I Feel Like I Made Myself Up

“Ever since I could remember, I had feared being found wanting. If I did the work I wanted to do, it was certain not to measure up; if I pursued the people I wanted to know, I was bound to be rejected; if I made myself as attractive as I could, I would still be ordinary looking. Around such damages to the ego a shrinking psyche had formed: I applied myself to my work, but only grudgingly; I’d make one move toward people I liked, but never two; I wore makeup but dressed badly. To do any or all of these things well would have been to engage heedlessly with life — love it more than I loved my fears — and this I could not do. What I could do, apparently, was daydream the years away: to go on yearning for “things” to be different so that I would be different.”

— Vivian Gornick, The Cost of Daydreaming - NYTimes.com (via arabellesicardi)

Ed and Lorraine Warrens Occult Museum  Museum that contains haunted objects.

[Source: X]

might fuck around and start dating the demon from the corner of my room

“You don’t know anyone at the party, so you don’t want to go. You don’t like cottage cheese, so you haven’t eaten it in years. This is your choice, of course, but don’t kid yourself: it’s also the flinch. Your personality is not set in stone. You may think a morning coffee is the most enjoyable thing in the world, but it’s really just a habit. Thirty days without it, and you would be fine. You think you have a soul mate, but in fact you could have had any number of spouses. You would have evolved differently, but been just as happy. You can change what you want about yourself at any time. You see yourself as someone who can’t write or play an instrument, who gives in to temptation or makes bad decisions, but that’s really not you. It’s not ingrained. It’s not your personality. Your personality is something else, something deeper than just preferences, and these details on the surface, you can change anytime you like. If it is useful to do so, you must abandon your identity and start again. Sometimes, it’s the only way.”

— Julien Smith, The Flinch (via wnq-anonymous)

RAPTURE

what she says: I’m fine What she means: the haunted mask episode of goosebumps was about a girl who was sick of being victimized by boys so she rejects her entire identity both physically and personally to become monstrous, while carrying around an idol of her past self mounted on a stick. to get herself back she must fight off her demons by loving her true self, represented again by the head figure. self love could not be attained without first accessing monstrosity in self defense

people talk all the time about “primal instincts” and it’s usually about violence or sexual temptations or something, but your humanity comes with a lot of different stuff that we do without really thinking about, that we do without being told to or prompted to

your average human comes pre-installed with instincts to:

Befriend

Tell story

Make Thing

Investigate

Share knowledge

Laugh

Sing

Dance

Empathize with

Create

we are chalk full of survival instincts that revolve around connecting to others (dog-shaped others, robot-shaped, sometimes even plant-shaped) and making things with our hands

your primal instincts are not bathed in blood- they are layered in people telling stories to each other around a fire over and over and putting devices together through trial and error over and over and reaching for someone and something every moment of the way

It spoke to you so strangely, in a voice that slipped between waves of softly droning static from a television screen.

anyways here are beauty tips from a 2,000 year old Mediterranean funerary moasic:

rosewater on your face and neck each night

hair left in an up-do with only a slight face framing piece in a gentle curl

earth tone eyeshadow and kohl black eye liner to look sultry even in death

staining your lips a tender red with pomegranate seeds or kisses from a cherry

minimal gold embellishments and a sip or two of red wine to darken your cheeks when you smile in the dreamlike haze caused by Dionysus

“Feel that life is wholly unendurable, and decide madly to get a new hat.”

— Diary of a Provincial lady, EM Delafield