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ive worn heart shaped glasses for almost 4 years and they are just like my Thing and i love them so much and so often people will say shit like Oh Id Love To Wear Something Like That But I Could Never Pull It Off and like... babe no one can theyre heart shaped glasses u dont wear them to look flattering or stylish or whatever u wear them to make ur soul happy

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words like "sin" and "guilt" need to be banned from food packaging. fuck you putting marshmallows in my hot chocolate is completely morally neutral

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Your best is what you can do without harming your mental and physical health, not what you can accomplish when you disregard it.

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small cultural & Colombia/Latin related details from Encanto 🇨🇴

the flowers on Isabela’s dress and in her hair - cattleya trianae orchids (may lilies), national flowers of Colombia

Camilo snapping his fingers when he is excited

Mirabel using her lips to point

flowered balconies (like in Cartagena)

ruanas (ponchos) that Bruno and Camilo wore

Dolores’ “squeaks”

inviting the whole town/neighbourhood to a party

sombrero vueltiao - traditional Colombian hat

Isabela being covered in the colors of Colombian flag (🇨🇴) during her song

and many many more!

(this is for all the people who still say Encanto is not about Colombians ; sorry about the quality of the gifs)

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cafe in Cartagena, Colombia

National Geographic April 1989       O. Louis Mazzatenta.

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the feminine urge to mourn lost cultures and empires. for your heart to ache every time you remember how many languages no longer have speakers, how many ruins are abandoned, how many people lived happy lives before you. to feel melancholy and longing every time you study history - of this world or another, even fictional. to want to play a role in history, but in the same time fear dying, passing, being forgotten like those thousands before you.

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So, okay, fun fact. When I was a freshman in high school… let me preface by saying my dad sent me to a private school and, like a bad organ transplant, it didn’t take. I was miserable, the student body hated me, I hated them, it was awful.

Okay, so, freshman year, I’m deep in my “everything sucks and I’m stuck with these assholes” mentality. My English teacher was a notorious hard-ass, let’s call him Mr. Hargrove. He was the guy every student prayed they didn’t get. And, on top of ALL OF THE SHIT I WAS ALREADY DEALING WITH, I had him for English.

One of the laborious assignments he gave us was to keep a daily journal. Daily! Not monthly or weekly. Fucking daily. Handwritten. And we had to turn it in every quarter and he fucking graded us. He graded us on a fucking journal.

All of my classmates wrote shit like what they did that day or whatever. But, I did not. No, sir. I decided to give the ol’ middle finger to the assignment and do my own shit.

So, for my daily journal entries, over the course of an entire year, I wrote a serialized story about a horde of man-eating slugs that invaded a small mining town. It was graphic, it was ridiculous, it was an epic feat of rebellion.

And Mr. Hargrove loved it.

It wasn’t just the journal. Every assignment he gave us, I tried to shit all over it. Every reading assignment, everyone gushed about how good it was, but I always had a negative take. Every writing assignment, people wrote boring prose, but I wrote cheesy limericks or pulp horror stories.

Then, one day, he read one of my essays to the class as an example of good writing. When a fellow student asked who wrote it, he said, “Some pipsqueak.”

And that’s when I had a revelation. He wanted to fight. And since all the other students were trying to kiss his ass, I was his only challenger.

Mr. Hargrove and I went head-to-head on every assignment, every conversation, every fucking thing. And he ate it up. And so did I.

One day, he read us a column from the Washington Post and asked the class what was wrong with it. Everyone chimed in with their dumbass takes, but I was the one who landed on Mr. Hargrove’s complaint: The reporter had BRAZENLY added the suffix “ize” to a verb.

That night I wrote a jokey letter to the reporter calling him out on the offense in which I added “ize” to every single verb. I gave it to Mr. Hargrove, who by then had become a friendly adversary, for a chuckle and he SENT IT TO THE REPORTER.

And, people… The reporter wrote back. And he said I was an exceptional student. Mr. Hargrove and I had a giggle about that because we both knew I was just being an asshole, but he and the reporter acknowledged I had a point.

And that was it. That was the moment. Not THAT EXACT moment, but that year with Mr. Hargrove taught me I had a knack for writing. And that knack was based in saying “fuck you” to authority. (The irony that someone in a position of authority helped me realize that is not lost on me.)

So, I can say without qualification that Mr. Hargrove is the reason I am now a professional writer. Yes, I do it for a living. And most of my stuff takes authorities of one kind or another to task.

Mr. Hargrove showed me my dissent was valid, my rebellion was righteous, and that killer slugs could bring a city to its knees. Someone just needs to write it.

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i made your favorite dish. i made you something you’ve never tried before. i love you. i spent twenty minutes chopping. my grandmother made this for me when i was little. i made this dairy free for you. i love you. i want to eat together. the onions made me cry. i love you. i learned this recipe for you. i love you. i made this special for your birthday. i love you. i know you don’t like peppers. i love you. i love you. i love you.

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magdalena at john galliano f/w 2007

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Mary Oliver, “The Kingfisher.” Owls and Other Fantasies

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#what being bi is like

Porco Rosso (1992) / Cowboy Bebop (2001)

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your fat activism posts should include people who are not healthy at their current weight or have an eating disorder where they eat too much btw

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making friends (especially after you’ve lost a couple or several ones) can be hard and incredibly isolating. finding people we can connect and be vulnerable with is no easy task, so often we feel like it’s a moral failure when things don’t work out between us and someone else. just know there are so many people in this world you have yet to meet who will love you and it’s okay to drop all this heavy relationship baggage now. you’re not defined by the people you’ve lost.

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reasons to recover

waking up alone and deciding to spontaneously take yourself out for breakfast. sitting alone on a balcony, in the square, at a table under a window or tucked away by a cafe kitchen and luxuriating over a menu. stirring a coffee slowly, sharing small talk with the server. when you eat slowly with your book propped open in front of you, you gaze out to people watch, you order another coffee, you're proud to have begun the day with nourishing yourself and treating yourself well

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Mixed Media Collage Art By Jolie Ruin

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Active ways to cultivate positive body image:

(Because oh my god, it’s so hard, and everyone’s all like stop feeling so bad about yourself and it’s like how???) 

Be naked. A lot. Sleep naked. Have sex naked. Eat cereal naked. (Or naked and wrapped in a sheet. Favorite thing.) 

Follow beautiful, confident, (un-photoshopped) body-positive babes on the Internet. Unfollow anything that makes you feel insecure. Exposure is key. You’re not going to get it if you don’t seek it out, because the media sucks and wants us to feel like shit about ourselves so they can take our money. (Some hashtags to follow: #effyourbeautystandards #bootyrevolution #blackisbeautiful #transisbeautiful #wheelchairlife #fatkini #fatshion)

Lingerie. Next best thing to being naked. 

Self care, babe. Different for everyone. (Me? Showers, books, shaving my legs, nature walks, dark lipstick, good playlists, clean rooms, candles, sexy time.) 

Get ready in your underwear. Boobs = happiness. 

Self portraits. Be pro-selfie. Take a million selfies. Take sexy selfies. Take no makeup selfies. Take bad angle silly selfies. Take artsy tripod selfies. Take everything-is-on-point selfies. You’re gorgeous; document your gorgeousness. You don’t even need to post them. 

Stop with the self deprecationnnnn. Pleeeeaseeee. It’s hard to control your thoughts love, I know, but you can control what you say. NEVER insult yourself out loud. Dare I say compliment yourself out loud? (And if you can, do your best to try to body-positive-ify your thoughts too.) 

Sex (including solo sexy time), wine, and chocolate. In that order. 

Share the body love. Compliment your girlfriends. Cultivate a nonjudgemental, supportive, lift-each-other-up “we’re so cute” friend group. Everyone’s insecure. Compliment your besties. And strangers, too. Be that person that makes everyone feel good about themselves when they’re around. 

Good luck gorgeous. It’s a battle. We gotta unlearn all this societal bullshit.