Speaking of things that traumatized us as kids, yikes

I never even saw the movie, but the commercial strongly implied she was about to fuck the guy up with a sledgehammer, and I kept pestering my mom (who had read the book) to tell me exactly what the bad lady was doing, because I believed that whatever I was imagining had to be worse than what it actually was

Great thread idea, as always

Sadly i can’t think of anything. All my childhood illusions have been thorough/brutally shattered by this point. Sorry :(

getting drunk every day is normal and if you dont drink you will be in a bad mood

I think you have "childhood misconceptions" confused with "everlasting truths."

Yeah, I can't think of anything either.

Tangentially, I am currently recovering from a serious ass-kicking courtesy of influenza. I'm sure that at some point in my life I've probably been as sick as I was last week, but it's been decades. This week I'm back on my feet and back at work and such, though there is considerable residual fatigue and weariness.

Oddly, one of the lingering symptoms is a seeming ability to access (though not willfully or "on demand") an acute emotional "sense" of what life was like at numerous points along the timeline of my existence.

For example, if, in a non-sick scenario, you asked me to recollect what life "felt" like when I was, say, 16, I could take into consideration a handful of memories, along with the contextual circumstances of my life at that age, and come up with some generalized reconstruction of my emotional world that would lack in nuance and probably bear little similarity to the actual experience. But that's the best I'd be able to do.

In the wake of this flu, though, I have been dropping into these fleeting moments where I seem to feel the "real" feeling of certain moments in time — as though I'm being fed the pure stored data of those moments without the sullying effects of the act of remembering and without the filtering influence of any life experiences since. It's highly bizarre and a bit incredible, and I'm bummed that it will likely fade as the sickness continues to diminish. I am not able to trigger these moments, nor have I noticed any environmental triggers, nor are these relived moments traumatic or otherwise consequential.

The closest I've experienced to this is the more common sudden resurfacing of a buried memory triggered by a passing scent. It's similar in that it's frustratingly ephemeral and momentarily astonishing, but there's something more substantial (at least in terms of how it feels) with what's happening now than the normal stuff of memory.

it is probably a brain tumor

I don't think you can use nor in a series. I think it's only for two things?

Hold on let me google this hella quicklike.

Sounds like a high fever

Or a total fucking nightmare

the thought crossed my addled mind, but i pressed on, praying that meaning might still be delivered despite the crudely constructed vessel in which it was so tenuously perched

Writers often ask if they can use multiple nors in a series. I always respond by citing the U.S. Postal Service:

"Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."




fuck

p. sure U.S. should be US but whatever

you can't trust anyone at all

everyone you love will end up hating you

liking yourself is being arrogant

you can't rely on anyone else

you're overly sensitive

thinking about what you want or need is self-indulgent

if you're not good at something you should just give up and do something you're good at

the superpower/curse of being REALLY GOOD at dissociating feelings and sensations

sorry you know i had to. also true story

This one is hard for me to shake, too. I think I'm starting to respect myself more, which is a pretty great starting point.

That people can show even a small spark of empathy for something that doesn't affect them directly in any way.

It sounds to me like the basis of a novel with magic realism, the central metaphor of which is a bit murky and underbaked, but entertaining to read about

Or the fever triggered a latent X-gene and you're one of those mutants whose power is never going to get you into the X-Men, but who can still be nurtured and encouraged at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters

Much love to you

The ones I quoted kind of indirectly hit home for me