Tag: uhhhmazing art

like it or lump it.

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… i do think, also, that—oh god, now this is really the stuff of shitty women’s magazines and heteronormative nightmare trend pieces—but i think that having it all can be a stumbling block for men, but it’s a stumbling block for the kinds of men you absolutely don’t want in your life. your general togetherness and attractiveness, when paired with a cautiousness and quietness upfront, is really fluffy bunny ass for a traditional man. when you show your sharp bunny claws, though, this kind of man is going to turn cold and turn tail and run. the magazines will tell you to fluff up your tail and play down your giant brain. i’m going to give you the opposite advice. if i were you, i would try flashing the bunny claws earlier, to see what you’re dealing with. is this a bunny chaser, or a guy who likes real assertive happy human women? mutter a few ribald remarks, make your opinion crystal clear, then look the guy frankly in the eye as if to say, “that’s me, buddy. like it or lump it.” many, many men with an eye for a princess will get gone real quick-like after that.

– ask polly: i’m 33 and single. what am i doing wrong?

two birds.

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time is tricky. you have whole months, even years, when nothing changes a speck, when you don’t go anywhere or do anything or think one new thought. and then you can get hit with a day, or an hour, or a half a second when so much happens it’s almost like you got born all over again into some brand-new person you for damn sure never expected to meet.

– e.r. frank, life is funny

happy birthday, kimball.
happy birthday, uncle mike.

just legs.

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your iphone pocket-called me the other day.
you were walking.
i could hear your legs moving.
i was in your pants, after all, with the phone.
swip swip. swip swip. swip swip.
very rhythmic. soothing.
i listened in for a while.
i was hoping for a scrap of inappropriate conversation.
i like to overhear things that hurt me.
i got nothing.
just legs.
you were just going somewhere.

– elizabeth trundle

exactly.

we are all frazzled and unruly, you and me. we are desperate and wistful and restless and funny and frayed at the edges. we can worry that we’re doing it all wrong, we can long for central air or true love or a view of the ocean, and that’s just part of the fucking clown show. we can be ingrates and role models, we can be flinchy and heroic, we can be courageous and also melancholy. there is nothing wrong with feeling unsafe and uncertain. there is nothing wrong with addled, misguided parenting, or self-involved rambling. i give you permission, my friend, to continue on this twisted, sweet path of suffering and satisfaction and distraction. i give you my blessing, my partner in failing at everything. i am witness to your grace and your faltering. i give you my undying love, as you struggle and stutter and the sun falls from the sky.

when the earth stops spinning, we will panic. there is no avoiding it. we’ll be crying and shaking, just like that woman at the side of the road, wondering if we did it the right way. we’ll wonder if we failed ourselves, or failed each other, if we were a big disappointment, in the end.

please remember, we were not a disappointment. not at all, not even close. we were gorgeous and strong, you and me. we were terrible and troubled and utterly divine.

– disaster preparedness: a memoir

happy hour.

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work is important in that way, i guess. it can be, on its best and oddest days, a reminder that, if we’re lucky, we can have some control over our lives, our own little stories, that we can be willful and brave and self-possessed. i still wish, of course, that i could be lazy and shiftless, independently wealthy and obliged to no one’s clock but my own. but as a way of measuring time and experience, work is useful, alternately heartening and frustrating.

– richard lawson

get up.

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“ … get up, walk to a plant store, and pick out a plant you really like. take it home and set it by the window, and water it every single morning while you’re waiting for your coffee to be done. you are a regular pretty lady living a regular life, and this is the very beginning of your story. stay open to the world around you. pay attention to people who aren’t bullet-proof brands. give some time to those who make you work a little harder to see them clearly, to let them in. you are raw potential, but you’ll only stay golden if you give up on glory and show the world your true goofy, unwashed, brutal, brilliant, opinionated, vulnerable self. make them work harder for it. and if they’re not offering you the deal you want, be prepared to walk.”

– ask polly 10/30/13