a piece of advice offered by ao3 writer montparnasse once, which is that you have to work for your craft. my process often involves going about my day and noticing odd or unexpected mundane connections. in my notes i've jotted down things like: "yellowjackets - remnants of food in sink drain like a pre-raphaelite garden: explosion of reds, greens, browns; dirty brown water = oxblood red' and 'blue eye samurai - cracked lineaments in teapot covers like nitamago'.

I love this because this is the kind of thing I've been trying to do (and sort of been training myself through reading poetry): trying to notice those odd or unexpected connections, and keeping a notebook (or at least a post-it) in easy reach so I can jot them as they come to me. Like...I'm on the opposite end, I don't feel I'm a very visual person, so I try to think about interesting ways to explain or describe things in writing, or have to think back to things I have actually seen and use those as a point of reference instead of working off a blank mental canvas.

I like the discussion of kitset language and the aversion towards speedy or glib diversion during difficult times, because it's put into words something I've thought about often: when I am going through a difficult patch, I similarly prefer to read affectively difficult things. I don't like conventional escapism in reading, or rather my escapism looks very different from the usual and involves reckoning with darkness. as I've aged I've had less patience for books that tell me the same things as the generation of books that have come before them, which I call a quality of lacking mystery, or riskless behaviour; I don't really want to be comforted or told feel-good motherhood statements about how there's always a light at the end of the tunnel. I want to face difficult problems without any solutions, that may never have solutions in human lifetimes

I also find this very interesting because I've talked with another friend about our different tastes in media, and I think we have different tastes in this way as well; I generally have a much lower tolerance for discomfort/repulsion in my media, or at least have to mentally fortify myself for it in a way that I don't for, say, reading a romance novel. (And I do dearly love romance novels! But they are definitely the 'comfort food' of my literary diet.) But those stories also, because they do dare to engage in more messy, gritty, or fundamentally challenging ways, are also the ones that are more likely to resonate and that I'll find myself revisiting later. But for myself at least, I cannot subsist solely on those, in much the same way I cannot solely subsist on romance novels.

went out to a gay bar with some friends recently, and got tipsy off an embarrassingly small amount of alcohol. we got our friend who's a spanish native speaker to teach us some Very Important Phrases for Lesbians, and walked out into the (quiet) streets after singing "FUERSA LESBIANAS!" and "FUERSA FEMINISMO!" the most fun I've had in a while.

Bwahaha! I'm so glad for you, glad you had a great time! FUERSA FEMINISMO! FUERSA LESBIANAS!