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1. You must earn respect again and again. It is not a birthright. It doesn’t come from a title, even if you think it comes from a title, even if it seems to. You have to prove yourself, always, forever, until you die. And then maybe the respect or the disrespect people held for you will live on.

2. Everyone’s already finished the new season of Orange is the New Black. So, now that you’ve got some free time, you should binge watch Grace and Frankie!

3. I love so many people so much and it’s so wonderful.

4. “I can dig it.”

5. Hey guys, maybe we should be more concerned about the planet than like, kim kardashian, whoever that is? Just a thought.

6. Why are you not internet stalking me enough?!

7. Breaking News: White boys white girl dance, too! I’ve seen it! With my very own eyes! Now excuse me, I have to go flail my arms around to this music.

8. Go outside!

9. He has a selfie stick but I still like him. Which is impressive. Although, selfie sticks are becoming more acceptable generally. I think it all started in Asia and then maybe someone flew one over to the States and the rest is, um, selfie history! I could really talk about this forever. Shall I go on?! I won’t. #selfiesticks

10. I am not afraid of many things, but, expressway construction is terrifying. Please stop making me drive in pretend lanes you basically drew with sidewalk chalk and built solid concrete walls around! Thanks!

She sits a little too close to me on the couch because she is drunk and happy and she shows me all of the pictures on her phone. Her fake nails are too long and she swipes hard at the screen. “Here’s where I grew up,” she says, “back here along the coast.” She is from Hawaii and she tells me the names of the islands and I have never even heard of them before but I nod along as she points them out in the picture she took from her airplane window seat. It’s raining outside, it’s that sort of drizzle that hangs in the air while at the same time falling and making unavoidable puddles on the ground. Everything is wet and everyone’s hair is turning into frizz and the man with the large beer belly passes out beers and pours strong drinks into tiny plastic cups. I cut lime slices for him and stand behind the rickety table that was never meant to hold so many bottles of alcohol. Everyone adds ice to their cups and the ice melts and their cups stay full and strong and no one ever needs to leave the couch for a refill. People sit closer and closer together and talk louder and louder over each other. “More ice!” Says the beer belly man’s father, bringing a fresh bucketful and sliding it onto the table in front of all the bottles. The table is littered with half-squeezed lime slices and half-moon rings of water and empty cups and full cups and beer bottles and pieces of ice slowly melting. Outside the workers from Jamaica pass back and forth with their maid carts and luggage carts and garbage cans and wagons full of grass clippings and hedge clippings and gardening tools. Everyone is interested in the people who are so clearly from somewhere else but are so friendly and hardworking and kind. I think about the boy I knew in college who was from Jamaica, and knowing someone from there makes me all-knowing. “I knew a boy from Jamaica,” I say to the people on the couch. “He was happy, too.” I watch the people as they pull their wagons and carts and cans and I wonder if they are happy or if they hate all of us for being loud and fleeting and cheap, for not tipping when they bring our bags to our hotel rooms, if they want to go home, if they are excited for this adventure, if this is just an easy way to make money, if they hate this island like I do sometimes, if they love it like I do most of the time. It is raining and my bike is outside rusting even more. The man with the beer belly is loud and he thinks he is very important. He is happy pouring drinks and talking to everyone about sports and hurricanes and the one time he was in a tornado and his father’s lack of hair and the city he is currently living in. He tells us all about the earthquake last week and the flooding in Texas and the tornadoes in Missouri. My drink is finally gone, the one tiny drink that became an endless, watery drink. I walk outside into the other watery drink, my hair curls more, people ride by on bikes and others pull wagons and carts and cans. I walk and I wonder if the man I pass hates me, if he cares at all, probably not, he’s fine, he’s happy, I’m sure, I’m not sure. They go on walking and I go on walking and the drizzle hangs in the air and the woman pushes hard on the screen of her cell phone and shows everyone who will listen and the beer belly man scoops more ice cubes into cups and tells everyone about floods and earthquakes and Ann Arbor and how he shaves his head because he’s bald now just like his dad.

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First of all, hopefully you didn’t just skip the picture above to start reading. I mean, I totally get if you did, because, let’s face it, the writing here is usually great or whatever. (HA!) But, let’s get on with it.

Ok. So. I love pictures. I think they’re magical. They can be terrible (especially when I take them/with my ipod, omg pixels err’where). But mostly they are wonderful, magical things. I especially love really old pictures, from hundreds of years ago. It’s a peek into the past. No matter how ‘past’ it is. (Throwback Thursday, y’all.)

And I love quotes. Probably less than I love pictures, but I still love them. Many of them are meaningful, inspiring, interesting, etc. And I like to share both of these things, pictures and quotes, like most people, with other people. However, like selfies, there are terrible things out there. And sometimes, like selfies, these things can be, well, lived with. You can scroll past them and it’s over. But SOMETIMES, it’s so DREADFUL, you just have to stop what you’re doing immediately, save the hideous thing, and write a long, drawn-out explanation of why you personally think it’s so bad. Ok, so, here goes!!

I want to make a list of complaints against this THING. I want to meet the person who wrote this down, face-to-face, and tell them how horrible they are. (In a kind way.) I want to make signs and go on strike with my eyes and brain because we all had to look at it.

“Do not fall in love with people like me.”

What, why? This statement totally makes sense if you’re some murdery, stabby, horribly mean person. But! From the definition you give of yourself — I’m totally throwing this all at you, unknown writer! — you sound great! Perfect. Too perfect. Is that what you were going for?

“I will take you to museums, and parks, and monuments, and kiss you in every beautiful place…”

Ok. Let’s go. You’ve talked me into it.

“…so that you can never go back to them without tasting me like blood in your mouth.”

What the fuck? You just ruined that beautiful picture. Also, aren’t those called memories? Aren’t those great things to have? Aren’t experiences wonderful? Aren’t they what make us the people we are? Who cares if places remind me of you? What makes you think you’re so very EPIC, anyway? Why are you trying to BREAK me? Aren’t you a good person? Isn’t that the picture of yourself you’re trying to create? On that note…

“I will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible.”

It all started well, and then it got weird, and now it’s just over between us! Destroying people is not beautiful. It sounds poetic, I suppose, but it should NOT be your relationship goal!? Treat people like people. Always. Go to beautiful places, do beautiful things, make great memories. Don’t revel in the fact you hurt someone. Or WHATEVER this means, exactly. You are not a beautiful destroyer. THERE is a quote for YOU!

“And when I leave you will finally understand, why storms are named after people.”

OK FIRST OF ALL why is that comma there?! Next, naming storms after people is STUPID, so what do you have to say about that? This doesn’t make sense. Not that any of this made sense. But this really doesn’t make sense. It’s not cute. It’s not romantic. It’s harmful and creepy and gross!

So, moral of the story: Don’t fall in love with people like you because you’re crazy!

 

 

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1. Stop calling yourself an “unknown poet”, EVERYONE is an unknown poet!

2. Things you are not allowed to say: “I miss you”, “I had a dream about you”, “I think your baby is actually quite ugly”.

3. We’re all scared. That shouldn’t stop you.

4. Some girls speak poetry as their first language and don’t know how to stop. They wear dark eye makeup and thrift store sweaters and listen to music they choose to like. They take pictures day after day from the exact same angle of the exact same face until they’re convinced that they’re beautiful. Sometimes they all look the same.

5. It’s never going to be simple.

6. Horrible things just keep happening in the world, don’t they? And it seems so terrible and evil and sad. And it is. And then you talk to your friend or meet a nice lady at the grocery store who tells you about her daughter or someone does something nice for someone else. And at least there’s a balance of terrible and wonderful.

7. I’m currently growing daisies in a tiny pot in my room under my desk lamp. It’s a tiny rebellion against winter. Or something. Maybe it’s just tiny daisy plants.

8. You should read Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. It’s a really simple and beautiful book.

9. Tell them, just tell them! UGH!

10. “When I save up lots of money, I just buy piggy banks.” – small girl with, apparently, lots of money, and, most likely, lots of piggy banks.