thatgirlwiththeflower

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

The Late Traveller

I should have known, of course.

A little old hotel in the middle of nowhere, with a creaking wooden sign instead of neon? Red flag.

A hollow-eyed, weary-looking young woman at the desk who seemed hesitant to let me get a room? Red flag.

A picturesquely old-fashioned room with a patchwork quilt on the bed that smells a little too musty? HUGE red flag.

Only they’re actually not. Not the first two, anyway. I travel a lot. There are a lot more seems-haunted old-house-turned-traveller’s-rest places than most people think, and in my experience most night auditors are hollow-eyed, faintly eldritch, and disinclined to let someone check in just before dawn.

Of course, the patchwork quilt should have been a dead giveaway. Tired 80s decor and a chenille bedspread? Entirely normal. Patchwork quilt and nineteenth century charm for less than $100 a night? Sus. Very sus. Should have warned me then and there.

In my defense, I was really tired. I’d been driving for two nights and a day, I was exhausted, all my car snacks were gone, and I just wanted to close my eyes and get horizontal. I handed over some cash, stumbled upstairs, made sure the blinds were down, and passed out.

I didn’t wake up until late afternoon, and I felt like shit on a shingle when I did. It took me a couple of attempts to put on my pants and stumble out of the room to look for some sustenance. My expectations weren’t high, but most places at least have coffee-making facilities, and in a pinch a cup of coffee and chugging all the available milk will keep me going for a while. There might even be some of those little packages of cookies, which usually give me an upset stomach but are better than nothing.

There wasn’t a coffee station. What there was was a vending machine with a buzzing, flickering light inside it that made the dusty snacks look even less appealing than they already did.

I was debating whether to risk a can of soda of unknown brand and vintage - sugar and caffeine don’t readily go bad, and I was starving - when I heard a little cough behind me. “Are you a guest, dear?” the old woman said when I turned around to blink at her. She was thin and tottering, faded-looking, and while there weren’t actually cobwebs on her, she looked as if there should be.

“Yes. Is there a kitchen or something where I can get some food from this century?”

Her eyes flicked away. “There’s a diner,” she told me. “Not far down the road. You should try there. I’m afraid the facilities here aren’t what they once were.” She sighed deeply.

Belatedly, my sense for the uncanny started to tingle. “So I should check out and keep moving, huh?”

“Yes, dear. If you can,” she added, and she glanced over her shoulder. “Before sunset.”

Aha.

Keep reading

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

Sometimes you gotta stop worrying about being the smartest and funniest person in the room and just enjoy being in a room with smart and funny people

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

everytime i hear someone call depression and anxiety ‘destigmatized mental illnesses’ i wonder how they react when they find out someone has spent weeks or months in bed or struggles to shower or eat

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

what do you mean the CDC just announced a deadly e. coli outbreak linked to mcdonald's quarter pounders

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

Passing on an important conversation I had with a family member the other day

Them: Gay people make me uncomfortable.

Me: (Queer, bluescreening) Uhhhhhhh

Them: I ean, I don't mind gay people, I just don't like the ones that are all in your face about it.

Me: What do you mean

Them: : I mean, like. It's fine if you're gay, you can be gay, that's not something you can change- there's just a time and a place, you know? You shouldn't be making it everyone else's business

Me: I don't know what you mean. Can you give me an example?

Them: Uhhhhh.

Them: Okay, so I was at a bar with my buddy a while back, right? And this gay person comes up to me, right, and they start flirting

Them: And I tell them, you know, I'm straight, and I'm married, right?

Me: Right

Them: And like. They kinda laugh it off, but they keep doing it. Making these comments, being all flamboyant, saying I have a nice ass, trying to give me their number in case I wanna "switch teams".

Them: And I'm sitting there like... hey, no problem with your whole lifestyle and all, but I told you I'm not interested. I'm married.

Them: That kinda thing. The whole "out and proud, cant shut me down" thing

Them: Like, leave that shit at home

Me:

Me: So it's like when a pretty lady is at a bar, and some guy comes over and won't leave her alone?

Them: Yeah

Me:

Me: So that's not a gay people thing, that's just flat-out sexual harassment

Them: what

Me: Your problem isn't gay people, it's assholes

Them:

Them: Well that sure would have sounded better, huh

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

"when i was your age, netflix came to our house in the mail" never gets old. they don't believe you, because they can't, because they cannot conceive the apparatus by which this would be true. but it is true. they mailed me season 1 of the sopranos with stamps. with fucking stamps man

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

There has been a lot of research about autistics over the years, but this one really took the cake!

This is what happened when researchers attempted to compare the moral compass of autistic and non-autistic people…

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

at some point we gotta acknowledge that getting the majority of your news and takes and general opinions from tumblr is not meaningfully different than getting it from tiktok even though on here it's in textual form. understanding the world through the lens of viral videos vs understanding it through breathless unsourced text posts written by dykeastarion69

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

I’m still on it boss

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

this is your gentle reminder to stop fighting against your adhd and instead structure your life around it

buy a pack of chapsticks and put one in the pocket of all of your coats and jackets because you always forget to bring one and chapped lips is sensory hell

leave important things where you can see them. if they go in a box or a drawer you will forget they exist

put any appointments or deadlines in your phone calendar As Soon As you get them. set a reminder for a week before, a day before, an hour before, as many as you need as often as you need them.

when that little voice in your head says "i dont need to write that down, ill remember it" that is the devil talking!!! write it down anyway!!

plan for down time. have a few hours at the end of every day to just do fun stuff like engage in your hyperfixations. even if you didnt get all of your work done that day, have the rest anyway. you probably spent the whole day beating yourself up for not doing what you Should be doing, so you still need the break.

if you never eat vegetables because its too much effort to chop and cook them, get the frozen or canned shit. it doesnt go off for ages and you just have to microwave it. theres no point buying fresh vegetables if they just keep going off and being left to rot in the bottom of your fridge

if you struggle to decide what to have for dinner every day, take the decision out of it. choose a set of meals and eat those on rotation until you get sick of them, then choose some new ones and do it again.

its not stupid if it works! our brains literally have a chemical deficiency. you are allowed to accommodate yourself. go forth and stop making your life more difficult than it has to be because "this shouldn't be this hard". it is hard, so make it easier.

[thatgirlwiththeflower]

The Kamala Harris campaign kicked out a prominent Muslim Democrat from the vice president’s rally in Royal Oak on Monday, further driving a wedge between the Democratic Party and Arab and Muslim Americans.

Ahmed Ghanim, a Democrat, says he accepted an invitation to the event and was seated in the Royal Oak Music Theatre when a campaign organizer ordered him to leave.

“She took me to the door, and she closed it, and I found two police officers waiting there, and she said, ‘You have to leave right now,’” Ghanim tells Metro Times. “I asked why she was kicking me out. She wouldn’t answer. I was very calmly asking why I was being kicked out.”

He continues, “I was just wearing a suit and a white shirt. I said, ‘OK,’ and I left. The police officer said, ‘You either leave now or I’ll put you in the back of my car.’”

Ghanim, who immigrated to the U.S. from Egypt in 2001 and is vehemently opposed to U.S. support for Israel’s military actions, says he still has been given no reason why he was removed from the event.