still learning.

i am seven

and my reply is

pink

because i am a girl

and pink

is a princess color.

i am asked about my favorite color.

i am ten

and i like

green

because a boy told me that pink

is lame and girly.

i am asked about my favorite color.

i am thirteen

and i tell them

purple

it is unique and spunky

like i want to be.

i am asked about my favorite color.

i am seventeen

and i just say

red

i do not say

it is bright and angry at the world

as i am

i cannot form the words to express

all of my frustrations

so i paint my lips with

rage.

i am asked about my favorite color.

i am twenty

and it’s pink

i remember the joy

of being a child

i reclaim the freedom

of femininity

because i cannot remember

what my shoulders felt like

before the depression

hung from them.

i am asked about my favorite color.

i am twenty-six

and my answer is

brown

it confuses most people

they don’t see it

they may think of dirt

and dust

and dead things

but it is coffee with friends

and the chocolate chip cookies

my mom used to make.

it is my hair

and my eyes

amber and gold

in the sun

and i love myself

them: *don’t follow me back in 20 min*

me: 

Jamdani (Bengali: জামদানি), also known as Dhakai named after the city of Dhaka, is a fine muslin textile developed in Narayanganj in Bangladesh. Jamdani is a woven with thread in cotton, using a supplementary weft technique of weaving, where the artistic motifs are produced by a non-structural weft, in addition to the standard weft that holds the warp threads together. The standard weft creates a fine, sheer fabric while the supplementary weft with thicker threads adds the intricate patterns to it. Each supplementary weft motif is added separately by hand by interlacing the weft threads into the warp with fine bamboo sticks using individual spools of thread. The result is a complex mix of different patterns that appear to float on a shimmering surface. The pattern is not sketched or outlined on the fabric, but is drawn on a graph paper and placed underneath the warp. Jamdani is a fine muslin cloth on which decorative motifs are woven on the loom, typically in grey and white. Often a mixture of cotton and gold thread is used.

“…a masterpiece of suspense.”

I’m gonna go ahead and throw that right on my business card.

(Not gonna lie, that “1/5” in the first tweet scared the shit out of me. I thought it was her rating.)

I was doing some Intensive Baking at the weekend and spent it checking out some new-to-me podcasts, and catching up on some favourites. So if you’re looking for your next listen….

The Silt Verses - @thesiltverses Horror-Fantasy about the acolytes of an outlawed god travelling through a world of ritual and folk magic. Absolutely blew me away, and actor Méabh de Brún does a phenomenal job. Not to mention it’s always wonderful to hear an Irish accent on a podcast!

Speaking of Irish accents…

Neighbourly - @neighbourlypod Each episode steps behind the front door of a different house on Little Street, and explores the lives of the people living there. Beautiful writing, and some genuinely deeply creepy moments.

Hello from the Hallowoods - @hellofromthehallowoods Already a favourite with some of you, this queer horror podcast follows a cast of LGBT characters navigating through the Hallowoods, with three short stories per episode. It’s spooky and heartwarming in equal measures, and blends gothic fiction and folk horror with a healthy dose of big gay love!

The Amelia Project - @ameliapodcast Not horror! The Amelia Project is a dark comedy about a secret agency that helps its clients fake their own deaths. Brilliantly funny - if there’s any Dirk Gently fans reading, this would be right up your alley.

Keeping on the dark comedy theme…

Death by Dying - @deathbydyingpod Set in the fictional town of Crestfall, Idaho, each episode takes the form of an obituary for someone in the town who has died as the Obituary Writer takes it upon himself to investigate their deaths. This one’s great fun, it reminds me a bit of early Night Vale with a very dry sense of humour that still had me laughing out loud.

The Bright Sessions - @thebrightsessions Science fiction here! Dr Bright is a therapist working with patients who display unusual powers and abilities, from time travel to mind-reading. She works with them to control and explore their powers, as well as dealing with her own mysteries. It was the characters that really got to me with this one, I loved them all so much and they were so well written and performed, I found myself listening to back to back episodes just to hear more about them.

And of course, if you’re enjoying any of those you might also want to check out…

If you’re looking for something different, try one of these:

 What’s the Frequency

               What’s The Frequency is a psychedelic noir audio drama podcast set in 1940s Los Angeles. Recently radio broadcasts in the city have been reduced to static, leaving a popular radio serial as the only remaining show on the air. Even then the show finds itself continuously interrupted by a mysterious broadcast. A lone distorted voice reaching out for help. Follow Walter “Troubles” Mix and his partner Whitney as they search for a missing writer and navigate through a city quickly falling into madness. Could the mysterious voice be the culprit? Will anyone be able to stop the madness from spreading? And… What’s The Frequency?

Why I love it: This podcast has some of the best and most loveable main characters ever written.

 Alba Salix, Royal Physician

           A witch, her apprentice, and her fairy herbalist treat the ills of a fairy-tale kingdom.

Why I love it: A fantasy podcast that not D&D or based on D&D? What? Also, Its absolutely hilarious once you get over Magnus’s voice.

 Windfall

           Ever since the castle first appeared in the sky above the city of Windfall, its residents have been building upward. Now the city consists of towers where the wealthiest residents live at the top while the poor eke out a living on the ground. Our podcast follows Cas, Shaima, and Argus, three brothers who live with their Uncle Vern after being orphaned during the grounder rebellion twenty years earlier. When Cas’s best friend, Kendall, is offered a position with the Wolfpac, Windfall’s military cult that acts as the city’s police, Cas is forced to decide where his loyalties lie. Meanwhile, something sinister looms over the city itself, threatening the lives of all who live in Windfall, from the wealthiest residents to the ground-level poor.

Why I love it: This is so well written, and so well voiced, and the sound design is amazing, and I don’t understand why it doesn’t have a cult following to be honest.

Time: Bombs

           Created, written, recorded, produced, and released in just one week, Time Bombs is a new audio drama podcast about the hilarious world of bomb disposal. From the team behind the Webby Award nominated sci-fi audio drama Wolf 359, ride along with EOD technician Simon Teller on the busiest night of the year for him and his team - when business is, quite literally, booming.

Why I love it: Its literally the same team that made my favorite podcast ever of course I love it.

 StarTripper!!

           Feston Pyxis, native of the bureaucracy planet Lorvin, has left it all behind! He’s said his goodbyes, he’s sold all his B-movie memorabilia, and he’s bought a Physiclast QCS-25 K-series ship, known to the wise as a “StarTripper.” Together with the onboard assistant PROXY, Feston’s looking for any and every good time there is to be had across the stars!

Why I love it: Its actually happy. There are so many sad podcasts with angst and inetemse emotion and this was something I could just…. Enjoy? With no hurt? Yes!

 Zero Hours:

         Zero Hours is an anthology series, where every story is a different take on the end of the world - or at least something that feels like the end of the world. Each episode is organized around a kind of apocalypse, whether the cataclysm is planetary or personal. The stories are also set in succeeding centuries, with 99-year intervals separating each episode. The show begins in the past, catches up to the present, and eventually overtakes it.

          Some installments are darkly comedic, others grimly contemplative, and others still thrillingly contentious. But they all explore the same question: how do we keep going when the world is crashing down around us? Again and again, issues of survival, trust, and personhood will plague our characters as they attempt to navigate dangerous, changing circumstances and figure out how to avert The End, or at least how to meet it.

Why I love it: This was also made by the team behind Wolf 359, and its such a unique concept.

 Fairy Tales for Unwanted Children

             Imagine if fairy tales were written like episodes of the Twilight Zone. Now imagine listening to them while happy music plays in the background.

Why I love it: I love the Twilight Zone, and nothing really filled that gap after I watched every episode ever produced. But Fairy Tales for unwanted children fills my need for more Grimm’s fairy tales and more twilight zone at the same time!

 Janus Descending

          Janus Descending is a limited series, science fiction/horror audio drama told through single perspective narration. The story follows the arrival of two xenoarcheologists, Peter and Chel,  on a small world orbiting a binary star. But what starts off as an expedition to survey the planet and the remains of a lost alien civilization, turns into a monstrous game of cat and mouse, as the two scientists are left to face the creatures that killed the planet in the first place. Told from alternating perspectives, Janus Descending is an experience of crossing timelines, as Peter describes the nightmare from end to beginning, and Chel, from beginning to the end.

Why I love it: Watching it all come together as Peter slowly works his way backwards through the story, and Chel forwards, was fascinating.

 The Antique Shop

           In desperate need of a job, Maya finds work in an old antique shop owned by a mysterious woman. The more time she spends in the shop the further the real world becomes, and Maya soon begins to realize that nothing is as it seems. 

পুরাণ ঢাকা।