May 12, 2013
"here is my string of doubt
pull it and you will unravel me
completely
a sighing mess of almost kisses
at the gates of your mouth
demanding to be let in and fed
by the blue fire of your tongue
some nights, I stack
my grief inside of itself like a
Matryoshka doll
other nights I smother it
with my pillow and
and wring the salty tears out
in the wash
where do we put all of it?
where does it go when we silence it?
when we are born, our
souls are attached to a needle
the years of growing are spent
in the hands of a patient knitter
and because no one is perfect
there are always holes
here is my string of doubt
an extra thread laying on top
of another
pull it and I will be nothing
but potential warmth
a sweater with a hole where
the heart should be
there are nights that
bleed into morning before
I can grab a bandage and stop
the wound
the pricked fingers of the knitter
in my sky
and I cannot fall asleep until
they have scabbed over
here is my string of doubt
the one that dangles like the
rope of a church bell
when you tell me you aren’t
going anywhere
the one that you want to ring
just before mass
pull it
and watch me fall to pieces
slowly and sweetly
and all at once
just for you"

— a patient knitter and their masterpiece (via alonesomes)

8:46pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7pQsuktCV5S
(Notes: 80)
  
May 2, 2013
I want to wear my hair like this everyday.

I want to wear my hair like this everyday.

(Source: profilemodelslondon.blogspot.com, via powderdoom)

3:57pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7pQsuk4Xby_
(Notes: 6,380)
  
April 30, 2013
notcuddles: collective-history: Mary Smith earned sixpence a week shooting dried peas at sleeping workers windows. A Knocker-up (sometimes known as a knocker-upper) was a profession in England and Ireland that started during and lasted well into the Industrial Revolution and at least as late as the 1920s, before alarm clocks were affordable or reliable. A knocker-up’s job was to rouse sleeping people so they could get to work on time. The knocker-up used a truncheon or short, heavy stick to knock on the clients’ doors or a long and light stick, often made of bamboo, to reach windows on higher floors. Some of them used pea-shooters. In return, the knocker-up would be paid a few pence a week. The knocker-up would not leave a client’s window until sure that the client had been awoken. There were large numbers of people carrying out the job, especially in larger industrial towns such as Manchester. Generally the job was carried out by elderly men and women but sometimes police constables supplemented their pay by performing the task during early morning patrols. Photograph from Philip Davies’ Lost London: 1870 - 1945. I am delighted by this. Sometimes I feel like I’d love to have a knocker-up…. though that sounds entirely dirty these days.  

notcuddles:

collective-history:

Mary Smith earned sixpence a week shooting dried peas at sleeping workers windows.

A Knocker-up (sometimes known as a knocker-upper) was a profession in England and Ireland that started during and lasted well into the Industrial Revolution and at least as late as the 1920s, before alarm clocks were affordable or reliable. A knocker-up’s job was to rouse sleeping people so they could get to work on time.

The knocker-up used a truncheon or short, heavy stick to knock on the clients’ doors or a long and light stick, often made of bamboo, to reach windows on higher floors. Some of them used pea-shooters. In return, the knocker-up would be paid a few pence a week. The knocker-up would not leave a client’s window until sure that the client had been awoken.

There were large numbers of people carrying out the job, especially in larger industrial towns such as Manchester. Generally the job was carried out by elderly men and women but sometimes police constables supplemented their pay by performing the task during early morning patrols.

Photograph from Philip Davies’ Lost London: 1870 - 1945.

I am delighted by this.

Sometimes I feel like I’d love to have a knocker-up…. though that sounds entirely dirty these days.  

(Source: collectivehistory, via wheelinmyhandfourontheroad)

2:53pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7pQsujwrRb5
(Notes: 10,075)
  
Filed under: obselete jobs super cool 
April 5, 2013
"Fashion is one of the very few forms of expression in which women have more freedom than men. And I don’t think it’s an accident that it’s typically seen as shallow, trivial, and vain. It is the height of irony that women are valued for our looks, encouraged to make ourselves beautiful and ornamental… and are then derided as shallow and vain for doing so. And it’s a subtle but definite form of sexism to take one of the few forms of expression where women have more freedom, and treat it as a form of expression that’s inherently superficial and trivial. Like it or not, fashion and style are primarily a women’s art form. And I think it gets treated as trivial because women get treated as trivial."

—

Fashion is a Feminist Issue: Greta Christina (via wildthicket)

Substitute “woman” for “feminine/female-perceived person”

(via hotdamnfemme)

(via hotdamnfemme)

10:53am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7pQsuhzb0U6
(Notes: 28,906)
  
March 30, 2013

Anonymous asked: Hi, I'm just an anonymous admirer and fellow queer mad hatter -- out of curiosity, when did you know you wanted to be a milliner? On a semi-related (and maybe too personal?) note, have you always identified as queer? Keep on being lovely :)

Hey there fellow queer hatter! 

Thanks for your question!

I stumbled across millinery a few years ago while procrastinating on my PHD applications.  I took a week long course with Rose Cory(the queen mother’s milliner for 30 yrs!), just for fun, and ended up completely loving it.  I never finished my PHD applications and instead ended up spending the next three years training as a milliner. I studied in London under Rose for a year and then I spent two years doing the HNC and HND programs at Kensington and Chelsea College.

As for the queerness -  I haven’t always externally identified as queer.  I have pinballed between straight, lesbian, confused, bi….  All over the place really.  I hadn’t really known how to label myself because I didn’t feel like any of the normative lgb worked for me. I feel the most comfortable with queer because it is not gender binary.  A lot of the people I have loved/love are on the trans* spectrum and other labels just don’t properly express my sexuality.  Queer is inclusive, and that’s why I strive for.  One of the first posts on my tumblr expresses queerness in the way I see and identify with it.  

You keep on being lovely!

xoxo

h

8:48pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7pQsuhXLtYk
(Notes: 15)
  
March 30, 2013

anarcho-queer:

The Ali Forney Center is the largest nationwide organization dedicated to LGBTQ homeless youth. 

There are currently 39 items on their Amazon wish list, most being undergarments like tank tops, plain tees, undies and chest binders for the youth they shelter. A majority of the items are less than $20 and the most expensive item is only $35. 

Let’s try to help them by Tumblr bombing the shit out the Ali Forney Center with direct donations and purchasing everything on their wish list! 

40% of homeless youth in America are LGBTQ, so if you support the queer struggle, reblog this, purchase something from their wish list and get involved!

(via wheelinmyhandfourontheroad)

8:37pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7pQsuhXISTF
(Notes: 4,069)
  
March 30, 2013
"Seeking “family recognition” rights through marriage, therefore, means seeking such rights only for queer and trans people who can actually expect to be protected by that institution. Since the availability of marriage does not protect straight people of color, poor people, prisoners, or people with disabilities from having their families torn apart by child welfare systems, it is unlikely to do so for queer poor people, queer people of color, queer prisoners, and queer people with disabilities. The quest for marriage seems to have far fewer benefits, then, for queers whose families are targets of state violence and who have no spousal access to health care or immigration status, and seems to primarily benefit those whose race, class, immigration, and ability privilege would allow them to increase their wellbeing by incorporation into the government’s privileged relationship status. The framing of marriage as the most essential legal need of queer people, and as the method through which queer people can obtain key benefits in many realms, ignores how race, class, ability, indigeneity, and immigration status determine access to those benefits and reduces the gay rights agenda to a project of restoring race, class, ability, and immigration status privilege to the most privileged gays and lesbians."

—

Dean Spade, Normal Life - Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of the Law (via thirdsexblog)

I’m reading this book know and it’s AMAZING. Everyone should read it. Right now.

(via felixbear)

(via militantbarbie)

1:59am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7pQsuhT7LD_
(Notes: 130)
  
March 24, 2013
confusedtree: alloutorg: Tumblr, we need you! A rogue Arizona State representative, John Kavanagh, wants to pass a bill that would thow trans people in jail for using public restrooms. Anyone could be asked for I.D. to “prove” their gender, and if there’s a discrepancy they could face a fine or jailtime. When asked why the bill targeted trans people, Kavanagh explained that it’s because he thinks “they’re weird.” Outrageous. We can stop this bill by taking action at www.allout.org/arizona and spreading the word far and wide. Will you help? That quote sounds like something out of an onion article oh my god I can’t believe people are this awful You should help and spread the word too This is everything that makes my heart hurt and my stomach drop.

confusedtree:

alloutorg:

Tumblr, we need you! A rogue Arizona State representative, John Kavanagh, wants to pass a bill that would thow trans people in jail for using public restrooms. Anyone could be asked for I.D. to “prove” their gender, and if there’s a discrepancy they could face a fine or jailtime.

When asked why the bill targeted trans people, Kavanagh explained that it’s because he thinks “they’re weird.” Outrageous.

We can stop this bill by taking action at www.allout.org/arizona and spreading the word far and wide. Will you help?

That quote sounds like something out of an onion article oh my god I can’t believe people are this awful

You should help and spread the word too

This is everything that makes my heart hurt and my stomach drop.

(via militantbarbie)

4:17pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7pQsuh1xPhx
(Notes: 52,630)
  
March 22, 2013
gwendabond: explore-blog: Beautiful patent drawing for R. J. Spalding’s Flying Machine, 1889. Complement with the illustrated history of human flight. This would be handy. I totally want one of these. Who needs teleportation when this is an option?

gwendabond:

explore-blog:

Beautiful patent drawing for R. J. Spalding’s Flying Machine, 1889. Complement with the illustrated history of human flight.

This would be handy.

I totally want one of these. Who needs teleportation when this is an option?

5:42am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7pQsugr33Fy
(Notes: 2,742)
  
March 19, 2013
viraldick: perfect

viraldick:

perfect

(via alonesomes)

7:20pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7pQsuggFP_F
(Notes: 298,247)
  
February 1, 2013
queermuseum: RATED X There aren’t many true glimpses at pre-Stonewall gay culture but The Queen, Frank Simon’s 1968 documentary about a national drag contest would be exceptional even if they were limitless. Drag queens from across the country — diva and bumpkin alike — descend on New York’s Town Hall for Miss All-America Camp Beauty Pagent 1967. There are star turns, of course — Jack Doctorow, known better lately as Mother Flawless Sabrina, is the unflappable 24-year old mistress of ceremonies, and Crystal LaBeija (below) who gives voice to tensions — of race, of class, of geography, of beauty, of toughness — that  still rend gay culture.  While we take our drag today with a shot of Absolut, and a bachelorette boa, in 1967 cross-dressing was illegal in most U.S. cities. Thus, “The Queen” was rated X. — Mike

queermuseum:

RATED X

There aren’t many true glimpses at pre-Stonewall gay culture but The Queen, Frank Simon’s 1968 documentary about a national drag contest would be exceptional even if they were limitless.

Drag queens from across the country — diva and bumpkin alike — descend on New York’s Town Hall for Miss All-America Camp Beauty Pagent 1967. There are star turns, of course — Jack Doctorow, known better lately as Mother Flawless Sabrina, is the unflappable 24-year old mistress of ceremonies, and Crystal LaBeija (below) who gives voice to tensions — of race, of class, of geography, of beauty, of toughness — that  still rend gay culture. 

While we take our drag today with a shot of Absolut, and a bachelorette boa, in 1967 cross-dressing was illegal in most U.S. cities. Thus, “The Queen” was rated X.

— Mike

12:30am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7pQsud86ZfX
(Notes: 270)
  
January 14, 2013
theniftyfifties: Illustration for Playboy magazine by Ben Dennison, 1954.

theniftyfifties:

Illustration for Playboy magazine by Ben Dennison, 1954.

(Source: hoodoothatvoodoo)

11:03pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7pQsubpF53c
(Notes: 1,175)
  
January 11, 2013
neil-gaiman: Cabal. My dog. Oct 2003-Jan 2013. Best dog ever. Nothing else to say.View more Neil Gaiman on WhoSay My dad’s dog Cabal. The best dog ever. I didn’t like dogs until Cabal. He came in with his old man ways and devotion and swept me off my feet. Rest in peace.

neil-gaiman:

Cabal. My dog. Oct 2003-Jan 2013. Best dog ever. Nothing else to say.

View more Neil Gaiman on WhoSay

My dad’s dog Cabal. The best dog ever. I didn’t like dogs until Cabal. He came in with his old man ways and devotion and swept me off my feet. Rest in peace.

7:54pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7pQsubYb2cS
(Notes: 2,884)
  
December 31, 2012

(via dayglobetty)

9:26am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7pQsuadOz_U
(Notes: 15,501)
  
December 30, 2012

(Source: cabezadepescado, via dayglobetty)

8:33am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7pQsuaXq3-p
(Notes: 50,513)
  
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