Los Angeles–based designer Emily McDowell was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 24, enduring nine months of chemo and radiation before going into remission.
“The most difficult part of my illness wasn’t losing my hair, or being erroneously called ‘sir’ by Starbucks baristas, or sickness from chemo,” McDowell writes on her website. “It was the loneliness and isolation I felt when many of my close friends and family members disappeared because they didn’t know what to say, or said the absolute wrong thing without realizing it.”
The 38-year-old designer has been cancer-free ever since. But the emotional impact of the experience lingered, inspiring her to design a newly launched series of Empathy Cards—emotionally direct greeting cards that say the things she wanted to hear when she was ill.
The blurbs about each card are great to read (click on the photos), as is the Slate article describing the inspiration for the card line
These are illustrations for a story about daddy zombie and the little girl, who doesn’t seem to notice that dad is a bit strange. I used just a ball pen to get impression that these could be drawings from a family diary.
You’d think by the twelfth season on Grey’s Anatomy they would have better looking fake babies but they still look like they were molded out of Play Doh
My sister went back to England yesterday. Saturday night we had a big family reunion with our aunts and uncles, cousins and their spouses and kids. It was wonderful seeing everyone.
Sue doesn’t resemble Dad per-se, but she has a very strong family resemblance to some of our other family members. It’s unmistakable.
She has a medical background and told me that from the first time she saw Dad’s scans that she knew he wasn’t going to make it. She was the one who actually told him later on that he needed to get his affairs in order.
She feels more like a cousin to me than a sister. Someone I’m related to and care for deeply and would be closer to if we would see each other more often. I really hope to change that soon.
When I was living in Caracas, after we had just moved there I remember feeling really lonely. My brother had stayed behind in Trinidad for school, I had a new baby sister who was six months old, and I guess I was dealing with a lot of difficult changes. I remember drawing a family portrait that included an older teenaged sister who was “white” and had a face covered in freckles who lived in England. Turned out I had one. She just happened to live in Ireland. Weird huh?
My Dad’s dying wish was that she and mom would meet. I’m happy that they’ve made that happen. I’m elated that she’s met the rest of the family. My heart is soaring just thinking about it. It feels as though finally something is complete.
I want to write something but I feel like I have nothing relevant to say. I’ve been busy with work, family stuff, whatever. I have to leave for my second meeting for the day. Busy is good, though. And I’m excited about some (work) things that are happening. But damn I am so tired right now.
what i really love about these is that there are only best guesses as to what they were used for…
and given modern day idiocy over sex, it is entirely possible it is ascribed to brothels because we can’t think of any other way it could be used… *gasp* who would use money with sex acts on them?
(like, for ages, we similarly thought ancient hairstyles were wigs because we couldn’t fathom that anyone could do that to their natural hair… turns out, the presumptions were wrong.)
in fact, there is some indication that these coins were even struck as a form of political jab at Tiberius (notoriously linked to all things erotic and kinky) and who reportedly kept a small army of young sexual slaves called spintrii or spintrae…
I’m just enjoying the skill and artistry of the lewd little coins. Way to go Roman artist/metalsmith
Our new-ish cleaning lady is coming over today. I decided I would leave her a list seeing as she cleaned the glass tv stand with furniture polish last time.
We’re having a family get-together with my (half) sister today. I’m going to bake an apple strudel. I’m so sorry that she’s going to be gone tomorrow already. I barely got to spend any time with her. We had such a wonderful time on Thursday. We talked about Dad a lot. That was hard. But it felt good to share my feelings with someone who loved in somewhat the same way. It’s been a very emotional time.
I want to give her a pair of earrings but I can’t decide which. Gonna go look on my website and see what I have.
Likes can only go so far for artists. Artists may exclusively upload their artwork to tumblr, or don’t have the time to use other sites and prefer tumblr over deviantART due to its simplicity, but the tagging system can make it harder to navigate. Many artists on tumblr tag with high-traffic tags or use their own tags to prevent tag clogging which eventually become lost. That’s why it’s very important to reblog an artist’s work.
I’m not trying to push you to ruin your blog’s aesthetic or something, nor am I saying that “you must absolutely reblog your favourite artist’s work or you’re trash”, all I’m saying is if you truly want to support your favourite artist, instead of just liking their posts, try to reblog them once in a while. The more reblogs they receive, the more exposure/notes/followers they may receive, and it’s just one of the easiest ways to show you care about them.
*This does not mean to reblog unsourced artwork or works reuploaded to another person’s blog without permission (re:stolen). Nor does this mean to reblog artworks without the artist’s consent, even if this case is slim.
I’m going to meet up with Susan (half-sister) tomorrow. We’re going for lunch and then who knows what. Maybe we’ll grab drinks with Chris later. I dunno what but I am excited. Fingers and toes crossed.
The showcase thing I went to today was a bust. But that was ok because I was set up next to a former co-worker now turned jeweler and we got to catch up on office gossip (@reiddesigns why didn’t you TELL me that Marvin resigned!!!) as well as talk jewelry which was SO much fun. Just regular things like where we buy our supplies from and how hard it is to put a price on your jewellery and what we think of other people’s work.
At my last job I was around other graphic designers all the time. Not just people I worked with, a lot of the people I socialised with were also artists so the conversation always ended up being about work eventually (it always turned into a total bitchfest). I don’t see with most of those people anymore and I don’t really have a group of jeweller friends to talk to either, so it’s really nice when I get to share my work life with someone other than Chris.
I have an event today showcasing my jewelry so I decided to make something nice for myself. Now I guess I need a matching pair of earrings 🙂 #jewelry #trinidad #handmade #artisanjewelry #sundarajewelry #necklace #brass #crystals #leather
What may come to mind for many people in terms of anti-feminist violence, schools and girls is the catalytic shooting of Malala Yousafzai and her classmates, while on their way to school. Acid thrown on schoolgirls in Afghanistan is not far behind in terms of hatefulness. However, the United States has no shortages in countries where we tend not to focus on gender. In 1989 a man walked into an engineering class in a Montreal school and – yelling, “I hate feminists!” – shot 28 people, killing 14 women. He only shot men who interfered.
In the US, in 2006 a truck driver walked into an Amish schoolhouse, “ordered the 15 boys in the room to leave, along with several adults, and demanded that the 11 girls line up facing the blackboard.” He tied the girls’ legs together and shot them.
In 2013 Norwegian mass shooter Anders Breivik killed 77 people, 69 of them teenage students. Anti-feminism was an essential aspect of his manifesto, although that information often got buried in his wider ranting. He was concerned that feminism would “deny the intrinsic worth of native Christian European heterosexual males.” He wrote that, “the fate of European civilization depends on European men steadfastly resisting Politically Correct feminism.“
Prior to killing six people during his 2014 killing spree, Elliot Rodger explained, “I will enter the hottest sorority house of UCSB, and I will slaughter every single spoiled stuck up blonde slut I see inside there…The true Alpha Male.“Clearly Boko Haram has no monopoly on targeting educated girls or schools.
The demographics of mass shootings in the United States are a testament to how inseparably and tightly bound race and gender to one another. During the past 30 years, all but one of the mass murders in the U.S. was committed by men, 90 percent of whom were white. Sociologist Michael Kimmel has worked for decades, conducting extensive research, to illuminate the relationship between race, hyper masculinity, homophobia and violence. As he put it after the Sandy Hook shooting, “White men… have a somewhat more grandiose purpose: they want to destroy the entire world in some cataclysmic, video-game, and action movie-inspired apocalypse. If I’m going to die, then so is everybody else, they seem to say. Yes, of course, this is mental illness speaking: but it is mental illness speaking with a voice that has a race and a gender.”
[… ] That mental illness can be socially constructed is rarely mentioned in knee jerk media coverage after a mass shooting. “Mental illness actually does reflect the local culture,” explains anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann at Stanford University. When we spoke last year, she made a comparison with people’s behavior when drunk. “The way people express their symptoms has a lot to do with the ways that people learn to think. For example, Americans are violent drunks. American college men want to destroy things when they’re drunk. That’s a learnt behaviour. Violence is not necessarily associated with alcohol around the world.” Luhrmann’s research, revealed that the voice-hearing experiences of people with serious psychotic behaviors differ around the world. In Ghana the voices people hear are benign and playful, in the U.S. they are violent and harsh.”
I don’t know really… I’m pretty good at telling people how much they mean to me. I used to find that kind of thing really awkward to say, but I got over it. I know that I’m a person who likes to be acknowledged and appreciated, so I make sure to let others in my life know how much I appreciate them.
I was making stew chicken and I was washing dishes and doing laundry and trying to text a girlfriend in Barbados and slip a shower in between all of that and I turned the fire up instead of down and went inside to respond to some business emails and… I burnt the chicken.
So Chris has to buy dinner. He said he didn’t mind me ruining dinner long as it wasn’t pork. At least that made me chuckle.
I’ve been feeling so off today. I can’t wait for him to get home. Today’s just been weird.
It’s been really stormy today. It quieted down for most of the afternoon but it just started up again. I usually really like this weather but I’ve been sort of on edge all day today for some reason, and the rain and wind and distant thunder is making me uncomfortable. I’m going back into the studio to do some more work and hopefully it will distract me. But I’ve felt all day like there was someone lurking about… I know I’m alone, and safe, but something’s been feeling a bit off today. I’ve just tried to keep busy.
Layered dark blue necklace, available this Saturday at Upmarket, Trinidad Country Club, 9:30 AM to 3 PM. See you there! #artisanjewelry #necklace #jewelry #handmade #trinidad #sundarajewelry
I got an email today from a local retailer inviting me to sell my pieces through their store. I have to set up an appointment to check it out. It feels good that people are seeking me out.
The best advice I received before opening my business was not to expect overnight success and that it would take time to grow. It really helped me manage my expectations.
I’ve really had to push myself out of my comfort zone and network my ass off to get my work out there. It’s good to push past those boundaries. I’m proud of myself for confronting situations that make me uncomfortable.
I’ll never have enough time to make all the things I dream up in my head. It makes me sad.
Chris bought me what he thought was a nightlight that turned out to be a motion sensor emergency light with a built in flashlight. It’s very useful regardless but the nightlight was to help my claustrophobia.
We have blackout blinds in the bedroom which are great for the morning but sometimes I wake up at night and it’s so dark I feel like I’m suffocating. It’s a horrible feeling and takes me a really long time to recover from. So the nightlight is supposed to help ease up the darkness.
This light is motion activated at the side of my bed. I think it’ll do fine. Either way it was really thoughtful of him. I wouldn’t have remembered to buy it until my next panic attack. He’s like that, super thoughtful and considerate. Always. I am very lucky.
The other day a friend of mine made the statement that she found willful ignorance amusing.
I could think of few things that I find less amusing. People die because other people choose to ignore facts, deny truth, look the other way and believe what suits them. Willful ignorance is alarming and dangerous. I don’t see the humor.
My half sister just contacted me, she’s here in Trinidad for the first time, just arrived last night.
She’s my Dad’s daughter. She was born and raised in Ireland where my father went to university.
I only met her once, years ago when I went to England. It was a nice meeting, I stayed at her home for a couple of days. She met my siblings on separate occasions and it didn’t go so well. They have their own issues with her. I try to be supportive but honestly I just don’t want to get involved in all of that.
She didn’t meet our Dad until she was an adult. It was all very dramatic, the whole thing. It created a lot of problems between my parents. It’s a painful topic and I’m firmly in the leave the past in the past camp.
Anyway we’re making plans to meet up and I can’t tell you how excited I am to see her again. I guess it makes me emotional in part because our link is our father (it feels weird to say our father) and I have’t spoken to her since he died. It’s going to be quite emotional. She’s staying by our dad’s sister, our aunt. God it feels so weird to say our. Because I only know her separately from the family.
I’m sorry she never met our grandmother. But I’m so glad she’s finally going to get to meet her biological family. She’s going to see how much she looks like us too. I’m going to take her to see the house her father was born and grew up in. I’m really looking forward to it.
I use the tumblr mobile app. I get suggested posts but I don’t get ads. I get it in my browser and use adblocker. I’m wondering how come my app experience is different.
This lady who left the line came back so the space she was in is now gone because of the guard and now the dude in front of me has stepped into my personal space. Stupid guard stick to guarding things and stop acting like a prefect
Well I didn’t use a recipe but I’ll tell you what I threw together as I can remember it. I had some chicken stock so I used that as a base and added sea salt to taste. I added about five cloves of crushed garlic, about three tablespoons of lemon juice, black pepper, red pepper flakes, about three sprigs of fresh rosemary that I cut up and crumbled (I think I should have used about five), and several bay leaves and thyme with which I did the same. I added water to make sure all the pieces were covered in the bowl, and put it in the fridge for about two hours.
I did some research about brining chicken and there were a few things I should have done. I should have added some brown sugar, about the equivalent of the amount of sugar. And the recipes suggested that you boil the brine to bring out the flavour of the herbs, and then allow it to cool completely before immersing the chicken. But I didn’t have time for all that, the brine was a last minute idea. I’m definitely going to do it again though it just requires a bit of planning. The chicken tasted delicious all the way down to the bone.
I baked some chicken parts that I soaked in a Rosemary lemon brine for a few hours. It came out juicy and flavorful on the inside and crispy on the outside. I don’t know I never did this before. It was delicious.
Apparently my food has healing properties because Chris was feeling ill all day and his stomach stopped acting up after he ate it.
There was a woman at the concert last night that had the biggest bottom I have ever seen. She was wearing a tight purple dress and we literally could not help it, our eyes just kept going there because it was taking up so much of our view. It was huge.
I saw a woman walk by in a black lace skirt and a gold lamé panty. Just in case we didn’t know where to find the treasure.
Shabba started off his set good but it went flat halfway which was when we left. He was still outrageous and rude and funny. He kept talking about how much he loved pussy. It made everyone laugh.
We were talking about how Maxi Priest can really sing and Chris said he sounds like he started out in the church. I looked it up and he did! Go Chris.
We felt old when we left the concert, we were aching from being on our feet for so long. But it was 4am. We did good.
why does Trinidad have to be so damn backwards? I call their customer service and they’re like, give it another half hour, they’ll call you when it’s back up.
I don’t need a fucking phone call I need my shit online what de fuck
what is the point of offering technical service if you can’t switch it back on?
Cable guy just replaced all our modems and cable boxes do I’m devoid of entertainment for the next half hour. This might be a great time to do some guilt free middle of the day gaming.
In contrast, all my husband and I had to do was sign a form. Our competence to choose the outcome of our embryo was never questioned. There were no mandatory lectures on gestation, no requirement that I be explicitly told that personhood begins at conception or that I view a picture of a day-five embryo. There was no compulsory waiting period for me to reconsider my decision. In fact, no state imposes these restrictions — so common for abortion patients — on patients with frozen embryos. With rare exceptions, the government doesn’t interfere with an IVF patient’s choices except to resolve disagreements between couples. The disparity between how the law treats abortion patients and IVF patients reveals an ugly truth about abortion restrictions: that they are often less about protecting life than about controlling women’s bodies. Both IVF and abortion involve the destruction of fertilized eggs that could potentially develop into people. But only abortion concerns women who have had sex that they don’t want to lead to childbirth. Abortion restrictions use unwanted pregnancy as a punishment for “irresponsible sex” and remind women of the consequences of being unchaste: If you didn’t want to endure a mandatory vaginal ultrasound , you shouldn’t have had sex in the first place .
I love having conversations via text with my mom. Speaking to her grates on me because she never gets to the point fast enough. But I guess you get more focused and a little more economical in your use of words when you have to type. We have some great talks. She’s a texting fiend these days. I love it.
Making friends (I was gonna say as you get older but honestly at any age) is hard. I’ve always been very cautious about letting new people into my life. I think people sense my reservations too. I could meet a bunch of new people with one of my girlfriends and at the end of the night they’ll all ask for her number and not mine. But they’ll be sure to extend an invitation to me through her the next time around. Eventually we’ll get around to exchanging numbers. Maybe a year later. And that’s my comfort zone. I take a really long time to make up my mind about people. I like to take things slow, in romance, in friendships, slow is my pace.
I am having a super frustrating day in the studio. Nothing seems to be working. I’m going to run some errands and get out of the house before I go crazy. Ugh
This morning when Chris tried to get up I wrapped myself around him tighter and pulled him closer. So he thought, “Ok, I’ll just lay down for a little while longer.” He got up three hours later and was really late for work. I don’t care it was worth the extra cuddles.
I was online this morning shopping for some clothes and all the fall stuff is out and I got really achy to fly out somewhere. I often travel in the winter but in the past few years I’ve done a fair bit of traveling during fall. It’s nice to get away from the eternal summer and have a chance to wear some layers and dress up a bit. This time last year Chris and I were planning our trip to New York. I was so excited. I get really antsy this time of the year to get out of here. Dear lord rain down some money from the sky will you? Enough for me to pop over to New York and visit Trina.
No, I wasn’t taking it at all personally. Thank you for thinking about my feelings. I was trying to find the words to say I have heard and I am listening & anyway it isn’t about my feelings/opinions. I want to acknowledge and signal boost yours.
I hope you don’t feel that anything I said was directed toward you personally. It wasn’t. But thank you for being sensitive about what is a terribly painful issue.
You’ve every right to be so angry. He’s wrong and handled it appallingly. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to hear such an important issue dismissed so lightly and arrogantly.
Well to be honest with you, and I don’t want to generalise, but I don’t think white people generally have any understanding of what it feels like to have slavery as part of your history. Most times they just seem to want to run away blubbering, “But it wasn’t me I didn’t do anything!” OR the response is… a lack of understanding of why this would be an issue today if one did not personally experience it. I’ve never been able to have a real conversation about it with someone who was white.They don’t listen, and my apologies if it sounds like I’m generalising but I’m only speaking from personal experience.
My expectation was that he would say no to reparations. I fully expected that he would be dismissive not only of the idea but of the entire topic altogether. That’s what privilege does. You can’t see why something could be important to someone if it’s not important to you.
But he completely mishandled it. By drawing attention to the fact that Britain ended slavery we’re somehow supposed to congratulate him? Does he not even see the irony just a little bit that they ended oppression imposed by THEM? It’s the same master/slave mentality all over again. You should be grateful we freed you! From us! Yes look at what we did for you ungrateful Negros!
It’s vile and disgusting. And I suspect he thinks like a lot of people do.
I want them to take Britain, Holland and France to court and sue them. For the trillions of dollars worth of unpaid labour that they owe us. For the reparations that they made us pay for our own freedom. And they need to fucking apologise. I don’t care about your Great White Guilt. Say sorry. Say it was wrong. It’s the first fucking step.
soulsistrin 