I have pulled a muscle in my back after carrying my dog several blocks this weekend because walking was hurting her. She’s only 30 pounds but I was carrying her in front of me like a sack of potatoes. And now my back hurts a lot and I’m covered in lidocaine patches, swimming in ibuprofen.

What else has been going on? Tarot, mostly. Extra in love with my husband. Tom Hardy fandom. Reading and writing take up most of my brain space. I’ve been in my robe a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Drinking less, staying off of Facebook as much as possible. Feeling it. Feeling myself. Things are good.

You know, I thought I was already not capable of giving fewer fucks, but I’ve discovered that you can give even fewer fucks than zero. Than “none fucks.“ I’m now at a fucks deficit. I’ve become a vortex of fucks-given. A black hole of fucks, capable of stripping your fucks from your very soul and shredding them in my orbit. Don’t get near me if you value your fucks. I will eat them like air.

Fascinating take on cartomancy and its place in a revolution. I’m still deeply entranced by tarot, so I’m not ready in the slightest to abandon it, but this was really interesting, nonetheless.

(Can the tarot survive the revolution?)

By Virgie Tovar, genius person. Every part of this was perfect and important, and I think it’s crucial that you, possessor of a body, read it right away.

Hi everybody. Happy New Year. This is what I’m thinking about right now. I had an all right 2017, all told. The best and most important thing I learned this year was how to take better care of myself, holistically. For me, that means no coffee, good sleep hygiene, improved self-care, limiting my exposure to social media, and forgiving myself in a deep and meaningful way. I engaged with new ways of studying like I haven’t before, I tried new things, I loved really hard and I reconnected with people and feelings that I’d deprioritized.

I hope 2018 is good for you.

Happy Yule and Solstice and whatnot. “Welcome back, sun,” son! I read this great article about how skincare became a signifier of self-care in 2017 and it made me think about how much witchery has become one of my best forms of self-care. Looking after my altar, studying, self-inquiry, divination, connecting with people, etc. Plus, I smell fucking fantastic these days. And my skin looks great. PHOTOS: Altar for Solstice; Elly, this morning, with a beaver-felled tree in the woods; my feeties on a not freezing day, trying to connect with nature; a little bullshit thing I whipped up after studying Saturn Return and realizing that my own (in 2002!!!) was basically wall to wall fucking. I mean “expressing my sexuality.”

Forgiven! Forgiven! Forgiven!

Here’s to 9 years of limping along on Tumblr

I started my first Tumblr (unsustainable.tumblr.com) on November 23, 2008. Obama had recently been elected and I had lived in NYC for about four months. My divorce wasn’t finalized yet, but I was poring over OKC profiles, looking for someone who existed only in my imagination. I was deeply confused and the economy was tanking. All my local publishing friends who had work to give me were losing their jobs and I was scrambling to find any kind of editorial work I could.

My old friend (also my roommate in Portland) had moved to New York several years before me, and she was all about Tumblr. She and I had mostly abandoned LiveJournal by that point, me even more than her. In fact, she unfriended me on LJ about six months after I’d moved to NY and I couldn’t read her posts anymore. Her Tumblr was all style and no substance, just like her LiveJournal, so I wasn’t that hurt to be cut. But I was confused—we finally lived in the same city and hung out fairly regularly (or so I thought). When I asked her why she’d unfollowed me, she said that she didn’t want to be friends online with someone who wasn’t a daily presence in her offline life. I was hurt and angry, and stayed that way for a long time. We are more or less (mostly less) friends again after, what, 7 years or so of not being friends at all, but that LJ fight was pretty much the end of us.

Tumblr gave me a like-minded community almost immediately, which I desperately needed. I needed a space where I wasn’t being judged as harshly as I was in the world of online dating or interviewing for jobs. I met tons of people because of it and it was as if they already knew me. I made fast friends, deep friends, I fell in love with someone’s writing at least once, I pined after people near and far, I got in internet fights, I vagueblogged, I ranted, I rage-deleted rants, I found new people to care about, I laughed my ass off, and I unfollowed whoever and whenever. 

I could name names but most of my Tumblr people have wandered off to different spaces, just like I have. But back then, it seemed like everybody and their ex had a Tumblr! The overlap in contacts was huge. I even went to Tumblr meetups a couple of times and they were more fun than they sound. No one was more surprised than me! A couple years into it, I got a stalker. I think I inherited it from another friend who had more to lose than I did, so she bailed offline completely. It was awful for about a year. Every time I’d complain to the authorities, the stalker would start a new Tumblr, reblogging my personal photos and talking so much smack. They would write to anyone who'd liked my posts to tell them what a spouse-stealing slut I was. Then that friend would write me and say, “Did you know someone hates you!? What should I do? Should I respond?” It was terrible and I got so self-conscious. I refuse to engage with trolls, though, so I ignored them studiously and took anything personal off the internet.

Eventually, I broke down, deleted Unsustainable, and changed my Tumblr name to this one. (Semper Idem means “forever item” or, roughly, “same thing.”) A lot of shit has changed in the last NINE YEARS, so it’s nice to come here and find that Tumblr is more or less the same. Always changing but always the same. Semper idem.

This is adorable. I’ve been going insane with my beauty regimen (note: use “regimen” not “regime”), thanks to @solipsiae and crew pointing me in the direction of The Ordinary. I’ve also just been given a 0.05% tretinoin prescription from my dermatologist (kind of an afterthought after he cut a naughty freckle off my chest) for some shadowy melasma issues. And now I’m like, ugh, how do I integrate this legit skin-correcting substance thant can actually burn the skin right off my face into my mostly bullshit skincare routine?!

Super petty pet peeve

It’s “whoa,” not “woah.”