How to Remember Everything You Read substack.com/@culturist/n...

back to posting regularly in hopes of building my readership so that i can eventually make money with my art like i used to #readersofbluesky open.substack.com/pub/thotscho...

Tonight is the #MetGala, celebrating the upcoming opening of the new exhibition "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style," which was inspired by Monica L. Miller's 2009 book "Slaves to Fashion." buff.ly/BTlV1TY

i normally don't comment on celebrity bs, but Rihanna is on her THIRD baby in three years, and i love that for her! while folk are commenting on her "lack" of a ring, complaining about the album, or sighing in disgust on racist "childfree" forums, she is basking.

pffffft

i have been trying to read more fiction and poetry lately, to help with my writing. i feel like neglecting this aspect of my life dampens my creativity. like, i would be working, writing every day, and after awhile i started to feel very drained. reading has renewed some of my strength.

i read a third of this last night. it's the only full novel written by the poet Margaret Walker. Jubilee.

currently reading Echo Tree: the Collected Short Fiction of Henry Dumas. it's rare to hear people mention Dumas (whom Toni Morrison championed). i believe it's because black men's hypervisibility has been rewritten as "privilege," rendering any focus on them regressive/misogynist.

i finally got new bookcases. i still don't have enough room for all of the books but I'm also in the process of culling some so we'll see.

the essays in art/exhibition books are severely underrated tbh, I'm reading this one right now that includes an essay from Suzanne Césaire. i wish i had been able to go up to Fort Worth to see the actual exhibition smh...

you sound obsessed, and you don't even follow me. go find some business.

i totally failed at this 😂

i mostly hate everything I've written or published in the past but i DO appreciate the love 😅 I'll definitely be publishing something more substantial by the end of this year for sure now that I've finally gotten through that 3-4 year (2019-2023) depression.

had to take all of Black History Month off because i honestly do not (have never, really) care for these themed months. they feel extremely performative to me. also, there's lots of negrophobic/antiblack unpleasantness on social media coming from other black ppl, it's depressing and frustrating.

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 1: Tumbling by Diane McKinney-Whetstone #books #BookSky #BookChallenge

i feel like people are actually leaving Twitter because every time i return from a break– whether it's for a few days or few months–i have lost 50-100 followers. usually i would assume it was a defamatory thread (about me) going around but i haven't seen anything so I'm thinking it's organic.

to be excited when i sit down to do my writing block (of time) is truly a gift. when i was working on my other project i used to feel sapped of joy and ambition, but now that I'm writing this other thing I'm happy and humming on my way to the desk 😌 open.spotify.com/track/2GH5jo...

🤲🏿 bedtime reading Sula by Toni Morrison

Anglo-Norman.net is down and i am so bummed. apparently it's been down for a week or so and it's honestly one of the best resources I've used for the English language and now i only have Wiktionary. yuck.

honestly, sometimes i be struggle with writing these days because i feel like there's no audience for what i want to publish if it's not about "sex work" or related topics and I'm honestly burnt out on all of it unless it's written in narrative/fictional form.

can't wait to read/listen to this

I wish more creatives would promote how improving your quality of life will drastically help your art Instead of people sacrificing their quality of life to work on their art

there is nothing i want to do more than build and design sturdy, dependable, beautiful bookcases. i know how to design and build them myself but, sadly, i lack the materials. i think i will do some layout sketches for the art side of Bluesky sometime next week.

These teenagers and young men — 95% of whom are Black, Latinx, or Filipino — earn between $2.20 and $4 per hour, plus an additional $1 an hour when they’re actively fighting fires, according to the DJJ. ⤵️

I'm only keeping Monica, she got my favorite catalog.

if you listen carefully to the song, you can hear him enthusiastically backflipping constantly in-between ad-libs

even though i have been on medication for my ADHD before, i don't know how to begin to explain to someone else (from my subjective experience) that medication is not a magic bullet and that there is work that can be done outside of it. that mindset seems very rigid to me, very limiting.

@haintological.bsky.social GET ACTIVE LOL I'M HERE

i wanted to return to doing these, but i started to hate being on camera. i was dealing with a lot of dysmorphia and anxiety in 2023. but i think i will be doing some YT vlogs this year instead of lecturing.

revisiting this thread as i clear up my feed and realizing that i am, once again, very detached from the mainstream sex worker rights movement (outside of work). it is dominated by white women and people who vibe with them, and i often felt out of place and tokenized.

the term "sex work" being used in regular conversations and not just discourse or sociological scholarship was brand new to me. then again, i didn't get a smartphone until i was 20. and i wasn't really technologically fluent where social media was concerned until i was at least 24.

Carl Thomas. i only know two songs of his anyway.

i forgot i had a bluesky account tbh. been getting more active on Twitter because i have a larger platform there but also because i have lots of harassers blocked so it's a more comfy space in a certain way. but I'm gonna try to be more active here in the coming months.

Both parts of my conversation with @thisishorror.bsky.social is now live! 👀🤍

If y'all haven't yet pre-ordered Horror Library Vol. 8 releasing July 25 with Dark Moon Books ... 👀 Among other amazing writers and frens alike will be my smol story inspired by folklore: "Mazu—Goddess of the Sea" 🫶🏼🫣 Preorder here🤍 http://www.darkmoonbooks.com/Horror_Library_8.html

I've been attending daily writing sessions for a couple weeks now, and I've finally gotten to the point where I'm laying out the scenes and adding collecting scenes in between major ones. this is the furthest I've ever gotten. doing this has been beneficial.

been recounting how i began using social media for this book. there's so much i don't remember, like how i got on MySpace. but i know it was always my sisters, who were more popular than i was and who dated and had larger friend groups, introducing me to the newer technology.

as i cobble together this draft for my comrade-editor, i am thinking on how strange it was to me to enter the Twitter realm from Facebook and be confronted with a bunch of new language regarding the sex trade, or "sex work." i was very detached from the online extension of the Trade.

I can’t remember who said this but they said that anti-racism for white people is a “hobby” — in that we can choose to pursue it but we don’t have to, and as a result many will have phases but will not be consistent throughout life because we can afford to simply.. turn it off.

a lot of white people seem to think i have a problem working with them; however, i literally have no problem working with white people the only time it becomes a problem is when y’all let y’all’s racism, white supremacy, and antiBlackness affect your work performance with me

When half your income comes through social media, this current moment is unnerving. But giving up isn't an option. Keep writing, and keep using the various platforms.

me transforming from a twitter user to a bluesky user

imagine logging into a site and seeing a bunch of comments or replies of random people stating that black NAs are simply incompetent and unintelligent in comparison to other groups of people and it's EVERYONE, including other African-descended people, who feel that way.

been watching this today