Quote of the Day: Beauty

The only kind of beauty that matters

I hate to my fucking core that “beauty” in a woman has nothing to do with a look of intelligence, happiness or anything complex, human and deeper than bone structure and the colours and size of your respective bits, not to mention having no sign of encroaching death by way of a wrinkle or flesh giving in to gravity.

Commenter Lizor, on this epic thread at Nine Deuce’s blog

Yet more proof that beauty is an oppressive concept when applied to human beings.  One of these days I’m going to have to write a blog post of my own on this subject.

And that poor petunia looked much nicer at the garden shop. It had to survive being stuck in a bag and walked 5 km home.  I’m surprised the bloom even survived.  I’ve bought some flowers for my window boxes and today I’m going to plant them.

Human Being Is Human In Public, Gets Hated For It

I will teach my child to hate and fear people like you

Photographer Haley Morris-Cafiero is a woman whose body exceeds the acceptable social limits for a female body in a viciously woman-hating society like the one we live in. Her new photography project documents the disgusted looks and/or nasty laughter she gets from the assholes around her.

“Dear Liberal Feminism…”

Photo by Rebecca Cairns. Source

Dear Liberal Feminism,

I did everything you told me to.

I was  independent.

I was sassy, feisty and spunky.  Not like the worn-out women of yore who were oppressed because they just didn’t have enough spirit, because they just didn’t stand up for themselves enough.

The view from my balcony: December 9 2012

Balcony December 9th 2012

 
Snowed in. Send help! All I have left to eat is cookies.

Also the house is freezing. A little less freezing than last year because we have a new boiler, but still freezing!

 

The arms of December: a mini photo essay.

My balcony under the snow.

View from my balcony, December 8 2012

The view from my balcony, November 27 2012.

View from my balcony Nov 27th

Saw a rosy gleam through the window and opened the balcony door to reveal this spectacular dawn light.  My camera wasn’t good enough to capture it really.

 

Blue sky and blue water at Barra, the Western Isles of Scotland

Yes, I still have that !@$^!$!! Drunken Sailor song stuck in my head and can’t write anything, so here are some lovely photos from a place my ancestors called home:  the Isle of Barra, one of the Western Isles of gloriously beautiful Scotland.

Traigh Eais, Isle of Barra, by Macgruff

Wish I were here!

A golden beach and silver sea in Scotland

I still have that Drunken Sailor song in my head and am useless as a blogger.

At least let me show you some more photos from Scotland in the Gloaming that will make you understand why I love that site so much.

Red Point, Scotland by HighlandArt13

And this one:

Luskentyre, Isle of Harris, Outer Hebrides by Flambard.

My ancestors (half of them, anyway) are from one of the most beautiful places in the world.  They never would’ve left it, but they got bashed in the head and dragged aboard an emigrant ship by force.

Four generations later, my child self who knew nothing of her history had strange poignant dreams full of green grass and rain.

And now for something staggeringly beautiful

Loch Bran Solstice, a photo by McRusty on Flickr.

This comes courtesy of Scotland in the Gloaming.

Images like these make me long to see Scotland with my own eyes.  Someday I will.

 

 

This Isn’t One of My Paintings

But I wish it were.  It looks almost like this, doesn’t it?

Night-shining clouds as seen from the International Space Station. Photo credit: Don Pettit and NASA TV

They hover on the edge of space. Thin, wispy clouds, glowing electric blue. Some scientists think they’re seeded by space dust. Others suspect they’re a telltale sign of global warming.

They’re called noctilucent or “night-shining” clouds (NLCs for short). And whatever causes them, they’re lovely.

“Over the past few weeks we’ve been enjoying outstanding views of these clouds above the southern hemisphere,” said space station astronaut Don Pettit during a NASA TV broadcast last month. “We routinely see them when we’re flying over Australia and the tip of South America.

Read the rest of this article here.

 

Don Pettit writes poetry about auroras.  I may have a tiny little geek-girl crush on him.  Maybe.

Don Pettit, in space