dustbowldance:

atomos:

I think it’s rather stupid when people tell me to stop something just because I will die earlier of it. For example smoking, people always say don’t smoke because you will die like 5 years earlier then normal people. But that so stupid and wrong because the death isn’t a fixed point. You can’t say someone who smokes or drinks alcohol dies earlier then someone who drives like crazy or someone who gets hit by a bus. This theory just doesn’t work. So people should calm about the death and live every day of their life. 

Actuallllllly no-one thinks you should quit smoking because you’re going to die younger. If anything, people are arguably kept alive much longer than they should be these days with all the medical technology we have.

You should quit smoking because:

1. You will get erectile dysfunction if you’re a male. (The link between smoking and erectile dysfunction is strongest in younger men, and the more they smoke the more likely their equipment will let them down. SOURCE)
   
2. You will have bad skin and gross teeth.
3. You smell bad all of the time.
4. You’re wasting your money on smokes when you could be spending them on clothes and shoes and handbags.
5. You’re more likely to get blood clots if you’re a girl and on the pill.
6. You will mostly likely have a heart attack (or multiple heart attacks) in your 40s and then need to be on 20 tablets for the rest of your life and possibly require bypass surgery with nice big scars down your arms and chest.
7. You won’t be able to keep up with your mates in sports etc.

I don’t understand why anyone would start, these days. I never have. There are so many better ways to waste your health and money.

I tried to kiss a smoker for a week and it was just the worst.

For months, every morning when my daughter was in preschool, I watched her construct an elaborate castle out of blocks, colorful plastic discs, bits of rope, ribbons and feathers, only to have the same little boy gleefully destroy it within seconds of its completion.

No matter how many times he did it, his parents never swooped in BEFORE the morning’s live 3-D reenactment of “Invasion of AstroMonster.” This is what they’d say repeatedly:

“You know! Boys will be boys!” 

“He’s just going through a phase!”

“He’s such a boy! He LOVES destroying things!”

“Oh my god! Girls and boys are SO different!”

“He. Just. Can’t. Help himself!”

I tried to teach my daughter how to stop this from happening. She asked him politely not to do it. We talked about some things she might do. She moved where she built. She stood in his way. She built a stronger foundation to the castle, so that, if he did get to it, she wouldn’t have to rebuild the whole thing. In the meantime, I imagine his parents thinking, “What red-blooded boy wouldn’t knock it down?”

She built a beautiful, glittery castle in a public space.

It was so tempting.

He just couldn’t control himself and, being a boy, had violent inclinations.

She had to keep her building safe.

Her consent didn’t matter. Besides, it’s not like she made a big fuss when he knocked it down. It wasn’t a “legitimate” knocking over if she didn’t throw a tantrum.

His desire — for power, destruction, control, whatever- - was understandable.

Maybe she “shouldn’t have gone to preschool” at all. OR, better if she just kept her building activities to home.

I know it’s a lurid metaphor, but I taught my daughter the preschool block precursor of don’t “get raped” and this child, Boy #1, did not learn the preschool equivalent of “don’t rape.”

Not once did his parents talk to him about invading another person’s space and claiming for his own purposes something that was not his to claim. Respect for her and her work and words was not something he was learning.  How much of the boy’s behavior in coming years would be excused in these ways, be calibrated to meet these expectations and enforce the “rules” his parents kept repeating?

There was another boy who, similarly, decided to knock down her castle one day. When he did it his mother took him in hand, explained to him that it was not his to destroy, asked him how he thought my daughter felt after working so hard on her building and walked over with him so he could apologize. That probably wasn’t much fun for him, but he did not do it again.

There was a third child. He was really smart. He asked if he could knock her building down. She, beneficent ruler of all pre-circle-time castle construction, said yes… but only after she was done building it and said it was OK. They worked out a plan together and eventually he started building things with her and they would both knock the thing down with unadulterated joy. You can’t make this stuff up.

Take each of these three boys and consider what he might do when he’s older, say, at college, drunk at a party, mad at an ex-girlfriend who rebuffs him and uses words that she expects will be meaningful and respected, “No, I don’t want to. Stop. Leave.”

The “overarching attitudinal characteristic” of abusive men is entitlement.

(Source: lastlifeinuniverse, via idiot-legs)

Surprise!

Most of us thought that when the filter legislation was dropped, the issue was over. However, on the day it was dropped, Senator Conroy announced that the government could achieve almost the same outcomes offered by the mandatory filter through existing legislation.

This creeping evolution of internet censorship has slipped under the radar of many Australians, who might be surprised to know the extent of the government’s powers.

Kim is amazing because I can ask her to play basically any song on the piano that she’s heard before and she just does it.

I can even have her listen briefly to a song she’s not familiar with and she bangs out a pretty good rendition.

She’s currently distracted from her Beethoven by playing ‘Daylight’ by Matt and Kim and ‘Sharp Shooter’ by Hungry Kids of Hungary for me.

Forget the rom-com clichés — falling in love can be totally terrifying for someone with depression.

(Source: kimtheshizz)

Anonymous asked: You're proud of your face, huh?

It’s a pretty good face.

Ok. That was not so scary.

For my ~individual street shot~ they had me standing at a tram stop, in front of the courts.

I could not be more comfortable with this.

I just keep thinking about when I was in China and Japan and Chinese tourists would ask to take photos with me and then pull faces when they saw the result.