soulsistrin

My stitches are the dissolving kind? And I think they’re starting to do their thing. I thought it was a bit soon but what do I know.

Chris just put on the original Frankenstein movie from 1931. I guess he’s in a mood for classics. I’m not really interested.

I’m glad Nicki Minaj called Miley Cyrus on her bullshit. I read her tone-policing fuckery in that article. I’m so fucking tired of people telling other people how they should appropriately express outrage.

I loved how Nicki repped Trinidad and Tobago in her performance. Big up Trini gyal!

Happy Independence Day tomorrow T&T! Everybody please have a safe celebration. Much love and blessings to the nation ❤️

I hope Nicki Minaj wins another award so she can fucking finish telling Miley what’s up

people are so lazy omg look it up Google is your friend stop asking meeeeee

Feeling for pholourie

How come it have a ph in front but yuh does still say de p?

Folourie

Hahaha

Gnocci in pesto for lunch. I can’t handle struggling with food that’s not soft and mushy. It sounds tiring. Plus this is perfectly bite sized.

I am working on making more leather cuffs today and wondering if my neighbours hate me for making all that noise. 

Ask me if I care.

My only complaint about Narcos is the accents.

They are horrendous. I don’t understand why they didn’t cast more Colombian actors. Escobar is being played by a Brazilian. His accent is just weird. I have to kind of ignore it so I can watch the show but occasionally it really grates on my ears.

I keep talking to Chris in Spanish which he finds amusing. He knows enough to get the gist of what I’m saying, I think. When I hear Spanish my mind automatically switches over. Plus it’s really nice to be immersed in it. I miss that.

I lived in Venezuela during the era that the show is set. It really reminds me a lot of a place that used to be my home. I’m experiencing profound nostalgia. I really miss Caracas.

I just blocked this blog that followed me. It was full of reblogs of other girls’ selfies, occasional porn pics, and a bunch of texts posts that consisted of Hi can I get ur number plz messages that made no sense. Just gross. And why follow me? Yuck no blech.

For a really long time I regretted the fact that I never had the chance to go to art school. I always wondered what could have been. Where would my career have gone if I hadn’t meandered for so long before I found the things that I really loved to do. I don’t know. But tonight I realize I don’t regret it anymore. I’m happy with how things turned out and where I am today. That feels so good. Finally

I guess I’m going to be making more leather bracelets. The one I posted today sold and I’ve had several other requests to purchase it. Damn.

But independence is on Monday…

Do you need to practice with fireworks?

quiyst replied to your post “Apparently eating on one side of my mouth is too much effort. Almost…”

Sounds like a nice batch of guacamole is in order!

Yeah. Except I’m too lazy to make guacamole.

leighpeigh replied to your post “Apparently eating on one side of my mouth is too much effort. Almost…”

My first meal of solid food after I had my wisdom teeth extracted was spaghetti. It took me 45 minutes to eat a small plate of it. It was exhausting.

Exactly. Although I practically inhaled the sushi last night (I was starving I had eaten only a bowl of ice cream for the whole day), but today somehow my lunch overwhelmed me. I’m having some watermelon now. I’m more nibbling than eating it though.

Apparently eating on one side of my mouth is too much effort. Almost as soon as I began eating my lunch (pan seared trout with mushrooms, stir fry vegetables, baked potato and a large slice of avocado cause we are pigs who bought FOUR gigantic avocados last week and are trying our best to finish them before they go bad and have only just cut into avocado number three) I felt exhausted. Plus I don’t know if my meds were making things taste funny but the fish tasted weird to me. I ate the baked potato and the avocado. Soft food is my friend. The rest of that stuff just looks like work.

thisguyles inspired me to check out Narcos on Netflix.

Fifteen minutes in I pressed stop.

“I can’t watch any more of this. Chris has to see it with me.”

Yeah its that good.

I feel more uncomfortable around Trinidadian whites than I do around foreign whites. Well in general I don’t feel uncomfortable around foreign white people in the first place because the fact that they’re here says a lot about them already. But local white people make me fucking uncomfortable as hell. The way they segregate themselves. How can you grow up in a country where you are 1% of the population and have only white friends? That blows my fucking mind. 

I remember my sister telling me in her school there was a group of white girls that always sat together and didn’t make friends with anyone but each other for their entire time in that school. And apparently that’s not uncommon. What the fuck.

That actually reminds me of this group of about three or four white Trinis that went to FIU when we were there. They never had anything to do with the rest of us Trinis who were mixed, Black, Chinese and Indian. They didn’t talk to anybody else either. They just stuck to themselves. Why the fuck would you go to college and not make friends with other people and just stick to just the people you know? Only one of them was cool, he spoke to everyone. He still does. 

My bother used to work in the bookstore and he was cashing out for one of them once and tried to make conversation about being Trini and the guy was being all snobbish. So Anton asked where he lived and he told him. So to be catty Anton was like, “Oh well we live in Maraval, you know by Champs-Élysées? Right around the corner from the Country Club?” I don’t know if he got a reaction but it made my brother feel better.

Speaking of the Country Club, I used to go knock tennis balls around on their courts sometimes. I went there once to book the court and this girl was working there. She looked mostly white but you could tell that she was mixed by her hair texture. She was speaking in that fucking accent that white people have here, attending to two other white people. She spent an unnecessary amount of time dawdling and kept asking one of the other women questions that had nothing to do with anything. I stood there for a whole five minutes and she wouldn’t even look in my direction, she was very obviously ignoring me. Eventually I politely spoke up and asked if I could please book the court. She acted shocked and outraged. How dare I speak out of turn? She slammed the books around and was extremely unpleasant, while I remained calm and spoke in measured tones. It was one of the only times in my life that I ever felt like a nigger. And she wasn’t even white. She was one of those wannabe whites. They actually tend to be the worst. The self hatred is strong with those ones.

My sister dated a guy who was like that. When she described him my mom and I thought he looked like Peter Horton (Gary from thirtysomething). When we met him it was a different story. Yes he was blond and fair but he had very African features. He actually just looked like a Black guy dipped in bleach. He was unattractive in our books but my sister was inexplicably smitten by him. Apparently his father was white but his mother was mixed, but considered herself white. She had kinky hair which she straightened. It was the only tell-tale sign of her African heritage. The rest of her could have passed. So they defined themselves as White. 

My sister told me she and the guy were going to a lime one day and on the drive over he asked her if it felt weird to her to be dating a White guy. She felt as though she had been slapped in the face. Who was White in this car? They were the same complexion. They didn’t last long after that. I was glad, I couldn’t stand him.

My father’s family is largely of European descent. Many of my family members can pass for white. Some of them don’t care but for some of them this matters. Some of my cousins in particular have made sure to cultivate only the “right” kinds of friends, which means that they either have lots of money, and/or are white. My father always wanted me to hang out with them and their friends (with whom I have less than zero in common). He hated my friends. They were artists and musicians who for the most part didn’t have degrees or well-paying jobs. But I think one of the things he hated the most was that many of them were Black. We grew up in a house were it was ok to call ourselves Black but it wasn’t ok to actually BE Black, or to be intimately acquainted with Black people. So while my parents had many Black friends, the lines were clear. We weren’t supposed to get any closer than that. 

When I was about twenty I remember my father having a discussion with me about Chris. He said something about “those kinds of people”. I immediately knew he was talking about race. Because what other kinds of people could he be talking about? Chris’s father was one of his best friends, he had a degree from Stanford, Chris’s mother was as teacher, they were both active members of their church. What set them apart from us? The fact that they were Black(er)? I wouldn’t hear it so he gave up.

Both me and my sister were encouraged in subtle and not so subtle ways to seek partners who were White. And guess what? We both ended up marrying White guys. And we ended up divorcing them and marrying Black guys. We have both privately spoken about this, and have wondered if that pressure had not been there would we have made better, healthier choices in mates the first time around?

I remember explaining this to my friend Q, who is Black. How as an upper middle class mixed girl you are pressured in terms of your choice of friends and boyfriends from the time you are young. That race matters. That you’re not supposed to make certain kinds of friends and you’re certainly not supposed to date certain kinds of guys. That even if they come from the best backgrounds if they’re Black then your parents will find something wrong with them. It is par for course for someone of my background. Every person like myself will understand exactly what I am talking about. To him this was mind-blowing. He had never in his life heard of such a thing. We live in completely different worlds.

Leftover sushi for breakfast (Chris didn’t eat all of his… he’s not that big on sushi… more for me!) and a half of a really large avocado that I have to eat or it’ll go bad.

I almost sprinkled sugar on my avocado this morning.

I’m having coffee yay!

My swelling is worse today. Apparently that happens it’s nothing to be worried about.

I checked out my incision today. The gum on the side of my mouth by my tooth was cut too. I stuck my tongue to feel it. It feels fucking GROSS. And the inside of the gum that sticks to your teeth is rough apparently. GAD it was disgusting.

I did a saltwater rinse but I didn’t put enough said so basically I just rinsed out my mouth with water.

Lemme get on that breakfast I have antibiotics to take.

I just wrote a post and mentioned our bedroom. I got married at 31. We didn’t live together before marriage and I’d never lived with another guy. A year later I left him. Chris and I have been married almost two years now. So I’ve cohabited with a significant other for basically three out of my 42 years. So sometimes when I say something as simple as our bedroom, it feels slightly miraculous. Because for most of my life it’s just been my bedroom.

We bought a humidifier for our bedroom and Chris’s persistent cough pretty much stopped immediately. I’m hoping it will help with the moisture level in my hair as well because I spend most of my time in air conditioning and it dries the hell out of my hair. Plus allergies. That would be nice if it helped with that too. But so far yay.

notquiteluke:

twistedspork:

anarcho-mothmanism:

you-re-pretty-good:

proletarianprincess:

im fucking panicking i cant believe 4000 people have died within 6 weeks of being found “fit for work” by the uk government. we’re being killed and no one is doing anything about it. im not saying this for effect or over-exaggerating, but this is genocide against disabled people. this is 4000 people. this is not even the correct number, this is only within a 6 week period and only the ones that we know for sure. there will be thousands more.

What??? Can someone explain this? I’m really concerned and I lack context.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/27/thousands-died-after-fit-for-work-assessment-dwp-figures?CMP=fb_gu

Basically the head of the Department and work and Pensions, Iain Duncan-Smith is committing genocide against the disabled and working class.

His department under his leadership is making people with mental, physical and other issues seek work when they can’t. He has decreed that benefit claimants are scrounges and worse than shit.

He has an ongoing program to exterminate the weak, vulnerable and disabled from Britain.

Under the Geneva Convention this is classed as genocide.

Iain Duncan-Smith is one of the British politician in support of scrapping the Human Rights act, an act he can be held accountable for his hideous act of Genocide and mass murder.

Please use his full name and the words genocide. Tag them together. Post it on as much social media as you can. This needs to become world wide knowledge and people should feel free to contact the UN, European Court of Human Rights and organisations such as Amnesty International.

We, as in the disabled of Great Britain, need this man, and in fact the entire Tory Government to be removed before they cause all of the vulnerable people of this country to die.

Now you maybe wondering how to help, start by reposting stuff like this, tag it with Iain Duncan-Smith, Genocide and War on the poor. And make it big. Make it so information about this Genocide becomes one of the most found searches on google about Britain right now.

We need this to stop now.

Y’all remember how i spent election night literally crying? This is why.

everydayjewels replied to your post “Chris told me he would pick up some sushi from More Vino after work so…”

Nothing excites me more than sushi. (That is kinda pathetic, isn’t it? Hah).

not really…. i get pretty damn excited too. sushi is amazing. or we need more thrills in our lives lol

Chris told me he would pick up some sushi from More Vino after work so I’m on their website now trying to decide what to order and I want everything. Probably doesn’t help that I’m ravenous right now. But I am excite.

is there a specific meal you want or just a whole menu to choose from?

A menu. Of hot food that’s on the soft and gooey side. A cachapa would be great. It’s this venezuelan food, a pancake with grated corn in it, and then you cook it and put queso blanco in it, this yummy white cheese that’s typical of Venezuela. The texture of the pancake is almost undercooked because of all the corn and then the cheese melts and it gets all gooey inside. I think it’s the texture I’m after.

me encantaria una cachapa ahorita

Ice cream is going to have to count as food because I have to take my antibiotics.

I’m having a big bowl of ice cream for lunch. I realise we don’t have much in the house that can be eaten cold. I really feel for some sushi. Maybe I’ll head out to get some later. The ice cream is going down nicely though. A milkshake would go down nicely too. Hm.

I hate it how people try to reject the word victim in favour of the word survivor.

You’re not a victim of abuse you’re a survivor.

I understand that they’re trying to reframe an experience. To empower the person. I get that. 

But it’s invalidating.

Because sometimes we are or have been victims.

And for a lot of people, admitting that is very empowering. Because many people reject the very idea that what happened to them was wrong. So identifying as a victim is in itself important because it is an acknowledgment of what happened. And acknowledging must come before healing can begin.

red-oman replied to your post “red-oman replied to your post:Bone thingyEeeek. I had stitches removed…”

My older cousin is now my dentist and so far she’s very gentle and the familiarity helps me to relax. She didn’t perform the surgery though, which is why I’d been so nervous about recent visits. I healed up nicely though. Happy healing to you too!

Thank you!

millerflintstone replied to your post “g’morning bleh”

iced coffee? or is that weird?

no I like iced coffee. but I think it’s the ritual of drinking a hot cup of coffee in the morning that I enjoy more than the fact that it’s coffee. anyway the AC guy is here and I’m already in the studio working so there went my morning ritual

flootzavut:

fromonesurvivortoanother:

Donald Trump’s campaign is like the ultimate in white male privilege

if a Black man reacted to insults and detractors the way Donald Trump does, he’d be called “angry”, “irrational”, and “uncivilized”

if a woman reacted that way she’d be called “catty”, bitch”, and “emotional”

but when a white guy does it people say he’s “honest”, “direct”, and has “guts” 

no other demographic can get away with publicly acting like a two year old who just woke up from a nap more than white dudes

there’s wide public acceptance and even admiration for this kind of behavior when the right kind of person does it 

all. of. this.

whiskey-and-ink:

I think people who don’t menstruate overall just don’t understand that we cannot stop the blood. If there’s nothing to collect it, it’s going everywhere. Most people can hold a shit, can hold a piss, and can hold back sex, until it’s convenient. When we bleed there is just no stopping it. It doesn’t matter if there’s nothing to catch the blood, it will keep coming.

That’s why this free-tampon discussion is over your heads. You don’t get it. You can compare it to toilet paper or condoms all you want but most of us have control over those things. When we bleed, we keep bleeding until it’s done. There’s no clenching or muscle training that will keep us from bleeding everywhere.

So stop talking about what you don’t understand. If condoms can be free, so can tampons.

I woke up this morning feeling absolutely ravenous.

I went to bed really late last night because I was waiting for the pain meds to wear off before I fell asleep so I could take some more. I did not want to be awoken by pain, it’s a horrible experience. After a while I realised that they probably had already worn off (8 hours after I took them) so I went to sleep. I woke up with no pain this morning, just some slight swelling and a slightly rotten mood, but that’s every morning. 

I’m getting a grittiness in my mouth from the bone particles but he said to expect that. I’m not allowed to rinse out my mouth so I just had some water to wash it down. I can’t have my morning cup of coffee, that’s a bummer. Still no hot stuff.

My AC guy is coming to do maintenance on our units in 40 minutes so I guess I should put some clothes on. I’m in a grumpy mood and really don’t feel like dealing with people but the units need servicing. Also my bedside lamp needs rewiring it started smoking at the switch this morning. I’d try fixing it myself but one thing I don’t mess with is electrical shit. I have a tendency of getting shocked on everything I touch. Not that I was intending to attempt repair while it was plugged in, but still, just no.

I’m back in the studio today. I want to make some more tassel earrings. 

rose-tonic:

reblogging it

These painkillers are pretty awesome man. I feel totally normal. Nice!

Eeeek. I had stitches removed from my gum just yesterday. Dentist visits make me so queezy ._.

I don’t love them but since I’ve started going to this dentist (an old schoolmate of Chris’s) I’ve felt a lot better about dentist visits. He’s super gentle and very reassuring.

Chris is feeding me hops bread with cheese and avocado and butter and it is yummy goodness.

Glad it all went well!

Thank you! He said it went better than expected. Not sure how but I can’t say I care much I’m just glad it’s finally over.

thisguyles replied to your post “Bone thingy”

I had to have alveoplasty done once. It was horrible.

I had to look that up. It DOES sound horrible. I have had two wisdom teeth surgically extracted during which they had to saw and cut the bone. It was traumatic. 

Did y’all see the 200m World Championships race? I swear Bolt looks like he’s jogging to the finish line. The guy is incredible. 

Finally just got home from the dentist. I got caught up in rush hour traffic, plus I had to stop by the pharmacy and drop Chris back at work. That meant that the anaesthesia started to wear off before I could take my pain meds, which are supposed to be taken after a meal. Eventually I just took them anyway and decided I’d deal with the fallout later. The pain has died down to almost nothing. He said I wouldn’t have much.

I’m now digging into some chicken salad that’s way too spicy. Why must Trinidadians make everything so damn peppery? Not everyone likes pepper. I swear it’s like a religion in this damn country. I just wanted something bland now I have to go fight up with this. 

I’m only supposed to eat cold foods for the next 24 hours which is the exact opposite of what I feel for. I want soup. Mashed potatoes. Cream of Wheat. Comfort food in other words. Cold food sounds cruel to me, but he explained that it keeps the swelling down and ensures that the bone that he implanted doesn’t get pushed out.

It wasn’t too traumatising of a procedure. He numbed me after a cleaning and started cutting but then I felt something so he injected me again. That happened once more and then I was fine. Thankfully there was no sawing or drilling. He spent most of the time pressing down on the area, I guess making space for the bone particle. Then he packed it up with bone and sewed it up and we were done. 

I looked at the area and it looks really neat and nice, a big improvement from before. He told me that the dentist who extracted my tooth not only removed too much bone but he also didn’t sew up my gum properly so it was loose, allowing food particles to get in which contributed to the bone loss. He cut out some excess gum before he closed me up.

I think I’m gonna go find something to watch on Netflix. And throw this fucking chicken salad away it’s just way too spicy. I have a fruit salad I think I’ll eat that. Maybe some ice cream. I’m disgusted with this chicken salad. Seriously it’s offensive. Or my mouth is just really sensitive right now. Either way it deserves a slap. Just no.

Just got out of the dentist. I can’t feel my face.

It took about 45 minutes including the cleaning he did first. He had to inject me two more times with anesthesia. That always seems to happen with me. After that it was smooth sailing.

I’m off to get pain mess and antibiotics. I feel like I just want to go home and crawl into bed. Cold food for the next 24 hours.

I look like Amy whine house on a bad day. I have a crack and my Insurance will cover a lot and they still charge me thousands. I hate our healthcare system.

Wow. What a rip off. We’re paying US$700 for this. Of course I’ve been to other dentists who would charge us twice that amount. But our guy is really good and his prices are super reasonable. Plus he has the best bedside manner of any dentist I’ve ever known.

I hope it all goes well. Enjoy the sleep!

Thanks I will 😀

I don’t really remember my wisdom teeth extraction hurting, but I remember I had to sleep for two days because anesthesia seems to hit me hard. I also just remember my mouth bleeding a lot. Hope this surgery goes well!!

Was it the kind of knock you out completely anaesthesia? Or was it just local where they inject the site alone? I’ve never had the kind where they put you to sleep, not for a dental procedure. He’s just going to numb the area. The worst part about that is that it feels funny when it’s wearing off, and of course your face might be numb. I’m not much of a bleeder either, so I’m hoping it’ll just be uncomplicated.

Today I have my bone graft surgery. I’m a little apprehensive, but I generally tend to heal very quickly so aside from the initial discomfort I expect I’ll be ok. When I’m sick or have had any kind of procedure I tend to sleep a lot, so I figure that’s how I’ll be spending the next couple of days.

I was discussing it with my sister the other day and I mentioned that we don’t have any health insurance. Chris works on contract and I of course am self-employed. It would be too expensive for us to pay for health insurance on our own so we pay out of pocket for stuff like this. I told her how much the procedure was costing and she was shocked. She told me that was probably what she would pay AFTER insurance in the U.S. That’s one thing I’m so grateful for. Healthcare in Trinidad, if not free, is very affordable. That’s why not having insurance isn’t really that scary for us. Even if one of us got seriously ill and required surgery, we know that the public healthcare system would take good care of us.

I’m craving sushi right now but that’s probably not a good idea. I think I’m supposed to be on soft foods and soups for the next few days. Suits me fine I like that shit. I bought myself some magazines and I’m gonna take the next few days off of work and heal up. Or not who knows. I’ve had a wisdom tooth extracted and went back to work the same day to teach. These things don’t seem to affect me the way they do other people. I rarely get any pain. Maybe something’s wrong with me. Heh. Either way I’m using it as an excuse to put my feet up. 

hollowedskin:

salomerises:

A couple of weeks ago, on a whim, I got a free contouring makeover at a cosmetics counter. Without going too deep into detail, it looked awful. It’s not that the makeup artist had done a bad job – she had followed her training perfectly, and I thought she was very professional and meticulous. I thanked her and told her I loved it, but when I looked in the mirror, I kept thinking to myself, Why do I look like a dead clown?

Then I realized what it was… 

Contouring is designed to bring all the light to the center of the face and create contrasting shadows on the edges. It is designed to make the face look thinner, the nose look smaller, the jaw look slimmer, and the brow look softer. 

In short, it is designed to emphasize European features. 

It is designed to exalt white features.

And so on my Middle Eastern face, contouring looked like a surrealist painting. It made my face look flat, it made my features look spread out like they had been hit by a car and scattered across the highway. I looked terrible. 

Then I had a thought: if contouring made me look this terrible, this pattern of highlights and shadows just doesn’t work on faces that look like mine. Let me try it in reverse.

So I went home, washed that shit off, and started again. I took the basic tenets of contouring and reversed them. So instead of darkening my jaw and hairline and drawing a hideous strip of white down the bridge of my nose, I did the opposite: I put on my regular foundation and powder, and then did a strip of bronzer down my nose and a light dusting of it on my cheeks. I shaded the center of my face and highlighted the outer frame – the exact opposite of what contouring is. Because I don’t want my face to look thinner or my nose to look smaller. I want to look like the person I actually am. I have a big, strong jawline and a prominent nose. Those are features I got from my family – my family of extremely admirable people: self-starting entrepreneurs, loving mothers, accomplished surgeons, genocide survivors. I don’t want to hide any of that in exchange for a flattened pancake face or conformity with western beauty standards. 

When I looked in the mirror after emphasizing all of my “ethnic” features, I was amazed at what I saw: I looked beautiful. Every curve and arch and “undesirable” feature stood out and declared its presence proudly on my face. I looked nothing like the hum-drum wax figure that had walked out of the mall two hours earlier. I looked like me – a shinier, badass version of me. 

I’m sick of these whitewashed European features dominating the media. Constantly, women of color are being pressured to look more European – it is painfully obvious, with their white-striped noses and heavily darkened jawlines. So I’m proposing a counter movement: shade in your most prominent, “ethnic-looking” features. Make them stand out. Accentuate your wide nose, draw light to your strong jaw, show the world your indelicate brow bone. Makeup is such a great tool for self-expression. So let’s start actually expressing ourselves instead of the image the media wants us to express.

this is beautiful

treebourbon:

If you don’t love Freddie Mercury we can’t be friends.

Agreed

Apparently I will be having the rest of the fried plantain for dinner alone. I had a massive lunch so that suits me fine. Plus a Malta. Yisssss