life imitates art

Gail Albert Halaban, Bis Rue de Douai, Paris, 9E, Le 19 Mai, 2013

@ krimamr

huge fan of reading and learning, but also an even bigger fan of sleeping and being unconscious.

Weird chairs

thinking of my best friend today

In a truck stop bathroom washing my hands today and 2 boys, looked about 5 and 9, came in with their little sister who looked maybe 2. The following whispered conversation made my entire day

"We have to wait, there's a lady in here!"

"That's not a lady, he has a mustache! We can be in here!"

"Some ladies have mustaches! And she has boobs!"

"Well some guys have boobs! Like Uncle Jake!"

"Uncle Jake is fat!"

At this point I could not contain a chuckle and both whirled around with identical looks of panic on their faces. I smiled and said "it's alright for you guys to be in here so your sister has help, don't worry. And I'm both! That's why I have boobs and a mustache. Some folks are just built that way"

(In unison) "Ooooooh!"

(older boy) "So do you use Sir or Ma'am or both?"

"Both, but I prefer Sir"

"Cool! Well thanks Sir! We have to help our sister now!"

This was in a small town country truck stop and both boys had "Murica" type stuff on and neither of them had any issue at all with these concepts. Their mom approached me while I was in line about 10 minutes later and apologized for them bothering me in the bathroom (they had told her about the interaction) and she and I had a lovely little chat too. I got to introduce her to the term "intersex" and her reply was "I think I've heard of that before! I didn't know that was the word for it. Amazing how many different ways God can make people!"

Sometimes the world is good. More often than you might think, if you give it a chance. It's not all bad loves <3

Sarcoma aka Doomed Sarcoma (Czech, based Siberia, Russia) - So We Found Him, 2023, Paintings: Digital Art

Made tea from the Yaupon Holly branches we harvested to decorate for solstice. Yaupon Holly is the only plant native to North America that produces caffeine. Its taste is similar to green tea, while the caffeine content is like that of black tea.

Listen, I know, you all have been seeing fundraiser posts all day long. I've seen people complain that the tags for Palestine are "unusable" now because… genocide victims use it to find aid to survive.

Thing is, those posts will be here until Israel ceases it's aggression. And Palestinians will need your aid as far as they are left with no income and besieged. I've tried reaching out to other platforms, and Tumblr is still the best place for at least Falastin (Gazan who I spotlight for more than 2 months) to get donations; because here you don't need thousands of followers to get interactions. And at least we get one in ten response here; on other platforms both of us don't get any.

So yes, a dying website for fandom is her best bet to save her family right now. We don't speak of evacuation anymore (even though we hope for it), this is a battle for day-to-day survival. The prices in Gaza are increasing every hour, and they have no income and Falastin has gone into multiple debts to help them before starting the campaign in June. And yes, she receives more attention now but her family is still in starvation - she tries to support 26 people now, since her cousin was martyred and his 2 children joined 24 of her family in Al-Mawasy.

Yes, they should get free aid from all those countless non-profits that raise millions. But if they see something labelled as "aid" it is because they have bought it themselves. Yes, you can see (and maybe touch!) aid if you subject yourself to hours-long queues and/or humiliation of being a part of a photoshoot. They also said that the aid they get is stale at best and spoiled at worst; and that's again, if they get it.

Yes, there are grassroots organizations but they cannot reach everyone, because they are in small teams and they don't receive a lot of funds. And you can of course donate to them to try "fix" this; but please do not think that it means individual fundraisers are not worth supporting. I did not see any evidence of individual fundraisers "taking" money from others; on the contrary, when Falastin's fundraiser struggles, I see others struggle too. When we celebrate a good day of donations we celebrate it with others too.

And I could talk about Harris campaign get 1 billion in donations and still receiving them or how AO3 got 200k in a couple of days; but the post is getting too long.

Anyway. Please consider donating to Falastin's campaign; the money would buy food and water first, shelter and clothes for the winter second. There's a raffle for hand-made Palestinian thobe that Falastin's friend makes (LINK); and please follow her here.

Donate via Gofundme (in SEK! check rates below please): LINK

Donate via PayPal (in USD): LINK

Vetting info: #282 in El-Shab-Hussein and Nabulsi's spreadsheet [here], #957 in the Butterfly Project spreadsheet [here]

Sorry to ask you again to share but please do. If you want, you can reblog Falastin's post or any other about her, just please share something about her because she relies on you all. Thank you and please dm if you want to be removed.

Trying a shorter post format:

If you don't care about humanity, ignore me👌

Hello my friends, I am Ayman from Gaza, specifically Rafah, I am 24 years old. I graduated a month before the war from Palestine University, Civil Engineering. I had a goal and ambition to become one of the best engineers.

My father owned an engineering company that was bombed during the war and was completely destroyed. We also had a beautiful house that was bombed at the beginning of the war and now we are homeless.

Now we are in a tent, there are stories of pain and suffering that take us back to primitive life, no walls, no privacy, our voices reach the neighboring tents.

These days the weather is starting to get cold and there will be a wave of rain and frost next week, and the tents are just pieces of cloth that do not protect against the cold and rain.

Finally: I hope that everyone who can help will donate and participate before the rain falls heavily and we are unable to protect ourselves. Let's put a cover over the tent. Many thanks to those who can donate 💔🙏🙏

Vetted by @gazavetters , my number verified on the list is ( #58 )

north gaza has been under siege for over a month and now every single hospital is no longer functioning, with only kamal adwan left on minimal supplies and constant bombardment. the hospital director films daily videos asking for help and assistance, after his son was murdered by the idf in retaliation for him refusing to leave the hospital.

the idf has announced "no civilians will return" and also that "no civilians are left" in northern gaza, despite neither of these things being true. they've also made it clear that they will ethnically cleanse and annex it, have further plans for a "three part" annexation of gaza, have attached their insane minister of settlements who's been frothing at the mouth to resettle gaza since 2005 to the war cabinet (she's also calling for settlements in the south of lebanon) and continue to kill between 80-100 people daily in both lebanon and gaza, many if not most of them children.

joe biden is still the president... with presumably nothing to lose. one can only conclude he is ideologically and economically committed to making sure israel finishes the job before trump even enters the white house.

smotrich announces "annexation of the west bank" with 2025 being "the year of israeli sovereignty in judea and samaria." (fwiw the west bank is de facto annexed and most palestinians barring mahmoud abbas don't care as much as people think about this)

joe biden is still the president, and the US is still impeding the ICC warrants out for israeli leaders. also note that the ICJ—the international court of justice—ruled this july that israel is obliged to dismantle west bank settlements and pay reparations to palestinians. the US could make that happen, if it chose to. the US could simply get out of the way of the UN and let other international bodies make that happen as well.

I needed this drag. Let’s change guys and not look back

working out your brain is a must!!

• hydrate it by drinking lots of water

• eat dark chocolate and blueberries and walnuts and salmon and other foods high in antioxidants!!

• play little brain games on your phone; I like wordconenct! anything that makes you think!

• read books. It’s simple but necessary. Even better - join a book club, or read with a friend, so you can have discussions after. This will improve your reading comprehension.

• do puzzles - it doesnt have to be sudoku, I love playing Beat Saber on the Oculus Rift because it makes my brain have to match colorful patterns to physical movements very quickly!

• learn a new dance - even a tik tok trendy dance. Learning new dance moves are proven to strengthen synapses!!

• go bird watching, or foraging, or anything outdoors that requires you to explore pattern recognition and visual searching

• watch a movie with the intent of analysis - this is best done with a cinephile friend!! talk about tropes and symbolism and character growth

• cross stitch, or sew, or do anything that requires matching nimble hand movements to patterns

• play or learn an instrument!

• develop a consistent sleep schedule (or as close to consistent as you can get!)

• when eating, try to identify the ingredients and flavors you’re perceiving!

I hope this helps :)

I like how this went from me feeling like “hm why is this attacking me 🤨” at first, but feeling grateful seeing an added guide on a genuine expansion on a “ how to” work out the brain. This genuinely helps a bunch. People find solace in doing activities that get them through life by doing said activities of phone/tv or if that’s all they’ve ever known in their life to get them through things + etc tho. However, this was very impt to point out. Slowly beginning incorporating things to work the brain in ones own time.

Cuneiform tablet: Sumerian dedicatory inscription from Ekur,  the temple of the god Enlil, ca. 16th–15th century B.C.