I don’t have much of an objective, I just kept getting this art style on Pinterest and wanted to see what others thought of. I’m reminded of Haruki Murakami, Madeline L’Engle, CS Lewis, Paul Yoon, and Studio Ghibli.
This isn’t really a vent but that seemed to be the closest flair.
I used to rent on the fringes of the wealthy area in my city and sometimes I’ll be back in that area, like today I hit up the beach for a minute because it’s a holiday. The plots tend to be relatively small, similar in size to the neighborhood I live in now, but being waterfront they’re expensive and the houses are done up extravagantly (I know from going on walks and having worked in landscaping there in years past).
The people are generally friendly but they seem just a bit off, like perhaps they feel isolated or overly polite in most settings they’re in, because I’ve had so many encounters over the years in that part of town where people just come up to me and start telling their life stories. Just today I was with my dog and this nice lady came up with her dog telling me every experience she’s ever had bringing him to the beach. It was a perfectly fine conversation but just a bit much socially.
Also when I used to live closer to that area, people would get very attached to whatever was mentioned in small talk (in the following example, my university studies), to the point where they start giving unsolicited advice. Once a man cased my car, figured out where I lived by keeping a lookout for it, and left a magazine with job ads in it because he didn’t think my degree was worthwhile. That’s crazy, right… lol.
The part of town I live in now is very walkable and very active, so I’ll often wave to people and say hi running into someone I’ve met before, but it doesn’t seem like conversations are decontextualized launches into personal histories, and certainly not meddling like my last example. People from wealthier areas around the city think of my current neighborhood as sketchy, because it’s adjacent to even lower-class neighborhoods, but also because the aesthetic here is very crafty, DIY, and there are bars and coffee shops sprinkled throughout rather than upscale restaurants.
All of this is to say, it’s made me think about wealth and suburbia and the American Dream and all that. I am so much happier in my “scrappier” part of town and I think the interactions I’ve cited reveal a tension that prestige can create in people. Even if I grow more successful than I have been or currently am, I have zero desire to move somewhere “nicer”. There’s no reason the wealthy area should be more isolated and make people awkward, but it really seems to. I don’t know if this is unique to where I live for some reason, but I’m curious if others have noticed anything of the like.
Cousin sent me this story about an idiot mother who ALLOWED HER CHILD to climb into a bird enclosure. Tracey Dolphin spoke on the situation.
I moved last year and I got rid of SO MUCH stuff. A couple of items were emotional. I sold my saxophone from high school, which hurt a lot because younger me thought I’d keep up with the talent I developed, but I just never did. I also sold my canoes because I was no longer going to live on the riverfront, and it was so sad to say goodbye to that lifestyle. I think those are understandable, and in comparison it was extremely easy to let go of other things.
Today, preparing to move again (hopefully for the last time in a long time) I got anxious letting go of art. Art and books are categories I’m pretty free with not limiting because I love color and texture in my living space, as well as non-screen entertainment. A lot of the art I’m letting go of were really impersonal pieces—-prints I thrifted or even just tore out of magazines.
I discussed this with my friend, and I realized a couple of things:
The place I’ve been living this past year was basically not habitable, so I didn’t unpack a lot of my art. Since I haven’t touched these things in a year, I had anxiety that they had significance that I had forgotten. Logically I know that’s not true.
The art I’m keeping are things I’ve acquired in the last year or so that people in my community have made. Some were personally made for me, as well. The version of me in the past that bought prints and framed pages of magazines would be excited to have local and personal art. But the version of me now cherishes past me combing through thrift stores and magazines for something beautiful. It was therapeutic at the time.
Since I’ve been more minimalist and ruthless about downsizing than most of my peers and friends, I had a thought that “what if I really need it in the future?” applied to me with more validity, when it’s really easy for me to dismiss for others. Logically, again, I recognize that’s not true, but it’s interesting it came up.
I am excited overall—I filled up two Little Free Libraries and gifted some fun things to a couple people around me that they’ll enjoy, and I’m making a small amount of cash on Marketplace. This move is definitely a net win, but I was genuinely surprised to have some emotional hesitance this round!
At least in the US. Rental applications can ask for a TON of personal information (such as SSN for background check). I just learned this almost the hard way, where things got sketchy after I met the landlord, toured the house, and filled out the application. Landlord wanted a Zelle transfer before I saw a lease. I told him I’m ready to make the security deposit as soon as we have a signed lease agreement. He’s been pushing it off day by day, so I froze my lines of credit.
You can very easily and quickly freeze and unfreeze your Transunion, Equifax, and Experian credit and it will not negatively impact anything on your credit or in relation to a pending rental application. However, if someone is trying to steal your identity, this is a critical prevention step you can take.
Don’t wait until it’s sketchy! If you’re looking to move, just do it!
Hilarious. I don’t even really disagree 💀
I’m at the beginning of Echo, just at the end of chapter 3.
He’s just killed Mrs. Bug accidentally, and Claire is visiting Ian in the barn. He asks her to say the Soul Leading prayer together.
On the next page, Claire’s perspective says, “I hoped the prayer had helped him, at least a little, and wondered whether the Mohawk had any better means of dealing with unjust death than the Catholic Church. (Line break) Then I realized I knew exactly what the Mohawk would do in such a case. So did Ian; he’d done it. I pulled the cloak tighter round me, feeling as though I had swallowed a large ball of ice.”
I’m reading the chapter over again trying to figure out what Ian has done to grieve? I wonder if I’m forgetting a specific detail from other books about Mohawk customs Ian has brought back.
Thanks in advance!
My friend is looking for a novelized telling of the “Caesar Wars” in Rome, his phrasing I take to mean (with help from Wikipedia) beginning with the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey and into the fallout of quick succession of rulers being assassinated. However I’m not familiar with this time period so please enlighten me if I’m misunderstanding his request!
I’m sure there’s tons of books or series in varying quality, please share your thoughts!
It is a raucous, boundless beast
Muscles quivering and ready to burst forth
Kinetic energy steeping
The god of joy writhes against the chains
Held only within its own skin
Eyes rolling, crazed
It wants nothing more than to release,
Roll over every slope of the earth
And cry in deafening ecstasy
The god of joy seeps tears and saliva,
Incomprehension for the stars, the sunset, the newborn sky
Trembling at all the kindnesses that can be shown
Overcome with every intricate blossom
Straining for the very fragility of hope
The god of joy must stifle itself
With a boulder clenched in its jaws
It can never be enough
Feedback:
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/vuIJTCQP8W
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/tWCOTGnUC7
Notes: This is about my dog, she has to have a rock in her mouth (or any nearby object) when she’s overcome with excitement. I was thinking about how such a flood of joy might also be a kind of torture, though I don’t think it’s gone to that degree with my dog lol. I was thinking a bit of Fenrir the wolf from Norse mythology as well.
I read this on my Barnes and Noble Nook around 2011, no idea if it was ever in print. I believe it was YA and relatively short. Somehow a small group of 2-3 characters ended up within paintings and traveling through them. I recall the protagonist being a mature female—-there’s something stuck in my brain about her being a mother either going after her children who got stuck in the series of paintings first, or being worried about her own escape to get back to them in the normal world/the house. I suppose she could be an older sister as well. At least one of the companions was male but not her husband, if she had one.
The scene I remember most is the characters arriving in Goya’s Saturn Devouring his Son. You can imagine being in that painting was rather horrific. I can’t recall if a character died or was injured, becoming the body of Saturn’s son, or if the characters were only reacting to the painting as it was. I believe that when they escaped that painting the next one was a quiet landscape, maybe a prairie in pioneer times.
I took my fifth trip in this program I started, which is to trip on/around every solstice and equinox. I appreciate what I’ve learned, some have been solo but 2 have been with friends.
The thing is, I’m sensing “the mushroom” as an entity and I have so many questions. I understand many people see the mushroom as a teacher. I love what it shows me, what it gives me, what it asks me. But I also think it’s kind of dangerous? Or bargaining with me or playing with me in a way?
My first trip I sensed it as a Shepherdess (I grew up Christian so basically a feminine power analogous to Jesus as a metaphorical shepherd). She was watchful, wise, I felt like she was too powerful to give me sympathy but not cruel. Second trip was lighter with a friend, just hanging out and being happy. Shepherdess was more absent in my third trip but showed me things about my parents, helped me put into words what I knew.
My fourth trip I saw the fabric of the universe as breathing fractal stars of all colors, and a jaguar was one of the things I saw in the breathing. I was so mesmerized all I could say was “mmm this is a good one.” “This” being the life I was given to live, out of all of them. The mushroom told me it wanted me to come back, keep taking mushrooms, so I could see more. It showed me that my cat was part of god and so was I, I have rescued him twice from bad situations and it was nice to meet him there in that way.
Last night with my friend (trip 5) my friend saw me being the jaguar which was interesting. Neither of us have any connection in normal life to jaguars or that part of the world. I was automatic writing about the mushroom offering me the choice of what was the true fabric of the universe, and told me I could learn to control time. I was afraid it asked for a sacrifice. All I got was that the next pleasure would be granted to me if I sacrificed my current pleasure. But I think there’s more. Like some total knowledge type of shit, idk.
My friend says if I’m scared I should take a break, do it less often. I’m not opposed to it but also I know the same questions and offers will be waiting for me next time, whenever that is. I don’t think I can abolish this journey for the rest of my life.
So does any of this chime with anyone else? Has anyone gone deeper, sensed the mushroom this way? What’s the jaguar about? I thought the jaguar was more of a DMT/ayahuasca spirit but I suppose it can be the same. Just neither my friend or I have any cultural or geographical tie to it so I don’t want to appropriate or anything.
Who knew tablecloths could be so stylish 💅
I’m reading the books currently and watching the show for the first time. I expected the plot to diverge but WHAT, this is humiliation, the whole singing cross dressing Sassenach thing. I wouldn’t even mind that but something about Claire’s lines and actions are so… clumsy in these episodes. *looks in letter bag for two seconds* I FOUND SOMETHING!!! Picking up perfectly sized logs in the woods. And so on.
It’s a fantasy story with some really silly fights and future-slip jokes from Claire. But this seems poorly thought out. Is the rest of the show like this? Is it Catriona’s acting or trying to cram producer-written storyline in or what?
I wondered if you guys would have specific ideas or experiences to enlighten me. I feel like I’ve used this word to describe things but I wonder if my perspective from being estranged has given me a narrow idea.
What I’ve considered reparenting before and shared with others was basically doing things I wanted to do as a kid. Examples I’ve used were finishing book or film series I started as a kid (especially film I wasn’t allowed to watch much, because of religious fear that movies contained whacky evil messages). Or perhaps going backpacking, because I always wanted to “live in the woods” to get away from my parents.
Also definitely self-soothing tactics from therapy, which I suspect is more in line with what reparenting could mean.
So what have you done to heal or just done for yourself that you consider “reparenting”?
Girl wtf are you on about???
Since length of relationship is required, bff for 3+ years and I’ve known the homeowner for around 6 months.
My best friend’s very close family friend (honorary aunt) has asked bff for help finding a dog sitter/house sitter. I have a dog and love dogs, and so bff suggested me. I love the dog, the house is really cool to stay in, and I had a peaceful time looking after things while the owner traveled for the holidays.
The owner asked me to stay one night recently and we called to get a refresh on instructions for house care. During the call, she told me she found that I broke her carpet cleaner and had to replace it. I used the carpet cleaner last time I stayed because one of us (me or the dogs, hard to tell) had tracked in dirt on her white carpet, which I told her about. I apologized at the time and told her I did my best to find all the spots and I’d be more careful. She didn’t mind at the time. **I know I put the carpet cleaner away properly where I found it**. Obviously if something happened with it, I would’ve said so, I was already admitting a mistake.
So yeah, for this recent trip she basically accused me of breaking it and hiding it, and I said I’m sorry that happened but that wasn’t how it was when I left last time. She said not to worry about it but I’m anxious because I would never do something like that. I’m not a maid, obviously, but it’s not too different from a maid getting accused when jewelry goes missing. I’m a professional and I take all of my responsibilities very seriously, even for a side gig like this.
I told my best friend about this accusation and how I’m mystified by it, and even though I know I’m not at fault I offered to pay as a gesture of goodwill, which the lady won’t accept. I have been more anxious lately as a symptom of some medical things coming up, but my anxiety has always been primarily social. So I feel sort of gaslit that my friend’s response was “You’ve been more anxious lately, don’t worry about this. She’s just the type of person who says things jokingly to catch people off guard.”
I have a financial arrangement with the home owner, and my friend doesn’t. I’m literally being paid to take care of her house and her things, so I have no idea how I’m supposed to take it as a joke with baseless accusations that I’m breaking things and hiding them. I don’t think it’s prudent to risk my reputation by continuing to housesit, but it’s not sitting right with me that it’s “just my anxiety” even if the lady is happy to breeze past whatever she thinks I do unsupervised in her house.
Should I continue housesitting? She’s asked me to a month from now. And how do I help my best friend see that my relationship to the owner is riskier than theirs?
TLDR; best friend’s aunt pays me to housesit, accused me of breaking things and hiding them; continues asking me to housesit and my best friend says I’m being too anxious and it’s fine.
I once read about a man who visited an industrial pig farm
And he reported that every facet of branding
About industrial farming was true
From PETA to Hillshire Farms
The farm was so large that it encompassed all,
Pigs suffering in filth, missing essential body parts, sore, deformed
Clean and happy and strong pigs playing mental chess with their neighbors
Middle-manager pigs in worn-down stalls, holding it all together for the most part
And our expansive nation is the same, isn’t it?
Every story you hear is true, because between sea and shining sea
Someone is living just how you fear they might be
So, with this, I describe my love for you
You are the person I love most, with a reach far beyond what I imagined
And so I love you the best, with the most loyalty and fierceness
And so I love you moderately, as a tired duty
And so I love you the worst, the most overbearing and condescending
I love you like an industrial pig farm
I love you like an empire
I’m sorry
And
You’re welcome
Feedback:
I would dress for you on Sundays
Strapped in my purple vest and green boots
I wouldn't mind my cold feet
I wouldn't mind my shivering arms
I would dip my oar side to side
Rhythmically touching the bottom
I would push onward if you let me
I would slide forth into hidden places
Part the branches and curtains of moss
Yielding, scented green and brown
I would run my eyes over your banks
And sometimes find eyes staring back
Be still and observe, drifting closer
Not under my own power
You would blind me, sunlight dancing
Clouds passing over your rippling surface
Carry me with you all the way home