youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu - Tumblr blog

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pioneering something called "gritted teeth optimism" where everything is gonna turn out okay even if i have to bite and claw and gnash my way through it

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thinking about this guy in knew in college who had to get eye surgery and he was bummed about it for a number of reasons but mostly bc he was a big reader and he wouldn’t be able to read for a while so his roommates all recorded themselves reading his favorite book and gave it to him for his birthday and just like.... that’s love y’all

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One of the formative experiences of my life was visiting Al-Khalil (aka Hebron) circa 2013 with a group of other diaspora Palestinians and seeing the “situation” there. What used to be a very active market in the heart of the old city was pretty much dead because settlers lived in the upper levels of the buildings; there was a metal net over the remaining shops to catch the trash that settlers and non-Palestinian (and I mean this as a legal status) visitors would dump out of their windows at the Palestinian population, but this couldn’t catch things like chemicals, rotten eggs, dirty water, etc. As a card-carrying (and I mean this literally) Palestinian, I was not allowed to enter the Jewish quarter, but a settler was allowed to come and scream at the Druzi soldier guarding the checkpoint at the time for letting us—I was with a group of people who mostly did not have Palestinian ID, but were ethnically Palestinian—into the city at all. I swear someone tried to hit us with a car. The Palestinian shopkeeper we talked to quickly got scared and told us we had to disperse. I have passed through clouds of pepper spray less tense than that.

Like, if you’re reading this as, say, a US American with no Palestinian heritage, you have more access to places under Israeli occupation as a visitor than I ever will, and my family heritage is traceable to Palestine only, nowhere else. I believe anyone should be able to live wherever they want, but I have family members living in the West Bank who haven’t been able to travel much past the cities they live in, e.g. to visit the Dead Sea or Jerusalem, despite living relatively close. Meanwhile, most people I know in the US, Jewish or not, could go visit any time they want without begging for permissions that might be denied to them arbitrarily. *most* of the USAmericans I know could visit the post-1948 borders easier than me.

My partner and my best friend are both Jewish, so they could immigrate to the land of my parents’/grandparents’/great-great grandparents’/etc’s birth with relative ease, despite not feeling any connection to the land; I could not. If I lived in the land of my parents’ birth, my partner would have to legally declare interest in me and we’d have to have a “cooling off” period in which we separate. This is very obviously wrong to us. The fact that I even have to argue its wrongness to anyone else is fucking ridiculous. If you’re even capable of excusing that injustice, then nothing you have to say is of any value to me and I’m not sorry about it. A different set of laws applies to me than the person who is reading this (unless you’re also Palestinian). That is the definition of apartheid and I have nothing to prove to anyone who refuses to believe it. Because it’s clear. You either choose to deny the truth or you don’t. I just hope my presence can elucidate that truth to others. I cannot emphasize enough that being Palestinian is not just an ethnic or national status for me, it is a LEGAL status. I am legally Palestinian. Are you legally ethnic in any way? If so, can you see how our circumstances align? Ask yourself that.

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My old person trait is that I think a website should work in a web browser and not try to open an app

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Chicago Tribune, Illinois, April 26, 1935

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blah blah aging tumblr population etc etc if you are ever visiting a family that just had a baby, and you know that they have other small children, bring a little toy for each of the other kids. it doesn’t have to be anything fancy, but even the most charitable, well-behaved child starts feeling left out after the nth visitor brings gifts and attention for their parents and baby sibling and isn’t there for them at all, especially since their parents have probably been completely consumed with the new baby. make their day and they will remember that bit of kindness and attention from you forever.

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Its him, its Parmish Sean

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this might be a hot take but i actually don’t think humans were meant to know what is going on in everyone’s lives all over the world every second of the day and constantly be available for conversations or collaborations or call-ins for work and texts and phone calls and social media posts without end. i think we were supposed to just help the people around us and spend time with our family and friends and eat yummy bread and berries and relax

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the father (tumblr drafts) the son (journaling) and the holy spirit (notes app)

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Putting powdered sugar on the post below