stars and sparkly things

aspiringdoctors: beben-eleben: A Daddy’s Letter to His Little...

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:44:32 -0500

beben-eleben:

A Daddy’s Letter to His Little Girl (About Her Future Husband)

Dear Cutie-Pie,

Recently, your mother and I were searching for an answer on Google. Halfway through entering the question, Google returned a list of the most popular searches in the world. Perched at the top of the list was “How to keep him interested.”

It startled me. I scanned several of the countless articles about how to be sexy and sexual, when to bring him a beer versus a sandwich, and the ways to make him feel smart and superior.

And I got angry.

Little One, it is not, has never been, and never will be your job to “keep him interested.”

Little One, your only task is to know deeply in your soul—in that unshakeable place that isn’t rattled by rejection and loss and ego—that you are worthy of interest. (If you can remember that everyone else is worthy of interest also, the battle of your life will be mostly won. But that is a letter for another day.)

If you can trust your worth in this way, you will be attractive in the most important sense of the word: you will attract a boy who is both capable of interest and who wants to spend his one life investing all of his interest in you.

Little One, I want to tell you about the boy who doesn’t need to be kept interested, because he knows you are interesting:

I don’t care if he puts his elbows on the dinner table—as long as he puts his eyes on the way your nose scrunches when you smile. And then can’t stop looking.

I don’t care if he can’t play a bit of golf with me—as long as he can play with the children you give him and revel in all the glorious and frustrating ways they are just like you.

I don’t care if he doesn’t follow his wallet—as long as he follows his heart and it always leads him back to you.

I don’t care if he is strong—as long as he gives you the space to exercise the strength that is in your heart.

I couldn’t care less how he votes—as long as he wakes up every morning and daily elects you to a place of honor in your home and a place of reverence in his heart.

I don’t care about the color of his skin—as long as he paints the canvas of your lives with brushstrokes of patience, and sacrifice, and vulnerability, and tenderness.

I don’t care if he was raised in this religion or that religion or no religion—as long as he was raised to value the sacred and to know every moment of life, and every moment of life with you, is deeply sacred.

In the end, Little One, if you stumble across a man like that and he and I have nothing else in common, we will have the most important thing in common:

You.

Because in the end, Little One, the only thing you should have to do to “keep him interested” is to be you.

Your eternally interested guy,

Daddy

My Dad has said almost these exact same things to me and my little sister since we were very small.

It’s so easy to forget in the sea of modern culture that is constantly thrown at me from grocery story checkout line magazine racks and internet ads and TV shows and mindless pop song lyrics.

Ladies (and gentlemen): Read this. Take it to heart.

themarysue: Sorry for the feels.

Thu, 02 May 2013 15:35:23 -0500

themarysue:

Sorry for the feels.

"I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack..."

Thu, 02 May 2013 15:31:00 -0500

“I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown, eat interesting food, dig some interesting people, have an adventure, be careful. Come back and you’re going to see your country differently, you’re going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You’re going to get a sense of what globalization looks like. It’s not what Tom Friedman writes about, I’m sorry. You’re going to see that global climate change is very real. And that for some people, their day consists of walking twelve miles for four buckets of water. And so there are lessons that you can’t get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people — Americans and Europeans — come back and go, “Ohhhh.” And the lightbulb goes on.”

- Henry Rollins

(so very true)

(via awelltraveledwoman)

quotesfromfiction: “With great power… comes great need to take a nap. Wake me up later.” - The...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:37:39 -0500

quotesfromfiction:

“With great power… comes great need to take a nap. Wake me up later.” - The Last Olympian (Rick Riordan); submitted by currently-reading-everything. Thank you!

thecheerfulmedic: raphiakhan: x3livelovelaugh: I can’t...

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 13:57:35 -0500

thecheerfulmedic:

raphiakhan:

x3livelovelaugh:

I can’t even.

LMAO PLATYPUS K

There are no words

"Sometimes you’re 23 and standing in the kitchen of your house making breakfast and brewing coffee..."

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:21:34 -0500

““Sometimes you’re 23 and standing in the kitchen of your house making breakfast and brewing coffee and listening to music that for some reason is really getting to your heart. You’re just standing there thinking about going to work and picking up your dry cleaning. And also more exciting things like books you’re reading and trips you plan on taking and relationships that are springing into existence. Or fading from your memory, which is far less exciting. And suddenly you just don’t feel at home in your skin or in your house and you just want home but “Mom’s” probably wouldn’t feel like home anymore either. There used to be the comfort of a number in your phone and ears that listened everyday and arms that were never for anyone else. But just to calm you down when you started feeling trapped in a five-minute period where nostalgia is too much and thoughts of this person you are feel foreign. When you realize that you’ll never be this young again but this is the first time you’ve ever been this old. When you can’t remember how you got from sixteen to here and all the same feel like sixteen is just as much of a stranger to you now. The song is over. The coffee’s done. You’re going to breathe in and out. You’re going to be fine in about five minutes.””

- The Winter of the Air (via mymangotree)

"In my wildest dreams, I just expected a bunch of fellow coders to chat about the merits of the mod...."

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:50:32 -0500

“

In my wildest dreams, I just expected a bunch of fellow coders to chat about the merits of the mod. I never expected it to ignite a gender-role debate.

My kids are awesome. They are too young to understand any of the things people are saying. And after all, it’s the internet. It comes with the territory. It got me thinking about Metroid. If the internet was more prevalent back when thousands of boys discovered that, all along, they were playing as a woman, maybe Nintendo would have gotten just as much hate mail?

Having kids is incredible. And having a daughter is something special. I get the opportunity to see the world through her eyes. And if this experience has taught me anything, it’s that the world could be just a bit more accommodating. And that if something as innocuous as having Mario be saved by Pauline brings out the crazy, maybe we aren’t as mature in our view of gender roles as we should be.

”

- Why I Hacked Donkey Kong For My Daughter, Mike Mika (via sayyestotreats)

keepingthings: lolavox: Malala Yousafzai, the youngest nominee...

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 13:54:57 -0600

keepingthings:

lolavox:

Malala Yousafzai, the youngest nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize in history.

This needs to be seen, for many, many reasons. Brilliant way to communicate a truly important story, cause.

apiphile: essequamviderinunc: Kailashnath Temple, also...

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 23:15:03 -0600

apiphile:

essequamviderinunc:

Kailashnath Temple, also Kailash Temple or Kailasanath Temple is a famous temple dug…in the wall of a high basalt cliff in the complex located at Ellora, Maharashtra, India. It is a megalith carved out of one single rock. It was built in the 8th century by the Rashtrakuta king Krishna I.

The Kailash Temple is notable for its vertical excavation—carvers started at the top of the original rock, and excavated downward.

It is estimated that about 400,000 tons of rocks was scooped out over hundreds of years to construct this monolithic structure.

INDIAN HISTORY LITERALLY NEVER MANAGES TO BE BORING OR EVEN TBQH SHORT OF BREATH-TAKING

"It sucks when someone you have feelings for doesn’t share those feelings; it happens to women all..."

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 13:21:15 -0600

“

It sucks when someone you have feelings for doesn’t share those feelings; it happens to women all the time, too. We hear “I just want to be friends” and “you’re like one of the guys” and “you’re like a sister to me” just as often. But you’ll never hear a woman complain that guys just don’t appreciate a Nice Girl because we’re taught it’s our own fucking fault when we’re rejected—we aren’t pretty enough or thin enough or sexy enough, we weren’t sexual enough or were too sexual, we put out too much or too little or too soon or not soon enough, we didn’t wear our hair the right way or our skirt the right length, we’re “too tomboyish” or “too butch” or “too feminine”, or we’re “not their type”, or we’re otherwise not good enough in various ways to entice the man to grace us with his affection.

But when we’re not interested in someone, we’re vilified. We’re the bitch that lead them on, the bitch who let them buy us dinner but didn’t want to date them, the bitch who doesn’t appreciate a nice guy, the bitch they were nice to and then got nothing in return from.

And, frankly, fuck those people. Showing interest in me, being friendly with me, getting close to me, or eating a meal with me (even if they paid for it) doesn’t obligate me to open my heart or my legs. And anyone who doesn’t appreciate my friendship sure as hell doesn’t deserve my love or my pussy.

”

- -delacroix

(via plainviews)

Holy shit. This just opened a door in my brain.

(via pooki-chu)

"I cannot understand anti-abortion arguments that center on the sanctity of life. As a species, we’ve..."

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 13:10:48 -0600

“I cannot understand anti-abortion arguments that center on the sanctity of life. As a species, we’ve fairly comprehensively demonstrated that we don’t believe in the sanctity of life. The shrugging acceptance of war, famine, epidemic, pain and lifelong, grinding poverty show us that, whatever we tell ourselves, we’ve made only the most feeble of efforts to really treat human life as sacred.”

- Caitlin Moran (via blua)

Compound Fractur: NuVal Launches in Grocery Stores

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:07:13 -0600

Compound Fractur: NuVal Launches in Grocery Stores:

compoundfractur:

Slowly but surely your local grocery stores may have been infected with a bizarre numbering system called offering a seemingly arbitrary number on the scale of 1 - 100. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?!?

NuVal is a system developed by independent experts to assign simple values to food. Essentially,…

aspiringdoctors: ilovecharts: Suit And Tie...

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 11:38:37 -0600

aspiringdoctors:

ilovecharts:

Suit And Tie Shit

via xwidep:my1950swedding:raggedybearcat:devoureth

Gentlemen and women, take note. [x]

Bow ties are so hot. Really.

thecheerfulmedic: Harry potato I’ve been giggling at...

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 10:11:16 -0600

thecheerfulmedic:

Harry potato

I’ve been giggling at this nonstop for the last five minutes.

Your Romantic Issues Based on Your Favourite Literary Couple

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 22:40:52 -0600

Your Romantic Issues Based on Your Favourite Literary Couple:

amandaonwriting:

Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester, Jane Eyre

You think of yourself as an easygoing, accepting person. But there is such thing as too accepting. Here’s your mantra: if he looks like a creep, acts like a creep, and locks his wife in the attic, he’s a creep.

Catherine and Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights

As Charlotte once chided, you may suffer from “perverted passion and passionate perversity.” That’s probably why you guys fight so much.

Romeo and Juliet, Romeo & Juliet

You’re fine. You just need to survive your teenage years — we promise you’ll gain some valuable perspective in college.

George and Martha, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

You might need to reassess social norms for how to talk to other people. Just because Martha said it, doesn’t mean you should.

Humbert Humbert and Lolita, Lolita

If this is your favourite literary couple, we think you know what your romantic issues are.

Jake and Brett, The Sun Also Rises

What are you doing reading this? You should probably just see a doctor.

Charles and Camilla, The Secret History

Your problem? No romantic partner will ever live up to your twin sister — a pretty transparent form of crippling narcissism if we’ve ever seen it.

Winston and Julia, Nineteen Eighty-Four

This one’s easy: “All you care about is yourself.”

Esmeralda and Quasimodo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame

You might want to shoot a little lower (or hey, higher).

Jake and Tallula, The Last Werewolf

You just can’t get past the idea that there’s only one person in the world for you — so you’re not willing to gamble on anyone. Unless you’re actually the last of your kind, you might want to loosen up a little.

Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice

Aside from all that pride and prejudice, you might be of the opinion that you can talk your way out of (or into) anything. Don’t try to tell us that those gymnastic lips don’t get you in trouble more often than not.

Tom and Daisy, The Great Gatsby

At least one of you is too rich, too blonde, and too skinny.

Nick and Amy, Gone Girl

You’re unbearably bored, and have a bit of a mean streak. Just don’t go for someone meaner, or more bored.

Edward and Bella, the Twilight saga

You don’t know where to draw the line between love and unhealthy obsession — even at your own peril. Also, you should probably reevaluate your expectations re: gender roles. It’s 2013.

Petruchio and Katherine, The Taming of the Shrew

Despite what everyone says, you still think you can change your partner. Good luck with that.

Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara, Gone With the Wind

Your timing sucks.

Celia and Marco, The Night Circus

You won’t be happy until you meet someone who can compete on your level — and those are few and far between. Keep trying.

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Macbeth

You should actually be a little bit more afraid of getting your hands dirty.

Anna and Vronsky, Anna Karenina

You never really enjoy a love affair unless it’s unbearably fraught.

Frank and April, Revolutionary Road

Suburbia is eating your brain.

corgiaddict: Pillows? We don’t need no stinkin’...

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 14:11:33 -0600

corgiaddict:

Pillows? We don’t need no stinkin’ pillows!

http://jasperislington.tumblr.com/

princeofvultures: i told myself a long time ago that i was...

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 15:26:29 -0600

princeofvultures:

i told myself a long time ago that i was going to draw some loser science-y valentines and only now am I doing it so here you go.

by the way, the brown one is supposed to be a liver cell, and the liver is the major sugar producing organ in your body GET IT GET IT?????

gosh i need to get a life

Running Woes...

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 17:19:00 -0600

So the official diagnosis is that I definitely did something funky to the medial collateral ligaments on both knees. Whooops. I’ve been put on a running hiatus for the next week in an effort to get the near constant pain to ease and let my ligaments rest and heal up. Which actually sucks.

When I first started running, I absolutely hated it. I was motivated more by my determination to lose weight and be healthy than really the run itself. In the last few months that actually has changed, which is awesome. I love going for runs now, and I’ve even set a 10 mile run as my goal by May (which might have to be pushed back now, but meh).

With this injury though, it is pretty clear that I really need to change the way I’m running/work on my quad strength. Patellar track syndrome sucks major ass and I really don’t want to destroy my knees to that point. So this injury actually was kind of a good thing I guess, in that it’s allowing me time to readjust and change how I run.

1 week of weight training exclusively and then back to pounding the gravel. I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but I can’t wait :)

themarysue: Laura Hudson, former editor of Comics Alliance (now...

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:55:58 -0600

Read bottom to top.

Read top to bottom.

themarysue:

Laura Hudson, former editor of Comics Alliance (now at Wired), saying some things we very much identify with.

Photo

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 23:10:54 -0600