#I think I’ll email them with some ideas cuz I think they should do an online database for the clothes before they get sold | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jodilin65 · 11 years ago

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SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2013 Before we take off for Home Depot, Target and the pet store for more bedding for the rats, I’m sitting here wondering if tonight will be the last night we ever sleep in this little old trailer. I hope so! They’ve now decided it’s to be 111° in Citrus Heights on Monday. That’d call for one hot move, but it's worth it to move into what will be our home for the next 15 years at the very least. We’re hoping to get the keys by early afternoon tomorrow. Absolute worst-case scenario (since they have the paperwork marked till the 3rd at the latest) is that we move after work on Wednesday. We don’t want to move on Thursday cuz that’s when the parade is going on.

For now, there’s not much else to do other than tie up loose ends and keep on waiting. Just remember that if you’re a friend that I regularly keep in touch with, it could be a few days before I have a chance to get back to you or pick up email and things like that. We should be online pretty much right away, but we expect to be busy settling in and getting to know the place. So just be patient! I won’t forget about you.

Later…

Went out to look at things at Home Depot and get ideas for shades for the bedroom and other things like locks/knobs, ceiling fans for the bedroom, flooring, carpet, etc.

Then we went to the pet store for bedding, but it wasn’t open so we got some from Target, which was our next stop. We got a couple of days of groceries and some more storage bins in 3 different sizes to pack the final odds and ends in. Love the clear ones so we can see what’s in each one without having to not only open them up but also dig through them to see what’s toward the bottom.

Brought in some packing peanuts we had in the shed to pack things like my delicate all-porcelain ballerinas, and next, I’ll clean the smaller cage in the tub, then hose down the big cage. We felt it’d be easier to move them to the smaller cage, even though these humongous rats probably won’t like being stuck in it for a few days. I’ll let them run around loose for exercise like I usually do anyway.

SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 2013 I’m amazed at how many questions I’m still getting on Ask. A few questions, particularly the one about wondering what’s the point of living, and whether or not to confront a friend who wrote that they’re lazy and whiny, seems Aly-ish, but I’m not going to ask her. I figure if it was her and if she wanted to identify herself, she would have.

Anyway, sure enough, we’ve had some delays and now we won’t be getting the fucking keys to our new house till next week. We’re waiting on documents that have been overnighted and need signing, and Brenda has some disclosure forms for us to sign. We don’t know what, though, since we already signed those (no one died there).

Is this where things start going wrong? I asked myself yesterday. Then when we finally do get in does God set the stage for enough things to break to drain our savings, then have him laid off so we can struggle really badly and maybe even lose the place? Well, we’ve got a 1-year warranty for even things as small as a drippy pipe/faucet, and seeing that business is always booming where he works and they just asked him to start a new job there that pays more, I think we’ll be ok. Can’t guarantee that I’ll get as much sleep and peace there as I’d like, but we’ll soon find out.

Our monthly expenses should come to around $1200 a month excluding gas and food. Once the place is paid off, it should be closer to around $900. We now owe 19 grand on the loan. How fast we pay that off will depend on OT, what money I make online, and what I can win.

Escrow has been signed and closed and Brenda took the sellers to do their signing, too. Everything must be precisely worded and in order. Many people refer to these types of homes as trailers or mobile homes and that’s technically incorrect. The correct terms are manufactured homes or modular homes, which are built like on-site homes and don’t have taillights and whatnot on them like the trailer we’re in now does. It’s been taken off its wheels and its steel frame sits on concrete blocks, but this is still a definite trailer. It would blow away in a heartbeat once the first monsoon storm hit the area if it were on our old land in Maricopa, as opposed to the 42,000-pound manufactured home we had on it.

I think they were also confused at first cuz they asked if our new home had already been set up and strapped down (those 3’ screws I already explained). Well, our home isn’t strapped, it’s grounded, but trust me when I say that on the windiest day of all, she ain’t going anywhere.

When it’s super windy here you can feel this place shudder. Arizona would toss this old heap of shit around like it was a toy.

The good thing is that the escrow people will pay for any days after the first that we’re not in our new home. We were also able to cancel the U-Haul without being charged and decided we’ll just spontaneously grab one on Monday, Tuesday at the latest. It sucks that we couldn’t start bringing shit over there (particularly bulky and breakable stuff) over the weekend, but going out of here in one big sweep isn’t that big of a deal. It’s just harder to move from a small place. We’re practically climbing over shit here. There’s no rain in the forecast, so we might move some stuff out onto the porch that’s sealed up in plastic containers.

So it’s just an annoying waiting game we have to play as we’ll be pretty much grounded all weekend, unable to do much but maybe go through the shed and sort through some more things out there and try to organize shit overall as best we can with what little space we have to do it in. I really want to just get the hell over there so we can have fun setting up and enjoying being back on cable for the first time since 2007! Then I can move on to new worries and wonder if I’ll be able to sleep well there and if there’ll be more daytime distractions than I’d like for when I’m up and about. Now would be the perfect time to dive into their pool, but no, we gotta be stuck here over the weekend. I’m dying to dive into their fitness room too, and take advantage of most of their amenities.

It’s to be 105° up here on Monday and 110° where we’re moving to. I hope Nane isn’t back from Spain yet seeing that it’s 55° and raining today in Munich, LOL.

FRIDAY, JUNE 28, 2013 Today’s Tom’s 56th birthday and hopefully it will be celebrated by getting the keys to our new house. If worse comes to absolute worse, we get the keys on Monday and we move out in one clean sweep instead of making half a dozen or so runs over the weekend before renting the truck for the big stuff on Monday as planned.

Damn! Just damn! I never thought this day would come. For years I told myself it would never happen because that’s what I truly believed. But I was wrong. Very wrong.

Anyway, I’m glad I took Tom’s advice and slept a little later. I needed it. I was all wound up from the excitement and had trouble falling asleep. Besides, what good would getting up really early do us when nothing’s open then and we can’t do anything anyway? Tom woke up early cuz he too, is super excited.

Even if we get the keys today, we probably won’t be sleeping at the new place till tomorrow night at the earliest.

Right now we’re changing addresses on some of our online accounts, but I won’t change my town on Facebook till we actually get to it.

THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 2013 Tom’s looking at a new job at work that will call for less OT and more money, but that’s all I can say about that right now. Other than that the hours will be more stable and it involves working more on computers than overseeing warehouse activities.

The only thing I’m a bit concerned with right now is that Kathy hasn’t notified us yet to say they received the final loan document they’re waiting on, and this could pose a potential delay in getting in the house and cause us (as well as others) all kinds of headaches. Let’s hope things continue to run on time!

I’m both nervous and excited to get the move done and over with. I just hope that living there won’t be too much like an apartment complex without the apartments. In the apartments I had back east they pretty much mowed in the summer and shoveled in the winter and that was it. But in the Arizona apartments, there was always, always something going on and a lot more activity. It was a climate thing, of course, but this is a nice climate, too. I just hope there isn’t too much activity going on there, though I think most of it will still be confined to the pool and clubhouse. I sure hope so anyway! They may come around every now and then with a street sweeper, but there are no sidewalks to blow or heavy landscaping to do. Still, I just want to get it over with and see what it’s really going to be like there.

Someone asked if there was any particular event that caused me not to believe in prayer, but nope. It was an accumulation of unanswered prayers that made me a non-believer. Not being granted a singing career (I still can’t believe I ever wanted to do that) was one thing, but what was really depressing and a scary eye-opener was when I was denied a child. It was then that I came to believe that it didn’t matter if what I asked for was off the wall or “normal.” It just had to be me asking for it and it was automatically forbidden.

I’d heard it said that if we prayed for what was fair, right, reasonable and correct, we would receive our request. Was a child not “correct?” Well, perhaps it wouldn’t have been the more I came to value my life and my freedom. After having to deal with other people’s screaming kids for so long I came to realize the value of peace. I also admit I got a bit selfish, not wanting to give up my life to something that would take from us more than it could ever give. You puke your guts out when you get pregnant, you gain a million pounds, you go through a world of pain having it, you get depressed afterward, and then you are swamped with nothing but constant noise and expenses with barely 5 minutes for yourself. Did I really want that? No, I didn’t. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that I had prayed for something that was supposed to be natural and that was when a cold hard reality began to sink in; that either nothing was listening to me, or it simply didn’t give a shit about me.

“Eh, it just wasn’t meant to be,” someone told me.

“But then why pray? If things are either meant to be or not meant to be, why pray?”

But I was stubborn and not ready to give up just yet on the idea of getting God to like/accept me and to give me what I wanted too, even though just the mother He had me born to was enough to tell me otherwise. I prayed for a child. He gave me a miscarriage. I prayed for help with my weight. I now struggle with 30 extra pounds. I prayed that the move from Oregon to Cali would go smoothly. He led us to the streets. I prayed that Tom not be one of the 10% to become unemployed back in 2008. He gave him years of unemployment. And so I quit talking to myself and let fate/destiny play itself out the way it was meant to be anyway. This doesn’t mean I won’t put effort into achieving the things I want in life, it just means that I know I’m on my own. If I’m going to get any of these things it will be because of me only, and if anyone does help me, they’ll walk on two legs just like I do. No, I’m not going to leave my weight to fate. I’m still going to try to diet and exercise and hope my body responds to it. If not then only a doctor can help me. Not any God.

Not one single blessing in my life, from Tom to our new home or from my writing/language abilities to our income has been prayed for. Every good thing I got in life was simply meant to be and I never had to ask for it. They may’ve taken work to achieve, but the point is that I’ve learned that praying doesn’t necessarily equal good things coming my way any more than it means being able to ward off or change bad things that happen. If I’m meant to have something, I’ll get it, and I won’t get what I’m not meant to have either. I know this and I know no prayers are necessary either, but as always, to each their own.

Later…

The Supreme Court ruling that DOMA is unconstitutional yesterday was a great thing. But when will gays be able to marry in every state???

Believe it or not, I’ve got about 90% of this place packed up now, including the mouse that fell prey to the sticky board under the sink. Yeah, he’s been bagged and sent to the outside trash bin. He was so cute, but oh the smell and the turds!

At first I thought the brown paper lunch bags he never used that he got a while back were a waste, but I find them great for mugs, glasses and other breakables.

Had a little scare this morning with the cooler. It was dripping off the roof and I’m thinking, Oh fucking no! Can’t shit just wait 3 more days to break? But Tom climbed up and checked it and said it overflowed a bit but wasn’t leaking. We’ve got triple-digit temps coming up, so it better fucking work!

Guess I’ll go pack and proofread some more and hope there are no delays. We really need them to call with the final numbers so we can make the damn down payment, sign the escrow papers that are set to close tomorrow, and go home!

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26, 2013 The people in our house are gone now and I’m getting more emotional (in a good way) as the days begin to melt down into just hours. I think, OMG, this is almost it! Unless a meteorite strikes us dead, a U-Haul is really going to take our perfectly live bodies out of here and not some coroner in a couple of body bags as what came so, so terrifyingly close to being the case.

It must’ve been a sad day for Gene and Audrey, the people we bought the house from. I feel a twinge of sadness for them knowing they’re going into an assisted living apartment just to begin the end of their lives while I’m thinking, OMG, our new home is now sitting there empty just waiting for us and a couple of cute rats!

What I saw in here earlier made me think of going petless once these rats go so we can use the bug plug that emits a high-frequency pitch at the new place. It was the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in the 6 years we’ve been in Cali! I went into the bathroom, parked my ass on the toilet, then sort of glanced upwards. And then I saw it. My vision is so shitty I can’t distinguish small objects, but this thing was SO big that I instantly knew what it was. I shot up from that toilet so fucking fast. I hated to have to run underneath the thing to escape it, and of course you can imagine that trying to pull up your panties while running isn’t an easy thing. I woke poor Tom up to kill it that’s how huge and scary the damn thing was. Its guts are mashed all over the ceiling. If it weren’t for the fact that we’ll be out of here in a few days I’d scrub it off.

That nocturnal nightmare was compliments of the two days of rain we’ve had. We had more rainfall in the last two days than in nearly a year! It was amazing and so hard to believe it was late June and not late fall. We haven’t needed the cooler for two days, and it was also hard to believe that in just a few days we’d be in for triple digits. It’ll be 85° today, then 95°, then over 100°. Today, if I remember, I’ll shoot some of the ugliest exterior pics so we can all laugh at how we had to live for so long, though for the longest time, it wasn’t funny at all.

Tom scheduled the cable to be turned on on Friday. No more shitty slow DSL!!! Woo-hoo!!! And yes, we really are going home!!!

If there is a God up there that picks and chooses what happens to us and if things really do happen for a “reason” and He gets it in mind to beat someone over the head with money, I’ll be damned if it’ll be us. We can’t guarantee we’ll never get cancer or anything like that, but we’re going to always do everything we can to see to it that we never end up back in the poorhouse. But even though he makes a lot of money and the dream premonitions have backed off almost completely, a “bad” money dream would still scare the shit out of me. Once you’ve had just half of the dream premonitions I’ve had you can never ever return to assuming a nightmare was just a nightmare. Psychics go dormant at times. We don’t go away.

The only thing that could delay us is that the loan lady is waiting on one final document. She expects it today, though, and I hope she gets it! We don’t want to have to pay the Jes pest for OT spent here AND the park.

Ok, gotta get packing some more shit. Damn, it’s tough with so little space, but fun! Totally worth it. I think I’ll bag up some of the clothes we don’t wear as much and toss them in some cheap trash bags we got for cans and bottles.

TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 2013 Beat the alarm by 3 minutes and learned that Mark’s surgery went well. They didn’t find anything they believed to be cancerous. But he’s still got his heart, a much bigger issue, to contend with.

Got another super busy day ahead, so I’ve got to make this quick. Amazingly, it rained all day yesterday. It was great. It shut the Jes pest up and made sleeping better. It’s going to rain throughout the morning too, the pest’s prime time. Like I said, though, I’m mostly on days now, so he can’t wake me up. He shouldn’t even be able to annoy me much when I am awake since he certainly won’t be re-roofing or bulldozing anytime soon while the ground is still wet. I’m so glad I’ll never have to hear that insanely loud dozer again!

Tom checks online every day to see if they’ve disconnected their cable so we can get it set up in our name, but nope, not yet. So someone’s still there. That’s no real surprise since they said they would be out by the 28th.

MONDAY, JUNE 24, 2013 I first want to say that yesterday’s rant about the reverse discrimination running rampant in this country that no one seems to care about, and my lack of trust in God and belief in prayer wasn’t meant to sway anyone’s opinion one way or the other. You’re all welcome to have a mind of your own. Remember, I’m selfish. :) Meaning that I write for myself first and foremost. You readers are just an afterthought, so to speak. I’m going to say what I’ve got to say regardless of whether it’s the “norm” or things others can relate to or not simply because that’s part of what keeping a journal is all about. It’s about documenting one’s life, thoughts, feelings, opinions and beliefs, not about trying to change others. If someone happens to be influenced by anything I’ve written, however, then so be it. I can’t control the world or help what people are going to think or do. I kind of see journaling as I do walking down the street in my favorite shirt. Some will like it. Some won’t. Some won’t even notice. But I like it and that’s all that matters with no offense or persuasion intended.

Having fun making people wait on me on Ask. Nothing from Kathy today, but I got a few questions that might be from Kim. They asked if I had a lot of online friends, if I like getting email, and if I know anyone named Carol. Well, she has a sister Carol, and the other two questions seem like questions she’d ask. Just when I thought she’d forgotten about me.

We went to Walgreens yesterday to take advantage of our AARP discount. You get $10 just for signing up, so the sculpted dog I got was basically free. Getting older has its advantages, though I’m 3 years shy of my own AARP membership. It’s a very realistic-looking sculpt, which I like as opposed to cartoonish-looking things. It’s an Irish Setter holding a ‘welcome’ sign in its mouth.

“Only they’re not welcome,” Tom joked.

LOL, he’s got a point there as funny as it may sound. I’m no social butterfly. I’ll still be seeing a lot more people than I have been when I’m out and about; just not at home. I can’t wait to go swimming!!! It may be a week or two before we finally have the time to do that, but this is a great time of year to be moving. I’d hate to move in December and know I had to wait 5 months or so before I could swim.

The house isn’t as big as we thought it was, according to the appraisers and inspectors. It’s 56’ long by 24’ wide, which comes to 1344 square feet, not that that’s not more than enough room for us. The master bedroom alone is 12x20.

Tom said Jesse was blasting music on Saturday that couldn’t be heard in here. Every time he went outside, though, he could tell he was listening to a Bruce Springsteen concert. He could hear him talking in between songs. His kid is probably there now. Someone’s been there keeping the mutts quiet for the last half a year or so. I’m surprised we never heard his music before. Tom said he thinks he kept it down in the past so as not to annoy us. Well, that’s nice cuz his vehicles, power tools and mutts were certainly more than enough.

We’ve been having amazingly cool weather for June. Although I prefer it hot, it’s better for sleeping. It was nice to be able to shut the bedroom door and window and not have to wear my eye mask when I crashed yesterday afternoon. They say we’re on for rain and sun today and just rain tomorrow, but I’ll believe it when I see it. It’d be awesome if it would rain really hard if only for an hour because then the Jes pest won’t be as likely to do anything down here before we leave, particularly bulldozing and re-roofing. Oh, the work that guy’s gonna have to do in here with all the damn drippy faucets alone! I’m sure he’ll want to balance the doors, too. He may not care that the bathroom door flops open, but he’ll definitely care that I’ve had to make a hook on the wall to keep the bedroom door from flopping shut. Oh, to soon be able to place a door halfway open and see it stay there! The next place is going to have 7 interior doors. I’m not counting bedroom closets cuz those are sliders.

Later…

Tom woke up early because his mind was racing a mile a minute. We’re both excited but also nervous about the move. I’m nervous about what it’ll be like when we get there, and he’s nervous about just getting there. As he said, everything’s running smoothly and that’s the problem, which is exactly what I was thinking. Things just don’t normally go as planned for us yet as far as we know there are no delays to be expected, no one’s out to get us and to ruin our plans, and we’re still on for moving this weekend. After having things go so shitty for us for so long, and after seeing every single one of our plans, simple or complex, fall to pieces, we tend to get a little suspicious when things go well for us. Really, why is life being so good to us all of a sudden? From a logical standpoint, we deserve good things and it’s simply our compensation for the hell we went through year after year, but something up there has a way of seeing it the other way around and I worry that we’re going to pay tenfold for this good fortune we’ve been having.

For now, life is being so good to us that it’s even raining out there as I write this, LOL. That’ll keep the Jes pest at bay. I’m mostly back on days now, though, so it’s unlikely there’ll ever be a risk of him waking me up again. I’ll be setting alarms so my schedule doesn’t jump more than an hour a day. So today it’s into bed at 1pm to read for an hour, then back up at 11pm.

Although we’re not in an area where natural disasters are likely to strike, if something happened that was out of our control like that, that’d be one thing. But if any person, group, agency or whatever even thinks of turning our dreams into a living nightmare like it has in the past I will totally destroy anyone responsible. TOTALLY.

That being said I can move on to say that I’ve organized and packed a few more things. Tom can get tons of boxes at work so that’s not an issue. The issue is where to put them. We don’t have much room to pile boxes in here but some can go out on the porch if they have to. I had my emotional moments along the way thinking, wow! It’s really happening. We’re going home. Yes, we are!

The PTSD still eats at me at times, so it will be nice to finally be in a place that doesn’t have such terrifying and stressful memories attached to it, and that hopefully never will either.

Mark should be out of surgery by now and hopefully, he’ll soon learn that he’s cancer-free!

SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 2013 Kathy’s brother asked again why I’m such a “cray beeyatch,” but I think I’ll ignore his childish shit this time around.

Enjoying our last full weekend under the shadow of the Jes pest, though we’re carrying on with our usual errands. Changed the bed here for the last time and will sleep here just 7 more times!

Heard a mouse chewing like hell somewhere under the bathroom. The next people better hope they’re not afraid of mice cuz there sure are a lot of them here in these woods.

When I realized that focusing too much on my German (thanks to Nane, LOL) was hurting my Spanish and Italian and I was starting to forget some things, I went back to Lang-8 where I can do some quick entries in both languages and have any errors corrected by native speakers. Or at least what should be native speakers anyway. I don’t post what I usually post in English in my regular journals, and my entries there are usually short and sweet. The main idea is to just write a few minutes a day in these languages.

“How many answered prayers would it take for you to believe in prayer?” someone asked me. Well, if half of them were answered I’d say it was a coincidence. If 80% of them were answered then I’d seriously start to wonder if there really was something up there listening to me, but as long as I’m at 5% or less and not seeing us all get everything we want in life (or most of us anyway), then I still say it’s about fate and not what we want/don’t want. But whether or not it’s happenstance or something deciding what we get/don’t get is still a mystery to me.

What the hell’s wrong with the Mac’s mail program? It won’t let me send mail. It asks for my PW but keeps rejecting it even though I know I typed it in correctly. Oh well. Guess I’ll have to send it directly from Outlook till Tom gets up and can investigate.

Why is it that whites are being fired like crazy for racial slurring, yet whenever blacks mouth off about whites no one gives a shit? Just wondering why the double standards and when the hell they’re ever going to end. This trend has been going on since the 90s and it’s getting really old. I was saddened and sickened to read in someone else’s journal that someone on the Food Network channel was fired for using the N-word 25 YEARS AGO while they were being robbed at gunpoint. I don’t know who she was and I don’t watch TV, but that didn’t make hearing about it any less appalling. Yet if a black person gets on national TV and whines about how terrible we white people are and calls us names, it’s perfectly ok.

“We have it all,” they so often complain. We do? Tell that to us when we too, can have a White History Month, white TV station, white pageants, white this, white that WITHOUT being called racists. And also when we can have a black, Hispanic or Asian person charged with any hate crimes against us, and we aren’t getting passed over in the workplace so often for non-whites.

Seriously, instead of being the second angriest group of people who think the right way to solve problems is through public screaming matches or violence, have you ever asked yourselves if maybe it’s about YOU and not your color? Contrary to popular belief, most people really do base their opinions on behavior and not color. So when you treat people like shit and you unfairly play the race card cuz it’s the “in” thing to do today and you know you’ll be believed, what do you expect? For us to pat you on the back and say, “Good job, buddy, good job?”

FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 2013 Other than backing up old journals on MyOpera and a little on Tumblr as well, I really don’t have much to update at the moment. We’re just waiting to move and I’m rolling my schedule back onto days. Amazingly, the Jes pest didn’t come down all week, but next week wouldn’t surprise me. Who knows, though? Maybe he’s waiting till we leave. The better he’s doing financially these days, the more he can take time prepping the place in between renters.

Even though it’s a hassle to work out here since I have to clear so many things away from the treadmill to have room to unfold it, I really gotta walk at least 20 minutes tonight so I don’t start having joint pain. Just one more week of this lack of space shit!

Tammy and Mark continue to have it rough physically. I guess her situation has been the same, but Mark, who not only has to have polyps surgery on Monday morning to make sure no cancer is present, was also rushed in to see his cardiologist. He apparently has a couple of clogged arteries and to quote Tammy's words, “If that one goes, he’s instantly dead. There’s no heart attack, no warning, no nothing.”

So things have certainly been scary, hectic and frustrating for them.

THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 2013 Not surprisingly, Kathy’s shit has started back up again after a few days of silence. I guess she’s my official replacement for Kim unless Kim’s doing a great job of making any of the anonymous questions I get seem like they’re not from her. Her brother – or at least supposedly her brother – asked: why you gotz to be hatin on my sis beeyatch?

I know I shouldn’t feed the trolls and should probably have ignored the “question,” but instead I deleted it and re-asked myself the same question only I changed it to: why you gotz to be hatin on my sis beeyatch?

LOL, I replied with: I’m married, buddy. I look, I flirt, but I definitely don’t date.

This will really fuck with their heads. Hopefully, they’ll think they made a typo. Hahaha

Later…

Nothing from Kathy and her cronies today. Alison said she almost never talks to her but that’s ok because she’s tried to reach out to her before just to be ignored. Well, as I’ve learned, Kathy is a very spoiled, selfish person, so if there’s nothing for her to gain by being closer to Aly, then she won’t bother. I’m kind of hoping she and her family will be too busy to pester people once the kid is born. Why dump someone, though, if you don’t want anything to do with them? I still can’t believe she of all people would dump someone, and then harass them! I’d seen her harass Molly, but that was different, or so I thought. That was her picking on a stalker, not someone she dumped for not being a God-lover.

Aly’s still struggling with skin issues, anemia, insomnia and depression. Others tell her to just “smile” and think “happy thoughts.” God, the day it’s that easy, no one will ever be depressed again! Really, that’s like telling a gay person to just not be attracted to the same sex.

Andy has a form of asthma and has to use inhalers. This sucks, but it’s better than having cancer. Tom has exercise-induced asthma. Strenuous activity can cause him to have a tough time breathing.

Someone on Ask told me that the older I get, the more selfish I get. Gosh, I hope so! I would hope I’ve matured, grown and smartened up enough not to be so damn naïve, trusting and forgiving as I once was. As I told them, I would still help a friend in need, of course, but would be more selective about who I did what for. Sometimes our generosity is taken advantage of and this causes us to be less generous, thus giving the impression we’re stingy. Being too trusting, forgiving and generous can really get us in trouble if we’re not careful. I’ll still help the old lady cross the street, but I won’t give money to the guy on the street and take his word for it that he’ll get the food he needs with it. For all I know that “food” is really drugs, alcohol or cigarettes.

I think most of us become more selfish with age as we lose our sensitivity and care less about what others think of us, how we look, etc.

I get the impression this is someone who’s been reading quite a bit of my journal but won’t identify themselves because it’s someone who knows they’re not supposed to be contacting me. Either that or they’re afraid of me for some reason. Ah, but I don’t bite, so hopefully they’ll step out of the shadows and introduce themselves sometime.

As the move approaches, we begin the last of the last. Last sheet change, last period, last this, last that. I’m so excited and nervous, but fortunately, I’m much more excited.

Can’t wait to be more active and go back to dieting even if it means having to deal with constant hunger again. I once prayed for any God that may be up there and that may hear me to please help me help myself by giving me more strength not to cave into the hunger or take shortcuts with working out, but was ignored, of course. So I stopped talking and started doing, knowing I was on my own, as always. Still not sure, though, if there once was a God who abandoned us and that’s why prayer is just wishful thinking for most of us and why so many people have such shitty lives, or if there is one and it’s just playing favorites. I know some people think it’s the devil that does evil and not God, but if God’s supposed to be the most powerful thing, then why doesn’t He overthrow the devil? Hmm… I gotta go with there being a God that created the universe and the things in it, but that doesn’t have any influence over our day-to-day lives.

BUT… the timing of the job was way too coincidental. I have a feeling that if anything up there did lead us on the road to death, it wasn’t the same thing that saved us for why would you push someone so far into the dark just to yank them out of it at the end? What happened to us was literally like falling from the sky with no parachute just to have a giant hand reach out and catch us as we were about to hit the ground. Things were THAT close to over for us. I don’t know what saved us in the end. I only know it wasn’t God. I don’t know how I know it, though. Just a gut feeling, I guess.

Ok, I should quit analyzing and guessing things none of us can ever know for sure anyway, and go hit the shower.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 2013 Just 10 days left! Kathy emailed Tom the insurance forms to print, sign, scan and email back so they can go ahead with the loan stuff.

I’ve been organizing things both on and offline. Every now and then I like to clean out my email accounts and delete everything I’ve received and sent. You just never know if someone may hack in and get the password you may’ve requested or whatever. So I decided it was time to clean house.

Went through some more stuff in the dark, creepy closet, which I won’t miss at all no matter how spacious it may be for a little old trailer, but there’s only so much I can pack right now because most of what’s not yet packed are things we’ll need or don’t have boxes for. The hard part is where to put all the boxes we pack. We’re hoping to bring some big, bulky items over to the house before we get the truck.

The dream I had of Teddy Bear was weird. She was still in her late 30s, as I believed her to be when I last knew her. Only instead of just getting transferred to Madison for flirting with the ladies at Estrella, she was married with a 12-year-old daughter in the dream, rumor had it. The person telling me about it (I don’t know who) said Teddy Bear was from a very conservative, hateful family that pushed her until she succumbed to the pressure and married her high school sweetheart. Or, more appropriately, the boy she pretended to love and be all into, the person also told me.

“So by day she’s following her heart and chasing the ladies, and at night she’s this old-fashioned person going home to this husband and child she never wanted?” I asked incredulously.

The person nodded just as I was coming awake. In real life, there’s no way she’d have ever let anyone pressure her into marriage, kids or both. By then married people having kids was no longer the norm anyway, and then even marriage itself got less common. Too busy trying to keep gays from marrying, I guess, to worry about their own marriages. She also doesn’t strike me as the type to marry another woman, not that Arizona would ever allow it being the bigoted state it is towards people like gays, Jews and whites. Everything down there is basically black this, Mexican that.

Not where Tom works, though, so he’s learning. His place is one of those few places left that still underpays its minorities. Pam, his coworker who also lives in an adult community, says that’s just so horrible and so unfair. LOL, so typical of a white person to say, but I can’t say I don’t agree. I always thought nothing but one’s qualifications should be considered when it comes to employment and that everyone should be paid equally and fairly despite color, race, gender, nationality or sexual preference. But sadly, minorities tend to be favored in most places, gays are still getting fired, and women still aren’t getting the pay men get.

Later…

I guess I’m going to be ghostwriting for Tammy after the move. She’s been wanting to start a journal for a while now but has been too sick to do so. Even when she’s not sick, her meds make her shaky so it’s hard for her to type. Hopefully, by the end of the year, the doctors will have her in much better health than she is now. She’ll still probably have to take medication for the rest of her life, though, even if she doesn’t need the transplant done.

Anyway, I thought of how she paid Sarah to help her around the house and said, “Hey, wanna hire me to ghostwrite your life story?” Well, she is interested in my offer, but we won’t discuss it till we get settled at the new place, though the pay is up to her.

I only ghostwrote one other story and that was Mary’s story, none of which I ever got any credit for. People don’t always realize that not everyone can afford to work for free, and even when they can, they still shouldn’t have to. Nonetheless, I saw it as helping out a friend, or what I thought was a friend. One I also thought trusted me. Sometimes being friends with someone who can’t take us at face value can be as difficult as trying to be friends with those who are crazy. You spend more time trying to reason, assure and explain yourself than you do actually enjoying having them in your life. They’re not worth it no matter how much you may like them otherwise.

Anyway, I am going to be sooo busy after the move, but I look forward to keeping wonderfully busy and active. I just want people to know this if I’m not around as much and not take it personally. Don’t know how much time I’ll have for social sites and blogging, but will still make a point of doing at least one quick entry a day. Work, sweepstakes, writing, language studies, pools, gyms, shopping, decorating… I am sooo excited and it’s going to be sooo much fun! And very time-consuming. Still gotta cook, clean and do laundry, even though I’m not much of a cook. I wonder if there’ll be enough hours in a day to do all I want to do! Can’t wait to do things online I couldn’t do here either at all or very easily – stream movies, download high-res pics, explore new music to add to my music library…

We decided to just start with a new desk and a couch because we don’t want the savings to drop too much. This place is beautiful and affordable, but ONLY if you make good money. Yeah, that’s the only thing I don’t like about this place, besides the bad memories I’ll always have of our toughest and scariest moments in Auburn, it’s NOT unemployment safe. On the bright side, this is easily the most secure job he’s ever had what with all the OT. You don’t usually throw so much OT at people just to go laying them off soon afterward.

It’s going to be so much more fun than the last house we bought. After all was set up and done there, that was it. It was over and I didn’t have much else to do or look forward to. There were no pools or clubhouses I could go to, the Internet wasn’t what it is today, and so there wasn’t much to do other than clean and write. Well, that is until a knock on the door at 8:30 on the morning of January 6, 2000 came and put an end to my boredom. That sure as hell won’t be happening at this place! Not unless it’s in my cards to end up filthy rich after all.

All the little things like changing town names on Facebook (that won’t happen till we get over there) are made more special by the fact that I wasn’t supposed to live to be able to do them. Like drink the emergency water. LOL, yeah, that’s another thing we’ll do in about a week or so is finish off the little jug of water for when the Jes pest would have one of his famous well or pressure tank problems. You see things differently after you’ve stared death in the eye. Things are funnier. Stupid things that you wouldn’t ordinarily laugh about or give a second thought to. Like drinking down that “emergency” water. hahaha

This should be the last night we’ll have to close windows and the cooler vent while we’re still here. Last night got chilly as hell in here. The propane tank hit 12% last weekend, so the next people in here are definitely not going to take many showers at our expense, LOL.

TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2013 No calls or emails today, so I guess everything is on track as scheduled. No bad dreams either.

Been having dreams of Teddy Bear, the one woman I came to really truly love (though I have had feelings for a few others) after getting married. She really taught me a lot. For one, she reminded me that some people are full of shit no matter what they say, and yes, no matter how in love and committed you are to one person, people can still be attracted to and even have feelings for others along the way. We really are only human.

I wonder what her life is like today. Is she still a detention officer? Or did all that flirting finally catch up to her and get her fired? I wonder about Palma and Pérez, too.

Jesse let me sleep so far this week. I’ve had the sound machines cranked up and I’ve also added an earplug to my good ear for good measure. If he’s been down here I haven’t heard him. I don’t think he has been, though, as there’s no evidence of weeding, trimming, bulldozing or anything.

MONDAY, JUNE 17, 2013 The Jes pest is almost just a memory and I’m wondering why the heavy period. So much for menopausal dreamin’.

I’m also wondering why I’m still Stephane’s only friend on Facebook. If it weren’t for a fellow VH sister confirming that she’s another “sister,” I’d be beyond suspicious. But why join FB just to friend only me, someone she never met? She was at VH from 1984-1986 and I was there from 1982-1984.

Poor Nane was sick, but will soon be off to enjoy a vacation in Spain!

I hope Alison’s doctor’s appointment went well today. The poor girl’s skin is all broken out and she’s lucky to get just 2 hours of sleep a night. Damn! I can’t even live on just 6, so I don’t know how she does just 2. Her last round of blood tests came back as “unusual,” so I worry about her. She herself says she doesn’t know how much more she can take. She’s been as cursed medically as we were financially.

At this point, I’m just hoping to hell there are no last-minute delays. Things have been running smoothly and on schedule so far which is pretty damn amazing for us, so that’s why I worry someone’s gonna throw a kink in our plans at some point. I hope not, though! It’s just that no one’s asked us for money yet and we can’t get in the house till we make the down payment. The loan lady said everything’s fine, so I guess we should just trust her and assume she knows what she’s doing.

Why has life been so good to us lately anyway? I wonder. I know we deserve this compensation after the hell we went through for so long, but still, I’m not used to things going this well for this long and I tend to get a little suspicious when they do. I suppose I should just shut up and enjoy it! If the shit’s gonna hit the fan again at some point, and if there really is a God that’s pissed off at what we’re doing and is going to “punish” us with breakage or health issues, there’s nothing we can do about it now.

I laugh to myself when I read back on some of my old journal entries. Damn, was I naïve! Back when I didn’t always talk right, sometimes by choice when I’d alter words, I then saw it as cute, creative and funny. But like most people when they get older, what I once saw as cute now seems immature. Sometimes it still brings humor to me (if not convenience) to either abbreviate or alter words amongst friends and whatnot, but if I were reading a journal like mine from the 80s and 90s I wouldn’t take them very seriously or consider them very bright. I guess that the more serious I became about writing, the less I wanted to sound like I was in my teens or 20s, unless it’s a character in one of my books that’s that age or something.

The growing illiteracy rate and poor spelling, grammar and punctuation are still alarming. Especially when people are looking for love or jobs where the last thing you want to come off as is some dumb-ass, uneducated person from the slums. As a writer, though, you tend to not only hate it when you make a typo, but you notice the errors of others more and are more annoyed by such things, especially when the writing is so bad you can’t even understand them or you have to read whatever it is they wrote a few times just to get what they’re trying to say.

SUNDAY, JUNE 16, 2013 OMG, this is so fucking funny! I walked into the room Tom was in and said, “Wow, someone on Ask asked about my unfinished Bunny Nose story. I’m surprised anyone remembers that. I told them that I plan, as time permits, to finish that and other unfinished stories I’ve put off once we get moved, or something like that.”

Then I pointed to his eye that’s been watery for some reason and said, “You still have a crying eye.”

“Yeah,” he said, “That could be Bunny Nose’s sequel; Crying Eye.

LMAO!

I may eventually share stories, or at least parts of stories, in my blogs. Can’t share anything that’s already been published, though, and if I post anything that I later end up getting published, I’ll have to take those posts down.

SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 2013 Tom and I are having a relaxing anniversary. The only real work I’m doing is laundry, though I don’t mind. I hope I will be able to say on our 20th anniversary how wonderful our first year in our new home has been, and not that the people there have pestered us or that we’ve had all kinds of problems with the house or anything like that.

I don’t like that Mary was in my blog if only for 20 seconds. What for? I don’t want to be friends with her again, so why can’t those who either dump me or that I dump just let go? Just ignore me and move on, goddamnit! But it’s like no one’s willing to forgive you when you try to apologize and resume your friendship with them, yet they sure won’t leave you alone for long if you’re the one that decides to walk away.

I accused her of having trust issues and being paranoid, but again, Jenny had a point in saying I was “almost” paranoid. How do I know she isn’t coming in to see if there’s something she can sue me for? Until she loses her rich “BF” she could use extra money, no doubt. I still worry that within a few months after the move God will send someone or something to fuck it up for us. If not to the devastating degree that the freeloaders did, then to at least be a highly annoying long-term issue that we’ll be less than thrilled to have to be dealing with when all we want to do is live our lives in peace and enjoy our new home. Well, we WILL fight back this time. Sure hope we won’t have to, though.

Got a couple of messages from Tammy. Because she spoke for 12 minutes and is putting off her health issues till the fall (due to Mark’s issues), I’m hopeful she won’t need the transplant and that her condition won’t get any worse. It’s still not the greatest, though. She’s not physically up to traveling. But she really wants to see us and says they could help with tickets. I think we could swing it ourselves and then she could just house and feed us. But if we really do go there, it’s way in the future. We need to move and get settled first, plus we have a trip to Hawaii coming up this winter.

Also, if we did go there it would only be for a few days. I’d hate to go there and not see Andy, so I guess we could rent a car and have him either drop down and meet us in CT, or we could shoot up over the MA border before we were due to go to the airport or something like that and see him if only for an hour or two.

She said, “I know you don’t like big dogs, but Peppy’s a real baby.” LOL, baby or not, 86 pounds is more than half my body weight! But does SHE realize how big these rats are? They’re like guinea pigs only skinnier, cuter, smarter, and with pointy noses and 8” tails that are about a half-inch thick at the base. Romeo loves to chase the dusting wand when I wave it around, and Sugar’s a real sweetie. Very playful, but gentle, unlike Romeo who can get to really nipping at times. Sugar literally stands straight up when I open the roof of the cage and gives me hugs and kisses.

Tammy’s been redecorating and installing new carpet and flooring so things have been hectic for her. The girls and Mark help her with what she doesn’t have the lungs to do.

Been having fun getting ideas online for new stuff of our own.

I love knowing we’ll soon be getting right what they fucked up on in Maricopa. Besides, our choices were so limited there. It was either white linoleum for the floor or “wooden” linoleum. I chose the white but of course it was marred with streaks of red where they made vent cut-outs and the lazies never cared to fix it. The pink Champaign carpet ended up being denim blue. Better than neutral colors, but still not what I wanted. I was thinking I may go with crème colored furniture with a medium shade of pink carpet, but that’s subject to change.

I love how I’ll get to pick out 3 different designs for floors. One for the kitchen, one for the master bath, and one for the second bath and laundry area. I like the bamboo wallpaper in the master bath and don’t want to redo that, so I’ll probably get something that will go with that. I don’t remember the wallpaper in the other bath, and the kitchen was boring.

I am sooo excited about our new home and all the fun games and activities I look forward to when I’m not writing or doing other work. I had said that I’d always feel some degree of resentment that we had to live so shabbily for so long, and while that’s true, a small part of it ended up being by choice so that we could really live it up in the end. We could’ve moved years ago. We just didn’t want to rent another dump or buy an old dump in a dumpy park with no pool. But because we lived cramped in here for so long we can now enjoy a luxury home in a luxury park with tons of amenities. I am NOT going to let any person, group or God ruin things for us there either. Oh no, not this time around! If anyone makes trouble for us we WILL fight back and we WILL win. Sure hope we won’t have to bother, though. Can’t imagine we would, but that’s just my paranoid side coming out after meeting with disasters of different kinds in two other states.

I laughed when Tom reminded me that we gotta “act” like old people at the pool. No diving, handstands or horseplay. It’ll still be fun, even if all I can do is float and swim.

I am having the PMS from hell with the water bloating. It’s really ridiculous that a 47-year-old has to have a uterus. Why does God hate women so damn much? Better yet, why did He create us if He knew he hated us? Just to have someone to pick on?

FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 2013 Less than 6 more hours till our 19th wedding anniversary! Not bad for one who once could barely keep a relationship for more than 5 minutes. If I wasn’t busy getting dumped I was busy realizing fast what a mistake I’d made in which case I was doing the dumping.

No one could ever compare to Tom no matter what they said, did, earned or looked like!

The real mystery is who the hell really is fucking with me on MD. I still say Kathy was behind some of it, but in regards to my saying how much I liked the motto “Freedom of speech is wonderful, right up there with the freedom not to listen,” I also said that any decent lawyer would’ve told that sick fuck of a twist next to us in Phoenix, “You had the right not to read your mail. No one forced you at gunpoint!”

Then someone with a bogus email came in with: then stop crying that people are responding to your emails idiot!! hah

What emails??? Kim would use words like “idiot” and “moron,” but we haven’t exchanged emails in like forever. Kathy and I never responded to emails. That leaves one very chilling possibility. Yeah, the black bitch in Phoenix. She’s the only one who “responded” by running to the pigs if the pig was even real at all. The only people I exchange emails with are friends and family. Regardless, their statement still makes no sense in response to what I wrote.

Aly just emailed me saying she wondered if Jenny could be behind the messages, cuz a mutual friend of hers and Kathy’s said Kathy was on vacation. Yeah, that’s what someone said on Ask. But someone connected to Kathy was harassing me.

I’ve got comments disabled for all blogs. That way if anyone there gets curious enough to look us up and they find my blog, they can’t say, “Hi, it’s so and so from the park. Welcome to LV!” I’d not only want to wring their necks for that, but I’d be like, jeez, why don’t you just spill our address and socials, too!

Didn’t hear from the Jes pest today, though I didn’t get up till noon. He was ATVing to the electrical box when we returned from yesterday’s signing. Brenda had wanted to be there but she had her own signing to attend to. Brenda’s been asking weird questions and we suspect she may have it in for Joy and want to catch her doing something wrong so she can complain on her. When the park changed management they fired everybody cuz they wanted to hire their own staff. So that’s why Brenda isn’t too fond of Joy.

I’m enjoying the beginning of the end of our time here in this little shitbox. Just changed the sheets and should only have to struggle to make this bed, with barely any space to one side and the foot, one more time!

I just hope nothing critical breaks in our last two weeks here and that that damn pest lets me sleep next week! I need to make one more schedule flip before we get out of here. I’m sure he’ll douse the tanks with bleach at least one more time, though. I hope he’s doing ok financially. The more desperate he is, the quicker he’ll want to start prepping the outside so he can get this place listed faster. On the other hand, it shouldn’t take him more than a day to bulldoze and trim some trees, so long as he doesn’t plan to paint or do anything too extravagant.

Except for the seclusion, I’m not going to miss this place one bit. I took some indoor pics of the ugliest parts of this trailer – behind the toilet, the mismatched bathroom colors, the hallway ceiling/grille, and I just shot the ugly kitchen door, too.

There’s always this faint smell of propane every time I get near the stove like there’s a leak or something. I’m not going to miss that either!

Tom said his coworkers were all jealous of us when he told them all about the place, LOL. Good and bad news for him there. He may continue getting the entire weekend off, but the weekday OT isn’t going to end anytime soon, but at nearly a grand a week it’s hard to complain. He only worked a half-day today due to their systems being down for maintenance but was paid for a full day’s work.

I can’t wait to explore the funhouse, as I’ve dubbed the clubhouse, more thoroughly. I’m surprised how deserted it was. You had half a dozen people at the pool yet not a single soul in sight at the funhouse. I suppose I should be more correct in my journal and call it the clubhouse cuz no one’s going to have a clue as to what the hell I’m talking about otherwise! Oh, there was a billiards room too, but I don’t think I’ll care for that.

The appraisal and inspection were done and everything’s looking good. They found a few minor things. The shower drain in the second bath is loose and the dryer vents underneath the house so there’s some lint down there, not that we care. Some small cuts in the kitchen floor (I remember those, though we’re going to replace the flooring anyway cuz it’s dull), and a few nicks in the outside trim. There’s a small dent in one of the carport supports too, which we may wall off into a garage so Tom could work on the car inside of it if he needed to. They don’t allow that there otherwise.

They’re installing a carbon monoxide monitor, and that was pretty much it. The report was emailed to Tom with very specific photos and descriptions. The patio table and chairs are still there, along with some wind chimes. I also liked that I didn’t see two new vehicles or something like that in next door’s driveway which was visible in one of the pics.

I may bitch about the high space rent, and I may worry about things going wrong and setting the stage for us to return to financial disaster (with a little help from whatever’s above that wasn’t very kind to us for so time), but it’s actually one of the cheapest there because the last people were there for so long. Most of the lots are over $800, as with most of the luxury parks in the area. I would have been thrilled and stunned to know we were going to a 1975, 1000-square-foot elevated home in a typical senior park, but a 1983, 1550-square-foot ground-level home in a luxury park is just mind-boggling! I just never would’ve believed it after living so shabbily for so long.

There are 3 trash bins. One’s for regular trash, which gets picked up weekly. Then there’s one for recyclables and one for green waste. They get alternated each week but picked up on the same day as your regular trash.

At first I wondered how the hell to care for all the trees and plants and what needed to be watered when, but it turns out there’s a drip system in place that’s on a timer located underneath the house. We just have to trim whatever needs trimming.

They had water problems due to some people landscaping in areas they shouldn’t have and damaging some pipes. We may get a couple of 5-gallon gravity-fed water tanks for the toilets just in case, but we don’t know for sure yet. Joy said it’s only occasionally that they have to turn the water off and usually only for a couple of hours.

We may eventually switch to LED lighting because it’s even cheaper than fluorescent. It’s costly at first but will pay for itself in a year, according to Tom’s research.

I love the opaque curtains throughout the place that lets light in but keeps eyes out. I used to be more into blinds, but I’ve gotten sick of them cuz they’re a bitch to dust. These I can just toss in the washer every now and then. The only room I want dark is the bedroom, but it will be in such a way that will be easier to let light in whenever I want to. Here I have rods holding blackout material flush against the window. I can take it out in seconds, but it looks ridiculous without curtains and having to flip the bottom of the material over the outer rod. There I intend to get room-darkening shades with blackout drapes like they use in hotels.

I was bummed to learn the bedrooms have no overhead lights. I hate lamps that operate on wall switches that you plug into special plugs! I used to hate entering a room at night, flipping on the switch, then turning the lamp off using the lamp’s switch, then going to flip the wall switch on the next night just to find it was already on but the lamp was off.

I’ll have to get a really good lamp in the master bedroom and probably more than one. That’s a HUGE room! I won’t use it as much, though, since I now read with the Kindle, but I still want to have something for when I’m going through drawers and closets at night.

I read the resident directory and it turns out that Gene and Audrey S are in our house now, and Robert and Virginia S are next door. Tom thinks they’re older than us, saying that there aren’t many younger Virginias. I would’ve really preferred not to have any male neighbors, though. They’re the ones more likely to be out in their garages hammering, sawing, etc.

The only other name I remember is Marion because that’s – what the fuck is our current “male neighbor” (the Jes pest) up there gunning at 8:30 at night? – Nane’s first name.

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013 Other than for Tammy, Andy and Nane, I will have to be sure to edit out any info that could identify the specific park we’re in, even though the back gate is always locked and the front one is locked at night. If you go to the side of the guardhouse that isn’t gated in front, the tire spikes will be sure to get you. :) I love that security feature! If you drive up to the gate from the inside, it will automatically open, but you need either a code or a transmitter to get in. Might have to have any food deliveries done before 8pm cuz they ask that you don’t give the code to anyone. So… unless you climb the wall, make sure you have about $450 set aside for new tires cuz you’re getting tire-spiked if you don’t live there! I’m sure some of the residents give the code out to some of their family and friends, though. We’ll have to either pick Tammy and Mark up from the airport or have them come in the daytime if they rent a car. If they arrive after dark it’s still no biggie cuz one of us could walk to the gate with the transmitter if we had to.

Got up at 10:30, listened to the Jes pest cruise around on the ATV (probably to pick up our trash at the fork), then Tom and I headed for the park shortly after he got home at 12:30 for what turned out to be a very long and tedious meeting. But Joy was nothing like Stacy, nor did she look like I pictured her to look like. She wasn’t snippy and she wasn’t the frail, old, gray-haired woman with short hair I expected to see. She was around my age and was tall and heavy. She had long straight black hair to her waist and looked to be American Indian.

We had to sign so many damn forms it reminded me of when I first met with Scot back in 2001.

The diagram of trees and bushes on our lot was initialed with B’s, T’s and C’s. I joked about them meaning bitch, tit and cunt, but we really knew the B’s and T’s were bushes and trees. But we didn’t know what the C’s meant till we asked her and she told us cypress trees. So that’s what those tall skinny, boring trees are called that you see all over Tuscany, huh? She asked that we keep them at 6’ and clear of the ground to deter rats, possums and skunks from wanting to nest inside them. I almost lost it when she mentioned rats and put a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing, knowing what rats were going to be nesting inside our place, but skunks? I thought we were getting away from those things there. We wonder where the turkeys sleep at night but didn’t think to ask her.

I was hoping she’d volunteer some info on the neighbors but didn’t want to seem nosy by asking. I’m curious, but at the same time, I really don’t want to know they exist.

She asked about pets, and while we are allowed to have small indoor pets like birds, fish and rodents, we decided it’d be best to just say we were petless, figuring what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Allowed or not, most people there wouldn’t be thrilled at the thought of any of their residents having a couple of monster-sized rats. “Things like fish are fine, just no big snakes or lizards,” she said.

I faked a shiver, pretending to be afraid of reptiles and rodents alike, LOL. Giving someone the gift of ignorance really can be bliss for them, though we have no desire to get any reptiles. The rats wouldn’t like that, I’m sure.

There are some things she said I liked and some I didn’t. I’ll start with the things I didn’t like and save the good things for last. My biggest concern is being pestered with various activities and being inconvenienced more than I’d like, but I doubt it could be any worse than it has been here, and there it will at least be worth it and we’ll be in a place that’s ours. They have water issues where they have to turn the water off to the park for a couple of hours on occasion. I guess that due to the park being old they’ve had to make some repairs.

It may have already been done but if not I’ll have to deal with someone going underneath the house and installing a water meter in the crawl space, then placing a box outside the place. I won’t have to go to the door, though, or let anyone in. As Tom reminded me, we won’t be renting anymore. They don’t do inspections and we’re not obligated to let anyone inside if we don’t want to.

What really sucked to hear about is the July 4th parade they have. They’ll be marching through the park that day and I really hope I’m on days that day! I should be. I also hope they don’t have many events that spill outside the clubhouse and into the entire park like that. Joy said they go “all-out” and even get kids and grandkids into the July 4th parade. Ugh. :( I wasn’t at all thrilled to hear this. Isn’t loud music and kids what we want to avoid and the whole reason for going to a retirement community?

Another thing I didn’t like is that they deliver a newsletter to the door on the first of every month, though Tom says they probably wouldn’t knock, and if they did we could ask them not to.

Lastly, and what I’d say is my biggest concern, is the space rent. It’s high even though it’s one of the lowest in the park, and will increase every year. We signed a 5-year lease instead of a 1-year lease since that’d keep it from increasing as much. Tom said that after doing the math we shouldn’t even hit a thousand a month for over a decade. Still, $747, plus trash, water, sewer, cable and electricity means we really gotta keep our savings up and hope he never gets laid off until and if he ever changes jobs. He might too, cuz he thinks he can get an even better-paying job without all the OT and with even better benefits. Well, like I said, I just hope nothing up there decides to “punish” us for finally getting ahead and getting the things we deserve in life after so many years of struggling and having to do without things, cuz we couldn’t afford this place on less than $10 an hour. Then again, we survived this place at $825. It’s just that there were no mortgage payments or utility bills to pay other than propane and our cheap, shitty DSL. If the space rent isn’t paid by 5pm on the 5th, you get a $25 late fee and another one if it’s not paid by the 15th. We’re looking at a minimum of 3K when he retires and he knows money better than I do. So if he says we can handle it, then I’m not too worried. The mortgage should be paid off in a couple of years.

There’s a $50 fee for those who stay with you for 30 days (thought it was a few days). After that, they have to apply to live there or vacate.

This entry’s getting so long and I’m never going to get everything written that I want to write about if I keep goofing off, so I’ll just wrap this one up and continue on later with the park’s pros, and there are many!

Later…

Ok, back to the pros and cons of the park. Well, I don’t want to mention too many in public, but I will say that Tom and I were laughing over the thought of people who know we live there thinking we were snobs cuz it’s a luxury park. Like people from my hometown of Longmeadow, MA were considered snobs whether they were or they weren’t. LOL, it’s definitely the Paradise Valley, AZ of parks. Well, maybe runner-up, but close enough.

The meeting with Joy took an hour. I was telling her how excited I was to enjoy so many things I had to do without for so long.

“Oh yeah,” she said with a knowing smile, “you never really miss something until you’ve had to do without it. Do I ever know that.”

Do you know what it’s like to believe you’re going to die? I thought. This event in our lives is made more special by the fact that this dream was never supposed to become a reality. We were supposed to die instead. But then a miracle saved us and we could eventually think of all the things that were well overdue for us. Well, on June 28th we’re coming to collect!

Talk about being forever burdened with shitty memories, though. I had described the mutt barking out of the window next to the last place we saw as a real “punch in the stomach.” But that day Tom confirmed one of my latest dreams (or nightmares to be more precise) had become a reality, it was beyond physical. It was a death sentence that was worse than having a million knives twisting and turning in your gut. Those things we read in books about our hearts jumping into our throats or sinking to the pit of our stomachs – well, I sure learned that day that these are very real feelings indeed, and I will have to live with the horrible memory of the stress, fear, depression and anger I suffered thanks to a bunch of greedy bankers, a corrupt government, and a God that didn’t give a damn.

So while I’ll always appreciate our blessings, the PTSD will always be a little cloud hanging overhead and I will always remember the utter horror of trying to imagine us sealing ourselves in the bedroom, lighting charcoal and dying in each other’s arms while not at all being able to imagine dying of starvation on the streets. We just had no idea at the time that Tammy would’ve helped us, even if it meant we’d have had to abandon everything and fly to her place, and well… tears are starting to trickle down my cheeks. Sorry. Then again, no, I’m not sorry. Like Jenny said, I do my best. :)

But not all memories of my 5 years in this dumpy little trailer nestled in the woods with the pesky landlord are negative. Look at all I’ve learned. Look at the wonderful people I’ve met… Nane, Aly, Mitch, Adonis… and the people I’ve reunited with… Tammy, Andy, Eileen, Rosa and so many more.

My language count has doubled and I’ve published books and shared my journal (some of it anyway) for all the world to see. Yeah, I’ve picked up a few trolls along the way, but many people have left very positive, interesting, encouraging and enlightening feedback.

I still can’t keep a schedule and I never conquered my driving phobia and have seen my share of death, one of which greatly saddened me (my foster mother’s), but I never had to go through any of it alone. I always had the love of my husband by my side, the husband who would’ve refused to let me die alone, even though he probably could survive the streets, unlike me, for at least a while.

I’ll never forget the day I sat in this chair I’m sitting in right now, after we were miraculously saved, realizing that that would probably have been the day when Jesse would have discovered our bodies.

I got a bit off-topic and rambled again, LOL, so I’ll finish (hopefully) in my next entry.

Later…

Ok, now I’ll finish up with today’s meeting once and for all. You can learn a lot in an hour and end up with so much to write about, though many details will not be made public despite how secure the park is.

While we were signing the lease and making it real, Tom wasn’t sure what DOB to put on the escrow papers on the 28th when he goes to sign them since he won’t be 55 anymore at that time, haha. Either way, signing those papers will REALLY be what makes it official.

“You guys just barely made it, age-wise. Seems like you had a plan,” Joy said.

Oh, we had a plan, all right. We started talking about adult communities back in Phoenix. What with the chaos the welfare bums and a few others in the neighborhood put us through, I wished to hell we could be in one. But we were only 27 and 35 when we met.

I also laughed when I took note of how dusty Joy’s office was. She could use Andy to clean for her. Hell, I’m so sick of cleaning that I’d have him come clean our house every 10 days or so if I could when both our schedules permitted it, give him $50 - $75 bucks or so, and let him eat or drink anything he wanted while he was tending to all 1550 square feet of the place. But cleaning the place will be well worth it and it’s good physical activity.

I’m so glad we gave this park a chance! I was so tempted to just blow it off. I really didn’t think we’d get in no matter how much money we made. I remember how excited Tom was about it when he first saw it and told me about it, and I was like, “A luxury park? Are you kidding?” He was like, why not at least try? “It’s a freaking luxury park,” I insisted. “Since when do we get to go first class? Really, all spacious modern doublewides and tons of extra goodies? Us? No freaking way! Your average house there sells for $65,000.”

Another con was the resident directory listing everyone’s name, address and phone number, but she said that was strictly optional and that we don’t have to be listed. Good, because I’d rather not give our number out to just anyone, and as Joy said, there’s no guarantee the info would stay in the park.

There were a surprising number of singles in the directory and a Marion on our street, LOL. Several German names, too. I can’t remember them now, but I smiled at some funny ones Andy and I would’ve loved to have called back in our days of mischief. Gene and Audrey S are the ones in our house now and my best guess is that Robert and Virginia S will be our neighbors. They need to hire me to edit their newsletter, though, if they think they can tell us not to take our smoke detectors for “granite.”

Another pro is that the lease can be broken with a 60-day notice and intent to sell. So we’re not locked in or anything like that which is great even though I think I’ll love it there. I sure hope so! I still worry about vehicle noise waking me up when I’m on nights, but we’ll see.

The park has way more amenities than I realized. I knew there was a clubhouse and that they had various groups that got together – computer groups, choir, and things like that. But when we were given a tour of the clubhouse (I’d hate to live directly across from it and deal with all that traffic), we were like, wow! There’s a big main room, which can be rented for special events. This is where bingo is held every Thursday night, which I was delighted to hear they have. They had bingo nights where my parents once lived and I hoped this place would, too. “Of course they would,” Tom said, “Old people love bingo.” LOL, I sure felt like we were young and even good-looking compared to most of the golden oldies we saw. Anyway, they had a big bingo board where they light up the numbers. You play for cash prizes, but I don’t know how much it costs to play.

There’s so much to do there! Their fitness room was state-of-the-art! Treadmills, elliptical machines, bikes, and even a modern Bowflex gym (we had one in Maricopa). I’m definitely getting this weight off no matter what and I intend to drop a good 6-8 dress sizes even if it takes me a year to do it. To each their own with their weight and bodies, but unless it turns out that I do have some medical problem or have to take any medication that causes weight gain, I have no excuse and no one to blame but myself for my own lack of physical activity and overeating. No, I don’t eat like a pig, but it doesn’t take much to put on extra pounds at this height and age. I’m not looking forward to the constant hunger, but the diet part is just as important, if not more than the exercise part, particularly for women. We gain and retain fat more easily than men. I still have a lot of muscle which is part natural for me, part working out for many years on a mostly consistent basis that had an accumulative effect, but I just may go all out and get really ripped!

They also have water aerobics, which may be fun, too. At first I thought of selling our treadmill, but I can’t go there to work out at 3am if I wanted to, so their gym will be just to add variety to my workout when I’m up and about when they’re open. This way I don’t have to just use a treadmill. I can choose to ride the bike one day and then use the elliptical the next day if I want to, and then there’s swimming when weather permits. The pool is solar-heated. Joy took us to see the pool where about 6 women and men over 65 were having a blast. I love how visiting kids are only allowed there in the mornings. This way we can go there in the afternoon when it’s warmer and know we can swim without some brat screaming in our ears.

Other fun goodies at the clubhouse are Bridge and card games. These things don’t interest me, but they have a book and video library and puzzles you can borrow. I only read ebooks, but now that we’ll actually have a table big enough for puzzles, we can borrow some of theirs or get our own and then donate them when we’re done. The pool, fitness room and bingo will be my main things. I’m not interested in the bocce court or the potlucks or anything like that. You have to bring a dish that serves 8-10 too, and I’m no cook. I laughed when I remembered Andy and I bringing empty plates to the apartment complex we lived at in Arizona 20 years ago for some slop they were serving. We thought “bring a dish” meant to bring an empty dish to pile the shit on, not bring your own slop to share with others while you ate their slop. LMAO!

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 2013 Kathy’s backed off. At least for now. I just reallowed for anonymous questions on Ask, so we’ll see if she returns.

Someone asked if I analyze people and all that. I not only think it’s human nature to do so, but yes, I analyze both the dead and the living. My dad looked the other way and let mom abuse us, yet there’s no doubt in mind that he wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot someone trying to kill me even if it meant he had to go to prison for it like if he were unable to prove it was done in order to save my life.

We were talking about what knobs/locks we want to get since the first thing we’ll do is change the locks on the new place. We’re hoping to change both house doors and the workshop with the same lock so we only need one key. Although it’s kind of cool, we decided it wasn’t worth the money to get the fingerprint-scanning lock. We considered a numeric keypad, but I don’t want to have to deal with hard-to-remember numbers, since using our birthdates or something easy to remember wouldn’t be wise. So then it came down to knobs or handles and I decided handles would be cool for a change. They’re certainly easier to operate. My first color choice is gold, then silver, then black.

It’s just so fun picking out these things! Also, the little things we’re going to need to pick out too, like an additional bathmat and a mat for by the back door where we’d be coming and going from mostly. One we can leave down all the time. Here we had to throw down a towel to step in on during rainy days, but we couldn’t leave it there because there was no way to avoid walking over it to get to and from the kitchen, which would get my socks wet during the colder months when I’d be wearing them. If there is a God, I swear I’ll never let it allow circumstances to have us live like this ever again no matter how much it may hate us!

Oh, to have a full-size washer and dryer! I can’t wait to turn what’s normally 3 or 4 loads here in this little portable washer into just 1 load there, and I can’t wait to be able to wash comforters! I’ve always preferred clothes dried in a dryer too, instead of air-dried. Air-dried is too stiff even with fabric softener. Gonna spoil myself at least once with those sheets you toss into the wash that has detergent, then becomes a softener sheet in the dryer. Oh, yes I am! rubs hands in anticipation

We were told they would be out by the 28th, Tom’s birthday, so the plan is to go there that day and measure windows for room darkening shades and blackout drapes for the bedroom. Also, to study the doors to determine what type of locks would be best. We also want to see what furniture, if any, they may leave behind.

On the 29th, we’ll bring some bulky stuff over like the computers, so I may be offline that night and doing a lot of reading and listening to music instead. We’ll also bring the rats that day, too. On the 30th will be the big move where we get the truck and get everything out of here. It will no doubt be quite an emotional day for me, too.

I need to make one more flip with my schedule before we leave, though, and that damn Jes pest better not be a pest and make things harder for me! With this type of sleep disorder, you sleep an hour or two later each day. I can stall it for a week or two, but after that, it gets harder and harder as I get less and less sleep, never able to catch up by going to sleep earlier the night before as most people can. That’s ok, though. 17 more days and I’ll never have to worry Jesse’s going to come to the door again! Sure hope vehicle noise doesn’t replace that at the new place! Can’t imagine there being much in the way of home renovation noise since most of the homes around ours are in pretty good shape. Next door looks like it may be even nicer than our place and ours is pretty damn nice. Really thought we were going to end up in a dumpy early 70s place, so the 80s is like, wow!

I can’t believe this exists in 2013 and it’s LEGAL (A news article about the Salvation Army saying they help people, just not gays)! If the Salvation Army were anti-black BOTH blacks and whites would be torching every SA in sight and the SA would be hit with all kinds of discrimination lawsuits. How did this world and its laws get to be so fucked up?!?!

TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2013 It’s after 9:00 now and I’ve got 3 hours of music queued up so I don’t have to sit and listen to the Jes pest hammer, beat, bang, bash and run whatever machinery he’s been running up there for the rest of the morning. At least it’s still mild compared to the NHA and Phoenix. How can this guy claim he’s disabled, though, and get disability checks?

Even though my cousin Philip told me he and I didn’t have any issues, he must’ve eventually decided otherwise cuz he deleted me on Facebook. Probably Ruth and Polly influenced, but that’s ok. We have a right to keep or dump whomever we want.

Speaking of dumping… Fat Kat, Cart Fart, Crazy Carties, or whatever the hell else those that have also been targeted by this nutty bunch want to call them, I’m done with that chapter of my life and have deleted some stuff pertaining to them. If they want to go on raging over people’s beliefs, that’s their problem and not mine, and I’m not about to let anyone make it mine either. That being said I can move on to whether or not I really want to remain public.

Every day I’m torn between staying public and going friends-only, and every day I say I’ll sleep on it. Only I never wake up any surer as to what I want to do than I was the night before, and when I do it isn’t long before I change my mind. I asked Tom if he’d let Molly’s “informant” influence his decision and he said no, that wouldn’t even factor into it. Well, public or not, I’ll probably at least cut out some of my blogs. I have too many. I enjoy the different features the different sites have to offer, but it makes editing more of a pain when you manage multiple blogs. I dropped Tumblr and I guess LJ will be next at some point. Maybe I’ll make that a voice blog.

I had strange dreams last night about waking up in our Maricopa house, then a dream of Andy’s mother inviting me to the beach in Arizona of all places, hahaha. I kept trying to tell her there were no beaches there, but she just didn’t get it.

He was also laughing at how I blame God for the economy. Why, though? If things happen for a reason, good or bad, isn’t He supposed to be the driving force behind these things? Ok, “responsible” may be a better word than “blame” in some cases. The guy who raises a bat to kill someone is responsible for his own actions, but who do you think allowed it to happen? If there is a God that’s still influencing the people and events on earth, it’s definitely not a good God for the most part, but yeah, if one exists I think it helped set the stage for the economy to collapse and chose who would be affected by it and how. Well, believing you’re going to die whether it’s quickly at your own hand or slowly on the streets isn’t funny at all, and I know I never could or would forgive God (along with other reasons). Again, though, that’s if one still exists. Maybe the events in our lives truly are happenstance, unplanned and totally without anything but humans, machines and Mother Nature guiding them. We’ll probably never know for sure in this life.

What did the crisis bring me in the end? Another case of PTSD and a valuable lesson learned about saving money. Then again, we’d already learned that lesson beforehand; it’s just that we didn’t have the money to save in the first place. Tom did the worst-case-scenario math and found that even if they laid him off the day we moved in and he couldn’t get unemployment, we’d be ok for 4 months. But of course he’d get unemployment, and older and white or not, it shouldn’t take 2 years for him to find another job.

Later…

Guess I’ll stay public a while longer. As I know, putting a wall around me may keep the jerks out, but it also keeps the good people out as well. It’s both fun and interesting to see who comes around, even if I’m less than flattered by some of my visitors.

Still not sure why I’m being dumped so much these days by people who either want to dump and ignore me or dump and harass me, but if it’s about me being me, then I’d rather keep on being me and keep on losing people than be someone else and hang onto people. Sure, I could say I love God, God is good, He loves us equally, He answers our prayers, blah, blah, blah. I could also say I’m a real social butterfly who sees tons of friends in person and that I have my own car and a full-time job outside of the house, but that would be lying to both myself and to others. Would that really be fair?

At least I’m half of what marriage means today. Like most modern marrieds we didn’t have kids, but we do share money, objects and household tasks without fussing and fighting over where things came from, who does what, or who was the one to actually bring in the money. All that matters to us is that we get the things we need in life. Yeah, he makes most of our money, but it’s still mine, too. He never washes his own clothes. I do the laundry. And no I don’t think we should do our laundry separately just because it’s 2013 and we’re supposed to be oh so independent. Why there’s so much separatism in today’s marriages is beyond me. Why get married in the first place if it’s such a sin and means you’re suddenly not independent enough if you need to “bum a ride” from your spouse? Just for the tax break?

My beliefs are far from unique, so I’m learning. Those who are either atheists or who believe God is not good are growing in numbers by the day. Can’t blame them due to all the chaos in the world. But unlike some people, I accept that we all have our own beliefs and opinions, and as long as no one tries to force theirs on me it doesn’t matter what they think and believe.

The weather has been weird. Where it had been hot as hell a few days ago, the cooler never came on yesterday until after 5pm. It was chilly in here this morning too, not being in a real house. Oh, yeah, that reminds me. Some folks have asked about manufactured homes and how they’re built. Saying that they’re all flimsy as hell is just as much of a myth as it is saying men are stronger than women and women can’t build as much muscle as they can, etc. Women have more fat which they gain easier than men and can’t lose as easily as men, thus giving the impression that they’re weaker when in fact they’re not really any more or less weaker/stronger. It really depends on the individual and how fit they are, but we ladies definitely have more fat. As for the manufactured homes, they used to be built flimsy, but the newer models are built like regular houses and in some ways can be tougher than on-site homes that are elevated. This is because they’re “strapped down.” They have steel rods running along their undersides in which strips of metal are wrapped around and attached to 3’ long screws that go down into the ground.

We’re thinking of getting one of those NuWave inductive cookers when we move. Love how the element it cooks on doesn’t get hot. Only the pots and pans get hot. It also boils water in just 90 seconds.

We both agree that during the first month, we’re going to basically spend it setting up and goofing off online catching up on what we couldn’t enjoy here. I want to find a commercial-less radio station with unlimited song-skipping, though I’ll probably have to pay for it. I want to catch up on movies and other videos and enjoy uploading and downloading high-resolution desktop wallpaper pics in no time at all. I can’t wait!

But then it’s back to work and back to the days of winning enough cash and prizes to equate to a part-time job in just 3-4 hours a day every day except maybe 1-2 on Sundays. Not as many sweeps come out on Sundays.

I will also get back on with my language studies and take one more shot at losing weight. Even though I’m more of a homebody than the outdoors type, I can’t wait to be out swimming, walking, riding my bike, etc.

MONDAY, JUNE 10, 2013 Aly just emailed me and said she had her own way of tracing IPs and called in a favor. Well, the sender of the message about being paranoid traces to Yuba, CA where Molly’s on-and-off friend, Jenny, lives. She said she can’t be 100% sure it’s her but thinks it probably is. She gave me her FB link so I could block her. Aly said it makes sense cuz she’s not only more of an attention whore than Molly, but she once buddied up to her just to get info for Molly. So it doesn’t surprise her that she’d be a long-time reader of my blog. Harmless or not, I’m not sure I like this ongoing obsession that will NEVER die and the idea of her knowing what’s up with me whether she’s online or not. Maybe it really is time to close the doors to the public and just blog for friends or on sites like OD where no one knows me, or so I believe.

I originally thought it was Molly’s mother, although I said it was she herself who contacted me in my public blog. That oughta shock the shit out of her to read! Even if it had been her mother like I first thought, she would still tell her darling daughter how her “friend” is doing and that she’s moving soon, though I purposely stated the wrong town in public.

When I learned who it was a chill came over me. I guess it’s because my life shouldn’t be the business of some crazy, obsessed, stalking troll who will NEVER change, that’s why. I never met this person. I’m not friends with this person. I never will be friends with this person either. I have no interest in her life and she should have no interest in mine. Why do so many people focus on those that hate them? Do they really have such a lack of self-respect?

I didn’t want to go private at first because I didn’t want to lock out those following me with good intentions and genuine interest, but I’d rather deprive the Mollys, Kims and Kathys of the world the right to know what’s going on with me, even if there’s no info they could use and abuse against me than worry about followers. I’m no longer open to making any more friends anyway after having too many people turn crazy on me. I will leave public blogs public for a little while longer so people can have a chance to know what’s going on, but then I will be sharing only with friends. No, friending me under a bogus name on MO or FB won’t work. I don’t accept friend invites anymore. Ask account #1 will probably be deactivated at some point too, but for now it's set to only allow questions from members.

I realize I could stay public and just ignore any messages that come in, but I think I’d rather “cheat” these nuts out of my life and let them stew in agony over wondering what’s going on with me.

Later…

I know some would say I was letting the trolls control me by turning blogs private or friends only, but actually, I feel more like it’s me controlling them at this point. If the obsessed stalkers aren’t reading themselves, they’re ordering little informants to do so for them as I’ve learned, and well, I’d like to deprive them of their reading pleasure at least for a while. So I’m sorry Jenny won’t be able to give me her “official” diagnosis of the day and then run and tell Molly that I just took a shower and came out stinking of bleach, thanks to that damn cock up the hill that’s obsessed with the shit.

19 more days of this unfuckingbelievably noisy landlord of mine! I swear if it isn’t his mutts, it’s HIM! Also, I don’t care what Tom says, this is NOT normal. It’s not normal to hear your ONE neighbor HUNDREDS of feet away nearly every single day. I know we’ll just have to deal with them at the new place, but they can’t be hammering, sawing and coming and going all day in such loud vehicles, or leaving large dogs outdoors round the clock.

I just hope to hell nothing else breaks in the next 19 days! Everything that’s critical has already broken and been fixed, though, so if anything it just makes it easier for the next people in here. Unless the brand-new pump on the cooler blows out or the fairly new water tank springs a leak, there’s not much else that could break that’s important to us. So what if the heater broke right now? No one will know it till November.

The car’s AC is leaking again, though. Yeah, that sky bastard really, really has something against us having an air-conditioned car, doesn’t He? That’s ok, within a year or so we’ll be getting a new car and this one will be just a backup. That is unless Kathy’s beloved sky daddy throws any kinks in our plans.

Andy’s due to return from Florida today. I’m glad I didn’t hear from him while he was gone cuz that’d probably mean he was bored out of his mind. To me, a vacation shouldn’t be about doing the same things (other than eating and breathing) that you do all the time anyway, although having internet access is still good for checking accounts and looking up directions and other info like that.

SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 2013 Why is letting go so damn hard for so many people? When Kathy dropped me like a hot potato for not being a God worshiper and for daring to tell her that none of my prayers were answered way back when I assumed that meant she was done with me and didn’t want anything to do with me. Period. Instead, she’s taken Molly and Kim’s place (with the help of others) to harass me on various sites and I don’t understand why. Why can’t she just let me go if she hated me enough to drop me in the first place? Even if she came out and apologized for being so narrow-minded, intolerant and unable to accept me as I am, I would probably accept the apology, but wouldn’t want to resume our friendship because I would feel I couldn’t trust her or confide in her. Obviously, she must truly feel sorry and have some regrets for throwing me away like that or else she wouldn’t be holding on like she is, even if it’s through others. Why else would she be unable to let go if it wasn’t for missing me and for regretting that she tossed me away like that?

Well, I’m sure that if she doesn’t read this, someone she knows will. So hopefully they’ll tell her that I’m sorry she’s sorry, but no hard feelings at this point, ok? Let’s just move on like two mature, civilized adults instead of hanging on to what once was and will never be again. You may have a lot of time on your hands, Kathy, but you’ve got your life and I’ve got mine and I really thought you were better than that. Playing a few pranks on someone who did shit to you like others have is one thing, but I never did anything to you other than tell you what you didn’t believe or want to hear. No one can or will agree on everything and you should be smart enough to know that. I’m surprised at you, Kathy, really, I am. I thought you were above and beyond these childish tactics. After all, you’re the one who dumped me. Well, why’d you dump me if you knew you couldn’t let go? And why follow my blog and other sites if you were so sure you didn’t want to continue on as friends?

As I used to tell Kim and Molly before Molly got kicked offline and I got Kim in trouble, let’s just ignore each other and go our separate ways, ok? We have nothing to offer each other. You hanging onto me and contacting me through your friends is not only pointless, but it only makes me think you’re sorry and want to be friends again. Why don’t we just strike a truce instead? You don’t contact me and I won’t contact you, ok? Really, I wish you and yours the best in life but I really don’t want to hear from you again and I don’t want to have to call your local PD either. Again, I really thought you were better than that and wouldn’t waste time on people you supposedly dislike. There are plenty of other people to focus on in a positive way. So I’m asking you to please just ignore me, ok? If you really are having a kid that should be what you should be focusing your time and attention on, not those you’re no longer friends with. So… goodbye and good luck!

Yesterday was a whopping 106°! The Jes pest was hammering at 8:30 yesterday morning and I just heard some now at 9:30. I’m guessing he’s going to drive me batshit crazy next week with the weeding and other prepping projects he may have in mind to do along with his own. I really hope the next people aren’t home much or at least don’t mind that this cock is always, always outside.

Still not sure if I’ll continue blogging publicly and which blogs I’ll use if I do, but I’m not going to decide that till the move.

The connection we’ll have will be 30 times faster than what we have now!

It’s hard to believe that in just 20 days we’re going to walk on out of here. Alive and well. Yes, the two people who were pushed to the brink of death and seemingly destined to go out in body bags will walk out of here alive and in one piece. Damn, life is amazing at times!

It was this day 21 years ago that I left New England, never ever to return again. I was skinny and I could see without glasses, but I didn’t have the love and the wisdom I do now. No matter how much any God has hated me or will continue to hate me, I will always be loved by Tom and others as well. Unless He kills them all, that’s one thing He can never take away from me like He took away my right to a decent childhood and so much more both as a child and as an adult.

I was remembering how my second foster mother starved me down to just 85 pounds. That alone is enough to let a person know they are hated from above, but thanks to my foster sister (she knows who she is) I was able to escape that place with my life as well cuz she was a lot bigger and tougher than I was. LOL, still is, too. But I escaped the same as I will this place after God let the economy damn near kill Tom and I both. Funny cuz His “killer economy” is also what dropped these 50K houses down to 28K, making it much easier for us to follow the yellow brick road home.

I’m standing there now on the very edge of that road, a place I never dared dream I would ever stand at any time again in my life. I’m not going to walk down this road as soon as we sign the papers and receive the keys. I’m going to run like hell down it as if the ghost of my evil mother is chasing me!

Later…

“If God hates you why would the police care about you?” Kathy asked me on Ask.

If God loves her why would the police NOT care about her? How does she know that if she doesn’t stop her relentless harassment done anonymously or through bogus email addies the cops won’t care enough about HER and putting a stop to it? Yeah, she should think about that, shouldn’t she?

I didn’t read her “feedback” on MD but saw the bogus addy in the email alert I got. I won’t be picking up any more feedback there no matter who it says it’s from, so if this angry and possibly still pregnant bitch doesn’t have anything better to do than waste time spewing all this hate that I still can’t fathom for the life of me (because I disagree on God?), then let her waste her time and let her set a wonderful example for the rugrat. It’s her time, isn’t it? I almost hope the miscarriage rumors aren’t true, cuz then she wouldn’t have much time to harass people online so much, would she, if she’s bogged down with a kid? Meanwhile, she’s welcome to start her own blog saying every mean, nasty, untrue and imagined thing she wants about me, but I’m not going to read her vicious delusions and childish gibberish that come in here anymore.

I had no idea Kathy was such an angry person. Where did all this hate, anger and immaturity come from? And WHY? Because I don’t agree with her on God? What’s she gonna do if she does have kids and they turn out atheist or something? Is she gonna dump them and then harass them every chance she gets?

Well, I’m not running! I’m not going to make any of my blogs private unless I decide to, and if I do, it will have nothing to do with Kathy.

I asked her nicely to please let me go. After all, she’s the one that dumped me. This is the first stalker I’ve ever had who’s not only supposedly sane despite how angry she is, but who dumped me first. So if she dumped me then why is she still hanging on? If I’m that horrible of a person, why bother? Isn’t the normal thing to do when you don’t like someone to just ignore them?

Or maybe I’m missing the point. Maybe this isn’t hate for my own hate for God. Maybe she had a thing for me all along and I just never knew it. This type of behavior is also typical of a “scorned lover” or a crush. I’ve done enough studying on bullies and whatnot. Maybe she’s had or came to have a crush on me, can’t handle it cuz she’s so conservative, and it’s freaking her out and into lashing out at me. Unfamiliar feelings can really make a person uncomfortable and do strange things. Who can ever know for sure what goes through these nutjob’s minds? All I do know for sure is that the “stable, kind, sweet, caring, sensitive, accepting, tolerant, open-minded” Kathy doesn’t exist. Sure thought she did for a while, though, but thinking back on how we played with Molly; that was far from her first time based on what she told me. “I never tell Aly when I fuck with Molly,” she had told me, obviously not wanting her to know. But now that she’s so coldly dumped me and then started harassing me (for whatever reason) I don’t feel obligated to keep her dirty little secrets. The point is, she’s obviously been into cyberbullying on and off for some time now cuz she and Molly go WAY back.

Presently, I wonder if she’s having a breakdown of some kind that’s causing her to behave this way. If she really did miscarry then maybe it’s making her feel better to lash out at anyone and everyone, and what better person to take it out on than the person who dared to confide in her and admit she’s no fan of God’s and has no respect, faith or love for the bastard whatsoever. Can’t like God as long as He puts angry trolls like Kathy on this earth.

Well, she may not be done with me, but I’M done with HER. I’m not going to give this sicko the negative attention it craves anymore than I would with other trolls! Sometimes we just gotta end what others won’t. I’m not going to delete past mentions of her here. After all, this is a diary, journal, blog - whatever you want to call it. But I think I might wipe her out of my Ask Q&A’s.

Later…

I told Aly what was going on and she asked about it, too. I asked if there was any Kathy info she could give me that she thought might be helpful in getting this bitch off my ass. I told her I was going to try ignoring her shit for now. Ask is back to non-anonymous and I’m not going to update MD with current stuff for a while. What’s scary is that she’s following my old stuff. Past, backdated entries, I mean. That’s not easy to do unless you specifically look for certain dates or catch it on the stream. You can have MD notify you when diaries are updated (if you’re a registered member), but it doesn’t link you to the entries themselves. Oh, wait a minute! She’s subbied to the RSS feed.

It’s way cooler today than it was yesterday. Yesterday we had the cooler on high for hours, but today it’s on low and is cycling on and off. Tomorrow’s supposed to be even cooler, making a nearly 30-degree drop in two days.

Later…

Got some interesting feedback for a change from… Mrs. M? They used a bogus addy and didn’t sign their name. Well, of course, right? rolls eyes Why are so many people afraid or at least reluctant to face me? I don’t bite. Really, I don’t. Whoever it was said: Paranoid schizophrenic. Not totally. But enough. No harm meant. Just an observation after reading for a long time. Knew the house was yours. Enjoy. But you will find reasons to complain. No half-full glass for you. But you, do you, really well. You are so lonely I could cry. Be well, and prosper. These are the good ole’ days. Peace. ~B~

LOL. Hey, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get you, as the old saying goes. But yeah, I’ve got a degree of paranoia in me. Always have. When you’re afraid to go home after school for fear of your mother smacking the shit out of you, it has a way of instilling paranoia in you. Not saying this to try to make anyone feel sorry for me, but just making a point.

And yeah, I’m a complainer. Why? Well, I guess the “experts” may be inclined to say that it’s probably because I was forced to stifle my emotions as a child and therefore I feel compelled to let it all out, so to speak, as an adult. And you know what? I’m not going to stop, and I make no apologies for the way I am. As long as I don’t break any laws, then I can be the biggest complainer, bitch and paranoid schizo on earth. :) Without any guilt or shame.

What I don’t get is the “You are so lonely I could cry” line. She said she’s been reading for a long time, so shouldn’t she know I’m married? But married and lonely? I suppose some wives could feel that way if they’re neglected enough, but I’m far from neglected and lonely. :)

Well, thanks for the complisults, and you’re right, I do me well and I’m proud of it, too. :)

Again I wonder if it could be Mrs. M, but she supposedly hates my guts so why would she want to follow my blog? Then again, that’s what I wondered with a few others who have expressed their profound hatred for me as well. I seem to attract just as many readers and followers who don’t like me as I do who do like me. I always did say, you either love me or you hate me. There’s rarely an in-between and people don’t usually just like me. That’s the way it usually is with me. I guess I’m an addiction of sorts.

Do I hate Mrs. M? Nah. I don’t like how it took her forever to get a certain someone offline and into the help they need, but better later than never. She may be well educated, but she’s kinda scary and so I would prefer to stay away from her and like it when she does the same. I appreciate the well wishes (if they’re sincere), but now it’s onward and through the fog… to fill my half-empty water glass. No, no, no! I meant my half-full water glass! I really did. I swear!

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013 Just 3 more weeks to go! It’s going to be 104° today but only 79° on Monday. The only sucky thing about having it be cooler during the week is that it helps pave the way for the Jes pest to be outdoors making a racket, but by then he’ll only have 19 days left to possibly get on my nerves.

I can’t wait to set up the new place and take tons of pics! But it won’t be 100% set up the way we want it to be the day we move in, of course. It may be a year or two before we recarpet and refloor the kitchen and baths. We’ll be picking out some new furniture right away, but the styles and colors will depend on what carpet I’ll eventually want to lay down. Then again, we also have to wait and see what furniture they leave us, LOL.

I’m looking forward to so many little things. Not just big things like having a fast, reliable connection after half a decade, but little things like rearranging our file box, getting an additional bathmat for the second bath, using our brand new towels, and being able to wash dishes in the dishwasher.

I’m glad we won’t need a shower curtain there. I hate shower curtains as opposed to doors. I’m also so glad we’ll have a full-size washer and dryer hooked up and ready for us to use. Damn, I miss that! Haven’t had that since 2004! June 12th will mark 9 years since we last owned a place. That was the day we left Maricopa and turned our 1999, 2100-square-foot home over to an investor and left. I’ll never forget the day I so tearfully stepped out of that house and into the RV filled with mixed emotions. We were glad to go, but I knew I’d miss some aspects of it. Had I known our plans to build a dome house on Bly Mountain in Oregon were to completely go to hell, I think I’d have totally cracked up that day as we slowly wound our way out of the desert and on up to timber country.

FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 2013 What would I do without Aly? She not only helps make up for the assholes of this world, but she makes for a wonderful informant as well. Not only did she tip me off on Mary’s account not being deactivated, but she thinks the whacky feedback I got on MD yesterday could be from Kathy’s brother. His rapper name is Young Toro and his thing is to write “creatively” and metaphorically like he did and make sure his gibberish rhymes.

If it weren’t for the person going on and on about Kathy on Ask, I just may suspect Dorene, since the writing is too intelligent to come from Kim. Dorene’s the type to harass those she has issues with because she used to proudly boast and brag on her wall when we were friends all about how she’d stalk and badger her exes and friends she either dumped or dumped her.

Would Kathy harass people? I KNOW she would because she and I are both guilty of harassing Molly, I’m sorry to say. So yeah, she would harass people or use others to do her dirty work for her. I left a few anonymous insults on Molly’s blog way back when with her (sorry!), but then felt bad about it because I knew I was stooping to Molly’s level. Well, I didn’t want to become what she and Kim were, so I pulled back and simply watched Kathy tease and insult her from the sidelines.

Toro asked why I was answering questions about her on Ask if I’m over her. Well, why is SHE having her family come at me if SHE’S over ME? She threw me away in a heartbeat simply for having different opinions and experiences after I stupidly trusted her enough to confide in her about how I prayed for so many things just to be ignored. I think Kathy is a spoiled little princess who has had everything granted to her and therefore she lacks empathy for those less fortunate. But why dump someone if you can’t let go of them?

Someday her precious God will take her down a peg or two and she will learn the true meaning of heartache and loss and what it’s like to not be able to obtain something in life. The bastard above will say, “No! Just fucking no, puta! You can’t have every single fucking thing you want in life. I don’t care how right, fair and correct it may be, this time you’re going to learn to do without!”

Then what will she think of her God? The same God that sits back and allows innocent kids to be killed and all kinds of other bad things to happen?

Other than the fact that Kathy had a beautiful smile and that she and Adam will probably make good parents (don’t know how they’ll afford it but I’m sure they’ll have plenty of friends and family ready to hand over anything they may need) I don’t care what happens to Kathy from here on out. Walking down the street and seeing someone kick her brood right outa her supersized gut wouldn’t faze me any more than seeing someone water their yard would.

Mark my words, though. I’m NOT a forgiving person, I will NEVER be Kathy’s friend again, and I AM over her. As long as she and her people don’t make trouble for me, there will be no reason to ever mention her ever again. The only one who can choose to let go or hang on from here on out is HER.

Later…

Andy’s going to Florida till the 10th. I hope he has a fun time! He asked why Tom wasn’t scheduling the Internet to be turned on upon our arrival in our new home, and so I asked Tom about that. He is going to schedule it, but first he needs to know exactly when the people there will be gone. We’ll buy the new modem and router on Amazon, then have the office make the switch, then we’ll hook things up when we get over there. We could lease their modems, but then it’d cost more.

We’re also getting insurance. We had a choice of getting a plan for $200 that gives you any money back that you’ve already spent on the house if it ever burned down, then there’s a $450 plan that replaces the house with anything up to a value of $84,000. We decided to go for the second plan.

Gotta go sign the park lease next Thursday. sighs There’s always something to pay even if your place is all paid for – space rent, HMO fees, co-op fees, property tax, etc. It’s all the same, just with different names and amounts.

Sometimes I think I should start following the news a little more closely and especially the celebs so I can know who the hell Andy’s talking about when he mentions them. It’s just that the news has always bored or depressed me, and I haven’t been a celebrity worshiper in eons. The older I got the more I came to see them as just people. They may be famous and sometimes they make a lot of money, but they’re just people. So unless you’ve got brains, maturity and something really interesting to say, I’m bound to see most famous people the same as the nobodies.

He asked if Paris Jackson’s suicide attempt prompted me to share my thoughts on the matter the other day, but nope. Not only did I not know who the hell she was till I googled her, but much of my writing is spontaneous. Whatever comes to mind that I feel like writing about, I will write about. Some of it is inspired by people and invents, of course, like what’s going on in my life and those I’m close to, but sometimes it’s totally random and just because I love to write.

I have no idea why, but Jesse (could’ve been the kid) buzzed by on the ATV yesterday afternoon. groans Projects, projects, projects. They’re bound to start any day now. Maybe not until next week, though, since it’s to be in the triple digits. Right now it’s driving me crazy gunning the shit out of the fucking motorcycle. I cranked up the music, but am going to have to think of other alternatives to deal with the one I gotta deal with diagonally from us in the park since loud music isn’t allowed there.

Later…

It’s a super hot day at 103°. It’s not usually this hot until late July/early August. Tom got home earlier than usual and is going over the paperwork for the home insurance thing.

We’re at 17% on propane, another thing I won’t have to worry about anymore. I was worried there’d be too much left in the tank when we left and that we’d basically end up paying for the next people to shower, cook, and possibly heat themselves too, depending on the time of year. I also worried the Jes pest would be overpaid if we were to leave significantly earlier than we thought we would.

Tom told me he read that Richard Ramirez died of liver failure. Well, that’s good cuz San Quentin obviously had no plans to do the right thing and execute the crazy fuck. The families of the victims must be cheering. I don’t blame them.

Was on a posting frenzy the last two days, but now I think I’ll go continue on with the book I’m reading, The Answer to Your Question.

THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2013 I was observing a discussion on suicide and found that there really are a few people, who like me, agree that it isn’t always so cut and dry. Sure, we’d like to think that suicide is never an option under any circumstances and that things can and will always get better. But can they always? Or are there perhaps some situations where things can’t possibly improve? Situations that are so miserable that suicide is an alternative that is a blessing as opposed to continued suffering? I used to be a very black-and-white person and insisted that things had to be one way or the other and that was that. Period. There was no room for any argument in my mind. There are still some issues in which I feel that way. A woman should always have a full bag of rights to her body. There’s nothing to doubt, reason, bargain or argue about there.

But there really are some cases in which death is better than life. Naturally, it’s a matter of opinion, but I’m talking about the terminally ill who suffer in pain every day with no hope of a cure. Until you’re faced with possible life or death situations, you don’t rethink certain things you were so sure of before. Such things as we had to face like the possibility of dying a slow miserable death on the streets, or a quick one in the comfort of our own bed if no one was going to give him a job. I know that if I were suddenly faced with life in prison (whether I was guilty or not of whatever landed me there) I’d prefer death because that would simply be no life for me.

Again, I realize it’s a matter of opinion, but maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge those who do take their lives. Agreeing that it’s too bad that it came to that is ok. But do we really have a right to judge WHY they took their lives and whether or not it was right or wrong? Can we really say life would’ve gotten better for them?

Experiencing certain things and hearing about other people’s situations can really open your mind and make you realize that not everything in life is so black and white. There really are some gray areas and some exceptions to the rule.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2013 Alison knows and understands how I feel about Kathy and how some people get it all. She admits that she’s had secret wishes that a few people would lose their kids, but not Kathy. Still, she says that Kathy is obnoxious going on and on all about “little blueberry” and she wishes she wouldn’t post so much about it. Not everyone’s into little kids, as she says, and she doesn’t like it being crammed down her throat. That’s how I felt too, and I had to block her from my newsfeed before she dumped me. It was too much like having religious hogwash thrown in my face day after day. So she kinda picked a good time to dump me. Still, if there is a God up there playing favorites as it seems to be the case with Kathy, I wish it would say “NO!” to her for once and let her finally learn at 30-something years old what it’s like to not be able to get every single thing you want in life. So while I don’t doubt she’d make a good mom, I still wish God would say, “No! Just fucking no!” Then kick the bun outa her oven, never to allow any more to enter it ever again. But once you get to the third or fourth month, it’s unlikely you’ll have a miscarriage.

Alison wonders how they’ll live since Adam’s a teacher and teachers don’t make much money. Also, Kathy’s a sub and she’s off for the summer. Oh, I’m sure they have plenty of friends and family who will be quick to hand over anything they’ll need.

The palpitations are back. They’re most noticeable at the end of the day. Ironically they started up the day we learned we were accepted into the park, but it’s harmless. Just annoying at times. It’s probably due to being excited and nervous. Although I’m sure Tom’s right in saying I’ll be able to sleep just fine there, I gotta see it to actually lose my nervousness. I’m not used to having so many people close by, and if I happen to be woken up regularly when I’m on nights due to this, this or that, I’m kinda fucked. Lack of sleep is something I don’t function well on. But I should be fine on days.

Tammy left a message yesterday. She’s dealing with Mark’s health issues now, and then in the fall, she’ll be going to a hospital about her lungs. I asked her if it was really wise to wait that long, but that could be a good thing. I mean, wouldn’t it go to show she’s not that critical after all? I hope not! Maybe they won’t need to do a transplant. Maybe they can stop her from losing any more lung capacity, but what do I know?

I smiled when she said she and Mark would be “hurt” if they couldn’t be the first to send a housewarming gift. I told them that while that was sweet of them, they didn’t have to send anything since we’ll still have a lot of money in savings. We just don’t want to spend much money at first in case of an emergency. We’ll furnish the place a little at a time, though we will get a living room set right away. Not everything needs replacing. The bed is just fine. We’ve got a decent enough kitchen table. Only problem is it’ll look like doll furniture in the dining room there, LOL, so our little 2-seater will be replaced with a 4-seater. Some things we don’t want to replace or buy right away with or without money because we want to live in the place for a while and get a feel for how we want things and where we want them.

Tom said not to get my hopes up, but Brenda asked if we needed any beds, tools, etc. Tom told her that we didn’t want to spend more money till we’d been there a few months, but that we would love whatever they felt like leaving. A bed for the second bedroom would be nice, and even though most of the furniture wouldn’t be my first choice style-wise, we could use it. Anything we didn’t like or couldn’t use could be picked up by the Goodwill later on. Their kids and grandkids are helping them move out, so there’s no need to worry about them not having enough help. Again, I feel mixed emotions for them. I’m grateful for whatever they leave us, I’m sad for them because they probably don’t really want to leave, but I also see them as intruders at this point. Get out of our house!

Since Tammy insisted, I gave her a few ideas like wind chimes. I’m going to have a lot more room for those there! I may want to get bigger ones so I can hear them through the thicker walls and dual-paned windows.

Later…

Nane’s going to Spain and I’m happy for her! Although it may not be her first choice I can see where all that would matter would be getting some sun after being rained on for so long. It’s the first trip she’s going on that I feel a touch of envy. :) I wouldn’t mind tagging along and I could be her interpreter too, haha. I guess she’ll be gone when the move takes place, but that’s a good time for her to take off cuz I won’t be online much at that time anyway, which reminds me of something I want to point out. During the tail end of June and beginning of July, if you have trouble reaching me it’s not that I’m ignoring you. I’m just preoccupied with moving and setting up the new place, is all, plus there’ll be more outdoor activities for me to enjoy there as well. Don’t know how soon we’ll be back online, but we’ll have the hot spot for checking email. Blogs and such will wait till we get our regular connection, though, cuz uploading and downloading take up too much bandwidth. I’ll still prepare entries in Word and will have them ready for publication as soon as they can be published.

24 days and counting! I am both excited and nervous. :) A part of me will always resent how shabbily we’ve lived for so long, especially since it was so undeserving. Had we been drunks, druggies, lazies and people who just didn’t give a rat’s ass, including ours, then we’d have gotten what we deserved – someone else’s trashy trailer. It was a wonderful escape after 8 months of motel life in a seedy section of Sac but for half a decade?! Well, we’ll never let any economy, circumstances, fate or evil God make bums of us again, that’s for sure! My God, it pisses me off to think of how long we’ve had to live this way and go without the simplest of things in life, things most people take for granted. As I always said, it isn’t those who work hard getting good things they deserve in life I have a problem with, it’s those working hard who DON’T get good things they too, deserve that pisses me off.

Someone asked on Ask if I thanked God we’re moving. rolls eyes Actually I thank my husband’s hard work, good-paying job, and my inheritance. To quote what I told them, why would I thank an invisible entity that has nothing to do with us moving? The house was built by PEOPLE. The park it’s in was established by PEOPLE. So… God has nothing to do with this, folks. If anything God’s fought to stop this day from happening and a part of me worries about little “punishments” to come for getting our way, even though we know it should be the other way around and the house should be the compensation for having to struggle for so damn long. But I’m not going to let anything or anyone take this place away from us. We lost two places and that’s it!

Tom read the park rules and said the only thing in it that might rub me the wrong way is that they ask that you don’t go to the pool alone. Well, not everyone there is old and feeble, but since so many of them are, I understand this request. The only thing that rubs me the wrong way is the allowing of motorcycles. That just seems all wrong and totally defeats the purpose of why people want to live there. At least we won’t have to worry about loud music. I realized why it bugs me so much and that’s because it’s not “music.” All I hear is the thump of the drums or the base and so it’s noise, not music. And annoying too, like someone’s pounding or hammering somewhere.

I haven’t seen it yet, but Tom’s got a diagram of all the plants on the property so we know what’s ours. I figure the low cement wall is the property marker, but at least there is only 1 of 4 sides to have to figure out whose stuff is whose.

The Jes pest, who Tom called yesterday to inform him of the official dates, was hammering this morning, probably on his deck. I’m sure the barrage of prepping projects is going to start anytime now too, though it’s going to be super hot this week.

Later…

I answered the question of the day on Ask #1 which asks who’s the funniest person you know with: Anyone who dares kick Kathy in the gut and shows the spoiled princess she can’t get every single fucking thing she wants in life.

“Are you serious?” someone later asked. How would they know that gut was carrying her precious “little blueberry” unless it was Kim or Kathy herself?

Also, someone over there took the liberty of sending me a long list of mental illnesses, their names and their descriptions, but of course it was sent from a bogus email address. scratches head thoughtfully And they sent this because…?

Later…

Not much to do right now so I thought I’d voice my opinion on Nancy Grace. If you’re like most people you mostly see the media as legal gossip mongers acting like “popular” high school bullies who seem to be able to say anything they want and get away with it. So what if it’s the word of those they’ve never taken the time to verify, or if it may be completely fabricated altogether?

I don’t know everything about the Jodi Arias case but I know enough. It’s kind of hard to help when it’s all over the place. However, I’m a little disturbed by Nancy’s obsession with Jodi. Telling the facts as a reporter is one thing. Going on and on with repetitious, relentless, and never-ending verbal bashing, no matter how true it may be and how much the person may deserve it, can’t possibly be very productive or healthy. It’s too high schoolish. You know, like the popular student who jumps online every chance she gets to bash her fellow students who are anything but popular?

We all know Jodi Arias is a cold-blooded killer, and I’m sorry she probably won’t get the death penalty, but enough is enough already! Aren’t there other people, places and subjects to discuss? Nancy’s already stated the facts and she’s already voiced her hatred and opinion of Jodi, but then she goes and interviews Jodi’s cellmates to see what they think of her. Who cares what they think of her! Yet it’s like Nancy just can’t move on. She is in one video or article after another saying the same vicious things. Again, I don’t doubt that they’re true, and I’m certainly no fan of Jodi’s, but my God! Does it actually make Nancy feel better to bash people over and over again? Is her own life that boring and does she perhaps feel that insecure and inadequate about her own self that she feels the constant need to do this sort of thing? I just wonder these things when I see the media cut into people over and over with seemingly no end in sight.

I feel bad for the families, though, and not just the victim’s family. Jodi’s parents have to be ashamed, embarrassed and downright heartbroken over her conviction. So to have to have the constant reminders of the media vultures must be one helluva nightmare for those poor people.

TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013 “Hey, Short Shit,” my dead father called out to me in my dreams last night. Not something he usually called me in real life. Shorty, Shrimp or Midget was more like it. Nonetheless, I got into an argument with my deceased dad over deadbeat aunts and uncles. He was going on and on about how his aunts and uncles never seemed to care about him or wanted to be an aunt or an uncle to him in any way.

“Dad,” I said, “you don’t need to tell me all about aunts and uncles that don’t give a damn about their nieces or nephews. I know.”

He looked at me in a disapproving way and said he’d see about us “getting together.”

“It’s too late, Dad. If they wanted to know me they would have by now. No hard feelings at this point, and I really do wish them the best, but I don’t want to know them anymore than they want to know me. There are better things in life than deadbeat family and toxic friends.”

In the next dream, both parents were alive and well. Only I was thinking about how my mother killed her parents. She did no such thing when she was alive, of course, and they actually died of old age-related issues. Still, in the dream she had killed them, though I don’t know why. Everyone else believed it was due to natural causes that they died, but my dream self was thinking how oh-so typical it was of Dad to protect her by not saying anything. I thought about going to the authorities but didn’t think it’d do me much good, and was never much of a nark anyway.

Facebook is really pissing me off with all its glitches. Sent messages don’t get sent, wall posts remain invisible, comments go unseen, and so on and so forth. I almost can’t wait for the day they start charging users cuz I’m outa there as soon as they do.

So why is Philip ignoring me? He’s viewed some journal entries posted to my group, but he still isn’t sending messages or posting to my walls or anything. Cat got his tongue, or is FB just seeing to it that messages and posts go unseen?

Later…

Wow, we’re gonna hit 104° this Saturday. It’s definitely getting hotter and drier each year here. Wonder if it’s going to become like Arizona.

Although I heard a slew of loud vehicles up the hill yesterday, the Jes pest never came down here. That’s ok. In about 25 days we’re out of here! Although I don’t think I can do it I’m gonna try my hardest to stay on days until after the move. I really hope those who say that time has no meaning in the afterlife are right! Especially after living in a world where time is everything while you’re one of about every 10,000 whose body disagrees.

Anyway, we plan to give notice saying we should be out by the 5th, though we actually hope to be out on Tom’s birthday on the 28th. He put in for that Friday, plus the following Monday off, so that gives us 4 days to get moved. Tom hates driving big trucks, so this way we rent a smaller one and if we can’t fit everything in it in one sweep, we have time to make a few extra runs. Because we’re not taking the shed, we got a truck that’s 10’ long.

We decided not to bother with spraying and having the carpet cleaned beforehand so Tom doesn’t have to take any more time off from work. We’ll bomb when we get there if need be, throw the rats in the workshop, then do some shopping or eating or whatever during the time we need to be out of the house. Also, we can rent a carpet cleaner for $30 if we want. This way he’ll still have plenty of days off for Hawaii. Just think, a house and Hawaii all in the same year!!!

I wonder how many neighbors will come out to greet us out of nosy curiosity when we move in? Hopefully not too many! Being polite and exchanging hellos when we see each other here and there is one thing, but we’re going there to live, not to make friends and potential trouble too close to home. But if it were a hot-looking woman…

MONDAY, JUNE 3, 2013 When I awoke I said to myself, please don’t let it be the other way around where yesterday’s letter was just a dream while in reality we’re still waiting, hoping and dreaming of getting into the park/house!

But what happened yesterday really did happen and in 30-38 days we’re going home!!! squeals with delight Tom came home from picking up the mail with a smile on his face.

“Anything good?” I asked.

“Well, if you consider them accepting us into the park, then yes.”

Instead of my face flooding with tears of joy or shouting with delight, my whole body went rigid with shock and then started vibrating like an old lonely lady’s vibrator in the middle of a cold dark night. “Omigod, Omigod, Omigod!!!” was all I could mutter.

We weren’t expecting a letter so soon. We were expecting a phone call next week instead. Tom’s first thought was that they rejected us, figuring that they couldn’t have approved us that fast and must’ve stumbled upon something really bad right away, though we couldn’t imagine what.

Logic told me we’d get the place since we do meet their requirements as strict as they are, but only until he read the letter of acceptance to me could I finally move on from hoping we’ll get the house to hoping we’ll be as happy as we think we will be there. Remember, Maricopa turned out to be a disaster, and of course Oregon fell apart, too. I know I shouldn’t live in the past, but that, plus the poverty we went through, has given me a lifelong case of PTSD. No matter how much money we have – and we estimate we’ll still have at least 4K in savings after the move – I’m still going to worry about that. I’ll never forget a letter of a very different kind he read to me on September 16th of 2011 that literally made my heart jump into my throat and then sink to the pit of my stomach in a physical way that no bad news had ever done before.

I still can’t believe that we, the people who seemed so, so destined to go out of here in body bags, will be going home to a NICE home in a FANCY park!!! You don’t have to be rich to live at LV, but you do have to have some money. Just surviving to see this day happen is truly incredible! We searched and searched our minds less than two years ago for ways to survive. But everything we came up with looked utterly impossible. When no one will give you a job and your government won’t take care of you, what’s left? I couldn’t have cut it on the streets in my 20s, so I’d say we’re definitely way too old for that sort of thing in our 40s and 50s, and so, so glad it didn’t come to that after coming so frighteningly close!

Tom and I both agree that the day the phone rang with a job in the nick of time was definitely the biggest coincidence of our lives. Most things don’t need a reason to happen. They just happen. Period. I know most people want to believe there’s a reason because it’s easier to be able to explain things, but I think most things happen just because. But that day surely made us wonder if perhaps the spirits of our deceased loved ones bailed us out in the end – since if any God existed it had already shown us we were nothing in its eyes and couldn’t care less if we lived or died – as they’re the only ones who would have cared enough to save our asses. Not just that but because of the job itself. It wasn’t just enough to get by on, it was more than enough to change our lives forever and keep my sister from being able to say she lost both parents AND both siblings.

Assholes or not it will be weird not being able to call my parents to tell them all about the new house, and I wonder if they can “see” it from wherever they are if they somehow still exist. I’ll never forgive them for the hell they inflicted upon me as a child, but I can definitely say that other than the time they sent me to Arizona in ‘92, then pulled us off the streets of Sacramento in ‘07, that they have certainly been more helpful to me dead than alive. I hope they can see where we are right now and are ashamed and disgusted with themselves for letting us live like this for so long when there was so much more they could’ve done to help us. Oh, I can’t wait to shoot the before and after pics!

So much more to write, but this entry’s getting kinda long, so I’ll save it for later!

Later…

After being nipped in the ass by a playful rat while trying to work my abs, I’m now going to do some writing before I eat and tackle some housework. And deal with what I’m sure will be a very annoying landlord now that it knows we’re leaving. LOL, but soon he’ll be just a memory!

Brandy really let a few loud ones rip last night at around 3am. Maybe it woke Jesse from nightmares of his future tenants chasing him through these woods with an ax, haha.

So many thoughts and emotions run through my mind at this time. I’m excited, nervous and happy. I look forward to so many things in our new home, both big and small. I just hope we don’t find out that next door has a motorcycle that was out at the times we were there, or that they don’t plan to get one the day we move in. I know it may be hard for anyone without my type of sleep issues to understand why I worry about being able to sleep well there when I’m on nights, especially being the insanely light sleeper that I am, but that’s ok. I figure I don’t owe any explanations anyway, right? But since I don’t have the blessing of being able to sleep at night every night, and I’m not like Tom who could sleep through a marching band, it’s definitely something I worry about. Not too much, but I do worry a little. At least there shouldn’t be that many distractions while I’m awake, though I still expect to hear more than I do here since there are more people.

I’m SO glad we got outbid on the last house! I almost suggested we not bother with this park because I didn’t think we stood a chance as nice as it is.

The “nice man and the young lady” taking over the house kind of feels bad for the old couple in it now (whose status has been officially upgraded to intruder in my mind) because they probably hate to go. It’s sad to think that they’re giving up the home they were probably in for many years just to go to an assisted living apartment to begin the end of their lives.

Well, I’m not going to smoke up their house, that’s for sure. So I’m burning what’s left of my incense like crazy. Anyone want some honeysuckle?

Just a little over a month left with this slow, unreliable connection! And oh what fun I’ll have swimming, riding my bike around the park, learning new languages, and just having some SPACE! To be in a spacious home that isn’t as old or older than I am is going to be pure heaven. It’s worth a few annoyances and distractions so long as I can sleep.

Later…

Mary checked my email again when she got up yesterday morning, but there hasn’t been anything from Maliheh. She’s had absolutely nothing to say to me about my final message to her and that pretty much tells me something about her right there. That I was right on with my suspicions. She was never a friend.

Today is Becky’s 26th birthday, and yesterday morning I got to hear Sarah on the radio promoting her charity event. She was a guest on a local radio station to help raise money for St. Jude’s Hospital. She sounded a bit gruff but confident. She kind of reminded me of my friend Paula.

There’s been flooding in parts of Germany, but fortunately, Nane’s not in any danger. I knew they were cold and rainy for June, but I had no idea about the flooding. I read some news articles (in German, of course) she shared on the crisis. So I got to learn about what’s going on in parts of Europe and practice my German reading.

Created a group on Facebook to share journals with my closest FB friends, but didn’t add Andy or Adonis cuz they prefer to read my posts elsewhere. Not sure I like it yet. I like how I can see who checks out what, though. It’s a secret group. Groups have 3 levels. Open, closed and secret, and mine’s secret, which means only members can see it and leave comments. If you’re a Facebook friend of mine and you haven’t received an invite to the group but would like to be a member, let me know and I will add you.

Just to clarify things for those who have been curious, the park is set up very much like co-op living. But instead of the monthly payment being called co-op, fee or whatever, it’s called space rent. It covers more than just the space your home is on, though. It helps pay for the cost of keeping the pools, Jacuzzis, clubhouses, roads, gates, security, lake, trees and other amenities going. So it’s very similar to co-op living.

One thing I’m going to love is how much more stable the temperature inside the house will be. No more cold nights and warm days. Metal rooftops run alongside both long sides of the house, which will definitely help keep it cooler, and there’s a big awning in front. Only the back doesn’t have anything but that’s because there are no windows back there. All that’s back there are the bedroom closets and hot water tank. I hate having to sleep with a mask over my eyes cuz it’s so damn bright in here when I sleep during the daytime. This is because here we have a swamp cooler rather than an AC and so I have to keep the back window cracked, which gets hit by the afternoon sun.

The tentative plan is for him to work till he’s 70 and put our pension money in our 401K until then. That way, between what he gets and my pension and whatever else, we’ll be looking at retiring with about 3K a month. That’s almost what he makes now! Plus, if we do decide to stay at LV forever, our space rent is locked in. So only other things could go up in cost between now and 14 years from now. As Tom said, it’s scary to think he’ll be 70 in 14 years! His dad would’ve been 101 last month if he were still alive.

I knew it. I just fucking knew it. I hear the Jes pest buzzing around on its ATV right now. Let me guess… it’s gonna be down here any second, right?

SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 2013 Is this the month? Is this the month we go home or at least find out when we are? I really hope this is it! I feel like we’ve been waiting for years. There’s so much we’ve wanted to do for so long that either couldn’t be done until we moved or that we chose to put off until then. I just want to get on with it already!

In screening and publishing old journal excerpts, I realize I could really be stupid, immature and naïve at times when I was younger. I suppose a lot of us look back on our younger selves when we get older and laugh. But some of it isn’t very funny. I spent too much time considering others and not enough considering myself. There’s a good way to be selfish, like being true to yourself, and there’s a bad way to be selfish, like sitting on your ass and doing nothing at all to help a friend in need that you know damn well you can afford to help.

I spent too much time trying to make like I was ok with things I wasn’t at all ok with, and due to trying to just put a smile on my face and simply shrug and roll with the punches, I lost out on some things. These things may never have been mine to have to begin with had they not been meant to be, but I could really kick myself for either trying to please others and not standing up for myself as often as I should have. I was just too damn nice and too damn forgiving and part of that is why I got so taken advantage of at times. People just don’t appreciate kindness. Instead, they see it as an opportunity to pounce like vultures to get what they want, be it in the name of greed, jealousy or just plain hate.

I ranted, raved and bitched quite a bit throughout the years, often about the same thing, but I did it as a therapeutic means. Where some listen to music and others like to drink, I bitch in print. I may feel silly, stupid and even a touch embarrassed for some of the things I’ve written, but one thing I will never feel is guilt. Right or wrong, selfish or not, my feelings, beliefs, opinions, tastes, goals and thoughts are one thing I’ll never feel guilty for. Our minds are the only place we have total freedom. There are no laws or rules in our minds, no matter how wrong and even sick some may consider some of our thoughts to be. In my mind, I’m free to imagine anything I want with absolutely no consequences to face, and I never have to share what’s in that imagination if I don’t want to. I’m free to do anything I want there. I’m free to love. I’m free to hate. Even free to kill.

Later…

I saw that Mary finally picked up the email I sent her, but I still don’t want anything to do with her and I appreciate the fact that she, Molly, Kim and Kathy have been leaving me alone. I STILL can’t believe Kathy dumped me for disagreeing with her on God! I know this may be the cruelest thing to say, and as I told Aly, she may want to slap me for it, but I hope she loses that baby. I honestly do! I am so, so sick of seeing some people get it all (LITERALLY) while people like Aly and I struggle our asses off just to get nowhere. It’s like all Kathy has to do is just want something and it’s hers. There may be a bit of a delay, but in the end, if God does play favorites, she sure is His spoiled little princess, isn’t she? Well, I think it’s high time she was taken down a peg or two. The only thing she seems to have going against her is her weight, but not even that much seems to bother her. Really, I would love to see her precious God kick that bun right out of her oven and not allow anymore to enter it unless He keeps on kicking. And no, I don’t care if she knows how I feel. I’m kind of surprised she hasn’t harassed me in some way. Do you know that she loved to harass Molly on and off, I asked Aly, and that she begged me not to tell her? Well, after what she did to me I sure as hell don’t feel obligated to keep her little secrets.

I was reading back on how a prayer counselor was telling me back when I wanted a kid that God promotes that kind of thing and that all I have to do is ask, and He’ll grant anything that’s fair, correct and reasonable. OMG, what bull fucking shit! What wasn’t “fair, correct or reasonable” about two people asking to have a child?!”

Anyway, Aly’s doing just horribly. She didn’t get the job she wanted, her hours may be cut where she currently works, her skin is broken out, she can’t sleep, she’s depressed, overwhelmed and feeling hopeless, and lastly, she gets laughed at by some kid selling tickets at a movie theater and called a retard for stuttering. At least she reported the fucker.

On top of all that, her Facebook account was hacked by what she suspects may be friends of Molly’s due to the types of messages she’s been getting. They even messaged a friend of hers who just gave birth, asking if they could be the baby’s godmother. I’m surprised I haven’t gotten any messages, though I went and blocked that account. This way, they not only can’t post to my wall, but they don’t even see my name unless they check her messages. As usual, Facebook isn’t doing shit about it.

Tom said the Jes pest took the news as he expected he would. His tone was neutral and he was just like, “Yeah, ok, uh-huh, oh.” He probably wasn’t surprised due to the mail we received here from the mortgage company. If he’s upset by us leaving in any way, he’s not showing it. I would think he’d be at least somewhat bummed out over knowing he’ll have the hassle of prepping this place, listing it, and hunting for new renters, even if he’ll make his sister do most of the work. She has to since he doesn’t have a computer and I highly doubt he has a digital camera either. Also, I can’t picture him cleaning his own place let alone this one, so he’ll sic most of the task on Maryann just like he did before. Wonder if they’ll start off bullshitting the new tenants about “the neighbor,” like they started to with us till they realized we wouldn’t pester the Jes pest and that it’d be the other way around instead.

We blew the pilot out of the heater which better be for the last time. If we’re here come November when we need heat again, then yes, there really is something up there trying to screw us.

I did have another dream I hope is a good sign that the park will accept us. We were at the pool where there were a few other people wanting to know why I looked so young and if I was old enough to live there, LOL. We won’t know for sure until next week if they’re even going to accept us or not.

No, I haven’t prayed that we get in because I still think that if we could simply ask for whatever, then we’d all have what we want. I think the concept of prayer is nothing more than wishful thinking. Same with telling ourselves God doesn’t give us more than we can handle. Then why do some people die of illnesses and injuries? Sure seems like it was more than they could handle! I understand, though, that people need to tell themselves these kinds of things for encouragement, even if they may be kidding themselves.

Tom’s been doing the loan paperwork over the weekend, and I’m doing laundry and housework. The weather’s been hot and dry, as I like it to be. Ich liebe Sommer!

0 notes

bubblyhoney · 3 years ago

Note

sarah i have thought of another fic request or like a cute idea i guess! i didn’t have anyone in mind when i thought of it so you can write it for whoever you want honestly :)

okay so the reader is a streamer but streams games like animal crossing, standew valley, etc. then (insert who you’re writing for) says they don’t like that game, but later ends up buying it and the reader is like “i thought you said you didn’t like this game” and they’re like “well i like you” and they confuses their feelings and they end up playing the game together and reader gives them a tour of their island or farm

i feel like this request isn’t good, but the scenario seemed cute and i wanted to share it. sorry if this is confusing or just too specific cuz i know it can be hard to write requests like that! but yeah i hope it gives you inspiration and you like the request <3

new horizons

warnings: language, a Marvel reference (hint: natasha said it about tony), stupid idiots who don’t realize they like each other, use of pet names, Uno rage, Hasan Piker's presence

words: 1473

tags: sapnap x gn!reader

A/N: i’ve been trying to catch up a little on my requests (i’ve only got a couple so i’m not super overwhelmed) but school and outside life has been taking up most of my time so this one took me a while to make! tbh— ive never played animal crossing so i did google some of the game mechanics and i apologize if anything is inaccurate about the game…. but i liked relaxing and writing this cute one so thank you for requesting hails :3

requests/inbox status: open

“This game is trash.”

Your head quirks, fingers stopped on the screen. You’re in the process of giving your character a cute new nickname; it’s kind of hard to decide between “awkward dude” and “elderly skater”.

“Excuse me?” Your chat comes alive with emotes and ‘KEKW’s, obviously entertained by you and your almost-more-than-friends-friend.

There’s a story for that later.

Sapnap’s rough laugh comes through your headset and he audibly swallows, the sound of a water bottle dropping onto his desk echoing.

“I’m just saying—it’s boring. It’s like Minecraft but you don’t like… do anything.” The grainy image of his bearded face shifts and you see him pull out his phone.

“It’s— you can’t even compare it to Minecraft! It’s a completely different game system—you actually interact with other people live in the game.” You huff out a dramatic sigh, slumping in your chair with a pout. “Just because you go into this lucid state where all you know is ‘touch block, hit George’ doesn’t mean this game isn’t fun.” (He scoffs at your awful impression of his voice. Your viewers love it.)

“Jeez,” he mumbles, fumbling with the cap of his water bottle. “Touched a nerve there, bud.”

You roll your eyes, getting back to the village in the game.

“Don't ‘bud’ me.”

The call falls comfortably quiet, the sounds of him tapping obsessively on his phone and you clicking away filling the silence. A gentle bedroom-pop YouTube playlist remains in the background, prompting you to hum along and glance at the chat to see a flood of “check twitter” and “Y/N TWITTER!!”.

“What happened on Twitter?” You mumble, confused, and pull the website up on another monitor. Sapnap just makes a curious noise, swinging back and forth in a circle. “Oh my God,” you say to yourself, fingertips brushing your parted lips.

“What?”

“Hasan Piker just followed me and retweeted one of my not even remotely political old tweets. Like from a year ago.”

“That’s— wow. Congrats?” Sapnap’s voice cracks, and his ears flush pink the tiniest bit when you glance at his face on Discord.

“I’m gonna go on record and say that he could get it.” You shake your head in disbelief.

Sapnap falls uncharacteristically non-hyper-verbal, so you look past the frenzied chat and to his screen— wait. He muted and turned his camera off.

“Um,” you start, furiously typing question marks in your private chat. “Where’d you go?” You mute and turn screen share off for your stream, concerned that he might’ve fallen off his chair and broken his neck and needs you to call the ambulance.

The characteristic ding of a twitter notification sounds through your bedroom, and you look at your phone quickly.

“That’s where I went.”

Sapnap Tweeted: “all Y/U stans can choke on my dick”.

“Jesus, Sapnap,” you say, and rapidly refresh to read the replies. This tweet was deleted. “That’s so— that barely makes sense, bro. Why— literally what?”

His snicker floods your ears and you relax in your chair. Crisis: averted. “Don’t fucking— what’s wrong with you?”

“I thought it would be funny,” he offers, shrugging, and fiddles with the straw in his water bottle, smile fading. “And also Hasan pisses me off.”

“Why, ‘cause he wants a piece of this? Jealous?” You think back to your viewers, knowing they’re probably spamming question marks and coming to ludacris conclusions about both of your absences. No offense to them. You remember your stan days very vividly.

“I mean, kinda.” He rubs once at his nose, glancing at the camera (and what feels like you) before taking a sip from his water bottle.

“Wow.” You watch one strand of his hair fall from beneath his hat and brush against his full eyebrows. “I’m uh—I’ll get back to my stream. You coming? Or is it time for a Sapnap-snack?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He snorts and leans his chin onto the balance of his arm.

“That means you like to take a little snack break mid-stream and come back approximately nine hours later and you didn’t even eat.”

“You know what— fuck you.” He flicks the camera as you laugh at the look on his face.

The teasing mood is easily kept as you switch games from Animal Crossing to Uno, all the while slamming Sapnap with +4’s and skipping the newly-arrived BadBoyHalo at any chance you can get. It unironically pisses him off and he has to take a Sapnap-snack break midway through (only a fifteen minute break this time, during which you and Bad take a “What Kind of Bread Are You?” quiz). The rest of the night is filled with devious cackles (you), loud and sudden bangs that sound suspiciously like someone hitting their desk in anger (Sap) and the stupid barking of Rat, AKA Lucy (Bad). She’s cute but a menace to the sound quality of Bad’s microphone. You sign off stream around 2 a.m. with various forms of thanks and kisses blown to the camera. It’s been a refreshing night, actually; you’ve been busy organizing a partnership stream all week and all your friends have been busy filming or editing or what-not. Quackity had time for a little Roblox every couple of days, though. He’s got your back.

The next time you see Sapnap is after a two hour stream of him try-harding in Valorant and you finishing responding to an email from your partnership in the VC.

“Okay, I’m back.” You hear him shift in his chair and click a couple more times on his keyboard. You perk up in your chair, closing the email browser you’d been looking at.

“Do you want to play anything else? I’m down for anything.”

“Absolutely not Uno. You can go to hell for giving me 6 cards that one time,” he jabs. You scoff, crossing your arms and leaning back in your chair.

“Okay, the +4 was on me but it’s Bad who gave you the last two. That’s not my fault, sweetie.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles, trailing off as the clicking of his keyboard stops. “Hey, um—Guess what?��

Your heart beats loud in your ears at the tone of his voice. He sounds nervous; that’s never good.

“I’m scared to guess,” you try, playing with a little Minecraft dog figurine you have on your desk with fidgety fingers. “What?”

“I bought Animal Crossing.”

Silence. You stare at his discord icon blankly, trying to reroute the wires of your brain.

“Tell me you love it.”

“Well… I haven’t actually played it— but you said you liked it, so.”

“So,” you repeat him, ears warming but continuing on. “Is that what you tell all your friends when you buy something they like? That it's because of them?”

He seems to choose his next words carefully, pausing a beat to consider your questions.

“Well, I don’t have a crush on all of my friends.”

“You—what?” You stutter, caught off guard and stumbling. What did he just say? “Don’t tell me you mean you have a crush on me.”

“I’m almost positive I just did.” His discord icon stares right back at you, taunting.

“You know, you’re very casual for someone who just admitted they like-like me.” Your cheeks flush pink and you have to press a hand to your chest to keep your breathing sounding stable.

“Yeah, I’m kind of cool like that,” he offers, a huff of a laugh punctuating his statement. The conversation moves into a lull that you can’t help but know is because of you. He must expect you to say something about it, right?

“You are very cool, Sapnap.” You tilt back in your chair, sucking in a breath to prepare yourself for your next words. “And—Isortakindofhaveacrushonyoutoo.”

He must understand you, for you can hear the grin in his voice when he asks “Really?”

“Y-yeah.” You feel like a preteen again, all shaky and giddy in front of the boy you just asked to a middle school dance.

“Um, alright. What do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” you answer genuinely and swing in a happy little circle in your chair. “We could play Animal Crossing.”

“I’m down.”

You swear you’ve never heard more beautiful words.

He keeps his camera off for most of the time you two play, too focused on creating his island and asking you questions about how to fish to turn it on. He silently flips it on when you help him decorate his lawn, needing to show you in real-time the decorations he has bought and where you think he should put them. He looks cute. I mean, of course he does. He always does.

You tell him goodbye late in the night, eyes saying a little more than just “see you tomorrow”.

You like him. He likes you.

It’s even better when you two have matching gardens.

A/N: anybody and everybody (especially my precious hailey) let me know what you think!! :]

#sapnap #mcyt #sapnap x gn!reader #sapnap x reader #sapnap x you #sapnap fluff #sapnap drabble #sapnap oneshot #bubblyhoneyfics #honey answers #mcyt x reader #🥚except small

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kythed · 4 years ago

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“teenage wasteland.” kuroo tetsurou x reader

4:08pm.

“yo,” kuroo says, opening the door quickly after you ring the bell, “you finally made it.”

“what do you mean, finally?” you complain, kicking off your shoes and slipping inside. the dry heat of his family home’s living room assaults your bare face, a sharp contrast to the december frigidity outside. “you texted me like ten minutes ago.”

“felt like longer,” kuroo says with a crooked grin. “you want something to drink?”

“water?”

“I kinda meant something stronger, but sure, water,” kuroo says, filling a glass at the kitchen sink. you furrow your brows.

“something stronger? I’m sorry, but last time I checked we were still underage,” you say, and kuroo laughs breathily — it’s almost a giggle, actually. for the first time since arriving, you notice an odd flush in his cheeks. “oh my god. are you drunk?”

“drunk?” kuroo gasps. “no, no. tipsy, yes. drunk, no.”

“tetsurou,” you scold, reluctantly letting him pull you towards the hallway. “all those big, bad college boys can’t have been a very good influence on you.”

“I’ve had a stash of jack daniels hidden beneath my bed since sophomore year,” kuroo whispers conspiratorially. “those ‘big, bad college boys’ have nothing to do with it. speaking of which — you want some?”

you shake your head vehemently and dig your heels into the carpet, realizing he’s trying to drag you into his bedroom. despite being kuroo tetsurou’s official best friend of a decade, you’ve never been inside his room before. you’ve never been inside any boy’s room before, actually — you’ve never been much of a rule breaker.

(you suppose that’s why you and kuroo get along. you’re forever the straight-laced goody goody, and he’s forever the secretly bad, outwardly good honor roll kid.)

“I don’t drink,” you insist, and kuroo loops his arms around your neck. you stiffen. “and stop being so touchy. it’s freaking me out.”

“what?” kuroo says, feigning offense. “you don’t like my hugs?”

“no!” you say, and he shoots you an exaggerated eye roll. “you’re being weird. I can probably count the number of times you’ve voluntarily hugged me on one hand.”

kuroo ignores you, choosing to instead pick you up and toss you over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold.

“kuroo tetsurou, you’d better quit it before I call your mother!” you pound on his back, a little taken aback to feel his shoulder muscles rippling under your palms as he staunchly marches you into his room. “I do not want to enter your disgusting cave of a room, you teenage garbage troll!”

“getting real creative with the insults there,” kuroo laughs, setting you down and backing up against the door to block you from running out. “come onnnnn. I thought we could play a game of monopoly or something. listen to the radio. finish the bottle before my mom comes home and whips my hide.”

you sigh and perch your hands on your hips. “so that’s why you invited me over.”

“no, no,” kuroo protests, crouching to pull a clear bottle of amber colored liquid out from beneath his bed. “I also just vastly enjoy your company.”

“why not just throw it out?” you ask, gingerly sitting on the edge of the bed.

kuroo’s room is a lot neater than you imagined it would be — navy bedspread tightly tucked in at the corners, vinyl floor completely clear save for a small rug. his desk is probably the messiest part of the entire room, holding an old, chunky desktop that’s covered in post-its with smudged, scribbled notes, ranging from “email prof. miyazawa about missing grade” to “buy mom flowers to apologize for broken mug.”

there are a couple posters on the wall, too, one for the japanese national volleyball team, and one for some punk-looking band dressed in an overabundance of leather, ripped denim, and hair feathers.

“this shit was expensive,” kuroo says, gesturing to the bottle before screwing the cap off and taking a long draught. your eyes widen as he drinks down a quarter of the remaining liquid, his adam’s apple bobbing with each swallow. “I can’t let it go to waste.”

“I think you’ve probably had enough of that,” you say, gently twisting it from his hands. kuroo smiles angelically before coming to tower over you.

“if you’re not gonna drink it, I will,” he says, reaching out to grasp the bottle’s neck. you hold onto it stubbornly.

“you’re clearly wasted, tetsu,” you say. “just let me throw it away.”

“I may have a small drinking problem,” kuroo says, “but I’m sober enough to know I’m not about to throw away the fifty bucks I spent on that. give it.”

“no!”

“yes.”

“nooooo!”

“yes!”

kuroo tries to wrench the bottle from you, and you spend a solid thirty seconds wiggling in his grasp before finally pulling it away. in an impulsive attempt to keep kuroo from getting even drunker, you bring the rim of the bottle to your lips and chug the rest of the whiskey.

kuroo’s eyes widen, and he guffaws loudly. “that was a lot of alcohol just now.”

you nod, wincing at the acrid taste, unwilling to swallow — the liquid is still swishing in your cheeks. you move to go spit it out in kuroo’s sink, but he grabs your arm.

“do not spit that out,” he warns. “that’s over two hours’ worth of minimum wage salary. I don’t work twenty hours a week in the wendy’s drive-thru just for you to flush it down the drain.”

“mmmm,” you protest, breathing through your nose. “hrghhhh mmm mm mhm.”

“I have no idea what you’re trying to say,” kuroo says, obviously trying to stifle his laughter.

you gesture wildly to your face, and then to the empty bottle, and then back to your face.

for a moment, kuroo wrinkles his nose, and then slowly smoothes out his expression. a small smile stretches across his lips, and he steps close to you. you’re acutely aware of your personal bubble being popped, as well of the fact that he smells strongly of old spice and mango body wash.

“I’ll do it then.”

“mm?” you squeak in confusion when he takes your chin in one hand and guides your face close to his. you’re not sure if you’re smelling the alcohol on his breath or tasting it on our own tongue. you’ve never been this physically close to your best friend in your life, and you can firmly say you’re absolutely petrified. you shake your head vehemently as he slowly leans down, tilting his head.

“calm down,” he says quietly, and in spite of yourself, you do. “I’m just taking a drink.”

then he presses his mouth to yours, and you freeze. oh, shit.

kuroo wedges his tongue between your lips, forcing them open, and then he sucks the whiskey from your mouth, one hand keeping your jaw open while the other snakes around your waist. your eyes widen just as his close, almost as if he’s enjoying the kiss. slowly, you close yours too, letting yourself melt into him as he keeps kissing you even after swallowing the liquid.

it lasts for a good ten seconds before you reluctantly pull away, letting your hands rest on his shoulders. he’s smiling, evidently very pleased with himself.

“what the hell was that?” you say breathlessly, searching his face.

“I was thirsty,” kuroo says nonchalantly. “and a little drunk. and you’re very pretty, as far as best friends go.”

you feel like you should be offended, yet you can’t quite bring yourself to be. you’re definitely flustered, though, and a little embarrassed. (okay, a lot embarrassed.)

“I think, um, I think I should go,” you say, breaking eye contact. kuroo raises a hand to stop you, but you brush him off, bounding out of the room to grab your bag and keys from the kitchen counter. “we can talk about this later, okay? you need to go take a nap or something.”

“no, hey, wait —”

but you’re already out the door and in the car, jamming the key into ignition. you just kissed your best friend. or did you? does that count as a kiss? or was that just kuroo being stupid? your mind spins with useless speculations on the drive home, and as you sprawl out on your bed for an hour afterwards. it’s not until later that evening that you check your phone, greeted by a handful of social media notifications… and a text from kuroo.

with shaking hands, you swipe it open, face immediately splitting into a grin.

kuroo: sorry about that

kuroo: ok, not really

kuroo: I’m not that sorry

kuroo: cuz you’re a good kisser

kuroo: a really good kisser

you: you too

you wait for a moment as the three little dots on kuroo’s side pop up.

kuroo: thanks

kuroo: I was still kind of stupid tho

kuroo: my b

you: you regret it?

your fingers shake in suspense as you await his answer, feeling all the world like a lovestruck fifteen year old. you’re a little disgusted to find yourself suddenly crushing on kuroo tetsurou of all people, but what can you say? maybe falling for your best friend is a little cliche. maybe it’s a little overdone. maybe the fact that you kissed him with a mouthful of whiskey belongs in a cheesy teen movie, but you can’t help but find yourself delighted that it happened.

kuroo: nope. not at all.

kuroo: not at all.

#kuroo tetsurou #kuroo tetsurou x reader #kuroo x reader #kuroo #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu oneshots #tw: alcohol #meg ur comment on my shitpost inspired me #HEH #hihqnetwork

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watchmegetobsessed · 4 years ago

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Update - Harry Styles

i’ve been deep inmy harry feels and this thought just wouldn’t leave me alone so i had to write it. im thinking about starting a taglist for harry, i think i’ll write more about him in the future. let me know if you’d be interested in the taglist!

word count: ~5.9k

masterlist

Sequel: The best present

Harry is not that into YouTube videos, has never really been, which is kind of ironic seeing the number of videos on the internet that is about him. The man himself who makes everyone talk online feels weird seeing someone talking on his screen, looking into his soul as if they were right there with him. But today he felt the sudden urge to be like his peers and get lost in random rambling videos from strangers, who felt the need to put themselves out there.

He has made a mean cup of tea for himself, made himself comfortable on his couch with his laptop balancing on his thighs and now is opening up his browser to unwind in an unusual way. As YouTube opens in front of his tired eyes, he stops when he tries to type in the keywords he is searching for. What is he looking for really? He thinks to himself trying to remember what he heard from his friends when they talked about funny or interesting videos. One thing is for sure, he is trying to avoid watching videos of himself in any content. He has had enough of him for the day, it’s time to focus on someone else, even if he doesn’t know the person.

He scrolls through several pages of many different keywords until he settles for a video where a girl talks about how her latest moving day went. Starting off Harry feels weird listening to her talk about such personal things as where her bed went in her room, how she packed all her stuff to fit them in the boxes, but soon enough this feeling settles and he starts to realize it’s kind of relaxing.

It doesn’t take too long for him to fall down a rabbit hole and by the time his tea empties out from his cup he is intensely watching a guy rant about his boss at Subway while doing a mukbang. The latter is a new discovery for Harry, he has never heard of it before, but he can see why some people find it satisfying.

The video ends, Harry checks the time and sees that it’s already after midnight and he hasn’t even realized how fast time flew by.

“Alright, just one more,” he mumbles to himself scrolling down the column of the recommended videos until his eyes stop at one particular upload at the very bottom.

July update for my Sammy, ready the title and an eye-catchingly beautiful girl is smiling from the thumbnail. He finds her breathtaking, the lack of makeup, the worn out hoodie she is wearing and the many various plants in the background makes it appear she is sitting in the middle of the forest.

Harry finds himself clicking on the video before he could even decide consciously to watch it. The screen loads and the girl appears in front of him, this time in a much larger size.

“Hi Sammy, welcome back to our channel,” she starts with an angelic little laugh as she pulls her shoulders up to her ears as if the camera is making her shy. She has no reason to be shy, Harry thinks to himself. His second thought is about Sammy, he is one lucky guy to know this angel and have her think about him. “It’s Y/N here, your one and only sister,” she adds.

Sister. The word brings Harry relief and he is surprised to feel this way, but he has no time to think anything of it because she starts talking again.

“Here is my July update, I’m sorry I’m a little late, but we got back from Oregon yesterday. Aunt Ella is sending you kisses and hugs, she missed you at the barbeque, or maybe it was just your helping hand at the grill,” she chuckles to herself, probably recalling the memory.

Harry has no idea who Aunt Ella is or where she lives in Oregon, but the way she talks about it makes him feel like he is part of the family a little.

Y/N carries on and starts talking about everything that has happened in July. Painting the shed at her parents’ home, buying a new armchair, one her cat absolutely adores and refuses to sleep anywhere else now, she went to the hairdresser to get a trim, but not too much. She tells about her plans for August, how she is thinking about going to the farmers’ market more often, and she has been playing with the idea of adopting another cat.

“I think Henry has been feeling a little lonely lately. He could use a buddy,” she tells the camera, her eyes moving to the side from where a weak but moody meow can be heard as an answer. “Yeah, I think he agrees,” she chuckles and Harry finds himself smiling at the screen.

At the end of the video she asks a few questions from Sammy, how he has been doing, if his wrist feels any better, even asks about a friend called Matthew. Harry wonders if she has ever gotten the answers to her questions and where Sammy saw this video. What is he doing that made her want to do an update on YouTube?

When the video ends Harry clicks on her profile faster than he would willingly admit to anyone and it’s like he opened the gate to paradise. Tens and maybe hundreds of videos are queuing on her page, monthly updates, birthday wishes, short story times about family gatherings, news and happenings in her life.

Harry gets lost in her tales. He watches video after video, noticing the smallest details about her, almost mentally taking notes about her updates, finding anything and everything she talks about so interesting as if he knew those people and places she mentions. He comes to realization that Sammy is her older brother who is serving somewhere in the military. Y/N is making the videos to update him about her life even if she knows most of them doesn’t get to him until weeks later, but it doesn’t seem to bother her. He also learns that Sammy sends them back lengthy emails once a month and always ends them with a joke they made up with his mates at the army. Y/N loves them even when they're not even funny, she never fails to mention that she smiled reading them.

Hours pass by and the rising Sun peeks inside the window pulling Harry back to his own reality, shocked that he just spent the whole night watching her videos and didn’t even realize how deep he has gotten in her life. Lucky for him he has nothing planned until the afternoon, so shutting his laptop he sets it aside and heads straight to bed, but lying between his silky sheets he catches himself staring out the window, wondering what Y/N might be doing right now. From what he collected she lives somewhere in Spokane and has family in Seattle and Portland, which puts her quite a few time zones behind him. He finds the thought of them going to bed at the same time despite the distance a little funny. He lies in bed for quite some time before he finally drifts off to sleep with a particular girl on his mind, who doesn’t even know he is thinking about her.

“Do you think you can fall for someone you have never met?”

Harry’s question catches Mitch a little off-guard, but he is kind of used to his random bits of thoughts. Pouring some sugar into his coffee he follows the wondering singer to a free table in the corner.

“Isn’t it what all your fans feel?” he answers with a question, earning a surprised look from Harry. He hasn’t thought about this side, now the situation is kind of ironic, he supposes.

“Y’re right,” he nods stirring his coffee around in the small cup.

“Want to let me in on your thoughts?”

Harry feels a little shy to admit how he has watched all of her videos in the past few days, 207 to be exact and now he feels an oddly deep connection to this girl he has never even seen outside of a screen. Last night he dug up her Instagam profile, and even though she is not posting as frequently as she does on her channel, it was a refreshing change to see her in different settings. Chilling at a lake, having drinks with her friends, playing with her parents’ puppy, it amazed him that she has a whole life outside that small portion she lets him see in her videos.

Hesitantly, but he tells his friend about his latest hobby, if it’s not too weird to call it that, while his friend patiently listens and nods along his words while sipping on his morning coffee.

“D’you think I’m crazy?” Harry sighs leaning back in his seat, looking at his friend and colleague for validation that he hasn’t lost his mind entirely.

“Definitely not,” he chuckles shaking his head. “It’s like falling for that girl in school you know so much about but never really met.”

“Only that I’m stalkin’ this poor girl.”

“This is not stalking. We both know it’s far from that.” Harry nods with slight relief that his situation doesn’t seem as bad as he has been feeling lately. “Have you gotten in touch with her?”

“And what am I supposed to do? Comment on her video that I think her cat’s a cutie and I watched all her videos in three days ‘cuz I think she’s beautiful and I find her voice soothing?”

Mitch lets out a soft chuckle at the oddly specific answer he just gave and finds it amusing how interested his friend has grown about someone in such a short time.

“Maybe phrase it a little different.”

“So you do think I should reach out?”

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t. Use your personal YouTube, leave her a nice comment. Maybe she’ll reply.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know, Harry,” he chuckles. “Just go with it and you’ll see. You are obviously interested in her, it’s better than just sit and watch her videos.”

Harry agrees. It wouldn’t hurt to try to reach out to her, possibly in a not too creepy way. Maybe just a sweet comment on one of her videos and if she replies… Well, he doesn’t know what comes after, but he’ll figure it out.

Y/N updates regularly. Usually once a week and mostly it’s Sunday when a new video gets uploaded. This next Sunday Harry finds himself checking her page occasionally through the day to see if there’s a new update, but it seems like she is missing today. Right until he is driving home and gets a notification from the app.

Y/N has just uploaded a new video! It reads and Harry’s heart beats a tad bit faster. He thinks about pulling over to see it right away, but he tells himself that would be a bit too much, so he is forced to wait until he is in the comfort of his home.

Finally sitting on his couch he opens up his laptop and clicks on the video that has the title: September update.

Y/N sits in her usual spot, Henry in her arms as she is gently stroking his head with a warm smile on her face.

“Hi Sammy! Welcome back to our channel,” she greets him with her usual words and Harry loves how she calls the channel theirs. “This is my September update, even though not much has happened,” she breathes out, eyes wandering to the window besides her and Harry wonders what she sees from her window every day. Does she live in the city? Is it an apartment or a house with a backyard? Are there any trees or does her room have a terrible view, maybe just another house next to hers?

She starts her talk about the month, which she spent mostly with working, a little shopping and meeting her friends. She tells him about her planned trip to the local shelter to see possible new kittens to add to her household and Harry feels himself growing excited about it. He even thinks about what kind of cat he can see get along well with Henry even though he has never even met him.

“Anyway, mom and dad miss you, I miss you too. I loved your joke about ducks in your latest email,” she chuckles sweetly, bringing a smile to Harry’s face as well. “Mom is excited to see you at Christmas, our cousins will come to Portland as well. Maya can’t wait to play Jenga with you, she said she’s been practicing.”

The video soon ends as Y/N tells Sammy how much she loves him and eventually turns the camera off.

He straight away moves the cursor to the beginning of the video and as she starts talking again he scrolls down to the comment section that’s entirely empty. There are only two views on her video, usually a hundred is the max, but she doesn’t seem to care about the views, it’s more about the message.

He clicks to type a comment, but his hands stop above the keyboard as he tries to think of what to write. Mitch was right about taking a chance at reaching out, but what is he supposed to write exactly? Everything that comes to his mind sounds so creepy and scary, and he knows it’s weird that he formed such a deep connection to an unknown girl online. At last he starts typing.

“Hi Y/N! I’ve stumbled across your videos the other day. Love how you keep your brother updated, it’s such a nice gesture. I hope life treats you and Sammy well, you truly deserve it. Good luck with finding a buddy for Henry! Love, an admirer of yours, H.”

He reads it back several times, deleting then retyping it again until he decides to just go with it. A rush of adrenaline washes over his body when he sends the comment and it’s officially out there. Secretly he wishes she would reply right away, but moments pass by, then moments turn into minutes and nothing happens. His comment stands there alone and he has to realize that maybe she will never even reply or even see it.

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself as he shuts the laptop down and goes on to do his things, but he finds his thoughts wander over to her from time to time.

He has a busy day ahead of him the next day, quite a few meetings and a fitting. He checks back for a reply in the morning, but it slips his mind the moment he leaves from home and his phone rings right away. Throughout the day he basically barely has time to check his emails, his other notifications are just sitting patiently on the bar, waiting for him to acknowledge them. It’s way past five in the afternoon when he finally have some time for himself after his fitting. He is sitting in his car, people walk past him without even realizing who is sitting behind the tinted windows. Scrolling down he gets rid of everything that doesn’t seem urgent until his eyes stop at one particular notification.

“Y/N replied to your comment,” he reads it out loud, just to make it real, as if he is seeing it wrong and saying it with his own mouth brings it to life. He quickly taps on it and the familiar video opens up and while Y/N starts talking again the screen jumps down to the comments where, in fact, there is a reply from her.

“Dear H! Thank you for your heartfelt comment! I always forget it’s not just my family who sees these videos, but I’m happy you found them interesting enough to watch a few of them.”

“A few?” Harry huffs to himself feeling a little ridiculous he has watched all of them.

“I hope I didn’t bore you too much. Thank you for the well wishes for me, my brother and Henry too. He is sending his love to you. Y/N xx”

The comment was posted three hours ago. The thought that she has acknowledged his existence with not only reading but also replying to his comment brings him extreme joy. He reads her words over and over again, looking for any clue that would give away that she found his comment weird, but it seems like she was more surprised and happy that someone else saw her video besides her brother. Harry starts to type his reply without hesitation.

“Bore me? You saved me from watching another “what’s in my bag” video the other day. It was a pleasant change. I love your plants, by the way. Your room always gives off the most relaxed vibes. It reminded me I should have more of them in my home. H”

Harry smiles to himself posting his comment, the fear of appearing like a stalker long gone from him, the interaction is making his inside blossom from joy. For his biggest surprise a reply appears just a few minutes away and Harry reads Y/N’s new lines with deep hunger.

“Those videos suck the life out of me every time! I might be having a problem with buying too many plants, but I can’t help myself. They truly bring peace to me just by looking at them. I’m glad you are planning on buying some more, you won’t regret it!”

Harry is dying to reply, but he doesn’t want to look too eager and needy, so he opts for just liking her comment to let her know he read it and agrees. He locks his phone and puts it aside with the widest smile on his face as he starts his car and leaves his parking spot.

Two weeks pass by. In those two weeks Y/N uploads two more videos, one about her time with her grandparents, for a change it was filmed at their home and they even said hello in it. Harry feels wholesome seeing her with her granny and grandpa, it’s clear she cares a lot about them. The other video is just a short one where she has met some of Sammy’s old high school friends and she had a check in from them, sending a sweet message to him through the video. Harry doesn’t doubt how much these little things mean to Sammy, even if he doesn’t get to see them right away. Seeing Y/N alone boosts his mood every time she uploads a new video, he can only imagine how they make Sammy feel.

He leaves comments on her videos without a second thought and she replies to all of them, a lot of the time almost immediately. These are the highlights of his days without exception. Knowing that she has anything to do with him just fascinates him and he is starting to realize what his fans feel towards him on a different level. Whenever he sees the notification that she has replied to what he wrote or that she uploaded a new video he flies right to her page to check it, no matter what he is doing. Some of their comment threads turn out pretty lengthy, almost like a chat conversation and it has Harry wonder how they could maybe move it to somewhere else from the comment section.

He wants to ask for her number, but figures it wouldn’t be the best idea. Regardless of how much he enjoys their short little conversations, the situation is still weird and complicated and he doesn’t want to forget that.

But he is pleasantly surprised when she brings it up herself, to move the conversation to somewhere else.

“Would love to discuss that more with you. Up for exchanging IG names?” her question reads and he blinks a few before he fully comprehends that she wants to talk to him more in private. However there’s no way he can send her his real Instagram profile and making a fake one would be way too suspicious. Opening up the private messages he sends her a short, but informative message.

“I don’t use Instagram, but feel free to text me,” and then his phone number.

He sits at the dinner table anxiously, waiting for his phone to light up from a new text, and just a few minutes later it finally comes.

“Hi! It’s Y/N,” he reads from the notification and he saves the number right away.

“Hello! Save me as Harry. I haven’t even told you my name yet, how rude of me!” he replies chuckling to himself.

“Will let it slip this time. Harry. What a nice name!”

“Is it what you thought about from the H?”

“It was one of my theories. The other one was Hayes, but Harry fits you better.”

“You haven’t even seen me, how do you know what name fits me?”

“I don’t know. You had a vibe. There are many great Harries in the world, you seemed to fit between them!”

Harry wonders if she is thinking about him without even knowing that… it is him. He wants to ask her, but decides not to. Instead, he is enjoying that he can now reach her immediately and not through a comment section. He never thought this would actually happen.

The texts never stop. They have so much to talk about! Their entire life to share, millions of thoughts and so much to discuss! Harry is not proud of the time he has spent with his eyes glued to his phone, but he wouldn’t miss a chance to talk to her for anything. Their friends are not blind to the change in him, but Mitch is the only one with a guess about why he has gotten so addicted to his phone.

“Is it the girl from the videos?” he asks Harry one time when they are at the studio, having lunch break. Different food boxes are scattered around them, on the table and the couch. Harry’s phone just light up from a text and he immediately dropped his lunch to type a response.

He glances up at his friend with a shy smile nodding his head. He hasn’t talked about his newly funded friendship with Y/N yet, it feels like as if he tells it to anyone it might evaporate into just a dream.

“So you reached out, huh?”

“I did,” he nods returning to his food once his message is sent. “She’s great.”

“Does she know who she is talking to?” Harry’s lack of answer tells enough about the truth to Mitch. “You can’t hide forever, especially if you are planning on meeting her.”

“I know,” he answers shortly. “But I just don’t know how I could even bring it up to her without sounding like a mad man.”

“She’ll need proof.”

“M’not ready to show m’self to her. What if it changes everything?”

“Then it wasn’t worth it,” he simply tells him.

Deep down Harry knows it’s the truth, but he is not ready to be robbed from the joy she is bringing him. He has never felt such a deep connection to anyone before and they haven’t even met. It’s just a version of her he is seeing on the screen, not her real self. But it feels real to him and he wants to keep this reality to himself for just a little longer.

“I wish I could hear your voice, Harry. You are one big mystery to me, you know that?”

He forgets to breathe for a moment as he reads her message, lying in bed one evening, getting ready to sleep, but he wanted to check in with her before ending the day.

“You know so much about me already,” he types back.

“Not enough, I feel like. Sometimes I’m afraid Nev and Max are about to show up at my door and tell me that I’ve been catfished.”

He chuckles at her words, though he completely understands her fear.

“What do you want from me then?”

“Send me a voice message so I know you are real. That would put my suspicion to sleep. For a while…”

Harry hesitates for a long time until he decides just one voice message couldn’t hurt. Just a short one where his voice is not that recognizable so his cover won’t be over immediately.

“Good night, Y/N,” he tells into his phone and then send the recording to her.

He watches the status change from delivered to read and a couple of minutes go by before she finally responds.

“Thank you. Now I know that you are real. I hope I’ll hear your voice in real life one day.”

“I hope that too.”

His time spent undercover is coming to an end and he knows it’ll happen soon. It’s been weeks since they started chatting, almost an entire month and she’s been hinting her will to see his face and though he has been putting it off, he knows it has to happen.

Fate is playing under his hands, because he is traveling to Seattle for a few days, exactly when Y/N is traveling there to visit her parents.

“I hope you know you can’t leave without meeting finally,” she wrote when she found out they are going to be in the same city.

“It never even crossed my mind!” he wrote back chuckling to himself, however it brought him extreme anxiety that he is now going to be forced to come clean about who he really is.

He spends his whole flight to Seattle making up possible outcomes for their first official meeting. Not all of them end well and it’s just fueling his fear that he might lose her for not telling her the entire truth.

But she is a smart girl, she’ll see your reasoning, he tells himself, however he can’t entirely convince himself that it will be the case.

In hopes of squeezing in more than just one meeting into the weekend they agreed to meet almost first thing after he lands. So after checking into his hotel he heads into the city to finally meet her in real life in a local café she suggested for the occasion. Arriving to the place he is running a little late and she already texted him she’ll be waiting for him inside. Harry is wearing a beanie with shades to try to keep up his cover and it seems to be working, no one has approached him yet.

Stepping inside the cozy looking place his eyes roam around and immediately finds her sitting in the corner, pouring sugar into her coffee, not even paying attention to the door at the moment, but truth is she’s been intensely staring at it in the past ten minutes she has been there.

Harry takes a deep breath and nods to himself before heading in her way, hands shaking nervously as he stops at her table.

She glances up at him with innocent eyes, a smile spreads across her face as she sees that her mysterious Harry has arrived and she doesn’t recognize her until he finally takes his sunglasses off.

Harry watches her face turn from happiness to surprise then utter shock as she realizes who is standing in front of him.

“You are… my Harry?” she asks, confusion laced through her voice and Harry can’t ignore how she called him her Harry. He likes the ring of it.

“M’orry if it’s a little too much f’you, I really didn’t know how to tell ya.”

Keeping his eyes on her he pulls out the other chair at the table and takes a seat across her while she is still staring at him with a shocked and puzzled expression sitting on her face. Then she looks around in suspicion as he wiggles his coat off his arms, before her eyes settle on him once again.

“It’s not an episode of Catfish, right?” she asks making him chuckle.

“It is not, don’t worry.”

“I’m sorry if I’m being weird, but this was literally the last thing I was expecting,” she admits leaning back in her seat. “I believed things like this only happen in movies.”

“Not just there,” he smiles, slowly relieving that she is still sitting there and hasn’t ran out. It’s going way better than he expected.

She needs a little time to put the whole picture together and befriend the thought that she indeed just developed a friendship with Harry Styles through her videos for her brother. The absurdity is still shocking to her, but the more time passes by with him still sitting there, the more she finds peace with it.

Once the shock and surprise is gone they slowly realize they are seeing each other in real life finally. Harry feels overwhelmed, she is even more breathtaking than in her videos and through texts. He is mesmerized by her whole being and could listen to her talk in person forever, he wouldn’t get bored of her.

Time stops existing as they sit at the little café, talking for hours even though that’s all they’ve been doing through texts, but they just can’t get enough of hearing each other, seeing each other’s reaction and be able to see each other and not stare at a screen while talking.

Unfortunately, time never stopped just for the two of them and soon she realizes she needs to head back home. Harry doesn’t want to let go of her just yet so he offers to give her a ride, thanking himself for getting a rental for himself upon arriving. Y/N accepts the offer so the two of them head back to her parents’ home, soaking up the last minutes of their precious time spent together.

“Thank you for today, I really loved meeting you finally,” she smiles at him once they are parked on the driveway.

“I hope I didn’t shock you too much,” he chuckles scratching his chin.

“Just a little,” she admits before they both get out of the car and walking around it she stops in front of him, after a moment of hesitation she opts for a hug that he returns more than happily.

It feels as if her frame was perfectly sculpted to fit in his embrace and Harry can’t imagine how he could go this long without even seeing her in person. He knows it’s gonna be utter misery to be away from her after they leave the city.

“Will I see you before you take off?” she asks letting go of him. Harry looks down at her, the urge to kiss her growing bigger with each passing moment, but he is not sure if it would be appropriate to give it a try on their first time meeting.

“I’m free tomorrow for a lunch,” he tells her and she nods smiling.

“Then I’m free too,” she chuckles.

There’s an awkward moment where they are not sure what else should be done or said and the more they wait the weirder it’s getting so Harry clears his throat as he takes a step back, sad that he has to leave without feeling her lips on his, but he is not trying to be too greedy.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he smiles walking back to his car. Y/N waves after him and sitting back to behind the wheel he takes a moment to himself to collect himself after everything that has happened today. His hands curl around the wheel and he is about to start the car when someone knocks on the window. Y/N is smiling at him through the glass and he rolls it down curiously.

“I just…” she starts hesitantly, her eyes wander down to his lips and Harry knows what’s about to happen, but it still catches him by surprise.

Y/N leans in through the window and presses her lips to Harry’s, capturing them in a sweet, long awaited first kiss they both have been dreaming of for quite a while. Harry smiles into the kiss, bringing his right hand up to cup her cheeks as they stretch the moment for as long as possible. Whenever one pulls back the other brings them back for just one more kiss that turns into two more, then three… It takes a long time for them to finally let go of each other.

“See you later, H,” she smiles backing out of the car and running up to the front door, smiling wildly as she waves in his way one last time before disappearing in the house.

Lying in bed that evening Harry is scrolling through his Instagram feed when he finally realizes he can now follow her without a worry. He is quick to find her profile again and hit that follow button. He is happy to see she was already following him.

He is just about to put his phone aside and go to bed after such a busy but exciting day when a notification pops up on the screen.

Y/N has just uploaded a new video!

He taps on it quickly and her smiling face greets him from his phone’s screen.

“Hi Sammy! It’s me again. Welcome back to our channel,” she starts with a shy smile. The setting is new this time, he supposes it’s her parents’ home this time. “This is going to be a short video, but I wanted to tell you about something. Or someone.”

Harry’s heart skips a beat when he thinks about where it’s heading. He listens to her voice holding his breath.

“I met someone today. We’ve been talking for a while, but I could finally hug him today. His name is Harry, and he is a wonderful man. I think you two would get along well,” she says with a soft chuckle. “I love spending time with him and I hope he feels the same way. Actually…” Her eyes move up straight to the camera, something she doesn’t do often. She usually stares out the window or plays with Henry while talking. “I think he is watching it right now. Hi Harry!”

“Hello, Beautiful,” he greets her back with a smile as if she could hear him.

“I wanted to tell you how amazing you are making me feel. I hope I didn’t disappoint. I was so nervous to meet you today, I hope I lived up to what you imagined me to be.”

“You were so much better than that,” he answers again.

“Anyway… I hope you feel the same way. You are the first guy I’m talking about in an update, so appreciate it!” she tells him and he chuckles lightly. “I’ll see you soon, H. But until then… Know that I’m thinking about you.”

“M’thinking about you too, Angel.”

“Sammy, I miss you as always. I hope everything is well, can’t wait for your next email. I love you,” she smiles before the video ends.

Harry heads straight to the comments. This time he doesn’t leave a lengthy one, just a short line, but it has everything he wanted to tell her.

“I feel the same way.” The comment reads. Just a few seconds later comes the notification and he smiles sweetly at his phone.

Y/N liked the comment.

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles oneshot #harry styles fluff #harry styles fiction #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x reader #harry #styles #one direction #harry styles fanfictions

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13uswntimagines · 4 years ago

Text

Your Ass Is Out of This World (Kelley x Reader)

Request: alex or kelley or sonnett x reader where they've been dating for a few years R is an astronaut for NASA and she gets to go to space

Author’s Note: Special thanks to @literaryhedgehog cause without her, none of this would have happened.

Kelley wasn’t quite sure how she had ended up standing next to a dive bar sipping a lukewarm beer on a Friday night. In her defense, Ali and Ashlyn had convinced her it would be fun and had promised to pay for the Uber rides both ways. It had been fun for a while, dancing with them to some old 70s songs on the light-up dance floor, but half an hour ago they had disappeared off into a hallway somewhere, and she had no intention of third-wheeling (she knew she should have convinced Alex to join them). But she also wasn’t going to leave without them, because she wasn’t convinced either of them were sober enough to take any kind of transportation safely (someone needed to be there to make sure they didn’t puke in someone’s car).

So here she was, standing by the bar waiting for her friends’ sexcapades to be over, nursing her drink. The clink of a glass settling in front of her caught her attention. She blinked at the bartender. “I didn’t order another one,”

The man’s lips ticked up and he shrugged. “Lady on the end paid for it. Said you looked sad,”

Kelley looked up, following the man’s eyes towards a woman standing a few seats down the bar from her. She was also standing alone but was dressed as though for a different event altogether. Kelley had embraced the 70s theme of the bar slightly, wearing a jumpsuit and a scarf around her head, but this woman had just thrown a white NASA shirt--like the one Kelley got for her little cousin at Target-- over a pair of black jeans. As she bobbed her head to the music she met Kelley’s eyes and smiled.

Kelley took that as her invitation to approach. Kelley’s eyes traced her form, lingering on the white material. She didn’t know those came in adult sizes...

“You must be a star, I can't stop orbiting around you” Kelley smiled charmingly as she approached you, setting her beer on the bar beside you and settling in the seat to the left of yours.

“I do believe I was the one to buy you the drink…” you said, your lips twitching as you tried to keep a serious expression. “Shouldn’t I be the one throwing pickup lines here?”

“You bought me the drink, so I get to be the one to woo you. I’m Kelley, are you from Mars? 'cuz I wanna explore you with curiosity.” Kelley said, wiggling her eyebrows at you, enjoying the light blush coloring your cheeks.

“Oh my god,” you groaned, “that was terrible. I mean really good but absolutely awful.”

“At least I got you to smile, but you still haven’t told me your name.” Kelley laughed, taking a sip of her beer. She was prepared to lay on the horrible pick up lines for your entertainment.

“I’m Y/n,” you said, putting down your drink and holding out your hand, “pleasure.”

“They call me the milky way...Pleasure You Can't Measure,” Kelley smiled, shaking your hand as you laughed and pulling you a little closer “Why look at the moon, if I can’t touch it? Why look at your lips, if I can't kiss them,” she said, winking so you knew she was completely joking.

“How do you know so many of these?” You said, shaking your head in awe. “ All I know off the top of my head is ‘do you work for NASA? Because you’re out of this world!’”

“Ah, a magician never reveals her secrets,” Kelley whispered conspiratoryly, bringing her hand up to cover her lips. “but my team and I have definitely had flirt offs for bonding nights,”

“Your team?”

“Yeah, I play soccer for the US and Washington,” She shrugged as if it wasn’t a huge accomplishment.

Your eyes widened and you nearly spat out your drink. “Didn’t they, like, just win a World Cup?”

“Yeah, No biggie,” Kelley said, side-eyeing you as she took another sip.

“No biggie? I’m surprised you don’t have a swarm of paparazzi shadowing you, that’s incredible! Weren’t the USWNT like the most successful US team in soccer?’

“Hm, there’s not enough drama for them, but we don’t mind. How about you? What do you do beautiful?” Kelley hummed.

“Oh. I work for NASA,” you said, gesturing at the shirt. “I can’t wait to bring some of those lines back to work.”

“What??”

****

“So do they at least give you a good choice of flavors? So you don’t get bored and stuff?” Emily asked from across the table, licking her dripping I cream cone.

When your girlfriend decided to introduce you to the team after their match against Colombia, you were quite surprised she had chosen an ice cream shop as a venue. But with how food motivated the youngins seemed, you realized how appropriate it was.

“I mean,” you said, your spoon suspended in the air as you blinked at Emily, “ice cream isn’t the only thing we will eat. I’m going to be on the station for like 8 months. Ice cream is not a balanced diet.”

“But it’s the only one they sell in the stores. You don’t have to lie cause the veggie lovers are here,” The defender said, leaning across the table, as though it would prevent the rest of the table from hearing her.

“Babe, you literally love most veggies too,” Lindsey rolled her eyes, using her thumb to wipe a spot of chocolate ice cream from Emily’s nose.

“Actually, I heard they’re a pretty good selection of dehydrated fruits and veggies and MRE’s and Tortillas and stuff. Plus I get to take a few things from home…” You mumbled, leaning back.

She couldn’t be serious right? There was no way she thought you were supposed to sustain yourself on horrible freeze-dried dairy products for that long. Not to mention, freeze-dried ‘astronaut’ products for the most part weren’t actually possible to bring to space, with how crumbly they are. You were more likely to eat actual ice cream on the space station (less chance for an errant crumb being inhaled or destroying an important piece of equipment) than that gift shop garbage.

“Oh yeah, MRE sounds way more likely than just eating the stuff they literally label as being for astronauts…” Emily said, rolling her eyes. “What does that even stand for? ‘Must reject Emily?”

You opened your mouth to answer, eyebrows furrowed, only for Kelley to nudge you softly.

“It’s not worth the fight babe, trust me. Not the brightest lighthouse if you know what I mean,” Your girlfriend made a swirling motion with her finger next to her temple.

You leaned in closer so your lips were nearly touching her ear. “She’s not serious right?”

“I never joke about ice cream,” Emily answered seriously.

You blinked at her, looking to your girlfriend who just shrugged and raised her eyebrows.

“I’m, I’m not sure if they have a flavor rotation system for ice cream flavors. We haven’t been… briefed on that yet,” you nodded seriously.

…...

“Can you hear me?” Kelley said, tapping her fingers impatiently as your face appeared in the video call.

“He- -utiful,” You smiled through the glitchy computer screen. Your waving was broken up like a bad claymation. You leaned in to make out the fuzzy figures standing behind your girlfriend, assuming she was at camp or something.

Normal long distance sucked, but literally being off-planet really made things difficult. It wasn’t like Kelley could just text you when she missed you, or randomly call you when she missed you at 3 am. Sure, she could email and you made a tremendous effort to schedule calls once a month, but it was still incredibly difficult (and slightly weird that a NASA tech dude had to monitor each call to make sure the connection stayed up). And sometimes even the best video-calling technology had issues. Like today (when a giant satellite or piece of space trash would block the signal).

“Are you hav- -un at -amp?” You asked, grabbing your floating water pouch pushing out a sip sized water drop.

“Yeah, it’s great,” Kelley said, watching you munch on your water. When you first got on the station you sent her pictures of artwork you made out of different drops of colored water- specifically making a giant water ‘soccer ball’ for her. Then you tried to boop it around and ended up losing control, amusing all your crewmates who watched you trying not to run into too many walls. “We’re looking forward to playing against Brazil on Friday, should be brutal.”

“We’re set to be ov- Florida on -day, so I’ll try and tune into the ga-. Catch a nice - view,” You nodded, wiggling your eyebrows (which looked more like you having a seizure due to how badly you were pixelated).

While Kelley wasn’t entirely sure what you were saying, she went ahead and nodded. “Let me know what you think!”

“Wh- color -it are you w-ing? Y- look -uper s-xy in the -ue,” you said, floating up in a ‘draw me like one of your french girls’ pose.

“You’re favorite one,” Kelley said, winking at you.

“-es!!” You cheered “-ake p-ture -or -“ the screen flickered dangerously for a second. Before a wobbly picture returned.

“Babe you’re breaking up, I can’t tell what you’re saying. Y/n. Are you there? UGh. I love you! We’ll talk soon.”

“-ove y- -oo”

Kelley blew a slow kiss to her camera before she heard a deep voice saying “Sorry ma’am. The connection was lost. Y’all still have five minutes on your scheduled call- Want me to try calling again? See if the signal improves?”

“Yeah,” Kelley shifted, rubbing the bridge of her nose as typing sounds echoed through the speaker. How she was going to make it through four more months of this she had no idea.

“What if like the ship was attacked by aliens or something,” Sonnett whispered from her left, staring at the blank screen with real trepidation.

“Not possible ma’am,” she heard him laugh. “But I doubt I would have the right level of security clearance to know.”

“great.”

Kelley grabbed a pen and marked a day off the calendar hanging on her wall. So much for ‘phone call with Y/n.’ She sighed. Just a few months to go.

****

Gravity fucking sucked. It was disorienting and heavy and made you sick to your stomach. Space station alums always talked about re-entry and how bad that was, but you thought sitting in a NASA hospital bed while your equilibrium readjusted was way worse than your fireball craft plummeting into the ocean.

“This fucking sucks,” You groaned, again throwing your hand over to pull out the IV. You hated how hard it was to move (and how you actually had to hold up a cup of water to get a drink but that was beside the point).

“Whoa babe, I know you’re a little out of it right now, but that has to stay in. Just try and relax for a little while,” Kelley said, grabbing your hand and kissing the back of your knuckles.

You frowned at her through heavy-lidded eyes. “Don’t wanna be here. Wanna be home with you.”

“I know, but you gotta stay here until the re-entry symptoms have worn off a little more,” She said again. She knew that you weren’t going to be 100% when you stepped out of the spacecraft, but she hadn’t expected you to be so out of it. You were sick to your stomach and entirely unable to walk without assistance.

The doctors assured her that you would be fine (residual effects from not being in gravity for so long and the impact of the landing or whatever), but it was still difficult to watch. It didn’t help that you were a horrendous patient.

“Just watch the game. The US is even in Blue,” Kelley tried to coax. Even she was beginning to grow restless. But you couldn’t leave until you could keep down solid foods.

“I don’t want to watch. You’re not in it,” You said, grabbing the remote from her and turning the television off. Then you tried to set the remote in the air, but instead of hovering like it should have done, it dropped to the ground.

“Alright, commander Y/l/n. It’s dinner time,” one of the NASA hospital nurses said, bringing in a tray for you. Kelley thanked them as they left since you were too dazed to think of it.

“God this food sucks, I hate jello ” you grumbled, lifting the spoon in front of your face (fully expecting it to float so you could take your bite) and dropping it as you want to open the pudding packet instead. “I just want a big juicy cheeseburger. With bacon and onions and-“ You trailed off, your mouth watering at the thought. You hadn’t had proper food in 8 months, and it had been your major cravings food.

“A side of diabetes” she scoffed, picking up the discarded remote and spoon, “And are you going to keep dropping things everywhere?” She asked, carefully filling a spoon with chocolate pudding and guiding it to your mouth.

“Fuck Newton. Things are supposed to float,”

****

You loved the soft skin behind Kelley’s ear. It was so smooth, and it always smelt like a mix of her perfume, shampoo, and something inherently Kelley. It was a bonus that your exploration of the area always sent a shiver down her spine. You ran your nose along the skin there, nibbling on her ear before moving down her neck. Leaving little kisses along your path. Kelley sighed, sleepily scratching your scalp and tilting her head to the side to encourage you to continue.

“You,” Kelley said. “ I like you.”

“Hm, I’m glad. It would be kinda scary if you were doing this with someone you didn’t like,” you mumbled against her skin, unwilling to part with it for even a moment. Kelley giggled at the tickling sensation. How you still had so much energy after you had thoroughly worn her out getting… reacquainted she would never know.

“But what do you like most. Tell me, babe,” You said, moving your lips a little lower, towards where her shoulder and neck met.

“I love… your ass. It’s out of this world.” She said sleepily, reaching around to grab her favorite asset of yours.

“Well, it has been,” You laughed, pulling away reluctantly so you could look her in the eyes.

“Shut up you goof,” She rolled her eyes, grabbing a pillow and whacking you lightly. You fell over dramatically, pulling her so she was on top of you.

“Hm, I’m your goof,”

“Yeah. You are. And babe?” She smiled down at you, leaning down to press a kiss to your lips.

“Hmm?” You hummed against her lips. She leaned back to look you in the eyes, one forearm across your chest and her other hand beside your head supporting her.

“No more space travel for a while?”

“Pinky promise,” You said, wiggling your hand so your littlest finger connected with hers.

“Good. I can’t believe I was dating someone from TEXAS for a while.” Kelley pretended to shudder. “Jus think, one of your coworkers might have been a Houston dash supporter!”

#uswnt x reader #uswnt imagine #uswnt imagines #literalhedgehog #kelley o'hara x reader #kelley o'hara imagine

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whomst-art-thou-whomst-whomst · 3 years ago

Text

Texts from the Lost Tomb part 6.1

🎶 Back on the bullshit I never got off🎶

Is this another unnecessary story arc?? With three sections??

Yes.

Wushanju Crew Chat

Wang Meng: You know, I’m someone who appreciates consistency in my day. My life is pleasant, very few issues indeed if you ignore the big ones. And yet. Yet here we are. With unresolved messes at the end of a day.

Wang Pangzi: SOMETHIN YOU NEED TO SAY MARY POPPINS

Wang Meng: We need to talk about Huo Daofu and the glittery bead curtain.

Wang Pangzi: MY FAVE TEEN WIZARD SERIES

Wu Xie: did you turn on that suggested word thingy lol

What glittery bead curtain

Wang Meng: I closed the shop at 6:00pm this evening on the dot. I locked all of the doors in and out of the shop very carefully, especially in light of recent events. The hall leading to the back office was empty. I filed the day’s paperwork, updated and sent emails, and then spent an extra hour organizing receipts and dusting. When I came back out, there were glittery iridescent bead curtains over the front entrance to the shop.

What could this mean?

Wu Xie: uh that you need to spend less time at work?

Wang Pangzi: LOOKS LIKE WE GOT ONE FOR THE DETECTIVES. THE MYSTERY OF THE BEDAZZLED THRESHOLD COMMENCES

Wu Xie: I think we can be relatively secure in thinking a glittery bead curtain isn’t a hostile threat

Wang Pangzi: SAYS YOU

I REMEMBER YE OLDE EXPLORATION TIMES HOW FAST THINGS GOT FURIOUS

BEANBAG CHAIRS SET AFLAME AND LEFT ON DOORSTEPS AS A WARNING

GLITTERBOMBS FOR DAYS

PANIC AT THE DISCO

Wang Meng: Ugh, forget it. I should have just taken them down, regardless of who they belong to.

Zhang Qiling: They are not mine.

Wang Pangzi: A BOLD STATEMENT COMING FROM OUR PRIME SUSPECT

SOMEONE QUICK GO DRAW CHALK AROUND THE DOORWAY TO MARK THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

Wang Meng: Do we know anyone who *would* sneak in and put those up? For whatever reason, legal or not? Even as a joke?

Wang Pangzi: ARE YOU SERIOUSLY ASKING WHETHER WE KNOW ANYONE WHO IS CHAOTIC, AN OUTLAW, A PRANKSTER AND/OR SNEAKS INTO PLACES

BECAUSE THAT WOULD MEAN OUR SUSPECT LIST IS LITERALLY EVERYONE WE KNOW EXCEPT FOR YOU.

Wu Xie: okay let’s think about this; for starters, I didn’t break into my own shop

Wang Meng: You would be in danger of doing some work in the process, that’s true.

Wang Pangzi: LOL

Wu Xie: ANYWAY let’s keep going. For example, Xiao Ge would only break in somewhere for a good reason. Xiao Ge, did you do this?

Zhang Qiling: No.

Wu Xie: okay who’s next

Wang Pangzi: YOU REALLY MISSED YOUR CALLING IN INTERROGATION TIANZHEN

REALLY PUT THE SCREWS TO HIM

IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE;)

Zhang Qiling: How can we be certain *you* didn’t do it?

Wang Meng: Admittedly that was my guess, too.

Wang Pangzi: WOW I SEE HOW IT IS

BLAME PANGZI AS USUAL

ANYWAY HOW DOES HUO DAOFU FIT INTO THIS

Wu Xie: Oh yeah him! Oops I got distracted

Wang Pangzi: UR ENTIRE HISTORY IN A NUTSHELL

Wu Xie: Ugh fuck off

Wang Meng what abt Huo Daofu??

Zhang Qiling: ?

Wu Xie: oh sorry xiaoge I didn’t realize you wouldn’t have spent much time around him last year

He and I go way back

Zhang Qiling: Way back where?

Babysitters Club Chat

Wang Pangzi: I CANNOT BELIEVE HE IS BUYING YOUR INNOCENT ACT

IF YOU EVER TURN TO EVIL WE ARE FUCKED

Zhang Qiling: ?

Wang Pangzi: YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHO HUO DAOFU IS

YOU WERE EXTREMELY POLITE AND BORDERLINE FRIENDLY TOWARDS HIM

Zhang Qiling: I wanted him to feel welcome. I wanted to be sure he understands he has a place here. A specific place.

Wang Pangzi: FOR A SILENT GUY YOU ARE A MASTER AT SUBTLE POWER PLAYS IM ALL TINGLY

LMAO THE IDEA OF WU XIE LEAVING YOU FOR HUO DAOFU IS HILARIOUS AND ALSO NOPE

Zhang Qiling: Rationally, I understand that.

Main Chat

Wang Meng: Huo Daofu is coming for the weekend—didn’t Wu Xie tell you? Wu Xie asked me to check in a week ahead so we could start getting ready for his arrival

Wu Xie: oh yeah I did do that

Wang Meng: Fortunately I know you and so I already went ahead and took care of everything.

Re: the trip

He made a deal with Wu Xie’s doctor that he would do periodic checkups on him here at Wushanju

Bc Wu Xie hates being in the hospital

And frankly the hospital hates him too

Wang Pangzi: FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT LOL

I FORGOT HUO DAOFU WAS DOING THAT

A VERY CHIVALROUS GESTURE

WOULDNT YOU SAY

XIOAGE

Zhang Qiling: Is it safe for him to be here with a criminal loose on the premises?

Wu Xie: Right, back to the curtain! Let’s focus on the curtain, hmm?

Wang Pangzi: I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS WEEKEND.

ALSO WE CAN RULE OUT XIAO BAI FOR THE CURTAIN SHE JUST SENT A SELFIE FROM NORWAY COVERED IN GREEN SLIME WITH ZERO CONTEXT, UR PROTEGE INDEED

Wu Xie: okay but who else would do something so oddly charming yet illegal and—wait.

Snake Eyes Chat

Wu Xie: hey, Glasses hasn’t been in touch lately right?

Li Cu: uh nope

Unless u count the outdated memes

Why, is money or Xie Yuchen missing

Or is this curtain related, I saw Wang Meng’s tweet

Wu Xie: haha no nothing to worry about really

(I mean maybe? but who knows)

Wang Meng is probably just getting a little paranoid in his old age

Li Cu: better than getting reckless and stupid as hell in ur old age

Wu Xie: …hey:(

Unknown Number: Li Cu, we discussed this.

Wu Xie: ????????

Li Cu: *sigh* fine, reckless and stupid as heck

Unknown Number: …close enough.

Wu Xie: EXCUSE who is that

Madame, Sir, Non-Binary Tree Spirit, etc—whomst the fuck

Are you

Li Cu is underage FYI

So Im staying on this chat

Li Cu: okay first of all, it’s not like that

Second of all I’m literally not underage I s2g

u threw the embarrassing surprise bday party, okay so u should remember

And C, that’s my counselor and I invited her. She wanted to meet u and I knew u wouldn’t agree to a visit so I added her to our chat

we have been discussing u

Wu Xie: Oh wow!!!!!!!

What a surprise:)

hi so nice to meet you:)

Main Chat:

Wu Xie: RED FUCKING ALERT

FUCK THE CURTAIN FUCK THE VISIT

IVE BEEN TRICKED INTO FAMILY THERAPY BY A SMUG TEENAGER WHO TEXTS UNKNOWN NUMBERS

Wang Meng: I assume that means something to someone here?

Not my problem? Good.

Wang Pangzi: AHAHAHA GOD I LOVE LI CU

HES LIKE ADORABLE KARMA FOR ALL THE SHIT YOUVE PUT ME THROUGH

IM RAISING HIS ALLOWANCE

Wu Xie: wait i give him an allowance

has he been collecting on two allowances??

Zhang Qiling: Three. I knew about both of yours.

Snake Eyes Chat

Wu Xie: so uh may I ask your name?

Unknown Number: you can call me Ms. Lee.

Now, if you’re comfortable talking in this format, why don’t you tell me how things have been going?

Wu Xie: oh everything is normal and fine and safe as usual, why do you ask:)

Li Cu: I heard about ur necklace thing. nice of you to NOT mention it.

another dangerous adventure. again. prick.

Ur lucky your cool boyfriend cares about you so much or you’d have already died like ten years ago

Wu Xie: lol try twenty years ago

Li Cu: That isn’t funny.

Unknown Number: …What?

Wu Xie: shit ur right, okay that was a bit glib, my apologies.

…I use humor as a coping mechanism?

Unknown Number: and Li Cu, how do you feel about that?

Li Cu: he doesn’t even know what that phrase means

He doesn’t cope, like ever

In fact

It’s kind of why we met

Which is a funny story in retrospect tbh

Wu Xie: haha what are you talking about sweetie hahaha need I remind you of certain anecdotes that could idk send me to jail maybe lmao

Unknown Number: …You know, perhaps an in-person meeting might be more effective?

Wu Xie: haha such a nice idea but why

Main Chat

Wu Xie: If I go to jail, I’ll have to create alliances for protection, right, that’s how it works on tv

Who do we know who spends time in jail

Other than Hei Yangjing, he’s only ever there for like 12 hours and i suspect he just gets himself arrested bc he enjoys the breaking out process

Also how’s the curtain case coming along

Zhang Qiling: Has someone threatened you?

Wu Xie: well not yet but soon I’m sure

Wang Pangzi: WHERE WAS THIS PARANOIA WHEN WE GOT TAKEN TO THE TEA HOUSE HUH

Snake Eyes Minus Your Fucking Therapist Chat

Li Cu: okay how tf did u pull off spy and undercover shit

u are sus as hell

Wu Xie: damn son is it pick on Wu Xie night

I missed the flyers or I would’ve invited my uncles

Also re: the curtain it’s been mostly solved

Li Cu: I’m not your son, idiot.

Wu Xie: …oh. Sorry, sorry, you’re right, bad choice of words, haha

Forget i said anything

Delete this chat even

Li Cu: shit I meant

Legally, biologically, I meant—

shit

…I turn into an asshole as a coping mechanism?

Wu Xie: oh that’s all okay! I have to go do something else now let me know if you need anything okay kid thanks!

Li Cu: goddamn it calm down who’s the kid here

lemme organize my thoughts so I can articulate my emotions fuckin healthily or w/e

Ugh maybe for like one afternoon we could go to Ms. Lee together? She knows how to word stuff

Wu Xie: uh…okay.

Li Cu: Anyway you don’t need to worry abt jail

As if you would survive prison for one day you’d piss off half the place in like an hour or less

I gave Ms. Lee the heavily edited version of the desert highway to hell roadtrip and i discussed it more in terms of like “nightmarish but still wouldn’t take any of it back”

Well maybe the sand

that shit was everywhere

Wu Xie: oh kiddo. It’s fine, really…You don’t have to explain yourself to me.

Li Cu: no, no it’s just

I do technically have a dad

who is an asshole. Being a son doesn’t really mean shit to me bc it sucked.

So you need to stop backing down just cuz ur guilty abt stuff. I’m really really glad ur not my dad in a good way. Do u get what I mean there

Where’s the mafia widower I followed into hell, huh

Wu Xie: Ur a good kid, despite my influence. I’m really glad you have someone to talk to after everything I…after everything. Wow this talking through feelings thing is kind of weird but nice ur right

Jfc no wonder it took me and xiaoge so long to—you know what, we won’t get into that

Li Cu: ew tmi

Also re: this week’s recent necklace fuckery

I moved my stuff here, I live here now

So you can’t die anymore

Or else…Idk I don’t have a threat planned

anyways abt the curtain

Wu Xie: oh my god, kid…kid you have no idea

I am in tears.

Li Cu: see this is why I can’t be nice to you I can sense the hallmark channel from here

Ugh don’t be sad in ur room that’s dumb

Go hug Pangzi or something

Maybe delete this chat

Or the curtain thing

Focus on the curtain thing

Just stfu and go away

Wu Xie: <3 screenshotting this <3

Li Cu: I take back everything I said. This is why Xiao Ge sleeps on the roof. I hope the ghosts of the Wangs put up that curtain to strangle you somehow. Go die in a stupid way, it’ll suit you.

Wu Xie: lol don’t worry I’m not gonna embarrass you with it or anything

Main Chat

Wu Xie: omg guys look how cute my kid is *sending screenshot*

Wang Pangzi: I MEAN

HE IS WISHING YOU DEATH

BUT SURE

CUTE I GUESS

Wu Xie: no but read the whole thing:):):)

Zhang Qiling: It is indeed very hard to remain angry with you. And you are welcome to join me on the roof.

Wang Pangzi: UH NOPE

NOT WHENI HAD TO BLEACH THE COUNTER IN THE KITCHEN

DONT TRAUMATIZE THE EARLY BIRDS THEYRE ALREADY FREAKED OUT BY U YA HOODIE CRYPTID

Wu Xie: ok true but babe ur like a sexy cryptid

Wang Meng: so, are we just accepting that there is a glittery curtain of unknown origin, and Huo Daofu is going to have to see it while he’s waiting for you at Wushanju bc you’re going to family therapy?

Wu Xie: right

Wang Pangzi: SHOULDA TAKEN EARLY RETIREMENT HUH

Wang Meng: I’m going to go dust something.

Unnamed Chat:

Unknown number: so the curtain…

Unknown number 2: yep, not my best work but I kinda panicked last minute u know

Unknown number: what is in the water at Wushanju that makes everyone dumb and attractive

Unknown number 2: relax they’ll figure it out

#ultimate note #whomst #wu xie #dmbj #the lost tomb #pingxie #iron triangle

36 notes · View notes

luvknow · 4 years ago

Text

in another lifetime | lee minho

genre: ceo/iron man!lee minho x secretary!reader | ceo au ; superhero au ; alcohol mention ; blood mention summary: you and your boss were inseparable. no one could understand how you could work ungodly hours for such an inexperienced ceo. but your job was to stick by Mr. Lee for as long as you were getting paid, and that meant being his date to charity balls and helping him turn into the country’s best superhero. wc: 18.9k a/n: rewrite of that one w**jin fic cuz fuck that guy ~! the public has spoken.... lee minho has been chosen as the winner

Secretary was your title, but you liked to think you were more than just that. Perhaps secretary was just an umbrella term for amateur sommelier slash novice multitasker slash the only employee who knew how to drive stick. Whatever your job entailed, you were sure to list all of those tasks in your updated resume when it was time to pass the torch onto some other poor sucker because you would much rather die than be a secretary for life.

It wasn’t like your boss was a total ass, or anything. That was actually the scary part - the fact that your boss was one of the kindest and most attentive people you’ve ever worked for, yet you still hated this job! What made this so horrid was the amount of walking and running your poor feet had to do. And guess what? No sneakers were allowed in the office, so you were left with walking over forty-thousand steps in a day in toe-pinching sole-aching glossy shoes that were half a size too big for your feet because shoes like these always ran out in your size in the store.

“Good morning, Mr. Lee,” you greeted, walking into his private office at 8:00 am on the dot as normal. With tired eyes, he looked up from his stack of blueprints and gave you a warm smile. You don’t know how he does it, but he always managed to welcome your morning visits with a smile that almost made you consider your resignation. “Iced americano, extra shot.”

“You are a blessing,” he praised graciously. One sip of the liquid gold was enough to wake him up right away.

“Long night?”

“Yeah. You know how it took us hours to decide the wall colors for each floor in our building? Imagine doing that all over again, but for a superhero suit prototype.”

“But it’s just a suit this time, not fifty floors.”

“This isn’t just a suit, _____. It’s the suit of a man who’s going to save the world one day! A suit that everyone will lay their eyes on and judge me for my color choices.”

“You sound like a child.”

“An ambitious child, mind you.”

“Did you ultimately decide on a color?”

“Yes, two colors actually. Red and gold.”

“Wow, such a loud and loyal color choice.”

“Is it?” Your handsome boss pouted slightly while scanning his designs. “Seungmin said the same thing. Maybe I should change it -”

“No!” you interrupted for the sake of not wanting to look up Pantone’s thousands of shades of ruby and champagne. “Red and gold are perfect for you.”

Minho’s pouty lips melted into a proud smile. “If you believe so, then I trust you. Come take a look - what do you think of it overall?”

You walked around his ginormous custom-made walnut desk to peer over his shoulder. Minho could smell the familiar gardenia scent you wore for years and it immediately brought comfort to his panicking soul. Somehow your presence always calmed him down, no matter what stressful situation he was in. Maybe that’s why he wanted to have you around 24/7. How selfish of him.

Your couple minutes of silence were so agonizing that his nervous foot-tapping habit he told you about that he thought he got rid of in college broke through, which was your cue to answer.

“I like it. I like it a lot, actually,” you admitted honestly. “I would definitely feel safe if I saw you come to my rescue, although the helmet is a little concerning.”

“Concerning how?”

“Well, it has such a… A, uh… How do I put this politely? A dead expression?”

“‘Dead’ is a polite adjective to you?”

“I mean come on, Mr. Lee, there are two eyes and a flat line for the mouth where the corners curve downwards just slightly and it looks like you gave him little fangs. There’s not much life in the eyes, either.”

“They light up when the suit is on!”

“Maybe I’ll like it more when I see it in person?”

“The helmet is the only thing I’m confident about, so nothing and no one can change my mind,” he said stubbornly.

“I’m sure everyone will love it,” you reassured while smoothing out the stress wrinkles on his indigo shoulder pads. “When do you plan on starting the build?”

“In half an hour.”

“What!?” Minho nearly spit out his espresso at your yelping and the frantic way you sifted through your massive planner and scrolling through your emails on your phone at the same time. Oh, so that’s what he forgot to tell you! He knew something felt off. “B-B-But I didn’t get an email that the shipment arrived!”

“I called the company at five in the morning just as they opened and demanded an expedited shipping of all the materials and they’ll be arriving in half an hour.”

“But did the quality department approve of the materials? Or your design at least?”

“You do know I’m the CEO, right?” Minho smirked teasingly. “That’s business talk for ‘fuck Quality’.”

Minho stood up from his black velvet Chesterfield chair to escape your nagging and briskly walked away towards God-knows-where. Like an obedient, push-over puppy, you trailed closely behind with a light jog and all you could think about was how it was too early for your feet to be aching this badly.

“I don’t like the idea of this,” you said firmly.

“You never do. Loosen up a little, will ya?”

“I will not! I looked the other way when you decided on signing a contract to collaborate with that ugly luxury car brand, I agreed with the proposal of a new smartphone that totally flopped in the end, and I barely allowed the approval for the development of the new branch in Taiwan! All of those ideas are whatever, arbitrary even, but this? This puts you at the front line of danger, Mr. Lee! What if something goes wrong, or the material is compromised? What if these companies take you for a fool for not checking in with the quality department first? What if you’re setting yourself up to be sabotaged, huh?”

Minho pressed the down button on the elevator, ignoring your pleas. Even though all you do is nag and play by the rules, he knew you were only doing so because he didn’t bother to. In the end, you were just looking out for him, and he couldn’t appreciate you more.

His gives you what he thought was a reassuring smile. To you, it looked rather mischievous “Lucky for me that you’ll be there the whole time, right?”’

“What do you mean…?”

“I mean you’ll watch the entire suit being built while you work. Then you’ll see how safe it is. I need someone to double check me, anyways.”

“Mr. Lee, I don’t think I’m qualified for that.”

“Don’t be silly, of course you are!”

Your engineering experience went as far as Physics I and II classes with a teaspoon’s worth in basic circuitry, so if Minho thought that qualified you to double check his work, then you might have to question his PhD degree.

The elevator welcomed you both into its vacant container. The lowest level this elevator could reach with a single button was the basement, but if the right person (or the wrong person) were to dial the buttons in the order of 4-4-1-9, they would be taken nine floors below the basement to the rumored ‘Super Office’ (ten was too much because Minho didn’t like the feel of the heavy pressure and eight was such a silly number).

The steel doors opened right into his Super Office which he designed to be five times larger than his executive office so he had plenty of room for building up new car designs and bringing his super suits to life for both him and his partners. His successful designs that were once worn but are now retired were placed on mannequins and stored inside a tall glass box on display for him to admire.

You walked up to your favorite one, eyes sparkled adoringly at Seungmin’s first Spider-Man suit.

“You always loved the red and blue,” Minho noted behind you. “Still not a fan of the black one?”

“The black one is scary! No one wants a hero dressed in all black, like that color does not exude the feeling of safe.”

“Duly noted for his next suit.”

Beside Seungmin’s old spidey suit was an empty display case you assumed was meant for this final draft of Minho’s Iron Man suit. Surrounding the two glass cases were dozens and dozens of wood and plastic demos that didn’t work out in the end, but Minho didn’t have the heart to take them to the dumpster.

“Looks like the shipment arrived early!” Your mature but easy-going boss jogged up to the piles of wooden crates and packages that were laid out neatly in the center of his work space. Without much patience, he took off his indigo suit jacket, tossed it to the side like it wasn’t worth two thousand dollars (to which you caught before it hit the ground), and took the crowbar on top of the pile to open the cases with ease. Sheets of metals, different tools, and a cool welding and soldering set scattered along the concrete floor. Minho gave you an excited grin that mimicked a child upon opening gifts on Christmas. “Let the building commence!”

There wasn’t room for any argument, so you took a seat at his desk where he normally would sketch the designs and worked off of his desktop with a heavy feeling of defeat. At least watching the process would be cool, right?

Maybe cool wasn’t the right word. Or watching.

For the next three months, from sunrise to sunset, you spent your day nine floors below the surface for almost twelve hours a day being his little helper. From holding pieces of metal in place while he flame torched them together to feeding him take out because his hands were covered in oil, you did it all and God, if Minho didn’t give you a raise or at least some meal tickets to the executive cafeteria, you might just quit on the spot.

“Done.” With a heavy and exhausted sigh, Minho clapped his hands together and marveled at his nearly-finished product. “We’re done!!”

“What about the red and gold paint?”

“I can’t work on this anymore or I’ll implode. I’ll just take this to my car guy and he’ll paint it exactly how I want it.”

“Not really a self-made suit then, is it?” you dared to challenge your boss.

He pointed an accusing finger at you. “Shut your mouth and give me my food.”

You handed a slouching Minho his box of take-out and wooden chopsticks. While you had a perfectly comfortable ottoman he could have sat on right next to you, he remained on the cold concrete, probably too sore and worn out to even stand up, let alone walk to a cushioned seat. Minho was a man with personality and many faces, but his face of satisfactory upon completing projects was when he was the most handsome. For a while, you two just sat in silence, taking in every detail of the flawless iron suit while slurping noodles.

“So,” Minho began nervously. “What do you think?”

“It’s beautiful, Mr. Lee,” you say immediately.

“You mean it?”

For someone so intelligent and talented, it was a wonder how a man like him could be insecure about any of his creations.

“Absolutely,” you reassured. “Flawless. Is it fully programmed and everything?”

“Yup. I installed the software and artificial intelligence last week.”

“Sounds like the only thing you need to do is take it out for a spin.”

Minho hummed with approval. “... Can you do it for me?”

“What!? No!”

“I really don’t want to do it…”

“With all due respect, suck it up.”

“Isn’t it reasons like this why I hired you?”

“I was hired to be your secretary, not your lab rat.”

“To be fair, the job description was pretty vague.”

“Yeah, I definitely did not expect to be helping you construct a modern Knight in Shining Armor cosplay.” After wiping your mouth clean of all MSG and soy sauce, you tossed your dirty napkin in the trash bin that was a considerable distance away.

Minho followed suit, who was also able to get his napkin in the can. Then you tossed another napkin, and then him, and this went on until you were left to toss your boxes and chopsticks. The real challenge was tossing the plastic wraps of the fortune cookies.

“Whoever loses has to do whatever the other says,” Minho proposed.

Without hesitation, you nodded in agreement. “Fine, but I will not test that thing out if I lose.”

“Deal. Secretaries first.”

You did your best to crumple up and squish out any air that was left in the wrapped before whipping it like you were throwing the first pitch. The wrapper hit the rim of the can and fell to the side. But that’s ok, because there was no way your boss could even come close to -

“WOO!” Minho cheered, getting up from the floor while you were left slumped in the chair filled with defeat. Of course, whatever he wanted, he would get his way. “Man, I am super lucky today.”

“What the hell! Did you wrap it around a stone or something!?”

“Darling, I would never cheat ~”

“There’s no use in arguing. Just lay the consequences on me, boss.”

Minho scooted the ottoman closer - almost a little too close. Then, like a handsome little goldendoodle with his swooshy chocolate hair and sparkling eyes, he gazed up at you pleadingly before offering you your punishment.

Fear and flattery tickled your spine. “Spit it out.”

A grin followed. “You will accompany me to the ball next week.”

“The Children’s Charity Ball? The biggest charity ball of the century? The one where all the white-haired big shots attend with their dates who just barely turned eighteen?”

“The very same.”

“And you want me to be your date.”

“Yes.”

“Seems a bit lazy, doesn’t it?”

“Lazy how!?”

Not wanting him to see you blush, you began cleaning up the mess from the takeout. “Lazy as in why not find a real date? You know, someone you’ll have a good time with.”

“Hey, I always have a good time with you! And I’m doing you a favor if you think about it. If I wanted to bring anyone else, that would mean you’d have to flip through all of my contacts and have you choose the perfect date for me. So unless you want the extra overtime, I’ll expect to see you dressed to the nines?”

“Don’t you want to bring someone more suited for this role? Someone with much more finesse and elegance?” you said as you twirled dirty napkins in the air.

“If I’m being honest, I do not have the time nor do I want to put in the effort into bringing someone so bland.”

“Who says they’re bland? What if I pick out one of your supermodel friends or like a professor, or something?”

“All my supermodel friends like to toke up in bathrooms and what’s a professor going to do? Lecture me to death? _____, please, I am begging you - be my date? You know you and I are going to have a blast, I promise you. We always do when we’re together.”

A moment of silence passed while you shuddered in disgust. You couldn’t believe you were going to say this, but… “So what should I wear?”

“Yes! That’s the spirit! Wear anything besides velvet because that’s my fabric of choice.”

“Can you at least do the picking for me? We should at least match in the slightest.”

Minho let out an exaggerated sigh. “Oh, fine, I’ll do all the work.”

“You’re a pain in the ass, Mr. Lee.”

“It’s what I do best.”

After cleaning up the mess and a last quick polish on the Iron suit, the two of you took the elevator to the level below the basement where Minho parked his favorite fancy shmancy foreign sports car you couldn’t pronounce. In its shiny and spotless all-white glory sat his coup in his executive parking spot where no other car or person was in sight.

“Quite showy for you, isn’t it?” you accused your normally toned-down boss.

“I had a hunch that today was going to be the day we finished, and low and behold, we did. Soojung the Spyder always brings me good luck,” he patted and praised his prized roadster.

The distance from the office to your apartment was a solid forty-five minutes away by public transportation, right on the edge of being not too far, but not close enough, but by car it was only twenty-five minutes. During your first couple of years with the company, you enjoyed the lonely rides and getting lost with your thoughts, but there were moments you got so lost that you missed your stop a couple too many times and sometimes the winter made waiting outside so unbearable. It wasn’t until you started to clock in tons of overtime that Minho was nice enough to drive you home from then on.

“C’mon, _____, just get in the car,” Minho begged for the twelfth time, holding the passenger door open with one hand and an umbrella with the other. He parked his car illegally right in front of the bus stop that so many other employees used. Why did it matter that you were using it while it was thunderstorming and past 10:00 PM? “The heat is escaping the longer we argue.”

“It’s fine! I don’t live too far away,” you lied. “Please go home, Mr. Lee, your puppy must be worried sick.”

“Hazelnut can wait, but I can’t. As your boss, I order you to get in my car!” Though the statement was serious with his booming voice, his pouty lips made it much less intimidating.

“With all due respect, I have clocked out for the day and I don’t have to listen to you until 7:00 am tomorrow.”

“I can’t believe you’re making me break the law.”

“What do you mean?”

The blinding lights of the bus flashed irregularly, a polite way of telling Minho to get the fuck out of the way. But he didn’t move in the slightest. He patiently waited for you by the passenger door, not moving a muscle and looking like a car model dressed in his long, warm and tan pea coat. The patient and smug look on his face let you know he wasn’t playing around and that he’d dare tell the bus to wait until you got in.

“Mr. Lee, get out of the way!”

“Not until you’re in my car,” he shook his head stubbornly. “The bus is getting closer ~”

Your anxiousness hiked up exponentially when the driver held the horn long and loudly, not looking like they had much patience in them and indicating that they were very, very annoyed. For the sake of not inconveniencing the butt-load of passengers and the driver and securing your job, you hurried into his car, cursing up a storm that rivaled the one outside. A triumphant and smirking Minho followed suit and sped away at a dangerous speed, perhaps breaking a second law that night. For those twenty-five minutes (or maybe it was fifteen with Minho’s driving), the car was silent because your reckless boss focused on cutting every civilian off on the highway and you were too busy covering your eyes in fear.

“You were so dramatic back then,” Minho snickered at the seemingly-harmless memory.

“Me!? You were the one who parked in front of a bus stop and begged me to get in!”

“You were the one who wouldn’t get in the damn car!”

“How does it look to on-lookers that a secretary is getting into her boss’s car!?”

“It’s not like anyone knows our relationship.”

“Oh please, someone like you driving a beautiful shiny car picking up sad ol’ me at the bus stop - of course on-lookers may not know me and my relationship to you, but they definitely know who you are at the very least.”

“I could not give more than zero fucks of what people think.”

“Yes, that much is clear.”

“_____, you can’t always worry about what everyone thinks ~”

You sighed loudly, as if you’d explained this to him a thousand times already. “Worrying is the basis of my entire title, Mr. Lee.”

“And will you drop the ‘Mr. Lee’ once and for all? We’re the same age!”

“Same age, but different titles and a massive pay gap. You and I are not equals.”

Minho reached over to mess up your hair. “You’re so formal, it’s so cute!”

“Ah, stop it! You’re swerving!!”

Minho had dropped you off and walked you up to your apartment more times than you can count, but you don’t think you’ll ever get over the embarrassment of your humble abode. Of course you’ve visited his mansion just as many times, since you participated in the designing of it, and him having to see such a sad home in comparison is, well, terrifying each and every time.

“Ok, bye,” you dismissed quickly.

A handsome laugh escaped your handsome boss’s lips. “Still hate having me so close to your home? You know, it’s quite rude you’ve never invited me in and yet you’ve been in mine hundreds of times!”

“My home doesn’t have marble statues or glass refrigerators and I can’t hire you to redesign the interior.”

“You know I don’t care about that stuff.”

“But I do!”

His tongue tisked disappointedly. “What a shame. I thought we were friends.”

“We are, but friends don’t break sensitive boundaries.”

He passively waved you off. “Fine, fine. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Bright and early.”

“Excellent. I have one request.”

It was your turn to pout. What could he possibly want this time? “Already? At least let me sleep peacefully.”

“It’s nothing complicated, I promise! In fact, it’ll save you thirty minutes. Don’t bring me my coffee tomorrow.”

“Don’t? Are you on a caffeine cleanse again? You know how badly that went last time - you barely lasted two days and you fired someone, to which I had to convince you for forty minutes to hire them back.”

“No, not a cleanse. Just come in a bit earlier. Let’s get coffee together.”

“Do you have time for that?” Knowing how packed Minho’s schedule was in the mornings, you wondered his sanity for making time just so the two of you could grab a cup.

“I’ll make time. Actually, you’ll make time. Can you pencil us in for some coffee?”

“U-Uh, yeah!” With nervous and shaky hands, you pulled out your work phone and squeezed in half an hour of coffee time. “Done.”

“Perfect. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Don’t be reckless driving home.”

“No promises.”

Before going into your apartment complex, you watched Minho wave goodbye before blasting music with a deep bass and speeding off, leaving a smokey trail from burning rubber.

“I hate him,” you smiled to yourself.

“I hate him,” you said to yourself upon walking into Minho’s office.

Like an artificially intelligent robot that didn’t know of its purpose, Minho dressed in his Iron suit walked around his office doing regular office things, like dusting the blinds and tidying up loose papers on his desk. It was a little difficult to do smaller tasks with his stiff and massive iron hands, so you’re not entirely sure what your boss was doing.

“G’morning!” he greeted cheerfully. “Just taking this baby out on a test drive.”

You had just noticed the paint job was completed on the suit which meant that it was good to go. However, you didn’t think this was the ideal way to ‘test drive’ a superhero suit.

“Good morning, Mr. Lee. Is this really the right way to test drive?”

“I got too excited when my car guy told me it was done. He did it so quickly and precisely, too. Look, he even engraved it with my signature! She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”

“Yes, very shiny. The gold and red are much prettier than I imagined.”

“Right!? Not too Gryffindor-y, is it?”

“Not at all,” you said sincerely. “Do you want to get coffee now? We should hurry, you have a conference call at 8:00.”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Minho followed you to the door with a trail of heavy iron steps. You turned around quickly and gave him an incredulous look, one he’s seen much too often. “I don’t want coffee anymore.”

“Why not!?”

“I’m not going out in public with you wearing that thing! You look ridiculous!”

“That’s so rude of you to say about my pride and joy! This also took me thirty minutes to put on!”

“Mr. Lee, we’re just getting coffee!”

“You are not fun at all.”

It took only five minutes to get your boss stumbling out of the suit because the button for the release was hidden under a metal panel on his wrist, but at least it was painless.

“I thought you didn’t want to reveal Iron Man until you tested it and got your seal of approval?” you asked the child-like man.

“That’s still the plan, but I’m just so excited! I think we should test it tonight.”

“Tonight? Already?”

“Yup, and I need you here with me in case I die, or something.”

“And to think I was gonna relax and take a bubble bath tonight.”

“It won’t take long, I promise.”

“I’ll believe it when I drop my bath bomb in my tub.”

In your whole time working here, you’ve spent more time together with Minho at both the office and at his home than working alone. The ratio was about seventy-five percent at the office, fifteen percent at his home, and ten percent miscellaneous, like going to business lunches or simple walks to the coffee shop like today. The long work hours were brutal on your feet and your social life, but the money was way too good to pass. You swore you broke the world record for ‘quickest payment of student debt’ with your hard work.

To anyone else, your job sounded so unappealing that no amount of money could ever convince them to do what you’re doing. ‘So brave’, they tell you, but it’s not that you’re brave, it’s that you’re loyal and as much as you hate to say it, you had the best boss. Yes, he’s a little goofy and yes, maybe a bit naive because he’s so young, but he treated you like you’re his equal and not someone so beneath him who takes all of his notes and takes his laundry to be dry cleaned. Plus when he compensated for your time so handsomely, how could you hate your job? Every day was new and exciting when you were with Minho.

The day went along as normal, from conference calls to lunch and finishing the day with an interview with the press. The very second everyone clocked out at 5:00 pm, you followed a speedy boss to wherever he led you.

“Are we going to test it out now?”

“No, silly, it’s still too bright out! We have to test it once the sun sets.”

You knew that sounded too good to be true. You held a light jog in order to keep up with him. “Where are we going then?”

He turned and gave you a suspicious grin. “Shopping!”

“For what!?”

“You and I need matching outfits for the charity ball, remember?”

“You know, I was just kidding when I said that… We don’t have to match…” The last thing you want is for someone to mistake you as your boss’s date instead of his secretary, but to be fair you don’t know many guests going that bring anyone that isn’t a date, so you kind of shot yourself in the foot when you didn’t make that shot into the trash bin.

“We are matching and I am not arguing with you.”

A defeated sigh escaped your lips before entering the backseat of Minho’s car where his driver would take us anywhere he pleased. He told him a cross section that sounded familiar, but not enough for you to guess where you’re going, so from here on out until you were home taking a hot bath, the rest of today would be a surprise.

The car stopped in front of a glossy black DIOR building. You expected nothing less from Minho.

“You would pick Dior,” you scoffed, completely amazed at how someone so rich could have so much brand loyalty to one company.

“Hey, they are consistent and beautifully crafted, don’t judge me.”

“Mr. Lee and Lovely _____!” An older, graceful lady came running to greet both of you with a warm smile dressed in a hot red shade of lipstick. You recognized her voice to be the owner from all the times you called to ask about any pieces Minho could reserve before they hit the runway and were snatched up by the ‘I Have Daddy’s Credit Card and Inheritance’ private-school boys. This was your first time seeing her in person and her calming voice matched her mature appearance perfectly. “This piece has been waiting for you ~”

“I can’t wait, Auntie,” he smiled back graciously like an obedient nephew rewarded with cookies.

She led the two of you to the very back where the private dressing and tailoring area was, where the mirrors went from the floor to the ceiling. The store owner walked in with Minho’s fabric of choice, a velvet jacket with crisp black pants and a white button-up that had the slightest sheen of silver from metallic strands woven into the shirt fabric. In the shadows, one would think the velvet was black, but in the light or at certain angles, there was the slightest sheen to it that showed the darkest shades of indigo and green, like an oil slick. You couldn’t believe the amount of detail in the velvet that your eyes looked like they were popping out of your sockets.

Your boss was so eager to try it on that he was taking off his pants before you were warned. Quickly you turned around and shut your eyes, pretending that you didn’t see his KakaoTalk-patterned boxer briefs.

“M-M-Mr. Lee! At least warn me if you’re going to strip!!”

“Sorry ~” he apologized unapologetically.

A couple of zips and rustling of fabrics later, Minho tapped your shoulder to turn around. Your eyes bulged out of their sockets again while looking at your boss dressed in a suit that was clearly made for him and him only. It didn’t look like any tailoring was needed at all! He looked like he walked right off the runway. There had to be some enchantment spell in the fabric because you swear you’ve never seen any man more handsome before this moment.

“I take it you like it?” Minho teased.

Your cheeks tickled with red when he caught you staring. “You look amazing as usual, Mr. Lee.”

“You think so?” You knew so. “It’s not too flashy, is it?”

“Not at all. I think you have the perfect amount of flash. How does it feel?”

“Like a glove. It’s already perfectly tailored!”

“I know your measurements by heart, my dear,” Auntie bragged. “Of course I had it ready to go already.”

“You’re the best.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek and a tight hug. “What would I be without you?”

“Not GQ’s best dressed man under thirty, that’s for sure.”

“Could you do me another favor? Do you perhaps have something for _____ to match? We have a charity ball next weekend.”

“Mr. Lee, this is really unnecessary -”

“I know exactly what to pull.”

Before you could object, Auntie ran to the back of the store where all the hidden inventory was held. You glared at your cheeky boss, still dressed in his sexy outfit and it was hard to keep your glare when he looked so damn good, that handsome bastard.

“I’m not wearing whatever she brings out.”

“You will and you’ll look great and we will buy it, so don’t embarrass me.”

“Embarrass you!? I am not your doll!”

“I’ve got it!”

Both you and Minho whipped your heads to see Auntie running in with a blacker than black satin and silky outfit that was simple but elegant. Nervous goosebumps spread through your arms and straight to your wallet. You already knew this was going to be the most expensive outfit you’ve ever worn.

“It’s beautiful,” you gasped so slightly.

“Try it on!”

Minho followed Auntie out of the dressing room but not before shooting you a triumphant wink. I mean, who were you to deny your boss and the store owner, right? So with ease, you put on the cooling fabric that clung to your body in all the right spots. The mirror did all justice and perhaps it was a magical mirror that Dior spent millions on to convince their customers to buy everything because damn, you look hot! With your face as red as Minho’s Corvette, you presented the outfit to the two judges.

“Oh, it fits perfectly!” Auntie gushed with wide eyes.

Minho stayed silent with his mouth ajar and eyes scanning you up and down like you were a precious gem discovered in a deep cave beyond a waterfall. It was hard to differentiate between feeling flattered and feeling like object, but at least you were a desired object, right?

“You look amazing,” Minho admitted sincerely, no longer looking at you with awe and rather content.

“Really? I look ok?”

His handsome smile shined brightly at you. Whether you were dressed in your formal work clothes that screamed ‘absolute virgin’ or you were head-to-toe in Dior, you were never just ‘ok’. You always had the attention of everyone in the room once you walked in, especially his. You were always stunning, no matter what. Validation from your boss always came easy and calmed you quickly because he only had eyes for you.

“You look just fine,” he lied, because ‘fine’ didn’t come close to how you looked to him.

“We’ll be the best dressed at the ball, huh?”

“Absolutely.”

The car ride home was quiet other than the trot music playing on the radio from the driver’s playlist. Minho seemed as cool as a cucumber, but you were at the edge of your seat feeling a bit awkward and ugh, unintentionally sweaty. Compliments from any man was one thing, but coming from your boss? A whole different level of weird, especially if they weren’t work related! What did ‘you look just fine’ even mean!? Was that a good thing? Were you too average-looking? Whatever it was, from now until you fall asleep at ungodly hours, those words were going to circulate your thoughts, perhaps haunt you for days.

At exactly 7:03 pm, just as the sun set below the horizon revealing the indigo night sky, the driver pulled up to the back entrance of the building that led to a secret elevator that would take you straight to the underground office after punching in the code. A giggling and grinning Minho was the first to hop out of the car and ran towards the door.

“Mr. Lee, hold on!” you whined as you struggled to get out of the tall car.

“Hurry up, _____! Now’s the perfect time to earn that OT!”

“This time-and-a-half pay better be worth it…”

Upon entering the elevator, you were ready to punch in the 4419 code, but Minho had already pressed the button to the top level, which led to the roof slash helipad.

“Why are we going up?”

“We can’t test the suit inside, silly. Seungmin came by earlier to pick up his suit after I recalibrated it last night and I asked him to take the suit to the roof.”

“How, that thing weighs like a ton!”

“Not when you’re wearing it.”

“You let him wear it before you test drove it!? Mr. Lee, that’s extremely reckless!”

“Relax, I trusted he wouldn’t mess anything up, and look! It’s right there!”

The glass elevator made a slow stop to reveal the red and gold suit standing proudly in the center of the helipad. As soon as the doors panned open, Minho handed you his suitcase before running out and tossing his blazer onto the floor before hastily stepping into the suit.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” he said, running back to your frazzled state. He took the leather suitcase from your hands and popped it open so he could give you a glass tablet. “This is for you.”

You looked at the shiny slab of glass with wonder. “What is it?”

“It’s like a control center. You’ll see what I see in terms of my stats and where I am in the city. If anything goes wrong, like say the jets give out, I need you to send a command to manually turn on the back-ups.”

“And what code is that?”

“Not important, we’ll study those later.”

“Later!? What if something happens tonight!?”

“Nothing will happen I promise, I’ll see you in a bit ~!” his cheering faded away the further he ran from you and to his beloved suit.

There was no use in fighting your boss, so you did as you were told and touched the tablet to reveal the control panel. It was black for a few moments before the screen showed your tiny self off in the distance looking down at the tablet which meant that Minho was able to put on and turn on the suit super quickly without any problems.

“What do you see?” he asked you through the speakers of the tablet from his built-in microphone in the helmet.

“I see me in the distance, the battery level of the suit, and all other weird liquids and commodities at one hundred percent.”

“Perfect!”

You turned to look at your boss who was stretching and feeling out the suit as if this wasn’t his 50th time wearing it. Still, he looked so excited and proud of his hard work, it was hard to tease him about how childish he was, even if he was trying out his yoga poses he just learned.

“How does it feel?”

“It feels incredible! Totally indescribable now that I’m out in the open. And it’s surprisingly lightweight.”

“How were you able to make it feel light with all that metal?”

“I don’t know, if I’m being honest…”

You rolled your eyes. “The work of a genius, huh?”

“You’ve got that right. Are we ready to take off?”

“I believe so. Are you ready to take off?”

“More than I’ll ever be, baby!!”

Before you knew it, you saw the camera’s view on the screen wobble and turn towards the edge of the building. Terrified, you saw your child-like boss get a running start before he dove off the edge and into the sea of the city.

In a panic, you ran and took a peak over the edge, hoping the jets or whatever kept the suit flying would operate properly and leave you without any worries. At first, Minho was but a dark red speck falling beneath the shadows, but a second later, he came flying up at lighting speed doing tricks and flips with ease and whooping loudly, as any normal CEO of a software company slash wannabe superhero would do. You could hear him giggling through your tablet, and like a spectator watching the most spectacular aerial performance, you watched him with a smile on your lips.

After his solo, he glided back down to you and hovered beyond the edge just at your eye level. You couldn’t see any features behind the glass of his eyes so you were left awkwardly staring at his expressionless helmet with those signature weird fangs. After all you and Minho have been through together, even with an idea like this being so ridiculously obscure, he could always rely on you to support him no matter what. He saw how your eyes sparkled with wonderment and how your cheeks dusted a soft pink and it was then that he knew you would stay by his side for even more ridiculous shenanigans to come.

He would never let you leave, anyways. Even in another lifetime, he’d have you by his side forever.

“How cool do I look right now?” he asked. His voice sounded deeper and electronic through the helmet, like he was a robot or had his voice programmed through a phone like Siri. You imagined an idea like that was how Minho planned on becoming immortal one day.

You raised a brow. “You look kind of… scary?”

“Scary!? Why?”

“I don’t know, if I saw a flying robot come at me at rocket speed, I think I’d be terrified!”

“Well, if I come to your rescue, at least you’ll know it’s me.”

“I suppose. So what are you going to do now? Throw a reveal event? Press conference, perhaps?”

“That, or wait for a Demon-Level threat to pass through our city. I don’t know, whichever comes first.” Minho shrugged nonchalantly. “Wanna see something cool?”

Before you could agree, Minho held his palm to the sky before a neon blue blast shot out of it, disappearing into God-knows-where. You could feel the heat from the beam of light radiated around you and fear sparked inside your chest.

“What the hell was that!?” you exclaimed.

“Isn’t that so cool!? Gonna hit some suckers and fry them up like bacon!” Your boss blindly shot another beam of light into the sky and you prayed to someone out there that no planes would disintegrate in the process.

“Hey, careful! What if you hit a satellite or something!” In the process of grabbing Minho’s iron hand so he’d stop being so reckless, you burned yourself upon touching the hot metal opening like a total dumb ass and yanked your hand back. “Ah!!”

“Oh, shit.”

Quickly and haphazardly, Minho landed back on the helipad and climbed out of the iron suit. In the process of running back to your aid, he untied his black silk necktie to use as a temporary band aid on your scalding palm. Gingerly, his cold hands took yours and ran a thumb over the scarring semicircle.

“Ah ah ah stop!!” you cried with tears of pain and embarrassment streaming down your cheeks.

“Sorry! Here,” Minho wrapped his tie around your palm and tied it tightly. The pure silk felt cooling against the burn and soon your tears stopped and you couldn’t do anything else besides sniffle. “Let’s go back inside. My office has a first aid kit.”

Your mumbling and cursing boss led you back to his office with urgency, blaming himself for being so stupid and recklessly playing with what could be considered a weapon of mass destruction. And now his favorite person, the one person who believed in his iron suit, was hurt in the process, pouting cutely and holding your burned hand like you were an injured puppy. This was one of his greatest fears upon completing this project.

You sat on his sapphire blue velvet couch with the bronze-gilded frame that looked like it belonged in the Ravenclaw common room trying to alleviate the pain of the burn in Minho’s ice bucket (for his white wine, of course) while he shifted through his drawers to find the first aid kit you gave him a couple years ago.

“Do you remember when you got this for me?” he asked as soon as he pulled it out from the bottom drawer. You shook your head, too lightheaded and in too much pain to remember. He sat next to you and began to tell the old story while patching you up. “It was your third year working here, but my first day as CEO when I took over for my Dad. I got so many paper cuts from all the paperwork I had to read and sign and I got a massive headache afterwards and I just wanted to eat something because all I had that day was an iced americano. It was so late and by the time I was finished, it was maybe 7:00pm -”

“8:00 pm,” you corrected in between sniffles.

“Ah, so you do remember! At 8:00pm, you waltzed into my office wearing your comfiest clothes with a bag of take-out in one hand and the first aid kit with a million bandaids and Tylenol in the other. That night, you sat in my office and helped patch up my fingers, fed me lo mein, and helped me with the rest of the paperwork for two hours. I thought of you as my guardian angel since that day and vowed to myself that no matter what, you and I would stick by each other’s side and be the dynamic duo that we are forever. Oh, how the tables have turned tonight. Now I’m the one patching you up.”

Minho had finished wrapping your palm at the end of his story. Something about his proclamation didn’t sit right with you. Something about staying here forever, clocking in massive amounts of overtime and being subservient to the same men sounded like your own personal hell.

“I can’t be your secretary forever, Mr. Lee.”

“I know,” he admitted. “But I don’t have to think about that for quite some time, right?”

“Maybe.”

“I hate change, you know.”

“I, more than anyone else, know that.”

Your handsome boss chuckled lightly at the heavy subject. His curly coffe hair covered his eyes as he looked down at your hand and traced small shapes on the bandaid. You knew that he knew you didn’t want to stay here forever, and he couldn’t blame you, but it didn’t make the thought of you leaving any less heartbreaking.

“Does it feel any better?”

“Much better,” you said truthfully as the cooling gel felt like a magical potion.

“This first aid kit is the only practical gift I’ve ever received. All others are for the aesthetic.”

“Do you prefer practical gifts, Mr. Lee?”

“Of course! The fuck am I going to do with a VVS diamond-encrusted chain?”

“Flex on all the other young CEOs?”

“And partake in their pissing contest? No, thank you.”

“You’re telling me you won’t be doing that this weekend at the Charity Ball?”

“When I have you next to me, I don’t need VVS diamonds,” Minho grinned flirtatiously.

You hit his arm with your good hand and he flinched upon his correct prediction. “I am not an accessory!”

“Of course not! You are my beloved intelligent sidekick that all other big wigs tell me they wished they had! But when you look like that, it’s bonus points ~”

“Ugh, your kind are all the same!” you scoffed, trying to collect your things and storm out the door.

“It’s a compliment!” he teased. Minho managed to chase after you and grab your things to carry to his car so he could drive you home for the 1106th time.

After a long and tiring rest of the week helping your boss do target practicing with the iron suit on, Saturday had arrived and now you had the honor of accompanying said-boss to a Big Dick contest disguised as a Charity Ball. The main event was for the sake of the children of course, but the real show was to see who was wearing what designer with what accessories and who pulled up in the fanciest sports car with the youngest and sexiest date in their arms. You were so, so lucky to be working for someone who liked to stay low key, despite always being the center of attention.

“Why are you so nervous?” Minho teased, nudging your arm as you both walked up to the front doors of the venue. “This isn’t the first time you’ve played as my date.”

“I know, but it doesn’t get any easier,” you admitted, shyly covering yourself from the much-more revealing outfit now that it was tailored to fit.

“You and I look fine! Muted colors, minimal diamonds, low key attitudes - we’re perfect! No one will even notice we’re here.”

That was a complete lie, because the second you walked in, a swarm of gossip columnists and magazine writers circled around the two of you, bombarding you both with the same questions you were so used to.

“Mr. Lee, who are you wearing?”

“Mr. Lee, who’s your lovely date?”

“Mr. Lee, what’s the best way to lock in that your date will go home with you?”

Minho raised his hand slightly and all that could be heard were the cameras clicking. God, the power he has…

“Dior, a close friend, and be so irresistible that they can’t say no.”

Without another word, he gently took your bandaged hand and led you out of the circle of gossipers who were silent in awe. With your free hand, you covered up your ugly laughing.

“You’re such a cornball!” you said in between a fit of giggles.

“An irresistible cornball, at least. Now, walk me through all these people again?”

Minho was young and when it came to networking, he still had the mentality of being the CEO’s son rather than the CEO. That meant that Minho didn’t care much in remembering other CEO’s names and relied on you to remind him of all the people he should have remembered three years ago. It was a consistent hour of introductions and small talk about future goals, collaborations, and golfing, all of which you were able to expertly tune out while sipping prosecco and snacking on caviar tarts. Years of experience thankfully made these events easier.

“Did you practice your speech for your donation?” you reminded Minho after taking a seat at the prestigious Table 2. Since the company was one of the Charity Ball’s biggest sponsors, the CEOs were always invited to say some manufactured speech.

“Yeah. I even practiced it in the shower. Hopefully I get the charity organization correct this time.”

“It’s amazing how you even got this far.”

The Charity Ball should have been named See Who Can Donate the Most Money Ball because every speech given by a CEO of some company tried to out-do each other. Luckily, your company’s speeches were always last and your touch of humanity written on paper always had the audience in awe with the Minho’s compassion. To pass the time, you and Minho played rock-paper-scissors and whomever lost had to drink champagne. Let’s just say Minho ended up having the infamous Asian Glow.

His face was still blushy by the time it was his turn and you almost felt bad because the pictures with the flash turned on probably wouldn’t be so flattering in the magazines, but that wouldn’t matter because he still looks like the most stunning man in the room. All eyes were on him as he made his speech, but he had his eyes on you. Probably because he would piss his pants if he saw how many people were looking at him. You gave him two thumbs up for encouragement.

“It is the greatest honor to be here and giving a speech for the third year in a row. Children are the source and future for a better world, and it is our duty to -”

You blanked out for most of it since you wrote it. It was hard to focus anyways when his eyes were so piercing, so you averted his gaze and counted the number of peppercorns on his unfinished steak. At an alarming fifty-three, you glanced around the gallery to see if anyone was actually paying attention. Many, if not all, of the guests around your age were paying attention with dreamy eyes and pouty lips, all wishing they were in your position tonight. Some even dared to make eye contact with you as if to say, ‘how DARE you NOT pay attention to the sexiest man alive!?’ The older, more powerful guests seemed genuinely interested in the amount Minho was donating and the older dates seemed to care more about their reflection on the back of a spoon.

The fattest check with a bunch of zeros was walked onto the stage. A standing ovation was in order of course, and you conformed with the crowd, even though applause always made Minho visibly uncomfortable.

“He throws a big, fat check to charity and yet he still doesn’t like the attention, huh?”

As the clapping died down and the noise faded into the smooth hum of the live piano and jazz music, you turned to face the owner of a familiar sly voice. The man that stood before you was the famous doctor slash art collector slash playboy who you’ve come to know after attending all of these flashy events.

You smiled slyly at the man. “If it isn’t GQ’s Bachelor of the Month, Dr. Park Seonghwa.”

The raven-haired man gave you his signature smirk. Then he took your hand and kissed it tenderly like the prince he is. “Lovely _____, pleasure to see you as always.”

“Have you been doing that to all the other guests you frequent at these events?”

“Of course not! Just the beautiful ones.”

You let out a loud scoff. “You and your way with words.”

“Are they enough to convince you to finally go out to dinner with me?”

“Not quite.”

Seonghwa sighed tiredly and dropped his head as if this was the first time you’ve rejected him. Guess every time felt like the first time. The handsome raven held his hand out to you. “If not dinner, how about a dance?”

Hesitantly, you searched for your boss like you were trying to sneak away from a parent. He was busy shaking hands and catching up with The Important People’s Club, so you didn’t think one dance would hurt, though once you feed a dog a treat, he’ll be begging for more forever.

You took his hand. “One dance.”

“Five.”

“One.”

“Three?”

“Dr. Park!”

“What!? Ok, fine, one dance, unless you’re really feeling it and then we’ll dance some more.”

“Maybe in another lifetime, Dr. Park.”

The young doctor led you to the dance floor before you could object further. For someone not-so-smooth with pick-up lines, he was definitely smooth with his moves. With one gentle hand on your waist and the other holding your hand, you two glide around the white tiles like the Royalty of the ball, and truly, for a few moments, it really felt like you were the star of this fairy tale.

Seonghwa let out a tired sigh. “Intelligent, beautiful, loyal, and good at dancing? How are you so good at everything?”

“Stop that.”

“I mean it! Yet no man swept you off your feet.”

“Just because I won’t say yes to you, doesn’t mean I’m not waiting for that special someone.”

Seonghwa held your hand up high and made you do a little twirl. “You might be waiting for a while, beautiful.”

“Why do you say that?”

“With Mr. Minho by your side twenty-five hours eight days a week, there is no man that has the courage to come in between such a strong relationship.”

“Even you?” you challenged.

“Even I. Unless you want me to -”

“Nope.”

“Ice cold heart as always…”

Song number one melted into song number two and it passed you both as you continued to discuss the hot topic of why you’re still single. It’s a conversation topic that you thought was reserved for nosy family members for you to brush off, but coming from another man who has begged for your number since you both met really put your love life into perspective. Perhaps you were too loyal to your boss…

While engulfed in the heated debate, Minho was desperately searching for his right hand where he thought you’d be - either at your seat or by the bar, but you were at neither. After receiving his order from the bar, he let the expensive gold liquid over ice flooded through his bloodstream, which led him to a group of gawking gossipers whining and gazing at the dance floor. What was all the hype about?

The sight of you in the arms of the world’s most arrogant doctor didn’t sit too well with him. The scene made him see green.

“You’re such a liar!” Minho heard you laugh aloud. “I did NOT give you so-called bedroom eyes at Yuta’s house warming!”

“You’re telling me you weren’t eyeing me up and down like a barbecued piece of pork belly dipped in sesame oil?”

“That’s because you had sesame oil on your white shirt!”

“Excuses, excuses.”

Minho took another sip of his golden drink before putting it down haphazardly and waltzing towards the dancing couple. To onlookers, this scene looked like it was straight out of those cheesy love triangle dramas. The gossipy gals wondered - would Minho punch Seonghwa? Would he grab your hand harshly and drag you away to scold you and tell you how much he cared about you? Would he kiss you!?

You saw your uncharacteristically stern-looking boss approaching, and even though you’re unsure of his intentions, you still smiled brightly, as you always did whenever you saw him. Minho lightened his heavy, angry steps. Even with another man by your side, you still looked at him. How could he be mad at you?

“Hello, Mr. Minho,” Seonghwa greeted, holding out a hand for him to shake. You knew your boss wasn’t the biggest fan of Seonghwa, but he politely returned the gesture anyways. Somehow you felt your heart beating in your throat - the tension on the dance floor was too high, too powerful, and you were but an awkward and nervous secretary standing on the side while two powerful men duked it out.

“Dr. Seonghwa, nice to see you again.” Minho was good at lying, but his lies never passed you. The amount of discomfort knitted in his eyebrows almost made you snicker. “Long nights at the hospital still?”

“As always, but at least it’s rewarding and enjoyable. How are your long nights at the office?”

“Can’t get enough of them, right, _____?”

“What? You’re still doing that much overtime?” Seonghwa asked worriedly. Now, was he worried because you were overworking yourself or was he worried because you were spending so much time with a man that wasn’t him?

You shrugged unapologetically. “I love that overtime pay.”

“_____, that’s not good for your health -”

“I tell them that all the time,” Minho interrupted defensively. He was always like this whenever anyone questioned the amount of work you had. To you, it was not much of a burden at all, but to anyone else, they couldn’t fathom your work hours but if they saw your paycheck, maybe they’d understand. Even your boss felt bad whenever your friends blamed him, but no matter how much he tried to convince you of a normal 40-hour work week, the duties of being his secretary never added up to just that. Therefore, your boss always felt the need to defend you and him for the sake of making sure you weren’t portrayed as his slave. “But you’re just so stubborn, aren’t you?”

“Only because it’s you, Mr. Lee,” you said like you’re reading a script. Somehow that doesn’t translate through the ears of the two powerful men in front of you, as your boss smiled triumphantly and Seonghwa couldn’t help but shake his head.

“If you ever want to take me up on that date, Lovely _____, you know who to call.” The most handsome man who’s ever flirted with you took your hand gently and planted a sweet, soft kiss that sent little tingles all up your arm. You don’t think you’ll ever reciprocate his feelings, but the feeling of being desired and wanted by a man really kicked up your ego and really made you think - when was the last time you ever liked someone, or someone ever liked you?

Park Seonghwa disappeared into the crowd and perhaps left the Charity Ball all together. Until next time.

Your boss turned to face you, whose stern face quickly melted into innocence as he knew what was coming by the look on your annoyed expression. “What?”

“What was that all about?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

You shook your head and mumbled under your breath, “Ugh, you are unbelievable, Mr. Lee.”

As you tried to escape, the desperate man caught your hand. “Wait, where are you going?”

“Away from you for just five minutes, can you let me do that?” you snapped in a hushed volume. “Or do you need to watch over me and speak on my behalf, since you’re my Father apparently!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to act like that.”

“You say that every time, especially when I’m talking to another man and even more-so when I’m talking to Dr. Park. When will your sorries mean something?”

“You know I get protective over you.”

“Again, you are not my Father!”

“I know, but -”

All of the attention that was once focused on the handsome CEO and his secretary shifted to the glass ceiling that was now shattered to pieces upon the force of some dozens of masked strangers dressed in all black. Minho instinctively, though harshly, forced you down so he could hover over you so none of the glass hit you. What followed seemed to be too numbing, as all of the stimuli in the banquet hall was too much to handle.

“Get down,” Minho instructed while pushing you under one of the tables. “Don’t move until I come back.”

“Wait, but where are you -”

“I’ll be back in ten minutes!”

“Mr. Lee!”

Of course, he didn’t listen, as Mr. Lee always did what he wanted, right? Which would normally annoy the fuck out of you, but who has the time to panic about what your boss was up to when you’re stranded under the table and shrouded by cheap table cloth linen?

Since those people had invaded and fallen from the sky, you noticed that no gunshots or any sort of violence outside of melee were heard. No purpose of the attack is even known yet, but the signs were promising, until the famous alarm was heard throughout the whole town.

“Threat level: Dragon. Please stay inside until all threats have been cleared. Threat level: Dragon. Please stay inside until -”

“Ah, yes, the richest of the rich gather here today to donate the smallest percentage of their some billions of dollars to charity,” a booming voice tisked through a microphone. “Do you feel good about your good deed of the year? Are you proud of yourselves?”

For some unknown reason, the voice paused, as if waiting for an answer or a reaction from the people. Nothing was heard besides shrill screaming and crying, which was probably what the wannabe-vigilante wanted. For the first time, you peaked through the slits of the table cloth. At the stage where Minho gave his speech was a now-broken stage with the foot of a giant robot through it. It was a very top-heavy robot that looked like it had a large cavity in its belly, whose odd shape probably served some weird purpose unknown to everyone.

“Perhaps you’ll be proud of your donations for once when we capture you all and milk you of your every last penny!” The man laughed evilly at the head of the robot. “Down with the rich!”

“Down with the rich!” his people cheered in unison.

The oddly political turn of events made the scene less jarring - it seemed like an over-exaggeration of townspeople coming together to fight for higher taxing of the rich. Then you were reminded of the Dragon-level threat by how the minions loaded up the richies with a gun pointed to their heads and the complex mechanism that loaded them up to the belly of the robot. Somewhere among the mass of people you saw Seonghwa in between another surgeon and a senior engineer at Tesla before he disappeared behind the walls of metal.

“Hey, I found another one!” someone yelled close by. “Under Table 2!”

Shit. “Fuck.”

Perhaps all those years of advance self defense classes that Minho’s father enrolled you in would come to good use this time.

By your glamorously-strapped heel, one of the masked men dragged you out from under the table. There was no use in struggling, and the man seemed quite satisfied with how you complied.

“Let’s go, darling.”

With your free foot, you dug the pointy end of the studded heel into his groin. Luckily, you can only ever imagine how painful something like that could feel. He was in so much pain that he doubled over and let go of your foot, leaving you to flee to God-knows-where after you stole his police baton.

“Don’t fucking call me darling,” you spat as a farewell.

There were too many men in between you and the emergency exit, so you had to fight your way through like in those cheesy American action movies. A bunch of kicks in the groin here and a couple baton to the knee caps there were enough to get you by half way, but then they started double-teaming on you. Of course, this was much harder, but Senior Mr. Lee didn’t give you the best sensei in the damn nation for no reason. You felt invincible even after defeating multiple double teams, but it was the triple teaming that got you stuck. You can only kick and baton so many groins at one time until two men held each of your arms and the other stole the baton.

While struggling to break free, you managed to knee the one in front of you in the chin, causing him to cut his lip with blood dripping on his cheap leather shoes. After realizing what had happened, he punched you in the cheek as punishment. Was that a bone you heard cracking?

“Try me again, bitch,” he seethed.

Out of nowhere, your knight in Iron armor landed before the one who punched you and returned the favor, sending his body through so many walls of this building that you worried about the foundation and how long you had before it collapsed.

Minho’s red and gold helmet swung sharply and the empty eyes were staring into the souls of your captors while at the same time not.

“Who’s next?” Minho threatened with his super cool and inaccurately deep robotic voice.

Both men fled the scene as quickly as possible, losing their grip and throwing you to the floor. The penny taste finally registered in your brain that yes, you were definitely coughing and spitting out blood.

The cold metal of Iron Man’s hand helped you to your feet while the other cupped your quickly-bruising cheek gently. The underlying tenderness of your boss’s touch somehow healed all pain, or perhaps it was the cooling iron. Gestures like these were so foreign that you almost forgot it was your boss behind the mask and not some handsome stranger who was ready to sweep you off your feet. It was instances like these where you wished the latter was real.

“Are you ok?” he asked gingerly.

“I’m fine,” you promised. “Go save your investors.”

A light chuckle came from Iron Man. “My driver’s already waiting outside. Are you able to run?”

“I’m not leaving without you.”

“C’mon, _____, now’s not the time -”

“Do not argue with me until you save everyone, Mr. Lee.”

Minho shook his head tiredly. He knew there was no use arguing with his headstrong secretary. “You’re so stubborn. Just promise you won’t get into any trouble this time.”

“No.”

“I’m cuttin’ down on your work hours!” he yelled, blasting off to fight the giant robot thing so he wouldn’t have to hear you argue back again.

You were left with a couple of masked minions who still had the balls to attack and capture you as if you were worth more than your surprisingly above-average five-figure salary. Your copper saliva mixed with your boss trusting you enough to not die in the middle of a Dragon-level threat really pumped the adrenaline through your veins, so as one man sprinted to attack, you managed to dodge it and kick him in the throat before he could try something else. The other guy tried to sneak up behind you, but you were quicker, swinging the baton hard enough to the head to knock him out cold. The power you felt coursing through your body left you on a major high. Where were all the other minions? No way was that all…

In the middle of the banquet hall was the face-off of the century, rivaling any and all story lines from DC and Marvel combined. A tiny seven-foot-something intricately crafted and painted sheet of metal was about to fight a giant several-stories tall and several-dozen-tons heavy hunk of junk with dozens of guests they managed to scoop inside. Now how was Mr. Lee going to save the day this time?

“Lee Minho, the man of the night,” the man controlling the ship scoffed. “You will look like my childhood favorite action figure once I stuff you in a glass box in my office! A prized treasure is what you’ll be. How does that sound?”

“Sounds kinky.” You could just sense the smirk behind his mask. “Then what will you do to me?”

“Milk you of all your assets, of course! Liquidation of its truest definition! The redistribution of wealth will come easy to the people, especially with your earnings in the mix!”

“Fine, take my money. But let these people go.”

“Absolutely not! I need all the money I can get! How do you expect me to change the distribution of wealth of the entire world with just one CEO’s salary!? Mr. Lee, I thought you knew that, silly.”

“Ok, fine. You take all of our money and then what?”

“Well, kill you, of course.”

A chorus of gasps and crying were heard from the belly of the machine.

The philosophical man continued. “People like you are the very reason there is a large pay gap. You sit on your ass drinking cocktails and eating caviar and you donate to some profiting charity only a tiny percentage of what you make while all the good hard-working people are the ones bringing the big bucks into your bank account! And what do they get? Small paychecks and four hours of sleep!”

Yeah, this guy was bad, but he had his points, so you’ll cheers to that, am I right?

“Well, then where will you get your money after that? Hm?” The captain stayed silent. “Where will you get more money to sustain this utopia? Certainly not from the hard-working people who have no experience leading or handling such a huge sum of money. And certainly not from you, right? Ha! With your five-figure salary paychecks that barely get the bills paid on time.”

A heavy arm swung to try and snatch up your boss. Though the arm was so large and heavy, Minho barely managed to escape his grasp. By the silence of the once-chatty leader of the pack, you could tell that he was bothered by the words spat by the youngest CEO in the room. How dare Minho mock his hard-earned pay when his earnings were given to him on a VVS diamond-encrusted platter!? There were a couple of times where he landed a couple of hits on your boss and you should feel worried, but you couldn’t help but think he deserved it. You hated to be on the enemy’s side, but you, too, were one of those five-figure salary paycheck owners that are barely scraping by with their bills. And of course you were all for the redistribution of wealth, but this guy definitely went a little too far…

You would think that the sheer size of this oddly-shaped hunk of metal wouldn’t be able to move so fast, but it managed to capture Minho by digging its claw to the wall and sandwiching Minho in between. He couldn’t even wiggle his way out between gaps because the thing was pressing too hard against the wall. Minho could feel the metal bending from inside.

“People like you will never understand the worth of the dollar,” the captain seethed. “Not when stacks come to you in baskets sewn with gold and jewels commissioned by your Daddy. People like you, and everyone captured, need to be humbled a little. Maybe you all can learn a little something from the working class.”

“Then we die, is that right?”

“Of course! But at least you’ll die a hard-working man, Mr. Lee.”

“I will. But I’ll die a hard-working man with billions in my grave before I let you take a penny!”

The blue beam of light that you once cursed for burning a half circle on your palm you were now thankful for, as that beam of light shot your boss up in the air and freed him, taking a few fingers off of the hunk of metal with him. A couple more shots of incinerator beams later, and both arms of the robot had been severed and half disintegrated. Minho kicked the glass where the leader sat and pulled out the defenseless lump of flesh that spoke the harsh truth about the wealthy. The leader was a young man who was not much older than either you or your boss, who didn’t look afraid in the slightest. Perhaps he expected, or even wanted, to go out this way - fighting for what he believed in.

The police, who had been waiting outside for all the ruckus to die down, came in and cuffed the leader and a few of his minions who cowardly hid under the tables. Minho helped all of his investors safely come out and among the crowd you saw Seonghwa, safe and sound.

You thought after a traumatic attack that now was not the time and place to reveal who Iron Man was or even associate yourself with him, so you tried to mix in with the crowd and book it to the driver like he asked you to do before. But of course your flaunty boss wanted to do the exact opposite.

“_____, wait!”

No, no, no, no, no, what the hell! Really!? Right now!? was how Minho read your expression as he walked to you with the suit on. When the seven-foot something Iron Man stopped before you, the face of his helmet slid open to reveal an out-of-breath Minho. The entire banquet hall echoed with gasps.

“Are you ok? You’re not hurt, are you? Your bruise is getting worse!”

You could not feel anything on the left half of your face besides intense pain and somehow numbness at the same time and your limbs felt like jello and over-kneaded dough. But you couldn’t let your boss worry about you - he needs to take care of more important people right now. You’ll be fine come tomorrow once you sleep on a frozen bag of peas.

“I’m fine, I promise,” you said convincingly. “Looks like you have an impromptu press conference to deal with.”

To Minho’s dismay, all of the cameras and press and the phones of his business friends captured his face inside the Iron suit next to his famous secretary that all his business friends wished they had. He knew you hated press conferences because even though you never said anything, you were always by his side and that meant the cameras were pointed at you also.

“I can deal with them. Go to the car and go home.”

“I can stay with you.”

“I won’t allow it. You need to go home and ice your face.”

“I said I -”

“I said go.”

Minho never raised his voice at you ever because he never had a reason to. You were always hard-working and loyal and you always did everything correctly and did it with his best interest in mind. He’ll allow small things that might be detrimental to your health, like all the over time you loved to have and the unhealthy amounts of coffee you drown yourself in. But when the arm that’s supporting your body weight was shaking, your left cheek was the color of aubergine, and you had blood splatters on different parts of your body, that’s when he had to draw the line. Worry was knitted into his brows and his lips were a flat line and you only ever saw his face like this whenever he talked with his father. It was terrifying to see him almost mad at you and it made your heart sink a little that you did something wrong.

He softened his expression upon seeing your glossy eyes. “Take Monday off to rest. I’ll see you on Tuesday, ok?”

“But -”

“I’ll pay you for your time off, so don’t worry about the money. I just want you to rest. Can you do that for me?” You could only nod. “Thank you. Go home - I’ll text you when I’m done cleaning up tonight.”

Minho plastered on his happy television face and returned to the fawning crowd and overly-thankful investors. You were blinded by the flashing camera lights and that was your cue that you didn’t belong there anymore.

The trot music-loving driver hummed the whole way home while driving on auto-pilot, as he had memorized the path to your apartment long ago. Sitting in the back seat covered head-to-toe in the finest satin wasn’t as luxurious when you were alone as opposed to having your equally-luxurious boss next to you. You imagined what it’d be like if a giant robot didn’t crash the party this evening: you’d probably yell at him more about how you needed space and that he was overreacting with the whole Seonghwa deal; then he might try to bribe you with food or dessert so that you’d stop pouting like a child (and you’d totally cave in); and finally, he’d walk you up to your doorstep begging to come inside once more and you’d deny his entry, only for him to leave you with a comment about how you were the most stunning person at the ball tonight.

In short, as much as you hated to admit it, the ride home was lonely. Can you believe that? Your short time alone away from your boss was fucking lonely. Not peaceful, not relaxing, not mind-clearing, but totally and completely lonely. So much so that your heart ached a little, and to put these feelings in the simplest terms, it was because you were so used to being by his side that the emptiness to the seat next to you mimicked an unfamiliar cavity in your heart. It’s a painful feeling, really, because that meant leaving this job would be much harder than you hoped.

As if he planted a tracking device in your phone, Minho texted you upon locking the front door to your place.

The Money Man [01:03 am]: did you make it home ok?

An involuntary smile spread across your lips.

You [01:04 am]: just got home. are you stalking me?

The Money Man [01:04 am]: you didn’t think the phone i gave you was completely harmless and bugless, did you? ;)

You [01:05 am]: i should have known better. how’s the impromptu press conference? are people surprised that it’s you?

The Money Man [01:07am]: they are, but at the same time it’s not. ppl keep asking me questions and won’t let me take the suit off, can you believe that!? it’s hot as balls in this thing!!

The Money Man [01:07am]: shit, gotta go - gotta somehow convince these idiots this is definitely NOT something to invest in.

You [01:08am]: text when you’re home.

The Money Man [01:08am]: yes, darling.

‘Darling’ has a nice ring to it.

Having Sunday all to yourself was normal and you did what you always did every weekend: cleaned your place, took your time making a nice meal, organizing all of your work papers, and ended the night with a hot shower and an ice pack to your cheek. Monday, on the other hand was a disaster. You were so bored! Your fingers were itching to scribble down your boss’s agenda and you were so tempted to log into your work laptop, but you knew Minho would chew your ear off for not listening to him and resting as you should. It wasn’t your fault that you were a work-a-holic!

After looking in the mirror and hating the way your face looked for the fiftieth time, it was time to accept that the bruise wouldn’t disappear for at least a couple more weeks. Sunday was at its ugliest, where the center of your cheek was a deep purple and there was this off-colored halo around the perimeter. Now, the swelling went down and it wasn’t as purple or painful, but still equally ugly no matter how you looked at it or tried to cover it up.

After a lonely and boring Monday afternoon, your doorbell rang around 5:00pm. You weren’t expecting any visitors or deliverymen, so upon peaking through your viewfinder, you were surprised to see your boss on the other side.

“What are you doing here?” you asked surprised.

Minho was glad you didn’t seem disgusted by his presence since he was the one who told you to take the day off and you must be tired of seeing his face by now. He whipped out an oily bag from behind his back with a child-like grin on his face. It was an unusual sight to see a man dressed in a several thousand dollar business suit carrying a twenty dollar bag of dinner.

“You and I have some business to discuss.”

“Hold on, let me get this straight - you tell me to take the day off, rest up, ice my bloodshot cheek only for you to come into my home and say I need to work?”

“Yup,” he claimed unapologetically, squeezing past you to get through.

“Yes, please come in, Your Highness,” you rolled your eyes, though he was already setting up at your dinner table.

“Your home is nice. Why are you always so embarrassed whenever I try to come in?”

“I mean, look at it. It’s nowhere near as nice as your home.”

“It’s as more of a home than my place will ever be, no matter how many velvet cushions and arcade games I ask you to buy for the place.” Minho whipped out two bottles of beer, his favorite chaser to wash down the oiliness of the fried chicken, and poured them into glasses. “How’s your cheek?”

“By the look on your face, I guess not so good?”

He adjusted his twisted expression upon your teasing. Blood and bruises were never his thing, so any variation of the sort just looked bad in general. “It just looks so painful… Have you been icing it like I asked?”

“I have, and it’s not as painful as it looks!”

“Oh, yeah?”

Minho challenged your claim by standing in front of you and lowering his head to see you at eye-level. His face was way too close to be considered appropriate for CEO and Secretary relationship behavior, though you knew he never cared for those formalities. His eyes were always so sparkly per usual and that gave him that dreamy stare all the ladies in the office loved. You never saw the appeal to it until now, with only a few centimetres in between.

He poked your bruised-like-an-apple cheek.

“Ow, what the hell!” you screamed, swatting his hand away.

“Not as painful as it looks, my ass.”

“Well, people don’t go around poking my cheek all day!”

“Do you need pain killers? My doctor can write you a prescription for the best one on and off market.”

“That’s ok, I only trust Dr. Seonghwa.”

Minho gave you the same look he gave a former intern who got his breakfast and coffee order incorrect. Let’s just say the intern started crying on the spot. You, on the other hand, could barely hold in your snicker from his death glare. You were never on the receiving end of the infamous death glare and now that you were, it was hard to take it seriously.

“Ha ha,” Minho fake laughed. “Not funny.”

“What exactly do you have against him, anyways? It’s surprising that you’re threatened by the likes of a doctor and not some other hot shot software company CEO.”

“I don’t have anything against him.”

“You’re such a liar!” you scoffed, taking a swig of the ice-cold beer. “If you didn’t have a problem with him, you wouldn’t have acted so defensive at the charity ball.”

“I don’t like the way he looks at you,” he said shamelessly. A vigorous bite of a chicken leg came afterwards. “He looks at you like how I look at chicken legs.”

“Well, maybe I like the way he looks at me.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Stop doing that.”

“You deserve it for acting like my Dad that night.”

“I said I was sorry! I even bought you dinner and cold beer to make up for it!”

“Oh, so this is not because you said that me and you have some business to discuss?”

“Well, that, too.” Minho wiped his greasy fingers on his silk handkerchief that he kept on the inside of his breast pocket before whipping out his phone to show you multiple news articles on the night of the charity ball. “Watch these videos.”

Almost all of them were exposing your boss who was behind the genius that is Iron Man, but what preceded the reveals were clips of you kicking major ass. The sources came from both paparazzi and the security tapes at multiple angles and it was hard to hide the fact that it was you as all angles captured your facial features quite clearly. Headlines and whole articles talked about how the mighty CEO and his secretary were the perfect unstoppable duo and they weren’t wrong - you kicking ass in a sexy outfit with a man of iron handling the big guy? Definitely a story worth selling.

Your brows furrowed worriedly because you had no idea how Minho felt. “Are you mad…?

“Mad?” Minho paused the current video and placed his phone face-down on the table so he could focus on his good chicken and better company. “Why would I be mad?”

“I don’t know! What’s the point in showing me these videos?”

“To show you how bad ass you look! Where did you even learn these moves!?”

“For some reason, your father thought being a secretary was dangerous enough that he decided to enroll me in some classes. I actually really liked it a lot, so I kept at it and I guess I got to a pretty advanced level.”

“Pretty advanced is definitely a misnomer, love. Well, it’s good to hear that Father has made one good decision in his reign.”

“Is this the business you wanted to speak about?” you asked shyly, hoping that the beer was a good enough excuse for your blushing cheeks. You’ll never get used to Minho praising you.

“Sort of. I have a proposition for you.”

“What, that you want me to be your sidekick?” you scoffed. When Minho remained silent with only the same sly smirk on his lips, you could see your worst fears coming true. “Oh, God, you’re not serious.”

“I am one hundred percent serious.”

“Are you out of your damn mind!? I am not sidekick material!”

“You totally are! You and I are already the perfect duo! Why not take it up a notch!?”

“No, Mr. Lee, I cannot be your secretary again, but in a different form and outfit!”

“Why not!? It’s not like I’m not going to pay you for it.”

“The pay is not the problem. The pay is never the problem. It’s…”

How do you put that the pressure of keeping the entire country safe and being by his side twenty-four/seven sounded like your own personal purgatory that you could never escape for as long as you lived, or until you died by the hands of some Demon-level threat monster?

“It’s a huge commitment, I know,” Minho admitted. “Too huge to even put a price on it. But can you at least consider it? I can’t imagine anyone else by my side except you.”

Now only if a man who wasn’t your boss said that to you without any underlying superhero context, you might have considered the proposal.

“Mr. Lee, I can’t…”

You hesitated getting the right words out, but Minho knew why. You’ve been bringing up how you couldn’t stay his secretary forever, and although he knew this was true, he couldn’t help but try to keep you anyways. You’ve been loyal to him for so long that he often forgot how to treat you like a friend and not his subordinate. But the thought of you leaving? Soon, at that? It was something he didn’t want to think about just yet. He wanted to keep you by his side for as long as he could.

Minho downed the last of his beer before whipping out his phone again. This time a slow song played over the speakers. He stood up and offered you a hand.

You raised a brow. “What are you…?”

“You and I never got to dance on Saturday. So dance with me.”

“Here? Right now? In my small ass apartment?”

“The next charity ball isn’t for another month and I don’t think I can wait that long.”

His impatience was just shy of flattering - if only you weren’t so afraid of being within close proximity to him. It was one thing when he helped ease the burn on your hand, it was another when he touched your cheek while inside his iron suit, but the two of you alone dancing in the middle of your living room was a whole other level of intimacy that needed to be hidden from human resources,

You took his hand and he led you to the living room. One hand on your waist and another holding the one with the scabbing half-circle. The two of you swayed in silent contentment for several songs. It was a comfortable silence, but there’s some hidden sadness to it that you couldn’t explain - something along the lines of him missing you dearly, despite you being right in front of him, and you missed him dearly, too. So much that your nerves made you squeeze his hand harder, asking him to not let go of you for a long time.

Then your boss pulled you in close enough that it felt like he was hugging you.

“S-Sir?” you stuttered nervously.

“Thank you,” he began. “For always being there.”

“Well, that’s my job,” you snickered.

“Not just as my secretary, but as my friend.”

“You think of me as your friend?”

“I do. Don’t tell Vice President Chan this, but I consider you one of my closest friends.”

“You’re quite soft, aren’t you?” It took a moment to register that he was definitely not joking. The tension in your shoulders diminished and you were able to relax in front of the equally-vulnerable man. “I consider you one of my closest friends, too.”

“Really?”

“By association though. After all these years being by your side, it’s only natural that I came to like you.”

“I like you, too,” he chuckled, tucking some hairs behind your ear. “A little too much, at that.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“In another lifetime, I feel like you and I would be soulmates.”

“You don’t think we would be in this lifetime?”

Were you hoping to be? “Perhaps. By association though, right?”

You didn’t want to press more about any underlying meaning to his statements, so instead you looked down embarrassed. In another lifetime, in this lifetime, in multiple lifetimes, Minho thought you and him would be each other’s soulmate no matter what, because a lifetime with you sounded perfect.

A thumb gently ran over the perimeter of your cheek bruise and it tickled rather than burned, so that was a good sign that it was healing. A loud tisk came from your boss.

“God, do I really put you through this much pain!?” he cried aloud.

“Huh? You didn’t cause this - those dumbass followers did!”

“I guess, but I was the one who brought you to that event! And what about the scar on your hand, huh? I definitely caused that one.”

“Well, yeah, but -”

“That’s it, I can’t be hurting you like this anymore. I can’t be putting you through all of this danger like you’re my bodyguard. I have to let you go.”

You knew he was joking when he couldn’t hold in his cheeky smile. “That is not probable cause to fire me, Mr. Lee.”

“Really? Dammit.”

“No matter how many times I get hurt, you can’t get rid of me that easily, ok? I go out on my own terms!”

“So strong willed… I almost hate it.” Minho sighed exaggeratedly before pulling you in for a real hug this time. His arms squeezed your waist tightly, letting you know that he didn’t want to let you go even if he tried. “Just make sure to give me a two weeks notice, all right?”

“Anything for you, boss.”

“I’m going to miss hearing that from you the most when you leave.”

You hit his chest lightly, but he caught your hand and held it for a few moments before leading you back to your kitchen to finish up dinner. The rest of the night wasn’t you and your boss - it was you and your closest friend enjoying dinner and some ice cream you had in your freezer.

In another lifetime, huh? Too bad you were stuck in this one.

Work has mellowed out in terms of paperwork and actually work and has instead transitioned into more press conferences and meetings with government officials regarding Iron Man. In theory, the meetings sounded cool, but you wouldn’t know for sure, as your boss decided to take one of the newer girls as his assistant for these meetings.

The first time he denied your company, you were only a little confused, but it soon passed when he said there was a lot of paperwork he only trusted you to complete on his behalf. But when he would bring her to every event - whether it was out of habit or on purpose - for an entire month, and her only, it really made your blood boil.

No, you weren’t jealous…! You weren’t jealous he was hanging out with someone younger and prettier and more his type! Definitely not! You were upset that your boss, whom you called one of your closest friends in a time of vulnerability, was already replacing you before you could put your two weeks in! And you knew this to be true when he denied your invitation to get lunch and instead you found him in the cafeteria laughing and flirting with the new girl at the table you and him would always sit at.

For a whole month, without even knowing it, you were slowly getting left behind and replaced for someone better - someone who would actually heed his every word and never argue. Someone who would keep their mouth shut for once. Someone who wouldn’t mind taking order from him forever.

It had been a month since you were living in this limbo, and tonight, the night of the Animal Cruelty Charity Ball to which Iron Man would be making a guest appearance, was when you knew he no longer needed you.

“You’re taking Ryujin…?” you repeated, as you couldn’t believe your ears.

“Yes, so you can go home early if you want,” Minho said as he fixed his bow tie in the giant mirror in his office. He then turned to present to you with an ignorant grin. “How do I look?”

“Why are you taking her?”

“She’s been working hard this past month, so I thought I’d reward her with tonight and have her practice some networking skills.”

“How generous of you,” you mumbled bitterly to yourself.

“Hm?”

“Nothing.”

“Can you help me put on this chain necklace thing? The clasp is so damn tiny…”

Reluctantly, you helped clasp the silver jewelry. While you thought your boss was heavily admiring himself in the mirror, he instead was focused on you and how your face was uncharacteristically stern.

“Are you ok?” he asked sincerely. He pressed a firm hand to your forehead. “Are you sick?”

You harshly swatted his hand away. “I’m fine.”

He shrugged it off, thinking that you probably had a bad week with all of the boring work he’s been having you deal with. A lot of weird and unsettling energy was pent up inside of you for the past month, so before you exited Minho’s office for the weekend, for some reason you thought this was the appropriate time to speak on it.

“Actually, I’m not fine,” you blurted out. Minho gave you his full attention for the first time that month. “I… I’m putting in my two weeks.”

His eyes went wide. “What?”

“I’m giving you my two weeks notice.”

“Do you have a job lined up?”

“No, but I will figure that out later.”

“You don’t have another job lined up but you want to quit? Where is this coming from?”

He didn’t sound angry. He wasn’t - he was more hurt than anything else that you wanted to leave without a proper explanation. He thought you and him were doing well… What changed so suddenly?

“I can’t do this anymore,” Minho noted how your voice was shaking. “I was fine when you had me staying ungodly hours, I was fine when you had me get you coffee every morning and your dry cleaning every Monday, and I was fine when you involved with the Iron Man project, but now all you’ve given me lately is paperwork and shit that the new hires should be doing and not myself!”

“_____, language -”

“And why is that? Why do I feel like I’m starting to get left behind already, or-or why do I feel like you don’t appreciate anything I do!? It’s clear to me that you’ve already begun to replace me, so what’s the use of me staying here when you don’t want me anymore?”

Minho was silent. You couldn’t tell if he was angry or sad or surprised at your sudden outburst. The tension in the room was suffocating and his silence even more so, like this was his ideal form of psychological torture. Minho didn’t seem to care for your feelings anymore as he turned back to face the mirror.

“Your two weeks has been noted,” was all he said.

You left the room in tears, with your blood still boiling and your heart crushed. But this was a good thing. In the end, this would be a good thing, is what you were trying to tell yourself, because this lifetime wouldn’t let you be with Minho.

Another month passed by and you were left in a worse limbo than you began with a month and a half ago. No one was contacting you about any job offers so you were left to ‘self-reflect’ or some bullshit this self-help book told you to do for the past two weeks. Luckily, all the overtime you put into your savings account had vastly accumulated into an unthinkable sum that would support you far beyond whatever the government noted as a proper unemployment time. Like, you didn’t even know what to do with the money sometimes - thank Minho for time-and-a-half, huh?

On days where you couldn’t help yourself - when you felt like torturing yourself - you would look up Minho on all the tabloid sites. Surprisingly enough, this happened way more than you’d like. Of course, as you speculated, Ryujin had quickly taken your spot as his secretary and God, did you like to shit on how terrible she was! You didn’t have to be at the office to know that Minho must be frustrated with her by the crookedness of his ties and jackets and how she must have forgotten to schedule a salon appointment by the look of his roots and unruly brows.

Ha! That’s what he fucking gets for not being grateful! That dick!

What a shame your relationship with him had come to. To spend what felt like an entire lifetime with him to being complete strangers, it was like you were reborn into this new and fresh carefree person. So carefree that you hummed on the way home with a bag full of fresh produce from the local market.

Perhaps you should have been less carefree, as a stranger snuck up behind you and knocked you out cold.

“Ryujin, where’s my document-signing pen?”

“Um, in your drawer?”

“Which drawer?”

“The one with all the other pens…?”

Minho sighed loudly, running a hand through his curly locks and staring intently at the mess of papers that scattered on his desk. His desk hadn’t been this messy since the first day he started when he had to sign all of those official documents that transitioned him to CEO. The same day when he fell for you.

Ryujin, who was nothing close to a secretary compared to you, was only getting on his nerves these days. Perhaps yes, he’s been a little too harsh on someone who’s still fairly new, but in truth he just didn’t have a way to express his frustration about you leaving all of a sudden. Where had he gone wrong?

“Take the rest of the night off,” he told his subordinate.

The poor girl bowed obediently and scurried out the room.

Another sign left the young man’s lips. This time it was because he was tired. He couldn’t deal with anymore bullshit tonight.

An anonymous FaceTime call rang his phone. Who could be wanting to FaceTime him at such an odd hour of the weeknight?

When he swiped to answer, all he saw was you tied up roughly to a splintered chair with tape covering your mouth. Minho nearly dropped his phone.

“Good evening, Mr. Lee,” a familiar voice sang. From the shadows behind you emerged the fake vigilante that led the invasion of the Charity Ball. “I see that you’re doing well.”

“What do you want?” he demanded quietly.

“I think you know what I want.” A shiny knife drew a line across the other cheek, small drops of blood seeping through and mixing with the dried tears and dirt. Minho’s heart felt like it was collapsing. “A blank check addressed to little ol’ me.”

“If I see another scar on them, I’ll kill you,” he threatened.

The man held his hands up high in defensive mode and took a step away from you. “Fine, I won’t touch them! Just give me what we want near the docks.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Oh, and one more thing - come dressed in Iron Man and I’ll slice their throat. Bye!”

The line cut dead and Minho had no choice but to leave empty-handed with only a blank check in his pocket.

The air inside the enclosed cargo bed was hot and suffocating and your rising panic did not ease your pain or heavy breathing one bit. It didn’t help that the guy and his minions were playing with your hair and playing with their knives, dragging the dull edges on your arms and neck. Normally, you wouldn’t be so weak and crying to the point that the tape around your mouth was loosening up, but life these days was tough and perhaps an event like this, causing Minho major inconvenience once again, was what you deserved.

Scurrying and uneven footsteps were heard from outside and you really, really hoped it was Minho not dressed in Iron Man.

“Here already? He must like you,” the leader teased.

The back of the cargo bed opened up to reveal that the sun had fallen a long time ago and the light of the moon outlined your plain and simple hero. He didn’t give the leader a second passing glance before blindly shoving the blank check to his chest and rushing by your side to untie you. First, he ripped off the tape and you let out loud gasps of air and cries.

Minho’s shaking hands take hold of your face to try to calm you down. “Hey hey, shh, I’m here. Are you ok? Are you hurt?” You shook your head vigorously, whining and trying to break free from the ropes tying you down. “Hold on, I got you.”

Before Minho could untie your hands, one of the minions hit him on the back of his head the same way they knocked you out. But your boss was stronger than that - his head was harder than his iron helmet. At the failed attempt, Minho hurled the guy over his shoulder and out the cargo bed. Your bad ass boss got up like it was nothing, but he was breathing heavily.

Not because he was tired or weak, but because he was furious.

Three more guys tried to kick his ass and it was then you realized that your boss wasn’t just some fake hiding behind an iron suit who could program it to fight. He truly was kicking their ass! Like, raw strength and all! If you weren’t scared to death, you might have thought this was kind of hot. But then Minho punched one of the guys too hard and it sent him flying over to you, to which you fell over and broke the chair. The rope was no longer tied to anything and you were free.

Yet another one of the lame-o sidekicks tried to capture you again, but now you were equally as furious, if not more, than your partner in crime. How dare they sneak up on you and not even give you a chance to fight back!? That was the definition of a weak-ass group of villains! So of course you had to show them a lesson and kick a few balls and some asses. But the number of asses was infinite and you were getting really tired. They had enough people to fight you and Minho until you couldn’t keep up and then they’d kill you easily.

“Mr. Lee, now would be a good time for one of your brilliant plans!” you begged between kicks and breaths.

“Ten seconds tops. But when I say so, I need you to hold my hand, ok?”

“What!? What are you planning!?”

“Just trust me!” You and Minho saw the leader direct the last ten of his minions to finish the job. “Ready? Three… two… one!”

A heavy force on the outside pushed the cargo bed off the edge of the pier and into the ocean with the purpose of drowning everyone in it. The only sensation you felt was ice cold water freezing your blood flow and Minho grasping your hand for dear life while trying to swim up to the surface. Before blacking out from lack of oxygen, you felt the ripples of something entering the ocean and saw a faded red and golden glow of light. Not a second later, a hollowed Iron Man on autopilot rushed you and Minho to the surface and placed you gently on the sand just under the pier. The silent night was filled with a chorus of ugly coughing fits from you and your boss. What a wonderful CEO slash ex-secretary couples activity this turned out to be.

As soon as your breathing returned to a rhythmic beat, a wet, crying, sand-covered Minho held your face in his still-trembling hands. He didn’t say a word - he simply held you and pressed his forehead to yours, making sure that yes, this was real, and not some unconscious dream where he was still in the middle of the ocean drowning. Yes, you were there with him and you were alive.

“Why are you crying? I was the one kidnapped,” you joked, hoping it’d lighten up the mood if but a little bit.

Minho laughed between sniffles and shivers, but couldn’t stop crying. He was smiling, but still crying, and if that didn’t perfectly depict this situation, you’re not sure there’s anything out there that did. Haphazardly, he planted a cold kiss on your forehead before pulling you into a hug.

“I’m so happy you’re ok,” he whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Why? You had nothing to do with this.”

“I’m just sorry in general. I’m sorry I took you for granted. I’m sorry for making you feel like I was replacing you. I’m sorry for not buying you that cappuccino three years ago. I’m sorry for -”

What’s the only way to silence your sexy boss in a heartfelt moment like this that would complete this superhero plot line? Kissing him mid-sentence, of course. You kissed your loving boss fully, wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing your whole body into it. It took him a while to register that yes, his secretary was definitely kissing him, but once it did, he kissed you even harder, enough to make you fall back onto the grass with him on top of you.

You’re left breathless the moment your lips parted. “I-I, uh, I forgive you…”

“How could you ever think that I could replace you?” he muttered. “I could never. Not in this lifetime.”

“You also said that me and you wouldn’t happen in this lifetime,” you challenged.

“Lifetimes can merge into one, I guess.”

Iron Man returned to Minho’s basement as soon as his job was done, so your favorite driver picked you two up in ten minutes with plush hot towels and dry clothes to change into. The pajamas you wore already had your initials monogrammed over your heart.

“Yeah, uh, about that,” Minho began awkwardly on the car ride home. “I was going to gift them to you a couple Christmases ago, but you said that monogrammed clothing was cheesy and stupid, so I abstained…”

“... They’re not so bad,” you admitted truthfully. “Very soft.”

Coming home to Minho’s felt so wrong, yet so right. You’ve only ever been inside for business reasons, such as redesigning his closets and kitchen pantry, but now that you were here on leisure - well, after almost fucking dying - it was kind of weird. But Minho holding your hand reassured you that you were wanted here - that he needed you here, damp with salt water and all.

“Take a shower upstairs. I’ll go make some tea.”

You gladly obeyed, using your favorite shower that you helped design. The door and the walls of the shower were made of glass and the shower head hung from the ceiling, making your long, hot shower feel like it was raining. Your body was covered in cuts and bruises and it was really ugly, but you’ve never felt more badass and in control in your entire life.

You left the shower smelling like orchids and eucalyptus and entered the kitchen that smelled like ginger and honey. Minho, who had also showered, followed shortly after, stealing a kiss on your cheek that was cut up earlier that evening.

You followed Minho to his giant marble island while he poured tea into white mugs on the other side. This felt so… domestic. This felt so right. This felt like home.

“I have a business proposition for you,” he smirked slyly.

Well, that ruined the moment. “What, no ‘how have you been the past month since I replaced you with some other chick’?”

“I promise I’ll ask that after, but I need to ask you this.” Your hard-headed boss was all giddy just at the idea of it and it was the first time in a whole month since you’ve seen him smile like this. He was so, so cute.

“Fine, what is it?”

“I want to hire you back.”

“Mr. Lee, I already told you, I can’t -”

“As the Head Director of the Iron Man project.”

Your eyes widened at the prestigious title. “Head Director?”

“You stayed by my side through all the criticism and the praise and I can’t imagine a better person for the position.”

“So it’s not just a fancy title for like, super mega ultra secretary, right…?”

Your handsome man chuckled. “No, I promise.”

“Head Director, huh?” your lips slowly spread into a grin. “I like the sound of that.”

“Is that a yes?”

“On a few conditions.”

“Hit me.”

“Higher pay with time-and-a-half.”

“Obviously.”

“I get my own secretary.”

“Only if you don’t fall in love with them like I did.”

You rolled your eyes and continued. “An extra week of vacation.”

“You’re pushing it.”

“Last one. I’m your date to every event from now on.”

Minho raised his eyebrow teasingly. “Oh? And if I say no?”

“Then I say no.”

“Jeez, I’m kidding! So strict. Of course you can, on two conditions.”

“Fine.”

“You call me Minho from now on. Or boyfriend, or soulmate, or sexiest man alive, or whatever suits your fancy.”

“Deal.”

“Second,” Minho leaned in and puckered his pink lips. “Seal this with a kiss.”

You start your new job next week - after Minho cashed in one week of vacation to spend with his soulmate.

#minho #lee minho #lee know #skz #stray kids #lee minho imagines #minho imagines #lee know imagines #lee minho scenarios #minho scenarios #skz scenarios #stray kids scenarios #stray kids minho #i still hate the ending idc tho #if i had time i would rewrite it... too sleepy lolol

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dianapana · 4 years ago

Text

SH Day 2: Fashion Statement

Modern AU, OOC

@sasuhinamonth

Bullies exist everywhere you look, in school, at work, on the street and most of all, on the internet. Countless bullies hide behind the anonymity the internet provides them in order to bring down strangers for no apparent reason. But there is always a reason, jealousy, an inferiority complex, a superiority complex, or plain and simple the bully is a pile of trash and no one should call it a human being. One of the worst things one can do when being active on social media is read the comments, because no matter how many positive comments there are, one bad comment outweighs them all. Scrolling through my Instagram I see the perfect example of this issue. Hinata is barely an acquaintance, I have not seen her since middle school almost a decade ago, she’s not active on any social media, or at least she wasn’t until today. The picture in front of me brings back all of my past thoughts of her, how pretty her face looked, how refreshing and pleasant her lower voice tone was; out of most people I was aware of at the time, she was one of the least annoying. The only thing that bothered me at times was her meek demeanour, how easy she’s fold under the pressure of bullies; and it would appear that she had not changed in that particular category.

The picture was there, I liked it, I looked through the comments, I saw all the negative ones, I saw them misgendering her due to her short hair and baggy clothes, I saw them calling her names; and then there was nothing, because the picture no longer existed. Much like in school, the bully applied pressure on her, and she caved in on herself and chose to hide.

I wish I had taken a screenshot of the picture to post myself, but that would have been an invasion of privacy. She looked older and more mature, her hair was much shorter than in middle school, almost a buzz cut. She had always worn baggy clothes, but her style developed to streetwear, all in all, the picture was, in my opinion, a work of art. But as soon as it appeared, it disappeared. I can’t explain why it bothers me this much the fact that she took it down, but it just does.

I hate all the entitled fucks that think people own them anything. Females do not own them femininity, males don’t own them masculinity and gender non-conforming people don’t own them an androgynous appearance. Gender and fashion style are different issues, they can reflect each other or not. People use clothes for various reasons, as art, as means of expression, or they use them to hide. We talked about this during one of my courses in gender studies in university and it fucked with my brain how many people, young people that are supposably ‘woke’ heard that for the first time. I was shocked how many were unaware of things that I consider common sense.

I have the urge to reach out, assure her that the shit those incompetent fucks commented is the furthest thing from fact. Maybe I also feel guilt, because I was aware she was bullied in school and never helped, my apathy always made me so sure that it had nothing to do with me. It wasn’t my issue to fix, it wasn’t my battle to fight, and this isn’t either; but I’ve also learned to understand that being quiet might not be as hurtful as actively attacking the person, but it’s damn near close enough. So, I click on her blank profile and shoot her a short message. ‘the pic looked nice. U didn’t have to delete it just cuz some ppl don’t know what style is’

It was partly to comfort her, and partly to prove to myself that I’ve become better even in the slightest. I press the lock button on my phone and the screen turns black, I put it screen down on my bed and leave the room trying to fool myself and the universe that I don’t care if she replies or not.

I return to my work desk, continuing this charade, I am actively trying to not think about it, but the more I try not to think about it, the more I think about it. There is something about a 24-year-old Hinata looking the way she does, yet listening to haters, that just doesn’t sit well with me. I’m still in deep thought about the issue when my laptop dings, letting me know I received an email. I half expect it to be Hinata, but it’s work-related and my focus turns to that for the time being. Work keeps me busy for the remaining of the day, enough to push the whole issue out of my mind for real. In a blink of an eye over 9 hours have passed.

I wasn’t able to fully finish everything I wanted, due to some issues but I have to call it a day, since I worked overtime quite a lot. I go back to my bedroom and pick up my phone ready to order some delivery for the night when I see that Hinata responded.

“That was very thoughtful of you, thank you for the kind message.”

“I agree that I shouldn’t let myself be brought down, but it’s devastating in the moment.”

“I’ll try again.”

Her last message makes me click back on her profile to see that she reposted the picture with the caption saying ‘fuck you’. A sense of pride flows into my body, and I can’t fight the urge to comment as well, ‘fuck them all’. I go back to our little chat.

“Im glad u decided to post it again.”

I’m trying to formulate a compliment that doesn’t sound weird, I don’t feel like we are close enough for me to call her beautiful or pretty without it sounding like I am flirting, stunning sounds extreme, sexy and hot feel somewhat disgusting; yet all these five adjectives describe her, because she is beautiful, pretty, stunning, hot and sexy. I’m in the midst of this internal battle when I receive a reply.

“I am too. Thank you again”

I don’t feel like I deserve thanks, so I decide not to write back ‘you are welcome’, but I still want to compliment her so I click back to look at the picture, seeing whether having the picture in front of me will help. I’m lowkey annoyed when I get a notification that I have a new message from her, I am hell bound on finding a compliment and she is hell bound on stopping me. Either way, I click on the message, but upon reading it, my annoyance dies.

“I’m actually in Konoha for the first time in forever. I was thinking…if you maybe want to meet up? I’m here for a month, let me know if and when is a good time for you 😊”

Under normal circumstances, an invitation to ‘hang out’ from any former classmate be it elementary, middle or high school would annoy me further and I’d turn it down immediately. But for some reason, the idea of meeting Hinata after so many years, seeing what she is up to, interacting with her now as adults, makes me oddly enthusiastic. I reply before I can overthink the issue.

“Sure, we can meet, I’m free every Wednesday and throughout the weekend.”

Her reply is almost instant. “That’s perfect! See you Saturday” Reading her message makes me forget what day it is, so I have to look at my phone’s calendar; Saturday is the day after tomorrow, in less than 48hs I will see Hinata. My feelings are conflicted, they lay somewhere between nervousness, which is new, and giddiness, which is even newer. In order to calm myself, I do what I always do, set a goal. By Saturday I’ll have an appropriate compliment for the picture and her, it will have more impact if I say it face-to-face anyway, yes that’s the reason I want to see her, so I can feel as if I completed this little mission of mine, no other reason…

#sasuhinamonth #shmonth #sasuhina month #sasuhina #sasuhinafanfic #hinata hyuuga #hyuuga #susake uchiha #uchiha #dia story #diawrites #fanfic #day2

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palbabor-writes · 3 years ago

Text

hullo there

question, question.

i got a WIP idea & i did a little world building to spark some joy - so now i have these bullet points, and i’ll likely write this, but i wanna see if anyone is interested in me doing a post... cuz it’s... levi... again...

*insert sweat emoji*

and a, uh, college AU...

anyway, more under the cut.

lemme know what you think? pwease?

Teaches Real Analysis for Graduate students

It’s a tough class to slip into; only offered in Fall and Summer & only available the first three days of Senior and Graduate registration

You’ve looked over the class schedule - asked around the campus - got your advisor on speed-dial - you’re determined to get in this Fall

Come hell or high water - you’re walking the fucking stage in December

But there’s a snag

Apparently the professor you want, the one you’ve known for the last three years, and have a great rapport with, is taking this semester off

Something about over work? Or maybe it was a time share that was about to expire?

Whatever it is - it’s a goddamn wrench in your finely tuned plans

At 7am, Monday morning, you’re at your desk, mug of coffee in one hand, fingers of your right diligently poised over the trackpad

Click, click, return, one final strike of the keyboard, and you’re in

Registered for MAT 8811 Complex Analysis & Number Theory (Fall:1) MWF 8am - 10:45am

And with professor…

Who?

One Ackerman, L.

Huh, you ponder, stiff legs stretching under the table as you cup your steaming mug to your lips. Never heard of him.

As a rule, you usually don’t bother with those professor aggregator sites

It’s all bullshit.

You should know, you were an adjunct last spring, and the reviews you got were middling at best.

Who cares if anyone thinks he’s easy

This is a graduate math class for fucks sake - nothing is easy when you’re working on a masters

But your dawdling keystrokes have another idea in mind, and before you can blink you’re clacking their name into the search function

Oh.

He’s… got some good reviews. Fair. Easy to understand, and… bite-sized? Okay

A strange adjective for a math professor but whatever… guess time will tell

August 22nd

It’s too hot for this, you think, adjusting your backpack straps as you dash up the last flight of stairs. Why can’t we start in September? It doesn’t even feel like fall when the temps are hovering in the mid 90’s (32 for my celsius babes)

Thankfully, Professor Ackerman is in one of the older classrooms - so it’s spacious, cool, and blissfully dim - what with recessed fluorescents that likely haven’t been changed since their installation in the mid 1960s

You take a seat toward the back, flicking on your laptop and arranging your materials

Not that you’ll use them today

Syllabus day is always easy - a waste of time, really. If there’s one thing that should be compiled into an email, it’s this

So you open up a few windows, poke around on a couple of websites, order some shoes, and, oh, looks like two of your favorite shops have a sale on. Maybe today won’t be so bad after all

You’re just about to toss another item into your cart when the overhead projector starts up that low pitched whine

Blinking, you look up from the brightness of your screen to the front of the lecture hall

Odd. You didn’t think… you saw the professor even come in… and… why are the light still dimmed?

Was he sitting in one of the seats?

You look around at your peers, but most are simply tugging out binders, notepads, one is clicking on a recording device, no one is acting like anything is out of the ordinary so you shift your focus back to your screen - adding an additional pair of shoes to your already overburdened cart

Treat yourself, right?

You’re so engrossed in your rapid fire clicks and the frantic recitation of your card number that you don’t see the powerpoint flicker to life

Or the sharp eyes of the man who’s taken a seat on the bottom lip of the raised platform

There’s always one, he muses, tapping his electronic clicker against the heel of his booted foot

They think they’re slick; what with all that engrained tech, the subtle narrowing of their gaze, a distracted pass here, a well timed question there - well, we’ve all gotta learn things the hard way sometimes, don’t we?

“That’s all I have for you,” a deep voice calls out, making you jump in your poorly padded seat. “Textbook is for sale at one of those kiosks the school bookstore sets up. But the link I provided on the slide should take you to a free to use PDF. Stick it to the man and all that jazz. Any questions?”

Yes, you think, slamming your laptop closed. Like when did a presentation start? And where the hell even are you?

Finally, you spot him. He’s perched on the steps, legs haphazardly crossed, elbows resting on his raised knees. There’s… an intensity to him. Maybe it’s that jet black hair, or the cold look in his sleep weary eyes, but something about this man just oozes a loud and clear, “don’t fuck with me,” vibe

And you, idiot that you are, just missed his entire… lecture? What the hell even was that? Did he just toss some slides up and call it a day?

As the class filters out he remains where he is - but when you step up beside him, he graces you with a bored stare

“Yes?”

Best course of action… be… honest?

“Hi,” you blurt, molars gripping indentations into the side of your mouth. “I… I’m in, uh, your class.”

He blinks dispassionately. “You don’t say?”

Crap. “Yeah, and, er, I didn’t… I think I missed some of your presentation. With the lights half off I didn’t… see you start it.”

“Half?” he questions, knocking a few rogue strands of onyx hair from his brow. “That’s odd. Cuz from where I’m sitting, it looked like you missed all of it. Lemme guess…” And here he pauses to give you a swift once over with his pewter eyes. “Online shopping?”

What a… a… your outrage dies in your throat when he swivels back to your widened gaze

Something about this… feels...

He waits for your reply, untangling his legs and bracing his hands behind him as he peers up at you. “Go on,” he taunts, a black brow arching sardonically. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

notes: (ᓀ ᓀ)

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ri-ahhh · 5 years ago

Note

Riding Grayson cuz he hurt his foot 🥺

Hahaha stop why is that so funny to me? Just..

“Ow, fuck!”

You pull away from Grayson’s mouth and look at him concernedly. You’re laying on your sides, naked from the waists up and kissing heavily. You had just started to turn over, pulling Grayson with you so he could settle on top of you, when he had cried out in pain.

He’s still catching his breath from your deep, heated kisses, but now he’s got a wince on his face and he’s reaching down to clutch at his foot. You look down with him and see the swollen bruise coloring his big toe and they very top part of his foot right beneath it.

It looks painful enough but you both know it’s not broken. Grayson had insisted on going to get it x-rayed, only to find out it was just a badly stubbed toe. For someone who preaches about mental and physical betterment, all that seems to go out the window when he’s doing stupid things that consistently give him stupid injuries. He not-so-secretly thrives off the attention he gets from it all.

He’s a drama queen, but he’s your drama queen. You’ll roast the shit out of him later for how much of a baby he’s being, but you’re still very much in the mood for his dick, and you don’t want to kill the mood by bringing down his ego right now.

You’ll play into it for now, though. You fix a concerned pout to your swollen lips, cupping his cheeks and stroking them with your thumbs gently. “Oh, are you okay, baby?” you ask, the unavoidable tinge of mockery in your tone going completely over his head.

“Yeah,” he sighs, stroking his hand up and down your side, dipping it under your waistband to squeeze your ass. “I don’t think I’ll be able to be on top at all, though.”

You can work with that, but you have to hide your amused smirk in his neck under the guise of tucking your face there to suckle gentle kisses there as you push him onto his back. One of your legs swings over his, and you start rocking against his solid erection, bringing you both back to that excited state you were in just a few moments ago. “It’s okay, Gray. You sit back, and let me take care of you.”

He grips your hips in his hands with a moan, and nuzzles his nose against your hair to coax your face back to his. You happily oblige, slipping your tongue past his lips with a sigh as you start working his own sweats down from where they're already sitting low on his hips.

Once you’re both completely naked, you settle between his legs and spend an inordinate amount of time worshipping his cock. He’s thick and hard and standing proud and tall in front of you, clearly unaffected by the pain in Grayson’s foot. You’ll never complain about getting to have him in your mouth, though, and you give him the best sloppy suck he’s had in a while. The Samsung spin cycle, in the sophisticated words of Noel Miller.

Despite how pretty he looks falling apart above you, his moans and whimpers music to your ears, you don’t let him cum. You do want to take care of him, like you said, but you also want to get yours. He whines when you lift completely off his dick, but you see his eyes light up in your peripheral when you turn around and straddle his waist again.

“Yes, baby,” he mumbles behind you. One of his hands grabs your hip, the other lining up the head of his cock with your entrance. You’re sitting up on your knees, and you glance over your shoulder to catch his eye, both of you checking each other’s readiness as you sink down on him.

He fills you up so good like this, stretching you out and reaching so deep you swear you can feel him in your lower belly. You start to bounce straight up on him, tossing your head back so your hair tickles his abdomen, grabbing your tits and tugging at your nipples.

Grayson grunts behind you, and you see his legs twitch in front of you like he wants to plant his feet on the bed and fuck up into you, but he stops himself because of his foot. Your legs are starting to tire anyways, so you lean forward to brace yourself on his tattooed legs as you start to throw it back rhythmically on his dick. He’s not as deep like this, but you both appreciate the new angle as he hits a completely new spot inside of you.

You also know that he’s got a better view of your ass this way, and you grin when you hear his breaths pick up and his groans get more desperate. Both of his hands grip your ass cheeks, pulling them apart so he can see your pussy lips gripping him tight and the cute wink of your asshole looking back at him. He traces his thumb along the wetness clinging to your pussy and that’s coating his cock, before circling it against your back hole, pushing until it slips inside.

The pressure feels amazing, but you’re only a little disappointed when he moans louder at the feel of your pussy clenching extra tight around him and how your ass swallows his thumb. You know that sound means he’s right on the edge. Sure enough, he’s grunting, “Oh my god, I’m gonna cum, baby!”

You encourage him with filthy whispers and quiet little seductive moans as he shoots inside you, coating your walls in his nut. You slow down on top of him, and when you feel the last spurt, you rise off him gently.

Grayson stares up at you like you're some kind of goddess, and he makes grabby hands for you as he reaches out with heavy arms. “C’mere...c’mere, please.”

You eagerly shuffle up his body, crying out instantly as his tongue swipes through the mess of your juices and his cum coating your pussy. Something about the idea of him eating you out and tasting himself mixed with your own arousal makes you cum harder, faster than usual, and as soon as he sucks your clit in his mouth, you’re shaking on top of him.

Cut to later that afternoon, and you and both twins are hanging out in the living area, each doing your own thing answering emails or scrolling Instagram. You hand Grayson the ice pack he requested a few minutes ago, and watch him situate it on his foot where he wants it.

“Babe, take a picture. I’m gonna add it to the video of me wiping out.”

You shake your head, but accept his proffered phone anyways. “You know, I’m starting to think I should be getting jealous. Every time you get remotely injured, you grovel to the internet to get sympathy from all the fangirls while I wait on you hand and foot.”

He knows you're joking, and once you hand him back his phone, you accept his kiss as an apology. “Yeah, but your sympathy is the only one I really care about.”

“Wow, how romantic.” You roll your eyes with a grin and rejoin Ethan in the kitchen.

He’s looking at his brother with pure disdain as he chomps huge bites of his avocado toast into his mouth. “He’s such a fucking pussy.”

You grin and take a sip of your water. “Yeah, he’s really milking this one. TMI time, but he made me be on top this morning because apparently his toe hurt too bad to do any of the work.”

You expect Ethan to retch or do something equally as dramatized as what he claims his brother is doing, but he just stares at Grayson captioning his post on the couch. Finally he makes a face like ‘well done’ and shrugs. “I should try that in the future, actually. All I have to do is stub my toe falling off a skateboard and I’m getting a free ride?”

“Yeah, well, you better hope any girl falling for that is only half as generous as me, too,” you laugh, punching Ethan in the arm before going back to the couch to cuddle your man and make sure his ice is working.

#injured grayson is becoming my favorite lol #such a big baby #cute and annoying #grayson dolan #dolan twins #ethan dolan #grayson dolan fic #blurb #g blurb

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seiin-translations · 4 years ago

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2.43 S1 Chapter 4.3 - Drifting Yunichika

3. IN-AND-OUTER

Just continuing to wing all the volleyball jargon here cuz i have no idea what’s going on

Translation Notes

1. Don’t know if there are English equivalents for these terms, but the Japanese uses terms like 表レフト (omote-left) and 裏レフト (ura-left), where omote refers to the aces of the team, who are put in the front row for as long as possible, and the ura refers to the players diagonal to them

2. A broad attack is basically where the spiker approaches and jumps towards the net when they hit

3. Pipe in volleyball refers to a back row set aimed at the middle of the court

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He had lied to Haijima about one thing.

Just before he entered the training camp, he received an email from Yorimichi for the first time in a long while. I’ll be back home in August, so let’s have some fun. Then call me when I don’t have practice. That was about all they exchanged back and forth, but he somehow failed to bring that up. Kuroba didn’t think that hanging out with Yorimichi was in itself a bad thing. He wasn’t going to go along with his smoking and drinking and riding double on a bike with no helmet like he used to. Even he had already learned to be sensible about that. He loved volleyball, his team was important to him, and he had self-awareness as a member of a sports team. …And yet, Haijima talked like he flat-out didn’t trust him.

Ah…geez, I’m feeling kinda gloomy.

“I’m getting a second helping of rice.”

When he stood with his empty bowl in one hand and a sullen look on his face, Uchimura, sitting across from him, looked disheartened.

“After eating so much meat yesterday, how can you eat again in the morning? I’m still not very hungry.”

“That stuff all got digested when I ran at night. Maybe you should have gone for a run too, Senpai?”

“I’ll have to decline, since I’m not so young anymore,” his senpai said like he was an old man, despite the fact he was only a year older than him.

The school cafeteria was usually open to students only at lunch time and only to faculty and staff in the morning, but during summer vacation, breakfast was prepared for club members using the boarding house. In addition, special meals were offered to members of the athletic clubs, which was much appreciated. The morning special for today was the combo of grilled fish and deep-fried chicken. The after-meal fruits were bananas and oranges. They were free to get second helpings of rice.

When he opened the lid of the six-litre gas rice cooker, the only remaining amount of rice was the rice grains sticking to the inside of the rice cooker.

“Ma’am, there’s no more rice!”

He hit the edge of the iron pot with the rice scoop and called out to the kitchen. “How much white rice can you all eat? There are students from other clubs coming for lunch, so please hold back a little.” A small old lady in an apron powerfully carried a stainless steel cauldron to replace the empty pot. White steam was rising from the pot where freshly cooked white rice was glittering.

When Kuroba left the rice cooker after piling a mountain of rice into his bowl, Okuma and Oda were lined up behind him looking like this was perfectly natural. Aren’t these two on their third bowls?

He returned to the table where Uchimura was, poured the natto over his rice and started eating his second bowl. Uchimura was also not lacking in appetite, and even though he was talking about something or other, he stored everything in his stomach without leaving a single grain of rice or a piece of vegetable on his plate, and he was about to peel an after-meal orange.

“I have no complaints about your stamina. But your mental strength though… Can’t you do something about it?”

“…I know that. You don’t have to tell me.”

“And? What happened to your partner with the mental strength of steel?”

“That’s how you’re comparing us…? Haijima’s still sleeping.”

Last night, he and Haijima were dragged out of the boarding house, and the two of them were made to do twenty dashes on the slope between the mountain and the school. In the darkness of night where there was only moonlight, they could only hear each other’s dying breaths as they dashed up the slope, pitching forward and almost falling, then staggering downhill, and repeat. Every drop of his urge to make merry with his school trip-like mood had been wrung out of him, and he fell asleep in an instant as soon as he collapsed onto his futon after he finally returned to the boarding house, where everyone was already completely asleep. As expected of Aoki-senpai, he had felt.

He woke up this morning feeling hungry as usual because he had recovered his strength after sleeping, but Haijima hadn’t recovered yet, and he was still lying flat on his futon as though he was dead. It’s not like one of our senpais came to keep an eye on us, and they wouldn’t have known if you had cut down on the number of dashes… He wasn’t that kind of flexible guy. When it came to volleyball, Haijima seemed to “not want to lose to anyone,” not just in practice, but also in preparation and cleaning, and he didn’t cut corners. Well, I think that part of him is pretty admirable, but he only has two hands, so there are times when you just gotta cut those corners.

“Haijima doesn’t have much stamina, right? I guess he’s not perfect.”

Uchimura tilted his head while tossing an orange into his mouth.

“That guy has plenty of flaws.”

When Kuroba answered sullenly, a plastic tray was placed on the table with a bang.

“O-Oh, Haijima. Good morning.”

Uchimura pulled himself away from the table, flinching slightly.

“…’Sup.”

With a sour expression like there was a sign reading “low blood pressure” pasted to it, Haijima pulled the chair next to Kuroba. His club activity switch still wasn’t flipped, so he was wearing his glasses, and his thin bangs were bouncing in a strange way due to his bed hair. When Kuroba somehow failed to speak up and kept silent, Haijima also kept silent towards him and began to bring his food to his mouth with his eyes mostly closed and a face that looked like he was about to throw up. He spiked with his left and right hands, but he basically used his left hand for holding pencils and chopsticks.

Kuroba, who had been wolfing down his second bowl of rice without a care in the world, slowed down his eating speed to match Haijima’s, thinking that it would look like he had an easier time even though they ran the same amount.

“You don’t look so good, you know? Don’t force yourself to eat if you can’t eat. Just eat a banana or something. I’ll eat one too.”

“I’m just sleepy from all the sleeping time I lost. I can eat.”

Haijima was strangely stubborn towards Uchimura’s concern for him, and he greedily shoveled down the rice that he had been slowly bringing to his mouth with so much vigor that he had to wash it down with miso soup. Is he doing this out of spite…? No wait, I have stuff I’m annoyed with him about too. Kuroba wasn’t happy with him. But Haijima didn’t even notice his dissatisfaction anyways.

He felt like an idiot and began energetically moving his chopsticks again. The fatigue in his body was reset after he woke up from sleep, and he planned to show his best performance today, but the gloomy feelings in his heart still haven’t cleared up.

Uchimura shrugged his shoulders at the two who were tilting their bowls and turning their chopsticks like they were competing against each other, then said, “I’ll be leaving, then,” before taking his tray and quickly leaving the table.

*** Kuroba’s position was the so-called “front-left” among left-side players, and it was considered the ace position in high school volleyball. Oda was the back-left, diagonal from him. (1) The left-side players, who took on a large percentage of the team’s total attacks and hit from both the front row and back, generally had the most number of hits. Aoki was the front center, and the back center who was diagonal to him was Okuma, who they were trying to polish at a quick pace. The right-side position that was diagonal to the setter Haijima was filled by Kanno. The left and right-side attackers, as well as the centers, were the so-called “attacker” positions.

The basic six-person team composition was two left-side players, two centers, and two right-side players. Due to the rotation, front row and back row players often changed places, attackers in the same positions were placed diagonally from each other so that the front row’s height and offensive power were maintained. The ability to receive in the back row was also necessary for the left and right positions. Receiving formations were the key to using more difficult combination attacks.

There was also a player in a special position called a libero. He mainly replaced a center player, who retreats to the back row, and played a central role in receptions (serve receive) and digs (spike receive). It was this position that did the miraculous dive in the middle of a rally. Hokao was this libero. And Uchimura was like a jack-of-all-trades who could step in if there was a shortage of people. There was no way Seiin could afford to have a reserve for each position.

They spent the afternoon of their second day of training camp practicing combo attacks. Two to four attackers went onto the court and coordinated a team play together with the setter Haijima. Although he had many thoughts about Haijima, Kuroba called out to him for a set. “Alright, over here!” Haijima glanced at him. He felt like he had an annoyed look on his face.

Haijima ignored Kuroba, and—also skipped Aoki, who also jumped for a C quick, before jump back setting the ball to Kanno, who ran right up to the antenna on the right side. The precision of Haijima’s back set was so unchanged from when he set from the front that it made one wonder if he had eyes on the back of his head. Quick attacks ranged from A quicks to D quicks, with A being the closest to the left side from the setter’s set position. B was a little farther. C was the closest to the right side with a back set, and D was a little farther. A combination attack was when another attacker got involved with the decoy quicker and disrupted the opponen’s blocking. Of course, there were times when a set went to the quicker. It was the setter’s chance to show what they could do by putting together a tactic that made full use of all the attackers on the court and make the most optimal set at each moment.

That’s what Haijima talked about yesterday. A combo with a center’s C quick and a right side’s broad jump—.

A sharp spike was driven in with a slap from the right side.

Kanno-senpai is so good…he marveled inwardly. He was an attacker whose special qualities were his fast swings and good control, and he was also good at getting around blockers (there was a suspicion that the blockers momentarily forgot his existence because he had such a weak presence). The right side also jumped to a double quick along with the center. A wide-ranged broad attack (2) was also required. Many times, a player who is a consistent receiver would be put in the position. It was a position that required the ability to be an all-rounder. Kanno wasn’t assertive, but he reliably executed the role that was given to him without hesitation. It seemed that Haijima also had a high opinion of Kanno. A guy who fundamentally didn’t communicate with other people always said a few words to him and made minor corrections after each set.

He called the set with all his might and when he was ignored, he felt that he was being lame, so he was determined to make up for it by hitting a big one as soon as possible.

But that didn’t go according to plan. After that, Haijima didn’t set to Kuroba at all. Not even a single one after several hours of play. It seemed that today, Haijima’s interest was in creating a combo between the centers and the right-side players.

Halfway through practice, he stopped calling for the sets and his jumping became half-hearted, which made Oda angry with him several times. “Kuroba—. Concentrate more. Even if a set doesn’t go to you, look around and think about your next move.”

“…I know that.”

When he answered with a rebellious attitude, Oda shrugged his shoulders like he had no idea what to do and made a proposition to Haijima. “Haijima, why don’t you try another combo after you finish this one? The pipe (3) might be faster if you do it with Kuroba.” He didn’t like the way he talked like he was obviously fussing over him. Even though we’re both first-years, it’s like only Haijima is special…I don’t disagree that he is special, but he doesn’t even seem to notice how much he’s valued by the captain, much less be thankful. The things that he was happy to be told about yesterday strangely got on his nerves today.

Though Haijima looked extremely annoyed at having cold water thrown on the practice he was taking part in, this was the first time in a long while he looked over at him.

“Kuroba.”

His body reflexively stiffened at being called. Haijima put his hands on his hips, kicked the floor with his heel once, sighed, and then spoke.

“There’s no point in you being here, so just get out of here.”

“Hah…!?”

His voice cracked at the sudden discharge notice.

“Wha, you…Don’t get too full of yourself, is a setter really dropping an attacker because of a personal grudge?”

“Grudge?” This guy looks like he has no idea what that means.

“You’re still mad that you had to run because of me.”

“I’m not gonna be picky for a stupid reason like that. Are you an idiot?”

This guy really put an emphasis on the first syllable of “idiot”. Don’t play blind to your stupidity! He really is such an unpleasant guy.

“So why…”

He grabbed Haijima’s arm and pressed him for an answer. Haijima’s face twisted slightly as he glared back at him aloofly. He looked and saw that he had put too much strength into his fingers and they were digging into Haijima’s arm, turning the skin there white.

He clicked his tongue and dropped Haijima’s arm as though it was on fire.

“Uchimura-senpai, could you please do receiving practice with me?”

He turned on his heel and left the court with long strides. “Huh? Alright,” Uchimura answered in puzzlement and followed him. “That moodiness of his…” The mutters of his senpais, who seemed to have given up on him, hurt his back, so he couldn’t turn back to the court anymore. I’m not the bad guy here…While frustration welled up within him, he pushed the ball cage to a corner of the gym. If he were to roll this thing with all his strength and smash it against the wall, it would dissipate a little, but that wasn’t going to happen, so he had no choice but to use all his self-control and push it with normal force.

The training camp that had been fun until the first night had suddenly become boring. Was this payback for getting carried away by feeling like he was on a school trip, just as Haijima said? He wasn’t really getting carried away. He had been plenty fired up for working hard at practice. That was all gone now with Haijima’s attitude.

He was the one who joined the team in April, but Haijima, who joined later, became an indispensable member of the team from that point on, and their senpais yielded to him. More than anything, Oda was captivated by Haijima. When it became like that, now that Nagato was gone, he was the only one treated like a halfway middle schooler, and not acknowledged as a necessary part of the team.

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#2.43 #2.43: Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu #2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Club #2.43 book 1 #2.43 translation

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jodilin65 · 22 years ago

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TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2002 It looks like Scot will be skipping April altogether, as far as seeing me here goes, but we’ll know for sure in a few hours. I kind of doubt I’ll see him before Friday.

I should’ve seen my doll by now, and I’m really sick of this shit! Why can’t I just order a doll and get it? It was in stock, they took the money for it, so where is it? I emailed them and asked them the same question. I should get a response any sec. It’s an hour earlier in California, but it shouldn’t be long.

These rats are still so “Ladylike.” If they haven’t calmed down yet, then they probably never will. They simply came from the wrong mother.

Surprisingly, I slept till 6 AM. Is that a sign? I still say it’s too early for her to be calling today, but time will tell.

Sheriff Joe was on TV yesterday, making a complete fool of himself on a jail/prison documentary. Especially to those who know him for what he truly is. He was bragging about the millions he’s made in “rent,” and all the people he serves, and I was like, “serves?” Try “control,” you bastard!

There’s this women’s prison in California and their Ad-Seg area is quite different than Estrella’s. Theirs is basically the hole where the troublemakers go. Estrella’s is supposed to be for those in fear for their safety, but it’s really for those who don’t want to work for free. Especially if they didn’t get a two-for-one.

I saw Officer Sunday and some other officers when they were showing the chain gang. Most of the focus was on the tents, though.

Once again I’m wondering, would taking the classes for any reason be the right thing to do if Scot says they won’t drop it? I just don’t want to be sending the wrong message and leading them to believe I’ll just jump to their every beck and call, cuz I won’t. It’s just that I think I can get some money out of these classes, but if 6 months from now they want something else, they can forget it. I’m not a robot for the state of Arizona. I still wouldn’t put it past them to push the job issue at some point or demand more money, either.

During my fine-tuning of the 1992-1993 file, I noticed 6 months were missing. The period between 4/22/93-10/22/93. So, I had mixed emotions when Tom said he may have an old backup. The purpose of my encrypting my journals is so no one can read them without my permission, so if he has decrypted copies lying around, that’d defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it? However, in light of the situation, I hope he does have that time period somewhere. If not, I’ll insert a note in the area those entries should be in, covering everything I can remember happening during that time frame.

MONDAY, APRIL 29, 2002 I went online yesterday to see if that Arab doll was sold out. She wasn’t. Then I noticed their new Brazilian doll named Carmencita and was like - wow! Like the Arab doll, she’s $40. She’s also full-body porcelain and wears what looks to be a 2-piece bathing suit with a colorful cape and hideous headdress. I don’t have to use the headdress, though. Anyway, it’s quite different than anything else I’ve got. I guess I won’t be getting Blossom, the fairy that goes with Twinkle. Right now, my top two choices are the Brazilian and the Arab doll, but we won’t be ordering till July.

Then I had an idea. Maybe this class bullshit is a good thing after all. Maybe it’s a money-making opportunity. See, I’d be taking classes with criminals, particularly Hispanics. Hispanics who would be charmed by this white girl’s broad knowledge of Spanish and who would be happy to loan her a few bucks here and there. Criminals are one of the easiest people to con since most of them are so stupid. I could use them the way I did with Nervous, asking them to please spot me a $10 here and a $10 there, promising to pay them back as soon as I can. Meanwhile, it wouldn’t be anything that could get me thrown in jail, and knowing how fucked up most of society is, I know I could do this without feeling guilty.

I can’t give in to this state’s every demand, though. This class bullshit is one thing, but if 6 months from now they decide they want something else, they’re not getting it. Period. I will put my foot down then, so help me God. And if I find that this class bullshit’s not making me some money, I’ll drop it like a hot potato and there’ll be no classes, no Scot, no money payments, no nothing. Meanwhile, I’m hoping I can con enough money to get a doll or two before July.

And so it was one year ago at this very moment that I returned home to a dying Houdini.

And I’m still fat and the freeloaders are still a part of my life.

Meanwhile, Teddy Bear should get my letter today if she’s working, though I don’t expect to hear from her today. I hope not. I’d hate to crash at 6 PM just to have her call an hour later. I slept till midnight, so I’m going to try to stay up till 6:00, then come Tuesday, I should be able to cover the phone during the late afternoon/early evening hours.

What am I gonna do with myself for the next 11½ hours? Guess I’ll do more fine-tuning. I’m amazed at just how many errors there are in these journals. These were supposed to have been spellchecked and proofread, too. I could also read or watch TV, but not until the end of my day. Doing that tires me out. I could work out too, but I don’t really feel like it.

After deciding the benefits weren’t worth all the work, I haven’t been running much lately. A part of me is so tempted to cut my hair off, eat what I want, and to hell with even maintaining my weight, but I know that if I did that, I’d bust out of my new shorts and sundress in less than a month. So, I guess I’ll just cut my hair off, but not yet. I’m still not sure whether or not I want to trim a few inches or cut it to my shoulders. I’ll probably cut it to my shoulders cuz I’m just so sick of it. It’s always tangled, full of static, and it’s just a bitch to deal with. If it were thin and straight, that’d be one thing, but thick curls to one’s ass is a bit much.

In less than 4 hours I have to give my life back to the freeloader.

SUNDAY, APRIL 28, 2002 You could say I’ve been both pissed as well as grateful to Tom over the last couple of days. I’m grateful for his putting a faster board in my MP3 computer, but I’m sick of his moodiness and his misinterpreting me so much of the time. You’d think that after 9 years of knowing each other, he’d know me better by now, but he’s constantly misunderstanding the things I say. And he seems to be less and less patient and more and more frustrated with me when I myself don’t understand him right away.

I’m also getting sick of the controlling lately, too. He seems less tolerant of my ways these days. He’s always complaining about something I’ve said or done. He interrupts me when I see Scot, gives me disapproving looks a lot, and has been making me feel like nothing I do or say is right.

Yesterday’s trip to the grocery store was a disaster. All I got was “Slow down, come here, settle down, don’t run, don’t yell, do this, do that,” and I was like - I’m not a fucking yo-yo!

“Are you trying to lose me?” I asked him in the car on the way back from the store.

“You can leave me anytime you want. I’m sick of your threats,” he said.

“I never threatened to leave you.”

“Isn’t that what this is about?”

“No,” I told him, “I simply made a comment, an observation.”

And so I wonder - does he really not get me? Am I really all that bad? Do I really turn him off that much? Or is he purposely doing little things to try to lose me?

Maybe I was wrong in assuming he had nothing to do with my not desiring him sexually these days. I still believe the main reason is that I simply got sick of the same old, same old. What was once new and exciting is now old news, but maybe part of the reason I’ve been turned off really does have to do with his own apparent lack of interest.

Despite the fact that I’ve told him that I loved Teddy Bear in addition to him and not instead of him, how much of this is related to her? Does he really think I’m not approachable because of my feelings for her, or is it just his own lack of interest he can’t admit to?

I had assumed it was his own lack of interest cuz he never had much of an interest from the get-go. Ever since I’ve known him he’s been the way he is. In the beginning, I was the only one who wanted sex regularly, but through time, his lack of desire dampened mine, then it just got old anyway, as I’m sure it would with anyone. Lots of people feel the way I do after so many years. I know we’re not alone in that department, as far as no longer wanting sex goes. Nonetheless, I can’t snap my fingers and make myself want it with him, and truthfully, I wouldn’t if I could. I wouldn’t want someone who didn’t want me. Meanwhile, this doesn’t mean I’m going to stay celibate forever. If an opportunity to have sex with Teddy Bear arises, I’m gonna just go with the flow of it if it’s meant to be.

I still want Tom to be my number one and for us to always be together, but I certainly haven’t been as happy with him as I’d like to be lately. If he could be a little more patient and tolerant of me and not get agitated over the questions I may ask, even if they seem dumb, then I’d try to put on the public act he wants me to put on. He wants me to “act like everyone else” in public, but you know me; I’ve always been adamant about being myself. But if it would make him happy to see me kiss a little ass, then I guess I could compromise.

Meanwhile, her letter’s been mailed. Whether or not she gets it and calls, who knows? My guess is that she’ll call between the 3rd and 5th if she does call. I should be excited. I mean, I thought I’d be excited come letter time, but I don’t really feel much of anything at all. I know that whatever’s meant to be will be. I just hope it doesn’t turn out that I’m making a mistake. I don’t have any bad vibes, but you never know. She could fuck me over, or Tom could get jealous and try putting guilt trips on me. I know things have changed and evolved since, but look at all the shit he put me through over Kim, and I wasn’t even attracted to her. So there’s no saying how he’ll handle me associating with someone he knows I’m attracted to.

It’s hard to believe the time has finally come. To think that she could be here within a week or two is like - wow! There’s still a small part of me that hopes I don’t hear from her, but more so than not, I hope she does call and I hope we get together. And yes, I hope there’s sex, too. What will it be like, I wonder? Will it be a great experience? Just so-so? Will I be plagued with guilt, or will I enjoy every moment of it? Will I feel like what I’m doing is wrong? Will I feel like an adulteress? Or will I be with her and her only when we’re together, enjoy every minute of it, and not worry about Tom?

And what about her? Will she not want to see me all that often? Will she fall in love with me? Will she wish I’d move in with her or will she be glad to have her space when I’m not there?

Has she been alone all this time? Is she alone right now?

Is she still at Madison? Will she get the letter? If she doesn’t call me, what will her reasons be for not calling? Will it be because she met someone? Will it be because she decided not to get involved with a former inmate? A married woman?

Did she ever drive through this area? Has she seen the house?

If we do get together, how often will we do so? What will our relationship entail and be like? How long will it go on?

Questions, questions, questions! And despite the risks, I want some answers, Officer R. D. Johnson!

I’m still going to make her the offer of moving onto our land, but I still think it’ll be too far from work. Also, the more I think about it, the more I don’t think it’d be a good idea for her to live here, cuz if she did go bad, then we’d have to live with her just like we had to live with the freeloaders. I’d like to think she wouldn’t stoop so low as to forbid me the right to ignore her, but still, it may not be a wise or safe idea to have her so close. Especially someone in law enforcement. We’d also get less money when we went to sell someday, but I’d like to see her move closer, like maybe the center of town.

If we did get it on with each other, no, I wouldn’t tell Tom about it simply because he wouldn’t need to know about it. Whether or not he suspected we were playing around, he wouldn’t need to hear about it. The same would be the case for me if he had a side dish. I’d still love him and want to be with him, but he need not share the details with me. Then again, if he really wanted to, not that he’d be the type, it wouldn’t kill me to hear about it, cuz I know I’d always be his number one just like he’ll always be my number one. Nonetheless, as the law, Tom and life itself have taught me, sometimes it’s best to say/not say what’s best, rather than to come clean and be honest. We’re all liars of convenience. When it’s in our best interest to lie, we do, though I’m not going to lie to Tom. I just won’t say anything at all.

Just like I predicted, no doll this week, though I should’ve been here by Friday. See, I knew the PO would fuck up if the doll was in stock. They probably misdelivered it and had to reroute it back to me like they did when I got the first 4 dolls from them in January. They did take the money for the doll, though, so that has to mean she is on her way. She should be here tomorrow.

It seems I spend my time either trying to get myself to sleep at certain times or pushing myself to stay up as long as possible. Last night I managed to sleep till 11 PM, so I’m going to try to stay up till at least 5 PM, then sleep till 1 AM. If she calls, it’ll probably be between the late afternoon - early evening hours. Once I’m getting up between 3 AM - 4 AM, I can be up during that time. I also won’t have to worry about the cheeks waking me up, should he pop in this week.

SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2002 I started to write about how bored I’ll be now that I’m not going to be doing this, but caught myself just in time. After all, I learned the hard way that bitching in my journal about boredom is asking for trouble. For some reason, God seems to think that my boredom should be cured with trouble.

I just wish my schedule wasn’t what it is, but again, I’ll leave Teddy Bear to fate. If we’re fated to meet, she’ll be fated to call, and I’ll be fated to get that call.

FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2002 My schedule is in a horrible position for it being time to send the letter. But I suppose that if it’s meant to be, I’ll be fated to get her phone call if she calls. Worst case scenario - she keeps calling and I keep missing her calls and she leaves no number to call her back, then she gives up.

Tomorrow was the last time I saw her one year ago. My vibes still say I’ll see her. At least, that’s what I think they’re saying. I’ve been on a bad streak lately. I hope that doesn’t mean I’m wrong in saying that the class vibes have improved. Anyway, I’m really gonna have a flood of mixed emotions if I don’t see her. I’ll be both sad and relieved. Sad because I really loved her and wanted to see her and get to know her. Relieved cuz she won’t have to see how fat I still am or ever get the chance to fuck me over.

Anyway, I’ll probably be mailing the letter today when we do the grocery shopping.

They’ve taken the money for the doll but haven’t emailed us about it, so I guess that means she’s in stock and on her way.

I’m gonna be so stressed out right before I see Scot! I just want to know either way and get it over with. The sooner I know if someone’s fucking with me, the sooner I can figure out what to do about it.

After whatever happens with this shit, what will God have me getting all worked up over next? And if the freeloaders are ever out of our lives someday, what will our next long-term problem be? How many years will it go on? Who will it involve? How much money will it cost us? And will it cost me my freedom?

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2002 I couldn’t hold my schedule any longer, so I’m doing a rollover. I also did some rat rearranging and kicked Lady out. She was just too spastic for me. I once again put the 5 girls in the new cage, but one of them got out. So, I put her and another one back in the tank so she’d have some company. So far, the 3 that are left in the big cage are still there.

We’ve both learned the consequences of turning the other cheek, being too nice, and not fighting back. So, when the stupid idiots at work kept fucking up and ruining Tom’s night, he wrote them up. While we’re on the subject of “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve,” I totally regret not beating the snot out of the black bitch when she came screaming at me at our door. That’s when I should’ve got her. She’d have been on our property and I’d have claimed self-defense. With her being black and with God protecting her, it may not have gotten her tossed in jail, but it might’ve helped keep me out of jail. A report saying she came over and attempted to attack me would’ve looked really good.

I was watching a show about people who sued pig departments for harming or killing their loved ones in high-speed chases. And over the dumbest things, too. One poor girl had to die cuz it was oh so important to a pig that the person they were chasing dimmed their lights. Pigs are so hell-bent on control that they’d gladly kill innocent bystanders just to conquer and capture someone, even if it’s for the dumbest reasons.

Pigs and courts need to learn that they just can’t always win. They simply can’t get their way all the time, and they need to learn when to pull back and either wait a situation out or cut their losses and admit defeat. They’re simply not God, and no, they just can’t do whatever the hell they want with anyone they want. There’s a time to be persistent and there’s a time to bow out gracefully.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2002 My stomach is flatter than it has been for a while, partly thanks to the Ab Force. I’m really amazed that it could do this! I’ve begun zapping my thighs as well. I just wish I could zap this giant face and neck off, too! I’m holding steady weight-wise at 119 pounds.

No mail from Pérez or Mary, so hopefully I’ll at least get my doll this week without any problems. I guess my not hearing from Mary has to do with trial stress. I’ll have to try to remember to look online to see when the new trial date is. I’m pretty sure she’s still at Estrella, though.

This Saturday I offered to do the grocery shopping along with him, even though it’ll be a nightmare. That way, I can mail Teddy Bear’s letter from there and be sure it got mailed. I’m not saying Tom didn’t mail Pérez or Rule’s letter, but I can never know for sure. I wasn’t there.

Tom said that this class thing has nothing to do with the judge and that the judge is out of it. All he did was accept the DA’s ludicrous recommendation. It’s up to the probation department to make the adjustment, and he also reminded me that just because it says I have to do something, like work or take classes, doesn’t mean I have to do it.

But why a year and a half into this shit are they bringing it up? Is this just a case of God wanting me to get all worried for nothing? And when am I ever not going to have to have some steady bullshit going on that requires regular appointments? It’s like something wants to keep me going out regularly. First it was for the ear, then the teeth, now the freeloaders. What long-term problem comes after the freeloaders that I’ll be powerless to fight?

This weekend Tom’s going to give me a different computer to use as my MP3 computer. One that’s as fast as my work one. That’ll be nice to have. I’m sick of how slow the one I’ve got right now is and I’m sick of the damn thing crashing.

We’re also recording all the old edit and convo tapes into his computer for him to burn onto a CD. All those tapes can fit onto one CD in MP3 format. There’ll be 5 tapes, but a CD can hold up to 30.

Our stock finally sold, so we’re going to get caught up with house payments and bills, put a little extra aside for the next breakage crisis within the next few months, and get glasses for him and Joy for me. I’m not sure if we’ll be going through JBS Dolls or someone else online. I doubt JBS cuz they’re just too outrageously expensive. I’d really rather try to get her assembled. I can make her an outfit, and if I can’t, she’d be easy to buy something for because she won’t have any stuffing in her arms as Jade does.

MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2002 Got my period this morning. I mean, I guess I did. I don’t have any cramps, but my tit pain’s down. It’s weird, though, cuz I’m not flowing, yet I’m not just spotting either.

Lady’s not pregnant, so that means that either Little Buddy and Sneezy are sterile, or complications arose when Lady gave birth, preventing her from ever getting pregnant again. What’s weird about Lady is that although she’s quicker to run from you than Sneezy, she’s also quicker to come up to you. Sneezy won’t run away as easily, but he sure as hell won’t come up to you either.

I’m more tired today than I was yesterday. Yesterday, I dragged myself out of bed a couple of hours earlier than I’d have liked to. Half the time, 8 hours of sleep is nothing to me. 8 hours just won’t cut it. Sometimes it does, but I usually need 9-11 hours of sleep. So last night I went to bed a couple of hours earlier hoping to catch up, but I awoke after just 7 hours of sleep. Guess I can thank the freeloaders for a part of it. Between the mental anguish over them and stressing out over this class bullshit, and thoughts of Teddy Bear, I’m rather restless.

If Teddy Bear does contact me, I just hope I don’t live to regret it. I’m so torn between wanting to live out my fantasy of being with her and wanting to love and stay with Tom forever! It isn’t just Teddy Bear fucking me over that’s a possibility. What if I fuck my own self over by leaving Tom for her, then live to regret it? I’d like to think I wouldn’t be that heartless, stupid and chancy since I could literally be throwing away my whole life if I were to go with her and end up getting dumped with no means of support or roof over my head. Also, I twinge with such sorrow and guilt when I think of leaving Tom all alone and lonely. Yeah, he’s a big boy. But he’s also human. Could I really live with myself then? For the rest of my life, could I really live with always wondering where he is, what his life’s like, who he’s with, etc.? Yeah, life’s all about taking chances, but could I risk having a home, medical insurance, financial support, and someone who fully loves and accepts me as I am? Could I really throw all that away for this woman? Could I love her more than I love Tom and feel even more secure with her?

No, I just don’t see how that’d be possible.

But I also don’t see how I could just ignore her and not settle my curiosity. Not only do I want to keep my word about the mice, but I want to see just what would happen between us if anything at all. Maybe she won’t be as good of a person as I thought she’d be. Maybe I won’t be attracted to her like I was before. Maybe she’s taken, maybe she’s dead, maybe she’ll never contact me. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I just don’t want to wonder about these things, I want to find out the answers to my many questions. Like, what is her first name? What’s her life like? Who is Officer R. D. Johnson and what role, if any, will she play in my life? That’s what I want to know.

Well, in less than an hour, I have to give my life back to the freeloaders, so I’m gonna sign off and get this encrypted. Just because Scot had a slight soft spot for me last week, doesn’t mean I’m safe from any surprise house tosses, and yes, I’m going to keep these encrypted. Nothing I say here is anyone’s business unless I choose to make it their business.

I’m doing a rat experiment. Once again, I put the female babies in the new cage, but this time they’re in with mom and a wooden burrow to hide under. I was thinking that maybe they’d stay there this time around, but we’ll see. I thought Lady was going to kill them at first, the way she pinned them and had them squealing, but I guess she was just checking everybody out to see who was who.

For the first time in ages, I feel a little depressed. This began yesterday. Maybe it’s PMS or maybe it’s cuz I do feel a bit guilty for loving Teddy Bear. I know I shouldn’t, though, since we can’t help our feelings. I have no more control over loving either Tom or Teddy Bear anymore than I have any control over liking disco music and coffee ice cream.

Who knows, though? Maybe, if we do meet, I’ll discover that I don’t really love her and that I only thought I did. Or maybe I will and she’ll do something to snuff that love out. Or maybe I’ll just never see her again. I never thought I’d say this, but a part of me hopes I don’t. That way there could never be any potential conflicts or tough decisions to make. Or maybe I’ll leave it up to Tom. I’m used to others making my decisions for me anyway, so perhaps I’ll just give him the letter to mail and let him decide whether or not to mail it. See, if I have him take me to mail it, he wouldn’t stop me. And when I ask him what I should do, he tells me I have to be the one to decide. Well, if I’m not with him when he’s mailing the letter, that’ll give him an opportunity to have some say in the matter without my knowing it. If he ditched her letter, all I could do was suspect he didn’t mail it, but I couldn’t prove it and he’d know it.

It’s weird being kind of down after so long. I mean, I’m not bawling my eyes out in tears. I’m sure part of it really is PMS, along with being tired. It’s just that usually, if I’m in a bad mood, it’s cuz I’m either pissed, stressed out or both. I’d rather that, though, than be sad.

SUNDAY, APRIL 21, 2002 I’m having conflicting Teddy Bear thoughts. First Tom and I were arguing over freeloader-related shit, which seems to be what the bulk of our arguments pertain to. First it was sex and babies and now it’s the freeloaders.

Anyway, I still worry that a relationship with Teddy Bear may cause friction within my relationship with Tom. Not necessarily cuz of anything she may do, but cuz of him. He tells me I’m in love with someone else now and that I’m “unapproachable” as far as either hugs or sex goes. Well, yes I love Teddy Bear, but that doesn’t detract from my love for him, and how have I been unapproachable? As I told him, I’m available to him, I always have been, I always will be, so if I’m unapproachable, it’s only cuz he doesn’t want to approach me.

As far as my mixed emotions about Teddy Bear are concerned - well - of course it’d be easier not to bother with her and take any chances of her fucking me over in any way, but could I really live with myself and be ok with it if I dumped her? No, I couldn’t. I made a deal with her. I said I was going to breed mice for her, and we agreed to get together. Therefore, I think I should at least keep my end of the bargain and let her be the one to pull out if she wants to. Also, I really do miss her and want to see her.

SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2002 Still stressing over this class bullshit. This is the same stress I went through in jail. I knew I couldn’t have had these worries and bad vibes for nothing. I just didn’t know it’d take this long. Just why did they wait a year after my release to push this class bullshit? And once they see I have a diploma, are they going to push work on me instead in the name of control? Next thing I know my original fear will become a reality and they’ll be demanding that we move!

After having more time to reflect on it, I fear they won’t drop it because judges don’t change their minds as to what they’ve ordered. They simply don’t do that. It’s an ego thing. And if they don’t push the classes, they’ll just do something else. Remember, it’s a power thing, too. To them, making me pay the monthly fee and report twice a month isn’t enough control over my activities. They don’t just want to rip me off and make me pop in a couple of times a month, they want to control my life. And so does something up there. Once again, the more I go one way, the more I’m pushed the other. It’s like it wants me out of the house more often, yet I don’t want to be out of the house more often, damn it! Not unless it’s to see Teddy Bear. I just want to be left alone to live my life in peace and as I see fit. Who the fuck does this state think it is by trying to parent me around as if I were a child!

Sometimes I believe that the only way to escape society’s bullshit and the system’s abuse would be to literally drop dead. Being dead is the only way I could ever be free, but you know what, I’m not going to stress over this crap anymore cuz I’m not taking any classes. Period. This state is going to learn that no, it just can’t push people around whenever the hell they happen to feel like it. I’m going to put my foot down and stand firmly by what’s right. There’s what the so-called law says, then there’s what’s right. Well, it’s time to do what’s right in the case of Jodi S. Most of what I’ve done, paid, or where I’ve gone has been freeloader-influenced since ‘96, and it’s got to stop. It’s got to stop and I realize now more than ever that the only one who can make it stop is me. These people and the hold they’ve had on me aren’t going to go away on their own. It’s up to me to break the tie between me and the freeloaders. I swear, they’re either gonna end up driving me to my death or running me out of this house!

When I told Tom I was convinced Pérez never got my letter, he suggested that maybe she didn’t write back because they changed their policy about contacting former inmates.

Could be, but I doubt it. And I also doubt she would ignore my simple request and not write back. She was too nice to just brush me off like that. Again, I’m wondering if Tom mailed the letter to both her and Rule for fear of it causing us any problems. If he did, and if his suggestion is truly the case, then what about Teddy Bear? What? Is God up there saying, “No, I don’t want you out with Teddy Bear cuz that’s what you want? I want you taking classes.”

Well, I may not get my way in the end with Teddy Bear, but neither will God. My life is my life. It belongs to me and I’m the one that’s going to take charge of it.

We put a room-darkening shade up in the retreat and two light-filtering shades in the bathroom. That’ll help with the cooling costs a bit more.

I still can’t believe someone had the stupidity to actually think my reading comprehension skills were low. I just don’t see how anyone could’ve concluded that, but even if they were, that’d be my problem and up to me to do something about it, not the state of Arizona.

Besides the fact that I wouldn’t waste our time, money, and gas going to court just to lose, I couldn’t stomach seeing those freeloaders again. I couldn’t restrain myself from pouncing on them.

“They have a right to be notified and to have some say in it,” Scot said when we were talking about the petition.

Yeah, I know. They’ve been having some say in my life since 1996. They’ve been having a lot of say in it.

Well, either way, time will tell if this class bullshit is either a fuck-up or a fuck over, and whether or not I’ll continue on with the probation. Right now the ball’s in their court, literally, so it’s up to them. My actions will depend on theirs.

FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 2002 They want, they want, they want! I’m so fucking sick of this state and its fuck-ups! And damn every mother-fucking freeloader to hell!

Everything will probably be okay, but get this - I go to see Scot today, and he comes out and says they asked for two things that have him baffled. First, they want their report a month in advance, and two, they want to know why I haven’t taken the adult education classes that Scot can’t figure out why they ordered.

To break that down, every 6 months, they want a progress report. He said he told them a few weeks ago that he’s not scheduled to do a report on me till the end of this month. The reason he doesn’t understand the adult ed. classes is that I’m a high school graduate. He says that 60% of the probationers don’t have high school diplomas, so that’s why it’s ordered in most cases. But since I do, he doesn’t see why it’s necessary. I offered to fax him my high school diploma, which Tom’s going to do tonight from work (always one more thing we gotta do for these damn freeloaders!). I’m also going to fax the sign language and manicuring diplomas.

Now here’s the real kicker - according to Scot, they said something about my reading comprehension skills being low. I actually laughed when I heard that, telling him I read just fine.

Tom suggested that since I don’t act like most others, they may have gotten the impression at the courthouse that I didn’t understand the papers I went over with the interview lady or something (it’s always my fault). But I never went over any papers with anyone. That was simply thrown in there for spite, no doubt, but as I told Scot, I’m not taking classes. He thinks he can smooth things out and doesn’t see why it’d be necessary for me to take classes, but he has to do his job. In other words, things aren’t up to him.

I know that, I told him, and I don’t hold him personally responsible for anyone else’s spite or stupidity. He’s the only one that hasn’t been corrupt or incompetent as far as this bullshit goes, and for the first time since I’ve known him, I truly felt like he was on my side and wanted to help by telling them, hey, I don’t see why she needs these classes.

See, this is what I’ve feared all along; that they were gonna get on Scot to get on me about either work or classes. I meant it when I said I’d put my foot down against any classes, and I reminded Tom about this afterward. It’s my fucking life and I’m not about to rearrange it for any fucking vindictive freeloaders or corrupt officials. For 36 years I’ve been treated like a child, and goddamn it, it’s going to end! Scot and Tom are probably right when they say I have nothing to worry about, but it’s just the whole point being that they’ve ruffled my feathers once again.

I’ve given this state everything. Everything. Half a year of my life and thousands of dollars. If I keep giving in to their spontaneous and additional demands, they’re really gonna try to take advantage of me. It’s like they’re testing me to see how far they can push me and how much they can get out of me. I wonder when they’re gonna try to milk us for more than $40 a month. Any day now, I’m sure.

Tom told me afterward that it isn’t that he blames me, it’s just that by not compromising and not being willing to act like most others, I’m going to have to pay the consequences of others misunderstanding me.

Well, he’s wrong. That’s how it was in the past, but that’s not how it’s going to be from here on out. To me “compromising” really means being phony and kissing ass so you can come off as others expect/want you to, but I refuse to be what society thinks I should be. I’m me. Period. So if people are stupid and if someone misunderstands anything I say or do, that’s on them, not me. That’s their problem and their problem only.

I know that’s not what this is about. I didn’t go over any papers with anyone. Nothing I said or did should’ve given the impression that I couldn’t understand what I read. I also find it rather ironic that someone could think that after I typed up page after page of the shit I sent that I could have trouble reading. What? Did they come up with that cuz of the deliberate, disjointed sentences I formed to be confusing?

I doubt it. I don’t know who the hell suggested I can’t take in what I read, but I’m not spending any more time, money, and gas on this shit, and I don’t care what the courts order. Tom says he’ll drive me there, and that’s all well and good, but enough is enough! What? Does God feel my life’s so damn boring that he has to have this shit pulled on me to liven things up? Well, I’d rather be bored out of my mind than cater to these freeloaders and the fucked up system.

But maybe you’re destined to take classes so you can meet somebody, Tom said. Somebody that may speak Spanish that’ll need your help.

Well, I’m about to alter destiny. I like my life the way it is, thank you, and I have no desire to meet anybody new. Being pen pals with Mary and then meeting with my Teddy Bear’s enough. Perhaps I’m even making a mistake by meeting with Teddy Bear. Perhaps I’d be smart by not bothering and by not taking any chances. After all, she could screw me over, too.

I could do without Mary, but I couldn’t bring myself to dump on Teddy Bear and just forget about her. Then I’d always wonder about her and what would’ve happened. Of course, there’s always the chance that I’m wrong and I never see or hear from her again, though that’s not what my vibes say.

I suppose, that if Silvia had known why she was kicked out of M Dorm, she could’ve said Teddy Bear was just as corrupt as the black pig was, but for entirely different reasons, of course. Teddy Bear did what she did cuz she liked me and knew I was more comfortable being alone. The pig did what he did cuz he hated both whites and Jews.

I assured Scot that they were no victims when he referred to them as that pertaining to my petitioning the courts. He said he just calls them that cuz that’s what they’re listed as, he wasn’t there, so he can’t say what really happened one way or the other. When we told him we never saw the pre-sentencing report (of course we weren’t shown it, it’s all lies), and when I told him I didn’t want to petition for a sentence reduction not only cuz of the corruption, but for fear of the freeloaders retaliating, he seemed pretty understanding and rather empathetic for the first time ever. It was the first time he displayed anything other than the usual no-nonsense, I-don’t-care, it’s-not-my-problem attitude, void of any emotions.

I thought it was a bit odd, though, when he asked if I’d seen them or called their house. I reassured him we didn’t want to know they existed, and believe me, if I had called their house, wherever they are, he’d know about it. So would the rest of the world.

Of all the things they could frame me for, at least I know they couldn’t accuse me of calling them since they keep phone records.

Of course, Scot was not only agreeing with me that they’d pitch a fit if I were to even think of petitioning the court, but he was also doing his job by encouraging me to do the rest of my time. Again, it’s a business just like any other. He works for the state, and as the state’s servant, he would never discourage clientele. That’s why they keep things moving, too. As soon as a dozen people finish their sentences, a dozen others begin theirs.

“I’m not gonna find a bunch of cops at my door over this, am I?” I asked him, and he said no, because I’m not in violation.

Well, if there’s one thing I learned not to do, it’s to not open the door to the cops under any circumstances.

All this time and I haven’t fought back yet, but boy let me tell you, if I get railroaded one more time - just one more time - I’m filing every lawsuit imaginable and then some. I’ll do everything and anything it takes to make those responsible suffer dearly, and if anyone wants to perceive that as a threat - fine!

What an eerie coincidence that the sentence is 3 years. That’s how long the freeloaders lived with us. It’s like I’m being punished for each year I tried to get them to shut up and let us live in peace. God really does punish me when I try to fight the cards he’s laid down for me.

THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2002 I’m very happy to say that Little Buddy’s doing just fine. I guess he just got an upset stomach. This is the first rodent I’ve had that got sick and recovered. It goes to prove that the power of prayer really is bullshit, too. When Scuttles was dying, I prayed to God to make him well, yet he didn’t listen to me. But with Little Buddy, I knew better than to pray to the cruel, hateful monster, and what did Little Buddy do? He went and got better on his own.

Although I handle them daily, the babies are pretty timid, acting just like mice. I guess that’s because their mother’s such a psycho. I hope they’ll calm down with age, but I don’t know. If Miss Skitzo doesn’t start sprouting a belly any time soon, I’m gonna write Little Buddy and Sneezy off as either sterile, gay, or just not interested.

I was so beat that after not sleeping as much as I’d have liked to for the last few days, I let myself sleep in today, not getting up till after 11:00. When I got up I asked myself, do I do a rollover before Teddy Bear visits? Or do I stay on days?

Then the 11:34 sonic boom made the decision for me. I had just been thinking about that too, and how I haven’t heard them lately, figuring that the more things built up, the less I’d hear from them. I thought a boom woke me up at 8:00, but I’d never known them to boom that early and just once. Usually, the booms are in spurts of twos and threes. Sometimes even up to 6 or 7 booms. However, there was just one boom after I’d gotten up, so it probably was a boom I heard and not a dream.

I know I could probably go back to sleep, but that’d be much easier said than done after being woken up by any unwanted visitors. It might as well be the freeloaders themselves coming to see me. Every time I have to see Scot’s fat face, it’s like the freeloaders are right there with him saying, “We’re still here. We haven’t forgotten about you and we haven’t gone away. We’re still very much a part of your life, Whitey Jew.”

If there’s one thing and one thing only that bugs me about Mary’s story, it’s her and Justin getting jobs in Seattle. I’m confused about that one. Justin wouldn’t let her get help for Gretchen in Florida cuz he was wanted for abusing James in Arizona. I can see Justin forcing Mary to Seattle, though why Seattle beats me after he killed Gretchen in Florida. But the media said they got jobs in Seattle. If what the media says is true, since 9 out of 10 things they say are bullshit, then how could Mary continue living with him and go to work as if nothing ever happened? That’s something Doe and Art would do, but Mary? Mary, who’s nothing like them? Why didn’t she call for help once she was at work and away from Justin? And how many other kids were with them at this time? Did she not call for help cuz he threatened her other kids or what?

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2002 I hope to hell this isn’t bad news. I mean, it’s bad news, cuz Little Buddy’s sick. But how sick, is what I’m wondering? He was fine a little while ago, out running around, as usual. Then shortly after I put him in the new cage, he was sick. There was this yellowish drool dripping from his mouth and he appeared to be having difficulty breathing. Then a while later he cleaned himself and seemed perkier, even eating the carrot stick I offered him.

Oh, how I hope he’s ok! It hasn’t quite been a year yet, and I really want Teddy Bear to meet him! I’m hoping it’s just a case of an upset stomach like people get.

I just checked on him again. He’s not spitting up anymore, but now his nose is bleeding and one of his eyes doesn’t look too good. He’s still perkier, though, so I hope he’ll be better with some rest. It’s just that as a rodent expert, it bothers me to know that statistically, sick rodents rarely recover.

For a while, regardless of if he makes it, he’s gonna be residing in a much nicer and slightly bigger cage. On sale for $100, we got a $200 black wire cage. The other one’s black wire too, but its wires are thicker and spaced further apart. I thought the baby girls since there are more of them, could live in it, but they can get out, even though its bars are closer together. It’s half the weight of the other cage, cuz its bars are thinner. It has a metal base, rather than a plastic one like the other one has. It has 3 shelves at different levels (two have ramps attached to them) and it came with 3 tubes, too.

I bought a couple of new big wheels so there can be two in each cage once the babies move into it in another couple weeks or so, and for now, the big guys and mom are living in it.

Before we went to the pet store, we went to Walmart where I had a blast shopping.

I got a couple of clear vases with air bubbles trapped in them for the 4 bushels of flowers I got. I put two in each one. I got red roses, pink roses, red tulips and pink tulips. Because the vases aren’t as stable as I’d like them to be, I’m gonna get some colored gravel some time to weigh them down.

They had a really nice palm tree that was about 6’ high, but it was $50, so I passed it up.

You know how guys are slobs and don’t always aim - well - I bought a pink rug for around the toilet so I can wash it periodically. The pink contrasts well with the blue carpet.

For myself, I bought a pink and purple floral sundress that fits great, even though it’s a size 14/16 for girls.

I got shiny silver sandals that are a size 3 for girls and awesome looking. The only thing is that they’re not all that comfy. Hopefully, I’ll get used to them cuz they’re really dazzling. Actually, they’re denim sandals with pearl pink sequins. They’re strapless and toeless.

I got two pairs of comfortable shorts in black and pink, two G-strings with rosebuds, also in black and pink, a 6-pack of white ankle socks for next winter, and purple fuzzy slippers.

We got the shades for the master bath and retreat, but still need to get paneling for the sheds, skylight trim, ceiling fans, and a faster board for my MP3 computer.

Just when I thought I wasn’t going to find anything for Jade, I noticed these jackets. Windbreakers with hoods. I picked out a melon pink one, along with a pair of purple pants. Well, I couldn’t have gotten her a better outfit if I tried! They fit perfectly. The pants are mid-calf length, and the sleeves are an inch above her wrists. The colors go well with her coloring. Even her blue/red bead necklace. If only I’d thought to get her socks and sneakers if not just sneakers. Next time, though, and she still needs a stand, too. Her outfit cost under $20.

When it came time to check out the Barbies, I was surprised to find that there wasn’t the breathtaking selection I thought there’d be, but they sure had a lot more than the drugstores. They even had singers Brittany Spears and the chick from Destiny’s Child, as well as Michelle Kwan the figure skater. I want to get the Michelle doll next time around, but this time around, I got a gorgeous doll related to Barbie called Lea. This dark exotic beauty is definitely the best one I’ve got. She’s different too, cuz her outfit’s painted right on her body and so is her necklace. She wears a purple and white 2-piece bathing suit with a white floral chiffon wrap. The wrap is the only thing not painted onto her. I can’t tell what she is, though. Is she white with dark eyes and black hair? Is she Italian, Indian, Oriental, or Spanish?

I’m wondering if a house isn’t coming soon across from next door cuz I saw 4 or 5 people standing around next to a big trailer. They left right after I saw them.

They’re working in back now, as usual, and oh, how nice it is not to have to know about it without looking out and seeing it! Looks like they’re installing either an AC or an evaporative cooler. I wonder what the other two rentals have. There’s nothing on the roofs, so maybe they’ve got ground-mounted units.

TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 2002 It’s a gorgeous day for mid-April. Cool and breezy, though when the sun peeks through the clouds, it’s a bit warm. I decided to take advantage of this weather before it gets unbearably hot and open the windows to air out the musty, ever-present rodent odor.

Though I was up by 8 AM yesterday, I couldn’t fall asleep till 3 AM last night and was tired when I got up at 10 AM. Tomorrow we’re going shopping and I’m sure I’ll have no problem getting up!

This shocks the shit out of me to say this, but I think the Ab Force may be making a difference after all. It’s pretty subtle so far, but my waist is smaller. If I see any more of a difference, I’ll zap my arms and thighs, too.

The renters, as I predicted they would, have been coming out in the early evening on the hotter days. They’re very outdoorsy, but so’s most of Arizona.

I’ve just about written the cheeks off as a no-show, and I’m beginning to think I won’t see him till I go to him on Friday. Maybe the first of the year harassment really was over someone new in the area and or fear of my taking off with the New Year.

MONDAY, APRIL 15, 2002 Just two weeks and I can send the letter. I just know she’s gonna get it and I just know she’s gonna call, too! It’s meant to be. So, I should be seeing her in 3-4 weeks. May 10th stands out in my mind for some reason, which is a Friday, but I can’t say that it has to do with her. I think it does, though.

As soon as I get new ink cartridges, I’m gonna print out her letter before this printer, once again, goes on the fritz in one way or another.

Yesterday we ordered Christmas Glow, who I’ll just call Chris since I’m gonna make her over. So far we haven’t gotten any email saying she’s out of stock, but there’ll be some problem and or delay with the doll. There always is. This will be my sixth doll from them, and I have yet to order and get a doll from them within 7-10 business days.

I’m officially doing freeloader time again for the next 4 hours or so. I wonder if he’ll come when we’re out on Wednesday or Thursday. I doubt it. God wouldn’t have sicced these freeloaders on me in the first place if he knew we could just lock the cheeks out, so why would he have the cheeks stop by on a day when I wasn’t in?

I’m not sending Paula as many letters because I don’t write as often. I usually wait till I have 6-8 pages accumulated before I mail it off to her.

Tom and I were playing with the rats last night. It’s so cute how Lady follows Little Buddy and how Little Buddy comes running to me when I call him. Well, he usually does anyway.

SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 2002 I wasn’t going to write today, but I’m so bored! I don’t feel like doing any more office work or any working out. I already did some singing, fed the animals, and there’s nothing to watch on TV.

Tom says that his job’s erratic hours should settle down in about a month, but that’s hard to believe. He says that his taking over being the boss will lead him to even more raises and that in order to do so, things must be hectic for a while and that’ll sometimes include weekends. He’s been gone all day, and words cannot express how grateful I am to not want a child or have any sexual desires with this man, or else I’d be miserably depressed! Believe me, I’d rather be bored, even mad, than depressed.

I just hope nothing comes up to spoil our Wednesday plans. I’m looking so forward to making a day of it and having fun with no freeloaders involved.

I look out the window and I don’t see the freeloaders, I don’t hear the freeloaders, but why not? I mean, I may as well. They’re still very much a part of my life. Always with them, always with me. And while they’re not currently costing me my freedom, they’re invading my brain. Oh, how I wish I’d handled them differently! So many if-onlyies. Another thing I can add to my long list of regrets is going along with that 2-hour, seemingly asinine and irrelevant interview I went through at the courthouse prior to sentencing. Especially when she came out and asked about my income. That’s none of anyone’s business, I should’ve told her and then left. They would’ve threatened me and they would’ve bribed me, but they couldn’t have sent me to prison for refusing to do an interview and divulging personal information.

I still can’t believe that someone who never knew I even existed before October 30th, a perfect stranger, could sit in judgment of me and send me to jail! The mother-fucker may or may not have known the facts pertaining to the freeloaders or the pig, but I hold him just as responsible for fucking me over as I do the freeloaders, the pigs, and Paul. Any decent judge with a normal, rational mind would’ve said no to the DA’s recommendation. He’d have said that sending someone to jail for something they wrote, threatening or not, was a bit steep. Especially mail sent to an adult who had a choice.

Were Paul and the black pig connected? I’ll never know. Somehow I doubt it, though. Yes, it’s always possible that Paul also thought I was Jewish and had his own prejudices, but I think it was a case of common practice. I think public pretenders always try to deceive their clients in the name of control and saved money.

But the pig - that was sheer hate. Even if I weren’t Jewish; I was white and he wasn’t. I was also just another person he could manipulate and control.

It sounds so good and so easy to just tell myself, hey…you want to stop being their victim and stop being their victim right now? Then stop making payments, stop going to see Scot, and stop opening the door to him.

But they’d only come flying through the door as if I were a mass murderer. It’s a no-win situation. They’ve got me either way and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. I’m forced to be victimized by these people and our shit system, and I don’t know if it’s more infuriating or frustrating! I’m as powerless to stop what’s been happening and what’ll keep on happening for another 550 days or so, just as I would be if I were being held down while someone else raped me.

FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 2002 I took a Benadryl last night at 9:00, fell asleep at 10:00, and slept nearly 10 hours, waking up right before the 8:00 alarm.

This Sunday I’ll be ordering a doll, which I should receive between the 23rd and the 26th, but I know it’ll be a few weeks to a few months.

Currently, my top 3 picks are this $25 black doll, a $40 Arab doll, and a $60 fairy doll. The fairy doll’s a bit much for us right now, so it’ll be one of the first two that I’ll get. The black doll should be in stock cuz of its Christmas theme and the fact that it’s not Christmastime or near it. The Arab doll could go either way. So many people hate Arabs after the way they’ve tortured this country, yet the dress is so glamorous that that could cause it to be out of stock.

On the other hand, people don’t care so much about race when it comes to dolls. My black doll, Colette, for example, is just a doll. However, if she suddenly came alive, I’d beat her ass and toss her out the door.

Next Wednesday we’re going to Walmart. I can’t wait. I’ve been looking so forward to going to a department store for so long. We haven’t been in one since ‘99 while we were homeless.

No freeloader-related visits for 3 solid days!

I did my exercises. Hey, it keeps me fat and not real fat.

THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 2002 The first of the workers just arrived in back. God, I’d hate to live back there with that shit always going on! And thank God they’re not just a few feet away. Imagine the door slamming. And the trunk slamming? No bright light last night.

I got up an hour later than I should have, so I’ll have to really push myself in the morning and try to crash earlier tonight.

If Scot doesn’t show up within the next few hours, this will be the longest time he hasn’t bugged me here since last year, nearly 3½ months ago. His last visit was 4 weeks ago today.

Today I’m taking my weekly break and enjoying home-baked cookies. Something I haven’t done in a long time. In fact, I think this is the first time I ever baked cookies in this house. I’m also going to be enjoying my favorite coffee, loaded with fat and sugar. It’s 100 calories a cup, but oh so good!

I’m really sick of encrypting my shit. I mean, it’s such a pain in the ass! I think I’ll only encrypt current stuff since they can’t use the past against me. Then again, I’m being punished for something I’m supposed to have done beginning in 1996, and they don’t need anything threatening or incriminating from me cuz they could just make up their own “evidence” as I said before.

At first I asked myself what was more important to me, frustrating the pigs, should they seize this computer, with encrypted files? Or giving them an eyeful? The answer is - I don’t give a fuck about the pigs either way! For now, I’ll still keep them encrypted.

I did both my sessions at once and zapped my tummy for a total of 20 minutes. That way I only need to use the gel and clean up once. I didn’t bleed, so I think that yes, what I had was my typical mid-month bleeding. If in a month I see or feel any different, I’ll start zapping each thigh for 20 minutes as well, but I’m still sure I won’t see or feel any changes. That’s when I’ll probably quit zapping altogether.

It’s nice to see that the iguanas are out for the year.

No cheeks. Of course, we still don’t know that he didn’t stop by Monday. If he did, I’m sure he’ll tell me about it whenever and wherever I see him next.

God, I really had no self-respect back east! In ‘91, I was talking about being friends with Mary D, though I never did. That’s totally fucked up of me to even think that! After she trashed my stuff and tried to attack me? Damn! I should’ve hurt her instead of keeping her from hurting me, then I should’ve been forever done with her.

A few of the babies appear to be sprouting balls. So far it looks like there are going to be 5 females and 3 males. So if I keep Lady, and if she doesn’t breed with Little Buddy, that’ll be 6 girls and 5 boys.

Unlike me, Tom was sore after using the Ab Force. That’s cuz he doesn’t exercise, so his muscles are weaker.

From what I read online, the trial is to be delayed even more. I hope to hear from Mary about it real soon, then I’ll have to decide whether or not to make up an excuse as to why I can’t see her in May, or if I should just go see her.

Anyway, the sick fuck, Justin, is doing things to delay going to Florida to stand trial for murdering Gretchen, but as the report said, Florida will wait for him. He can’t put it off forever. Sooner or later Florida’s gonna get him and he’s gonna stand trial. I don’t know if justice will be done and if he’ll get executed, or at least life, but he can’t avoid extradition forever.

From what I can tell, Mary made two mistakes. The first one is going with this sick twist in the first place. The second is pleading guilty over failing to get medical help for both James and Gretchen. But Justin wouldn’t let her get the help, so why did she plead guilty to something she couldn’t help and that she wasn’t guilty of? They obviously did the same thing to her as they did to me and they tricked and bribed her into pleading guilty. She never needed to or should’ve pled guilty. Pleading not guilty, like she should have, would not have made things worse for her. It’s just that everybody’s led to believe that pigs, judges and lawyers are Gods who can do things they really can’t do. They let themselves be intimidated by them.

God, I wish I could go back and redo certain things over again, even though I certainly don’t care to relive the experiences! If only I’d contacted the city right away, if only I’d beaten the shit out of the bitch! If only the only words out of my mouth to the black pig had been, “Charge me or release me.” If only we had done our homework sooner as far as the laws and what Paul should’ve been doing. If only, if only, if only!

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2002 I ended up having just under 1000 calories yesterday and waking up at 118 pounds, but you know what? Enough is enough! I’m sick of this diet thing. I’ve spent years going hungry, and all for what? To lose 6 pounds? I’m tired of putting myself through so much for so little. All the hunger simply isn’t worth losing a few pounds. Meanwhile, as long as I stick to my exercising and keep my calories between 1200-1500 with one day a week to eat all I want, I should never gain weight. So, although I’m 15-20 pounds heavier than I’d like to be, there are worse things in life than being squat and plump. If I were 30+ pounds overweight, then I might stick to it and put more effort into it, but I am as I am and I want to just let myself be for a while. I’m not saying I’ll never diet again or lose more weight; just not now. For now, I want to relax and let myself be as I naturally am without putting so much pressure on myself, and as I said before, Teddy Bear will have to accept me as I am.

Our Ab Force thing arrived. It feels like a strong vibrator. I did my waist already. I’m a bit confused, though. They say not to use it for more than 20 minutes a day, but does that mean more than 20 minutes on the same area, or all together? And it doesn’t say either way about using it on your back or on different areas of the arms/thighs. It shows them using it on the outer thighs and biceps, but can’t I use it on my inner thighs and triceps if I wanted to? The only places it says not to use it are the head, neck, heart and genitals.

I’ll ask Tom when he gets up. He’d know more about this sort of thing. I’ll probably just stick to doing my abs with it cuz I still don’t see how it can change your appearance. This thing doesn’t say anything about that, though, unlike some of the others that claim it reduces a couple of inches from the waist. After a month of doing my waist, then I’ll decide whether or not to do my arms/thighs. Trying to get the thing on my arms isn’t very easy.

The renters are out burning trash right now. I saw two adults and two kids. What a dumb time to do your trash; when inspectors could be out and about. And what is it with the new bright light they have at the back corner of the house, towards the side where the utility pole is? They never hang out back or at the side, so what do they need that, and their front light for? You’d think people would want to take advantage of and enjoy the darkness out here, but instead, people light up their properties like in the city. I can see a low-wattage light in front, but a super bright light at the back corner.

It should be roughly a week now since Pérez got my letter. If I don’t hear from her by the end of next week, then I think that’ll be a reasonable time to assume she either didn’t want to write back, or she never got the letter. Now the question is, should I mail Teddy Bear’s letter myself? I don’t like this not feeling like I can trust Tom, but I’m just not sure if I can. They say your gut instinct is the one to trust, so would I be feeling this way if I didn’t have a reason to?

The baby rats are now a bit bigger than the mice. I think I might be seeing balls forming on one of them. They’re still little midgets compared to Sneezy, whose head is almost as big as their whole bodies. Sneezy’s now in with 3 babies, then I’ve got 5 babies by themselves, and Lady’s in with Little Buddy, who I hope isn’t sterile. I’d really like a Little Buddy Jr. or two, and to replace Lady with a look-alike.

A little over an hour ago, I could’ve sworn I saw Scot go up Ralston, the opposite way in which he goes to come here. If that truly was him, why would he pass by without stopping here? I guess this means he could swing back up and stop by, though. We’ll see. It’s been 4 weeks, so he could come by anywhere from right now, till a few months from now. If the cheeks come while Tom’s asleep, I hope I spot him before he gets a chance to knock and wake him up. After all, it was me the freeloaders were always after, so Tom shouldn’t have to be put out any more than necessary. He’s already been put out enough.

It still strikes me as being the weirdest thing how I can work out faithfully like I do, rarely exceed 2000 calories, and still be fat. I always truly believed that exercising was supposed to cause weight loss, but I see that it does not. It simply tones me up and helps keep me from gaining any more. But what do these fitness people do? Starve themselves? Work out 8 hours a day? Both? It’s said that the fitter you are, the thinner you are - well - I’m pretty fit, so why aren’t I thin? I mean, I just had no idea that one could carry so much fat as well as muscle at the same time!

Now it’s let’s-work-on-the-rental time. Why does this one need so much more work than the other two? There are two pickups and a couple of people hanging out by the utility pole. I wonder if that bright light’s connected to whatever it is they’re doing. I mean, no one should need that much illumination. Especially out here and in areas you don’t walk through.

I’m currently fine-tuning early 1991, and damn was I always sick! Colds, flu, infections, vomiting, asthma attacks - why was I always so sick?

No cheeks today. No activity in front, either, but it’s still for sale.

The workers are still in back. Just what the hell could be so wrong with the place that it needs so much work, and if there are that many problems, why’d George let them move in when they did? It must be a serious problem for them to be there this late. Whatever it is seems to revolve around the utility pole, so it’s probably an electrical problem.

I had contemplated hanging up the jogging for a while and just sticking to my toning exercises while adding another set to my routine to double my workout. Then I had an idea. Why don’t I keep my workout as it is and run on the treadmill? It’s easier to run on that thing, than to walk, anyway. I just have to hold onto the rails. It’s a hell of a heart-punching workout, though, being uphill and all, so I’ll only run to two songs’ worth and maybe even do it every other day.

After my second Ab Force session, I was bleeding. The question is, is this the typical mid-cycle bleeding I tend to have? Or did the Ab Force cause it? I didn’t bleed after my first session, so right now I’m not blaming it on the Ab Force.

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2002 We were gone for about 8 hours yesterday, but the car won’t be fixed until today. At least, we think it’ll be fixed today. He said that because we just got all new tires, he wants the car to last another couple of years and that maybe we can get fences and an old pickup this fall with stock money. That all sounds good, but I still can’t imagine God allowing us fences till right before or after the probation ends.

We saw Mary, Dave and Mom right as we were leaving. While he worked on the car I hung out with Pepper and read my book. Seeing Pepper made me wish we hadn’t decided against taking him, but either way, we couldn’t take him. We don’t have fences and it’ll be a while before we do.

Because I knew I would be on a liquid diet for today and tomorrow, I didn’t hold back on helping myself to the shit they have there. It is unbelievable all the shit they have! There were 5 bowls of candy, 2 boxes of cakes, half a dozen boxes of various crackers, half a dozen boxes of various chips, and both the fridge and freezer were jam-packed with pies, ice cream, TV dinners, etc. The only healthy things were a couple of containers of yogurt and some cheese. They did have V8 drinks for mom, but everything else was soda or fruit punch. The variety of food wasn’t the only amazing thing, but so was the quantity. If I were suddenly stranded all alone in that house, I could easily get by on all that food for a month.

Anyway, I woke up at 119 pounds, and I plan on not eating till Thursday. Depending on what the scale says come Thursday morning, then I’ll decide whether or not it’s time to permanently hang up dieting (or for a long, long time) and maintain whatever I am, or if I want to starve another day or two after I’ve eaten for a day or two in between.

What the fuck is going on here?! How could I have gained a pound since 8:00 this morning with no food? I should be down a pound or two by now, not up a pound. I didn’t shit today. Maybe that has something to do with it, but with no food, I should wake up tomorrow at 115, then at 111 on Thursday. That’s a reasonable amount of weight loss for someone who doesn’t eat for 48 hours, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna go through this hell just to lose a few pounds in the end! I should easily lose 4 pounds a day, maybe even 5 or 6.

We checked online for any news pertaining to Mary’s trial, but there was nothing. Not one mention of it, and I had said to Tom, “Guess it’s not big news when a child is abused so long as everyone involved is the same color.”

Yet he assured me it was too soon and that no mention of it would be likely till after the testimony, the closing arguments, and the jury’s deliberation.

I really hope she’s taken to Florida before May. I really don’t want to go through the hassles of going to see her! Besides, she should be a bit more comfortable in prison, I’d think.

If Scot doesn’t show up here this week, then who knows when the fuck he will? Not for a while, I hope. I’m really sick of having to deal with anything that’s connected to these freeloaders. I want them out of our lives for good!

I hope Paula remembers to call and let me know how she makes out in court at the end of the month. I also hope she’ll contact me as soon as she can if she gets a jail sentence on her birthday. Certainly, she couldn’t get too long of a sentence. She only slugged a cop, right? I hope that pig was white!

MONDAY, APRIL 8, 2002 There turned out to be more trouble with the car, so Tom’s mom got him a rental. Meanwhile, we’re going over there today while Mary’s at jury duty, Dave’s at work, and Mom’s at daycare to work on the fucking thing.

SUNDAY, APRIL 7, 2002 Tom’s at Mary’s now and I’m spending most of the day fine-tuning journals, besides working out and giving attention to the animals. I’m almost through the first 5 years of journals, but that’s back when I wrote so little. About 200 pages are covering the years 1987-1991 combined, yet twice that many cover 1996. 1996-1999 are too big to be stored on one floppy. After I get done skimming them for their trivial shit and restructuring sentences, I hope to get them onto one disk.

I spoke to Tom at Mary’s a couple of hours ago. It did turn out to be a ball bearing like he originally thought. The good news is that Ma’s covering the $100 cost. Guess you could say I’m grateful for God ignoring my prayers, as he usually does, back when I’d pray for him to take her. But his was when she was much more of a burden than a help. The question is, what are we gonna do when he does take her?

Anyway, as it’s turned out, the only thing that’ll be spent on this shit is time. Time he should’ve spent lazing around the house. He was sick, he’s been working his ass off - the guy deserves a break! But no, God just had to go and let this happen.

Sometimes I wonder - is God trying to tell us to go into the repair business with the way he has our shit break so often? He just loves to sit back and watch us have to fix shit, but boy I’ll tell you - I am really fucking sick of it! It really gets old! By July we’ll have another breakage crisis. He just won’t let us live in peace for more than 3 months, though anything’s better than being cursed with freeloaders, pigs and jail.

I just want to go shopping next week and for me to see my Teddy Bear. My vibes strongly say that I will, but if I don’t, I’m going to believe I’ve totally lost all my psychicness completely. I’ll give her until June to contact me. If she doesn’t by then, then I’ll destroy her text and picture files and file her away in my brain as just a memory.

But I know that won’t be the case. I know she’s coming. I just hope she’ll still be attracted to me, and that deep down she won’t be disappointed in me for not losing weight. I just don’t want to do it. Period. I like to eat, and besides, I’ve had my thin days, so it’s not like it’s something new that’s so important to me. I just don’t care about my looks as much anymore. As long as I don’t get bigger; that’s all that matters. Meanwhile, I’ve been chunky for years now and I know I always will be. This is how I’m meant to be, or else I wouldn’t be this way, and I don’t care to lose weight that’ll only come right back. I’m big everywhere except for my calves and forearms. I only hope she doesn’t mind. She shouldn’t. I mean, she’s twice as big as I am, after all, and doesn’t seem the type to base relationships solely on looks. I look close to how I looked in jail, so I guess that if she could be attracted to me back then, she could still be attracted to me.

SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 2002 I’m so fucking pissed right now! Utterly furious! Of the two problems we usually have (freeloader or breakage), it’s the non-stop breakage curse that’s got us now. The fucking ball bearing on the car went out. I knew something would come up to stop us from our mid-month shopping spree I had looked so forward to. Well, I’m sick of making plans cuz we just cannot get ahead to save our lives! Something up there doesn’t want us having any fun for damn sure. As soon as we fix one thing and think we just might get ahead enough to spend some money on ourselves, something just has to up and break. Why can’t we go three months without something breaking??? Just three months!!! Why plan on getting outfits for Jade, plants, fences or anything else when something’s only gonna come up to take that money away? And there goes the doll I was gonna order this month too, cuz I know this thing is gonna cost hundreds of dollars. I know this isn’t gonna be just a minor inconvenience that’s simply going to delay our grocery shopping and our stopping to pick up our mail for a day or two. When God gets us, he gets us good.

Meanwhile, he’s gonna try getting a hold of Mary so she can bring him home. Then tomorrow, he’s gonna have her come get him, then bring him to work where his car will be.

I just want us to be able to live our lives! I’m sick of having to make a career out of fixing things and catering to freeloaders!

the cheeks asked Tom again if he were back on nights. In other words, will he be waking him up when he comes to bug me next week?

When am I gonna get another 3 months off from his popping over? I’m obviously not a flight risk, or else I’d be gone by now, and anyone with an average IQ could see I’m not this crazy, violent person, despite the fact that that’s the impression that would’ve been given in all the “reports.”

Mary and Dave picked Tom up and brought him home. They’re coming to pick him up tomorrow morning around 9:00. I thought about going with them, but I don’t know if I want to sit in their dust-covered house and eat pizza for 18 hours while Mary takes my picture. I think, though, she’s learned her lesson and knows better about the picture-taking thing, it’s just that I’d be so bored there for that long. We’ll see. It may do me good just to get out and visit. Especially since most of my outings are black-related. To get out and not have to do for the black bitch is a nice change, though either way, I don’t like to go out often.

Tom says that if it’s the part he thinks it is, it’ll cost between $60-$80, but that seems awfully low. Our breakage sprees cost us hundreds if not thousands.

Mary thought the babies were cute, though she wouldn’t want them in her house since she doesn’t like rodents with tails.

She also saw my 11 bottles of chrome nail polish and thought they were neat-looking. I just repolished my nails, doing each one a different color. They’re so long now that it’s hard to type.

I decided that now was a good time to breed Little Buddy and Lady. That way, both sets of babies will be close in age, and I can replace Lady with any solid brown ones they have if they have any. Lady’s just too damn timid. We have enough rats, so I’ll probably just keep one or two from the next batch. I just want Little Buddy to leave descendants behind, though I certainly hope he has at least a year and a half more to live.

I’m just so pissed over this car shit. We should’ve done our grocery shopping today and picked up our mail. Then tomorrow we should be burning. Then in the middle of the month, we should be out shopping. We really could use the things we plan to get, and I’ve been looking so forward to this for so long, but these fucking car costs are really gonna hurt us and prevent us from getting much.

It’s pretty windy out there today. A bit cloudy too, though I don’t expect any serious storms till the monsoon season in July or August.

FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2002 I asked Tom, and no, there’s no way to lock my whole directory/computer, and no, the pigs couldn’t keep me in jail forever for refusing to give them the key. They’d bluff me, he said, and would try to trick me into giving it to them, but I wouldn’t legally have to and they couldn’t legally detain me.

Some of my nails are so long now that it’s hard to type. Anyway, after this morning, I’m free of the freeloaders till 10 AM Monday. Lucky me!

I’m going to try to maintain a day schedule. Not just because of Teddy Bear, even though I don’t expect to see her for 5 or 6 more weeks, but because we’re going to be doing some shopping in the middle of the month.

I wonder if Teddy Bear remembers my release date.

I know it’s been only a week, but I’m beginning to suspect Tom never mailed Pérez her letter. I mean, I just find it rather hard to believe she couldn’t handle a simple little request like sending a quick note or a lousy postcard. It makes me wonder if I should be the one to mail Teddy Bear’s letter, even if means delaying it a week or so. Then again, if he’s that adamantly against Teddy Bear enough not to mail her letter, then maybe I shouldn’t be mailing it and maybe I shouldn’t be getting together with her at all if that’s the case. He’s shown jealousy before, like when Kim visited. And he knew I wasn’t even attracted to Kim, so I sometimes worry about how he’ll react to my associating with someone he knows I am attracted to.

If being gay is hereditary like the scientists are saying, then I wonder who I inherited my gayness from. If either my parents or my grandparents had had any attraction towards the same sex, there’s no way in hell they’d ever have admitted it. Not in that day and age. Not even if they were all still alive.

It’s really quite amazing that despite the diversity of colors, none of these rats are solid brown like their mother.

THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 2002 And so it was one year ago today that I last saw Palma. I wonder what her life is like now. Was she as prejudiced as Madeline said she was? Or was she truly flattered by my being attracted to her? Did she like me too, like she seemed to? Is she bi, bi-curious, or strictly dickly?

I wonder if she’s in the tents now, too. She’d love that! More people to be in control of.

How nice it is to sit here and see the month of April on the wall calendar I made! But it’ll be even nicer once it says May, cuz that’ll be when I should see Teddy Bear.

If it turns out that I don’t hear from either Teddy Bear or Pérez, then I’ll really suspect Tom never mailed their letters. I’d find it awfully hard to believe that two DOs who liked me would choose to ignore me. I can see Pérez deciding not to write back, but for Teddy Bear to ignore me seems so unlikely.

It also seems unlikely that the cheeks will show up today, but I’d think that next week he will for sure. Who knows, though? Maybe I’m in for another 3 months off from the house calls. Either way, tomorrow we have to lose more time and money to the freeloaders, but while I’m at it, I’m going to spoil myself at Dairy Queen, even though the ice cream I ate yesterday and the day before caught up to me and threw me back up to 119 pounds. Once again, I doubt I’ll get to fit comfortably in those shorts with my shitty willpower.

The babies are so cute and are beginning to look like rats, rather than deformed guinea pigs with large heads and tails, as Tom had described them. They’re eating and drinking, though still nursing. I love the way they play pin the opponent!

I guess summer’s here to stay now, though it’s not very hot yet. The tiny yellow flowers that bloom on some of these bushes are starting to blossom.

I’m sick of encrypting/decrypting my shit. Perhaps I should stick to it, but I’m not sure I want to keep doing it cuz it’s a pain. I guess I just don’t care if the pigs read anything I’ve got to say about this world or the people in it. Maybe I should give them their reading’s worth if they ever saw fit to go through the trouble of seizing this computer. I haven’t written anything that could incriminate me, and either way, I wouldn’t have to if they were out to get me. All they’d have to do is make up their own “evidence.” I’d also be kidding myself if I thought I could simply refuse to tell them my key and that they’d just send me on my merry way once they saw I wouldn’t budge. If you won’t give the pigs what they want, they won’t let you go. So, if they did steal this shit, my only two choices would be to give them the damn key or stay in jail, even if that meant being there forever. Cops bribe people with their freedom all the time.

Maybe there’s a happy medium. Instead of encrypting, maybe I can just use a password for my entire doc directory. Or my entire computer. It’d be a lot quicker to type in a password than to decrypt journals. Those with 150 pages or more take several minutes to encrypt/decrypt.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2002 I was surprised that this letter of Mary’s was dated 2/28! What took it so long to get to me? I was wondering why she never answered my question about if she wanted both Tom and I to visit or just me. She said both of us would be fine, but I don’t think we’ll get that far if they move her after the 8th, and if that’s the final trial date, then I don’t see why they’d hold her at Estrella much longer than a week at the most. A part of me hopes she gets moved before May. Yes, I’d like to see her, but I don’t want to go through the hassles of waiting forever to see her. I know all too good and well what that’s like and I don’t miss it!

In this letter, she says she was told that Pérez is now in the tents, which explains why she hasn’t gone to M Dorm to claim my letter like I believe she would have if she were still inside. I only hope that my never hearing from her is because she herself chose not to respond to me and not because Tom made the decision for her by not mailing the letter.

I also got some book stuff to type up.

TUESDAY, APRIL 2, 2002 Another hour and 20 minutes and I’m officially back on call for the black bitch for 4 hours. I’m beginning to doubt the cheeks will show up this week, but I’m sure he’ll put in his April appearance at some point. I’m really surprised he went 3 whole weeks without bugging me, but the week’s not out yet, so we’ll see.

Because it’s getting closer to my visit with Teddy Bear, I’m going to try to maintain a day schedule as soon as I get on one again. Right now I’m crashing in the late afternoons and getting up around midnight. Tom’s schedule fluctuates more than mine does, believe it or not.

At 117 pounds, I’m noticeably smaller all over, for once and for all. Even my fat ass and neck have shrunk a bit! I still feel chunky, though I know I’m doing real damn good for my age. I wouldn’t complain if I could get to 105, but I doubt I’ll get that low. Maybe 110-115.

My autobiography’s all done, so now I’m just fine-tuning old journals. Damn was I one naïve, confused, contradicting bitch! Going back and forth on my feelings about this one, then about that one. And at the same time I had no confidence, I was brimming with a false sense of hope, believing that one day I’d see my dreams become a reality. Well, I’m glad they didn’t and that things turned out the way they did. I regret certain neighbors, I regret wanting things I couldn’t have as bad as I did, but overall, things turned out for the better.

If I don’t hear from Pérez in the next week or two, then I’ll know I won’t be hearing from her at all. I really doubt I will hear from her, but that’s okay. As long as she got my letter and I was able to really thank her for all her help.

Tom’s picking up a letter today from Mary with 23¢ postage due. Not that 23¢ is any big deal to us, but Tom has to wait in line, and she should know better by now.

I’m looking forward to getting the Ab Force we ordered that sends an electronic pulse, in the way that a stun gun does, to work the ab muscles. It also does arms and legs. I know it’s bullshit as far as weight loss or loss of inches go, but I think it’ll feel good. Especially for lower backaches, even though I’m fortunate enough not to get many of those with the way I work out.

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