#HES NOT EVEN TRYING TO POSE HES SERVING MY BOYFRIEND AND HUSBAND REALNESS

[bitchlessdino]

JUST LOOK AT HIMMMM

Everytime blonde Dino comes out w a new set of photos I cry a little

[phoebehalliwell]

Prue gets together with Mitch (reincarnated Micah) and lives. How does their relationship evolve over the rest of the series?

okay so fr because like i've been thinking about this I've Been Thinking About This. WHY give us that connection if we're not gonna do anything with it??? WHY make it worse my literally giving us the guy THE EXACT SAME GUY and then never mention him again What is the motive?????? okay okay okay so here's what i'd do: 2.6 undercut lmao

because prue has really only had two boyfriends in the series so far: andy & jack (bane doesn't count as he was more of a tryst and also he's in jail :'( could have been fun tho! he could have sacrificed himself for somebody else and become a whitelighter he already knows the ins and outs of the underworld like. could have been something there. but as they were only together twice, once when prue was posing as a hitwoman and then again when he kidnapped her, he, tragically, does not him boyfriend status.) so here me out andy is a cop he represents protection and familial ties / ties to the past (prue's childhood best friend, already friends with the sisters, he's also a third generation cop so like there's that too). he represents prue's early stage, where she feels like she has to be the protector of the whole family, of which she is basically the matriarch. she doesn't get to have fun, she has to protect her sisters and now the whole world, and her past is having some very real effects on her life right now. that's her andy era.

jack era is at buckland's, it's her breadwinning era. we even saw in morality bites (which, i am once again bringing up, is fake) that she goes on to be superbillionaire whatever. so jack kind represents professional ambitions, amplified by the fact that the fonet also served as a blatant metaphor for their relationship (prue, the world is made up of almost perfect. it's nothing but near misses and necessary compromises. in this case, i think we got a little bit of both. that's okay, i know how you feel. i'm just asking you not to look so close. nothing bears up under that kind of scrutiny. are you talking about the monet? yeah, that too.) and that their relationship ends when she decided to leave bucklands to pursue a career in photography.

so now we enter season three, which is prue's artist era, her passionate like zeal for life era she finally seems to have a weight lifted off her shoulder for the first time in a long time like you can tell she like. trusts her sisters more than she ever has before she sees them in a new light and knows that they are strong and smart and independent and she doesn't need to protect them every waking hour. this era's for prue. so i'm pitching that micah mirrors this by being an artist, too. i wouldn't say the same medium (photography) as prue because like. prue's definitely someone who would compare herself to him just like subconsciously constantly that's the type of woman she is, but maybe like a painter. not a writer because they're all insufferable. lmao 🤙🤙. but someone who lives in a hella nice studio type loft filled with art and just like life. passion. something prue hasn't really allowed herself in like. a hot minute. and i would make micah (mitch??) a witch. haha it rhymes. scratch that i'd make him a warlock. or a darklighter i'm cashing in my half-darklighter character. it's mitch now. idk how this would fit into phole narrative foils maybe or we scrap phole but they're really coming from two different perspectives where cole is entering the joint like i am evil and here to murder and then he catches feelings whereas mitch would be like yes i have some dark past but i'm not letting it define me bonus points is prue is able to piece together the clues of his origin just by looking at his paintings. this also adds to the rift between prue and phoebe on prue's cole stance like oh your evil boyfriend is fine but mine, for some reason, is still evil? yes. oh you know what we keep the source's heir in this au let me continue.

instead of introducing mitch in p3 because like WHAT WAS THAT, we instead, parallel their first meeting. mitch's origin story is

his mom was a future whitelighter knocked up by a darklighter this was not intentional on anyone's part mom wasn't trying to become mom dad wasn't trying to become dad Nor did dad know mom was a future whitelighter. because well he's not great at being a darklighter in spite of maybe being like the. head darklighter's son he's like the fucked up son who doesn't wanna run things. he doesn't know he has a kid!! until something something an oracle or something tells him he has a son But he can't find mom because she's cloaked by her whitelighter. mom dies doing something heroic idk (maybe mom was a firefighter??) and then cloaking on mitch is lifted when he's in his late teens his dad finds him his dad is now like proper leader of the darklighter clan and is trying to bring mitch into the fold which initially he is game for because mitch has all these powers black orbing touch of death that he doesn't understand and finally a community to explain that to him! he gets a crossbow (which is lit) but um. quickly catches on to how blatantly evil the whole thing is. he's secretly teamed up with some whitelighters (not his mom tho. friends of his mom, but he's not allowed to see her :'/ ) to help get other halflings like him out and cloaked.

leo's been taken hostage by the darklighter something something something a plot a plot a plot we do some solid pleo angst we maybe have cole drop some thinly veiled advice about the underworld without coming out as a demon, something that will help the sisters later. but what's really important here is they're sneaking through the underworld maybe they've been split up and they need to find leo so either they're looking for him Or they're looking for a darklighter to interrogate. and prue hears shifting behind a rock and goes over to look and it's mitch and some kid and the kid immediately summons his crossbow but mitch knocks it away just like prue did with piper in the past and piper's like prue u see anything and she's like no nothing here and then mitch and the kid blackorb away which just leaves prue with this sinking feeling like what the fuck?? because. what the fuck??? a) that was the same guy from puritan times and b) she still feels the same she felt back then and c) it's clear he does do but d) --and this is the crucial one-- D) he's fucking evil????? so blah blah blah we save leo but now prue is left with one crucial question what the fuck is going on?

so what she's gonna do is research the town the colony whatever that melinda warren was born in she astral projects to salem or whatever and steals. maybe the mask mitch wore at the party she recognizes it from all hallows eve. and she brings that home and scrys with it. and she finds him!! and um bonus points looking at his place she sees he's an alum of the college she went to because backstory!! when prue was in college back when she was still pursuing photography before grams got sick, they had met before! once before, at a party, and it was this instant spark, this instant connection, but then something pulled them apart be it one of them was already in a relationship or their ride was leaving something but like. again! this connection has always been there. so like blah blah blah prue has broken into mitch's place she sees their college connection she sees his art and starts to pull together a life story he sees maybe some paperwork that just says like in bold letters like saving kids: good person activities something real obvious you know and that's Right Next To his crossbow. ~juxtaposition~ so like. what the fuck is this. but whatever that'll be dealt with later she has to get to work! but!! at the magazine her boss is like hey prue some guy came by here earlier asking for you you know [description of mitch], [description of mitch], [description of mitch], you know him? and prue's like ummmmmmmm. no. ?. and her boss is like ?? i don't really care. photography! but now she knows that while she's been digging up on him, he's been doing the same with her. so that night at p3 prue's like okay i've got to come clean with u guys remember micah and phoebe's like oh yeah that hottie from the past who was like . spiritually in love with you? and prue's like yeah i found him. and piper and phoebe are like 🤗🥳😃 and prue's like. and he's a darklighter. and piper and phoebe are like 😳😶👎 and prue's like yeah remember when like we were trying to save leo and you asked me if i saw something? well i did. it was him and and this kid and i think he was trying to save him and phoebe's like wait you think? and prue's like well i mean yeah phoebe like. it was like the same thing when he saved us in the 1700s. and phoebe's like well no because we're good witches and he saved us you saved a darklighter? and prue's like he's more than that phoebe and phoebe's like but how can you know (flash forward to her sparing cole in about three episodes and being like hmm 😐 those words are gonna bite me in the ass).

the point is they're hashing it out phoebe's devil on the left and piper's trying to be angel on the right But he is in the clan that kidnapped her husband so like..... but prue is explaining the good person papers she found on his desk, the fact that she went to college with him, she's like. she thinks he's only half darklighter and he's helping others like him and piper phoebe are like ....................do you just want him to be half darklighter and helping others like him but prue's not even listening but look who's coming down the stairs!! so she beelines over and phoebe's about to follow but piper holds her back bc wait let this play out they'll watch from afar and piper will freeze the room if she has to.

and something something something blah blah blah they tal and there's this tense like. what now. because like. What Now? you're evil and i'm a charmed one but this invisible string pulling me here whether i want it too or not. and i think prue kinda shifts back into her earlier seasons self where. it's family above all else. like i need you to steer clear because if i see you again i will vanquish you. and mitch knows she's bluffing. because he know that if he tried, even if he really wanted to, he couldn't harm a hair on her head. and it's clear she's like. suffering from the same ailment so to speak.

something something something maybe they have a couple quick brushes but not actual meetings And Then we get another time travel/past life episode where!! as it turns out. prue and mitch r soulmates cursed by a spurned lover to always be on opposite sides. meanwhile we just got cole demon reveal/cole's still alive reveal so prue's like hi mitch you're. evil. evil-adjacent. what do you know about belthazor/cole turner. and mitch does his due diligence and like. the stuff on belthazor is appalling. genuinely terrifying. but then there's some stuff on cole turner that's like kinda okay. this is were mitch does is big tragic backstory reveal, kids born of dark magic falling in with the wrong crowd blah blah blah and this kind of. supports our theory moving forward it's not really a theory. our endgame moving forward of healthy!cole. also prue and mitch still have not gotten together through all of this in spite of the cosmic pull and the past evidence of like. soulmatism. because they're both a bit too pragmatic they both think it's kind of a lost cause. blah blah blah pining we give prue a mini love interest here someone to keep her mind off mitch and we do make him good. kind, attentive, caring, smart, hot, but like. it's so painfully obvious she's not all in. so he calls it off. heart to heart with piper because piper's like hi you're in love. and prue's like yeah with a doomed relationship i think i'd rather not and piper's like hello you're talking to the queen of doomed relationships you wanna know the secret? and prue's like yes :( and piper's like just go for it. the time you have together is. it's better than anything else you'll ever have. there's gonna be heartbreak, but hell there's always gonna be heartbreak in the halliwell family. wouldn't you rather spend your time with someone you love?

something something something leo/mitch/cole buddy episode b plot. leo/mitch/cole/DARRYL buddy episode b plot. :D. prue and micah get their big first kiss in a very tv show build up way my heart is saying new years and all the fireworks go off around them.

we're bringing in paige because i love her she's first introduced by some seer oracle whatever as your other sister and the girls are like respectfully, bullshit. but micah's like hey......... she's half whitelighter. because he can sense those kind of things, being a darklighter. and piper and leo are like patty's affair....................... and all the pieces are falling together and in this one. paige either gets a witch love interest a cupid love interest or we keep henry because fwiw i do really like mortal love interests. if we do do the witch love interest it won't be richard i love him to piece i do but he sucks <3. source!cole time.

oh we introduce paige thru mitch trying to help one of his kids and that lands him at social services.

source!cole. idk what happens here but like. using our nifty-difty tool box the squad has been assembling over the years helping all of these wayward souls born from evil, things mostly work out fine. source's heir is born, a girl, but since prue isn't dead her name is either colette or victoria. depends if cole died or not.

prue moved out at some point and lives in a hella nice studio apartment with mitch they r both artists (who the fuck is paying for that?) phoebe moves back in the manor post-source fiasco paige moves in the manor but spends a lot of time with her sister prue and soon to be brother in law (??) mitch. (paige is like fr dude when are you gonna pop the question and mitch is like woahhhh pump the break because paige is new here and when she saw them she's like oh. married couple. but then they're not married. engaged? nope. no just loosely dating? okay. lame. bad idea. but as it turns out one of them always dies so they're just trying to avoid that for as long as possible) but paige spends a lot of time at pritch's place because not only is it The Art Zone it's also the rehabilitating kids zone, of which paige is a grand help. prue jokes about how much paige reminds her of phoebe as a kid, and since we're already muddying the timeline, we're having paige enter and solid advice columnist, married phoebe and paige is like haha what the fuck??

source's heir born twice blessed born magic school located under the charmed & co squad becomes integrated with children born of all magic and like our season 8 wrap up saccharine finale is like how magic has reached a new era of peace n understanding. <3

[headoverhiddles]

Little Pistol - Ron Tully x Reader [Smut]

Synopsis: You travel to Stockton for a conjugal visit with Tully. The two of you have been apart too long for formalities. 

Notes: This was a request! As per my usual disclaimer, I don’t condone Tully’s ideology, this is his character, minus that! 

Gif used belongs to stilinski-ortiz-dolan!

Tully had been on the boards for a visit for six months. There are a lot of things he can bribe the guards for, like rooms to talk business with his guys, private lines on the phone, and a general prison-wide acceptance that no one would fuck with him unless it really was the law. What he can't bribe anyone for though, is a wait bypass for a conjugal visit. His name is on the list like the rest of them, and even though he'd pay a pretty penny to see you monthly, it's just not something he can do.

Now, having waited quite a bit of time, Tully's "good behavior" had paid off. The next day was his visit with you, which would last a day.

"You seem happy," the guy behind him in the communal washrooms mentions. No one talks to Tully much, for fear of what he’d do to them if he wasn’t in the mood, but this guy was the prison idiot, and Tully didn’t mind his chatter now and then. The taller man is washing his face in the sink, shaving his growing facial hair a little and trimming his hair.

"I am."

The guy smirks. "Can I ask why?"

Tully drags the plastic razor down his chin, inspecting himself. He didn't want to shave it too close, since you always said you liked his stubble... liked the way it felt between your thighs. Tully's small smile grows a little, and he dunks the razor in water. It had cost him a couple fifties to be allowed to clean up a little with actually helpful instruments of hygiene this morning. 

"I'm seeing my girl tonight." He gestures to his things, and the guy goes over, finding a polaroid of you in a black bra and panties, posing on top of Tully's bike.

"Shit. With a body like that, what makes you think she's still your girl?" the guy chuckles. Tully doesn’t dignify the man with a look. 

"It’s not like that." He takes some scissors from his sleeve, trimming his black hair close to his temple. "I know she'd die for me. And I'd die protecting her." The guy's still staring at the polaroid of you when Tully's done his haircut. "Alright, put it the fuck down, or I'mma have you stabbed."

He takes the photo, and feels himself stir already. His eyes run over your perfect tits, down your legs, to the thin black fabric covering that pussy he knows so well. He sets the photo that he’d touched himself to many times by the mirror, and checks his reflection. He'd never really considered himself to be handsome, which is why he became powerful instead, but you seemed to think he was the sexiest man alive. He didn't mind that. 

"Lucky you get a visit," the guy mutters. 

"I almost didn't. See, you're not supposed to get visits from anyone outside of family. Technically, I haven't married (y/n) yet. But, I pulled some strings. 'S what I do."

"Mm. I don't have any girlfriends or anything. Last visit I got was my mom, back in '07. Got banned til the end of my sentence cause my mom tried to plant weed on me. Guess she likes the quiet around the house."

Tully, not really listening, grunts in response. He then does up another button on his blue shirt, and looks down at the picture again, really studying it. He remembers the way you screamed his name while he fucked you over that motorcycle. He takes it as a personal challenge to raise even more hell tonight. 

 ---

You sit in the diner in Stockton, California. You'd traveled up here with a few of the guys who work for your boyfriend, since they had to do some work anyway, smooth some shit out before Tully caught wind of it and had their heads. They knew to take good care of you, or they'd pay for that with their life too. You yourself are about to go see Tully, and you can't wait. It had been so long.

Dressed in a little white crop top, a short black skirt, and sunglasses, you're feeling your best. You know ever since he got the news he’d been scheduled for a conjugal, Tully's probably had tonight in mind day and night, and what you wear won't alter the fact that he's going to give you the best pounding you've ever taken. But you want to wow him too. He hasn't seen you for the better part of a year, after all, and to get a real good reaction out of him, you need the element of surprise. 

"Want another milkshake, hun?" a kind, older waitress with smile lines and grey hair asks. You smile back.

"Love one."

You tap your nails on the table, watching out the window at the people walking by in the heat. You're used to living in Southern California, since Tully's the shot caller and doesn't go out on rides, but he conducts business up here in the northern part of the state sometimes. Liaisons, stuff like that. The county jail he does his time in is unfortunately pretty far away from the reclusive home you two share in San Diego. Still, you keep busy and make do while he's gone, keep an eye on how things are run in his absence. It's what you have to do to stay sane.

"Don’t mean to bother you. But can I ask what your tattoos mean?" the waitress asks, sliding you another of your favorite flavor of milkshake.

You glance down at your knuckles, which have T U L L Y tattooed across them, a letter per finger.

"My man," you say wistfully.

"I'm sorry," she says quickly, noticing the sorrow in your eyes, "Did he pass away?"

"No," you smile, "He's just away right now, doing time."

"Shit, no kidding. My husband's been in for two years now, serving another five. Kills me every day."

You move your stuff to one side of the table. "Sit, if you want." The lady checks her watch, and sits across from you. "I hate it," you confess, "It's the worst. It's the life I chose to get involved in, but it's rough when it actually comes back to hit you at night, when you don't have their arms around you."

"I know just what you mean, hun. Probably shouldn't be saying this, but... my husband is an arms dealer, works in the gun trade. Under the table deals out in San Pedro, all that." 

"My Tully's a shot caller," you say, not elaborating any further on his gang or who he's affiliated with. This lady seems nice, but you're never sure who could be an undercover cop, or the wife of a rival gang member. 

"You're visiting him, then?" she asks.

"Yes. Tonight."

"Baby, you have the time of your life tonight, you hear me?"

"Oh, you know I will," you giggle, "When he hasn't seen me for a while, things get very physical."

"I can imagine." She winks. 

You hand her a Polaroid you've got in your leather jacket pocket; Tully's got the other one from this day. In this one, you're dressed in black panties and a black bra, and you're sitting on Tully's lap, straddling him. The photo shows the backside of you, showing off your backside, and Tully has got his face looking over your shoulder, glaring darkly as his fingers sink into the flesh of your ass. It's a photo of the two of you that never fails to turn you on, especially recalling how hard he fucked you over his bike after this picture was taken.  

You sigh, twirling the straw. "He's my ride or die... and I'm his forever girl."

--

Finally, it comes time for the guards to collect Tully. They know exactly what he's going to do to you, as they're the ones who have had to listen to Tully groan your name every morning and night whenever he gets the urge.

“This has been a long time coming,” one guard sighs. 

"Just don't make too much noise," the other guard pleads. Tully glances at him.

"I don't remember payin’ you off to tell me how to fuck my girlfriend."

The guy concedes, keeping his mouth shut. They let him into the room, far away from the others and the best money can buy (he at least had some sphere of influence in this department), and they go to close the door.

"She'll be in in a minute." Tully undoes the top three buttons of his shirt, and waits.

 ---

You get a pat down in the lobby of the conjugal area. They take out a gold switchblade and a couple of metal rings, leaving your pockets empty. Then you're ready to go in. The guards let you in, and you see Tully sitting on the bed. He looks up.

"Hey, baby."

"Hey," you grin. One of the guards steps in.

"24 hours, Tully. Make it count." He shuts the door after himself, locking it, and you look around. It's almost like a normal home-- there's a mini fridge, a bed, a TV, and a living area.

"I missed you," you say, and walk over to him. He accepts you into his lap, and you cup his face, pressing your lips to his.

"So did I," he murmurs against your lips. "You doing good? Looking after the boys, making sure they're doing their jobs?" You nod. "Good. They're a bunch of jokes when I'm not around."

"Well, now that nobody's around... am I correct in thinking you wouldn’t say no to a strip tease?" you ask, snapping the strap on your bra underneath your shirt.

"Yeah," he nods, sitting back on the couch. You slowly take your shirt up over your head, watching as his eyes fall down to admire your breasts.

"You like that?" you murmur, bunching your hair up a little as you slide your fingers downward. 

"Thought of me while you did that the last few months?"

"Nuh uh," you grin, "Trying to trick me? I know I can only cum when you tell me to."

"That's right," he smiles fondly, watching your hips swing back and forth. You finally rub the finger between your legs, and get on the edge of the bed, pulling your panties to one side. You hear the low hitch in Tully's breath, and you sink your fingers into yourself, loving the feel but craving the stretch of your boyfriend.

You dip your fingers in again, lips parting as you moan. "Gonna join in?"

"Right now I'm just going to sit here and watch, babygirl. Seeing you do it in person is a nice change. Your moans are fuckin’ beautiful, but a visual always helps." He gives one of his dark smirks, and sits there, watching. You feel the heat rise even more as his eyes travel, your skin heating up just knowing he’s appreciating the show you’re putting on. You let his name escape your lips with a sigh. "My beautiful little slutty girl," he murmurs, and unzips his pants as you watch in feverish arousal. He takes his cock out, and starts to pump it slowly in his hand while you watch, shoving your fingers deeper. Your eyes are trained on his fist, where it's jerking up and down. He lifts his chin.

"Look at that," he starts to stroke a little faster, "All you, baby." You flip over, not reaching enough depth in this position, and sit on your fingers, letting them disappear deeper into your pussy. Tully sits forward, intense gaze trained, unblinking, on where your hips are slamming down. "You're so fucking hot," he whispers.

"Yeah?" You ride your fingers harder, "You like that? You like that, baby?"

"S good, sweetheart." He moans, squeezing himself. "Fuckin' tease."

"Get over here and pound me then," you say, licking your lips obscenely. He finally stands, and grabs you by your hair. You groan as he drags you over to the bed, where he shoves you down onto the soon-to-be-destroyed mattress.

"You wanna feel daddy's cock?" he asks, and you crawl forward, stroking up the length of it. He lets you for a moment, reveling in the feeling of your hands on his dick again, but eventually urges you off again. He crawls onto the bed between your legs, and pushes your thighs far apart, exposing your soaking pussy to him.

"This is all mine," he whispers, "You know this cunt belongs to me." He hums. “I own a lotta things, and this here’s one of em.” 

"Yeah, daddy," you breathe, and he seals his lips over you, upper lip teasing your clit while his tongue dips in and out of you. Fuck. One thing among many that can be said about Tully, is he knows how to eat you out spectacularly.

"That's good, that's good," you start chanting, "Please... sir, please..."

He groans, and the vibrations make your clit throb. "Imma take good care of you, babygirl, don't you worry," he assures softly, eyes glowering up from between your legs, "Take good care of my girl. She deserves it. Deserves gettin’ fucked good too. Don't you?" 

"Yeah..." you whine. 

"You've been a real good girl, waiting for daddy. Only cumming when he's talking to you on the phone. You know the rules." 

"Daddy," you gasp, feeling your orgasm build, "I-I have a confession." Your voice sounds so small, and your tone is airy in your breathless state.

"Mmm? Tell me, sweetheart."

"You won't be mad?"

"That depends." He strokes soothing hands up your calves, and you shudder, flashes of his punishments running through your head.

"I was... in the jacuzzi with the girls the other night. I was thinking of you, and... thinking of what you'd do if you were there. I was wearing your favorite bikini. The one that's translucent, so you can see my nipples?" 

"Mmhmmm."

"And..." You wiggle your hips, chasing your release at the mercy of Tully's tongue. "And I... well, the jets just felt so good, I... mmm!"

"Tell daddy," he encourages with a growl.

"I let the pressure make me cum in my swimsuit, imagining it was you." You let out a moan as his tongue licks a stripe up from the base to the tip of your clit.

He hums. "It's okay. It’s okay. I understand. Some things just can't be helped. I know you tried." You exhale, uncomfortable waves of arousal washing over you. You wish he'd fill you up. "I'm proud of you, you know."  You look down at him again. "You're so brave. I'm in here, you're all alone. I wish I could be there for you, remind you every day why you'll always be mine."

"You are there for me. When you can be. You bribe the guards with your hard earned cash to get ten minutes on a call with me, to check in, make sure I’m alright. You're in here getting shit done, and I’m running things at home. It’s how we do it."

"Mmyeah. But I'd much rather be back in the game than calling the shots in here. In a perfect world, nothing would stand between us. Two of us against the world."

"Together as one," you smile, arching your back.

Tully shares your smile, as he presses soft kisses all the way up to just barely graze your cunt again. "Against all others." He nips at the dip in your hipbone. "Mm. Babygirl, when I'm out, I'mma do this... every night. That’s a motherfuckin’ promise."

You grind your hips toward his mouth, and he holds them down firmly against the mattress as he launches a proper maneuver on your clit, making you cum in seconds. You ride it out, hands fisting in his hair. He crawls over top of you, staring down at you like he's about to devour you. You don’t doubt that he is. 

You part your legs even more, and he picks them up, throwing them over his shoulder and holding your hips up. He guides himself to line up with your dripping cunt, and pushes into you easily with a low grunt, your first orgasm having slicked you up perfectly. Each following thrust is harder than the previous; Tully isn't wasting time. Already sensitive, you feel the second orgasm building. Desperate, you run your hand through your hair, getting it out of your face.

"I need it, fuck Tully, I need your cock!" you practically shout, and his grunts increase in volume as he dedicates all his energy to making sure he uses you properly. "Fill me up with your cum, daddy?" you ask innocently.

"Oh, you know I will."

"Fucking do it then."

"You’re a mouthy one, sweetheart," he moans, and he throws his head back, biting his bottom lip hard. “You test me.”

“You love it.” 

“I tolerate it... cuz I love you so fucking much... ohhff, shit...” 

“Look at me when you cum?” you gasp breathlessly. He obliges, jet black hair hanging and jolting with his tattooed body as he puts all his weight behind fucking you as deep as he can. He looks you in your eyes as your own eyelids droop in desire, and he gasps your name as you both reach your peaks together. 

You hum softly in contentment, and climb on top of his larger frame, laying on his chest. He puts an arm over you, body rising and falling with labored breath.

"What do you want to do now?" you tease. He looks down at you, brushing your matted hair aside affectionately. 

"We still got 23 hours left. You do the math."  

[tabloidtoc]

OK, March 8

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

Cover: Bruce Springsteen

Page 1: Big Pic -- as part of Coach's latest campaign Jennifer Lopez posed with a supersized pink version of their new Pillow Tabby purse

Page 2: Contents

Page 3: Contents

Page 4: Chris Harrison gone for good? The Bachelor host's future with the show remains uncertain after his controversial interview with Rachel Lindsay

Page 6: Since the start of his career Justin Timberlake has endured his fair share of scandals but after welcoming his second son with wife Jessica Biel over the summer and celebrating his 40th birthday, he is confessing that he feels immense guilt about the past and he won't be making the same mistakes in the future -- Justin's done some soul-searching and accepts that he's wronged a lot of people over the years with his own terrible mistakes and he says he's still a work in progress, but step one has been to stand up and admit he's hurt too many women -- in addition to a boozy night out with his Palmer costar Alisha Wainwright in 2019 and his part in the now-infamous Nipplegate incident with Janet Jackson at the 2004 Super Bowl, Justin recently came under fire again due to the documentary Framing Britney Spears which showed him exploiting his breakup from Britney Spears to help his solo career -- Justin's learned from his mistakes and has a lot more sensitivity about the impact of his actions on other people and that's the big difference between the Justin of today and his old, immature self and that self-awareness was evident in an emotional statement that he posted apologizing to both Britney and Janet for the errors in his ways -- his words drew praise from his wife Jessica who says he's come a long way as a husband, a father and more importantly, a human being

Page 7: Wendy Williams is on the prowl for a new man and he's got to be husband material and she is ready for a serious commitment -- Wendy's been staying up until all hours of the night checking out guys online and on exclusive dating apps and she wants someone age-appropriate, fun, kind, independent and of course has no history of cheating -- she's feeling very optimistic and even buying new perfume and clothes and jewelry for all the dates she hopes to have once lockdown lifts

* Texas native Matthew McConaughey is seriously considering throwing his hat in the ring to become the state's next governor -- he's been putting out feelers to see if he's got sufficient support and if enough donors are willing to write checks, he'd mount an aggressive run in 2022 -- he's already gotten the thumbs-up from his wife Camila Alves and their three kids -- at this point, he needs to see an actual path to winning because he's not interested in just making a protest statement; don't be fooled by his aw-shucks attitude, Matthew means business

* Now that Keeping Up With the Kardashians is coming to an end, the hunt is on for a new family to replace the clan and one reality pro is poised to nab the prize: Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Lisa Rinna -- there's already been talk about Lisa picking up the torch and her family is camera ready, consisting of husband Harry Hamlin, and their daughters Delilah Hamlin who's dating Love Island's Eyal Booker and Amelia Hamlin who's dating Scott Disick

Page 8: Things keep going from bad to worse for Armie Hammer -- he was forced to drop out of his upcoming movie Shotgun Wedding with Jennifer Lopez after direct messages he allegedly sent to women in which he described himself as a cannibal and detailed disturbing sexual fantasies were leaked online -- Armie was also fired by his talent agency WME and now the disgraced star may get cut from his new film Next Goal Wins which has already been shot -- he's radioactive and everybody knows it and his completed but unreleased work is getting a second look as studios want to do damage control, and that includes another of his finished projects Death on the Nile where his part could end up on the cutting room floor -- he's a pariah now and it's hard to see how he's ever going to come back from this

* Jennifer Aniston has always had a spiritual side but these days she is taking things to a whole new plane -- Jen has surrounded herself with psychics and has been doing Goddess Circles with the same group of close friends for 30 years, but now she's taking courses to learn to heal herself and be her own guru -- BFF Courteney Cox has been a big influence and Jen's learned a lot from Courteney, who's had a long-term interest in mediums, astrologists and horoscopes, and she's trying to fuse it all together into her own brand of spirituality -- Jen's had a lot of time alone, which has only deepened her questions about the universe and how she can make the most of her life and she's determined to find the answers

* Princess Eugenie is over the moon after welcoming her first child, a baby boy with businessman husband Jack Brooksbank but now the new mom is torn about taking time out from her royal responsibilities -- Eugenie would love to take a long break from everything and focus solely on raising her son however she knows deep down how much she's needed, especially since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are showing no signs of coming back -- as she weighs her options, Eugenie is looking to her multi-tasking cousin-in-law Duchess Kate for some inspiration because she's impressed by how Kate is able to juggle her official duties while raising three young kids

Page 10: Red Hot on the Red Carpet -- stars captivate in enchanting puff-sleeve numbers -- Bel Powley, Aubrey Plaza, Lupita Nyong'o

Page 11: Kaitlyn Dever, Lucy Boynton, Margaret Qualley

Page 12: Who Wore It Better? Hilary Swank vs. Madeline Brewer, Bella Hadid vs. Devon Windsor, Alison Brie vs. Dua Lipa

Page 14: News in Photos -- Tayshia Adams and her fiance Zac Clark felt on top of the world when the visited the Empire State Building together

Page 15: Chrissy Teigen and John Legend were inseparable while out and about in Beverly Hills, Bill Murray and NFL player Larry Fitzgerald Jr. were among the many stars to shoot their shot during a charity golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Rita Ora performing on an episode of the U.K. show Dancing on Ice in Hertfordshire

Page 16: At the Australian Open Serena Williams came out on top during the fourth round, Bachelorette alum Jordan Kimball and fiancee Christina Creedon couldn't wait until they got home to enjoy Candy Pop popcorn's new Peanut M&M's flavor from Sam's Club in Houston, Heidi Montag spent the day hitting the slopes at Lake Tahoe

Page 17: Hailey Bieber starring in Beyonce's new Ivy Park x Adidas collection

Page 18: Brody Jenner had a blast snow tubing while shooting the second season of The Hills: New Beginnings in Lake Tahoe, Avril Lavigne stepped out with her new boyfriend Mod Sun for a romantic dinner in West Hollywood

Page 20: Justin Bieber looked like he'd just hopped out of bed in a sweater and checkered fleece pants in L.A., Robin Thicke in front of a piano in L.A.

Page 21: Steve Martin doubled up on face coverings on the set of his new project Only Murders in the Building in NYC, Michelle Obama on her new show Waffles + Michi, Cardi B spoiled herself with high-end goods during a day of shopping on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills

Page 22: Brooke Burke romancing with boyfriend Scott Rigsby on Valentine's Day, Lucy Hale accessorized her look with her newest rescue pup Ethel in L.A., Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon masked up for a snowy outing in NYC

Page 24: For Galentine's Day Vanessa Lachey snacked on macarons and sipped on wine in L.A.

Page 25: Bella Hadid alongside models Mayowa Nicholas and Heejung Park in Michael Kors' new campaign for the Spring 2021 collection, Hugh Grant stepped out for some fresh hair in London, Sofia Vergara kept it casual during a visit to a pal's house in Beverly Hills

Page 26: Inside My Home -- Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelley's Rocky Mountain retreat

Page 28: Marriage isn't easy especially during a global health crisis but for Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard divorce is not an option -- Kristen said she and Dax at the start of the pandemic were at a point in their marriage where they definitely needed a little therapy brush-up and every couple of years they're being very antagonistic towards each other and they don't want that so they go back to therapy and figure out how they can serve their team goal better and it's been incredibly helpful and even in the toughest times they always have each other's back and they're committed to being each other's biggest support systems -- while their relationship may never be perfect, they're happy and love each other and that's what matters most

Page 29: Now that Tom Brady has won his seventh Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he has set his sights on the next prize: baby No. 3 with wife Gisele Bundchen -- they've been telling friends they hope to make an announcement by summer at the latest and Tom and Gisele have been super loved-up since leaving Boston and moving to Florida after the QB signed on with the Bucs and the change of scenery has worked wonders on their love life and put them in baby-making mode -- the duo, who recently bought a $17 million spread on Miami's exclusive Indian Creek Island, plan to build a luxury mansion there complete with a nursery and they hope to be all settled in when the new arrival comes -- they've never felt healthier or been happier

* Aaron Rodgers looked positively giddy when he revealed he had a fiancee, Shailene Woodley at the NFL Honors, but the QB is dreading the next step: bringing her home to meet his parents because it's no secret that Aaron's been estranged from them for years and the last thing he wants is for Shailene to get caught up in the drama -- Shailene wants Aaron to clear the air with his folks, but he's not ready to do that and he doesn't want to bring Shailene into a toxic environment

* It's only been two years since Miranda Lambert married Brendan McLoughlin but she's already itching for some alone time -- she's headed to Texas in April for her first concert in over a year and she's told Brendan he shouldn't come because it will be all work and no play but she really wants to get away from him for a while and after the pair's recent road trip together, Miranda is desperate for some space -- sometimes Miranda feels like she's living with a baby because Brendan whines and complains about life on her farm

Page 30: Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker's romance is heating up fast, so much so that she's practically handed over the keys to her Calabasas estate and she loves having Travis sleep over and sometimes he'll stay the whole weekend -- he gets along famously with her children and Travis has been a friend of the family for years, so the kids have pretty much known him their whole lives and they'll do fun stuff together like hiking or playing video games and Travis loves making breakfast and showing off his pancake-flipping skills --Travis is spending so much time at Kourt's place that he's moved a bunch of his stuff in to make it easier for his kids Landon and Alabama with ex Shanna Moakler to visit him there -- everyone's convinced they'll be living together full-time before you know it

* Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were met with a flurry of well-wishes after they revealed they're expecting baby No. 2 -- the couple decided to wait until Meghan was safely into her second trimester to share the news and they only told a handful of family members before the public and they wanted to cherish this secret for as long as they could -- Harry and Meghan have been nesting at their Montecito mansion and have been busy prepping the nursery and making sure it's eco-friendly with energy-efficient lighting and they're keeping it as plastic-free as possible

* Love Bites -- Clare Crawley and Dale Moss reunited, Kit Harington and Rose Leslie welcomed a baby boy, Paris Hilton and Carter Reum engaged

Page 32: Cover Story -- Bruce Springsteen's private world -- he's an open book in his songs, but here's Bruce's untold story of his struggles with depression and regret -- he still has dark thoughts from time to time but therapy and medication have helped a great deal

Page 36: Stars' Cheating Confessions -- sometimes all you can do is beg for forgiveness; these celebs have all had to plead their case -- Donny and Debbie Osmond, Jude Law and Sienna Miller, Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith

Page 37: David Letterman and Regina Lasko, Dean McDermott and Tori Spelling, Kevin Hart and Eniko Parrish

Page 40: Interview -- Elizabeth Olsen -- the Avengers star dishes about getting witchy again for Marvel's mind-bending WandaVision

Page 42: Golden Girls -- how these Golden Globes nominees get their award-worthy figures -- Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicole Kidman, Lily Collins

Page 43: Kaley Cuoco, Michelle Pfeiffer, Amanda Seyfried

Page 44: Aadila Dosani's vegan recipe for Chickpea and Potato Soup

Page 46: Style Week -- Ashley Graham is the new global brand ambassador for self-tanning label St. Tropez

Page 48: What's Hot Right Now -- create a naturally gorgeous, flushed look with fashion designer Jason Wu's namesake makeup collection

Page 49: Haute hippie retro jeans -- take a trip back to the '70s with Revice Denim's ultra-cool capsule, Los Angeles Lovers -- Delilah Belle Hamlin

Page 50: Flower Power -- floral prints are spring's hottest trend -- rock the pretty blooms for a fresh, boho-chic look -- Kaia Gerber

Page 52: DIY Blowout -- these foolproof finds deliver impeccable hair right at home -- Drew Barrymore

Page 54: Entertainment

Page 55: Q&A with Mary Fitzgerald of Selling Sunset

Page 58: Buzz -- after months of playing it coy, these celebs confirmed their relationships on Valentine's Day -- Scott Disick and Amelia Hamlin

Page 59: Vanessa Hudgens and Cole Tucker, Sharna Burgess and Brian Austin Green, Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker, Kendall Jenner and Devin Booker

Page 60: Sound Bites -- Halsey on not conforming to conventional beauty standards, Anderson Cooper on coparenting with his ex, Ashley Graham on the importance of self-care, Kate Winslet on feeling like a fish out of water in Hollywood

Page 61: Tom Holland on the plot of the next Spider-Man flick, Mila Kunis joking about keeping her family entertained during quarantine, Drew Barrymore when asked if she's ever been skinny-dipping, Madelaine Petsch on playing a teen in Clare at 16

Page 62: Horoscope -- Pisces Lupita Nyong'o turned 38 on March 1

Page 64: By the Numbers -- Riz Ahmed

[timelords-angel-is-sherlocked]

Hot Cocoa (ladynoir) - Day 2

It was a particularly bad day for Adrien. He had to miss half of school for a stupid solo photoshoot he didn’t want to do. The photographer kept scolding for not paying complete attention. Despite how hard Adrien tried to pose and look stupidly perfect, but his mind kept drifting to the most recent akuma attack. His classmates were so close to being gravely injured by chunks of the ceiling but thankfully Ladybug swooped in just at the right moment to lasso them out of harm’s way.

“Adrien, pay attention. Just two more wardrobe changes and you will be set free,” he scolded.

“Yes, of course. My apologies, I will concentrate harder.” This seemed to please the man.

An hour and a half later, Adrien sat at the dinner table. His food was starting to get cold, but his father promised he would join him tonight. So Adrien waited. And waited.

“Your father will not be joining you tonight,” Nathalie confirmed once a solid 20 minutes have passed.

“Then I will be retiring to my room. Please do not disturb me, I have much school work to catch up on since I wasn’t there.” Adrien kept his face impassive to mirror Nathalie and stormed up the stairs to his room. He knew it wasn’t her fault, but it was starting to eat away at Adrien. When was the last time he had an actual conversation with his father? A month?

My Lady <3: My ladybug senses are tingling. How is my kitty fairing?

Adrien’s scowl disappeared off his face when he read the message. Not too long ago, he was able to convince Ladybug to download this messaging app. No numbers required. She finally agreed, saying it would be useful to inform each other of patrol times. It was hardly ever about patrols.

My Kitty ^-^: He feels as if he has been kicked to the curb and left out in the cold :(

They agreed they would keep their civilian lives as private as possible, but even those lines started to blur regularly. He didn’t mind it of course, but he could tell that it made Ladybug anxious any time anything too specific was said.

My Lady <3: Regular spot in let’s say… half-hour?

Do I need to feed my poor stray kitten? ;)

My Kitty ^-^: Half-hour is purrfect.

He is full with the amount of love you have given him, but some food will be appreciated, pawlease

My Lady <3: See you soon, Chat <3

Adrien has pretty much forgotten all about his horrible mood.

“Ladybug?” She turned around, eyebrows furrowed. Alya and Nino were sitting at a table happily chatting away until they saw Ladybug of all people walk in.

“Alya, Nino?” She looked around in confusion then looked down at herself. In the midst of trying to get everything ready for her impromptu outing with Chat, she forgot to detransform.

“You going out with Chat?” She gestured to the picnic basket. She had her phone ready but decided not to film.

“Yes. And I completely forgot to change back. I was going to buy us dinner real quick. I don’t even have pockets in this thing for my money! And if I change and come back, I’m pretty sure you’ll figure out who I am. Ugh,” she groaned at her situation.

“This sounds like something my friend, Marinette would totally do.” The three laughed at the joke and Ladybugs face burned red. “I’ve got you. Superhero to superhero,” she whispered.

“Thanks a bunch, Alya.” The three sat at a table and everyone kept glancing over at the red and black hero. They talked about the American fast-food restaurant they were in - McDonald’s - until the order was ready. About a dozen pictures and autographs later, Ladybug was ready to head out.

“Girl, you know I love you, but can I have a picture for the blog?” Marinette knew Alya was gonna at some point and gladly took the selfie with just her at first, then Nino, then the three of them at the same time.

“Little kitty on the roof, all alone without his lady…”

“Chat?”

“My Lady!” He hugs her and spins her in the air before pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “I was started to wonder if you had forgotten about me.”

“How could I forget you, mon amour?” She pulls him into a warm kiss and he gladly melts into it. Once her hands found his hair, he started to purr.

“What’s in the basket?” Although he loved kissing his lady, he could smell something delicious in the basket.

“Many things.”

They were on top of the Arc de Triomphe, somewhat hidden from the citizens of Paris. Ladybug reached into the picnic basket and pulled out a couple of blankets. One to lay on and two for cuddling. She then pulled out the McDonald’s and Chat’s face glowed at that.

“I forgot to transform before I went in. Alya was there thankfully and help me out. I took a bunch of pictures and autographs before I managed to escape,” she giggled at her partner’s face which was full of awe.

“You did that all for me? I’m furrtunate that you were able to leave in one piece. There were no boys getting close to you right? Because if they were-” Ladybug cut him off with another kiss.

“Oh, my smitten kitten.” She left a chaste kiss on his nose and his tail swept behind him playfully. He loved it when she called him her kitten. He also loved it when they got unhealthy food because he knew it would drive his father absolutely mad if he knew.

They ate while they were comfortably snuggled up next to each other. They did their best to meet up at least once a week for a little date like this one, but their schedules have been all over the place with school projects.

“Was it your father?” She asks once the food is finished. She reaches over and pulls out two thermoses filled with hot cocoa and hands one to her partner.

“Yeah,” he admits. “I get he’s super busy with the company and junk, but I’m his son. Ever since my mom died, I’ve only seen a ghost of him. I don’t know my father anymore. The last time we spoke face to face must have been last month.” Chat cuddled closer to his lady to feel her warmth and presence.

“I’m sorry Chaton.” She once again started playing with his hair and the little spot by his ears that she knew he liked. “I love you as much as you love hot cocoa.” He smiled at that.

“How do you make it taste so… homey?” He took another long, wistful drink. “You must share the recipe with me Bugaboo.” He tilts his head up to look at her and they share a loving look.

“It’s a family recipe. Once we’re married, you can ask my mom for it.” Realizing what she had said, Ladybug ducked her head in embarrassment. Both of their faces were flushed. They always tip-toed around their identities and the future, but Chat knew his lady wanted to marry him. This was when they were their most real, after all.

“Does your family take in strays?” He smirked at her and she rolled her eyes playfully.

“No one knows I’m Ladybug. Not you or my mom or my dad or my best friend. How can I show off my handsome boyfriend when I don’t even know who he is?” She took hold of his hand and ran her thumb over his ring. A shiver ran down his spine. They were almost always adamant about avoiding touching each other’s miraculous. It was personal in a weird way. “My parents would take it in stride, I think. They would understand why I didn’t tell them.”

“Just as I understand,” he mumbled quietly.

“Maybe I don’t understand anymore. I want to be there for you, Chaton. Always. I feel like we’re sneaking around. I get that I’m the one who put the rule in place but I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to show my parents what an amazing guy you are and bake cookies with you and walk home with you after school. What if we go to the same school? I-”

“If we reveal ourselves, right now,” Chat held her gaze steadily and looked serious for once, “will your mom pawssibly make me hot cocoa every day?” She laughed at him and shook her head fondly.

“Tikki?” She spoke to her kwami.

“Plagg?” Chat emulated.

“Spots off.”

“Claws in.”

For five heartbeats they both remained unlooking. This was it. They were going to reveal themselves. Adrien looked first.

“Marinette?” He was a bit surprised when he saw that freckled face up close but soon was over the moon with join. “Marinette!” He stood up and pulled her up with him.

“Adrien? No way!” They embraced each other tightly. They couldn’t believe their luck! For some reason, the kiss that followed was the most intimate one they’ve shared. 

After one look at Adrien’s pleading face from right above her daughter’s, Sabine caved in and made him her secret hot cocoa. She didn’t question how he knew it tasted different than the one served in the bakery, because in a way she already knew. She didn’t even flinch at how easily they kissed and fit into each other because she had seen the same loving looks on Ladybug and Chat Noir. Sabine walked over to her husband who took her in an enthusiastic hug and kissed her passionately. She was happy for her daughter and Adrien. And when they were ready, they could tell her how they started dating. But Sabine already knew, so she didn’t ask for details.

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: What if Abraham Refused to Sacrifice Isaac?

I’ve been watching Xena: Warrior Princess with my boyfriend, and enjoying it a lot. Xena and Gabrielle’s adventures mostly focus on Greek mythology, taking new spins on the stories of Hercules, King Sisyphus, and Helen of Troy. However, on a few occasions, I’ve seen my own people’s mythos played with.

In one episode, it’s ultimately revealed that the mysterious chest Xena’s been chasing contains within it a stone tablet with the phrases “thou shalt not steal” and “thou shalt not covet” on it – though the people Xena returns the chest to are never said to be Jewish, that is the natural conclusion.

And in a later episode, titled “Altared States,” Xena comes across a family facing a conundrum. A father has been ordered by his god, “the one true god,” to sacrifice his son.

Now, the son’s name is Icus, not Isaac. And he has a nasty older brother who gives the story a heaping spoonful of Cain-and-Abel/Jacob-and-Esau vibes. And there’s a lot of ambiguity about which of this god’s commands are actually divine, or are a human pretending to be a god.

But the basic structure remains: an ostensibly benevolent god tells his devoted follower, a patriarch, to sacrifice the son he loves. The climax even takes place on top of a mountain, on a stone altar. And – spoiler alert – at the last minute, the god relents and the son is spared.

This episode got me thinking about a question I saw posed in an online discussion of Torah a couple years ago, but hadn’t thought much on since:

What if Abraham had refused to sacrifice Isaac? If he had defied G-d, how might that change both this specific story and the way we think about religion?

In case you aren’t familiar with the story of the almost-sacrifice of Isaac, here is a very short version (based on the Torah translation found here): 

G-d tells Abraham, “Take your son, whom you love, and offer him to me as a burnt offering.” And Abraham goes to do so.

Along the way up the mountain, Isaac notices the lack of a lamb for the sacrifice. He asks his father about it, and Abraham replies, “G-d will provide a lamb.”

Abraham and Isaac set up the altar for the sacrifice. Abraham ties Isaac up and reaches for the knife.

Suddenly, an angel calls out for Abraham to stop: “Do not harm the boy, for now I know that you fear G-d… and G-d has sworn that because you did not withhold your son from me, He will bless you and your descendants.”

And then a ram shows up and Abraham sacrifices the ram instead of his son.

Every story in the Torah serves as an allegory, from which we derive lessons for how to live our life today. The moral of this particular story, at least as it was presented to me in Sunday School, is that we should put faith first. I was taught that G-d was testing Abraham, and that Abraham passed the test by being willing to do whatever G-d said, even kill his only son. We should therefore put faith above all else, even when it’s hard.

That’s the stance that Icus’s father takes in “Altared States.” Even though he is clearly torn apart inside by the decision, and both Icus’s mother and Xena are telling him not to go through with it, he is determined to show his son that “faith is [not] just for those times when it’s convenient to believe.”

But what if that wasn’t the moral? What if Abraham said no?

It wouldn’t be out of character for Abraham to disagree with G-d. In an earlier story, Abraham outright haggles with G-d about the fate of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah (Torah translation here). Abraham gets G-d to agree that if there are just ten righteous people living in the city, then He will spare them all. “Far be it from You to do such a thing,” says Abraham, “to kill the righteous with the wicked.”

In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham doesn’t just go along with what G-d says should happen. He tells G-d, “This is not who you are; this is what you should do instead.”

Arguing with G-d is practically a Jewish tradition. The name Israel literally refers to one who “wrestles with G-d” – it was given to Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, for fighting with an angel.

One of my favorite jokes is about three rabbis arguing about a law, one on one side and two on the other. Then G-d Himself comes down from heaven to declare that the one rabbi is correct – and the two rabbis reply, “Alright, so now it’s two against two.”

We respect G-d, of course. But we hold Him to the same standards as we hold ourselves: to be open to debate, to strive to improve, to be a good person.

The sacrifice of a child sounds more like the kind of thing a terrible warlike god would ask for, not the monotheistic G-d, who is generally portrayed as loving. At one point, in a moment of reluctance, Icus’s father cries out, “Our god is a benevolent master!” But he does not follow that train of thought to its logical conclusion: “So he wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, ask me to do this.”

In the Torah, Abraham doesn’t follow this train of thought, either. He doesn’t show any sign of thinking much about G-d’s demand at all. But he could have.

What if Abraham had responded to G-d’s order regarding Isaac in the same way as he responded to the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah? What if he had said, “Far be it from you to demand the life of an innocent child, the child you promised me!”? What if he had said, “I will sacrifice myself before I lay a hand on my own son!”? What if Abraham, lying on the altar himself with the knife poised towards his own neck, was then told by the angel to stop – because the real test was whether Abraham would do not the obedient thing, but the right thing?

It would change the moral. It would not be a story of thoughtless faith, but of morality, of sticking to one’s principles even when those who are supposed to guide you falter.

It would bring this story in line with the standard Jewish practice of questioning authority, of asking why, of finding a better way to live.

It also would line this story up with the rest of the Torah. Yes, it’s full of laws, especially in the last few books. But the first book, Genesis, the book where we find Abraham and Isaac, is full of people going against what is demanded or expected of them, by G-d or tradition.

G-d says that Abraham will have a son by Sarah; Sarah doesn’t believe that this will happen, so she encourages Abraham to have a son with her servant Hagar instead. Cain kills his brother and lies about it to G-d. Jacob deceives his father and steals the blessing intended for his brother Esau. Tamar disguises herself and sleeps with her father-in-law to create an heir for her dead husband. And right at the beginning is perhaps the most famous instance of disobedience of all time: Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree forbidden to them by G-d.

Sometimes the disobedience ends poorly. Adam and Eve are kicked out of Eden, for instance, and Cain is branded a murderer.

Other times, the Torah indicates that the disobedience is approved of by G-d. Jacob is decisively rewarded for sneaking away with Esau’s birthright, going on to literally father a nation. Tamar gives birth to twin sons, a big double-thumbs-up from G-d. Hagar learns that her son Ishmael will father a great nation of his own.

My point is that if Abraham had said no to G-d, and refused to kill Isaac, then he would be in excellent company. It would make Abraham’s behavior more like what we see in the rest of Genesis, and more like the rest of us Jews, too. We don’t always do what G-d says. And G-d seems to be more or less okay with that, as long as what we do results in a more just, peaceful, and prosperous world.

Which makes me wonder – do we actually have the “sacrifice of Isaac” all wrong?

What if G-d didn’t want Abraham to sacrifice Isaac?

Note that it is not G-d Himself who stops Abraham from killing Isaac, but an angel, who relays G-d’s message. At other times, even at the very beginning of this chapter, G-d is perfectly willing to show up and speak directly to Abraham. But in this instance, He has someone else go instead. Why is G-d, in this moment where he ostensibly approves so much of Abraham’s behavior, suddenly distancing Himself from Abraham?

Perhaps we have the test all wrong. Perhaps, by going along with what G-d commanded, Abraham failed the test – and now G-d is off hanging his head in shame.

Perhaps G-d was actually trying to see whether Abraham would continue to question G-d, as he did for Sodom and Gamorrah. Would Abraham stand up against G-d not only for strangers, but also for his own family?

Turns out, he wouldn’t.

And so G-d realized that Abraham was not yet ready to hear a message that perhaps we are now ready to understand: that sometimes disobedience is the right thing to do. Perhaps G-d wants us to protect each other first, and obey second.

[atruththatyoudeny]

Monthly Reads | August 2017

OMG! August was such a good month - I’ve read lots of amazing fics! Please make sure to also check out the fics under the cut! ❤ THANK YOU TO ALL WRITERS FOR YOUR HARD WORK AND FOR SHARING YOUR STORIES! ❤ Top 5 6 + 11 more under the cut:

Pray for some sweet simplicity

by delsicle | a/b/o | enemies to lovers | 237k Louis is the only omega to ever make it in the cut-throat world of competitive motorcycle racing—that is, he would be if anyone actually knew about his identity. Now, his sights are set towards competing in—and winning—the European Grand Prix, the biggest and most difficult race of the entire year, so he can disappear underground for good. He’s close enough, too, until an alpha sports journalist is assigned to follow Louis’s every move as he prepares for the event of his career. Or, an AU where motorcycle racing is the biggest sport in a heavily divided world, Louis is trying to take control of his own destiny, and Harry is in for more than he bargained for.

[*edited*]

Chasing Empty Spaces

by domesticharry | historical AU | 1930s | 79k The year is 1934 and Harry Styles was to inherent the largest tobacco firm in the south. His parents have picked out the “perfect” girl for him to marry and he has the privilege of receiving the highest education possible. The problem was, Harry hadn’t realized he didn’t actually want any part of that future until he met a mechanic named, Louis Tomlinson.

We’ll Be Seamless

by dinosaursmate for HL Fic Fest (2017) | Tumblr AU | pining | exhibitionism | voyeurism | 52k Green reblogged an old photo of himself. It was from back in October, a Halloween special. A pulse shot all the way through Louis because this photo was his absolute favourite, and it had taken the rest of the year for him to wean himself off of it. Green was on his knees, arms stretched out in front of him with his fingertips digging into the surface of his bed. He was wearing a pair of cat ears on his head, his curls falling forward. His back was arched, and in the foreground of the picture, Green’s bum was high in the air, a long, black cat tail sitting neatly between his cheeks. — Louis spends all his spare time scrolling arty nude blogs on Tumblr but amongst them all, Green is his favourite.

Given a Chance

by Fabby | Future Fic | canon compliant | slow burn | coming back together | anxiety attacks| 173k Five years after One Direction took their last tour, the last thing Louis Tomlinson ever expected to happen while on a tea run at the local Piggly Wiggly was to run into his ex-boyfriend and ex-bandmate Harry Styles. The odds of them ever running into each other again had to be super slim, right? Wrong. What happens when you mix ex-boyfriends with a large serving of Small Town America? Will Louis and Harry be able to set aside their differences, or will Louis be able to stay breezy as fuck in the wake of Harry’s arrival? (or, the one where Louis and Harry run into each other five years after One Direction ends and learn how to love each other again. Featuring: Reggie as the overweight labrador, Niall as Louis’ last grip on reality, and Nowheresville, North Carolina as the setting for Louis’ worst nightmare to come true.)

No sooner loved (series)

by benzos 1| As the winter to foul weather Trans character | mpreg | abortion | hurt/comfort | 45k AU. An unplanned pregnancy throws a spanner into Harry and Louis’ relationship. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. 2| You and you are sure together Trans character | eating disorder | hurt/comfort | 48k AU. The first day of fall term, Louis hits one of his residents in the face with a door. Later that day, said resident seeks refuge after a fight with his roommate. It becomes a thing. And then it becomes something else. 3| Baby, i’m speeding, and red lights are run pwp | 7k Louis really would’ve liked to just order the damn thing off the internet, but Harry insists that anything going inside your body ought to be thoroughly researched, which, apparently, mandates going to a sex shop. Knowing how ludicrously uncomfortable Louis is with the whole thing, Harry devises the ingenious solution of bringing Eleanor along and having her pose as Harry’s girlfriend who’s interested in trying out pegging, with Louis tagging along as a supportive best mate. It’s not Harry’s worst plan to date, but it’s somewhere in that range.

Under me, you

by hazzafrazza | friends to lovers | superheroes | 12 k You Won’t Believe Who Was Spotted Leaving Harry Styles’ Primrose Hill Pad! If Harry was being completely honest, it probably wasn’t the best idea to be a world-renowned popstar and an infamous vigilante. (Especially when all the comic books said never reveal your secret identity to keep your loved ones safe – which was all well and good, until Louis.) Or: Harry wants a lot of things – fame, glory, Louis – but that last one is particularly hard to get when everyone thinks you’re dating your secret superhero alter-ego and suddenly you’ve become your own worst cockblock.

Such Good Luck

by casuallyhl for HL Mpreg Fic Exchange | Historical AU | 1910s | mpreg | secret relationship | class difference | 66k Louis smiles at Harry’s words, leaning into his touch. “Tell me again.” Smiling, Harry takes Louis into his arms. Pressing gentle kisses to his face, Harry murmurs, “In six months’ time, I will have my twenty-fifth birthday. On that day, my portion of the inheritance will become legally mine. And I plan that very day to announce to my family that I have found love.” Harry chuckles as he runs his lips lightly along Louis’ cheekbone. “That, in fact, I found love when I was twenty-one years old, and that I have loved and been loved every day since.” Or, an Edwardian AU where Harry is a young aristocratic lord and Louis is a working class dairy farmer. Secrets are a necessary part of their relationship, but Louis has one that could topple their whole world.

What A Life I’d Have Missed

by harioandlouigi for HL Mpreg Fic Exchange | mpreg | established relationship | 27k It all started with a prank, tears, and guilt. Louis has been pranking Harry since the day they met. Now, seven years later, Harry has finally come up with the perfect plan to prank his husband back. He has a borrowed positive pregnancy test in front of him, he’s perfected his facial expression, and he’s dead sure Louis will fall for it. He doesn’t exactly get the panicked reaction he expected, though. As a matter of fact, nothing ever seems to turn out the way he expects it to, but that’s for the best, really. Or, the one where an insensitive joke soon becomes a very real, happy pregnancy.

Small Doses (Loving You It’s Explosive)

by Anonymous for HL Summer Exchange 2017 | personal trainer Harry | boxing | dom/sub undertones | 38k Louis Tomlinson finds himself at Vitality Fitness to try and turn his life around after having left his cheating boyfriend of four years. The gym’s owner, Liam, quickly becomes a good friend, but his right hand man is rude and dismissive from the get-go. Louis and Harry continue to clash all while Harry is trying to move his way up the ranks in Manchester’s amateur boxing circuit, but they can’t seem to stay away from each other.

Sound Like a Song

by allwaswell16 for HL Fic Fest (2017) | 14k In high school, Louis Tomlinson lit up Harry’s world like nobody else, even if Harry did most of his pining from the safety of his tightly knit circle of friends. Ten years later, Harry is ready to make some changes. He’s tired of having so many regrets and not taking charge of his life, and he still hasn’t forgotten how brightly Louis shines. He’s about to get a long awaited second chance. Or the one where Harry helps out at a farmer’s market and gives Louis free vegetables.

Take Me Back to Where We Started

by amory | exes to lovers | famous/non-famous | 27k Harry and Louis haven’t spoken since they broke up four years ago. As boarding school sweethearts they once spent every waking moment together, but now they can hardly stand to be in the same room. When their five year class reunion comes around, both boys decide against their better judgement to return and (hopefully) have a good time. The only problem is, they’re both still hopelessly in love. Starring Harry as the petty ex, Louis as the new James Bond, Niall as a boy genius and fake boyfriend extraordinaire, and Liam and Zayn as two friends just trying to make it out of this weekend alive.

Tightrope

by Anonymous for HL Mpreg Fic Exchange | mpreg | exes | friends to lovers | 33k Louis knows he and Harry are going to be together for the rest of their lives and one day they were going to get married and have three point five children, a dog, and two cats. But life hasn’t matched up perfectly yet and that time is not now. So they are both happy to be best friends and casually date other people until life decides they really should get their shit together. aka Louis gets pregnant from “one last time” sex and he and Harry somehow think they’ll be able co-parent without it being weird for anyone (most especially their new boyfriends).

Souls; Plural, Parallel

by Anonymous for HL Mpreg Fic Exchange | mpreg | soulmates | 19k Soulmates are rare, the sort of rare that means everyone has a story about a friend’s sister’s coworker or a brother’s roommate’s cousin. But the fact of the matter is that most people never meet theirs. It’s unfortunate then, that Louis finds out the hard way that he met his soulmate in a club, and the guy never texted him back.

Friend Request

by Anonymous for HL Summer Exchange 2017 | 11k This was written for Kassio as a pinch hit for the HL Summer Exchange, from the prompt: “ Louis is bored on Facebook and in the “People you may know” suggestions, he sees the name Harry Styles. The profile picture doesn’t show the person. He thinks it’s an old family friend who he misses – maybe a middle-aged or elderly former neighbor or babysitter who he was fond of as a child - and sends a friend request. Turns out it’s not old man Harry from their old neighborhood, it’s hot young Harry (who he’s never met before) who accepts his friend request…”

If the Surface Begs You Home

by Anonymous for HL Mpreg Fic Exchange | mpreg | mermaid!Harry | 17k Harry is a mermaid from the underwater kingdom of Mercadia who is a little too fascinated by life above the surface. He’s kicked out of his home after he winds up pregnant, and has to figure out how to make his way in the world. Louis is the darling of the small neighbouring seaside village who came home after university to take over their local library, and can’t seem to stay away from the mysterious pregnant mermaid his friends introduce him to.

Out of the blue corner

by fallingaway | boxing | slow burn 85k Louis is a boxer banned because of doping. Harry is a journalist following the story. * * * “It seemed like a normal morning, but he had a feeling it was the quiet before the storm. And by storm, he meant getting involved in Louis Tomlinson’s life.”

[cokeisrael4-blog]

Can South Philly Hold On to What’s Always Made It Unique?

City

It’s our most famous neighborhood, defined by its immigrants and its characters, by intermingling (sometimes clashing) cultures — and by near-constant change. Where does it go from here?

The rapidly changing South Philly. Photograph by Adam Englehart

In the late summer of 1981, very much against my Catholic mother’s wishes, I had just moved into a rowhouse at 17th and Naudain — then the very bottom edge of Center City — where my new boyfriend lived. Mom, who’d recently been diagnosed with cancer, was coming for her first visit, reluctantly. The neighborhood was admittedly sketchy — most of Center City was, back then — but I was proud of our chic little home, with its new sofa and drapes and the garden planted out back. Mom knocked, I opened the door, and she peered past me into the narrow hallway.

“Oh my God,” she said, and not in a good way. “It’s just like Morris Street.”

That was where my mom grew up: 128 Morris Street, in the heart of South Philly. A hundred or so years ago, for reasons that are lost in the sands of time, Casimir Norvilas, a Lithuanian immigrant, moved there. He was still in his 20s, but he’d already lived an exciting life, having served in the merchant marine and fought Pancho Villa on the U.S.-Mexican border.

In Philly, perhaps calling on some leatherworking skills acquired on the horse farm near Vilnius where he grew up, he opened a shoemaker shop. He married a fellow Lithuanian immigrant, bought the house on Morris Street, and had three daughters, the eldest of whom was my mom.

The part of the city where he settled was traditionally a point of entry for immigrants. It was close to the docks where ships arrived from the Old World; those same docks provided jobs for laborers whose only skill was brute force. The first big flush of migrants to the city had been Irish, pried from their hearths in the 1840s by a potato blight that caused widespread starvation, killed a million people, and drove another two million to exit the Emerald Isle. The next was Italian, propelled by the “unification” of small city-states and the breakdown of the peninsula’s feudal system. Some seven million mostly Southern Italian peasants decamped for foreign parts.

The Morris Street house where the author’s mom grew up. Photograph by Michelle Gustafson

Since then, wave after wave of newcomers has inhabited the rowhouses of South Philly, on both the east and west sides of Broad Street — Southern blacks with the collapse of Reconstruction, Eastern European Jews starting in the 1880s, more Italians after World War II ended. Mexicans moved north under the 1942 bracero (“one who works using his arms”) program, and smaller tides of Cubans and Puerto Ricans and Vietnamese and Cambodians and Liberians landed here, too. South Philly was a place to gain a foothold, to begin anew, to build something from nothing for impoverished families from all over the world. Then your kids got the hell out.

That was what Mom did. She made her way to Girls’ High, which was then at 17th and Spring Garden, and after graduating went even further up Broad Street to Temple, where she met my dad. Together, they began a family and a series of successive moves away from South Philly, to Willow Grove and Glenside and finally bucolic Doylestown. They raised a solid middle-class clan of four kids and a dog on a third of an acre there.

Which is why, I think, the house on Naudain Street so unnerved Mom. When you’ve spent a lifetime trying to escape the past, it can’t be easy to realize that your child just cheerfully leaped back in.

That was the only time Mom ever visited me and Doug, who eventually became my husband. She died three months later. I’d like to think it wasn’t seeing the house.

•

The workingman’s homes that make up Philly’s rows were built in the mid-to-late 19th century, as the city underwent rapid industrialization. But there were rowhouses even before that; witness the city’s oldest block, Elfreth’s Alley. William Penn envisioned his city filled with gracious single homes set amid green lawns, but it didn’t take long for speculators to slice up the blocks he laid out and eke the most from them by erecting rowhomes. The city was built atop clay, which is what you make bricks from, which is why the rowhomes were brick.

I have the vaguest memories of the house on Morris Street; Poppy’s shoemaker shop and the penny-candy place next door made more of an impression on me. I know this, though: Mom’s parents, like so many new arrivals here, found the fact that they were allowed to own land amazing. Slaves from the South and serfs from the Baltic States and paesani from Italy had all fled societies in which “real estate” belonged to the master or czar or king. To buy for yourself even the postage-stamp property beneath a rowhouse was a marvelous thing.

Which is one reason newcomers stayed put. “People would move to South Philly because it was close to jobs on the waterfront or in the garment factories,” says Bryant Simon, a history professor at Temple. “Then they created a culture that reminded them of where they were from.” They opened butcher shops and bakeries, planted grapevines in tiny backyards, built churches and fraternal organizations. They dug in, deep.

A window near 8th and Tasker. Photograph by Michelle Gustafson

Southern Italian immigrants, notes Penn city planning and urban studies professor Domenic Vitiello, had a particular pattern of migration: “They settled in groups of people from the same town. You could identify them — this block from this village in Abruzzo, this block from this village in Calabria.” Mexican immigration, Vitiello adds, would later follow this same pattern.

My mom’s mom’s sister, Adeline, married an Italian my grandfather fondly called “Goombah Jimmy.” We only visited Adeline’s house, on Wolf Street near Broad, for the Mummers Parade and the occasional funeral, but it stood out because it was so unlike anything else in my bland suburban life. People drank, hard; everyone was loud; the women and the food — Italian sausages, kielbasa and pierogies — smelled wonderful; and in an upstairs bedroom there hung the biggest painting I had ever seen, a full-size reproduction of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, with all that bare-breasted flesh. Who could look away?

I went back to South Philly recently and checked out the house on Wolf Street. There were potted plants taking the sun beside the front stoop. Mom’s people were farmers at heart. She would have liked that.

I went to Morris Street, too, to see what was left of number 128. It looked good — the trim all freshly painted, a fancy ornamental door. There was a planter beside it, too. The houses on Mom’s row are tiny — under a thousand square feet, with two bedrooms and a single bath. Yet when she was a kid, her family took in a boarder to help with the bills, which wasn’t rare. A 1904 survey of the area from 8th Street to 9th Street between Carpenter and Christian showed that 41 of the 167 houses were occupied by three or more families. That’s a tight squeeze.

Bryant Simon says you can tell when a neighborhood gentrifies by the house numbers; newcomers prefer sans serif fonts. There’s a lot of sans serif on Mom’s block. Another clue: the four new three-story townhomes with garages and roof decks. They have three bedrooms and two and a half baths and, you can bet, one family apiece.

•

Mom’s old house sold for $43,000 in 1995; today, its estimated worth is $218,985. The big difference between people buying in South Philly these days and those from the old days is that the latest arrivals don’t land here with nothing. They bring along advanced degrees and SUVs and Mitchell Gold sofas and IRAs.

Back in 2011, Kate Mellina and her husband, Dave Christopher, moved from Asbury Park to Philadelphia, where Mellina had grown up: “In the Northeast — St. Timothy’s parish. But my dad was from South Philly. St. Monica’s. You forget how Philadelphia is defined by its parishes.” The couple, both artists, were looking for an area that was “up-and-coming,” Mellina says, and they bought a house in East Passyunk, overlooking the famed Singing Fountain. “It was not quite as developed then,” Mellina says, “but you could see it was on its way.”

Not long after they moved in, one of the couple’s friends happened on a vintage photo album at Lambertville’s Golden Nugget flea market and recognized some famous faces posing with the grinning strangers inside: Bob Hope, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Liberace. On the back of the album was the photographer’s studio address, on East Passyunk Avenue. “Our friend knew we’d moved in around there, so he gave it to us,” Mellina explains. “He said, “Here’s your housewarming present — find out who these people are!”

Naturally, Mellina says, she started by showing the album to her neighbor, “Frank from around the corner, who’s been here forever.”

“Oh, that’s Palumbo’s!” Frank said.

“We were like, ‘What’s Palumbo’s?’” Mellina had never heard of the now-defunct nightclub at 8th and Catharine that hosted everyone from Sinatra to Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. back in the day. It started life as a boardinghouse for immigrants sailing from Italy; legend has it they’d arrive speaking no English but with signs around their necks that read PALUMBO’S.

Plenty of Palumbo’s stars were homegrown. South Philly’s rowhouses all looked alike on the outside, but they sheltered singular individuals inside. The roll call just of those who passed through South Philly High at Broad and Snyder is startling: Marian Anderson, Mario Lanza, Chubby Checker, Jack Klugman, Frankie Avalon, bandleader Lester Lanin, composer Vincent Persichetti, NBA founder Eddie Gottlieb, world heavyweight boxing champ Tim Witherspoon, mayor Frank Rizzo, boxing trainer Angelo Dundee … It’s hard not to feel optimistic in a neighborhood where just a few streets over, a Jewish punk named Eddie Fisher grew up to divorce Debbie Reynolds so he could marry Elizabeth Taylor. America. What a country.

“South Philly is a real neighborhood,” says Kate Mellina. “It’s a mix of people whose families have been here for three or four generations — in the same houses — and new people moving in with dogs and babies.”

Since the album was foisted on her, Mellina has visited senior centers and the local library in her quest to identify the non-famous people in its pages. She discovered that it had belonged to Arthur Tavani, a writer for a little local newspaper. “His sister was still alive then,” she recalls, “living in the same house they grew up in. She greeted me like a long-lost daughter.” Mellina also talked to Carmen Dee, who’d been the bandleader at Palumbo’s, which burned down in 1994. And she’s chronicled her efforts at a website, Unexpected Philadelphia, that lets you scroll through the photos in case there’s anyone you know.

“South Philly is a real neighborhood,” says Mellina. “It’s a mix of people whose families have been here for three or four generations — in the same houses — and new people moving in with dogs and babies. Everyone seems to get along. You take your lawn chairs out front in the summer, and people parade by with the kids and the dogs.” Asbury Park, she notes, actually was a small town — “but it didn’t have that small-town feel.”

The small town has gone big-time over the past decade. Townsend Wentz, Nick Elmi, Chris Kearse, Lou Boquila, Lynn Rinaldi, and Lee Styer and Jessie Prawlucki have all opened restaurants along this stretch of East Passyunk. The neighborhood has coffee shops, twinkly string lights, a British pie shop, and Artisan Boulanger Patissier. You’ll find dim sum and doggie boutiques, a retro typewriter repair shop, breweries and bike stores, not to mention a yoga studio that recently hosted a visit from an alpaca. It’s a freaking hipster paradise.

A block or so north, the paradise ends.

•

Philly’s Italian Market, which stretches along 9th Street roughly from Dickinson to Fitzwater, started out as a Jewish market. It’s now mostly Asians and Latinos who run the iconic sidewalk stalls. To go from twinkly Passyunk Square to, say, Giordano’s produce stand just above Washington is sort of a shock. The market hasn’t gentrified. It still has flies in summer and burn barrels in winter, and wooden skids and flattened cardboard boxes are piled everywhere. (“That’s not real trash,” Bryant Simon teases when I raise the subject of the market. “They bring it out every morning so it looks like a scene from Rocky.”) It also has guys who pick out your tomatoes for you, thank you very much, and put them in a bag. The area is a good example of the challenges of gentrification. “How do you maintain the market while the neighborhood changes?” asks Simon. “That’s a delicate balance. Tourists can only buy so many vegetables.” Anthony’s Italian Coffee & Chocolate House has stood here for four generations. Now it has online ordering, and seasonal lattes like the Spring Fling and the Crème Brûlée.

There have been fitful efforts to start up a Business Improvement District for the market, so merchants can kick in to gussy things up. A few years back, Michelle Gambino, business manager for the South 9th Street Business Association, described her vision for the future, with organic foods and craft booths alongside the homely produce carts: “We’re hoping that the look will continue to be Old World, but just upscale.”

To add to the balancing act, New York developers have so far unveiled three iterations of an apartment building planned for the heart of the market, right at 9th and Washington, ranging from six to eight stories in height. The latest version has 157 units. Merchants and shoppers panicked when plans showed the driveway to the building’s underground parking right on 9th Street, where it will surely disrupt the market’s traffic and pedestrians. So much for Old World.

“There are two processes going on in South Philly right now,” says Bryant Simon. “Longtime residents are being displaced by new immigrants and by high-end creative-class people.” In other words, old South Philly’s getting squeezed from both sides.

The Italian isn’t the only market in South Philly. The busy commercial stretch of Washington between 6th and 16th earned the soubriquet “Little Saigon” thanks to immigrants who settled there after the Vietnam War. (Condé Nast Traveler once dubbed the area “Pho Row.”) The city’s Asian population has continued to grow, jumping by 42 percent from 2000 to 2010; Philly is now home to the East Coast’s largest population of Vietnamese immigrants. At Horace Furness High, near Mom’s old house, 48.5 percent of the kids are Asian.

In Little Saigon, too, change is coming. Developers have proposed new rowhomes and duplexes, plus parking spots, on the site of the Hoa Binh shopping center, which occupies almost an entire block at Washington and 16th. The current shopping center isn’t pretty. But neither are most newly built rowhomes, when you think about it.

There may be no better example of South Philly’s metamorphosis than what used to be the Edward W. Bok Technical High School at 8th and Mifflin, where neighborhood kids not bound for college once studied tailoring and plumbing, hairdressing and bricklaying. After closing down in 2013, the Art Deco building, constructed in the 1930s by Franklin Roosevelt’s Public Works Administration, was reborn as BOK, an urban playground with a roof-deck bar, boutiques, “maker spaces,” tattoo artists and, of course, yoga. “I think BOK is a fascinating symbol,” says Bryant Simon. “There are two processes going on in South Philly right now. Longtime residents are being displaced by new immigrants and by high-end creative-class people who value urban spaces and are knowledge workers.” In other words, old South Philly’s getting squeezed from both sides.

•

We tend to think of “South Philly” as the Rocky world that’s east of Broad Street, but Point Breeze and Grays Ferry are South Philly, too. They were settled along familiar lines, first by European Jews, then by Italians and Irish, and finally by blacks driven west from their original stronghold in what had been farm country near 7th and South. There were race riots here in 1918, touched off when a black woman moved in; thousands battled in the streets. By the 1920s, according to a resident quoted in Murray Dubin’s South Philadelphia: Mummers, Memories, and the Melrose Diner, from Lombard Street to Washington Avenue between Broad and 20th was “solid black.” Still, racial strife bubbled up regularly. In 1997, then-mayor Ed Rendell had to negotiate a compromise with Louis Farrakhan to ward off a planned protest.

Today, Point Breeze is ground zero for Philly gentrification. The median housing price in the most gentrified section rose from $29,000 in 2000 to $234,000 in 2016, while the population of black residents changed from 80 percent to 46 percent. Bryant Simon, who wrote a book about Starbucks, says you can trace the spread of gentrification in coffee shops. He mentions developer Ori Feibush, who fueled Point Breeze’s gilding by opening OCF Coffee House at 20th and Federal “as a way of planting a flag. He was smart about that.”

Neighbors playing at 2nd and Porter. Photograph by Michelle Gustafson

For many residents of western South Philly, Feibush, who’s been building new townhouses everywhere, has become the face of black displacement. In 2015, he ran against incumbent 2nd District Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson in a bitter primary fight that stirred race into the already boiling pot of tax assessments and abatements and property values. Johnson won. In May, he introduced a bill that would ban from Grays Ferry and Point Breeze the balconies and bay windows featured on many newly constructed rowhomes — a pointed up-yours to Feibush and gentrification. The resentment is understandable.

Racism has a long history throughout South Philadelphia. “It would have helped if Frank Rizzo didn’t tolerate white resistance, or if there had been no redlining,” Simon says. Old photos of South Philly High show integrated sports teams as far back as 1918, and black and white cross-country runners in the ’50s with their arms draped around each other. But as recently as 2009, black students were beating up Asian immigrants. Following a boycott, a new principal, and a Justice Department investigation, matters have improved.

In fact, says Penn’s Vitiello, you could make the case that since the 1970s, South Philadelphia has been the city’s most successful neighborhood in terms of immigration: “A wide variety of refugees has found it comfortable and livable. There’s a wide variety of ethnic groceries, goods and services. The housing stock is still affordable. There are still plenty of absentee landlords who see new immigrants as an important source of income.” And many older residents, he says, “welcome newcomers in a very humane way. They appreciate that their neighbors are here just trying to raise their kids and provide for themselves.” It was former mayor John Street, he points out, who first established sanctuary protections in Philadelphia back in 2001, along with Irish-born police commissioner John Timoney.

“Change related to new immigrants is nothing new in South Philly,” Bryant Simon says. “It’s never been without tensions. Change is kind of perpetual there.”

To some extent, Vitiello says, politicians here have embraced immigrants because they know that without them, the city would be shrinking, not growing. He puts Michael Nutter in this economically motivated camp. But Jim Kenney, whose parents came to the U.S. from Ireland — and who grew up five blocks from my mom’s house, at 3rd and Snyder — “has consistently been more about treating people as humans, as neighbors,” he says.

At the same time, South Philadelphians, Bryant Simon points out, have always shown “a commitment to maintaining their turf.” Historically, this is the land of mobsters and payola, not touchy-feely empathy. “We make fun of yoga studios and deck bars serving IPAs,” Simon says, “and the identity that goes along with certain cultural practices.” But alpaca yoga isn’t South Philly’s big problem now: “The real tensions are over real estate values.”

On the positive side, he notes, “Change related to new immigrants is nothing new in South Philly. It was always a place of immigrants. It’s never been without tensions. Change is kind of perpetual there.”

•

I used to live in South Philly. In 1988, Doug and I bought a little rowhouse near 20th and Snyder for $35,000. We were ready to have kids and wanted some stability. We were an odd fit for the neighborhood back then. There was nobody our age on our block; old people lived there, and their kids drove in from Jersey for Sunday dinner. One entire wall of our bathroom was mirrored; it became our daughter’s favorite part of the house. Once, when I was taking the bus into Center City with Marcy when she was two, a nun asked what parish we belonged to. “We don’t go to church,” I told her. “Surely you’ve had her baptized,” she said. I shook my head. She looked me dead in the eye and said, “Do you want your daughter to go to Hell?”

Most people, though, were nice to us. Johnny from the auto shop across the street would invite us in for barbecued deer during fall hunting season. In winter, we pushed the kids in strollers beneath rainbows of Christmas lights. In summer, there were walks to the water-ice stand and cooling showers from fire-hydrant sprinklers. The mobster’s mom down the block wouldn’t let her grandson come to Marcy’s birthday party, but she did show up afterward with excuses and a gift.

After six years, we got tired of chasing guys with guns off our stoop, of worrying that the kids would get hit by cars, of the endless litter and the fight to find parking. I longed for a real garden, not a couple of barrel planters. We escaped to the suburbs, just in time for Marcy to start school. We sold the house for less than we’d paid for it, to two Cambodian brothers. We always have been terrible at real estate.

Today, the house we dumped for $32,500 is worth an estimated $195,954. I go back to see it, for old time’s sake. The neighborhood is still dotted with bodegas and pharmacies and Chinese takeout joints, but there’s a new coffee shop that delivers through Grubhub. Our place looks tidy and kempt; there are a host of potted plants beside the front door, which is painted deep blue. The house numbers are a bougie font. The young woman who lives there now walks dogs for a living. We exchange emails, and I ask if the bathroom still has that mirrored wall. She LOLs. It does.

In nearby Girard Park, I pick my way through downed tree branches from a recent storm to view a plaque honoring Kenyatta Johnson for nabbing $600,000 in improvements to its drainage, benches and walkways. Within eyeshot of the house where a pipe bomb blew up Phil “Chicken Man” Testa in 1981, I join a woman sitting on a park bench with a little girl in a stroller. I smile and tell her my daughter learned to walk right in this park. She smiles back. “I’m the nanny,” she says.

A nanny. In Girard Park. It’s the beginning of the end.

Not so fast, says Vitiello. “South Philly is pretty big,” he points out, “and gentrification moves in waves. There are some indicators that suggest South Philly will keep growing, and others that suggest its growth will be slow and halting.” That means South Philly’s seemingly impossible balance of old and new, rich and poor, black and white and everything else, could endure. Large tracts here, Vitiello insists, should remain affordable for a long time to come.

Maybe so. All I know is, there’s new three-story housing going up across 20th Street from our old place, no doubt with garages and roof decks.

Oh my God. It’s just like Morris Street.

Published as “True South” in the July 2019 issue of Philadelphia magazine.

Source: https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/07/06/changing-south-philly/

[ofvernacular]

Can’t Stop Keeping Up With The Kardashians

In the endless stream of content that beleaguers consumers of art, culture and entertainment, people are constantly in the search for the more scintillating, the more engaging, the more exciting. In this search for amusement and momentary escapism from the capitalistic enslavement of the daily nine to five, reality television proves to be a seductive option. Reality television promises a raw, unscripted, and uncensored experience. There is no plot, it is just a production of people’s real lives, no characters, no pretentions. Reality T.V. gives you access to, as implicit by the name, reality. The phenomena of producing real lives serves as “the ideal of what is natural” in the field of the entertainment industry, as it “diminishes the tension between the finished product and everyday life” (Adorno 1944, 5). For the scope of this essay, I will investigate the ways in which this reality is produced for spectatorship through the mechanism of the culture industry by analyzing the television show Keeping Up With The Kardashians. The episode selected for analysis is the first episode of the fourteenth season, which is also a special ‘tenth anniversary episode’, aired on September 24, 2017, celebrating ten years of the Kardashian Empire.

           Keeping Up With The Kardashians, first aired in 2007 and running till date, is E! network’s highest-rated show. The megafranchise, consisting of multiple spinoffs and business endeavors, collectively garners billions of dollars every passing year earned from television salaries, celebrity appearances, social media endorsements, and make-up and fashion lines (Forbes 2018). The show follows the lives of sisters Kourtney (age 39), Kim (38), and Khloe Kardashian (34), their half-sisters Kendall (22) and Kylie Jenner (21), and other close family such as their mother and the family’s matriarch, Kris Jenner (62), brother Rob Kardashian Jr (31), stepfather Caitlyn (formerly Bruce) Jenner (69), and significant others. Each episode documents one event in the Kardashian-Jenner life, spanning from a day long to a week long, interspersed with clips from camera interviews of the separate family members commenting on the event that is taking place. The structure of all the episodes provides the audience with an immersive experience of the event, being shown (selectively) all the angles of a situation, and all recorded reactions. Each situation is dealt with and portrayed in a similar way, be it a scandal, a holiday, a party, or a personal challenge. As Adorno (1944, 9) says, a trademark of the entertainment industry is that the “content is merely a faded foreground; what sinks in is the automatic succession of standardized operations.”  The episode analysed for this essay documented the media coverage of the family’s tenth anniversary celebrations, a trip taken by the three Kardashian sisters to Cleveland, and a scandal regarding Kendall Jenner’s advertisement for Coca-Cola.

           It becomes evident from the beginning of the episode that the producers, in our case Ryan Seacrest and Kris Jenner, do not intend to hide the ‘industrial’ nature of the T.V. Show that they are producing. The first five minutes of the show itself revealed the Kardashian-Jenners in the middle of a production studio standing under artificial lighting against a luxurious white background, surrounded by cameramen, producers, make-up artists, crew members etc, posing for a photoshoot by The Hollywood Reporter covering the show’s tenth anniversary. The filming does not discriminate between the home lives and the business lives of the Kardashians, it testifies its promise of showing the family’s actual lives wherever they go, and so the spectator is left under the impression of watching these people in their natural habitat. The spectator accepts that the production studio is as much of a natural habitat for a Kardashian as a luxury restaurant or their home. Following this acceptance of seeing a Kardashian in a natural habitat, the spectator slowly begins to accept every depiction on the show as a truth and a reality. The episode features a vacation taken by the three Kardashian sisters to Khloe Kardashian’s boyfriend Tristan Thompson’s Cleveland house. The celebrity status of the Kardashians becomes evident as entire restaurants and amusement parks are booked out for their visit, and they are greeted by hordes of fans at multiple locations, all which is caught on camera. This stardom is juxtaposed with interval cuts of the sisters speaking to producers on camera, answering personal questions about their feelings, opinions and thoughts to bring them back in touch with the normal experience of the everyman. On being asked (note: the question prompt is never featured on screen, only the response of the Kardashian-Jenner being filmed, which too is evidently edited) about what Khloe Kardashian and her boyfriend do in Cleveland, Khloe tells the camera that they “are boring, watch T.V.” and “do normal things like cooking, cleaning…” These small interviews that are inserted into the videographical narrative that follows the Kardashians humanizes their lives, their emotions, and helps the audience feel as if they’re being communicated all essential information that may contextualize the events being filmed, while providing real human feelings for the audience to connect to. Seeing Khloe portraying herself as any other girl in a mundane relationship reassures the audience of the realness of the people whose lives they so enthusiastically yet absent-mindedly follow.

           The utility of these interview cuts can be illustrated with the way the Kendall Jenner Coca-Cola scandal was dealt with in this particular episode. The depiction of the scandal completely unveiled the mechanisms of the culture industry that may prevail today. One of the first conversations regarding the scandal, about eight minutes into the episode, featured Kourtney Kardashian telling her sister Kendall Jenner on video chat that “Russel called me today saying that we can turn this into a positive and said he’d call mom,” to which Kendal replied saying “yeah, he called me…if I knew this was the outcome I would never have done anything like this.” Many allusions were made to people such as Russell who were the Kardashians’ personal publicists and other business affiliates. The conversations regarding the scandal throughout the episode revealed attempts of the family and their employed publicists to diffuse the scandal that labelled Kendall Jenner a racist for doing a culturally insensitive commercial for Coca-Cola during the Black Lives Matter protests. In an interview with the camera, Kendall explained that when she “first took [the offer] [she] thought it was going to be a good thing. The company is amazing. So many people have done it. Michael Jackson did it, Britney Spears has done it…the list goes on...I trusted everyone, I trusted the teams.” This information reveals the influence of the entertainment business on the lives of the Kardashians. The narratives created when the Kardashian-Jenners refer to the external team recording and controlling their appearances make explicit to the spectator that all social media news on the Kardashians external to the television show is mediated, untrue and ‘gossipy’, while proving the show to be the source of ‘real facts’ or information for the audience to consume unquestioningly. It is the reckless honesty portrayed by the cameras that helps perpetuate the show’s position as an unbiased documentation of now-celebrity lives.

           However, “the culture industry perpetually cheats its consumers of what it perpetually promises” (Adorno 1944, 10). It becomes evident to the suspicious eye that the portrayal of what is true on the T.V. show is just the product of another narrative that is trying to be created by executive producer and also star-mom Kris Jenner to clear up any unwanted controversy and keep the show popular and entertaining. Through the show there are multiple cuts where Kendall discusses her regret over starring in the commercial and having no bad intent while shooting it. There is a scene where the family discusses Caitlyn Jenner’s upcoming media appearances and their apprehension of her tendency to say politically incorrect things on camera or, in Kim’s words, “Caitlyn [being] known for saying all the wrong things.” This implies a right versus wrong narrative that could be associated with the family, and Kris Jenner’s motive to always stay on the right side becomes explicit through the content of each episode. Kendall makes clear to the audience on multiple occasions to not pay heed to her father’s public words as “the only problem is that because she’s [her] dad, people are gonna like really believe it and take it and run with it and like what does she even actually know.” Even the ending scene of the show drives home the point that any controversy created by Caitlyn Jenner regarding the Coca Cola scandal is baseless as Kendall sobbingly testifies to the camera that “my dad doesn’t actually know what happened…I just feel really really really bad…that this was taken in such a wrong way.” The T.V. show naturally monopolizes all the news on the Kardashian family, while easily being one of their most edited and mediated productions that run past several bureaucratic check-posts before the final airing.

           It should be noted that the executive producer of this television show, the kingpin of the mediation who controls the final narrative created around the Kardashian Lifestyle, is in fact personally involved with the family’s fortune and appearance. This kingpin is the Kardashian-Jenner’s mother, Kris Jenner. Her influence can be felt in certain productions of truth on the show, such as writing away her popular ex-husband Caitlyn Jenner as an uninformed liar, however this observation may be based on my personal conjecture. The bitterness, also felt by her children towards their ex-stepfather, can be recorded in this show by Khloe’s statement “It’s not cause you’re trans, that’s not why I’m not talking to you, I’m not talking to you because you’re a bad mean person.” The outrage against Caitlyn Jenner is fierce in this particular episode, and the Kardashians make it a point to feature it extensively in their show, publicly demonizing Caitlyn Jenner. It is also interesting to note in the statement above Khloe’s need to clarify that she dislikes Caitlyn Jenner, but not because of her gender. The fact that the show is a product of a business industry that must appease certain public ideologies is revealed in all the Kardashian-Jenner’s effort to be politically correct on camera, and also clear up controversies outside camera regarding political correctness using extensive means such as publicists, personal social media statements et cetera. These small details make evident the fact that ultimately, the show is being produced for a particular consumer, an imagined spectator, whom the show must adjust itself to to keep him or her unquestioningly amused and involved. As Adorno (1944, 9) says, “it is quite correct that the power of the culture industry resides in its identification with a manufactured need, and not in simple contrast to it, even if this contrast were one of complete power and complete powerlessness.”

           The “complete power” of these media magnates is shown in the public engagement with their brand that is formulated on the platform of the T.V. show. The blasting sales of Kylie Jenner’s make-up line that makes her one of the youngest and richest ‘self-made women’ (Forbes 2018) or the amused people who flock to watch redundant spin-offs made on different members of the Kardashian clan to remain as connected to the family as possible, prove the influence of the Kardashians on their followers. These followers are provided a “convergent media experience” (Barron 2012, 82) where they can stay in touch with the Kardashian’s personal lives through their social media accounts on Instagram and Snapchat in addition to the T.V. show and Hollywood news, adding a sense of accessibility to their celebrity lifestyle. The fanbase generated by the seemingly innocuous family can be explained by Adorno on page 8:

The consumers are the workers and employees, the farmers and lower middle class. Capitalist production so confines them, body and soul, that they fall helpless victims to what is offered them. As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them.

Each fan following the Kardashians has become an aspirant to their lifestyle, and a subject of their brand. On page 22 Adorno continues by saying that “the assembly-line character of the culture industry, the synthetic, planned method of turning out its products is very suited to advertising,” claiming that each “interchangeable” shot of a celebrity in a production becomes an advertisement for his or her name. Every public appearance made by a Kardashian-Jenner is controlled by and also controls the brand name Kardashian. The brand infiltrates the wishes and wardrobes of its consumers. The Kim Kardashian make-up line generates its profits not from its inherent goodness as a cosmetic, but through its cosmetic connection with the queen of the pop culture industry. Every “recommendation” by the family “becomes an order” (Adorno 1944, 21). The advertising takes place in the show as well as on all platforms of media outside. Whether it be sponsored Instagram posts on Fit Tea, or in the episode under analysis, a three minute sponsored demonstration of Nurse Jamie’s Healthy Skin Solutions which the Kardashian sisters learn about, experience and review on camera. These endorsements become cultural symbols of a Kardashian lifestyle and control the tastes of the public for economic profit.

Through this essay we realize the not-so-hidden business intentions behind the reproduction of the Kardashian-Jenner family life for public reality television. What started out as Ryan Seacrest’s wish to create a successful T.V. show (Cosmopolitan 2018) has evolved into an entertainment empire headed by Matriarch and Executive Producer Kris Jenner, and her business subjects, also children, Kourtney, Kim, Khloe, Kendall, Kylie and Rob. There are many instances through the T.V. show that reveal its industrial nature to us, be it the brand endorsements casually mentioned through the episode, the intimate relationship of the family with the business associates such as publicists, personal assistants, crew members etc, the revelation of the politics around Hollywood gossip or the constant editorial interruption in the forms of camera interviews that sprinkle the flow of events in each episode. Nevertheless, consumers keep desiring more of the DASH business, and “desire is always in excess of the object’s capacity to satisfy it” (Phillips 1999, 100). The Kardashians could produce as many spinoffs, brew as much controversy, and curate countless media appearances, and the consumers will never be satisfied. That is because the depiction of absolute reality promises a constant influx of possible new information, gossip and news. Because the consumers’ lives run parallel, in the same space-time fabric as their T.V. idols’ lives, the expectations do not cease. Thus every episode, like a kiss, leaves the watcher disappointed, longing for more. This disappointment ensures the return of the consumer for another round, another peck. Like a moth, the consumer lingers in front of the bright screen desiring a minute more of escapism from the rut of capitalistic enslavement, by submitting him or herself into an alternate industry that controls not their employment but their culture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barron, Lee. Social Theory in Popular Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

 Lerner, Rebecca. "'Keeping Up With The Kardashians' Ratings Improve." Forbes. January 26, 2018. Accessed October 29, 2018. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccalerner/2018/01/17/keeping-up-with-the-kardashians-ratings-improve/#316f29d969c2.

 Phillips, Adam. On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Unexamined Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

 Rees, Alex. "Here's How the Kardashians Landed Their Reality Show." Cosmopolitan. October 07, 2017. Accessed October 29, 2018. https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/news/a35457/heres-how-the-kardashians-landed-their-reality-show/.

 Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” in Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.

 Robehmed, Natalie. "How 20-Year-Old Kylie Jenner Built A $900 Million Fortune In Less Than 3 Years." Forbes. July 13, 2018. Accessed October 29, 2018. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesdigitalcovers/2018/07/11/how-20-year-old-kylie-jenner-built-a-900-million-fortune-in-less-than-3-years/.

[specialagentfluffstein]

So today, I looked up ‘chore wheels for couples’ on pinterest.

I looked this up because I was curious, my boyfriend and I listened to an article on NPR about domestic labor inequality the other day. Apparently men think doing 35% of the work is equitable. The article suggested that if you want things to be fair, you might have to actually keep tabs on things. Spreadsheets should be involved. Our relationship motto is “Penguins don’t have gender roles and neither do we.”

Now, pinterest algorithms work by showing you things related to what you search for - so when I searched for cross stitch patterns, my home feed has more cross stitch patterns. But apparently my searches (the chore wheel, recipes, disney, and ‘how to do a blanket stitch’) have put me into Christian TM Mom With 11 Kids territory.

Now if you are a Christian Mom With 11 Kids, cool. Please tell me your couponing secrets. Otherwise, very few of your life experiences are relevant to me. But now my pinterest feed is articles like ‘how having another baby saved my marriage’ and ‘the real reason I have so many children’ (spoiler alert it’s because she belives God will tell her when to stop by putting her through menopause).

This shit is an amazing tool of the patriarchy to brainwash women (and girls! I’ve had a pinterest since I was 13) into beliving their only worth is found in popping out at least two kids and serving a husband. I’m not being extreme when I say “serve” either. That is a word I see all the time in these blog posts about being a good mom and wife. These women all look the same - skinny, neutral makeup, conservative yet stylish clothes, and neatly done long hair. They are always white.

Even the moms who talk about ‘not having it all’ still seem like they are fronting. Fronting a life that is amazing BECAUSE they have children, a husband and a nice model home. And don’t get me wrong, kids can be an amazing addition to someone’s life. My boyfriend’s sister (who, coincidentally is also my neighbor) has a little one and another one on the way and I love that kid to death. My bf and I talk about how we are going to be the cool Aunt and Uncle.

But there are other things that can make life amazing. But all these blogs make an argument that kids and a husband are the only thing that make life worthwhile. And beyond how damaging that is for people who are unable to have children for whatever reason, it’s hard as a person who is perfectly capable of having kids and is choosing not to do so to resist the allure of a life that looks so nice in those perfectly posed pictures in those beige-y living rooms.

I know that it’s a front. I know that children are messy and expensive and willful. I know that kids can also be great. And I absolutely believe every woman has a right to decide what is right for her. Whether that is a stay at home mom or a high power lawyer with a cat. As a feminist I believe both of those choices are valid and important. But I don’t see blogs about foregoing children. Being a kick ass cop with no kids is not the agenda that’s being pushed onto me. Instead, pinterest shows me pregnancy announcement ideas and etsy ads for shirts that say obnoxiously gendered things like “Boy Mama: less drama than girls but harder to keep alive” (I wish I was joking) and seeing quotes like “It is no wonder that Satan has declared war on motherhood. He understand full well that those who rock the cradle can rock his earthly empire.” (- Sheri Dew) I see decor that doesn’t make my soul happy the way the over-the-top disney themed bathrooms and living rooms do. But I still second guess myself.

I know this is all a capitalist patriarchy trying to brainwash me. But it’s still hard to resist. It’s hard to see so much rhetoric that tells me I’m not doing enough to serve the man I love. That tells me I am not making a good enough contribution by going into law enforcement to work to help change the system from the inside. That unless I have some kids I’m going to be miserable. And I hate it. I don’t have a point for this, I’m just sad and I wanted to vent. If you read all this, thanks for your time.

[okkrist-blog]

BEYOND BOKO HARAM’S REACH, LOVE AND FEMINISM FLOURISH

Boko Haram kidnaps young women and girls, turns them into sex slaves and passes them around to its fighters like prizes. It forces them into battle, ties suicide bombs to their bodies and orders them to strike at the gates of the University of Maiduguri.

But on campus, just beyond the militants’ reach, the topics being batted around a giant lecture hall could hardly have been more different: Radical feminism. The end of the patriarchy. Husbands who do the dishes.

“I want a man who can make my breakfast,” said Rabi Isa, a 25-year-old student, rising to address the room. “One who will assist me in the kitchen and who can go shopping.”

To much of the world, the Nigerian city of Maiduguri is simply known as the birthplace of Boko Haram, the extremist group that kills with abandon and treats women and girls like property, forcing them to cook, clean, bear children and die on command.

Ever since the authorities killed the group’s spiritual leader and flattened its compound here almost a decade ago, Boko Haram has lashed the city, storming it with its fighters, bombing markets, flooding the streets with homeless families escaping its rage and attacking the university at least eight times this year alone, inspired by its rallying cry, “Western education is forbidden.”

Continue reading the main story

But there is another Maiduguri entirely, one that helps shed light on the ideological battle at play in Nigeria’s north: This is a regional capital recognized for welcoming people of all religions and ethnicities, a college town long known for its party scene and a vibrant city with a bold, often broad-minded youth culture that eight years of war cannot seem to extinguish.

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In fact, sometimes the war even helps nudge it along.

It wasn’t even 8 p.m. on a weeknight and the twerking had already begun. The D.J. was spinning Afrobeats. Bodies pressed together in dark corners. And then, just as the party started heating up, the gates of the hotel abruptly swung shut, sealing everyone inside.

The all-night party had officially started.

In a different war zone, a curfew like the one that descends on this city each night to protect residents from Boko Haram might stifle any hope of a social life. But here, it has given rise to extended lock-in parties behind protected walls. Instead of going home, young people end up carousing until the curfew lifts at dawn.

Then, when the parties get too popular and become a potential target, they close down until they pop up somewhere else.

Inside the party that night, lights bounced off a swimming pool dotted with flower petals. Here, no one was talking about the war, the many hundreds, if not thousands, of women abducted by Boko Haram, the millions uprooted by violence, facing hunger and despair. They were talking about love, sex and women’s liberation.

“They want to test you to know if you can do it very well,” said Rose Williams, 27, speaking openly about premarital sex, which she said was considered taboo by her parents’ generation. “And I do it very well.”

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She and her friends watched the men and women — some in brightly colored head scarves, one with a baby on her back — swaying with arms in the air. They had come for a girls’ night out, to take a break from their boyfriends.

“And maybe I’ll find a new one tonight,” Ms. Williams said.

Blessing Christopher, a 21-year-old beauty-school student, was on the dance floor celebrating her newfound freedom after her latest relationship ended, happily unencumbered and eager to focus on her career instead of a man.

“I’m not looking for a boyfriend,” she said. “I’m looking for a job.”

In many ways, the war with Boko Haram has been a clash of wildly divergent hopes and expectations for Nigerian society. Islamist militants who started their rebellion against the Nigerian state thought they could end government corruption by adopting a severe version of Islam.

Western ways, particularly in the realm of education, were deemed sinful. Imams in Maiduguri who spoke out against the militants and their harsh interpretation of the religion were assassinated.

The rise of Boko Haram “brought a lot of confusion into Maiduguri about what is the real Islam,” said Sheik Abubakar Gonimi, chief imam of the Bolori Central Mosque here. “Thank God we know our religion, and this had nothing to do with Islam.”

After the militants were chased from the city, imams became more vocal, speaking out against the extremist philosophies and practices of Boko Haram. Life eventually started easing up again, and young people have found safe spaces to let loose.

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Inside the concrete walls of the city zoo, dozens of young couples hold hands as they pass the elephants and the snake pit. They lounge on the grass or sit arm in arm on the benches in front of the raptor cage, the zoo’s most popular make-out spot.

One couple, Kefas Iliya and Ruth Joseph, sprawled out on the patchy lawn studying for exams. When they met two years ago, Ms. Joseph wanted to focus on her environmental biology studies, not romance.

Mr. Iliya won her over by reciting Gambian poetry. Now, they hope to marry in two years when they can settle into a dual-career household.

“We plan to have children and I will help out,” Mr. Iliya said. “I’ll help with housework and I’ll help take care of the children and my wife.”

For all the new freedoms, many longtime residents say the staggering violence and tenacity of Boko Haram has succeeded in crushing much of Maiduguri’s traditional spirit.

“The war destroyed the basic fibers of our society,” said Zannah Mustapha, a prominent lawyer who has acted as a mediator between the government and Boko Haram members. “We were known for peace.”

For years, people stopped holding elaborate, seven-day weddings with drumming, dancing and banquets of fried rice. Shops stopped selling alcohol. Concerts that once drew musicians from as far as Ethiopia came to a halt. A local dance troupe stopped its daily routines at an old amphitheater. Dancers practiced their moves in bedrooms, with the shades drawn.

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Before the war broke out, Mohammed Bukar and his friends were regulars at a local disco where they danced to American artists like Bobby Brown and Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam.

“I spent a lot of time trying to perfect Michael Jackson’s dance moves from ‘Thriller,’” Mr. Bukar said.

Then one night in the early days of the war, Mr. Bukar recalled, Boko Haram stormed the club and killed patrons inside. The disco closed. As the fighting continued in Maiduguri, other nightclubs and bars also were shuttered.

But in the past two years, as the military has begun making headway against fighters, a sense of security has slowly returned to the city. People are regaining their social lives in fits and starts, as security allows, and expressions of the culture Mr. Bukar once enjoyed spring up in unexpected ways.

Along the same streets where nervous security officers keep an eye out for suicide bombers, one traffic officer does his job while impersonating Michael Jackson, moonwalking across the intersection and guiding cars with his single white glove.

Security still defines many of Maiduguri’s dating spots. A Chinese restaurant set far back from the street, protected by tall steel gates and a metal detector, provides a spot where couples smoke water pipes and pick at greasy spring rolls. Vehicles are searched for explosives before entering the parking lots of hotels that serve alcohol, despite a ban on sales in much of the city.

In another part of the city, vehicles crammed onto a short dirt road, leading to a narrow hall lined with couples standing close to one another. The passage opened up into a large beer garden where no fewer than 300 young people sat around plastic tables, nursing bottles of beer and watching a group of young men bend their bodies to loud music, laughing. Soldiers still in uniform milled around in the crowd, bottles of beer in hand and rifles dangling from their torsos.

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A local photo studio lets couples transport themselves from the grimness of the war, posing for portraits in front of a selection of backdrops: a field of white horses, a palatial living room with a spiral staircase, giant floating roses or a gently flowing river. Outer space is popular.

Lillian Usa, dressed in a Clash T-shirt and dark-rimmed glasses, was there with her boyfriend, a medical student, standing near a wall decorated with lipstick kiss smears from women perfecting their makeup.

In between photo shoots and changes of outfits, she listed the things she doesn’t like about her boyfriend — chiefly his hot temper. They think about marriage but want to wait until they both have completed their studies.

“He has, let’s say, 80 percent of the characteristics I like,” Ms. Usa said. “I’m teaching him the other 20 percent.”

Another couple, Samson Luca and Prisca Ibrahim, were having portraits taken before Mr. Luca, a soldier, left on a mission to fight Boko Haram.

“I’ve been away a lot so I wanted to come here so that she can look at me and remember me,” Mr. Luca said. “I’ll be gone a long time.”

He took off his Playboy bunny T-shirt, and the couple changed into matching camouflage shirts to pose for photos.

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Some couples say they still hide their physical relationships from old-fashioned parents who would not understand, despite the fact that Maiduguri is a cosmopolitan city where televisions are tuned to CNN and Adele songs are popular ringtones on smartphones.

Many of the views here seem to come from a different planet than Boko Haram’s; the group’s leaders preach that women can earn their way to heaven by blowing themselves up alongside soldiers at checkpoints.

At the university campus, Raphael Audu Adole, a professor wearing faux crocodile loafers and carrying a laptop tucked under his arm, stepped behind the lectern to explain the roots of male oppression.

“Society is constructed to favor the interests of men, isn’t it?” he asked his class.

“Yes,” responded a chorus of 150 young men and women.

“The man is trying to dominate,” he said. “Are you following me?”

“Yes,” the students chanted.                     

“Women are marginalized, oppressed and abused,” he continued. “Men have taken the part of domination and force in relations in the family. This is a big problem in society and we need to do something about it.”

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[ar3volut1on]

You all know that I believe we are in the last days, that soon the Lord will be coming back to for His church, His body, that means I spend a lot of time studying the end times prophecies and watching for the fulfillment of the signs we are called to watch for.  Tonight I was given a new perspective on a verse I have often studied.  I was watching a video talking about the social media, cell phone, selfie obsession running rampant in society today.  It is crazy, really.

Every where I go people either have their faces in their phones waiting for likes, scrolling endless newsfeeds, or posing for another selfie to share.  They are more concerned with being in cyber world than the real world and most seem to think that both worlds revolve around them.  I see people shopping that are too busy snapping pics of their hauls to even say hello to their cashiers, or driving and taking selfies at the same time, and being too busy scrolling their feeds in public to even look where they are walking, driving, etc, spending the entire sermon during church texting, scrolling, or you guessed it, taking selfies.  It’s not healthy, rational or safe and they certainly are missing out on real life and growing closer to the Lord in the last case, when they are continually attached to their devices, which my husband refers to as vices.  But it is the world we live in.  And I believe that Paul foretold us of it nearly 2,000 years ago.  So, rant over, let me get on with what I mean here.

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.  2 Timothy 3:1-5

I will go ahead and say up front that if I step on some toes with this, I am not sorry, this needs to be said and understood before true freedom from these addictions through Jesus can be achieved.

In the last days there will come times of difficulty, yea you could say that.  Life is difficult, Christians are persecuted, nations are in turmoil, natural disasters have increased ten fold, terrorists groups like ISIS are growing in boldness and strength each day, people are starving, plagues are running rampant in many areas, need me to go on.  Times are bad, and they are going to get a whole lot worse according to scripture.  I believe we are still in the birth pangs stage and that means this is nothing compared to what’s coming.  I have said before that I believe in a pre-trib rapture or departing of the church but I am fully prepared to face the coming tribulation if my interpretation is wrong.  I am human and am not perfect so I could be mistaken and if I am then my faith will not be shaken, instead I am prepared to die for my faith if it comes to it, although if this is the scenario I will try to survive the 7 years of tribulation to see Jesus coming in triumph and glory at the end.  Ok, sorry got off track there, back to 1 Timothy.  Paul says that in the last days will come times of difficulty, then he begins to enumerate why this will happen.

For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

Wow,  he couldn’t have described today’s society better.  People are obviously lovers of self – Facebook, Instagram, and selfies attest to that.  Along with that love of self comes pride and arrogance, conceit, etc.  And you’d think it was just the youngest generations but it isn’t, nope, it’s all generations.  At any given time I am as likely to see a teen, a young mom, a middle aged person and an older lady all taking selfies or scrolling at church.  Everyone has a phone in their hand all the time.  It has become an idol.  And it isn’t just older kids and adults.  Oh no!  A couple weeks ago I worked the nursery at the big church for a women’s circle meeting one evening.  I only had three kiddos so I spent the evening making some observations on the differences between them.  They were aged 4, 5, and 7 with the younger two being girls.  The younger girl and the boy are siblings and all three were pastors kids, actually both the 5 year girls parents are pastors.  Imagine my shock when said 5 year old whips out a toy cell phone and begins taking selfies that looked more like 25 than 5, “talking” to her boyfriends, Facebooking, etc.  She looked just like 90% of the adults I see when I come off our creek – lovers of self, proud, arrogant, conceited.

Paul also warns they will be lovers of money, ungrateful, unappeasable.  Yet again this sounds like a majority of people I see around me every day.  Always buying, spending, never taking time to enjoy what they already have, it’s all about more, more, more, spend, spend, spend.  My husband and I were just discussing this earlier as we noticed how certain people seem to blow money like mad buying anything and everything they want.  Only to throw it away or tear it up with in days or weeks.  They are never satisfied always looking for the perfect thing, never realizing that it doesn’t cost a dime.  Jesus fulfills us, satisfies us, in a way stuff and money never will.  When we accept him into our hearts, repent of our sinful ways (this includes the greed) we suddenly are freed to realize just how very blessed we are without all that junk.

          People will also be abusive, disobedient to their parents, unholy, heartless, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.  Just look around you and I bet you can find examples of each of these traits.  I know I can, I used to be guilty of all of these characteristics Paul mentions, but once I gave my heart to the Lord and repented of these ways instead focusing on serving him I found out what it truly means to be free.  To be blessed.  To live!  No longer am I a slave to this world, now I serve a higher world, a higher purpose, a heavenly King.

If you are struggling with any of these signs of the times then I ask you to put your faith in Jesus and allow him to change you, free you from these tools of Satan that will ultimately destroy and condemn you.  Accept Jesus in your heart, confess your sins to him, repent and turn from them and embrace the grace the Lord offers.  Confess he is the Christ the Son of the living God who died for the repentance of sin then rose on the third day assuring us of the hope of eternal life with him.

Maybe you’ve already done that, if so praise the Lord brother or sister and rejoice that you are not numbered among this list that will perish in the lake of fire if they do not wake up and repent.  Then get busy about the Fathers work and get out there winning souls still caught in the condemning lies, a trap with eternal consequences, to the Lord.  Introduce them to our sweet Savior and show them there is a better way, a way filled with love, life, blessings and hope.  Time is running out and we must be about the Father’s work while we still can.

May the Lord bless and keep you brothers and sisters.

Cult Of Self You all know that I believe we are in the last days, that soon the Lord will be coming back to for His church, His body, that means I spend a lot of time studying the end times prophecies and watching for the fulfillment of the signs we are called to watch for. 

[davidastbury]

August 2017

Don Coming up to forty Don knew he was at the top of his game – he was the best salesman of advertising space in the organisation, and his commission earnings were huge.  One afternoon, riding on his conceit, there was a flare up with the boss, which had been fermenting for a long time, and Don told him where to stick his job. This wasn’t altogether unplanned; his life was about to go into a new phase.  He had fallen in love with a colleague in the London office – a very beautiful woman who made him feel young again – being half his age – and she had suggested that he move in with her.  He could not believe how lucky he was. It must have been difficult telling his wife.  They went back a long way; she had been his girlfriend at seventeen; at eighteen she was pregnant and at nineteen they were married.  Maybe she had seen it coming – who knows?  Two days later he waited in the car-park for his daughter to finish work.  He put his face forward for a kiss and she hit him as hard as she could. Don settled into his new life with his new girlfriend.  Everything was very lovely.  But he hadn’t realised how hard she worked, or the extent of her ambition.  She worked long hours and would come home tired but still energetic – still buzzing with the atmosphere of her job and London life.  During the weekdays she never dropped her ‘work’ personality – he never had her to himself.  She never felt the need to relax, she would chatter about her day and the people with whom she worked (names that meant nothing to him) -  and she would get changed and want to eat out – they seemed to be always eating out. He quickly discovered that the job offers would not coming flooding to him.  People in the ad business, while showing pleasure at hearing from him, did not call him back.  So he would get up late and prowl around the flat.  Everything about the place was light and a bit girlish – even when she made a mess it was unmistakably a woman’s mess.  He began to feel a bit crude and heavily masculine – it began to annoy him.  So he started to visit the local pubs at lunchtime, and then back to the flat to sleep it off. I am sorry that I cannot give an ending because I have no contact with anyone who might know Don.  I am curious about the regret he must have felt – leaving his wife like that –  dumping her – just as she was about to start her cancer treatments.

Natasha Adorable little girl actress – surrounded by doting, important men; a child star  upstaging Orson Wells!  At six years old she was the earner in the family; all she had to do was learn her stuff and be adorable and the money poured in.  She said - ‘Mom told me to pose and smile and the cameraman was going to make me famous or something. I believed everything my mother told me.’  Her mom controlled everything. In her mid-teens she was brutally raped by a famous film actor.  Her mother prevented her calling the police, reasoning that the man would probably beat the charge and the outcome would be the end of the girl’s career. She married her dreamboat and appeared to be very happy – until one night she returned home unexpectedly and found him having sex with another man.  They were divorced.  Years later they met again and decided that they still loved each other and remarried. Her career was faltering.  She had an impeccable history of giving top value; she was the ultimate professional.  She was utterly reliable, but she was missing out, and that must have been hard to take. Maybe years of being subservient to the bosses; of jumping to do what they wanted; of the oppression of third-rate people, of unsatisfactory men and cloying parents, of having her real name taken away and never believing that she fitted with the new one, of being manipulated, of bumping into her rapist at events, of the lethal hypocrasy of some of her friends, of the searing headaches after too much alcohol, of the weirdness of her psychiatrist’s ‘treatments, of the insinuations of her husband’s friend, of the three of them in the boat together.  And that dark night in the bay when she drowned in black water.

Sunshine Today! A man and a little girl and a large dog – passing the house, heading towards the carnival up the road in the village.  The little girl is trotting, needing two or three steps to each of the man’s, and the dog is pulling.  Even though out of breath she is talking excitedly.   She’s looking up at him and explaining something; it’s as if she wants him to see her face, or he might miss the point.   He’s quite happy letting the dog pull, and he’s probably very happy for his daughter to chatter away – he’s happy that she knows all about whatever-it-is, and that she wishes to share it with him. I can hear a band in the distance, getting louder – trumpets and drums, and the man and the little girl and the dog head towards the music.

A Flighty Woman She let you down – big time!  Not to put too fine a point on it, she dumped on you from a great height.  I understand how you feel and I am very sorry. I will walk away with a head full of unspoken words. -  ‘Didn’t you have two fabulous years with her?  Didn’t you rush to throw your heart and soul at her, as if that would guarantee her loyalty?  Did she ever ask for all that you gave her? Didn’t you ever feel that you were corrupting her; turning her into something that became shameful to her?   Did you never understand that only the first lie is difficult, after that they just flow. ‘Why don’t you simply let her melt into the past.  You had good times – why not be grateful and see that knowing her was better than not knowing her.  People change and they go their ways –  loyalties realign, children grow up, parents die – be glad of all the happiness you can and don’t try to fix it, don’t press it with hateful permanence, like a butterfly impaled with a pin.’

The Ghosts of Oxford Street …  #1 It is said that if you walk the length of The Strand you will pass at least two murderers and one international spy.  Today, if you walk Oxford Street, preferably on a hot afternoon, it is likely you will meet the ghost of Dr. Stephen Ward. Ward loved Oxford Street for two reasons – it had lots of coffee bars; usually with low tables, bamboo screening, and uniformed girls serving foaming coffee in shallow glass cups – and outside, passing along the pavements, was a parade of the prettiest women in London.  He was well known in these coffee bars, always at a window seat, always primly dressed in suit and white shirt, chain-smoking his beloved Player’s Navy Cut cigarettes, sometimes alone and sketching, sometimes talking with a friend, but always, always with an eye on the young women passing by. He told his journalist friend Warwick Charlton that sitting and watching this display of loveliness was all he wanted out of life.  Women were essential to him – he could do without men, but never women.   He could talk about endlessly about ‘classifications of beauty’ or how beauty was perceived in different cultures.  His own preferences may not have matched the aesthetic of Lord Clark at the National Gallery, although who knows?  Perhaps Lord Clark also enthused at the new innovation of very short skirts (later to be called the ‘miniskirt) which was actually invented at a shop on Oxford Street. He never meant harm to anyone, but what can you do when an angry boyfriend shouts in the street and fires a gun?  Everything fell apart.  Bill disowned him. The web closed in on Christine, the press attacked him every day, his drawings were secretly bought by a representative of Buckingham Palace. Stephen Ward knew it was all over, and he chose the avoid the horror of prison – on the night of 30th July 1963 he wrote and few letters and then took the pills.

Restaurant Me:  ‘And what’s the soup of the day – today?’ Waitress:   ‘Ragwort and Laburnum – it’s very nice.’ Me:   ‘Yum.’ (Her sense of humour matches mine)

On the Train Dreadfully rude woman in the waiting room – the woman next to her was getting up and trying to squeeze past her.  The poor woman’s face was tight with pain and she had two arm crutches.  The rude woman finally, and with a sigh, moved back in her seat to let her through. A few minutes later the woman limped back and struggled to get back to her seat.  Again the rude woman made heavy weather of letting her resume her place.  Much muttering and ceiling gazing.  I felt like saying something to her, but before I could the two started chatting.  They were together – in fact, looking closely I’d guess they were sisters!

One Day One day my garden will be ripped up and totally destroyed.  A new owner will take the opportunity to extend the house or even build an additional one on land which is now the garden.  People don’t want gardens anymore. The trees will be cleared along with everything else – including the sleeping place for fifty years of our cats and dogs - and other loved creatures.  It will all be dug up - pipes will be laid, cabling, concrete foundations. The descendants of the magpies that cackled at me this morning will one day look down and say – ‘It was nice here once; when the man with white hair had it.’

Piccadilly Station … Manchester Beautiful black woman – slim as a pencil.  Superb backward tilt of her elliptical shaped head – neck like Nefertiti.  She walks like a dancer leaving the stage. Following her like a shadow is her daughter – a four-year-old copy of herself, trotting weightlessly, long legs flickering - reaching up for her mother’s hand.

Manchester 3rd July 2017 I have seen a reincarnation of John Christie – you know the one – the multiple murderer of Rillington Place –every bit as realistic as his wax dummy in Madame Tussauds.  To be honest it shocked me – a monster from the bleak austerity of the 1950s – (London was horrible in those days before Dulux paint was invented). This man had the same frightening shabbiness – the same opaque gaze of the true pervert – that insinuating half sneer –that presumption of knowing something about you – that repulsive intimacy – that sly trickle of friendliness – that undertaker’s smile!   Well – the old bastard is back and I’ve seen him – giving out religious leaflets and saving souls on Market St. Manchester.   South Manchester Grand Victorian villas obscured by vast trees.  I am walking to synagogue – an Orthodox synagogue!  Walking quickly as the tradition teaches – you walk quickly to a place of worship but walk slowly when leaving.  I’m all smiles on this sunny morning – I’m a guest – and guests smile. Everything is so lovely – men in suits, ladies dressed up, children darting about –  I enter the iron gates  – and the sun bursts through the leaves and I’m ready to praise the God of dappled things and furtively touch the warm Didsbury bricks.

On the Train Had to stand all the way, no seats available.  No one got up to offer me their place – that’s fairly rare – in fact only Asian young people do that now.   I’m not complaining; I’m glad to be fit enough to swing from a greasy strap for half an hour – but I do draw the line at young executives expecting to pass in front of me when getting off.

Mary Notnice – some background information I don’t suppose any of us really knew Mary very well because, despite her conceit,  she didn’t talk much about herself -  but it’s possible to get a certain picture by putting lots of bits together. I knew she was working in the office because of her catastrophic exam results, and yet she considered herself far too important for the job and looked down on the other girls. It was clear that she didn’t have a normal sense of humour – instead she found amusement in peoples mistakes and embarrassments. We knew that she treated her numerous boyfriends very badly; none of whom survived more than a few dates. We knew she didn’t get along with her mother and was irritated when she called during working hours to see her. We knew that she had been brought up by her mother; her father walked out when Mary was tiny and there had been hardly any contact since.  Dad remarried but she had never met her step-brothers and step-sisters. Once when smoking grass, she told someone – (who told me) – that she couldn’t cry.

Department Store I was standing waiting for the lift for the sixth floor when I noticed something.  People stepping off the escalator had to turn right and pass a cosmetics display stand.  Prominent in the stand was a huge ornately framed mirror – it was like something out of Madame Pompadour’s bedroom.  I watched the shoppers, male and female, approach the mirror, each with the self conscious expression look we all have when we are about to face our own image. But it was a cheat – there was no mirror; the picture frame was hollow and simply gave a view of the interior of the make-up cubicle.  So the passersby passed by – each quickly changing their expressions from one of seriousness, self-adoration, coquettish-ness, fake irritation, agony, drop-dead coolness – back to their ‘normal’ faces. Something quite deep here too – expecting to see your own image and finding nothing there.

Stolen Kisses End of term and some sort of garden party – quite a strong memory.  My friend Russell was having his picture taken with our form-teacher; the two of them standing with the arch and the driveway in the background.  He’s got his arm around Russell’s shoulders, something he often did, but no one bothered.  Of course today he’d be sacked and locked up for five years, and then banned for life from the company of young people.  Anyway, he was a nice man and perhaps viewed Russell as the son he never had - and all that crap. There was a crush of people, chattering, holding glasses, standing on the freshly cut grass – sunshine, the trees rustling in the breeze, a buzz of happiness at the approaching freedom – the weeks of holiday!  I could see Russell’s gorgeous mother talking to a parent.  She was wearing a thin dress and flat shoes and the man with her couldn’t take his eyes away. But I was looking for Russell’s sister – I knew she was there somewhere, it was just a matter of finding her.  The elation of the afternoon had caught me – I was part of it -  I was ready to be reckless and convinced that I would succeed.   Older friends had given me advice – I was only twelve – and all I had to do was approach her and somehow survive the scorching heat of her loveliness – get close to her and say: -  ‘I love you’. But first I had to find her.

Natural Selection She sat in the car and watched as her father went to keep his appointment with the Warden.  The Warden would have an active involvement with the selection panel -  or at least he had influence.  She had attended her interview and had not been accepted. The visitor was shown all the courtesy of a respected member of the college alumni. After the pleasantries the Warden, standing at the window and speaking in a voice as soft at butter, got to the point. ‘It is mildly disagreeable to have to explain our decisions knowing that our reasoning does not always entirely satisfy.  You see, we have to match a broad approach to our own – dare I say – parochial one.  We have many presssures - education generally is a wide and contentious subject – and the question is not whether we ought to turn infants into educated adults, but rather what sort of education we give to whom.   ‘Oxford can only provide a small part of the answer.  By the time children reach the age at which they apply to Oxford, they have either acquired or have failed to acquire most of what they need in the way of knowledge, ambition, intellectual curiosity and the capacity for learning more.  What we face every year during the admissions process is a little under five times as many applicants as we have room for, almost all them with near perfect records at school – and very few of them significantly much better, or significantly worse than the rest. ‘I ask you to consider our difficulties………’ And so it went on.   Later, as they drove home in silence, all the girls’ thoughts were about her boyfriend.  She was seeing him later – she couldn’t wait.

Mrs Asquith When you are ten years old you see everything – you are all eyes!  And my eyes must have lit up when I saw Mrs Asquith cross the road and stand near me in the bus queue.  She looked like no other woman I had ever seen – nothing like my mother’s friends or the female teachers at school.  Mrs Asquith was like a fim star.  I would stare at her high heels and belted raincoat – her froth of scarves - her casually careful hair-do, her red lips. On one of these occasions she turned to face me, as if feeling the unfocused heat of my gaze, and winked at me.  From that moment on, she was my dearest, most exciting and most secret friend. She lived in a farm cottage – down a narrow and usually muddy footpath (there was a way for vehicles to access it, but that was a long route) – through fields and hedgerows, and set near the edge of a lake.  It was very familiar to me and my pals because those meadows and woodlands were the places where we went for our adventures – in fact we sometimes put up a tent and slept near the lake.  I loved looking at her cottage when it was going dark – the windows lit – the chimney making a lot of smoke – long shadows of the huge water barrels used for collecting rainwater (the cottage didn’t have a water supply) – the cries from the cattle sheds where the animals had been put up for the night – and the crimson reflection on the surface of the lake as the sun drowned.   There was a Mr Asquith – but I never saw him, and there was a son roughly my age, but he was at some school or other, as a boarder.  Mrs Asquith used to go out in the evenings and she would walk the half mile to the main road.  When she reached the end of the lane I once saw her take off her muddy boots and put on her heeled shoes – the boots were put in a bag and then hidden in the long grass.  Every time I went down the lane, usually walking my dog, I would check to see if the bag was there – if it was, it meant that she was ‘out’ somewhere. I was with a friend one night, at this same spot, when we saw that a car had pulled in and was parked ‘off’ the path.  It was dark but I could see two people in the car.  The casually careful hair-do was down into her face and she was looking up to see what the man had seen.  I pulled my friend’s arm we rushed away. Sometimes I’d hear women talking to my mother about Mrs Asquith – insinuating remarks – utter poison.  They voiced their suspicions but I never spoke a word …I never spoke a word against Mrs Asquith.

Every twelve months or so I visit an audiologist and she does her best to keep my one decent ear in good working order, or as well as that is possible.  She is very skilful and I always leave her clinic with sharper hearing – people’s voices are clearer -  traffic noise sounds louder etc. At the end of the session she clicks away on the keyboard updating her notes and we drift into general conversation.  I am always curious at the way the professional manner recedes and her own very sensitive personality comes through.  From my first appointment I knew that she was the best type of medical practitioner because her skill was mixed with natural empathy and kindness.   We were talking generally about the difficulties of coping with deafness and she said that because she has a problem herself, she knows how her patients feel.  She told me that whenever she is upset she goes deaf.  I asked about the nature of the upset and she said it wasn’t the ‘crying’ type, it was more about strong conflict situations.  She feels it building up and then she totally loses her hearing for a while.  Of course she had every sort of test but nothing was learned. ‘So, you see - it’s a mystery!’ – she said. ‘No it isn’t’ –  I thought.  ‘Your deafness is caused by your priceless, precious protective control systems – all shutting down and keeping you from harm.  

Manchester Royal Infirmary 2nd August 2017 I was ushered into a bay and asked to sit on a strange looking chair – it had a 1930s dentistry look about it – but quite comfortable – in a sinister sort of way.  A male nurse then appeared and told me to hold out my arm so that he could insert a cannula into a cooperative vein – which I did –  making a fist as instructed (‘up the revolution’ and all that).  Half way through the procedure he said; ‘Excuse me, I’ll be back a minute’ and rushed off.  ‘Back in a minute!’- where had he gone – to the lavatory?’ - I hoped he would wash his hands before resuming my own non-cosmetic body piercing. And then I noticed that he hadn’t properly drawn the curtain, and that someone was peering in at me.  Ancient watery eyes.  An old man in a wheelchair; probably waiting his turn to be cannulised. I decided to put on a show for him.  First of all I did my ‘watching-the-shower-scene in Psycho, face.  A medley of horrified contortions ending with me slumping lifeless on my dentist’s chair.  He was really laughing, silently, but I could see him shaking. The male nurse made his bumptious entrance, muttering;  ‘Sorry about that’ and resumed his efforts the get at my vein. When I was finally sorted out and the curtain was tugged back, I expected to see the old man, but he had gone – he must have been wheeled off somewhere.  

Pret a Manger   #37 I’ve seen them before, but not this close.  She’s quite bossy – obviously a student, probably a star student if such a title exists.  He is different – open faced and friendly – and is clearly a bit overawed by her.  Perhaps he doesn’t feel her equal; perhaps he’s afraid someone at the university, someone as clever as she is, will take her away. I wish I could reassure him.  I wish I could tell him that women don’t want a clever bastard who knows everything and always has his nose buried in books.  Women want a man who says what he means and can use a power-drill.

This morning – the market Among the swirl of people was a mother and daughter -  Pat went over to them and asked if they were Iranian.  The daughter smiled and replied that they were often mistaken for Iranians, but they were Kurdish.    We said that we knew a lot of Kurdish families in the area.  The daughter’s face lit up when Pat mentioned names – people she knew too – events which we had attended and the places that Pat has visited in Kurdistan. And she chatted about herself – she is going to be a pharmacist – Inshallah – and she was very happy to meet us – and her voice was as sharp and clear as a bell, wrapping up her personality in a Lancashire accent as strong as my mother’s.

Ian Ian S. had a bout of mental illness – which wasn’t a wise thing to do in the 1960s.  He was ashamed and none of us knew what to say to him, so we didn’t say anything. Much later – after not seeing each other for about three years – he never returned to the firm where we had both worked – we met on Cross Street and went for a few drinks together. He was a different person.  There was a tremendous seriousness as if every word he spoke was a rock chiselled from his heart.  Nothing to be discussed; it was the truth and that was that. He said;  ‘I have been to hell and hell is about being alone, totally alone.  No one can help - it isn’t possible for anyone to help – but you don’t know that at the time.  You think people can and you go to them for help – and they make you worse – the ones who say they can help make you really ill.’ I said something silly like; ‘…people doing their jobs as best they can’  and ‘…I suppose every case is different’ and so on. He glared at me and said;  ‘You haven’t been listening – the ones who say they can help are the ones who make you really ill.’

Jacqueline She was in her second year at medical school and had already decided to be an ophthalmologist.  She used to sit in the library studying a book called ‘The Eye and Orbit’ and other titles dealing with surgery of the eye.  She was called Jackie and she was the girlfriend of my friend Kevin Cassidy. Kevin kept her very much to himself – we only saw him when he was alone.  I once commented on this and he said that Jackie didn’t like being in a crowd; she was shy and very quiet.  But around that time there was some sort of incident on Oxford Road – very near to the medical library.  A man was lying on the pavement and people bunched up around him.  Someone had phoned for help but it wasn’t clear  what had happened – a woman said that he had fallen over in a fit – another said that a man had come up and hit him, and then ran away.  He wasn’t fully conscious.   Jackie, apparently untroubled by shyness, loudly announced that she was a medical student and that everyone must stand back and let her through.  She knelt beside him and did the things that doctors do in such situations – but – all the time that she was working on the man, her face was very close to his – very close – nearly touching. Kevin had seen all this – he had watched her kneeling astride the stranger, with her face over his, and it puzzled him. I thought of her fascination with eyes, but I said nothing – I left him to work it out for himself.

1964…..A Fine Romance She: She used to sit on her boss’s knee and flick his tie – she took part in beauty contests and had been on TV – she was stalked by a footballer – she was assaulted by a dentist – she went to the Lucy Clayton school of modelling – she liked pubs and would order pints of beer and leave them – she couldn’t cook – she enjoyed dancing by herself – she didn’t mind men ‘trying it on’ – she loved her German shepherd dog and she wanted to visit New York. He: He wanted her for himself.

R He has two ex-wives - I knew them both – and two furious mothers-in-law, one of whom physically attacked him in the street.  There are lots of stories about his unstable business activities – repossessions, liquidations, courts and so on – but he always bounces back and somehow obtains credit to start up again. I see him sometimes with his new wife. They have a little girl and it all looks very nice and settled.  But, given the opportunity, he asks me, in a nonchalant matter-of-fact sort of way, if I ever hear anything about J, his first wife.

On the Train The cruelty of the young – not something talked about very much, as if a curtain of indulgence is pulled across and a quick change of subject.  They are, after all, young and selfish. Here’s something I saw in the waiting room.  Two young people;  in a relationship (as the questionnaire puts it).  He exercising his freedom to come and go whilst she would willingly give up hers.  He warbles about his plans – which appear not to include her – and takes at face value her murmured encouragements.   She is perfectly wrong-footed – how can she protest at his enthusiasm and ambition?  How can she ask about her own position without sounding pathetic, as if she is a draw-back to his burgeoning progress? So she will worry about his barnstorming ideas, and adjust as needed.  She will get used to what he is going to do – and then, without being consulted he will have changed his mind and have found something ‘better’ – and so on. He perhaps will have a good future – people like him do – but at some point, in twenty years or so, he will feel a regret at the way he treated this girl – in forty years he will experience serious guilt. Such as I say…the cruel. l

[ar3volut1on]

You all know that I believe we are in the last days, that soon the Lord will be coming back to for His church, His body, that means I spend a lot of time studying the end times prophecies and watching for the fulfillment of the signs we are called to watch for.  Tonight I was given a new perspective on a verse I have often studied.  I was watching a video talking about the social media, cell phone, selfie obsession running rampant in society today.  It is crazy, really.

Every where I go people either have their faces in their phones waiting for likes, scrolling endless newsfeeds, or posing for another selfie to share.  They are more concerned with being in cyber world than the real world and most seem to think that both worlds revolve around them.  I see people shopping that are too busy snapping pics of their hauls to even say hello to their cashiers, or driving and taking selfies at the same time, and being too busy scrolling their feeds in public to even look where they are walking, driving, etc, spending the entire sermon during church texting, scrolling, or you guessed it, taking selfies.  It’s not healthy, rational or safe and they certainly are missing out on real life and growing closer to the Lord in the last case, when they are continually attached to their devices, which my husband refers to as vices.  But it is the world we live in.  And I believe that Paul foretold us of it nearly 2,000 years ago.  So, rant over, let me get on with what I mean here.

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.  2 Timothy 3:1-5

I will go ahead and say up front that if I step on some toes with this, I am not sorry, this needs to be said and understood before true freedom from these addictions through Jesus can be achieved.

In the last days there will come times of difficulty, yea you could say that.  Life is difficult, Christians are persecuted, nations are in turmoil, natural disasters have increased ten fold, terrorists groups like ISIS are growing in boldness and strength each day, people are starving, plagues are running rampant in many areas, need me to go on.  Times are bad, and they are going to get a whole lot worse according to scripture.  I believe we are still in the birth pangs stage and that means this is nothing compared to what’s coming.  I have said before that I believe in a pre-trib rapture or departing of the church but I am fully prepared to face the coming tribulation if my interpretation is wrong.  I am human and am not perfect so I could be mistaken and if I am then my faith will not be shaken, instead I am prepared to die for my faith if it comes to it, although if this is the scenario I will try to survive the 7 years of tribulation to see Jesus coming in triumph and glory at the end.  Ok, sorry got off track there, back to 1 Timothy.  Paul says that in the last days will come times of difficulty, then he begins to enumerate why this will happen.

For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

Wow,  he couldn’t have described today’s society better.  People are obviously lovers of self – Facebook, Instagram, and selfies attest to that.  Along with that love of self comes pride and arrogance, conceit, etc.  And you’d think it was just the youngest generations but it isn’t, nope, it’s all generations.  At any given time I am as likely to see a teen, a young mom, a middle aged person and an older lady all taking selfies or scrolling at church.  Everyone has a phone in their hand all the time.  It has become an idol.  And it isn’t just older kids and adults.  Oh no!  A couple weeks ago I worked the nursery at the big church for a women’s circle meeting one evening.  I only had three kiddos so I spent the evening making some observations on the differences between them.  They were aged 4, 5, and 7 with the younger two being girls.  The younger girl and the boy are siblings and all three were pastors kids, actually both the 5 year girls parents are pastors.  Imagine my shock when said 5 year old whips out a toy cell phone and begins taking selfies that looked more like 25 than 5, “talking” to her boyfriends, Facebooking, etc.  She looked just like 90% of the adults I see when I come off our creek – lovers of self, proud, arrogant, conceited.

Paul also warns they will be lovers of money, ungrateful, unappeasable.  Yet again this sounds like a majority of people I see around me every day.  Always buying, spending, never taking time to enjoy what they already have, it’s all about more, more, more, spend, spend, spend.  My husband and I were just discussing this earlier as we noticed how certain people seem to blow money like mad buying anything and everything they want.  Only to throw it away or tear it up with in days or weeks.  They are never satisfied always looking for the perfect thing, never realizing that it doesn’t cost a dime.  Jesus fulfills us, satisfies us, in a way stuff and money never will.  When we accept him into our hearts, repent of our sinful ways (this includes the greed) we suddenly are freed to realize just how very blessed we are without all that junk.

    People will also be abusive, disobedient to their parents, unholy, heartless, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.  Just look around you and I bet you can find examples of each of these traits.  I know I can, I used to be guilty of all of these characteristics Paul mentions, but once I gave my heart to the Lord and repented of these ways instead focusing on serving him I found out what it truly means to be free.  To be blessed.  To live!  No longer am I a slave to this world, now I serve a higher world, a higher purpose, a heavenly King.

If you are struggling with any of these signs of the times then I ask you to put your faith in Jesus and allow him to change you, free you from these tools of Satan that will ultimately destroy and condemn you.  Accept Jesus in your heart, confess your sins to him, repent and turn from them and embrace the grace the Lord offers.  Confess he is the Christ the Son of the living God who died for the repentance of sin then rose on the third day assuring us of the hope of eternal life with him.

Maybe you’ve already done that, if so praise the Lord brother or sister and rejoice that you are not numbered among this list that will perish in the lake of fire if they do not wake up and repent.  Then get busy about the Fathers work and get out there winning souls still caught in the condemning lies, a trap with eternal consequences, to the Lord.  Introduce them to our sweet Savior and show them there is a better way, a way filled with love, life, blessings and hope.  Time is running out and we must be about the Father’s work while we still can.

May the Lord bless and keep you brothers and sisters.

Cult Of Self You all know that I believe we are in the last days, that soon the Lord will be coming back to for His church, His body, that means I spend a lot of time studying the end times prophecies and watching for the fulfillment of the signs we are called to watch for.