Mantra For Today: “I Don’t Give A Fuck About What Other People Think Of Me, I Believe In Myself,

not doing great?

clean your room

open curtains/windows

take a shower

put on clean clothes

get out of your room a bit

stretch

drink a glass of water

get the hard/important stuff out of the way while you have energy

set some (any!) goals

remember that it is okay to have bad days

Oscar Wilde saying his favourite poetess was Sappho was gay/lesbian solidarity

phoebe bridgers/ celia lowenthal/ holly warburton/ hyowon park/ xuan loc xuan/ richard siken / jd salinger

(I know this doesn't really make sense but it kinda does)

hey guys so like apparently the characters from “its rotten work / not to me, not if its you” are cousins so maybe lets stop framing that in a romantic light and grouping that quote with those edits about love and stuff like that =(

And the angel said, “DO NOT BE AFRAID.”

connections between the humane, the monstrous, and the divine:

1. “Wanna make a monster? Take the parts of yourself that make you uncomfortable–your weaknesses, bad thoughts, vanities, and hungers–and pretend they’re across the room. It’s too ugly to be human. It’s too ugly to be you. Children are afraid of the dark because they have nothing real to work with. Adults are afraid of themselves.” (richard siken, from editor’s pages: black telephone)

2. “Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?” (clarice lispector, the hour of the star)

3. “This beast, this angel is both you and I.” (adrienne rich, from the complete poems: this beast, this angel)

4. “Frankenstein not only gives form to the dialetic of monstrosity itself and raises questions about the pleasures and dangers of textual production, it also demands a rethinking of the entire Gothic genre in terms of who rather than what is the object of terror. By focusing upon the body as the locus of fear, Shelley’s novel suggests that it is people (or at least bodies) who terrify people, not ghosts or gods, devils or monks, windswept castles or labyrinthine monasteries.” (j. halberstam, skin shows: gothic horror and the technology of monsters)

5. “Monsters exist because they are part of the divine plan, and in the horrible features of those same monsters the power of the creator is revealed.” (umberto eco, the name of the rose)

6. “But girls contain multitudes. We are made up of so many odd parts. The reason that the monster in Frankenstein is so memorable is that, when it opens its mouth, out comes the voice of an alienated teenage girl.” (heather o’neill, portrait of the artist as a young corpse)

7. “God should have made girls lethal when he made monsters of men.” (elisabeth hewer, wishing for birds)

8. “I think the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.” (fyodor dostoevsky, the brothers karamazov)

Some stunning classical pieces that highlight the violin:

Camille Saint-Saëns, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 28

Dmitri Shostakovich, Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 77

Tomaso Antonio Vitali, Chaconne in G minor

Maurice Ravel, Tzigane

Giuseppe Tartini, Violin Sonata in G minor (Devil’s Trill Sonata)

Jean Sibelius, Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47

William Walton, Violin Concerto

Pablo de Sarasate, Zigeunerweisen, Op. 20

Johannes Brahms, Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77

Felix Mendelssohn, Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64

Max Bruch, Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35

Johann Sebastian Bach, Partita No. 2

Clara Schumann, Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22

Ludwig van Beethoven, Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61

Aram Khachaturian, Violin Concerto in D minor

Fritz Kreisler, Praeludium and Allegro in the style of Pugnani

Jules Massenet, Méditation

Sergei Prokofiev, Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19

Ralph Vaughan Williams, The Lark Ascending

push yourself to get up before the rest of the world - start with 7am, then 6am, then 5:30am. go to the nearest hill with a big coat and a scarf and watch the sun rise.

push yourself to fall asleep earlier - start with 11pm, then 10pm, then 9pm. wake up in the morning feeling re-energized and comfortable.

get into the habit of cooking yourself a beautiful breakfast. fry tomatoes and mushrooms in real butter and garlic, fry an egg, slice up a fresh avocado and squirt way too much lemon on it. sit and eat it and do nothing else.

stretch. start by reaching for the sky as hard as you can, then trying to touch your toes. roll your head. stretch your fingers. stretch everything.

buy a 1L water bottle. start with pushing yourself to drink the whole thing in a day, then try drinking it twice.

buy a beautiful diary and a beautiful black pen. write down everything you do, including dinner dates, appointments, assignments, coffees, what you need to do that day. no detail is too small.

strip your bed of your sheets and empty your underwear draw into the washing machine. put a massive scoop of scented fabric softener in there and wash. make your bed in full.

organise your room. fold all your clothes (and bag what you don’t want), clean your mirror, your laptop, vacuum the floor. light a beautiful candle.

have a luxurious shower with your favourite music playing. wash your hair, scrub your body, brush your teeth. lather your whole body in moisturiser, get familiar with the part between your toes, your inner thighs, the back of your neck.

push yourself to go for a walk. take your headphones, go to the beach and walk. smile at strangers walking the other way and be surprised how many smile back. bring your dog and observe the dog’s behaviour. realise you can learn from your dog.

message old friends with personal jokes. reminisce. suggest a catch up soon, even if you don’t follow through. push yourself to follow through.

think long and hard about what interests you. crime? sex? boarding school? long-forgotten romance etiquette? find a book about it and read it. there is a book about literally everything.

become the person you would ideally fall in love with. let cars merge into your lane when driving. pay double for parking tickets and leave a second one in the machine. stick your tongue out at babies. compliment people on their cute clothes. challenge yourself to not ridicule anyone for a whole day. then two. then a week. walk with a straight posture. look people in the eye. ask people about their story. talk to acquaintances so they become friends.

lie in the sunshine. daydream about the life you would lead if failure wasn’t a thing. open your eyes. take small steps to make it happen for you.