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#apparently i havent really talked about this here in spite of how much ive been thinking about it for months but my mk is demiromantic
quinn-pop · 3 months
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uhh. i accidentally made another comic. future au strikes back
(pt 1/3)
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a question - 1 2 3
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neverheardnothing · 4 years
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rewatching joe iconis and family lincoln center performance at 4 am instead of packing or sleeping just to feel something and i have so FEW and so MANY thoughts and yall are gonna hear em all. no i will not put this under a cut. im going to be an absolute bastard about this.
i love the story joe tells about why he's singing mitb as the first song so much. like. the spite of it all. the defiance of it all. the pride of it all. the dig it or fuck off and disappear of it all. the joe iconis of it all. 
“i know exactly the song im going to sing as my first song at the american songbook series.” i love that he highlights the fact that this is the american songbook series.
then immediately jumping right into broadway here i come with molly hager, the other song he is most known for!!!
every time i think about this performance i think about how this was the first (?) time this song was performed by them since the closing of bmc.
and then lance rubin comes up to sing try again. which is the only time that i know of that anyone but joe has sung this song.
i remember a remark made during watching it live that having someone else sing the song made it seem so clearly more about joe and his career. but also having lance sing it immediately makes me think of bbh closing early which yeah is part of joe’s career but also lance’s.
and also the line “if you’re an actor and another actor gets the part you auditioned for” reminds me of how lance found the auditioning process of acting and the whole [not acting part] of an acting career to be terrible which is why he quit to then become an author and the juxtaposition of him singing try again is Something. but also he DID try again he is just applying his efforts to a different creative field and it’s working out great for him. good for lance rubin.
lol i haven’t even talked about the actual performance aspect of this song anyways it’s very different from the two versions ive seen of joe doing it. he plays it a lot more comical. i love it.
sidenote not specific about this performance, but i love love LOVE the line and the music at “use the stairs, walk to the street. see the people, feel the heat, and apply yourself again.”
and also the line “when they cast you out to sea, there’s a lifeboat manned by me called try and try again” will never not make me think of bsol/last on land and bonus lance was also in that show! it just keeps circling around.
everything about these past 3 songs performed at this venue in this set list order in this moment at joe’s career is honestly so wonderful. like you had a songs about an anxiety attack, a suicide/loss of self in success, and repeated failures before this song all sung by individuals. two of these songs were written at points where joe felt frustrated/sad with his career. one written in the aftermath of specific frustration about the first closing of be more chill. one an actual song from bmc. like what a SETLIST for your first three songs! fucking michael in the bathroom, broadway here i come, and try again. truly something.
THE WHISKEY SONG!! i love hearing joe sing so much. while i think we can all agree he’s not the most skilled singer there’s something special about hearing a composer perform their own work. he adds like 3 levels of charm to make up for lack of singing skills lol. just a very charismatic guy.
lance rubin back on tamborine for the next bit of the song and he’s like laughing through it. not completely sure what he’s laughing about honestly but this Is a comedic song (after 3 real downers of songs) and also joe was playing it up.
jared weiss down on the floor with his guitar playing along. that’s its own bullet point.
audience cheering as more family members start coming on stage! i love that the band is getting cheers. love that!!!
the camera isn’t on him but from the audio, nick blaemire is presumably running around giving high fives to people in the audience.
i can’t exactly tell with the camera angle and the lighting but i think that more family members get up from different seats in the audience or at least enter in the back and walk through the audience to get to the stage during this instrumental break. reminds me of how joe loves theater that physically touches you. giving you high fives in this case.
love liz lark brown. she plays it pretty like. frenetic and frazzled. love it.
amara, badia, danielle, will, and nick are just chillin sitting on the steps of the stage. 100% contributes to the vibe of this song. top fuckin notch.
SOMEONE screams AH during the drunk part of the song and i cannot figure out who but it gives me so much life.
jared pulling lance down to the floor with him.
jason going “man.... this place is a dump” like i LOVE the irreverence.
everyone actually getting back up and also converging On the stage during the (kind of) acapella break.
and now your whole gang is up on the stage at the fancy ass appel room singing your what sounds like a mostly upbeat fun song but is actually about self medication with alcohol and it’s a fucking jam. i love the 3 solo songs and then bringing in everyone for a big group number.
sidenote not about this specific performance: the lyrics “i’ll pour some more and then—AND THEN?—i’ll pass out and then—AND THEN!” the and thens were not on the things to ruin album and i wonder why not ALL the time. was it just deemed extraneous? or was this an innovation after the album was recorded?
i love that you can see the band singing along.
yesterdays / i can’t relate. i love this song i fucking love it. i love the synthy keyboard that was an active choice made. which means that joe is not the one accompanying jared in this song.
jared: i hate today. joe: *snorts in the background*
“i like music you can hold” -> old records black suits, susannah’s obsession with music which was of course in vinyl format back then
will once said hearing lgw was very exciting because he’s first and foremost a fan of joe’s so he was hearing a new joe song for the first time and the world got just a bit larger and i think about that quote a lot in relation to this song because i was like Oh i Get What He Means now because this is the first new joe song i heard since like getting into his work and i felt that world getting a bit bigger.
jared’s monotone chorus on top of the girls underneath is so good. it’s so fucking good i cannot.
liz lark brown velociraptor fuckin classic. specifically in this performance the weird ass electric guitar noise at “there’s a dinosaur” is SO good. i love it.
i know people say Trans Vibes from next song (jeff) but this song also gives me trans vibes. i think joe inadvertently writes stuff trans people relate to because of his propensity to write for People Who Are Different.
people cheering as will takes off his jacket hell yeah.
i am way more used to the jeremy morse version of this song and really consider it more his so it’s so fun to hear will sing it.
i love the canon of the “oh”s so much.
after will sings “i go to the window looking out and what do i see? myself just staring back at me.” and someone in the audience AUDIBLY goes “oh.” like what a MOMENT. way more subtle than when someone screamed “WHAT” at the “naked korean girl” reveal during the pipe night performance but on the same tier of Great Audience Reactions.
smooth fuckin gliss bro i love it. arms out by side. i love it.
Classic Jason Sweettooth Williams Singing Helen. but this time they added like some REAL like. oh god i have no idea how to describe it. electric crunchy electric guitar noises. and it’s so good.
i havent mentioned this yet but in the background of every song people who are not in it or are backup vocals are just sitting and jamming along and it’s so nice because me fuckin too.
honest to god just have to give a timestamp for this but bullet point for whatever the fuck eric is doing in the background here.
will and katrina circling each other singing directly into each other’s faces. so good.
the Unexpected dynamic change and following crescendo i am Living.
katrina rose dideriksen riffing up top. yes. YES.
joe starting to play helen sharp and then forgetting part of his introduction to the song is so good.
the inevitable laughter at any performance of this song at “it is not lost on me you’re all here at my show”
i know nothing about the movie death becomes her so i honestly always just think about joe when this song gets performed. also thinking about how in the youtube premiere of this song, joe was talking about how lauren was shouting out the names of all the musical theater composers joe is jealous of.
right place/wrong time. i read a bsol review a while ago about how katrina rose dideriksen was underutilized and gotta say i Agree holy Shit let her sing More.
i also remember how joe once said this song felt the most personal to him and that he cried when writing it
police siren piano.
the first time in this entire song they sing in sync is at the line “i wonder if his/her life is just like mine” and i just start screaming.
when eric and katrina turn to each other for the first time and start singing At each other!!!!!!!!!!!
honey! thinking about jen ash tep talking about how Each performance of this song gets Wilder and Wilder.
love it when nick just gets off the stage and starts singing to people in the audience. apparently one of the people was will’s mom lol.
ACAPELLA BREAK!!!!!! joe just fully gets up from piano and starts WILDLY clapping along!!!!
woman of a certain age! i remember when the live show happened the album had not come out yet and then when the yt premiere of it happened it Had been out for a week or so.
piano note elevator bell
the electric guitar is doing some fucking weird ass things in this song and i am living so fucking much for it.
the riffs badia does are so fucking incredible i immediately paused this video to go and watch her sing big fat ruby again just because i wanted more badia content.
the story behind old flame is so good and joe waiting until the last fuckin moment to give her the song is so fuckin funny.
i love love love these types of joe songs that are like 7 minute long story epics like right place/wrong time and the actress and ammonia and old flame.
“the best way to get past the past is to shoot it in the head” and then the audience cheers and i fucking love it. my commentary is getting shorter. it’s 6 am and i’m tired can you tell. i also just had a lot of thoughts about this early on and less thoughts about later on.
revolution song. the deep ass fucking electric bass is So good i Will go apeshit. like honestly that might be my favorite smaller detail of this song. like i imagine if i were in the room it might be loud and deep enough that i could feel it In my chest. like you can Feel the revolution coming.
i love the faster tempo revolution song has in the cabaret version.
i also love the cabaret specific lines of “evolution in the institution”
joey is a punk rocker was honestly not ever on the list of songs i thought would get performed here but im so glad that they did. like the obvious choice would have been veins for annie golden but they went this route. obsessed with this choice. obsessed with the fact that amphibian replaced this song as the act 2 opener. obsessed that annie is the one singing this.
i am never not screaming about wave and yall know this. just throwback to me losing it in the tags in a reblog of picture of the wave passage going on about how it really does mirror joe’s career and bmc specifically. and again this song being performed for the first (?) time since bmc closed makes the “so today on a hill in las vegas” and onward part SO fucking sad i literally just started crying. the entire song being in past tense up until that part. i will just go die now.
will in the yt premiere talking about texting the line “our energy would simply prevail” in the leadup to bmc coming back.
find the bastard. for some reason when this happened live i thought it was gonna be outlaw that was performed. 
i swear to god it is literally physically impossible for me not to AT LEAST mouth along to “what’s your name, what’s your name” during this song
NAMES ARE FOR ACCOUNTANTS.
MY NAME IS AWFUL LONG AS IT’S THE LYRICS OF THIS SONG.
the goodbye song. it’s never not sad. i love love love that this song is the final song every concert. i also love the recent lore of finding out that penny dreadfuls was the encore song at concerts before they became too long and it had to get cut.
finally gonna mention the background car lights. what a beautiful backdrop.
also since im always on my wrol bullshit i love how fucking clearly you can hear him at the end
accelerando accelerando accelerando. insert [joe iconis peaked when he wrote the accelerando in the goodbye song post of mine].
katrina singing an octave up is always SO fucking impressive i am so impressed by her voice she is so fucking good i love her so much
the bows are so fucking sweet i love them.
goodnight it’s 7 am.
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irregodless · 6 years
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ive just been thinking about that guys antifeminism speech for a while
so in case you havent heard, which you havent because this is only something that happened to me basically, in my class this guy in front of me was talking about how he had to give a speech in his next class too (incidentally so did i, but i stopped thinking about it and reading the book required by class to listen)
everything in quotes is paraphrased so keep that in mind, but it captures the essence
he starts by talking about the class and the speech. some friends ask what its about and hes like “its against feminism” and you can hear the “:/” in their silence
the group is a boy a girl and this guy who later in class confessed to eating horse shit. multiple times.
they clearly dont care much about feminism i dont think but theyre like “thats kind of a controversial topic isnt it! you think its going to go well since youre a man?” and shitmallet is all like “see THATS stereotyping and THATS bad.”
except its not because not only have men talking about feminism (particularly why its not good) proven to be awful, but also, they were justified because he was also awful
and like, i know that feminism can be hurtful to trans ladies and woc, but also, this is real life at community college and nobody even realizes these are even things let alone problems. but just hearing someone say “feminism is shit” immediately triggers a response in me like “I Don’t Trust Like That” to think theres a valid reason. its a black and white way of thinking but its telling when someone flat out says its bad, like, entirely. let alone this guy.
anyway he gives a good like two minute talk about how you should imagine a person in your life, a mother, sister, daughter, whatever, who you want to protect. it sounds like the justification people try to use to try and beg men to care about rape by appealing to their sense of family
and he goes “these are all people we want to protect. and im going to tell you all why you should protect them from....... Feminism” and i nearly fuckin DIED i had to hold back laughter
so this is where his argument starts to fall to pieces. understand im only addressing his argument and its lack of merit here. i think it goes without saying its just kind of generally shit
all like
protect yer womenfolk from catchin’ the Thinkin’ Disease, lads
or
yer womens will know endless untold agony and grief if they learn how shit theyre being treated...
like. as a man. you really dont have a right to be saying “no, honey, im protecting you FROM feminism.” thats kind of like going to pride, telling everyone why pride is bad because it does some things some times and being like “as a straight man i know whats best for gay people”
okay so moving on, he makes the only decent statement he says the whole while which is basically he doesnt like how it furthers the gap between men and women and it turns women into nothing but victims. like. hes got lots of shit missing but hes STARTING to get the point i guess. like. to stop women from being victims. but hes trying to do that by....... silencing the women
i guess women cant be victims if? nobody knows they are???
but heres where we get some fuckin good ol logical fallacies n shit
“its the mens jobs to look after the women” okay so: reinforcing gender roles. putting a gender role on yourself that youll just complain about for being expected to take care of women. you think women shouldnt be treated like helpless victims and should be able to (kind of) think and speak for themselves, and yet, you think that they HAVE to have men there to take care of them.
like can we just think on that for a minute
women shouldnt be treated like they cant take care of themselves. and we should accomplish that by not letting women take care of themselves
like just?????? how do you NOT see the contradiction. i wish i was his teacher. i dont think you can give him a bad grade for having a differing opinion but you can DEF tear him about for not having his shit together
which might nto be fair considering you might not focus on that if it was something you agreed with. but also, consider the following: fuck this guy
but like then he goes on about how “yeah i dont want to like remove womens right to vote or anything, but feminism is garbage now. feminism started off with good reasons [though i wonder if hed been born at that time if he wouldnt say “dont you miss it when women and children were seen and not heard?”] and its this third and fourth wave feminism thats shit.” and then he says, now get this, “i dont like all this nonsense with not wearing shirts and” pause for dramatic effect. “dyeing their hair green and shit.”
LIKE BOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
i like it when women do things as long as its things i like like being guilted into sleeping with me and throwing their lives away and making me breakfast
i dont like it when women do things i dont personally approve of >:(((((
like i genuinely wonder if he thinks that the hairdye is directly related to it, or if hes just saying like. its something that tends to happen around this generation of feminism
but GOD i hope he thinks women are dyeing their hair to personally spite him i can only fucking HOPE
anyway he closes it and the man with a copy of dbz on his backpack and the woman with a uninteresting voice are like “wow i was worried at first but you made good points.......................”
and im just writing half of it down and messaging izzy and justin about it because i cannot BELIEVE
like im just. so lost and dumbfounded at how shit that argument was. and also that hes apparently so offended by women not wearing shirts.
i just. im just. i wish i was in a debate class with him so i could tear him down
but im too lame of an ally to talk out about people in real life because im scared and dont have a chance to prepare which will lead to me either shouting crying or both and not having ANY of my facts together (not that it matters apparently considering you can just say whatever you want apparently)
also he says "men have problems too" and i almost rocketed into the sun
this speech was written by one of the founders of the republic of gilead i swear
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yoursalwaysfics · 7 years
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ok question have you seen this "killing stalking" thing thats apparently the Hip New Problématique thing on tubmlr bc i havent actually looked at the manhwa itself (prob never will) but i took a gander at the tag and ive seen glimpses of the fandom and all i have to say is Wow but like. in a bad way. (also apparently ppl are comparing it to yoi?? idgi??)
*deep sigh* okay, so here’s the thing… (this might be a longer answer than you bargained for, but it needs to be said)
yes, I’ve seen it (I’m usually willing to give the latest bandwagon a shot just to see if it’s something I could also be into). I just finished chapter 12 today. KS is a train wreck, but not necessarily in a bad way (aside from the extremely obvious). it’s gruesome and horrifying and makes your skin crawl and your stomach turn but you can’t look away. it is definitely not for the faint of heart. that being said, it’s not bad. as a story, it’s intense and draws you in (if you can handle the heavier parts). the characters are incredibly flawed but incredibly well developed and written. the art is also very interesting (and I really like it tbh). the style is really bold and a big step away from what I usually see in manhwa.
but it absolutely is not comparable to YOI and should not be.
yoi gave us so many things that a lot of people have been frothing at the mouth for, namely beautiful animation, music, and a healthy, open, unfetishized same-sex relationship. 
a lot of people looking for the next big thing to ship (looking at all the fujoshi out there) jumped over to KS for the wrong reasons. the main characters in KS (Yoonbum and Sangwoo) should not be shipped. the comic makes no excuses or tries to cover up the fact that their relationship (and I use that term very loosely here) is incredibly unhealthy and abusive and manipulative. it is not a romance. it’s not even tagged as one. it is an unapologetic psychological horror. there is literally no redemption story here. if there is any justice, it will end badly with one or both of them either dead or in jail.
that’s mostly what I wanted to say about it, but I’m going to add one more little bit about mental illness depicted in KS, and this can totally be skipped over because it’s just my observation and personal opinion on the subject (this is mostly just if any of you have read or decide to check out KS, because I see a lot of people questioning and confused by some behavior that, to me, is very understandable, so it’s just a bit of perspective):
in chapter 1, we find out that Yoonbum has bpd (borderline personality disorder). this is a disorder that I also have. I knew the basics of KS going into it and was immediately put off because bpd is often portrayed horribly and all I could think was “fuck, yet another perpetuation that we’re crazy and/or dangerous” and I really considered quitting the series right then and there. but I continued on (mostly out of spite) because I wanted to make an argument that this was not how bpd actually is. 
I wanted to be angry at it, I wanted to hate it, but as I kept reading it…I couldn’t. because as horrible as it is, it’s really spot on. it’s an excellent depiction of the darker side of mental illness that lately we try not to talk about by basically saying “not all mentally ill” when the fact is…yeah, absolutely not all, not even most, but some. Yoonbum and Sangwoo are what can happen when two very disturbed and damaged people come together and have their personalities play off of each other with terrible consequences for literally everyone involved. it’s rare, but it can and does happen. there’s plenty of recorded history of it involving serial killers.
and about Yoonbum’s bpd: again, I wanted to be mad about how it was portrayed, but I just couldn’t. for those not familiar, bpd basically boils down to a mood disorder that results in unstable moods, behaviors, and relationships. it usually comes with an intense fear of rejection and abandonment (real or perceived) in addition to the mood swings. there’s also often a big problem with either idolizing someone or completely devaluing them (and sometimes swinging between the two with the same person). there’s a lot more to it (and if you’re interested, you can read a little more about the basics here) but with Yoonbum, when it comes down to it, as much as I wanted to say “that’s not how it is”…I can’t. the author obviously either has/knows someone with/or did a lot of research on bpd, because if I’m being completely honest with myself, if I didn’t have a partner who was as aware and supportive and understanding as I do, I could easily see myself ending up in a situation similar to Yoonbum (hopefully minus the murder).
bpd can wreak havoc on your personal relationships. I have very few people who I can call my friends because most people can’t deal with my instability (and I don’t blame them at all, it’s a lot to ask someone to accept). a lot of my familial relationships are shallow and strained because people just don’t understand why I act the way I do, despite my best efforts to be “normal”. you feel worthless and will look for anyone to validate you and give you some sort of purpose (I know from personal experiences, most of which were very bad and did much more harm than good). so I really lucked out to end up with someone chill enough to not only help ground me but also someone who pushes me to find purpose in myself instead of in him/other people.
it’s very easy for me to relate to and understand Yoonbum because I could have very easily been him. he’s not innocent in this. he’s not 100% a victim here. very poor choices on his part put him in a situation that is now out of his control. but I will say, as someone who struggles with and fights against similar thoughts and feelings, sometimes it is extremely difficult not to act on the sudden impulses and irrational thinking like he did. and seeing as he apparently had none of even what support I’ve been able to find, I’m not surprised at all by any of his behavior.
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oovitus · 6 years
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Weekend Reading, 6.24.18
A friend of mine told me that he recently went to a conference where all of the attendees seemed to be talking about perfectionism, in spite of that fact that it wasn’t the conference theme. They were discussing it as people who had been susceptible to impossible standards in the past, but now counted themselves lucky to have let perfectionism go.
As we were talking, it occurred to me that I haven’t thought about perfectionism in a long time, though it had a hold on me for years. Even after I stopped trying to do everything “right,” perfectionism (and to some extent, being “Type A”) was a big part of my identity. I called myself a “recovering perfectionist,” which was truthful, but in retrospect I think it was also my way of continuing to identify with perfectionism and communicate it to others. I didn’t want to be subject to oppressive standards anymore, but I hadn’t yet figured out who I was without them.
In the end, perfectionism exited my life out of necessity; I untangled from it because I didn’t have a choice. Living with bouts of depression and anxiety in the last few years has meant letting go of a lot of my self-imposed notions of what constitutes productivity, success, or a day well spent.
A common experience of depression, I think, is that small, routine asks can suddenly seem insurmountable: doing laundry, cleaning up, running errands. This would have sounded unbelievable to me at one point in my life, when these kinds of to-dos were just afterthoughts, but now I know what it’s like to struggle with the everyday.
I’m thinking back to an afternoon two summers ago that illustrates this perfectly: my anxiety had been particularly bad, and I’d been paralyzed by procrastination all day. By dinnertime I was genuinely proud of myself for having gotten out of the house to pick up groceries and mail a package. This was a radically different measure of productivity than I was used to, and it didn’t matter: I was relieved to have done something, anything.
I’m in a different place now, capable of fuller days, but my perspective remains valuably altered by that experience. I don’t wake up with a fixed agenda anymore. I don’t plan on doing more than I know I can handle. If I notice that tasks remain undone everyday on my modest to-do list, I take it as a sign that I need to plan on doing less, rather than wondering why I can’t do more.
I’ve learned that my capacity for doing and my tendency to get overwhelmed ebb and flow. Sometimes they shift for reasons that I can identify, like how I’m feeling physically or whether something has made me anxious. Sometimes they change suddenly and for no apparent reason. I don’t try to bully myself out of feeling overwhelmed; rather, I ask what would make me feel calmer and more steady.
I often remind myself of a mantra that my friend Maria gave herself when her MS symptoms started keeping her from the pace and routines that had become customary: “better than before.” The origin of this mantra was an ongoing struggle to keep tidy the home she shared with her young son. As Maria’s “functional self” receded, she noticed the presence of another self, who “though less physically versatile, was stronger than I ever could have imagined from the perspective of the one who functioned’ throughout the day. She began to show me things my functional self simply missed.”
One of those things, she goes on to say,
was to be able to notice when I was completely out of energy to exert myself. This might be when something was halfway wiped, or not wiped at all, but I had somehow managed to put some things away. She would know to say that’s enough for now. And she was very clever about what would satisfy my functional self, who would never have been satisfied with that’s enough. It sobered that functional self to learn when the diagnosis of MS finally came that the “forcing” she had habituated herself to was the worst thing to do if she wanted to preserve her physical abilities.  But as the saying goes, it’s really true that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. So my deeper wiser identity came up with something even more ingenious than this looming threat:
Better Than It Was.
Or, (depending on the context): Cleaner Than It Was.
These two statements became my mottos. And they still are. They allowed me to learn to pace myself while still satisfying that Functional Self that I was making what she considered progress through the daily requirements of life, even if many of them were slowed to a crawl or a downright standstill.  Better Than It Was.
Maria’s story is uniquely her own, and my own sense of high functionality has shifted for reasons that are uniquely mine. But her clever motto has given me great comfort since I first read about it on her blog. So, too, does this quote from Melody Beattie: “Our best yesterday was good enough; our best today is plenty good too.”
The best thing about letting go of perfectionism is developing a capacity to recognize that “our best” can look very different from moment to moment. There’s no longer an immovable standard of output. I wish that I’d been able to pry my ego away from productivity and being busy on my own, rather than being forced to reckon with a dramatic shift in my capacities, but in the end, it doesn’t matter how I got here. What matters is that I’m learning to be grateful for what I can do, rather than fixating on what I haven’t, or can’t.
Throughout all of this, I’ve had the tremendous luxury of being able to adjust my schedule and responsibilities in a way that allowed me to create a dynamic “new normal.” Not every person has the space to do this, depending on his or her professional and personal circumstances. I recognize and respect the many men and women who go through periods of depression and anxiety while also keeping up with fixed schedules. And of course I worry sometimes about my DI year: now that I’m learning how to take gentle care in the moments when I need to, what will it be like to temporarily lose control of my schedule and workload?
I don’t have an answer, but to some degree I suspect that I don’t need one. My routine next year will be a challenge, but so long as I can do my best without succumbing to the influence of perfectionism, I know I’ll be OK. Much as I’ve made my schedule more realistic, letting go of perfectionism has been an inside job. It resides in recognizing how futile perfectionism is, how it discourages me needlessly while keeping me from recognizing the good that I can do, and maybe have done (another observation that’s prompted by Beattie).
Here’s to a week—and a month, and a summer, and a year—of doing my best and trusting that my best is enough. I wish the same for you, too. And here’s the weekly roundup of links.
Recipes
I would never think to put fruit in a tabbouleh, but I love Katie’s creative mixture of blueberries, parsley, mint, and quinoa—I’d actually love to try it as a savory breakfast dish!
A very different kind of quinoa salad, but no less delicious: a curried mixture with red cabbage, raisins, and pumpkin seeds from Melanie of Veggie Jam.
Two recipes for summer entertaining caught my eye this past week. The first is these show-stopping chipotle cauliflower nachos from my friend Jeanine of Love & Lemons.
Number two is this platter of green summer rolls with mango miso sauce from Anya of Lazy Cat Kitchen. The sauce alone is calling to me, but I also love all of the tender green veggies here (asparagus, zucchini, broccolini).
Finally, a summery vegan pasta salad with creamy avocado dressing—perfect timing, as pasta salad’s been on my mind lately (and I may just have a recipe coming soon!).
Reads
1. This article is about a month old, but it’s very on-topic for today’s post: why you should stop being so hard on yourself, via The New York Times.
2. Ed Yong’s new article on the threat of imminent global pandemics frightened me (and the blurb under the title didn’t help), but it’s an important topic, and I’m glad that it’s being written about. Yong notes the medical supply shortages that are becoming increasingly problematic in the US; hopefully greater awareness might somehow inspire solutions.
3. Reporting on the termination of a major NIH study of alcohol, heart attack, and stroke, which was shut down when conflicts of interest were identified. It’s an important examination of the ethics of funding and scientific research.
4. Dispatches from the Gulf of California, where the vaquita—now the world’s rarest marine mammal—is on the brink of extinction.
5. I was so full of appreciation and respect when I read my friend Karen’s latest post on numbers and body acceptance.
Like Karen, I went through a long period of asking to be blind weighed at the doctor’s office and not owning a scale. That time served a purpose, but nowadays I can be aware of the number without identifying with it, which I’m grateful for. I’ve had a bunch of doctor’s appointments in the last month, and getting weighed has been the last thing on my mind: feeling more at home in my body has been my only point of focus.
Karen opens up about her own recent experience with the scale and the annual physical, then reflects on why she’s committed to being transparent about what “balance” looks like for her. It’s great to witness her journey unfolding.
On that inspiring note, happy Sunday—and from a celebratory NYC, happy pride! I’ll be circling back this week with my first fruit-filled dessert of the summer.
xo
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Weekend Reading, 6.24.18
A friend of mine told me that he recently went to a conference where all of the attendees seemed to be talking about perfectionism, in spite of that fact that it wasn’t the conference theme. They were discussing it as people who had been susceptible to impossible standards in the past, but now counted themselves lucky to have let perfectionism go.
As we were talking, it occurred to me that I haven’t thought about perfectionism in a long time, though it had a hold on me for years. Even after I stopped trying to do everything “right,” perfectionism (and to some extent, being “Type A”) was a big part of my identity. I called myself a “recovering perfectionist,” which was truthful, but in retrospect I think it was also my way of continuing to identify with perfectionism and communicate it to others. I didn’t want to be subject to oppressive standards anymore, but I hadn’t yet figured out who I was without them.
In the end, perfectionism exited my life out of necessity; I untangled from it because I didn’t have a choice. Living with bouts of depression and anxiety in the last few years has meant letting go of a lot of my self-imposed notions of what constitutes productivity, success, or a day well spent.
A common experience of depression, I think, is that small, routine asks can suddenly seem insurmountable: doing laundry, cleaning up, running errands. This would have sounded unbelievable to me at one point in my life, when these kinds of to-dos were just afterthoughts, but now I know what it’s like to struggle with the everyday.
I’m thinking back to an afternoon two summers ago that illustrates this perfectly: my anxiety had been particularly bad, and I’d been paralyzed by procrastination all day. By dinnertime I was genuinely proud of myself for having gotten out of the house to pick up groceries and mail a package. This was a radically different measure of productivity than I was used to, and it didn’t matter: I was relieved to have done something, anything.
I’m in a different place now, capable of fuller days, but my perspective remains valuably altered by that experience. I don’t wake up with a fixed agenda anymore. I don’t plan on doing more than I know I can handle. If I notice that tasks remain undone everyday on my modest to-do list, I take it as a sign that I need to plan on doing less, rather than wondering why I can’t do more.
I’ve learned that my capacity for doing and my tendency to get overwhelmed ebb and flow. Sometimes they shift for reasons that I can identify, like how I’m feeling physically or whether something has made me anxious. Sometimes they change suddenly and for no apparent reason. I don’t try to bully myself out of feeling overwhelmed; rather, I ask what would make me feel calmer and more steady.
I often remind myself of a mantra that my friend Maria gave herself when her MS symptoms started keeping her from the pace and routines that had become customary: “better than before.” The origin of this mantra was an ongoing struggle to keep tidy the home she shared with her young son. As Maria’s “functional self” receded, she noticed the presence of another self, who “though less physically versatile, was stronger than I ever could have imagined from the perspective of the one who functioned’ throughout the day. She began to show me things my functional self simply missed.”
One of those things, she goes on to say,
was to be able to notice when I was completely out of energy to exert myself. This might be when something was halfway wiped, or not wiped at all, but I had somehow managed to put some things away. She would know to say that’s enough for now. And she was very clever about what would satisfy my functional self, who would never have been satisfied with that’s enough. It sobered that functional self to learn when the diagnosis of MS finally came that the “forcing” she had habituated herself to was the worst thing to do if she wanted to preserve her physical abilities.  But as the saying goes, it’s really true that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. So my deeper wiser identity came up with something even more ingenious than this looming threat:
Better Than It Was.
Or, (depending on the context): Cleaner Than It Was.
These two statements became my mottos. And they still are. They allowed me to learn to pace myself while still satisfying that Functional Self that I was making what she considered progress through the daily requirements of life, even if many of them were slowed to a crawl or a downright standstill.  Better Than It Was.
Maria’s story is uniquely her own, and my own sense of high functionality has shifted for reasons that are uniquely mine. But her clever motto has given me great comfort since I first read about it on her blog. So, too, does this quote from Melody Beattie: “Our best yesterday was good enough; our best today is plenty good too.”
The best thing about letting go of perfectionism is developing a capacity to recognize that “our best” can look very different from moment to moment. There’s no longer an immovable standard of output. I wish that I’d been able to pry my ego away from productivity and being busy on my own, rather than being forced to reckon with a dramatic shift in my capacities, but in the end, it doesn’t matter how I got here. What matters is that I’m learning to be grateful for what I can do, rather than fixating on what I haven’t, or can’t.
Throughout all of this, I’ve had the tremendous luxury of being able to adjust my schedule and responsibilities in a way that allowed me to create a dynamic “new normal.” Not every person has the space to do this, depending on his or her professional and personal circumstances. I recognize and respect the many men and women who go through periods of depression and anxiety while also keeping up with fixed schedules. And of course I worry sometimes about my DI year: now that I’m learning how to take gentle care in the moments when I need to, what will it be like to temporarily lose control of my schedule and workload?
I don’t have an answer, but to some degree I suspect that I don’t need one. My routine next year will be a challenge, but so long as I can do my best without succumbing to the influence of perfectionism, I know I’ll be OK. Much as I’ve made my schedule more realistic, letting go of perfectionism has been an inside job. It resides in recognizing how futile perfectionism is, how it discourages me needlessly while keeping me from recognizing the good that I can do, and maybe have done (another observation that’s prompted by Beattie).
Here’s to a week—and a month, and a summer, and a year—of doing my best and trusting that my best is enough. I wish the same for you, too. And here’s the weekly roundup of links.
Recipes
I would never think to put fruit in a tabbouleh, but I love Katie’s creative mixture of blueberries, parsley, mint, and quinoa—I’d actually love to try it as a savory breakfast dish!
A very different kind of quinoa salad, but no less delicious: a curried mixture with red cabbage, raisins, and pumpkin seeds from Melanie of Veggie Jam.
Two recipes for summer entertaining caught my eye this past week. The first is these show-stopping chipotle cauliflower nachos from my friend Jeanine of Love & Lemons.
Number two is this platter of green summer rolls with mango miso sauce from Anya of Lazy Cat Kitchen. The sauce alone is calling to me, but I also love all of the tender green veggies here (asparagus, zucchini, broccolini).
Finally, a summery vegan pasta salad with creamy avocado dressing—perfect timing, as pasta salad’s been on my mind lately (and I may just have a recipe coming soon!).
Reads
1. This article is about a month old, but it’s very on-topic for today’s post: why you should stop being so hard on yourself, via The New York Times.
2. Ed Yong’s new article on the threat of imminent global pandemics frightened me (and the blurb under the title didn’t help), but it’s an important topic, and I’m glad that it’s being written about. Yong notes the medical supply shortages that are becoming increasingly problematic in the US; hopefully greater awareness might somehow inspire solutions.
3. Reporting on the termination of a major NIH study of alcohol, heart attack, and stroke, which was shut down when conflicts of interest were identified. It’s an important examination of the ethics of funding and scientific research.
4. Dispatches from the Gulf of California, where the vaquita—now the world’s rarest marine mammal—is on the brink of extinction.
5. I was so full of appreciation and respect when I read my friend Karen’s latest post on numbers and body acceptance.
Like Karen, I went through a long period of asking to be blind weighed at the doctor’s office and not owning a scale. That time served a purpose, but nowadays I can be aware of the number without identifying with it, which I’m grateful for. I’ve had a bunch of doctor’s appointments in the last month, and getting weighed has been the last thing on my mind: feeling more at home in my body has been my only point of focus.
Karen opens up about her own recent experience with the scale and the annual physical, then reflects on why she’s committed to being transparent about what “balance” looks like for her. It’s great to witness her journey unfolding.
On that inspiring note, happy Sunday—and from a celebratory NYC, happy pride! I’ll be circling back this week with my first fruit-filled dessert of the summer.
xo
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