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it's the tail end, or what i'm hoping is the tail end, of a difficult time. he brings me my little glass teapot, and sets it down gingerly with my favorite anthro teacup next to it. "thank you, baby," i respond, almost automatically. but then i pause. i reach up and touch his face, and i say, "this is kind of you. i really appreciate you doing it for me." my hand trails down his side, and comes to rest on his hip. "is that all you really want? acknowledgement and appreciation?" he purses his lips a little, the way he does when he has a feeling and doesn't like it, and nods. "okay. i can understand that. i know what it's like to want those things." we look at each other for another few moments, and i laugh a little ironically. "what?" he asks. "it's just hard, to be two people tied together in a three-legged race through life, trying to make sure you're good to each other along the way. it's a hard thing." "yeah. it is." 

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Magical by The Last Sparrow

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Ben Schuyler

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I got the most amazing parcel in the mail, it it was this amazing drawing and a lovely letter as well ✨ You can see the video of my opening the package in my new video: https://youtu.be/SpYQEiW4QW8 📽

@Elise.Buch

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Vintage botanical prints at the shop…I wouldn’t mind wallpapering this place with these one day. I’m here til 5, come visit! #millayshopscenes #millaymaison

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Keeping Warm

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Cozy 🌛

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September 4th was the date of my rollerskating birthday party. My lower back had been hurting for about a month, and both my mother and Chris told me it was a terrible idea to go roller skating, but I did not listen. I did my most dramatic eyeliner, put on my darkest lipstick, and walked to the roller rink very slowly. I had to stop four times on the 15 minute walk to recover from the pain I was having in my back.

I met up with some of my friends, went inside, laced up my skates, & I was off. I went around once - it hurt, but I could manage. I had told Chris a few times, even if I only make it around the rink once or twice, I want to go skating for my birthday. I went around the rink another quarter time, and stopped to catch up with one of my friends or to let them catch up with me. While standing there I lost my balance - and I slipped backwards. Since I was on roller skates, my skate slipped out from under me and I accelerated towards the floor very quickly. Reflexively, I put my right arm behind me to break my fall - this was an amazingly terrible idea, and I’ve thought about just how terrible an idea it was a whole lot in the past almost-4 months. Before I could blink they were at least 4 skate guards around me, asking me if I'd hit my head, and making me cradle my arm to my chest. One of them asked me to try to grip his finger - and it was extraordinary because I was holding my hand right near his finger and my brain was sending my hand the message to grip but my fingers just would not obey. It's worth mentioning that my wrist was bent at an angle that wrists don't really bend at - still I was hoping it was just a sprain and that I could get an ice pack and go on with my party. My greatest worry at this point was that my phone has been in my back pocket and I was really hoping that I hadn't cracked the screen. They wanted to lift me up and carry me into the EMT station, but I refused. "I can get up guys, just let me roll over on my other side." I signed my "I swear I won't sue you" forms and my friends quickly joined me, and someone alerted Chris. The real oh shit moment came when I went to stand up and I got extremely dizzy and the world started to gray out - the EMT told me that that was the sign of a break. As you have probably guessed by now I spoiled for you in the title, I broke my wrist. At my follow up appointment, they told me I needed surgery - I held it together until the PA left the room, and then I lost it. At the presurgical testing appointment the next week, two days before my scheduled surgery, it was discovered that my thyroid hormones were entirely out of control. Because of this, they could not operate. I'll interject here and say I got the results of some slightly problematic blood work two days prior to the party. I've actually suspected that I have thyroid problems for a very long time, so I've been kind of lax about investigating it, and the few times I have, nothing has turned up. So, I was planning on making an endocrinologist appointment anyway, I just hadn't yet had time. However, the results of the blood work from right before my first scheduled surgery were worse than any results I've ever had. I'll spare you the details and boring explanation of how your thyroid hormones should be, but we'll just say things were pretty bad. So with my arm in a cast, I got myself to an endocrinologist and got myself on the right medication. The catch was, I need to wait a couple of weeks before it reached blood saturation, and then I needed to go back for some more blood work once my levels came in line so that I could be cleared for surgery. All the while, my bone, thinking it's doing a great job, is healing in the wrong position. My surgery ended up being about 6 weeks after my initial break. I actually wasn't all that nervous going into it - I didn't think it was going to be that big a deal. I mean, I'd already broken my arm and that wasn't the worst thing in the world. So I figured it couldn't possibly be worse. I was exceptionally wrong. The day of my surgery, I had to sign some paperwork and my surgeon complimented my signature with my left hand. I told him, "I've had six weeks practice." And he said, "Has it really been 6 weeks already? That means the bone is partially healed we're going to need to break it again." THIS WAS MY PORTENT OF THE TERRIBLE THINGS TO COME and I will be honest and tell you I did not heed it. At this point, I didn't have a lot of time to be scared or nervous, though he did tell me this would make my recovery more painful. I woke up from surgery while I was still being wheeled into the recovery room. The rest of that day, I was in more pain that I thought imaginable. That day redefined my pain scale. I thought I was pretty tough and I actually thought I had a pretty high pain tolerance - I don't know if those things are true or not, but I do know I wanted nothing more than to be knocked out again so I just didn't have to feel - I also contemplated asking them to just chop off my arm at the elbow or something. By the end of the day I had three or four shots of morphine, two shots of fentanyl, and finally a shot of dilaudid. This is a whole lot of opiates to pump into someone - I was extremely high, but also exhausted and just generally wrecked. I'm actually not even writing this post - I'm speaking it into my phone.  I haven't really known how to present all this information - everything I thought to do seems kind of self pitying and like I'm trying too hard to grab people's attention. I've sent some tweets that I hope are funny about my recovery, but even those I've tried to keep to a minimum. Even doing this feels really strange - I don't like being the center of attention in a way that makes it seem like people must fawn over me. However, there's a lot that I wanted to share about the lessons I'm learning through this challenge and the various frustrations and victories I've had, and it seems like it would be really hard to do that without giving the context. So here it is. Also, I don't like the idea that I don't want to share this. Everyone in my life who is aware of what's been going on has been exceptionally kind and gracious, checking in on me again and again, giving me real offers of help and assistance, and generally doing whatever they can to make this tough time a little easier. I've never particularly had a problem sharing the not shiny parts of my life, but I've also never wanted to be seen as a complainer. Sometimes, though, you just get a shitty hand for a couple of months, or a year, or more. It's pretty difficult to be human. In the long run, I am extraordinarily grateful that this is the largest health challenge I'm facing - but that doesn't mean it hasn't been really hard in a whole variety of ways. And I guess I want to teach myself that there's nothing wrong with being honest about that or just asking for people to give a shit. So, that's where I've been. I really do have a lot to say about the mental and emotional side of what I faced and the various lessons I've learned about accepting help, letting some things go gracefully, dealing with disappointment, learning some humility, and recognizing your limitations.

(note: I wrote this less than two weeks out from my surgery, about a month ago. Things have gotten exponentially easier and I am healing more every day.)

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how pie crust is like life.

every single august, i make a peach blueberry pie. we can talk another time about how taking up baking was therapy for me, years and years ago, but right now, we're going to talk about pie crust. i like baking because it has neat, square, orderly numbers of things and very precise instructions on what you must do with them. baking makes SENSE. cooking makes me wildly uncomfortable with it's dash of this, and let's play with the quantity of that, and oh, pour this in even though it's not even in the recipe at all. LET'S SEE WHAT IT'LL DO. no, to ALL of that. i can't handle that. baking is science. baking is chemistry. put one strand of hair out of place when you are baking and you are donezo, buddy. this appeals to me enormously. pie crust is one of those things that most people would rather just buy. i am going to urge you and plead with you to stop doing this to yourself. you can make amazing pie crust. you CAN. follow joy's instructions, she will not lead you astray. here is what is so wonderful about pie crust. IT IS MESSY AND THAT IS OK. (see also: life)

i like to mix in my cold butter cubes into my dry ingredients with my hands. you could use a pastry blender, but i find it far more satisfying to dig in there with my fingers. it's like a grownup version of playing in the sandbox. the pieces of cold butter that you cut in, they are supposed to turn out different sizes! you see, when you have pockets of butter and they pop in the heat of the oven, the steam that is released from the water in that butter, that makes flakiness! science is amazing! pie crust dough is shaggy - it doesn't really take form until the very last second and even then sometimes, just barely. this makes more sense in practice than in words, i promise. as you are incorporating your butter, you both feel and see your dough come together and it's so satisfying. you are MAKING this thing happen with your bare hands. WHAT POWER YOU HAVE. did you know that humidity of your environment matters when you're baking? in my most recent pie, i used a little less water in my dough because i didn't want it to be too wet and well, it's summer in new york where on any given day it's 90% humidity. you can always add, but you cannot take away. this is not to say that pie crust is all lightness and joy and throwing caution to the wind. oh no no no. you must work quickly, especially in the summer, to keep that butter cold enough so that it stays in little chunks and doesn't just melt right into your dough. this is a task. and you must not overwork your dough because there are glutens involved and when you overwork them, you get tough dough. there are rules and parameters here, my friend. but within those rules you have mess, and lord, if that isn't an analogy then i don't know what is. here's some more, just to well and truly beat you over the head with it. your pie crust might tear when you're rolling it out. that's alright! you're going to dip your finger in some water and use your wet finger to fix that tear, and move along with your life. you're just going to patch it up. if you're anything like me, you literally never lay your bottom crust out quite right in your pie pan. you might even tear a hole in it. again - you're going to patch it up using some excess dough and a wet finger. it will still be beautiful. i can't make a perfect crust edge to save my damn life. i have tried the fork. i use my fingers. it is lumpy and bumpy and never uniform, but it is still beautiful in it's own, rustic way. while my pie is cooking, sometimes the juices bubble on up through the slits in the top, but you know what? those purple splotches, they're BEAUTIFUL. all pies are beautiful! if you have enough extra dough - stay with me - you can reroll it and cut it into shapes and sort of paste them onto your top crust. i've done hearts and stars because i'm clearly actually a child in 1988. just cut out your shapes and run your wet finger over one side of the shape, and again on the place where you're sticking it, and slap it on there like water is velcro. arts and crafts! and let's not forget about peaches. ugh, god gave us glory when he gave us a ripe august peach. i've said it over and over and i will say it until i expire, there is nothing quite like the feeling of ripe peach juice trailing down my arms as i peel and slice peaches. note: the recipe says not to peel, i do, because my boyfriend prefers it that way. he also likes to eat the giant pile of peach skins this leaves us with. *shrug* who am i to say what's weird (i totally think its weird but it makes him happy so *shrug* anyway). i don't even love blueberries as a rule. however, they have a beautiful tart little kick that balances out the sweetness of these peaches but well and good. if you hate them, skip them. if you have another berry, use it! i've used raspberries to excellent effect. you are the master of your own pie filling, my friend. i use this crust recipe for every pie i make and it has never failed me. if i need a savory crust, i simply omit the sugar. and every time i make pie crust, i think about just how much it is like living life. you have all these rules and it seems so hard and it's messy and weird and nothing seems to make sense or seem like it's actually going to work at all, and things tear and you have to fix them, and GUH, it surely won't come out right. i definitely screwed up somewhere. but then, magic happens and everything is wonderful. magic, in the form of pie.

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(2) Tumblr on We Heart It - http://weheartit.com/s/ZCLSfwlP

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Faskrudsfjordur, Iceland by Jónína Guðrún Óskarsdóttir

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similar posts here

Idk what is this, but looks amazing

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Blue Moon | Masahiro Hiroike

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i just love love love this weather