#my everything just hurts

[reinemichele]

I was lying on the couch with my glasses off, bc my head 🅱urts (as does my back <3 this is the rest of my life forever I can't fucking believe I have scoli-)

And then my brother walks into the room & tries to figure out what we're having for dinner, and I didn't want like the first 3 suggestions he had, so he like . moves forward, behind the back of the couch, so that he's in my line of sight, yeah?

And I'm like, staring into nothing bc no glasses = no see . I can't see anything that isn't 2 inches from my face, so I don't bother trying and just let my eyes take a break, like soundproof headphones but for your eyes <3 So I looked at his face briefly, to not be rude, & went back to aiming my eyes at the blurry ceiling

Anyway, my brother sighs and says, "I'm making a face at you but you can't see it . "

And I'm like . Unwilling to move or put my glasses back on . "Yeah I can't see it . Describe the face you're making?"

And he's like "I scrunched my nose up in irritation :/"

And I'm like, laughing, "Okay 👍🏻 noted . I should take my glasses off more often, that was really funny <3"

[akanemnon]

I don't like this place. It's turning everyone edgy and sad.

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[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

[kensatou]

you think YOU had a bad day at work?

bonus: sid shrieking "no!!!! NO!!!!!" loud enough to be heard in the stands and on camera

[basalting]

after jasons death bruce "accidentally" slips harvey a crowbar while hes in arkham and kisses his cheek and says, voice soft and colder than ice, "make him hurt for me honey"

it takes 6 guards to sedate and drag two face off the joker the next time two face sees him and for the rest of their lives as soon as harvey sees the joker he goes after him like a rabid dog.

[corpsentry]

pick your battles

[barghest-land]

ata tu corazón, mi amor, y arrástralo por la tierra

[emberglowfox]

who are you, when everything’s changed?

[teaboot]

tranny freak :)

[doctorsiren]

give this angle another tri

[hinamie]

summer is coming so i'm giving them the beach day they deserve

[drizzledrawings]

They are his dads ok

[wardingshout]

fast travel duck my beloved....

[bsof-maarav]

...בסוף מערב

Sometimes it feels like the west is made entirely of edge.

A non-Jewish woman told me that she was getting into lighting candles for Shabbat lately. I was afraid to say anything except, "Oh." Then she enthusiastically volunteered that it's because she's been getting very involved in "doing stuff against Israel," and that made her want to do "Jewish things."

The ghoulishness of it made me feel incoherent. This exchange happened awhile ago and it still feels like an existential asthma attack whenever it comes to mind, which is more often than I would like.

There is the unvarnished hate that nakedly says it wants you dead so that you're out of the way--that kind of hate says you have no value. And then there is this hate which says it values "you"--which means it wants to loot everything from you, everything, no matter how intimate, no matter how much it is something you can't take by force without killing it--it wants every part of you, wants to eat and wear it all. To eat you. To wear you. To make something "better" out of you, something more digestible, more to their liking.

I once read a memoir by a Jewish woman who accompanied her mother back to the German town where the mother had grown up. It was her mother's first time being back in that place since the Shoah. She was one of the only surviving members of her family, because they were able to send her away. Her daughter wrote about how this man from the town--a man who had appointed himself their "champion" and tour guide--showed them his "museum" that turned out to be full of objects looted from Jewish homes. Her mother noticed a kitchen implement, maybe a butter churn, some ordinary object that had belonged to her family, that she had once used. This man took it for his "museum" and showed it to them proudly.

[sleep-nurse]

loop

[boygirlctommy]

i love the bit from oct 17 2020 when tommy and quackity trapped wilbur in a cobblestone box to keep him from pressing the button... wilbur punching through the blocks with his bare hand to try to get to the button... tommy frantically replacing the block in front of him yelling for quackity to do something... the moment when tommy stops, blocks the exit, and tells wilbur to do it. press the button. but then theyd die with him. quackitys like "wait, wait-" but tommy holds his ground and wilbur. ohh wilbur. "why'd you have to make it so hard?"