soulsistrin

@sublimereea tagged me and I feel like doing a little navel gazing so here goes

Rules: answer the 20 questions and tag 20 followers

Name: Natasha
Nickname: Tash, Tasha 
Zodiac sign: Capricorn
Height: 5′10″
Orientation: Straight 
Nationality + ethnicity: Nationality Trinidad & Tobago. Ethnicity mixed, African, Chinese/Mongolian, Indian and various European countries
Favorite fruit: The mango is the king of all fruit to me
Favorite season: Not that we have them but I really like fall.
Favorite book: I’ve probably re-read The Color Purple the most 
Favorite flower: I really love orchids. I’ve never owned one because I generally am not great with plants, but to me they are the most beautiful of all flowers.
Favorite scent: I love the smell after it rains. J’Adore perfume. Babies. Puppies.
Favorite color: purple always
Favorite animal: I am very partial to elephants. I also love horses.
Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate: I like coffee in the morning, tea in the evening. I love the idea of hot chocolate more than I actually drink it. It’s hot here so there’s really not a lot of reason to be drinking hot chocolate.
Average hours of sleep: I think my sleep tracker says I get about 5. My ideal is 7
Cats or dogs: I’m definitely a dog person. I really like cats too but I don’t intuitively understand them the way I do dogs. 
Number of blankets you sleep with: one plus a sheet
Dream trip: Paris
Blog created: January 2011. Damn
Number of followers: 570 but a ton of those aren’t active.

I tag @justhappyrobot, @thatfriendlyblackguy, @thatgumyoulikeisback, @notmybesttry, @heyladysherlock, @mistavybe, @dameofgroans, @julierthanyou, @pennytoplay, @trinilikesalt, @codenamedutchess, @somecallmetracy, @semicullen, @millerflintstone, @wtf-is-that-about, @justlittlethings, @pandoranora, @kalamazu, @internalrenovations, @bumblemama

uplifttogether:

cryoverkiltmilk:

the-witching-hours12-3:

askmarletfiredings:

willows-art-trashcan:

fwoosh-finnick-the-fan:

prospect-euphoria:

sandflake:

I dearly wish that people would view their bodies as they view flowers…

Veins everywhere?

gorgeous~

Skin patches? Birthmarks?

hella rad~

Scars? Stretch marks?

beautiful~

Freckles? Moles? Acne scars?

heckie yeah~

Large? Curvy?

lovely~

Small? Thin?

charming~

Missing a few pieces?

handsome as ever~

Feel like you just look weird?

you’re fantastic looking~

THIS is the best post ever. 

THIS.

@asknos4a2yourmaster

;-; I need this every day of my life I will never not reblog this it is beautiful and just what I need every day.

I needed this

Don’t insult anything about yourself you wouldn’t say about a flower

A little body positivity for y’all tonight.

I was making a ring today where two knots intertwine with each other. I started making the second ring forgetting to knot it into the first so I had to undo the knot and redo it. Then I thought I dropped them both and spent ten minutes looking for them before I decided to start over only to find them on my ring mandril that I had set aside… ten minutes ago. Sometimes I swear I’d lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on to my body.

I should have just stayed home. This entire weekend has been a shitshow.

I’m so fucking over… everything.

There’s this weird trend that I’ve noticed at UpMarket where I’ll have a certain piece or type of jewelry and two or three UpMarkets could pass and nobody buys them and then in one day I’ll sell like three of them. Like today was a crescent moon necklace day (actually it was a necklace day in general). Last month it was a bracelet day. And the sales are never around the same time so it’s not like customers are influencing each other. I need to tap into that energy and find a way to exploit it. So far it’s just a mystery to me though.

This guy at UpMarket just walked past me with his third cup of coffee. If I drank that much coffee I’d either be a trembling mess or curled upon the bathroom floor in pain. I don’t know how people can handle that much caffeine. And the coffee vendors here make it really strong. I had one today and could barely hold my pliers still enough to adjust a chain. Blergh.

I saw a Chinese woman this morning wearing a beautiful jade pendant.

It reminded me of the first time I went to San Francisco and went into a jewelry store in Chinatown and bought a cheap jade ring.

When I got back to Trinidad I showed it to my half-Chinese grandmother with pride. Jade! From China!

She glanced at it and sniffed, “Not good quality.”

I wondered how she knew. It looked the same as the expensive pieces to me. But she had come from an affluent Chinese family. Maybe in that former life, before they had lost their fortune, she knew about these things.

I pocketed it and left the room, now disenchanted with my purchase. It broke soon after relieving me of ever having to wear it again.

I always tried to keep my last name off of my blog but I guess that’s a lost cause… oh well

twooping:

You could’ve reblogged that from me

npr:

nprbooks:

I never understood the “Don’t judge a book by its cover”
sentiment.  As a kid, I remember thinking to myself, I thought that’s what book covers were for? They’re the first
thing potential readers see when they’re browsing and they’re the subject of
many an *intellectual* Instagram shot. But most importantly, artists work hard
to make sure book covers reflect  what’s inside of them.

As the NPR Books intern, my hands end up on a lot of brand
new titles, which also have brand new covers. So this summer, I’m going to be
tumbling about book cover art and artists in a series I’m calling #bookcovercrush.

First up: Luiza Sauma’s Flesh
and Bone and Water, which was designed by cover artist Lauren
Peters-Collaer.

The novel follows a wealthy Brazilian teenager
who finds himself drawn to the family
maid’s beautiful daughter after

travelling to the mouth of the Amazon.

Peters-Collaer says, “First, I explored mixing painted
patterns with natural elements of the Brazilian landscape to convey the
tropical setting and lush, layered feeling of the narrative.”

“At the same time, I was interested in incorporating an
obscured female visual to reference the woman who is a catalyst for the story,
and who is increasingly illuminated throughout the course of the text.”

“These two ideas came together in the final cover”:

Be sure to watch out for next installment of #bookcovercrush!

-Intern Sydnee

Images courtesy of 

Lauren Peters-Collaer and Scribner

I love seeing the process behind the final cover 📚  -Emily

Someone mentioned Circle Square on Facebook today and it got me thinking of Sesame Street and Big Blue Marble and shows I grew up watching as a kid in the 70′s and how inclusive they were when it came to representing different races. It’s not as if the 70′s blonde haired blue eyed aesthetic ideal was lost on me, it was ever present, but as a kid I definitely felt a sense of belonging in the tv shows that were geared toward my age group. Sometimes the 70′s felt much more progressive than any other decade I’ve lived in. I know it wasn’t across the board and my view is likely influenced by the fact that I was so young, but colour really felt like a non-issue back then for the generation of kids that I grew up with. We had no idea how the tide would turn against that down the road.

I went to get a trim today and the lady at the salon was telling me that I should get a wet brush (whatever that is that she was using on my hair) to brush it out when it’s wet. I told her I use a wide tooth comb, and she said a brush was better because it pulls the oils down through your hair. And I had two thoughts:

Lady do you not see how dry my hair is? What oils?

and

Brush curly hair when it’s wet? It’s like, the cardinal sin of curly hair care!

But she’s Indian so she obviously has no idea that you cannot treat curly hair the same way as straight hair. I hope she doesn’t go around preaching this to her clients because oy vey.

Apparently ethnic coffee from Vietnam involves making it with condensed milk. Hey Trinidad we ethnic too!

I’m reading a food blog and the writer is talking about their love of ethnic food… and like… I understand what they mean? But to other people, it’s just food, you know? I get so tired of this othering that people do. Because by definition, all food is ethnic. And do we get to lump all food that is not-from-here as ethnic? Is Thai food ethnic in the same way Italian is? Or does it only refer to spicy food? Or Asian food? Or food I can’t cook? Is French food ethnic? If so why not? Does ethnic food only come from perceived third world cultures? Or non-white? Is West Indian cuisine ethnic? And if so, whose ethnicity?

Steupsssss… people need to think about what they’re saying. And don’t get me started on that word “exotic”.

Should be a law that you can’t be awake before 7 on a weekend.

I have a photoshoot at 7 tomorrow.

Getting up at 6 so I can look like a human being by the time it starts.

Not what I want to be doing with my Saturday morning.

Sometimes a burger at 10pm is what you need. My hips will curse me for it later but I’d say it was pretty worth it.

For some reason, the scars on my face have been bothering me more than ever before.

For those who don’t know, I was mauled by a dog when I was five, on my face. The dog ripped apart my left eyelid, and left a deep gash in my forehead which bears the most prominent scar. I also have three scars on my right cheek, one which was a deep puncture wound. And two scars on my neck also from puncture wounds.

It’s never bothered me before but lately, I don’t know why, it’s bugging me. At 40 I started suffering from mild adult acne. After taking medication my skin cleared up, but the side effect is that it made my oily skin produce even more oil. So half an hour after I put makeup on my face has a sheen than pronounces all of my scars. 

I don’t know why this is bugging me so much lately. It’s never bothered me before. Maybe it’s an age thing. But the realization that I will never have a flawless complexion seems to be getting to me recently. I don’t know what the difference is but I’m noticing my scars more and more. Maybe I just need to get some sun and get a nice healthy glow going. But it’s weird that after all these years the scars are starting to get to me. It doesn’t make sense. I must be having a midlife existential crisis. Cause seriously what the fuck.

– Today was my niece’s birthday, she turned 7, so I got to Facetime with her for a bit. Hliights of our conversations included when I asked her if she wanted me to send her anything and she hemmed and hawed for a while before saying no upon which I declared thank God that I would keep the pony I was gonna send for her and she cracked up. She’s always had a good sense of humor that kid. On telling me that her favourite flavours of both cake and ice cream were strawberry I  told her that it was against the rules to eat both together as she ran the risk of turning into a strawberry. She laughed and told me it was just a superstition. I miss that kid so much man.

– I finally got a chance to taste those fancy Belgian chocolates. They were divine, as expected. The sender was one of my Dad’s former colleagues from when he worked in Barbados. He saw my dad both as a mentor and father figure. He was very close to him and has kept in touch with me and my sister. It’s nice having that connection. The gift was such a thoughtful gesture.

– I’ve really been enjoying freelancing again. Maybe it’s where I’m working or what I’m working on or maybe it’s that I got a break from it for a few years but I’m now remembering what I loved about graphic design again and it feels so great to get back into it. I’m enjoying it. And making some good money. Awesome pawsome.

– I’m a little drunk so everything feels sweet and shiny right now. I was listening to the audiobook of Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now today. Some heavy stuff. But I’ve been going through a spiritual awakening and metamorphosis. (I cannot use that word without thinking of cockroaches.) Anyhow it’s been good for me. I feel different. Life feels good, hopeful and secure for the first time in a very long time. I like that feeling. I want to keep it.

– I don’t say it all the time anymore but I am really madly in love with my husband. I try not to be sickening. It doesn’t mean we don’t have challenges. We have a lot. But at the core he is it for me. Always was, always will be. 

Enslaved people.

Stop calling people slaves.

They did not go to Africa and bring back slaves. They went to Africa and enslaved people. 

Stop saying African slaves. They were enslaved people from Africa.