humanity
For better or for worse, relationships reveal the core of the human condition.
Operation Spread the Warmth
In January of 2020 I had finally decided to face a challenge that I had been avoiding for years – I was going to learn to use the sewing machine! I had tried in earnest once before, ten years earlier when I was first married. It seemed very “wifely” an activity, so I set my mind to it. I cut out a pattern for a 1950s housewife style dress, and I picked a gorgeous fabric: whimsical yellow daisies on a white background which matched our kitchen curtains perfectly. My husband threaded the machine and the bobbins for me and he was off to work. Hours later of tangled thread and loose bobbins, online tutorials and tears I was left with the worlds most unflattering… shirt? It was too large to be a crop top, but too shapeless to be a tent. Don’t get me wrong – I wore it everywhere and with pride! But I packed the machine away to its new residence, the dark hovel under the window sill.
By KIMBERLY R LAYER5 years ago in Humans
Putting together "In and Out of the Ordinary" for The 2021 Sketchbook Project
From 2002-2008, I worked in a public library as a shelver and enjoyed the people, the environment, and my job. A library is a favorite place of mine because I love books, magazines, computers, research, and being alone in a quiet space. It is usually a peaceful and calming environment. When I heard there was a program called The Sketchbook Project at the Brooklyn Art Library on Facebook, I was curious about how the project worked out. For the project, you basically go online to their website- www.brooklynartlibrary.org, buy some sketchbooks (5 books in a set), put your own together, register it, and send it back completed. It will go on the bookmobile and afterwards into the library. I wanted to be a part of it because I love libraries and art- it was the perfect project for an artist and library lover. I received the 5 sketchbooks in the mail and it took me a month to finish it. I wanted to include my son Wesly in the project as one of the participants in our family. While I was putting it together, I needed a few extra items- fiskars scissors, stickers, Elmer's glue, copied images, and a computer/printer for the words on each page.
By Carrie Bertschy5 years ago in Humans
Every Step, Every Stumbling Block
So! You want to be a writer! You want to tell stories that will last a lifetime. Maybe you want to make a little money. First of all, if you’re becoming a writer because you think doing so will magically lift you into a better financial situation, you’re in it for the wrong reasons. Sure, plenty of people have gotten lucky and gotten rich on the first try; but, the most famous example regularly gets cancelled on social media nowadays, and no amount of magic spells will change that. It takes work, patience, and a surprising amount of pain. You’re going to doubt yourself. That’s just reality.
By Michaela Calabrese5 years ago in Humans
Southern Comfort - Pt. 1
You’d think in the middle of a pandemic, no one would really want to get acquainted on a 3 hour flight to Dallas. “Thank god there’s WiFi,” I thought to myself as I approached the business class aisle with grace that morning, laptop bag in hand ready to tackle some work. With a busy mind going, I just wanted to sit down and get settled. I reached my row and came across a woman adorned with long, silver dreadlocks and tribal tattoos. She had a very ‘Burning Man-esque’ vibe to her, wearing a bottle green shoulder wrap, charcoal knee-high socks, and crimson platform Doc Martens. I was intrigued by her eclectic style; she had to be an artist.
By Hannah Martin5 years ago in Humans
Remember the Name
What am I most passionate about? It's in the name! Insinq. Ins-Inq = Insightful Inquiry. This is a favourite philosophical concept of mine called a true name, and I even have a specific formula for working out what your true name is. It's simple, but I think it's elegant and incisive in a way that gives the concept power. The formula is that the first name is the name of the mask you are wearing right now, the current manifestation of your inner personality, while the second name is the essence of your identity, the root of who you are and what makes you tick. The first name an individual has can and indeed will change throughout their life many times, while the second name will rarely, if ever, experience a serious alteration - it is the kernel of their personal essence, what makes them unique at its most basic level. So, for me, my second name is Inquiry, because I am so very curious and I love asking questions - I always have - and this leads me to habitually wear a mask of someone who is, or at least likes to think he is, insightful. I love asking questions and I love answering them, and I have a particular knack for framing and reframing questions in such a way that I am able to produce an analytical synthesis of the problem space which intuitively indicates the direction towards a solution.
By Insinq Datum5 years ago in Humans
False Hope in Dreams
So earlier today right, I woke up at the normal time and everything to eat breakfast and walk my dog. I decided I was going to relax today so I sat in from of the television to watch one of my favorite shows because I’m telling you one of the guys in this show is like a toffee coated cake, DELICIOUS. So I’m sitting here watching the show and started to fall asleep and he’s on the screen talking about how he’s going to move forward in life so he had my undivided attention but the thing is, right, when he walked out of their apartment it seemed like he walked straight out of the television. Now don’t get me wrong I know for a fact I am not delusional just like I know dreams don’t true unless you can afford to make big things happen, you know what I mean. Anyway ,Yes, I know I am medicated just like I know that I, myself, can not afford a three-dimensional TV, do they even make those yet, that sounds like a cool idea but you probably need glasses or something. So anyway, I start to wake up some, you know, blink a few times, pinch myself, check if I have a fancy British accent, the normal questioning gestures of “Am I dreaming”. Oddly enough I felt awake and now I’m thinking if I’m not dreaming, is this really happening? Then I get up and walk over to the television, not too close, but I couldn’t see what was going on in the show since this beautiful peanut butter man was standing in front of the screen. Not that I had a problem with it but on the show it seemed like his brother, and his dad, and his grandmother, and the building security guard they befriended were all looking for him. I mean his brothers’ female friend said she was going to help but then she was all like “ I hope you guys find him”, so I know she’s not going to be in the next episode if this is some new promotional thing their doing. Strangely enough I never saw this episode, and I’m telling you I have seen most or almost all of them, so then I got a little closer, right, and when I looked up he was looking right at me. So now I am a bit nervous since this guy is standing here looking like the extra caramel drizzle I get on all my Starbucks drinks, now if he was covered in strawberry drizzle I know for sure this can’t be real. So then, I walked around him a few times so I could think because now I have a lot to think about since I have the air conditioning on and it feels like he’s radiating heat, which would have been a great excuse to get him to take his clothes off but I wanted to treat him like a human not some bedroom boom toy. So I’m walking around him thinking hard about what I should do because when he walked out the show he was already in a bad mood and I assumed that’s why he wasn’t saying anything, right. Okay so my first move was go get my smart phone and show him the temperature so he knows why he’s sweating because I really didn’t want something so beautiful to melt on our living room floor, so I did just that. I only did it so he understood why I was taking off his leather jacket to hang up on the rolling garment rack I had rushed to take out of my room because I have to much stuff in my room anyway. Then I looked at my phone and it was almost lunch time so that must mean he could be hungry ,right, yea right. Then I was thinking I need to say something to him so it’s not all awkward, that and so he would just come with me to the dining room with out me pulling on him and have him think I was about to just take advantage of his body. So then I was all like “ I don’t know why they treat you like you’re stupid, you just might not understand what’s going on at the time due to some attention deficiency or maybe you’re just hungry. I know some people that can’t think in a straight line if they don’t have any food before they get to thinking”. I’m telling you, when he looked at me and smiled and started rubbing his stomach I almost ran to the kitchen, almost. But but but! I do not run, I was hastily. So I get him to the table right, in the chair next to me because it’s not my moms chair and it’s not my dads seat. So I go through everything in the kitchen trying to figure out what to feed him, I mean I got something he could eat but it wasn’t a lunch special and he’s not here to play dirty. Anyway, so I get the pans out and start whipping something together right. First, I came out the kitchen with a sandwich with seared bologna on lightly oven toasted bread cut horizontally AND vertically, but that was to hold him over for the Chicken, melted Mozzarella, topped with ranch sub I was already making but took a bit longer since the chicken was in the oven. So then BOOM, I got it all done and ready, turned on the Bluetooth for some Spotify slow jams as I wait for the food to cool off because I don’t want him to burn the inside of his mouth, I want him to “Tell me something good (guitar strings)”. Back to the main story, so we’re sitting there eating and he get ranch on his self. Perfect! So I pretend to panic and start taking off his outer clothes “I’m just going to put this in the washing machine I’ll be right back ( run down the hall with his jeans and shirt, trying to make sure I don’t take to long). Then I come back and his plate is empty, of course I check the trash can because it’s not like he’s going to tell me he didn’t like it he’s not even saying anything, regardless there was nothing new in the trash so I look at him and he had ranch on his chest. Now I’m confused like I can’t lick food off of him I saw where he’s been, so I tell him like “ I think most guys are messy eater but you can’t walk around like that so let’s go clean you up” so he fallows me to the bathroom. Now I’m thinking like I can’t just clean that one spot before he came out the tv he just went through a full day. So I get a new loofah I already had for next month out the drawer so I don’t just mix skin cells without his permission right. Then I get the water to a hot Luke warm type temperature in the shower and first wipe off his chest before I start to wash it, then wash his back. After I wiped all the soap I put on him off I tell him he can finish his shower himself because I didn’t want to be the one to take his underwear off, I mean I did but I just knew deep in my heart I shouldn’t. Then I leave him in the bathroom to do whatever he’s going to do after closing the curtain and he throws his underwear over. I really wish you could have seen my facial expression at that time because I know this man isn’t throwing stuff, but it was really just me rolling my eyes. So I just put his underwear in the washing machine with the clothes to get cleaned. So now I’m changing from his time music to a playlist with a very selective list of present day music before I put his clothes in the drier right. After that I went to straighten up my mess in the kitchen, and he was taking a pretty long time but I figured it was the soap, I know it’s top of the line skin care and smells great, I’m pretty sure they didn’t have that back in the days he walked out of this morning. So I almost finish that and look over toward the bathroom door and he’s standing there looking like this amazing renaissance painting, after stopping and staring for maybe 5 or ten minutes I snapped back to reality and went to cover him up in towels, many towels, because I know he don’t need to start with me if you know what I mean. So I have him follow me back to the living room so he can sit down and watch his people look for him and then I say “I don’t know if you remember that episode when you’re guardian angel came but you can see how important you are to them, even your big and slick-back friends joined the search”. So then I leave him to watch to show while I bring out his clothes so I give him his underwear and I swear he was trying to communicate but I couldn’t hear anything I was just watching his mouth move thinking I want some starburst”, but what ever he said must have been good because he took his clothes and sat them and the underwear to the side. I just figured maybe he wanted to air dry, so I go get a small comb and some lotion and sit on the floor in front of him. As he’s sitting here looking down at me I started combing out the hair on his leg before I added lotion so it goes on evenly, then I did the other leg. I threw that comb away and went to get the iron, right. So now I felt as though I deserved to get a little bit closer to him so I rubbed on the towel around his waist and was like “ I know you’re watching Television right now but can I sit here” I’m telling you he must have liked that idea because he grabbed my hand and seated me down right in that very spot. So I laid his clothes out on the living room table and reached all the way over to the table to iron his clothes, I was actually happy he kept the towel on, but anyway. I finished ironing his pants than finished his shirt and hung it up so it didn’t wrinkle near his jacket. I had to unplug the iron and go put it back and when I came back and his underwear and pants where on along with this unsettling look on his face, I’m telling you next time I’m going to leave the iron on the in table, anyway after he watched some of the people on the screen start getting upset, I handed him his shirt and he sat me back where I was but now I was facing him. Now I’m telling you I almost fell back when he licked his lips but I’m pretty sure he was trying to tell me he had to go. Which was understandable, so I ran to the kitchen and got him a fancy bottle of water to take back with his as poof of his journey to “The Future” and of course I felt obligated to sit back how he placed me before I got up and he might have told me this was my lucky day but once he started rubbing on my back, up my shirt, I leaded forward and fell asleep. Then I hear my dog whimper because he’s ready to go to the bathroom so I open my eyes and see that it was all a dream and my other dog has made a mess of the living room. Now upset my dog woke me up, so I didn’t get the attention I deserved, I mean at least a conversation before I woke up. Since I don't dream often that was the best dream I ever had. As a woman, yes it did make me happy to take of him because I did my very best to make him happy, or at least try. Fortunately I believe that taking care of someone that doesn’t belong to me is more than possibility. I’m thinking maybe if I became a maid or nanny or even a caretaker next time I have that dream he’ll actually talk to me. Next time.
By Jazmine King5 years ago in Humans








