Please read this heart wrenching but cup filling novel. It truly made my friendships and our bonds feel represented in a way that is rarely depicted. Queer, Latinx, antifascist, pro-nonmonogamy, pro-sex work...
How will you be held as the most secure foundations of your life shift? What ways can you build a family and act on your dreams? So many beautiful questions asked and answered.
Feb 11, 2025
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Even though it’s written for those seeking advice/help in polyamorous relationships, it’s an incredibly insightful read that is immensely helpful to monogamous folks as well. If you’re struggling with the fears of your Partner leaving you, or if you have trouble with healthy communication, setting boundaries, or conveying your needs and wants, this book is for you!
Feb 6, 2024
read this for book club & i cannot stress enough how important this book is, especially to people who don’t necessarily understand the dynamics of an abusive relationship.
machado enters the archive to document her experience of abuse in a queer relationship. in this genre-defying book, we are quite literally placed in her shoes as she recounts in detail the emotional/psychological abuse she received from “the girl in the dream house” & we witness the damage it does to her.
i genuinely believe that everyone should read this book because getting out of an abusive relationship is more layered & complicated than people think
Jun 30, 2024
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I've been reading Simone Weil and I'm glad I found this book when I did. I really needed it. I've been feeling weighed down by the state of the world and family tragedies and dramas. But this book has helped to put some things back into perspective.
Here are some choice excerpts:
- "The tendency to spread evil beyond oneself: I still have it! Beings and things are not sacred enough to me. May I never sully anything even though I be utterly transformed into mud. To sully nothing, even in thought. Even in my worst moments I would not destroy a Greek statue or a fresco by Giotto. Why anything else then? Why, for example, a moment in the life of a human being who could have been happy for that moment?"
- "A king can pay out only imaginary rewards most of the time, or he would be insolvent. It is the same with religion at a certain level. Instead of receiving the smile of Louis XIV, we invent a god who smiles on us."
- "The future is a filler of void places. Sometimes the past also plays this part ('I used to be,' 'I once did this or that...'). But there are other cases when affliction makes the thought of happiness intolerable; then in robs the sufferer of his past.... The past and the future hinder the wholesome effect of affliction by providing an unlimited field for imaginary elevation. That is why the renunciation of the past and future is the first of all renunciations."
-"A person who is passionately fond of music may quite well be a perverted person–but I should find it hard to believe this of anyone who thirsted for Gregorian chanting."
- "It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves. It is to seek pleasures in friendships, and pleasures which are not deserved. It is something which corrupts even more than love. You would sell your soul for friendship. // Learn to thrust friendship aside, or rather the dream of friendship. To desire friendship is a great fault. Friendship should be a gratuitous joy like those afforded by art or life. We must refuse it so that we may be worthy to receive it."
-"Suffering is nothing, apart from the relationship between the past and the future, but what is more real for man than this relationship? It is reality itself. // The future. We go on thinking it will come until the moment when we think it will never come."
-"Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer."
-"To love our neighbor as ourselves does not mean that we should love all people equally, for I do not have an equal love for all modes of existence of myself. Nor does it mean that we should never make them suffer, for I do not refuse to make myself suffer. But we should have with each person the relationship of one conception of the universe to another conception of the universe, and not to a part of the universe."
-"Power (and money, power's master key) is a means at its purest. For that very reason it is the supreme end for all those who have not understood."
Apr 19, 2025
Top Recs from @giordanoce
The crunch of snow below my feet and the wonder of tiny tracks dotting the surface? Magical. I do not love the cold but getting to the top of a mountain in winter makes enduring the temperature so worth it.
Jan 26, 2025
Echoing the value of rest💗 consider the 7 types of rest and see what areas might feel nice for you to incorporate into your day/week rn.
There are some great tools out there (esp. if therapy or doctors visits are inaccessible or just not the right path for you) to support mental health or creative practices. Some free/web available resources I trust are The Artists Way by Julia Cameron (caveat that this has some chat about spirituality, and for some folks that may not be a great fit, but super useful otherwise), Thinking Traps Tutorial by Dr. Raquel Martin or any of her free resources really, and symptom journaling generally. Would be glad to share both wider or more specific reccs if desired.
And just know it takes time but it's not forever that you'll feel dispassionate. Sending lots of gentleness and warmth to you.
Jan 23, 2025
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Love this app, it's wonderful, thanks for your work! Some color themes make it difficult to see whether you've liked/starred something or not (like the star looks yellow before you've clicked it and when you do, it's tough to know if it's been properly selected). It would be awesome to tweak the color pallette of the pre-like/star state on those themes.
Jan 27, 2025