After I had some Chinese food for dinner last night I started getting an allergic reaction. It’s a new thing my body’s started doing where my lips get a little puffy and dry and the lip line might itch a bit. I don’t know what the fuck sets it off but it hasn’t happened for a bit so there I was wondering what it was now and going back through the past few days trying to remember everything I ate and drank until I looked down at the plate and realised duh I ate shrimp.
Happy international women’s day to all the black women out there struggling, mothering, loving, breathing, praying, dancing, resisting, laughing and BEING.
I found the first Pokemon on my porch and then the app wanted me to walk around outside or some shit and I was like fuck this shit cause I do not walk anywhere in Trinidad it is way too fucking hot and I am not giving myself a fucking migraine to find no fucking Pokemon so I deleted the app and that’s that.
Since joining Tumblr, I’ve met a lot of young queer people. Look, I’m a bisexual man in a gay relationship, and I’m approaching 30. I was still a kid when Matthew Shepard’s story was being covered on the news. I remember thinking, “I better keep my mouth shut about these feelings I’m having.”
And then I met Dominic when I was 12, and people could see how in love we were. And we got the shit beat out of us. The year I met him, some kids in the grade above me held me down against the bleachers in our gym and stomped on my hand until my fingers broke. Instead of sending me to the nurse, the teacher sent me to the assistant principal to explain the situation. She asked why the kids had beat me up. I said, “They were calling me gay.”
Her response was, “Well, are you?”
My, “I don’t know,” earned a call to my parents, and I was outed. Efforts were made to keep me from seeing Dom. Throughout high school, Dom’s stepmother intensified these efforts. He slept in the basement of the house. Although he was an incredibly talented student, he was prohibited from participating in any extracurriculars. He suffered a lot of physical abuse during those years.
The day he turned 18, he packed up everything he had and walked to my house, and we’ve lived together ever since. Things are better, but they’re not perfect. I’ve had trucks pull up next to me at stoplights and, seeing the pride sticker on my car, through old drinks and garbage into my window. I no longer speak to my dad’s side of the family. I haven’t been to see them for Christmas or Thanksgiving in years. One of my uncles had cornered me at Thanksgiving when I was 17 and said, “I’m not going to judge you, but I’d be happy to break your neck so God can do the judging a little sooner.”
I joined a support group for trans and intersex people. When I joined, 40 people attended regularly. Within the year, the group was half the size it had been. Some couldn’t make it anymore, because they were staying at the shelter, where their stay hinged on them agreeing to instead to attend homophobic sermons. Some were put in correctional therapy. Five of them died. Three of those, I didn’t know, but I knew Alex, the 19 year old who was fag-dragged in Kentucky and died a day later in the hospital, and I knew Stephanie, who went home to Alabama to care for her mom in hospice and was beaten to death with a baseball bat by her mom’s boyfriend.
Tumblr is not reality. The dynamic here does not reflect the dynamic out there. Here’s the part where I finally make a point, and it might be extremely unpopular – but guys, value your allies.Value each other. We are met with enough hate in our daily lives to enter an online safe-space and meet more hate from our own, over petty things. Don’t go after one another over every little thing you find problematic.
Learn to see nuance. Maybe the word “queer” bothers you, and you see a gay man using it as an umbrella term. Maybe someone called a trans man a trans woman because they’re confused about terminology, but the post where they did it was voicing support for the trans community. Maybe someone is just asking a question, wanting to learn more. Stop. Attacking. These. People.
Allies are being driven away. Members of our own community are being ostracized. Others are feeling nervous and estranged, and it’s largely because of places like Tumblr, where the social justice movement is quickly becoming violent and radical. I am begging you, stop nitpicking “problematic” things and start directing your efforts to create real change. When it comes to comes to your allies, forget the “social justice warrior” mentality and put down your torch. Educate calmly. Be respectful. Be understanding. Be forgiving. And I’m certainly not saying that your anger doesn’t have a good place – when you are met with bigots on the street, congress members who want to pass hateful laws, violent protesters, abusive parents, prejudiced teachers, that is when you need to be a warrior. That’s when it counts. In the real world. When you have the opportunity to protect people from real harm. Attacking your would-be allies via anonymous asks is just going to lose us ground in the long run. And we don’t have time for that, not when trans women of color are being murdered every day, not when states are still fighting against marriage equality, not when there are politicians in office who believe that trans people are possessed by demons, not when we’ve just lost 50 brothers and sisters to one gunman, not when the media won’t even admit that the attack was homophobic.
Please step back. Look at the big picture. Look at where we are, globally. Don’t just log on to your safe space and attack your allies over small missteps. That’s like washing the dishes in a house that’s on fire, kids. Let’s fight on the battlefield, and when we come home to each other, let’s just focus on bandaging up our wounds so we can go out and win the war.
Signal boost to this unbelievably important message.
I was hanging out with a friend today and her teeth are distractingly white and it reminded me of that episode of Friends where Ross bleached his teeth and they glowed in the dark.
Last night Chris came into the bedroom and says, you didn’t see that spider up there?
And I look up and above his desk is this fucking ginormous spider. It was about four inches across.
Now generally I am not someone who freaks out about insects. I tend to coexist with most of them pretty peacefully. I’m not gonna kill them just for existing. But I have two rules. You can’t live in my bedroom and you’re not allowed to be big.
The bug spray was right there so I was like babe you gotta kill it.
So he starts spraying it and I’m like, I’m sorry spider but you can’t live in here.
After half a minute it hasn’t moved.
Then it starts crawling down the wall.
Then it starts dangling from its web shit like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible and letting itself down slowly onto the desk.
The very fucking messy desk where it will camouflage itself and disappear and I hear myself let out a scream as it very audibly, and heavily plops itself down onto the fucking keyboard.
Now I’m like burn down the house!
So Chris laughs and goes looking for it and calmly tells me it’s now on the floor.
The floor that the bed is resting on. The bed that I’m sitting on. The bed that the fucking spider can climb up on and terrorise me.
Kill it! I scream.
And he grabs my newly washed sneakers and beats it to death while I’m screaming bloody murder on the bed.
Finally he gets up like the big man he is and declares that it is dead, and throws it away for good measure.
And that’s the story of how I got spider guts on my newly washed sneakers.
Oh now she wrote back saying that Black people are not the only people who are being killed.
I had to give her the breast cancer analogy (if you have a walk for breast cancer awareness people don’t run up and yell at you about lung cancer and diabetes and say all diseases kill.. like, we’re allowed to draw attention to one thing it does not denigrate other things).
Commenting on a post about Black Lives Matter and this woman says that her problem with the movement is that they are saying that it’s ok to kill other races.
How??? How does one arrive at that conclusion? That’s literally the most asinine interpretation of BLM that I’ve seen yet. And that’s saying a lot.
I was online buying some supplies today and I saw these really nice beads in the shape of a buddha head.
I love that kind of boho hippie style of jewellery but I try to be very aware about not appropriating religious symbols. I feel really uncomfortable when I see jewellery that commodifies buddhas, om, ganesh, hamsa etc. I only use them when I’m asked now.
I know I could sell a shit ton of it, it’s very popular, but I can’t bring myself to do it, it feels disrespectful.
I read today that Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick ® called Black Lives Matter protesters hypocrites for running from the gunfire. He stated that BLM is anti-police and yet they expected police to protect them from the gunfire.
Aside from that fact that his statements is so utterly unthinkably ridiculous, I want to ask ALL people who think the way he does one question:
If you think that a movement that supports the lives of Black people is automatically anti-police, then you need to ask yourself WHY.
Why is pro-police the opposite of a movement that supports Black lives?
Hey Warner Bros, have I got a cash cow for you to milk.
Now I never got into Pokemon. But all of this hype surrounding Pokemon Go has given me an idea.
And that idea is an app where you turn the real world into the wizarding world.
Think about it.
Make the entire world into a Harry Potter video game. You hold up your phone and all of a sudden there’s a Dementor in the street. Facing him now will surely mean death. So you have to go around the neighborhoods and collect Bertie Botts Beans (again, Harry Potter video game) so that you can exchange them for the Patronus Charm. You can also collect Wizard Cards and can do things to earn house points. (Much like Pottermore.) Along the way, you run into all sorts of creatures and characters. I’m not sure why Bellatrix Lestrange has decided to hang out at your grandmother’s house but you know what, there’s no time to question it, you need to open up your spell inventory and choose the right one to defeat her. Your loyalty is to your house but at the same time, you also want to collect as many beans/cards and defeat as many evil characters as you possibly can. The ultimate goal of the game is to find the locations of the horcruxes so that you can destroy them and defeat Voldemort.
If you’re white and unsure of how to react to the latest police killings and violence, take note of Broderick Greer’s tweet and the response on Twitter. It’s a straightforward, but effective way to voice support in wake of the recent shootings.
We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.
Prototype bracelet completed. With a few alterations to the design it’s pretty much good to go! #caribbean #jewelry #trinidad #handmade #bracelet #beading #turquoise #pearls #sorryforthecrappyphoto
Sunday night, HBO presents a new eight-part limited drama series called The Night Of, based on a British series and originally intended to star James Gandolfini, who died suddenly after shooting the pilot episode. It finally emerges this weekend, with John Turturro taking over the role that had so intrigued Gandolfini. Our TV critic David Bianculli says the result is a miniseries that is not just a worthy remake – it’s surprisingly, and excitingly, original –
“For the American The Night Of remake, novelist and screenwriter Richard Price and
writer-director Steve Zaillian opened the story up, slowed it down and made
some significant changes. One was recasting the prime suspect as a Pakistani-American,
played by Riz Ahmed. That injects subtext to everything, from his treatment in
prison to his initial questioning by Detective Box – played, in the American
version, by Bill Camp.”
HBO’s ‘The Night Of’ Is Riveting From The Very First Frame
Photo credit: HBO
I saw the first episode of this. I couldn’t take my eyes off the television. I can’t wait to see more.
A procrastinator’s life is filled with disappointment.
I guess so huh? I’m so the opposite of that I can’t possibly identify.
I’ve been a procrastinator for a long time. My mother and father procrastinate and are always late to everything, so I grew up having little regard for time and rushing everywhere. I can’t tell you how many flights we’ve missed, paperwork being done at the last minute, events we’ve been late to, and appointments we’ve had to reschedule. A few years ago, I went to a little party my friend was hosting and I was late by 2 hours, turns out it was a surprise farewell party my two friends had thrown for me and I was so late that they were basically wrapping up the party by the time I got there. N is always early and likes to get things done asap and our relationship struggled with me being the polar opposite. I felt like I had constantly disappointed people, eventually I got a self help book and actively started working on being early, making lists AND completing them, not allowing my insecurities to put off things that could have been done ages ago and I worked on confronting awkward situations. The procrastinating part of myself never really went away, I still put things off sometimes if I think it’s “too much” or “too awkward” but I eventually deal with them. I arrive early to events and appointments, if I commit to something I follow through as much as possible, I respond to messages as soon as I can (my friends use to think I fell off the earth sometimes) and I keep deadlines if I have to get dressed to go to events. It’s improved my relationship and my friendships.
I don’t necessarily put procrastination in the same boat as a chronic inability to be on time because I suppose I can procrastinate myself, yet I am very punctual. But I can see how they can be related. I too can put things off (like phone calls) because they make me feel uncomfortable but it would not be for long. I grew up in a household that was punctual also so perhaps it’s been easier for me to also be that way. But it’s good to hear that with effort it is possible to overcome a tendency to be late. I’m fortunate that Chris is also a punctual person so the biggest issue that we might have is him having to wait on me because he got ready too early. It’s hard living in a country where people have such a lax approach to time but I’ve found that generally if I anticipate it and work to suit it’s not a problem. I feel that my biggest issue is when people are non-apologetic about their tardiness.
Dylan Roof went into a church and prayed with Black people before shooting them to death and they put a bullet proof vest on him when they arrested him.
But a Black man can’t take his wallet out of his pocket without a cop pumping bullets into his chest in front of his five year old child.
I don’t care how hot it is or who lied to u, there’s never a time to wear flip flops
THANK YOU FOR SPREADING THE GOOD WORD
I wear them around the house as summer slippers and out to get pedis. If I ever went to a pool or the beach, I might wear them then too, but I don’t. I do not understand people who just wear them like, Out tho. They make my feet feel so… Vulnerable.
l m a o thongs r life
I can get why people don’t like them for themselves but are there really people in 2016 who have strong opinions about other people wearing flips flops? Wild
^^
I don’t get how people can be grossed out by merely feet in the summer when we’re all just out sharing our crotch and ass sweat on communal subway seats and benches. The sight of feet are the least of our summer problems.
Flip flops all summer. Sorry not sorry.
Flip flops 24/7/12/365/726373929 all day every day for lyfe
Unless it’s below freezing, there is a very high likelihood that I will wear flip flops.
Someone contacted me today telling me he had some raw gemstones and wanted to know if I could make an anniversary bracelet for his wife.
I told him to send me a picture of the stones and I’d see what I could do. They were very raw, and I was unable to even identify the stones and he didn’t know what they were either.
I told him I would try my best to find someone who could polish them for him and maybe drill them because at this stage they had no aesthetic value and don’t do that kind of work. Right now they just look like two dirty pebbles.
He thanked me and asked if I could get it done sooner rather than later. THEN he said, oh our anniversary is on the 16th.
It’s the 7th.
He was sort of apologetic and said he was a bit of a procrastinator.
I’m going to talk to a friend who has a guy who cuts stones for him and will pass on his number. Other than that I’m pretty much washing my hands of this.
I’m sorry but his wife won’t be getting the gift he had hoped to give her.
•A compliment
•A story
•Why you follow me
•If you met me what would you do
•A cute message
•One thing you want to tell me
•One thing you want to know about me
”I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.”Frida Kahlo
Nancy Wake, who has died in London just before her 99th birthday, was a New Zealander brought up in Australia. She became a nurse, a journalist who interviewed Adolf Hitler, a wealthy French socialite, a British agent and a French resistance leader. She led 7,000 guerrilla fighters in battles against the Nazis in the northern Auvergne, just before the D-Day landings in 1944. On one occasion, she strangled an SS sentry with her bare hands. On another, she cycled 500 miles to replace lost codes. In June 1944, she led her fighters in an attack on the Gestapo headquarters at Montlucon in central France.
Ms Wake was furious the TV series [later made about her life] suggested she had had a love affair with one of her fellow fighters. She was too busy killing Nazis for amorous entanglements, she said.
Nancy recalled later in life that her parachute had snagged in a tree. The French resistance fighter who freed her said he wished all trees bore “such beautiful fruit.” Nancy retorted: “Don’t give me that French shit.“
Watching The Night Manager and I can’t stop thinking that Tom Hiddleston is dating Taylor Swift and all of a sudden I can’t take him seriously anymore.
My hormones need to gih me a rest already because I have been in a moooooood today! If there is anything that I could get pissed off about I have been getting pissy about it. I am even annoying my own damn self. Enough already. Why does it feel like pms lasts for two whole damn weeks?
To make Lyle, Chuck Close took a large-format Polaroid photograph of fellow artist Lyle Ashton Harris. Then he applied a diagonally oriented penciled grid to the image, dividing it into small diamond-shaped units. Close transposed the photograph onto a canvas overlaid with a larger but otherwise identical grid, painting every diamond individually. Viewed up close, each diamond looks like a small abstract painting of multicolored and irregular concentric rings. From a distance, however, the colors, shapes, and lines coalesce into a depiction of Harris.
Yes I was a senior art director at an ad agency with a name known worldwide. It meant that I worked very, very long hours and often felt very frustrated creatively. I also got to do a lot of really cool shit. But mostly it was a grind. I loved graphic design but working there made me not only fall out of love with my profession, it made me start to hate it. I’m much happier doing this.
•A compliment
•A story
•Why you follow me
•If you met me what would you do
•A cute message
•One thing you want to tell me
•One thing you want to know about me
I was at Hot Topic and saw this cool tshirt for some band or something called Bring Me the Horizon and idk what bring me the horizon is and don’t really care but the shirt is cute so i’ll wear it
This was an experiment. See how people started getting mad at me for “buying” a Bring Me The Horizon shirt, when I said I really knew nothing about them? How I said I bought it simply because I thought it was cute? Completely disregarding who the band was?
This is how people from other cultures feel when you purchase and wear garb from their culture with no knowledge of what that garb symbolizes and means. If you wear or use something for the wrong reasons, people get mad.
This has got to be by far one of the best ways to explain cultural appropriation to people.
This girl who says she came to UpMarket yesterday and met me (so she must have come to my table) is now spending the whole day messaging me on instagram asking me the price of stuff that she had all day yesterday to look at and it’s really annoying me.
I don’t mind that usually but like, she was in front of all of those pieces yesterday. Why are you suddenly all up in my grill about them now? They were all there!
Yesterday this girl came up to my table and picked up a pair of crystal point earrings. She then proceeded to drop them and they broke and she was all apologetic. She then picked out another (while still holding the first) and dropped those but thankfully they didn’t break. Then she dropped them AGAIN at which point she decided fuck the earrings and I was all too grateful. She had the good grace to buy a bracelet but made adjust it about three times before it fit her exactly as she wanted. Good god.
On Saturday we went to this thing where this steel orchestra was playing. They were pretty small only about fifteen people but sounded amazing. They did some local songs, some classics and a few contemporary pieces. This piece was a great example of how
amazingly diverse steel pan is.
Roman Lycurgus Cup is a 1,600-year-old jade green Roman chalice.
When you put a source of the light inside it it magically changes colour. It appears jade green when lit from the front but blood-red when lit from behind or inside. Now we know that romans dissolve silver and gold particles into the glass. These particles are 50 nanometers wide, less than one-thousandth the size of a grain of table salt.
The Ribchester Helmet is a Roman bronze ceremonial helmet dating to between the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD, which is now on display at the British Museum. It was found in Ribchester, Lancashire, England in 1796, as part of the Ribchester Hoard.
Kenyan-born artist Tahir C. Karmali’s “work provides an honorable representation of how Kenyans have
steady used the disownment of their government, and created a culture of
triumph and beauty.
“The philosophy behind ‘Jua Kali’ is what inspired me – it is
this notion that no matter what, we are going to make it work with what
we have around us. The idea that junk and scrap can be repurposed to
create whatever we want.” -Tahir”
Lemongrass and mint soap, sweet lemongrass body oil, and this really awesome massage candle that you can light AND use as a moisturizer. It smells divine.
Also I exchanged that beautiful flower crown for a necklace. Well two flower crowns because she’s making one for my niece which I’m sending as a surprise. I look like a snapchat filter!
Sales were really good and I’m tired and freshly showered and so ready to bep (sleep).
I finally used my spiralizer last night on some sweet potatoes. I sprinkles them with olive oil and sea salt and baked them to a crisp. They were delicious, Chris really enjoyed them too. Went nicely with our baked salmon dinner. Yum.
Chris just left to watch the Germany match. He had on his Germany hat, his personalised team jersey, his Germany scarf and took his big German beer stein that I bought him for Christmas. Made me grin. The man takes his football seriously.
Tumblr allows blogs to be flagged as NSFW or flag themselves as NSFW
I think there should at least be a function where no NSFW blogs can follow you
When this site is 13+ as an age group, I think it’s fair for kids to have the option of TRYING to prevent obvious porn blogs from following them or reblogging their stuff. It just sounds right and normal. Not to mention not everyone enjoys porn blogs following them and would like to TRY and prevent it.
One of the things I loved about this season of Game of Thrones is that when all the power players positioned themselves in place, almost every one of them turned out to be a woman.
Still super impressed by this piece and ever moreso by the person behind it. @soulsistrin thanks for doing super rad work and just generally being a kickass cool person.
Back atcha girl. And thanks. That’s a really nice pic by the way well done!
Someone I don’t know just messaged me on instagram (they are also in Trinidad and also make jewellery) to ask me where I got the supplies for a certain necklace.
Is it wrong of me to think that’s in poor form?
I spend a lot of time and energy sourcing my supplies. There are certain sites that everybody buys stuff from (like metals) but when it comes to other things like stones and so on I would never share that information with a competitor. Ever. And I’d never ask either.
The odd thing is that what she was looking for was commonly available if she just googled it. I mean…
soulsistrin 