#2. My weekend trip up north last May! That was so fun and I loved seeing iargo springs

[sodacowboy]

anyway I’m gonna list some good things that have happened to me/in my life in the tags

[headheartbellarke]

Paper Rings | OWEN JOYNER

Requested by anon: “Owen request? A series of events that leads Owen to finally working up the courage to propose to his girlfriend?” PAIRING(s): Owen Joyner x fem!reader WARNING(s): some language, mentions of abuse, panic attack, anxiety, and fluff haha WORDS: 3.7k SUMMARY: Five times Owen almost asks his girlfriend to marry him, and one time he actually does.

0.

    Charlie looks around, feeling out of place amongst the big mirrors, bright lights, and the sparkling diamonds. When his best friend, Owen, told him that he wanted a ‘guys night’ (he’s still unsure as to why he wants to have one: they live together, it’s guys’ night every night – he was expecting bars, or clubs, or fancy restaurants; things they don’t get to do every night, because of work. But he definitely wasn’t expecting to be dragged into a jewellery store.

  “O, buddy, what are we doing here?”

  Owen shushes him, walking ahead to a counter. A woman with kind eyes greets him. “Mr. Joyner!”

  He smiles, familiarity pooling in his eyes.

  Charlie frowns. He didn’t expect Owen to be into jewellery – sure, he buys stuff for his sister and mother, but he always takes them with him.

  He thinks of Y/N, Owen’s girlfriend of about five years – there’s a possibility that he may be buying something for her, but it’s highly unlikely. Y/N has been pretty vocal about the fact that she hates diamonds, and who’s to blame her, really? Her father used to buy her mother a diamond necklace after every time he hit her or when he came home smelling of another woman’s perfume.

  Charlie exclaims, “Owen! I’m gonna die if you don’t tell me what’s going on!”

   “I know, I know.” He shushes him, again, and Charlie feels like a child, even though he’s older than the blonde boy. Owen turns to the woman in front of him, Miranda, as her name tag reads, and says, “I hope it’s ready.”

  She nods, excitedly. “Yes! I have it right here with me.”

  She disappears beneath the counter, and Charlie expects her to return with a big box, like a magician’s apprentice. But, instead, she emerges with a small, tiny box and he wonders –

  As realization dawns upon him, he feels a rush of euphoria. “Oh my god, are you –”

  Owen nods, his face aglow with anticipation, hope and adoration. “I – I walked into this store a couple of weeks ago, after I decided that I wanted to marry her, I mean, I’ve known it for a while, you know? I can’t see myself being with anyone but her for the rest of my life, and I want a family with her. She’s my soulmate, dude. And I – I think it’s the right time, too. She’s got that amazing job, and my career’s going great, so, yeah. I wanna marry her.”

  Charlie sniffs, feeling tears at the back of his eyes. “Bro.”

  His friend grins. “Bro.”

  Charlie pulls him into a hug, but Owen pushes him away, and they swat each other’s hands for a second before Owen whisper shouts, “Do you wanna see the ring or not?!”

  Charlie’s eyes widen and he nods. They turn to the woman in front of them, and she points to the box placed on the counter before them. “If you’re ready.”

  Owen nods, and Charlie feels amazed at the determination clouding his irises. He opens the box, and the Canadian boy gasps.

  Inside sits a simple platinum ring. Except at the middle, there’s a diamond shaped like a star. It’s so beautifully built, every edge looking like they’re fit to cut steel. And the entire ring – it’s so simple, yet beautiful, and Charlie knows why he picked it.  

  It’s a mirror of the way Owen sees Y/N – something gorgeous, something priceless, something elegant, yet something so simple to him, and something that will always makes sense, no matter what.

1.

    Owen inhales, staring at his reflection in the full body length mirror in front of him. He’s going to do it today – he is going to ask his best friend, his soulmate and the love of his life to marry him. He has planned it all – even Charlie went out with the rest of the cast tonight to give the twenty-three-year-olds some privacy. (Charlie, Y/N, and Owen live together in Vancouver, at least while shooting the fourth season of Julie and The Phantoms, so, as one can guess, it’s really difficult to get a moment alone – but since the both of them love Charlie so fucking much, they don’t really mind.)

  He straightens his tie and hears soft footsteps in the hallway outside his room. Y/N’s head pokes in, her face lit up like Christmas lights.

   “Don’t you look sharp!” She says, while walking up to him and wrapping her arms around his torso. Owen smiles, catching her eyes in the reflection. “Are the bad puns ever going to stop?”

  She gasps, dramatically, and exclaims, “You don’t gotta be so mean about it!”

  He shakes his head, and feels love swell in his chest for the woman behind him. “I love you so much, you know that, right?”

  A mischievous glint appears in her eyes. “I could use a reminder.”

  Owen grins, turning backwards and cups her face in his hands, about to kiss her, when a voice stops him.

  “I think I just broke the coffee machine!”

  Y/N’s eyes widen, and she yells, “You did what?!”

  Owen’s brows furrow. “Is that –”

  She casts him an apologetic glance. “Zoe, yeah. I forgot to tell you, but Cece had to go out last minute, so I offered to watch her for the evening!”

  Usually, Owen loves kids, especially Y/N’s cousins like Zoe, but right now, he feels like jumping off a cliff. She seems to sense that as she runs her hands down his arms, and says, “I’m sorry! I know you said that tonight was gonna be just us, but you love Zoe, don’t you? And it’s gonna be fun, I promise!”

  It’s not. Owen had booked a table at Y/N’s favorite restaurant in Vancouver, and he would have proposed midway through the dinner, when the musicians there would start to play ‘Love Story’ by Taylor Swift, and when they got to the bridge, he would have dropped to a knee.

  Ignoring the weight in his chest, he plasters a smile on his face. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m sorry, I just – it’s been a while since we’ve been alone, you know? With work and all. But I’m sure it’s gonna be great with Zoe, too!”

  She nods. “Thank you. We can go out alone next week when Charlie has that photoshoot with Madi!”

  He nods. “Absolutely.”

  The little black box stays hidden in the pocket of the beige coat in his closet that he never wears.

2.

    As Y/N smiles at him, Owen thinks that this is it. This is the moment he’s gonna ask her to marry him.

  As the light from the fire illuminates her face, he thinks about how perfect this weekend has been. After long days, and even longer nights of filming, they finally got a weekend off, and Charlie immediately booked a cabin in North Vancouver.

  And there’s no one better at planning trips than Charlie.

  Along with Owen, Y/N, and Charlie; Madison, Jadah, Jeremy and his wife, Carolynn, Savannah, Sacha, and Tori are here, too, everyone basking in the peace. Throughout the weekend, they’ve done anything and everything they can do in snow – from skiing, to making snow angels, and finally, as the shades of evening rolled on the last day of their trip, they are tired.

  After dinner, everyone wordlessly returned to their rooms, and Owen knows that they’re all fast asleep, right now – except Y/N, who is still as bubbly as champagne.

  When they returned to their room, Y/N quickly lit the fire – because no matter if it’s snowing or if it’s fifty degrees outside – she is always freezing.

  It’s the opposite in Owen’s case, though – he’s always warm, and that’s why Y/N wasted no time to settle in his lap.

  Owen quickly pats his pocket to check if the ring’s still there. It is, and it’s been there for the whole weekend. He’s been searching for opportunities, but they were always either with someone, or it wasn’t a good time.

  “O?” She asks, her voice soft.

  “Hmm?” He replies, threading his fingers through her hair.

  Her eyes brighten up, putting the fire in front of them to shame. “I’ve just had an idea.”

  “Later. First, I have something to ask you.” He says, his hand reaching into his pocket again.

  She smiles. “I know what you’re gonna ask.”

  Owen’s surprised. “You do?”

  She nods excitedly. “Yeah. Charlie told me!”

  He must have had a horrified look on his face because her eyes widen quickly. “Oh, he didn’t want to, believe me! But, now that I know, tell me, when are you gonna do it?”

  Owen stammers, suddenly feeling breathless in this room. The anxiety starts to pool in his stomach, along with an anger, directed towards Charlie. “I – I – I can’t believe he told you this…”

  She shrugs. “You know that he can’t hide anything from me. He’s like the brother I never asked for. Anyway, so he was showing me some of the designs, and I love you, but I don’t think you can handle a tooth piercing.”

  Owen’s brows furrow. “What?”

  “Like, totally no offence, but you passed out when the dentist came to do a routine check up on your teeth. I don’t wanna imagine what would happen if you got them pierced.”

  “What are talking about?!”

  “Charlie and your matching piercings, dummy! What else would I be talking about?” She looks at him as if he’s grown a third head.

  Owen’s lips part. “We are not getting matching piercings – I wasn’t gonna ask you that!”

  “Oh!” Her eyes widen. “What were you gonna ask, then?”

  He gulps, thinking to himself – this is it. This is it. This is it.

  “Do you wanna go home for New Year’s?”

  He mentally curses when that question comes out of his mouth, and even with Y/N’s bright smile, he starts to feel queasy inside, knowing that he still isn’t confident enough to actually ask her.

3.

    Owen wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans and stands up. “Y/N, I have to tell you something.”

  She nods, her eyes sweeping across the mostly empty LA beach. He brought her here today to finally ask her to marry him – his past attempts have been nothing short of disastrous.

  As he opens his mouth, he feels a pang in his heart, and his mind starts to race. All kinds of thoughts race through his mind, like – what if she says no? what if she hates him for ruining what they have? What if Champagne Problems by Taylor Swift becomes his most relatable song? What if she –

  Y/N stands up, and her hand finds that of Owen’s, a reassurance, and he knows that she can sense his anxiety. She doesn’t ask him to talk about it – she knows that he will, eventually, when he’s ready. For now, she shows him that she’s here for him, and somehow that is enough.

  As she brushes his hair, his mind starts to calm down, his erratic breathing slowing down and involuntarily matching the pace of her breathing. She whispers, softly, “You’re okay. You’re safe. Everything is okay. You’re okay. I love you. I love you –”

  She keeps repeating that, until it’s like a mantra in Owen’s head, turning the racing thoughts to mere background noise.

  He opens his eyes, and looks into hers, and finally feels calm. He exhales. “That… uh....”

  She nods, comfort flooding through her eyes. “I know, baby. But it’s okay. You’re safe now.”

  He shakes his head, taking his hand in hers. “I – I – I think that maybe you and I should, uh, get – um, matching tattoos. Yeah. That’s what I wanted to ask you.” He lies.

  She nods enthusiastically. “Yes! Of course. You don’t even have to ask – we’ve always talked about it, and I think that now is the perfect time! Do you wanna –”

  As Y/N talks about designs, he thinks that he’s a fucking coward.

4.

    As Owen laughs, he feels confident, for once. He knows that tonight he’ll be able to ask her to marry him, especially in front of all his family – he loves his family, and so does Y/N and vice versa. He remembers the first time he brought her home three months after they’d started dating. He remembers feeling absolutely euphoric about the fact that she fit right in with his family. That was also the day that she had told him, for the first time, that she loves him.

  He looks around the table, and watches Y/N talk animatedly to his mother. His parents think of her as their own daughter, especially after finding out about her rocky relationship with her father. Y/N’s mother sits next to Owen, and he loves how carefree she looks – her ex-husband, really, was an asshole.

  He takes the little box out of his pocket, and his cousin, Elias, gasps. “Is that an engagement ring?” He whispers, his face scrunching as if the sentence left a bad taste in his mouth.

  Owen nods. “Yes. Elias, I would appreciate it if you kept it down.”

  His cousin raises his hands. “Always, homie.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Right.”

  Elias looks around. “Hey, do you think that it’s a good idea to propose now?”

  “What do you mean?” Owen’s brows furrow.

  “I mean people do it in private for a reason. What if she says no and then you get embarrassed in front of your entire family and hers? It’s sympathetic looks for the rest of your life, bro. And your parents wouldn’t be able to talk to her, nor to her mom, ‘cause it’d be, ya know, friggin’ embarrassing. Everyone’s probably gonna hate you.”

  Owen’s eyes widen, and he toys with the truth in his cousin’s words. Elias shrugs, and takes a sip of his water. “But it’s up to you, dude.”

  Slowly, Owen slides the ring back into his pocket.

5.

    Owen looks around, checking if any distractions could be in this room. None. How could it, though? He’s standing in an empty classroom, in the middle of winter break. Nobody in their right minds would be here.

  Well, that would mean that Owen’s not in his right mind. To be really, really, really honest – he is kind of losing it. He has been trying to propose to Y/N for the past month, but every time – every god damn time, something comes up and ruins everything.

  So, he decided to break into his middle school. Well, ‘break into’ isn’t the right phrase – he asked the guard to give him the keys for the night, and even thanked him with a hundred dollar note. Unlike his girlfriend, he’s incapable of breaking rules.

  The guard thought that it was very romantic of him, but really, he’s just tired and wants to get married already. He taps his foot anxiously, and finally hears the door opening, signalling Y/N’s arrival.

  God, she looks absolutely adorable. Her nose is crimson from the cold, and she is bundled under what seems to be ten layers of clothing. She huffs, grinning when she notices him.

  “Are we here to make out? Because your house was much more comfortable and so, so warm.”

  Owen shakes his head. “Nope.”

  “Well, are you gonna murder me, O? Because, well, it’s certainly the perfect location.”

  “I have to tell you something.” He says, taking a step toward her. He looks around and sees that there is nothing that could possibly ruin this moment, and smiles brightly, preparing himself. Y/N’s eyes gleam with anticipation, as she nods for him to continue.

  “Y/N, I still remember the day that I met you. I remember the way you smiled at me even though I had spilled black coffee all over you and ruined your very pretty, white dress.”

  She laughs. “I was really mad at first, yeah. But the cutest boy in all of Oklahoma was in front of me, and well, you know that I was a goner.”

  He smiles fondly. “And the beautifulest girl in the world was in front of me.”

  “That’s not a word.”

  “I know. And then you laughed at my dumb jokes, and even agreed to go on a date with me.”

  “To compensate for that absolutely gorgeous dress.” She clarifies, a teasing smile on her face.

  He grins sheepishly. “And then somehow, somewhere we fell in love, and somehow, you became my other half, and somehow, I can’t imagine a world without you. I don’t want to. You are my best friend, and you are the one person around whom I can be completely myself and face no judgements.”

  “No, I do judge you. You’re a little questionable.”

  “And what would I do without your wicked sense of humour?”

  “Honestly? You’d be lost without me. I mean, you forget to even put your socks in the washing machine.”

  “You’re not supposed to wash them. They go on your feet. Obviously.”

  “That is disgusting, and you know it.”

  He laughs. “I wanna be with you for the rest of my life, and I… I… I want a family with you, you know? I know that we’ve never talked about this, and I don’t know how you would feel about one, but still, if you’re up for it, I’m too. But, if you don’t, that’s okay, too. More than okay.”

  For a moment, an unrecognizable expression crosses her face, and he wonders if he’s hurt her. But then the biggest smile blooms on her face.

  “We should have talked about this. But I would like a family with you, too. I mean, I’ve never really wanted one, and you know why. But, after seeing you and your family, I realized that a part of me does want it. I do want to have the home that I never got to have with you and I wanna do better. I know that you’ll be an amazing dad, and I wanna raise my kid the way that kids should be raised. And I want it with no one else but you.”

  Owen feels as if he’s on cloud nine, and he stares at her for a moment, wondering how lucky he is to find a girl like her. He says, “Y/N, I –”

  Before he can ask her the question, though, her ringtone cuts through the silence of the empty classroom. She whispers an apology and takes her phone out from her jeans pocket.

  She accepts the call and speaks into the phone. “Hey, Luka, what’s up? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. Luka, slow down.”

  She exchanges a panicked look with Owen.

  Speaking of Owen, he’s losing it. Absolutely. He was so close. And for the first time, he had both confidence and hope. And something had to happen. He starts to feel annoyed at Luka, his sister, and then immediately feels bad about it, but then starts to feel annoyed again.

  “Oh no, you did what? Do you need me to come?”

  At Y/N’s last sentence, Owen bursts out. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

  Y/N raises her brows at him. He feels anger replacing all his emotions, anger towards the world, it’s timings, and mostly, towards himself.

  Sensing his rage, Y/N gives him a weird look. “What is wrong with you?” She whispers.

  “Everything. Everything is wrong!” He whispers back.

  He starts to feel breathless, and the familiar sensation of a panic attack starts to overcome him. He looks around, trying to focus on something, anything, when he spots the door.

  He looks at his girlfriend, and says, “I love you, but I’m gonna lose it.” With that, he walks by her, and out the doors, while she yells after him.

+1.

    It’s been twenty minutes since he last talked to Y/N, and he has lost all hope. He’s now sitting on a park bench a couple of minutes away from the school, and he is listing all the reasons why his life is absolutely shit.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  Owen looks up, and notices Y/N walking up to the bench, with a concerned look in her eyes.

  “I – I just… I’ve been trying to ask you something, Y/N, for the past month. And every time I try to do it, I’m either interrupted, or I’m not confident enough. And, today, there were no distractions, and I was finally feeling confident and hopeful and then my sister decides to ruin it – is she okay, by the way?”

  She nods and sits down beside him. “Yeah, she misplaced her dress for tonight.”

  He grits his teeth in annoyance. He loves her, but his sister has the worst timing.

  Y/N rests a hand on his, an odd look taking over her features. “You should know by now that the answer will always, and obviously be a yes.”

  Owen sharply turns towards her. “What?”

  A brilliant smile makes its way onto her face. “You are gonna propose, aren’t you?”

  A gasp involuntarily escapes him. “How’d you know?”

  “Well, you just said some pretty nice things about me. Also, I can see the outline of the ring box, and you keep checking your pocket for it every two minutes, even if you don’t realize it. You’re literally doing it right now.”

  In his defence, he wasn’t, or rather, isn’t consciously doing it. He slowly retracts his hand from his pocket and gives her a sheepish smile.

  She stands up. “Really, O, are you gonna do it or not –”

  “Yep, yep, yep.” He clears his throat and stands in front of her and drops to a knee. He takes the ring out, and flips open the box, and as the diamond’s reflected light dances across her face, Y/N gasps.

  “Oh my god, that’s gorgeous!”

  He grins. “I have great taste.”

  She smiles teasingly. “I know, baby.”

  “Will you ma–”

  “Yes! Yes, yes, yes!”

  “You didn’t even let me finish!”

  “Someone would’ve probably interrupted you and I couldn’t take the chance of you losing your shit again.”

  “You do have a point.”

  “I always do.”

  He slides the ring onto her finger, and she kneels in front of him to match their heights. She wraps her arms around his neck, and he wraps his around her waist, both desperate to be closer, closer, closer.

  “I love you so much.” He whispers into her hair, and she kisses his shoulder.

  “I love you. Forever.”

  She untangles herself from him, and as she kisses him, Owen realizes that he had no reason to be worried at all.

[MASTERLIST]

reblogs are always appreciated!! <3

[hotdamnmadison]

How NOT To Get The Girl

I know, I know. I said I would wait to dive back in until tomorrow. But I'm being overpowered by 1.) an overwhelming bout of horniness and 2.) the overwhelming desire to do something artistic. What can I say - the trip up North must've inspired me to put on my writing cap (and a pair of panties) and get back to work.

I wish that this post was as peppy as that introduction. But honestly it's going to go pretty far downhill from here. Don't worry - I'm not going anywhere!

I'm posting this because...

A. If you're reading this and you fit the description of the following people - you should probably navigate off my page - because I'm not interested.

B. I want to see what you (the internet) have to say about these people and if their non-unique style of... well we will call it "pick up lines" or "DM first impressions" - can ACTUALLY ever get them laid.

I should include email addresses. I should include user names. I should include every possible detail that I can... But I am above that. And honestly, exposing these people may just cause more harm than good for me in the long run.

At this point, I find the following laughable. And I've had a great weekend and a nice evening (may have been a little naughty with a toy earlier lol.) So yeah - I'm in a good mood, and I won't let some desperate, pathetically horny man ruin that....

I'm rambling. Here is the shit I am talking about... (NOTE: the following messages are REAL - the email addresses have been replaced by your truly. Don't attempt to email these addresses lol.)

You really have to love when a man has a way with words <3

Or how about this one...

Or maybe this one is the best! (so tempted to put his real email lol.)

Pathetic aren't they? Do you want to know what is even more pathetic? I have hundreds, if not thousands of these sitting in my inbox. I could block them - but it's fun to watch them try. These inquiries (as romantic as they are) are obviously the product of entitlement followed by rejection. And it isn't just rejection from a gender fluid bomb shell like myself. It's rejection from CIS women, trans women, and basically anything they feel entitled to sticking their dicks into.

What's even funnier - I haven't even rejected these fools - they're just automatically out for blood because they've already botched MULTIPLE attempts at talking people of the opposite gender.

But hey - these guys are "alpha males" 😏

Truly laughable... How about a little context though, eh?

Back when I first started my journey into cross dressing, long before I knew about my fluidity, I was eager to meet like minded people. I don't remember where or when - but I was introduced to Double List. Now I've had some great experiences that came directly from my DL ads - so I can't bash the site and write it completely off as being toxic and borderline useless. But for every okay experience that I had while posting personal ads (think craigslist) I had about 100 plus TERRIBLE dead end conversations to show for it.

i.e. the examples above lol.

It's crazy. How something such as sexual frustration can lead to such hurtful words and sentences. That last one for example - was any of that necessary? No. But because this "alpha" keeps falling short in the pussy department - he decides to take it out on someone who didn't do anything to him directly.

I have had to constantly cover my face and other body parts to get by or "pass". It's not ideal, and I've talked a bit about that in my earlier posts as well. Unfortunately, that is the nature of my situation - and it will remain that way until further notice. So rather than lead people astray with things like photoshop and Face App - both of which I have used VERY early in my journey (see the next pic) - I decided to be upfront with my ads and let potential suitors know what they'd be getting into.

Here is what I determined...

Men can't fucking read (some guys can... but most... nope)

Men don't WANT to read

Some men that read can't comprehend what they're reading

The men who successfully read an entire ad don't give a shit about what you (or in this case me) want.

Check this out....

Here are two guys who "successfully" read one of my advertisements (I use successfully very lightly here.) They can tell that they aren't what I am looking for - and so that means that what I want is WRONG. How sad is that? I don't tell them that their desires, ads, etc. are invalid... So why are mine? The best part is the amount of time that these people are spending to harass me (and many like me.)

---

This isn't a pity party. And I'm not looking for sympathy. Quite the opposite actually. I am trying to help you. Yes you! The one guy who does the same shit up above who also somehow read this far (gold star sticker for you!)

Look, this type of behavior isn't going to get you anywhere. Even the people who love dominance still want to be heard. They still want to know you read the post, the ad, the listing, etc. It shows you give a shit about safety, safe words, what TO do and what NOT to do. The world of kinks and BDSM revolves around trust. And when you do the things that these guys do - you're proving that you're a loose cannon, and that you're a high risk individual to partner with.

I actually APPRECIATE when men send these emails. Because I add their email address to a spread sheet and I make a mental note that this person is UNPREDICTABLE and more importantly - unsafe.

I'm sure as my journey continues I will have many more entries that revolve around this same topic - so lets consider this "How NOT To Get The Girl Pt. 1"... And please, try not to make it into my next batch of screen shots ;) I may "forget" to blur the names

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

---------------

My apologies for coming back with such a negative post. I should've started with something a little more soft and positive after returning from the trip. I swear - tomorrow I will get back to the peppy sexy content ;)

Sleep Well Everyone!

[dansnaturepictures]

Rutland Water Blog 4: 21/08/2021: Egleton Nature Reserve-Blog 2 of 2: Sedge Warbler, Hobby, grebes and more and summary thoughts on the trip 

Then we looked in on a hide close to the reedbeds where another bright blue Migrant Hawker this weekend danced along.

Then we were astounded as two Sedge Warblers, possibly young, were around right in front of the hide. We saw them in reeds and picking on the muddy floor to an incredible detail being right in front of us, seeing their warm and sweet colours and wonderfully striking eye striped markings. It was sensational and I was utterly mesmerised to be in their presence and get to see them so well. They were amazing photo opportunities and it went down as the maybe runaway unexpected wow moment of the trip. I am used to seeing this favourite bird of mine close up when at Rutland Water but that’s as they feature heavily in the brilliant BTO ringing demonstration which we enjoy a lot every year and is such a key part of why they are one of my favourites. So to see them more wildly very close up was a special nod to one of my favourite bits of the Bird Fair. What a year I have had for them. What a bird. What a moment a real standout moment in my entire time watching this species over the years. I got the first picture in this photoset among others tweeted on Dans_Pictures of one of these. A Reed Warbler was around and a Cetti’s Warbler calling in front of the hide too which was nice. 

I liked seeing some hides and bits of the reserve that in the busyness of Bird Fair when we do come up perhaps we’d never been to before and taking a look into the open main bit of Rutland Water at part of the South arm and it looked gorgeous as did so much of the water, wooded and rural landscape again today. I took the second and third pictures in this photoset of this area where dozens of Tufted Ducks rafting stood out too probably the most Tufted Ducks we’ve ever seen at once before another key moment with a diving duck today. 

After a lovely cup of tea at the visitor centre and a refreshing lunch at the car where we saw the lovely white-lipped snail in the fourth picture in this photoset looking nice and yellow we explored the maybe more familiar place to us overall hides south of the visitor centre. In what can be a memorable part of time away in Britain especially in the summer the heavens opened for most of this saunter around most of the rest of the hides. But this did not dampen our enthusiasm as we saw yet more amazing wildlife.

Slick Osprey as shown again in the sixth picture I took today in this photoset and gigantic Great White Egret wrote this weekend’s name in my personal wildlife history books somewhat. We just saw them so many more times in an already very packed day and weekend for them. With Great White Egrets nearly everywhere we turned we got a very intimate view of one flying towards us making out its immense scale in one of the hides which was great. And we saw an Osprey sat in a bare tree as the photo shows in the water at lots of the hides as we really made the most of seeing this iconic species so dear to us at a place we hold dear. It’s so lovely to see both these species in such high numbers here in varying ways. The Ospreys obviously boasts of the inspirational project of bringing these endearing and spectacular raptors back to their rightful habitat and the immense hard work of so many wonderful people to make it happen. And the Great White Egrets speak of this species’ ever more successful imitation of the Little Egret’s invasion possibly fuelled by global warming and bird’s ranges heading north this area is now so strong for both. It’s interesting there has been much debate about whether Grey Herons can continue to do well with the egret species thriving and more of these types of birds to arrive in bigger numbers going forward it seems. But nature is so beautifully balanced and I’ve seen both egret species and the Grey Heron in great harmony this weekend.

At the panoramic 360 degree hide one of my favourites here and the next along I took the seventh and eighth pictures in this photose of landscapes from here and fifth of a view from an earlier hide it was great to see a fairly big group of Little Grebes. On this lagoon we saw many Little Grebes and Great Crested too one pair with an adorable humbug chick on one of the adult’s backs which was amazing to see. A Green Sandpiper arriving was great to see again here too as were more Mute Swan families. And seeing a fancy falcon the Hobby glide over another astonishing raptor like the Spotted Redshank and flycatcher summed up what I meant about the quite random nature of birds I was seeing today and it was a very welcome sighting a very pleasant fifth time seeing a Hobby this year. I have to say though yesterday when I was marveling at the many dragonflies this strong site for them has to offer as I mentioned in yesterday’s posts I did say I was surprised we had not seen hobbies here more the dragonflies their main prey and one was reported at Lyndon. So it was great to get almost another thing I sort of predicted this year in seeing this one dash over the hide.

Some of the last hides we visited which we haven’t for years or might not have before overlooked the entire area of the Lyndon nature reserve we were at yesterday as the tenth picture in this photoset shows with the fifth taken of a hide before with the settlement nestled in on the hill above it. This was fascinating seeing it and prominent trees as shown in the picture I have enjoyed for so long at Lyndon from this unique angle. And it of course gave us some very valuable chances to see the Ospreys in their Manton bay manor with three visible the same birds from yesterday which it was exceptional to see again. A Great White Egret stood tall in the corner of water on our side and that as some of the final moments may just have summed up the trip.

Wildlife Sightings Summary: My first Yellow-legged Gull of the year, seven of my favourite birds the Osprey, Great White Egret, Little Egret, Great Crested Grebe, Pochard, Sedge Warbler and Green Woodpecker, one of my favourite butterflies the Small Tortoiseshell, Mallard, Tufted Duck, Gadwall, a quite early Wigeon, Teal, Shoveler, Moorhen, Coot, Canada Goose, Greylag Goose, Egyptian Goose, Mute Swan, Little Grebe, Cormorant, Grey Heron, Spotted Redshank, Greenshank, Ruff, Lapwing, Avocet, Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Green Sandpiper, Snipe, Common Tern, Black-headed Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Hobby, Swift, Sand Martin, Reed Warbler, Goldfinch, Blue Tit, Chiffchaff, Spotted Flycatcher, Woodpigeon, Raven I have seen a lot of them this year here which I’ve not seen before here, Gatekeeper, a possible hairstreak butterfly early on flitting around trees, Common Darter, Migrant Hawker, Common Blue Damselfly, Rabbit, white-lipped snail, other snails and black slugs about a lot in the run up to hides in the rain, crane fly, spiders, wasp, newt and I heard a Cetti’s Warbler. Well that brings to an end as anticipated one of my best times this year. There was no Bird Fair but as I said yesterday it was a true bird fest with I had to count as I recorded seeing so many 53 species seen. I saw so many birds, butterflies, dragonflies, damselflies, mammals, flowers and other insects and so well seeing some extremely important species for my year. It was such fun in a really beautiful area too and a great time to relax and reflect on our return to this precious area for us. I felt very safe with the use of my face mask and lots of chances for hand sanitation at the hotel and reserves and with how much we truly packed in especially all the walking between hides both days I felt that sweet sensation of feeling so positively tired at the end of the day after a journey home when the sun emerged with some glorious bright scenes and orangey ones too as the sun set a bit seen from the car a quite enjoyable journey. The time at Rutland Water was like a tapestry of gleeful moments woven from our experiences of the wildlife watching side of Bird Fairs of past including regularly in them and new memories alike. What a time away. Thanks for your appreciation of all my posts about it.

My first post about the time at Egleton today is this one: https://dansnaturepictures.tumblr.com/post/660261401265405952/rutland-water-third-blog-210821-egleton-nature

[pandjseetheworld]

Day 1-3 (June 20 - June 23)

Day 1:

We shot out the gate pretty fast for this trip but not without fueling up with a beer beverage with our dear friend Mr. Bobby Beck. We lasted 15 minutes on the road before getting a call from him to grab one last drink. When you are on vacation, you don’t say no to a drink with a friend! So, our first stop was at Rincon brewery for a cold one thennnn we actually left Ventura.

We drove, what I hope is to be our longest trek (aside from middle America), 6.5 hours to a little peninsula just above San Francisco called Tiburon. Our close friends Thomas and Alyssa were coerced into having us stay with them for the night. We unfortunately got in pretty late so it was just dinner and some hang time but it was really nice to catch up. Loki was also very pumped because after such a long drive he got to play with River, there 9 month old black lab. A nice bed for us and a play session for him, it couldn’t have been a better stay.

Day 2:

In the morning, Pearce and I took both dogs for a nice 2 mile hike in Old St. Hilary’s Preserve overlooking the Bay Area. They live in a quaint quiet area with some cute downtown waterfront shops and restaurants. We got a nice tour of the area from our hike. And for lunch, we all went out to eat at Sam’s. Which is a cute waterfront restaurant with delicious clam chowder!

After saying bye and thanks to Tom and Alyssa, we were back on the road. Where we encountered our first electrical issue. Our cigarette lighters were both fried making charging our devices difficult. Thanks to YouTube, we realized it was a quick fix and we just needed some new fuses. 10$ later and a little more car savvy we were heading North towards our next stop Bodega Dunes.

(SHOUT OUT to Izzy and Seamus for helping fuel us through San Fran!! The gas was $4.50 per gallon and it was going to be pretty painful!! So thank you both for the gas and snacks!!)

As we pulled up I started to giggle thinking how funny would it be if the campground was full our first night. A few days ago we learned a hard lesson. You CANNOT book a campground within 48hrs of your stay and we are going to have to plan at least a week in advance (especially for weekends and holidays). Unfortunately, it was less than 48hrs before we needed our first campsite so we were just winging it for now.

And what to ya know, we pull up and there are 2-3 signs saying “campground full.” All I could do was laugh! Being that I am now a Swerdfeger and have camped with Flint a few times, you don’t let a simple sign tell you you’re out! So we took a lap around the campground, noticed quite a few empty spots, and then headed to the camp host. Jerry, was the man! He was super friendly and helped us score our first camp ground of the trip!! We had a great spot with enough room for Loki to run around and not too far from the beach.

It took us 20 minutes to unpack and set up without even trying. Not bad but I’m thinking we’ll get quicker over time. Then again, all we have is time so why rush!! We had some left over curry, made a fire, sorted our food for the Lost Coast hike, and jumped in the tent. We haven’t been much glampers in the past but since we were going for so long we set ourselves up nicely with a Queen size mattress and some comfy pillows! It was a great 2nd night in our own set up!!

Day 3: We actually slept in until 8 which is unheard of while camping! I guess our set up really was that cozy, minus the slight kink in my neck but stretching could help with that. Pearce whipped out his computer and did a few hours of work while Loki and I took a nice walk to the beach. (SHOUT OUT to Eileen and Sam for getting us the cute “Swerdfeger Fam” mug. I love it!) June gloom is a real thing up here and we woke up to a misty haze but it was very comfortable. After our 2 mile stroll, I made us some breakfast burritos and we slowly packed up camp to head North again.

On the road we stopped at Jaxon Winery. Pearce had to take care of some insurance adult stuff while I had a fabulous tasting, not a problem by me!! We also got a call from the property manager that we may have scored some tenants for our condo, which would be a huge relief. Nothing is final yet but it feels great to know we are getting some real interest.

As we leave wine country, the vineyards and the yellow rolling hills are behind us, the trees are getting greener, taller, and more dense! It’s really fun to see the topography change.

Our next campground is Wailaki Campground in Whitehorn CA. When we get there we will be preparing all our camp gear for our 4 day trek through the Lost Coast. We need to make sure we have our map, tide chart, bear box, food, and Loki’s stuff ready! We catch the shuttle tomorrow at 9am with Mendo Insider Tours to Matthole where our trek begins!

[queensdivas]

Hidden Blade Chapter 2

Did this all on a plane and a little bit today! Now that I’m done I plan on working on even more shit. Like my god has this winter break been busy af. But I hope you enjoy the new chapter because it was a little longer than I wanted it to be. 

Whoops. 

IF you would like to be tagged please let me know!

Next Chapter

Previous Chap

Masterlist 

Have you actually ever watched an episode of Leave it to Beaver? What even is that show? I get watching like Little House on the Prairie, M*A*S*H (God I love Mash) and even I Love Lucy. But it feels like this dude one loves his family shows. Don’t really see why but who the heck else knows in this crazy world. 

I walked into one of the trailers to see a very large English Mastiff come from around one of the shelves to start sniffing me. Slobbering all over my legs since wearing shorts instead of jeans or some sort of Eddie Bauer travel pants. 

“That’s Wally. Careful his slobber goes everywhere.” Four was flipping through a pile of passports as I looked at the wall that was covered with pictures, news articles, and maps. It kind of reminds you of that meme where the dude looks completely insane while trying to explain something. I sat down on one of the desk chairs that was empty as I noticed Leave it to Beaver was playing. 

“Did he get you hooked into it as well?” I leaned back as I noticed a large file that had Murat Alimov with a big red CIA stamp on it. Juicy! 

“So how come the people of Turgistan hasn’t revolted against the dick hole in charge?” Four asked as I opened the file to see his picture. 

“They need someone to get behind in order to start the revolution. Ya know. Someone to get behind. The French got behind Maximilien Robespierre, the people in South America had Simon Bolivar, and the list goes on and on. So without someone to properly lead them, what’s the point of starting a revolution when you don’t have someone to lead.” I began skimming through his file to see that THE STUPID AMERICANS GAVE HIM BACK TO HIS BROTHER!? Never let them do anything!!

“So how did one find you?” He asked as I closed the file then threw it on the desk. 

“Ummmm. God it was really weird and very ummm..perfect timing I should say.” Wally came over to put his head on my thighs as I began scratching the top of his head. 

“I travelled to Ahmedabad after the Assassination in South Sudan where I planned on shutting down a board of nasty men who were shipping child brides all over the world. Yet something that I have a nasty habit of is trying to put on shoes way bigger than mine!” 

8 

“ALI RUN YOUR ASS!” Screaming as I turned the corner that was leading towards the great hall of the palace. Ali came behind as guns began shooting at us from the top of the stairs. The front doors burst open as I darted to the left. 

Ali followed swiftly behind me as we slid into one of the living rooms to duck behind a couch. I released my mag to see I had eight rounds left, and we have to battle an entire palace full of guards! At Least the board is dead so that stops this nasty shit in this house!

“Ali! There’s a drop through the dining room that leads into the river!” I yelled over the gunfire as he checked his mag to count his bullets. 

“I got six! I’ll keep you covered!” He popped his head up to shoot one of them coming into the room. I popped up to shoot another guard as more came through the front door. God damn it we’re screwed! 

“You get your ass out of here now!” Ali screamed as I crawled over to where he was bunkered down and handed him the rest of my mags. 

“You follow me alright!” Grabbing a bottle of scotch then ripping apart of the sofa for the rag. I stuffed it, shook the bottle then pulled my lighter out of my pocket. I lit it then chucked it over to the middle of the great hall. 

“GO GO GO!” I yelled as we got up from behind the couch towards the window. He smashed the glass as I stuck my head out to see the drop. Jesus Christ that’s a little too high. Fuck fuck!

I climbed up onto the window ledge as I was about to jump as Ali began climbing up but was stabbed in his back. 

“SHIT ALI!” With his last bit of energy he pushed me off the ledge.

Sitting in my apartment as I stared at the picture of Ali and I during our weekend trip to El Arish. The one time I think it;s okay to work with a partner we end up becoming best friends and he gets stabbed in the back! Don’t worry I’m not one of those people who are like “I work alone since everyone I’ve loved has died!” Usually it’s too much work to have a partner or some sort of companion when it comes to this kind of work. 

Someone lightly knocked on my door as I pulled out my dagger to slowly approach the door. Fuck fuck who knows I live here? Looking through the peephole to see some GAP looking guy standing right infront of the door. Swinging the door open as it scared him a little bit till he held up his arms towards me. 

“Relax Machete. If I wanted to hurt you I wouldn’t have knocked on your door would I?” That’s what most people thought in the seventies and look how many people died because they thought this was...as I opened the door for this stranger.  

“I promise I’m not here to hurt you or anything. May I come in?” I can handle myself I think so if he tries something I’ll kick his ass. I lowered my dagger a little bit to move out of the way for him. He came into my apartment to look around in my little hole in the wall. 

“Cozy.” I followed him on the other side of the room. 

“Good idea. Keeping a safe distance from me. Which is why I’ve been looking at your field work. What you did in South Sudan and recently in Jordan. Quite impressed that they haven’t tracked you down yet.” He stared at the large replica painting of The Virgin on the rocks. 

“Love some Da Vinci paintings.” He acts like a much calmer Deadpool, also not as sarcastic as him. 

“So. Who are you? A rich person looking for security, I’m not a hitman so I’m not going to kill someone for ya. Drink?” I made it to the liquor shelf as I grabbed the bottle of Shieldaig Speyside. 

“No thank you.” He walked away from the painting then over to my original Pierre Mignard. See when you shut down a nasty group of people, I wanted this picture of some random women. I stood away from him still as he turned around, I took a sip of the drink as I waited for him to explain himself. 

“I get the feeling you enjoy killing those who want to cause harm onto the innocent. You wanna know what I see in you? I see someone who's willing to do some crazy shit in order to save the world. I mean you just jumped out of palace after destroying a child marriage cult. What if I could give you an endless amount of resources, even more targets, and more hands?” Definitely some better resources would be nice. But there is always some sort of catch in this situation. 

“You’re exactly what I’m looking for. Someone who isn’t afraid to truly get their hands dirty to save the world.” I do enjoy saving little parts of the world. 

“Now imagine taking down even bigger ass holes of the world.” Am I finally going after all of North Korea? God I really wanna destroy that pig with all my mighty! 

“So what’s the catch exactly?”

“You’ll be dead and can’t ever see your loved ones again.” Well jokes on this dude, haven’t seen my family in years and they probably thought I was dead anyhow so this works perfectly! 

“I’m in. Don’t worry about my family because they think I’m dead anyhow.” I walked over to him to shake his hand. 

“How the fuck he found you is still bizarre. Still have no idea how he found me in the middle of a robbery.” Wally began walking away as I put my feet on the desk. Now I’m super curious how he met the rest of them now since he ended up stalking me. 

“How did he find you?”

He began telling me how the robbery he was apart of turned into a shit hole of a plan for his ex girlfriend to basically take the jewels instead of saving him. Doesn’t surprise me in the slightest because hoes be loyal. His eyes...are just so damn enticing. The way the sun brightens them reminds you the top of a forest. A very endless forest before you. That little scar next to his eye is just very nice to look at as well. Kind of weird but I enjoy it. Does he have knuckle tattoos? (For the record I am listening, it’s called multitasking.) 

“Jesus he set you in a saw trap?” He reached into the mini fridge for two bottles of water since the sun was warming up the trailer like a sauna at this point. 

“Yet here you are getting a calm welcome when I thought the guy was going to blow off my fucking face.” He slid the water across the desk as I cracked it open. Wally and his drool began sniffing the water bottle as I tried to drink it. 

“But he did save my life after the fall so that’s the only good thing that happened that day.” He chugged some of his water as I nodded in agreement. 

“Wally. Wanna get my soldiers out and have a battle.” Beaver asked Wally as The next episode of leave it to beaver began playing so I turned my focus towards the tv. 

“Nah.” Wally told Beaver. Four turned up the TV as I noticed a box of Cheez-its next to the desk. I’ve heard these things very good for most American snack food.

“Four we’ve scored!” I yelled as I began opening the box of Cheez-its. Back to the show. We watched as Wally and his friends were tackling each other with Beaver stuck underneath them all.

“Poor Beaver. Such a sweet little kid.” I stuffed a bunch of cheez-its in my mouth then passed four the box. 

“One is completely obsessed with this show, he makes all these references for it all the time. I think he’s an orphan actually, we got a little bet on it if you wanna put some money in.” Now that I think about it, I can totally see one being some sort of orphan or in the system. 

“Forty dollars.” I reached in my pocket to pull out my wallet, grabbing a couple of fives handing it to him. I know we should be working on finding his brother, or doing some sort of work but this is much more fun. 

“Wait they’re gonna charge Beaver three dollars just to join their club? I get that hanging out with little siblings can always be some sort of bother but wow what ass holes. Imagine being that cruel.” I commented as I threw a Cheez-it at Wally's friends after the tv. 

“Man. A time when your six year old son could talk to a random stranger asking on how to make money.” Four and I chuckled as Beaver came walking out of the garage with his “this space for rent sign” on him. I mean he’s trying harder than most people in this world so I have to give him credit where it’s due. 

“You two done? C’mon. Three thinks he onto something.” Five stuck her head into the trailer as Wally walked away from me as he kept to box of cheez-its with him. 

We walked into the trailer as three was listening very closely to a phone conversation as one and seven were talking to each other. I get the feeling that shit is about to go down if three finds the location of the four generals. 

“His top General knows the location of him so once they leave Turgistan for something, we go after them and figure out where the brother is.” One told seven as I began looking at the four pictures of the fuckers themselves. 

“You ever met people like them?” One asked as I kept staring at their pictures. Four handed me a box of Cheez-its. 

“I mean all monsters of humanity are usually either fat, old, or a man. Hell even all three for some massive destruction if history says anything. Or they have weird facial hair like Stalin or Hitler. Except for Elizabeth Bathory because that bitch was truly...

“Guys. Shut the fuck up.” Three barked as his face went from focused to ecstatic in a matter of seconds. 

“AH we’re going to Vegas baby!” Three laughed as he put their conversation on speaker. 

“This arms dealer will be meeting you at the speedway track around two for the deal.” God this is disgusting. Instead of trying to make our country a better place, go to Vegas to fuck some slut, spend your money, and to add on top of that get some dangerous chemicals so we can kill more people. Love it! 

“Las Vegas has more facial recognition software than any place on Earth.” One began telling two and three as I began turning down the volume of their conversations. 

“Oh I know what I’m gonna be!” Get this sinking feeling he loves dressing up. 

“Choose your disguises wisely.” Disguises? I have to dress up? If they think I’m going to wear a pencil dress, twelve inch heels, and a face full of makeup I will leave right now! 

“I’m a grown man, I can handle my shit.” 

“I don’t think that’s how the expression goes, don’t handle your shit. Flush it down the toilet like a grown-ass man. Be subtle. Blend in. Disappear. Me, two, and three are going to figure out where on earth they’re hiding his brother. Eight and four I want you two to intercept the gas, destroy it all, find the supplier and eliminate him. Sounds easy enough?” Yes. Going into Las Vegas, finding a bunch of illegal gas, destroy it, and be home by five. Definitely easy. 

“Just one question. How do you even destroy Sarin gas? Look I’m a pretty smart lady but destroying gas is something I’ve yet to achieve in my life one.” 

“Here. Study this before we leave for Vegas. Ya got 24 hours to nail it.” He slid a book across the table. 

How to Disable Sarin Gas Bombs for Dummies. 

Written by a Genius.

Handwritten and in a bright green binder. Glad to know we make handcrafted things in this squad. I opened the binder as it showed a step by step on how to disarm them. Kind of like when you’re building a lego set. Except instead of joy you get when you’re trying to build a spaceship, you end up pissing your pants because one fatal mistake and we die! 

“Love the homemade touch one. Very professional and doesn’t make me want to shit my pants in absolute fear.” I picked it up as we began dispersing.

“I’m just gonna take this with us. Rather us not die.” Telling four as I handed him the binder for him to start skimming through the binder. Gotta love the fact that my first mission with these guys is disarming a bunch of chemical bombs. Getting that sinking feeling again that they’re a bunch of chaotic people doing chaotic things. 

It’s absolutely perfect.

Taglist: 

@bonafiderocketqueen @filmslutt @imjustboredso @intoanothermind @4lendow-norris @wickedholland @takemetoneverland420​ @raylan-c​ @itsmeaudrieee​ @leah-halliwell92​

[tofascinate]

twenty-twenty reflection

The year is 2020. I distinguish this year from the others. And there will be more. There might be many! I want to remember, if ever asked upon myself, that my year of 2020 was distinct from the mash of living. From the accordion of living, perhaps. From the “bellows” of my accordion life, here is my layer of 2020:

January

began with a visit from Kellan, the preparation for a long-anticipated trip to Hong Kong with Rohit. I was living at Momma’s. I had been working for her since I graduated in 2019, while I applied for job positions in cities and graduate programs in Europe and the West Coast.

In January I spent almost 2 weeks in Hong Kong with Rohit and his family. This was a life-changing trip. This was amazing. I felt so taken care of, and each day filled with exploration. And snacks. For the first time, Rohit helped me with Cantonese – every single time I asked, which was a lot, considering my personal goal was to learn as much casual Cantonese as I could while there. I recorded all my new vocabulary and phrases in a list on the plane ride back. Here I met Rohit’s family in their home element, spent an afternoon with Rohit’s mom, accompanied Rohit to friend meetups, and experienced a Chinese New Year family celebration (!!). I hiked the most exhausting and thrilling mountain of my life, called Lantau Peak (the second highest peak in Hong Kong). I felt some of my biases melt on this trip, and some of my interests open up and blossom.

I left Hong Kong as the coronavirus became an issue in the Eastern Asian world. I spent a night in Tokyo, not with Rohit, but with my nourishing airport snacks and exhausted schedule until my flight left the next day for the U.S.

February

In February life moved quickly. I applied to all 4 master’s programs, I had a second interview for a serendipitous job position in Philadelphia (the only job among many that wanted an interview!), I helped Rohit find an apartment in Norwalk, I left Rohit at his apartment in Norwalk, I accepted the job in Philadelphia, I found a place to live in Philadelphia (more magic was to come of that 2-weeks-before-moving FB find), and I moved to Philadelphia!!!

March

My momma helped me move here. To the city I’d never before been to, but in which I was about to find the happiest home. The first 2 weeks of this month were extremely memorable. I worked in the Comcast Technology Center building (a wow) as a LaunchCode teaching assistant for a 12-student, 14-week intro to computer programming and web development intensive course. I took every opportunity to explore the building, the surrounding city. The first week of connection with students was special. The idea of working the rest of the course remotely was ridiculously unlikely.

On March 14th, the pandemic was real. On March 13th, my co-teacher took home the classroom’s bottle of Purell.

My second roommate, Channing, and her kitty Tycho moved in. Deeksha, Channing, Tycho, and I would become a mini family.

We were in quarantine times, but I hadn’t had so much social interaction, peer interaction, freedom, intellectual stimulation, and work to do since the end of college 2019. It was a blessing to be where I was.

April

I will use April to say that I loved this job. It was a pinch-myself moment all the way through. I still sometimes can’t believe that I rose to the responsibilities, leadership, and organization required of me. Maybe it’s like that with new jobs that push you outside of your comfort zone and give you so much room to grow. LaunchCode was an extremely supportive and inspiring company to work for. The community of students (Comcast workers transitioning into future software engineering roles) were admirable and kind in how hard they worked, and how they helped each other.

I realized at this time that I was experiencing the dream I had put intention towards. It’s not always obvious realizing this. In fact, at first I thought I was accepting the job because it was the next best and only option. On the outside I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me once immersed in it. When things all came together, I realized here I was, in the freedom of living independently from my home nest, in a friendly family of roommates, in a new city to explore, with a working position that supported me financially, allowed me to save for grad school, that opened me up to the computer science industry world, that used my strengths and pushed me to grow, that used my creativity, and that felt like I was being paid to learn.

I am sooooo grateful for serving in this role. It served me tremendously.

Also to be noted, Philadelphia spring. And Tycho the kitty made me love cats more than I thought I could love cats (who are now sometimes allowed to sleep under my blankets too).

May

At some point here, Deeksha, Channing, and I got to be really creative and goofy together. This plus sharing food and Deeksha eating my desserts ♡ ♡ = start of roomie love. Channing’s surprise birthday scavenger hunt.

At some point, I got accepted and not accepted into master’s programs!

And how did it happen that my random roommate’s husband was living and working in Germany following his CS master’s program there? Or that my roommate-friend would eventually move there too?

June

Work program extended by a week = another week of pay = I justify more so staying in Philadelphia longer… and longer… Staying also meant more time in the magical family and incredible bit of life I knew would end eventually. Staying meant not putting my parents at risk, or having to stay inside to keep them from risk.

In June I saw 6 helicopters flying above the city from my rooftop. I filmed them one night and was captured fleetingly in their search light. I stayed home for 6 and 8 pm curfews. I read ideas and information, and observed the panicked passion of my social media a little hesitantly. I spoke with my family. I read more until I felt settled and inspired with the movement of change. I walked around the city. I saw society a little differently; I saw reasons to question how I saw almost everything. 

The Monday after the big weekend, my coworkers asked me and us all how we were doing, if there were protests in our neighborhoods. It was the first time I saw my coworkers as Black. I didn’t know if I was saying the right thing. 

My co-teacher told me I was “lucky” I’d be moving out of the country. I told him I still wanted my home country to be a welcoming place for all. He was not so confident.

And! Rohit visited for a week :). I had fun and we both couldn’t wait to go back to having individual spaces to be ourselves.

July

At one point, with my job ended and Channing in North Carolina for most of the month, I was met with the pressure of everything I could do in the calm before the storm of change, and everything I wasn’t doing. A little rough. Oh to be leaving a place that has already been leaving you.

August

I moved in with Rohit in Norwalk! Took all my Philadelphia belongings in a car with not-friends Deeksha and Channing, and drove (Channing drove) to Norwalk. I was so grateful to them for that trip. We got a glimpse of the no-parking beaches. Specifically, we parked for 15 minutes in the “15 Minute Parking ONLY” spot by the beach at cotton candy sunset while Deeksha and I ran to the warm water and the two of us dove in like happy water pups and not 23- to 30-year-olds. Next day was a rockier beach and I’m still wishing Channing her next sunny beach day. This month was fun and without-a-car adventurous, though the airbnb-turned-rented-apartment that was actually’s Rohit’s didn’t quite feel like my settling in home. My daily purpose was working for my mom again and preparing for my master’s program.

I loved running so much with Rohit.

I did not love figuring out how to acquire a car to stay in Rochester for a month. Haha (thinking about tears). But we did it! And then we packed too many of my things into the car with Rohit’s things and drove 6 hours to Rochester, NY. 

September

I think we each ran longer distances than we had run before along the river trail in Rochester. We were a little outdoorsy. We had an ample supply of local Chinese bakery goods (that reminded me of Hong Kong bakery items). There was sun, but not in the apartment. By the way, this apartment was a miraculous coincidence from one of Rohit’s (very tidy and kind) friends who hadn’t been living there for months but would have to move out at the end of October. So we could pay him rent!

Also surprise to AriaRay’s patience, calm, and going with the flow acceptance: as a bonus level to the desperately declared plan of packing ahead of time to avoid the overwhelming stress of the previous move, Rohit and I learned we would also be cleaning and clearing out our friend’s apartment first! 

In the end, I had to accept that it was Rohit’s leading responsibility. Whatever we could do would make the experience easier for our absent friend. We moved out and found donation homes for almost everything. We did it! 5 pm and out the door to Burlington! (Extra exclamation points for whirlwind desperation and relief.)

October

I spent my last day with Rohit in Burlington. Burlington was love. And glorious fall.

I packed for Germany, I found a place to live in Germany, I boarded a plane to Germany. I got on the plane to Germany and went to sleep in Germany and thought, “Haha, isn’t it funny that I’m in Germany? Who thought of Germany?”

A new country and a new day to day life! I was grateful to be finally there and in awe that I had gotten to this point. My childhood self said, “when I’m 23, I’ll be in Europe.” Well, here I am.

We’re still in a pandemic. Meaning my classes are online and my traveling is cautiously limited to grocery store treks and to walks or bus rides around the city.

I have 3 very nice (and extraordinarily clean??) roommates from Ukraine, Russia, Iraq. All studying. One speaks better German than English, which is sometimes amusing as I really do want to have a conversation with her anyway.

Birthday, Halloween. But sometimes I forget and think my last birthday was in 2019. Blurry.

November

Hmmm studying. It still feels unprocessed to reflect on this. My master’s program can be considered a computational linguistics degree, formally called “Language Science and Technology M.Sc.” because to be more specific, this degree covers broader areas of computer science for language, and linguistics for computer science, than only computational linguistics. 

I do love the subject. It is by far a synthesis of my linguistics and cs interests. I’m learning a little more than what my focus for here initially has been. Is this a good thing? Maybe a nice cushion of knowledge and perspective. Still looking for how to study and process spoken language, how to relate this to second language acquisition. 

I think I get it. My core lectures right now are foundations for this field. I will leap from them into my specific field of interest. My software project is a learning ground for tools and seeds for future ideas, practice with coding group projects again. My seminars are for thinking, reading, discussing, weaving ideas, hearing from others seasoned in the topics and those of my peers investing their newfound or nurtured interests. Three more semesters.

Where will I be next?

I think I should mention one Thanksgiving meal that we cooked for, and shared with the additional guests of Olha’s partner Gaston and his roommate...with a name I can’t place now...from Morocco. This was a widely, uniquely fun night.

December

Hello cozy holidays, the first, by myself. My roommates and I decorated a tree from our local grocery store. I made cookies and cards, sent 14 gold letters. I spent hours decorating and felt creatively festive. ‘Tis the season :). Hoping everyone can feel the love I’m sending. 

Surprises came after small gifts appeared from each roommate to each other. Olha made us all Christmas gift bags of gingerbread cookies. I strung a decorated card on the tree for each roommate and shared cookies and oranges. Uliana wrapped Russian tea and a scented candle in parchment paper, leftover gold glittered tree ribbon, and a holiday clothespin. She wrote “Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!” in each of our languages: Russian (well, not Ukrainian), English, German. Zhenas gave us each a gift bag of treats. So, there has been magic in my apartment this season.

Happy New Year, and thank you 2020, for all the joy, discoveries, and change you have brought me. Here’s to love in 2021.

♡ 

[ashleyswrittenwords]

The Homecoming Formal [ZeLink College AU]

Note: Hi hello it’s me, Ashley. I know this isn’t HTBAQ, but I’ve been drabbling on the side and I very much like this idea. Also there’s a hot fraternity president that I happen to know and anyway, thought it was topical. This is kind of mature rated? Kinda? If you don’t like reading about sexual mentions and stuff or if you’re uncomfy. This will be a couple chapters and then I’m retiring the idea lol. It’ll be cute, promise.

Summary:  [Zelink College AU][Greek Life] Zelda had a one-night stand months ago and finally got over a big break up, but the shame of it happening weighs down on her. To make matters worse, her best friend keeps pushing her to go to formal with a fraternity boy. What happens when she meets their homecoming fraternity's president and her past mistake comes back to haunt her? Can I make this sound any more like a Wattpad book? Can this be anymore cliche? Yes, probably.

Warning: Mentions of the sex.

The Homecoming Formal

The bass seeped from the floor and through her wedges. She was completely off beat but she finally felt comfortable dancing. Dancing wasn't really the word for it, it was more or less being very low and bobbing with the music. There was lots of alcohol and none going on Zelda's tab. She was happy, shouting to the music that the club provided and danced with her girlfriends without a care in the world.

Maybe Midna was right and she should get out more.

It helped when she was paying the bill.

Men had come around every now and again, asking to dance with them and offering drinks. Midna was very staunch about the sudden arrival of testosterone and manhandled them away. Zelda had grinned wryly repeating how much she loved everyone. More jelly shots please.

Countdown and shots. It was a cycle.

How many did she have? It didn't matter. Nothing mattered right now. Zelda wanted to have fun.

She turned around and didn't see her friends. They were on the dance floor. She felt wobbly and a steady sense of vertigo washed in. Okay, the bar is nice now anyway. The bar stool was cozy and gave her relief to the balls of her feet. Someone brushed against her, slurring to the bartender. Zelda didn't recall what was said, but the nice drink lady was reluctant to give him more. Oh, it was a man. She had looked at him and he had looked at her.

Fun had found her.

Daren ΚΗΣ : Yo me and the boys are tailgating across the street from the stadium. You going to the game tmrw?

Zelda's eyes flicked up to her phone, which dinged, and pulled her from her glazed over stare. She sighed and stretched before grabbing the phone.

Me: Yea

A beat passed before the phone buzzed again.

Daren ΚΗΣ: Ahahah slideeee

She squinted at the phone screen and opted to stare off into the corner of the library. The calculus homework that glared at her from her computer screen seemed to hate her more than she hated it. A woman bounced through the door and immediately locked eyes with her. Her stare was piercing and Zelda felt like crawling under the table.

"Zelda Harkinian, what are you still doing here?" Midna said, accusatory.

"I…" Zelda paused, her brain not giving her a snarky reply, "I needed a couple more hours before the test." The woman picked up the cup of coffee that sat under Zelda's chin. It was still half full and hours old. The scent was comforting, at least.

"Cold coffee again?" The scary woman dumped it into a trashcan without another word, drawing attention from the people around them.

Zelda wined, mourning the lost cup, "Midna! You know that coffee here is expensive!"

"Only because you're too lazy to get off campus for a fix, besides you're addicted. Look at those eye bags! You know we have a social this weekend and you still insist on torturing your skin. What have I told you about at least using eye cream?" She went on, the blonde zoning out. She wondered how she would get out of this one. Midna was obsessed with socials. Especially this year, being that their homecoming fraternity was Kappa Eta, also known as Kappa Eta Sigma. It didn't make complete sense to Zelda, she wasn't the one for Greek drama, but if it made Midna happy she would be happy for her. In all honesty, a lot about being in a sorority confused her. It took a lot of pressure from her friends to rush with them two summers ago.

It was quite possibly the worst experience she'd ever faced. Standing outside sorority houses for fifteen minutes in the hottest days of summer weren't exactly what the movies depicted. The feeling of an hour's worth of makeup melting off her face made her shiver to this day. But to her friends it was something worth doing and Zelda couldn't complain. She met amazing people in her house and having Midna joining her made it even better.

"Anyway, tomorrow before the game we're going by their tailgate."

Zelda groaned, "Are you serious? Why? I'm trying to pull a disappearing act on one of their brothers."

"Because they're our homecoming frat and Paya said everyone has to stop by at least once if we're going to the game. And free drinks and free boys," Midna pulled her phone out, typing something in it was a grin. "Is it Daren again?"

"Yes," Zelda said breathlessly, shutting her laptop closed, "He's been either texting or snapchatting me everyday since the date party." She flung her backpack on and followed her tall friend out, looking around shortly for any of Daren's frat brothers. Believe it or not, fraternities were more invested in drama than any top-tier sorority. They always played that bad boy persona, but could never dish it. Of course, in Zelda's opinion. If anything, they were middle schoolers in snapbacks… just barely old enough to drink cheap liquor.

"Hey, I told you to get that other guy on their list. The blond one with the tan."

Zelda huffed, "I didn't know I was being catfished, Mid. Not my fault."

"Just, you know, make out with some other guy in front of him. He'll get the message."

"I'd rather die."

Midna looked up from her phone with another striking stare. How does she get her winged eyeliner so perfect everyday? "Don't give me that, Zel. You try pulling that perfect scholar attitude on me all the time, but I know you can get some if you really wanted to."

Zelda rolled her eyes, "I've no clue what you're on about."

"Really? After that last boy? When we went clubbing and you wore that skimpy black dress and we lost you. I thought you were kidnapped, but you just ran off with a boy."

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Zelda felt heated, "It was one night and I regret it." And she did truthfully regret it. That night haunted her as much as it did thrill her. She couldn't remember his face or name but he sure was good at-

"OMG you're so thinking about it."

"No!" Zelda fumbled as they descended down the hill, almost tripping in front of a man on a longboard, "I'm not!"

"Oh, my Zelda. Growing up so fast! Having one-night stands with hot men! I'm so proud," Midna pretended to wipe a tear. Some random girls caught wind and looked at the duo in a strange manner.

The blonde girl fumed, crossing her arms and pulling her math notebook close. She thanked her stars for the leggings she decided to wear. The days were getting cooler, but she couldn't bear to turn to jeans just yet. The oversized shirt she wore displayed her universities name: North Hyrule University.

"When is your calc exam?"

Zelda looked at her phone, "At 2. So, I have a couple hours to kill."

Midna looked at her with that look that made Zelda worried.

"Midna what are you planning?"

Silence.

"Midna."

A smile was being wrestled with on her red lips.

"Oh, Hylia above help me."

The accused girl gasped dramatically, "My stars! Would you look at that! Kappa Eta has a tent put up just down the sidewalk. What a coincidence!" Zelda's eyes were immediately pulled towards a row of tents in the common area. Damn it, of course she would lead us here. It was still early in the semester so clubs and chapters were scouting for freshmen. There was an outlandish difference between sorority and fraternity recruiting, the latter going through recruitment events throughout the semester. Sorority rush however was a week filled with suffering. It wasn't fun for anyone involved.

"I really don't want to go," Zelda whined.

"You are," Midna looped her arm around Zelda's as a move to take her as captive. She was evil. "We should at least meet some before the social. Maybe we can get you a new formal buddy! Wouldn't that be peachy?"

"Oh, yes. I'm sure any man would want to see me in no makeup and hellish looking. Perhaps I should tell them that this horrible hair bun is Vogue," the blonde groveled, trailing behind Midna who looked positively radiant.

"That may work," Midna said absently, responding to a yell with her name. She had already put on that dazzling smile, while Zelda was trying to remember if she brushed her teeth that morning. Kappa Eta's tent was loud to sum it up. Loud and obnoxious. Several were talking to nervous freshmen and showing off their acts of good deeds. Or whatever frats boasted about. Midna was talking to Kafei, a man she loosely knew from a friend. He seemed nice enough, but Zelda ended up zoning out on the background. Why did frat boys tend to wear the same outfit 8-year-olds wear to their grandma's for Easter? The bright shorts were killing her. At least some of them took the decency of wearing long khakis and a normal tee shirt with their letters. That makes sense.

A hard nudge to the side sent Zelda into the real world again.

"-and Zelda here is our Academics Chairwoman, as you can see she's clearly been wrapped up in it. She's in Calculus 2, you know?"

"Are you finished with the dossier on me?" The accused woman glanced at who Midna was talking to. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name." The man was looking at her odd and his expectant gaze caused her to stop thinking for a moment. His hair was longer than what she usually saw with typical frat boys, shaggy and blond. His eyes contrasted greatly to his skin. He was tan and she wondered if maybe he was on the football team. He seemed like he could be built for that; a linebacker? It occurred to her that this was the same guy that Midna had recommended before for the date party. Zelda mentally kicked herself for not taking more care of her appearance today.

"Link," he finished his weird stare and smiled. Almost hesitantly. It made her wonder if she looked worse than Midna described. Had she actually spared her feelings this time?

No, probably not.

He held out his hand and she took it, shocked for a moment by his delicate grasp. She thought he'd be more firm.

"Zelda, this is Link Forester. He's the president of Kappa Eta Sigma." Now it made sense why Midna sounded so professional. She was the Social Chairwoman after all. She had to be diplomatic in some way. A hot flush crept up Zelda's neck, "Oh, I'm sorry. I probably should have known that."

He kept hold on her hand and laughed, "It's fine. I don't expect people to know me. Why should I?"

"Isn't that Zelda?" A sly voice crept in and it took a lot for the named woman to not roll her eyes. Link dropped her hand as another man approached them. He was shorter by a fraction and everything she didn't want to deal with at the moment.

"Hi Daren," she said, trying not to sound lame.

"'Hi Daren'? That's all I get?" It sounded like he was talking to a child. He glanced at Link, "Excuse me, Mr. President. This is my date to formal."

"Formal buddy, but okay," Midna interjected. To be fair, there was a stark difference. Date suggested… other things. Buddy, of course, was a more amicable form of date and Zelda hoped perhaps her own would change before formal. Daren only gave Midna's comment a side glance. "Where's my hug, Zelda?" He was going in for it and Zelda raised her eyebrow in question. Was he really trying to hug her? She had met him a total of one time.

Link pulled him back by the collar and Daren stumbled back. "Yeah, no. We're not doing that here. I told you and the rest of the guys that it's a bad look on the chapter, but I'm honestly not too surprised that you forgot so quickly." Daren mumbled something but complied.

"I apologize, ladies," Link again was looking at us, softer than he was before with Daren. "It was good to see you again Midna," he said, nodding at her and then looked to me. The same smile from before was playing on his lips. "And it was wonderful to meet you, Zelda."

He turned away, said something else to Daren and went to help his brothers with recruitment. Midna was easy to turn Zelda and herself away and begin surveying the rest of the booths as they walked. Zelda hummed, "I do believe I should have followed your advice."

Her companion scoffed, "Please. I should have followed my own advice."

[theartoflovingthomashunt]

Lake Tahoe Part One

* * * The Art of Loving Thomas Hunt Fan Fiction Masterlist * * *

– – –

Characters: Alex (MC), Thomas Hunt, Victoria Fontaine, Chazz Javellana

Setting: A couple of weeks after deciding to start dating, Thomas invites Alex to accompany him on a business trip to Lake Tahoe. They are keeping their relationship a secret. This takes place during the last chapter of RCD Book 2. It is after the Duchess party but, before the public Hollywood premiere. This takes place after my House Party fic and before my Coffee Date story.

Rating: PG

– – –

Alex looked at her phone. She had 2 new text messages. One from Thomas and the other from Victoria. 

Alex read Thomas’s first: Please tell me you are ready. I’m on my way. 

She smiled as she looked at her bags, already waiting by the door.

Then, Alex read Victoria’s text: You. Me. Shopping. Drinks. Dancing. Tonight?

Alex texted Victoria back: I would love to but, I can’t! Sorry!!! 😞Chazz has me reading through scripts all weekend. He wants me to find my next project.

Victoria quickly texted back: Ugh! Fine! Be boring! More drinks for me! 🍷🍷🍷

Alex replied: Enjoy one for me! Have fun, but not too much! I’ll make it up to you! 😘

Alex texted Chazz: Heads up, if anyone asks, you have me stuck at home all weekend reading scripts. 😉

Chazz replied a few minutes later: What will you be doing?.... Or should I say who? 😏

Alex responded: Lake Tahoe with Thomas 😊

Chazz teased:  Enjoy yourself! I got you covered! I expect juicy details when you come back though! 😼

Alex put her phone in her pocket as she heard a knock on the door. She took her time answering. Knowing Thomas would be more impatient with each moment that passed. After a minute of making Thomas wait, Alex opened the door. She quickly brought her lips to his before he could grumble about waiting. Thomas wrapped his arms around her hips and pulled her in.

“I could get used to that kind of greeting,” Thomas teased.

“Then you are definitely going to enjoy this weekend,” Alex smiled and kissed his cheek.

“Speaking of which, we need to get going,” Thomas expressed. “Please tell me you’re ready. We have a long drive.”

“You should be pleased,” Alex stated. “I’ve been packed for a whole 10 minutes already! It looks like your punctuality is rubbing off.”

“I should be so lucky,” Thomas quipped. 

Thomas carried Alex’s bags and loaded them in his car. He then opened the door for her, before getting in the car himself.

“I have to admit, I thought getting you up and ready would be far more difficult. I came equipped.” Thomas picked up an iced coffee from his cup holder and handed it to Alex. 

“You know me so well!” Alex happily took the coffee and started drinking it. 

“I question what you would do if there ever were a global coffee shortage,” Thomas proposed. 

“Don’t even joke about that!” Alex warned. She hugged the coffee to her chest. 

“Do you two want to be alone,” Thomas teased.

“My precious!” Alex hissed.

Thomas attempted to stifle a laugh.

“What?” Alex questioned.

“Nothing… You’re just…” Thomas began. “I’m glad you decided to come with me.”

“As am I,” Alex replied, shifting in her seat so she was turned in his direction. “When’s your meeting?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Thomas answered. 

“What’s on the agenda for today then?” Alex asked. 

“We won’t get there until late afternoon,” Thomas explained. “Then I thought… maybe dinner?”

“I definitely think I could be hungry,” Alex stated. “Anything else?”

“I had some thoughts,” Thomas smiled. 

“Do tell?” Alex requested.

“All in good time,” Thomas teased.

Thomas followed the directions on the car’s GPS leading out of the city and eventually onto California State Route 14 heading North. Alex made herself comfortable in the passenger seat, happily drinking her coffee. 

"Let’s play a game of ‘would you rather’,” Alex suggested.

“Why pray tell should we do that?” Thomas questioned

“It’ll be fun and we’ll get to know each other better,” Alex explained.

“Fine,” Thomas resigned. “I’ll go first. Would you rather play this game or stop for coffee in another hour when you run out.”

“You think I’ll make it an hour before needing more coffee? That’s cute,” Alex smirked. “You really should ask yourself the alternative, would I rather Alex with coffee or without coffee?”

“You may have a point there,” Thomas admitted defeat. 

“Would you rather have a dog or a cat?” Alex asked. 

“Cats are the more intelligent creatures,” Thomas stated. “However, dogs are more loyal. I value intelligence, but I’ll go with loyalty. I choose a dog.”

Alex breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay good. I was getting nervous. I was about to tell you to take me back. Dogs are the best!”

"I will keep that in mind," Thomas teased. "Would you rather get up early every morning for a year or live without coffee for a week?"

"A year is so much longer than a week. But coffee!!!" Alex contemplated the choice. "I'll get up early and drink lots of extra coffee for the year. Get ready for loads of breakfast dates!"

Alex thought about her next question. "Would you rather give up scotch for a week or spend a day communicating only through texts and emojis are a must."

"What if I just decide not to communicate for the day?" Thomas questioned. 

"Not an option," Alex answered. “Oh, and you actually have a big meeting that needs you to make a decision on.”

"I confess I've gotten better with the texting," Thomas began. "Nevertheless I don't believe my brain could handle solely using such a superficial means of communication, even if for just a day. Goodbye Scotch, I will miss you!”

“It’s only for one hypothetical week,” Alex jested. “And, you still have Port and everything else at your disposal!”

“That is of, at least, some consolation. Would you rather stay in or go out for a date?” Thomas proposed.

“Depends on who it’s with,” Alex explained “With you? Definitely stay in. I imagine we can find plenty to do.”

“I like the sound of that,” Thomas agreed. “I feel the same way.”

“Something tells me we will have plenty of dates to test it out,” Alex said coyly. 

“Let’s see….” Alex pondered. “Would you rather jump out of a moving car or go over Niagara Falls in a barrel?”

“I don’t want to be in a Tommy Phelps movie,” Thomas fumed.

“If it was a Tommy Phelps choice it would be more like this,” Alex started. “Would you rather jump out of a speeding car as you hurtle toward an exploding warehouse *BOOM* while taking fire from a bikini-clad super-spy *BOOM* or go over Niagara Falls in a barrel as you escape gunfire from a helicopter above that is just about to explode in 3...2...1...*BOOM*? BOOOOOOOM!!!”

Alex could barely contain her laughter. Thomas reluctantly joined in. 

Once Alex composed herself, she came up with another question. “How about an easier one? Would you rather hold my hand or stop playing the game?”

Thomas reached over and found Alex’s hand. He guided it toward him, brushing a soft kiss on her knuckles. 

“My turn. Would you rather cuddle by a fire under the stars or inside under a blanket?” Thomas asked softly.

“Under the stars, for sure,” Alex answered without hesitation. 

“I think that can be arranged,” Thomas said, squeezing her hand lightly. 

After a couple of hours of traveling, Thomas pulled over to get gas. As he filled the car, he looked through the window at Alex. Her seat was back and she was curled up sleeping. Even asleep, she was breathtaking. As Thomas got back in the car, he took off his jacket and rested it on top of Alex. She barely stirred beneath its touch. Alex looked so peaceful and innocent. Thomas thought back to what could have happened between her and Victor and for a moment, his anger sent a wave of heated fury through his body. He worried about what Victor might do to sabotage Alex’s career, especially with the upcoming premiere of The Last Duchess. He had expected more from Victor after the film was announced yet, so far, nothing. Thomas knew that he would never let anything happen to Alex. He wouldn’t let this town destroy her as he had seen it do to so many others. He would protect her, no matter the cost…. From Victor, or anyone, who would mean her harm.

– – –

>Lake Tahoe: A Weekend Getaway -Three Parts

Photo Edit: Thomas & Alex at the Lake House

Part One - Road Trip (PG)

Part Two - Dinner Date (PG)

Part Three - Next Steps (PG)

Thomas Tags: @hopelessromantic1352 ; @alleksa16 ; @mfackenthal ; @alj4890

Let me know if you want to be added.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story. I truly appreciate it!

[daggerzine]

GONERFEST 16:  9/26/19- 9/29/19, Memphis, TN (all photos by Slim Hiney unless otherwise noted...the good ones were by other people).

Why did it take me so long to get my ass down to Memphis and attend Goner Fest? I have no idea. The last few years my pal and I went out to Cropped Out in Louisville, KY and since that wasn’t happening this year we decided to do Goner Fest and that, my friends, turned out to be a great decision.

 We got lucky with a cool air bnb in a midtown spot right n the middle of all the action (walking distance to one of the venues).

We missed The Limes at the opening ceremony at the gazebo (spittin’distance from Goner Records who, of course,  are the fine folks who put this festival together……we made two trips to Goner to record shop, most excellent shop! Killer selection and friendly, helpful staff).

Thursday night at the Hi-Tone started with between band DJs Anthony Bedard and Mitch Cardwell revving the crowd up. Minneapolis’ Green/Blue, a band made up of folks from top-notch bands like The Soviettes and The Blind Shake, got the party started and their energy jolted me out of my sickness (my scratchy throat had just started…it was to get worse over the weekend).

Green/ Blue

Madison, WI’s, The Hussy, who have a new record out on Dirtnap, blazed through a set of hi-nrg tunes and were certainly having fun doing it. I met head Hussy Bobby later in the night and he was a most righteous chap.

Sweet Knives were up next and this band features Memphis legend Alicija Trout who’s got lots of charisma. Not my favorite band of the festival or anything but did enjoy most of it.

Louisiana’s Trampoline Team very well may have been my favorite band of the festival. A chant/ jitter punk growl that  sounded like the same song over and over. A totally freaking GREAT song so even if it was the same song I sure didn't mind. Don’t miss these folks if they blow through your town.

Trampoline Team 

Canada’s early 70’s psych band Simply Saucer (featuring Cleveland legend Craig Bell) bored me….well at least for the first half of the set then really turned it on and the 2nd half of the set and burned.

 At 1:00 AM I was still standing upright and thank god ‘cos the King Brothers took the stage and proceeded to ….well, dump a garbage can full of all kinds of muck all over the unsuspecting show goers (or maybe they were suspecting). They growled and grunted their way through set with the singer mostly in the crowd standing on hands and shoulders. These guys were insane.

King Brothers insanity 

 Friday 9/27/19

Of the afternoon bands at Memphis Made Brewery the ones I really enjoyed were New Zealand’s Vincent HL (Crazy Horse meets VU said I), Tucson’s Lenguas Largas (a few folks from Resonars) dripped and oozed rock and roll blood. Kelley Sanderson, who used to be in Those Darlin’s (a DAGGER fave) played a nice folksy solo set.

Vincent H.L. 

Kelley Anderson 

Back at the Hi-Tone on Friday night the DJs were Siltbreeze’s Tom Lax and Feeding Tube Records’ Byron Coley a few guys who know a thing or two about music. Good music.

We missed Mall Walker but caught Richard Papiercuts et Les Inspecteurs and I think I like the recordings a bit more than seeing them on stage. His Scott Walker meets Joy Division sound is certainly unique but again, gimme the records.

Paul Caporino has been doing the M.O.T.O. (Masters of the Obvious) machine for many years with a hundred hit songs and they played my fave “Dick About It.” Lots a energy and hooks and  rapid fire tunes.

Good-natured Aussie folks Thigh Master delighted the crowd with their wiry n’ wired pop sounds and they were among my faves (excellent, new record out on Goner). 

Thigh Master

The last time I saw Nots, was when they blew through Denver about 4 or 5 years ago as a quartet but think they’ve been a trio for quite some time and certainly delivered on this night with 30 minutes of pure RAWK (new rekkid out on Goner as well).

Nots  (photo by Dizzy Dean) 

Headliners on this night was Oblivians (the band featuring Eric from Goner) and hey, having Quintron on keyboards was like getting extra whipped cream on your ice cream. Another one of my favorite sets at Goner as these gents barely had 4 walls and a ceiling left by set’s end.  

 Saturday 9/28/19

Of the afternoon bands on Saturday the ones that converted me were the high energy of Opossums and New Zealand’s two-piece Na Noise (featuring one of the gals from Vincent HL) who plunked out a clutch of excellent songs. What can I say, I’m a convert.  Canadian punk band Priors seemed like they came to do two thinks, drink beer and play some great punk rock and succeeded in both (singer was a total character) while the Dixie Dicks gay take on country was hee-larious and loads of fun.

Tucson’s Resonars have been a fave of mine for a long while and they did not disappoint at all. Leader Matt Rendon has too many good songs to count and played many of them on this night while closing out the afternoon gig was Oblivions/Reigning Sound’s Greg Cartwright & the Tip Tops  doing a lovely set of gravelly/soulful tunes. Still love his vocals.

Resonars

Greg Cartwright & the Tip Tops

Priors (photo by Dizzy Dean) 

 Back to the Hi-Tone for Saturday night and the DJs were The Mummies’ Russell Quan and Bazooka Joe (Slovenly Records) and these cats had a bonafide dance party going on!

DJs Russell Quan and Bazooka Joe

We only caught the last tune or two by Teardrop City (featuring Laurie Stirrat) but got front and center for Australia’s Parsnip and while I like their new record (out now on Trouble in Mind) the live set was even better. Lots o’ energy, charisma and fun, catchy songs.

Not sure why I expected to not like Giorgio Murderer in a live setting but really liked their set. Two guys on synths and a drum machine (at least from where I could see in the back of the club).

Memphis faves Hash Redactor drilled holes with guitars all night (the band also featured 2 Nots and one Ex Cult) and it was another one of my fave sets. Do not miss if they fall into your town.

Tommy and the Commies hail from the great white north and brought their mod fun down for a quick but catchy set while the kings of budget rock, The Mummies hit the stage at 1:00am (with a short film beforehand) and played all the hits (including their cover of Devo’s “Uncontrollable Urge”). What a night.

The Mummies (pretty sure Rob Yazzie took this photo)  

Sunday 9/29/19

Closing ceremonies in the sun was a nice way to end the festival with the Sharde Thomas & the Rising Star Fife & Drum Band who had the crowd raising their hands and shaking their feet.

 Gonerfest is a top notch Grade A. Eric , Zac and their team put on an excellent festival and the folks who attend really love and  appreciate it (ie: no dicks at all, everyone was cool). I got my ass out there this year so next year it’s your turn (and I plan on being there as well).

....a few more pics

Lenguas Largas

Back shot of Greg Cartwright & the Tip Tops

NA Noise 

Opossums 

The Mummies (I believe this was snapped by Bobby Hussy......great shot!)

[aka217]

Ok, so 2019

This year was a mix of goods and okays. This for sure feels like a transition point, where normal is not comfortable, and change is imminent. We have our sights on new adventures in the West coast. And while it didn't come to fruition this year, the intent has been built and we are set to make 2020 a big turn. But first, let's recap 2019:

2019 was no slow down of travel from the past, which really is our ambition. With the help of Southwest companion pass, we were able to take advantage and travel to many places. Plus the job flew me out to a few additional location, as well as two interviews in San Francisco was of some one else's dime. Let's go through the list:

San Francisco: same for an interview, stayed for my 30th birthday celebration with the SF crew. Cat Cafe, a couple brunch spots, improv show. Always a good time and perhaps a little taste of what's to come. I was flown out a second time, and while quick, was able to fit in a quick night adventure with Kim. It was heartbreaking for this opportunity not to come into fruition, but on to the next as they say.

Easley SC: quick trip for work, not much here but hey, free travel

Washington DC/Virginia: fun trip with Ashley, exploring the city. At the time DC was a possible location to move, and we did get good vibes. We spent time hanging out with Ashley's old friends, and sightseeing. I haven't been to DC since I was a kid, so seeing the monuments now I had a better appreciation. Tied to this trip was a quick visit to Manassas, to see my cousins and his two daughters. That was a nice quick visit to get some ice cream in town and some real BonChon haha.

Puerto Rico: always a favorite, hanging out with Ashley's family, we went hiking up parts of El Yunque, beach times and just hanging out. I had a delicious Cuban sandwich chopped up perhaps in a Puerto Rican style. Delicioso.

Park City Utah: this was a fun trip for Sheri's birthday. A lot of the schmooters crew came out for to stay in a cabin like house within the valley of a bunch of ski mountain. We were at the tail end of winter/spring, but thanks to climate change we did see snow(and briefly hail) which added to the trip. Jacuzzi while snowing, party games, staying in, and watching the stars. Pretty awesome trip and a true showing that it we really come together for each other, not necessarily for the city.

Jacksonville: quick trip to see Ashley's cousin, little 4th of July action

St. Augustine: back to back I believe weekends from Jacksonville to see Becca Matt and Mason.

Raleigh North Carolina: Anthony's wedding, Raleigh has a surprisingly cultured downtown. Had time to grab different bites, plus explore downtown, NC state, drive pass the museum of art, and take a rest in the wildlife forest by the airport.

Titusville: a few times we visited Eddy, going to the local beach (which had some wild big waves, that was awesome to boogy board) and also see Eddy's new house, plus a rocket launch!

Portland Maine: quick work trip to diagnose an issue, caught this town in the thick of fall. Beautiful fall colors, it's a shame I never made it past half a mile from the airport. But did get to eat Maine's favorites: lobster bisque and blueberry pie.

Montego Bay Jamaica: celebrating 15 years with Ashley (officially half of our lives together), it was a fun all inclusive resort. Jamaican patties everyday, curried goat, and great Thai as well. Not enough time, but very enjoyable

Milwaukee WI: glad to get here one more time for training paid by the company. I was able to hit a few favorites plus a few new spots, saw Julia Michaels in concert, watch the Bucks play at a crazy sports bar, watched Parasite at a beautiful old theater, and listened to classical guitar at a museum of art. I love the city a lot and had a lot of time to get to know it. This may be the last time I get to go on company dime, but I really hope it's not the last time I visit. I'd love to get property to frequently visit as I get older, trully a place that has my heart.

Tampa: wild Thanksgiving weekend of Ocala straight to Tampa, including three different hotels in the 5 days. But Tampa/St. Pete is always a good time, and we were there to see Lizzo

Las Vegas: AJ's bachelor party with his cousins and the schmooters fam. It's funny to see how we grow up, because during my bachelor party we sardine canned 11 guys into 2 rooms, and went everywhere as a crew. This time most of us got separate rooms and split up frequently to do our own thing. But we had great moments together, and Ashley and I had a little extra time to ourselves. Las Vegas is always a great and expensive time. It helps to win in craps and roulette, but eventually the house always wins haha.

Wow. Every year I'm surprised by how much travel we accomplish, and would be surprised to think the next year would be just as much. But thanks to the companion pass, points, and Tracy's Hilton friends and family, we manage to do a lot on a discount. I love it and grateful we can do it year after year.

A couple highlight shows this year:

Improv show in San Francisco

Hamilton: wow worth all the hype, and loads of

listening to the soundtrack and mixtape

Sabrina Claudio: nice to see here again live, what a great voice, and to see her at a venue with her headlining

Julia Michaels: wow this one too. I love one of her songs, but being able to know the setlist ahead of time, I had the chance to fall in love withore of her songs, and to know the words to all of the songs. What a performer and her and her band make one of my favorite shows ever

Harry Potter orchestra: we did the first movie, but the composition of this movie is exceptional we couldn't miss it

Lizzo/Sam Smith: Ashley's wish to see Lizzo in concert, a whim decision in the middle of the night I planned the entire trip to Tampa. It was cool to go back to a Jingle ball concert (my first concert was a jingle ball) and the setlist was pretty decent.

Other highlights:

Story corp: Ashley and I recorded a podcast, going through our relationship. It was a fun time and cool to have a piece of us be preserved in a national archive.

Marriage classes: continuing from 2018 we did a set of marriage classes. We enjoy these to help fortify our relationship and make sure we communicate to each other clearly. Highly recommend for any couple getting married.

Coffee shop Sundays: we started this in heavy pursuit to look for new opportunities, it allowed us to explore new spaces in the Orlando area (and even in Miami). It's a nice way to spend time with Ashley, as well as follow through with our intents.

No Shave November: first time participating, I thought I'd try to see what growing my beard would be like, plus if I can raise money for Cancer. Well surpriaingly I raise $291, and matching that to a total of $581 to various cancer research organizations. It's compelling the power of contributing as a community can be, when many times it can be doubting to try and do it alone.

Okay, last tidbits:

Best thing I ate this year: Cuban sandwich in Puerto Rico

Best thing I drove this year: learned to sail a Hobie catamaran in Jamaica

Best game I played this year: Fire Emblem Three Houses

This year was a weird mix of stagnation but also pandemonium. It constantly felt like we were always going somewhere on the weekends and on vacation, with very few days of just being in the house. But also at work and our jobs, we feel very stagnant as I haven't seen any progression in my profession since last year. This has truly set a spark in Ashley and I looking collectively for new opportunities, and we hope to see this come to fruition in 2020. It surely be an adventure this coming year, we can only hope it is filled with fun adventures and fulfillment.

Cheers

[qtakesams]

Is Traveling Really Therapeutic?

For those of you who haven’t followed my social media this year (I really apologize for how showy I can be on Facebook), 2019 has been a really powerful year of my life.

           In the first week of January, I took a weekend trip to Toronto with two of my best friends. We did everything from the driving to the hotel booking to the meal planning. It was intense and so, so much fun. Over my spring break, my dad and I took a week trip out to California, Nevada, and Arizona. We started in Vegas, worked our way the entire way through Death Valley into the Sierras, and back down to Willow Beach. In the span of four days, I fell in love with the Sierras, Joshua Tree, and flying in planes. It was right before this trip ended that I received an email, lying in bed as the sun poked through my window shades, that I had earned an internship in Edgewater, Maryland, with the Smithsonian. Directly after spring break ended, I headed back to school where I remained until May 16th. Over Memorial Day weekend, I moved down to Maryland, where I lived until August 2nd. Two weeks later, I hopped on a plane to move to Amsterdam for study abroad, where I currently sit writing this post.

           If you aren’t a seasoned traveler or you don’t have excessive wanderlust, your head is probably spinning from reading that paragraph. I don’t blame you, because my head spun while I wrote it.

           There have been summers of my life where I was barely home at all, usually because of a lengthy field trip in June and then vacations in July and August. Yet, this has been the first year of my life where I have truly been everywhere, up and down, side to side. Every minute of every day. Every month had a new place, a new adventure.

           I’ve been in Amsterdam almost a full month now (more on this later). Yet, I’m still having the moments where I leave class or get off the tram or open my curtains in the morning and think holy shit, I live here. This city is one I’ve dreamt about visiting for my entire life. Nothing is more striking than walking down a narrow, brick street in Amsterdam West and realizing you’ve seen a picture of it in National Geographic.

           I grew up watching Bindi Irwin, Malala Yousufzai, Malia Obama. These young women are all my age, women who started globetrotting before they started high school. Their shows, books, and photos have instilled in me dreams of journalism in the Middle East, making a difference in the animal kingdom, and kickstarting campaigns that work toward reducing sexual stigmas against women. If the amount of traveling and adventure I’ve had in 2019 had taught me anything, it taught me, finally, that the world is big, but I am bigger, and I can do the things I want to do.

           I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how “The Year Quinn Goes Everywhere” ended up being the last year of this decade. In 2010, I was an annoying, awkward, anxiety-riddled fifth grader who had no idea where I stood in the world. In one single decade of the 2010’s, I battled middle school, high school, and over two years of college. I flew threw my teenage years directly into my early twenties where I am now. I changed a lot, in so many ways. Quite honestly, if I had a time machine, I might use it to return to that 2010 Quinn and show her what she’d turn into by 2020. That said, I’m not sure she’d believe me.

           This rambling brings me to the purpose of this blog post: is traveling as educating and therapeutic as we are led to believe?

           My first year of college, I didn’t do very much outside of academics. Multiple things were occurring in my life that I disliked strongly but didn’t have the courage to end because I didn’t think I could. This last year, a few major changes happened in my life that for once, I welcomed with open arms. Then the spring semester happened. My social life was awesome, and my grades stayed mostly decent, but I felt drained from the life changes and my mental health dipped a little. Not a lot, but enough to feel disappointed in myself. For about a month, (this is my first time admitting this), I strongly considered dropping out of college, not sure if I had what it took to keep going. I told myself to finish what I’d started, to prove to the world that average kids like me could still make something of themselves. I suppose, ultimately, I realized I needed to keep going because 2010 Quinn had kept going, and she’d made it. If I kept going, I would make it, even if it was a difficult journey.

           A love of travel is something I think I love, partly, because it runs through my family’s blood. On my father’s side of the family, there are seven cousins. I am the youngest, and my oldest cousin is roughly eight years older than me. Between all of us, we’ve lived in different countries throughout Europe, South America, and North America. Between the cousins and the parents and the grandfather, the 16 of us or so have covered every continent on Earth, dozens of countries, and so, so many cultures. If I didn’t have excessive wanderlust, I’d be kicked out of my family.

           I know I’ll get backlash for saying this, but I do not like the way our current governmental administration looks at the rest of the world. I don’t like “America First” or “Make America Great Again”. I dislike these phrases because they isolate us. They prohibit us from the ability to walk a mile in another’s shoes. They imply that we used to be something fantastic and then we weren’t, for a long time. Our administration tells migrants and refugees they are not welcome here or they should go home, when in fact our country is founded upon immigrants and the work, they do to keep themselves alive. It’s occurred to me several times that our administration focuses on these phrases because they have never worried about anything, or anyone, else but themselves.

            This, my friend, is where traveling comes in. Just by visiting Toronto, Death Valley, and Amsterdam, I’ve seen ways of life that are entirely different from my own. There are differences in safety measures, environmental protection, and the way homeless people will react to your presence. Differences in grocery stores, the way people hold doors open, and food preparation. Mind-blowing little things you could possibly only notice if you travel to these different places.

           In some ways, 2019 has been one giant therapy session for me so far. I’ve learned (thus far) how independent I can be—how well I can take care of myself when nobody else can do it for me. I’ve looked some of my greatest fears (more on these later) in the face and told them to fuck off. Traveling forces you to leave your comfort zone. It forces you to expose the raw parts of you to the literal, worldwide public audience that watches you navigate an airport or a new city.

           I’ve cried a lot this year, sometimes from sadness and sometimes from being so happy I cannot contain it all. I’ve smiled so much that I think any wrinkles I started developing have dissipated. Until this year, when I started going on so many trips, I never realized how trapped I feel in my hometown. Of course, I love going home for a few weeks at a time, specifically during the holidays. Yet, whenever I return to the town I grew up in and I drive past my high school, I feel myself reverting back to who I was as a teenager. The overly introverted, shy kid who doesn’t know where she’s going. I don’t dislike this version of myself, but I’m still glad she’s gone, and I never want to return to her.

           At the end of this year, I think I’m going to get to look back at my adventures and realize how much I’ve changed. Or at least, I hope so. I feel refreshed and new, and hopefully I’ll give off similar vibes when I come home in a few months. And, I’ll get to answer once and for all if this year was as therapeutic as it currently feels.

           Mostly, I hope that somewhere out in space, wherever that fifth grade, 2010 Quinn is, that she can deem herself proud of me. I’m obscenely proud of her, and somehow, I think she knows that.

[icequeen-shiva]

alright, you know what

about two weeks ago maybe by now, i made a post about how i’ve recently hit 200 followers and i’d like to do a q&a again, and even with a reblog from someone more ~*popular*~ than me, and multiple reblogs once a day for a few days by myself, i didn’t get a single fucking question. not one. earlier today i posted two pictures of myself where i felt pretty (i’ve since deleted them) and nobody i actually know of liked it and i got asked by a stranger who doesn’t even follow me if i had any nsfw pictures. i don’t get asks anymore, i don’t get shit. and that tells me that, you may be following me, but you aren’t connecting with me. and i feel that. i get on tumblr and i don’t feel like i’m friends with fucking anybody. and i did that. i know i did that. 9/10 times i let my fear of rejection and embarrassing myself overcome my desire to talk to people, so i don’t do it, or i let it fizzle out and we go our own ways and we don’t become friends. 1/10 times i actually function as a human being and make a connection or at least something that sticks a little.

so here, below the cut, is a comprehensive (loosely) list of things that i like, in no particular order at all, besides tickling, because apparently both sides of this need a little help connecting on any front.

scooby-doo

beetlejuice

the addams family

the sims

the mcu

classic disney animations; my favorites are dumbo, the great mouse detective, the rescuers, sleeping beauty, and oliver and company (it’s old enough that i consider it in the classic category)

~modern disney animations too; my favorites are treasure fucking planet, coco, and... i’m a sap, beauty and the beast. rise of the guardians too even though it isn’t disney.

musicals; i can’t pick a favorite just fucking ask me, but i don’t know a lot of newer ones honestly

empire records

the greatest showman still

cats (i mean the animals but i also like the show even though it is Weird As Hell)

my cat in particular

alice in wonderland

stranger things

space jam

tsum tsums

elvira, mistress of the dark

dice

kiki’s delivery service and specifically jiji things

winnie the pooh i don’t even fucking care i LOVE HIM AND ALL OF HIS FRIENDS

silly hats

playdoh

interesting earrings

exploring libraries or big bookstores

true crime mysteries; my favorite youtuber for this is georgia marie, bless her. i also watch bella fiori and kendall rae

fictional mysteries too

i have a kind of fascination with jack the ripper and with the lizzie borden case

shipwrecks! i don’t know why but shipwrecks fascinate me! why did they go down? all the stories that went with them!

i once read a novel that was told as a series of letters, or journal entries, by people on the titanic, including the iceberg and it was THE absolute saddest book i have ever read in my life. like, obviously i knew what was coming, but i got attached to the characters, the letters made them alive and it was just like... NO. NO I DON’T WANT THEM TO DIE. I KNOW THEY’RE GOING TO BUT THEY CAN’T. and it was awful. i had to put it down and cry.

cryptozoology

the bermuda triangle theories (i’m not saying i believe sOmEtHiNg’S gOiNg On but i think some of the theories are interesting)

ghosts

the nancy drew computer games

monopoly

i still play a lot of my snes games; my go-to time killer and head-clearer honestly is kirby’s avalanche. i also play a lot of super mario rpg legend of the seven stars, super mario world, kirby’s dreamland 3, and donkey kong 2 and 3

final fantasy x in which i’m guaranteed to call almost (i can’t stress that enough) every character at some point “my child”

hyrule warriors, i know it’s not a tRuE zelda game but it’s fucking fun

same with fire emblem warriors

red dead redemption

kingdom hearts

the uncharted series

splatoon but i don’t have it wahhhhh

mind you i am not very Good at videogames, i just like to play them anyway

game grumps

ninja sex party

jacksepticeye

markiplier

monty python

crocheting

tea

harry potter

classic rock. pretty big on queen lately. i like tom petty and the heartbreakers. i like joan jett and the blackhearts.

i just... like rock. across the board. i like the offspring. i like some rage against the machine songs. acdc on the radio makes me happy. def leppard on the radio makes me happy. beartooth, starset, powerman 5000, as long as it’s got a good beat and good stuff going on behind the vocals then i’m gonna be happy. i’m way more into the guitars and the bass and everything going on instrumentally than i am vocally, honestly. the whole big guitar solo to van halen’s “you really got me” and then that bassline that comes in, that bassline is sexy. it’s so simple but i LIKE it.

anyway music as a whole gets me right in the heart and can lift me up when i am at my literal worst point

it’s hard for me to name a favorite or specific bands that i like because there’s so many and i’m not really picky about it. 

pop vinyls

good ol’ vines

buffalo wings

mac and cheese

grilled cheese

dr. pepper

i drink a l o t of dr. pepper

pretending i know how to do makeup well

history; i watch a lot of expedition unknown and mysteries at the museum, and sometimes i’ll watch a free documentary on youtube if it catches my attention. last weekend i explained the donner party to my boyfriend. just.. on a whim. because i’d just watched a thing on it and he said he didn’t really know what it was. i’m that person.

OH I SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED THIS BACK AROUND TRUE CRIME BUT I READ A BOOK ABOUT H.H. HOLMES AND HIS MURDER CASTLE AND THE CHICAGO WORLD’S FAIR. it was by erik larson, i believe. larsen? i could google this. devil in the white city. there’s been talks to make it a movie. it’s a good read though i will admit i skipped a lot of the fair parts because i was there for the murder.

i also read a book about the lusitania by the same author and i was like ohhh my goooood what. it got a little boring sometimes, i had to push myself to keep going, but i would read dead wake again.

csi: miami reruns are the greatest thing don’t @ me

dark purple and black aesthetics

just like... witchy aesthetics. those colors and black cats

if you haven’t noticed by any selfies i’ve posted, i do have my lip pierced and i love finding new lip jewelry. i have a new opal stud in and i love its look

leather jackets

combat boots; i have a galaxy print pair and a pair with classic marvel comics stuff printed on the inside and you can fold down the sides to show it. they’re my faves.

owls

drunk history

the first 5 seasons of supernatural and i still have a soft spot for the winchesters and castiel

i’m slowly making my way through watching the librarians

i’m also making my way slowly through watching the magicians

(american) football

nature walks

going to the zoo

going to the aquarium

like really take me to either of the above and i will lose my shit

road trips

savannah, georgia

the smokey mountains

last august i drove by myself from ohio to boone, north carolina for a friend’s wedding and that wedding was smack on a mountain top and it was the coolest thing i think i’ve ever done

roller coasters BUT NOT EXTREME ONES baby steps ok

log rides tho, i don’t know why, i always love the water rides

ren faires!

cosplay, even though i’m not exactly active in it myself (but i want to be; one of my offline friends is an actually-getting-kind-of-internet-famous mei from overwatch cosplayer)

cards against humanity

foosball

pool but i suck at it

speaking of pools i love swimming ... but i suck at it, i just like boppin’ along in a pool

cookouts

summer

there is nothing like being out in the middle of nowhere in summer when the evening starts to fall and the sky is dark, dark blue and there’s a sea of shimmering lightning bugs out over a field. it’s beautiful. it’s peaceful.

there’s nothing like sitting outside on a calm spring night and listening to the spring peepers (they’re frogs) either.

if you couldn’t tell, i live in the middle of nowhere. i have to find enjoyment in the little things.

campfires

dancing around said campfire, you cannot have a campfire without good music. this is when a lot of my classic rock education came to pass.

elephants

my favorite books are the abhorsen trilogy by garth nix, tied with the serpent’s shadow by mercedes lackey

i am trying to get into comic books by way of the youtube channel comicstorian. they break comic books down for you and read them aloud with the images, altered slightly to avoid copyright strikes (and that’s all made very clear, it’s not done sketchily), and it’s been really easy for someone like me who doesn’t just have a comics store close (and i would otherwise continue on as i have been, forgetting to ever look for them on the internet). i listened to injustice 1 and 2, and they covered the game. i’m actively following scooby apocalypse, and there was some teen titans stuff i went all the way through up until now. i don’t think it’s finished yet from what i remember.

i love museums

candles

i actually kind of collect tea sets

i also have a collection of sand art bottles AND IF I’M EVER AT A FESTIVAL OR A FAIR WHERE THERE IS A SAND ART STAND YOU CAN BET I AM GOING TO MAKE ONE

yugioh duels; i’m definitely just a novice and it’s just a fun pastime my friends got me into when they found their giant binders of cards again

i’m not actually that big on pokemon, i don’t know a lot of them but it’s still fun and i know some. but i did love pokemon go when my friends still played it (don’t really have time anymore, and it kept crashing way too badly on one of their phones anymore anytime they tried to join a raid and it just wasn’t fun as a group then)

i don’t have any but i like the ~look of crystals and would like to have some, not for my own aesthetic but i just... like having pretty things!

listening to the rain

how the air smells (at least where i live) after a long rain and everything is just cleansed

depression has stopped me from writing for a long time but, in my heart, writing has always been something that has touched me ever since i knew how to do it and could put my stories down on paper instead of having to just talk about them... so i’m going to include that here

root beer floats

hotdogs

hard dip ice cream (if you don’t know what hard dip means... as my boyfriend didn’t... it means ice cream that you have to use a scoop with, not soft serve)

soft serve’s good too tho don’t get me wrong

strawberry milkshakes

this isn’t even stuff that anyone would need to know on this site to befriend me at this point, nobody’s gonna message me like HEY I READ YOU LIKE STRAWBERRY MILKSHAKES ME FUCKING TOO

you’re cool if you do that lmao

so bad they’re good creature features from the 50s and 60s

the old godzilla movies

i like the moon more than the stars, but i like them too

flower crowns

bouncy balls

original skittles

this has gone on way too long, nobody is reading this, your mom’s a hoe, goodnight

no she’s not, i’m sorry, if you got this far then i hope your mom is a nice person

[theessaflett]

72 Hours (ish) in... MANCHESTER

Your friendly neighbourhood Essa has a look round a city best known for the industrial revolution, bees, and bad weather. 

…The start of my trip to Manchester wasn’t the smoothest.

The only thing I could find to eat at Euston station for my tea before my 19:40 train were chips coated in some sort of suspicious chilli dust, so it was a very queasy Essa who arrived at Manchester Piccadilly a few hours later and wandered around trying to find the exit. (I had in fact been to the station before last October as part of a band tour, but as I was VERY sick and feverish at the time I had very little recollection of the place indeed!) I trundled my suitcase out of the station and off into the night - and my, what a night.  9.45pm on a Saturday night in Manchester is quite the experience, and as Google Maps took me down back alley after back alley I found myself humming ”Just keep swimming, just keep swimming” to myself with increasing speed. One particularly memorable back alley held two sad looking figures, one of whom was violently throwing up behind a bin. 
“You alright, Tim?” called the other one, who was busy trying to use a wall to stay upright. Tim was almost certainly not alright. I left them to it. 

After about 20 minutes of nervous trundling I arrived at Hatters Hostel. It turned out that Hatters was on top of a nightclub, opposite a nightclub, and instead of being part of the Hilton hotel chain as I’d originally surmised it was called “Hilton Hatters Hostel” because it was on Hilton street. I was beginning to regret some of the decisions that had led to this moment. 

Looks nice, doesn’t it. LIES. 

I tried to get the eye of the receptionist, was told I would have to wait as she was “doing the money”, and sat down on the only couch next to a man in gym clothes who had seemingly waited so long he’d passed out. Many minutes passed. In the end I passively aggressively opened and shut all the leaflets next to the desk  - Manchester offers two walking tours and a make your own beer festival, incidentally - and once Sleeping Man had been woken up and his booking put through it was my turn. Sleeping Man had been asked for ID, and I nervously started my explanation that I’d forgotten my passport but had my 16-25 train card when it was cut off by the receptionist. She didn’t really care, it was just a formality. Also, where had I dyed my hair? She’d tried to dye it that colour but it had just gone green and her mum had made her cut it off because green wasn’t an acceptable colour for her sister’s wedding. But now it was purple which was also cool. I murmured positive words about purple, took the key card and headed for the lift, trying to ignore the fact that the floor numbers on the wall were peeling off. I found 104, glad that the door looked less battered than some of the other ones, and after the second time of trying, keyed myself into my home for the next three days.

…The Hatters Hostel website photographer deserves some sort of award for misguiding photography. And possibly to be sued. I was expecting a fancy room, plush and cosy. I admittedly got quite a comfortable bed, but I also was given a TV that had been installed at an angle that meant I would need to be the girl from the Exorcist to watch it in comfort, a broken heater, no main light, no kettle, thin, pathetic towels…and a hell of a lot of noise. Here’s the thing about arriving, at 10.30pm on a Friday night, into a room on the first floor directly on top of a night club and opposite several other nightclubs: it is astonishingly, awe inspiringly, horrifyingly loud. The vibrations shuddered through the floor and up my legs, and my suspicions about the sturdiness of the walls were confirmed when I laid a hand on one of them and felt vibrations shuddering through the brickwork too. Some optimistic soul had put in double glazing on the one, sad looking window, but it was no good: the pounding music was coming up through the bare linoleum floor and in the cracks between said floor and the walls. Friends, I am not so proud as to deny that I had a bit of a disappointed sniffle as I sat on the edge of the bed in the cold, listening to four different nightclub bangers (that all had driving dubstep basses…they sadly didn’t even merge into one pleasing cross-rhythm beat) and trying to reassess my accommodation expectations. The reason for the massive tub of free ear plugs on the reception desk was becoming terribly, horribly clear. After a bolstering call to my parents where I let them know I’d arrived and tried to elicit some sympathy for the damp boombox situation in which I’d found myself (“Well go down to reception and ask if you can get another room then, sitting there moping at me isn’t doing anything���  is arguably the Scottish version of “Aw poor diddums” so I consider the sympathy bid a success) I mournfully trailed back to ground level and put on my best pleading puppy face. It was no good: there were no other free rooms for the whole weekend, he was very sorry, my heater should be warming up at any moment. (this was a lie. I am certain that I had no heating for the full three days.) I grimly stocked up on earplugs and, comforted with the paltry commiseration that the nightclubs shut at 1.30am, went back to my unappealing room. This was it, was it? This is what £264 got you for three nights in central Manchester? Bloody hell. Tried out the shower. It was cold. Went to bed and sulked. (To be fair, several Destiny’s Child and Britney Spears medleys later, the noise did mercifully stop at 1.30am. Which was just as well, as by that point I was fantasising about punching night clubbers.)

Day 1

My main reason for being in Manchester over the weekend was to attend a one-day writing course at the LGBT Foundation  - 2019 may be a year of me writing lots of things but there’s still not much time for writing “just for fun” so I was looking forward to writing anything I liked for a full day! I blearily made my way out of the hostel - glaring at anyone who looked like they might have been making noise six hours earlier - and headed off to the Foundation, stopping at the “park” (a few trees and a bit of squelchy grass does not a proper park make, Manchester) Cafe Nero on my way. This proved a wise move, as soya milk has not yet made it to the LGBT Foundation so I was sadly under caffeinated for the day…

The LGBT Foundation 

The writing day itself was lovely; I enjoyed the chance just to spend time tapping away on my laptop, the other course members were friendly and the heating was on. The only real disaster was lunchtime, when I ordered rice at a nearby Asian to-go place and got noodles instead. I can’t eat noodles. Ended up eating random selections of snacks and showing people my noodles whilst saying sadly, “Look, they gave me noodles!” (Received a satisfactory amount of sympathy from all.) The LGBT Foundation staff were friendly and it’s great that there’s such an extensive support centre in the heart of the Gay Village…my only quibble about the building would be that it was surprising and disappointing to see they only offered Male or Female toilets and there was no mention anywhere of the additional “IAQ+” that I’m used to London folk using most of the time. It would be a real shame if Intersex/Asexual/Non-Binary/Gender Queer young people used the building and didn’t feel like they belonged, when just a few posters and different bathroom signs  would make the Foundation welcoming to absolutely everyone. (Alright, snowflake millennial moment over!)

After the course I headed over to HOME   - stopping off at Pizza Express on the way, where a chatty waitress asked me if I was an artist…I considered creating a new persona but in the end decided I didn’t have the energy - to see the Old Vic production of Wise Children. 

Part of the HOME complex

Although I felt like some elements of the production jarred (why must new plays always include grim scenes of child abuse, incest and/or rape?) and the ending was just bizarre, I thoroughly enjoyed the onstage music and the breath-taking stage design…and the fact that I knew one of the cast members! Paul Hunter from Told By An Idiot didn’t look very different to when I worked with him on Get Happy in 2013 and it was great to see him in action, getting belly laughs from the whole audience as he strutted up and down the stage in full-blown comedic idiot mode.

The brilliant stage design for Wise Children

Getting back to the hostel afterwards proved a little more difficult than anticipated due to a lost Uber driver and there being two Hatters Hostels (naturally I was delivered to the wrong one) but I eventually made it back to Purgatory Room and grimly waited out the Michael Jackson remixes coming through the walls by watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine clips with my head underneath the covers to retain warmth. By 1.20am I was passing the time by fantasising about how I was going to switch on both of my radiators in my London flat when I returned on Monday night and toast myself in front of the two of them until the heat was similar to Barbados in August.

Day 2

I groggily crashed out of the hotel at 11am with only one clear thought: CAFFEINE. Manchester decided to give me a true North of England experience: it was cold, grey, and miserably wet. I tried to find my cafe of choice with some urgency.

Teacup Kitchen Cafe

Teacup Kitchen was recommended as a vegan cafe on Yelp. This, it turned out, was not wholly accurate. Some of their menu was vegan. Very little of their menu indeed was gluten free, but it turned out that that at least was easily rectified as they did have GF bread. As I had clearly stumbled into the Manchester equivalent of Shoreditch the decor was brutally bare, the music was loud and everyone was dressed in black so it was impossible to tell who were the waitstaff and who were just pretentious. (I found this very funny until I realised I was also dressed in all black, at which point I found it slightly less funny and instead wondered when it was exactly that London had turned me into such a hipster stereotype). 

Note the bare light bulbs... 

I ordered poached eggs and avocado on toast, which, this being Northern Shoreditch, came with chilli flakes and raw onion for some reason. I pleaded for no onion but got it anyway, which led to some sad toilet trips later.

General Public Announcement: Food intolerances aren’t just fads, everyone!!!

Who would ruin a perfectly good avocado by dumping a whole load of onion on top of it anyway?! 

Indignant with this most first world of first world problems, I paid an eye-watering £17.10 for what was essentially eggs on toast, a cup of tea and a juice (more expensive that Shoreditch?! Discuss)  and trudged out into the rain once more. …Then hopped into Forbidden Planet, because Forbidden Planet!! For the uninitiated, Forbidden Planet is a magical world of deep nerdy joy.  

If a non-geek person would react to an object by saying, “Oh that’s from that show you like, isn’t it…that’s nice…?”, they probably have it. That being said, they did not have nearly enough Doctor Who or Tim Burton merchandise for my liking and after wandering around having fun spooking all the nervous looking nerdy teenage boys (A woman!!, I could practically hear them whisper amongst themselves. The last time we had one of them in here was in 2009! Darren still hasn’t recovered!!) I headed off to the John Rylands library.

The (rather wet in this photo) John Rylands Library

Now, my understanding of the John Rylands library was that it was one, quite impressive, hall. This proved to be similar to saying that the Titanic was quite big. It was absolutely massive, with four or five main library spaces and lots of awe-inspiring  corridors and staircases in-between, many of which I am certain have been used in Harry Potter films. By pure good luck it was a great time to be visiting, as there were two really interesting exhibitions on about the role of women in literature and society in general. The Women in Manchester exhibition in particular was fascinating and gave a brief but vivid idea of how crucial the women of the city were both in the Suffragette movement itself and in protests before and afterwards. The “Historical Bathroom” is worth a visit too (if you’re as curious as I was about that description, it turned out to be a ladies bathroom that had been preserved exactly as it was when the library opened in the early 20th century. It was fully functioning but very draughty), as is the main Historic Library. 

The magic of the building overall was, for me at any rate, slightly dimmed with the knowledge that it wasn’t actually very old at all, just built in the style of earlier buildings by late-era Victorians wistful for an earlier “Utopian” age of social harmony, unnerved as they were by the unrest and turbulence of the Industrial Age in which they found themselves. I’m sure that most infamous of old-school folk song collectors Cecil Sharp, for instance, would have been delighted by the righteous pomp of the marble statues and stuffy regal halls, the library a grand symbol of an age and an Empire already on the way out when the building first opened.

That said, the John Rylands library is still beautiful, impressive and well worth a trip - just allocate more time than I did! I finished off my visit with an organic cola (would not recommend) from the rather chilly open-plan cafe then tried to decide what to do next. My initial plan had been to go to the Museum of Manchester, but a quick check of their website brought up the unwelcome news that due to renovations the only section still open was “Fossils and Meteorites”, which was not a gallery that exactly filled me with unbound excitement. In the end I decided to go to the People’s Museum instead  - admittedly because it was only four minutes away and, after inevitably going the wrong way and walking round in circles for a bit scowling at Google Maps, I arrived at the brutalist museum in dire need of the loo and a plug socket for my fast-dying phone battery. 

The rather damp looking People’s History Museum 

They had both of those things, so we were already off to a good start when I guiltily ignored the “Use The Stairs, Save Our Environment!” sticker next to the lift and saved my aching legs the climb to the third floor. It became fairly clear very quickly that this was a museum where if you accidentally started the exhibition backwards everything was really quite confusing, but sadly that was what I somehow did on every single floor. (There are still some things that I’m puzzling over, and probably will be forever.) I also started off foolishly presuming that as I was on the 3rd floor I would be going chronologically back in time rather than forwards, but it turned out that there was no such clear organisational system in place for the exhibits: rather, photographs from the 1940s and propaganda posters from the 1880s rubbed shoulders in cheerful harmony. This only added to my overall confusion but gave a nice overall air of linear history being an unnecessary construct of our modern-day society. The writers of the Old Testament would have approved wholeheartedly!

The museum was truly fascinating, and quite shocking in how openly socialist-bordering-on-communist it was in its beliefs; lots of Karl Marx quotes on the walls and leftist liberal exhibit blurbs. I enjoyed it thoroughly -  particularly the excellent section about the Votes for Women movement - and was delighted to find the cafe offered a proper cuppa and gluten free biscuits. This was the life. The museum sadly shut at 5pm (as do many, many things in Manchester) so I was turfed out to wander the wet streets once more. After an accidental detour into a very posh outdoor dining area complete with more decorative lightbulbs than you could shake an over-priced mojito at, I arrived in China Town. My main aim was to get a good photo of the famous China Town arch, but as I achieved that in the first five minutes I decided to also do something else, whatever that might be. 

China Town’s Arch

I’m not sure what I was expecting from China Town, but I was expecting it to be big; instead, unless there were lots of shops hiding from me, China Town was largely just a square - bizarrely, a square built round a car park - with maybe 20 or so shops… and then that was pretty much it. Those shops were wonderful though, and I loved being an unabashed tourist and wandering round a seafood place full of giant tanks of lobsters, supermarkets filled with cans of things you never thought to pickle but apparently are in fact pickle-able… pickled mango was an especially interesting concept… and gazing hungrily at the menus tacked up outside the many Chinese restaurants. (I had no luck. Very not Essa friendly indeed.) 

Instead I settled for a bubble tea from Chatime. I made several bad decisions and ended up with an apple tea with little ball things (??? Tapioca??? Whatever it was they were suspiciously savoury and worryingly chewy) and rainbow jelly. I gave up halfway through as I could feel my teeth beginning to rot. 

Diabetes in a cup. 

Chatime 

After risking my life and health on some questionable 50p Asian sweets - they were covered in sugar and salt and my pathetic Western constitution decided it couldn’t quite cope with this final insult - I finished off my day out with a very nice sit watching the coloured fountain display in the “park” and then going off to somewhere I could confidently expect to be fed: Zizzi’s. 

The very splooshy water fountains. 

...They may have fed me undercooked, over salted gluten free pasta, but it was gluten free pasta never the less, and I trooped back to the hostel fed and happy.

After attempting to write my journal in the communal kitchen next to a group of very noisy Italian twenty-somethings making a very complicated meal that seemed to need lots of loud chopping, banging and semi-regular cheering, I relocated to the communal lounge instead and turned up Royal Blood to eardrum-bursting volumes to drown out the horror film the other two sofa loungers were watching. By 11.30pm even loud rock wasn’t managing to drown out the film and I was beginning to suspect the heating had been switched off as it didn’t seem much warmer than my own little ice box of a room, so I waved the white flag of surrender and beetled off to watch YouTube under the covers once more. Would it be too much to hope that Sunday nights at least were fairly quiet here in nightclub land…? My heading to bed was foiled, however, by the fact that the key card to my room no longer worked. I trailed unhappily back down to the ground floor and explained the situation to an unsympathetic receptionist who said, “Oh it always does that for 104, just try it a few more times” without looking up from his computer. I explained through gritted teeth that I had been trying it for five minutes, thanks very much, and he reluctantly came with me to see what the problem was. I passed the journey by mentioning how my heater didn’t work. “Oh, that heater,” he said without a hint of irony. “Yeah it doesn’t work, it’s just for decoration.” Apparently my room was meant to be heated by a magical vent blowing warm air into the room. I said grumpily that it did not seem to be doing that at all. “Well, it’s 104,” he said with a shrug. “It’s always cold and the door never works. Dunno why, it’s really weird.” As I contemplated the fact that I HAD BEEN STAYING IN THE POLTERGEIST ROOM THIS WHOLE TIME he swiped me through with his master and left me in my Spectre Apartment. I lay in bed in the dark that night pretending very hard that I wasn’t the slightest bit unnerved and listening to the pounding bass coming through the walls (one stubborn nightclub somewhere in the middle distance was subjecting its patrons to Sunday night indie rock) until 1.30am blessedly rolled around and Geoffrey the Ghost and I managed to get some sleep.

Day 3   

By this point I was thoroughly sleep deprived and just generally over the whole staying-in-a-hostel thing, so it was with a happy song that I stuffed my belongings back into my suitcase. It was an uneventful exit from Hatters apart from one heart- stopping moment when a bit of the shower fell off at exactly the same second that the bathroom light went out (…It was just the timed light clicking off and me turning the wobbly thermostat wheel too firmly. But, hey -  let me tell you: when you’re standing there in the pitch dark, naked and alarmed, “ARGH!” is the defining first thought rather than “I’d better wave my arms and get the light to switch back on.) I strode out into the Manchester streets and decided that as I’d had an improvised breakfast of snack bars I didn’t really need anything else apart from a cup of tea, which I could probably get at Chetham’s Library. Second library of the trip, here I came!

After a significant amount of lost trundling, sometimes round in circles, my suitcase and I finally arrived at Chetham’s, which is situated next to a very nice but sadly throughly fenced-off park and an absolutely enormous museum about football. I sat on a little stone pillar, tried to enjoy the park’s water feature despite the massive fence and munched on fruit I’d bought from the nearby M&S (it had occurred to me that I hadn’t really had much in the way of fruit or vegetables since arriving in Manchester, which is possibly a true representation of the Northern diet but it did seem a shame to get scurvy on my weekend off). 

The very picturesque park with a very large fence. 

It was all very nice but I needed the loo  - an ever present theme in my life - so I decided to get a move on and go see the Library. This is when my day went horribly wrong.

I had not, you see, realised that the Chetham’s Library  - unlike the Bodleian Library -  didn’t have anywhere for visitors to dump their suitcases. Worse, the grumpy security guard refused full-stop to let me take my suitcase anywhere near the building whatsoever. What was I meant to do, I asked him with quite poor grace. I had the suitcase. I wanted to go and see the library. Couldn’t he look after it in his little security hut? What if it had a bomb in it? I assured him there was no bomb. No. Absolutely not. I had a suspicious unidentified suitcase. Hadn’t I seen the news recently? Maybe I could see if the station across the road had lockers.

It was an unimpressed Essa that stomped into Manchester Victoria on the hunt for a locker. There were no lockers. The Information Centre might have been a useful place to ask for advice about what to do next, if it had been open. I went to the loo (always a good thing to do in a time of crisis, I find), stared suspiciously at a very creepy statue of a bee in a dress and decided that as I seemed to have found the busy hub of tram travel I might as well get on a tram.

TRAM!!! I thought the trams were very exciting. 

 After trying to buy a tram ticket at a ticket machine for actual trains for an embarrassingly long amount of time I realised that the tram ticket machines were on the tram platforms and navigated the alarming open-track walkway to get to the right bit of the station. (Manchester runs its public transport system from the viewpoint that if you’re stupid enough to cross a walkway without looking left and right first you deserve to get mangled by a massive tram. I only nearly died once, which frankly is quite good for me all things considering.)

I bought my astonishingly cheap £1.40 one-way ticket, tried to tap my paper ticket on the machine for tapping in plastic travel cards and was puzzled for really an unacceptably long amount of time for a 23 year old before I figured out what was going on, and got on my first TRAM!! It tooted to another tram and I felt like I was living my best life. It would have been even nicer if the tram hadn’t smelt of weed and wee, but as most of Manchester seems to smell of weed and wee I accepted my fate. I realised I had previously been unfair on the “park” as we rumbled through it  - there were considerably more trees than I had first thought and the grass looked less mushy. I admired the greenery, noted with resignation that the tram was making me travel sick and then realised it was time to get off! In a…deserted dark tunnel…? I really don’t know what I did, but I found out later there was actually a legit way to exit the tram station, with proper doors and a little escalator and everything, and I most definitely did not do that. I ended up wandering around a tunnel, nearly getting run over at one point when a tram unexpectedly came round a corner (told you I’d nearly got mashed) and finally finished my mini underground journey by being spat out next to the taxi rank. After some seriously bemused searching I found the train station, only to decide that it was actually just too draughty a place to wait out out a few hours and marched down the hill towards the Costa…that was about an 8 minute walk from the Hostel I’d left with so much optimism several hours previously. Ha. Ha. Ha. Isn’t life funny. As I was meeting a friend at Manchester Piccadilly I decided to just call it quits, buy several random Costa snacks to create lunch and have a quiet few hours in the warm before having to heave my suitcase back up the hill to the station for 3pm. Who says I don’t know how to live a wild life…? 

After a very enjoyable catch-up I was back on the train and headed, feeling slightly battered, back to to noise and grime of Euston station. It had been quite the weekend, and I left still unsure of what I thought about Manchester. At times it had seemed ruggedly attractive, the several red-brick old buildings nestled in amongst all the mid-20th century concrete particularly eye-catching, and at times it had just seemed…wet. And a bit grey. 

The whole “bee mascot” thing has, to an outsider, been taken to a slightly unbelievably wild extreme - there were bees everywhere. On walls. On doors. In restaurant and shop logos. On mugs. On bags. On posters. Even on street bins. As someone who doesn’t particularly like bees, this was a bit unnerving.

On the whole, I did like Manchester - and I would certainly visit again, which says something in itself. 

Next stop: My mum and I’s trip to Berlin in April! Where should we visit? 

What Essa saw:

Manchester LGBT Foundation 

https://lgbt.foundation/ 

HOME Manchester 

https://homemcr.org/ 

Teacup Kitchen

https://teacupandcakes.com/

Forbidden Planet Manchester

https://www.facebook.com/fpmanchester/

The John Rylands Library (free entry)

https://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/rylands/ 

The People’s History Museum (free entry)

https://phm.org.uk/

Manchester’s China Town

https://www.visitmanchester.com/things-to-see-and-do/chinatown-p275031

Where Essa stayed (but does not recommend):

https://hattershostels.com/manchester-hilton-chambers/ 

[ourwickedworld]

The Rambling Man Travel Review:  Athens, GA

The Rambling Man.  Travel Review:  Athens, Ga The Classic City!

It is like going back in time, my personal portal to the past.  Yes, it is a trip back to the college town I called home for 4 plus years.  But, Athens will always be a place that conjures up life’s best feelings:  love, passion, soul, heartache, and be so much more than a weekend getaway.

I arrive Friday November 9th, landing at Atlanta / Hartsfield International Airport. Athens is 50-60 miles Northeast of Hot Lanta, so I have a Hertz Rental Car in my future.  Yep, I am rocking a white Ford Fusion to embark on this trip. I hop on 85 North, hit the 316 East, and I arrive in Athens in no time.  As I approach my past, my present rolls down the window.  My first test upon arriving into any new town, I must take a smell test of any city.  I gulp in the air, and the South in general, but Athens specifically has its own smell. It is late fall, the air still warm. I smell water, soil, humid days, and the trees.  You can see the many plants, you can smell the many trees.  The many plants again near hibernation, a yearly tradition renewed as Fall turns to Winter.  

And that could be the theme, a ritual renewed, of this weekend getaway.  I have rambled into and out of Athens many times.  I ramble into a town where every street light reveals a picture in reverse, to quote the great REM.  Athens own REM…  I am rambling into a weekend ritual renewed.  

Where to start? How about an early afternoon stroll of campus?  My accommodations at the Hilton Garden Inn, on E. Washington  St. in downtown Athens, make the walk over to the University of Georgia campus darn right easy.  My destination is North Campus, adjacent to Broad St. and directly South of downtown and Broad St.  You will see the entrance to campus, and will be greeted by The Arch.  But be for warned, Georgia Bulldog lore has it that only graduates can walk under the arch, those who dare walk under The Arch without a degree will suffer great sexual dysfunction.  This may be a rumor, but, hey now, don’t mess with Southern Folklore if you ask me, especially when considering The Arch was molded in 1857. The University of Georgia, it is an old place, established in 1785.  And, to me in my humble opinion, helps to explain my theme…. Because going to Athens, it is a tradition unlike any other, a ritual renewed.  

Talk about walkability…  North Campus on the campus of the University of Georgia is absolutely fantastic, offering young, hopeful faces, vintage buildings, historic sights, and sounds of hope hovering all around.  After the flight, the walk gets my heart pumping.  I play some REM, Widespread Panic, and Futurebirds to take in some of Athens Music royalty on my walk.  Well, they are not quite all royalty yet, but I am taking in a concert tonight at the Athens historic legend itself, The Georgia Theatre.  And, hum baby, I get a chance to see the band Futurebirds. Oddly, and without notice,  I am in touch with my 19-year old former self. I am traveling in time tonight?

So hungry, I start to chew on my Red and Black ball cap. Food is right around the bend, but I have a few errands to run prior to catching a meal on the Rooftop Bar and the Futurebirds show at the Georgia Theatre.

It has been a long travel day, and if I did not get in the walk, I would have never been able to jump back into the rental car.  It is a quick errand, a brief drive.  I stop by the Package Store, somehow this is terminology for a place to buy liquor in the South.  I pick up a bottle of Jim Beam and a 2 Liter bottle of Coke.  The only thing missing…  Picking up a copy of Leonard’s Losers.  Leonard Postero was a native of Athens, Georgia, known for his syndicated radio show, Leonard's Losers. He was a 1943 graduate of the University of Georgia and served as an aviator in the United States Navy from 1943–45.

Leonard handicapped football games and provided a pamphlet, at the time. one could pick up at the Package Store.  I picked up a copy quite often late on Friday’s in the Fall, and it 20-years later brings motivation and joy as I, in a similar vain of the great Leonard, pick my own Loser’s through my Las Vegas Larry’s Losers Podcast.  Check it out…  But remember, nobody does it like Leonard, a true Athens legend.  We miss ya..  

My errands continue, a stop at the Old Apartment.  I am literally living a Barenaked Ladies song, The Old  Apartment.  Yes, this is where we used to live…  Not much has changed, maybe some new paint.  It is as if time stands still.  I walk up the stairs to the outdoor patio, my eyes see what we used to see. The pine trees willow softly under the soft November sun.  My car is still running, it may have been two minutes of my time, but the drive by of the old apartment is priceless.  

I ramble on, rambling back to the hotel, a fiv- minute drive back East towards campus and downtown.  I grab ice on my way up to my room, I drink two tall glasses of Jim Beam and coke.  The TV is kept quiet, as I sit in silence. The perspective of life, ever changing. Travel can bring emotions, so can going back in time, but I don’t have time to think.  I have a quick walk over to the Georgia Theatre for dinner!!  I bark out loud in a weird ritual almost getting in some practice prior to barking all day tomorrow for the big game in town.  

It is sweatshirt weather, a crisp fall night.  I sit upon a most perfect sunset and spectacular views of Athens.  The lights of space fuse to the Rooftop Bar, as I order the Pimento Cheese appetizer and a Purple Haze cold beer.  I fold one beer to the next, before eventually heading down to the music venue which sits just beneath my feet.  

The Band starts to play, and all is right in the world.  It’s Friday night….  And a Friday night in Athens, by almost any definition features live music.  

Stars were still coming from my eyes as dawn broke.  It is a football Saturday morning in the Fall in Athens Georgia.  But, hot dog, what a great show last night.  I pull myself out of bed, quickly rotating my head in every direction to locate my water bottle.  I see the leftover food I picked up after the show, Little Italy Pizzeria on Lumpkin.  Little Italy Pizzeria is Athens in a pizza box.  Let us not forget, Athens is a college town.  And, late night cheezy, gooy pizza is just what the Professor orders after some live music and some beers at the Georgia Theatre.  

The game is in a few hours, and my schedule is a bit tight, so I improvise a walk that is efficient on time.  I start my walk from the hotel and walk South on Milledge Ave.  The sidewalk below my running shoes has seen many footprints over the years, the traffic is moderate, and the sights and sounds are fantastic. To a degree, Milledge Ave., despite being a fairly major North / South thoroughfare, is the home to many college sororities. The antebellum homes turned Sorority Row is fairly intense and full of viewing pleasure, especially on a game day. And, frankly, this is what I mean by getting to know a city on an intimate level by walking its city streets. This walk is Southern Tradition, beauty, tradition, excitement, and a nice flat walk with a sidewalk to keep you safe.  

I meet up with a few old pals that made the trip into town for the game, Mike, Wayne, and Mark. Wayne has a friend with a tailgate, so we plan on experiencing one of the best possible experiences known to man, a tailgate prior to a football game in Athens. GA.  This is quintessential Classic City, college town, out of this world unique to Athens, and a must activity to truly understand why Athens is one of America’s premier cities and college towns.  

We grill out and feast on Pork Shoulder with a white BBQ sauce.  Some chicken chili was in the Crock Pot, and a big bucket of boiled shrimp and cocktail sauce sit on a table full of tailgate treats.  I sip on another Jim Beam and coke, we talk football and get loud.  

\The Georgia Bulldogs beat the Auburn Tigers, my friends and I ring the bell on North Campus, we then bar hop in downtown.  The town is happy, winning big SEC football games in November over one of it’s biggest rivals can do that to a town in the South, and the happiness is obvious.  This makes for a raucous and fun night of celebration.  At times, yes, this old cowboy felt like the oldest cowboy in the room, but beating one of these young Millennials in a game of darts had me feeling spry.  Bar games, what a country?  Give me shuffle board, darts, corn hole, billiards…  Downtown Athens can accommodate your inner bar game enthusiasm.  And the late, late night scene…  That scene can get you in trouble….  

I wake up early Sunday to catch the early Service at Friendship Presbyterian Church.  I would be remiss to leave out that the South is the Bible Belt for a reason.  And, the glory of a Sunday Service in the South is a most unique experience and education.  Regardless of faith, something good exists in the feeling one gets upon leaving church on a Sunday morning.  

I grab breakfast at the Last Resort Grill, a must see event visit into A-Town.  This place is so spectacular I would live in Athens full time just to go to the Last Resort every Sunday for brunch after church. I eat the Sunday Standard, two eggs any way you like ‘em, served with grilled new potatoes, crispy applewood-smoked bacon & one of their homemade scones.  For the grand sum of $8.95 cents plus tip, I eat like a king in the company of scholars and the kind hearted.  What a country to ramble city sidewalks and midnight streets, Athens is a true one of a kind college town.    

I head South in my Rental Car on Milledge Ave to the State Botanical Garden of Georgia and I walk the picturesque landscape lost in thought and music.  The Botanical Gardens are huge and make up several hundred acres, so it was most east to get lost in the beauty of a Sunday.  

I arrive back at the hotel, tired.  I turn on a movie in my hotel room, and I order takeout from Donna Chang’s before I hit the shower.  The shower’s warm water brings me back to the future, I have a long trip home tomorrow.

But it truly did not matter where I was, what I was eating or drinking at this point.  I was happy, most content.  The stars of Athens Georgia again are overhead, as I dream a little dream on a Sunday night in mid-November, a ritual renewed.  

What is the soul of Athens, Georgia?  It is the whispers of REM, Widespread Panic, the B 52’s, Drive by Truckers, Dayroom, Futurebirds keeping you comfortable every step of the way.  It is tailgating prior to a Big Game.  It is the ghosts on North Campus hiding in the past.  It is going to church on Sunday.  It is a cocktail and a night out at the Georgia Theatre.  It is the people who make the Last Resort EPIC.  It is, however, a place where you can be who you truly are without judgement or prejudice.  It is the Classic City!!

Scores: Walkability:  9 of 10  Drinkability: 9 of 10  Eatability:  9 of 10 Dudeability:  8 of 10

Can you catch a fish near or close to Athens?  Yes, several bass lakes, creeks, rivers to fish.  Can you hunt?  Yes, area well known for deer hunting, bird hunting.  

We Ramble On… Next Week, Santa Cruz, CA…  We head to the beach bro…  

To note, pictures.  We want to share some pictures…  Heck Yes…

We post some pics of the places, people, cities we Podcast and Blog about.  Check them out on Tumblr or on our Twitter Feed, @BarkmanPete

Thank you for lending an ear, happiness starts today.  The rambling man is part of The Pete Barkman Show and the How to live a Happy Life Series, this Segment:  The Rambling Man.  Travel Review:  Athens, GA

The Pete Barkman Show has other segments to consider:  Las Vegas Larry’s Losers, each football season see Larry pick the losers for any given week.  

The Rambling Man, travel review.  Enjoy unique travel experiences detailing the walbability, drinkability, Eatability, and the Dudeability of cities across the county.  

The How to Live a Happy and Healthy Life Series, we have covered suicide, trauma, journaling for positive mental health, Is Happiness Possible, All Change is Self-Change with more episodes coming as we move further into 2019.  

The Pete Barkman Show has covered the following news topics:  Mollie Tibbetts, Judge Kavanaugh, Does God Exist?, Great Rivalries, MLB, Tiger Woods, Colin Kaepernick, and Urban Meyer.  We podcast on relevant stories, breaking news, historical sports moments and record breakers.  

This is the Pete Barkman Show, podcasting News, Sport, Opinion. Home of Las Vegas Larry’s Losers and The Rambling Man.  Check us out…. Thank you..  Until next time…

[bibliophilicwitch]

Alright, enough of you would like to see my likely long rambly post about my 3-day weekend away so let’s do this.

About a month ago a friend of mine connected with me and asked if I would be interested in a girls’ weekend because there’s a loud music festival that happens practically in her backyard every year and she didn’t want to be in town for it. This friend lives in Appleton nearly 2 hours away from me and we rarely have reasons to be in each others’ neck of the woods anymore so I don’t really visit with her much anymore. So when she asked I really wanted to say yes, but she just so happened to be suggesting a 3-day trip the same month as my 6-day vacation to travel to North Dakota to see family and attend my cousin’s wedding. We planned a budget accordingly and I just gotta be conscious of money the next couple of weeks.

The music started on Thursday and ideally we would’ve left town that evening, but I ended up being scheduled to work until 9 PM closing time at the pharmacy that night… of course. We had plans already scheduled for midday on Friday, so I had to pack everything before work and then left immediately from work for my nearly 2 hour drive and arrived at her house at about 11 PM. I listened to some of the first campaign of Critical Role - time well spent.

So our Friday morning was spent running a few errands and finishing prep to leave Appleton before heading out to Milwaukee including running her pup to a friends’ house, getting groceries, and picking up coffee to fortify ourselves. We headed out around 11 AM I think and arrived early for our massage in a Milwaukee suburb with time to spare. It was my first massage and it was pretty good other than too much on my neck which led to a light headache. I really should’ve said that it was hurting too much, but I wasn’t sure if it would or would not be beneficial as I had never had a professional massage before.

Our hotel was in Wauwautosa and we arrived a good two hours before check in so we went and got food at Dave and Busters which, for those that don’t know, is an arcade for adults - meaning there is a bar. It was fun, but 3 of the 5 games we played didn’t work correctly or at all and then it was time to head out. Kinda wish we had had the opportunity to go back for another hour since I had plenty of credits still and would’ve really liked to play Mario Kart and check out one or two more games. I did play a Star Wars game with the wrap around screen which was pretty wicked cool.

That evening, after we checked into our hotel and washed off our oils from the massage, we went to a suburb to participate in a Paint and Sip class - this one was a paint your pet class and they even had little gift bags with goodies for you pet. I picked a picture of Binx that was low lighting which they oversaturated so you could see both his eyes, but since they oversaturated the picture he no longer looked like a true black and white tuxedo but like he had shades of grey and black all over which would not have been my kitty. Since I was not following the picture exactly it was proving impossible to distinguish his features, so I gave up and just used my time to fill in the areas I knew I could and plan to ask another of my friends, who works with me for the library Paint & Sip classes, to help me finish it some time. No idea when that may actually happen since she is super busy, but I have plans that meant I was okay with my experience. Not thrilled since it was a $35 class not including our wine, but eh. Meanwhile my friend was frustrated because even though she asked a few times for help with colors she never got close enough to be happy with her picture. On top of that she had chosen a picture of her goofy dog with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, but they CUT OFF HIS TONGUE and then didn’t make the picture as large as they could’ve so she had a lot of negative space. She was unimpressed to say the least. At least our wine was good. Really the class should’ve had prerequisites such as having participated in their other classes to be sure customers would get the best out of their experience. They did see that I had not finished and were offering a free session to join their free paint classes for help finishing… which we couldn’t do since we both live too far away (in my case a good 4 hours). I do really wish it had been a more standard paint class with the fast blended background and straightforward foreground. Ah well.

We finished day one at the Cheesecake Factory, a first for me! My friend commented that she was never very impressed by their food and she wasn’t surprised do be unimpressed yet again (though I didn’t mind my food at all), but we finished off with cheesecake, obviously, and that was delicious. Unfortunately I forgot my leftover cheesecake at her house in Appleton.

Saturday was our busiest day. We started at the Milwaukee Public Museum which was excellent though it really is a whole day affair not the two hour filler we planned for it. About halfway through my friend started to get anxious about her car and concerned it had a ticket or had been towed and I think she was also just getting tired of being on her feet. I think I was overall more interested in the exhibits too and she seemed to only be truly interested in specific things. I’m also a reader and wanted to actually read some of the shit while she just breezed through exhibit after exhibit. Like I said, we really didn’t have the time, but it was disappointing to be rushed so much.

Then we went downtown to The Safe House which she had wanted to check out. She did not realize it was literally right downtown and there was some anxiety, but we made it! For those that have not heard of Safe House, it’s a restaurant where the servers are in-character as secret agents and guests are also secret agents. There is a password to get in and if you don’t know it you have to prove you aren’t a spy by acting out some silliness. The interior is a wild and zany pieced together hodgepodge with references to spies in popular culture. Guests are given a list of missions (clues) to wander about and try to figure out the password. If you figure it out you are able to get a discount on their merchandise.

It was more confusing than my friend was expecting and not as engaging as she had expected either. She was pretty sure she figured it out, but neither of us were really worried about the merchandise, so we just didn’t even bother. They had a pen listed that we both kinda wanted, but they didn’t have any in stock.

After that we went to the North Point Lighthouse which is a lighthouse museum and I really enjoyed that little attraction. After that we finally headed back to the hotel for a short break and to get bandages because she wore strappy shoes that were trying to eat her feet. We discovered there was some sort of convention going on so the hotel was packed and TOO busy for only two slow elevators.

Next we went to Water2Wine, a winery in a suburb that imports their grapes and then makes their own wines in house. It was cute and pretty decent, but we weren’t overly impressed tbh. Next door to the winery was a Half Priced Books which my friend suggested instead of going to Barnes and Noble in the mall. So we wandered around, which was the first time I’d been to a Half Priced Books, but she got bored relatively quickly and dragged me out well before I would’ve like saying I could go to Barnes and Noble instead and then if she got bored she could wander the mall. So then we ended up at the mall and I was ready to settle into browsing for nearly an hour before wandering around the rest of the mall until close, but again she dragged me out likely because it isn’t that fun to wander by yourself. I did pick up a book at both places, Of Fire and Stars and Spinning Silver. I could’ve stayed in the bookstore all evening and likely only bought the one book, but nooooo, I ended up in the game store and bought an expensive gorgeous metal dice set. Pft. I also bought macarons which I had never been able to try and the ones I got were disappointingly too sweet for me to enjoy. We were both ready to be done, so we grabbed Chipotle, another first for me, and just curled up with a little TV before bed.

Sunday we got brunch at the ludicrously hipstery Cafe Hollanders. Very good and excellent atmosphere, but I couldn’t get over how chique it was being. The cafe was located in this ritzy area filled with high end stores that neither of us could afford, but we wandered around and gawped at insane prices before heading out to the Milwaukee County Zoo which I have WAAAY too many picture of to share here, so just check out my Instagram. I mentioned a few times, because I was seeing merchandise, that we hadn’t seen the red panda and my friend said she thought it might be a seasonal exhibit. After I was home I checked… it wasn’t. We literally missed it and I kinda wanna cry tbh.

We left Milwaukee around 4 and I ended up home around 7:30, but I tossed some gas in my car, washed it, and ran to the grocery store first so idk exactly how long my drive was. Though not everything was amazing I still had a pretty damn good time, my friend on the other hand seemed to get bored and/or impatient and/or disappointed/frustrated on a regular basis and I swear she didn’t enjoy the trip nearly as well as I did which just makes me sad. I also realized that since the last time we had really hung out we have both changed. Whereas I am online a lot and am fairly socially conscious she was not and she made a few borderline racist jokes (okay, not really borderline at all). Nothing nasty, just those ingrained stereotype jokes that are just not funny when you recognize how hurtful they can be. It also became more apparent that our interests do not overlap much at all. Which is another post to ramble about later. I loved the lighthouse and the zoo and wish I could’ve had just a bit more bookstore time and arcade time. It was nice to get out of town and not think about work while getting to catch up with an old friend though.