoying job. the first steps, slippery-slope style, were uses of AI that seemed minimal - checking two documents for minor changes. reading over drafts for conciseness. the kind of thing that pushes but does not bend what "using AI" constitutes as.

vi. for the record; i stopped cheating in college. i instead became the kind of person that other people copied off of. once i'd moved out of the unsafe housing (and was free of bullies), i dedicated myself to my work with a passion my teachers called "honestly a bit much." but isn't it tempting, as an adult? why the hell should i write another cover letter for another position that's being read by AI?

vii. AI became the centerpiece of how she finished all of her writing, the way i had warned her about. the argument was pretty explosive. at that point i'd learned to be scared of her anyway - of ever having a different opinion. i tried to talk about how my own work has probably been skimmed. how it is destroying artists. i asked - how can you do this to the environment? after all - for years, she'd been vegan.

viii. there's no ethical consumption under capitalism anyway. and the world is falling apart. and everyone else does it. i keep hearing - it's here to stay, get used to it. and hell, maybe i'm that guy. sometimes i think of the panic people had when we invented GPS or tablets. how all the adults said it's going to make people stupid. maybe i am paranoid about the decline of civilization because every technological advance always does that to a generation.

ix. her job switched AI programs and she admitted to me that she couldn't really do it anymore. the new AI wasn't trained, wasn't as comprehensive. and she couldn't return to something she'd been doing for five uninterrupted years; that it was like relearning a language that used to be her mother tongue.

x. i don't know exactly when she started using Chat as her therapist. when exactly she started feeding Chat information about me. when she started answering my text messages with the famous unspaced-dash. i have my suspicions. i would have never known for certain, except that one night she opened her laptop to play a movie - and there it was. her chat prompt about me, and our relationship, and how we needed to break up. she said you weren't supposed to see that. i sat there and thought i am going to get dumped by a robot.

xi. the irony of it. i am a poet. before you ask - her final message to me had a "particular" structure to it. i still have no idea who said it. but then again: is there ever really a gap between master and puppet?

[allthingsgrow]

the best part of that david lynch interview is this: 

[kickerofelves]

update: he made the table [x]

[agathah]

👁👁

[495lz]

reposting again…….chapstick lesbian neil x femme lesbian andrew save me

[youre-only-gay-once]

"you can use ai to improve spelling and grammar"

[purgaytorysupremacy]

if you’re wondering why spellcheck and grammar check is worse now, it’s because they replaced it with AI! 🥰

now, instead of maintaining a comprehensive, nuanced, and human-maintained encyclopedia by which to check your document, they have switched to an AI that just compares what you’ve written to what other people write in, say, Google Docs, and use the most commonly used iteration.

ever have it change something like “all intents and purposes” to “all intensive purposes” or “should’ve” to “should of”? that’s why!

people make the same spelling and grammar mistakes so often, AI thinks that’s the way you say it because it is a PATTERN DETECTOR and cannot THINK let alone use language.

[youre-only-gay-once]

"you can use ai to improve spelling and grammar"

[v11chel]

Neil and his labubu