#it’s a social experiment to weed out perverts

[thequeenofsarcaasm]

I personally would have kidnapped Geto and kept him in chains in my basement. (Also naked but that’s just a detail)

Gojo was a coward.

#i hope my cool mutuals don’t see this #if any of them sees this just know that I can explain #it’s a social experiment to weed out perverts #i’m not one of them #geto suguru #gojo satoru #satosugu #jujutsu kaisen #jjk

[nodeathissuffering]

August

Loneliness. Once again you seep into my bones reminding me of my humanity.

The month of August was quite an interesting experience for me in 2023. For the most part I found myself high for almost half the month. I bought a 30-pack of edibles thinking that they'd last me more than a month. Sadly, I devoured all thirty of them in less than two weeks. Weed has been both a savior for me as much as it's been a curse. Though it has alleviated part of what ails me, the aftermath is much more severe. My mentality is burdened by my lack of work ethic on the things that I wish to achieve. Streaming, making content, writing. Every time I try it all seems to fall apart before me. It could be a result of self-sabotage and often times I think that is the result. A symptom of depression that ceases to be quelled no matter how much effort I put into attempting to live my life. Expectations so high that they burrow into my skin as they scar my insides as well as my flesh. I can say that I am making small improvements here and there. It's just that nothing seems to suffice. I discourage myself easily and at my worst it just seems as if I'm not even in my own body. This is especially true when I have panic or anxiety attacks. Upon witnessing the nervous breakdown, things just seem to happen. Things that I most often regret. It is up to me to learn from them and to not let depression, anxiety, or whatever else deter me from living my life. My progress reaffirms this though I just wish it was more. I wish I could explode from these shackles and make content but often times these chains tie me to my bed or to the shower or to my car or anywhere else that's warm. I may love the cold but an embrace is what I desire most.

Most of my improvements come in the form of self-care. It might be disgusting to say but there were times in the past where I wouldn't shower or brush my teeth. There were times where I wasted money on eating out because I sought comfort the only way I knew how. The companionship that I once sought through friends, family, lovers, are often times pushed away. This results in me deleting my social media or changing my phone number. To this day I still question if the people that care for me truly do but I know better now that this is just me choosing to stay in my head of all places. My head; where negativity bounces around almost continuously, almost infinitely. One changes I've made to help thwart this is by moving back home. In the four years that I've lived in Texas I can say that I have not made a lasting relationship. All of my work friends I've pushed away. All of my lovers would either choose to block me as a result of my volatility or I would block them because I grew disgusted with myself. Abhorred by the conditions which already choke me and preferring to not let the monster that I see in the mirror be freed. A beast reminiscent of my brother and all of the flaws he carries. His narcissism, manipulation, anger, and other abominable behaviors. In my adult life, these have grown into my worst fears as I know these are cogs to what keep me isolated. Moving back home with my friends, though not the best situation, is certainly a lot better than where I was. I do feel happier here but even so loneliness proceeds to invade my mind. That emotion perverts my thoughts of them at times. Mostly this is spawned from their sometimes inconsiderate nature but at the same time I am aware that I can act the same. It reaffirms one of my goals in that I wish to live by myself or, at the very least, not live in their sun room. I have 11 more months of this which does fill me with some excitement and hopefully I can achieve this once that time comes.

As far as my book goes, my biggest improvement seems to be dedicating an expensive notebook to writing down all of my ideas. Most times I will delete all of the progress I've made on writing particular parts because my story continues to evolve with every form of inspiration I absorb. Though they have yet penetrated paper I am confident that, at the very least, it could lead to a very compelling, very ambitious story. Writing for me has been a therapy of sorts. It distracts me from pain that continues to define my being. Continues to prevent me from living my life. I try motivate myself to write something everyday whether it be poetry or my book, short stories, my journal, and even on here. This has proved to be a positive experience for me as I have not seen most of my past habits seem to have dissipated. Of course, the real test will come when I have an anxiety or panic attack. I hope I can prove my past self wrong by behaving more like myself. More like the person I want to be.

As far as streaming and making content goes, I have found that recording youtube videos is a lot easier when I'm high. This might be because I'm less critical of the product but at the same time I still need to be wary that I still need to keep the content that I have and no delete it later. That seems to be a big problem as I am quite the perfectionist. Streaming is a different story. I need to defeat the anxiety that comes before me even attempting to stream. I get in my head beforehand and often times talk myself out of it. It reminds me of a time where I needed to take a self-injected shot for one of my diseases and I ended up hyperventilating. This is something else that I need to learn to attack in the future when I am in a better position to do so as it is one of the things that also impedes me from living my life. It doesn't affect me from making content however as that is all mental so hopefully I can take the steps necessary to achieve this as well. The same can be said for keeping social media. I don't know how to use social media..... like, at all. Often times I delete accounts not only as a way to disappear but also because I stop liking the things that I post. It seems as if I can't win in that regard even when I do make multiple accounts to fulfill both of the ways that I wish to use it. I try to stay off social media as a result which unfortunately doesn't help me either since I know that I'm addicted to using it. It does provide a boost of serotonin for me which, as a result of my depression, makes it even harder for me to quit. What I need to do is make profiles just to promote the things that I wish to do while occasionally posting something real. Maybe one of these days I will achieve such things.

Right now, and for as long as I can remember in my adult life, I lack focus. Focus is relative to my time management as well as my stress management. Often times, when I'm overly anxious or nervous about something I'll find myself just not doing anything except doomscroll through social media (which is another reason why I decided to leave temporarily since I am obviously letting it affect me to much). If I can just focus and take things day by day, eat properly, sleep well, cook for myself, while also allowing myself to pursue these side projects then I think I'll be ok. It's easier said than done and making improvements is one thing but I wonder how impactful it would be if I applied myself just a little more. If I could exert more effort into these things. If these things are possible then I can truly claim that in those moments that I am unstoppable. Until then, I have another pack of edibles, I have my crazy work schedule to abide by, and I have temptation to thwart before it tramples me any further. Hopefully next month I can provide something more substantial in ascertaining these goals of mine. Next time I might be able to talk more about the other exploits in my life and not allow inconsistent things or inconsistent people impede my ambitions. Hopefully, I won't feel the need to delete this post like I've done all the others. All I can say is that we will see.

[unhingeddumbass]

Ben, Kevin and Gwen answer random questions:

DISCLAIMERS: THE QUESTIONS AREN’T MINE, I FOUND THEM IN ANOTHER POST, CREDITS TO OP. I FOUND THEIR BIRTHDAYS IN BEN 10 WIKI, THE CANDLES WERE MADE WITH A BUZZFEED QUIZ AND I’LL PRETEND KEVIN’S DAD WASN’T A FAKE MEMORY, HE WAS REAL, BECAUSE IT WORKS FOR ANSWERING SOME QUESTIONS. I TRIED TO DO THIS BASED ON THE TRIO’S PERSONALITY LIKE THE SHOW AND BEN’S SINGLE BECAUSE I DON’T WANT ANY BEEF AND BECAUSE EVERYONE SHIPS DIFFERENT PEOPLE WITH BEN.

😷Where or with who are you spending quarantine? 

Gwen: I’m staying with Kevin at his mom’s house.

Kevin: What she said lol

Ben: At home with my folks, since Grandpa Max is a risk patient, he’s staying at Galvan Prime with Azmuth. 

✊🏾What’s your position with the current racism tragedy? Are you getting involved in any way? 

Gwen: I’m horrified. I can’t believe we’ve come to such high levels of intolerance and hate and that the government just adds more violence instead of trying to change the situation peacefully. I’ve been getting informed and learning, doing videos teaching people about racism, posted them on my social media so I can try and teach people more. I’m claustrophobic so I don’t go to protests, but I’m supporting from home. 

Kevin: I’m fucking angry. I’ve been at the protests with Ben and we’re trying our best to keep people safe. I’m also working on a piece of tech to cover tear gas before it blows and some bulletproof stuff.

Ben: Like Kevin said, we’ve been on the front with protesters providing help and keeping everyone as safe as possible. Our parents are donating and we’re trying to get the Plumber’s help too, but they said it’s not their jurisdiction. Either way we’re doing our best and we’ll always stand with justice, peace and equality for everyone. 

🐰- do you believe in soul mates?

Gwen: Yaaaas, it’s so romantic! 

Kevin: Uh.. *Looks at Gwen* Only if it’s her. 

Ben: Dafuk’s a soulmate?

💌- diary or journal?

Gwen: A mix between both, I love scrapbooking.

Kevin: Das some soft shit bro *He secretly hides a journal but he’ll never admit*

Ben: Why wasting paper? It’s better to keep everything on the Cloud

💕- are you crushing on someone?

Gwen: Hmm… Patch Cipriano *Kevin glares at her* JUST KIDDING, only you. 

Kevin: This babe right here *Grabs Gwen’s waist and kisses her forehead*

Ben: *Simping* Jennifer Lawrence, Selena Gomez… there’s too many 

💋- kissing in the dark or kissing in the rain?

Gwen: A rainy autumn day *Daydreams*

Kevin: Three words: Dark. Backseat. Lake *Smirks and winks at Gwen*

Ben: *Cringes for the Gwevin moment* Anywhere I guess. 

🍼- what is your favorite memory?

Gwen: Fishing with Grandpa Max and my first karate tournament

Kevin: Buying my car xD

Ben: THAT ICONIC summer vacation, hell yeah

🌸- what is your favorite flower?

Gwen: Yellow roses, ofc.

Kevin: Weed *Gwen elbows him in the chest*

Ben: None, tho I kinda like sunflowers

💖- have you ever been in love?

Gwen: *Looks at Kevin and smiles*, yes. 

Kevin: *Starts singing I’m in Love With My Car by Queen, Gwen glaring at him* Ofc I love you babe, I’m kidding.

Ben: My love belongs to Mr Smoothies

🍰- strawberry or vanilla?

Gwen: Both! Also love coconut.

Kevin: Those are some lame ass flavours, I rather chocolate or blueberries.

Ben: As long as it can be made into a smoothie, I’ll love it.

🍯- describe your favorite smell

Gwen: A new book and a autumn scented candle

Kevin: Gasoline and... *blushes*... Gwen’s shampoo.

Ben: Pickles and chili fries, duuuh. 

🎂- if you had 3 wishes, what would they be?

Gwen: An infinite supply of books, making high education to be accessible to everybody and to reverse the damages the human race has made to the environment.

Kevin: My car to be completely indestructible, free food forever not only for me but to everybody and…*whispering* getting to see my dad at least one last time.

Ben: Infinite chilli fries and smoothies, to stop racism, misogyny and homophobia, and Grandpa Max to be around for a lot of more years. 

🍪- cookie dough or cookies?

Gwen: Freshly baked cookies!

Kevin and Ben: *Screaming* Cookie dough! Salmonella won’t ever stop us!

☕- coffee or tea?

Gwen: Coffee in the winter or at college, tea for relaxing.

Kevin: Bring me the strongest coffee! *Slams fists on table*

Ben: F U C K I N’  S M O O T H I E S 

🍃- would you rather live in a sea with mermaids or a forest with fairies?

Gwen: I can’t choose, I’d love both.

Kevin and Ben: *Smirking with pervert thoughts* MERMAIDS!

🍂- what’s your middle name?

Gwen: Catherine, but I rather being called Gwendolyn instead.

Kevin: Ethan, but dare to call me that and I’ll yeet you into oblivion. 

Ben: Kirby, COULDN’T BE ANY MORE CRINGEEEEEE?

💫- what is your zodiac sign?

Gwen: Cancer (14th July)

Kevin: Scorpio (4th November)

Ben: Capricorn (27th December)

🌧️- favorite thing to do on rainy days?

Gwen: Read, drink tea and listen to calm music.

Kevin: Either I sleep all day or I’ll go to Gwen’s house. 

Ben: Eat, sleep, TV, and rave repeat. 

🍭- how tall are you?

Gwen: 5’6

Kevin: 6’3

Ben: 5’10

💒- which show would you want to live in?

Gwen: The Vampire Diaries or Friends.

Kevin: Law & Order *Screams DUN DUN*

Ben: Summo Slammers!

🎄- what is your favorite holiday?

Gwen: Thanksgiving, because of the family reunion.

Kevin: Saint Patrick’s Day, cuz I have an excuse to get fucking drunk and party

Ben: Christmas! Good food and gifts heck yeah

🍦- what scented candle is your favorite?

Gwen: Warm Vanilla Cookie or Pumpkin Spice.

Kevin: Enchanted Pine

Ben: Citrus Mint

🎶- favorite song right now?

Gwen: Sit Still, Look Pretty by Daya

Kevin: I’m In Love With My Car by Roger Taylor (Queen)

Ben: Human by Cher Lloyd or Game Over by Falling In Reverse

💘- 3 ways to win your heart?

Gwen: Don’t be a dickhead, be supportive, be funny.

Kevin: Respect my space, be brave and plz don’t hate my car

Ben: Be playful, funny and patient of my lifestyle which is very hard

🍩- current mood?

Gwen: Normal, concerned about the pandemic and missing my bff

Kevin: Meh, I don’t go out as often anyway

Ben: I WANNA GO OUT, I HATE QUARANTINE

❄️- what is your favorite season?

Gwen: I like summer but I love autumn

Kevin: I don’t actually mind

Ben: SUMMEEEEEEER 

💍- your current relationship status?

Gwen and Kevin: Taken! *Kiss*

Ben: *Gags and glares at the happy couple* single and enjoying my peaceful life.

🕊️- 3 habits you have?

Gwen: Organizing my books by height, having always my room clean and never leave my house without my earphones

Kevin: The volume on the tv has to be in an even number, my car has to be always well maintained and my phone is mostly on silent or vibration mode.

Ben: Never spend a day without a smoothie, text Grandpa at least once a day or two, and collecting stuff I like.

🦄- how do you perceive yourself?

Gwen: Hardworking, introverted and intellectual

Kevin: I’ve got some roguish charm *smirks* and a little soft sometimes

Ben: Quirky, loud and funny.

🦋- how do you think others perceive you?

Gwen: Some call me golden child or goody two shoes. Probably teacher’s pet too.

Kevin: *Points at Ben* well, he thinks I’m strange and dangerous, so I guess other people think that too, maybe also an asshole.

Ben: A couple people think I’m an egocentric pain in the ass.

🌈- things I find attractive in girls/guys

Gwen: Physical appearance isn’t important, but I love smiles. I like a person who I can be myself with and is honest always. 

Kevin: If a girl is fearless, strong and independent I become a simp for her tbh *Looks at Gwen* That’s how you got me at your feet babe. 

Ben: I really like someone supportive and understanding, also bonus points if they’re not that serious, I want to joke around.  

🍓- one secret about yourself

Gwen: I tend to be a people pleaser and I struggle with standing up for myself around my parents. 

Kevin: I’m a sucker for my mom’s food and I’m actually sensible around the people I care the most about. 

Ben: I’m not as careless and cocky as I pretend to be. Also I secretly love Lady Gaga’s music. 

🎥- what show are you currently binging on?

Gwen: Gossip Girl, bakery shows and Stranger Things

Kevin: CSI and Law & Order, also Pimp My Ride cuz hell yeah old MTV shows

Ben: I mostly watch Summo Slammers but I also like Rick and Morty, Big Mouth and Stranger Things.

💗- who do you miss?

Gwen: My family and my best friend, Emily. 

Kevin: ...my dad. 

Ben: Grandpa Max, no cap. 

🥀- last time you cried?

Gwen: The other day, while we watched A Dog’s Purpose 1 and 2. 

Kevin: I don’t wanna talk about that soft shit

Ben: I had a very lucid nightmare the other day and woke up crying

🔪- scariest/creepiest experience?

All of them: Coming back from death in Legerdomain

#ben 10 #ben 10 alien force #ben 10 ultimate alien #ben 10 omniverse #gwen tennyson #ben tennyson #kevin levin

[pikapeppa]

Online Dating: A Tale in Six Parts

A couple years ago, I wrote a personal essay for a book project for a friend of a friend. The project leader ultimately rejected my piece because it wasn’t academic enough, to which my response was as follows:

I then promptly forgot about it. But now I’m deciding to publish it here, because why not. So here you go: an autobiographical tale of Pikapeppa’s experiences with online dating. (Please note: this is MY personal experience with online dating as a cis straight woman, and is not meant to be representative of anyone else’s experience but mine, since I can’t knowledgeably comment on that.)

************************

Online Dating: A Tale in Six Parts

Online dating has been widely vilified, especially since so many cis-heterosexual women have such gross experiences with it: unsolicited dick pics, misogynistic insults when you don’t respond immediately, seemingly nice guys who either “ghost” or suddenly become perverts in the blink of a notification.

I’m here to tell a happier story of online dating, and how it restored my faith in my social skills, my confidence in myself - and how I learned a thing or two about relationships along the way.

Part I: Intro

I’m a shy girl.

Let’s be specific. I consider myself an introvert, or an ambivert at a stretch. I have an extremely hard time talking to strangers; I loathe small talk. At parties, my quietness has a direct inverse relationship with the size of the crowd I’m in: the more people there are, the less I say, until I might as well be a piece of furniture in the corner if the party is a big one. I’m most comfortable in small groups of four people max (including myself), and even then, I get uncomfortable if I’m the centre of attention for too long. I generally prefer to listen than to talk. My ideal weekend includes one entire day for recharging at home with just Netflix and my cat for company.

In January 2012, I moved to Montreal for grad school. When I got there, I knew nobody. I’d moved to Montreal wanting a change, as I’d lived in Toronto my whole life. But somehow in my excitement to move, I’d forgotten that a) I had no friends in Montreal and b) I hate talking to strangers and I hate small talk: the two necessary evils of Making Friends. I spent a solid six months by myself, exploring the city in solitude or hanging out in my apartment with my cat, increasingly hating myself for the fact that I had been living in this city for almost a year and still had no friends except for some casual acquaintances whom I’d met at a mingling party for new grad students. I have some embarrassingly angsty journal entries whining about how there must be something wrong with me, because what kind of person can’t make a single friend in six months of living in a new city? I can’t fully express my gratitude that one of my labmates, who was finishing her Master’s degree at the time, took pity on me and invited me out for drinks, eventually becoming my first good friend in Montreal and introducing me to many other amazing women friends.

Eventually I got into my social stride in Montreal. I had friends; I was satisfyingly busy with my graduate work; and I continued to enjoy relaxing with my cat. (I could write a whole chapter devoted to my mental/emotional well-being and my cat, but let’s save that for another time, shall we?) But as my thesis was wrapping up and I started having more free time, I realized that I was ready to add to my social life. I was ready - gasp! - to pursue a romantic relationship.

This was September 2012. By then, I’d been single for about two years, and largely happy without a partner. But aside from being busy with my thesis, there was another significant reason I had not dated anyone in Montreal: I didn’t know how to meet men.

Part II: The foray into online dating

Traditionally, people meet their partners through work, through common interests, or by bumping into them in bars. I wouldn’t be meeting anyone at work because my master’s degree focused on a topic dominated by female academics, so essentially all of my colleagues were women. My interests involved typically homebody activities like movies, reading, and cooking. And my carefully cultivated Resting Bitch Face usually deterred men in bars from approaching me (as well as my pixie haircut, which I purposely got in order to weed out the kind of shallow male who “only likes girls with long hair”.) The graduate community at McGill often had mingling or speed dating events; however, see above regarding my quietness in crowds and hatred of small talk. Long story short, the traditional ways of meeting men were out.

This is where online dating came into the mix. For me, it was a logical and practical choice. I’ve never been interested in casual flings, so I figured that online dating, especially from a paid website, would have a larger number of men who were looking for something more serious. Importantly, online profiles would also provide information about interests and sense of humour, which - praise the Flying Spaghetti Monster! - would mean that small talk could be avoided, since we could talk about common interests. And there was a final reason that online dating appealed to me: I wanted to meet someone whose occupation was NOT at all similar to mine.

Now, this might be a kind of unusual criteria to express for one’s mate. After all, there is a reason that many people meet their partners at work or engaging in common interests: these things provide a common ground for conversation and for connecting. But as much as I enjoyed research and had aspirations to eventually work in healthcare, I didn’t want to date someone who did those things. After all, I had moved to Montreal looking for something new, dammit! I wanted to broaden my horizons. I wanted a partner who could be my Aladdin and show me a Whole New World.

And thus my online dating adventure began.

Part III: The adventure begins

Everyone has different experiences with online dating. I will say this: I found it really fun and interesting. Importantly, it helped me realize that my social skills, in fact, were not total crap. Within two weeks, I’d gone on dates with a handful of nice, normal-seeming men from a variety of professions. Each time, I went home pleased that I’d had a pleasant, functional conversation with a stranger, without the situation devolving into awkward silence due to my inability to talk like a normal human.

The dating experience was also an important confidence booster. When you’ve been single for two years without any hint of interest from the opposite sex, it’s easy to start thinking you’re deficient in some way. With a handful of successful dates under my belt, I was finally starting to believe that my singledom really was circumstance and not social ineptitude. It also reminded me of something else I’d forgotten during the moping self-pity of my first six months in Montreal: given the right circumstances, I actually enjoy flirting. Dates were actually kind of the perfect social situation for me: one-on-one conversation with a person who you already have things in common with, and with whom you can practice your witty repartee? After two weeks, I felt renewed, confident, and like I had choices - a lot of choices.

Part IV: Disaster strikes (in the most inconsequential first-world-problems kind of way)

Another important role that online dating had in my life was that it led to my first experience of being hurt in a relationship. Here is how it happened: I met a guy with whom I had “chemistry”. Ah, yes, chemistry: that vague, indefinable concept that, in my case, really just meant I had met a guy I was really attracted to. We went on two really fun dates, and then spent a weekend together - and I, being naive, thought I had found my next boyfriend. But a few dates later, he suddenly (and apologetically and politely) said he didn’t think we should see each other anymore.

I was frankly crushed. I’d been incredibly lucky in that by the age of twenty-something, I’d never been dumped or rejected romantically… so this experience of rejection hit me hard. I cried. I drank three beers (a lot for me!) and watched The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo with much maudlin relish. I blasted happy music to drown out my angsty thoughts, and I pow-wowed with my best friends to analyze and re-analyze everything he had said and done. And I was crushed anew when I went on the dating site again to see that he was still active. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to date; it was that he didn’t want to date me. And that really hurt.

Part IV: Wisdom

Ultimately, I’m thankful I was rejected, because I learned a lot of important lessons:

Don’t be tricked by “chemistry”! Rom-coms tell us that chemistry is the most important thing. It’s not. At all. “Chemistry” just means “immediate sexual attraction”. This is not a wise thing on which to base an entire relationship.

Rom-coms also teach us that a guy who doesn’t want a relationship will eventually come around if you are charming enough. This is not true.

Just because someone treats you nicely, doesn’t mean they want the same thing in a relationship as you. Listening to what your date is telling you - i.e. “I don’t know if I want a serious relationship” (yep, the guy who dumped me literally said this on our second date) - is very important.

Many newly single men just don’t know how to be alone, so they start online dating even if they aren’t ready for a new relationship… and they may not realize they don’t want a new relationship until after they’ve started one. The lesson here: be up-front about your relationship expectations/goals and candidly ask your dates about theirs.

Most importantly of all, I learned firsthand what it feels like for someone you want to not want you back. My taste of rejection was the briefest, most inconsequential taste - a week-long fling, compared to committed relationships or divorces. But it was enough to foster a stronger empathy for the pain of rejection and heartbreak, and I feel that this alone was absolutely worth it.

This list of lessons may sound skeptical or discouraging. But I actually found my new knowledge to be incredibly comforting. I now had a set of rules that I could use to better play the dating game - and this time, I was sure I would succeed. Armed with my newfound dating wisdom, I ventured into the world of online dating again, with a different site (a fresh start!) and a cautiously optimistic outlook.

Part V: The Artist

My second attempt at online dating, like the first, was fun. As before, I dated many nice, polite men and had pleasant, interesting conversations. And then I met The Artist.

My first date with The Artist, as I called him in those early days, was as pleasant as any first date I’d gone on. But he had this huge, uninhibited smile, and his laugh was larger-than-life and more enthusiastic than any laugh I’d heard in my life. On our second date, I told him openly that I was dating many people, but that he was my favourite so far. He smiled and nodded agreeably. On our third date, he kissed me… and without either of us saying so, we both knew our online dating careers were at an end. More than six years later, The Artist and I are engaged and living happily with our Playstation, our cat, and some gently wilting plants.

Yes, I just summarized my relationship in a single paragraph. But my goal here isn’t to wax poetic about my fiancé. It’s to point out that without online dating, I would never met him. He works in a completely different profession from mine, and at the time that we met, he lived and worked in different neighbourhoods from me. Our social circles would never have overlapped. But online dating brought us together in more subtle ways as well. My positive experiences in early dates gave me the confidence to continue dating after I got rejected. My experience of rejection led me to try a different dating website - the site that he was on. And the lessons I learned from being rejected led me to a wiser, more open approach to dating and relationships in general - an approach that The Artist appreciated. Given this analysis, I would argue that online dating doesn’t deserve the credit for my relationship, but it does deserve the credit for pushing me out of my comfort zone and giving me experiences that helped me develop into the emotionally mature, pragmatic, and confident woman who eventually captivated a similarly mature and pragmatic man.

Part VI: Conclusions and caveats

My biggest caveat is that I used online websites with paid memberships. As I mentioned earlier, I figured that people who are paying are more likely to be looking for a serious relationship, since paying requires commitment, whereas unpaid sites would have more people who were dabbling or “just curious”. I never used Tinder or Bumble, where online dating is like a game. A friend also recently suggested that I may have had such an easy time with online dating because, in her words (NOT MINE), I am “a babe”. But if you take anything away from this essay, let it be this: online dating is not all bad or all good. Like old-fashioned dating, it’s a complex phenomenon that takes on the biases and colours that you bring into it. And like old-fashioned dating, it can provide new experiences that will let you learn things about yourself - and about love, and life in general - that you didn’t know.

Don’t let online dating define your love life. Let it be a tool to learn about yourself, and maybe, like me, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

#pikapeppa writes #fanfic writer's life #except not actually fanfic #autobiography #personal #original writing #writing #personal essay #pikapeppa reflects

[spacecharr]

Why I’m Not Threatened By Old Men

A (high) treatise on why young women shouldn't be afraid of all old men.

Written by a (high) young bi woman of colour.

---

Lemme start by saying I wrote that title because I thought it would be clickbaity. And I wrote the subtitle like that because I'm being "funny" and I anticipate it will generate trolling. My popcorn is getting cold, and I want a show.

And incidentally, it's all true.

Because this is SpaceCharr pontificating on #authenticity and weed, son!

My local Starbucks is small, has a tiny little patio, limited seating and serves a wildly diverse customer base. From your Basic Skinny Pumpkin Spice Latte Bitch(TM) to uniformed police, from sharply dressed businessmen to soccer moms with three kids and a Burberry purse, from punk-rock loud and proud visibly LGBTQ folks to button-down sweater-vest old-schoolers, and from local college kids to retired old men.

It’s fascinating to see the crazy range of people and it makes for eavesdropping lazily on some hilarious (and sometimes very serious) conversations ranging all over the place.

And for some reason, I have a really really easy time getting old white men to talk to me. 

Lemme lay some context: I’m a friendly gal. I’m sociable, (I’ve been told) charming, easy going, and very casual. I remember in elementary being given feedback by my teachers that I was “unapproachable”, and they were worried I would have difficulty making friends. From junior high on, I purposefully (after much coaching from my parents and my mom especially) sought out opportunities to learn better social skills. As an only kid, I didn’t have any siblings to be guaranteed friends with, and my relationship with my extended family was spotty at best. 

So if I wanted friends, I knew I’d have to get them on my own. (Troll Note: I know some dipshit’s gonna be all “omg sure #thathappened. Like a grade schooler can know that” - and you’re right! Grade like, 3-6 me had no fuckin’ clue. But 20s me? Who’s gone through a bunch of psychotherapy? Now she knows a bit more)

I learned interpersonal skills. I did drama, I joined clubs, I did Toastmasters (fuckin’ fantastic, btw, look for your local chapter), and I even did the Dale Carnegie Interpersonal Skills course that’s based off How to Win Friends and Influence People (1000% recommend, A+ on how to be a decent human despite its manipulative-sounding title which is brilliant). I learned how to be a more approachable person - and I learned why people find it approachable.

I saw the difference in how people received me when I spoke formally versus when I spoke in a very familiar tone (”hello” vs “hey, hey!”). I noticed that I could easily put the people I was dealing with off-balance in a good way (relieved surprise) with humour and well-meant self-deprecation. I learned through trial and error what body language and touch cues elicited in terms of responses across various types of people. It became second nature for me to analyse and act on these, and my knowledge of these techniques helps me daily in my work as a consultant.

So now, after several years in the workforce, multiple significant life events (aka I’m relatively old), and more overall life experience, I’m often described by my coworkers and friends as “very friendly and often happy”. Of course, according my sibling-like co-scoundrels in my cube farm, I am “disgustingly upbeat” - but they say it with love because they know I’ll tease them relentlessly, too.

I have found over the years that I have actually changed down to the core of that grade school girl. I’ve gone from a kid who struggled to make friends and who was seen as unapproachable, to a person who can very quickly establish good rapport. 

(side note: holy fuck I just realized I went from Dandere to Deredere... I’m a fuckin’ anime side character, shit)

Kind of the best example of what I mean is an interaction I had with a new massage therapist at this place I had a gift card for. That is to say, a complete and total stranger whom I had never interacted with or seen in the past. The shop I was at had you wait in the reception area with the receptionist until the RMT came to get you. So this dude came out to meet me, introduced himself and we chatted easily for a bit. After not even a minute of us chatting, he and I were laughing together and shared an easy chemistry. The receptionist - remember, who’d been there when the RMT and I introduced ourselves for the first time - then asked me “oh, are you two old friends?” to which he and I laughed and said “no, we’re just friendly”.

Anyways - that’s the context.

I’m a friendly gal. Sociable, a bit charming, easy going, and easily able to manipulate her own behaviours in order to make the other person feel more comfortable.

In Harry Potter-code: I’m a Slytherin who can play a Hufflepuff, but only because it gets me what I want - your cooperation and rapport - more easily. However, I also do genuinely mean those nice Hufflepuff-like actions - just, there’s an ulterior motive attached.

I’m also young, and obviously with South Pacific Islander blood in me (exotic features - I’ve been told I’d be cast in Miss Saigon if they ever did a musical in my city - I took it as as compliment, since I’m friends with the old white dude who told me that and he did mean it as a compliment).

Let’s put this together:

Exotic, tan-skinned young woman

Chatty, friendly, skilled at making people feel comfortable

Can make someone feel like an old friend

Easily self-deprecating and humourous

In a Starbucks with chatty retired old dudes and a lot of shared seating

Can anyone else see why my title makes more sense? (Legit, I am high, so if it doesn’t make sense, that makes sense)

Lemme spell it out for you bois: I’m an old perverted white man’s wet dream.

(yes, I’ve been told such to my face; yes, I believe from experience that most of the people who won’t believe me are straight young men - not out of malice, I think, but out of a belief that people aren’t that bad [not that old men finding young women attractive is bad - acting on it in certain ways however, can be]).

I’ve worked out of the Starbucks I mentioned several times in the past. As a consultant, I have a measure of flexibility in my schedule and I find I work best on some of my problem solving and documentation work when I’m out of the office. The change of scenery and the need to shut out the environment to “see” my work helps me - plus I don’t get drawn into the co-scoundrel shenanigans.

And I’m not kidding you - 8/10 times that I go there, I make a new old white man friend. Even the bi dude I met (srsly, it feels like since I made the decision to be openly out, I’m meeting more and more bi people everywhere when before there was nobody) was an old white dude.

I fuckin’ love it.

I am a young, bi woman of colour who loves having old white man friends. 

Because they’re just as chill, non-judgemental, self-deprecating, sociable, and easy-going as I am. And they appreciate my dad jokes and bi puns. Seriously. Dads everywhere - we all secretly love your jokes.

And, y’know what? I think more young women - LGBTQ or not, PoC or not - should want to have old white dudes as friends. 

INB4 tumblrinas: I don’t mean resurrect Hitler and be his gal pal. I mean don’t dismiss a possible friend just because they’re old, white, and have a dick. Use your brain - not every human is good, but likewise, not every human is bad. We come in shades in all ways.

I won’t tell you what to do, because I don’t know. What I want to share with you is why I feel the way I do. And let you do what you will with it - because I’m not interested in changing your mind. I’m interesting in trading stories and adventures - and understanding more about each other through that exchange.

Here’s why I love being open to talking to old white dudes:

Dad jokes. I’m not kidding. I love Dad Jokes.

They’re often past the point of giving a shit about society, so if you have a genuine, good-natured conversation about your point of view, chances as they won’t give a shit as long as you’re happy and no one’s dying.

They have amazing stories. I can’t tell you the number of times a new friend of mine has launched into crazy tales of things they got up to when they were younger.

They have great advice. Often, they’ve made some pretty bad mistakes. And they’re all too happy to share their lessons and spare someone else the trouble.

They often just want a chat. They don’t need a new friend, they don’t want your number, they just want a lively conversation with someone who isn’t gonna call the cops on them.

It’s so freakin’ easy to make their day and make them smile. And the genuine surprise when they find a young chickie they’ve no doubt had to weigh the pros-and-cons of talking to, who is easy-going and as happy to make their acquaintance as they are hers? It’s so cute. Old man smiles are so cute.

They respect you for being unapologetically who you are. They know that they’ve invited themselves into a talk with you - and they’re willing to carry and/or exit that talk if they find you being openly yourself. (which means if “yourself” is a fuckwit, they’ll just drop you if they know what’s good for ‘em; but then you’re just a fuckwit in Starbucks)

I guess for more location context, I should add that I live in Canada; it’s not an uncommon occurrence here for spontaneous conversations to happen. It might be more rare in other places, though. My city is also quite progressive and has a fairly active and supported LGBTQ scene.

All this said, it’s just a really nice experience in my mind to have good relationships (passing conversations, spontaneous coffee clubs, casual friendships, or more serious friendships) with old dudes as a young woman.

It’s like having a legion of second father figures, or uncles, more accurately fun drunkles, and older brothers. 

I enjoy several significant friendships with old dudes:

I go for coffee almost every week with two white old dudes and a dudette (I’d say “old” but she’d punch me out): our conversations range from politics to wood relationships to name calling to sibling-like teasing.

I have three co-scoundrels at work that I’m close friends with, all are old men. None are in a position to help me with anything at work, but damn are they hilarious and they’re a ready Friday-afternoon morale boost with their antics.

I have a very close old Japanese-Canadian friend. We have a complicated and somewhat tense relationship, but ultimately I think it can be said that we have a certain platonic love for each other. Though we don’t speak frequently, we’re both very significant to the other. He was my taiko instructor.

I have another very close relationship with one of my long-standing old dude friends. He’s known me since I was 9. A single hug from this man can stop an anxiety attack in its tracks. We kiss each other on the cheek and like to weird out the ladies at Starbucks when we go there with each other by holding hands - we’re both Slytherin trolls.

Don’t forget the OG Old Guy: my proper Old Man. My papa. Our relationship was strained by my mother’s unhealthy approach to all her familial relations during my early years. But as I’ve moved out, gotten older, and gained more life experience, it feels like my dad is finally realizing I’m not a little girl anymore - that I’m a woman, with woman needs, woman wants, and woman expectations and behaviours. We don’t talk about all things, naturally, he’s still my dad. But I can’t tell you how great it feels to have a dad who I know has my back no matter what.

I feel like there’s a certain conditioning for young women to “fear” the “old white man”. Certainly for me in particular it feels like there’s lots of factors in play: my “tropical” ethnicity, my youth, my LGBTQ nature (still haven’t been asked for a threesome as a bi woman - I’m impressed with my city), and, naturally, my gender.

While I do know that those are all things that certainly do warrant a certain amount of wariness around strangers (old in my neighborhoods usually means highly conservative about, depending on the age of said person, “the immigrants” or “the non-whites”. Age from young-old to old-ass-old. They’re a product of their time.), I also think it’s vital not to let that wariness get in the way of making a possible new friend.

Anyways, I need to wrap this up.

How does this loop back into #authenticity and weed? Well, it’s been my experience that the old (white + some Asians, in my case) dude friends that I’ve made are some of the best people to help you be yourself.

They have anecdotes to illustrate benefits, cons, risks, and rewards; they have dad jokes and puns to bring some much-needed levity; they don’t give a fuck about the other Starbucks goers - for better or for worse; and they - just like you - just wanna have a good day and be able to be themselves.

Does this apply to every old man? No. Does it not apply to every old man? No.

If you’ve read this far, you have the brain capacity necessary to give someone a chance. Now, you’ll wanna do some preparation if this is nearing your max capacity, because you wanna make sure you’re not letting the wrong old man come talk to you all friendly-like. 

But once you find one who’s just a swell dude? Cut ‘im some slack, maybe remember that he’s struggling to speak your vocabulary as much as you’re struggling to understand his. 

Sit back, drink some coffee, smoke a joint, and share a story once in a while.

Anyways. That’s been SpaceCharr Pontificating.

Cheers, buds.

Stoner note:  My hand rolling’s gotten so much better. And the weed I have doesn’t seem to smell as strongly as the pre-roll I had that one time, so I might sesh in the park at some point. I have my inaugural shroom trip this weekend - bestie agreed to tripsit! Yay! And she’s bringing the whole Planet Earth HD collection! - so it might not be for a while. I want to give the experience the attention it deserves, plus I need to establish a clean baseline to experiment accurately with microdosing.

#authenticity and weed #weed #lgbtq #bi women #idk what are controversial tags so just idk like add em? #high on: pinner #idk what strain but I bet it's a sativa #and my hand rolling has gotten so much better! #microdosing #shrooms #dandere #deredere #dandere to deredere #wtf #dont judge me son im pontificating #SpaceCharr Pontificates #yeah #defs sativa #sativa #harry potter #slytherin #bisexuality

[pashpops]

R1CH

kpop legends R1CH. Been around for 15+ years and all well into their 30s now but still putting out hit after hit. They mainly stick to funk and hip house, but they've done everything from (very questionable) gangsta rap to power ballads.

Members: CiCi (ex-leader), Yeona, Lion (leader), Haeun (maknae)

Fandom name: Famous

Stage Name: CiCi Birth Name: Cecilia Yeung Position: Main Vocal, Original Leader (passed on to Lion in the mid-00s) Birthday: 1982 Zodiac: Capricorn Height: 178cm Weight: 52kg Blood Type: A Favourite Colour: Red Favourite Food: Mapo dofu, kimchi jjigae Least Favourite Food: White chocolate Hobbies: Watching musicals, clothes shopping, singing

CiCi Facts: - From Hong Kong. Moved to Seoul in 1997 to debut, now spends her time between the two cities. - Nowadays almost more famous as an actress than as a singer, but she enjoys singing more than acting. - OWNS the colour red. Likes red everything and anything. Her red and black Bugatti Veyron, which she bought after a role as a femme fatale race car driver, is a famous sight in Seoul. - Very popular model for fashion brands due to her unbelievable figure and sophisticated fashion sense. - Although she is the oldest and the original leader, she’s a bit too easygoing, and voluntarily gave up the position to Lion, who is a natural-born leader, once they were all legal adults. - Nicknamed “Empress CiCi” for her elegant appearance and many roles in period dramas. - Ideal type at debut: someone cool and strong. Ideal type now: someone gentle and independent.

BEHIND THE SCENES DATA: - Faced a lot of backlash at debut due to her nationality, to the point where she wouldn’t speak much or at all on variety shows. This led to her being seen as cold and snobbish, which got her even more hate. She leant into it with a “princess disease” vain concept as she got older, and as her curves filled out and her features settled in, the more people started to simply agree with her. - The only member who hasn’t had any work done on her face, but she has had her boobs done. - Not particularly interested in dating, especially seeing what her members have gone through. It’s not that she doesn’t find anyone attractive, it’s just that it doesn’t seem worthwhile.

Stage Name: Yeona Birth Name: Moon Yeo Na Position: Visual, Vocalist Birthday: 1982 Zodiac: Sagittarius Height: 162cm Weight: 51kg Blood Type: O Favourite Colour: Indigo Favourite Food: Anything low calorie (actually, anything high calorie) Least Favourite Food: Anything high calorie (actually, anything low calorie) Hobbies: Annoying the other members, shopping, makeup

Yeona Facts: - Variety goddess, always on TV making jokes and teasing hoobaes. - Very open about how much cosmetic surgery she’s had done, which is a lot. - Totally shameless. - Notorious for showing off her luxury goods hauls on social media  to the point it annoys some fans. - Famous for her honey thighs, which she says she used to hate but now considers her best feature. - Joked that she has only ever dated men only because she would probably get jealous if her girlfriend was prettier than her. - Ideal type at debut: someone charming and protective. Ideal type now: someone who laughs easily.

BEHIND THE SCENES DATA: - Infamous yoyo dieter, was a little chubby at debut and got bashed quite badly for it which inspired her first crash diet and her first round of cosmetic surgery. - Her face has pretty much changed entirely from debut, but she’s sworn off any more major procedures and now only sticks to botox and dissolvable fillers. - Still wants to get married, but as she doesn’t want children or to give up her career as most men would demand her to, she has been thinking more and more seriously about dating women. - Aware that the other members have much bigger/higher-paying gigs than her even though she’s the one who appears on TV the most, and is a little jealous of it. However, she enjoys doing variety and especially likes spending time with other idols who she likes mentoring and helping out. - Producer of DTSY/Moon Bunny Girls, though she’s fairly hands-off now that they’ve debuted. She still considers them her pride and joy, however.

Stage Name: Saja/Lion (think like Bi/Rain) Birth Name: Kang Mi Ja Position: Leader, Main Rapper, Composer Birthday: 1983 Zodiac: Leo Height: 158cm Weight: 43kg Blood Type: AB Favourite Colour: Highlighter yellow Favourite Food: Doesn’t really have one Least Favourite Food: Doesn’t really have one Hobbies: Composing, getting into scandals, makeup, dancing

Lion Facts: - The most popular solo artist in SK. Known to disrupt promotions for other groups just by posting comeback hints online, as every single solo she’s come out with has been a smash hit. - As she debuted very young, she used to have a sweet and cute image, but even as a 14 year old she was very outspoken and a troublemaker, so the company eventually relented and let her be herself. - She was often made fun of for her small and boyish figure, so in 2005 she got breast implants. She was then called a slut and plastic for them, so in 2010 she had them done again and much bigger, and wrote her first solo, the bassy hip-house bitch track “Top Heavy” about them. - Has been in quite a few drug-related scandals, often weed or MDMA. Wrote a song about a mushroom trip she went on while in The Netherlands and it stayed at the top of the charts for 3 months. - Although she performs mostly hip-hop for her own solos, she’s also a talented ballad composer and has written for many TV and movie soundtracks. - Feminist and aggressive about it. R1CH was banned from broadcast on a certain channel for over 3 years in the late 2000s due to her getting into a physical altercation with a high-up male staff member who was sexually harassing a member of another girl group, and to this day she’s still painted as a psycho violent man-hater by misogynists even though her side of the story has been proven true. - The violent part is not far off, though, as R1CH were once infamous for fighting, both within the group and with others, and almost all instigated by Lion. They have calmed down now they are in their 30s, but they still have a bit of a “gangdol” image, and Lion most of all. - Openly bisexual and a supporter of LGBT rights, has had multiple dating scandals with men and women which often come out at the same time the government is trying to cover something up. - Ideal type at debut: doesn’t have one. Ideal type now: someone warm-hearted and playful.

BEHIND THE SCENES DATA: -So popular she genuinely cannot hide anything. F

Stage Name: Haesun Birth Name: Kim Hae Sun Position: Maknae, Main Dancer Birthday: 1985 Zodiac: Scorpio Height: 166cm Weight: 46kg Blood Type: O Favourite Colour: White, baby pink Favourite Food: Daifuku, macarons Least Favourite Food: Spicy food Hobbies: Dancing, acting, cooking

Haesun Facts: - Unlike Lion, has kept her “innocent cutie” image from debut because she likes it. - Has modelled for virtually every high-end makeup brand there is. - Famous for her round face and thick aegyosal which lends to her forever-babyfaced appearance. - Gets in dating scandals fairly often, but due to her innocent image and the easy way she denies anything current but is quick to brush over past scandals as being “blown out of proportion”, they never stick and people tend to forget about them fairly quickly. - Ideal type at debut: a handsome prince. Ideal type now: a handsome prince who is quiet and shy.

BEHIND THE SCENES DATA: - Actually a total pervert, even more than Lion. Longest relationship to date was with a Taiwanese billionaire she met at an opening gala for one of CiCi’s movies, but it only lasted a year and a half before she broke up with him, much to the dismay of her hardcore fans who want her to settle down. - VERY kinky, shocked fans in the late 00s with a solo stage during a concert which involved her walking one shirtless man like a dog and sitting on another. Doesn’t show that side of her personality very much these days, but it still comes up now and then if she pushes the cuteness too much. - Doesn’t trust men in general due to her experiences in the entertainment industry from a young age, and thus only really dates younger and submissive men, or wealthy men she can use for their money. - Genuinely a very good cook and has thought about opening her own restaurant when her idol life is over, which she thought would be about 10 years ago but R1CH are still as popular as ever, so...

#group: R1CH #c: CiCi #c: Yeona #c: Lion #c: Haesun #profile

[sugarbabyapps-blog]

White Gentlemen Courting Black Girls - The Secrets and techniques in the direction of Impending Black Girls

Are by yourself a white person who's captivated in direction of black girls whilst yourself contain circumstances impending them? Frankly, upcoming black ladies is no choice in opposition to impending any other women of all ages. On the other hand there are a couple of underlining criteria which are impacting the route white males are working with interracial relationship.

Within just my viewpoint, the motives white American adult males locate it not possible toward course of action black American females is partially owing in the direction of stereotypes above black ladies. Sadly the stereotypes are dispersed via mainstream media. Next, white males are frequently haunted as a result of the "what-if" variable. The "what-if" issue is fundamentally the stress of the unidentified. Some distinguished "what-ifs" are: "what if she claims no", "what if she laughs at me", "what if she doesn't which includes my white pores and skin", "what if she contains a boyfriend", "what if she merely likes black gentlemen" "what if she goes off upon me"...nicely yourself attain the visualize. Thirdly, anxiety versus relatives and/or close friends can often be the lead to for not getting to be integrated with a black girl.

Previously permit's deal with All those troubles:

Stereotypes/Social Stigmas - Opposite in the direction of rap tunes, rap films, VH1, Guess and other "information-deserving" resources, black women of all ages are not gold-digging, earlier mentioned-sexed, gentleman-feeding on hood rats. Nor do black girls imagine that each individual white gentleman they arrive throughout sits upon his entrance porch donning a Klansman gown whittling wooden. Until finally possibly get-togethers comprehend, and figure out stereotypes for what they are, relationship/marrying every single other will move forward in direction of be unattainable.

The "What if" Variable - Male, rejection is a purely natural aspect of courting. By yourself get some your self drop some. Have on't just take it particular person. For just about every black lady who suggests no, there will be 5 that will say of course. It's accurately that straightforward. Using turned down by way of a black girl is no choice in opposition to staying turned down via a non-black girl. There are no 21 gun salutes, no fireworks and no explosions if a black lady turns by yourself down!

Pals and Family members - Anxiety towards good friends and loved ones is from time to time the largest opponent in the direction of white adult men courting black gals. Put on't slide into this entice and chance your pleasure primarily based upon another person else's viewpoints and assessments. Your self might come across your self caught inside an upset circumstance often ingesting regrets since oneself didn't stick to your middle.

Alright at the moment that we acquired the underlining things out the course, upon towards the tricks of the course of action:

Inside all round we (black ladies) are socially conditioned in the direction of consider white males aren't captivated toward us. Plenty of situations we overlook the sophisticated clues that white adult males Deliver out mainly because we're made use of in direction of the competitive procedures that black adult males are likely towards demonstrate. Regretably black ladies all higher than the region are starting off toward consider focus of Individuals clues, opening their minds and are responding inside of sort! With that becoming mentioned, allow's examine a couple circumstances:

Problem 1- Grocery Shop:

Alright by yourself look at a warm black lady status inside the baking or pasta isle. As your self technique her, produce guaranteed yourself're preserving a foodstuff material within just your hand. Start out out as a result of inquiring her a wonder pertaining to the content, these kinds of as "Justification me, can by yourself you should offer me some advocate upon xyz", or "Do yourself realize how in direction of prepare dinner xyz". Superior nonetheless, talk to her an impression more than xyz item. Explain to her oneself study a analyze upon it and desired toward check out it out. Yet another thought that operates is toward reveal that your tiny niece requested by yourself in direction of opt for up merchandise xyz...or this is the 1st period oneself've pretty much cooked xyz... talk to her for the baking period... hence upon and as a result forth. The simple fact is, yourself're seeking in direction of generate interaction with out remaining extremely competitive or threatening. If your self take place in direction of be within the develop portion, talk to her if she appreciates how in direction of cook dinner refreshing broccoli... or what's the variance in between collard veggies and mustard?. Convey to her that by yourself're a bachelor and your self're creating a dwelling-cooked evening meal for your mom... what doe she propose yourself cook dinner for the supper? In the course of the very little exchanges be Extremely knowledgeable of her human body language and her feedback. If her feedback are exceptionally quick that implies that she's both inside a rush or she's not fascinated. If she's providing by yourself a ton of eye get hold of, smiling or seeking in direction of increase her feedback she's intrigued.

Circumstance 2- The Shopping mall/Dresses Retailer

Exact premise as the previously mentioned. Your self view an appealing black girl seeking at garments. Your self tactic her with a sweater/blouse/tie. Request her for an viewpoint upon the structure or shade. Convey to her that oneself obtained invited towards a marriage ceremony... haven't worn a in shape within although... how does xyz glance upon on your own? Say on your own're picking out up nearly anything for a minimal brother, sister, a nephew. A little something that will offer her the effects that oneself will need her recommend. Overall look for marriage ceremony rings, ring marks or any other clues that will present yourself the influence that she's solitary or fascinated.

Situation 3- Eye Get in touch with

Absolutely nothing irritates us much more than a white man staring and NOT claiming a little something (or staring and seeking absent). This is possibly the largest grievance that I pay attention to versus black girls continually. Guys yourself contain in the direction of study the artwork of "eye flirting". It's critical if your self dress in't need to have towards seem together with a pervert or a loser. If you have to have her towards understand that by yourself need her, toss a pair lingering glances her direction adopted up with a flirty grin. Improved nevertheless, if oneself tracks down your self inside of awe of an interesting black female attempt the "triangular method". This contains searching at a girl's eye towards the eye, then down toward a female's mouth and chin, down in the direction of the chill out of her system and again up towards her eyes back. Pretty!

Inside of choice, if by yourself're shy or are taking a complicated period convention suitable black females inside of your community, test out web-sites that cater in the direction of interracial relationships. This will help weed out the gals who wear't day white men and will save on your own a ton of period and damage inner thoughts. It, in addition, builds up your self-confidence. Try to remember the motive of the web courting is in the direction of ultimately meet up with anyone. The user retains the services of this process as a social crutch. Highest of all contain enjoyment and have don't get aspects individually!

It's a challenging conference the specifically unique allow for by yourself making an attempt in direction of meet up with an individual who opened in the direction of interracial interactions. With a minor endurance and positioning you out there once in a while, courting can be profitable working experience.

[astrofireworks]

me, an idiot who forgot her laundry & accidentally left it in the dryer for 4 hours & someone removed it for me & now all i can think about is someone touching my underwear & i hope whoever it is is not a pervert: A Binu Version  

(also known as: Why Does Vivi Write Everything Based on Her Experiences in the Laundry Room)

ok so we all know eunwoo is on top of his game for everything 

as in everything

this is probably the only boy in the college!Astro au who has his shit together all the time 

like he probably has his assignments done on time while maintaining 2 clubs and an active social life and a great sleep schedule 

i mean, rocky comes a pretty close second but his only true friend is his laptop so 

jks he has best friends but they’re idiots and rocky refuses to acknowledge them especially when they do dumb things 

like that time jinjin wanted to make microwave popcorn but with the oven instead because “it’s the same thing, right?” 

no

it was not 

11pm fire alarms in the middle of winter because jinjin wanted to oven-bake his microwave popcorn are probably not his best moments

or that time bin decided that rocky was too lonely and wrote rocky’s number on the window of their dorm room for girls to contact him 

rocky had calls for weeks after from boys asking for weed 

therefore, rocky firmly asserts that he doesn’t have friends 

but anyways back to eunwoo 

the reason why he functions so well is because eunwoo has a perfectly set schedule 

meaning that the moment he comes back from his microeconomics lecture on tuesday at 5pm he empties his laundry bin and sorts out his clothes and folds them and brings them down to the laundry room 

promptly starts the washer at 5.15pm 

comes back down to get his clothes out of the washing machine at 5.45pm

transfers his clothes to the most efficient dryer in the laundry room and starts the dryer at 5.50pm

gets dinner at 6pm with some friends

comes back down to get his clothes, fresh and warm from the dryer, at 6.50pm 

and it’s a great schedule, if eunwoo says so himself, because then he can iron his clothes by 7.30pm and start homework right after 

except 

one day at 5.45pm he hops into the laundry room to get his clothes out of the washing machine and transfer them to the dryer

but his dryer

his most efficient, beautiful dryer 

is taken 

eunwoo pauses 

his eye twitches 

but the time on the dryer says 0 minutes, meaning that whoever the person was who was using the dryer before him should be down soon to deal with his laundry 

and so eunwoo hauls his basket full of wet clothes and sits next to the dryer machine, fully intent on waiting it out so he can use his dryer because the rest of the dryers are taken anyway 

and so he plugs in his headphones and turns on some btob and opens a webtoon

10 minutes and 3 chapters later, eunwoo’s eye twitches again 

this person 

has left their laundry 

in the dryer

for moRE THAN 10 MINUTES 

and so our angel resolves to leave it in there for 5 more minutes

jks lmao it’s only been a minute but he gets off the floor and pulls open the dryer door to remove all the clothes

two boxers fall out 

(ah, a guy, then)

(probably)

and so eunwoo dumps all the clothes on the top of the dryer

including a bright mint hoodie (eunwoo fingers it wistfully - he’s always wanted a nasty kick hoodie but that shit sells out fast) 

a bright orange shirt (eunwoo winces)

and oddly enough, minion-covered boxers (eunwoo doesn’t know if he’s crying with laughter or jealousy)

and so he dumps his clothes in and leaves and by the time he comes back again the clothes are gone so out of sight, out of mind

and so he thinks no more of the clothes and the irresponsible man who left his clothes in eunwoo’s favourite dryer 

until his next laundry day and it happens again 

i mean, for all he knows it might just be two irresponsible college boys who leave their shit in the dryer for more than its allocated time 

but

what are the chances that both of them own a bright mint nasty kick hoodie 

nONE THAT’S WHAT EUNWOO THINKS

eunwoo’s eye twitches and he waits his 10 minutes before he starts removing the laundry from the dryer and puts in his own

and so a mildly annoyed eunwoo goes to dinner with mj and sanha and tries to forget how annoying that mystery laundry person is

and he does forget!!!

until

it happens again 

and cha eunwoo, an annoyed bean, doesn’t bother waiting

he removes the laundry (that bRIGHT MINT HOODIE AGAIN) and slams the dryer door closed 

never mind the fact that this person never remembers to get his laundry out of the dryer and therefore inconveniences eunwoo

does this person not think it strange that for two weeks (and now the third week) in a row, someone has been touching his clothes?

touching his underwear?????

knowing what clothes he wears???????????????

(eunwoo thinks he can never deal with that shit) 

it’d be so humiliating????

ngl i was horrified lmao i swear i will never leave my laundry in the damn dryer for so long ever again 

and he thinks no more of this until one day he’s on his way back from class and he’s just tapped into the building and is making his way to the lift lobby when 

he sees it out of the corner of his eye 

that bright mint hoodie 

immediately eunwoo turns around, tongue ready to deliver a piece of his mind about being on time and setting up alarms to get laundry on time and 

he falters immediately because this boy

this boy is insanely cute 

he has black frame glasses, messy hair and is gripping his backpack with one hand and covering a yawn with his other and eunwoo thinks there is no way in hell he has ever seen a cuter boy

the boy blinks and his eyes are bright and shiny and slightly tired and eunwoo wants to wrap him up in his arms a blanket and tell him to go to sleep

and he wants to paste on one of his Eunwoo Smiles™ to start a conversation but then suddenly 

it crosses his mind

that he has touched

this boy’s underwear

and almost instantly eunwoo chokes on his own tongue and goes into a coughing fit 

what the fuck eunwoo 

literally

mint hoodie boy looks up and rushes over because ???? that’s what you do when someone is Choking™ and Does Not Look Okay 

and as he reaches out to pat eunwoo’s back eunwoo couGHS A VERY VIOLENT LAST COUGH 

and 

“I TOUCHED YOUR UNDERWEAR ONCE”

great job eunwoo mmhmm 

jesus

and so bin is frozen on the spot like 

what the everliving frickity frack is this boy spouting 

his??????? underwear ????????????????????

and so he’s paused with his hand in the air midway into patting eunwoo’s back and eunwoo panting and doubled over and clutching his knees

and so eunwoo has to straighten up and clear his throat and go, 

“i mean, i took your laundry out of the dryer once.”

??? you mean this is the man who-

“i mean, a couple times,,,,,,,,,,,”

and bin can only just blink because he was prepared to give the guy who kept taking his clothes out of the laundry a grumpy talking to when he finally met him 

i mean, bin tries to head back from class in time to pick up his laundry but the dryer always ends when he’s walking back from class and it takes about 15 minutes to get from his class to his dorm and he can’t always get back in time and for the last 3 weeks he’s been taking the only available dryer left but some impatient idiot kept taking it out before he could get back and he just really wants to know who’s been touching his underwear and-

ok but to be fair 

he didn’t expect an angel asjkdfhl

with long eyelashes and an embarrassed smile and eyes big enough to capture three million stars 

and so all he can do is pout and deliver a small cough of his own 

“i’m sorry i touched your underwe--”

“i’m sorry i left my laundry in f--”

they both pause, faces flushed red and both sporting shy smiles

get it together boys we’re all rooting for you 

“can i make it up to you by goi--”

“can i make it up to you by getti--”

and they both pause again, flustered and blushing and 

generally being very cute and smitten ajkfasdjkfha i love flustered binu

until bin holds out his phone to eunwoo and says shyly, “let me take you out for coffee in apology?” 

and all eunwoo can do is agree because i mean, this boy did inconvenience him for 3 weeks,,,,,,,,,,,,, 

the least he could do is buy him coffe,ee,,e,,,,

mmhmm keep lying to urself sweetheart we all know you just want to see this cute dimply boy again 

and borrow his mint hoodie because that’s what boyfriends do am i right

and our baby angel eunwoo smiles at the thought and :’)

i luv binu

anyways yes guess which idiot left her laundry in the drying room and someone removed her laundry from the dryer in order to use it and now all she can think about is someone touching my underwear or that someone seeing her in the dining hall or around her dorm wearing her bright spring up yellow or confession pastel pink hoodies and angrily thinking to themselves “this is the idiot who left her laundry in the dryer goddamn”

because i think about it a lot 

goddammit vivi

#astro #binu #ok but if the person who removed my clothes were as cute as eunwoo i wouldnt mind #moon bin #cha eunwoo #also why are all my college binu fics based around what goes down in the laundry room is Binu my laundry couple goals or #astro binu #team s o a p #vivi shoots #i dont want to think about the person who has touched my bras asjdhlfksjdf #listen if it's a cute guy fuck me #anyways i'm back after a month of not writing

[networkingdefinition]

Garden Quotes

Official Website: Garden Quotes

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();

• A black cat among roses, phlox, lilac-misted under a quarter moon, the sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock. The garden is very still. It is dazed with moonlight, contented with perfume. – Amy Lowell • A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors. – Charles Baudelaire • A garden is a complex of aesthetic and plastic intentions; and the plant is, to a landscape artist, not only a plant – rare, unusual, ordinary or doomed to disappearance – but it is also a color, a shape, a volume or an arabesque in itself. – Roberto Burle Marx • A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust. – Gertrude Jekyll • A garden is a grand teacher… above all it teaches entire trust. – Gertrude Jekyll • A garden is a symbol of man’s arrogance, perverting nature to human ends. – Tim Smit • A garden is a thing of beauty and a job forever. – Richard Briers • A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself. – May Sarton • A garden is an awful responsibility. You never know what you may be aiding to grow in it. – Charles Dudley Warner • A garden is the best alternative therapy. – Germaine Greer • A garden is to be a world unto itself, it had better make room for the darker shades of feeling as well as the sunny ones. – William Kent • A garden really lives only insofar as it is an expression of faith, the embodiment of a hope and a song of praise. – Russell Page • A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them. – Liberty Hyde Bailey • A garden was the primitive prison, till man with Promethean felicity and boldness, luckily sinned himself out of it. – Charles Lamb • A good garden may have some weeds. – Thomas Fuller • A house though otherwise beautiful, yet if it hath no garden belonging to it, is more like a prison than a house. – William H. Coles • A modest garden contains, for those who know how to look and to wait, more instruction than a library. – Henri Frederic Amiel • A person who undertakes to grow a garden at home, by practices that will preserve rather than exploit the economy of the soil, has his mind precisely against what is wrong with us. – Wendell Berry • Alfred Austin said, “Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are.” – Alfred Austin • All gardeners live in beautiful places because they make them so. – Joseph Joubert • All gardening is landscape painting. – William Kent • All my hurts my garden spade can heal. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • An optimistic gardener is one who believes that whatever goes down must come up. – Leslie Hall • As a gardener, I’m among those who believe that much of the evidence of God’s existence has been planted. – Robert Breault • As long as you have a garden you have a future and as long as you have a future you are alive. – Frances Hodgson Burnett

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Garden', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_garden').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_garden img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Be your own politics, grow your own garden, and maybe you can help out more. – Rip Torn • But though an old man, I am but a young gardener. – Thomas Jefferson • By the time one is eighty, it is said, there is no longer a tug of war in the garden with the May flowers hauling like mad against the claims of the other months. All is at last in balance and all is serene. The gardener is usually dead, of course. – Henry Mitchell

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling] • Christians are like the several flowers in a garden that have each of them the dew of heaven, which, being shaken with the wind, they let fall at each other’s roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers of each other. – John Bunyan • Cultivate your own garden and let go of your tendency to examine and judge how others cultivate theirs. Catch yourself in moments of gossip about how others ought to be living and rid yourself of thoughts about how they should be doing it this way, or how they have no right to live and think as they do. Stay busy and involved in your own projects and pursuits. – Wayne Dyer • Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified? – Chuck Palahniuk • Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. – Ray Bradbury • Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace. – May Sarton • Friends are “annuals” that need seasonal nurturing to bear blossoms. Family is a “perennial” that comes up year after year, enduring the droughts of absence and neglect. There’s a place in the garden for both of them. – Erma Bombeck • Gardeners instinctively know that flowers and plants are a continuum and that the wheel of garden history will always be coming full circle. – Francis Cabot Lowell • Gardeners instinctively know that flowers and plants are a continuum and that the wheel of garden history will always be coming full circle. One lifetime is never enough to accomplish one’s horticultural goals. If a garden is a site for the imagination, how can we be very far from the beginning? – Francis Cabot • Gardeners, I think, dream bigger dreams than Emperor’s. – Mary Cantwell • Gardening gives one back a sense of proportion about everything – except itself. – May Sarton • Gardening has compensations out of all proportion to its goals. It is creation in the pure sense. – Phyllis McGinley • Gardening is a kind of disease. It infects you, you cannot escape it. When you go visiting, your eyes rove about the garden; you interrupt the serious cocktail drinking because of an irresistible impulse to get up and pull a weed. – Lewis Gannett • Gardening is a labour full of tranquility and satisfaction; natural and instructive, and as such contributes to the most serious contemplation, experience, health and longevity. – John Evelyn • Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw. – Henry David Thoreau • Gardening is how I relax. It’s another form of creating and playing with colors. – Oscar de la Renta • Gardening is not a rational act. – Margaret Atwood • Gardening is the best therapy in the world. – C. Z. Guest • Gardening is the only unquestionably useful job. – George Bernard Shaw • Gardening requires lots of water… most of it in the form of perspiration. – Louise Erickson • Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized. – Allan Armitage • Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade. – Rudyard Kipling • Gardens… should be like lovely, well-shaped girls: all curves, secret corners, unexpected deviations, seductive surprises and then still more curves. – H. E. Bates • Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed. – Walt Whitman • God Almighty first planted a Garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without which buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks. And a man shall ever see, that when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build stately sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection. – Francis Bacon • God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures. – Francis Bacon • God the first garden made, and the first city Cain. – Abraham Cowley • How can you be content to be in the world like tulips in a garden, to make a fine show, and be good for nothing. – Mary Astell • I also know that we must cultivate our garden. For when man was put in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, to work; which proves that man was not born for rest. – Voltaire • I also like to garden. I grow things, vegetables, flowers… I particularly like orchids. I raise orchids. – Beau Bridges • I am the fonder of my garden for all the trouble it gives me, and the grudging reward that my unending labours exact. – Reginald Farrer • I am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must write not outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden. – Frances Hodgson Burnett • I appreciate the misunderstanding I have had with Nature over my perennial border. I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it is a meadow lacking grass, and tries to correct the error. – Sara Bonnett Stein • I came to these mediums through having the garden, and of course, people who have designed gardens have always worked in collaboration, and never made their own inscriptions. – Ian Hamilton Finlay • I cultivate my garden, and my garden cultivates me. – Robert Breault • I do not know the names of all the weeds and plants, I have to do as Adam did in his garden… name things as I find them. – Charles Dudley Warner • I don’t like formal gardens. I like wild nature. It’s just the wilderness instinct in me, I guess. – Walt Disney • I don’t take myself seriously any more. Sometimes I just garden in my knickers and platform shoes. – Kim Wilde • I don’t think we’ll ever know all there is to know about gardening, and I’m just as glad there will always be some magic about it! – Barbara Damrosch • I enjoy the cleaning up – something about the getting of things in order for winter – making the garden secure – a battening down of hatches perhaps… It just feels right. – David Hobson • I have a garden, and I’m passionately interested in young people. – Mary Wesley • I have a rock garden. Last week three of them died. – Richard K. Diran • I have always wanted to be a gardener, and I love the time I spend in my garden. – Pawan Kalyan • I just go in my back garden. It’s the only place where people don’t come and bother you. – Boy George • I like to go for a walk or swimming or in the garden when I can. It’s a busy kind of life, but I guess I’m lucky. – Brian May • I live alone, with cats, books, pictures, fresh vegetables to cook, the garden, the hens to feed. – Jeanette Winterson • I look upon the pleasure we take in a garden as one of the most innocent delights in human life. – Marcus Tullius Cicero • I love being in my garden. I don’t plant a lot of exotic flora, but I do spend a lot of time outside doing manual labour. – Jacqueline Bisset • I love decorating my home. I’m a gardener too, so that’s usually something I have to play catch up with – Suzy Bogguss • I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet in a garden. – Ruth Stout • I sit in my garden, gazing upon a beauty that cannot gaze upon itself. And I find sufficient purpose for my day. – Robert Breault • I suppose that for most people one of the darker joys of gardening is that once you’ve got started it’s not at all hard to find someone who knows a little bit less than you. – Allen Lacy • I think of marriage as a garden. You have to tend to it. Respect it, take care of it, feed it. Make sure everyone is getting the right amount of, um, sunlight. – Mark Ruffalo • I think this is what hooks one to gardening: it is the closest one can come to being present at creation. – Phyllis Grissim-Theroux • I travel the garden of music, thru inspiration. It’s a large, very large garden, seen? – Peter Tosh • I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs. – Joseph Addison • I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, ‘Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.’ – Jim Carrey • If Everton were playing down the bottom of my garden, I’d draw the curtains. – Bill Shankly • If we don’t empower ourselves with knowledge, then we’re gonna be led down a garden path. – Fran Drescher • If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. – Marcus Tullius Cicero • If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden. – Frances Hodgson Burnett • If you would be happy all your life, plant a garden. – Nan Fairbrother • If you’ve never experienced the joy of accomplishing more than you can imagine, plant a garden. – Robert Brault • In almost every garden, the land is made better and so is the gardener. – Robert Rodale • In fine weather the old gentelman is almost constantly in the garden; and when it is too wet to go into it, he will look out the window at it, by the hour together. He has always something to do there, and you will see him digging, and sweeping, and cutting, and planting, with manifest delight. – Charles Dickens • In his garden every man may be his own artist without apology or explanation. Each within his green enclosure is a creator, and no two shall reach the same conclusion; nor shall we, any more than other creative workers, be ever wholly satisfied with our accomplishment. Ever a season ahead of us floats the vision of perfection and herein lies its perennial charm. – Louise Wilder • In order to live off a garden, you practically have to live in it. – Kin Hubbard • In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own. – Alice Walker • In the creation of a garden, the architect invites the partnership of the Kingdom of Nature. In a beautiful garden the majesty of nature is ever present, but it is nature reduced to human proportions and thus transformed into the most efficient haven against the aggressiveness of contemporary life. – Luis Barragan • It is a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will take care of themselves. – Robert Louis Stevenson • It is utterly forbidden to be half-hearted about gardening. You have got to love your garden whether you like it or not. – W. C. Sellar • It pleases me to take amateur photographs of my garden, and it pleases my garden to make my photographs look professional. – Robert Breault • It’s amazing to see places like Madison Square Garden on the schedule again. – Roger Taylor • I’ve always felt that you can’t do much wrong in a garden providing you enjoy it. – David Hobson • Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. – Oscar Wilde • Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine, Kind words, and Kind deeds. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Last night, there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden…. It is sad that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart. – Nathaniel Hawthorne • Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. – Marcel Proust • May our heart’s garden of awakening bloom with hundreds of flowers. – Nhat Hanh • My garden does not whet the appetite; it satisfies it. It does not provoke thirst through heedless indulgence, but slakes it by proffering its natural remedy. Amid such pleasures as these have I grown old. – Epicurus • Nature abhors a garden. – Michael Pollan • Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees, So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away! – Rudyard Kipling • Old gardeners never die. They just spade away and then throw in the trowel. – Herbert V. Prochnow • One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. – Dale Carnegie • Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made By singing ‘Oh how wonderful’ and sitting in the shade, While better men than we go out, and start their working lives By grubbing weeds from garden paths with broken dinner knives. • People are always asking, “What’s the purpose of life?” That’s easy. Relieve suffering. Create beauty. Make gardens. – Dan Barker • Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads. – Marianne Moore • Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr. • Sadness is but a wall between two gardens. – Khalil Gibran • So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. – Jorge Luis Borges • Some men like to make a little garden out of life and walk down a path – Jean Anouilh • Some people might think our lives dull and uneventful, but it does not seem so to us. …it is not travel and adventure that make a full life. There are adventures of the spirit and one can travel in books and interest oneself in people and affairs. One need ever be dull as long as one has friends to help, gardens to enjoy and books in the long winter evenings. – D.E. Stevenson • Someone had told me about a house in Wandsworth, southwest London – 21 Blenkarne Road – with an incredible garden, so I went and had a look. I walked in and just said, ‘I want it.’ – Susannah York • St. Francis of Assisi was hoeing his garden when someone asked what he would do if he were suddenly to learn that he would die before sunset that very day. “I would finish hoeing my garden,” he replied. – Francis of Assisi • Successful gardening is doing what has to be done when it has to be done the way it ought to be done whether you want to do it or not. – Jerry Baker • Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. Temperance is wickedness. – Stephen Fry • Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are. – Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin • The best way to garden is to put on a wide-brimmed straw hat and some old clothes. And with a hoe in one hand and a cold drink in the other, tell somebody else where to dig. – Texas Bix Bender • The country is making a big mistake not teaching kids to cook and raise a garden and build fires. – Loretta Lynn • The earth is my altar, the sky is my dome, mind is my garden, the heart is my home and I’m always at home – yea, I’m always at Om. – Eden Ahbez • The garden is a metaphor for life, and gardening is a symbol of the spiritual path. – Larry Dossey • The garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature halfway. – Michael Pollan • The great challenge for the garden designer is not to make the garden look natural, but to make the garden so that the people in it will feel natural. – Lawrence Halprin • The lesson I have thoroughly learnt, and wish to pass on to others, is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives. – Gertrude Jekyll • The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies. – Gertrude Jekyll • The more one gardens, the more one learns; And the more one learns, the more one realizes how little one knows. – Vita Sackville-West • The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic, always enterprising, and never satisfied. They always look forward to doing something better than they have ever done before. – Vita Sackville-West • The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world. – Michael Pollan • The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • The weeds keep multiplying in our garden, which is our mind ruled by fear. Rip them out and call them by name. – Sylvia Browne • The wilderness is near as well as dear to every man. Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild wood which surrounds them, more than to the gardens of men. There is something indescribably inspiriting and beautiful in the aspect of the forest skirting and occasionally jutting into the midst of new towns, which, like the sand-heaps of fresh fox-burrows, have sprung up in their midst. The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams. – Henry David Thoreau • There are no green thumbs or black thumbs. There are only gardeners and non-gardeners. Gardeners are the ones who ruin after ruin get on with the high defiance of nature herself, creating, in the very face of her chaos and tornado, the bower of roses and the pride of irises. It sounds very well to garden a ‘natural way’. You may see the natural way in any desert, any swamp, any leech-filled laurel hell. Defiance, on the other hand, is what makes gardeners. – Henry Mitchell • There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder. – Alfred Austin • There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub. – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross • There is peace in the garden. Peace and results. – Ruth Stout • They can certainly expect to be very impressed with the technical aspects of the show, fooled and led up the garden path by the story and ultimately have a jolly good laugh! – Louise Jameson • To garden is to let optimism get the better of judgment. – Eleanor Perenyi • To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow. – Audrey Hepburn • Unemployment is capitalism’s way of getting you to plant a garden. – Orson Scott Card • We have descended into the garden and caught three hundred slugs. How I love the mixture of the beautiful and the squalid in gardening. It makes it so lifelike. – Evelyn Underhill • We were enclosed, O eternal Father, within the garden of your breast. You drew us out of your holy mind like a flower petaled with our soul’s three powers and into each power you put the whole plant, so that they might bear fruit in your garden, might come back to you with the fruit you gave them. And you would come back to the soul, to fill her with your blessedness. There the soul dwells like the fish in the sea and the sea in the fish. – St. Catherine of Siena • Well, being a jazz musician is not a rose garden! – Toots Thielemans • What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it. – Charles Dudley Warner • What is paradise, but, a garden, an orchard of trees and herbs, full of pleasure and nothing there but delights. – William Lawson • When your garden is finished I hope it will be more beautiful that you anticipated, require less care than you expected, and have cost only a little more than you had planned. – Thomas Church • Where would the gardener be if there were no more weeds? – Bill Vaughan • Wherever you have a plot of land, however small, plant a garden. Staying close to the soil is good for the soul. – Spencer W. Kimball • Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps. – Amos Bronson Alcott • Who loves a garden, still his Eden keeps, Perennial pleasures plants, and wholesome harvests reaps. – Amos Bronson Alcott • Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden. – Robert Breault • Won’t you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you. – Richard Brinsley Sheridan • Your family and your love must be cultivated like a garden. Time, effort, and imagination must be summoned constantly to keep any relationship flourishing and growing. – Jim Rohn • Your garden will reveal yourself. – Henry Mitchell

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[equitiesstocks]

Garden Quotes

Official Website: Garden Quotes

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();

• A black cat among roses, phlox, lilac-misted under a quarter moon, the sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock. The garden is very still. It is dazed with moonlight, contented with perfume. – Amy Lowell • A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors. – Charles Baudelaire • A garden is a complex of aesthetic and plastic intentions; and the plant is, to a landscape artist, not only a plant – rare, unusual, ordinary or doomed to disappearance – but it is also a color, a shape, a volume or an arabesque in itself. – Roberto Burle Marx • A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust. – Gertrude Jekyll • A garden is a grand teacher… above all it teaches entire trust. – Gertrude Jekyll • A garden is a symbol of man’s arrogance, perverting nature to human ends. – Tim Smit • A garden is a thing of beauty and a job forever. – Richard Briers • A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself. – May Sarton • A garden is an awful responsibility. You never know what you may be aiding to grow in it. – Charles Dudley Warner • A garden is the best alternative therapy. – Germaine Greer • A garden is to be a world unto itself, it had better make room for the darker shades of feeling as well as the sunny ones. – William Kent • A garden really lives only insofar as it is an expression of faith, the embodiment of a hope and a song of praise. – Russell Page • A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them. – Liberty Hyde Bailey • A garden was the primitive prison, till man with Promethean felicity and boldness, luckily sinned himself out of it. – Charles Lamb • A good garden may have some weeds. – Thomas Fuller • A house though otherwise beautiful, yet if it hath no garden belonging to it, is more like a prison than a house. – William H. Coles • A modest garden contains, for those who know how to look and to wait, more instruction than a library. – Henri Frederic Amiel • A person who undertakes to grow a garden at home, by practices that will preserve rather than exploit the economy of the soil, has his mind precisely against what is wrong with us. – Wendell Berry • Alfred Austin said, “Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are.” – Alfred Austin • All gardeners live in beautiful places because they make them so. – Joseph Joubert • All gardening is landscape painting. – William Kent • All my hurts my garden spade can heal. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • An optimistic gardener is one who believes that whatever goes down must come up. – Leslie Hall • As a gardener, I’m among those who believe that much of the evidence of God’s existence has been planted. – Robert Breault • As long as you have a garden you have a future and as long as you have a future you are alive. – Frances Hodgson Burnett

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Garden', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_garden').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_garden img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Be your own politics, grow your own garden, and maybe you can help out more. – Rip Torn • But though an old man, I am but a young gardener. – Thomas Jefferson • By the time one is eighty, it is said, there is no longer a tug of war in the garden with the May flowers hauling like mad against the claims of the other months. All is at last in balance and all is serene. The gardener is usually dead, of course. – Henry Mitchell

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling] • Christians are like the several flowers in a garden that have each of them the dew of heaven, which, being shaken with the wind, they let fall at each other’s roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers of each other. – John Bunyan • Cultivate your own garden and let go of your tendency to examine and judge how others cultivate theirs. Catch yourself in moments of gossip about how others ought to be living and rid yourself of thoughts about how they should be doing it this way, or how they have no right to live and think as they do. Stay busy and involved in your own projects and pursuits. – Wayne Dyer • Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified? – Chuck Palahniuk • Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. – Ray Bradbury • Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace. – May Sarton • Friends are “annuals” that need seasonal nurturing to bear blossoms. Family is a “perennial” that comes up year after year, enduring the droughts of absence and neglect. There’s a place in the garden for both of them. – Erma Bombeck • Gardeners instinctively know that flowers and plants are a continuum and that the wheel of garden history will always be coming full circle. – Francis Cabot Lowell • Gardeners instinctively know that flowers and plants are a continuum and that the wheel of garden history will always be coming full circle. One lifetime is never enough to accomplish one’s horticultural goals. If a garden is a site for the imagination, how can we be very far from the beginning? – Francis Cabot • Gardeners, I think, dream bigger dreams than Emperor’s. – Mary Cantwell • Gardening gives one back a sense of proportion about everything – except itself. – May Sarton • Gardening has compensations out of all proportion to its goals. It is creation in the pure sense. – Phyllis McGinley • Gardening is a kind of disease. It infects you, you cannot escape it. When you go visiting, your eyes rove about the garden; you interrupt the serious cocktail drinking because of an irresistible impulse to get up and pull a weed. – Lewis Gannett • Gardening is a labour full of tranquility and satisfaction; natural and instructive, and as such contributes to the most serious contemplation, experience, health and longevity. – John Evelyn • Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw. – Henry David Thoreau • Gardening is how I relax. It’s another form of creating and playing with colors. – Oscar de la Renta • Gardening is not a rational act. – Margaret Atwood • Gardening is the best therapy in the world. – C. Z. Guest • Gardening is the only unquestionably useful job. – George Bernard Shaw • Gardening requires lots of water… most of it in the form of perspiration. – Louise Erickson • Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized. – Allan Armitage • Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade. – Rudyard Kipling • Gardens… should be like lovely, well-shaped girls: all curves, secret corners, unexpected deviations, seductive surprises and then still more curves. – H. E. Bates • Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed. – Walt Whitman • God Almighty first planted a Garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without which buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks. And a man shall ever see, that when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build stately sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection. – Francis Bacon • God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures. – Francis Bacon • God the first garden made, and the first city Cain. – Abraham Cowley • How can you be content to be in the world like tulips in a garden, to make a fine show, and be good for nothing. – Mary Astell • I also know that we must cultivate our garden. For when man was put in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, to work; which proves that man was not born for rest. – Voltaire • I also like to garden. I grow things, vegetables, flowers… I particularly like orchids. I raise orchids. – Beau Bridges • I am the fonder of my garden for all the trouble it gives me, and the grudging reward that my unending labours exact. – Reginald Farrer • I am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must write not outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden. – Frances Hodgson Burnett • I appreciate the misunderstanding I have had with Nature over my perennial border. I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it is a meadow lacking grass, and tries to correct the error. – Sara Bonnett Stein • I came to these mediums through having the garden, and of course, people who have designed gardens have always worked in collaboration, and never made their own inscriptions. – Ian Hamilton Finlay • I cultivate my garden, and my garden cultivates me. – Robert Breault • I do not know the names of all the weeds and plants, I have to do as Adam did in his garden… name things as I find them. – Charles Dudley Warner • I don’t like formal gardens. I like wild nature. It’s just the wilderness instinct in me, I guess. – Walt Disney • I don’t take myself seriously any more. Sometimes I just garden in my knickers and platform shoes. – Kim Wilde • I don’t think we’ll ever know all there is to know about gardening, and I’m just as glad there will always be some magic about it! – Barbara Damrosch • I enjoy the cleaning up – something about the getting of things in order for winter – making the garden secure – a battening down of hatches perhaps… It just feels right. – David Hobson • I have a garden, and I’m passionately interested in young people. – Mary Wesley • I have a rock garden. Last week three of them died. – Richard K. Diran • I have always wanted to be a gardener, and I love the time I spend in my garden. – Pawan Kalyan • I just go in my back garden. It’s the only place where people don’t come and bother you. – Boy George • I like to go for a walk or swimming or in the garden when I can. It’s a busy kind of life, but I guess I’m lucky. – Brian May • I live alone, with cats, books, pictures, fresh vegetables to cook, the garden, the hens to feed. – Jeanette Winterson • I look upon the pleasure we take in a garden as one of the most innocent delights in human life. – Marcus Tullius Cicero • I love being in my garden. I don’t plant a lot of exotic flora, but I do spend a lot of time outside doing manual labour. – Jacqueline Bisset • I love decorating my home. I’m a gardener too, so that’s usually something I have to play catch up with – Suzy Bogguss • I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet in a garden. – Ruth Stout • I sit in my garden, gazing upon a beauty that cannot gaze upon itself. And I find sufficient purpose for my day. – Robert Breault • I suppose that for most people one of the darker joys of gardening is that once you’ve got started it’s not at all hard to find someone who knows a little bit less than you. – Allen Lacy • I think of marriage as a garden. You have to tend to it. Respect it, take care of it, feed it. Make sure everyone is getting the right amount of, um, sunlight. – Mark Ruffalo • I think this is what hooks one to gardening: it is the closest one can come to being present at creation. – Phyllis Grissim-Theroux • I travel the garden of music, thru inspiration. It’s a large, very large garden, seen? – Peter Tosh • I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs. – Joseph Addison • I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, ‘Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.’ – Jim Carrey • If Everton were playing down the bottom of my garden, I’d draw the curtains. – Bill Shankly • If we don’t empower ourselves with knowledge, then we’re gonna be led down a garden path. – Fran Drescher • If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. – Marcus Tullius Cicero • If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden. – Frances Hodgson Burnett • If you would be happy all your life, plant a garden. – Nan Fairbrother • If you’ve never experienced the joy of accomplishing more than you can imagine, plant a garden. – Robert Brault • In almost every garden, the land is made better and so is the gardener. – Robert Rodale • In fine weather the old gentelman is almost constantly in the garden; and when it is too wet to go into it, he will look out the window at it, by the hour together. He has always something to do there, and you will see him digging, and sweeping, and cutting, and planting, with manifest delight. – Charles Dickens • In his garden every man may be his own artist without apology or explanation. Each within his green enclosure is a creator, and no two shall reach the same conclusion; nor shall we, any more than other creative workers, be ever wholly satisfied with our accomplishment. Ever a season ahead of us floats the vision of perfection and herein lies its perennial charm. – Louise Wilder • In order to live off a garden, you practically have to live in it. – Kin Hubbard • In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own. – Alice Walker • In the creation of a garden, the architect invites the partnership of the Kingdom of Nature. In a beautiful garden the majesty of nature is ever present, but it is nature reduced to human proportions and thus transformed into the most efficient haven against the aggressiveness of contemporary life. – Luis Barragan • It is a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will take care of themselves. – Robert Louis Stevenson • It is utterly forbidden to be half-hearted about gardening. You have got to love your garden whether you like it or not. – W. C. Sellar • It pleases me to take amateur photographs of my garden, and it pleases my garden to make my photographs look professional. – Robert Breault • It’s amazing to see places like Madison Square Garden on the schedule again. – Roger Taylor • I’ve always felt that you can’t do much wrong in a garden providing you enjoy it. – David Hobson • Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. – Oscar Wilde • Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine, Kind words, and Kind deeds. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Last night, there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden…. It is sad that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart. – Nathaniel Hawthorne • Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. – Marcel Proust • May our heart’s garden of awakening bloom with hundreds of flowers. – Nhat Hanh • My garden does not whet the appetite; it satisfies it. It does not provoke thirst through heedless indulgence, but slakes it by proffering its natural remedy. Amid such pleasures as these have I grown old. – Epicurus • Nature abhors a garden. – Michael Pollan • Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees, So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away! – Rudyard Kipling • Old gardeners never die. They just spade away and then throw in the trowel. – Herbert V. Prochnow • One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. – Dale Carnegie • Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made By singing ‘Oh how wonderful’ and sitting in the shade, While better men than we go out, and start their working lives By grubbing weeds from garden paths with broken dinner knives. • People are always asking, “What’s the purpose of life?” That’s easy. Relieve suffering. Create beauty. Make gardens. – Dan Barker • Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads. – Marianne Moore • Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr. • Sadness is but a wall between two gardens. – Khalil Gibran • So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. – Jorge Luis Borges • Some men like to make a little garden out of life and walk down a path – Jean Anouilh • Some people might think our lives dull and uneventful, but it does not seem so to us. …it is not travel and adventure that make a full life. There are adventures of the spirit and one can travel in books and interest oneself in people and affairs. One need ever be dull as long as one has friends to help, gardens to enjoy and books in the long winter evenings. – D.E. Stevenson • Someone had told me about a house in Wandsworth, southwest London – 21 Blenkarne Road – with an incredible garden, so I went and had a look. I walked in and just said, ‘I want it.’ – Susannah York • St. Francis of Assisi was hoeing his garden when someone asked what he would do if he were suddenly to learn that he would die before sunset that very day. “I would finish hoeing my garden,” he replied. – Francis of Assisi • Successful gardening is doing what has to be done when it has to be done the way it ought to be done whether you want to do it or not. – Jerry Baker • Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. Temperance is wickedness. – Stephen Fry • Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are. – Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin • The best way to garden is to put on a wide-brimmed straw hat and some old clothes. And with a hoe in one hand and a cold drink in the other, tell somebody else where to dig. – Texas Bix Bender • The country is making a big mistake not teaching kids to cook and raise a garden and build fires. – Loretta Lynn • The earth is my altar, the sky is my dome, mind is my garden, the heart is my home and I’m always at home – yea, I’m always at Om. – Eden Ahbez • The garden is a metaphor for life, and gardening is a symbol of the spiritual path. – Larry Dossey • The garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature halfway. – Michael Pollan • The great challenge for the garden designer is not to make the garden look natural, but to make the garden so that the people in it will feel natural. – Lawrence Halprin • The lesson I have thoroughly learnt, and wish to pass on to others, is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives. – Gertrude Jekyll • The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies. – Gertrude Jekyll • The more one gardens, the more one learns; And the more one learns, the more one realizes how little one knows. – Vita Sackville-West • The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic, always enterprising, and never satisfied. They always look forward to doing something better than they have ever done before. – Vita Sackville-West • The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world. – Michael Pollan • The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • The weeds keep multiplying in our garden, which is our mind ruled by fear. Rip them out and call them by name. – Sylvia Browne • The wilderness is near as well as dear to every man. Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild wood which surrounds them, more than to the gardens of men. There is something indescribably inspiriting and beautiful in the aspect of the forest skirting and occasionally jutting into the midst of new towns, which, like the sand-heaps of fresh fox-burrows, have sprung up in their midst. The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams. – Henry David Thoreau • There are no green thumbs or black thumbs. There are only gardeners and non-gardeners. Gardeners are the ones who ruin after ruin get on with the high defiance of nature herself, creating, in the very face of her chaos and tornado, the bower of roses and the pride of irises. It sounds very well to garden a ‘natural way’. You may see the natural way in any desert, any swamp, any leech-filled laurel hell. Defiance, on the other hand, is what makes gardeners. – Henry Mitchell • There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder. – Alfred Austin • There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub. – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross • There is peace in the garden. Peace and results. – Ruth Stout • They can certainly expect to be very impressed with the technical aspects of the show, fooled and led up the garden path by the story and ultimately have a jolly good laugh! – Louise Jameson • To garden is to let optimism get the better of judgment. – Eleanor Perenyi • To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow. – Audrey Hepburn • Unemployment is capitalism’s way of getting you to plant a garden. – Orson Scott Card • We have descended into the garden and caught three hundred slugs. How I love the mixture of the beautiful and the squalid in gardening. It makes it so lifelike. – Evelyn Underhill • We were enclosed, O eternal Father, within the garden of your breast. You drew us out of your holy mind like a flower petaled with our soul’s three powers and into each power you put the whole plant, so that they might bear fruit in your garden, might come back to you with the fruit you gave them. And you would come back to the soul, to fill her with your blessedness. There the soul dwells like the fish in the sea and the sea in the fish. – St. Catherine of Siena • Well, being a jazz musician is not a rose garden! – Toots Thielemans • What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it. – Charles Dudley Warner • What is paradise, but, a garden, an orchard of trees and herbs, full of pleasure and nothing there but delights. – William Lawson • When your garden is finished I hope it will be more beautiful that you anticipated, require less care than you expected, and have cost only a little more than you had planned. – Thomas Church • Where would the gardener be if there were no more weeds? – Bill Vaughan • Wherever you have a plot of land, however small, plant a garden. Staying close to the soil is good for the soul. – Spencer W. Kimball • Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps. – Amos Bronson Alcott • Who loves a garden, still his Eden keeps, Perennial pleasures plants, and wholesome harvests reaps. – Amos Bronson Alcott • Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden. – Robert Breault • Won’t you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you. – Richard Brinsley Sheridan • Your family and your love must be cultivated like a garden. Time, effort, and imagination must be summoned constantly to keep any relationship flourishing and growing. – Jim Rohn • Your garden will reveal yourself. – Henry Mitchell

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[marceloasherq]

Creative Confessional: Sleeping at the Wheel of My Life's Purpose

7/18/18

I want to start this off by telling you that I am sorry.

Sorry might not even cut it, though, but I don’t know what else to say about it other than to plainly say: I am sorry. Like really fucking sorry.

I am sorry because I have not been holding up my part of the bargain, not really been sharing the load as diligently as I can. I’ve been sleeping on the job of my life’s purpose, but no one can fire me, so I’m left with two choices: 

Wallow in the missed opportunities and squandered moments wherein I could have been practicing. There are tangible consequences to my truancy. Those fallouts are ever-present in my waking reality.

Recognize the path I’m on isn’t going to lead me where I must go, and change courses entirely.

There are certain patterns of living that I have found my way out of (let’s not just yet get into other patterns I’ve slipped into, though) that through expressing my experience even on a small scale has had a broad impact on a few people in my general community in ways that have surprised me.

For some, this had led to distinct changes, others just an ongoing awareness that they bring up to me whenever we happen to be in physical proximity. Then there are those in between. People have reached out to me digitally or in person to let me know that a piece of writing or a show I played had some sort of impact on them. Some people have even thanked me. Some people have been low-key pissed that I’ve not been sharing all along. It’s not a common occurrence (mainly because of how infrequently I’ve shared my writing or music of late), but it hits me deeply and truly when it does.

Far more common in my life has been praise for photographs I have taken. That feels good too, but it’s not the same, and (sorry to those I collaborate with on camera projects) I have a lingering suspicion that while I have learned a great deal about myself and have had some irreplaceable experiences through its practice, that it’s really serving me as a placeholder creative outlet, one with more immediate gratification, and ultimately a deviation from the practices that matter more to me.

From another vantage point, though, I believe that my photography and video work will be much more lighthearted and creative again once I am not neglecting my more pressing creative practice of writing — fiction, essays, poetry, journalism, scripts, and music.

It’s a perverted form of selfishness, really. Much like the selfishness of smoking the petter part of a quarter of weed by myself in less than a couple days (I’m mainly abstaining these days). I have an abundance of strange magic in me that has been kept under a seal of repression for as long as I can recall. I cannot truly blame that repression on anyone else but me, in the end, but the years of religious and socially conservative indoctrination, peer ridicule, and being a queer who’s not-exactly-white/not-exactly-POC did not help.

But fuck blame, the nature of it and its affects are far more relevant to this diatribe. Repression, in my experience, is not living the life you are here to live, your life’s purpose. 

I’ve repressed myself in so many ways over the years — my spirituality, my sexuality, my gender identity, my cultural heritage, more fully engaging with my romantic partner. I have also repressed myself by not engaging with the things that matter to me most, the things that are true about me regardless of other people or my stage in life. Reading. Writing. Being in my body and not just my mind. Plying guitar. Singing. Being in the water (Cancer sun/Pisces moon, here). Spending time alone. Engaging with people. Letting people know how amazing I think they are (and the freedom NOT to engage with them sexually). Sitting in stillness. Being out in nature. Camping. Exploring the infinite, basically.

Much of the last few years has been hijinks and navel gazing. Not that there is anything wrong with doing those things, just as long as they are illuminating in some way. But even then, illumination when kept to yourself is somehow darker than blindness.

A good friend of mine once told me that a writer who does not write flirts with insanity. That may be true — although I am no flirt. I usually prefer others to make the first move. But in this scenario I’ve been throwing some major shapes, and so me and my own personal brand of insanity have been seeing one another for a good while now. I presume that we always will (even if from a faraway vantage point), but goddamnit if I could just get some balance going I suspect I could do things. New things. Meaningful things. And perhaps (PERHAPS!) it will run concurrently with me not feeling so financially jeopardized that the vegan ice cream goes on the credit card.

At the yoga studio where I practice, a group of regular attendees and some of the teachers went down to Tulum, Mexico, for a retreat. I heard them talking about it after class for weeks and weeks before it happened. The usual response of those hearing about the trip for the first time (and it’s >$3,000 + travel price tag) was more casual than me deciding if I can afford to grab a meal at a restaurant after class.

The unfazed nature with which they regarded such an expenditure of time and funds alarmed me, not in any negative way, more so just realizing how wide a gap there is between my economic reality and theirs (I can’t really afford the monthly membership to the studio, but can far less afford further mental unravelling), putting me in a state of nonplussed bewilderment about how I could be so far behind those who are essentially my peers.

Instantly, I remembered what one of the teachers there said during a late night open studio session, that his view of finances changed when he recognized money as simply a tangible placeholder for an authentic energy exchange. You put your energy out there and those that receive it will reciprocate appropriately.

It struck me that the reason why my finances are so screwy and my clientele has been so inconsistent isn’t really something I can entirely blame on an advertising industry that seems to mainly have budgets for projects that promote businesses or products that harm people and/or the planet. Really, it comes down to my own miserly output. I’m not doing my fucking thing, and I suspect that I will never be in a place of pecuniary stasis until I am (#everydamnday). And I’ll not be able to do that until I make the decision to not repress myself, to not deny who I am by not loving and practicing who I am without compromise. 

Aside from self-doubt, then, what’s my excuse? I only recently realized that my means of motivation has been out of focus. What I’m told is that I should seek to write for money and personal glory. Neither of those things are all that appealing unto themselves. Much more recently, I’ve found that what motivates me most about writing is healing, love, discovery, truth, and beauty. To me, those are far more galvanizing (and reciprocating) than invented coin and the pursuit of public praise.

So, again, I am really sorry for not doing my part. We are all crucial, inextricable elements of this Greater Thing together, and like Ralph Waldo Emerson opined in “Self Reliance,” if I’m not actively doing the “work” of what it is to be me, then no one else is either. And to repress who and what I am is to depress who and what I am. 

In order for this grand puzzle to work, we must all do our unique part, like the salmon that sims upstream, like the bear that eats part of the salmon and tosses it into the brush. Like the fungi that bore through the salmon and absorb its nutrients. Like the tree whose roots exchange sugar with the fungi for the nutrients from the salmon, grow tall as a result, and breathe oxygen into our lungs so that we may live out our life’s purpose.

We are the one’s driving out own flesh vehicles, and if we are stuck daydreaming and distracted to no avail, we are sleeping at the wheel. There is no autopilot. There is no cruise control — only active exploration or careening into a co-created void.

###

#writing

[jhaswillwood-blog]

Me...too?

I’m not a bandwagon jumper. To date, I still haven’t seen or read Harry Potter because during the time it was popular, I, myself, wasn’t interested. I’ve never tried smoking weed before simply because of my own convictions and not because of what was popular or even permissible by law. In an age where approximately 85% of the thoughts and opinions on social media are simply recycled careless as a means to connect, I refuse. I am an original. I am my own person. I have my own passions. Purpose. Thoughts. Feelings and Experiences.

So when, in recent events, Harvey Weinstein was outed as being a disgustingly perverted perpetual molester and criminal rapist; and millions of #metoo ‘s began circling the web, I chose to remain silent until I had all of the facts.

Not because I did not believe the women who had spoken up. Not because I, myself had not been a victim of both sexual harassment AS WELL as sexual assault- because I have been both- but because I did not have all of the facts! While I am an advocate for remaining silent until you have all of the facts before speaking, I have found that in THIS case… I didn’t need them all to conclude that any man who pressures a woman outside of her comfort level; any man who can not accept one solid no as ‘a good enough reason’ to back off; any man who can not respect a woman who is simply trying to do her job, be an effective member of society and live her life with the authority that God gave her as another human being without being harassed because of what she looks like or how she dresses… is not only repulsive but should be admonished.

I am a radio personality in an industry where everyone knows everyone. Speaking up can get you praised or into trouble. It can affect paychecks, it can affect business and it can affect anyone who relies on you for either of those things or more. So when a DJ who through a friend reached out to me for business, as is my nature, I found that it’s never harmful to make connections and I’m never too good to extend my number for business purposes ONLY. Not to be asked out a record 10 times after I continuously have said ‘No’. 

Ultimately, I ended up having to tell this person off- which of course was met with implications that I am a snob, a strange girl and acted unnecessarily. Fascinating to me because all I said was, “Please stop asking me. My answer is no.”

Imagine had this not been just another peer. Imagine that this were my affluent, powerful, well-respected boss with the power to destroy my livelyhood: all that i had worked for; take food from the mouths of my children  or have me blacklisted. Would I have been so bold then? I don’t know.

But until I know, until YOU know, I suggest that the world STOP telling women WHEN, HOW, and what time frame is appropriate for them to stand up for themselves. 

xo,

@jhaswillwood

[omcik-blog]

New Post has been published on OmCik

New Post has been published on http://omcik.com/instagram-rolls-out-comment-control-puts-onus-on-user-to-filter-trolls/

Instagram rolls out comment-control, puts onus on user to filter trolls

Can social media platforms be tamed?

Well, Instagram is trying to rein in the trolls in its corner of the internet.

The Facebook-owned photo sharing app introduced a comment-control tool this week in a bid to grapple with harassment on its platform and curb online vitriol.

Individuals with public Instagram accounts will now have a handful of filtering options for comments. They can allow comments from: Everyone, people you follow and your followers, just people you follow, or just your followers. Comments can also be blocked from specific users.

While it may seem like just another service update, it is important step in the broader context of social media’s big online harassment problem. And it is, in fact, a huge issue for internet users.

Pew Research Center recently reported online abuse is as rampant as ever, with four in 10 U.S. adults saying they’ve been harassed online. Meanwhile, 18% of that group said physical threats, stalking or sexual harassment were part of the harassment.

The ability to filter commenters on Instagram won’t eradicate the internet’s trolling problem. But some experts say it’s a step in the right direction.

“As lawyers for individuals targeted by trolls, perverts, as*****s, and psychos, we’ve known how rife the Instagram comment section is for our client base,” Carrie Goldberg, an attorney who specializes in sexual harassment crimes, told CNN Tech.

Related: One man’s approach to confront his online harassers: empathy

The new tool could stave off harassment before it starts, according to Goldberg. “The company does not have to spend its resources moderating abuse when users can curtail it before it happens in the first place.”

Zoe Quinn, a game developer who wrote about her personal experience being harassed online in a new book “Crash Override,” says she’ll take advantage of the feature.

“I’m relieved to know I can finally do something about a few bad actors on my own account,” she told CNN Tech, adding that giving people “granular and specific control over their privacy settings is great practice in general.”

Instagram’s tactic for helping users filter their feeds isn’t exactly groundbreaking.

The strategy is one parent company Facebook also uses.

Facebook users can filter who sees their profiles and posts, as well as who is able to comment. Facebook, as well as other platforms like Twitter, rely on users to report misbehavior. A team of moderators then investigates claims that have been submitted.

The comment-control tool isn’t a panacea. Experts say there are drawbacks because it places the onus too squarely on the user. Others say it could create a false sense of security.

Brianna Wu, another game developer who has been a frequent target of online harassment, including death threats, explained to CNN Tech that if an Instagram account is dedicated to “doxxing” women — a term that refers to publishing the private or identifying information about someone for malicious purposes — blocking that content doesn’t prevent it from existing and spreading.

“The danger is going to still exist. You have to have user oversight,” she said. “It’s also psychologically exhausting to curate death threats and rape threats yourself. You can block them, but new accounts spring up like weeds … It’s my experience when you draw a boundary with someone, they often double down.”

Related: Instagram’s new tools scrub nasty comments and spam

Soraya Chemaly, a writer and director of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project, agreed.

“I know that they try hard to make sure users have tools at their disposal that enable them to develop more privacy which I think is a net good,” said Chemaly, while adding that the tools themselves don’t really protect anyone. “It just makes the experience a little more pleasant.”

Instagram also provides the ability to filter comments in a few other languages. It added the ability to block select offensive comments in English in June. This week, the company said that’s now available in other languages, too: Arabic, French, German and Portuguese.

Chemaly said the issue of online harassment on social platforms is complicated.

“There’s a question of, what’s at the root of the hostility, that no one really addresses … It’s a larger issue of social and emotional learning.”

So, while Instagram may be sending a message to trolls that it’s platform is getting a little less friendly to their vitriol, “there’s really no stemming the firehose of awful human beings online,” added Chemaly. “It’s like playing whack-a-mole.”

Danielle Citron, a cyber-harassment expert and law professor at the University of Maryland, said the comment-control tool is similar to those used by some blogging platforms, where people can delete or block individuals who are abusive or off-topic.

If privacy and safety folks collaborate with engineers when building a product from the ground up, features like this might be available from the get-go “rather than trying to tack on privacy and security later,” Citron said.

CNNMoney (New York) First published September 27, 2017: 3:30 PM ET