only connect
She learned this at Milton, to hide in a bathroom, a perfect place really, a cocoon, a world away. The peculiar insularity of bathrooms, a comfort. The sameness of bathrooms, pale yellows, blues, greens. And the things in a bathroom, a woman’s especially: not the eyes but the toiletries the window to the soul. She would go to their homes after school, or on vacations, to their summer houses— always invited, every year, dearly beloved of mothers, a Good Influence on daughters, with good grades and good manners, what a peach, so polite! – and she’d slip off at some point, upstairs, to a bathroom, the friend’s, or the mother’s more fascinating still.
The bathroom of a mother.
A world of concealment.
A chamber of secrets, insecurities, scents, crystal bottles with spray pumps and baby blue boxes, an undue proportion of labels in French. She would twist off the tops, smelling this, smelling that, creamy lotions, perfumes, and the small shell-shaped soaps. She would wash off her fingers with hand soap…then dry them on the monogrammed had towle provided or, better still, the towel on the back of the door.
She’d always use the towel on the back of the door if there was one, which smelled of defenselessness, skin, of a person in a vulnerable, sweet-smelling state, of a girl in the morning, false tropical fruit. Sometimes she’d press up her face to these towels, overwhelmed by the smell, suddenly wanting to cry. Always, she’d peer in the tote bins, the cabinets, the makeup bags, Kaboodles, and take something with: a kind of clumsy kleptomania…A scrunchy or eyedrops or squashed tubes of lip gloss or sample-sized hand creams brought back from the spa, or, the one time, and earring, uncharacteristically, a diamond. Until someone called ‘Sadie!’ or knocked on the door.
‘Did you get lost in the bathroom?’ they’d ask her, eyes smiling, all waiting to hear what smart thing she would say, Clever Sadie, so bright, and so nice, and so cute, like a member of the family. ‘I locked myself in.’ Always this lie. Inexplicable, really, that anyone believed it, but everyone did.
"
starksandrecreation replied to your photo: goin thru old(ish) selfies instead of writing my…
This is a superb dress. I hope one day to have the honor of stealing it from you and returning it in perfect condition.
yes good
This makes me want a video game about a zombie apocalypse that only affects men so it’s up to the housewives of 50s’ America to save humanity.
…saving this idea for class.
i would play the heck out of that game, it is an amazing idea.
Also can there be a character design screen so you can make your little housewife?
I think it’d be entertaining to see what guys could come up with for making their female-selves. If you ask me.
I would so play this game.
I would suck at it but I would play it.
I’ve never played a zombie game, but you got me at 50’s.
Hngggggggg I love 50s clothes give it to me
OMG I already thought of some sort of premise:
In 1953 a certain laboratory on an undisclosed location developed a serum that could genetically modify humans, giving them enhanced speed, agility, strength, and brainpower.
Scientists found a way to modify the serum such that it could only activate itself in the presence of a Y chromosome, thus isolating the effects to men, mostly because of female discrimination at the time.
The serum was a success, and sales skyrocketed just a few weeks after its release.
What the developers did not anticipate, though, was the human body’s incapacity to handle the serum. The mental and physical over-exhaustion triggered a mental decay which starts out slow, but speeds up exponentially within a few months after usage of the serum. The brains of the users are left with only the most basic survival reflexes, transforming the users into strong, fast, agile, emotionless human shells, devouring any mobile life form in their path.
Bites from the affected individuals could place copies of the rogue serum into the bodies of the bitten, giving them the symptoms. Shortly after, the serum evolved into a sort of genetic virus, causing mental decay in just days. No one was safe. No one…
…except the women.
*cue in epic music*
Can you imagine the shitstorm this game would cause. I’d laugh pretty hard.
Would still play it though.
Not gonna lie, I’d play the shit out of this.
I approve of this concept 100%
I want a montage in the beginning of the housewife getting ready to kick ass
She puts on her best dress, a string of pearls, does her hair taking out the curlers, puts on her most stylish flats, and the finishing touch, her engagement ring with the big diamond in it, and when they fight, they look fabulous and kick ass like they were trained by Catwoman and Harley Quinn
Lipstick the shade of the blood of my enemies
oh my god everything about this post forever
I want this
Lipstick the shade of the blood of my enemies
Two words: Kanaya Maryam.
AGHSD. and the only dudes in the game are zombies and NPC camp healers and the like, YES DELIGHTFUL.
“hah!” scoffs marjorie, as little george, all afire with the righteous pluckiness of childhood, asks once again in that piping voice of his when he will be old enough to go out and fight the z’s. “silly george,” marjorie says, ruffling his hair with wry affection, “you can’t go out and fight the z’s. you’re a man. it’s simply far too dangerous for you - why, it’s a biological fact!”
i laugh as the cutscene ends, and continue on my way to the trading post to exchange some salvaged heinz beans for more fuel for my chainsaw
somewhere, a mangry gamer guy pees himself in rage, and writes an angry comment on kotaku and several gaming-related subreddits
the end
starksandrecreation replied to your post: wow I am finally sitting down to brainstorm an…
Do you have to write on a particular prompt or can you write anything you please on Gertrude?
anything I please! the problem is that what I want to do (trace / analyze her evolution from scandinavian legend to the modern Shakespearean stage) is basically a PhD-dissertation-level project. so I have to choose something much narrower and I’m having trouble paring down my thoughts. so far the plan is to work with contemporary films versions, so: Glenn Close’s 1990 Gertrude, Julie Winters’s 1996 Gertrude, Diane Venora’s 2000 Gertrude. BUT WHAT TO SAY. we just don’t know.
name: katie.
location: ohio, usa.
the blog: BODIES. parks and rec, game of thrones, the good wife (heavy on the kalinda, alicia, and diane ugh high-heeled manipulative mask-wearing triumvirate). the mountain goats and marina diamandis. self-care in the most poignant and realest of ways. caution: she isn’t on very often and she does this unforgivable thing where she makes you adore her and then goes off to have an actual life and you’re left glaring at her long-since-updated blog all dependent and desperate. it’s very rude.
the blogger: i know that it’s not nice to play favorites but i can afford to lose that game if it means getting this kid as my friend. having her in my real life is bucket list item #1. i message her about random things - this article, that movie, how there’s a whooshing sound in my ears and my fingers tingle whenever someone hates me, what i ate for lunch, how archie panjabi’s face is a Thing - and she always answers back and seems to care deeply (though that could be an imitation of love and i’d never know the difference but tbh i would take it anyway). she feeds my bodies feelings - bodies as weapons, bodies as cages, bodies as flesh texts, bodies as battlefields, bodies as political symbols, bodies as vehicles of worship, bodies as manifested ideas, bodies as evidence of war. ugly bodies, bloody bodies, man-made bodies, unnatural bodies, bodies sculpted by fashion, bodies whose scars and memory reflexes tell stories better than any book - all of them beautiful bodies to her). she is the most caring and intuitive person on tumblr and possibly in the hemisphere. it feels like she always posts the exact things that i need in the exact moments that i need them. i want to rent real estate in her brain and heart and live there always, vacationing in the most interesting luxury destination, drinking insight-flavored daiquiris with a view of her ventricles and shuffle board at four sharp on her frontal lobe.
sample post: bodies bodies bodies is my favorite place on the internet. no, seriously.
@shineslikedestruction: it would be my first tattoo! gonna do a consultation first to make absolutely sure about the format, safety, etc if / when I become absolutely sure about the words.
@starksandrecreation: I’m saving my face tattoo for our matching HP scars and glasses, remember?
@seppin: I hope so! Thank you <3
@patricianshep: oh m;y god ?? yes? that would be really really amazing. thank you. wow.
starksandrecreation replied to your post: starksandrecreation replied to your post:…
I have notes from the first time that I watched that production that just say MIRRORS. God. It is so good. Nat are you awakening Hamlet feelings in me?
I CERTAINLY HOPE SO. As we speak I’m working on a monster post about why I love literally every character in this play so get ready to read that and be infected with my Hamletmania, bwahaha
starksandrecreation replied to your post: starksandrecreation replied to your post: hey does…
I LOVE OPHELIA. Not within the text (although her absence is interesting in itself) but more how we culturally interpret her and how that interpretation evolves over time. Also I love the use of cameras in the Tennant Hamlet. So we can talk that too.
My RSC edition talks about Elaine Showalter in the intro and I thought of you and your paper
ugh yes the cameras and mirrors, the spying and surveillance, the panopticon and paranoia, AMAZING. a castle built for fear. rotten.
starksandrecreation replied to your post: hey does anyone wanna talk Hamlet with me plz
Sure. I can’t say much of substance but I can listen to a tangent or two. :)
omg bless you
do you want to talk about Ophelia, you know things about Ophelia, and for someone who eats up mental health and gender intersectionality I bizarrely have very few Ophelia feelings (Opheelings?) and clearly that needs to change
starksandrecreation replied to your post: hotelsongs replied to your post: good decisions of…
ur my least favorite person.
that’s funny bc NO ONE’S BETTER THAN I AM
hotelsongs replied to your post: good decisions of today include spending 2+ hours…
b-e aggressive
starksandrecreation replied to your post: good decisions of today include spending 2+ hours…
Damn it. hotelsongs beat me to the b-e aggressive.
