#wherre it actually went was . ..........

[dreampearls]

it's so scary when I see people praise genshins writing esp when they say the sumeru archon quest had the best writing like We are playing the same game right

[immamapletreekid]

so normal about them

AJSJFKDHAJSFJDHAHSKGLDLAINANDKEKQJNCLEJQJCLWIQJCMSKAJZLF

[tea-and-secrets]

i might be aroace but i feel like its hard to really say for sure because i havent even seen anyone else my own age in, like, months, so it's kinda no wonder I haven't been attracted to anyone in a while. That also makes it kinda irrelevant to consider whether or not i actually am aro/ace... it's not going to affect my life in the immidiate future, so i just stop thinking about it...

i guess id be fine with identifying as asexual. i actually thought i might be years ago, then i started having crushes on people and went "oh i guess not" but then after that i eventually realsied that sexual attraction and romantic attraction are two different things (i didn't know the word aromantic back then) and honestly I can't say I've ever wanted to have sex with anyone.

I mean, I've wanted to have a girlfriend before, (both in terms of wanting to be with specific people I had crushes on, and in terms of general aimless desire to be with someone), but I've never wanted to have sex with any specific person, nor have I ever had the urge to have sex, which apparently most people, like, really really do have?

but i mean. i also get really horny and jerk off to hentai, so-

But i feel like identifying as aromantic would be more sad (FOR ME PERSONALLY. PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THIS AS A STATEMENT ON AROMANTICISIM AS A WHOLE). I've always seen the perspective of aromantic people as just not really caring about romance, and if they felt like they were doing something wrong by not falling in love it was just because of, like, society telling them how they're meant to be and stuff. But, like, I do want to fall in love with someone. I'd like to be in a relationship. I feel like I'd be missing out on something if I went my whole life without ever being in love. But at the same time, I also feel like I wouldn't feel... that bad about it... and when people on this blog confess that they;re in love with their best friend and stuff... the way they describe it is so totally unlike anything I've ever felt about anyone....

and you know what, I really really hate how sex is, like, an expected part of all romantic relationships. Like oh, if I like someone im expected to have to fuck them like it's a duty? will they take it as an insult if I don't want to? can I not just sleep with someone (in a non-innuendo meaning) or be intimate with them without it being necessarily sexual? Is horniness even real or did one piece make it up?

oh god dont even get me started on how complciated attraction is... if i talk about that it'll be twice as long as everything ive already written so far...... how is seeing a pretty person supposed to make you feel? how much are you allowed to like someone based on physical attraction before it becomes "shallow"? how do you tell the difference between sexual and romantic and aesthetic and magnetic attraction? wherre's that damn fourth chaos emerald?

OH HEY I CAN TURN THE LETTERS PINK

(thank you for witnessing)

.

[fandom-venturer]

NEVER shut up about Mia Fey/lh

!! Every almost Christmas Mia Fey will be haunting my dash. Like, Mia Fey is one of those characters that get killed to jump start the narrative but it didn't stop her to get such depth and interesting background that ahain, no pun intended, haunts the marrative.

It's hard for me to complain with her getting killed early because while I do love seeing more of her, she's done perfectly well!! She's part of the backbone of the narrative. I'm actually happy with how she is.

Phoenix Wright, in no shape or form is biologically related to the Feys but is the mirror of his mentor, an extention to her life from the mannerisms and continuing/finishing her life's mission. (Not only by solving the case of the Fey's but also filling in the eldest sibling support that Mia left behind!!)

ALSO HER DYING BEFORE HER BELOVED EVEN WOKE UP RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH She died not only solving the Fey case but also no being able to witness Diego wake up but she was fine with it because her trusted student is right there.

Mia Fey, upon the disappearance of her mother, wakes to the world wherr she has to fill in her space, but she couldn't stay because that would mean she would have to fight her sister for a responsibility she never wanted anyway (Mia enthusiasts would probably gut me for this because I know it's not explicitly said but I think Mia has conflicted feelings towards Kurain as a whole) and went out to the world to find out what happened to their mother because why isn't anyone more concerned about this? There's got to be more. So she became a lawyer, this is not what she was taught growing up but it feels right.

Mia Fey and Kurain.. I feel like she has conflicted about Kurain. On one hand that's her family, her memories of Ma and sister... she loves her ma and sister so by extention there's her love for Kurain but I think she also doesn't approve of the culture around it? Or atleast it doesn't feel like it's for her but she will support her sister from a distance either way.

[winter-spark]

Now that repeat lead are full fledged a thing Citron & Itaru should be coleads again but this time Citron's the lead.

Initially that was it but honestly honestly I was making a mental joke to mysel that I like alot so like now I'm like yes. See I was gonna joke about Itaru then being the one to help Citron w/ his siblings (bcuz SSRFam, I'm so freaking hilarious) & then I was like wait. That could be a viable plot point.

Like like like yea, sure sure Masumi helped him w/ Tangerine and Azuma helped him w/ Orange & Navel. And sure the the Spotlight wherr he and Guy went to Zafra showed all four getting along better but but it's still early on. Citron has not mastered the art of reading Orange & Navel they barely see each other so maybe it could be something like a communication issue. Or maybe it's the forst time they're gonna be at Mankai. Whatever it is, Itaru is actually a decent pick for colead. Because! He's a younger sibling! Who's butt heads w/ his older sibling! But the care is still there!

& yea yea yea sure like Itaru & Konomi are pretty darn different from Citron & Orange & Navel but like. There was still the bit of a not full understanding. Like like Itaru loves & respects his sister but SSRFam was him realizing how much she just genuinely has wanted to help and look out for him, how much she's been showing she cares about him. & thus he wanted to show her his appreciation of her and reassure her he's okay now. & like that's freaking beautiful.

& yes, I haven't solidly gotten to point yet but I think some of you might get what I'm gonna say already and that's Itaru thus gets it. He gets it. So he could either be able to give Citron some possible perspective. Or! Maybe! He can empathize/give some perspective to Orange & Navel. Well I still feel like Orange avoids him if plausible. So maybe just Navel.

Ooo Navel development would be neat. They'd do it wrong but I'd find a way to make it work I'm a professional. What if it's just Navel there & they struggle to fond a coomon ground of interests or just to talk to each other or reading each other's emotions? Idk. But yes.

(I was just slapped in the face with this thought so I had to share it thanks for listening.)

[presumenothing]

ooohhhh permission to word dump in your ask box??

but no my head is mostly [happy static], i'm just thinking a lot about names and how the 'infantilizing' joke name JollyBaby uses as its public name isn't all THAT dissimilar from "Murderbot", in that can probably both be taken as jokes on the way humans perceive them, except "Murderbot" is private because identity and perception and direction are things it's still struggling with, and the name "SecUnit" is safe, allowing an amount of ambiguity and freedom with regards to "feelings" and "friendship" and "having to decide your life's direction for yourself"

like, yeah humans do basically see SecUnits as murderbots, which is funny and a joke because it's wrong - SecUnit is not a bot, and it is not optimized for Murder; that isn't its job because it is not a combat bot and why would it need to spend so much time babysitting humans then. but also it deactivated its governor module after an incident where it killed its clients, and it isn't actually sure how or why that went down. so maybe "murderbot" isn't so wrong. which is not very funny. and even in NE, Thiago is very pointed about insinuating that SecUnit could have left some Targets alive, and either chose not to or can't help defaulting to killing. which, SecUnit doesn't think he's right or anything, but it rankles. and it Knows that calling itself "murderbot" is going to go down so badly

and then you have Murderbot 2.0, who does not have any of that, uh. baggage. 2.0 does not consider its name private because 2.0 knows exactly what it's for, why it's here, wherr it's going, and how to get to the finish line, and none of that is in conflict with its designation as "Murderbot". 2.0 has its "win condition" written in.

and at the end of Network Effect, seeing SecUnit verbalize a sense of belonging (not as an object, but as a person-with-a-Home) as well as a desire and direction. and surrounded by people who would hear "Murderbot" and associate it with security rather than The Terminator. hhhhgghogh

i think this turned out both longer and more incoherent than i planned for but mobile is a finicky creature that will not let me scroll up or edit so i am very sorry but ALSO thanks So Much for being the push that got me to finally pull this out of my eternal "to read" list. aaaa

ok first of all yall have 24/7 permission to come and word dump in my inbox anytime over whatever intersecting interests we have

and secondly "murderbot as a name is a sort-of joke except it's Not Funny" is a good point!! i guess BabysittingConstruct was taken?

[rest of text under cut]

it's that one night vale tweet that goes like "confused? sounds like you're human. good luck!" except it's not just humans (the audience is shocked and offended). life is so much simpler when you're just MurderWare 2.0: killware on your planet, having perfect alignment between its name and purpose? it's more likely than you think!

and that just brings So Many questions. at which point post-ganaka pit and/or the hack did 1.0 decide on a name? (or even decided to have one?) imo it's interesting that 2.0 has enough of 1.0's memory archives to recognisably be murderbot but doesn't automatically Nope at using murderbot as a name. 2.0's name/purpose alignment aside, it also means that whatever memories 1.0 felt was enough to maintain 2.0's integrity/prevent a killware spree did not also contain the idea that P.S. Hey We Don't Tell People We're Called Murderbot Thanks!!!! different subsets of memories or something.

(2.0 does point out this wasn't in its instruction set, but tbh it's pretty understandable that 1.0 didn't put it in, given it would obviously never think to use it. maybe it assumed 2.0 would use its local feed address if needed?) (except killware ain't got hardware lmao)

this is getting as long as your ask but names are just Very Neat. rereading the setting-feed-ID bit in fugitive telemetry and on the one hand i appreciate that indah didn't insist on it providing a ~Real~ Name Which Is Not SecUnit. but. on the other hand, this is (a) in line with her desire to post a warning of DANGEROUS SECUNIT ON BOARD *siren noises*, and (b) possibly closer to how inanimate software like secsystem is treated, since many preservation bots seem to have names (though idk if they set those in their feed)

ANYWAY names as in "word you call yourself" vs "identifier you want others to call you", etc etc. i don't think this was coherent either but i'm glad i managed to get you around to reading the books!! also you should check out the two short stories if you haven't already

[chowtrolls]

Oh shit fam here comes dat boi!! It’s Cilvir!! And what’s this? He’s got a present for Chow! What’s inside? SURPRISE!!! It’s a Stuffed… animal! Straight out of The Nightmare Before Christmas, this yellow child is obviously handmade! The green button eyes are off-center and its blue nose is awkwardly adorable!

Of fucking course, he catches you walking back after training. You probably smell gross, certainly don’t look wonderful. This was awkward. But your anxieties melt away as you open the gift. 

It was odd looking, but actually really cute. You could see the care that went into it, and it was really sweet. You suppose he really did keep his promise from the first time you met him. It didn’t help that you had been planning on asking him to be with you. You were supposed to give him something, but this works too. 

“Cilvirr, did you make this yourrself? Wherre did you learrn how to..?”

[airmom]

I think he thinks that I'm crazy because I saw him get out of the bus to another bus stop and I went my way to my house speaking to myself and then walked again to the bus stop wherr he was to talk to him, and when I asked him his sign he said astrology is for crazy people, idk, I feel like he doesn't want to show his emotions you know?

“Astrology is for crazy people,” lmaooo.I don’t know, even the Capricorn didn’t say anything bad when I said I had an astrology blog, he just made it seem he thought it was cool. But anyways, that’d be so unreasonable if he thought you were crazy just because you had your beliefs. Although, I don’t know what this has to do with him showing his emotions, because they’re actually straight-forward. Do you always talk to him?

[tdrcycle09]

Mini Challenge #6 - Left To Your Own (De)Vices

For this week’s mini challenge, our sickening seven gave us makeup inspired by things that they indulged in. Here’s what they did!

Analyse Thropic | Alcohol

Hey jufgess its meeee analyze Thropicv and mY vice mjni chalemnhe i chose aclohol becaus it s v on brand for me and i also wantefd to drinkk to make thesre accesorise but i think i deank to much because thenb i starteed seeing douvble and i didnt kno wherre to put my makeuvpo on my facer n i was taking my picvitrs for the submissoin and i had to trhow up but i madde it in tim and tookk anothers selfie fro youuu i m gonna go textt my exes now byeeee

Lila: Ugh, I feel sick when I look at you, all those bottles and wine corks are making me think of all the days after hungover and being ill in bed. I think this is such a creative makeup honestly, i get that seeing double, beer-goggle like idea and its really fun and totally works with the connotation of drinking - a vice indeed! You did put a second brow next to the amazingly snatched on in the middle of your forehead, however your accessory kind of clunkily covers it. I do wish you made your pupils a little bigger as it kind of gets more of that wicked detail in there that when people get drunk, their pupils dilate a larger amount - however, I’m not pressed at this concept at all! Great job!

Letha: This is really cool, Analyse. You really created a concept and commited to its execution. You’ve got accessories, an outfit, even a toilet. I will say the technical aspects of the makeup sort of blunder for me. The doubled features mostly work (one of the lashes on the lower eyes is a bit wonky), but it just gets a bit too muddy/blurry in some areas for for me personally. That being said, it’s a really fun and creative look, good job! 

Toni: To start off I think this is a better optical illusion makeup than the actual optical illusion makeup you did before, because the extra parts or doubles seem so well done. I don't know how but the colors on the fake eye makeup seem so much more brighter than they do on your actual eye so I’d love to figure out how to make it the same. I like the accessories I think a little bit more time could have been used on them to really make them look a bit more interesting like you could have filled the bottled with dyed water just to add pops of color.

Avana Noir | Ice Cream

Hello judges and tdr community bitches! lets jump right into this! so for this challenge my vices that i usually have aren't rally physcial except for one...ICE CREAM. let me tell yall. I love ice cream so much. like bruh, Its so bad for me but A BITCH IS STILL GONNA EAT IT. so for this lewk I wanted to go for like a thing where I love ice cream so much that I have become ice cream ! This was really fun to do! 

Lila: HOLY SHIT. Coming from last week, I was coming into this mini expecting very little, but you proved my gay ass wrong - I love it. It’s giving me KAWS artist vibes with old school grafitti and honestly, without your heavy makeup around the eyes you look so damn beautiful. The outline of the cream on the white kind of spurred me to think you could’ve blended this out way, way more than you did, and I would’ve either painted your ears or even added some cones on your ears, get all Katamari Damacy with it because it’s super true to your aesthetic, just push it a lot futher than this. Overall, I love this, great work this week!

Letha:  Avana, this is such a fun look! It’s drippy, messy, and really makes sense with the vice you chose. The neckpiece is a fun addition, as are the ice cream cones. I’m not loving the plain boy hair, though. I wish you had either slicked it back and covered it in chocolate sauce or found some other way to incorporate it into the paint. But other than that, I really do like it, great job!

Toni: I wanna li li li li lick you from your head to your toes. Oh this is such a sweet look….get it….sweet? I really like this and I think this is a really nice step outside the box for you and such a creative paint. I do have issues with it thought. I wish that the colors were more pigmented, and that the lines were more defined and darker as well. I like the sprinkles, they were cute. I think instead 3 cones you could have rolled up paper and made one large cone and I wish you had a wig on or something other than just your boy hair.

Lexi Lamour

A vice, by definition, is an immoral or wicked behavior or personality trait. For this challenge I went with the latter and picked my competitive pride. Competition can sometimes get the best of me and I greatly apologize to anyone or any relationships that I have that I've let it effect in this race. It's something that I'm really trying to work on and grow from moving forward. One image shows my softer side/attitude trying to resist the competitiveness coming out, and the other shows the attitude of someone consumed by competitive drive.

Lila: This is such a beautiful makeup honestly - it’s simplistic in design, yes, but it hits home quite a lot. Vulnerability is a powerful state of mind that not many people get an opportunity to express, let alone express it too. I love the gold accents, really exciting and it got me twisting my head because I thought the coin was some sort of lense from a pair of sunglasses - it’s a coin! For me, your brow could be a lot sharper than it is. It’s getting a little blurred in this makeup, just throwing a little bit of concealer in a lighter colour and fix that up, but never the less, great job!

Letha: Heya Lexi! So this look is very interesting. I can see competitiveness as a vice so it makes sense, it’s out of the box and not one I would immediately think of. I really like the eye patch thingy you constructed on the right, it’s really fun and is easily my favorite part of the look. The hair is fierce for sure, it’s great drag hair. The other eye makeup is pretty good too, and the nails/accessories help tie the look together. The lip throws me off a bit, I think, it’s very shiny and not well defined. All in all, I like it, but I wish it had been pushed a little farther creatively. 

Toni: To start im glad you do have self awareness because sometimes the competition can get the best of everyone. I think this is a very pretty look but I think there's a lot more that could have been done. I would have liked to see the gold stars maybe dot off into your wig on that side even if they aren't stuck on but held on using bobby pins. I would have loved to see you try something like making a star shape out of the other eye with makeup to add a level of creative makeup and I don't think that lip is working at all, my suggestion for a gold lip would be to do a base color of a matte lip, maybe black,and then go over with a hold shadow to have the color there but still mask your natural lip shape.

Marcella Fox | Reading

Marcella has a lot of vices: red hair, metallics, triangles… But if there’s one thing Marcella can’t truly resist, it’s READING. I was so disappointed this mini wasn’t the reading challenge that I knew it had to form the basis of my look (Also, the real life male human who plays Marcella does have a bit of a book vice going on currently). I’m giving SHADY smokey eyes and COLD metallic lips, and my HARSH expression is saying “Everything about me is better than you”. Brows, earrings, fascinator and boa provided curtesy of Aldous Huxley.

Lila: W o w. Breathtaking and absolutely clever, just call yourself Matilda henny because you psyched me up for this. It’s giving me like Elizabethan era which is probably the elements of your signature ginger wig and the ruffling of the paper pages from your books. Your face is just stunning and you capture such perfect conceptual images, so dynamic and graceful. ONE tiny *tiny* problem I have is something that was brought up with me last cycle - using glossy or satin lipsticks to overdraw always produce this visible crease where your natural lip ends - the way to overcome this is to dab a smidgin of highlight on this area to kind of hide the crease created by the lip and the skin. Overall, however, Excellent work!

Letha: This look is total high fashion, Marcella. I think the accessories, hair, and makeup really tell a story, wink wink nudge nudge. The metallic lip prominently displays your real lip line, which works from these angles as a sort of highlight, but I’m not sure it’d be the look from other points of view. The eyes are well blended, and you know how much I love blush so that works for me. I suppose my only main hurdle with this look is viewing reading as a vice. I think you were going for shade/reading as your vice, which I’m not so sure that even that’s a vice, but the wires sort of get crossed once you made it literary. I do still love the look, though!

Toni: Hello dear, let me start off by saying the shape you have created is very interesting and pleasing to my eyes and I do like your use of paper not only in acessories but as well as on your brows. I do wish the brows were placed a bit higher so it doesn’t look like you have garage doors because its throwing me off a bit and I wish you had maybe found a way to make it look like there were words (even if you made or got like a scroll work/ cursive stencil) and done that over your forhead or your chest, somewhere so it looks like theres writing on you, i think that would have been a cool extra deminison to add to the look.

Paprika

So I took a little more of a conceptual route to this challenge, and my vice was vanity cause im a cocky bitch. I made a lil planchette headpiece thing with a smashed compact mirror (6 years bad luck or some shit ik ik) and went for an almost demonic feel with the mug because I feel like the idea of vices and vanity itself is really dark and i wanted to give the like, “sinful” vibe bc vanity IS one of the seven sins. But yeah thats my look xoxo pap

Lila: I love how editorial you are. You give me such an Adore Delano vibe in this challenge and you remind me of like the anti-Virgin Mary? While it’s quite an effortless looking piece, it’s just so capitvating to look at. One thing I want you to work on is trying different lip shapes. Your lips are always one and one, there’s no cupid’s bow! Try experimenting with this and I’m sure you’ll find one that you’re attracted to. Overall, great job with this!

Letha: Paprika, this is a pretty look, and I can see “vanity”, but it’s not really the strongest for me, creatively. I think the headpeice is cool, but I wish you had brought the reflective elements more cohesively thoughout your makeup. I see you did a lighter color on the lid, imagine if that had been in the shape of a mirror, with your eyeliner being the handle with some filligree added? A highlight on the lips could have been cool as well. Things like that would have really helped elevate the look, which isn’t bad by any means, it’s just pretty simple. Your paint is getting better all the time, just remember to push yourself creatively!

Toni: I like your choice of vice because I think its one as drag queens most of us have. I think that the choice to do a darker look works in your favor because its something tht you haven’t shown us but over all this reads as lacking for me, i think a way you could have really amped it up would be to have covered parts of your face in the mirror bits so it looks like youre reflecting back at yourself and its kinda meta if that makes sense.

Phoebe St. Jefferson

Hi judges! For my mini I decided to do Survivor as my vice since I just can't get enough of trashy reality tv! I decided to incorporate the jungle into my face, and try to really sell my expression. I'm wearing my survivor buff and holding my huge ass immunity idol! Phoebe! She voted out her mom!

Lila: UGH. I wanted to win this season of Blood Vs Water how dare you ya little game changer. I love your props, it’s extremely cute and i love that this is your vice, however there’s not much creative makeup going on here. Your natural face is really shining here, however I wanted to see some sort of 3-D aspect in here on your face - look at your competition’s, a little bit of foliage you could steal from your university’s trees or flowers - just to kind of bring that little POP to your look. You know? The tribe has spoken, and it’s a good job at best.

Letha: Pheebs, when you were talking to the judges about your concept and you listed your plan of elements to include, I was really excited because there was so much that you could have gone over the top with. With the look as it stands, I’m getting more… “camp counselor” than “Survior”.  I think the hair and the makeup could have been wilder/rattier to more tell the story, which right now both are just a bit too tame/clean. Overall, it’s okay for me.

Toni: Phoebe… i’m not really impressed with this look to be honest. I think the issue here seems to be you focused to much on the survivor aspect of it, i think if you had just done “reality tv” or even “tv” you would have given yourself to get a much more conceptual and interesting makeup. Your eyemakeup and brow is pretty and constantly getting better but the vines seem to be a bit faded and the white could do with a bit out black outlining and I also think you could have done a wig so it has fake leaves and sticks in it to make it look a bit more wild rather than jsut using boy hair.

Sugar Monroe | Smoking

Hiiiiieeeeeee! :3 so, for this mini, we had to be inspired by our vices. Well, mine isn’t really a “good” one, per se. I smoke. A lot. And so I took inspiration from that to create this ashy, burned cigarette look.

*Sugar Monroe does not condone smoking children. It’s a filthy habit. Don’t start.*

Lila: Hello, Ms. Monroe! First off, a step in the right direction for me is the burn marks and scarring - really exciting and your makeup is always such a beautiful clean look. For me, personally, I think you could’ve draped some of the texture over the cigarette carton or something, just to make it more grotesque essentially. Loving the cleanliness of this, despite its punk-eqsue roots, and the black pigment on your neck gradiating out really adds so much to this concept. For me, more cigarettes in the hair would’ve pushed this a lot further and watching your colouration on the scar, but for me, great work this week!

Letha: Sugar, this look is…. Smokin’. Hahahaha bad jokes aside, I really do like the makeup. The elements you have, like the smoky eye and the classic lip, make sense with your vice, and I really enjoy the hair and the bitch brow. The cigarette eyepatch is o-kayyyy, not my fave part of the look, as it sort of covers up your burn makeup, which is pretty good, from what I can see.  Overall, good work on this, girl!

Toni: I’ll start by saying I like this a lot more than the first one you showed us because I think this one is a lot more conceptual. I’m glad you added accessories and I think they all make sense and really show the idea, I do wish there was a bit more of an ash aspect because if youre gonna paint it as a bad vice I wanna see the “bad to it”. I think the burns are a nice step into the pool of new and creative techniques and ideas from you but i need to see you diving head first into the pool for the main.

[thejonymyster2]

idk h0w2 dealw my feelingemotions/s. like idk even how 2 identify them or like where 2 even begin with them so i just shove them out with addrenatline. 

it deostn rlly work id=ton think

i gotta head that dont feel 2 good . idk whats wrong and thats always how it feels sometiems. its the whole feeling. i dont know whats wrong is how i feel and thats whats wrong. the inside feels not all there . numb even.. not in a depressed emtpty way but physically numb. my head. numb. not my body. my body just feels tiredwea,k.

opions: do nothing

buy weighted blanket

seek new counseling

mske new more lists

im also quite afraid and take msany actions against fsallig apart physically. i like tight closed spaces wherre i feel secure, i like beging covered up because otherwise i feel like im coming apart. i wear my seatbelt when the cars not moving

options: do nothing

buy weighted blanket

seek new counseling

make more new listss

this is my best post actually and i was very nevrous to start it and my fingers were weak and i could barely type so i just started one letter at a time and went back and fixed a bunch and it turned okut out A O k. maybe

well see how it turns out i love you iao mua mua mua

[janiklandre-blog]

Sunday, April 30, 2017

Cool, sunny Sunday morning, 9:25 a.m. on April 30th, 2017   a somewhat lonely weekend - as my old age weekends tend to be.My Catholic Worker involvement used to be stronger - have cited some reasons for discontent - but also the fact that short walks have become long is a factor. It is one avenue block - from the Bowery to second Avenue, and two city blocks away from my house - close to a quarter mile - less than five minutes in earlier days - now closer to ten, I will time it. The tediousness of my walking troubles me. On a Saturday I would go thereat noon for a lunch, at 5:30 for dinner and then check out the movie Bill A. is showing by 8 p.m. - I did see people but have come to realize how little in a way of conversation I exchange with them. My teeth have greatly restricted what I can eat - altogether I find my interest in food fading - still eat enough to maintain the unwanted weight I started putting on when I reached 50. There are those whose 80's are their 30's - they maintain their girlish figures, dye their hair, exercise, groom with care, dress elegantly - never have given up the way they lived in their 30's - are admired, esteemed, cherished, their phones keep ringing, they are computer savvy, use all the technology that can be used, travel widely, entertain - are at all times sweet and even tempered, radiant, exuding optimism - are shown on TV, written up in major publications - held up to the rest of us with what is possibly, showing us how miserably we have failed. And yet - while I mist certainly am not among these top - how many percent - I still am fairly far up on the scale.  - for one thing I am still alive, quite a number of my class of 1953 at Mount Holyoke College are no longer alive. We know little of the less fortunate, they do not report in the alumnae journal. Perhaps I made it to the top of my class at the University of California in 1955 - getting an M.A, in German studies in nine months with straight A's and a professor writing to me later, you were the best student we ever had. Another professor did offer me a job in Pennsylvania - something Mellon U. By then I had come to live in New York City - this center of the universe - where I may be one of the millions who try to make it here, facing this incredible competition. Should I have looked for a small pond? Too late. Here I am sitting once again alone in the quiet computer room - no pain - my mind still working - looking at my smart phone next to me, that is not ringing - wherre I can make use of a tiny fraction of its countless functions. I am also one of those nervously most of the time searching for it when it rings, only not to have gotten it in time, immediately answering a call that then often is not picked up. Have not figured out why that happens.My heart beats joyfully when I do hear the nice ring tone my son installed - luckily only good news to this day.All the terrible news I read in the New York Times - just spent $6 for the Sunday Times. Did read about the thousands marching yesterday - my sons were among them - I used to be for years and years until the short walks became long. Scared by North Korea news. While I am spending solitary time at the computer many of the people around me these days are now in church or ready to go to church. I did spend $9 yesterday for the May 1 copy of the New Yorker to read about Bannon - then began to read the following story, forgot to bring it down with me, will tell you name of the man tomorrow - he has been doing a long time blog dealing openly and honestly with his personal concerns but also his concerns with God and religion and one million people read his blog. Interesting. Bannon. My son brought to my attention a mention in the long story of Synergia Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico where I visited a friend, she has died, in 1977 I believe. I have written about her, this visit, the ranch at length in my memoirs - still, have also come to realize by now how happily people as they get old and older tell stories, write stories, over and over. Not being read by millions we hope, try to make sure our stories will be remembered for some years to come - have people still talking about us, keeping us alive. This story easily could become long - luckily I do find myself written out after a while. The friend living at Synergia Ranch at the time had changed her name from Thelma to Cassandra and used the name of the father of her four sons, Baer. She was born the same year I was born, 1932 - I met her at a meeting in New York where we were in search of urban communes - was it 1969? - at that time still quite feasable in New York. She was a student - a brilliant student - of anthropology and by 1977 had passed Ph.D. qualifying exams at the New School in New York - notorious for having students spend  endless years on disseertations, never getting doctorates. Also by 1977 the bottom had fallen out from humanities. She saw herself in Santa Fe as an observant participant and she gathered reams and reams of material on the man mentioned in the New Yorker, John Allen and also on Synergia Ranch. It was by 1979 or so that she came back to live in New York (she had been born in Queens) - where she had secured early a rent controlled apartment on the corner of 9th Street and second avenue - it was in terrible shape, the landlord tried hard to get rid of her - it had two entrances, one to a kitchen with a shower in a stall, then three more small rooms, the last with a separate entrance. Unable to find a job she struggled at reinventing herself, broke down and in the last years of her life - she lived into the 90's perhaps even a bit longer - she did establish a community in this small space: a young gay man, a painter whose mentor she became and whom she loved dearly and a home health aid provided to her by medicaid - a Carribbean woman whose children she helped with school. That woman came for the day. All these people and three of her sons and a woman named Nancy, daughter of a famous TV personality with a house on Nantucket where she went with her gay friend - whom they took for cruises on their yacht, but not her. Ageing was not easy for her and  it was another woman - an Auschwitz survivor who also had passed New School qualifying exams - bravely worked the crummiest of jobs - she really took loving care of Cassandra as life got harder and harder for her and she became ill with cancer - and from her, Helen, I heard more about Cassandra's latter life and last days. From Cassandra I had heard endless details of Synergia Ranch that I briefly visited - that summer I met up with my son in Santa Fe - he these days listens on his computer to stories that interest him. Bannon also had been mentioned to me by a park friend, who found him fascinating. I until now have refused to take an interest in all those people around our president - all new names to me - and actually not one I want to know more about. Having been briefly involved with Synergia Ranch - and I am afraid the literally tons of material Cassandra assembled with the hope of making it into a novel - I wonder does any of it still exist? The gay friend held on to the apartment for a while, I still ran into him a few times and then lost track - he lost the apartment years ago. Once Cassandra had asked me to store for her her brilliant poetry - it burned in my 2000 fire. Bannon so the story says was hired by Bass, the oil millioner - to find out about millions a Bass brother had put into a venture called the Biosphere - of course I heard about from Cassandra in detail - a weird venture, later taken up by Columbia U., I saw it mentioned in the paper but missed hearing about Bannon confronting the Synergia Ranch people. Of course all these events that are momentous for a moment, totally pale considering events since then. Inadvertantly I now know more about Bannon than I cared to know - and about the man with the million readers of his blog, whose name I will mention tomorrow. The only live contact yesterday was L.P. - another very interesting woman - she may also show up in my memoirs where I indiscretely mentioned people by name - in its unedited 1000 page version a few have made attempts to read some - but any of you that I may have mentioned should not have too much to worry about at this moment. Writing does bring things to consciousness - how many interesting people there have been in my life - who like myself also, a number despite of great efforts, never have made it above the surface. It was L.P.s birthday yesterday and she asked me to meet her for a couple of hours. I came to the Holley statue in Washington Square Park - mobbed - a bit early. I watched a man who has an odd relationship with pigeons, they actually do flock to him upon his call, but then he also get extremely angry with people who interfere in some way - he was yelling and screaming but I could not understand what he was saying. Masses of pigeons surround him, sit on him, he feeds them then they take sudden loud flight, scaring many. A group of four, three women and one man, probably NYU film students had set up what looked like a video camera on a tripod, the "director" in mini jean shorts acting very important, giving endless directions to what looked very boring. Then two weird battery run vehicles passed - somewhat like cars kids drove in fairs, though those as I remember were attached by a pole to a ceiling. Finally some 20 odd women paraded by in red dresses with white hood - advertising a play, or a movie - the hand maidens, a book I read long ago. I glance at all these things in the nyt. L.P. and I went briefly to a diner corner 3rd street and 6th avenue - passing the Methodist church, now condos, that too played a role in my life. She was going to meet up with her family, some of whom live in New York, others not far. She sees a lot of them In the park I passed again the sad white mimic - he is so thin, standing on a post he brings. The man with the piano was playing, It was 3 p.m. by the time I was home. unable to reach my friend who now is the friend in the blog - her only identity here. I fell asleep. Went shopping. News that are no news. Then the long Bannon story kept me company - these writers are good writers and are putting a great effort assembling all the details on people of interest. Who have made it to the surface. 11:30 a.m.  See what I have to eat - canned tuna. Odwalla. Has nothing to do with what in theory I should be eating. Sunday Times. Plan to head for Central Park. Phone has not rung. Sweet, smiling Chinese lady has just arrived to watch her movies. Her husband is very sweet also. We can exchange five or six words. It is a live human contact. Adios, Marianne