24 5 / 2012
Last night my Margaret died.
Margaret is (was—this is the most horrible, the divorcing of a person from the present tense) my chosen grandmother.
She was my great-aunt and my grandmother’s best friend, and she was the most badass lady I have ever met.
She was a nurse in WWII, and an operating room nurse when she came back from Italy. She made terrible casseroles but I ate them anyway. She taught me how to crochet. She was a writer and a historian. She could beat anyone at crib. She remembered the invention of penicillin.
She was ninety years old and she emailed me all the time. She considered her self ninety-one because “she had been alive for ninety-one years, and no one counts the first year.” She just realized last year that “no-one can tell if they’re second hand,” and she got herself a slinky black dress to wear out with her new boyfriend. It had a low neckline and she was worried that the scar from her heart surgery would show.
I remember her telling me about the first time someone handed her a severed leg in the OR. She told me she would never forget that feeling.
She was the president of the ping-pong club at the local rec centre. She didn’t care at all when I came out to her, and when she met my partner, Margaret wasted no time beating her at cribbage.
She used to order History, Literature and Art lectures on DVD so she could keep learning. She “did Shakespeare” over the course of a year and read his collected works. I always fell asleep to the DVD that took you through the Louvre.
This summer she gave me a sweater that my grandmother knit for her. It fits me perfectly.
I was fourteen when I asked her if she would be my grandmother. She cried and said that she would be honoured.
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24 5 / 2012
Actually could not be more riveted.
Pressing question: Why is this treadmill outside?
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22 5 / 2012
"
Femme is about being a babe inside of your own brain.
It’s about feeling like you are taking care of you.
It’s about knowing that you have assembled a team of experts – friends, partners, chosen family, lovers, mentors – to go through your life with. People who will see you the way you see you, and who aren’t afraid to set you to rights when you need a talking to.
Femme is about trusting your own conceptions of beauty, power, pleasure, and generosity.
If “femininity” is defined according to (sexist!) social expectations and separated entirely from “masculinity,” then Femme is looking over its shoulder and laughing at all those rules.
"
(Source: bossyfemme, via heathermck)
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22 5 / 2012
an online collection of queer love poems just launched today! Brilliant queers including the lovely femmes of colour Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Kim Katrin Crosby, and so many others.
(Source: thebrownggrrlzproject, via etiquette-etc)
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19 5 / 2012
This visually exciting and stat fueled post by YA author Kate Hart takes a look at the trends in character diversity in YA literature by analyzing the book covers from the past year. Definitely check out her post!
(via historicalslut)
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19 5 / 2012
Happy goddamn Friday, everyone, have a cupcake and some cherries and this gal.
via queerfatfemme (who wishes there was model/photographer credit here)
MMMMM
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19 5 / 2012
I Came to Stand in My Power by Sitting with Myself – by Yaromil Fong-Olivares
“The truth trickled in as I discovered a deeper kind of power. Power informed by my truth, ignited by my suffering, sustained by my healing. I choose the word sustain as an intentional reference because we can not afford to ignore emotional and psychological well-being in discussions of sustainability and social justice and equality. Without us, each and every one of us, there is no movement.
“When as a woman of color, as a femme lesbian, as a survivor, as a writer and creator I defend my right to authentic happiness I stand in my power. I push boundaries visible only to those who choose to see them, real to those who choose not to. I reject the notion of success, embrace my own legacy and lead not just with my brain but also with my spirit and my heart. It’s not an easy decision, it is a courageous decision. It’s not a certain choice, it is a choice that thrives in the creative demands of uncertainty, the power of my intuition, an intuition fueled by women who came before me, share this world with me now and are yet to make their way over from the spirit world. It’s a choice. It’s a lonely choice, at times requiring the company and hand-holding of spirit goddesses. It’s the only choice that elevates my soul, my family, my community, my ancestors. In my power, I stand, I kneel, I crawl and cry. I am whole, always firm within my values, my purpose and collective knowledge. I choose power. I choose light. I choose love. I choose.”
FUCK YES
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12 5 / 2012
"Stop wasting your time on someone who only really says tender things to you when he’s drunk."
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28 4 / 2012
Oh god, this is all my fantasies and more.
I love Emily Carroll.
I love smut!
I love teal!
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