Real stuff

(Brooklyn 99)

“Kristen had dreamed of having children since she was herself a child and had always thought that she would love motherhood as much as she would love her babies. “I know that being a mom will be demanding,” she told me once. “But I don’t think it will change me much. I’ll still have my life, and our baby will be part of it.” She envisioned long walks through the neighborhood with Emily. She envisioned herself mastering the endlessly repeating three-hour cycle of playing, feeding, sleeping, and diaper changing. Most of all, she envisioned a full parenting partnership, in which I’d help whenever I was home—morning, nighttime, and weekends. Of course, I didn’t know any of this until she told me, which she did after Emily was born. At first, the newness of parenthood made it seem as though everything was going according to our expectations. We’ll be up all day and all night for a few weeks, but then we’ll hit our stride and our lives will go back to normal, plus one baby. Kristen took a few months off from work to focus all of her attention on Emily, knowing that it would be hard to juggle the contradicting demands of an infant and a career. She was determined to own motherhood. “We’re still in that tough transition,” Kristen would tell me, trying to console Emily at four A.M. “Pretty soon, we’ll find our routine. I hope.” But things didn’t go as we had planned. There were complications with breast-feeding. Emily wasn’t gaining weight; she wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t play. She was born in December, when it was far too cold to go for walks outdoors. While I was at work, Kristen would sit on the floor with Emily in the dark—all the lights off, all the shades closed—and cry. She’d think about her friends, all of whom had made motherhood look so easy with their own babies. “Mary had no problem breast-feeding,” she’d tell me. “Jenny said that these first few months had been her favorite. Why can’t I get the hang of this?” I didn’t have any answers, but still I offered solutions, none of which she wanted to hear: “Talk to a lactation consultant about the feeding issues.” “Establish a routine and stick to it.” Eventually, she stopped talking altogether. While Kristen struggled, I watched from the sidelines, unaware that she needed help. I excused myself from the nighttime and morning responsibilities, as the interruptions to my daily schedule became too much for me to handle. We didn’t know this was because of a developmental disorder; I just looked incredibly selfish. I contributed, but not fully. I’d return from work, and Kristen would go upstairs to sleep for a few hours while I’d carry Emily from room to room, gently bouncing her as I walked, trying to keep her from crying. But eventually eleven o’clock would roll around and I’d go to bed, and Kristen would be awake the rest of the night with her. The next morning, I would wake up and leave for work, while Kristen stared down the barrel of another day alone. To my surprise, I grew increasingly disappointed in her: She wanted to have children. Why is she miserable all the time? What’s her problem? I also resented what I had come to recognize as our failing marriage. I’d expected our marriage to be happy, fulfilling, overflowing with constant affection. My wife was supposed to be able to handle things like motherhood with aplomb. Kristen loved me, and she loved Emily, but that wasn’t enough for me. In my version of a happy marriage, my wife would also love the difficulties of being my wife and being a mom. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d have to earn the happiness, the fulfillment, the affection. Nor had it occurred to me that she might have her own perspective on marriage and motherhood.”

David Finch, The Journal of Best Practices: 

A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man's Quest to Be a Better Husband

Eu sinto sua falta

"Eu faço tanta coisa

Só pensando no momento de te ver"

1 in 5 swans are gay, and happily committed

https://www.genderinclusivebiology.com/newsletter/80-of-gay-swan-couples-successfully-raise-their-young-compared-to-30-of-straight-swan-couples-gender-showcase-9-12

I was right, you know. You did look up to watch the flock flying by, just like I thought you would... 

I don't know what to do with this.

All I wanna do is dance with you

 "To our favorite 80's track"

(Daredevil)

I like them quirky, what's your type

 "Summer had barely begun and already the city of Janloon was like a spent lover—sticky and fragrant."

Jade City, Fonda Lee

What's a little thing like love gonna do to me

 "I've been whole long before you came to be

I don't need savin' no silver linin'"

How to hug a porcupine

"Diets, the Egyptian pyramids, and healthy relationships have one thing in common: they all take time."

Debbie Ellis

Easy does it

"Pulling me in like a fool chasing

Everything but the truth"

A flawed, experimenting person

(Poor Things)

But I'm still stuck in my own way, always choosing the hard way

 "Old flame, where do you love from? Explain

How did you find your way"

(Olivia Dean, you write poetry through song girl, and I'm still listening)

The Duke of Fire and the Duchess of Ice

Passionate love for the Duke of Fire
the Duchess of Ice felt.
One kiss was her heart’s desire,
but with one kiss she would melt.

She dreamed of him in his red pantaloons,
in his orange satin blouse,
in his crimson cravat,
in his tangerine hat,
in his vermilion dancing shoes.

One kiss, one kiss,
lips of flame on frost,
one kiss, pure bliss,
and never count the cost.

She woke. She went to the bathroom.
She took a freezing shower-
her body as pale as a stalagmite,
winter’s frailest flower.

The Duke of Fire stood there,
radiant, ablaze with love,
and the Duchess of Ice cared nothing
for anything in the world.

She spoke his name,
her voice was snow,
kissed him, kissed him again,
and in his warm, passionate arms
turned to water, tears, rain.

Carol Ann Duffy

(Gouda with M.)

You make me feel like dancing

"You've got a cute way of talkin'

You got the better of me

Just snap your fingers and I'm walkin'"

(The Punisher)

But I actually enjoy fighting with you

(27 Dresses)

  "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Hanlon's Razor

And face the music, alive and dancing

Stimming for the thousandth time, maybe

"Oh, I can't make this up, what if I fuck it up?

Well, then I'm wrong

You're not the perfect someone made for me"

En esta historia sólo yo me (debo) muerir

“All Bette's stories have happy endings. That's because she knows where to stop. She's realized the real problem with stories—if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death.”

Neil Gaiman, in The Sandman

(Y yo me moriré de amor porque te quiero, porque te quiero, amor, a sangre y fuego)

"I can handle you" 

Hot rabbi quote

And so she left

 

Gravity

Gravity keeps trying to pull me down, but you also keep making me feel like I am floating

If there could be only one, one perfect Hollywood kiss

This would be it.

(Nobody wants this)

Talk to me

"I'd like to think you feel the same way

But I can't tell with you sometimes

So, baby, let's get on the same page

Stop making me read between the lines

Already know I can't leave it alone

You're on my mind

Already gave you the time and the place

So, don't be shy

Just come be the man I need

Tell me you got something to give, I want it

I kinda like it when you call me wonderful

Whatever the type of talk it is, come on then"

(Olivia, are you inside my head? ahah)

Between the spaces

“I am not sure what love is”, they say, “would you please explain it to me, what does it feel like?”

And I have felt love aplenty, I understand the needs of biology and hormones that inform it, the sense of duty or the twisted logic behind the unhealthy choices we keep tripping into. I also know how it feels like when love webs and slowly vanishes, making the same soft but crackling sound the autumn leaves do as the wind scatters them. Or when it morphs into something dulled, soft and malleable, yet durable.

But what do I know about love?

When I was little they told me love was when someone said “I love you!”, and if they said it fiercely enough, if they grabbed onto you with enough strength to leave a mark, then it must be true. Even if it came after a slap, after many unkind words, some screaming. Screaming was supposed to be love.

Is it?

Then love was showing your true self despite the risks of rejection and derision, love was taking someone else’s place to spare them and sacrificing yourself, changing, wanting someone to be happy even if it means they are not with you. All plots of Disney movies watched, rewatched in the darkness.

But what if love just happens?

What if love does not fit into words, what if it escapes all definitions attempting to pin it down and exists between the spaces, can you still feel it? Maybe love is what wooshes through your chest sometimes in a tight, concentrated blow, expanding it painfully. Maybe love leaves you feeling kind of happy, kind of sad all the time, as if loving is the same as being alive, feeling everything in every moment. Noticing what a beautiful sky there is today above you.

I think love might be that.

It might be a half smile that rises unbidden, the spark that brightens your eyes when you’re speaking, no matter how mightily you try to resist it. Love might very well be whatever it is that rises in me whenever you open the door.

Shit.

On painful, if funny, truth

So can we say we'll never say the classic stuff, to show it

"We could be nice to each other

Nice to each other

Wrong for each other, right for each other

And rise to each other

Rise to each other"

(Is Olivia Dean my new favourite singer, or is this a very happy coincidence? I've been listening to 5 or 6 of her songs non-stop lately)

 

Fairy circle

Anyone with a heart would agree

 "Might be the girl of your dreams"

The Lotos-eaters

"Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be?"

Lord Tennyson

Afinal a frase não é de Camões, como eu pensava

 "Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point."

Blaise Pascal

The one thing all dreams have in common is change.

I can feel the butterflies

"Now if my sky should fall

Would you even call?"

Soon after he gets on the train.

Exposition The Family of Migrants, Yasuhiro Ogawa, China, 2011

Fenix Museum

Beautiful things

Inventory of things that I am sure about:

• I love chocolate and cats;
• Cats are assholes and they hurt those who love them;
• Too much chocolate is bad for your health;
• I should probably quit both.
• I might not be sure if I will ever find it, that rough voice that screams Please stay, I want you, I need you, oh, God, but I'm sure as hell going to try. I deserve it (and I'm writing it down to remind myself later, I will probably need it).

But One became lonely

I keep finding beauty in the most unexpected places, and this must be what life is for...

https://www.reddit.com/r/autism/comments/1njq0yh/when_i_dont_tell_you_i_love_you/

And now I'm back to let you know

 I can really shake 'em down

Swear each night to let her go

Living vicariously, or the art of finding out

Qual é o oposto de "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate"?

Lista de desejos 

(porque "bucket list" soa tão mal)

Ferris wheel

Get tipsy
PubQuizz (The Garden rocks!!)
Mini-golf (Yeahh!)

Christmas market
Naturalis - Leiden / Van Gogh - Amsterdam

Tube slide (Who knew? Thanks T!)
Bouncy castle
Skying? Hiking?

Miller's girl

 

Like a fool

 "I hallucinate when you call my name

Got stars in my eyes

And they don't fade when you come my way"

It had been a while since Calliope visited me like this

The goddess of contradictions, white lies and transitions

Something's got a hold of me lately

                       

"Problematic

Problem is I want your body like a fiend, like a bad habit

Bad habit's hard to break when I'm with you"

Sonnet

I don't think that I've been in love as such,
Although I liked a few folk pretty well.
Love must be vaster than my smiles or touch,
For brave men died and empires rose and fell
For love: girls followed boys to foreign lands
And men have followed women into Hell.

In plays and poems someone understands
There's something makes us more than blood and bone
And more than biological demands...
For me, love's like the wind, unseen, unknown.
I see the trees are bending where it's been,
I know that it leaves wreckage where it's blown.
I really don't know what "I love you" means.
I think it means "Don't leave me here alone".

Neil Gaiman

Health journey update

But probably will

          

"No, I know

I'm a walking contradiction and it shows

Got a history of being in control

I'm aware that I could end up here alone

But then we spoke

I had a backbone made of glass and then it broke

Now I stay up and I wait here by the phone

If you're ready, all I mean is we could go

And I've never craved someone's attention

As much as yours, thought I should mention that"

Los síntomas del amor son los mismos que los del cólera

 "La curiosidad es otra de las tantas celadas del amor."

Gabriel García Márquez

Before we go

 

I guess I should know better

 

when it comes to falling.

Morpheus of the Endless, the Shaper

Crazy, stupid

 

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Mas não tenho mais nada, amor, para dar

 

"E adeus, meu amor

Nas ondas do mar serei naufragada

Nas rochas mais duras serei mutilada

Posso viver triste, mas nunca negada"

 "The one thing I never counted on was having luck on my side.

It was generally simpler that way."

Alastair Reynolds, Chasm City