#the reading life

[luna13e-blog]

It's the time of the year where everyone, specially in my LinkedIn, is bragging about the books they read. I'm perplex seeing lists and lists of books without a pinch of fiction in them.

I know, books are a great source of knowledge. I read books related to my work, to my academic work, and out of pure curiosity. But they're also a great source of fun and dreams and escaping the world and its rules for a little bit. And probably learn something in the way but that's not the point.

I'm perplex seeing how reading is now glorified as another way of being productive, as a group of check marks in a list and the implied failure if you don't achieve to meet the number of marks expected.

I rebel against this notion.

I haven't read a single work or academic book this year because it's been awful and my energy was non existent. Work and university were enough overwhelming without adding some voluntary extra work.

But I listened a fantasy audio book in English for the first time in my life and read thousands of pages in fanfics. But who cares because I can see how my list would look: Dead gay wizards, middle age gay wizards in crisis, gay dead non-wizards that did a heist, non-dead wizards in a BDSM world, gay dead non-wizards in the Hungers Games world...

Not very productive, uh? Probably not. Not a single Nobel awarded autor, no productivity tips, no stories about great entrepreneurs or billionaires telling you that you can also do it.

And I could scream loud and say that I improved my English and exercised my brains but nope, I mean, probably I did improve my English but the main thing was: They were fun. They made me laugh, and cry, and scream. They allowed me to talk to other people.

So: Fuck this idea that implies that reading is a productivity habit. I rebel against it. I wish for a bit of fantasy in all our lives.

Reading shouldn't be a task: it should be a bag full of treats.

[beaft]

my mum forbade me to say anything to my dad about the top surgery thing, and it's just hit me how funny it would be if i got it done and didn't tell him and just waited for him to notice. i mean, what's he gonna say? "didn't you used to have tits?"

[usefulquotes7]

[aesethewitch]

When I was a kid, we moved into a house that had a huge lilac tree out front. It was mostly rotten, and it needed to be taken down before it fell. It took a while, but eventually, it was gone.

Mostly. A couple years later, little lilac babies popped out of the ground in its place. My mom was determined to get rid of them, because she'd planted a beautiful flower garden there, and the lilac trees would overshadow and kill the whole garden. I insisted on saving at least a few saplings. She said fine, but I had to dig them out and put them in pots myself.

So, I did. I spent days digging little lilac bushes out of the ground and putting them into pots. Some couldn't be saved, but some could. When all was said and done, I had five brand-new lilac saplings. Seven or eight years old, and it was my absolute pride and joy.

Three died due to sun scorching, severe drought that no amount of watering could save, and perhaps just being moved from their place in the ground. But two survived, and I was awfully proud of them! I'd go out and talk to them every single day. I watered them by hand and made sure they were fertilized properly. I learned all about their favored environments, and I was determined to make sure they lived.

One of my mom's friends saw what I was doing with the lilacs. She asked if she could have one to put in her backyard, and I agreed on the condition that she take very, very good care of it.

It's now fucking enormous. I'm talking ten feet tall and bursting with beautiful purple flowers every spring. My mom still gets updates each year as they start to bloom, which she forwards to me. And all I can think is, "That's my friend! Thriving some twenty years on, there it is."

The other tree nearly died, too. It lived in a pot for far, far too long. I wanted to plant it somewhere in my parents' yard, but my mom was reluctant. Eventually, we agreed to put it in the far back garden. It grew okay for many years, despite the shade, but in all these years, it's never bloomed.

Last year, the massive tree casting massive shadows over the lilac and the garden cracked in half and fell. It tumbled into the garden, crushing part of the nearby shed and destroying a few plants beneath it.

It missed my lilac by inches.

The clean-up is long done. The rest of the tree has been cut down, and my lilac has full sunlight for the first time in fifteen years. It won't bloom this year, I know. But it's got new shoots up. It's taller than ever. I spent half an hour a few weeks ago praising it for surviving all this time, dreaming about its future and telling it how I believe it'll become the tall beauty it's always been meant to be.

I think next year, I'll see flowers.

[stil-lindigo]

lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)

if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.

--

no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.

I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.

I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.

If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.

[maibeloved]

Guess who is back in their gravity falls phase! (After it being dormant for almost a decade!)

[juiche]

a moment of peace before the whole world shatters 😇

get your own print here ❤️

[bisclavaret]

a day late to my 6 years on t anniversary ✨🏳️‍⚧️ a short comic about looking back

[cyber-corp]

🥳🏠

[blueflipflops]

Have you ever read a really good fic then looked up the author's other works and lo and behold a treasure trove of fics that are exactly your kind of shit? Because god that is what euphoria feels like. I love you random fic writers i unexpectedly find

[roninkairi]

You can only reblog this today.*

*PLEASE READ THE TAGS

[softhe4rted]

first read on @exitmusicfrafilm’s post about 2023

[usefulquotes7]

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Reading fetish erotica with absolutely pristine and morally upright consent and neat and tidy safer sex practices is like watching a Fast and Furious movie where they stop at every stop sign and signal for every lane change and always obey the speed limit.

[stil-lindigo]

lighthearted.

if this comic resonated with you, please consider donating to this palestinian escape fund (vetted by @/nabulsi and @/el-shab-hussein) as it is less than $7,000 away from it's goal.

i turn 24 today. To celebrate, I made this comic to be a spiritual successor to lead balloon, a comic in which I talked about the darkest period of my life so far.

A lot has changed since my 23rd birthday and this one. My priorities have shifted a lot, in ways that I think are mostly good. But i think the best part about today is that suicide has gone back to being a far away notion. I'm really lucky, and I'm grateful for that.

[skylark-234]