Abstract Love for Useless Beauty

witchyroses:

thedatingfeminist:

So this guy hates EVERYONE… except for you. He’s a broody, arrogant misanthrope who just can’t stand people… except for you. You alone are the special, interesting, unique person worth his time, attention, and respect. Everyone else, as far as he’s concerned, is a tedious waste of time because they just don’t get it. They don’t get him!

Sure, his general misanthropy is kind of a character flaw, but it makes you feel sort of special that someone who hates everyone actually likes you. And maybe you can work on those rough edges! He’s nice to you, and that’s what matters, right?

Don’t buy into it, Jane Eyre. This kind of person may make you the exception for awhile, but why? Sure, you’re interesting and unique and you have a lot to offer, but so do some of the people he summarily dismisses. What’s the difference between you and them?

When someone is an asshole to literally everyone but you, he’s not an interesting, brooding soul. He’s an asshole. He wants something from you, so he’s willing to bend a little; he doesn’t think it’s worthwhile to show respect or courtesy to anyone he doesn’t want something from. And all that arrogance doesn’t mean he actually has anything to be arrogant about.

Don’t settle for someone with the personality of a rotten fish. You’re not being let into some exclusive club; you’ve just met an asshole who wants something from you. Pay attention to how a potential partner treats people he doesn’t have to be nice to. It’s a pretty important clue to whether he’s fit company for human beings.

Tah DAH! The post that would have saved my ass six months ago.

(via giebenrath)

poehlaris:

ladygrayluvs:

lizinprogress:

yep

How hard is it to ask questions? I don’t mean working your way down some pre-formulated interview guideline, ticking off boxes; I mean questions that emerge somewhat organically from the flow of conversation in a socializing context. Some people seem downright obsessed with finding the perfect ice-breaker, but in my experience the opening gambit is really the least relevant aspect of the whole affair; these things live and die on people’s ability to keep the ball in the air, which might just involve throwing it back on occasion. I’m a chatty person when I’m in the mood for it, someone who’s tempted to launch into ill-considerd over-sharing at the slightest provocation. But some people* really give you nothing to work with.

*Guys. I’m talking about guys. Might be coincidence, might be confirmation bias, but I just don’t run into that problem with women as often. And trust me, this is not a matter of guys getting tongue-tied in the face of my beauty. I’ve got some friends who are veritable stunners, so I’ve had ample opportunity to observe the effect on guys. It usually reduces them to stammering failbots. My interlocutors in contrast remain perfectly eloquent, as long as I’m throwing them all the balls.

Of course, when a woman never returns any of your questions, I would tell you to back off; she’s just answering to be polite and wants to avoid anything that unecessarily prolongues the interaction beyond that. But with some guys, I’m not so sure about that interpretation.

See, I’m not in the habit of accosting random guys for entertainment. The context is usually that we’re hanging out in a group and get stuck with each other, because everyone else has left to get something, or is otherwise preoccupied. I’m assuming there’d be some mutual interest in getting a conversation going, because one’s not familiar enough for comfortable silence and there’s usually nothing better to do for the moment. I’m bored, you’re bored - might as well talk, no? Sure, there’s a certain type who will resent any interaction without profound motivation as forced and frivolous, but you don’t get that sense with all those guys, necessarily. You get the sense they’re grateful enough for any cues you provide, taking them up quite animatedly, carefully pondering your questions, (“Hmm, that’s a good question, actually…”), answering in elaborate detail, with great sincerity. Their eyes light up, their gestures get more expansive. Their body language is open and relaxed. You don’t get the sense that they’re uncomfortable talking to you. But the moment you stop providing the cues … crickets.

Of course, maybe they’re not uncomfortable with the silence in the first place, maybe that’s just my issue. They may not share my attitude that interaction would be less boring in these scenarios (or maybe just don’t think so in this specific scenario). That’s what I’m going to conclude at any rate. Never be it said of me that I won’t leave someone in peace.

Only, ocassionally, ever so secretly, I don’t really buy it. Because sitting in silence with someone who’s not quite a stranger but not close enough to understand you without words can be legit awkward. And that’s not just me being neurotic, I can see them getting fidgety as well. Seems to me like they would prefer the conversation. So why can’t they help me keep it up?

The kneejerk assumption would be that it’s just garden variety self absorption. They like an audience; they’ve got use for a sounding board; they just can’t for the life of them come up with something that might be potentially interesting about me. But I’d like to think it’s a bit more complicated than that. (Mostly because that’s what I like to think about anything.)

Do they fear I’d mistake any signal of interest in my opinions for flirtation and don’t want to lead me on? But I’m signalling interest as well and not trying to get into anyone’s pants. Being able to ask contextually appropriate questions is not some sort of nefarious pick up artistry, it’s just a basic social skill. Pretty sure most of these guys are perfectly capable of pulling that off in a classroom, at work or at a networking event. It might take a little effort at time, but it generally beats feeling awkward and bored.

Or is this some form of misguided noblesse? Are they like little Percivals, tragically incurious/inadequately socialized, still getting taught by old knights in castles that it’s unmanly to ask too many unnecessary questions? Brush up on your Eschenbach, guys - even then, that was supposed to be garbage advice.

I mean, I get it, to a degree. Questions bear the risk of presumption. I imagine such guys themselves get easily annoyed at being asked stupid question (which makes me feel so great about all those question I’ve just been asking them, some of which are bound to be stupid after all). Of course there’s such a thing as a stupid question (or a least a thoughtless and lazy one). I’ve defintely seen guys overdo it in that regard. Then again, trying to make a conversation with fresh acquaintances all about their masturbation habits seems like one of those pitfalls easy enough to avoid. When I plead “Ask more contextually appropriate questions”, the stress is on “contextually appropriate”.

The way to minimize the risk of thoughtless questions is to spend a moment’s consideration on what questions that person specifically probably gets asked all the time and then not ask those. (eg. Don’t ask someone with a foreign name/different skin tone where they’re really from; don’t ask someone who’s studying something slightly more exoctic than business, law or medicine what they’re planning to do with their degree; don’t ask someone who’s working on their thesis when they’ll hand it in and don’t ask someone who just got married whether they’re already planning for children. Even if people are likely to have ready answers, they’re probably less than thrilled about having to repeat them all the time). If you lack the imagination - and honestly, in many cases you probably will, lacking the experience, lacking the perspective (I only found out how obnoxious it can be to be asked about career plans all the time when mine kinda fell through and I’m eternally embarrassed about how tone-deaf I used to be about this) - work on it by listening to people vent about questions they hate. Babies and careers can be perfectly fun topics, but trust me, people who’ve got something going in that area will bring them up themselves. Don’t beat yourself up about all the times you got it wrong, but do take notes to do better next time.

The way to minimize the risk of invasive question is to NOT SKIP THE BLOODY SMALL TALK, because that’s where you figure out what kind of things people feel most comfortable talking about/whether they feel comfortable talking to you in that moment in the first place. (“How was your weekend?/Any tipps for a good new band/movie/book/show?” are also questions people will hear with some regularity, but they’re much less likely to be perceived as alienating, because at worst, that’s the kind of stuff _everyone_ gets asked all the time.) Granted, most of the things I’m going to feel most comfortable talking about most quickly are going to be pretty boring, but guess what, your pet issues are not always automatically fascinating either. I’ll have to dig a bit to find the angle that interests me. It’s not the kind of conversation that will produce world-shattering insights at every turn, but fortunately, that’s not the point. The art is in the follow-up, finding the glimpse of something less pedestrian in an answer and then honing in on that. Once you get to that stage, you can even point out when people seemingly contradict themselves (”But didn’t you say earlier…”), without them holding it against you, because they’re mostly just thrilled that you’ve been listening so closely. But you have to start with the softballs, even if that means being a bit inane at first.

And that’s the real issue, I suspect. Some guys apparently fear being inane even more than being invasive. They can do small talk, as long as I’m shouldering the burden of inanity and they’re just indulging me, but the moment I’m droping the ball, it’s apparently beneath them to pick it up again.

theglintoftherail:

Absolutely. For about a million reasons. Let’s go through them, shall we?

1. Hannibal is in luv

I don’t need to lay out the case for Hannibal loving Will here, it is (somewhat astoundingly) canon at this point that Hannibal loves Will. 

But also, that fact by itself just isn’t reason enough for Hannibal to turn himself in. It’s the main reason, but it doesn’t actually fully explain his actions.

So let’s get on with the other factors.

2. Hannibal already tried fleeing, and realized it just wasn’t satisfying anymore.

After Mizumono, Hannibal noped the fuck out of Baltimore and fled to a new, delightful, classy life in Italy. It seemed like a perfect life for him – a ‘fairy tale,’ as he said in that one ironic transition. And at the beginning of the season, he said he’d found ‘a peace he would preserve’ there.

Then he almost immediately shattered that peace by leaving a trail of bodies that pretty much every other character on the show picked up on, deliberately drawing everyone from his old life directly to him.

Maybe, as dead!imaginary!Abigail suggested, he wanted to be found (at least by Will) the whole time, or maybe he came to that realization later on. But either way, by the end of his time in Florence, Hannibal’s top priority is definitely not ‘evading scrutiny,’ as it had been for most of his life up to that point.

There are a couple of reasons for that, I think. One of them is simply missing Will, but I think another one is this:

3. Hannibal has finally discovered the joy of being seen for who he is.

At the beginning of this story, no one alive knows what Hannibal is. A few people have had glimpses, like Bedelia, or some of his patients, but no more than glimpses. The only people who have ever really SEEN Hannibal are his victims, right before they die. And he thought he liked it that way.

But then Will got him ‘considering the possibility of friendship,’ because ‘it’s nice when someone sees us.’ It was so tantalizing, having Will stand right next to him and unwittingly tell him exactly who he was. That is the root of his obsession with Will – being known and understood – and it isn’t something he had every really thought of as desirable before Will came along and showed him.

That is why he was happy to blow his cover so spectacularly at the end of season 2, after carefully protecting himself for decades. Why he ‘took off his person suit’ and ‘let them see him.’ Why he took Bedelia along with him to Europe as his companion, even though he had never really done anything like that before.

For the first time ever, Hannibal is known – not just by Will, but by the FBI, by Bedelia, by Mason, by everybody – and he honestly really enjoys it. He likes it when people look at him and see, not a dapper psychiatrist, but a twisted, monstrous, diabolical murderer. He gets off on it. That’s why going back into deep cover now just isn’t appealing anymore.

Points 2 and 3 make it more understandable that he’d turn himself in at this point in time. But they’re not sufficient to fully explain it, either. To fully explain it, you have to go back and consider other aspects of his characterization up to this point.

4. Hannibal loves to play games with people.

Because he’s curious. Because it amuses him. Because he wants to see what will happen. He sets events in motion without totally knowing how they’ll play out, because he’s pretty sure that whatever happens, it will be interesting. This has been one of the primary aspects of his personality from the first episode on.

He’s seized on a new game now. He’s going to prison, all right, but he hasn’t submitted. It’s almost like he’s given himself a handicap, like he’s just so good at the game that he’s decided to throw in an element that makes it harder for him to win… but he still expects to win, in the end. That’s what he likes most about the game: winning it, despite incredible odds.

He will be playing games the whole time he’s in there – with Will, with Chilton, with Jack, with everyone – and despite any indignities he suffers, he is going to enjoy the gameplaying.

5. Hannibal can be incredibly patient when his plans require it.

This is the same guy who kept a woman imprisoned, drugged, and brainwashed for two solid years while planting false memories in her brain, just to set up a foolproof alibi in case the FBI ever began to suspect him. The same guy who continually maintained duplicate passports and secret bank accounts for himself, most likely for decades, just in case he ever needed them.

I don’t think Hannibal thinks for a second that he will be in prison until he dies, but he has shown that he is willing to play the long game. If a few years in the slammer will result in Hannibal getting what he wants, then he’s perfectly capable of waiting it out.

Plus, remember, he’s always been prepared for the possibility of being caught. He was building his memory palace partially as a place to live, which demonstrates both his forward thinking and the resources he has to draw on while he waits.

6. Hannibal manipulates people into ‘choosing’ to do things, rather than forcing them to do things.

‘What Hannibal does is not coercion. It is persuasion.’ That’s his whole deal, and that’s why any plan of Hannibal’s that involves being with Will requires Will to choose to be with Hannibal.

He left Will alive so that Will would have the option of choosing to go find Hannibal, and sure enough, he took that option. And then, once Will wised up a bit and declared that he would never try to find Hannibal again, Hannibal quickly figured out another angle with which to manipulate him.

‘Will thinks he can avoid thinking about me, if he doesn’t know where I am? Aha. That tells me precisely how I can make sure he thinks about me.’

7. Hannibal’s pettiness can soar to truly incredible heights when he’s pissed off.

Oh, yes, this was petty. I see people arguing about whether he did it out of love or pettiness, but I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive. After all, showering Will with Abigail’s blood was petty as fuck, but he did it because he loved Will and was angry with him. He’s angry now too – sad, but also angry.

Really, almost every murder Hannibal has committed has been petty revenge. That’s his MO: eat the rude. Kill the annoying. A doctor is bitchy to you and suggests you might be lying about your medical history? Cut his gas line, murder him, slice his body in half, and put it across the aisle from itself in a bus. Another killer takes credit for your crimes? Slowly force him to eat himself with you, so that he can really know what the Ripper is.

Petty. Pettiness raised to a diabolical art form.

8. Hannibal is incredibly theatrical.

I think this aspect of his personality gets glossed over sometimes, but Hannibal really loves making a big giant fucking spectacle. His murder tableaus, of course, are an example of this – remember the man laced into a tree and allowed to live for three days before being displayed upright in a parking lot crammed full of metaphorical flowers? Remember BEVERLY? And then there are his elaborate dinner parties (‘an entire performance!’), and really his whole personal presentation, from the suits to the interior decorating. This is not a guy who sees any value in restraint. Falling to his knees and making a grand, declarative statement in the drifting snow is 100% his style.

Whimsy, remember? ‘Whimsy. That is how he will be caught.’

In Conclusion

All those elements combine to make “Hannibal Lecter turns himself in to the FBI because he’s in love with Will Graham” a completely plausible plot development.

Which, when you step back and think about it, is a truly incredible accomplishment.

(via johnleavittlives)

I recently remarked that I like songs where you can’t quite tell if they’re more about sex or religion and then annoyingly couldn’t actually think of too many examples. (Frank Ocean, Bad Religion, Hozier, Take me to church, Tanita Tiakram, Twist in my Sobriety). Could someone help with more examples?

distance-not-speed:

just-shower-thoughts:

My body is like a temple. Well, more like a Catholic church. Full of wine and bread.

and guilt

(via meghantopus)

All my students on vacation, which means I’m essentially unemployed for the rest of July. Feeling like a kid on holiday myself (only with a sadly more accurate perception of how long they are actually going to last). How shall I ever live without getting the summmer off? How do other people do it?

Went to my college town for a couple of days, met old friends, went swimming, had my hair done (a bit shorter, blonder). To celebrate the fact that I’m back to a size you can find in regular retail (with some luck), bought a little black dress. (Now, for an occasion to wear it?). Back home, had the nicest evening with my cousins, sitting in their yard, doing our nails, drinking wine and reading the cards (not to divine the future - mustn’t take these things too seriously, after all - but to gain some clarity, perspective).

None of us is deeply into Tarot, so we mostly went by the manual. Still rather spooky how well we could make the cards fit. Of course the reason they fit is confirmation bias - but it’s useful to see where your biases are. The cards won’t tell you anything you don’t already know. But at least you get a clearer picture of what you already know. That’s not nothing. I had:

1) The present: Ace of Cups
2) The challenge: King of Swords.
3) Above: Moderation
4) Below: 5 of Swords reversed
5) The past: 4 of Wands
6) The future: Queen of Wands
7) Advice/Inner drive: Tower reversed
8) External influence: Emperor reversed
9) Hopes/fears: The sun
10) Outcome: The lovers

I had thought a bit about the question to ask - dismissing most questions that first came to mind, because I felt pretty clear about the answers already, and realized that it’s maybe not so much deeper insights I lack for the moment, but rather the drive to implement what I already know. So I asked what it would take for me to finally bridge the gap between knowledge and action, theory and practice. I don’t know that the spread gave me the answer, exactly, but it did make me feel like this was the right question to ask.

The ace of cups is about new beginnings, which are naturally on my mind right now. After my narrow escape from the ivory tower, some rising out of ashes would be a welcome development. The challenge is a King of Swords, and I didn’t even consider that it might be someone other than me. (Honestly, I’m so self-absorbed, I never assume the cards would tell me about anyone but myself). Of course the King of Swords could also be about some smartass guy I need to impress (to get a proper job for instance). But the greater problem might by that I’m doing such a subpar job of impressing myself at the moment. (I like to be the most opinionated smartass in my own life; impressing myself tends to be a greater challenge than impressing someone else). I’ve also been going on and on about work-life balance for a while, so “Moderation” as claimed objective, conscious opportunity certainly meets the mark.

A bit puzzled by the Five of Swords, though; by the fact that it’s reversed, to be precise. Because reversed cards in this position are supposed to indicate a lack of awareness of these deeper drives (which is a bit tautological; if you’d be aware, it wouldn’t be subconscious - I’m assuming it’s about degrees of awareness). It’s about defeat, retreat - of course, the shredded dissertation; various job applications that didn’t work out; disappointing feedback in my current employ. I’ve been whining a lot about that too, so I’m failing to see the subconscious part. Maybe I’m underestimating the extent to which those things have hit me? But I’m whining so much already! I’m choosing to read the reversal as an indication that those defeats have been Phyrric victories of my opponents. (You didn’t hire me? Your loss). Or maybe I’m subconsciously courting defeat, because I’m fearing Phyrric victories for myself? (Honestly, that last job I applied to - getting rejected because I didn’t get enough points on that fucking I.Q-test was a big hit to my ego; but getting accepted might have been a bit of Phyrric victory for me indeed). Most likely, I’m trying and failing to prove myself to the wrong people, on the wrong battlefields.

The Four of Wands represents my model student past, my well-sheltered childhood, success through hard work, material comfort, a danger of resting on my laurels, lots of things to be grateful about, lots of things to lose. Accordings to the manual we used, the card is also supposed to be about gender in some weird way - drawing strength from your gender identity, but also acknowledging the importance of being in touch with both your masculine and feminine side. Now, I’m all for balance, but I get a bit twitchy when people start coding the most random things as feminine and masculine in the first place, so I don’t quite know what to do with that. It lead to my cousin telling me that I was the first person to make her consider that “feminist” is not a dirty word, though, which made me very happy. In general, this card seems to signify that I’m feeling pretty okay about my past. I also like to think it means that I did not waste all these opportunities completely. Maybe I did manage to build some things after all. (A good relationship with my cousins, for instance).

Quite thrilled about the Queen of Wands in the immediate future. Expected some swords in my cards, but the wands are a pleasant suprise. I could use some fire. Success in business, a good harvest, fertility, good energy. A light-haired woman leading you to good things, helping you find love or employment. I’ve actually had two fairly  blondish friends/colleagues alerting me to job opportunities recently, so maybe one of those is going to work out? Regardless of hair colour and gender, I’ve got quite a few Queen-of-Wands type friends, who are being very helpful right now. I should probably listen to my friends.

I expected swords; I also expected the Tower. Not in this position though, which is supposed to be about advice and inner drive. Hybris leading to confusion, disaster. Of course, one always has to beware of that, but as far as advice goes, that’s stating the obvious. It’s quite possible that I’m more susceptible to hybris than most. It’s also easy to see how crippling self doubts are just the other side of delusions of grandeur and how these things tend to imprison me. A good match with the Five of Swords, vain efforts, conflict, disaster, obstacles that need to be adressed.

I’ve often related a bit too strongly to Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott, half-sick of shadows in her tower, feeling trapped, cursed to wither beyond its confines. Maybe I haven’t yet escaped from my tower as far as I hoped and still have some escaping to do? Maybe I shouldn’t be too proud and picky about certain job opportunities?  The priority right now is to get away from the tower. And don’t immediately look for a new one to get trapped in. It’s time for the open fields and roads.

Had told my cousins at the start that while Death and Devil can easily have promising interpretations in certain contexts, the Tower genuinely seems like one of the worst cards you could draw. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. But my cousin said that her name means tower, so it can’t be all bad. The manual too was very careful to provide positive spin for every card in the deck. The Tower might be about Babel, but there’s also the potential of Whitsun, strange tongues bringing enlightenement, not confusion.

I’ve always been fascinated by languages. And there’s a thing about vain efforts - they can still lead to interesting things. Is it really such a tragedy that we don’t all speak the same language any more? The destruction of the tower meant the creation of all these languages - wouldn’t we be poorer without them in some way? Isn’t there some beauty too in this diversity? Aren’t a whole bunch of rad new languages a way cooler result than some stupid pile of bricks anyway? Oh, it made everything harder, but also, somehow, more interesting? Do I really care that much about things running as smoothly as possible? Can’t there be something fruitful about misunderstandings? Sometimes people misunderstand you better than you understand yourself, and other people misunderstanding you is just the impulse you need to question your own understanding of things. Then again, I certainly have a bit of a weakness for admiring complexity for its own sake. It’s what drew me to the bloody tower in the first place. The card is about the pain of individualization, but also about creation through destruction. And it’s certainly a card that evokes strong feelings in me.

I have fewer clues about the emperor reversed.  A card about benevolent authorities. I’m trying to be a benevolent authority to my students, but I’m probably not quite there yet. My first idea was that I’m maybe not making the best show of managing myself right now. In reverse, the card can signal some immaturity. It’s also the card of mind over matter, systematical approaches, well-ordered affairs. I can pull that off on occasion, or at least have in the past, and would probably do well to rediscover that aspect of myself and highlight it more in my job search, and also in my approach to teaching. I want to come across as well-organized, and there’s definitely some room for improvement in that area right now.

Then again, this is a position where you shouldn’t necessarily read yourself into the card. It’s a bit difficult, because one of the main things about the emperor is apparently that he is a guy, and there isn’t any specific man in my life that I consider a particularly strong influence at the moment. It was super easy to find various candidates for the Queen of Wands, and I immediately projected myself into the King of Swords, but I have no clue at all about the Emperor. If it’s supposed to be some male mentor guiding me further along my path, I’m afraid I haven’t met him yet. (Did make me go through my list of male mentors in the past and consider whether I should reach out to one. Maybe the reversal just means that I’ve lost touch and should get back in contact). At any rate, my feelings towards this card are purely pragmatic.

Sun pretty clearly seems to point to hope rather than fears. In spite of my frequent lamentations, I haven’t had such a positive outlook on life in a while. It’s a card about the inner child, spiritual renewal, new-found simplicity, not out of mere naivity, but after experiencing and carefully weighing the alternatives. Fits pretty well with the ace of cups and Moderation/Temperance. There’s a certain harmony in the spread on the more conscious level, at least, which is nice for a change, because I used to be a lot more torn and tortured about things.

And the lovers. Not a surprise either. A card about overcoming ambivalence. Conflicting urges, finally unified. A happy marriage of differences. I’m thinking about my two disciplines. I should probably hold out for a job, some probject where I really need both. I keep trying to focus on one, neglecting the other, and it just never works in the long run.

It’s also the card of Adam and Eve and the story of the fall, which is one of my favourite stories. The promise and pains of knowledge and choice. A fall from grace, reaching too far, things getting more difficult, but also more interesting. Like the Tower, the card makes me feel strongly, for similar reasons. And since I’m not quite there yet, these feelings are ambivalent. My first impulse was to feel daunted. I didn’t entirely welcome the card. I might have hoped for something a bit easier.

espikvlt:

No, but honestly, as an English major, there is nothing more hilarious than white/straight people who use the dictionary as their only defense.

You know what all my English professors have taught me? How useless the dictionary is, and how it could never reflect the intricacies of the relationship between language and culture.

The dictionary won’t save you. Sorry.

(via mresundance)