Pew Pew le Pew~

Why can’t these two people be together now?

Why can’t the mystery be solved now?

Why can’t they overthrow the evil overlord now?

literally all the brass starts to get the hang of it and then the crescendos happen and everyone is like FUCK FUCK FUCK??? FUCK. JUST. BLOW RLY HARD.

the strings are lazy but also the same. like u can tell a lot of the ppl w/ the stringed instruments may already basically know how to play stringed instruments. like there’s definitely a section at the beginning where you hear a good portion going “oh yeah this is like. a smaller/bigger version of what i do.”

all you hear of any woodwinds is just “pffffttt??? pFFFTTTT???? PFFFFFTTTT I SAID PFFFFTTTT!!!!!” bc woodwinds are fucking HARD and you hear after like the first crescendo half of them just give up. they give up. they’re done. fuck this it tastes weird and my lips hurt.

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Support the Rainbow Railroad, actively involved in rescuing LGBTQ+ facing violence in their home countries

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Sit down, I’m going to tell you a story.

Imagine a little girl, a 4’9” fifth grader with dimples and twinkling blue eyes. Oh, look, she’s going to the school library. Perhaps she’s going to rent Little Women, or read On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder!

Five minutes later, she exits the library holding a large stack of books called “Horrible Histories.”

And she’s thumbing through one called “Angry Aztecs.”

Record scratch. Freeze frame.

Yup, that’s me! The only history geek in a fifty mile radius. Living in Bumhicksville, Nowhere (name changed, but very accurate) is pretty terrible, and going to school at Caucasian Christian School of Goodness (again, a name change, but an apt description) is even worse. I snapped a bit while I was attending, due to the lack of permissible self-expression, but horrible histories were my guiding light.

Flash forward six months.

Our teacher wants us to do a history project about an ancient civilization. Since our curriculum is Eurocentricism.JPEG, most kids pick the Greeks or Romans (and completely skip over all of the good stuff, like orgies and gladiator fights) in their presentations.

I choose my favorite ancient civilization:

The Aztecs.

My teachers knew I’d been reading Horrible Histories, but what they didn’t know was that I’d also been avidly reading all about Aztec mythology. I walk up to the front of the class, pull on a turquoise skull mask, and raise my arms to the sky.

My teacher goes sheet white.

I give my presentation and skip nothing. Nothing. Every detail of the sacrifices, every dirty, disgusting part.

It all culminates when I point to the calendar.

“It’s May!” I shout, my little girl voice rising an octave. My teacher looks like she’s about to phone the police. “The Aztecs called May Toxcatl.”

No one moves or breathed. I continue blithely.

“Toxcatl was a month dedicated to the worship of the god of the night, Tezcatlipoca.” I’m still going. Everyone is afraid. Marie, one of my classmates, looks like she’s about to cry.

“They’d dress a brave warrior as the god all year, and at the end-“ I pull the red streamers out from behind my display, shouting: “They’d sacrifice him!”

The kids shriek as the streamers of “blood” roll out across the floor.

The principal walked in, hearing the commotion, just in time for me to really get into character and shout “BLOOD FOR THE GOD OF THE NIGHT!”

One gently squeezes my hand between both of his palms as he says “squish.” I reciprocate. When he looks like he’s feeling sad or lost, I ask if I can squish him, and he will show me where I can squish him. Sometimes it’s almost like a hug, but most of the time, it’s just a hand or an arm I press between my palms. Then he squishes my hand in return, says “squish,” and moves on. He will come ask for squishes now, when he recognizes that he needs them.

Another boy smiles and sticks his chin out at me, and if he’s really excited, he’ll lean his whole body toward me. The first time he finally won a game at circle time, he got so excited he even ran over and bumped chins with me. He now does it when he sees me outside of school too. I stick out my chin to acknowledge him, and he grins and runs over and I lean down for a chin bump.

Yet another child swings my hand really fast. At a time when another child would be seeking a hug, she stands beside me and holds my hand, and swings it back and forth, with a smile if I’m lucky. The look on her face when I initiate the hand swinging is priceless.

Another one bumps his hip against mine when he walks by in the hallway or on the playground, or when he gets up after I’m done working with him. No eye contact, no words, but he goes out of his way to “crash” into me, and I tell him that it’s good to see him. He now loves to crash into me when I’m least expecting it. He doesn’t want anything, really. Just a bump to say “Hi, I appreciate you’re here.” And when he’s upset and we have to take a break, I’ll bump him, ask if he needs to take a walk, and we just go wander for a bit and discuss whatever’s wrong, and he’s practically glued to my side. Then one more bump before we go back into the room to face the problem.

I verbally express affection. A LOT.

My husband… doesn’t. I don’t know why. For the longest time part of me wondered if it meant he loved me less.

At some point I told him about a thing I had done as a kid. Holding hands, three squeezes means ‘I Love You’.

Suddenly he’s telling me I Love You all the time.

Holding my hand, obviously, but also randomly.

taptaptap

on my hand, my shoulder, my butt, my knee, whatever body part is closest to him, with whatever part of him is closest to me

All the time.

More often than I ever verbally said it.

It’s an ingrained signal now, I can tap three times on whatever part of him, and get three taps back in his sleep. Apparently I do the same.

It’s made a huge difference for us.