Ohh, So I Was Looking At My Storage And Found These! I Originally Shared Them On Twitter Before Yeeting

I think this is a tragedy? Sober in its irony My poor frightened phone with its ever-beating heart and failed and failing touchscreen

still gives me notifications and as I work here on my computer my terminally ill phone pings

A message telling me

my new phone has arrived and is in the mailroom

on Neighbors

I'm walking home from a neighbor's house, the one that is friends with my mom, the one that coached me with public speaking and got me to nationals as a kid, the one that surprised me with a scholarship when I graduated high school. It's a slightly chill evening and it's beautiful.

(We had been talking about my resumé and how I could improve it. We workshopped both that and my portfolio, and discussed possibilities of studies abroad, and swapped stories on things we missed from each other's lives now that I live hundreds of miles away.)

Now I'm walking home in the chill blue evening and I walk past my neighbor's house, the one with the chihuahuas, the one that over a decade ago rescued me when I got my pants caught in my bike chain and fell, trapped. Never met me in my life but when I fell in front of her house she came running out to help my small crying self.

And now I'm walking past my neighbor's house, the pale blue one on the corner, the neighbor that had a tire swing even though she was elderly, the place my family would go on walks to when I was a kid so the kids could play on her tire swing while the grownups talked. That tree died eventually, and my dad helped her cut it down. She gave him the tire swing to take home to us kids.

Over there across the way is my neighbor's house, the one that is good friends with my grandma and paid me to water her plants whenever she went away for a week. I see her husband from time to time out in the garage when I pass their place.

Over just a little bit farther is the orange house that looks like a castle, with the neighbors who had daughters just older than my sister and I, daughters who always gathered up their old clothing into giant bags to drop at our doorstep so my sister and I could have new clothing. A treasure. Their mom came to my graduation and got me a gift.

Now I'm walking down the road and there are the neighbors right next to us, with the small loud dogs, the neighbors that know my dad well. He always has my brothers over to do yard work and the such. Dad loves sending over the boys to collect leaves in the autumn from our neighbors - most of them are elderly and can use the help, and my dad collects truckfuls of leaves to compost for his garden. A win-win.

And there at the end, of course, are my neighbors who always loved to see us each Halloween. They were always prepared for us, always the first ones we saw. My youngest brother always took care of their dog. When our dog got out, that neighbor let us know and we were able to get her before she got too far away.

We were generations apart, my neighbors and I. Yet that never stopped them from loving my family and me.

I hope they know the fond love I have for them now, despite no longer living there.

"I'll come back to edit it in December" no. no I wont. but that doesn't stop me from lying to myself.

guys please this one's funny

a meme I made inspired by the dreadful existence of waking up today (am sick)

(original under cut)

You have been booped by this empty wrapping paper tube.

Reblog to boop all of your followers with it.

the architect who made this building for some reason: the tunnels the tunnels the tunnels the tunnels the tunnels

akshfhwjfjahejfjnf thank you for sharing this!!

“I should be distressed that I drop off to sleep during my prayers and during my thanksgiving after Holy Communion. But I don’t feel at all distressed. I know that children are just as dear to their parents whether they are asleep or awake and I know that doctors put their patients to sleep before they operate. So I just think that God ‘knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.'”

St. Therese of Lisieux

On Writing Trauma

This is more of a personal opinion post, but I always prefer stories involving trauma to be about healing said trauma in the end.

Angst is a wonderful dramatic tool, but especially to the younger writers out there, remember that your writing says something about you as a person. The writer always leaks themself into the writing, the artist always leaks into the art. If your characters are always stuck in pain, agony, death, look at yourself: are you the one that's stuck?

I'm not saying to make all stories light and rainbow filled. I myself use trauma and pain in my writing. But your message must poke through: Is trauma a spectacle that is always preset? Or is it a momentary period that will bring greater meaning in the story (or in your life) in the future to come?

My characters have PTSD nightmares. My characters have parental trauma. My characters have unhealthy attachment issues. My characters mask to hide the damage inside. But all of it is in the work so that people that have the same problems can be seen. My characters will talk about the nightmares and realize that they can feel understood and seen. My characters will find solace in the fact that the other characters also have hard family dynamics. My characters will learn to heal and love in healthy ways.

Your writing is a message. For those that want to hear it, they can heal parts of themselves through it. Pain and trauma healed is one of the most fulfilling experiences in the world, and your art can spread that message.

"oak and ash and thorn good sirs" but it's "salud dinero amor good sirs"

ooh ooh ooh it's me in real life! want to know what it is?

:D

the author's barely disguised favorite lame joke that they will move heaven and earth before allowing their editor to take out