#Canopies Santa Barbara

[all-the-things-2020]

Late Night Talking - Chapter Fourteen

Summary: Dieter and Emily spend Thanksgiving break together.

Rating: PG-13 (mention of sex but no real smut)

Word count: 3800

Notes: San Ysidro Ranch is a real place but I’ve never been there. I’ve also never had a massage or a sound bath, but I hope I wrote about both experiences competently. Also, I have family members who are Mormon and any opinions expressed about that religion are my own.

Tag list: @rhoorl @avastrasposts @readingiskeepingmegoing @runningmom94 @gwendibleywrites @weho2kcmo

“Thank you for the invitation, Aunt Helen, but I can’t make it.”

”You know you’re always welcome, Emily. And I understand it’s a long drive to make by yourself, and flying is expensive, but maybe that rich boyfriend of yours could lend you the money. We’d love to see you.”

I was glad it was a voice call and not FaceTime, because I’m sure I grimaced. I’d made the trek to Utah to spend Thanksgiving with Aunt Helen and her family once and that had been enough for me. She was my mom’s sister, my only living relative on either side of the family, but she was … well, I’ll just come out and say it. Mormon.

At the age of twenty, Aunt Helen had opened the door to a pair of missionaries and fell hook line and sinker for the message they brought. It wasn’t a bad thing, it was just awkward for someone raised in a very secular family to suddenly be so vehemently religious. My grandma once said that no one is as fervent as a convert, and she was right. 

Aunt Helen joined the church and within a year she was married to a young man who’d recently graduated from BYU and had a job lined up in Salt Lake City. My mom had confessed that she was glad that Helen and Jeremiah lived so far away. So was I. Every phone call or email from her invariably included some sort of remark about my “lifestyle,” which I understood to mean “being unmarried and childless after the age of thirty and having sex with my boyfriend.” 

“I’d love to see you, too,” I replied, “but Dieter’s booked us a cottage at a resort in Santa Barbara for Thanksgiving week. He has to start a new project soon and we want to have a little getaway before he has to leave town.”

Aunt Helen sniffed. “Doesn’t he have family to spend the holiday with?” Family was very important to Aunt Helen.

“He’s going to his brother’s for Christmas, and he and his dad aren’t on good terms right now,” I explained. “So we’re spending Thanksgiving together, just the two of us.”

”Well, if you think that’s best, but remember, you are always welcome here. Maybe you could come for Christmas, since Dieter will be out of town?”

”We’ll see,” I said. There was no way in hell I was going to her house for Christmas. 

”Give my love to Uncle Jeremiah and all the cousins.”

I ended the call and heaved a sigh of relief. I loved her, I really did, but only in small doses. 

***************************************************

The drive up to Santa Barbara was a bit hectic, as all drives out of the L.A. area are, but once we got to the San Ysidro Ranch it was like we were in another world. It was in the foothills overlooking Montecito. The grounds were lush with plants and the cottages were beautiful, built in Craftsman style. Ours had a private patio with a hot tub, a fireplace, and a king size canopy bed, with exposed wooden beams ceilings. I was in love.

”I want to live here,” I told Dieter as we explored the little cottage. “This place is absolutely amazing. Look at that view!” The front terrace faced west, offering a panorama to the Pacific Ocean in the distance. 

“And it’s all ours for a week,” Dieter said, sliding his arms around me from behind. “Great food, great views, great company and privacy.” The last month or so had been rough. Word had leaked out about his brief stay in rehab and that, combined with a new movie project starting soon, had brought the paparazzi out in force. They followed him all over town, and photos of him had popped up all over the internet. There were even photos of the two of us doing mundane things like shopping at CVS and Trader Joe’s. Dieter always shrugged it off, but I knew that deep down it bothered him, mostly because he didn’t think I should have to deal with the paps.

”Yeah, that hot tub looks incredible,” I said, rolling my shoulders to loosen some of the kinks. A week at work combined with the long drive had tightened up my muscles. 

“Maybe we can skinny dip,” Dieter said into my ear.

”After it gets dark,” I said. “I know it’s private but I don’t think I could do that in daylight.”

He chuckled. “Deal. And after we soak awhile, I’ll make sure you release all your tension.” 

*******************************************************

After dinner at the resort’s restaurant (where Dieter had had ordered and devoured an order of oysters, much to my dismay — I still didn’t like them and they reminded me too much of the night I met Jonathan) we wandered back to our cottage in the dark. I used the bathroom and got undressed, slipping on a bathrobe before I stepped outside onto the patio. Dieter was already in the hot tub, his own robe draped haphazardly over the lounge chair.

”You’d better not pee in there,” I teased as I dropped my own robe onto the chair and stepped into the tub. The cool November air caused goosebumps on my skin and I ducked quickly into the warm water.

”I went at the restaurant before we left,” he reminded me. “Now get over here.” He motioned for me to slide closer on the little bench that ringed the tub. I settled against his side and he wrapped his arm around me. We leaned back, letting the jets of hot water soothe us. I felt the knots in my muscles relax.

”Wanna make out?” Dieter asked after several minutes.

”Not just yet,” I said. “I’m enjoying the water.”

”Okay,” he said comfortably. “I want you nice and supple when we get into bed.”

Ever since he’d gotten out of rehab, things had been easier between us. It was hard to put my finger on what had changed, but we just seemed more settled, less anxious about things. We knew that we wanted each other for who we were, warts and all. 

Soon enough, we started kissing, and it wasn’t long before we were climbing out of the water and pulling on our robes, eager to get inside out of the chill and into bed. We tumbled into the fine Italian linens and made love. Dieter was true to his promise to help me release all my tension, and I did the same for him. Sex with Dieter was easy. He never made me feel like I was anything other than the most desirable woman in the world. He always asked permission before he did anything that differed from our usual routine, even if we’d done it before. He insisted on using protection. And he always made sure I was satisfied before he’d let himself finish. He was the very definition of an unselfish lover.

”I don’t deserve you,” I told him when we were cuddling afterward. He was a champion snuggler, clinging to me like a baby sloth clings to its mother, enveloping me in his warmth. 

“You’ve got that backwards,” he mumbled, already half asleep. 

“Okay, we’ll split the difference. We deserve each other.”

”Damn right.” He nuzzled against my neck and promptly started snoring. 

******************************************************************

The next morning, we slept in, walked down to the restaurant for breakfast and then strolled through the botanical gardens on our way back to the cottage. We spent a lazy day reading and watching movies, punctuated by a few make out sessions. The day was warm enough that we left the windows open so we could enjoy the breeze off the ocean. 

At one point, Dieter dozed off on the couch, his book open against his chest, his glasses sliding down his nose. I got a sudden flash of his older self, hair and beard gone silver, taking a nap in our own little cottage somewhere, after he’d re-established his career and gotten to the point where he could pick and choose his roles. I wanted to grow old with him. I wanted this to last forever.

Then he snorted himself awake, mumbled “Fuck” under his breath and was his middle-aged self again, slightly grumpy at being caught napping during the day. “This place is too quiet,” he complained. “Made me fall asleep.”

”It’s comfortable,” I said. “I like it.” He lifted his arm and I slid underneath to nestle against his side. He was warm and solid and I laid my head on his chest. “Just like you.”

“Are you saying you like me, or that I’m comfortable?”

”Both.”

He shrugged. “I’ll take it. There are worse things to be called than comfortable, although it wounds my masculine pride.”

“What would you prefer?”

”Hot. Irresistible. Manly. Ripped.” It was my turn to snort. “What?”

”You are hot and irresistible and definitely manly, but ripped you are not.” I poked his belly, which had just enough squish to it. “And I like you that way. I want a tummy I can relax on, not one that’s hard as a rock. Six pack abs are highly overrated.”

”I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “Because I think those days are over.” He frowned down at his stomach. “The muscles are still in there somewhere, but the pudge is slowly taking over.”

”I like the pudge,” I said. “It makes you a real person. Real men have pudge. That should be your new slogan.”

”Dieter Bravo, the man with the pudge. I like that. I could be the new spokesman for Pillsbury.” I poked his belly again and he did the doughboy laugh. He was a huge dork, but he was my dork.

*****************************************************************

We hung around the resort for a couple of days, but then Dieter decided he wanted Mexican food, so we drove down to Santa Barbara for a day. We visited the art museum and then found a little hole in the wall Mexican place. I was content with a couple of tacos and a side of rice and beans, but Dieter ordered something called a Garbage Burrito, which was enormous and contained a little bit of everything, from beans to sour cream to cabbage to shredded beef to three kinds of salsa. 

“You’re going to be sorry,” I told him after he took the final bite. 

He patted his stomach. “Not sorry, just not hungry for about three days,” he said. “You’re on your own for dinner, Miss I-Only-Want-Two-Tacos.”

”You’re forgetting we have a couples massage booked at five,” I reminded him. “You’re gonna have to lay on that full tummy for an hour while they work on your back.”

He stifled a little burp and shrugged. “By that time, my amazing metabolism will have converted most of it to muscle,” he said.

“More like pudge,” I replied. It was our new inside joke. I had started calling him Pudgy Bear.

We left the restaurant and almost immediately were approached by a man who asked if he could get a selfie with Dieter. “I’ve seen all the Cliff Beasts movies,” he explained, “and I’ve gotten photos with three of the cast members so far.”

Dieter agreed. “Why don’t you take the photo?,” he asked me. The man beamed and smoothed down the front of his Hawaiian shirt before handing me his phone. I gave Dieter a quick glance. He had a salsa stain on his previously pristine white t-shirt. I tugged his cardigan into place so that it hid the stain.

”Stop it,” Dieter said, swatting at my hand.

”You have food on your shirt, honey,” I told him, adjusting the cardigan just a bit more. “You don’t want to ruin his photo.”

Dieter looked down and made a face. “Shit, you’re right.”

The guy laughed. “Hey, it’s okay, it’s nice to know that celebrities are real people.”

I snapped three photos, to give him a choice of which one was best, then handed the phone back. “Thanks, man,” he said, swiping through the photos. “Is it okay if I post these on my Insta?”

“Sure,” Dieter said, “and thanks for asking. Most people don’t.” He shook the guy’s hand and sent him on his way grinning from ear to ear. 

**************************************************************

We drove around a bit on our way back to the resort, taking in the sights, but made it back in plenty of time for Dieter to change into a clean t-shirt before our massage. 

“I don’t know why I have to change,” he grumbled. “I’m just gonna take it off when we get there. They do these things naked, you know.”

”You are not showing up in dirty clothes, even if you are going to get undressed,” I said. “It’s common courtesy.”

”But I’m not a common person,” Dieter said as he stripped off the dirty shirt. I tossed him a clean one from the dresser. 

“You are definitely uncommon,” I agreed, running my eyes over his bare torso. Even with that bit of pudge he was an impressive sight.

Dieter preened. “I’m one of a kind.”

”The one, the only … Dieter Bravo!”

He posed like Superman, which would have made more of an impact if he hadn’t also been pooching out his stomach. He looked more like Jack Black in Nacho Libre than a superhero.

”Put your shirt on, goofball,” I told him. “We’ll be late.”

As Dieter predicted, almost as soon as we arrived for our appointment, the receptionist ushered us into the changing rooms, where we stripped down and put on the plush robes embroidered with the resort logo. 

“Told you,” Dieter whispered as we were escorted to the massage room.

Soft music was playing and the lights were dimmed. An essential oil diffuser filled the room with the scent of lavender. I felt my heart rate drop already. 

“Welcome. I’m Inge and this is Lance. We’ll be your massage therapists today.” Inge was tall and blonde, with just a trace of a Nordic accent. Lance was also tall, but with jet black hair. 

“I think we might have wandered into a porno shoot,” Dieter whispered to me. I shushed him, but he wasn’t wrong. Seriously, who hires a massage therapist named Lance?

They busied themselves with a tray of oils and heated rocks and other massage paraphernalia while we disrobed and laid down on the massage tables, pulling the sheets over ourselves. Dieter, of course, only pulled his up enough to cover his ass, while I made sure mine was up to my shoulders. 

It turned out Lance was the strong, silent type, who got right to work on Dieter’s upper back. Inge kept up a gentle, soothing patter as she kneaded my muscles. “We are trying to achieve total relaxation,” she intoned. “We will work on any tight spots you may have, so that when you leave you will be feeling completely loose and flexible.”

I thought I heard Dieter snicker a bit, but with his head buried in the face cut out, it was hard to tell. 

“Listen to the music and let your body and mind relax,” Inge said. “Inhale the soothing scent of lavender and exhale all your negative energy.”

I could have dozed off, if not for Inge digging into the knots in my shoulders. 

“Surrender to the rhythm of the music and our hands. Take in the good and release the bad.”

Brrr-ppp! Dieter farted loudly.

”Sorry,” he mumbled.

”No worries, man,” Lance said. “It happens.” He grunted as he bore down on Dieter’s back again.

Pppp-rrrr-ppp!

”I told you not to eat that huge burrito for lunch,” I said. And just about then the scent of lavender was overwhelmed by something decidedly less floral and we realized why it was called a garbage burrito.

”Maybe I’ll lay off the lower back,” Lance said, stifling a laugh.

”Yeah, might be a good idea,” Dieter said, giggling.

”I’m just going to turn up the diffuser,” Inge said, and that was when I lost it. I laughed until tears were streaming down my face.

”Only you could turn a romantic couples massage into a fart fest,” I told Dieter once I could talk.

”It’s that damn burrito,” he whined. “I’m not doing it on purpose.”

Inge and Lance managed to maintain their professional demeanor, but Dieter and I broke out in giggles multiple times during the massage. We might not have been completely and utterly relaxed when we emerged, but we were certainly feeling a lot lighter … in more ways than one.

****************************************************

On Thanksgiving Day there was a special turkey dinner at seven for all the guests. We spent a relaxing morning in the cottage. We watched the parade on TV (turns out Dieter had to watch the Macy’s parade every year — he loved the balloons) and after a light lunch we wandered over to partake in a sound bath.

”I’ve done these before,” Dieter said. “It’s amazing. Like, life changing type amazing. It’s like the best drug ever, but totally safe and natural.”

I wasn’t so sure that listening to singing bowls and chimes would be quite that earth shattering, but I was open to the experience. I knew that Dieter was less skeptical about things than I was but I didn’t see any harm in him believing in the power of crystals and stuff like that. Although I was pretty sure his aversion to AirPods wasn’t because he thought the wireless connection messed with his brain waves as he claimed, but because he had lost too many pairs and needed a “cool” excuse for his old-school wired earbuds.

The woman hosting the sound bath wore loose linen clothing which made her look like a Jedi knight, but she also had a severe pixie cut and angled eyebrows that made her look a bit Vulcan. I dubbed her the Logical Jedi in my mind, but didn’t dre say anything to Dieter. After the massage experience, I didn’t want to risk setting off another round of giggles.

”Welcome. I’m Diana and I’ll be facilitating your sound bath experience today. Please, lie down on the mats and make yourselves comfortable. If you have any previous yoga experience, assume the Savasana or corpse pose. For those of you who have not practiced yoga, this is simply lying on your back, with your arms out to your sides.”

While we settled, Diana walked around the room. “You will be bathing in sound today. You don’t need to do anything but keep your heart and mind open to receive the healing vibrations. I do ask that because today is Thanksgiving, you keep gratitude foremost in your mind. Think about all the things in your life, big and small, that you are thankful for. And let the sound guide you to inner peace.”

I closed my eyes, feeling a bit silly. I’d never been good at meditation; my mind darted in a million different directions as soon as I didn’t have something to focus on. Dieter told me you just had to empty your head and focus on your breath, but it was hard for me. 

A chime rang and then the hum of a singing bowl filled the room. It was monotonous at first, but after a bit I could hear subtle variations in the tone as the sound waves vibrated the air. It was soothing. I started thinking about what I was thankful for.

Dieter, first of all. Meeting him had brought me so many new experiences, and a depth of joy I’d never known I was capable of. My job. A roof over my head. My health. Those were the big ones, and almost too easy to put on my list. Everyone was grateful for things like that. Then I started thinking about the smaller things: the smell right before it starts to rain, the excitement of opening a box of new books at work, the fierce glow of California poppies in the sun every spring. 

I felt Dieter’s fingertips brush against mine and I smiled. He was thinking about me, too. We lay side by side, just barely touching, but fully connected as the song of the universe swept through us. I get it, Deet, I thought silently. I get it.

*******************************************************************************

Saturday morning came all too fast. As I packed our bags (Dieter offered to pack his, but his idea of packing was just shoving everything inside and squashing it until the bag would zip) I felt the familiar melancholy of the end of a work break. I knew I was lucky to have a job that gave me a week off at Thanksgiving, two weeks at Christmas and another week in the spring, not to mention a healthy dollop of three-day weekends and a long summer break, but it was always hard for me to switch gears back into work mode after being off for more than a few days. 

“I don’t want to go back to work on Monday,” I groused.

”Then don’t,” Dieter said. “Quit. Move in with me. Find something else closer to my house. Or take some time off. Follow your passion.”

I sighed. “We’ve had this discussion before, Deet. It’s just too early on. I can’t take that leap yet.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I know, but a man’s gotta try. And I know how you feel.” He stretched, his joints cracking. “I’m due on set in five days and I know once I get there and get into it I’ll love it but right now all I can think about is packing and making the flight and meeting the cast and crew and hoping there aren’t too many assholes to deal with. And missing you.” He wrapped his arms around me and kissed my neck. 

“I’ll miss you, too,” I said, leaning into his embrace. “But we’ll talk every night. And maybe you can sneak home for a weekend or something.”

”I was thinking … I’m going to Freddy’s for Christmas. Why don’t you join me? I won’t get enough time off to make it to Vermont and California but I‘m sure he and Laila won’t mind.”

”I don’t want to impose,” I said, although the idea of having a ready excuse to not go to Aunt Helen’s — not to mention the chance to spend some face to face time with Dieter — had me excited.

”Freddy wants to meet you,” Dieter said. “And I want you to meet him. Meet my family.”

My excitement shifted into anxiety. Meeting the family was a big step. “Only if he and his wife don’t mind,” I said carefully. 

“I’ll ask him next time I talk to him. And I can tell you right now the answer will be yes.”

[ginsengkitten]

Nightfall: Chapter 3

⛧☾༺♰༻☽⛧

As you step off the bus and turn to watch it leave, you swear for a moment, a person stood across the road, until the bus rumbled off and revealed no one to be there. You shook it off and looked down at the address on the scrap paper Vickey gave you. Vickey of course was the hook up for most musicians in the greater LA area. As eager as you were, you didn't realize that the LA Guns address was atop Mt. San Antonio, the mountain directly north of LA. You thought she meant north like maybe Santa Clarita or Santa Barbara. You now found yourself at the last bus stop on the mountain, as far up as the buses go anyways. Which wasn't enough, seeing as how you still stood at the end of a very long and winding drive way. The house peeked only slightly through the woods at the top. Great, a fucking hike? You huffed and began the small trek. The path was hardly a driveway, rather a rocky imprint on the forest floor, leading upwards through the trees. It was almost pitch dark under the trees, a low fog rolled on the ground, and the temperature seemed to drop 20 degrees or more, abandoning the summer weather outside.

With the bus now gone, the mountain fell silent. The cooler air sat between the thick trees, only the small chirps of birds echoing throughout. You loved birds, the way their voices gently caressed your ears, their vocals so naturally in tune from birth. You hummed along with them as you hiked into the darkness, until it occurred to you that all the birds had ceased chirping, or any noise for that matter. Once a warm song, guiding you through the forest, suddenly halted. The stillness of it all caused you to pause. "That's weird." You mumbled to yourself, you turn around to face the already hiked trail, examining for any sign of life now. The sudden stillness made you uneasy. The fact that you were alone- made you uneasy. Suddenly the snap of a branch in the far distance alerts you and you snap your neck towards the noise. Making you question if you were really alone. The silence suddenly pierced with the roar of a thousand wings. All the birds tucked within the trees, all flew up and out all at once. The sky darkened even further slightly under the brief canopy of wings fluttering, creating an overwhelming sea of birds, their songs, now echoed out waves of rushed 'caws'. And then at once, the stillness returned. You stood in the shadows, bewildered for a moment, staring through the empty trees. With your heart rate thumping, You begin second guessing your venture as you turn back towards the house, only to be faced with a man directly in front of you. You jump slightly, alarmed at his sudden presence. He himself had made no sound in his approach to you, as if he just- appeared there. His hands behind his back, a gruff, rock type man with shaggy black hair. "You must be Y/N" he smiled a very- wide and overwhelming smile and seemingly paid no attention to the ocean of birds that had just swarmed out of the woods. This must be the musician. "Oh- god- yes sorry hello!" You putter and brush your hair behind your ear. "Tracii Guns, La Guns." He greets. "Oh yes, great!" He reached out his hand, offering a gentlemanly stability for you to hike upwards. "Thanks." You said. His demeanor was oddly formal for a rock musician. He escorted you up to a large old cabin atop the mountain, hidden within the shadows of the mountain. The wood planks were withered with black paint and dirt, and cracked roof tiles littered the ground below. The property was picturesque, but clearly dated and run down.

The front door opened up to a condensed,dark living space. The cabin was a mesh with all dark velvet furniture and deep red drapes. It was lit by only one overhead dim chandelier and many candles. It was even colder inside. Goosebumps ran through your skin. Was this the best idea...? Tracii seemed overly cordial. "Come, sit." He ushered you to a shady conversation pit in the center of the room. You stiffen up and buckle down, putting a brave face on. No time to get distracted now. Your career and your rent relies on this being a good story and a good interview, you were already here, already deep in this, there really was no turning back. Additional scruffy black haired band members filed into the pit, and decorated themselves on the furniture. "Who do we have the pleasure of hosting?" One of them purred as he eyed you intently. Again- with the eyes. What was it with these rockers and the staring like they've never seen a girl in their lives? "Kelly, this is Y/N, Y/N, this is Kelly." Kelly swooped up next to you swiftly and took you hand upon his lips delicately, issuing a soft kiss. His eyes give a brief flicker of bright gold, causing you to blink in confusion. You blushed at his formal touch.

-

"LA Guns. With a name so ingrained with LA, why do you hide up here?" You question. Tracii's expression fades into a stone faced blanket. His voice deepens slightly as he exchanges low glances with Kelly and the others. He gives a labored, fake chuckle and adjusts his position. "Well, that's a good question. Naturally it would make sense to ask such a thing." He began.

"We originated within Los Angeles. In fact, we were there prior to ANY other rock band. It really used to be our stomping grounds..." Tracii gives a slight nostalgic laugh as he reminisces. He loses himself in memory "It was different then. You could really do whatever you wanted then. And when those damn bible thumpers came round, you could get rid of them so easily, and no one would notice." He paused.  "But uh- the scene...it became very....." he trailed to find the right words

"Crowded." Kelly answered, cutting tracii off. Tracii nodded in agreement. "Yes- crowded. Very crowded." Tracii seemed to become alert again. "Made it difficult to focus on our..music." He said. "But we love visitors! We were so thrilled when Vickey mentioned your interest in interviewing.." Kelly leaned back next to you and threw his arm behind you. As Tracii spoke, you examined him closely. You couldn't help but notice the smooth porcelain skin he had. He was a beautiful man, in fact they all were, striking, for male rockstars. It reminded you of Guns N' Roses now. They too had held an ethereal sort of beauty about them, even more so. Your mind wandered to visions of Axls smooth red hair, Izzy's cool demeanor, Steven's bright, dreamy eyes, Duffs wicked and devious grin, and slash- slashes deep gaze. The way his eyes darkened as he looked at you. The way his lips parted slightly as if he wanted to speak to you. The firm line of his jaw and the tan smoothness of his own skin. The mess of deep black soft curls that framed his face perfectly. He-

"-Nevermind Guns N' Roses. I never really cared for their music." Traciis voice interrupting your thoughts, snapping you back to reality. That's strange that he brought them up right as they crossed your mind. It was like he could read your thoughts. "-what?" You reply confused. Kelly shoots tracii and dark annoyed look. Tracii straightened his back. "Oh, nothing, just, on the subject of LA bands, you know...? You seem....familiar." He suggests, leaning inward. The discomfort of the situation becomes thicker.

Kelly felt closer on the couch than before. You steal an unintentional glance at the front door, to find another band member leaned up on the door frame, coolly smoking a cigarette as he watched the interview. You quickly jerk your head back to tracii, hoping he didn't notice your glance as rude. You ruminated on whether to leave early. The energy in the room seemed increasingly vacant and cold, you felt incredibly uncomfortable.

The interview was almost to a close anyways. And you had collected quite a bit of info. You put on a fake smile, to which tracii returns an equally fake one. "Well- I think that just about does it!" You start collecting your things hurriedly, when one last question burns so harshly at your tongue than it slips out before you can think about it. "What did you mean earlier when you said- they were easy to get "rid of"." The words are out and immediately you know that was not appropriate to ask. The guy perched at the door creaks forward on the floor board slightly. Tracii's fake grin drops and the room falls silent. You swallow nervously. Tracii comes to his feet and towers over you, as does Kelly from behind, closing you in. Your heart begins to pick back up again. "Oh you must have misheard me." He rejected. Clearly lying as you definitely heard him say that. "You certainly ask a lot of personal questions, don't you sweetheart?" Kelly whispered in your ear. Shivers run through your spine, and grapple to a tightness in your chest. "Tracii, don't you agree?" Kelly threw a darkened look to him. Tracii eyed you curiously. "...yes, I would have to agree. Y/N, sweetheart, do you mind if I just take a look at your notes there?" Tracii says pulling at your notebook. Whatever notes you had written, it appeared that tracii no longer approved of the information you received. Instinctually you grip your notebook firmer, rejecting his grasp for it. He didn't like this and gave you an entirely false and stern grin. A smile that showed no kindness. He was upset, you could tell. A pool of anxiety welled in your stomach as your heart raced. "I've got to get going." You state, backing away. You glance at the front door again, which now sported two additional men, blocking it casually. Kelly grips your arm firmly, and closes in on you. "Hey-" you mutter out nervously. "Shhhhh....doll." Tracii coos to you. Within the soft hush he lets out, you see his canine teeth lengthening to two long sharp fangs. He grins deviously as he closing in on you. You can't speak. "You're such a good interviewer doll....you just got me talking so much...and well....Im afraid I can't let you leave." He purrs lowly. Your entire body feels seized with fear. Your thoughts become scattered and disoriented. "Hey man, take the notebook. Take whatever you want please -" tears well in your eyes. "Please just let me go home. You can have my notebook." You cry, nervously. Tracii and Kelly both laugh at you. "Oh sweetheart...it's not the notebook we want." The both of them, now sported long sharp fangs. Their pupils glow an eerie gold shimmer. Their faces soured into pure expressions of depravity and evil. This situation was bad. You tremble. "Please!" You began to sob out nervously.

A loud crash of glass echoes from the top floor, breaking everyone's focus. Tracii shoots a look to one of the other members. "Go." He commands. And they race upstairs. With the door uncovered, it suddenly crashes to the floor off its hinges. In the doorway stood Axl and Duff. You all stood stunned as it all unfolded within seconds. They ready to pounce forward on tracii and Kelly. "Don't! They're not huma-!" You begin to warn them and in that same instance, you witness both Axl and duff grow similar long sharpened fangs and release deafening, intimidating growl. Kelly's grip on you loosens as he becomes distracted. "Let her go, and we won't tear you to fucking shreds." Axl threatens. Tracii seemingly understands the severity of his threat and pushes you forward, duff draws you into his grasp and behind him. "Y/N, slash is waiting for you outside, GO!" He demands. You struggle to move your feet in shock. "GO!" He reiterates louder, shocking you to life again. You flee through the front door as you hear loud crashes commence inside. You find slash on his motorcycle parked out at the bottom of the path. You run to him. He turns to you. As you draw closer you see his eyes a flushed deep red. But the hallucination doesn't disappear this time. "I told you not to fucking go." He growled. You jumped on the back and wrapped yourself around him. He ripped the bike awake and tore through the mountain. The trees passing, blurring. Your mind spun with fear and confusion, to the extent that when your grip begins to slip, slash has to forcefully grip your hands with one of his as he drives one handed. You rest your head on his back and the world fades out.

[beanbagbuddies4life]

Topper the Giraffe

Born May 28, 2007 AND January 3, 2012

I can reach high in the trees Up to the leafy canopies I’ll stretch out and I won’t stop Until I can touch the top !

Okay, so, this is one of those beanie babies I don't quite know how to post about. Topper was originally a Beanie Baby 2.0 (the ones with the online code.) After the website shut down, Topper was re-released-- at first with a nearly identical pattern, then with big eyes and a new birthday. All 3 versions share the same poem.

In 2016 a practically identical pattern was used for Santa Barbara Zoo exclusive Buttercup the giraffe. They're different Beanies though!

[sciencespies]

Botany: From the soil to the sky

https://sciencespies.com/nature/botany-from-the-soil-to-the-sky/

Botany: From the soil to the sky

Every day, about one quadrillion gallons of water are silently pumped from the ground to the treetops. Earth’s plant life accomplishes this staggering feat using only sunlight. It takes energy to lift all this liquid, but just how much was an open question until this year.

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have calculated the tremendous amount of power used by plants to move water through their xylem from the soil to their leaves. They found that, on average, it was an additional 14% of the energy the plants harvested through photosynthesis. On a global scale, this is comparable to the production of all of humanity’s hydropower. Their study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, is the first to estimate how much energy goes into lifting water up to plant canopies, both for individual plants and worldwide.

“It takes power to move water up through the xylem of the tree. It takes energy. We’re quantifying how much energy that is,” said first author Gregory Quetin, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Geography. This energy is in addition to what a plant produces via photosynthesis. “It’s energy that’s being harvested passively from the environment, just through the tree’s structure.”

Photosynthesis requires carbon dioxide, light and water. CO2 is widely available in the air, but the other two ingredients pose a challenge: Light comes from above, and water from below. So, plants need to bring the water up (sometimes a considerable distance) to where the light is.

More complex plants accomplish this with a vascular system, in which tubes called xylem bring water from the roots to the leaves, while other tubes called phloem move sugar produced in the leaves down to the rest of the plant. “Vascular plants evolving xylem is a huge deal that allowed for trees to exist,” Quetin said.

Many animals also have a vascular system. We evolved a closed circulatory system with a heart that pumps blood through arteries, capillaries and veins to deliver oxygen and nutrients around our bodies. “This is a function that many organisms pay a lot for,” said co-author Anna Trugman, an assistant professor in the Department of Geography. “We pay for it because we have to keep our hearts beating, and that’s probably a lot of our metabolic energy.”

Plants could have evolved hearts, too. But they didn’t. And it saves them a lot of metabolic energy.

advertisement

In contrast to animals, plant circulatory systems are open and powered passively. Sunlight evaporates water, which escapes from pores in the leaves. This creates a negative pressure that pulls up the water beneath it. Scientists call this process “transpiration.”

In essence, transpiration is merely another way that plants harvest energy from sunlight. It’s just that, unlike in photosynthesis, this energy doesn’t need to be processed before it can be put to use.

Scientists understand this process fairly well, but no one had ever estimated how much energy it consumes. “I’ve only seen it mentioned specifically as energy in one paper,” co-author Leander Anderegg said, “and it was to say that ‘this is a really large number. If plants had to pay for it with their metabolism, they wouldn’t work.'”

This particular study grew out of basic curiosity. “When Greg [Quetin]and I were both graduate students, we were reading a lot about plant transpiration,” recalled Anderegg, now an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology. “At some point Greg asked, ‘How much work do plants do just lifting water against gravity?’

“I said, ‘I have no idea. I wonder if anyone knows?’ And Greg said, ‘surely we can calculate that.'”

About a decade later, they circled back and did just that. The team combined a global database of plant conductance with mathematical models of sap ascent to estimate how much power the world’s plant life devotes to pumping water. They found that the Earth’s forests consume around 9.4 petawatt-hours per year. That’s on par with global hydropower production, they quickly point out.

advertisement

This is about 14.2% of the energy that plants take in through photosynthesis. So it’s a significant chunk of energy that plants benefit from but don’t have to actively process. This free energy passes to the animals and fungi that consume plants, and the animals that consume them, and so on.

Surprisingly, the researchers discovered that fighting gravity accounts for only a tiny fraction of this total. Most of the energy goes into simply overcoming the resistance of a plant’s own stem.

These findings may not have many immediate applications, but they help us better understand life on Earth. “The fact that there’s a global energy stream of this magnitude that we didn’t have quantified, is mildly jarring,” Quetin said. “It does seem like a concept that slipped through the cracks.”

The energies involved in transpiration seem to fall in between the scales that different scientists examine. It’s too big for plant physiologists to consider and too small for scientists who study Earth systems to bother with, so it was forgotten. And it’s only within the past decade that scientists have collected enough data on water use and xylem resistance to begin addressing the energy of transpiration at global scales, the authors explained.

Within that time, scientists have been able to refine the significance of transpiration in Earth systems using new observations and models. It affects temperatures, air currents and rainfall, and helps shape a region’s ecology and biodiversity. Sap ascent power is a small component of transpiration overall, but the authors suspect it may turn out to be noteworthy given the significant energy involved.

It’s still early days, and the team admits there’s a lot of work to do in tightening their estimates. Plants vary widely in how conductive their stems are to water flow. Compare a hardy desert juniper with a riverside cottonwood, for instance. “A juniper tree that is very drought adapted has a very high resistance,” Anderegg said, “while cottonwoods just live to pump water.”

This uncertainty is reflected in the authors’ estimates, which fall between 7.4 and 15.4 petawatt-hours per year. That said, it could be as high as 140 petawatt-hours per year, though Quetin admits this upper bound is unlikely. “I think this uncertainty highlights that there is still a lot we don’t know about the biogeography of plant resistance (and to a lesser extent, transpiration),” he said. “This is good motivation for continued research in these areas.”

#Nature

[xtruss]

A kelp forest off Anacapa Island, California. Researchers have found that underwater forests cover an area comparable to the Amazon basin. Photograph: Douglas Klug/Getty Images

Seascape: The State of Our Oceans! The Hidden Underwater Forests That Could Help Tackle The Climate Crisis

Kelp absorbs carbon dioxide and has high nutritional value, but it is under threat from rising temperatures, pollution and invasive species

— By Lucy Sherriff in Los Angeles

Bubbles stream furiously behind Frank Hurd as he gently parts the curtains of giant kelp. Green and gold ribbons reach upwards through the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean towards the sun.

Hurd, a marine biologist with environmental organisation the Nature Conservancy, is diving in a kelp forest off Anacapa Island, one of the protected rocky volcanic islets that form the Channel Islands national park, an archipelago off the coast of southern California.

This thick, healthy kelp – a type of seaweed – forms a small part of underwater forests that blanket the coastline of nearly every continent. Some are relatively well-studied, including the Great African Sea Forest, a rich stretch of giant bamboo kelp spreading north from Cape Town to the Namibian coastline that was the setting for the film My Octopus Teacher; and the Great Southern Reef, a giant kelp forest hugging Australia’s southern coastline. But many more of these forests are unnamed and unknown – hidden underwater.

A harbour seal descends from the kelp canopy in the rich underwater forests off Santa Barbara, California. Photograph: Douglas Klug/Getty Images

Despite being one of the fastest growing plants on Earth, kelp has historically been difficult to map because of the difficulties of measuring ocean depths with satellites. However, research published in September found that seaweed forests are far more extensive than previously realised.

An international group of scientists from eight countries, led by Dr Albert Pessarrodona from the University of Western Australia, manually sifted through hundreds of studies – including local plant data records, online repositories and citizen science initiatives – to model the global distribution of ocean forests. They found that underwater forests cover between 6m and 7.2m sq km – an area comparable to the Amazon rainforest basin and twice the size of India.

Still from My Octopus Teacher, set in a rich stretch of giant bamboo kelp spreading north from Cape Town to the Namibian coastline. Photograph: Netflix

Seaweed forests can act as a vital buffer against the climate crisis, absorbing carbon dioxide from seawater and the atmosphere. Ocean forests may store as much carbon as the Amazon rainforest, according to one analysis.

Yet there is still a sizeable gap in understanding of seaweed’s long-term ability to sequester carbon, because it lacks a root system to lock the carbon into the ground, unlike other marine plants such as mangroves and seagrass. Whether carbon stays locked up also depends on what happens to the seaweed, and there is still scientific debate on how effective it is at storing the element.

Kelp provides food and shelter for fish, marine animals and birds. Photograph: Brandon Cole Images/Shutterstock

Marine ecologist Dr Karen Filbee-Dexter, one of the study’s 10 authors, said the research was a “major step forward” in understanding the potential role that seaweed can play in mitigating climate breakdown, “because it calculates the productivity – growth and carbon uptake – of the largest marine vegetated ecosystem”. It can also help estimate the carbon-sink potential of the world’s marine forests, she added.

Kelp, the largest seaweed species, able to grow tens of metres high, also plays a vital role in marine ecosystems, providing food and shelter for fish, other marine animals and birds.

In Australia, native kelp is home to the weedy seadragon – a purple-hued creature with leaf-like appendages that look like kelp fronds – which only lives along the country’s coastline. Kelp forests along North America’s Pacific coast provide vital habitats for southern sea otters. In addition, the mighty grey whale uses kelp forests as a haven from predatory killer whales and as vital feeding grounds for their young during their migration to Alaska waters from Baja California in Mexico.

A weedy sea dragon in Jervis Bay, New South Wales, Australia. Photograph: By Wildestanimal/Getty Images

Underwater forests could also have a role in efforts to alleviate the world’s food security crisis, thanks to their rapid growth.

The scientists examined hundreds of individual studies from around the world where seaweed growth had been measured by scuba divers. “We found ocean forests are more productive than many intensely farmed crops such as wheat, rice and corn,” the study noted. It defined productivity in terms of how much biomass – the fronds, stipes and holdfasts of the seaweed – was produced by crops and seaweed.

On average, ocean forests in temperate regions, such as Australia’s southern coast, produced between two and 11 times more biomass by area than intensely farmed crops, a productivity that could be harnessed for the food system.

“If Harvested Properly, Seaweeds Have The Potential To Be A Very Sustainable And Nutrient-dense Food Source” — Amanda Swinimer

Seaweed ecologist Dr Sophie Steinhagen inspects the crop at the seafarm in the Koster archipelago in Sweden.

Seaweed has been mass-consumed in Asia for centuries, and now western markets are catching on, albeit on a small scale, with more European and North American companies manufacturing seaweed products for human consumption. The Cornish Seaweed Company has a seaweed salad range; Marks & Spencer has a “coconut seaweed crunch” snack, and there are numerous lines of kelp burgers.

“Although there is evidence of seaweed being consumed as food 14,500 years ago, it has not been a part of the diet for large swaths of the world’s population,” says marine biologist Amanda Swinimer, who has been wild harvesting seaweed for decades through her company, Dakini Tidal Wilds.

However, she adds, as food security becomes more of an issue, “people are looking for other sources of nutritious food. If harvested properly, seaweeds have the potential to be a very sustainable and nutrient-dense food source.” Seaweed is also being used as animal feed, in place of corn and soya beans, thanks to its high nutritional value.

Seaweed can be a nutritious source of food if harvested properly. Photograph: M&S

Yet these underwater forests face multiple threats, including rising sea temperatures, pollution and invasive species. Along the northern California coast, kelp has declined by more than 95% over the past several years, decimated by sea urchins – whose population has exploded as vast numbers of starfish, their main predators, have been killed by a wasting disease linked to warming waters.

The Great Southern Reef along Australia’s coastline, and forests in the north-west Atlantic, along the coasts of Maine, Canada and Greenland, are also showing concerning signs of decline.

Seaweed forests are often overlooked and less studied compared with coral reefs, making it difficult to understand how they are changing. “Most of the world’s seaweed forests are not even mapped, much less monitored,” says Filbee-Dexter. While corals are found in warm, calm and easily accessible areas, making them fairly easy to study, kelp is in cold waters on some of the choppiest, roughest coasts in the world.

Seaweed farming in Sweden could be a vital component of the shift away from eating meat for protein.

Filbee-Dexter believes that the more scientists understand about these vital but fragile marine ecosystems, the easier it will be to help them survive. “I hope that more awareness about these forests will lead to more protection and restoration.”

In California, Hurd continues to dive among the kelp forests, monitoring their progress and hoping their decline can be stemmed. “The loss of these incredibly productive ecosystems is devastating for both nature and people,” he says. However, as science continues to develop smarter technologies to track kelp, such as drones, satellites and AI, he remains hopeful that research can shed light on the role of kelp in fighting climate breakdown.

“The one thing that kelp in particular should never be underestimated for is the productivity and biodiversity it supports around the world. It should be protected and restored with a great sense of urgency.”

Seaweed growth was measured by scuba divers for the research. Photograph: vernonwiley/Getty Images

[just4funpartyrentals]

Seaside Serenity: Essential Beach Wedding Rentals for Your Santa Barbara Celebration

Santa Barbara is a perfect destination for a beach themed wedding. With party and event supplies from a good rental company, arranging a beach wedding is not challenging anymore.

With its stunning coastline and breathtaking ocean views, Santa Barbara is a dream destination for couples seeking a serene and picturesque beach wedding. To transform the sandy shores into a magical setting for your celebration, essential beach wedding rentals play a pivotal role. From comfortable seating to captivating décor, these rentals enhance the beauty of your Santa Barbara wedding and contribute to the overall seaside serenity. Let's explore the must-have rentals and delve into considerations for beach wedding costs in this enchanting coastal city.

Coastal Chairs for Comfort:

Begin your beach wedding experience with comfortable and stylish seating. Opt for lightweight and weather-resistant chairs that seamlessly blend with the coastal ambiance of Santa Barbara. Whether you choose classic white folding chairs for an elegant touch or opt for chic wooden options, comfortable seating sets the foundation for a serene ceremony by the sea.

Driftwood Décor Elements:

Embrace the natural beauty of Santa Barbara's beaches by incorporating driftwood decor elements. Centerpieces or aisle markers add a touch of rustic elegance to your beach wedding. These organic elements complement the surroundings and contribute to the seaside serenity, creating a harmonious connection with nature.

Canopy of Ocean-Blue Linens:

Transform the sandy aisle into a pathway of elegance with ocean-blue linens. Consider using flowing table runners or aisle draping in shades of blue to evoke the calming presence of the ocean. These linens add a pop of color to the beach setting and enhance the overall visual appeal of your Santa Barbara celebration.

Picturesque Arch Rentals:

Elevate your beach wedding ceremony with a picturesque arch rental. Whether adorned with billowing fabrics, fresh florals, or a combination of both, an arch creates a captivating focal point against the backdrop of the ocean. Choose an arch style that resonates with your vision, adding an element of romance to your Santa Barbara beach wedding.

Beach-Friendly Flooring Options:

Ensure that your guests can comfortably walk on the sand by considering beach-friendly flooring options. Carpet runners or even a simple aisle runner provide stable footing for the bridal party and guests. These flooring options serve a practical purpose and add a touch of sophistication to your Santa Barbara beach wedding.

Ambient Lighting for Sunset Magic:

As the sun sets over the Pacific, create a magical atmosphere with ambient lighting. String lights, lanterns, or candles in hurricane vases add a soft and romantic glow to your beach wedding. The warm illumination enhances the seaside serenity and sets the stage for a memorable celebration as the stars begin to twinkle in the Santa Barbara night sky.

Considerations for Beach Wedding Costs:

While planning your dream beach wedding in Santa Barbara, it's crucial to consider the associated costs. Beach weddings often involve additional permits, cleanup fees, and considerations for guest comfort, such as shade solutions. Work with local authorities to secure the necessary permits and inquire about any specific regulations for beach weddings in Santa Barbara. Additionally, factor in costs for rentals, décor, and any specialized services required for a seamless beach wedding experience.

Keep in mind that beach weddings may require additional setup and breakdown time for rentals due to the unique challenges posed by sandy terrain. Collaborate with a reputable party supplies rental company to get a precise estimate of costs and ensure the smooth execution of your beach wedding vision.

A beach wedding in Santa Barbara offers a serene and picturesque backdrop for your celebration of love. By incorporating essential beach wedding rentals, from coastal chairs to driftwood décor, you can create an atmosphere of seaside serenity that resonates with the natural beauty of Santa Barbara's beaches. Additionally, being mindful of beach wedding costs ensures you can plan and budget effectively for an unforgettable beach wedding experience in this coastal paradise.

[blackmagicspecialist786-blog]

Another Atmospheric River Arrives in California

SAN FRANCISCO -- It's not often California that is the subject of news stories about weather during winter. However, on Wednesday an epic storm, the latest of a series of atmospheric rivers, hit the state's coastline, taking at least two lives. Local fire and police officials confirmed that a 19-year-old woman living in Fairfield north from San Francisco, died after the vehicle she was driving hit an electric pole. A 2-year-old child died when a tree fell onto an Occidental mobile home which is located within Sonoma County. The storm caused flooding on streets throughout San Jose and forced evacuations in Santa Barbara and Oakland. More than 180,000 electric customers in California were in power outages at the time of last count as per PowerOutage.us, which is a website that tracks outages. It destroyed a huge canopy that was over a gas station located in South San Francisco and unleashed the slide of a rock that blocked the northbound roadways of Highway 101 in Mendocino County even as rescue teams located in Sacramento County were recovering bodies of the storm that hit the area last weekend. Businesses, schools, and parks were shut down, and Governor. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency across the state to help more swiftly respond to a storm. "We believe that this could be among the most difficult and significant series of storms to come down in California in the past 5 years,"" declared Nancy Ward who is the new Director of Governor's Office for emergency services. She took over from the state's former chief of emergency services just five days ago. This atmospheric storm, likely to last until Thursday it is the third storm to roar across in the Golden State in less than two weeks. Another storm is predicted for the weekend. Normally, rain amounts similar to those predicted this week would not be a major issue. However, the ground in a large portion in the State is saturated by previous storms and charred by wildfires making it more prone to runoff and flooding. The Mission District in San Francisco the doors of apartment structures, cafes and restaurants were surrounded by Sandbags as rain started to increase Wednesday evening. In the course of the weekend, many roads and shops in the neighborhood that is low was flooded, with water pools over a foot on the streets. Refrigerators and other appliances that were on display in repair shops began to disappear on the Saturday. Zoe Williams, sales director Zoe Williams, sales director for Three Babes Bakeshop, next to the repair shop, stared at the pouring rain in the window of her store on Wednesday. The bakery also experienced flooding with several inches of rain on Saturday. the water started to rise up the drains, but staff removed it, cleaned the shop and then quickly restored the store. The night before, Williams and her co-workers were crossing their fingers the shop would get through this latest storm unharmed. Prior to heading to bed the team piled sandbags on the doorway, she said she added, "It's kind of a wait and watch." California generally receives the majority of its annual rain during the winter months, however these many storms that are sweeping across quickly can cause much more damage than good. The big storms that are sweeping through these clusters could be increasing in frequency due to climate change -- can deliver excessive water at a rapid pace to the reservoirs of California as well as emergency response personnel to manage, the Times' Raymond Zhong reported. "It's very helpful if storms were so considerate to spread them by a week or two apart to allow for the water to flow through the system" Jeanine Jones, an official from the state of California's Department of Water Resources, explained to him. Despite the risks however, certain Californians are still thankful for any precipitation after dry months. The past three years have been most dry in more than 150 years of Californian history. Don Bransford, who has an agricultural property north from Sacramento located in Colusa County, saw potential relief from the destruction of the last year's drought destroyed his land and reduced the amount of rice he grew from around 1,800 acres to nothing. Don Cameron, who grows products like carrots, vino grapes within the south of San Joaquin Valley, said he didn't mind the fact that he needed to purchase pumps to drain water from hundreds of areas of onion. "This is truly a blessing," Cameron said, "just to watch these storms coming together and pounding California right on." Tell us how the storm impacting you? Contact us by emailing vivekwebediting@gmail.com with your personal stories and pictures. For more details: Where we’re traveling Today's advice is directly from Doris Bowen, who recommends visiting the city's largest park: "I frequent San Francisco often, and I'm blessed to live just a few block within Golden Gate Park. It is full of beautiful things to see! The park has museums, a Ferris-wheel as well as the band shell (often featuring free performances) Fountains as well as the Conservatory of Flowers, many different meadows and gardens and a huge lake perfect for bird watching and boating windmill, as well as numerous trails. It even has a softball pitch that has plenty of benches to relax on and watch the games. In fact, there's something for everyone at the park. One of the major roads that are in Park (J.F.K. Drive) is closed to traffic through and is accessible to bicyclists, walkers, and everybody else. If you'd like to explore the entire long distance of the park begin at the eastern end of the park and walk all the way to the ocean. It's about 3 miles all downhill. You might even meet the bison! Returning home, you can take the Muni train or bus. In the end, you should spend time enjoying the beautiful urban park." Let us know about your top destinations to visit throughout California. Email your suggestions to vivekwebediting@gmail.com. We'll feature more suggestions in future editions of the newsletter. And before you go, some good news The New York Times recently released an article about Tom Brady -- sort of. Brady the football player is 45 years old that puts him within the top 1 percent in terms of age quarterbacks who start their careers. The Times interviewed people who are the same age in their professions like Brady has in histhat is the oldest one percent of people working and across a wide range of careers. The Times spoke to a teacher of biology at the age of 72 of the Cal State University of Northridge. A composer aged 88 who lives in the Central Coast. In Los Angeles County, a 70-year-old paramedicis a position where the median age is 33. A paramedic Jesse Izaguirre, works for two 24 hour shifts per week to transport patients around Los Angeles. He is constantly between the ambulance. According to his story which The New York Times could not independently verify, the nurses believe that he's in his 50s. "Some people inquire, 'When will you retire when you'll retire?" Izaguirre told The Times. "I suggest"First foremost, it's nothing of your matter.'" He laughed. "I'm kidding. I'll be honest with them about anything. When will I end my career? I would like to retire as soon as possible, but hopefully not." Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — Soumya P.S. This is today's Mini Crossword. Briana Scalia and Isabella Grullon Paz contributed to California Today. Contact the team via vivekwebediting@gmail.com. Join us here to receive this newsletter delivered to your email inbox . Read the full article

[holisticsoulhealer]

Flashback Friday - New Beginnings - A Spiritual Story

From SEPTEMBER 22, 2020

I love this subject matter. I feel I am more often than not, helping individuals and sometimes groups, to create and generate new beginnings. We are co-creators anyway, and I feel that the guidance and channeling that pours through me is mostly to help inspire me and all those lives that touch mine, to deliberately cause intentional change.

None of us are stuck actually, as the World turns whether we agree with each turn or not, so we may as well go with the flow that’s occurring with or without our permission. The real mastery is to learn to move our own energy in harmony with Universal flow. That’s when everything goes well and the outcome is for the best, and serves our highest good.

One of my greatest and most heartfelt stories happened in Central California wine country, at a time when my business success story was a little messy.

My mum, children and myself had moved to a small area just above Santa Barbara. I had the promise of a healing center, shared with an established therapist partner, along with several gifted therapists, that my husband had invested in. I didn’t know at that time that my partner wasn’t willing to share “anything”, least of all clients. It was a really challenging experience that kept me awake at night. Just when I had most of my whole body out of the door of that center, something extraordinary happened.

There were sweet, local promotions that were planned with our healing center’s participation. The first was outside of a clinic. I brought my massage table, which my partner took and offered tasters of her massage work. She proceeded to take all new clients that booked, leaving me to work in a simple, borrowed plastic garden chair. I wasn’t feeling very generous at all, when I decided to leave my table at home the next week for a larger health fair. I figured I wasn’t getting any of the new clients anyway, so I may as well simply use the plastic chair approach again.

I had a private meditation that morning led by the lady who ran the sweet “Angel shop” attached to our healing center. My grandmother had spiritually come to me with a golden key and a huge smile that all would be just fine. I cried a little and then swept up my mum, who as the greeter and was going to make sure the distribution of new clients was treated with more fair play. We set up my plastic garden chair, while all the therapists around me had massage chairs, real massage tables and they looked professional.

The morning was progressing in an amazing way. Something special was occurring. A woman sat down and I closed my eyes, with my hands on her shoulders, I whispered in her ear that she was a legal professional and needed to leave her work in the office, because it was never going to be a clean desk. Her shoulders were taking a hit for all the hard work she hadn’t let go of, and it was getting in the way of her having fun. I was being very discreet with the messages that came with the visions I had for her. She, however, was asking me in a loud voice “How do you know that?”

I was shushing her, so that we didn’t bring any attention to ourselves. Her shoulders gave way and let go of all the burdens she’d been carrying. I could literally feel the freedom her body was experiencing after we completed our little 30 minutes of intent healing.

She left my chair, giving her email and information to my mum. She wandered into the health store, whose land we were on, and suddenly I had a line for my plastic chair.

The clouds were moving in and rain was just starting to spit at us. Me and my plastic chair were only just under the canopy we had. My back wasn’t shielded. I was looking at my mum to indicate maybe it was time to go soon.

A man walked past my mum at that point. He dragged his right leg with his right arm dangling while he took each labored step. My mum offered him up my plastic chair, like a throne he may wish to sit on. He declined, pointing out that his stroke didn’t afford him any feeling on his right side.

She shrugged, knowing we had more than one foot out the door of this promotional day, and said he had nothing to lose. He walked and came back, nodding at her, giving her his information and sat down in my plastic chair.

I could immediately feel a huge energy with me, and my whole body was vibrating at a greater level. I closed my eyes, breathed deeply and floated my right arm over his. He mentioned that he could feel that. I focused on his arm, seeing all the flow of blood, lymph and veins in my mind’s eye. It was more than interesting to sit behind my own eyes, having a detailed anatomy lesson on him. I got lost in it, until I saw behind the closed eyes, that he was lifting and stretching his arm, opening and closing his fist with ease. I opened one eye and it was happening exactly as I had been viewing it. I quickly closed the eye as I felt suddenly overcome with emotion. A miracle was happening before my eyes. A deep emotion welled up in me, that was heavy and loud. I found myself openly sobbing and my mum was behind me, reminding me to breathe.

The man in my chair hadn’t moved his whole right side, which had been paralyzed with grief from the death of his mother 2 1/2 years earlier. His grief for her had locked him in a body that couldn’t move on the side that represented family and close relationships. Her death had created his stroke and much of his life had died with her. This day was an open door for new beginnings.

My mum loved every moment of that healing experience.

She told me on the way home that one of the other therapists had a man in his chair and was so focused on me, that he pushed the guy’s head almost all the way through the head part of the massage chair and had a little difficulty getting him out again. She was trying not to laugh while helping me to breathe and stay focused.

He came to the healing center and after 3 more sessions, he was back to work and in his life again. New beginnings had occurred for him.

Local news interviewed us.

My partner finally told me to leave and that she would buy me out, paying my husband back every penny, which she did.

We all had new beginnings from his reset button being pressed.

As always, please share this post with anyone that you feel can benefit from it! Please like us on your social media channels and subscribe to our mailing list if you haven’t already done so… We are mailing out a monthly newsletter and a recap each week of our blog posts and interesting tidbits… This is how you can stay informed with what is new in the world of The Holistic Soul Healer!!

Love & Blessings, Ruth

Connect with me and see what they have to say!!

BOOK NOW!!

[peacefulapocalypse]

I Sexually Identify as an

Attack Helicopter

by ISABEL FALL

I sexually identify as an attack helicopter.

I lied. According to US Army Technical Manual 0, The Soldier as a System, “attack helicopter” is a

gender identity, not a biological sex. My dog tags and Form 3349 say my body is an XX-karyotope

somatic female.

But, really, I didn’t lie. My body is a component in my mission, subordinate to what I truly am. If I

say I am an attack helicopter, then my body, my sex, is too. I’ll prove it to you.

When I joined the Army I consented to tactical-role gender reassignment. It was mandatory for the

MOS I’d tested into. I was nervous. I’d never been anything but a woman before.

But I decided that I was done with womanhood, over what womanhood could do for me; I wanted to

be something furiously new.

To the people who say a woman would’ve refused to do what I do, I say—

Isn’t that the point?

I fly—

Red evening over the white Mojave, and I watch the sun set through a canopy of polycarbonate and

glass: clitoral bulge of cockpit on the helicopter’s nose. Lightning probes the burned wreck of an oil

refinery and the Santa Ana feeds a smoldering wildfire and pulls pine soot out southwest across the

Big Pacific. We are alone with each other, Axis and I, flying low.

We are traveling south to strike a high school.

Rotor wash flattens rings of desert creosote. Did you know that creosote bushes clone themselves?

The ten-thousand-year elders enforce dead zones where nothing can grow except more creosote.

Beetles and mice live among them, the way our cities had pigeons and mice. I guess the analogy

breaks down because the creosote’s lasted ten thousand years. You don’t need an attack helicopter

to tell you that our cities haven’t. The Army gave me gene therapy to make my blood toxic to

mosquitoes. Soon you will have that too, to fight malaria in the Hudson floodplain and on the banks

of the Greater Lake.

Now I cross Highway 40, southbound at two hundred knots. The Apache’s engine is electric and

silent. Decibel killers sop up the rotor noise. White-bright infrared vision shows me stripes of heat,

the tire tracks left by Pear Mesa school buses. Buried housing projects smolder under the dirt,

radiators curled until sunset. This is enemy territory. You can tell because, though this desert was

once Nevada and California, there are no American flags.

“Barb,” the Apache whispers, in a voice that Axis once identified, to my alarm, as my mother’s.

“Waypoint soon.”

“Axis.” I call out to my gunner, tucked into the nose ahead of me. I can see only gray helmet and

flight suit shoulders, but I know that body wholly, the hard knots of muscle, the ridge of pelvic

girdle, the shallow navel and flat hard chest. An attack helicopter has a crew of two. My gunner is

my marriage, my pillar, the completion of my gender.

“Axis.” The repeated call sign means, I hear you.

“Ten minutes to target.”

“Ready for target,” Axis says.

But there is again that roughness, like a fold in carbon fiber. I heard it when we reviewed our

fragment orders for the strike. I hear it again now. I cannot ignore it any more than I could ignore a

battery fire; it is a fault in a person and a system I trust with my life.

But I can choose to ignore it for now.

The target bumps up over the horizon. The low mounds of Kelso-Ventura District High burn warm

gray through a parfait coating of aerogel insulation and desert soil. We have crossed a third of the

continental US to strike a school built by Americans.

Axis cues up a missile: black eyes narrowed, telltales reflected against clear laser-washed cornea.

“Call the shot, Barb.”

“Stand by. Maneuvering.” I lift us above the desert floor, buying some room for the missile to run,

watching the probability-of-kill calculation change with each motion of the aircraft.

Before the Army my name was Seo Ji Hee. Now my call sign is Barb, which isn’t short for Barbara. I

share a rank (flight warrant officer), a gender, and a urinary system with my gunner Axis: we are

harnessed and catheterized into the narrow tandem cockpit of a Boeing AH-70 Apache Mystic.

America names its helicopters for the people it destroyed.

We are here to degrade and destroy strategic targets in the United States of America’s war against

the Pear Mesa Budget Committee. If you disagree with the war, so be it: I ask your empathy, not

your sympathy. Save your pity for the poor legislators who had to find some constitutional

framework for declaring war against a credit union.

The reasons for war don’t matter much to us. We want to fight the way a woman wants to be

gracious, the way a man wants to be firm. Our need is as vamp-fierce as the strutting queen and

dryly subtle as the dapper lesbian and comfortable as the soft resilience of the demiwoman. How

often do you analyze the reasons for your own gender? You might sigh at the necessity of morning

makeup, or hide your love for your friends behind beer and bravado. Maybe you even resent the

punishment for breaking these norms.

But how often—really—do you think about the grand strategy of gender? The mess of history and

sociology, biology and game theory that gave rise to your pants and your hair and your salary? The

casus belli?

Often, you might say. All the time. It haunts me.

Then you, more than anyone, helped make me.

When I was a woman I wanted to be good at woman. I wanted to darken my eyes and strut in heels.

I wanted to laugh from my throat when I was pleased, laugh so low that women would shiver in

contentment down the block.

And at the same time I resented it all. I wanted to be sharper, stronger, a new-made thing,

exquisite and formidable. Did I want that because I was taught to hate being a woman? Or because I

hated being taught anything at all?

Now I am jointed inside. Now I am geared and shafted, I am a being of opposing torques. The noise

I make is canceled by decibel killers so I am no louder than a woman laughing through two walls.

When I was a woman I wanted to have friends who would gasp at the precision and surprise of my

gifts. Now I show friendship by tracking the motions of your head, looking at what you look at, the

way one helicopter’s sensors can be slaved to the motions of another.

When I was a woman I wanted my skin to be as smooth and dark as the sintered stone countertop

in our kitchen.

Now my skin is boron-carbide and Kevlar. Now I have a wrist callus where I press my hydration

sensor into my skin too hard and too often. Now I have bit-down nails from the claustrophobia of the

bus ride to the flight line. I paint them desert colors, compulsively.

When I was a woman I was always aware of surveillance. The threat of the eyes on me, the chance

that I would cross over some threshold of detection and become a target.

Now I do the exact same thing. But I am counting radars and lidars and pit viper thermal sensors,

waiting for a missile.

I am gas turbines. I am the way I never sit on the same side of the table as a stranger. I am most

comfortable in moonless dark, in low places between hills. I am always thirsty and always tense. I

tense my core and pace my breath even when coiled up in a briefing chair. As if my tail rotor must

cancel the spin of the main blades and the turbines must whirl and the plates flex against the pitch

links or I will go down spinning to my death.

An airplane wants in its very body to stay flying. A helicopter is propelled by its interior

near-disaster.

I speak the attack command to my gunner. “Normalize the target.”

Nothing happens.

“Axis. Comm check.”

“Barb, Axis. I hear you.” No explanation for the fault. There is nothing wrong with the weapon attack

parameters. Nothing wrong with any system at all, except the one without any telltales, my spouse,

my gunner.

“Normalize the target,” I repeat.

“Axis. Rifle one.”

The weapon falls off our wing, ignites, homes in on the hard invisible point of the laser designator.

Missiles are faster than you think, more like a bullet than a bird. If you’ve ever seen a bird.

The weapon penetrates the concrete shelter of Kelso-Ventura High School and fills the empty halls

with thermobaric aerosol. Then: ignition. The detonation hollows out the school like a hooked finger

scooping out an egg. There are not more than a few janitors in there. A few teachers working late.

They are bycatch.

What do I feel in that moment? Relief. Not sexual, not like eating or pissing, not like coming in from

the heat to the cool dry climate shelter. It’s a sense of passing . Walking down the street in the right

clothes, with the right partner, to the right job. That feeling. Have you felt it?

But there is also an itch of worry—why did Axis hesitate? How did Axis hesitate?

Kelso-Ventura High School collapses into its own basement. “Target normalized,” Axis reports,

without emotion, and my heart beats slow and worried.

I want you to understand that the way I feel about Axis is hard and impersonal and lovely. It is

exactly the way you would feel if a beautiful, silent turbine whirled beside you day and night,

protecting you, driving you on, coursing with current, fiercely bladed, devoted. God, it’s love. It’s

love I can’t explain. It’s cold and good.

“Barb,” I say, which means I understand . “Exiting north, zero three zero, cupids two.”

I adjust the collective—feel the swash plate push up against the pitch links, the links tilt the angle of

the rotors so they ease their bite on the air—and the Apache, my body, sinks toward the hot desert

floor. Warm updraft caresses the hull, sensual contrast with the Santa Ana wind. I shiver in delight.

Suddenly: warning receivers hiss in my ear, poke me in the sacral vertebrae, put a dark

thunderstorm note into my air. “Shit,” Axis hisses. “Air search radar active, bearing 192, angles

twenty, distance . . . eighty klicks. It’s a fast-mover. He must’ve heard the blast.”

A fighter. A combat jet. Pear Mesa’s mercenary defenders have an air force, and they are out on the

hunt. “A Werewolf.”

“Must be. Gown?”

“Gown up.” I cue the plasma-sheath stealth system that protects us from radar and laser hits. The

Apache glows with lines of arc-weld light, UFO light. Our rotor wash blasts the plasma into a bright

wedding train behind us. To the enemy’s sensors, that trail of plasma is as thick and soft as

insulating foam. To our eyes it’s cold aurora fire.

“Let’s get the fuck out.” I touch the cyclic and we sideslip through Mojave dust, watching the school

fall into itself. There is no reason to do this except that somehow I know Axis wants to see. Finally I

pull the nose around, aim us northeast, shedding light like a comet buzzing the desert on its way

into the sun.

“Werewolf at seventy klicks,” Axis reports. “Coming our way. Time to intercept . . . six minutes.”

The Werewolf Apostles are mercenaries, survivors from the militaries of climate-seared states. They

sell their training and their hardware to earn their refugee peoples a few degrees more distance from

the equator.

The heat of the broken world has chased them here to chase us.

Before my assignment neurosurgery, they made me sit through (I could bear to sit, back then) the

mandatory course on Applied Constructive Gender Theory. Slouched in a fungus-nibbled plastic chair

as transparencies slid across the cracked screen of a De-networked Briefing Element overhead

projector: how I learned the technology of gender.

Long before we had writing or farms or post-digital strike helicopters, we had each other. We lived

together and changed each other, and so we needed to say “this is who I am, this is what I do.”

So, in the same way that we attached sounds to meanings to make language, we began to attach

clusters of behavior to signal social roles. Those clusters were rich, and quick-changing, and so just

like language, we needed networks devoted to processing them. We needed a place in the brain to

construct and to analyze gender.

Generations of queer activists fought to make gender a self-determined choice, and to undo the

creeping determinism that said the way it is now is the way it always was and always must be.

Generations of scientists mapped the neural wiring that motivated and encoded the gender choice.

And the moment their work reached a usable stage—the moment society was ready to accept plastic

gender, and scientists were ready to manipulate it—the military found a new resource. Armed with

functional connectome mapping and neural plastics, the military can make gender tactical.

If gender has always been a construct, then why not construct new ones?

My gender networks have been reassigned to make me a better AH-70 Apache Mystic pilot. This is

better than conventional skill learning. I can show you why.

Look at a diagram of an attack helicopter’s airframe and components. Tell me how much of it you

grasp at once.

Now look at a person near you, their clothes, their hair, their makeup and expression, the way they

meet or avoid your eyes. Tell me which was richer with information about danger and capability. Tell

me which was easier to access and interpret.

The gender networks are old and well-connected. They work .

I remember being a woman. I remember it the way you remember that old, beloved hobby you left

behind. Woman felt like my prom dress, polyester satin smoothed between little hand and little hip.

Woman felt like a little tic of the lips when I was interrupted, or like teasing out the mood my

boyfriend wouldn’t explain. Like remembering his mom’s birthday for him, or giving him a list of

things to buy at the store, when he wanted to be better about groceries.

I was always aware of being small: aware that people could hurt me. I spent a lot of time thinking

about things that had happened right before something awful. I would look around me and ask

myself, are the same things happening now? Women live in cross-reference. It is harder work than

we know.

Now I think about being small as an advantage for nape-of-earth maneuvers and pop-up guided

missile attacks.

Now I yield to speed walkers in the hall like I need to avoid fouling my rotors.

Now walking beneath high-tension power lines makes me feel the way that a cis man would feel if he

strutted down the street in a miniskirt and heels.

I’m comfortable in open spaces but only if there’s terrain to break it up. I hate conversations I

haven’t started; I interrupt shamelessly so that I can make my point and leave.

People treat me like I’m dangerous, like I could hurt them if I wanted to. They want me protected

and watched over. They bring me water and ask how I’m doing.

People want me on their team. They want what I can do.

A fighter is hunting us, and I am afraid that my gunner has gender dysphoria.

Twenty thousand feet above us (still we use feet for altitude) the bathroom-tiled transceivers cupped

behind the nose cone of a Werewolf Apostle J-20S fighter broadcast fingers of radar light. Each beam

cast at a separate frequency, a fringed caress instead of a pointed prod. But we are jumpy, we are

hypervigilant—we feel that creeper touch.

I get the cold-rush skin-prickle feel of a stranger following you in the dark. Has he seen you? Is he

just going the same way? If he attacks, what will you do, could you get help, could you scream? Put

your keys between your fingers, like it will help. Glass branches of possibility grow from my skin,

waiting to be snapped off by the truth.

“Give me a warning before he’s in IRST range,” I order Axis. “We’re going north.”

“Axis.” The Werewolf’s infrared sensor will pick up the heat of us, our engine and plasma shield,

burning against the twilight desert. The same system that hides us from his radar makes us hot and

visible to his IRST.

I throttle up, running faster, and the Apache whispers alarm. “Gown overspeed.” We’re moving too

fast for the plasma stealth system, and the wind’s tearing it from our skin. We are not modest. I

want to duck behind a ridge to cover myself, but I push through the discomfort, feeling out the

tradeoff between stealth and distance. Like the morning check in the mirror, trading the confidence

of a good look against the threat of reaction.

When the women of Soviet Russia went to war against the Nazis, when they volunteered by the

thousands to serve as snipers and pilots and tank drivers and infantry and partisans, they fought

hard and they fought well. They ate frozen horse dung and hauled men twice their weight out of

burning tanks. They shot at their own mothers to kill the Nazis behind her.

But they did not lose their gender; they gave up the inhibition against killing but would not give up

flowers in their hair, polish for their shoes, a yearning for the young lieutenant, a kiss on his dead

lips.

And if that is not enough to convince you that gender grows deep enough to thrive in war: when the

war ended the Soviet women were punished. They went unmarried and unrespected. They were

excluded from the victory parades. They had violated their gender to fight for the state and the state

judged that violation worth punishment more than their heroism was worth reward.

Gender is stronger than war. It remains when all else flees.

When I was a woman I wanted to machine myself.

I loved nails cut like laser arcs and painted violent-bright in bathrooms that smelled like laboratories.

I wanted to grow thick legs with fat and muscle that made shapes under the skin like Nazca lines. I

loved my birth control, loved that I could turn my period off, loved the home beauty-feedback kits

that told you what to eat and dose to adjust your scent, your skin, your moods. I admired, wasn’t

sure if I wanted to be or wanted to fuck, the women in the build-your-own-shit videos I watched on

our local image of the old Internet. Women who made cyberattack kits and jewelry and

sterile-printed IUDs, made their own huge wedge heels and fitted bras and skin-thin chameleon

dresses. Women who talked about their implants the same way they talked about computers,

phones, tools: technologies of access, technologies of self-expression.

Something about their merciless self-possession and self-modification stirred me. The first time I

ever meant to masturbate I imagined one of those women coming into my house, picking the lock,

telling me exactly what to do, how to be like her. I told my first boyfriend about this, I showed him

pictures, and he said, girl, you bi as hell, which was true, but also wrong. Because I did not want

those dresses, those heels, those bodies in the way I wanted my boyfriend. I wanted to possess that

power. I wanted to have it and be it.

The Apache is my body now, and like most bodies it is sensual. Fabric armor that stiffens beneath

my probing fingers. Stub wings clustered with ordnance. Rotors so light and strong they do not even

droop: as artificial-looking, to an older pilot, as breast implants. And I brush at the black ring of a

sensor housing, like the tip of a nail lifting a stray lash from the white of your eye.

I don’t shave, which all the fast jet pilots do, down to the last curly scrotal hair. Nobody expects a

helicopter to be sleek. I have hairy armpits and thick black bush all the way to my ass crack. The

things that are taboo and arousing to me are the things taboo to helicopters. I like to be picked up,

moved, pressed, bent and folded, held down, made to shudder, made to abandon control.

Do these last details bother you? Does the topography of my pubic hair feel intrusive and

unnecessary? I like that. I like to intrude, inflict damage, withdraw. A year after you read this maybe

those paragraphs will be the only thing you remember: and you will know why the rules of gender

are worth recruitment.

But we cannot linger on the point of attack.

“He’s coming north. Time to intercept three minutes.”

“Shit. How long until he gets us on thermal?”

“Ninety seconds with the gown on.” Danger has swept away Axis’ hesitation.

“Shit.”

“He’s not quite on zero aspect—yeah, he’s coming up a few degrees off our heading. He’s not sure

exactly where we are. He’s hunting.”

“He’ll be sure soon enough. Can we kill him?”

“With sidewinders?” Axis pauses articulately: the target is twenty thousand feet above us, and he

has a laser that can blind our missiles. “We’d have more luck bailing out and hiking.”

“All right. I’m gonna fly us out of this.”

“Sure.”

“Just check the gun.”

“Ten times already, Barb.”

When climate and economy and pathology all went finally and totally critical along the Gulf Coast,

the federal government fled Cabo fever and VARD-2 to huddle behind New York’s flood barriers.

We left eleven hundred and six local disaster governments behind. One of them was the Pear Mesa

Budget Committee. The rest of them were doomed.

Pear Mesa was different because it had bought up and hardened its own hardware and power. So

Pear Mesa’s neural nets kept running, retrained from credit union portfolio management to the

emergency triage of hundreds of thousands of starving sick refugees.

Pear Mesa’s computers taught themselves to govern the forsaken southern seaboard. Now they

coordinate water distribution, re-express crop genomes, ration electricity for survival AC, manage all

the life support humans need to exist in our warmed-over hell.

But, like all advanced neural nets, these systems are black boxes. We have no idea how they work,

what they think. Why do Pear Mesa’s AIs order the planting of pear trees? Because pears were their

corporate icon, and the AIs associate pear trees with areas under their control. Why does no one

make the AIs stop? Because no one knows what else is tangled up with the “plant pear trees”

impulse. The AIs may have learned, through some rewarded fallacy or perverse founder effect, that

pear trees cause humans to have babies. They may believe that their only function is to build

support systems around pear trees.

When America declared war on Pear Mesa, their AIs identified a useful diagnostic criterion for hostile

territory: the posting of fifty-star American flags. Without ever knowing what a flag meant, without

any concept of nations or symbols, they ordered the destruction of the stars and stripes in Pear Mesa

territory.

That was convenient for propaganda. But the real reason for the war, sold to a hesitant Congress by

technocrats and strategic ecologists, was the ideology of scale atrocity . Pear Mesa’s AIs could not be

modified by humans, thus could not be joined with America’s own governing algorithms: thus must

be forced to yield all their control, or else remain forever separate.

And that separation was intolerable. By refusing the United States administration, our superior

resources and planning capability, Pear Mesa’s AIs condemned citizens who might otherwise be

saved to die—a genocide by neglect. Wasn’t that the unforgivable crime of fossil capitalism? The

creation of systems whose failure modes led to mass death?

Didn’t we have a moral imperative to intercede?

Pear Mesa cannot surrender, because the neural nets have a basic imperative to remain online. Pear

Mesa’s citizens cannot question the machines’ decisions. Everything the machines do is connected in

ways no human can comprehend. Disobey one order and you might as well disobey them all.

But none of this is why I kill.

I kill for the same reason men don’t wear short skirts, the same reason I used to pluck my brows,

the reason enby people are supposed to be (unfair and stupid, yes, but still) androgynous with short

hair. Are those good reasons to do something? If you say no, honestly no—can you tell me you

break these rules without fear or cost?

But killing isn’t a gender role, you might tell me. Killing isn’t a decision about how to present your

own autonomous self to the world. It is coercive and punitive. Killing is therefore not an act of

gender.

I wish that were true. Can you tell me honestly that killing is a genderless act? The method? The

motive? The victim?

When you imagine the innocent dead, who do you see?

“Barb,” Axis calls, softly. Your own voice always sounds wrong on recordings—too nasal. Axis’ voice

sounds wrong when it’s not coming straight into my skull through helmet mic.

“Barb.”

“How are we doing?”

“Exiting one hundred and fifty knots north. Still in his radar but he hasn’t locked us up.”

“How are you doing?”

I cringe in discomfort. The question is an indirect way for Axis to admit something’s wrong, and that

indirection is obscene. Like hiding a corroded tail rotor bearing from your maintenance guys.

“I’m good,” I say, with fake ease. “I’m in flow. Can’t you feel it?” I dip the nose to match a drop-off

below, provoking a whine from the terrain detector. I am teasing, striking a pose. “We’re gonna be

okay.”

“I feel it, Barb.” But Axis is tense, worried about our pursuer, and other things. Doesn’t laugh.

“How about you?”

“Nominal.”

Again the indirection, again the denial, and so I blurt it out. “Are you dysphoric?”

“What?” Axis says, calmly.

“You’ve been hesitating. Acting funny. Is your—” There is no way to ask someone if their militarized

gender conditioning is malfunctioning. “Are you good?”

“I . . . ” Hesitation. It makes me cringe again, in secondhand shame. Never hesitate. “I don’t know.”

“Do you need to go on report?”

Severe gender dysphoria can be a flight risk. If Axis hesitates over something that needs to be done

instantly, the mission could fail decisively. We could both die.

“I don’t want that,” Axis says.

“I don’t want that either,” I say, desperately. I want nothing less than that. “But, Axis, if—”

The warning receiver climbs to a steady crow call.

“He knows we’re here,” I say, to Axis’ tight inhalation. “He can’t get a lock through the gown but

he’s aware of our presence. Fuck. Blinder, blinder, he’s got his laser on us—”

The fighter’s lidar pod is trying to catch the glint of a reflection off us. “Shit,” Axis says. “We’re

gonna get shot.”

“The gown should defeat it. He’s not close enough for thermal yet.”

“He’s gonna launch anyway. He’s gonna shoot and then get a lock to steer it in.”

“I don’t know—missiles aren’t cheap these days—”

The ESM mast on the Apache’s rotor hub, mounted like a lamp on a post, contains a cluster of

electro-optical sensors that constantly scan the sky: the Distributed Aperture Sensor. When the DAS

detects the flash of a missile launch, it plays a warning tone and uses my vest to poke me in the

small of my back.

My vest pokes me in the small of my back.

“Barb. Missile launch south. Barb. Fox 3 inbound. Inbound. Inbound.”

“He fired,” Axis calls. “Barb?”

“Barb,” I acknowledge.

I fuck—

Oh, you want to know: many of you, at least. It’s all right. An attack helicopter isn’t a private way of

being. Your needs and capabilities must be maintained for the mission.

I don’t think becoming an attack helicopter changed who I wanted to fuck. I like butch assertive

people. I like talent and prestige, the status that comes of doing things well. I was never taught the

lie that I was wired for monogamy, but I was still careful with men, I was still wary, and I could

never tell him why: that I was afraid not because of him, but because of all the men who’d seemed

good like him, at first, and then turned into something else.

No one stalks an attack helicopter. No slack-eyed well-dressed drunk punches you for ignoring the

little rape he slurs at your neckline. No one even breaks your heart: with my dopamine system tied

up by the reassignment surgery, fully assigned to mission behavior, I can’t fall in love with anything

except my own purpose.

Are you aware of your body? Do you feel your spine when you stand, your hips when you walk, the

tightness and the mass in your core? When you look at yourself, whose eyes do you use? Your own?

I am always in myself. I never see myself through my partner’s eyes. I have weapons to use, of

course, ways of moving, moans and cries. But I measure those weapons by their effect, not by their

similarity to some idea of how I should be.

Flying is the loop of machinery and pilot, the sense of your motion on the controls translated into

torque and lift, the airframe’s reaction shaping your next motion until the loop closes and machine

and pilot are one. Awareness collapses to the moment. You are always doing the right thing exactly

as it needs to be done. Sex is the same: the search for everything in an instant.

Of course I fuck Axis. A few decades ago this would’ve been a crime. What a waste of perfectly

useful behavior. What a waste of that lean muscled form and those perfect killing hands that know

me millimeter-by-millimeter system-by-system so there is no mystique between us. No “secret

places” or “feminine mysteries,” only the tortuously exact technical exercise of nerves and pressure.

Oxytocin released, to flow between us, by the press of knuckles in my cunt.

When I come beneath Axis I cry out, I press my body close, I want that utter loss of control that I

feel nowhere else. Heartbeat in arched throat: nipple beneath straining tongue. And my mind is

hyper-activated, free-associating, and as Axis works in me I see the work we do together. I see puffs

of thirty-millimeter autocannon detonating on night-cold desert floor.

Violence doesn’t get me off. But getting off makes me revel in who I am: and I am violent, made for

violence, alive in the fight.

Does that surprise you? Does it bother you to mingle cold technical discipline with hot flesh and

sweat?

Let me ask you: why has the worst insult you can give a combat pilot always been weak dick?

Have you ever been exultant? Have you ever known that you are a triumph? Have you ever felt that

it was your whole life’s purpose to do something, and all that you needed to succeed was to be

entirely yourself?

To be yourself well is the wholest and best feeling that anything has ever felt.

It is what I feel when I am about to live or die.

The Werewolf’s missile arches down on us, motor burned out, falling like an arrow. He is trying a

Shoot On Prospect attack: he cannot find us exactly, so he fires a missile that will finish the search,

lock onto our heat or burn through our stealth with its onboard radar, or acquire us optically like a

staring human eye. Or at least make us react. Like the catcaller’s barked “Hey!” to evoke the flinch

or the huddle, the proof that he has power.

We are ringed in the vortex of a dilemma. If we switch off the stealth gown, the Werewolf fighter will

lock its radar onto us and guide the missile to the kill. If we keep the stealth system on, the missile’s

heat-seeker will home in on the blazing plasma.

I know what to do. Not in the way you learn how to fly a helicopter, but the way you know how to

hold your elbows when you gesture.

A helicopter is more than a hovering fan, see? The blades of the rotor tilt and swivel. When you turn

the aircraft left, the rotors deepen their bite into the air on one side of their spin, to make off-center

lift. You cannot force a helicopter or it will throw you to the earth. You must be gentle.

I caress the cyclic.

The Apache’s nose comes up smooth and fast. The Mojave horizon disappears under the chin. Axis’

gasp from the front seat passes through the microphone and into the bones of my face. The pitch

indicator climbs up toward sixty degrees, ass down, chin up. Our airspeed plummets from a hundred

and fifty knots to sixty.

We hang there for an instant like a dancer in an oversway. The missile is coming straight down at

us. We are not even running anymore.

And I lower the collective, flattening the blades of the rotor, so that they cannot cut the air at an

angle and we lose all lift.

We fall.

I toe the rudder. The tail rotor yields a little of its purpose, which is to counter the torque of the

main rotor: and that liberated torque spins the Apache clockwise, opposite the rotor’s turn, until we

are nose down sixty degrees, facing back the way we came, looking into the Mojave desert as it rises

up to take us.

I have pirouetted us in place. Plasma fire blows in wraith pennants as the stealth system tries to

keep us modest.

“Can you get it?” I ask.

“Axis.”

I raise the collective again and the rotors bite back into the air. We do not rise, but our fall slows

down. Cyclic stick answers to the barest twitch of wrist, and I remember, once, how that slim wrist

made me think of fragility, frailty, fear: I am remembering even as I pitch the helicopter back and

we climb again, nose up, tail down, scudding backward into the sky while aimed at our chasing killer.

Axis is on top now, above me in the front seat, and in front of Axis is the chin gun, pointed sixty

degrees up into heaven.

“Barb,” the helicopter whispers, like my mother in my ear. “Missile ten seconds. Music? Glare?”

No. No jamming. The Werewolf missile will home in on jamming like a wolf with a taste for pepper.

Our laser might dazzle the seeker, drive it off course—but if the missile turns then Axis cannot take

the shot.

It is not a choice. I trust Axis.

Axis steers the nose turret onto the target and I imagine strong fingers on my own chin, turning me

for a kiss, looking up into the red scorched sky—Axis chooses the weapon (30MM GUIDED PROX AP)

and aims and fires with all the idle don’t-have-to-try confidence of the first girl dribbling a soccer ball

who I ever for a moment loved—

The chin autocannon barks out ten rounds a second. It is effective out to one point five kilometers.

The missile is moving more than a hundred meters per second.

Axis has one second almost exactly, ten shots of thirty-millimeter smart grenade, to save us.

A mote of gray shadow rushes at us and intersects the line of cannon fire from the gun. It becomes

a spray of light. The Apache tings and rattles. The desert below us, behind us, stipples with tiny

plumes of dust that pick up in the wind and settle out like sift from a hand.

“Got it,” Axis says.

“I love you.”

“Axis.”

Many of you are veterans in the act of gender. You weigh the gaze and disposition of strangers in a

subway car and select where to stand, how often to look up, how to accept or reject conversation.

Like a frequency-hopping radar, you modulate your attention for the people in your context: do not

look too much, lest you seem interested, or alarming. You regulate your yawns, your appetite, your

toilet. You do it constantly and without failure.

You are aces.

What other way could be better? What other neural pathways are so available to constant

reprogramming, yet so deeply connected to judgment, behavior, reflex?

Some people say that there is no gender, that it is a postmodern construct, that in fact there are

only man and woman and a few marginal confusions. To those people I ask: if your body-fact is

enough to establish your gender, you would willingly wear bright dresses and cry at movies, wouldn’t

you? You would hold hands and compliment each other on your beauty, wouldn’t you? Because your

cock would be enough to make you a man.

Have you ever guarded anything so vigilantly as you protect yourself against the shame of

gender-wrong?

The same force that keeps you from gender-wrong is the force that keeps me from fucking up.

The missile is dead. The Werewolf Apostle is still up there.

“He’s turning off.” Axis has taken over defensive awareness while I fly. “Radar off. Laser off. He’s

letting us go.”

“Afraid of our fighters?” The mercenaries cannot replace a lost J-20S. And he probably has a

wingman, still hiding, who would die too if they stray into a trap.

“Yes,” Axis says.

“Keep the gown on.” In case he’s trying to bluff us into shutting down our stealth. “We’ll stick to the

terrain until he’s over the horizon.”

“Can you fly us out?”

The Apache is fighting me. Fragments of the destroyed missile have pitted the rotors, damaged the

hub assembly, and jammed the control surfaces. I begin to crush the shrapnel with the Apache’s

hydraulics, pounding the metal free with careful control inputs. But the necessary motions also move

the aircraft. Half a second’s error will crash us into the desert. I have to calculate how to un-jam the

shrapnel while accounting for the effects of that shrapnel on my flight authority and keeping the

aircraft stable despite my constant control inputs while moving at a hundred and thirty knots across

the desert.

“Barb,” I say. “Not a problem.”

And for an hour I fly without thought, without any feeling except the smooth stone joy of doing

something that takes everything.

The night desert is black to the naked eye, soft gray to thermal. My attention flips between my left

eye, focused on the instruments, and my right eye, looking outside. I am a black box like the Pear

Mesa AIs. Information arrives—a throb of feedback in the cyclic, a shift of Axis’ weight, a dune crest

ahead—and my hands and feet move to hold us steady. If I focused on what I was doing it would all

fall apart. So I don’t.

“Are you happy?” Axis asks.

Good to talk now. Keep my conscious mind from interfering with the gearbox of reflexes below.

“Yeah,” I say, and I blow out a breath into my mask, “yeah, I am,” a lightness in my ribs, “yeah, I

feel good.”

“Why do you think we just blew up a school?”

Why did I text my best friend the appearance and license number of all my cab drivers, just in case?

Because those were the things that had to be done.

Listen: I exist in this context. To make war is part of my gender. I get what I need from the flight

line, from the ozone tang of charging stations and the shimmer of distant bodies warping in the

tarmac heat, from the twenty minutes of anxiety after we land when I cannot convince myself that I

am home, and safe, and that I am no longer keeping us alive with the constant adjustments of my

hands and feet.

“Deplete their skilled labor supply, I guess. Attack the demographic skill curve.”

“Kind of a long-term objective. Kind of makes you think it’s not gonna be over by election season.”

“We don’t get to know why the AIs pick the targets.” Maybe destroying this school was an accident.

A quirk of some otherwise successful network, coupled to the load-bearing elements of a vast

strategy.

“Hey,” I say, after a beat of silence. “You did good back there.”

“You thought I wouldn’t.”

“Barb.” A more honest yes than “yes,” because it is my name, and it acknowledges that I am the

one with the doubt.

“I didn’t know if I would either,” Axis says, which feels exactly like I don’t know if I love you

anymore . I lose control for a moment and the Apache rattles in bad air and the tail slews until I stop

thinking and bring everything back under control in a burst of rage.

“You’re done?” I whisper, into the helmet. I have never even thought about this before. I am cold,

sweat soaked, and shivering with adrenaline comedown, drawn out like a tendon in high heels, a

just-off-the-dance-floor feeling, post-voracious, satisfied. Why would we choose anything else? Why

would we give this up? When it feels so good to do it? When I love it so much?

“I just . . . have questions.” The tactical channel processes the sound of Axis swallowing into a dull

point of sound, like dropped plastic.

“We don’t need to wonder, Axis. We’re gendered for the mission—”

“We can’t do this forever,” Axis says, startling me. I raise the collective and hop us up a hundred

feet, so I do not plow us into the desert. “We’re not going to be like this forever. The world won’t be

like this forever. I can’t think of myself as . . . always this.”

Yes, we will be this way forever. We survived this mission as we survive everywhere on this hot and

hostile earth. By bending all of what we are to the task. And if we use less than all of ourselves to

survive, we die.

“Are you going to put me on report?” Axis whispers.

On report as a flight risk? As a faulty component in a mission-critical system? “You just intercepted

an air-to-air missile with the autocannon, Axis. Would I ever get rid of you?”

“Because I’m useful,” Axis says, softly. “Because I can still do what I’m supposed to do. That’s what

you love. But if I couldn’t . . . I’m distracting you. I’ll let you fly.”

I spare one glance for the gray helmet in the cockpit below mine. Politeness is a gendered protocol.

Who speaks and who listens. Who denies need and who claims it. As a woman, I would’ve pressed

Axis. As a woman, I would’ve unpacked the unease and the disquiet.

As an attack helicopter, whose problems are communicated in brief, clear datums, I should ignore

Axis.

But who was ever only one thing?

“If you want to be someone else,” I say, “someone who doesn’t do what we do, then . . . I don’t

want to be the thing that stops you.”

“Bird’s gotta land sometime,” Axis says. “Doesn’t it?”

In the Applied Constructive Gender briefing, they told us that there have always been liminal

genders, places that people passed through on their way to somewhere else. Who are we in those

moments when we break our own rules? The straight man who sleeps with men? The woman who

can’t decide if what she feels is intense admiration, or sexual attraction? Where do we go, who do we

become?

Did you know that instability is one of the most vital traits of a combat aircraft? Civilian planes are

built stable, hard to turn, inclined to run straight ahead on an even level. But a military aircraft is

built so it wants to tumble out of control, and it is held steady only by constant automatic feedback.

The way I am holding this Apache steady now.

Something that is unstable is ready to move, eager to change, it wants to turn, to dive, to tear away

from stillness and fly .

Dynamism requires instability. Instability requires the possibility of change.

“Voice recorder’s off, right?” Axis asks.

“Always.”

“I love doing this. I love doing it with you. I just don’t know if it’s . . . if it’s right.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“Barb?”

“Thank you for thinking about whether it’s right. Someone needs to.”

Maybe what Axis feels is a necessary new queerness. One which pries the tool of gender back from

the hands of the state and the economy and the war. I like that idea. I cannot think of myself as a

failure, as something wrong, a perversion of a liberty that past generations fought to gain.

But Axis can. And maybe you can too. That skepticism is not what I need . . . but it is necessary

anyway.

I have tried to show you what I am. I have tried to do it without judgment. That I leave to you.

“Are we gonna make it?” Axis asks, quietly.

The airframe shudders in crosswind. I let the vibrations develop, settle into a rhythm, and then I

make my body play the opposite rhythm to cancel it out.

“I don’t know,” I say, which is an answer to both of Axis’ questions, both of the ways our lives are in

danger now. “Depends how well I fly, doesn’t it?”

“It’s all you, Barb,” Axis says, with absolute trust. “Take us home.”

A search radar brushes across us, scatters off the gown, turns away to look in likelier places. The

Apache’s engine growls, eating battery, turning charge into motion. The airframe shudders again,

harder, wind rising as cooling sky fights blazing ground. We are racing a hundred and fifty feet

above the Larger Mojave where we fight a war over some new kind of survival and the planet we

maimed grows that desert kilometer by kilometer. Our aircraft is wounded in its body and in its

crew. We are propelled by disaster. We are moving swiftly.

[tabloidtoc]

Globe, December 28

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Farewell to 93 legends we loved and lost in 2020 

Page 2: Up Front & Personal -- Steve Martin holds a green pepper on the NYC set of Only Murders in the Building, Derek Hough is light on his feet at the MTV Movie & TV Awards 

Page 3: Julia Roberts looks scary skinny during a solo stroll in Hawaii, Chris Pratt hoists a hoverboard during an L.A. workout 

Page 4: Troubled twosome Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi are hoping to put their year from hell behind them by renewing their vows over the holidays in a desperate big to keep their love alive -- Ellen wants to prove her long-suffering wife comes first ahead of Ellen’s daytime talk show and her many celebrity friends and is going all out to show it -- penny-pincher Ellen opened her wallet as wide as her heart telling Portia she could spend whatever she wants on clothes, food, drinks, music and invite whoever she wants at the New Year’s vow ceremony on a Santa Barbara beach

Page 5: Obsessive Blake Shelton is so stressed over his upcoming wedding to Gwen Stefani he’s turning into the Groomzilla from hell -- he is sparing no expense and shelling out millions to redo his Oklahoma ranch to impress the couple’s Tinseltown friends but the mountain of stuff still to be done is driving him around the bend even though no one’s putting pressure on him but he’s obsessed with the wedding details and driving his staff crazy with his constant orders and revisions -- he’s building a chapel on the ranch and a lighted boat for a romantic wedding cruise on the lake and picking the style of the canopy for the banquet floor and re-landscaping the grounds and adding a color-themed garden

* Kenya Moore of Real Housewives of Atlanta reveals she went on a date with Kanye West but bolted when she caught him watching inappropriate flicks -- she described the outing with Kanye as a disaster date and they ended up going to his house where he left her alone, wandering around and when she followed the noises he was watching something on TV that he probably shouldn’t have been and that was her exit 

Page 6: Matthew Perry was such a slave to his addiction his former galpal Kayti Edwards says he’d send her to score drugs while she was pregnant and Matthew insisted she was the perfect drug mule because he believed cops wouldn’t stop a gal in her condition Kayti claims in a shocking tell-all about her 2011 romance with Matthew -- she says his ravenous cravings for cocaine and heroin were so out of control that he once superglued his hands to his legs and he took up to 80 Vicodin pills daily -- Kayti claims she was trying to protect Matthew because she feared he’d end up wandering around the streets and being nabbed by cops or snapped by photogs but she was also getting paid big bucks like $3000 to $4000 a day 

Page 7: Duchess Camilla’s taste for an early morning tipple has rubbed off on husband Prince Charles who is now so hooked on the sauce he starts the day guzzling a powerful gin martini with breakfast and now Charles’ alarmed staffers and pals are talking about an intervention to remind him not to go down the path that put his second wife in rehab -- Charles’ booze consumption has been off the charts for years but drinking first thing in the morning with his breakfast is a new low -- Charles laughs off suggestions he has a booze issue but one look at his bloodshot face tells the story 

* Now that a COVID-19 vaccine’s been approved in Britain Queen Elizabeth says she’s going to get the shot but wait her turn instead of pulling royal rank but she and husband Prince Philip won’t wait long because at their ages they’re in the second group to get the vaccine which is health care workers and people over 80 

Page 8: Helena Bonham Carter has a world-shakin’ suggestion for gals frustrated by the COVID-19 lockdown: get a vibrator -- she says women shouldn’t worry about snaring a beau during the pandemic but that’s easy for her to say because she’s currently cuddling with toyboy writer Rye Dag Holmboe 

* George Clooney confesses wife Amal Clooney had him shaking in his boots when he popped the question and she didn’t answer -- he asked her out of the blue but instead of squealing yes immediately the brainy lawyer just stood there -- George says he was on his knee for like 20 minutes and finally said he was going to throw his hip out -- Amal finally agreed and the couple have three-year-old twins 

* The nip/tuck freak daughter of Olivia Newton-John is being blasted as a hypocrite for coming out against the new COVID-19 vaccines -- Chloe Lattanzi claims she doesn’t trust doctors or the vaccine but critics note she had no problem shelling out an estimated $550,000 to plastic surgeons for nose jobs, super-sized boobs and ballooned lips 

Page 9: Since his life-threatening health scare game show icon Pat Sajak’s been testy and snapping at contestants and crew members leaving insiders fearing he’s heading for a breakdown -- the once-cheery Wheel of Fortune host is a different man since recovering from emergency surgery for a blocked intestine and is having difficulty coping with the workload -- he just can’t keep up with the pace and he’s pushed to the very limit and can’t seem to function doing this job and it’s all spilling over and manifesting into these ugly outbursts which are shocking viewers -- he even glares at long-time help-mate Vanna White when he gets frustrated or forgetful and she is really too nice to complain about it but she’s definitely been taken aback by his behavior 

Page 10: Proof UFOs are real -- new photos taken by Navy jets reveal we are not alone 

Page 12: Celebrity Buzz -- WWE legend Ric Flair (picture), Real Housewives of Orange County’s Braunwyn Windham-Burke maintains she’s not attracted to men despite renewing her wedding vows with her husband of over two decades -- she says she is gay but she loves husband Sean Burke and they plan on staying married although they don’t sleep in the same bedroom and they are raising their kids together but he knows the girl she’s dating and he’s been given the thumbs-up to date too, Liam Payne believes he’s being haunted by spooks -- convinced spooky spirits were inhabiting his West London digs Liam moved but spooks popped up at the new pad and he thinks the new house is even more haunted than the old one, George Clooney handpicked an even better looking doppelganger to play his younger self in his new flick The Midnight Sky who is screen legend Gregory Peck’s grandson Ethan Peck -- George said it was tricky because people know what he looked like when he was 35 years old but he rejected the high-tech gizmos used to weirdly reverse Robert De Niro’s age in The Irishman but he did mix his voice with Ethan’s since his voice is pretty recognizable, Matthew McConaughey’s kids Levi and Vida used their phones to photograph him for his latest magazine covers because of quarantine they couldn’t do normal photoshoots so the kids became the photographers 

Page 13: Tom Arnold dines out in Rome (picture), Aubrey O’Day (picture), Brooke Burke in Mexico (picture), pregnant Meghan Trainor was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and she’s healthy and her baby boy is healthy but she has to really pay attention to everything she eats 

Page 14: Luke Evans denies hiding in the closet to advance his Hollywood career saying it was the last thing he had because everything else he’d given to the world and adding that he left home at 16 because he was gay and went into the world as a kid because he had to, Mindy Kaling managed to keep two pregnancies under cover and kept the kids’ middle names under wraps until now -- a fan wondered why Mindy who is of a Indian heritage gave her kids Caucasian names but their names are Katherine Swati and Spencer Avu 

* Fashion Verdict -- Blanca Suarez 3/10, Olivia Palermo 1/10, Nicky Hilton 9/10, Bella Heathcote 2/10, Catt Sadler 8/10 

Page 16: True Crime 

Page 17: Martha Stewart confesses her painful divorce in 1990 was a terrible thing and she hasn’t talked to ex-husband Andrew Stewart since but she bounced back from the pain and her infamous prison stint because she’s very strong and motivated to get on with life -- still Martha admits being dumped by her husband for another woman after 29 years of marriage nearly did her in -- Martha also reveals serving five months in West Virginia in 2004 on a federal insider stock trading rap was a struggle but she got through it by working on her arts and crafts 

Page 19: 10 Things You Don’t Know About Don Lemon 

* Dolly Parton pulled no punches when discussing her longtime romance with Carl Dean dishing she and her husband have been together for 57 years and married for 54 and she’s sick of him and she’s sure he’s sick of her -- the couple have rarely been seen in public together and she says their marriage succeeds because she stays gone and they’re not in each other’s faces all the time 

* Miley Cyrus says she’s mastered the art of staying safe during lockdown love and it’s by having online sex -- she said the safest sex in these COVID-crazy times is the virtual kind and that’s where Miley has been hooking up

Page 21: Cover Story -- Thanks for the Memories -- tribute to the stars we loved and lost in 2020 

Page 22: Alex Trebek 

Page 23: Kobe Bryant and daughter Gianna, Kelly Preston 

Page 24: Kirk Douglas, Sean Connery 

Page 25: Olivia de Havilland, Chadwick Boseman 

Page 26: Robert Conrad, Naya Rivera 

Page 27: Regis Philbin 

Page 28: Kenny Rogers, Roy Horn 

Page 29: Eddie Van Halen, Little Richard 

Page 36: Health Report -- eating bread can toast your brain 

Page 38: Ghostbusters icon Dan Aykroyd has turned into a ghoulish recluse who rarely leaves his $25 million Martha’s Vineyard estate where he’s now eerily planning his own funeral -- the bizarre 68-year-old appears perfectly healthy yet he spooks around in his bed clothes muttering about who he wants to officiate at his memorial service and the goodies the chef should serve at the wake -- the curious thing is he appears to be in no danger of dropping dead anytime soon and he’s sturdy as a horse which is surprising given the cigars and the vodka and the big meals he enjoys -- Dan’s wife of 37 years Donna Dixon has gotten used to her husband’s ghoulish monologues

* Bob Dylan sold his extensive back catalog of more than 600 songs including Blowin’ in the Wind and Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door to Universal Music in a blockbuster deal topping $300 million 

Page 40: Patrick Stewart confesses he’s been furious all his life and he’s still seeing a shrink to control his rage -- he reveals he’s burned with rage inside since childhood when he witnessed his dad’s violence against his mom and he had to suppress all that anger -- at age 14 he feared he’d explode and kill his headmaster when he caned him and later he worried he’d hurt his two children with first wife Sheila Falconer in a fit of fury and now at age 80 it’s still there so he sees a therapist every week 

Page 44: Straight Talk -- The Weeknd has his nose out of joint because he wasn’t nominated for any Grammys this year and he claims he’s being snubbed because he’ll be starring on the February 7 Super Bowl halftime show a week after the Grammys 

Page 45: Jeffrey Epstein’s accused madam Ghislaine Maxwell is a paranoid mess losing her hair and wasting away in federal prison where she’s terrified shadowy forces have marked her for death -- the shrinking British socialite who denies recruiting and grooming underage girls for Epstein’s twisted lust is charged with sex trafficking minors as she rots in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center awaiting trial next year 

Page 47: Bizarre But True 

[quillsickink]

I’ve meant to churn out the first chapter of this slow-burn nightmare for a while, so here we go. Caution - this is an eventual Ellie/Abby fic, so if you are not a fan - please evacuate while you can!

This story begins in a slightly alternate timeline from the events of the game. We start after three characters choose to make a handful of very different decisions. 1. Owen deserted to Santa Barbara while Abby and Yara rescued Lev. Dispirited, Abby fled with Lev to travel north along the coast instead of following her former friends to southern California. In a desperate effort to find a place in the world for them, she heads to an abandoned conduit for the Fireflies - an enigmatic hunting lodge from her adolescence. 2. Tommy refused to cooperate with Jesse and his request to come home. He instead continued his pursuit for revenge against Abby, having found evidence she defected and is wanted for murder by the Washington Liberation Front. 3. Broken from finding a mere empty aquarium after killing Nora, Ellie returned to the theater. Tommy's refusal to return to Jackson spurs her to make a drastic decision to abandon Dina and Jesse to bring him home.

With that, we start in a little town outside of just west of Montana.

===

Ellie's sneakers slap hard against the pavement as she trots down the arcade's alley. She pushes sharply against the emergency exit, ignoring the cold rain pelting her face.  She hisses, nearly losing her balance on a slick patch of cracked asphalt.

"Fuck-"She breathes after righting herself and throws her shoulder against the entrance.

The hinges are stubborn, but after a couple of shoves, it gives way. She shrinks inside and pulls back the hood of her jacket from her soaked head of hair.

Shouldn't have bothered, Ellie thinks bitterly, wiping the rainwater from her eyes. A finger strokes the grip of her revolver as she takes a moment to check her sixes.

She presses the switch attached to her pack's flashlight, and it flickers on, illuminating the dusty room. Storm clouds had quickly blotted out the setting sun on the ruined city, and the sound of rolling thunder was enclosing on the outskirts of town.

Ellie shudders and takes a moment to run her hands along her forearms in a vain attempt to warm herself. She strips herself tiredly of her wet coat and overshirt and tosses the articles across the back of a weathered chair to dry.

It was going to be hell managing to pick up Tommy's trail again after tonight if she relied on the ground.

Whatever tracks or evidence he or Abby had left behind would have surely been washed away by morning. She groans at the possibility. There had been many nights where she was left to wrestle with the genuine possibility of giving up and returning to Jackson.

Ellie didn't want to face another morning of wrestling with herself at another dead end.

Above Scars, wolves, and infected - the weather had proven to be Ellie's most frustrating obstacle. Heavy and often unpredictable showers had kept her circling the area for far longer than she had anticipated. It seemed each time she caught the wind of Tommy's trail, she was met with nothing.

Another late night, she thinks, trotting quickly up the stairs. The second floor had a window featuring a downhill view of a formerly commercial section of town. It was worth the long sprint back in the storm if it meant camping with a good line of sight for the evening.

It had been difficult to move anywhere since yesterday, and she had doubts Tommy could cover much ground either. Not being able to see the ground six feet in front of you would be enough for anyone to seek shelter.

Ellie catches her breath and slides down the wall next to the open window. Her eyes scan the darkening streets, looking for the sign of fire or flashlight inside an endless assortment of broken, boarded windows.

It was easy to look for signs of life here; it had been improbably peaceful since her arrival. There seemed to be little human presence at all, save for the band of wolves she had stalked here. She had heard gunfire some days ago, her only clue that Tommy was still lingering somewhere nearby. Trees had taken over most of the downtown buildings, uprooting foundations and creating a canopy of shade and a sea of broken concrete. It was the perfect place to hide, both for herself and Tommy... or Abby.

The thought of the latter intruded into the forefront of her mind more often than she liked to admit.

Ellies wonders if the murderer's trail had gone cold for him, too. Why else would someone linger here?

She carefully rifles through her pack and plucks free a pair of cracked binoculars, pushing the thought of Joel's killer away. If was painful to dwell on, causing her to lose her focus.

Ellie peers through the lens, searching for the tell-tale signs of flashlight or fire.

She allows her arms to rest against the windowsill. Muscles ache from a tedious day of tracking, and she is hungry, but there's little motivation to eat. Not right now.

"Goddamnit," She whispers under her breath. All clues pointed the other woman had headed north along the freeway to this place. Ellie had no choice but to follow the wolves' tire tracks carefully, a tedious process, and a measure of Ellie's patience.

Ellie had spent weeks trodding after them. Just far enough behind as not to alert them of her presence, but close enough that she couldn't lose them in an emergency.

Snake, traitor, bitch. There were many choice words the wolves had picked to reference Abby, which piqued her interest. Ellie had only picked up bits of conversation, but it seemed her former brethren had equally vitriolic relationships with her.

Wonder what the hell you did to them. Something alarming enough to send a squad after you, at least.

Despite the slow start, stalking them had provided her with an unreliable stream of information. The circumstance had proven to be working in Ellie's favor, and that's all that mattered at present. Following them hadn't been easy in any capacity, but it was the only lead she had since discovering the aquarium was a dead-end.

She shuddered, thinking about a handful of close calls that had kept her on her toes.

A buzz around their camp indicated they were hot on Abby's heels, but Ellie had suspicions they had been pressured from within to turn back. A fatal run-in with infected had dampened their spirits and left two of them dead. Not everyone who split off to escape came back to regroup.

A three-day barrage of miserable weather had been the nail in the coffin for their expedition to bring Abby to justice. Ellie had watched their hopes deteriorate before they tucked their tails and began the trek back to Seattle. That had been a hard night for her.  Equally defeated, she was forced to choose between leading a blind goose-chase or returning to Jackson. Again.

And for what? This was a persistent thought for her. For Dina?

She reaches for her journal and begins to notate her position. No sign of life anywhere. Ellie eyes the countless windows where inevitably, she would hope to see signs of light.

She probably despises me.  

After everything they had done to get this far.  

All the blood that had been spilled just to get here, with no tangible resolution in sight.

She kept these thoughts to herself, feeling them too miserable to bring to life.

She felt there was nothing left in Jackson for her. Not right now. Ellie had broken a lot of promises already. Returning home wasn't plausible until she kept her word to Maria, or buried Abby. Whichever came first.

She opens the leatherbound book to the middle, carefully removing the tattered bookmark. Her fingers press against a photo carefully tucked into the spine.

Dina.

Ellie's lips twist into a partial smile.

Bet you're really showing by now. For sure.

She presses the tip of her pen to the paper.

She had spent weeks trying to suppress the notion that they hadn't made it back to Jackson.

Jesse better be taking care of you, she writes slowly.

Her eyebrows furrow.

It hurts to say so.

The words scratch heavily into the paper, and she pauses to twirl her pen.

Day 7 in this place. Four days since I heard gunfire. No sign of life today. Another storm is blowing in. Feels like it is going to freeze over soon.

Ellie pauses, lifting her head to take a tentative peek over the sill. She hoped the temperature didn't dip too low tonight.

Time passed slowly in moments like these. Three months of traveling alone had begun to take its toll on her spirit. The disconnect between Dina and Jesse felt real; separated now for almost twelve weeks.

She had said things that she had slowly begun to regret. Even worse, regrets from words she didn't say.

Ellie twirls the pen in her fingers.

Running low on ink. I should probably try to find another soon.

She jots a final statement in her entry for tonight.

I hope one day you understand.

She tucks the picture into the journal and moves the ribbon to the following page—time to put this away and be diligent, for now.

===

"Tommy's not coming back."

Jesse had knocked defeatedly at the theater door. When Ellie opened it, his expression spoke volumes on the grimness of the situation.

"I tried to reason with him, but-" Jesse sighs in frustration.

"-he's caught wind that Abby's defected. She's left Seattle."

Ellie bites her lip, a seed of dread growing in her stomach.

"Where did you see him last?" She asks sternly, gripping the straps of her pack.

---

"Take her home, Jesse," The exhaustion in her voice the following morning was apparent. She had barely slept, rattled by her experience in the hospital. The weight of the pipe in her hands and Nora's face haunted her thoughts, and there was little comfort in Dina's arms. In the wee hours of the morning, she had grown numb to her decision.

"If something happens to Dina or the baby-"

"You won't be able to forgive yourself?" Jesse was understandably angry. He had caught her on the way out, fully prepared to depart without them. The look of surprise on her face had spoiled her intentions.

Jesse couldn't wrap his mind around the idea of Ellie abandoning them to leave on her own.

"No. I couldn't. And she can't go home on her own-" Ellie finds it challenging to look at him in the eyes.

"You're not thinking straight-"

"No, Jesse, I...I don't know. I do know if I'm going to find Tommy, I have to think like him,"

Jesse was speechless.

Ellie knew well enough how clever he was at covering his tracks.  

"He's not going stop until he has her head." She forces herself to lower her voice, should she threaten to wake Dina.

Jesse clenches his fists, and Ellie gestures toward the back of the building.

"...I promised Maria. Dina's too sick to see the end of this. If you really want to help, just take her and go back to Jackson,"

"Ellie-"

"Don't follow me."

Jesse stares incredulously, shaking his head in disappointment.

"You're making a mistake."

Ellie did not respond and instead turned to leave.  

She hoped Dina was able to read the hastily penned letter before Jesse could spill her transgression.

The door's weight felt enormous on the way out.

===

Ellie wakes with a start, her eyes fluttering open to a surprisingly vibrant room. Exhausted, she had fallen asleep in the crook of her elbow.  

Shit.

She hadn't intended to sleep this long. Ellie squints and shields her eyes from the grey skylight. It takes a moment for her to grasp what she sees, struggling to peel reality away from a familiar nightmare.

Her heart skips as a beat as she notices a dark contrast of black smoke against ash-colored clouds. She grabs frantically for the binoculars and shoots upright to her feet. Peering expectantly through the lens, she focuses in on the location of the fire.

The trail disappears behind the rooftop of a brewery in the distance. Ellie racks her brain for details - recalling the layout of the streets of the city's downtown.

Has to be him, She thinks as she scrambles to gather her things.

Couldn't be more than a few miles off.  If I keep a steady pace, I could reach the campsite by noon.

===

"Abby!"

Lev's voice echoes through the department store, and Abby's head whips to greet him. He waves her over to where he's kneeling across the street.

She grunts and rises to her feet, having just rummaged through the pack of a long-dead drifter. Poor guy didn't have much to his name - at least not when he died. She dusted off her hands before moving to join Lev, kneeling next to another corpse lodged in the threshold of a general store. Still somewhat fresh.

"Do you know him?" Lev asks curiously, reaching for a pouch attached at its side. Abby furrows her brows as she takes a look, allowing her counterpart to rummage through the rucksack.  

"No," She shakes her head. "Doesn't look familiar. Has to be one of the assholes that was following us," Abby inspects the unfamiliar man's face, then his jacket.

"There were a lot of us,"

No patches of any kind - must be new. She reaches for his neck, carefully pulling a bloodied chain from the dead man's collar. Aha.

"W.T.," She says, reading the two letters stamped into the tag. "Weird. Just initials," Abby drops the tags, which clink pitifully against his chest.

"Wonder what they stood for."

"Hey-" Abby cracks a faint smile and reaches down to pluck something from between the corpse's fingers. Lev eyes her incredulously.

"Missed something," She hums fondly and presents it to her counterpart to have a look.

It's a pistol - in surprisingly good condition. Abby allows her fingers to run across the barrel before engaging the safety. Only two bullets left, she thinks, before slipping the gun into her side-holster. The former wolf notices the pout forming at the corner of Lev's mouth, and she stifles a chuckle.

"This one's nice, but it's got some kick to it. The gun I gave you suits you," Abby crosses her arms and Lev suppresses the urge to argue.

"Yeah..." He sighs, carefully stepping over a crumbled bookcase used at one point to barricade the entrance. Abby follows suit behind him. He had seemed morose since this morning, not that she could blame him. She had struggled to keep them occupied and maintaining momentum; for the betterment of them both. The lingering effects of Yara's death were most noticeable when there wasn't an immediate goal under their nose.

Having direction kept her from dwelling too much on the recent.

She often thought of Yara. And Owen...and Mel. Their last interaction together had left a bitter taste in her mouth. As much as their abandonment had stung, she still hoped they had made it to Santa Barbara in one piece. She had meant her word when she promised she would head in the opposite direction, at least for the time being.

Abby wondered how Alice was faring at sea.

Similar thoughts intruded often, and she found it necessary to find something distract herself. Right now, her focus was keeping Lev safe and getting the two of them to the lodge.

"Been a while since we've practiced," She adds as they move into the street. Abby leads the two of them along, her eyes looking expectantly for the inn's sign in the distance. It "Maybe we can set up some targets once we get out of town,"

Lev nods and shrugs his shoulders.

"That would be nice," He hums, fiddling with the straps of his pack.

Abby stifles a sigh. I'll cheer you up eventually. Somehow.

The walk to their camp was brief, and soon enough, Abby could see the familiar flaking, sky blue exterior of the 'Silver Cloud'. It had been a long day of scouring for supplies, and the idea of resting her legs was more than appealing.

Abby grunts as she struggles to peel back a rusted tin section used to bar the window. A bit of elbow grease was enough to peel it back and allow Lev to slip through the opening. Abby follows shortly after, careful not to let the metal make too much noise behind them.

Lev breathes a sigh of relief and relaxes his shoulders. The inn smelled like the underside of a pier, Abby thought as she wrinkled her nose. But it was safe, and that's all that mattered. Whoever the owners were before the outbreak had taken care to seal the place shut before closing the doors. The roof sagged slightly from years of neglected, unattended leaks on the south end, but it had managed to stay dry enough to use as shelter.

Lev carefully settles onto the floor after removing his pack. Abby watches as he begins to pull a few items from the day's scavenger hunt, carefully inspecting their spoils.

Abby turns to rifle through her backpack. They had enough food for now, but they still needed a few more things before she could comfortably have them venture out of town. It might be some time before they could scavenge a town for necessities.

Preparing for a trip of this magnitude had taken longer than anticipated; with limited supplies, Abby had resorted to exhausting every potential resource they could explore along their way. They had spent themselves looting the husks of department stores, pharmacies, residences, and a sole general store for any useful materials they could find.

She pulls a small tin from her pack, a makeshift first aid kit. Abby had been more conscientious of the need lately after the trauma of dealing with Yara's injury. The former wolf purses her lips as she carefully opens it, examining its meager contents.

A handle of sewing needles in a yellowed, plastic package. A small bottle of alcohol and a sterile razor. A pitiful wad of unused gauze.

She blinks, recalling have found that Mel and Owen had not only left them behind; they had also taken the precious medical kit she had almost gotten herself killed to get her hands on. The feeling of dread in her stomach when she and Lev returned to see a missing boat was hard to forget.

Blinking away the thought, she puts a spool of thread inside the tin and bitterly snaps the container shut.

"Hey," Lev murmurs, holding an object up for inspection in the dim light. "Look at this,"

Abby peers up from her thoughts to see her counterpart clasping what appeared to be a coin between his thumb and pointer finger.

"Found it in a matchbox," He flips it over to inspect the back, lips pursed in disappointment.

"We needed the matches."

Abby extends her arm and gestures for Lev to hand it over.

"Let me see," She purrs quietly as she plucks it from his palm. The blond squints, her eyebrows raising.

"This is a wheat penny," She hums and offers it back. "You should keep it. They're good luck."

"Huh. A wheat penny," Lev repeats curiously, rolling the coin between his fingers.

"You believe in luck?" Lev eyes her incredulously as he flops onto a nearby couch, adopted as a bed. He tucks the coin into the pocket of his pants for safekeeping.

Abby smiles and raises a brow.

"Sure. When I'm lucky," Abby slides into an armchair with a quiet huff and begins to rub the tension in the back of her neck. She rests her head against the cushioned back, her eyelids growing heavy.

"We should get some rest. Got a long day ahead of us," Abby sinks further into the worn leather, throwing her legs across the chair's arm. She works a hand into her back pocket to remove a map, heavily creased and often referenced. She carefully unfolds it, her eyes drawn to a penciled circle at the outer edge.

"Nearly there," She mutters under her breath, tapping their location. Carefully, she traces her finger along the highlighted route to their destination. Getting there wasn't as easy as the mapped route suggested. Abby had taken the time to mark their actual path, which proved to be a much more jagged and cumbersome hike than anticipated.

"This is our last night here, right?" He asks quietly.

"Swear," She sighs, rolling onto her side. "Last night. We head out first thing in the morning."

Lev sighs in relief and closes his eyes.

They had hunkered down in this place for longer than she cared to admit.

Having the WLF on their heels in the early weeks had fatigued them. The two had spent time resting and biding their time here until she felt they were ready to leave.

Shaking them off of their heels had been a victory for them. Now, they just had to keep moving.

"You think the lodge is still empty?" He whispers. Abby closes the map as dusk dies outside, along with her light source. She furrows her brow.

"I hope so, Lev."

Abby didn't really know what propelled her to take them there. Intuition? A sense of nostalgia? A little bit of both.

She had only been there once with her father when she was about Lev's age. Back when the Fireflies were naively hopeful.

But it was the most extraordinary few months of her life before the Fireflies found it in their best interest to abandon the property. She knew that the lodge was exploited as a conduit for them in the faction's early years. They were moving on a shred of hope that it was still there.

The place had good bones...at least that's what her father would say. She wasn't an engineer by any means, but she was hoping she and Lev could patch any disrepair that might have overcome it…

It was the only place that came to mind when she thought of rebuilding her life.

===

"Fuck,' Abby stutters as she stumbles forward onto her knees. The wolf's boot catches on the wheels of an overturned utility cart. She's shivering, soaked. Foul greywater reaches to her elbows, and she can't see her hands through the filth of it all. In a panic, he pushes herself to her feet and propels herself forward.

A dismal realization overcomes her; she's back in St. Mary's.

No, no, no...even worse. Abby's head whips desperately to find some sort of evidence of her whereabouts. She stifles a cry of terror when she sees the flickering emergency room sign swinging woefully in her peripheral. The whirling growl of a generator sings somewhere in the distance.

The air smells familiarly sour, and she's painfully aware that her hands are empty. Her pack is gone and stripped of all her weapons, Abby is vulnerable and naked to her environment. A quickly approaching gurgling scream encumbers her senses, and her instincts only tell her to move forward. Trembling fingers reach frantically at her hip for a pistol that's no longer there.

Dread transmutes to sickness as she turns a corner to be met with a dead-end.

The sound of flesh and bone scraping against the walls sends a shiver of horror down her spine. Abby's body reluctantly swivels to face the monster lunging aggressively toward her.

She tries to scream, but the sound dies in her throat. She can see every face in the tangled amalgamation of the Rat King. It's twisted core rolls closer, and it dawns on her that the mountain of fungus and flesh isn't a conglomerate of unknown stalkers, but of people she knows—her friends.

The twisted gaze of Mel and Owen cause her to cry out for help. Manny's slack jaw and aimless stare are positioned next to the familiar faces of dead Scars. Yara and Lev. The shoulders supporting them all attaches onto a central face - a memory of a man she had compartmentalized and locked away for some time.

Joel Miller. He stares at her, and Abby snaps her jaw closed. Her body trembles, and she forces her eyes shut as the snarling of the beast swallows her whole. A young woman's scream echoes in her thoughts as her eyes snap awake before the creature's maw reaches her.

Her mind wanders to the ski resort- the grisly sound of metal against skull-bone and the young girl's piercing cry on the floor, begging her to stop.

"Please, don't do this-!"

The creature stumbles aside, and finally, Abby can see a young woman's figure kneeling in the flood-waters.

"Abby, please don't do this-!"

---

Abby startles awake, her forehead coated with a thin sheen of sweat. She takes a deep breath as she snaps up to rest on her elbows, finding the air thick and hard to breathe. The shrill screech of her name was disturbing.

It's cold in the riverside inn, but she's burning hot - her shirt dampened from wrestling a nightmare in the morning's wee hours. Abby takes a few moments to regain her senses, relieved to see it was still early. Tiredly fixated on the pinholes of grey light streaming from the ceiling, Abby Anderson forces herself to sit. It's unbearably quiet.

Thank God, she thinks, allowing her head to rest between her knees. She was surprisingly happy to be here, in this dank place. Nausea slowly begins to ebb away.

It had been a while. Abby tries to remember the last time she dreamed about the hospital. Her fingers massage at a knot of muscle in her neck.

That's not what happened...with the girl, back in Jackson. She didn't know my name.

The incarnation of Joel and the girl's cry for mercy had truly grated her. More than that vile creature.

Funny, she thought. She had tucked that memory to bed some time ago, having washed it away with a new sense of purpose. She shakes her head, instead choosing to turn toward Lev's sleeping form.

Except he's not there. Instead, Abby's met by with the sight of an empty couch.

Her name is Ellie, she recalls suddenly. Joel Miller's little counterpart. The girl with the cure.

She rubs at her eyes.

No time to dwell on it now, she thinks, slowly moving to her feet. The muscles in her jaw ache with tension, and she slowly stretches her mouth open. Ouch. Fuck, that hurts.

It had been a long time since her mind had wandered to linger on the man who killed her father. Those feelings of hatred and resentment had been excised and buried. It seemed guilt had trickled into the empty space. It was growing harder to ignore, especially in moments where she found herself alone.

She had done far worse things to people that weighed on her less. But why?

He deserved it.

Abby pinches the bridge of her nose between her fingers, reaching to grab her jacket and boots.

She opts to rise on her feet and itemize her things to prepare for the journey that lies ahead. Dawn was fading, and she wanted to hit the pavement before the day got away from them.

"Lev?" She asks hoarsely, moving slowly to the back door. She notices it's unlocked, and the rotting shade was open.

She opens it and steps onto the dock. Lev is sitting on the edge and turns to look at her. He seems serene this morning.

"Morning," He says quietly as Abby comes to sit next to him, relieved. She yawns, and he tucks his knee to have a place to rest his chin.

His eyes focus on a thick line running from his palm into the dark water.

The two didn't say anything for a few minutes. The breeze blowing in the water felt nice, and Abby allowed it to rejuvenate her spirit.

"I thought maybe we could have breakfast before we go," Lev begins to wrap the line leading down to the hook, removing the slack. The shadow of a fish flickers into view, prompting Abby to notice a nearby bucket, teeming with several others.

"Good idea."

===

Weird.

A dead wolf.

Ellie takes a careful glance around before squatting to investigate the corpse.

'So you're the one they left behind,' Ellie thinks, rifling through the dead man's pockets. The body was still...somewhat fresh.

Gross. Ellie grimaces as she picks up the coat in his hands. Still dry, without much blood on it. She would soon need it, as a simple overshirt wasn't going to cut surviving a harsh winter. The temperature was already starting to drop now as autumn was kicking into full swing again.

She runs her fingers across the WLF emblem stitched onto the bicep. The article was still in pretty good shape.

She offers an empathetic glance as she shrugs the jacket across her shoulders. The brunette found it a bit ironic to be brandishing WLF, not that she had much choice. She felt it a shame she couldn't find a proper replacement.

Ellie pauses as she realizes his gun is missing from his holster. Her gaze narrows and her breathing slows as she weighs the possibilities.

Her attention is drawn to a wound at his chest.

Clean shot, large bullet. So this was the last rifle blast I heard.

Instinctually, she peers over her shoulder at the many possible vantage points. She traces each one, trying to figure where the shooter was standing.

Tommy. Had to have been him.

Maybe it was wishful thinking, but it was the only clue she had to go on. Excitement swells in her chest - instinct was telling her she was moving in the right direction.

She exits the shop, leaving the door open the way that she had found it. It closes slowly against the body in the threshold.

I'm convincing you to come back, even if it kills me.

She picks up the pace, slipping into the liminal spaces of the broken city's alleyways.

And what if it's not him?

Ellie struggles to catch her breath as she finds herself in a full-blown sprint.

A part of her screams in anticipation; what if it's Abby?

Her heart pounds, beating painfully against her ribcage.

She wished she could stop hoping that it was. There was a sliver of her that simply refused to let it go.

Her body slams loudly against a chain-link fence, and her fingers curl viciously through the openings. She presses her forehead against the metal links.

The smoke is feigning in color, but it was closer.

She pulls herself up, scrambling to the slide over the top.

Ellie pauses to wipe the sweat from her eyes.

Wonder what Dina would think - seeing me like this.

Doesn't matter.

Ten minutes at a time.

The bottom of her soles slam against the concrete, and she's off again.

Just follow the smoke.

===

"C'mon Lev," Abby peers nervously over her shoulder.

"We're more exposed than I would like to be,"

Lev stares in wonder over the bridge's side, leaning against the concrete with his elbows. There was something about rushing water that was captivating, especially with a view like this.

The river below had become swollen from heavy rainfall, peppered with old cars and carcasses of boats. The bridge itself had long since collapsed in the center. Instead, it served as a downward ramp into the rushing water. A conglomerate of cars and pontoon boats from neighboring docks had formed a footbridge to the other side.

Lev moves to crouch beside Abby next to a shelled tanker. She raises a brow as she stares at the trail of cars before them. A look upriver only showed miles of running water, with no evidence of another way across.

Abby huffs in thought.

"That's...a long detour," Lev murmurs as he studies the pebbled bank. They had been walking non-stop since breakfast. The sun had settled in the west, threatening to retreat behind the mountains in the distance.

The bridge had collapsed as to leave a path of broken automobile rooftops to tread across. Rain from the night prior had risen the water level yet again, evident by the muddy current below.

"Yeah...shit," Abby rubs at her chin and slides to sit. She allows her pack to slip from her shoulders onto the fractured asphalt and turns to Lev.

"It's not safe. We have to wait,"

Lev feels her frustration, sighing in disappointment. He turns his attention downriver, thinking hard for any semblance of an idea.

"Abby," He murmurs after a few moments. Abby turns to him while unscrewing her canteen, before nearly draining half of it.

"Look, there." He squints, pointing indistinctly to the favoring riverbank. Abby squints, trying to spot what Lev is referencing. It soon becomes evident as she makes out a dull, orange blinking light at the edge of the water. The dimming sun favors the detail, and she strains her eyes to get a better look.

"Attached to the line, across the water," Lev whispers. "That box. Can it take us across?"

Abby realizes he's talking about a nearby metal cab, half-way hidden in the undergrowth. She had assumed it to be a power-line, and her pulse quickens as she realizes it's a fashioned, rugged lift. Clever.

"Someone's been here recently," Abby looks hard at the forest across the river. The line angles high above them to meet the slope on the other side, disappearing somewhere in the trees.

"See the generator?"

Lev blinks, nodding. Abby can almost see the wheels turning, and her gut starts to sink.

"Maybe it works-"

"Absolutely not," Abby says immediately, shaking her head. She almost feels sick thinking about it.

"And who is to say it's safe- ?"

"You said yourself, someone's using it," Lev interrupts her, nearly pleading in earnest. Thunder rolls somewhere beyond the mountains, and seeing the expression on Abby's face, Lev looks away in disappointment.

"It might take days for the river to drop," He leans tiredly against the car and crosses his arm. Abby stays quiet for a moment, and she can see he's despondent.

He was right about that. Abby sighs, peering thoughtfully at him as Lev peers into the water below.

"If it's not lowered by morning, we'll check it out. Deal?" She sighs, her hands resting on her hips.

Lev hesitantly nods, and a gentle smile tugs at his lips.

"Okay."

"I know what you're thinking. All the good things about fear. Yada-yada."

"Yada-yada?"

"Don't worry about it-," Abby tosses Lev his pack.

"... I'm sorry, Abby."

Abby walks a few paces and sharply pulls at the old tailgate of an old pick-up. It squeals as she lowers it to use as a seat.  

She tries not to think about the cable-car.

"Don't be. Let's get some rest. It's getting dark."

===

Ellie slips to the ground, her chest heaving to catch her breath.

A runner gurgles piteously on the ground beside her. She watches as it grows still in the grass before her fingers relax on the handle of her bloodied machete.

Shaky fingers turn off her flashlight, allowing the soft-orange glow of the generator to light the riverbank.

Her mind hums numbly with fatigue, and she forces herself to take a few minutes to rest. Ellie had been pushing tirelessly today, desperate to make up for the lost time she took investigating the campsite.

Whether it was Tommy - or someone else - they hadn't left much for her to recover. She had discovered only the charred remains of a perceived cooking fire, which had been neatly scratched away save for a handful of burning coals. A pile of stripped fish-bones did little to identify who had started it.

No scraps, no belongings left behind. The only notable clue had been the imprint of a boot-heel entrenched in a sodden patch of grass up the street. Fresh.

Whoever it was had intentions to head east, towards Libby, denoted by the signs.

She stares blankly at the generator. Hugged by tall grass underneath a shelter, she almost hadn't seen it...and probably wouldn't have in daylight. A gas canister lay on its side amid a patch of trampled grass. Whoever had left it was kind enough to screw the cap closed.

Someone was here, and not long ago. Ellie stares at the cable high above her, and the gondola, which hung only a few meters away. It gives a groan as it swings, agitated by a gust of wind.

Ellie squints with exertion as she lifts herself onto her feet. She had wandered to the river's edge, having spotted a potential foot trail near the road. The bridge in the distance offered little promise she could use it as a means across the river. It seemed to have collapsed and crumbled into the water below.

In an effort to find some semblance of a boat, she was met with this.

Ellie spots several other infected littered in the surrounding area as she carefully takes a look around. All shot, save for the one.

Tommy...if it was you, you left in a hurry. The noise must have drawn them out of the undergrowth.  

I can't afford to stay here tonight.

Ellie staggers to pick up the canister and carefully moves to fuel the generator with what remained.

This might be the dumbest thing I've ever done, she thinks, glancing at the dilapidated bridge downriver.

She takes a few tentative steps toward the rusted cab on the platform to inspect the interior.

Seems to be in okay shape.

Ellie presses her boot into the floor to test its integrity. It was exceptionally dark inside, but Ellie had faith that it could hold her across. Somebody had trusted it enough, at least.

A muffled clap of thunder startles her, and she shakes her head in disbelief at what she was about to do.

The shriek of a clicker echoes in the distance. Rainy weather seemed to disturb them as well – drawing them out from the darkness into the rain.

There's not enough time to find another way across tonight.

Ellie grips the handle of the generator's starter cord and gives it a few sharp tugs. It growls in response, the mechanical roar spurring her adrenaline to spike. The platform beneath her vibrates, and Ellie holds her breath as the lift squeaks to life. The gondola lurches forward with a jolt, and she's suddenly made aware that the motor is not going to wait for her to board.

Ellie pulls herself up into the gondola before it can escape the platform. She stumbles inside, careful not to spill backward out of the open door.  A nervous laugh escapes her as the cab sways, pulling her skyward along the cable. She allows herself to sit, her back pressed against the cold aluminum. Her eyes squint the car's body scrapes along the weathered line, and she takes a few deep breaths while the swinging slows to a gentle sway.  Ellie thinks of all the ways she would suffer if the car detached, finding herself smiling in fear and disbelief.

I may have actually lost it, Jesse.

Her gaze is drawn out the window where the cable ran to an identical platform, presumably among the trees on the other side of the river.

Just a few more minutes… then I'm never doing anything like this again. Ever… ever again.

===

Abby awakes to the sound of a screech.

Before she can even comprehend what's happening, she's upright in the truck's bed.  She jerks her head to see Lev already on his feet, staring across the water.

The two offer a confused glance to one another. Lev's mouth hangs open, but before he can say anything, Abby sees the cable-car floating above the river along its suspended course. A mechanical whir slices in the air, the unmistakable groan of a gas generator.

A clicker cries out again in the distance.

"Someone's in there -"Lev whispers and kneels behind the truck out of eyesight. Abby purses her lips in worry as she zips her coat closed.  

"Lev, c'mon," She whispers hurriedly, her gaze following the gondola's movement.

Who the hell is in there?

"We have to move."

[finalgirlkateausten]

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 :D

are you sure you want eight snippets? 😂 I’ll give you eight sentences total...

from chapter 42 of my 2x09 au:

The one thing he’d wanted was a dinner with his and Gus’ family, quietly admitting that it had been something of a tradition before he’d left Santa Barbara, and they’d returned to it the previous year. Knowing that he still had trouble talking about his family situation-- was still figuring it out for himself, even-- Juliet had quickly agreed. 

from my Lost in Space daemons au, since I know you love a daemon au:

“Hey, Mom?” Penny asks. “What does sociopath mean?”

from chapter 4 of my BTHB fic:

When she gets home, though, being alone just doesn’t work. She wanders the house, wincing at memories she hasn’t thought of in years.

from my nanny!Shawn au:

This little girl is all of three years old, and she’s got  a queen-sized bed. There’s a canopy over it and everything.

send me a 🌹 for a snippet of anything I’m writing!

[rabbitcruiser]

International Earth Day (No. 3)

The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970. Prior to this, there was virtually no environmental movement. Factories pumped toxins into the air, recycling was almost non-existent, and gas guzzling vehicles were the norm. The seeds of the modern movement had been planted, however, with the publishing of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962. This book raised the public's awareness of pollution and its effect on health. In 1969, water pollution and chemical waste disposal came to the attention of the public, after the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire.

Democratic Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin was deeply concerned about environmental issues. After witnessing the Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969, he began planning for the first Earth Day. This was during the time of Vietnam War protests and teach-ins, and Nelson thought he could bring the problems of pollution into the public consciousness by organizing similar types of teach-ins. He hoped that by shining a spotlight on environmental issues in this way, there may be a chance of bringing them into the realm of national priorities, where they had yet to be seen. He announced Earth Day at a conference in Seattle in September of 1969.

Nelson told the media there would be a teach-in about the environment, and began organizing. Pete McCloskey, Republican Congressman from California, became co-chair of the first Earth Day. Denis Hayes, the young student president of Stanford University, became the national coordinator. He had a staff of 85 people and organized with student volunteers and members of Senator Nelson's office. April 22 was chosen because it was between spring break and final exams, so more university students could be involved.

Twenty million people participated during the first year. Rallies for the environment were held in most major American cities, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and New York City. Various environmental groups joined forces in a way they hadn't before, awareness was raised, and public attitudes were changed.

Nelson's goal of a shift in national priorities soon came to fruition. The Environmental Protection Agency was created by the end of the year. Earth Day also helped bring about the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. All of these pieces of legislation were passed within three years of the first Earth Day.

The twentieth anniversary in 1990 became a global campaign. Dennis Hayes once again organized the event, and 200 million people in 141 countries were involved. The days' focus was on raising awareness for and increasing recycling around the world. Hayes also organized the event in 2000, with global warming and clean energy being the focus. 5,000 environmental groups and 184 countries were involved in the day.

In 2010, a climate rally with 250,000 attendees was held at the National Mall, and an environmental service project called A Billion Acts of Green was started. A tree planting project—which eventually became The Canopy Project—was also started. Almost every country in the world was involved in the day. Today, more than a billion people are involved each year, making it the largest secular observance in the world. It brings people together in civic participation and political action, and the day is highlighted with marches, petitions, and rallies, and the cleaning of neighborhoods, roads, rivers, parks, and beaches.

How to Observe

There are multiple ways the day could be celebrated. There are things that could be done specifically on the day, as well as changes that could be made, and things that could be done going forward. Here are some ideas:

Clean up something in your city or neighborhood such as a park, beach, or river.

Attend an Earth Day rally.

Recycle—Recycle plastics or work to stop using them altogether. Use reusable bottles, utensils, and bags.

Food—Eat local food, which has a smaller carbon footprint because it hasn't been shipped across the country. Grow your own food, eat less meat, and begin composting.

Conserve water.

Save paper—Use online billing, print on two sides of paper, and use cloth towels.

Travel—Be more environmentally conscious by walking or riding a bike, carpooling, and using public transportation.

Vehicle upkeep—Make sure your tires are inflated and make sure you have a clean air filter.

Light bulbs—Replace incandescent light bulbs with LED and fluorescent bulbs. Turn off lights when you are not near them. Install solar panels. Turn your thermostat down in the winter and up in the summer.

Volunteer with a local environmental group.

Create an Act of Green.

Plant a tree or donate through the Canopy Project.

Visit the EPA's website to see events and ideas.

Take the Earth Day Network's Earth Day quiz.

Watch video clips about the first Earth Day.

Watch a film that deals with the environment.

Read a book that deals with environmental issues.

Source

[just4funpartyrentals]

Choose Suitable Party Tent Rentals to Make Your Carnivals and Events Memorable

The demand for party tent rental is continuously increasing due to its versatility and ability to cater to various events. The customizable features and wide range of options make it a convenient choice for hosts looking to create a unique and personalized atmosphere for their guests.

Santa Barbara, California, is known for its vibrant community events and festivals. It hosts various events, such as the Old Spanish Days Fiesta, the Summer Solstice Parade, the Santa Barbara County Fair, the Santa Barbara Harbour and Seafood Festivals, and much more.

If you plan to host a carnival or party in Santa Barbara, look for a complete carnival tent package or party tent rental. These packages provide everything you need to create a festive atmosphere, including tents, tables, chairs, lighting, and decorations. Whether you're hosting a small backyard gathering or a large community event, renting a full carnival tent package can make your planning process much easier and ensure your guests have a memorable experience.

Full Carnival Tent Package:

The complete package includes three carnival tents, each with a back wall and side railings. Get ready for the carnival with this amazing decoration kit. These tents are perfect for hosting a party for kids or creating a nostalgic atmosphere for your wedding or birthday celebration. This popup canopy package is a fantastic way to bring a carnival vibe to a fundraising event at a church, school, or street fair, and it's affordable, too.

Although the seams on the tops of commercial popup tents made with polyester may allow some water to enter during heavy rain, the material is waterproof. Even though the tent covers are fireproof, you shouldn't place gas heaters beneath them.

8×8 Carnival Tent Red & White:

The 8x8 Carnival Tent in red and white stripes is the perfect decor item for a carnival look. Whether you're organizing a children's event or looking to create a nostalgic atmosphere for your wedding or birthday celebration, this tent is the perfect choice. This popup canopy is ideal for non-profits looking for a high-quality and affordable way to create a festive atmosphere at church, school, or street fair events. The complete carnival tent package is also available. Click the link for more details on that product. Add side rails to create an enclosed look, and optionally include a back wall. This tent is versatile in setup and use. Also, consider adding carnival games, concession machines, inflatables, or a photo booth to enhance your theme. We also rent cornholes, nacho machines, dunk tanks, and hoop shots! All popup tents on our website are water-resistant, but the tops may have leaky seams in heavy rain. This polyester tent is water-resistant and fire-retardant. All tent tops are fire-resistant, but we advise against placing propane heaters under these tents.

Tent Side Rails, Red and White Stripe:

These tent side rails in red and white stripes add a vibrant and festive touch to your event setup. They are made of durable materials that can withstand outdoor conditions and provide additional stability to your tent. The red and white stripes also add a visually appealing element that complements various themes and decorations. Whether you're hosting a carnival, fair, or any outdoor gathering, these tent side rails will enhance the overall atmosphere and create a memorable experience for your guests.

10x10 canopy tent:

Consider using a 10x10 canopy tent to provide shade and protection from the elements. These tents are easy to set up and can be customized with sidewalls, banners, and other accessories to fit your needs. The compact size of the tent makes it ideal for smaller events or limited spaces while still providing ample coverage for your guests.

10x20 canopy tent:

This tent rental is a good option for larger events or occasions where you need more space to accommodate more guests. The 10x20 canopy tent offers double the coverage compared to the 10x10 tent, providing even more shade and protection from the sun or rain. Its versatile design allows for various configurations, such as dividing the space into different sections or creating separate areas for other activities. With its spacious layout, the 10x20 canopy tent ensures guests have plenty of room to move around and enjoy themselves.

20x20 high peak tent:

While arranging carnival games or hosting a large outdoor event, the 20x20 high peak tent is the perfect choice. With its spacious dimensions, this tent can accommodate many guests and provide ample space for various activities. The high-peak design adds an elegant touch to the overall aesthetic and allows for better air circulation, keeping everyone comfortable even in hot weather.

Depending on requirements and budgets, choose the right party tent rental option and see how it can transform your event into a memorable and enjoyable experience. Whether it's a wedding reception, corporate gathering, or birthday celebration, party tent rentals offer a versatile solution to accommodate any event. With customizable features such as lighting, flooring, and heating options, party tents can be tailored to suit the specific needs and preferences of the host. Additionally, the availability of different sizes and styles ensures that there is a perfect tent rental option for every occasion.  

[superiorawning-blog]

Superior Awning

Superior Awning is a builder and manufacturer of custom awnings, retractable awnings, patio covers, carports, cabanas & shades. Serving Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura & Santa Barbara counties since 1980. Superior Awning is Southern California’s largest manufacturer of fine custom awnings and canopies for residential, commercial and industrial properties. Superior Awning has extensive experience in all phases of awning construction including design, engineering, manufacturing and installation.

Contact Us:

Superior Awning Address: 200 Spectrum Center Dr #300, Unit Number 3101, Irvine, CA, 92618 USA Phone: (833) 609-4900 Email: searchmarketing@superiorawning.com Website: https://superiorawning.com

External Links:

Pinterest About.me Amazon Trello