#anyway…. there we are

[capseycartwright]

inspired by that social media trend about taking your younger self for coffee. am feeling existential what can i say.

i met the younger version of myself for coffee, today. she was twenty minutes early, i was ten - some things never change, though i reassure her that her own time matters too, and she doesn’t always need to be so anxious about being left behind if she doesn’t get somewhere on time. the people who love her will wait, an extra five minutes.

she orders a flat white - i do, too. some things never change, though i try more new things now. i’ve recently gotten into matcha, i explain, and she furrows her brow in confusion, and i get it, really - coffee makes her feel more grown up in a world of adulthood she doesn’t feel ready to be a part of yet. it still does, in lots of ways, but she likes matcha now too.

i watch, as she picks at the skin around her fingernails and pinches the delicate skin of her wrist, an anxious tick that leaves cuts and bruises that take days and weeks to heal. you learn how to not do that, i promise, her head ducked with embarrassment as she tries to hide the fact she’s made her fingers bleed. you figure out better ways to cope.

she tells me about the boy she has a crush on - I don’t have the heart to tell her that he doesn’t feel the same, that he’ll only ever be a friend. that he’ll tell her he loves her, as a friend, in a crowded nightclub, and she’ll learn that sometimes people love you but don’t want you back. she sees the claddagh ring on my finger and frowns, at the direction it sits - she knows what it means. you’re single, still? she asks, and i nod - yeah, you are, and it’s okay, really, it is. i want to tell her that she does fall in love and she loses it and somehow it’s still one of her fondest memories, but i don’t want to spoil the experience of living it for the first time. i don’t want her to know how much it hurt, when it was over. instead, i reassure her she’ll turn the ring one day for the right person. we know who we’re looking for now. there’s peace in that, too.

she names her closest friends. i tell her they’re all doing so well - that years and distance and life pulled in different directions hasn’t changed the love she has for them. i tell her there’s new faces in her story too - friends from a year abroad that changes her life, friends from the place where she builds a life all on her own. i promise her she’s got a future filled with love, platonic, beautiful, magnificent love, the kind that always answers the phone when she calls, crying because the world feels so overwhelmingly lonely.

you’ll feel lonely sometimes still - but everyone does. i promise her she learns to find peace in the quiet of her life, and i don’t tell her much more. i want her to learn it for herself. there’s also some things i can’t bear to tell her - how bad, it’ll get, how she’ll lose one of the most important people in her life, not to death, no, but to disinterest, and how that feels worse, sometimes, because they chose to leave. i can’t bear to tell her that there’s times she’ll wonder if the cavernous ache in her chest is simply a part of her being, a pain no medicine can fix.

i don’t tell her any of that. instead, i tell her about her flatmates - the place she calls home and the girls she’s made a home with. i tell her she’s a really good cook, now, and that food is easier, now - fun, even - and she still reads at least one book a week and she’s got people to share her recommendations with. i explain she has a job that gives her such purpose and drive in life - and it’s not quite what she expected but it’s better, and it’s brilliant, and it changed her life when she took a chance on the interview all those years ago. i tell her she falls in love with writing, again, and she doesn’t lose that love this time. i tell her she’s got enough money to spend on all the makeup and skincare she wants and she does - she definitely does.

you’re almost 30, now, she points out, and i nod. aren’t you scared? she asks, still pulling at the sore, tender skin of her fingers. i wish i could reach out and get her to stop.

no, i promise. I’m not scared. i’ve built a good life - a good career. i ticked off the goals she’d shakily written on a list as she tried to figure out a path in life when she started at university. i don’t have a new list now - i’m taking it as it comes. that terrifies her, i know, but i think it amazes her, too, to know that with age comes confidence, a sense of calm - she needs that. i’m excited to grow older. she didn’t always want to.

she’s slow to drink her coffee - i am, too. we had lots to discuss and plenty i didn’t tell her. she’s got some of the best years of her life to come - and the worst, too - but there’s light at the end of the tunnel and not much left in the end of our coffee cups.

she shuffles awkwardly, as we move to leave. you’re happy? she asks.

i am, i promise. it just looks different than how you imagine it right now.

her shoulders are hunched, as she walks away, nearly 20 years old and uncomfortable in her own skin, desperate to hide, to make herself invisible. i’ll see her again, i know - in another 10 years, maybe, and she’ll be different then too, but she’ll still order a flat white and life will still be as beautiful as it is painful but she’ll learn to live in the light, most of the time.

i love her, in ways she doesn’t love herself yet - but she will. i hope i get to take her for coffee again soon.

[lrndvs]

compliments from girls go hard

[rioblitzle]

working retail

[mysillycomics]

[shrubsparrow]

It's in the eye of the beholder

[noamglompsky]

ERASE the plot of the whole series from your minds. they’re living a calm regular life and have their own jayviks to obsess over.

[inkskinned]

it's extremely critical that you see the photo of the perp walk for luigi mangione as being propaganda. i've seen so many people wave it off and instead fawn over his looks. and trust me, i know it ended up being kind of pathetic and weird - but please don't brush it off as a "modelling opportunity" for him. it's a fucking terrifying message the police are sending.

i want to make a few comparisons here, in case you're not from the US or familiar with why the perp walk thing is something to pay attention to. just to set the groundwork for why this is a purposeful, unusual, and cruel act by the nyc police - for why this is not a common occurrence and for why that matters.

the prosecution alleges the show of force is due to the charge of "terrorism." for comparison, in june 2015, tsarnaev was found guilty for the boston marathon bombing, which killed 3 people and injured hundreds. his actions are considered to be an act of domestic terrorism. i have spent the last hour looking through google for pictures of similar to mangione's perp walk - and so far, i have found zero. i also just do not personally remember a moment like that, despite living in boston at the time.

they allege that luigi is a stone-cold killer who carried out a longterm plan, making him particularly dangerous. again for comparison: in nyc, recently cory martin was found guilty of the killing of brandy odom. the murder was planned and premeditated to steal insurance money. and yet no staged perp walk. why didn't her life matter enough for a "show of force"?

but mangione gets paraded by a veritable army of police officers as if he is a rabid animal. for a single citizen who allegedly killed one other single citizen, the "largest perp walk ever" occurs.

so what is the "strong message" that the mayor and the police were trying to send here? the mayor speaks as if mangione is already convicted of terrorism. there is a very thin number of people who feel threatened by the CEO's death. none of us felt like mangione needs to be under massive armed guard.

the message is that you shouldn't resist. they are trying to "make an example" of him - that if you behave badly and kill a single rich person, you'll be treated as if you killed hundreds of people. you will be treated worse than a man who was found guilty of terrorism. you will be considered guilty without trial. the message is that the rich are a protected class, and you cannot touch them without massive punishment. they are trying to prevent a revolution by showing dominance and force against you.

the message is that the police are a puppet of the wealthy and that the law is not equally applied across class disparity. it is "some are more equal than others." it is "one life is more precious than another."

the show of force wasn't for luigi. it was for us. it was a warning. they are trying to remind us who is really in control.

[hansoeii]

It was affection.

[muffinlance]

My baby daughter got her adorable puffin-print dress absolutely CAKED in mud crawling around the yard and my first thought was "oh no her beautiful dress"

And my second thought was "oh huh it really WOULD be easy to unconsciously steer her away from playing in the dirt. Unlike my son, whose outfits are usually some kind of solid dark easily washed pants plus a shirt that doesn't trail in the dirt like a dress does."

Anyway something something gender roles start getting shoved on kids from literal birth, but with a little time to think about things, YOU TOO can let your children of any gender absolutely destroy their clothes in the dirt pit they're digging in your garden

[byjove]

I hate it when actors talk about an animal they had to work with on set and it’s obvious they were not patient with the animal at all. You especially see this with non cat people who had to work with cats and are like “Working with that cat was the bane of my existence, never on cue, scratched me once, always seemed afraid of me.” Like yeah, she’s a cat. She could probably sense you hated her. It’s hard enough to be an animal in the entertainment industry without some guy being a dick to you. Are you that uncharitable with human costars (and particularly child actors) or do you just hate animals?

Conversely, it’s so heartwarming when an actor speaks positively about an animal they worked with and/or there are behind the scenes stories of the crew genuinely trying to make the animal comfortable and giving them grace.

One of my favorite examples of this is Mad Max 2 (1981) which was made on a budget of $4.5 million AUD (about $13.5 USD in today’s money). They ended up casting a dog from the pound that was scheduled to be put down and by all accounts the dog was a nightmare to work with. But most of the cast and crew loved him. The dog’s name was Dog so his character’s name was also Dog. He was difficult to train but super food motivated so they kept writing dog food into scenes for him. He kept freaking out on set and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Eventually they realized part of the reason he kept acting out was because he was terrified of the sound of cars and motorcycles so they had special doggy earplugs made. His character was supposed to be aggressive but real Dog was very affectionate and could not be made to behave aggressively so they had to use selective editing to make him seem more menacing. When filming was done multiple crew members wanted to adopt him because he was such a good bad boy. He was adopted by one of the stuntwomen and got to live out the rest of his life doing actual blue heeler things. That was his only film role.

[pangur-and-grim]

one thing that took me embarrassingly long to learn is "sometimes when people say things, they will not be true."

I used to tell people about this revelation and they'd be like yeah.....duh.....but like, why wouldn't my base assumption be that you're communicating to me in a straightforward manner. anyway, I get scammed a lot.

[hairscare]

me and stevo talk about the commodification of alternative crowds

[eosofspades]

i didn't have "i'm broken" teenage asexual angst i had "i'm literally being the only reasonable one about this concept and the rest of you are behaving like fucking freaks" perception issues

[soranker]

laios985

[stemmmm]

more people gotta try this shit where bill has not improved and will not change but he's just chilling so its fine probably. its great