#I spend a lot of time researching down rabbit holes because apparently I might die if I just picked something that required no research

[disappearinginq]

🥚🌾🎨🌈 and The scene you worked the hardest on in any fic?

🥚 Any easter eggs you put in a fic that you hoped people would notice?

You know, I don't know....I don't know if they count as Easter Eggs, but Constantine is mentioned a few times in Damnatio (before he showed up on Legends of Tomorrow and no one remembered the short lived but brilliant TV series on NBC with Matt Ryan), and MacGyver is alluded to in Bad Things Happen in Magnum. 🌾 A fic you really want to write but you haven’t (yet)?

There are a couple in vastly varying fandoms: one for the Umbrella Academy where it would likely be AU (but every season is an AU, so, techncially that would be canon?) where instead of the apocalypse or end of the world as we know it, TUA is more mundane crime stoppers a la Batman style, and they need Five to go undercover in a school for 'gifted' kids (smart kids versus super powers) and I get to channel all of my 'I don't care how smart the school thinks I am, I still hate it and I'm bored' self.

I have thrown myself SOLIDLY into the Hudson and Rex fandom (anyone who is here because of Magnum, you should really give that show a try - I liked it so much I bought a region free DVD player just so I could own it), so there's like...8 story ideas floating around in there.

Yellowstone - I hate, hate, HATE the media portrayal of adopted kids (whether still as children or as adults) throwing over on their adopted family in favor of the biological one because they always want to know 'who am I?' because out of the adopted kids (or even foster kids) I know, not one of them has been like eeeeeeey, lemme just tell the people who raised me, loved me, treated me as a very wanted child 'yOu'Re nOt mY ReAL mom/dad' and turned into a bad guy for the sake of drama, so the way that they're writing Jamie from second half of season 3 ALL through season 4 had me throwing shit at the TV over a show I used to love. So I have like...3 half finished fics where I don't necessarily RETCON the story line, but at least flesh out the characters and reasoning better (in my oh so humble opinion) so that it's not just Adopted Kid = Bad Kid.

Haunting of Hill House - I have I think like 10k words of a continuing story line that takes place between the last night at the House and when the 2 years later scene takes place that throws ALLLLLLLL the supernatural into it.

I also have a 9-1-1 genfic that is almost entirely written because I hate the shipping discord in that fandom and if I want to find genfic, I either have to read an established b*ddie fic where the romance is so background I can skip over it, or haunt the same three authors until I'm eventually reported for stalking. So I have a 5+1 for Dad!Bobby and Buck.

🎨 Show us a sneak peek from a WIP!

Joke's on you, I have like, 11 WIPS. So you get the random Yellowstone one, even though I don't know if you've seen the show.

Jamie didn’t move. His finger still held along the side of the rifle, not on the trigger, but John wondered how long that would be true. “I’ve always wondered, if given the chance, what I would change. Go back in time and make some other choice. Not listening to Beth when she told me to take her to the clinic so you wouldn’t find out? Not give the interview to that reporter? Not…” Jamie trailed off, staring blankly into the distance, and John watched as his finger jumped to the trigger and back off again. “Not like there’s a shortage of bad decisions to pick from, right? But do you know the one I keep coming back to?”

John could guess.

“We’ve been here before, son,” John said instead, wincing at the creak in his knees and the twinge from his shoulder as he sat down on ground in front of Jamie, hoping to get him to at least look at him. He saw the way Jamie flinched at the word ‘son’ as though John slapped him across the face. “You made the right decision then. You’ll make the right decision now.”

Jamie didn’t budge. The rifle barrel still rested underneath his chin, his grip white knuckled on the barrel and surprisingly light on the stock where his finger tapped against the trigger. “I didn’t know you told jokes, John. Maybe when the ranch is gone, you can take up comedy.”

John growled, ducking his head as he snatched at the tall grass, needing to do something with his hands so he didn’t do something he regretted. “You would make me watch another son die?”

“I wouldn’t hurt Kayce.”

“Jesus, Jamie -”

“Walk away. Whatever…whatever moral obligation you felt to take me in, to-to stop me from doing this the first time, I absolve you from. Just walk away, and come back tomorrow. Take my body to the train station if you have to - you don’t have to put on the show of putting me with Lee or Mom-” Jamie stopped short, sucking in a breath through clenched teeth before he amended it: “Evelyn. Then you can still visit them without visiting me. Just go away.”

He should’ve sent Rip. Or Kayce. Lloyd, for Chrissakes, would be better at this than him, but he wasn’t about to give up. “You think so little of me? I fucking raised you. And you think you can just tell me to walk away, let you kill yourself?”

“I’m not telling you to,” Jamie said quietly. “I’m giving you permission.”

“Jamie-”

“What the fuck do you care?” Jamie shouted, the abrupt anger catching John by surprise so that he jolted back. “Why the fuck can’t you just let me go? You’re the one who told me to do it in the first place - and now - now what? Now what? You’re - you’re angry? You think it’ll make you look like a bad father? I’ll look like a weak son? Fine. Fine. Give me a fucking piece of paper - shit, I’ll carve it into my skin if I have to, that this was one hundred percent me. My choosing. My choice. Tell the world I was fucking adopted, that I’m not yours, that this isn’t weakness from the Duttons, this is some lesser form of being choosing the coward’s way out - this is my two week’s notice - that I fucking quit.”

John was no good at this. What he wanted to do was rip the rifle out of Jamie’s hands and smack him upside the head with it. He wanted to force him to drop it, and make him think twice about ever picking it up again because clearly, the ‘kind and gentle way’ hadn’t given Jamie the perspective he thought it would. He wanted to shake him until his brain rattled enough in his skull to finally knock some sense into him, but Jamie was fast.

Too fast, sometimes. It was easy to forget when Jamie spent most of his life holding back. Forcing a smile on his face and going in whatever direction John pointed him in.

But holding everything in was like a simmering volcano, and unlike his other children who never gave their actions a second thought and just did, Jamie held back until he exploded. It was fast, furious, and Jamie almost always instantly regretted it, making it worse the next time. �� Your favorite tropes to write about?

FOUND FAMILY. PLATONIC LOVE. ALL THE THINGS I WANT AND I CAN NEVER FIND. And naturally, hurt/comfort. probably because it's the only way to have characters to interact that doesn't have everyone asking me about

The scene you worked the hardest on in any fic?

Oh shit. Ummm. I'll use this as a "things that didn't just immediately flow on the keyboard and I had to stop every couple of minutes to look something up". Mostly things in Magnum because it takes place in the real world with real issues. So out of the published scenes - the surfing chapter in Bad Things (because I have never once been surfing) and the first chapter of Wrong Side because it's a lot to do with tactics and real scenarios while also trying to make it interesting to people who aren't familiar with the military. Also, there's a lot of hoop jumping to make anything realistic canon compliant in that fandom...

Thanks for the asks! (and letting me rant)

[elyreywrites]

do you know who you are?

a fic written for Pride Month 2020!! (yes, i know pride month is over, but i posted this on AO3 on June 30th so.) this is a projection fic. it’s not an exact projection of my experience, nor is it meant to be a generalized representation. this isn’t everyone’s experience.

warnings: slight mention of Jack and Janet Drake potentially being homophobic, and discussion of compulsory heterosexuality

thank you to my betas in the Capes & Coffee Discord - Bumpkin, ZulieTheProgrammer, and Oceans!!

title is from Moana’s “I am Moana”!

please REBLOG - DO NOT REPOST

AO3 Link

Teen 1,678 words Bart Allen & Tim Drake & Kon-El | Conner Kent slight one-sided Tim Drake/Jason Todd - as in, tiny-Tim has a crush on Robin-Jason

Summary:

He’s twelve and watching Robin fight. He’s seventeen and staring up at the ceiling. He’s nineteen and text-spamming his best friends.

Tim’s growing up and finding himself, and he would really appreciate if the Realizations didn’t happen when he’s trying to sleep. Kon and Bart would probably appreciate that as well.

- - - - -

It starts as he’s watching the second Robin knock out some muggers. It’s not the first time Tim has seen Jason’s Robin take down a group of criminals, but it’s the first time that he nearly gives himself away as he squeaks.

 Jason’s so strong, and cool, and pretty, and – oh. Ah. Okay.

He calls it a night at that, bright red from the questions that are swimming around in his head. He spends most of the trip home lost in thought. When he’s sitting on his bed, one of his best pictures of Jason’s Robin sitting in front of him, he gives them a voice. Talking usually helps him get his thoughts in order. “Okay,” he whispers, “do I like boys?” He doesn’t dislike them – not at all. But does he like them? Maybe, but… how is he supposed to know? “Is that too big of a topic?” he wonders aloud to the picture. “Let’s start with this: Do I like Robin? Jason-Robin.”

That doesn’t turn his brain into a jumbled mess like the previous question did. Of course he likes Jason-Robin. He’s absolutely amazing, protecting people and checking on the working girls and kicking criminal ass! He’s only a couple years older than Tim is, but he does so much more! And he’s real in a way Dick isn’t.

Jason’s just a kid like Tim, though they have such different backgrounds. Dick was a trained acrobat, with skills Tim never really believed he could learn. Jason seemed closer. He was still more amazing than Tim could ever hope to be, but it wasn’t an entirely impossible stretch like it was with Dick.

“And he’s so passionate, especially when it’s a kid that’s in danger. And every time he smiles, it just makes me so happy that I kind of want to giggle and—” Tim stops babbling. He doesn’t need to anymore, after basically answering his own question. Yes, he does like Jason Todd, the current Robin. As in, he has a crush on him. Tim falls back on his bed to stare up at the ceiling.

“Well,” he says, “that explains the weird, squirmy feeling I get in my stomach every time I imagine talking to him.” That feeling is always accompanied by a fierce blush and Tim hiding his face for a good two minutes. He thinks he probably should have caught on sooner. Deciding that was enough Realizing Things for the night, Tim quickly locks the picture of Robin up with the rest and collapses on his bed to sleep.

The next day – a Saturday, which is Mrs. Mac’s day off – Tim hops on the computer and starts researching. He has a crush on one boy, but Tim still thinks girls can be cool. Batgirl is pretty awesome, after all! After a few hours and a lot of new information, he settles back on his bed again. He’s bisexual, and sexuality can apparently be really fluid. In all honesty, it didn’t take him hours to find the term, he just fell into a rabbit hole of researching sexual orientation and gender identities. Tim’s fairly secure in his gender, but he’s glad to have learned. It’s something to keep in mind about other people – to not assume anything based on appearances.

He’s bisexual, with a crush on a boy, and his parents will still expect him to only date girls. At least the boy was Robin and completely unattainable.

- - -

Years later, Tim is laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling once again. It’s a different bed by now, in his own apartment at seventeen. The thing is, he’s pretty sure he has no interest in romance. And now his brain was mixing everything up in a tangle of thoughts and feelings again.

“Holding hands is nice,” he admits. “I like cuddling. That was fine.” He hasn’t gone further than making out with anyone, so that’s about the limit of his physical experience. It’s the implication of emotions that makes him want to skitter away. Specifically, emotions of the romantic variety. Now Tim’s reassessing every romantic relationship he’s had, though he’s only ever dated women.

At the time, he had thought he was happy while in each relationship, but… it’s becoming much more likely that it’s because he was previously starved for affection. He suddenly got that affection while dating someone. That thought makes him want to hide from everyone he’s ever dated. Stephanie is the only one he really still has to see, and that has him burrowing under his blankets.

It sounds awful, honestly. Like he was using the relationship to get the affection he so desperately wanted. Logically, he might be overthinking this. He just wishes his dumb brain would tell that to his anxiety and the ingrained societal expectations. “I didn’t mean to,” he mumbled into the blankets.

Romance, dating, being happy in a relationship? He has no other experiences to reference! He didn’t know that something wasn’t right.

Hell, he’s only having this Realization because a woman was flirting with him at a gala and asked if he would like to get dinner together sometime. A romantic dinner date with a woman he wasn’t close to. The entire scenario would be romance with no physical affection, and that didn’t sound pleasant in the slightest. It did, however, make him realize that he might need to think things through again.

So, here he is. Thinking things through. No romance – if he’s remembering his research correctly, the term is ‘aromantic’, similar to ‘asexual’. Asexuality was something he’d heard more about over the years, but he rarely heard of aromanticism. It had just stuck out because while the terms were similar, their meanings were pretty different.

Now he’s glad it stuck in his mind. It gives him less reason to panic about being confused. So, he was bisexual and aromantic. That’s fine! He’s a vigilante, romantic relationships would be difficult anyway.

- - -

A year and a half later, Tim’s fingers fly across the screen of his phone, sending text after text without waiting for a response. Either his friends would wake up or they wouldn’t. Hopefully they would.

Tim: Oh my god. Guys, wake up, I’m an idiot. Bart, Kon, please. I’m so dumb. How the hell am I this oblivious? I’m not bi-aro at all. I’m just fucking gay. It’s 5 am and I can’t sleep, and I just want a boyfriend. I want to do couple things, like cuddle up while watching movies.

Clone Trooper: dude, it’s the middle of the night. why do you do this to us?

Tim feels no sympathy for his friends – he’s been running on less than six hours of sleep for years. Sometimes less than four hours. High school and vigilantism don’t mix well. Anyway, they can deal with waking up to deal with his Realization.

Sonic: bro we cuddle up when we watch movies are we not good enough for you anymore

Tim: Yeah, but that’s platonic, Bart. And yes, I’m aware of the time. I’d like to be asleep too, but I’m lonely and sad and having Realizations! Suffer with me.

Clone Trooper: … suffer how? are you expecting us to have an existential crisis too, or is this just suffering by being awake?

Tim: Being awake. It’s not an existential crisis, it’s just a Realization.

Sonic: its the middle of the night i think it can be deemed an existential crisis

Tim: But seriously, someone please tell me how I jumped passed the logical conclusion I should have come to of “I’m just not attracted to women” and directly to “I have no interest in romance at all”? How did that make sense to me?

Sonic: society conditioned u to like women

Tim blinks at his screen. Bart isn’t wrong, but Tim has absolutely no idea where he’s going with that. He already had the Realization about societal conditioning, thanks.

Tim: Okay? I’m aware, but I’m not sure how that translates to how I didn’t think of the logical conclusion.

Sonic: dude. for years it was a fact – since you were a kid u were so conditioned that u should like women it was just a fact

Clone Trooper: think of it like this, tim: as far as you knew, you liked women. later, you figured out you like guys, but you still think you like women too.

Tim: We’ve established, yeah.

Clone Trooper: so, suddenly something is weird. the only really new thing is that there is romance involved. so that’s clearly gotta be the issue.

Oh. He stares so long the screen goes dark. He drops his phone on the bed and stares up at the ceiling, turning that over in his head. So. He jumped to not wanting romance because it was so deeply ingrained that he was supposed to like women? His exhausted brain seems to accept this explanation enough to calm the edge of self-recriminations.

Tim: That. Makes sense, I guess. But still, it really seems like I should’ve realized a while ago. Also, I’m kind of surprised that you aren’t teasing me for being oblivious.

Sonic: oh thats coming but teasing is saved for when u arent having a crisis

Clone Trooper: later, we’ll absolutely laugh about that jump in logic. but right now it’s too early and you’re already having A Time.

He’s not sure if he has wonderful friends or terrible friends. Tim suspects that he’s still going to hear about this in a few years. It’s the kind of thing they won’t let die for a while.

Tim: Fair enough.

Clone Trooper: great, glad we got that cleared up! now tim...

Tim: What?

Clone Trooper: please. GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP.

Snickering, Tim plugs his phone in and smothers his face in the pillow. He’s still lonely and he still wants to analyze every missed evidence over the years, but he’s also exhausted. The chat with his friends did get his brain to shut up enough that he might actually be able to sleep. He can rethink his entire life again after he wakes up.

[keamo3-blog]

Outsourcing IT MAY 2, 2017|IN BUSINESS, SOLUTIONS|BY TYLER GARRETT The Outsourcing IT Bubble Are you looking to do some Outsourcing of your IT? Outsourcing IT or technology services can be a mixture of great and sour. Delegating work to experts is the key to rapidly expanding, avoiding pitfalls, less bean counting in the future, and overall time savings. The money equation comes into play when you have no earthly idea how to do the work. Outsourcing Examples If you were not the most proficient with a weed wacker, you might ask little Jimmy down the road to assist. Well, the technology works the same way, except in the digital age, you can remote into anyone’s office digitally. This generates a huge gap for anyone saying anything. Studying Outsourcing Trends and Fads We did a silly study after spotting a few outsourced teams were changing the amount they told us they had as team mates. contacted the same teams with different emails. Found ten teams around the world, and 9 of them turned out to be 9 individuals, not groups. Another trend is very savvy sales people finding out they can outsource work for marginal prices out of the country. They have never worked a single technical project, and are landing customers with real world needs. The real dealer of shadow IT are unqualified professionals buying or selling these outsourced services. Shadow IT is that topic every one is discussing the effect, but never the causes! Outsourcing risk factors Being Tableau consultants we understand outsourcing risk factors. We are the consultancy they call when other consultancies crap out a proof of concept without documenting. The risk factor is outsourcing teams are not all created equal and there is no agency checking other BI firms. What if the outsourcing team doesn’t document? Welcome to my favorite clients. Padded by inexperienced solutions without a single document, and because of that have been paying their shadow IT team to keep things barely running. Premium charges coming from individuals that could ave documented but instead built a gate keeping role, welcome shadow IT. I was recently asked on a meeting with a 300million annual run rate custome. Their lead DBA challenged me when I said we needed to document more. The DBA got upset because I the problems kept rolling back to zero documentation. He got flustered and said, “Do you document everything?” My response was simple, “Only if I want others to be able to use it again.” Outsourcing risk is hidden risk Customers never hear about this risk factor, they never hear about the entire consultancy has never taken a single day of any programming or data courses, and have never worked in a single production environment. So, they have never implemented anything advanced. This can be a dangerous deal for unknowing business owners, and that’s a business opportunity for these new companies. From a digital perspective, it’s just easier to paste logos, make fake testimonials, and do all of that without ever implementing any technology. Outsourcing to unskilled project managers If you sell a services engagement and place a consultant, you are not automatically a wizard of agile methodology. The customer sends you money, and the work begins. This does not teleport you to the future of 8 years of project management experience. Rather you’re a sales person who sold a widget that you don’t understand. You might get things to work today, you might find an outsourced person for $8/hr, but you will never know if that outsourced team is real or fake. You can’t know if an outsourced team is genuine or fake unless you yourself know the technology. So how do people outsource if they can’t determine if they team is real? One thing you learn from consulting for years is that things break and expectations are always set incorrectly by people without any technical project or data experience. Clients are quickly put in dangerous situations when the quality levels of the efforts are misbalanced too. Imagine your sales person is great but your outsourced person has 8 times more experience. That sales person is going to look like the biggest waste of time and money, and often times in typical enterprise engagements, clients will ask for their money back if they feel like they were duped. Outsourcing generates a massive risk when seeing companies produced without a single onshore expert, and corporations legitimately collapse under the burden of spending thousands and thousands on unskilled and untrained hands. Also, after meeting client after client and seeing what happens when customers are duped for decades. It seemed apparent someone needed to start looking for that transparency or calling them out for being scam artists. Outsourcing turned into a fun data project Here at Dev3lop we live and die by data, that’s why we have been taking time off to study and learn more about new digital trends. I know that’s absolutely crazy, a consultancy that takes time off to train and research. What we noticed is we can have as many clients and customers as we could ever dream of, and it’s all relatively easy just requires a lot of intelligent clicks and strategies. So, like any rational business owner, we wanted to start outsourcing to teams and take on more clients. I like money, who would say no to more money! We said no to outsourcing to fake teams Fake Teams are generated by pre-sales or sales people, who have not done any of the advanced work before, and have no idea what happens when one of these things break. What you learn from consulting and programming is that things evolve and need extra attention. When your dashboard or website works today, what happens when it needs updates, what happens when that salesperson on the phone isn’t able to follow through? How to fact check outsourced teams Ask for a picture, resumes, and to speak with the teammates and this is where the first rule of fight club pops up. Never talk about who’s on the team, that’s against our company blah blah blah. Scam. When you want to determine if the outsourced team is real or not, ask for details. Personally, I found ten different teams from all around the globe and started asking them a lot of questions. Issues that were documented and the data just doesn’t match up. Every team has the same offer, $8/hr and you pay up front for the month. When asked technical scoping questions, easy questions we know the answer to, outsourced teams always added 10-15days padding on to their estimates. Leading us to determine a few things because websites are getting easier to build, and now authentic companies are starting to come up in the ranks and telling the story of the clients. Ready for the Outsourcing Bubble Burst – Scam Alert I’m writing this article as more of a public service announcement, to anyone looking to outsource their work to companies online. After seeing what an ‘outsourced SEO’ shop, with decorated logos and a beautiful website, did to our client’s website. We started doing research on this mythical $8/hr full stack developer. Companies taking a subscription for increased rank, dashboards, and consultancies with decorated logos, and not a single person in the business with a technical background. Something is fishy about this and especially fishy when they can take on an unlimited amount of customers, and only say they have a team. Outsourcing organizations pretend to be female Oh, so you haven’t noticed every single support chat or pre-sales email isn’t from a female? That’s the biggest web life hack of them all. They find a stock image of a woman, and crop it down, give her a name and now you have your first employee. Fake Outsourcing Teams in a Distant Country They are in a distant country because it’s easier for them to scam you. That’s 90% of what’s happening currently and big business is only getting away with using outsourced teams because they hire exceptionally gifted architects to interview, train, and manage their work 100% of the time. That logic can be used to determine if your consultancy is worth a damn. Instead of letting them run off and work on it, ask them to work on it, in front of you, on a screen share web cast. Did they just tell you they can’t do that? That’s likely because they are scamming you and it’s just one person managing lots and lots of accounts. The Outsourcing Rabbit Hole The rabbit hole leads you to a single person who lives in India, Malasia, or some distant country that removes any chance of getting your money back. There is no number to call, your lawyer will not be flying to Serbia to serve someone papers over $1000 WordPress website, and outside of emailing them to escalate, they are just one click from blocking you and taking your money. Outsourced Rabbits tell you they have a huge team of professionals Outsourced teams are saying they have a team of 100, 50, 30, and always with a plus sign on it. That’s because they want to simulate a team to ensure anyone untechnical or not in the know will only jump at the idea of spending $1000 a month for a full stack developer. Remember big business use, outsourced teams, because they manage their work and none of them are paying $8/hr. That’s a scam. What is the scam behind outsourcing? There are zero checks and balances when it comes to outsourced teams. They offer you a rate that is so low it’s silly not to send them money. When you have one customer paying you $1000 a monthly, the $8/hr is not manageable. This is why they pad everything with 10-15days of extra waiting and charge people insanely cheap rates, these rates are low because they are going to bill you and not work. What do you mean my outsourced team isn’t working? Are you telling them to clock in and out every day? That means they are doing the very least to earn those $8/hr. Especially if they live in a country that is 1000 miles away and in a single click they can erase you from their inbox, and block you for good. The scam is simple; they say they have a manageable amount of people.

[theliterateape]

Going Down the Prepper Rabbit Hole

By Elizabeth Harper

Maybe I should reread Alice in Wonderland. I've read it multiple times, but never been that into it. During this coronavirus pandemic induced Stay-at-Home adventure, I’ve been fine staying at home, reading books, listening to records, playing dolls, etc. But I’m also worried about the world in general. I find myself going down the prepper rabbit hole. The other night I familiarized myself with terms like "Normalcy Bias” and "Bug Out Bag,” researched rain ponchos, emergency blankets, etc., tried to think what I really needed to include in an emergency evacuation first aid kit (am I ever really going to need a triangular bandage?), and on and on, etc., etc.

I wasn't worried about running out of Clorox wipes until I saw they’re prioritized for hospitals on Amazon and totally out of stock at Walgreens, Target, Walmart, Staples, etc.

My sister often says, “Our family is not surviving the zombie apocalypse.”

I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time on the ready.gov website, read all 204 pages of FEMA’s Are You Ready: An In-Depth Guide to Citizen Preparedness, even printed out the Prepare with Pedro Disaster Preparedness Activity Book featuring Pedro the Penguin and brought to you by the fine folks at FEMA and the American Red Cross. For a while, way before the current pandemic, I’ve had the feeling that the world is going to total shit. Are lying politicians the reason I feel that way? Yes, but they’re not the only reason I’m worried. I think about whether or not Chicago is a good place to be. I think it is. I don’t worry about tornados or hurricanes, but then I think about the flooding and extreme temperatures. I think it’s better being in a city with lots of services and resources rather than stranded out in the middle of nowhere. I figure the city will be relatively well-managed compared to other places because of all the people with money here. (I know there are flaws in that reasoning, and then questions about whose interests and needs will be protected and served.) But then, according to some survivalist-minded people, Chicago is one of the most dangerous places in the nation, likely to fall into feral anarchy (not the good kind of anarchy) if “Shit Hits The Fan.” But maybe those people are wrong, biased because of their ideological predilections. Maybe it will be the good kind of anarchy, based on cooperation, mutual aid, and respect.

Getting ready for an emergency has been on my to-do list for a while. There’s the ready.gov website with lists for what you should have on hand in case of an emergency. I’m ready in some ways, stocked up on some things, but there’s more to do and it’s overwhelming, especially because it’s hard for me to imagine (with any kind of accuracy or probability) what kind of emergencies would happen and how they would play out. I can’t imagine that somehow the whole city of Chicago wouldn’t have water, electricity, internet, etc. But then again, stuff happens, and there’s a first time for everything, unless it’s something that could never happen or actually exist. Do I actually need a tool for chopping wood? Is chopping wood something I would ever do? I look out my window at the trees in the park. Is there a circumstance likely to occur in which I would need to be chopping off tree branches? Events have happened that I don’t think about often because they haven’t happened recently, or they did and I got through them and forgot about them so I could just get on with life, such as it is: the Great Chicago Fire; the 1968 Illinois earthquake; gas shortages in the 1970s; the 1995 Chicago Heat Wave when all those people died; the North American blizzard of February of 2011 when the stores closed early because of snow, and cars on Lake Shore Drive got stuck in it; January 30th of 2019 when bars closed and shows were canceled because of the extreme cold, etc. Why has getting prepared for an emergency stayed on my to-do list for so long? I usually prioritize things that are time-sensitive, that have to get done by a quickly approaching deadline, and things I do for other people. This isn’t something I’ve decided to do on a second order level. I know I should pay attention to long term projects and things I do for myself. I just notice, in observing myself, that I tend to prioritize the immediate, near-term tasks done for other people. But also, items have to be researched and purchased. I don’t want to spend money on the wrong things, and it’s understandable that I prioritize purchasing those things I have an immediate need and use for over things I might need “just in case…” But also, I prioritize doing things that are fun and make me happy. Contemplating all the possible terrible things that could happen, what I would need to do, and what accessories I would need to have, is not fun for me. Apparently it is fun for some people who enjoy thinking about fighting the elements, animals, and other human beings for survival, dirty and sweaty and armed with a gun and a machete. I’m not getting a gun or a machete. I don’t know how to use those things, and I’m worried I would hurt myself trying to learn. Some people I know like to go camping. I don’t get it. I hate it. It seems like an inordinate amount of time, money, and effort spent just to be really uncomfortable. I went on a camping trip once when I was 15. It stands out as one of the most miserable experiences of my life. But maybe my friends who go camping have better survival skills than I do and know the best kind of gear to get.

Maybe what I really need for my Bug Out Bag emergency kit are suicide pills and alcohol to wash them down with. I wish I could buy those mini alcohol bottles that you get on airplanes in Chicago. Apparently a lethal dose of the preferred suicide drug of choice, secobarbital, is prohibitively expensive. Am I really going to spend $3,500 on something when I don’t know if I’ll ever need it, just in case? Will my health insurance cover suicide pills? Would my doctor even prescribe them? We totally need right to die posthaste.

(I don’t want to come across as insensitive, but this is my thought process. Federal, state, and city governmental agencies are telling each one of us that it’s our own individual responsibility to be prepared for all sorts of truly horrendous, practically unthinkable circumstances. We’re supposed to prepare to be dirty, uncomfortable, injured, hungry, and thirsty. If I’m in a situation where I’m being raped, threatened, tortured, and robbed, and I have to figure out how to chop wood, build fires, and tend to my own broken bones, only to get torn limb by limb and devoured by bears, or more likely, dogs, washing down pills with alcohol seems like a preferable option. I’m in my 50s. I’ve had some good times, but I’ve suffered enough. I’d like to have some control over my death in an uncontrollable world, a little death with dignity, s’il vous plait.)

I’m just frustrated with myself for not having all my various emergency kits and go-bags packed and ready to go already. And now I can’t even go to physical stores to browse, peruse, and ask salespeople for help. I’m doing what shopping I can online. But I think maybe I’m not the only one who doesn’t already have a battery-powered NOAA radio, emergency blankets, plastic sheeting, and all these other items everyone is supposed to have.

Some people buy very expensive bunkers to prepare themselves for these disaster situations, but I’m not those people. Let’s get real. If I did that, the bunker would need to come with its own robot staff to cook, clean, and do maintenance. I’m not roughing it.