That Moment When You Qualify For Mensa But Have A 9th Grade Reading Level

I work with primarily men and it makes them so uncomfortable when I am better than them at something. It makes me feel like I need to be smaller in order to make them more comfortable.

You know what really hit me hard in the Barbie movie?

That scene at the beginning where Barbie goes around her normal day, at the president's office, at the court, at the nobel prize ceremony...

All the Barbies, when being complimented on their achievements, being told they're doing an awesome job, when they, themselves, talk about their work and what they've achieved...

None of them doubt it. None of them are awkwardly trying to go 'oh it was very hard, I had help, it wasn't that important..."

No. Instead, they own it. They are confident. They know their value, they are not afraid to say 'I am good at what I do. I wrote an excellent book. I am great at being President of Barbieland. I am strong. I am a doctor and very good at my job. I am a lawyer and me showing feelings and empathy does not diminish my work in any way."

That scene actually hit me even harder than Gloria's speech. Because how often have I been hesitant to say I have done a good job, how often have I done my best to tone down my achievements because I didn't want to be seen as bragging, because I myself wasn't even sure it was that good, because I never think it's good enough?

Too often.

I'm going to try and work on that. Because I am badass, and I write good stories, and I deserve to be proud of them.

Because I AM good enough.

I'm like a girl who wants to read more books but doesn't

I love Brennan’s “yes and-ing” this episode.

Yeah sure, fill a pool with sauce and jump into it from a motorcycle. You want a special ramp to do it from?

You wanna give a speech to the steelworkers? Sure! Just go ahead and attack the receptionist.

I think I said “what the fuck is happening?” no less than 20 times.

The way Brennan says “ketchup” is crazy. I have never heard anyone say it like that before. Could not focus on anything happening due to the way Brennan says “ketchup”

what is joe biden's plan to deal with british kristen

Love Brennan preparing to say Gorgug’s name as Telemaine and surprising himself at what comes out. Love watching the other players be surprised. The pronunciation is great. The shock is better

i keep thinking about how rfk said that autistic people "will never write a poem." i keep thinking about that, about if humanity is calculated on the back of old verse. how far we measure personhood is in baseball and stanza breaks.

i keep thinking - i have over 7k poems on here alone. language can be a special interest, after all. did you know the word autism comes almost direct from the greek word autos, meaning "self"? self-ism.

maybe he is right - i haven't really played baseball. i was a ballet dancer instead. and besides - my sister once accidentally hit me in the face with an aluminum bat. i'm not sure if the injury gives me half points. am i only a person in the dugout? hand in a mitt? swinging?

does softball count? does cricket? am i a person if i throw the ball to my dog. am i a person as long as the ball is in the air, or do i stop being a person as it rolls into the bushes. i took my girlfriend to fenway recently; was i a person in the sun, with my hands up, with the game laid out at my feet in a diamond. i felt like a person, but that was back in the summer, and i often feel my most person-like then.

am i more of a person because of the sheer number of things i've written? does quality matter, or is it quantity? i used to write entire books every summer in high school - i wasn't doing well. i felt the least like-a-person back then. but then - does any person feel human in high school?

in the library, ink on my skin, i feel personhood shutter at the edges of myself. actually, writing feels blissfully like not being myself. it feels birdlike; escaping into creation so my body dissolves and i survive only by muscle memory. i am not there, i am writing.

but who can deny the falconlike focus of warsan shire, the tenderness of mary oliver, the sheer skill of amanda gorman. those are poets. they are certainly human. you could line them up with the way their words have influenced us and measure their literary shadows like wings.

perhaps it was very assumptive of me to want to be a poet rather than "a [ label ] poet." i wanted the work to fill itself in, rather than be stained by what i am. i do not write in despite of my neurodivergence, i am just neurodivergent and writing.

does the poem have to be in english or can i send it through my palms into the coat of my dog. does the poem have to make sense. does the poem have to love you back.

if i break a glass, will the poem appear naturally? or is the act of breaking the glass human-enough. the shards of my life glittering out beneath me - do i have to write the poem, or is it self-evident in the pile of glass splinters? i cannot grasp this world the way other people can. regardless, i endeavor to touch - even the mess - very gently.

i broke my toenail against my coffee table recently. i released a bug outdoors. i made coffee. i walked my dog.

i didn't write a poem about any of these things.

something else, then. existing without humanity.

What is the actual original episode that Ice Feast is brought up in? All I can find is references to it

Trying to be less chaotic: “that’s what you think” and pirouettes away.

Really goes to show that trying is very much not the same thing as doing