Unfriendly Reminder That Demisexuality And Demiromanticism Are Both Very Real Orientations 

plants!

“I sit here alone, burning,”

— Nikos Kazantzakis, from a letter to Yannis Stavridakis c. December 1917

When you’re an artist, it’s because there’s something inside you that you can’t keep from spilling out. Maybe it comes in the form of sentences, or a grand jeté, or a stroke of a paintbrush. The end result can be a million different things. But the seed, it’s always the same. It’s the emotion there isn’t a word for. The feeling that’s too big for your body. To show someone your soul, you have to bleed. People who are comfortable—people who are content—they don’t create art.

Jodi Picoult, from The Book of Two Ways (Ballantine, 2020)

the way ivan aivazovsky looks at the sea…i think…i think that’s what love looks like.

just thinking of how our meaning or purpose in life is merely to experience. eating an orange segment, hoping for snow, being in love, returning over and over to one painting, stepping outside for the full moon, submersion in water, having a favourite colour, knowing beauty, feeling alone, feeling connected, feeling longing… it is enough. 

You don’t need to have dated someone to know dating isn’t for you!

You don’t need to have had sex to know it isn’t for you!

You know yourself better than anyone else! I trust you, and you trust you!

five recipes for an exciting life (in my opinion)

spending enough time creating things with your hands (baking, drawing, scrapbooking, doodling, crocheting, journaling and so on)

keeping track of things like pretty skies, milestones, happy memories, appointments you're looking forward to

listening to music that genuinely makes you feel happy and energetic

making a habit of reaching out to people in a way that's comfortable to you (i send my dad songs he might like, my friend sends me monthly life updates)

being kind to all your five senses → like investing in a scented candle or essential oil dispenser or body mist, having a soft blanket or socks (or a soft animal to pet), listening to birdsong or the rain, looking at the sky more often, and having your favorite foods enough times

kill the shift manager in your brain

Actually life is beautiful because the sound I make while trying to breathe around hot food sounds like my dog trying to eat an apple. When I yawn my cat tries to put his face in my mouth like a little dentist man and when he yawns I put my finger in his obligate-carnivore trapzone and we both know he will not hurt me. When I do not fold my clothes, they do not hold it against me.

I am demonstrably sad, and lonely, and full of fear. But there are other people who will hold my hand, who will point out the hawk overhead, who will give you That Look in a public place. The other day at a coffee shop a child said "look! It's snowing!" so all of us strangers went to go look out the windows. It wasn't the first snow and it won't be the last but wasn't it lovely like that?

How wonderful to live in a world where birds and frogs both say beep! How wonderful to have an ocean of beautiful sharks with their dinosaur teeth! How wonderful the moon and her changing face, how wonderful the bees and their dancing to communicate, how wonderful shrimp and their forbidden layers of vision! How wonderful, you, and what you will give the world! The way we love things enough to spend entire blogs devoted to them? How people will let me explain my Pokemon team to them? How we will both jump at the scare in the movie, how we laugh so loudly, how it feels to give someone your baking? How wonderful to be alive. I am sorry for forgetting.

This is the process of getting better. With wonderful people and wonderful strangers and wonderful friends: I am getting better, slowly. Thank you, whoever you are. In some way, you've been wonderful, and left a wonderful place in the world to ripple out to me. In some small way - isn't it beautiful - I promise, you've been helping.

Sanna Wani, “Who is the Sun, Asking for Sleep?”, My Grief, the Sun // Brenna Twohy, A Coworker Asks Me If I Am Sad, Still