amarkumar2020

[a-concert-just-for-me]

You ever go through your notes app to clear stuff out and find a poem you made from a year ago? Then you think damn. Girl, you were really going through it 😳

(I am Medicated™️ correctly now and don’t feel this way anymore, so I don’t mind sharing. I like this one actually, after some distance)

Blood tw

Bi(r)ds

Doctors John and Julie Gottman, couples specialists of the Gottman Institute, invented an interesting theory of how humans connect with one another. They describe humans’ attempts to connect as “bids for connections.”

A bid for connection is “an attempt to get attention, affection, and/or acceptance."

It makes sense.

When in a logical mood, one can understand how important the call and response nature of bids are as the building blocks of trust. Humans are no different from birds singing the other half of a melody to join each other in holy bird matrimony.

But the other times, when you’re sitting alone—When there’s no other metaphorical dumbass bird to sing back to you—these constant, easy transactions you see between others blind your sight and fill you with misplaced rage.

(You see bids in the way your friends hold hands with their partners, in the way their lips curl up in amusement as they make the unspoken decision to sit even closer to one another)

You see bids when you’re out shopping alone, in the way you watch parents hold car doors open for their own parents.

You see bids when children are skipping down wet sidewalks, in the way they never stray too far from their mother’s worried hand.

You see bids when girls look at each other and laugh about jokes only they understand, in the way they take photos of one another to preserve their faces into film.

(Why can’t you have that?)

(What’s wrong with you?)

Let’s go back to birds. Birds are easier than humans.

Have you ever heard of the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō bird?

Maybe not. They’re gone now. They were left behind as humans destroyed their land.

(They don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, it seems)

But for a while, there was one left, holding out hope.

The senior scientist that recorded his last call on tape stated, "He is the last male of a species singing for a female who will never come."

How awful it must have been to have kept singing and singing,

Only to be met with silence.

One can only imagine that when the scientists came by to record him,

He’d gotten his hopes up that someone would finally hear him

And do something about it,

But nothing came of it.

They could listen, but what could they do, really? The forest wasn’t built for him. Not anymore, at least.

(It was his problem, in the end)

The fact was, there was no one left like him. Or maybe there was?

After all, that was the hope he was clinging to as he broke the silence night after night.

(You bet the other animals grumbled at his chatter)

Maybe his kin was just on the other side of the world, across oceans, across groves of forests, across crumbling civilizations.

(Maybe he could find her?)

But this meant nothing to him if she was out of reach, didn’t it? If she was alive, she was impossible to find. She probably didn’t even need him. She could adapt. She could find a different singer. One that could be closer to her than the male could dream to be.

He didn’t know how to adapt.

(You wonder if his voice ever wavered)

(You know that yours has)

Enough about birds.

The term ‘bids for connection’ actually reminds most of a community event humans call auctions.

If bidding for connection could be likened to your blink-and-you’ll-miss-it attempts at dumping your thoughts in walls of text online

Then bids for connection on your end haven’t been going well for a while.

One would think from the way you’re always the one left in the empty auction hall with a fistful of dollar bills

That you’d make better choices than to raise your hand and make a pathetic offer.

But nowadays something in you smartens up the second your hand is even glanced at.

You crumple the money and throw it on the floor before they get the chance to call out your bid.

You reel the spool of courage back in. As you wind it back around the bobbin in your chest, it becomes dyed with red-hot shame.

It’s okay. Maybe the psychiatrists and therapists will be the ones to clinically listen to you cry and take pity on you.

They can listen, but what can they do, really? The world isn’t built for you. Not anymore, at least.

(It is your problem, in the end)

You don’t know how to adapt.

The Gottmans describe the responses to bids for connection as “turning towards, turning against, and turning away.”

When in a neutral mood, one can recognize that just because most turn away, or in layman’s terms, ignore you, it doesn’t mean everyone will.

But when you can’t take it anymore and impulsively act on your hope, you smash your hand through the frosted pane you view the world through. Retract it. Peek through the hole you made. Snarl at your moment of weakness. Turn away. Look back. See the blood running down the glass.

(You hope that someone sees it. You fantasize of someone seeing it. Maybe they’d wonder if you’re okay. Maybe they’d come looking for you)

(Or maybe they wouldn’t. And wouldn’t that be embarrassing)

(You need to get a rag to clean it up)

(You need to stomp the tape recorder into the fucking grass)

And isn’t that just like you?

Always

Bidding

and

(hiding)

Calling

and hearing

(silence)

[casyawn]

my mom just had a 7cm brain tumor removed and since she's woken up she's been talking nonstop about this dream she had about going to an art gallery full of colourful paintings by a 'homosexual artist' named klimsdorf who was ethereal and wise, both young and old... at first she was convinced he was a real person but after failing to find him online she's accepted he was a figment of her subconscious mind and is now determined to bring him to life via painting his portrait herself. she's 67 and has never drawn in her life. and now this. blorbo from her tumor

[razzafrazzle]

Just Checking In! (aka Something About Red Triangles)

[bird-prince-art]

friend made my birthday cake

[valtsv]

stuck between "psychological horror statement" and "objectively the funniest thing you could say to your real flesh and blood dad" in the father's day card aisle

[desperatepleasures]

one time I used the ben affleck smoking reaction image in the family group chat and my mom replied with the funniest possible response which was: "mommy doesn't know who the guy is???" and that phrase has not left my brain since. I'll see blorbos on my dash that I don't recognize and I'll be like well it seems mommy doesn't know who the guy is.

[podcastwizard]

you know that post that's like "if thinking naruto would be proud of you for brushing your teeth gets you to brush your teeth go for it" well today i texted my friends and asked them to pretend to be wizards sending me on a grand quest to eat lunch and buy hand soap and it worked so well i put a load of laundry in and did the dishes too so. i don't know what the lesson is here but maybe give that a try

[jammboe]

Pangaea miku

[evidently-endless]

i think we should remind musicians they can absolutely make up little stories for their songs btw. it doesn’t have to be about them at all. you can invent a guy and put him in situations to music. time honoured tradition in fact.

[wolfertinger666]

self portrait

(He/him) 🏳️‍⚧️

[theboxfort]

Peace and love

[bonesandthebees]

one of the most infuriating things about becoming an adult is when you realize that it actually is 10x easier to solve problems by making a phone call vs literally any other communication method

[snakesinsocks2005]

Pin for survivors

[sadclowncentral]

my family is fucking addicted to macgyvering and it's becoming a problem. every time something in this house breaks, instead of doing the sensible thing of replacing it or calling someone qualified to fix it, we all group around the offending object with a manic look in our eyes and everyone gets a try at fixing it while being cheered on or ridiculed by the rest.

it's a beautiful bonding activity, but the "creative" fixes have turned our house into a quasihaunted escape room like contraption where everything works, but only in the wonkiest of ways. you need a huge block of iron to turn on the stove. the oven only works if a specific clock is plugged in. the bread machine has a huge wood block just stapled to it that has become foundational to its function. sometimes when you use the toaster the doorbell rings. and that's just the kitchen.

it's all fun and games until you have guests over and you have to lay out the rules of the house like it's a fucking board game. welcome to the beautiful guest room. don't pull out the couch yourself you need a screwdriver for that, and that metal rod makes the lamp work so don't move it. it also made me a terrifying roommate in college, because it makes me think i can fix anything with enough hubris and a drill. you want to call the landlord about a leaky faucet? as if. one time my dad made me install a new power socket because we ran our of extension cords

[thattripleabattery]