#it's at once my personal journal

[deathcupcake]

Today I searched through my old jewelry stash to find a pair of silver bird wings I knew I had for a new necklace I'm working on. The stash is a combination of things I no longer wear but can't get rid of because sentimentality.

I did not expect to take a wild trip down memory lane. There are so many things that I forgot existed. @batgrletcetera may even recognize some - she had a few identical pieces (and I think she even made the batman bat earring).

I can clearly see my mid-1970s to mid-1990s timeline here, and I'm the only one with the code. I see items I received while in Catholic school (lol), items mom gave me, items friends gave me, random non-jewelry bits that I wore as jewelry, so much cheap costume jewelry (some vintage), and pieces I bought myself once I had enough discretionary money to do so.

It's at once a nostalgia bomb and a reminder of how much - and sometimes how little - I have changed.

I am most amused, I think, by the cold war-era charms: atomic bomb, nuclear sub, radiation symbol. After that, there is a strong nostalgia for the gold-plated sand dollar, shell, and maile leaf, and the round jade & lapis rings. These are so specific to the era of being a young teen in Hawaii. The Boy George watch (*insert laugh-cry emoji). All the ankhs and crucifixes and other cultural/religious symbols - worn together, of course. The crystals and fantasy nerd stuff. The American Indian-made pieces (most were gifts from American Indian friends). All the gothy stuff.

My style has changed a lot, and yet it hasn't. It's just more...honed, I think. More specific, and maybe more understated. Also way more expensive.

Ok, maybe not so understated. Here is a small peek at the necklace design I'm currently noodling in my brain. Haven't decided whether to just buy new sterling wings instead of whatever base metal these are, or if this will do. I may make this one and see if the fact that the wings are the only non-sterling pieces bothers me enough to replace them.

I'm calling it my stealth Rook de Riva piece. No one else needs to know that I'm referencing the Antivan Crows when I wear it.

[yeoldenews]

A selection of strange and cryptic personal ads from The New York Herald, 1860s to 1890s. 14/?

[the-curious-wordsmith]

Walraven gets hit with the Mastersona beam.

I chose the word "route" as it comes from French and specifically refers to a chosen path, alluding to travelling and suggesting some form of guidance. It also descends from the Latin phrase "rupta via", which is defined in the image as "a path made by force".

..."Route" is also a common term for the direction a game's story takes based on a set of choices made by the player.

Guess who speaks French and Latin, is plagued by prophetic visions and has to make tough decisions as a total foreigner given too much power!

Extra images under the cut:

I studied some pallid bat (Antrozous pallidus) images for this. I want to get better at drawing bats. :}

I did misinterpret something as fluff because the opacity of the image was way down, haha. At least the shapes are there. Also, I took liberties with the fur because the point was more about where it was and how I could convey the fluffiness.

Photo credits:

Left: Michael Durham

Right: Joel Sartore

[mikimeiko]

First solo daytrip of the year!

Guiding principles: take things slow; open your eyes wide and look in every direction; act like you're on a proper vacation; acknowledge the joy when you feel it, even if it's soft.

Highlights:

Beautiful Cremona train station

Late breakfast in a lovely american inspired cafè

Incredibly decorated courtyard

Zodiac clock

Man in cape in front of the cathedral

The intricatelly painted interior of the cathedral

+ (not pictured)

Arc by Everything Everything as soundtrack

Very nice train ride between Codogno and Pavia

Eastern European grocery near Pavia train Station!!!

[blackbackedjackal]

there's cliche's and then there's intentionally leaving a piece vague but it still having meaning and assuming your audience isn't stupid so they can come to their own conclusions about how the piece makes them feel based on visual language

[yawpyawp]

i just read the ASD report that the guy did and he literally misinterpreted 80% of what i said to him? some of the stuff in there (like medical history and background stuff) is fully FACTUALLY INCORRECT

anyway, i'm systematically going through the report pointing out what's inaccurate, which imho is a pretty autistic response, although i may also be a psychopath bc i have a compulsion to make this poor dude bend to my will

[kissingarthurclaus]

Against my better judgement I'm watching more of the 2016 ppg reboot and lemme tell you something. I HAAAAAAATE the way they write Utonium I HATE IT!!!

But sometimes there'll be a little moment here or there where he's kinda...cute > ^ <

[byanyan]

oh boy i sure did go from "i think i'm feeling a bit lighter this week" to being lowkey kinda casually suicidal with some ironic speed lmao,,,,

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Where The River Meets The Soul

cosy-ish fantasy, romance

follows a herbalist who decides to find a magical bloom with healing properties which has become rare in recent years, after her sister is diagnosed with a terminal illness

she travels to the city, and along with a friend and an heiress, discovers that reuniting two reincarnated ancient soulmates will restore the bloom

but when she encounters corruption and betrayal, and finds herself getting feelings for one of the soulmates, things get more complicated

ace MC, genderfluid LI

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

i can never understand all the people going “covid’s just a cold” “it’s just like the flu”. it’s not influenza or a rhinovirus. covid sars-cov-2: severe accute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. scientifically, it can never be a cold or flu, and it will cause severe accute respiratory syndrome. that’s not posturing or dramatics, it’s science

[cigarretteluvr]

my november is right now

as i find myself at winters doorstep, i think how transformative this time of year always seems to be for me

sad spring showers and lazy beach days may just serve as filler episodes to the life i embark on in the fall. it's unfathomable to me that the girl running around anaheim in july is the same girl writing this now. i feel like i've been asleep and woken up a version of myself i didn't realize i've always wanted to be.

discovering music i never thought i'd like, radiating joy, living life fanatically. opening doors and closing others-- every november, like clockwork.

this november my lungs are full of light and my heart is full of love. excitement flows freely though me. i feel myself dance my way out of life's tests and singing when i would typically scream. reading and writing and playing music and doing everything i’ve ever wanted to do. i’ve built a life for myself full of laughter and music and pasta and wine. everything feels like it's within my reach.

my toenails are blue. i've switched perfumes and i'm ordering different drinks at bars. my screen time is nonexistent and i'm laughing from my stomach more often than not. my reflection is unrecognizable, but i see myself clearer now than ever. november is so sweet to me. every november.

november 2018. i was fifteen and i listened to flower boy for the first time. i was driving through (or rather, looking out the window as my dad drove through) the grapevine into los angeles. it was my dream to be here, make movies.

i downloaded the album on spotify to give a full run through. i thought road trips were the best way to appreciate music (and still do). i started with november (it seemed topical). i was inspired. instantly. i fell in love with the song, with the album, with music, with life. driving through la for the first time with tyler scoring the ride-- it doesn't get more magical than that at fifteen. as determined as i was to make a life for myself down here before that, it became the only thing that mattered after. i became engulfed in a lust for life that was only fueled by the views at griffith, the art at lacma, the chaos of venice beach, and the magic of the hollywood sign.

november 2024. chomokopia soundtracks my way to dodger stadium. living life fuller than fifteen year old me could have ever imagined. camp flog gnaw all by myself, a radio show on air, friends all over southern california and endless stories to tell them. dressed in vintage clothing, writing updates on my tumblr.

i've known love and loss and made art (and got recognized for my art) and built friendships and experienced awe and danced and sang and made mistakes and learned from them

and fifteen year old me laid the foundation for all of it that november. had it not been for that brave, wide-eyed girl: nothing. so daring, so insatiable, so determined to make the most of life before it ever even hit her. driven and impatient, just like i am now (but better about it all now, i think).

i like to think i'm making her proud-- in the ways that matter at least. here i am fulfilling all her prophecies. and not for her, but because of her.

i have had many novembers that have completely changed me. sweet novembers, crazy novemebers. but this november feels extra sweet. sickeningly sweet. this november feels necessary. as dramatic as november 2018.

when i first listened to the song, i wondered what all my novembers could be. but now that i'm older, i realize my november is right now. always

[user-needs-new-hyperfixation]

I used to go feral in May and call it spring fever. Now I'm on my second year in a row going feral in August. My feral cycle is all messed up. Anyway I think all my problems would be magically fixed if someone dragged me across a room by my hair and pushed me down so hard my knees bruised and then kissed me very gently. When I get like this I feel like I might die if I don't create something, but I have to almost painfully force myself if I want to string more than a thought or two together before my brain is flitting off some other direction and I love it because it's like once a year I get to feel viscerally alive in a whole different way than usual and I'm convinced every time that something has changed, fixed itself, and yet I hate that I can't direct the energy the way I want to. Music sounds better and I think I could summon magic to the click of my fingers if I tried hard enough. I think if I dared Him with bared teeth and delight God might come down and fight me, bless me. There are a thousand stories dancing in my mind and I can't pen a one of them. I am choked with the ache of not having a hand around my throat. I could just drive; get in the car and see how far I could go before I decided some place was the right place. Logically I know that in a week or two the days will go back to their dragging and their drudging and all will be as it was, as it will be until the next time the spark blossoms like a dormant plant brought to bloom. All there is to do in the meantime is to revel.

[cavity-collector]

i genuinely need to be put down like a dog i cant do this anymore man holy shit

[feral-and-or-horny]

I love how I promised myself I was gonna go to bed early and try to start fixing my sleep schedule, but then my roommate came in and was like "do you want to hear some shit?"

[beelzlikes]

Thinking of ending it soon.

Tomorrow I'm gonna check the garage out back that I never use cause it's very inconvenient to pull in and out of, as well as making you walk through the yard to get to the house. I'm willing to bet there is something or other living in there and maybe a few dead things too, but I just need it to be a box, really. So none of that is too important.

There are worse ways to go, I think. Wait till it's dark, pull in, and turn off all the lights. Listen to music for a couple of hours and fall asleep. The fact I'll be using a car my parents bought for me is not lost on me, and I'm certain they'll pick up on the irony too. But the fact is, it is probably the best way to do it that I can think of that is the best combination of painless and fool-proof.

Just drift off into sleep. Leave enough food out for Fortissimo and leave the front door unlocked. I'm certain someone will do a wellness check within a week of me completing suicide. Not sooner, though, people won't realize I'm gone for a while.

Cause I don't think I'll say goodbye. Anyone I try to say goodbye to will just try to stop me. And right now everyone seems to think I won't kill myself (for some reason). They've been leaving me alone and tip-toeing around the subject instead of confronting me about it and trying to intervene. Cause not a few of them probably think I can pull myself up by my bootstraps still and are waiting for me to realize what a silly goof I've been. "He's just dramatic, you know how he is, he'll come around once he's settled down."

No one wants to save me, and I don't see a reason to save myself. Looks like tomorrow night might be it. Huh. You think I'd be like "oh just one or two things more, let me do this or that, make sure I experience this one last time before I go." But no... not at all. I'm like... whatever. Nothing that normally strikes my interest isn't even moving the meter right now. I honestly think I'm gonna go take a shower and go to bed soon fucking gods damn this is so boring.