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“The Driver” by Jordan Bolton

My first book ‘Blue Sky Through the Window of a Moving Car’ is out now! Order it here - https://smarturl.it/BlueSky

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Pesto the penguin 🐧✨

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to anyone missing my writing please know i am also missing my writing

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there's people out there that smoke weed with their parents

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had a sexual encounter with cheese on bread

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thank you, people magazine 🙌

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the thing about the mummy movies is that you really spend most of the time thinking "wow brendan fraser's character is so cool" or "man oded fehr is so mysterious and heroic" when the fact of the matter is that these two

are the absolute most batshit insane heroes in the entire franchise

these two are intellectual loner siblings with archeology backgrounds who read and speak ancient egyptian, hire a dude directly out of prison to take them to a lost city of gold, and fight mummies literally with their bare hands. twice.

no one in these movies stands a chance against the carnahans. frankly they're lethal in how willing they are to make the absolute and most undeniably deranged decisions. jonathan pickpockets a dude on fire. evy's resurrected from the dead and immediately remembers how to use sai. they're racking shotguns from a cliff in this scene and then proceed to blow away half the antagonists.

rick and ardeth should be so lucky

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You show up for your first day at Copyright-Free Magic School. As you're going through orientation, you're informed that all new students get a school-assigned familiar that they are responsible for housing and maintaining. The staff member assures you that your assigned familiar is appropriately chosen and reflects you in some way.

Spin this to find out yours. (Remember, you are responsible for maintaining this familiar in your dorm room.)

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When everyone seems to have a damaged, unhappy "inner child," it is time to examine and change the treatment of children on a massive scale.

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Might I persuade you in sharing some of that Steggy Persuasion AU you have gifted us with over the years? No worries if not, just wanted to share how that story has been living in my mind rent free ever since I stumbled upon it

Awww, thank you so much! It is one of my favourite AUs. And since you asked so nicely:

--

“Well, perhaps we may have the opportunity to dance one day.”

“Oh, but we can have the opportunity now!” Sharon replies brightly, and Peggy realises with a slow sinking feeling what she will say next. “We can push the furniture back and Aunt Peggy will play something for us - won’t you, Aunt Peggy? Please say you will.”

Her niece turns to look at her, dark eyes wide, the same pleading look that Peggy has simply been able to refuse since she was first pinned with it when Sharon was only three years old and trying to wheedle just one more jam tart before bedtime. And in truth she has no reason to say no, as much as some ugly, mean part of her would like to - there is nothing inappropriate in her playing a reel or a quadrille so the company might enjoy a bit of dancing.

So putting on a smile that she can only hope looks less tight than it feels, she says, “Of course, if you wish.”

“There, you see, Captain Rogers? Come, help me push the chairs back.”

Sharon springs to her feet and the rest of the company follow, obediently moving the chairs and settee back to the edges of the room so there is a large, clear space in the centre of the room that provides plenty of room for them all to dance.

Settling herself at the pianoforte, Peggy shuffles through the music that Ana already has out and finds a copy of Grimstock - one she knows well and that will do nicely for the small company and intimate space. She glances to the side to see if they are all in place and finds everyone has taken to the floor - even Michael is on his feet, to partner Mrs Barnes’ sister. A good thing, then, that Peggy is required to play, as she would have been the only one without a partner otherwise.

A lump seems to have stuck in her throat as she looks back at the music and begins to play, but she swallows it down, concentrating on the notes. It is not a difficult piece to play; it was one of the first country dances she ever learned on the piano and she has lost count of the number of times she has played it over the years. It doesn’t take long for Peggy to get into the rhythm of it, to feel her fingers flying across the keys - and, unfortunately, for her mind to wander.

She resolutely keeps her eyes on the music, but she can still hear the others as they move around the floor. Mrs Jarvis compliments Mrs Barnes on how graceful she is, to which Natasha replies that she used to do a lot of dancing in Russia, and between beats Peggy catches snatches of Miss Belova teasing Michael that it has clearly been a while since he took to the floor. 

And the sound that Peggy tries the most to ignore but that she cannot quite manage to do so is Sharon’s laughter, bright and merry. She’s peppering Captain Rogers with questions about his naval service, and Steve answers each one patiently, voice low enough that Peggy can’t make out every word - but enough to hear the smile as he describes his shipmates and describes life at sea.

“I thought you said you were a poor dancer? You have sorely misrepresented yourself Captain,” Sharon says at one point.

“You do me too much credit,” Steve replies quietly. “Perhaps I am merely more fortunate in my choice of partner since last I danced.” 

A cold, jagged pain spreads through Peggy’s breast at the remark, wondering if he meant for her to hear. She could certainly tell tales of his poor dancing, were she so inclined.

When they knew each other those years ago, Steve had not known how to dance. He had admitted it with some shame and frustration when she had asked him if he was planning on attending the assembly rooms in town, hoping he might claim a spot on her dance card. It had been clear he expected her to judge him for it, but instead she had offered to teach him.

That had been how they really got to know each other, slipping away for dance lessons where no one would see them. Steve had been smaller and skinnier then, though it had been clear that with time he would grow and broaden, and he had  stumbled his way through their dances more by luck than judgement - Peggy’s toes had been stepped on more than once as she tried to guide him through the steps. 

But she hadn’t minded. She would happily have bruised every single toe for the chance to be near to him,, and he had used each stumble as an excuse to grab her hand and let his fingers linger on her skin, his thumb brush over the pulse on her inner wrist. It had made her heart leap then, and it made it ache now to recall it. She remembered spinning around him until they came face to face, his eyes meeting hers with blazing intensity that felt like it seared her through to her very soul.

She had dreamed of the day they would be able to dance together in public. A waltz, was her hope, that she would be in his arms as they moved around the floor.

Another dream never to come true.

It is a good thing that she knows Grimstock so well, for she suddenly realises with alarm that the sheet music is blurred and she cannot see it. There are only a few bars left, so she hurriedly blinks away the tears before they can fall and betray her, and when the dancers finally come to a halt she is smiling placidly once again. 

“That was lovely!We can hardly stop now. Do play another one, Aunt Peggy - a reel perhaps? Or a jig?”

There was a reel in the pile of music so Peggy obediently pulls it out and waits for them to get into formation.

Just before she starts playing she catches Natasha saying to Sharon, “Perhaps after this one of us might swap places with your aunt, so that she might dance as well?”

“Oh, no, Aunt Peggy never dances,” Sharon replies blithely, just as the music begins - but it’s not Natasha that answers. 

It’s Steve.

“Never?” 

“No. Not since I was a child. She’s always said she doesn’t care for it - she would much rather play.”

Steve says nothing in response, which may be because he needs to focus on the dance, or maybe because Peggy is bringing her fingers down on the keys a little more forcefully than is really required.

But as she plays on, she feels a prickling at the back of her neck and knows he is looking at her. Perhaps realising more has changed about her than just her looks, wondering where the girl he knew eight years ago has gone, perhaps.

It’s something Peggy wonders about herself, and the worst part is that she’s not really sure what the answer is any more.

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does anyone wanna hold hands until we feel a little braver

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this is the thrifting good luck post. may you find exactly what you need at the thrift store. may it be in good condition and in your size. may it have the tag color that's on sale that week. may it have 20 dollars tucked inside.

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Please read this man’s description of his dachshund and its most annoying habit

“I have a ridiculous dog named Walnut. He is as domesticated as a beast can be: a purebred longhaired miniature dachshund with fur so thick it feels rich and creamy, like pudding. His tail is a huge spreading golden fan, a clutch of sunbeams. He looks less like a dog than like a tropical fish. People see him and gasp. Sometimes I tell Walnut right out loud that he is my precious little teddy bear pudding cup sweet boy snuggle-stinker.

In my daily life, Walnut is omnipresent. He shadows me all over the house. When I sit, he gallops up into my lap. When I go to bed, he stretches out his long warm body against my body or he tucks himself under my chin like a soft violin. Walnut is so relentlessly present that sometimes, paradoxically, he disappears. If I am stressed or tired, I can go a whole day without noticing him. I will pet him idly; I will yell at him absent-mindedly for barking at the mailman; I will nuzzle him with my foot. But I will not really see him. He will ask for my attention, but I will have no attention to give. Humans are notorious for this: for our ability to become blind to our surroundings — even a fluffy little jewel of a mammal like Walnut.

…

When I come home from a trip, Walnut gets very excited. He prances and hops and barks and sniffs me at the door. And the consciousnesses of all the wild creatures I’ve seen — the puffins, rhinos, manatees, ferrets, the weird hairy wet horses — come to life for me inside of my domestic dog. He is, suddenly, one of these unfamiliar animals. I can pet him with my full attention, with a full union of our two attentions. He is new to me and I am new to him. We are new again together.

Even when he is horrible. The most annoying thing Walnut does, even worse than barking at the mailman, is the ritual of his “evening drink.” Every night, when I am settled in bed, when I am on the brink of sleep, Walnut will suddenly get very thirsty. If I go to bed at 10:30, Walnut will get thirsty at 11. If I go to bed at midnight, he’ll wake me up at 1. I’ve found that the only way I cannot be mad about this is to treat this ritual as its own special kind of voyage — to try to experience it as if for the first time. If I am open to it, my upstairs hallway contains an astonishing amount of life.

The evening drink goes something like this: First, Walnut will stand on the edge of the bed, in a muscular, stout little stance, and he will wave his big ridiculous fan tail in my face, creating enough of a breeze that I can’t ignore it. I will roll over and try to go back to sleep, but he won’t let me: He’ll stamp his hairy front paws and wag harder, then add expressive noises from his snout — half-whine, half-breath, hardly audible except to me. And so I give up. I sit up and pivot and plant my feet on the floor — I am hardly even awake yet — and I make a little basket of my arms, like a running back preparing to take a handoff, and Walnut pops his body right into that pocket, entrusting the long length of his vulnerable spine (a hazard of the dachshund breed) to the stretch of my right arm, and then he hangs his furry front legs over my left. From this point on we function as a unit, a fusion of man and dog. As I lift my weight from the bed Walnut does a little hop, just to help me with gravity, and we set off down the narrow hall. We are Odysseus on the wine-dark sea. (Walnut is Odysseus; I am the ship.)

All of evolution, all of the births and deaths since caveman times, since wolf times, that produced my ancestors and his — all the firelight and sneak attacks and tenderly offered scraps of meat, the cages and houses, the secret stretchy coils of German DNA — it has all come, finally, to this: a fully grown exhausted human man, a tiny panting goofy harmless dog, walking down the hall together. Even in the dark, Walnut will tilt his snout up at me, throw me a deep happy look from his big black eyes — I can feel this happening even when I can’t see it — and he will snuffle the air until I say nice words to him (OK you fuzzy stinker, let’s go get your evening drink), and then, always, I will lower my face and he will lick my nose, and his breath is so bad, his fetid snout-wind, it smells like a scoop of the primordial soup. It is not good in any way. And yet I love it.

Walnut and I move down the hall together, step by bipedal step, one two three four, tired man and thirsty friend, and together we pass the wildlife of the hallway — a moth, a spider on the ceiling, both of which my children will yell at me later to move outside, and of course each of these creatures could be its own voyage, its own portal to millions of years of history, but we can’t stop to study them now; we are passing my son’s room. We can hear him murmuring words to his friends in a voice that sounds disturbingly like my own voice, deep sound waves rumbling over deep mammalian cords — and now we are passing my daughter’s room, my sweet nearly grown-up girl, who was so tiny when we brought Walnut home, as a golden puppy, but now she is moving off to college. In her room she has a hamster she calls Acorn, another consciousness, another portal to millions of years, to ancient ancestors in China, nighttime scampering over deserts.

But we move on. Behind us, in the hallway, comes a sudden galumphing. It is yet another animal: our other dog, Pistachio, he is getting up to see what’s happening; he was sleeping, too, but now he is following us. Pistachio is the opposite of Walnut, a huge mutt we adopted from a shelter, a gangly scraggly garbage muppet, his body welded together out of old mops and sandpaper, with legs like stilts and an enormous block head and a tail so long that when he whips it in joy, constantly, he beats himself in the face. Pistachio unfolds himself from his sleepy curl, stands, trots, huffs and stares after us with big human eyes. Walnut ignores him, because with every step he is sniffing the dark air ahead of us, like a car probing a night road with headlights, and he knows we are approaching his water dish now, he knows I am about to bend my body in half to set his four paws simultaneously down on the floor, he knows that he will slap the cool water with his tongue for 15 seconds before I pick him up again and we journey back down the hall. And I find myself wondering, although of course it doesn’t matter, if Walnut was even thirsty, or if we are just playing out a mutual script. Or maybe, and who could blame him, he just felt like taking a trip.”