Auburn Librarian

often my answer was a soft i don’t know. an i-got-tired when actually it was more like - i couldn’t. i just couldn’t. it feels like everything is covered in snow. don’t you know that i’m mad at myself too? i want this stuff just as much as you do. i want to live in a clean house with good food and have an okay job and know i’m not disappointing the people i’m coming home to. i don’t like missing opportunities and having to scramble in a panic about last-minute things.

i’m a fully grown adult. she is posing for a pic on insta. if you want a life like this, go out and get it. it’s 2pm and i haven’t eaten breakfast. i am staring at the space where i should be working. 

Scott was a man then who looked like a boy with a face between handsome and pretty. He had very fair wavy hair, a high forehead, excited and friendly eyes and a delicate long-lipped Irish mouth that, on a girl, would have been the mouth of a beauty. His chin was well built and he had good ears and a handsome, almost beautiful, unmarked nose. This should not have added up to a pretty face, but that came from the coloring, the very fair hair and the mouth. The mouth worried you until you knew him and then it worried you more.

What are value judgments?

We place value judgments on our emotions, our bodies, the food we eat, or what movies we relax with. This is built into the way we talk and think about our lives. It’s generally based around word connotation or the way we are taught to view everything in our lives.to see things.

A few examples of value judgment languages:

We act as though it’s “bad” to be angry or sad and “good” to be happy or calm as  "good". 

Eating Oreos is somehow a “cheat food”, “unclean” or that it’s somehow a personal falling that you didn’t choose carrots.

Calling part of our bodies “problem parts”

Saying when we watch the notebook or watch reality TV it’s a “guilty pleasure”.

These value judgements seep into the way we describe our whole self. Framing our sleeves as “disgusting”, “horrible”,“lazy”, “bad” etc.

Why is this harmful? 

This language affects us so much. It changes how we view our choices and actions. Attaches shame to things that aren’t shameful, causes fear around being who we are and it reinforces negativity and sets unattainable goals This is especially harmful because it throws the whole way you interact with yourself and the world out of focus and can cause you to stagnate. It becomes if I am “a gross person” then integral to you instead of a passing thought your having. Now it’s “I can’t feel better, I’ll always be this way”.

So how do we break out from this?

When you find yourself using value-based language switch it up.

Instead of  "Don’t to be angry" try and reframe it “I’m angry and that’s my emotion and it’s valid, now let me find a way to deal with it”

Instead of “I cheated and ate the cake god how could I make that mistake” reframe it as “I ate cake today that’s fine.”

Instead of “I didn’t do X so I’m just a lazy person” can become “I was tired today and I didn’t get it done, that’s okay I can rest and mak a plan tomorrow”

Instead of “I’m a disgusting person because X thing happened”  replace it with “That happened and it was upsetting but it doesn’t change my worth”

What are value judgments?

We place value judgments on our emotions, our bodies, the food we eat, or what movies we relax with. This is built into the way we talk and think about our lives. It’s generally based around word connotation or the way we are taught to view everything in our lives.to see things.

A few examples of value judgment languages:

We act as though it’s “bad” to be angry or sad and “good” to be happy or calm as  "good". 

Eating Oreos is somehow a “cheat food”, “unclean” or that it’s somehow a personal falling that you didn’t choose carrots.

Calling part of our bodies “problem parts”

Saying when we watch the notebook or watch reality TV it’s a “guilty pleasure”.

These value judgements seep into the way we describe our whole self. Framing our sleeves as “disgusting”, “horrible”,“lazy”, “bad” etc.

Why is this harmful? 

This language affects us so much. It changes how we view our choices and actions. Attaches shame to things that aren’t shameful, causes fear around being who we are and it reinforces negativity and sets unattainable goals This is especially harmful because it throws the whole way you interact with yourself and the world out of focus and can cause you to stagnate. It becomes if I am “a gross person” then integral to you instead of a passing thought your having. Now it’s “I can’t feel better, I’ll always be this way”.

So how do we break out from this?

When you find yourself using value-based language switch it up.

Instead of  "Don’t to be angry" try and reframe it “I’m angry and that’s my emotion and it’s valid, now let me find a way to deal with it”

Instead of “I cheated and ate the cake god how could I make that mistake” reframe it as “I ate cake today that’s fine.”

Instead of “I didn’t do X so I’m just a lazy person” can become “I was tired today and I didn’t get it done, that’s okay I can rest and mak a plan tomorrow”

Instead of “I’m a disgusting person because X thing happened”  replace it with “That happened and it was upsetting but it doesn’t change my worth”

If you’re super happy, it can turn into super sad very easily, because your emotions are already highly elevated and it’s only a very minor shift as far as your brain is concerned.

Knowing this can help you fight it, and it can help you be more aware of what’s going on while you’re happy and help avoid shifting towards misery.

Love letters Hans Christian Anderson wrote to Edvard Collin contain elements that appeared in The Little Mermaid, which he was writing at the same time

Several people who knew James Dean have talked about his relationships with men 

Letters and poems allude to a romance between Emily Dickinson and at least two women 

Nikola Tesla was adverse to touch. He said he fell in love with one women but never touched her and didn’t want to get married 

Freddie Mercury is well known for his attraction to men but was also linked to several women, including Barbara Valentin whom he lived with shortly before he died. Friends have talked about being invited into their bed and walking in on them having sex (documentary Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender) 

Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera are two of the best-known activists who fought in the Stonewall riots

Florence Nightingale refused 4 marriage proposals and her letters and memoir suggest a love for women 

Leonardo da Vinci never married or fathered children, was once brought up on sodomy charges, and a sketch in one of his notebooks is 2 penises walking toward a hole labeled with the nickname of his apprentice 

Condivi said that Michelangelo often spoke exclusively of masculine love

Jane Austin never married and wrote about sharing a bed with women (Jane Austen At Home: A Biography by Lucy Worsley)

Hatshepsut took the male title Pharaoh (instead of Queen Regent) and is depicted in art from the time the same way a male Pharaoh would have been

I usually walk everywhere with my headphones on, but I had them in my bag and I was reading a book on my phone instead (I do that when the foot traffic is light).  A young Latina was coming down the street as I was coming up the avenue, and when she got to the corner a few paces ahead of me, she turned to walk in the direction I was going.  We were traveling at the same speed, but since she was like ten paces ahead and it’s bright outside in the middle of the day, I didn’t feel the need to fall back or slow down to give her more space. At night, I try not to walk too close behind women just so they don’t feel like I’m any sort of threat.

We got to a corner and this dude standing outside of the bodega was like, “Slow down mama where you goin? You don’t have to work today, you can stop and speak.”

She didn’t break her stride. “I’m going to the gym.”  The Walk sign was on, so I didn’t break mine either.  

A block later, a young guy was coming toward us on the sidewalk riding his bike.

“What’s good shorty?”

She didn’t respond.

“Well you was lookin, you can say something, stuck up bitch.”

We kept walking.

In the middle of the next block, an older man was walking toward us and he put on a friendly smile and said, “Smile young lady, it’s a beautiful day.”

I don’t know if she smiled, but we kept walking. She went into the gym and I kept on toward where I was going thinking about how that was just five minutes of her day.  How many other blocks of five minutes are just like that?  

Only one of them was truly aggressive. The other two guys seemed nice enough and it felt more like a pleasant compliment. It felt like the kind of thing a guy says who argues with women online about catcalling. “We’re not all bad guys. We can’t even compliment women? We can’t even say something nice?”

No.  You really can’t.  I was annoyed in that five minutes and I just happened to be walking behind her with no headphones on.  Can you imagine those five minutes over and over every day of your life?  Nobody wants to be spoken to by strangers day in and day out forever regardless of what they’re saying.  

So no.  You can’t say anything. The quality of your life has not decreased because you aren’t allowed to say nice things to strange women on the sidewalk, but your silence greatly increases the quality of hers.  So just be quiet, and let her go where she’s going. 

So no.  You can’t say anything. The quality of your life has not decreased because you aren’t allowed to say nice things to strange women on the sidewalk, but your silence greatly increases the quality of hers.  So just be quiet, and let her go where she’s going. 

So no.  You can’t say anything. The quality of your life has not decreased because you aren’t allowed to say nice things to strange women on the sidewalk, but your silence greatly increases the quality of hers.  So just be quiet, and let her go where she’s going. 

So no.  You can’t say anything. The quality of your life has not decreased because you aren’t allowed to say nice things to strange women on the sidewalk, but your silence greatly increases the quality of hers.  So just be quiet, and let her go where she’s going.