the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.
three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.
two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.
their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.
one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.
i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.
i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.
and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?
you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.
a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.
someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.
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Olympique Lyonnais Le Progrès Article (September 28, 2022)
TL:dr version: everyone is dead. You thought I was being sarcastic when I talked about the upcoming translations but no!! I was being literal!
So many questions. Is Lyon going to beat Bayern's record of only having two subs in a Champions League game? Does van de Donk's contract involve a clause regarding Lyon paying for a hot tub if she has to carry the No. 10 position on her back with no reassuring breathing room until January? Does Lyon believe in resurrections or do they think some things are better left buried? More importantly, does Lyon, the author of so many love stories, still believe that love can be absolute if someone loves something other than them?
Jokes aside when you know Lyon well enough you realize what they aren't saying is sometimes as relevant as what they are. Love a team, too, whose definition of love is pure but also complex. I'm telling you. You can search as much as you want. You won't find another team like you. They're a once in a lifetime kind of locking eyes with a stranger during your wedding reception and thinking "ah, shit." So, like, by all means. Get involved with another team. Watch someone else! But on a cold and rainy day, when you're putting off doing laundry or cleaning your apartment or whatever, sit down and watch a team who only writes love stories because they desperately want someone to see them for who they are. Just... watch them. They can be really good for you, I promise.
Unrelated: if anyone has any good pumpkin pie recipes (from scratch) to recommend, please do shoot them my way.
Already exhausted, OL women is getting ready to confront a rough month of October.
Crippled by injuries at the beginning of the 2022-2023 after a draining summer, Sonia Bompastor's OL will once again be strongly solicited in October, with the return of the Champions League.
Back in training this Wednesday morning in Décines [physical location of Lyon's training group], after four days off for the international players following the Montpellier game, the Lyon players worked on ball control for the third open session to the public. This involved about 50 supporters, who suffered through the rain to wish a happy 33rd birthday to Amandine Henry.
"The players got to recharge with their families, it did them a lot of good. The core players only got about 10 days vacations following the Euros and other international competitions, which was a really short period in terms of optimal recovery considering the exhaustion on a mental and physical level. We timed it so they would get the weekend off while the beached were still open. We're handling this start of the season as if it were the end of a season," Sonia Bompastor pointed out.
Sara Dabritz and Ada Hegerberg absent
Out of the group of 24 players, there were two notable absences besides the longterm injuries of M'Bock, Carpenter, Macaario, Marozsan and Majri. Sara Dabritz, who received an ankle injury last Thursday in training, has not rejoined the group. The German midfielder, who had an MRI this Wednesday afternoon, will soon know how long she will be out for.
Another player missing during roll-call: Ada Hegerberg. The Norwegian forward, who received a huge knock on the left leg with the national team at the beginning of September, returned to Lyon Tuesday night after having spent three weeks in Sweden with her husband. "We'll see each other for the first time this week, and then another time next week and we will make a decision together about how to set in place a protocol for her," the OL head coach elaborated.
Vanessa Gilles expected mid-November
Sonia Bompastor will however recuperate Eugenie Le Sommer, who participated in modified training this Wednesday after having received "a hell of a knock on the thigh in Montpellier," back in training with the group this Thursday to prepare for the final stretch.
Suffering from a quad injury and rehabbing since her arrival at the club some ten days ago, Canadian defender Vanessa Gilles will not participate in group training before mid-November. "We'll try and cope until then, knowing that's the optimistic version," Bompastor added, thrilled to have let her players "catch their breath a little" before the final push. Before taking on a packed month of October**, "with a grueling schedule of one match every three games, between the Champions League and the [French] league."
** This is excluding the international break, so Lyon is going to be truly gassed.
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One of the earliest examples of Leo’s “I’ll do my own thing to accomplish our goal without discussing it with my team first” is in episode one. It’s super, super quick, and ultimately inconsequential, but it subtly sets up a great precedent that I think is very interesting.
When the boys need to grab the medallion from Splinter without Splinter noticing, Raph, Mikey, and Donnie huddle together with Raph taking the lead in trying to devise a plan to get the mystic device. Meanwhile, Leo slinks away and grabs the device by clocking the situation (by knowing his father well enough to predict his actions - something he does with each family member multiple times in the series) and making a move on his own.
It works out perfectly fine, and is ultimately the best move, and it’s honestly okay that he didn’t consult everyone for something so small when it’s such a non issue to get it, but it nicely sets up how this tends to go in the series, including how it goes in the movie.
To be honest episode one is actually really good at setting up a lot of things for each character in the long run, this is just one example that caught my attention, as small and unassuming as it is.
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hot take but you all NEED to stop telling people to kill themselves.
yes, even *those* people. i don't care if you're talking to some monster who puts live puppies into a wood chipper for fun, don't say that shit.
because mx. puppychipper isn't gonna be affected by your words.
but you know who might be affected? some innocent third party reading the words you said on a public website.
because telling people to kill themselves says "suicide is a punishment for being a bad person. bad people, upon realizing they're bad, should simply commit suicide instead of working to atone for their actions."
and that is NOT a message you wanna be normalizing to anyone, but ESPECIALLY people with depression (who, let's be real, make up a higher than average chunk of this site's userbase). whose mental illness is already telling them that 1: they're an inherently terrible worthless person no matter what they do 2: death is an appealing option.
is reading "kill yourself" once or twice gonna make them do it? nah, probably not. but reading it multiple times a day every day is gonna make their mental health worse. it's probably not good for your mental health to be saying that kind of thing, either.
just knock that shit off. the world is already so hostile to people with mental illness, and managing mental illness and unlearning unhealthy thought patterns is already so difficult. you don't need to be out here making it worse.
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he says i hate everyone except you and that is addictive and that is kind of romantic and beautiful because you're young and you're kind of a sarcastic asshole too and you don't like bad boys, per say, but you don't really like good ones either. and you like that you were the exception, it felt like winning.
except life is not a romance book, and he was kind of being honest. he doesn't learn to be nice to your friends. he only tolerates your family. you have to beg him to come with you to birthday parties, he complains the whole time. you want to go on a date but - people are often there, wherever you're going. he's just so angry. about everything, is the thing. in the romance book, doesn't he eventually soften? can't you teach him, through your own sense of whimsy and comfort?
at first - you know introverts often need smaller friend groups, and honestly, you're fine staying at home too. you like the small, tidy life you occupy. you're not going to punish him for his personality type.
except: he really does hate everyone but you. which means he doesn't get along with his therapist. which means he has no one to talk to except for you. which means you take care of him constantly, since he otherwise has no one. which means you sometimes have to apologize for him. which means he keeps you home from seeing your friends because he hates them. you're the single exception.
about a decade from this experience, you'll type into google: how to know if a relationship is codependent.
he wraps an arm around you. i hate everyone except you. these days, you're learning what he's actually confessing is i have very little practice being kind.
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Hiiii. My apartment will accept my application but they want two months of a deposit upfront by Wednesday, and because I've had to do repairs on my car that's stretching my money tight. So I am again bumping my Kofi (ko-fi.com/rosebijoumme) and making mention that I am willing to short fanfic writing commissions of properties I am familiar with (say, 500 words for $15). If you appreciate the funny words I say, drawings, or my research posts about Egypt, helping me out with this is a nice way to express that. I do hate to rattle my tincan but they want around $90 dollars more than I have on hand, and I do need gas back and forth until my next check on December (which is often around 150-200$, it's been on the lower side lately and having to pay so much is why I'm moving).
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