Sonnets + Shakes

''what if my writing isn't good eno--'' what if it's a reflection of your soul. what if it has a place in this world. what if you write it anyway

your life is not an optimization problem

as in you'll never achieve the perfect daily routine, sleep schedule, coping mechanisms, mannerisms, fashion sense etc. even after years and years of healing and improvement and self-discovery. you will never be so good at life that you manage to utilize every waking moment. its great to be productive and all but sometimes you'll suck ass. sometimes you'll take eight hours to be done with a twenty minute job. you'll prioritize the wrong thing. you'll sleep for 12 hrs just to avoid being awake. you'll relapse. and you'll relapse again. you'll forget to turn in the assignment. you'll order too little food. life is far too large and complex for you to even experience it completely, much less try to make sense of and control it. you can't. please give up on that and be at peace with the hours you lose. they are not separate from your life.

women in PHLEGM (poetry, history, language, english literature, ghost stories, music)

cats arent even cute on purpose its just like. an accident. thats so fucked up

"advertising doesn't work" the increase in scentbird ads and people talking about a "personal signature scent" directly correlates with my family's interest in perfumes. Even if they're not using scentbird, something probably changed to make them want perfumes more, right?

let's put it this way: my brief exposure to tiktok directly correlates to a period of time where i was spending a lot more money on clothing items. Even though most of them were second hand, I still personally felt like i'd spent that money irresponsibly and largely on clothes that I no longer wear either because they didn't last long or I outgrew them. When I stopped being on tiktok, my spending on clothing has decreased a lot, and when I do buy things i spend money on clothing that i know will last me longer. I stopped being exposed to dozens of people showing me cute outfits every day (a lot of them talking about specific brands and talking about fashion news and releases), and correlating with that is a decrease in my own spending. Hm.

Let's just say. adblockers work in more ways than one.

Actually here’s another one. Is it a hobby or interest, or is it buying things?

I'm almost 30 and still amazed you can just walk into a library and pull a book off a shelf and read it, don't even need to ask anyone, can just sit down and read book for free until closing time. There is nothing that free anywhere else that isn't serreptitiouly religious or requiring registration. that's how stuff should be. Libraries are so good

And books are only part of what they offer. Seriously. I went into a library a couple months ago and got a card, and they were telling me about how they've got a 3D printer and all this cool craft stuff you can use and there's free wifi and they have classes and an art gallery of local artists and it's just the fucking best! Like that has to be in the top five best ways the government spends money, god bless it.

A proper money laundering scheme should be a business which is in no way profitable, run by the brother or cousin of a mass murderer who’s really passionate about making a specific kind of food or something but has no idea how prices or advertising work, frequented by folks who you should absolutely never make eye contact with!

TMYK

Useful for anyone writing medieval fantasy.

Harris choosing Tim Walz as her running mate sets a dangerous precedent that Democrats might do cool shit that voters love

i saw a post on twitter by a european saying americans are fake for their random compliments to strangers and their general cheery demeanor and like no. no no no you don’t understand. if you get a random compliment from an american on the street about your outfit or whatever, that is 100% genuine. we mean it. we aren’t lying we are making a small but fleeting connection with you because our lives are shitty but the human condition is enduring. oh god i’m clutching my chest

If you get a compliment from a random American on the street, know that they tried their best to keep from saying a peep to you but they literally could not hold it in. They HAD to say something.

The other day a tiny gay man in a hurry bumped me on the Metro escalator and said "Sorry, great dress by the way" and then he stopped at the top of the escalator and turned around and said "AND a great hat. THAT is how we do summer!" and SPRINTED for his bus and I coasted on that for the rest of the day.

giants to watch out for

they might be dykes

"everybody experiences that" says mother who has the same symptom of the same mental illness

Idk man it’s so easy to get bogged down in all the bullshit online but when my then-6 year old cousin found out I was trans he said “ok” then corrected my grandma when she misgendered me. I was once the third between a gay man and a lesbian. Two lesbians once invited me back to their place when I presented as a man. I met an AMAB nb butch who looked strikingly to outsiders like a cis man and it was one of the more sapphic experiences I’ve had. I nervously wore a boydyke shirt to pride and got 3 different cis-looking femme folks tell me they loved my shirt. I once told a trans group at a protest that any pronouns were fine for me and one person said “wow, I’m impressed and intimidated by people like that. I don’t know that I could be that chill with pronouns.” I once told a GNC friend I wished I could wear a type of “opposite” gender clothing after I had already transitioned and so it would be associated with my AGAB and he said “You could just do it.” I’ve had cishet men fight cops for me before. The first time I had a doctor ask me if my name was different than what was on my forms I had to try not to cry. Last week, a phone call with a doctor’s office where I am generally cis passing asked unprompted if my name listed is what I want to be called. It touched me then too. I told a lesbian friend once I felt like my attraction to men AND women both felt gay. She said “makes sense.” And we moved on. I go by different pronouns in different circles. I’ve had gay women love my facial hair. I’ve had gay men like my tits. It’s all out there, I promise. It can be hard to find it but I promise there is community like you and community who likes you. And it’s more messy and beautiful than tumblr discourse makes it out to be.

My girlfriend just read this and called it pretty. Like how you can say something is beutiful. Its pretty. I've never heard that before but I loved it. Just thought I'd share. As a gender chill person (i dont really care what pronouns you call me) myself this really spoke to me.

Sometimes being an artist is feeling like a baker seeing a chemist making the deadliest liquid in the world and wishing you could make the deadliest liquid as well but you're a baker, not a chemist, and then you feel like your bread is worthless

If it helps, as a writer with artist friends often feels like being a chemist surrounded by bakers. I'll spend ages coming up with a hypothesis and then lock myself away for weeks or months only to emerge with a small vial of glowing liquid. Yes it took a lot of work, and yes I'm proud that I've created it, but it pales when I look across at the bakers. In the same time, they've made so many delicious things that make living a delight. Chances are they've fed me and kept me from despair while I was locked in my lab. And I envy their wonderful craft.