For the Love, Comes the Burning Young

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peoplewholooklikeronweasley.tumblr.com

November Is For Sleeping

i wish that i believed in fate
i wish i didn't sleep so late

Oh darling I think that all of the answers
went south on the backs of those grey winged birds
or slipped through our fingers
while we were sleeping

Now comes, a river runs through the rafters down, down, down
Does it leave me sleeping? Dreaming only of spring

¿Cómo se llama? 3 Things That You Should Know

+Here's the story of a lovely lady statue in Lima, Peru. Her name is Madre Patria and she lives in Plaza San Martín. The plaza was built to celebrate Peru's 100th independence day and the statue of the Madre Patria is part of a large monument that was commissioned to honor General José de San Martín. When they decided to build a statue, Peru had a contest to see who could come up with the best idea. Luckily (for the sake of comedy and llama-lovers everywhere), Spaniard Mariano Benlliure won with his highly unique sculpture of a guy on a horse. Peru liked with his idea but sent a memo to the Spain saying that they wanted him to include a statue of a lady wearing a crown of flames who would hold up the sign announcing the general. Unfortunately, homophones weren't exactly Benlliure's strong point and he confused the word for flame--llama--with the word for those cute animals that live in the Andes and spit a lot. Behold:

Story courtesy of Alison, who called me this week to tell me about her trip to Peru.

+My phenomenal family came over to eat and play Mad Gab on my birthday and we filmed my dad bringing a whole new meaning to the word "fupa."

+I would not eat a Krispy Kreme for love or for money, but these guys sound like they could be everything I desire in a food. They are, incidentally, also Peruvian.

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

@autostraddle

Ron, Ron Loves Twizzlers

Star-álfur

Nature has turned arctic over night and I didn't have to work this entire beautiful weekend. What I did have to do was look for a car. After reluctantly dragging myself to a car dealership and negotiating with a positively lovely man who told me I barely looked 16 and had a few sexist tricks up his sleeve, I'm 99% sure I have a new old car that smells like Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo and more or less works.

Now the exciting stuff: I've been wanting some kind of canopy fandango for my bed, so I spent last night poking holes in my ceiling and hanging up fabric. I even dug out the cardboard stars from my apartment on Fernon and sewed them to the sheet. Now my money plant lights don't look like they're coming out of nowhere. My room feels supercozy and all my decorations are high enough off the ground that Tess can snuggle with me and won't be tempted to eat them.

Last but not least, my avocado plant is HUGE. I'm going to have to figure out some way to pot it without snapping off all the roots so that my baby can grow to its full potential. And so I can make guacamole in 9 years.

We All Want to Grow With the Seeds We Will Sow

Lost and Clearly Delirious: Top 11 Search Terms That Brought People Here

11. whack a mole guacamole

10. i have a dress and i dont quite fill it out

9. hate the word cuddle

8. is chlorophyll in guacamole?

7. pros and cons of botellon

6. i like to have my feet touched

5. second grade persuasive essay

4. black maureens

3. how 2 make a sex toy with paper

2. dont fuck with me

1. harry potter leggings

My dear, but if I make the pearly gates I'll do my best to make a drawing

Two and a half years ago, I drew a sketch of a poster of words from "The Trapeze Swinger" I eventually wanted to make when I had time and supplies. Thanks to graduation and my brother's old prismacolor markers, I have a new poster.

Yǔ

Emily wanted a t-shirt with the Chinese character for rain on it. I've been in an art-making mood and I like mailing her things, so I made her one. I think it turned out pret-ty naiiiice and the colors even go with my blog. Yeehaw!

Do!

See

West Philadelphia

Hear

Patrick Wolf: Bermondsey Street

Smell

"Sigmund Frued famously claimed that humans have lost their sense of smell through evolution. But by his early thirties, he had so many sinus problems he was a medical nightmare and probably couldn't smell anything. So he assumed everyone else couldn’t either. Well, there's a Freudian term for that: it’s called projection."

-Avery Gilbert

Taste

Tomato Tartine

Feel
Just when it has seemed I couldn’t bear
one more friend
waking with a tumor, one more maniac

with a perfect reason, often a sweetness
has come
and changed nothing in the world

except the way I stumbled through it,
for a while lost
in the ignorance of loving

someone or something, the world shrunk
to mouth-size,
hand-size, and never seeming small.

I acknowledge there is no sweetness
that doesn’t leave a stain,
no sweetness that’s ever sufficiently sweet ....

Tonight a friend called to say his lover
was killed in a car
he was driving. His voice was low

and guttural, he repeated what he needed
to repeat, and I repeated
the one or two words we have for such grief

until we were speaking only in tones.
Often a sweetness comes
as if on loan, stays just long enough

to make sense of what it means to be alive,
then returns to its dark
source. As for me, I don’t care

where it’s been, or what bitter road
it’s traveled
to come so far, to taste so good.

"Sweetness" by Stephen Dunn from New and Selected Poems 1974-1994

Gift Giving: I am (>) Martha Stewart

Step 1: Find a source

Step 2: Take photos

golf clap, pray, ninja

Step 3: Draw

Step 4: Stencil

Step 5: Paint

Step 5: Ask your little brother to model

Step 6: To the mail!

Under where?

Have you every cried in a store’s dressing room? Pathetic. I did for the first time last weekend during hour 5 of The Great Little Bra Search. Hungry, frustrated, and generally pissed, I cleaned myself up and left, passing an ironically place advertisement for breast enhancement surgery on my way to the bus stop.

Crying over clothes is the ultimate Lifetime Original Movie moment. It’s self-absorbed and childish, but I was so fed up. Bra shopping is an exercise in submitting yourself to unsolicited advice from every salesperson you ask for help. The woman at Victoria’s Secret laughed when I asked if they carried my size. Someone at Macy’s recommended I go to the children’s department. When I asked a man at the Gap where bras were, he said “Why?”

Fact: I’m looking at this issue from a position of privilege.

You know what? I’m really skinny. Sometimes I like ny body and sometimes I don’t, but I realize that the one or two offhanded “eat a sandwich” comments that I get are nothing compared to what people who are fat face. In fact, the comments I usually get about my body are overwhelmingly complimentary. The images I see of beauty and health all look pretty much like me. I can’t remember anyone ever drawing attention to what I eat, people don’t dance around words to try to find some elusive value-free word when trying to describe what my body looks like, and I don’t have anyone justifying some sense of disgust by invoking suspect medical data. I don’t want to have a pity party to bring attention to the plight of the skinny girl, I want to talk about the intersection of gender, body types, and commercialism.

Fact: Clothes don’t fit me.

Clothes have never fit me. When all the other 6th grade girls were growing into their hips, I was left in their hormonal dust. The only memory I have of New Year’s Eve 2000 is trying to decide if more people would laugh behind my back for having the audacity to wear a bra when I didn’t need one or for not wearing a bra when everyone else was. A particularly nasty fellow girl scout troop member asked me if I would wear shoes if I didn’t have feet. When I said “no” she asked why I wore a bra. If anyone asked me now, I’d punch her in the boobs and say “good luck trying to find mine” but I was a docile teenage lamb.

One of these things is not like the other

Luckily, being a flat-chested weirdo meant that I had a good amount of alone time which I spent learning how to sew. Sewing your own clothes is empowering in that you no longer rely on companies to produce things to suit you and constructive in that you start to look for potential in very ugly things. The downside of knowing how to sew is that you are totally and completely to blame for all your poor fashion choices when you look back on pictures.

Why yes, those are wooden mud shoes that 12-year-old me
modeled after Japanese geta shoes. And you know I made that poncho.

Fact: Shopping is how we create ourselves

We’re taught to buy things to show what kind of a person we are. I’m not sure what “we” I’m talking about because saying things like “society” or “America” makes me feel like I'm pulling words out of nowhere. But we are. Everything from love to philanthropy to cancer awareness is buyable. It might be that we’re all lonely peacocks who can’t find a better way to wear our hearts on our sleeves, but we buy to show we care.

Since so much of our culture revolves around the buying and selling of things, every time we merchandize something, we welcome it into our society. Do you want paper? Excellent! Not only are thousands of stores solely devoted to selling different types of paper, you can buy it almost anywhere. There’s nothing objectionable about paper. Do you want a sex toy? Er, you're not going to be able to pick that up in a department store.

I don't understand this ad

Similarly, clothing stores' inventories reflect a combination good business and social acceptability. Their stock of sizes is usually a normal curve, with medium sizes being overstocked and small and large sizes being understocked or not carried at all. Smaller sizes are understocked due to a smaller demand while larger sizes aren’t carried (except sometimes online) because of undesirability.

"Flesh also suggests the threateningly female, moistness and blood, the hothouse clutches of a heavy-breasted mother—off putting images for male fashion designers."
Daphne Merkin, “The F Word,” The New York Times Style Magazine, Fall 2010

Fact: America is obsessed with breasts

Wardrobe malfunctions, toplessness, and public breastfeed are only some of the more egregious examples of breast outrage. We’re simultaneously terrified and obsessed with them.

I don’t quite fill out a 32A but even if I did, America’s biggest mall only carries 2 bras in that size (neither of them cheaper than $45) and to be honest, it made me feel unfeminine. As much I try to be aware of what’s going on, that doesn’t mean that I’m not affected by it.

We equate breasts with femininity and associate femininity with with bows and lace and that just doesn’t always work for me. When I realized that queer culture existed and started seeing that there were a thousand ways a woman could look, it was eye-opening. I took all my sewing skills and the knowledge that there were hot androgynous girls and went for every corner of the gender spectrum. I don’t want to look the same every day.

But here’s my secret: underwear is my weakness. It’s called “intimates” at stupid department stores for a reason. It’s what sits closest to my skin all day and and so when I can’t find any that fits me, I feel weird. I can make any pair of underwear--men’s or women’s--fit me and look good, but it’s not very comfortable, physically or otherwise. I’m not a child and telling me to go to the girl’s department is demeaning. On the other hand, when I feel this way, I’m just another victim of the consumerist culture. But again, awareness is't the same as transcendence. Buying clothes is agonizing when you don’t quite fit into the size or gender that most other people do. We like everyone to be the same so that we don’t get too confused and so that we can keep making money.

Fact: I am graduating in 46 days

And I need a job. I tried to go to a job fair last month and was turned away because I wasn’t dressed appropriately. I was wearing my nicest boots and dress pants, a button down shirt, and a vest. My friend who was wearing heels and a flowy flowy shirt was allowed in and got two interviews. I’m all for taking the money and absconding, but I’m not sure how to make it in the real world when the rules from junior high make a comeback and I’m not allowed to sit at a cool table at lunch because I’m not dressed like everyone else.

Maybe I what I need to do is find people--someone femme-y, someone more masculine, someone fat, etc.--and open a store where we cater to people like us. If there’s anything that 4 years of sociology has taught me it’s that I’m never the only one with a problem. It might not make sense since commodification is not something I want more of, but sometimes you’ve got to fight fire with fire. We could teach people how to sew or offer tailoring so that they’re ultimately the ones in charge of what they’re wearing.

Fact: The only person who can decide what looks good on you is you