Look at this big beautiful carpenter ant major from my Camponotus pennsylvanicus colony! I picked her up with the paint brush and just let her wander around on my hand for a bit. She’s so gentle and curious.
She’s so big you can really feel her walking over your skin. It tickles!
Pica.
I’m trying to clean.
Pica.
You could be anywhere! anywhere!
But somehow you’re here.
Pica.
I was stacking those!
ALT
The Horrid Dorid
[Image Description: A comic.
1. On the sea floor a knobby, rectangular slug-like creature with cute feelers shaped like bunny ears (the dorid) faces a cluster of barnacles. One barnacle says: “Oh No! A barnacle-eating dorid!”
2. The dorid has moved a little closer to the barnacles. A different barnacle exclaims “Run for your lives!”
3. The dorid is closer still, almost there. The barnacles say nothing. They have not moved (since they are barnacles.) ]
Photograph Showing Inventor Charles S.l Baker And His Assistant Demonstrating Heating Radiator System. 1906
[Image Description: A black and white photo of two distinguished looking Black men standing behind a contraption consisting of a radiator, some kind of tank and complex pipes. The man on the right hold a gadget in his hand with arm extended. The man on the left rests one hand on the table with his invention and seems calm and proud. ]
one of the most insane things about trauma is that i will literally find out information i technically already knew, i just repressed it so fucking deep. do i know my abuser's name? sure. probably. he lied a lot about his last name and i don't remember finding out what it really was. did he lie about his age? yeah i have literally no idea how old he is or when his birthday is because he lied about his chart because he wanted to seem perfectly compatible with me. he's either 3 or 4 years older than i thought he was a month ago, but i knew that already. fucker said he was 19 when i was 15/16 and i genuinely do not remember the conversation where he said "this is the truth" and i don't even know if that was or if it was just another lie.
i remember shit from my childhood that didn't happen. i forget shit from my childhood that did happen. i put new memories over the worst periods of my life and today i looked up my old trauma blog that was EXTREMELY active from the ages of 15-18 and i just? why am i not able to physically go back in time and hug that little guy who was hurting so so bad?? i can hug myself now but there was no assurance that the me i am today would even EXIST back then. i still find myself oversharing today because i don't know what is supposed to be shared and what isn't. i can blame somebody for making me think that was okay, HEALTHY even!! and that really pisses me off!!
at the end when you said i was your favorite, was it because you could hurt me the most? was it because i believed you every single time?
sometimes i imagine my emotions about you like they're bits in a glassblowing lab. they're hot. they're dangerous. they can be moved around to fit whatever shape is available. but i do not let that happen. i let it solidify. i let it become fragile and breakable and destructive. and i'm sorry to myself and anyone i met after you who has to deal with that now.
you told me it WAS my fault when that other asshole fucked up the trajectory of my life. at least he had the decency to leave the fucking continent. all you did was throw me around until i started looking more like the girls your age who hate you because they know what you are. then i guess you flew too close to the sun, paper dolls and hair ribbons in hand, and now you get to live the boring life you always hated. i hope you choked on the wax all the way down. i hope your teeth fall out. i hope you slip and fall and hit your head and i don't pray but if i did i'd say some words for the people you have to share air with. reform the system except for people like you. fuck you. fuck you and your sensitive side that only ever came out after i was afraid of you. fuck you and the places i was conditioned to feel safe in because you hadn't yelled at me there yet. fuck you and how you'd threaten me so much that now i don't even know when i'm coming off as aggressive or threatening.
What if we just… accepted that everyone has to live somewhere?
I know this is radical, but, I think it is also painfully obvious.
This is just a new iteration on guys who buy a drink for a woman (without asking her) and think that means they are entitled to a conversation. Boys and young men are taught that material gifts and services are a way to get attention from women. It’s a way, yes, but a gift not freely given isn’t really a real gift is it?
“But, wait!” You say “these guys are selling weed! That’s not giving a gift.” In the abstract that’s true. But, there is a reason these women choose these dealers. Maybe they are underage (hope not) maybe it’s a part of the country where weed is just hard to find and selling it is always a little dangerous. Maybe it was just a bit of a discount.
“I’m too in love with you to keep selling you weed” is just another way of saying “if you want the drug you enjoy, you could sleep with me, be my girl etc.”
If the women saw the relationship as “business” – if they thought they were paying full price, but then this gets pulled on them it’s pretty shitty.
There is a long tradition of people using drugs to get access to partners they would not otherwise have even a reason to talk to. It’s much more sinister when it’s something physically addictive like opioids– but it’s still bad with weed.
I can’t prove, but suspect these guys are a bit older, the girls a bit younger. How is this that much different from a 28 year-old who buys 18 year-olds beer? “But I don’t know if I can keep bringing the beer over anymore since I thought we had something… baaaaybeee”
There is a chance it’s not that slimy. We can’t know with so little context. I hope it’s not that slimy.
But can we agree that if the dynamic is anything along what I’ve described it’s manipulation?
The police shot a 63 year old man while trying to evict him from his home. The elderly man had been taken in by “sovereign citizen” conspiracy theories much to his son’s frustration.
These theories made him more vulnerable to police violence. He also may not have been mentally well.
The house he was evicted from used to belong to his brother, but a corporation recently bought it for $25,000, then evicted him.
This story is a nexus of senselessness.
[Image Description: A brown wood paneled basement. The room is empty. The floor is concrete. Three small windows, high up on the wall (as basement windows tend to be) illuminate the space with pale white summer light. Hints of greenery are visible in the mostly white windows. The light from the outside causes some glare, the corners of the room where pipes and a discarded extension cord lurk remain dark. In the lower left a date: 06/19/2023 in the style of late 90s film cameras.]
What's the first thing you usually like in a new crush? Not the most important thing, but the first thing that usually makes you go "... Oh."
Eyes
Smile
Sense of Humor
Thoughtfulness
Face
Hair
Other (Please Share!)
I don't get crushes/show results
