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@simonchase

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simonchase
mythicalwashrag

after a suicide attempt in 2016

“When Daddy comes in, he carries you to bed. Is there anything you feel like you could eat, Pokey? Anything at all? All you can imagine putting in your mouth is a cold plum, one with really tight skin on the outside but gum-shocking sweetness inside. And he and your mother discuss where he might find some this late in the season. Mother says hell I don’t know. Further north, I’d guess. The next morning, you wake up in your bed and sit up. Mother says, Pete, I think she’s up. He hollers in, You ready for breakfast, Pokey. Then he comes in grinning, still in his work clothes from the night before. He’s holding a farm bushel. The plums he empties onto the bed river toward you through folds in the quilt. If you stacked them up, they’d fill the deepest bin at the Piggly Wiggly. Damned if I didn’t get the urge to drive to Arkansas last night, he says. Your mother stands behind him saying he’s pure USDA crazy. Fort Smith, Arkansas. Found a roadside stand out there with a feller selling plums. And I says, Buddy, I got a little girl sick back in Texas. She’s got a hanker for plums and ain’t nothing else gonna do. It’s when you sink your teeth into the plum that you make a promise. The skin is still warm from riding in the sun in Daddy’s truck, and the nectar runs down your chin. And you snap out of it. Or are snapped out of it. Never again will you lay a hand against yourself, not so long as there are plums to eat and somebody-anybody-who gives enough of a damn to haul them to you. So long as you bear the least nibblet of love for any other creature in this dark world, though in love portions are never stingy. There are no smidgens or pinches, only rolling abundance. That’s how you acquire the resolution for survival that the coming years are about to demand. You don’t earn it. It’s given.”

excerpt from Cherry by Mary Karr, context being after a suicide attempt at age 13

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elfwreck

Some context: Texas and Arkansas share a corner border. Now, Texas is FECKING HUGE and there are many, many parts of Texas that cannot visit Arkansas overnight, but there are parts where it’s no trouble at all.

However, those places of Texas that are close to Arkansas, do not include “close to Fort Smith, Arkansas.”

The closest Texas gets to Fort Smith is about 185 miles (about 300km), at “a little closer than Texarkana.” (Dallas, fwiw, is about 275 miles/450km from Fort Smith.)

So the dad in this story drove at least SEVEN HOURS round trip, to pick up a bushel of plums for his little girl, in the hope that some almost-out-of-season fruit would convince her to go on living.

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v-lagopus

Okay.

It’s bigger than this.

According to Wikipedia, the poet Mary Karr was born in 1955 and grew up in Groves, Texas and “lived there until she moved to Los Angeles in 1972.” So she would have been there when she was 13 and attempted suicide.

According to Google Maps, the shortest driving distance between Groves, TX and Fort Smith, AR is 439 miles (or 706 km for metric using folks).

That’s almost 8 hours of driving.

Almost 16 hours roundtrip.

(I assume he broke every speed limit he could.)

That’s how much this man loved his daughter.

May we all be worthy of such love.

May we all be capable of giving such love.

May we all have people in our lives with which we can share this love.

simonchase
vanquishedvaliant

you're laughing. charles dickens had a son named plorn and you're laughing

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corvidayyy

HE HAD A SON NAMED

WHAT

Plorn
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corvidayyy

NICK I LOOKED IT UP AND SAW NOTHING OF THE SORT IS THIS A PRANK

technically his name was edward but everyone called him plorn

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corvidayyy

Edward “Plorn” Dickens. my god.

I have something worse

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corvidayyy

oh???

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corvidayyy

imagine getting stuck with the nickname Plorn

imagine getting sent to live in the Australian outback when you were sixteen

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corvidayyy

WHY WERE THEY SO CRUEL TO MY BOY PLORN

I have an answer to that one too

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cogentranting

The face of a man whose father nicknamed him Plorn.

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elodieunderglass

Born without a groove 😔

simonchase
vanquishedvaliant
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toxicsapolo

'you have x many followers' those r cadavers girl. corpses. abandoned vessels of blogs who once were. its the apocalypse in there. its me and my 5 mutuals against the world.

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sea-salted-wolverine

Goin' thru the follower list like, porn bot, porn bot,(block, report as spam) new Twitter refugee that doesn't know how to not look like a pornbot, inactive mutual from 6 years ago who hasn't updated since 2018, porn bot, (block, report as spam, again) lurker who has never said anything, inactive blog, beloved active mutual who filled your dash with their current hyperfixation that you've never heard of for three days straight, inactive blog, violent TERF you don't know how you attracted and want gone, (block, no option to report hatespeech) teenybopper terf who only knows how to copy the violent terf, porn bot, (block and report again), inactive blog.

I'm inclined to believe a large part of why the internet at large thinks Tumblr is dead, is because this site carries around so much dead weight in inactive and deleted blogs. It's by far the greatest strength of this place, Because the absurdity of being able to reblog a supernatural joke from 10 years ago when the OP has long since moved on along with the rest of the world and the show has been over for years is unmatched anywhere else on the internet. Tumblr is down in the catacombs staging musical theater with all the skeletons and its awesome and everyone else wants what we've got but they're scared of the bones.

simonchase
teaboot
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whitepeopletwitter
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lastoneout
Op is denying us the fucking golden replies to this tweet omg

When i had breast reduction surgery, i got into the OR and got put on this table that looked like a flat crucifix (arms out so they could get to the girls), and i said ‘god, don’t nail me down’

they put the mask on my face and the nurse said ‘no jesus treatment today’

and the last thing i said to her was ‘jesus with some big ass titties’ and then passed out. 

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thefreewillagency
Image

Post complete. We can all go home now

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electricpentacle

When I was in for mouth surgery, I mentioned to the anaesthetist that I’d trained as a medical statistician. Turned out he’d been doing a stats course too, and rather than counting down from ten, I was slagging off the Matlab Statistics Toolbox until the anaesthesia kicked in mid-rant.

The next thing I was aware of was attempting to say “and I hate how it handles arrays” through a mouthful of cotton wool in the recovery ward.

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teaboot

when I woke up from my surgery I sat up and said “am I allowed to go now?” And the lady in the room was like “? Yes?? But you probably shouldn’t get up” and I was like “Nah I’m fine. Where’s your washroom?”

She directed me to the bathroom, where, because I was a bit dizzy and embarassed about it, I walked in a few circles till I got my bearings, then went to the waiting area to sit and read and wait for my ride home.

There, a guy about my age was crying deliriously and flopping over on a lady, which I didn’t think much of at the time.

I found out later that we’d both had the same surgery, and that he was showing the “normal, expected” comedown for the anesthesia.

Less embarassed about being dizzy, now.

Then my brother had to be sedated for a procedure, and instead of getting sleepy, instead became violently pissed and tried to fight the doctor, which ended up with the procedure being canceled.

So. Apparently it’s a family thing

simonchase
hawberries
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hawberries

www.hawberries.com

Hello! I've finally recovered from the con gauntlet and am here to offer a bunch of new prints, stickers, and charms!

Please get in touch if you have any questions at all. As always, thank you for your continued support! 💛

simonchase
carnival-phantasm
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tooies

"humans are naturally selfish and evil" factoid actually just statistical error. former united states president ronald w. reagan,