i can tell you with full certainty that right now aj crowley has taken up a job as an uber driver and is leaving the public of london mentally scarred but where they need to be seven times as fast
I’m not sure if his uber rating would be extremely good or extremely bad. “Drove 90 down Oxford street. It was terrifying. Reached destination 30 minutes early due to over taking traffic on pavement. 5stars. Would NOT reccomend”
All of his customers leave terrible reviews but he’s having a blast and BELIEVES he’s doing great, therefore his ratings are great
“so the dude showed up in a car that was like a hundred years old which I was like wtf because uber told me my car didn’t qualify when I had a 2005 civic. stuff like the gas gauge and shit weren’t even working? like it was way below E. anyway, didn’t die, somehow. 5 stars”
“scary as hell but good playlist. 5 stars”
“Picked me up with his boyfriend in the front seat who seemed less than pleased about picking up a stranger on their way to the Rizt- he gave me a chocolate Bon Bon out of nowhere when I got out though and made me feel 100x better when wishing me a fabulous day. Hope they had a great date. 5 stars”
kids remind me, often, of the things i’ve taught myself out of.
i have a big dog. he looks like a deer. he is taller than most young children. while we were on a trail the other day, a boy coming our direction saw us and froze. he took a step back and said: “i’m feeling nervous. your - your dog is kind of big.”
goblin and i both stopped walking immediately. “he is kind of a big dog,” i admitted. “he’s called a greyhound. they are gentle but they are pretty tall, which is kind of scary, you’re right. their legs are so long because they are made for running fast. i am sorry we scared you. would you like us to stand still while you move past us, or would you feel more safe in your body if we move and you stay still?’
"oh. i didn’t know that about - greyhounds. i think i … i want to stay still,” he said. at this point, his adult had caught up to us. “i’m nervous about the dog,” he told her, “so i’m - i’m gonna stay still.” she didn’t argue. she didn’t make fun of him. she just smiled at him and at me and held his hand while goblin and i, with as wide of a berth as we could make, crept our way through.
behind us, i heard him exhale a deep breath and kind of laugh - “he was really big, huh? she said it’s because greyhounds have to go fast.”
“he was big,” she said. “i understand why that could have made you a little scared.”
“yeah. next time i - next time do you think i could maybe ask to touch him? when - i mean, next time, maybe, if i’m not nervous.”
later, going to a work event, in the big city, i stood outside, trembling. my social anxiety as a caught bird in my chest. i took a deep breath and turned to my coworker. she’s not even really my friend yet. i told her: “i feel nervous about this. i am not used to meeting new people, ever since covid.”
she laughed, but not in a mean way. she said she was nervous too. she reached her hand out and held mine, and we both took another deep breath and walked in like that, interlinked. a few people asked us - together? - and i told the truth: i feel nervous, and she’s helping. over and over i watched people relax too, admitting i feel really kind of shy lately actually, thank you for saying that.
the next time i go to an event, and i feel a little scared, i ask right away: wanna hold hands? this feels a little dangerous. i hesitate less. i don’t hide it as much. i watch for other people who are also nervous and say - it’s kinda hard, huh?
i know, logically, i’m not good at asking for help. but i am also not good at noticing when i need help. i’ve trained myself out of asking completely, but i’ve also trained myself to never accept my own fears or excuses. i have trained myself to tamp down every anxiety and just-push-through. i don’t know what i’m protecting myself from - just that i never think to admit it to anyone.
but every person on earth occasionally needs comfort. every person on earth occasionally needs connection. many of us were taught independence is the same thing as never needing anything.
each of us should have had an adult who heard - i feel nervous and held our hand and asked us how we could be helped to feel safe. no judgement, and no chiding. many of us did not. many of us were punished for the ways that we seemed “weak”.
but here is something: i am an adult now. and i get nervous a lot, actually. and if you are an adult and you are feeling a little nervous - come talk to me. we can hold hands and figure out what will help us feel safe in our bodies. and maybe, next time, if we’re brave, we can pet the dog that’s passing.
[ID: White text on a black background: As Old As You Were
for Anne, out in the boat
I am as old now, Anne, as you were. Three decades ago I exhumed you, you with your dead breath, you who passed out of this world by your own hand as I came into it, you with your funny pale card in the old machine, punching out. A solid stop, hard as a slug to the throat. Your death was old-fashioned as your life was old-fashioned: your brown glass bottles of pills, your intricate madness in a peacoat and martini, barefoot on the asylum lawn under the bleeding eyes of gas lamps blurring their red tears over you. Your ribbons and adoptions and abortions felt quaint. Who even needs to drive to other states? But you kept me, and I kept you. When I lost faith, when red print left me queer and dirty under that boy (crying no, please, no) I carried you in my ratty blue backpack. My Bible instead: your words collected like bones. I dug up your sharp syllables and glottal stops, your last lines like a needle to the heart, murder or adrenaline. Your laughing skull whispered over my shoulder. Rapunzel knew the hundred forbidden cravings to which I clung. At nineteen, the professor said, but you know, she died. As if I didn’t know! As if I hadn’t turned your grave goods into my offerings, as if I didn’t hear every exultation to your lovers like coded whispers we could share. We sang Cecila in the band room and no one blushed but me. I didn’t change the pronouns on the cover. You were my cover, my plausible deniability. Only a poem, just a song. (When it’s art, it isn’t wrong.) Not Melanie with her long legs and dark hair like a slash through my soul, her lip curled in disgust. She scrubbed my name out like an infection, my confession bleached and gone. Not Sarah who I wouldnt dare: for all the want, terror froze my hands, my tongue. One more loss I couldn’t bear, so she had her boy and I had mine instead. (Instead of red hair in the sun and kisses at the creek, we had boys who left or became men and left, but that’s another story. Fear robs us.) Not the kissing of a girl on the wet grass my first night at college, not the tectonic shift of her hips beneath me, not the doors her mouth unlocked. (l am made to hold down girls with hips like sharp balloons: I pin them like a man holds down a continent. I taste their lips like consonants. I am the daddy they moan for. You could have been, Anne, but fear robs us. Some things we ache for and gift to other generations.) You kept me safe in that cold climate, until I could step into my own fire, those little red tongues playing worship at my feet. I am as old now, Anne, as you were. Three decades ago, I ran for safety as you ran for safety: better red-lettered than queer, one way or the other. Two decades ago I took the child instead of the girl. A decade ago I took the hard way out, and through. That’s the secret, Anne: we get braver if we get older. I cant kiss her with lips like the white worms which eat a dead dyke’s eyes. I cut my warm climate from the snow. I dug my way to summer, to this anniversary and the one after that. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, Anne, her mouth under mine is the lesson. I have what you could not. This is our inheritance, this is the truth the tomb forgets. We leave each other gifts, and yours is this: Tomorrow comes and I am still here. End ID.]
Thank you - it was already described in the image descriptions but more isn’t worse. :)
i think that ghosts can and should decay. i think they should blur and fade, like a tape rewound too many times, or a photograph taken out and unfolded and then refolded again until it’s nothing more than a vaguely recognizable smear of what was once a snapshot of time and memory. i think that clinging too tightly to a ghost should only destroy it faster, eroding it away until there’s nothing left to hold on to.
“damn I’m crying over an insect” “why am I having such strong feelings over how the sky looks” “it’s weird how happy this small thing made me feel” THAT’S BECAUSE YOU LIVE HERE!!!! you live on this earth. everything all the time is an experience, no matter how common or mundane. this world is unique. so are its small moments. it is good to enjoy a tiny thing. you love the world even at its smallest scale.
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