music

i have always had a passion and love for music. some of my earliest photos and videos are of me singing and playing instruments. i first did piano lessons when i was 4, and it continued up until i was about 9. i did not like piano lessons. they felt a bit like a chore. my first piano teacher was from china. because the culture in china is different, and because my family didnt know i had autism, she was very very strict with me, to the point that after several lessons i just felt belittled. my family says she really liked me, even though it didnt feel like it at the time. i dont have very many memories of my other piano teachers, but they were all considerably nicer. too bad i dropped piano after lessons and didnt pick it up again until quite recently.

i started playing ukulele when i had just turned 11. i loved it so much. sometimes i would play on trains during rush hour. unfortunately, londoners are miserable, so i rarely got acknowledged. i dont know if its still happening, but there were public ukulele playing events on wednesdays, and i attended them whenever i could. it was magical.

when i was 12, my mother took me to a concert of a band called "pixies". i loved it so much that it became my life for about 2 years or so. i discovered a lot of amazing rock bands after that. my favourites, other than pixies, were nirvana, breeders, and queens of the stone age (i do not like the qotsa frontman). i still like all of those bands, though i dont listen to them as much as i used to. ive found i like all genres of music, including some charting stuff. i can like anything, really. pop, rock, metal, hip hop, electronic, even classical.

for my 18th birthday, my mum got me a ticket to the foo fighters. it was so fun, i danced for hours and hours until it was dark. the people were super friendly, one of them tried to get me to sing along, but i was socially awkward. i also didnt remember the words, which probably didnt help. my favourite foo fighters album is probably "the color and the shape", but i also really like "echoes silence patience & grace" as well as their self titled first album. some of my favourite albums from other artists include "in utero" by nirvana, "licensed to ill" by beastie boys, "master of puppets" by metallica, "surfer rosa" by pixies, there are a lot of them.

ive recently been getting into artists like femtanyl and kendrick lamar. my parents do not understand either of these artists, but they think its nice that i like them, so thats good. kendricks album "to pimp a butterfly" is considered to be among the greatest of albums. i tried playing some for my mother but she said it "wasnt her thing". she prefers "ok computer" by radiohead. i will be fair, that is also a marvellous album.

im not sure what to write that i havent already said. i guess to wrap it up, i will give you a recommendation for a music artist. i really like pavement. their music is indie rock, and it is gorgeous. sonic youth also seems nice, even though i havent listened to them that much.

thats all i have for now. thank you.

- carson

(p.s. below is a very old gif of my rat character dancing. sync it up with music, if youd like. but dont sync it with problematic or inappropriate music, or i wont like you anymore)

romance and sexuality

when i was a little kid, around 5 years old, another girl was speaking to me in the school playground. out of nowhere, she kissed me on the cheek. i didnt think much of it at the time, i was just kind of confused. around 6 or so years later, i came out to my parents as a lesbian (no, the girl kissing me did not "turn me into a lesbian", dont misunderstand).

i had crushes on girls as a child. again, when i was 5, i knew a girl in my class who i never really spoke to all that much, but i had a major crush on her. i didnt realise it was a crush, since i was a child and had no concept of romance, but i just felt something in my soul. the students at my primary school were rather homophobic, as a lot of primary school students were/are (unfortunately). i remember them chasing around a girl chanting that she was gay while she ran away and cried. the teacher was having none of this, screaming at the students for doing this. i didnt know what gay meant. i knew it was about love, but i didnt know it was about specifically same gender/sex attraction. this changed as i got older.

when i was 8, me and my dad went to central london. as luck would have it, this also happened to be the day the pride parade was on. my dad didnt know, and i didnt even know there was such a thing, but i loved it. i stayed for the entire remainder of the parade, and i got a lot of stickers. there is a picture of me at that parade covered in pride stickers, but im not comfortable with sharing my childhood photos with the entire world yet.

after the march, i thought i was bi. this was at an age where i didnt understand romance, and because i loved everyone, i thought that it must be because i was bi. this was wrong, of course. i never crushed on boys, i was never interested in boys, i even rejected boys that wanted to date me or dance with me. i was a lesbian. i just didnt realise it yet.

this changed when i was around 10. my memory of exactly how i realised is fuzzy. i think i saw videos of some lesbians talking about their lives, and it made me truly think about my own. i liked girls, and i was proud of it. later that week, i told my parents. my parents are lovely people and they accepted me for who i am, giving me support and telling me how im great just the way i am.

in year 5 (uk equivalent to 4th grade in the united states), my teacher noticed that multiple students were using gay as an insult. she gave us a very long talk about identity, sexuality, and how its ok to be queer, gender nonconforming, all of that. she was a sweetheart. i miss her.

now, i am an adult. i have a girlfriend, who is the light of my life. she lives in the suburbs of the us state of georgia, which is a very harsh environment for queer people, especially queer children. the people surrounding her are homophobic and transphobic. she knows how to stand her ground, and someday she will be able to move away from the pain and torment that her family and peers have caused her, but the fact that she went through so much abuse and self loathing breaks my heart so much.

us gay and queer kids have it very rough, sadly. dont get me wrong, things were better than they were 50 years ago, but all of us have a long road ahead of us, and im confident queer kids will someday be able to live the lives they wish to lead. it may seem daunting at this moment, but i have hope.

if youre a queer kid reading this, i am rooting for you.

- carson

(p.s. below is a drawing of my rat persona holding a pride flag. shes rooting for lgbtq rights every step of the way!)

intro

hi. if youve seen this, youre probably one of my established friends. for people who dont already know me, heres a bit of information. sorry that there is not much proper punctuation in this blog, im lazy.

im inkpistachio. my real name is carson (even though im a girl). i was born and raised in london, the capital city of the uk (yes, i know theres another london in ontario, canada). i was born on the 7th of july, 2006, making me older than most people in multiple african countries, but probably not older than you. i like countries and geography, its my main interest at the moment. i would love to go to singapore, and maybe australia, but i hate going on long flights. the longest flight ive ever been on was from london to san francisco, 12 hours long. it felt like torture. below is a list of countries ive visited:

• united states
• canada
• france
• spain
• sweden
• belgium
• netherlands
• finland

if there are more, i cant remember them right now. out of all the ones on the list, my favourite is either the netherlands or finland. i hate to say this, but my least favourite was canada. we stayed in downtown vancouver, and i have never seen so many drug addicts in one place (which is saying a lot). im sure if i saw more of the country, i would enjoy it a lot more.

my other interests include object shows (i know, theyre for kids), animation, comics and comic art, graffiti/street art, rock and metal music, pokemon, taiko no tatsujin, insects, rodents, i could honestly probably go on all day, but this blog is already too boring.

i am also autistic. i was diagnosed with aspergers when i was 10, but aspergers is no longer a recognised diagnosis, so im just classified as autistic now. ive found that even though my autism can make things challenging sometimes, i am way more irritated and upset by people who dont understand it. living in a world that doesnt properly accommodate you is very difficult. i also have anxiety, depression, and ptsd, but i will get into those in a later blog, its too early at this point.

i wish to become a comic artist one day. im decently skilled at it, but i want to get better. i love drawing, and have been making art since i was a kid, so i have a decent head start i guess. ive heard it doesnt really pay well, but i have hope.

i should rest. its very late where i live. goodnight, whoever you are.

- carson

(p.s. here is a drawing i made recently. enjoy looking at it. or dont. im not bothered)