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lastbluetardis · 5 years

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Chemical Potential (10/11)

Summary: Slightly homesick and stressed about her abysmal chemistry grade, Rose Tyler meets quirky James Smith, the boy who sits in front of her in their chemistry class. They become fast friends as James makes it his personal mission to help Rose get through the semester.

Ten x Rose University AU

This chapter: ~5100 words, teen

Notes: This was written for the lovely @thegreenfairy13 as part of the @dwsecretsanta gift exchange. Also tagging @doctorroseprompts.

The chapter we’ve all been waiting for! Just the epilogue left after this, folks.

AO3 | Ch1 | Ch2 | Ch3 | Ch4 | Ch5 | Ch6 | Ch7 | Ch8 | Ch9 | Ch10 | epilogue

“You’re so brilliant!”

Rose was still in shock even as James swept her into a crushing hug in the middle of the lecture hall. He’d pinned her arms to her sides, so she couldn’t really reciprocate the embrace. But even if she could, her brain was too wrapped up in the memory of the little red 89%—Great improvement! Well done! that was scribbled at the top of her exam.

“I’m so proud of you,” he crowed into her ear, a little too loudly but she didn’t mind.

Still not completely convinced she wasn’t dreaming, Rose pulled back from his embrace to glance at her exam again. The same 89% was staring back at her.

“How…?”

“Because you’re brilliant,” James said with a decisive nod. “You, Rose Tyler, are a genius.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” she said, even as a grin stole across her face. “But I am pretty good.”

James rolled his eyes at her and held out his hand for hers.

“This is cause for a celebration. Let me buy you breakfast?”

Rose followed James to the dining hall. When they were settled in one of the few empty tables, James pulled out his iPad and tapped at the screen for a few minutes before his face lit up.

“With this newest exam score, you now only need a fifty-nine percent on your final exam to get a passing grade in the class.”

Fifty-nine percent. That was doable, she hoped.

“What’s your exam schedule like?” Rose asked. “I’ve asked my boss to have off until my finals were over, and she graciously agreed. Hopefully that’ll make it easier for us to find days to meet up, but I don’t want to take away from the time you need to study for your other classes.”

“Chem is my first final,” James replied.

“Mine too,” Rose said.

“The exam is Tuesday morning, so let’s meet up both days this weekend? And then we can use Monday to take practice exams.”

Rose blinked. “How do you have practice exams?”

“Remember, Professor Young said the final is standardized. That means it’s a national exam that the ACS—the American Chemical Society—puts out for colleges and universities across the country. It’s done this for decades, so there are loads of past exams and practice exams on the internet.”

“Oh. That’s helpful.”

“Indeed. Almost every science class uses an ACS exam as their final,” James said. “Hopefully this will help you get the feel for how the exam will go. It’s all multiple-choice, and designed to fit within two hours, so the problems aren’t all that complicated.”

“Maybe for you, they’re not,” she muttered.

His eyes widened when he realized how that came out.

“No, no,” he said hastily. “I merely meant that they problems are designed to take a couple mathematical calculations, is all.”

Rose nodded and continued tucking into her omelet.

oOoOo

During the last week of classes, James and Rose didn’t see much of each other. Rose had a final project in lieu of a final exam in two of her classes, and she was swamped with work as she frantically finished everything that was due on the last day of classes.

But finally, she turned in a painting project and final report, leaving her free to meet up with James to study for their chemistry exam.

Finding a place to study was trickier than normal, as the entire student population was on the hunt for a quiet, secluded room. James, however, knew that the science buildings were fairly empty during exam week, and so they took over a small room tucked away in the basement of the physics building.

“I’ve brought snacks,” James proudly proclaimed when he and Rose met up on Saturday morning to begin their first study session.

To call it ‘snacks’ was an understatement; he’d brought a huge tote bag filled with not only pretzels, crisps, trail mix, and granola bars, but microwaveable meals so that they wouldn’t need to abandon the room for a lunch break. He’d also brought a cooler filled with drinks, as well as his electric kettle and all the makings for tea and instant coffee.

“You’re such a mother hen,” Rose teased, even though she was grateful for all of the food he’d brought.

He stuck his tongue out at her and said, “If you’re gonna be rude to me, I’m not gonna share my food.”

She rolled her eyes. “My humblest apologies. I am forever in your debt and am grateful for the bounteous meal you have scavenged for us. I grovel at your feet and beg your mercy and pray that you share your wealth of sustenance.”

James broke out into peals of giggles that had Rose laughing too. She loved the way her chest warmed at the sight and sound of his happiness.

“I suppose you’re forgiven,” he said after a minute.

“Brilliant!” Rose immediately reached for a tea bag and began to make them both a cuppa.

They saw very little of the outside world for the next couple of days. Rose had never worked so hard at anything in her life, and by the time Tuesday morning rolled around, she was utterly exhausted but determined to get that fifty-nine percent she needed. She refused to let one stupid class get in the way of the rest of her time at uni, or between her and James.

Their friendship was the most important thing to her, and they were right on the cusp of becoming something more. Ever since Thanksgiving, they’d both been aware of the electricity between them, but, true to his promise, James kept their friendship strictly platonic.

But Rose was impatient to get finals out of the way and hopefully go on a date with James. If he still wanted to.

They sat in their usual seats in the lecture hall as they waited for their professor to arrive with their exams. All around them, students were frantically cramming and flipping hastily through their notes in a last-minute study session.

“How are you feeling?” James asked as he twirled his pencil end over end across the table top.

“Okay,” she replied. “I just want this to be over. I never should’ve taken this class in the first place, but this nightmare is almost done.”

James nodded silently but didn’t say anything else. He instead faced the front of the room. Before Rose could ask what was wrong, their professor stepped into the lecture hall and began speaking, telling them to put everything away except for a pencil and calculator.

Minutes later, the exam booklet was passed out, and Rose began filling in her student information. When she was finished with that, she waited impatiently for the professor to tell them they could start.

She watched James out of the corner of her eye. He was on his phone, copying down his student ID number. A moment later, he tucked his phone into the front pocket of his jeans and continued playing with his pencil.

Rose reached over and rested her hand on his thigh. He let out a muffled squeak and flinched.

“Good luck, James,” she whispered, giving his leg a squeeze. “Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for me this term. No matter what happens with this exam, meeting you was the best thing to come from this class.”

His face softened and a small smile tugged at his lips.

“For me, too,” he replied, and he reached down and covered her fingers right as the professor told them to begin.

The exam passed in a blur of words and numbers and bubbling in her answer sheet. She was so focused on taking her test that by the time the professor told them time was up and to turn in their exams, she realized James had already left. With a slight headache building behind her eyes, Rose turned in her exam and walked out into the lobby, where she assumed James would be waiting for her.

He was, and when he saw her, he beamed and held out his hand for hers.

Despite the fact that their chemistry exam was over, she and James continued to meet up for the rest of the week to study for the rest of their classes. While they didn’t speak very much, Rose was glad to have his quiet company as she prepared as best she could for her other exams.

The week passed relatively quickly and uneventfully. James’s last exam had been Thursday evening, while Rose’s wasn’t until Saturday. Because there would be nothing for him to do and he would undoubtedly get bored watching her pour over her books, Rose stayed home all of Friday to prepare for her Shakespeare final the following morning.

A few minutes before eight o’clock, Rose stumbled groggily into the classroom along with the rest of her classmates. She wasn’t at all nervous for this exam; it was the class she was doing the best in and one she genuinely liked.

But that didn’t mean she enjoyed taking the test. It was all essay-writing, and Rose’s hand was sore by the time she turned in her test booklet. She flexed it and her shoulders as she walked out of the room, taking care to not let the door slam behind her. She’d made it a step into the hallway when a tall, lean body invaded her personal space.

Before she could reel backward, the familiar scent of soap and laundry detergent pervaded her senses.

“You’re done!” James crowed loudly. He then winced, realizing there were still people trying to take an exam. His voice was much more muted when he said, “Congratulations.”

“Thanks!”

She skipped up to him and wrapped her arms around one of his, hugging it to her chest.

“So. Are you hungry?” James asked.

“Starved,” she said. She hadn’t had time to eat breakfast that morning.

“The university is serving free breakfast until noon to anyone still here. Want to go take advantage?”

“Absolutely!”

Arm in arm, they made their way across campus to the dining hall. It was utterly dead inside; there were two other students milling around the food court and three more sitting at their own tables.

James and Rose each grabbed a tray and loaded it with food. Waffles, eggs, potatoes, sausages, fried tomatoes, flaky croissants. Rose wasn’t sure whether she’d be able to eat everything, but it all smelled incredible, and her stomach was growling nonstop.

Rose found James at the coffee station, filling up his travel thermos. She opted for tea instead. When they were each satisfied with their platters of food, they walked past the cashier with a friendly smile.

“Got any more finals to take?” she asked.

“Nope,” James said, as Rose answered, “Just finished my last one.”

“Congrats to you both. Enjoy the break.”

Rose followed James to a table by the back wall of windows very near to the table they’d sat at the first time James had treated her to breakfast earlier in the semester.

For a few minutes, silence enveloped them as they wolfed down their breakfast. It was all delicious and sated Rose’s hunger quickly.

But even as they both slowed down their eating, James still wasn’t saying much. Instead, he was fidgeting with his thermos, flipping the lid on and off repeatedly.

“You all right?” Rose asked.

“Fine,” he said a little too quickly. He stopped playing with the lid, as though realizing what he was doing. “Have you been on the grade book portal yet?”

“I took a final at eight,” Rose reminded him. “Why?”

“Well…” James’s eyes darted back to the table as he murmured, “The chem final is up.”

Rose’s ears rang and she thought she might throw up everything she just ate.

“Oh,” she whispered faintly.

“Do you want to check it?” he asked quietly.

“I dunno…” Rose kneaded the heel of her hand into her forehead. Did she want to know how she did, or did she want to live in blissful ignorance until her final transcript was released? But surely she’d achieved at least the fifty-nine she needed, hadn’t she? “Can you look and tell me how I did?”

“I could,” he said. “As long as you don’t mind me seeing the rest of your grades.”

Rose snorted. “You literally have a spreadsheet of all of my grades.”

He stuck his tongue out at her. She took her phone out of her pocket and tapped through it to get to her online student portal. She entered her login information and handed the phone to James.

Her heart thudded against her ribs as she watched James flick his finger up the screen. Rose folded her arms on the table and rested her forehead on them.

What was she going to do if she hadn’t gotten a high enough grade? What was she going to do if they revoked her scholarship? Could she plead her case to the university? Tell them she’d made a horrible mistake in trying to take chemistry and that they should put her on probation until she could prove she could keep her grades up?

“Rose!” James’s excited voice was in her ear and his hands were roughly shaking her. “Rose, look! Look! You did it! Look!”

Rose lifted her head cautiously, not quite believing what he was saying. He thrust the phone under her nose, and she blinked rapidly to try and focus on the blur of black letters on the screen.

Final Exam: 72%.

“You did it!”

Rose’s jaw slackened and she grabbed her phone from him.

“Impossible,” she muttered, and she refreshed the page—twice, for good measure. But the little 72% was still there.

“That’s thirteen whole points above what you needed!” he exclaimed, grinning like a loon at her.

He jumped to his feet, then grabbed her biceps and tugged, urging her to stand too. She followed, feeling weak to her knees, but that didn’t matter, because soon she was enveloped in his arms. His comforting scent filled her lungs and she buried her face into his shoulder as he held her fiercely.

“I’m proud of you,” he said, squeezing her. “So proud.”

“I passed,” she rasped, shaking slightly. All that hard work had finally, finally paid off.

“Yes you did! You’re brilliant, you are!”

Rose pulled back to look up into his face. It was bright with joy, and her stomach did a little somersault. She would never have been able to do any of this on her own. And through some sheer luck and James’s unending patience, kindness, and intelligence, she met all of the requirements to keep her scholarship. She could stay at the university.

She didn’t have to leave James, her best friend. She’d never met anyone like him, and nobody had ever made her feel as good about herself as he did. She felt like she was the very best version of herself whenever he was around, and she loved him more than she’d ever loved anyone.

Standing there, with his hands resting at the small of her back, his eyes bright, his mouth curved in a smile, and their bodies invading each other’s space, Rose’s control snapped. Between her promise to herself—that if she passed, she would try to make something with James work—and her almost certainty that James was interested in a relationship with her, it was inevitable.

Their hips were pressed flush together as their arms remained around each other’s waists. As though realizing how intimately they were standing, James’s face flamed red and he pulled his hips back a fraction of an inch. But his eyes were dark as they darted from her lips, to her eyes, then back again.

“Rose…” he croaked.

His voice was breathy and made a thrill of heat shoot from her heart into her belly. He licked his lips, making them shine invitingly. Rose sucked in a trembling breath and, with her heart beating through her entire body, she rocked up onto her tiptoes, settled one of her hands around the nape of his neck, and pressed her lips to his.

He let out a muffled sigh as his muscles relaxed and he melted into her arms. He clutched at the fabric of her jumper, pulling her impossibly closer as he angled his head to the side to deepen the kiss.

Of all the times she’d imagined this—and she’d imagined it embarrassingly frequently—none of it came close to the real thing. His lips were soft, warm, and full against hers, moving in time with her as though they were already familiar with kissing each other.

Their lips danced together, tugging and releasing, chasing and yielding. Nothing had ever felt this good, and Rose never wanted it to stop. Heat sparked down her spine as he let out a helpless whimper when her tongue tentatively probed his bottom lip. She echoed the sound when his fingers tangled into her hair, massaging her scalp as he held her tenderly, reverently.

Oh, God, how am I ever going to stop?

She felt like laughing and sobbing all at once, because this was the most perfect moment in her entire life. The weight of the world flew off her shoulders and it seemed as though it would never settle on her again. Being in his arms was the only place she ever wanted to be and she prayed he felt the same way.

She caressed her hand up his jaw, gliding along the smooth skin before landing in his hair. It was even softer than it looked. She grabbed a handful of it, her nails scraping across his scalp, and he let out a wrenching groan as his entire body shuddered in her arms. Her core ached and throbbed with desire.

Oh, God.

Half a second before she was going to hitch her leg obscenely around his hip, James broke their kiss that was actually probably more of a snog now. Her chest heaved as she struggled to catch her breath; little black dots were swirling in her vision, and she wanted nothing more than to wrap him into a tight hug. And possibly another kiss.

He was deliciously rumpled. His hair was sticking out at all angles and a happy, dazed glint had entered his eyes.

Rose licked her swollen lips and breathed, “All right?”

He nodded quickly, and he reached out to cup her cheek in his palm. His thumb brushed across her bottom lip, and she had to restrain herself not to suck the pad of his thumb into her mouth. Instead, she settled for pressing a quick kiss to it before he dropped his hand to his side.

“Yeah,” he whispered, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Yeah. I just… I wanted… did you… did you want to do that?”

Rose furrowed her brow as her heart sank a little. “What d’you mean?”

His cheeks were bright red and his eyes darted across her face, then to her lips, then to a far-off point behind her shoulder. They traversed this path several times. He looked terrified and helpless, and something in her chest cracked at the sight.

She reached out and took his hand, hoping to offer him some bit of comfort until he could tell her what he was thinking.

“It’s just… did you want to kiss me like that? Or were you just happy about your grade?”

Rose frowned at him. Did he seriously not know? He had to know. He had to realize she’d been wanting to kiss him for weeks. That she was irrevocably in love with him. That she wanted to spend the rest of her life kissing him and being with him.

“Both,” she said firmly, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. “I’m overjoyed I passed the class, but I also wanted to kiss you. I’ve wanted to kiss you for a while now.”

His face morphed into an expression of utter delight, and she debated her next words for many long seconds. She was tempted to leave it at that, then return to kissing him in the middle of the dining hall, but she swallowed her nerves and said, “You’re my best friend, James. And I know we’ve only known each other for a few months, but I… I’ve fallen in love with you.”

His jaw slackened in surprise and his hand went limp in hers. Her cheeks burned, but she forced himself to keep his stare as she tried to parse through the emotions flitting on his face while trying not to vomit with nerves.

“You… you love me?” he squeaked.

She nodded, and his face slowly bloomed into the widest, most beautiful smile she’d ever seen on his face. The sight of it sent her blood thrumming as hope swelled though her.

“Oh, Rose. I…I…” He reached forward and cupped her cheeks in his palms. His thumb idly stroked her cheeks as he tilted his head down until his forehead was flush with hers. His breath puffed against her lips, and the closeness of him made her eyes flutter shut. “I… I’ve fallen in love with you, too.”

He shifted and hugged her closer, burying his face into her shoulder. Her heart raced at his words, aching with love for him as she held him just as tightly.

“I’d thought maybe you fancied me,” he whispered into her ear. “But I hadn’t been sure if you were just a really affection person who hugged and held hands with her friends all the time. And I’ve tried asking you out on dates, but I would either chicken out or you would stop me. I barely dared to believe… to hope…”

“Believe it, mister,” she teased, taking one of her arms from around his waist to poke his belly. He squirmed and giggled, then pulled back to look at her. His fringe had fallen onto his forehead, and she reached up to brush it back. “I wasn’t sure if you felt the same way, either. Then I worried that if I said something and you didn’t like me like that, it would make studying awkward and uncomfortable. So I’d decided to wait ‘til the end of term, just in case you weren’t attracted to me, I could run away and avoid you for the rest of my time here.”

He rolled his eyes.

“And then I was terrified I wouldn’t pass chemistry. I didn’t want to fall in love with you only to have to move back to London a month later. It would break my heart.”

His face softened, and he leaned down to brush a kiss to her forehead.

“I love you,” he murmured. “So much. I don’t care if we’ve only known each other for three months. You’re my best mate, and I always want you to be my best mate. Even if you’d had to move home again, I wouldn’t have let you go without a fight. Or at least without making sure we would stay in contact.”

“Sap,” she teased, but she couldn’t help the grin that split her face.

He blew a raspberry at her, but then his face went solemn.

“I, er, I should probably tell you. I haven’t really, er, done this before,” he said in a rush, his face flushed pink.

After her initial confusion faded, a lump settled in her stomach. “Was that your first kiss?”

She was mortified. If she’d known that, she would’ve made it gentler, sweeter. The kind of first kiss he deserved to have. And she would’ve asked if it was okay that she kissed him, rather than yanking his face into hers. But for his first time kissing, he was sure good at it…

“No, no, ‘course not,” he said quickly. “I’ve had a few girlfriends, and we’ve kissed. But… but that’s it. None of them were ever serious enough that I wanted to do anything more with. Y’know… anything physical. Never been in love like this before.”

His cheeks had somehow turned redder and he looked uncomfortable and vulnerable.

“I… I’m not really sure how this works,” he mumbled, embarrassed. “Because I want everything with you, Rose. Everything. But I don’t want to muck anything up.”

“It works however we want it to work,” she said simply. “I want to do everything with you, too, but I only if you want it and are ready for it. We can go as slow or fast as we’re both comfortable with.”

His shoulders straightened a bit. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “That’s what it means to be in a relationship. We’re in this together, James. Together.”

He smiled, his body relaxing. “I like the sound of together.”

She beamed. “Me too.”

“So… d’you think maybe we could get back to the kissing thing?” He towered over her and leaned down far enough that the tip of his nose brushed hers.

“It was rather marvelous, wasn’t it?”

“The best kiss I’ve ever had,” James said honestly.

“Me too,” Rose admitted.

James’s eyes widened, but he looked pleased and slightly smug. Rose rolled her eyes, then pressed herself closer to him until their lips slotted together.

This kiss was gentler than their frenzied first kiss, but the knowledge that he wanted to kiss her—that he loved her!—made shivers rocket down her spine. She trembled in his arms as she looped her hands over his shoulders, scrabbling for any purchase to pull him closer.

He moaned against her mouth as his hands dropped to the small of her back. His fingers clenched and loosened repeatedly into her jumper as they made slow passes up and down her spine. It was as though he didn’t know what to do with his hands. For that matter, neither did she. They ran through his hair, then went to his jaw, then cupped the back of his neck. Anything to keep him close. Anything to keep him kissing her.

His lips moved gracefully with hers. The only evidence that they were new kissing partners was the occasional bump of their noses and missteps when they each went to adjust the angle of the kiss. But it was still perfect, and they each automatically corrected any errors they made.

Rose’s mind was empty of anything except the man in her arms. Her body fizzed with pleasure and endorphins, leaving little room for anything else except for the unending mantra of I love you, I love you, I love you looping through her head.

The words were bursting to escape her mental filter, and she eased them out of the kiss. James’s breath came in choppy pants against her lips; hers wasn’t much better. Her lips felt deliciously swollen, and she licked them, still able to taste him on her tongue.

“I love you,” she said softly, reaching out to rest her palm on his chest. His heart thudded steadily beneath her palm. “I love you, James.”

His breath caught in his throat and he lifted his hand to cover hers. He wrapped his long fingers around hers and squeezed them, then brought her hand to his lips to place a delicate kiss to each knuckle.

“I love you, too,” he croaked. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone.”

“Neither have I,” she admitted.

Something flashed behind his eyes. “Not… not even Jimmy?”

Rose shook her head. “No. I thought I loved him. And maybe I did, as much as my teenaged self could. But you… my God, James. It’s like my body is way too small to contain this. I’m overwhelmed in the best way possible.”

“That’s how I feel.” He ran another line of kisses along the ridge of her knuckles. “I’ve felt like this for so long. I’ve been terrified you might not feel the same.”

Rose couldn’t help but chuckle. “I was worried about the same thing.” Then her brain caught up with what he said. “When did you realize you were in love with me?”

James tilted his head to the side. As he thought, his tongue pressed to the backs of his teeth.

“I think I’d known for a while,” he said at last. “Or I suspected. I don’t entirely know when the transition from ‘friend’ to ‘more’ happened officially; I just know that I loved our study dates and mate dates and wished they were real dates.

“But the point of no return for me was the night you stayed with me on the anniversary of my parents’ death. You stayed with me even though I was miserable company. And you spent the night. When I woke up and saw you asleep on the recliner… I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. I wanted to wake up every day and see you first thing.”

She smiled softly at him.

“Your turn,” he said, pinching her waist lightly. “When did you fall in love with me? It was immediate, wasn’t it? You just couldn’t resist this foxy body and suave, sexy charm, eh?”

He winked roguishly, and Rose burst out laughing. He pouted, but the effect was ruined with the smile creeping across his face.

“After our trip to Philly,” she said when her giggles subsided. “I was looking through the photos we took together and I realized that was the most fun I’d had out with someone in a very long time. And I wanted to spend a lot more time with you outside of studying.

“And then on election night, when I told you about Jimmy, you didn’t judge me for anything.” His brows furrowed, and he opened his mouth to argue. But she placed her finger over his lips. “You’d be surprised how many people wanted to give me a lecture about how I should’ve left sooner than I did. But you… you just listened. And you gave me a hug and didn’t make me feel stupid for anything that happened.”

“I think you ought to rethink your friend choices, if you fell in love with me for common decency,” James huffed, talking through her finger. “Er. Not to be rude or anything.”

“Though that is a teensy bit rude,” she teased.

He stuck his tongue out at her, then licked her finger. She pulled it back with a shriek, wiping the wetness off on her jeans.

“You’re disgusting!” But she was laughing, which softened the reprimand.

After a beat of silence, James asked, “So… since it’s the end of finals and we’ve cleared the air about our feelings, could I take you out somewhere? A date-date. No more mate-dates. Not that you’re not my mate. You’re my best mate. But you’re more than just my mate now and…”

Rose’s chest warmed with affection for the man babbling in front of her. She rocked onto her tiptoes and brushed a kiss to his cheek.

“A date-date would be wonderful,” she said, then she pressed her lips to his once more.

#ficandchips #thegreenfairy13 #doctorroseprompts #dwfic #doctor who #ten x rose #ten x rose au #au #uni au #my fic #chemical potential

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jvc-yearofservice · 5 years

Text

9/30/19 - 10/7/19

Aaaaand I'm back, baby! (better late than never, I suppose) We started the week by celebrating Rosh Hashanah which was super fun. Our Jewish housemate spoke Hebrew as she blessed our meal, and we all dipped apples in honey in order to start out the new Jewish year on a sweet note. We ate brisket, mashed potatoes, matzo ball soup, noodle casserole, challah bread, pomegranates, and we toasted with apple cider and champagne. Traditionally, you can also dip your bread into water or run water over your hands in the sink to symbolize a cleansing of the person as the new year begins.

Someone in my house had a birthday on Friday, and since I was away for my cousin's wedding, I baked them a cake and painted a watercolor horse for her on Wednesday. I told her that I could bake her a cake from scratch since I am the descendent of German bakers, but she specifically insisted on having Confetti Cake Mix from a box. While I was getting the cake mix from a Rite Aid, someone stole my bike from the bike rack outside (even though it was locked), so I had to walk at least an hour on foot to get home which was a bummer. When I realized that it was stolen and had not just disappeared into thin air, I became upset and started asking people if they saw my bike. Some scary-ass looking bikers were really upset for me and offered to look for it, which I thought was sweet of them. I went back into the Rite Aid and asked if I could see their footage from the video camera outside, and they simply answered, "No. Sorry about your bike, though." I wasn't in trouble with anyone even though the bike belonged to the house/the Jesuits, but I'm just mad that someone got the jump on me, so I might still put up signs that say something like, "Hi, I know you stole my bike. This is not a warning to bring it back. No, I am telling you instead that I know who you are and will find you. I know where you went, and I am coming to get my bike back. When I find you, you will wish you had never even looked at my bike in the first place. Good luck." This doesn't really seem in the spirit of the JVC, though, so I might pass on that idea. If anyone is in the Sacramento area and sees a cute little teal-colored bike, it's mine!

Anyways, here are a couple of random things that need to be noted. Firstly, I have decided to return to St. Louis for Thanksgiving, and I will be there from November 27 until December 1st, so if you want to hang out, text me and we can make plans! Secondly, I keep calling the organization for whom I work by the wrong name which everyone thinks is hilarious. I keep saying "Fishes and Loaves" instead of "Loaves and Fishes". Thirdly, I am now able to make coffee in a pot all by myself (so watch out world).

Work has been too strange and funny to believe. On Monday, a woman waiting in line for the free lunch, at the organization Friendship Park, attempted to come into the playground area while the kids were at recess. She made eye-contact with a couple kids and tried to beckon them over to her and pointed to a bag, shaking it like she had something for them. While I was walking over to the fence to confront her, she snaked a hand around to the inside of the fence and started to try to unlock it from the outside. I grabbed the lock and held it closed and told her very icily, "We're not interested. No thank you," until she gave up. She tried arguing with me, saying she wanted to give the children treats and that we were mistreating them, but I just kept telling her we were not interested, so she left but not before calling me a "bitch". All I can say is that she is lucky that she was on the other side of the fence from me. I also led PE classes for the volunteer who went home over the weekend, which was exhausting because I had to do all my work responsibilities and hers too so I was running around all day without a break.

One of the girls who I drive to and from school is an absolute hoot. One morning, she told me in all seriousness that I need to brush my hair more. Another favorite thing of hers to do is to roll down the window of our car and try to talk to people in other cars. Today, she called out to some little boys at a red light, "Hello! Do you want to be my friend?" One day, she said, "I have a secret to tell you," and I replied, "Do you know what a secret means?" (a joke she didn't get/appreciate, haha) Unfortunately, despite her super sunny demeanor, her living situation is a tragedy. One morning, I went to pick her up, and I saw her and her mom sitting outside on the sidewalk with all their stuff around them. The mom said that she had just been kicked out from their friend's apartment and had nowhere to go. On the way to school, the little girl told me about how she was worried about where she would stay tonight. Also today, I found out that a family of seven kids was taken into CPS custody and nobody knows where they could be.

Last Friday, I was having my one-on-one with my supervisor, and a homeless man asked for some adult diapers because he had IBS and was wearing the same thing all week. We eventually walked with him to another building and got some, and he was very grateful. It felt good to be able to actually do something because sometimes I feel like I die a little bit any time I have to turn someone away or tell someone 'no' when people ask for money.

Thursday through Sunday, I was at my cousin Caitlin's wedding, which was amazing. I basically traveled all of Thursday and got in at night. On Friday, we rehearsed walking in and standing in line for the wedding. Afterwards, we went to lunch together outside, and I made the very unwise decision to wear a romper in Michigan in October. That night, we had the rehearsal dinner at a brewery. On Saturday, I met up with the rest of the bridal party in the hotel lobby at 9am and went to the salon to get our hair and makeup done. We drank mimosas and coffee as we got ready for the wedding. We all got dressed together in Caitlin's hotel room and ended up walking a couple blocks to the venue which was really fun because people kept cheering us on and commenting on Caitlin's wedding dress. The ceremony was so sweet, and I loved the part where Caitlin and Kyle washed each other's feet as an act of service to each other as a married couple. Afterwards, we took group pictures and went to the reception in a building nearby. I'm so happy for them, and I'm still so grateful for being included as a bridesmaid.

Sincerely,

1 note · View note

lunulate · 3 years

Text

What a tiring week. I had two midterms (hopefully they went well) and Mom came to visit on Wednesday (my aunt couldn’t come). She brought a lot of snacks, my Halloween costume, and new shoes. I was especially grateful for the latter because my spare shoes are actually too small for me and I've had a persistent blister above my right heel—lt wasn’t so bad at first, but now it’s gotten to very painful and bloody.

She also did my laundry, and told me all about how ông and bà are recuperating in a nursing home (ông is learning to walk again and bà’s entire left side is weak). I think I forgot to mention this, but Mom broke her ankle while in Iceland and it hasn’t healed yet. It’s strange how we’re all having issues with our feet (I think bà is?) although mine is pretty minor. Mom also told me she was trying to book tickets for my flight back—I’m going home for Veterans’ Day weekend! It seems kinda redundant because Thanksgiving is only two weeks after, but I’m still excited. After she left, my roommates made cinnamon rolls and gave me one.

My Thursday class was cancelled because the professor got sick, so I went back and discovered my period started. I still had to come back to the satellite campus for volunteering. I think it went better than last time, but we took turns learning to measure wells and I messed up, it was so embarrassing. What’s worse is that I had to teach the next volunteer (and actually even the one after that), and of course I wasn’t of much help. I ran into Genesis and Jace on both Wednesday and Thursday.

On Friday (yesterday), I started studying for my final midterm, called my sisters up, and attended a Halloween event with a girl from my residential hall named Amanda. It was a murder mystery, and we had to figure out who killed our school mascot based on a schedule, autopsy, and testimonies. It was fun but more simple than we thought. We both chose the same suspect, and after we submitted our guesses, we were told that the answer would be revealed later. I checked today and guess what? We were right!

The entirety of today was pretty much spent taking a shower and doing laundry. It took so long because I had to wait for the stalls to empty up and well, laundry always takes a while. I didn’t get any schoolwork done... One of my roommates’ boyfriend came to visit and we were all supposed to attend movie night, but only Luis and Amanda showed up, probably because it was Halloween weekend and people had plans.

We originally planned to watch “Train to Busan” but Amanda told us that another residential college was screening “Spirited Away” in their dining hall, and after a lot of indecision, we decided to go there instead. I was a little sorry because while I didn’t really want to watch “Train to Busan,” the other residential college was pretty far away.

But I couldn’t say no, so the six of us hopped on a night bus to that residential college. We got there early to make sure we got seats, so I flipped through a few periodicals while we waited in the mailroom. Finally it was time to go in. We got free candy and hot chocolate, which was nice, and then we all seated ourselves at a table (except for Amanda, who ran into some of her friends) and settled in to watch the movie.

I’d never watched “Spirited Away” before (although I have seen a few Ghibli films) and I wasn’t crazy about watching the dubbed version, but it went okay. I won’t spoil it in case you haven’t watched it, but there were times the plot was confusing—it made leaps I couldn’t follow and felt slightly sped up. I’m sure I missed some context due to translation issues/not growing up in Japan. But it was very sweet and sad, I felt melancholic after watching it.

The movie ended sort of late so we had to run to make the bus. We literally all sprinted as soon as we saw it, thankfully the bus driver waited for us. I even heard someone remark, “Oh they made the bus” or something to that effect as we got on. However, we left Amanda. I guess we all thought she was planning to stay with her friends but shortly after we left, one of my roommates got a text from her asking where we were. We felt so bad.

Now we’re back, and it’s very late. I didn’t do any homework although I have a big assignment due on Monday and I didn’t get to call anyone although I really wanted to. I don’t know. I don’t regret watching the movie but now I feel sorta empty inside. Tomorrow is Halloween—maybe I’ll go trick-or-treating? Mom brought my PB&J costume when she visited.

Other things I’ve been up to: I recently developed a craving for everything bagels with cream cheese (I liked them before but not at this level) and I’ve been trying to find our school mascot in designs everywhere. Our mascot is very popular so they’re incorporated in various logos, signs, etc. often in innovative ways. I feel worried about the midterms I took so far, I think I did fine but I really need As.

#fragments of song

0 notes

olicitysecretsanta · 7 years

Photo

For: Madalyn, @imusuallyobsessed Wishing you a very happy holiday season and bright, hopeful New Year! - Jenn @jennonthewire (graphic created for this work: @sharilynn87 )

Twitterpated an olicity AU

Monday, November 5, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h I just met my future husband. He doesn’t know it yet. We locked eyes in the elevator and he sorta smiled. Obviously, we’re meant to be. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen yes, but you didn’t SEE him. Total fire. FUEEEGOOOOOOO. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen and @speedster89 Unfortunately, I have no idea who The Husband is IRL but in this dream sequence HE IS MINE. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen and @speedster89 I’m not going to worry about him seeing my twitter, Barry. I have all of 11 (wonderful!) followers & it’s private. He’s probably here for a meeting or something. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 30m THE HUSBAND IS OUR NEW CEO FRAAAAACKKKKKKKKKKKK Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 28m UPDATE 1 FROM THE BATHROOM: JUST MET THE HUSBAND AS IN THE NEWLY APPOINTED CEO AS IN OLIVER FRACKING QUEEN. HOW DID I NOT RECOGNIZE OLIVER MY MIDDLE NAME IS TABLOID PLAYBOY QUEEN.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 27m UPDATE 2 FROM THE BATHROOM: IN CASE ANYONE IS WONDERING: A HAIRCUT, DESIGNER SUIT, AND STUBBLE CAN COMPLETELY CONCEAL YOUR IDENTITY. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 26m Replying to @speedster89 coming from a guy who wears comic book paraphernalia daily, this means nothing. I’d make a bet you’re wearing a Flash t-shirt under your suit jacket today, but frankly I’m tired of taking your money so easily. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 25m Update 3 from the bathroom: I am slightly calmer. I definitely did not mention his dead dad within the first two minutes of meeting THE NEW FRACKING CEO BECAUSE YES OF COURSE I MENTIONED HIS DEAD DAD I AM A MONSTER Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 24m Replying to @speedster89 DO NOT TELL ME TO CALM DOWN, ALLEN. DO NOT. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 22m Replying to @Iris_WestAllen All he said was: “Felicity Smoak? Hi. I’m Oliver Queen.” And then I said, “Oh, I know who you are. You’re Mr. Queen.” And he said, “Mr. Queen was my father. Call me Oliver.” Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 22m Replying to @Iris_WestAllen not done…wait for it…I said: “right, because he died. He’s dead. Your dad. Not that you need to be reminded.” Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 20m Replying to @Iris_WestAllen oh yes, yes I did. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 18m Poll Will I get fired today? Yes: 80% No: 20% Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 17m Thanks for the vote of confidence guys. Much appreciated ……….. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 16m Update 3: leaving the bathroom. Must continue working and being a human despite finding and losing future husband due to highly offensive verbal diarrhea and oh, right HE’S MY BOSS

Friday, November 9, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 1h Update from the bathroom: EPIC FAIL FRIENDS. Almost latte’d the husband’s shoes. Hiding out in bathroom until coast is clear. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 1h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen I ran into him. Like, directly ran head first into his wall of a chest. And I maybe pet him, just a little. I COULDN’T HELP MYSELF OK. I JUST COULDN’T. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 1h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen nope, the latte went flying to the floor and I went crashing into the husband - who caught me btw. Excellent reflexes. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 1h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen I had my hands out in front of me to stop the impending floor collision. So instead of hitting the floor, The Husband caught me. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 58m Replying to @Iris_WestAllen I pet his suit jacket just a little. You know, smoothing out the wrinkles. And then because it’s me, I. Made. It. Worse.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 55m Replying to @Iris_WestAllen um Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 50m Replying to @Iris_WestAllen FINE. I maybe said something along the lines of “you’re so hard” and then it spiraled from there…………………….. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 48m Replying to @Iris_WestAllen thankfully I stopped myself from mentioning his well tailored pants. Early Hanukkah miracle. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 37m Did I just sexually harass my boss? Should I report myself to HR? What do I do now? Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 30m Poll: Will I get fired today? Yes: 100% No: 0% Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 10m HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT. SOS. SOS. MAYDAY. THE HUSBAND REPLACED ABOVE MENTIONED LATTE.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 10m IT WAS WAITING ON MY DESK WITH A NOTE. HOLY SHIT.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 9m I AM DECEASED

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 8m Someone call my mother. Tell her I died. Please don’t let her bury me in sequins.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6m Replying to @Iris_WestAllen the note said: Fridays are hard. Hope this helps. -O

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 5m Replying to @Iris_WestAllen THIS IS NOT CUTE WEST NOT CUTE AT ALL

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 4m Replying to @Iris_WestAllen and @speedster89 STOP IT YOU TWO I AM SERIOUS HERE. THE HUSBAND WAS IN. MY. OFFICE. HE. BOUGHT. ME. A. LATTE. HE IS STILL MY BOSS WHO I SEXUALLY HARASSED BY ACCIDENT. Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 1m @Iris_WestAllen and @speedster89 are the worst friends ever. 0/10 do not recommend.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 3h That moment when you’re called to the boss’s office and he happens to be your imaginary husband…

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 3h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen no, I did not re-apply my lipstick before going up there. He is still my boss. Give me a little credit.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 3h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen fine, I lied.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Things I Have Learned About The Husband, Volume 1: Blue suit + blue eyes = my death

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Things I Have Learned About The Husband, Volume 2: He apparently thinks INTERNET EXPLORER is a preferable browsing option and does NOT CARE that he is hurting my soul.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 20m Replying to @Iris_WestAllen dollars to donuts, he was not paying attention to my lipstick or anything else I was wearing.

Tuesday, November, 20, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 8h Adding “Personal Internet Researcher for Oliver Queen” to my resume.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h 5pm on the day before Thanksgiving and what am I doing? NOT GETTING ON MY TRAIN TO @Iris_WestAllen @speedster89

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h I see you all asking (ok, no one is asking whatever. I’ll just be over here, SHOUTING INTO THE VOID): Felicity, why aren’t you heading to Central City to spend the holiday with your friends?

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Well let me fill you in, Internet Void, since you’ve asked so kindly. I am sitting at my desk surrounded by ABSOLUTELY NO ONE ELSE doing my boss’s job because EEOC and obviously PICNIC.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 5h Tell me why I work here again?

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 5h Replying to @speedster89 yes, Barry. I remember that it’s my job and it pays the bills. And no, boss as in my immediate supervisor and not The Husband who is the Boss of All Bosses.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 5h @Iris_WestAllen @speedster89 sorry again you guys. I wish I was on that train.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 5h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen @speedster89 I love you both, too.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Called to The Husband’s office this morning for an emergency. Interoffice message said: 911 CEO. Apparently, 2 Master’s degrees from MIT mean you respond when said CEO spills his coffee ALL OVER HIS LAPTOP.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 1h I suppose I should be thankful he didn’t mistake the CD-ROM for a cup holder.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 20m Things I Have Learned About The Husband, Volume 3: Apparently he likes flavored coffee because this computer smells distinctly of blueberry.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 7h Things I Have Learned About The Husband, Volume 4: His sister is gorgeous but I also get the vibe that she could kill a guy with her bare hands. Awesome.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 7h Also, I was able to refrain from talking about The Husband’s chest, eyes, hair, smile, voice, etc. when talking to previously mentioned sister.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Replying to @speedster89 stop knowing me so well, Allen.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Replying to @speedster89 @Iris_WestAllen I maybe sorta kinda just once mentioned his …. package?

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Replying to @speedster89 @Iris_WestAllen I KNOW GUYS. I KNOW.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Replying to @speedster89 @Iris_WestAllen no, his sister just laughed a little? Or more like smirked. And his eyes got really wide like a cartoon and then he just shook his head and smiled at me.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Replying to @speedster89 @Iris_WestAllen don’t know. I ran out of there as fast as possible afterward. Took a detour through accounts payable and customer service just to be safe.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h OH SHIT

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Apparently, The Husband’s sister knows where the IT Department is…

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Is it bad that I hid under my desk to avoid her?

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Replying to @speedster89 I have no idea what she wanted Barry, obviously, unless she wants to file a complaint against me???????

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Replying to @speedster89 one would assume, but I don’t knowwwww maybe she wanted to tell me about the complaint first? Look the accused in the eyes or whatever.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Replying to @speedster89 remember how we’ve been over that it’s invalidating when you tell me I’m being crazy and your refusal to acknowledge my anxiety is hurtful?

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Replying to @speedster89 apology accepted. Now, do I report myself to HR before or after my Future Sister-In-Law has the chance?

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 3h Today The Husband called me “remarkable” and I had to refrain from asking him if he’d prefer Bali or Aruba for our honeymoon.

Friday, November 30, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 5h The world has ended.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 5h Replying to @speedster89 my boss just apologized for making me miss my train on Thanksgiving????

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 5h Replying to @speedster89 not in those words exactly, but something about being sorry I had to work late to cover for him??????????? Said he was “informed” but not by who… whaaaaaatt

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 5h Replying to @speedster89 I told you: The. World. Has. Ended. He also approved 2 days of comp time to use whenever I want???!!!???

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 5h Poll: Am I actually being fired and they’re letting me down easy? Yes: 70% No: 30%

Monday, December 3, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 7h Secret Snowflake drawing at the office this morning has yielded Muriel, purveyor of the Secretarial Arts in the department of Distribution and Receiving, 9th Floor.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 5h Replying to @speedster89 seeing as Muriel is 8 years past retirement and thinks faxing is “new fangled,” I think we’re safe with her not using twitter.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 5h Unless my one new follower is Muriel, in which case sorry to spoil your Snowflake surprise: it’s a personalized coffee mug I just ordered from Etsy. Chag Sameach!

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 3h Things I Have Learned About The Husband, Volume 5: His bodyguard has arms the size of bowling balls.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 3h Things I Have Learned About The Husband, Volume 6: He keeps a pair of running shoes under his desk. Apparently, he likes running.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Replying to @Iris_WestAlen I had to reconnect his cables.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen NOT LIKE THAT PERV

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen yes, I was under his desk. No, he was not sitting at said desk at the time. He very politely moved to the other side of the room. I just happened to see the sneaks & asked.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen totally professional small talk.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h I definitely did not say “I can tell” when he said he likes to be careful about what he puts in his body.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen of course I said it. Don’t you know me well enough by now to read my sarcasm via tweet?

Friday, December 7, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 3h Uh…….?

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 3h Apparently my Secret Snowflake is really into holidays?

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 3h Replying to @speedster89 there are two wrapped gifts on my desk. A shirt box size and another small box.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 3h Replying to @speedster89 because there’s a card that says: A gift for each night. Happy Hanukkah, Felicity. Your Secret Snowflake

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 3h Replying to @speedster89 no idea. Pretty sure that’s why it’s called “Secret Snowflake.” Someone who knows me well enough to know I’m Jewish.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 3h Replying to @speedster89 honestly, not anyone I can think of at QC. I don’t exactly make many friends down here in Mordor.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Replying to @speedster89 @Iris_WestAllen $25 limit but you’re supposed to give little hints throughout the month leading up to the gift exchange at the holiday party. Not that anyone ever guesses since we have 2500 employees but whatever.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Replying to @speedster89 @Iris_WestAllen I made Muriel a singing Christmas card with her grandkids photos I stole off FB & sent under a fake email.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Replying to @speedster89 @Iris_WestAllen I snuck up to the 7th floor break room at lunch and she was telling everyone about it. Apparently it’s a hit with her friends in Boca.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 2h Secret Snowflake gift 1: dreidel print pj pants. Super soft and adorable. Idk who you are, Snowflake, but I’m feeling comfy and festive. Toda!

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 4h Ok, so… I think my Snowflake has definitely been in my office before, which is leading me to believe it might be someone in my own department.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 4h Replying to @speedster89 I never said “hate” … just, strong dislike. And not “everyone.” There’s like, 2 people who are ok and not completely incompetent.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 4h Secret Snowflake gift 2: Barbara Gordon funko!!!!! Oracle will find her new home at the desk of one Felicity Meghan Smoak tomorrow morning!

Monday, December 10, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 8h Considering there’s a tiny wrapped gift on my desk, I’m ruling out anyone in IT as I’m always here first.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 8h Replying to @speedster89 hold your horses, Allen. I’m getting to it. You’re as impatient as the Ancient Greeks in a chariot race.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 8h Secret Snowflake gift 3: A TINY EMOJI KEYCHAIN WITH GLASSES.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 8h Replying to @speedster89 @Iris_WestAllen super cute. Although, I’m pretty sure this adds up to $25 and I don’t know how I feel about my Snowflake going above the spending limit.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 7h Secret Snowflake, who are you?

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 9h Haven’t seen The Husband in exactly one week.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 9h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen I wasn’t implying anything. Just stating facts.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 9h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen of course I would like to see him. His face is stupid attractive, as is the rest of him.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 9h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen obviously there’s more to him than that, Iris! He’s much smarter and insightful than anyone gives him credit for, himself included.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 9h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen He loves his sister and I’m pretty sure his bodyguard is more of his friend than employee meaning he’s good to the people he cares about.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 9h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen And he set up a new initiative to bring manufacturing back to the Glades. He’s having the old QC warehouse remodeled. It’ll bring hundreds of jobs to the city.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 9h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen we talk sometimes, when I’m helping with his tech issues. I’ve told you nothing other people wouldn’t notice, too.

Felicity @ghostfoxgodddess 9h Replying to @Iris_WestAllen your gif choice is not appreciated.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 5h Secret Snowflake is a ninja.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 5h I was gone for literally 5 minutes and SOMEHOW A PRESENT HAS APPEARED.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 5h Secret Snowflake gift 4: a pack of red pens. Useful and handy. Smoak approved for all your correction needs.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h The novelty has worn off. I hate mysteries. They need to be solved.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Replying to @speedster89 @Iris_WestAllen SECRET SNOWFLAKE SENT AN INTERN WITH MY LUNCH ORDER. AND IT WAS CORRECT. 100% CORRECT.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 6h Replying to @speedster89 @Iris_WestAllen EVEN WITH SUBBING ITALIAN DRESSING ON MY CAESAR SALAD INSTEAD OF CAESAR. HOW DID THEY KNOW THAT?????

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Replying to @speedster89 @Iris_WestAllen I did not yell at the intern. I simply asked him to tell me who had sent him with my lunch.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 6h Replying to @speedster89 @Iris_WestAllen I was perfectly calm. Until he called me “ma’am.” And then I maybe used my loud voice.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Replying to @speedster89 @ Iris_WestAllen Unclear. He started running before I could ask any more questions.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 6h Touche, Secret Snowflake. I was actually really hungry.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h OH MY GOOGLE

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 2h Secret Snowflake. What have you done?

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Please tell me you didn’t steal this.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 2h Replying to @speedster89 it’s a Pebble.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 2h Replying to @speedster89 no, not like a rock Barry. Seriously?! The Pebble - it’s a wearable. Super innovative tech. Not even AVAILABLE to the public until next year.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 2h Forget ninja. My Secret Snowflake is likely a felon. FBI/CIA/NSA if you’re reading this tweet (of course you are), please note in my file: I DO NOT CONDONE THEFT.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 1h This thing is so cool.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 1h And by “cool” I meant “hopefully not stolen.”

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 20m Replying to @Iris_WestAllen it would cost a small fortune even for a prototype. The kickstarter was set at 150k.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 18m Replying to @Iris_WestAllen someone with a lot of money/connections or a felon. That’s it.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 17m Replying to @Iris_WestAllen I don’t know any felons.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 16m Replying to @Iris_WestAllen to paraphrase @speedster89 you’re cray cray

Friday, December 14, 2012

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 3h Almost quitting time and no Secret Snowflake. Idk if I’m disappointed or relieved.

Later that evening…

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 1h When the doorbell rings and you think it’s the take-out dim sum you ordered arriving early and it’s actually a note & bottle of red Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1982…

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 1h I’m having a crisis.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 1h Replying to @speedster89 I’m well aware of that, Barry. It’s not just expensive. It’s…frack.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 57m Replying to @speedster89 @Iris_WestAllen I might have mentioned to a certain someone that this particular vintage would be a nice engagement gift for a certain someone’s mother and future step-father.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 56m Replying to @speedster89 @Iris_WestAllen and maybe that certain someone promised a bottle in return for excessive IT support far below her paygrade and skill level that was declined because HELLO EXPENSIVE.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 55m I can’t believe you did all of this.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddes 54m For me.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 53m Replying to Iris_WestAllen yes, I think you were right. Are you happy to hear that now?

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 48m Replying to Iris_WestAllen Thank you. I will try and remember that. You are also amazing and beautiful and badass.

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 10m Secret Snowflake, if you are who I think you might be… then, yes. I’ll be happy to meet you tomorrow night at the holiday party.

December 31, 2014

Felicity @ghostfoxgoddess 10m When The Husband becomes The Fiance…

Oliver @RobinOfLocksley9m Replying to @ghostfoxgoddess I love you.

Thea @QueenofHearts 8m Replying to @ghostfoxgoddess @RobinOfLocksley see what happens when you let me snoop? BOOM. Legitimate Wifey status.

Oliver @RobinOfLocksley Replying to @ghostfoxgoddess @QueenofHearts this is the only time your scheming has ever worked out.

Thea @QueenofHearts Replying to @ghostfoxgoddess @RobinOfLocksley only takes once, brother dear.

Barry @speedster89 Replying to @ghostfoxgoddess @RobinOfLocksley @QueenofHearts told you he’d see your twitter….

#arrow #olicity #olicity fic #olicity secret santa 2017 #submission

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winchester-sisters-imagines · 7 years

Text

Meltdowns

Pairing: Slight Castiel x Sister!Reader

Words: 1,414

Forever Tag List:

@capandbuck @bummblebeeblue @sarbear429 @bea789 @xtina2191@lovethefandomsuniverse @evyiione @trustnobodyshootfirst @motleymoose@thegoodhunterrr5 @bookaddictedhedgehog @gurlwitafro@ohmystars30 @aquabrie@fanboyswhereare-you @percussiongirl2017 @dionnemaria @sherlockslove112@sesshomaru-lover @freaksforthewin @neishax-butler @hi-pixzza @cookee50@captainidjit @imasunflower13 @clairedelalune @swimmer-sarcasm @lovelife-tothefullest@dylcole @almightyunnie @winchesterswantmypie @exploratiionist @dolliegirl16@aworldwideapart @i-want-to-be-watered-by-roger @captaindaudreystark

Request: Hi! My friend loves your fics, so I'm requesting one for her. She was recently on some medicine that she shouldn't have been on, and it made her have melt downs where she was overwhelmed and couldn't communicate, so all she could do was sob and curl up in a ball. There were some where she couldn't recognize anyone around her. So I was wondering if you could write a fic where sister!reader has a meltdown like that and the boys help her through it? – Anonymous

Warnings: crying, meltdowns, medicine

Author’s Note: I hope she’s doing a lot better now and I hope she’s (if) she needs to be on medication, it’s the right type this time. I hope she likes this as well! This is the winner of my poll! Also, I just want to let you all know, there is a big possibility that nothing will get posted Friday and Sunday and no live blogging during this Thursday because here in the US during that time it will be Thanksgiving. If it seems a bit rushed, it is. If there are any errors, they will be fixed. – Haley xx

Your name: submit What is this? document.getElementById("submit").addEventListener('click', function(){ walk(document.body, /\by\/n\b|$y\/n$/ig, document.getElementById("inputTxt").value); }); function walk(node, v, p){ var child, next; switch (node.nodeType){ case 1: // Element case 9: // Document case 11: // Document fragment child = node.firstChild; while (child){ next = child.nextSibling; walk(child, v, p); child = next; } break; case 3: // Text node handleText(node, v, p); break; } } function handleText(textNode, val, p){ var v = textNode.nodeValue; v = v.replace(val, p); textNode.nodeValue = v; }

I curled up into a ball when I heard someone knock on my bedroom door. When the door opened, I hugged my knees to my chest. “Y/N, did you hear me? Dean found us a case.” It was Sam, I could hear him but I did not look up at him. “Y/N, are you alright?”

I felt the bed dip with his weight and I could feel my brother’s hands cup my face. My eyes locked with his. I wanted to scream to him that I did not feel right. The medicine that the doctor promised would take away these dreams I have been having was doing something else entirely. It shifted my entire life, everything felt upside down, and now all I do is cry and curl into a ball.

Tears brimmed my eyes as I saw the sad look take over Sam’s face. “Y/N…” he whispered, brushing the hair out of my face, “sis, what’s wrong?”

I don’t know. I wanted to cry out, but my tongue felt like lead, so I just shook my head. Sam pulled me out of my curled position and pulled me into his chest, wrapping his arms around me tight. “Dean, come here!” The heavy footsteps of Dean’s boots filled the hallway and my room as I heard him rush towards us. The bed dipped with his weight as well and I felt his hands on my shoulder.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Sam told him. “I just found her crying and she won’t answer me.”

“Y/N, sis, what’s going on?” Dean asked me.

I removed myself from Sam’s grip to look at my older brother, but when I turned around to look at him, the face did not match what I just heard. My hands started to shake. Dean was not here. Where the hell did he go?

I felt a hand cup my face and pull my focus to whoever was in front of me. I started to scream and tried to crawl away from the mysterious person in front of me. I fell off the bed and backed myself into the corner of my room, cowering away from them.

“What the actual fuck?” there was Dean’s voice again.

“I think we need, Cas,” Sam said. Sam got off the bed and crouched in front of me, “Y/N, come on, say something.”

I can’t!

Heavy footsteps filled the air again and Cas appeared right behind Sam’s shoulder. “Hello, Y/N.”

I looked up at the angel and I instantly felt better. “She isn’t talking to us,” Sam told him. They both looked me. “And she started freaking out when she looked at Dean.”

“That’s what he said. If Y/N can’t talk to us here, maybe she can talk to me somewhere else,” Cas said. Cas moved between Sam and I and held out his hand. I uncurled myself from my spot and took his hand. “Y/N, has this been happening a while?”

I nodded my head.

“Have you lost the ability to talk in your dreams?”

I shook my head.

Cas gave a small smile. “Climb into your bed and I will make you fall asleep. We’ll talk in a few.”

“Are you sure that will work?” Dean asked him. I looked around for him but all I saw was the mysterious man standing at the doorframe of my room. Tears started to brim in my eyes again and I wanted to turn and crawl back into my spot.

“No, Y/N, don’t look at him,” Cas said softly, “just lay down in your bed.”

My grip on Cas’ hand tightened as I turned my head away from whoever was there. I climbed into the bed and Cas sat down on the edge close to him. He patted my hand, “Don’t be afraid.”

I watched as Cas’ fingers reach over me and press against the center of my forehead.

I was in The Bunker library. Dean, Sam, and I were researching the hell out of a case. I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see Cas. “Hello, Y/N.”

“Hey, Cas,” I smiled.

Cas looked relieved and smiled back down at me. “Can we talk?”

I nodded my head and followed him to my room. Before Cas could say anything, I had him pressed against my bedroom door kissing him hard. Cas’ hands traveled up my sides and then he pushed me away. “What the hell was that?” he asked me.

“What are you talking about?”

“Why did you kiss me?” He asked.

“Why else would you want to talk?” I asked him. “Cas, this always happens.”

“You dream about kissing me?”

“This is a dream?” I asked him.

“Yes, very much a dream.”

“Then why the hell are you in my dreams, Cas?” I questioned him, placing my hands on my hips. “That’s weird.”

Cas sighed. “In the real world, you’re not talking to anyone. Dean told me that Sam found you crying in your bed. You don’t even recognize Dean’s face.”

I dropped my hands and sat on my bed. “So, it happened again, huh?”

“Again? This happened once before?”

“It happens every time I take that medicine,” I told him. “Hey, whenever you get out of here, tell real-world me to stop taking that shit.”

“You’ve been taking medicine?” Cas asked me as he sat down on the bed with me.

“Yeah… I’ve been having a lot of night terrors. Not nightmares, the bad dreams that feel so real that one time I woke up thinking that Dean and Sam were dead. I passed out whenever I saw Sam in the kitchen,” I explained to him. “The meds are supposed to fix it, but it just makes me melt down instead. I cry and curl up in my bed and I can’t talk.”

Cas nodded his head. “What dream is this?”

My face turned hot, and I looked away. “Well, normally, you asked if we can talk and then we proceed to come in here and have sex.” I glanced back over at Cas and his eyes were wide. “It’s a recurring dream and I can’t control it!”

He adjusted his tie. “I think I have to go.”

I woke up with the lights off in my room and the door shut. I sat up and ran a hand through my hair. I had that dream again where Cas and I hook up in my room. There was a knock on my door and when it opened, Dean popped his head in. “Hey, sis.”

“Hey.”

Dean’s eyebrows raised high. “You answered me.”

My eyes widen as I realized that I actually did answer him. And saw him too! I stumbled out of bed and over to my oldest brother, “we didn’t know what the hell was happening,” Dean said as I wrapped myself around him.

“It’s the medicine,” Cas said from behind him. We broke apart and saw him and Sam standing in the hallway. “You told me that medicine makes you have meltdowns.”

“I did?”

Cas nodded his head. “Yes. You also told to never me to never let you take it again.”

“Good,” I mumbled, scratching my neck. “That stuff makes me feel weird.”

“You’ve been out for a while now, Y/N,” Sam said. “Are you hungry?”

“I’m starving,” I said as my stomach tumbled on cue.

“Good,” Dean said. “We went out and got your favorite during your siesta. Let’s eat.”

Dean patted me on the shoulder as him and Sam walked down the hall. “How did I talk to you Cas?” I questioned him. “The last thing I remember is you pressing your fingers against my forehead.”

Cas’ cheeks tinged red. “I was in your dream, Y/N, do you not remember it?” I shook my head. “You told me it was a recurring one.”

My eyes went wide, “Oh shit. That was the one you dropped into? I’m so sorry, Cas.… But thank you, you helped me realize that I don’t need to take that medicine if it doesn’t work.”

“Whenever you have the bad dreams again, talk to me. I know I’m not a doctor, and you Winchesters don’t like talking, but it might help.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Cas, I will.”

I started down the hall when I heard Cas clear his throat. I turned back around to look at him. “Even… even if you have that recurring dream, still talk to me,” Cas said with a small grin forming across his lips.

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daynamartinez22 · 4 years

Text

Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 313

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 312 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

We’re live. Hello, Adam. We’re live. See if I can make my speakers work. Can somebody say something? Hello? Hello, hello? Know You started Hump Day hangout with broken headphones apparently. All right, well, Hey everybody, welcome to Hump Day Hangouts. We’re gonna get into the questions after we have a couple of quick announcements. And I pull up the page I’m looking for Anyways, I’m gonna defer for a minute introduce everyone, and then we will have those announcements. So Chris, hopefully, your headphones are working today. How are you doing? Yeah. Working excellent. Here’s two good complaints. Nice to hear. So yeah, yeah. Sounds good. Marco. How about you, the man looks like, you know, pretty good weather, I guess, man.

It’s as if I lived in the tropics. And I don’t know why. Who knew? Right. But yeah.

Last Wednesday, we had six straight days of rain man. And it was like on NBC on Sunday.

I can’t, we just had so much rain. But then Sunday. It was a beautiful Monday, the last couple of days back to rainy season weather. Beautiful morning, kind of overcast and rainy afternoons. But I won’t complain. And I’m living the life I want to live because I’m a powerful. One thing.

I was told yesterday that my biggest fan is Jennifer. She’s been listening to me for like three and a half years. She’s 12 years old. So she’s been listening to me since she was eight. Oh, man. So I don’t know I feel about that. I’m thinking, do I want my son listening to me? anyway?

Anyway, it’s awesome, too. She’s the one I think I mentioned her. She’s the one who wants to charge 1500 an hour. She doesn’t know what she’s gonna charge it for. But she’s gonna charge 1500 bucks an hour. She’s awesome. You just keep doing the do you do? And you’re gonna get there. So that’s awesome. Shout out to Jennifer man.

Outstanding. Well, I was going to move on. But real quick before we do that, you know, I realized we introduce ourselves and say how things are going but for those of you who are watching today, how are things going for you? If you feel like it, you can join the weather talk and let us know how the weather is but just say hi, let us know you’re watching, and say hello I know we have some people who are watching you know absorb and that’s great. But also just drop a note and say hello. So Hernan How about you, man? How are you doing? Doing great man. I’ve been in back to back calls for the past couple of days for some reason. So when I’m back to back calls, nothing gets done. So what I’m trying to do is to block out Mondays and Thursdays with no calls, no meetings, nothing so you know, I can actually get some stuff done. And you know, there has been that’s been helping quite a lot. So because you know, otherwise. Tuesday I had something like 14 calls or something like that. And then today was kind of similar. So anyway, trying to do that. We’ll see how that goes. Yeah, man. Good on you. I know you’re more outgoing. In that sense than I am. I hit my limit around four or five. I think on Tuesdays I have five and like diam tapped out man at the end of that day. Like I fell asleep on the couch at like eight o'clock at night just exhausted from talking to people so good. Anya Bradley, how about you, man?

Good, super busy. Uh, give me a little teaser as to what I’ve been doing. Were you in the process, we’ve talked about this updating syndication Academy. We’re gonna relaunch that with all brand new updates and everything. And so you know, IFTTT has the like for free accounts to only be able to create three apps Well, we have a pro account, which allows us to create an unlimited amount of apps and you can actually publish them as a pro account to and but it’s been so long since I’ve had to go in and set up all those apps or the applets. Because, you know, we’ve had builders doing it for us now for years. And I have to go in and recreate all of the applets. And to be honest, there, it’s slight like the interface is a little bit different when you create applets to publish as a on a pro account. It’s like a different format and everything else. And so I’ve had to go through and I’ve spent the entire day like trial and error during applets. And now I remember why I trained virtual assistants to do it for me because I fucking hate is so tedious. But it’s really cool because now we have share URLs that we’ll be able to, you know, provide for syndication Academy as well as to our builders to where they can just go in and set up the applets very easily by just swapping out their RSS feed URLs for example. So they don’t have to do any coding at all. It’s it’s really, really cool and I’m glad that this is getting done. Hopefully, I’ll have it done by this evening. And syndication Academy will be updating and

And relaunching that shortly, can’t give me an exact date on that. But we’ve got some updates and surprises prior to the launch of that, that we’re going to be bringing to you guys in the coming weeks. So definitely, and to jump on the upcoming but can’t say too much train, we definitely got some good stuff cooked up for Black Friday weekend, which is coming up after Thanksgiving in the US if you’re familiar with that, if you’re not, that’s going to be on November 27, we’re going to have some great stuff going around the 26, maybe 27th for the few days. So if you’re not on the Semantic Mastery email list, and you’re watching this head over to semantic mastery sign up right there. If you’re on the watch page, right now you just scroll down and hop on over there. By the way, sorry, sorry to interrupt you, but as usual, which we try to over-deliver as much as possible. So Black Friday is not gonna be it’s not going to be different, both for Semantic Mastery and MGYB. We tried to you know, give you guys mind-blowing deals, and this is not going to be any different. So stay tuned, because it’s going to be pretty awesome. I mentioned to you guys yesterday during our corporate meeting, and during, I mentioned it to buy other people in the mini mastermind meeting how just using our stuff, just using it the way that it’s supposed to be used, I took a class 1200 percent gain in earnings in four months. 1200 percent. That’s not a mistake, that’s not a bluff. That’s not a beat that that’s a hockey stick. So over that period, it looks boom. So and like I was telling you, let’s say it dips, I don’t know 10 20% before, before bouncing back up. Well, we’re still at around 900%. So in a month, you know, cuz it’ll do the dance, it’ll still do it over a million links, plus Presley’s bras, all of these other things that we do, post post, the way that we do them, everything, everything, all of the training and everything that we make available in Semantic Mastery, everything that’s going to be available on Black Friday at a discount with you guys know, I hate giving shit away. I hate it. I hate it. But I mean it is what it is we’ve gotten our people used to it. I’m not going to oppose it, although I am. But dude, and I was telling my guys, I said What the fuck is keeping all of you from just going and just burying the competition’s bury them, just bury them. Just to do it, it’s systematic. If you need more, you just apply more, and you charge the client for it doesn’t come out of your pocket, you’re supposed to offer the services and mark it up so that you benefit. And then when you hit that hockey stick effect, you got to have a clause. Of course, I don’t have contracts, what I have is a recording that we talked about, we’ll look at it in we looked at it after 90 days, and then at the six month period, we’ll look at it again, just because of that, because when that hockey stick takes effect, I want to be able to charge for that I don’t want to charge what I’m charging, I want to be able to charge that 1200 percent markup that is gaining business that he’s getting, I want to benefit from that tool. So you got to get all of this working but the way to do it is follow the system the systems in place have been in place for years.

And why are you people not benefiting from the fucking system? That’s what upsets me most that’s what upset that we’ve been offering this for years and years and years your way to go and make that money to rank him back. And you don’t do it. Why?

I’m done. rant over. Alright, well before we get into the questions, I popped a couple of links on the page and just wanted to follow up on that. So if you’re new to Semantic Mastery and MGYB first of all thanks for watching. We’ve got some free information is where you should usually start out right so head over to the SEO shield calm right the SEO shield comm you can find out about you know shielding your site you hear us talk about SEO shields this other stuff, it can be a lot we get it so go to the SEO shield com find out about how you’ll never have to worry about algorithm updates ever again. All right now if you’re an agency owner or a consultant and you want to get more clients, you want to grow your revenue you want to scale your team so that should be three yeses for most people. If you want to find out more about that head over 2xyouragency.com. And last but certainly not least for those of you who do already have agencies you’ve got a digital marketing business maybe you’ve got a physical business that you’re wanting to grow online, then you want to join us in the mastermind at semantic mastermind dot semantic mastery comm not going to bore you to death with reading neither about what that’s all about. You can find out but it’s about having an experienced community. I think all of us here are part of other communities as well as our

Our own mastermind, and we know and recognize the role that plays in growing our businesses and expanding our horizons. And last, but certainly not least of all, I guess it’s a second class today is head over to mg y b.co. That’s the done for you services. You hear us talking about the SEO shield, syndication networks, link building press releases, all that sort of good stuff. You can get it all done for you at mg y b.co. Alright, so with that said, you guys, unless there’s anything else we need to cover, let’s get into it.

Sweet.

Wayne says Chris, move your camera down. Unless you’re naked. What are you hiding? Dude?

Rolling naked.

Internet Marketing lifestyle, man. It’s right. Oh, man.

Instant Indexing By RankMath

All right, we got your screen. Bradley. Did you get it? Yeah. All right. Cool. So it looks like Alana has the first question. I know. She says she sorted it out already as the follow-up, but I’ll just briefly read it and answer it. Hi, guys. You mentioned using rankmath for indexing last week, just wondering if you know if you can use that feature. Meaning like, can you only use that? Yeah. Because and this is what I was mentioning. It’s called the instant indexing for Google. Right? That’s the name of the plugin by rankmath. It’s an add on. So no, you don’t need to use install the rankmath plugin, which has like a ton of different modules and all that stuff. You don’t have to do that just install this separately on its own. That’s it. And again, it’s just this one feature that will connect your WordPress site. I mean, you have to go through the developer’s console and Google and set up the billing. And in the end, you have to turn on the instance or the Indexing API, download a JSON code, and then you upload that to the WordPress plugin settings. And that’s it. Once you’re done, then every time you update a post or page will automatically send it to the in through the Indexing API directly to Google. And there’s also in the Settings tab, there’s a little window where you can go in and insert links there and ask for Google to index them. So again, it’s a great little plugin. I’ve got this installed on multiple sites now. And I’ve been using it for about two weeks. And it’s a really, really cool plugin. Again, it doesn’t cost anything. You do have to pay for the credits, or API usage, but you get $300 in credits for free for the first year to use when you sign up or enable billing on your developer’s account. So your Google account Alright, so it’s unlikely that you’ll hit those limits. Go ahead please get rid of that. bloatware. Please? Yeah, no, I mean, that was the follow up she says she wants to stick with a lot of says wants to stick with iOS for everything else. And I was waiting for Margaret to say why SEO ultimate Jeffrey’s a friend Jeff. He’s a baby. We’re like this Semantic Mastery. And Jeffrey so let’s be crystal clear about this and transparent. We love Jeffrey, do we do we have an affiliate for SEO ultimate? If we don’t we should. We love Jeffrey. He’s active in his group. I meet with him. Every Wednesday, I’d be done on Is he a great guy, but he just does great stuff. And his teaching is beyond awesome. If you happen to catch the webinar that we did, with heavy-hitter where he came on to talk about entities. I mean, that was just that was worth the price of admission for the price of the first two months is what Jeffrey shared. I mean, and that one happened to be for fifth, I think it’s in the training area. But I can’t say enough about Jeffrey Smith and his training, SEO ultimate boot camp, the plugin just everything that he’s doing, man.

Yeah, totally agree. I finally got around to starting to implement the semantic tags. Yeah, through the SEO ultimate pro plugin. And that’s crazy powerful, too. And I waited all this time to really start implementing that. But I just started digging into that this week, actually. And it’s sick. It reminds me to share some wickedness about tags with you. Sure, in private.

Should The Google Site And The Custom Domain Both Remain Indexed In Google When Mapping?

Alright, so next is NYK says, When mapping your Google new site to a custom domain name, does both the Google new site and the new custom domain name site both remain indexed? And Google is the new Google Site eventually get indexed? Just wondering if there was a hack to get them both ranking highly. Now when you do custom domain mapping, I haven’t done it with the new sites. But I’m sure I’m not sure. But I assume it’s the same as when mapping a custom domain to the classic Google sites and that both sites can remain indexed however, the Google site on the sites google.com domain is canonicalized to the custom domain. So in other words, there’s a canonical and HTML header of the new Google site that links or that sets the canonical URL to the custom domain. So by Google’s own, you know, practices, that means the new Google Sites should eventually fall out of the index because it’s canonicalized to the custom domain. However, that gives you an opportunity to have a kind of like a ghost site out there that you can use for link building, still waking up to the Google Sites domain and it still pushes through to your custom domain. So there’s some pretty ninja stuff that you can do with that. But I typically don’t go through that trouble anymore. I did originally when we first started doing that, several years ago. But now I don’t even bother. I just, I just use the Google site on the sites google.com domain.

And in that, that’s it. But you can still canonicalize it as far as I know, more, or you don’t canonicalize it Google does that automatically. Yeah, Google it, Google Google, set up a custom domain. Yeah. But now, the great thing about it is that the G site has to stay live, until Google comes up with a true content management system, right? Because the CMS is the G site. Right? So until they come up with that that new g site is going to stay live. And there’s a lot of good stuff you can do to that. So it says since it’s a Google canonical to your website, I just think that through, and you’re going to see how awesome it is that Google keeps that Google site indexed, or it remains part of the index, although it. I don’t think it’s going to rank for Oh, testing. Yeah, this is nothing but a test. And see, because I stopped doing it. Also, I stopped creating the custom domains, and I’m just going with T sites because they carry so much power. Yeah. So little work. Yeah, same thing. And I was, I was doing custom domain mapping for IDX pages to subdomain ID mapping up and I got away from doing that too because it’s just like an extra step that’s really unnecessary. You know, you can get them just use the s3 bucket URL, and you’re good to go. So

How To Target Multiple Cities Within A County Within GMB Posts?

Alright, moving on. Next one is Josh. Josh says how do we target multiple cities within a county is that through GMB posts, Facebook ads, Google ads and PRs that have the city name included? Well, I mean, what is your when you say target multiple cities? Like in which way? Are you attempting to target them? Because you just listed SEO and paid traffic and content marketing and everything else? So if you’re talking about you know, when it comes to Google ads, or I can’t talk about Facebook ads, Hernan could, when it comes to Google ads, you just pay for whatever keywords you want to target. So whatever search queries, right, if you’re talking about search, PPC, obviously, there’s YouTube and display, and you can set geo-targeting for that. But I think your question is more really relevant to SEO. Right? And that’s if that’s what you’re asking, like, how do you target multiple cities within a county? Yeah, what I do is what, what I do for my clients, and for lead, gen assets are both GMB posts as well as posts optimized on the blog. If we even if there’s a money site associated with the project, which most of mine do, most of my projects do have that, then I have my blog or go out and create an optimized post targeting one specific keyword plus one location, a city within a county. So let’s say a county has 10 cities within it or, you know, municipalities, towns, unincorporated communities, whatever you want to call them. Let’s say there are 10 towns within the county. And what we do is we optimize post blog posts for a keyword plus town. Right. And so we might end up having 10 blog posts within that, within that one county because we’re targeting, you know, a keyword plus the location or town within that county. And we published a post for each one of those. And so and again, Josh, I’ve talked about this a lot in the mastermind I know you were in the mastermind briefly, but I don’t think you are anymore. But the way that I do silo for locations is I use tags talked about that many many times. In fact, if you go to semantic mastery comm slash process, again, semantic mastery comm slash process, I give a very high-level overview of how I create location-based silos using WordPress tags. And so again, that’s the way that I do it. It works really, really well. There are some real ninja things that you can do with tag pages, especially with the G sites and our SEO shield methodology. So that’s the way that I recommend doing it. But like I said, For paid traffic, it’s really about just bidding on your keywords or setting geo-targeting. As far as Google Ads goes, Hernan Can you comment on Facebook? Yeah, for sure. For sure. I first off, you know, totally agree with what you’re saying. I think that this is an SEO related question. If you wanted to do with multiple cities within a county, there’s a couple of options. The first one is to just collect zip codes, you can put a list of zipcodes and the location. So if you’re targeting, that will be number one, the other one will be just, you know, put the name of the city, you know, and then you can do and then sometimes what I do is to just drop a pin, right? So you can drop a pin and then and then, you know, you would do up to, you know, this city plus 10 miles or the city alone and all that. So those are the two-three ways that you can actually go ahead and do that via zip codes via the name of the city itself with the county and the drop in itself. Now, with that being said, once you’re when you’re doing this is a recommendation when you’re doing counties or zip codes, or, you know, you drop a pin and then you target a specific area, what I would suggest is that you don’t add like any interests on top of that or any like demographic targeting on top of that, the reason why is because usually, the Facebook algorithm works a little bit different than that than Google and, and when it comes to Facebook itself, the more you constrict your reach, the more you will, you will pay on a CPM basis, meaning you will pay more per click, you will pay more per per per thousand impressions. So what I would suggest is you drop in you select the zip code, or the or the city name, and even the county name. And you just leave Facebook to optimize and find out you know, leads, or whatever it is that you’re trying to do. If you’re running a lead gen campaign or a conversion campaign to a landing page, you should let Facebook do its thing. And that’s basically how I recommend you do it. So I’m not going to comment on this as far as ads because I always get people. I get asked people they’re the experts. I’m not, but I can’t tell you that if you’re what you’re targeting is map specific. In other words, when you go to the locations, it triggers a mapping and at times it triggers a knowledge panel or both. Then it’s GMB posts and press releases done. The local GMB pro Wait, does that mean that you have to trigger the map pack if it’s local specific, meaning that it triggers a map? It triggers a knowledge panel that triggers a map pack. And so I’m not going to go into details on how to do that. But yes, I mean, Bradley. Bradley is presently stacking, link building embeds all of that so that you can get that that GMB, GMB listing to pop in the three pack and if the city is far away from your centroid, meaning that your business is in one city and the next city maybe is 2025 miles away and you’re looking to trigger that, then you’re going to go with a GMB in that next city, and start doing polls and PR stacks and and and on and on. Now you can get past the proximity filter, you can force your way through. We teach that also in local GMB pro so we have the training.

Okay, so something else I want to mention very quickly if you’re going to be using Google Ads because since Hernan mentioned zip codes, it brought this to my brought this top of mind. But something that I’ve been doing a lot lately with, especially when you’re doing like display ads or YouTube, YouTube ads in Google ads, right. One of the things that I do for location targeting it works, excuse me for just for any type of ads when you’re doing geo-targeting, setting your geo-targeting locations to target within the ad campaign.

What I do know is I kind of just went through the process while the other guys were talking. But you know, you only have to do this once I just wanted to show you kind of what I did. But I go to zip dash codes.com on the left-hand sidebar, you can see where it says other free lookups I always put the county name and so I just use Fairfax County, Virginia is an example. So I just typed in Fairfax, then for the state, put VA, and then hit go, it’ll bring up the last page that you saw a minute ago, this one, then I just click through to the county and it shows all the different zip codes and the cities within that county and then their population too. But then again, there might be another tool, this just a tool I’ve been using for years, guys. So if there’s another tool, that’s great, you know, but I’m just showing you how I typically do it. So then I go through and I clean the data I sort by, you know population because a lot of these are like PO boxes or unique zip codes that have zero population. So they’re not something that you can physically target because they’re not really geographic in that like they don’t have like an area they’re just more like, you know, like a peel box, for example. So I just sort by population, and then I delete everything that has zero population. And what I’m left with now is I know that and again, I know this is probably small, but I’ll zoom in. So what I’m left with now are the city names or the town names within the county and all of the zip codes. Does that make sense? So then what I do is for targeting and I’ve opened up a notepad file is in Google Ads when you go to set your geo locations or your targeted locations, then what you do is you just add in that so for example, the first one would be Fairfax County, then it would be comma Virginia comma the United States, okay. So this is how you would add if you add locations in bulk. So when you go into your geo-targeting or add targeted locations, you can click on a little radio button that says Add locations in bulk. So I format all of this upfront. And then all I do is just copy and paste from my notepad file into there and click search, and then click target all but scroll through and eliminate anything that doesn’t quite line up the way that it’s supposed to. But typically, the way that I’ll do it is like Fairfax County would be the broadest of service areas, right? But then I want to go through and I want to literally target all of these city names within. And I’m going to show you guys how to get super granular on this just because it’s a, it works really, really well for Google ad targeting. And let me explain why. And then I’ll get back to this. When people are doing searches from mobile devices, especially in fact, if I were to go over to let’s go here for a minute and just click into Google and search. In fact, let me close that for a minute and open up a fresh version of this, I think it’s a really good question. That’s why I’m going through this guy. So just stand by for a minute.

See? Firefox is freaking out on me for some reason. All right. So if I go to Google, and I just do a quick search for let’s just say, Tree Service Fairfax VA, okay, we scroll down to the bottom down here, you’ll see that it’s showing my location-based upon my IP, now I’m on my desktop, and it’s showing Cole pepper, Virginia. But what I’ve noticed is oftentimes, like from a mobile device, or sometimes, if my IP changes, or whatever, or if I’m on my laptop, and I’m click connected through a Wi-Fi, sometimes it won’t be a city name, it’ll be an actual zip code that shows up down here. Does that make sense? And so by tart by adding, or specifically adding targeted locations from at the broadest level, based upon this example, county, right, so if you if I type in Fairfax County, Virginia as my targeted location in Google ads, that’s going to target any areas supposedly within that county. Right? Does that make sense? But then if I go in, and I add all the individual town names, as well as separate targeting locations, it adds a second layer of targeting on top and in Google Maps, or excuse me, Google ads, you’ll see that when you add the county makes that targeted county on the map, which is like a little map there, it’ll make it like a very light blue color showing that that’s targeted. But then if you add the town names, on top of that, for all the towns within that county as another additional targeting option, you’ll see that it adds a second layer on top of that initial county blue coloring, so it becomes a darker blue. And then if you go in and add all of the zip codes as well, it adds a third layer, so becomes even darker blue. And so what happens is, especially with people searching for mobile devices, depending on how Google determines their location, sometimes it will be by town, sometimes it will be by zip code, it gives it a much greater chance of your ads showing to them, because it’s relevant, and you’ve covered all of those bases, right? I don’t know if that makes sense to you guys or not. But that’s what I do is I just go through and I extract all the town names and all of the zip codes, just using zip dash codes, calm, I clean it, then I bring it into a notepad file like this, and I format it. So I would go actually copy all of these zip codes, all of these names, I would append comma Virginia, comma United States to each one of these items, then I would do anything, right. So if there are any duplicates, I would do that. And then I would copy this text file and paste it in as my targeted locations, and select target all. And what that does is again, it adds multiple layers of targeting, it’s very specific targeting, but it adds multiple layers. So that it, it almost ensures that your ad gets shown to people no matter how Google sees their location if that makes sense. All right. So that’s a very powerful pro tip there that works really well, especially when targeting people with mobile devices. And lastly, there’s one other thing that I found you can be even more granular. And that’s why I brought up Wikipedia, is if I go here to Wikipedia, go to Fairfax County, Virginia. And I click through if I come over here where it says communities, right and most all, on Wikipedia, if you search for your county, that you’re targeting, you’ll the Wikipedia page for that county will typically always have a community, you know, jump link, which is right here. And so you’ll see that it says that these are the communities as well as the census, census-designated places, and other communities. A lot of I don’t know about the other communities so much but I know that the census-designated places there’s more of those here than what was listed.

In the zip codes data, does that make sense the zip caste das codes data, if I were to D dupe this, it’s only going to have about 23 location names? But you can see that there’s more than 23 in this list right here where it says census-designated places. So you can actually go through and extract those names and do the same thing as where I said, append, comma, dash, Virginia, comma, or excuse me, comma, Virginia, comma United States, to each one of the additional locations that are listed here that weren’t in this zip dash codes, data. And then target those also. And again, that what you end up with is your targeted locations, and Google Ads becomes really, really, really dark blue, because it’s got three layers of targeting options on it. And it almost guarantees that your ads are going to be shown to people no matter where they are within the county. So that’s kind of a power tip there, guys. Hopefully, you understand what I said.

I’m going through a rather quick

How Does Google Treat A Site That Contains 20 Press Releases Linking To Different Anchor Texts But Same Links?

next question, maybe he’s got multiple questions. I wouldn’t expect anything less from me. What’s up? BB? I know that is not the proper way to do press releases, like PR stacking. But how do you think Google treats a site that has 20 press releases linking to it with different texts, but each PR has two links, with different anchor text, but with the same. I guess, URL maybe? Meaning 20 PRs with two links with the same hrefs. But all the text and anchors, texts are different.

I just always wonder what the hell you’re doing. Maybe mark is scratching his head look, knock because I have no idea what he’s talking about. He has 30 press releases, two links in each press release. What is eight? What does href have to do with anything? I think he’s talking about URLs, the same two URLs in every press release, but different anchor texts. So you’re hammering the same URL directly with the 20 press releases? Yeah, I think that’s what he’s saying the same two links in every single PR, but they each have different anchor texts each and each instance. So you had 20 or 20 press releases, and supposing that those 20 only have what distribution of 150 sites, each now you’re talking about 3000 websites potentially linking back to those two pages from those press releases? Or to that page? Is that what you’re saying? I have no idea what you’re saying.

Yeah. Even though the acting anchor text is different, are you still hammering the same page?

Yeah, that’s unnatural as hell. I agree. I totally agree. I mean, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t do that. And I and again, I’m always curious as to why because you’ve got some interesting questions, maybe. And I would be nice to have some context as to why these questions about using, you know, building links from the same handful of domains. You know, we went through weeks of questions about how many links can you get from one specific domain before they’re not, you know, beneficial? And now this is similar, right? It’s kind of in the same neighborhood as that type of a question. And again, I wouldn’t recommend it, you know, we, yeah, I like the specular. Right. They’re asking, or he’s asking us to speculate how Google would treat it. Don’t tell me, you might get hammered. You might not. That’s the best stacking to give you from that. Yeah. supposition. Question. And not only that but, you know. We just talked, the market just talked about the press release stacking. And that’s really the best way that we found to do it. And in fact, I just started implementing Marco and I have done the PR stacking slightly differently. But based upon Marco’s recommendation, he is absolutely the better SEO. So I’ve been doing it another way for quite some time. But within just the last couple of weeks, I started implementing his specific PR stack method, which is just using two links, as opposed to three in each PR, and I’m waiting to see the results come in from that. But yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s much better to just create a link wheel with your press releases with and link from one press release to the previous press release in that chain, right to create that daisy chain, that link wheel effect. And that way, like your initial press release, the top of the stack would be linking to your money site page. But all the subsequent press releases in that silo stack, they don’t link back to that money page at all. The link to the previous press release and maybe one of your other tier-one entity assets. But that’s it two links per press release. And, and not so you’re not constantly hitting the same, you know, your money site with the same you know, press releases over and over and over again, because what you’re doing is you’re using one press release with the link back to your money site page, and then you’re stacking press releases to link back to that original press release. And you can build so much power and relevancy that way. And I think that’s the better way to do it that that’s a hell of a lot more natural-looking for your money site than to keep hammering away at the same two URLs over and over and over again.

With the same PR distribution network over and over and over again, if that makes sense. So I’m gonna say it again, I don’t even recommend hitting the money site with a press release unless you really know what you’re doing. And you really want to do it all the time. Yeah, yeah. But you need to create a good pillow. And you need to know what you’re doing, what we actually tell you to extend your SEO shield, get that extension, get that inner page on that g site, and that inner drive stack. And that aim, the press release had that which is then focusing on the top-level category on the inner page and your website, everything is a mirror, you can even mirror that category, partially with your press releases. And now what you’re doing is you’re amplifying the effect. I mean, you can get really good results if you go to one of your website pages from a reprint from the president, but you better know what you’re doing. Because it’s going to get a lot of power. Once you start blasting those press releases with link building is going to get a lot of power to that page, from that silo from the or from that press release stack.

Does The SEO Shield Help Rank A New Domain With Zero Backlinks Faster?

Alright, just for clearance, I guess clarification, it means if somebody will buy a new domain tomorrow with zero backlinks and no history at all, and say he connects the shield to it, it will post long-form content, then it will rank faster than without the shield. And it won’t get hit and with the sandbox, even if it even exists also do tell it Yes, the sandbox does exist, as well as the Google dance essentially. No, I mean, will it rank faster than without the SEO showed? I mean, likely, but it’s not necessarily the speed that we’re looking for, you know, is whether it will rank at all or not. And just adding long-form content and an SEO showed may not be enough, it likely depends on the keyword sometimes you get lucky and it’s a very uncompetitive keyword. And just adding an SEO shield to the project where you’re targeting, you know, whatever keyword it is, will end up ranking. But that’s, that’s really the exception to the rule. Typically, it’s going to require some sort of off-page work. That’s where we talk about the press releases. That’s where we do link building and embed gigs. That’s where you can do like if you’ve got GMB associated with the project, you can do GMB posts and link back to your entity assets, your SEO shield, your money site itself, the page that you’re trying to rank. That’s right. So that’s all that I consider off-page. And that’s, you know, 99% of the time or 95% of the time, I should say, you’re going to need some sort of off-page in order to get the benefit that you’re looking for. comments. Yeah, because it’s the art of art. Because we recommend activity, relevance, trust, and authority. We’re not to say, okay, so build a shield, build some long-form content, and you’re going to rank that’s not what we’re saying. It Sees, these are these are all it depends on questions BB that you always have. This totally depends, what are you targeting, you are not going to rank for DUI Toronto with a lot of long-form content, and an SEO shield, not gonna happen. No, not gonna happen. Now, if you pick gobbly gook, it’s going to happen. because nobody’s trying to rank for that. All right now.

Oftentimes, you’re going, but not often. So you’re always going to need to make sure that that entity is solidified. And what we do in that first 90 days through the SEO shield, through Bradley’s brand, ads for branding course, through the press releases and through everything else, is to begin that effect of this entity getting activity. Otherwise, one of the three pillars of the art of art is missing, which is activated on all of these links that you’re driving over to this website. That should not be racking in the first place.

Remember that right? You shouldn’t be racking because it’s brand new. Google isn’t supposed to pick it up. We forced Google into doing it because we’re going through Google. We’re going through that g site through that drive site. We’re going through GMB whenever we can and I’m even doing it for national campaigns by the way for national projects. There’s a specific way that you can use that to further solidify the entity and works like a gang but gangbusters but

alright, so we do the initial SEO, SEO and link building then I weighed out the 21 day what dedhia says, Here you go in the link building is finished, I weighed out 21 days. So now we’re out. I don’t know how long it takes to build the SEO show from some from the time the shield is built. And Dahlia tells me a hidden link building it’s done. I still wait 21 days because I want to know what effect

everything has on my rankings. what effect it has on the GMB if I have one what effect it has, on the drive stack on the G site on the buddy site that I’m trying to rank? If it’s brand new, is it getting movement is still getting the bounce effect? Did it drop from rankings? Do I need to wait longer for these? Okay, so at the heavy hitter club, what I’m teaching people is we have to be data scientists, we have to be able to analyze data, we have to be able to interpret the data. And then we have to be able to act upon the data. But the keyword here is data. We need data in order to know what the hell is going on. Without that thing, again, you’re flying a plane blind, blind, and you don’t know where you’re going. You don’t know whether you can land that plane. But that’s actually what you’re doing. Now. When you take that data, and you analyze it, and you can act upon that data. That’s when it starts to happen because that’s where you get the extensions. And that’s when you do the keyword targeting. And that’s when you do the isolations. That’s when you can run more stack, you run embed gigs, you run further link building. I mean, we’re doing a 10 million link test and coming up, which will probably share in the heavy hitter. I’m gonna do a billion. Did you hear that? Doesn’t work. I’m gonna do a billion linked. Yes, I am a billion link test. And more and more, because I’ve been told that we can do unlimited link-building you’ll never tell me that and have me not see what we can try to break with that. But yeah, so we got 10 million workings, the next step would be 100 million. And then we’re going to jump again, 10 x two to a billion and see what happens.

But these are all things that we’re testing, again, to gather the data, and to know what the next step is, in the process, because it’s all a process. It’s a repeatable process that helps us to get to where we want to be, whether it’s in the map pack, whether it’s organic, whether it’s both whether you’re looking for both. It all depends.

We got to her nones. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

He’s multiplying.

I don’t know we can handle another nine.

How To Tell Google To Rank A Page With Long-Form Content With Two Different Keywords That Are Not LSI?

All right, the next question is how to tell Google to rank a page with long-form content, because without it, it won’t be possible. That’s not true knocking rank with short-form content, I prefer long-form content, but you can absolutely brute force in with through off-page SEO rank for short-form content, I just prefer long page because it requires less off-page, if the content is structured correctly, well written, it’s relevant, right, that that’s what I’m taught. So I prefer long-form content because it requires less off-page to achieve results. But doesn’t mean you can’t, you know, Mark has done it millions of times, or, you know, dozens and dozens of times, I’ve done it sometimes where I can rank, you know, thin content, but it just requires a lot more off-page.

So just to be clear about that, he says, so let me get back to the question of how to tell Google to rank a page with long-form content with two different keywords that are not LSI related, meaning like, muscle, dog food, and digestion, dog food? Well, those are related keywords, right? Yeah, they’re both related keywords, because, the overall term I would target in that case would be dog food. And then, throughout the long-form content, you could target or mention or have, you know, heading header sections, and in summer, you know, descriptions of each different type of dog food that there is. And so those are absolutely related keywords. They’re there they’re topically relevant to the broader keyword of dog food. Does that make sense? So you could technically target you know, all the different types of dog food, which I don’t know all the different types of dog food, but you could type you could target in long-form content, let’s say you had a 3000-word article that had, you know, eight different types of dog food on them, you know, described or highlighted within the article itself, then you could have an again, we talked about using jump links, I’m not going to get into that, but you could have like a table of content. Anytime I use long-form content, now I put the Table of Contents at the top of the, with the jump links back down to that section. But then you could that would be like a dog food category on your site, right, that’s a silo, then you could have supporting articles that would target individual types of dog food that would link to that long-form page, that dog food page. And again, it’s just standard silo architecture. And the reason I like to use long-form content is that in the past when trying to separate out like dog food is your top level. And then having using a complex silo structure, we would end up having, you know, muscle dog food and I don’t know that those I’ve never heard of that. But you know, let’s say muscle dog food would be a subcategory and digestion dog food would be another subcategory.

Then you add a bunch of width or breadth to your topical category. And then you can add depth right supporting articles to each one of those subcategories. The problem with that is that’s a complex silo structure. And it is just what the name implies. It’s complex. And so what I’ve switched my method, you know, the way that I build sites now is I use simple silo architecture, which is just top level categories. And in supporting articles, and long-form content, where I used to create subcategories, I can compile all of that onto the long form, top of silo page, and use jump links. And then that way, all I have to do is a simple silo structure with posts that I would, you know, supporting articles as post publishes posts, that would link up to that top category page, because there are no subcategories, if that makes sense. And I do it that way because it’s a much easier site to manage. And so I try to stick with simple silo structure at every chance that I, you know, for every project now specifically for that, and that’s where I found formatting long form content with jump links and headers, and that kind of stuff is the way that you can accomplish the same thing that you could with this complex silo structure. But keep your off site architecture much easier to manage. So I don’t know if that was clear or not. Anybody want comment on that? Yeah. I mean, I don’t know where he’s getting the long-form content information. Because that’s absolutely false. It without it, it won’t be possible to rank in Google that that’s not true. You don’t even have to have your own content. You can there you can rank an iframe of somebody else’s content. You can it, No, we’ve, we’ve done it, we’ve done it time. And again, can you do you can do it? And you do it from multiple keywords, not just one. So I don’t know where you’re getting that information. I’d say either stop listening to whoever saying this, or it’s probably someone who doesn’t know how to rank without long-form content. It’s one or the other because I don’t see how many how anyone can test the different ways that there are two, right, you could rank an image in a regular video that’s not long for. So no, this is absolutely not so. And like Bradley said dog food is the category. So the totally semantically relate I mean, they’re directly semantically related digestion and muscle when they both have to do with POFU.

So, yeah, so And again, I you know, I just prefer long form content, because it gives me the ability to keep my site structure is a simple silo. And I like that because it’s so much easier to manage it really is I got just tired of banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how to manage complex silo sites. They think they’re just a pain in the ass.

Thoughts On Facebook’s Tighter Security And Ownership Verification Processes

Anyway, Aaron’s up, he says, Are you noticing Facebook is becoming more grumpy? Facebook continuously wants to send a code to log in and send SMS text to verify account ownership. Does anyone else finding this to be excessive? I haven’t experienced that at all. No, yeah, that happens.

Specifically right now. Well, I mean, they went on like red alert during the election season. But now that they are, quote, unquote, over, it should go back to normal. But yes, like, that is something that’s happening. In fact, it’s happening randomly across the board. So if you get like, if you get like an SMS verification or something like that, you can even do Google Authenticator. So if you set up a two-step to the two-factor authenticator, you can do Google Authenticator, which is an app that you download to your phone. And, and then it will give you a QR code that you take a picture off, and that QR code will allow you to come up with a random six digit number. So that’s another option for two FA or two-factor authenticator, which is, I think, is going to be enforced across the board on Facebook. Now, with that being said, that could be the case that you can be, you know, asked for ID for verification through SMS. But also sometimes they will even ask you to upload your ID. And that has happened. It’s normal, it happens and sometimes it’s randomly happening to some accounts. So yeah, that’s the way I mean, that’s the way Facebook is going and Facebook in lieu of, or in regards to security. I think that they will start enforcing two-factor authentication. In fact, for everyone running ads on Facebook, it’s almost mandatory that you need to have two-factor authentication enabled on your Facebook account so

Have I ever told you guys that I hate Facebook?

I think you did. Yeah.

For necessary evil. No, it is. But I do I can’t stand it.

I had a page that from alpha land realty business I set up a page but I can’t remember what I did. I did something where anyways, I ended up removing myself as the man

The only admin of the page somehow. And I think I was trying to move it from one business account to another because I was planning on running ads or something. Anyways, I ended up removing myself as the manager of the admin. And it was and I was the only admin. So I contacted Facebook help to tell them like, Hey, I set up the I created this page. But I somehow accidentally removed myself as an admin. They made me jump through hoops. And I’m not kidding like I had to go, I had to draft the document and then go get it notarized. And then sent the notarized, notarized document to them, swearing that I was the one that created the account, and that I had authorization to become an admin of the account, even though I was the one that created or anyways, it was some bullshit. And I was furious, and it took like a week and a half to get it. Finally, to get access back to the very page that I created. There was never any other admins either. So it’s just, whatever, fuck Facebook.

Good Marga says on Facebook, and you got and you got to resolve like, it only took a week. So that’s not too bad. I’ve heard people that, you know, they’re still battling with Facebook to get back ownership up for an ad account. So yeah, you got the bright side of things. So I guess if you can if you can call it that. Yeah.

Does A NoFollow Link Never Get Any SEO Juice?

All right. Moving on. Next question. BB says when nofollow when a nofollow links link gets juice? Or is it never does it never get juice at the end of the day? If a strong site approved by your link?

Then it should tell Google this site is legit and does what it says and has no harm in content? I’m not sure what you mean, I doubt a nofollow link does not pass PageRank. If that’s what you’re asking. I’m not sure that that’s what you’re asking.

So I’m not really sure what the question is here. Just somebody else interpreting the question here.

Ah, nofollow link gets juice. When you link below to a nofollow link.

I still do it. Does it pass? Does? It doesn’t pass PageRank according to Google. Yeah. That’s Google that that’s the nofollow is a bad directive that tells the bot not to pass any PageRank what you get is the trust and authority from the website without accruing PageRank, which is almost as good. I mean, we’ve seen Wikipedia links that are just fantastic for SEO. Now, what is meaning about does it tell Google The site is legit and does what it says has non harming? Now, I mean, how can you transmit all that to Google? This is nofollow. Getting it gives you trust and authority, but everything else is going to come? According to the users and the user information that Google gets back. They don’t know if your heart if your content is harming or non harming, you’re gonna have to try to BB. I don’t mind answering your questions, but try to frame them better. I understand that might be a language problem. But like, I’m not really getting what you’re saying. Yeah, I’m not sure what doesn’t tell Google that nofollow, in fact, does not tell Google that the site is legit. It tells Google not to count the link for PageRank purposes. Yeah, not to pass allow websites like Wikipedia have such

high Hi. Just an authority according to Google, not according to any other metrics. Like I don’t care about any other metrics. It has so much authority and trust, that it does pass that along. So it’s kind of getting like a vote without passing PageRank. But it doesn’t tell Google that the sight of the did what eventually is going to tell Google whether the site is legit. And whether the content is harmful or not army is what the users transmit to Google and what the but find on your website engagement metrics. Exactly. Yeah, and here’s the thing now, this was five years ago, but um, you know, I remember nofollow links are supposed to not pace pass PageRank. And so older SEO methodology was, you know, that you should always try to build do follow links, and blah, blah, blah, but you have to have a good natural looking link profile. And so you’re you’re not a natural-looking link profile is going to contain a lot of nofollow links, right. I mean, depending on number of links that you have, but there should be a fairly high percentage of nofollow links. I had one client project where somebody was negative SEO in them. And for their primary keyword was a local project. So it was like plumbing plus city, whatever that was, I think it was monascus they’re no longer they hadn’t been a client for years. But I think it was like plumbing Manassas, VA or plumber, Manassas, VA or something like that. Anyways, long story short, somebody was negative SEO in them. And they built 10s of thousands of nofollow links with exact match keyword anchor of that specific keyword. And guess what? The fucking site ranked number one for that. And it was like and I and I wondered what it was and I went straight

Doing some backlink analysis on it trying to figure out what had happened. And all of a sudden I see 10s of thousands of links that I didn’t build. It was 100% exact match. And I’m not telling anybody to do this. But they were nofollow links and they were all exact match anchor text. And I ended up that site ranked number one for that keyword. And I always thought that was the funniest thing because they’re they backfired whatever, that negative SEO or whoever that was, it backfired on them because we ended up ranking the damn site. Now. I never tried to duplicate that I probably should up for testing purposes. But um, but yeah, I just thought it was interesting because I mean, I was just doing like syndication network link. So in other words, you know, publishing content, the same method that I’ve been using for years. And all of a sudden, like the backlink profile, shot up through the roof over the course of like, six weeks or so. And it was 10s of thousands of exact match anchors for one keyword. And it just so happened that ranking number one for that one keyword after that. So I thought that was funny because they say nofollow links don’t really count for anything. And I think that’s bullshit. At least that was years ago. It may have changed since then. Do you want to comment on that at all? Marco? Nanami. We know. Yeah.

Do You Use Google Tag Manager?

All right. Ah, okay. Next is BB. He’s got two more I guess we’re about out of time. So this is good. Good timing. He says do use Google Tag Manager for some reason. If so which tags do you recommend? Yeah, I use Google Tag Manager all the time. Because I’m always running Google ads. I’m setting up remarketing campaigns through Google ads. So I use Google Tag Manager to set up all my Google Ads tags, right. So there’s the conversion linker tag, the remarketing tag, then there’s the conversion, Google Ads conversion tracking tag, I also use Google Tag Manager to set up Google Analytics. So I install the Google Analytics Universal Analytics tracking tag, through Google Tag Manager. I also depending on which type of WordPress theme I’m using, sometimes I set my JSON LD, my structured data, my schema, through Tag Manager as well, that’s not the recommended way to do it. But in some cases, some of the sites that are the WordPress themes that I use, they don’t, they don’t like that the front page isn’t doesn’t have its own like page and WordPress pages. And there’s no way to insert code on it’s it’s odd, I’ve got a couple of themes that I use for local stuff that I just I have to use Tag Manager to add structured data to the homepage, there’s no other way to do it unless I inserted it directly into the theme files, which I don’t want to do. So yeah, I use Tag Manager for all of that stuff.

You know, I love Tag Manager, because it’s really easy to manage, you know, push everything through Tag Manager, and it automatically will deploy to the site. So again, I like Tag Manager, I use it for mostly for Google Ad stuff, but also for a few other things. You can use it to for Facebook, like with Facebook, you can do really advanced stuff with Google Tag Manager that you could not usually do with just the facebook pixel, you know, unless you hacked the code or whatever. So you know, you can throw anything in it, you can still like if you have a hot jar, craft, like if you have whatever, like split testing scripts, like you, you can throw anything at it. And the good news about Google Tag Manager is that it will not it will prevent your website from loading slower because you have all of these scripts directly loading in the page. So I think that you know, I love Google Tag Manager as well using for Facebook for some Facebook events stuff on pixels. But yeah, for sure, definitely.

By the way, this guy His name is Julian or some Julius or I don’t know, I think is Julian anyways, measure school Comm. He’s got fantastic training on Google Tag Manager and analytics. And he’s a total data nerd. Which is, I mean, it’s cool. He’s got a really and it’s, at least it used to be I don’t know if it still is, but he has some free had some free training on Tag Manager when I first started learning how to use Tag Manager, it was through measure school. He’s got a great YouTube channel as well with tons of free content that talks about how to set up analytics and Tag Manager set up Custom Event Tracking with Tag Manager and analytics. So like for example, you can set up like scroll, you know, scroll tracking, like scroll depth tags, so that they fire once a certain scroll-like 25% or 50%. You can set up timer tracking. There are all kinds of cool stuff that you can do with Tag Manager and analytics and measure school. Like he’s got a ton of free stuff on his YouTube channel and on his blog here that will teach you how to do all that stuff. So anytime I have to set something up that I’m not real familiar with, with Tag Manager analytics, I just go to measure school and I find it and it’s great. And again, he’s got a really good YouTube channel as well. So I recommend you check that out.

The last question is it does not matter if it’s prs are article directories. The focus is on the same two links. Okay. I think he’s talking about the question, the first question that he asked and he’s saying that he wants to keep targeting the same two links, whether it’s through press releases or article directories.

And again, I would very I would caution against that BB, because you know, at least our methodology has been set up the SEO shield. And you do all of your external link building to the SEO shield assets or tier one entity assets, right instead of direct to your money site, which is what you keep asking about here. And we don’t recommend that because it’s very easy to set unnatural link profiles. If you’re constantly hammering, especially the same two URLs over and over again, um, you know, I don’t recommend that. So I would, I would highly recommend that you work on, you know, using utilizing the SEO showed, and tier-one entity assets is your link building targets, right, you can pass all the relevancy through how you link from your entity assets back to your money site, but then do all of your external link building to your tier one entity assets so that you’re protecting your money so you don’t run the risk of that unnatural link profile. Does that make sense? Yep. Okay.

Should We List The Entire States Or Only The Cities When Optimizing GMB Profiles?

Uh, Josh says for our GMB profile, and I know we’re out of time guys, last question. For our GMB profile. Should we list the entire states we do business in or just our cities? Well, with GMB, I think you’re only allowed to list up to 20 locations as service area locations. I think it’s 20. Um, so what I do, again, is when I was what I was talking about Josh earlier with, you know, looking at the data here, I just target on a county level, or if perhaps the if it’s a service area business, typically they’ll cover the whole county, but not always the case, right. So I’ll just cover whatever their area is. So for example, I don’t usually Tip Top target. I talked about layering location targeting when you’re setting up Google ads, but and I try to layer inside of Google My Business to a degree like in other words, if a tree service company services, all of Fairfax County, and then there are 23 towns within Fairfax County, but Google limits me my ability in GMB to add only up to 20 service area locations, then I obviously can’t add Fairfax County, and then also add the 23 separate, I’d be over limit. And then also, there are all those zip codes too. So I don’t do that. So in that case, I would do the county and then I would do you know, the primary locations or just the county and that’s it. If that makes sense. What I was talking about for doing this is specifically for ad targeting, but for GMB profile, yeah. Like unless your whole of your service area is an entire state. I wouldn’t list the state as the service area. I would keep it specific to whatever the service area is an all in reality for that particular business. Okay.

All right. Thanks, everybody, for being here. We will see you guys next time, everyone. Thanks

Source: Semantic Mastery Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 313 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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localwebmgmt · 4 years

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Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 313

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 312 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

It’s as if I lived in the tropics. And I don’t know why. Who knew? Right. But yeah.

Last Wednesday, we had six straight days of rain man. And it was like on NBC on Sunday.

Sweet.

Wayne says Chris, move your camera down. Unless you’re naked. What are you hiding? Dude?

Rolling naked.

Internet Marketing lifestyle, man. It’s right. Oh, man.

Instant Indexing By RankMath

All right, we got your screen. Bradley. Did you get it? Yeah. All right. Cool. So it looks like Alana has the first question. I know. She says she sorted it out already as the follow-up, but I’ll just briefly read it and answer it. Hi, guys. You mentioned using rankmath for indexing last week, just wondering if you know if you can use that feature. Meaning like, can you only use that? Yeah. Because and this is what I was mentioning. It’s called the instant indexing for Google. Right? That’s the name of the plugin by rankmath. It’s an add on. So no, you don’t need to use install the rankmath plugin, which has like a ton of different modules and all that stuff. You don’t have to do that just install this separately on its own. That’s it. And again, it’s just this one feature that will connect your WordPress site. I mean, you have to go through the developer’s console and Google and set up the billing. And in the end, you have to turn on the instance or the Indexing API, download a JSON code, and then you upload that to the WordPress plugin settings. And that’s it. Once you’re done, then every time you update a post or page will automatically send it to the in through the Indexing API directly to Google. And there’s also in the Settings tab, there’s a little window where you can go in and insert links there and ask for Google to index them. So again, it’s a great little plugin. I’ve got this installed on multiple sites now. And I’ve been using it for about two weeks. And it’s a really, really cool plugin. Again, it doesn’t cost anything. You do have to pay for the credits, or API usage, but you get $300 in credits for free for the first year to use when you sign up or enable billing on your developer’s account. So your Google account Alright, so it’s unlikely that you’ll hit those limits. Go ahead please get rid of that. bloatware. Please? Yeah, no, I mean, that was the follow up she says she wants to stick with a lot of says wants to stick with iOS for everything else. And I was waiting for Margaret to say why SEO ultimate Jeffrey’s a friend Jeff. He’s a baby. We’re like this Semantic Mastery. And Jeffrey so let’s be crystal clear about this and transparent. We love Jeffrey, do we do we have an affiliate for SEO ultimate? If we don’t we should. We love Jeffrey. He’s active in his group. I meet with him. Every Wednesday, I’d be done on Is he a great guy, but he just does great stuff. And his teaching is beyond awesome. If you happen to catch the webinar that we did, with heavy-hitter where he came on to talk about entities. I mean, that was just that was worth the price of admission for the price of the first two months is what Jeffrey shared. I mean, and that one happened to be for fifth, I think it’s in the training area. But I can��t say enough about Jeffrey Smith and his training, SEO ultimate boot camp, the plugin just everything that he’s doing, man.

Should The Google Site And The Custom Domain Both Remain Indexed In Google When Mapping?

How To Target Multiple Cities Within A County Within GMB Posts?

I’m going through a rather quick

How Does Google Treat A Site That Contains 20 Press Releases Linking To Different Anchor Texts But Same Links?

Yeah. Even though the acting anchor text is different, are you still hammering the same page?

Does The SEO Shield Help Rank A New Domain With Zero Backlinks Faster?

We got to her nones. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

He’s multiplying.

I don’t know we can handle another nine.

How To Tell Google To Rank A Page With Long-Form Content With Two Different Keywords That Are Not LSI?

Thoughts On Facebook’s Tighter Security And Ownership Verification Processes

Have I ever told you guys that I hate Facebook?

I think you did. Yeah.

For necessary evil. No, it is. But I do I can’t stand it.

I had a page that from alpha land realty business I set up a page but I can’t remember what I did. I did something where anyways, I ended up removing myself as the man

Does A NoFollow Link Never Get Any SEO Juice?

All right. Moving on. Next question. BB says when nofollow when a nofollow links link gets juice? Or is it never does it never get juice at the end of the day? If a strong site approved by your link?

So I’m not really sure what the question is here. Just somebody else interpreting the question here.

Ah, nofollow link gets juice. When you link below to a nofollow link.

Do You Use Google Tag Manager?

Should We List The Entire States Or Only The Cities When Optimizing GMB Profiles?

All right. Thanks, everybody, for being here. We will see you guys next time, everyone. Thanks

Source: Semantic Mastery Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 313 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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abbyharlow · 7 years

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I’m writing out of anger and maybe a little bit of sadness. As 2017 is coming to an end, I’m remembering how excited I was at the end of 2016 to have a great new year. For the most part, 2017 has been amazing and has treated me quite well – until it didn’t. The past two-ish months have been an extremely chaotic shit show. I’m willing to give you the low down. Brace yourselves; this is going to be a long one.

As October came to an end and November started, I felt fine. School was kicking my ass, but I’m a good student and I continued to carry on. I was proud of how I had been able to handle all of my stress with my crazy housemates, fat work load and financial issues in a way most people probably wouldn’t be able to. Imagine how fucked up I felt when I started hearing from one of my very best friends that people were expressing concerns about my well being. I have worked for THIRTEEN YEARS to get to where I am today and it felt like all of the hard work that has almost killed me at times was just ripped away from me. Stolen. Two of the girls expressing their concerns had no right to do so because they barely know me. They wanted to call my mom to tell her I needed help…they don’t even know my mom. When I heard this, I told my best friend that if they had done this, my mother would have just laughed and said something along the lines of, “Okay girls, thanks for the call.” I called my mom to tell her this and guess what? She laughed. I think what pissed me off the most about this situation was the fact that these girls are not even my friends and felt the need to go tell someone else about it. If they knew about my past, I would understand. But they know nothing. What hurt the most was I was in the best place I had been to date, and it wasn’t good enough for them, which means it might not have been good enough for anyone.

I told myself not to overthink this situation, but with my amazing mind (sense any sarcasm?), I couldn’t let it go. I was damaged. I felt like I needed to be a better everything but I had nothing to use to do this because I had already used up everything I had to get to my perceived great mental state. What made everything worse was the fact that my best friend who I live with was concerned I wasn’t okay because these other girls were concerned, which burdened me with the task to check on her all the time. She loves me so much that when she worries about me, she worries too much and it effects her mental state negatively. This is turn effects mine negatively as well. I hated that she expressed all of her worries about me to her mom. My best friend in high school also did this, but her mom is the woman who has bullied me since the minute she met me in kindergarten. I believe that I first felt suicidal because of the way this mom treated me for all of elementary, middle and high school. (Fortunately, I did leave this mother’s daughter behind half way through high school. I spent eleven years waiting for her to stand up to her mom for me, and she never did.) My current best friend telling her mom everything about me reminds me of the one person I hate in this world, and all it leaves me with is a brick constantly spinning in my gut.

I think I was able to reassure people I was okay. Unfortunately, this only lightened my stress load for a bit because during this whole disaster, I couldn’t concentrate on school and kept asking for extensions on assignments. I am now facing these assignments over winter break. Who in the hell would want to continue school for an extra four weeks? Thank you to everyone who stressed me the fuck out and made me feel anxious and depressed because you thought I was anxious and depressed when I wasn’t. You suck.

Thanksgiving arrived, and I saw how sick my aunt had become. She was diagnosed with cancer five years ago and fought so, so well to get better. She was not supposed to make it but she pulled through like an absolute champion. The week before the holiday, she was fine. Then her disease hit her out of nowhere like a truck. On December 1st, my aunt lost her battle with cancer. I am still struggling to accept that five of my cousins have lost such a beautiful mom.

One day later, on the night of December 2nd, I broke my ankle in four places. Long story short: I was walking home with my best friend, wanted to ding dong ditch our friend’s house, ran down the front porch stairs, and fell off the last step into a small pothole in the grass. I think it was probably about time something seriously bad happened to my ankle. After hurting it so many times tap dancing for ten years, it was tired of all of the strain. [This is the morning after the break]

I went to the hospital the next morning, was put in a splint, and was sent on my way. Thankfully, I only had one more week of school. I finished the week out thanks to Sierra giving me rides to and from campus. On Thursday, I came home. On Friday, I went to the doctor’s and was told I needed to have surgery. Okay fine. Then I was told I was not allowed to go to Cabo in a week. Not fine. I cried and was a little bitchy but left accepting the fact there was no way I would be able to fly and spend a week on the beach six days post op.

That Friday afternoon, my family and I left town to go to my Aunt’s funeral and to spend the weekend with my family. It was emotional, sad, happy, overwhelming and fun all at the same time. I am just so glad I was able to be there with all of my cousins, aunts and uncles.

Monday the 11th was surgery day. I went in with my mom and brother at 10:30 am to be ready for operation at 11:30. 11:30 am became 6:30 pm. My surgeon was stuck in another surgery where he said things went from bad, to worse, to disastrous. Thankfully, his patient survived the operation. I am proud of how calm I was during my long wait, but my mom claims the nurses gave me something for my anxiety. I don’t remember being wheeled out of my room and into the operating room but my mom did take a video of me forcefully pushing the door all the way open for my doctor and then waving goodbye with my eyes half open. Surgery was a successful hour and a half long procedure. I was woken up thirty minutes early though because I wasn’t breathing very well. Story of my life. Because I was awake before planned, I was conscious while a doctor was putting a nerve block in my leg. I’m so glad I don’t remember this however. A nerve block is a catheter which drains medicine into my body in order to numb my nerves in the desired area. I think this bad ass mechanism only worked for a day. Post op days three, four and five were excruciating. Yesterday I found out that my splint was digging into one of my incision sites. For the past week it has hurt like a bitch and so the nurses took my splint off and put me in a boot ten days early. Bless their souls. I still can’t walk until the 29th, but as long as my pain isn’t unbearable, I’m cool with it.

Overall, I would highly advise against breaking your ankle and getting surgery because it debilitates you in so many ways and leaves you feeling depressed and bored out of your mind. I am actually tired of laying down, sleeping and watching TV and movies. I can’t drive (which might be good because I therefore cannot go out and make more stupid decisions), but I hate having to rely on other people to help me get places…not that there are many places I want to go to when I can’t walk. I weened myself off of the prescribed hydrocodone I have been taking the past three weeks and finally got over the withdrawal symptoms. This whole experience has really humbled me. I never really stopped to think about how hard life must be for those who can’t use certain parts of their body. I am just thankful I will get to walk again, unlike so many others who will never have the ability to walk again.

Below are some pictures of my ankle surgery and recovery process.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

And I'm not able to get up. I'm writing out of anger and maybe a little bit of sadness. As 2017 is coming to an end, I'm remembering how excited I was at the end of 2016 to have a great new year.

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sunshinykittens-blog · 7 years

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Not Enough Alcohol in NYC...

Saturday, November 25 the wee hours of the morning. I think.

I would love to go to sleep right now, God knows I have been through enough chaos the past 72 hours to qualify for hazard pay, or at least PTSD treatment. The flights, the usual holiday family drama (not EVEN my family), an empty apartment, snotting all over some Tower residents, new digs…but I probably should start from the beginning…

Wednesday

When last we left our intrepid adventurer (that would be me), it was in an airport, JFK to be exact. I was waiting, along with Sunny and the 3 younger kids, for our flight out to Pasco (via Seattle) to spend the Thanksgiving weekend with her mom and oldest child. My kids weren’t going to be at my family gathering, so no sense in going home, especially since I’m spending an entire week home for Christmas. Besides, Sunny’s mom has been going through some health issues, and I haven’t seen her in forever. Sunny made all the flight arrangements, all I was supposed to do was pack my bag and be ready to go. So something I didn’t know about her before this day, seeing as I had never flown with her before: Sunny is paranoid about missing flights. I realize that this is one of the busiest days for traveling, and that means all the lines for everything would be extra long, but I am still not sure why we had to leave the apartment at 6 am for a 1:30 pm flight. Maybe she thought we’d get caught up in the parade traffic. But since The Man arranged for a car to take us to the airport (and pick us up upon our return Sunday afternoon), we didn’t have to worry about getting a cab or riding the subway (Sunny’s great idea). So yeah, I am grateful to The Man for the car. Amazingly, we checked bags and got through the security lines very quickly. We were through to the gate section of the airport by 10. Even though one of us was chosen for the random search (guess who that was). Luckily I didn’t have any contraband to speak of, so that was pretty smooth, except for them telling me I needed to get my driver’s license updated to my new address when I get back. Yet another thing for me to have to squeeze in before Christmas. Sunny suggested we grab some coffee and lunch while we waited for our plane. Over this meal is when she told me we had another 3 hours before we were scheduled to board. That’s when I made my last post. (BTW, the girl child is an extremely talented artist, I’ll have to post some of her work sometime soon. Oh, and Sunny did manage to catch the loose cannon. When last I saw, all the kids were still alive.)

I will say this, at least Sunny got us first class seats for our flights (yes, I said flights). It was nice, but we were kind of spread out a bit. Which is nothing compared to the connecting flight in Chicago, which was delayed over an hour for mechanical problems, and we got bumped to another plane, and everyone was pretty scattered then. For our final leg from Salt Lake, though, we were in one cluster of seats, thanks to the airline folks feeling bad for us having missed that connecting flight. After they saw how frazzled she was with the middle child, who kept wandering off. But we arrived safely at our destination airport only about 2 hours later than scheduled. Oh yes, and every time we hit an airport with wifi, Sunny would get a gazillion messages from the oldest child asking why we weren’t there. I felt bad for Sunny, so I admit I bought her a drink in Chicago and Salt Lake. And then I paid for a taxi van to drive us from the airport to her mom’s house so we wouldn’t have to wait for a shuttle.

Didn’t take long for the drama to start when we got there, though. There was only one bed in the house, and that belonged to Sunny’s Mom. The oldest hadn’t even put her bed together, so we were all sleeping on the floor. I haven’t done that in I don’t know how long. Mom started in on how worried she’d been and why were we late, and then blaming Sunny for not getting there any sooner (like we can just hijack the plane or something). But like I said before, Mom had recently had some health problems, so I just tried to overlook it and be there to support Sunny. She was going to need it. Then we all stayed up way too late (with far too little alcohol), and finally got to bed at some point after midnight. I whispered to Sunny as we were drifting off that had I known we were going to sleep on the floor, I’d have rented a car and got a hotel room. Or at least rented some rollaway beds.

Thursday, Thanksgiving

Well, this day started entirely too early for a regular day, much less a holiday, even with the extra time we got for being 3 hours later than home time. Mom had said she needed help cooking, and we were fine with that. But she needed to oversee everything and everyone, assuming we had never entered a kitchen before in our lives. By the way, who in their right mind puts an egg into their literal Stovetop Stuffing? Menu was pretty good, very standard: ham (instead of turkey, which was fine with me), stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potato soufflé, rolls, and 2 kinds of pie with whipped cream. It was a store bought kind of meal; everything came out of a box, can, or bag, or was bought ready to serve like the ham. Except the pumpkin pie. The Airport Problem Child made that and did a really good job, if I do say so myself. Which I do. So as soon as everything was cooked, we had to eat – right that second! Dinner conversation included why in the world did Sunny move so far away, why didn’t she tell her mom and oldest before she moved, why didn’t she find a man and settle down, how her mom’s health was (not good and how much worse it was getting every second that Sunny wasn’t caving), how the kids liked school, Sunny works too much, maybe at least she could find a husband in New York, how were my kids doing, and when was she moving back to Washington. We tried deflecting most of that by saying we had good jobs that we liked, we were making really good money at them, and we were about to move into a secure building at the first of next month. After dinner (with an unhealthy side of stress and heartburn), everyone retired for a nap. Except for Sunny. She stayed up to clean. Of course I stayed up with her. And it took every bit of 2 hours to clean. After which, the tree came out.

Sunny is not a Christmas person, she really doesn’t like it at all. She feels it’s entirely over commercialized, which I agree with. Unlike her, I enjoy the holiday season with full gusto. My only complaint is with people who have conniption fits when people break out the Christmas songs before Thanksgiving. I also find these are the same ones who then start complaining that there isn’t enough time in the Christmas season to get everything done that they want to do – starting the day after Thanksgiving. Anyway, Sunny was going to be aggravated with the evening. So first, her mom put on some Christmas station with some really annoying, tacky Christmas music. And let me tell you, that is really saying something coming from me. I love all Christmas music. At least I thought so until that night. I mean nobody liked it. Not even Sunny’s mom! And then the tree, it’s a wonder Sunny hasn’t ground her teeth down to stumps. It’s kind of old, but we couldn’t get her mom to let us run out and buy a new one. And the lights…it’s a wonder they can’t see that thing from space. You know those sort of net-type lights, the kind you drape over the shrubs outside? 5 of them. Draped onto a 6 foot tree. Then we had to add another 15 strings of plain white lights. I tell you, I needed shades when we plugged in the tree. Then the ornaments, a mix of glass, plastic, and handmade kids ornaments, and then those irritating silvery plastic icicles, the kind that clog up the vacuum. Then, just when we were starting to get into the tacky music, Mom changed it to something equally obnoxious.

About an hour later, I was questioning my decision to be there for the whole weekend. Because that’s when the oldest started in on how unfair life was and how hard she has it there. I could tell she was angling to move with us. Allow me to say one thing about the eldest child: Super Social Justice Warrior Snowflake, she’s about as far from me on the spectrum politically, religiously, and socially as you can get. And before we had left New York, Sunny made me promise that I would not start a fight with her. In other words, I’m surprised that I didn’t bite my tongue off in the short time I was exposed to her awake. She went all over the place from one thing to another, but finally I’d had enough. In fact, I don’t even remember what it was she said, or even what I said, only that I finally blew up and smacked her with an opinion that should have given her a heart attack right then and there. But her face welled up and she stormed off to her room, slamming the door shut and sobbing loud enough to be heard in Seattle. I just looked at Sunny and said I needed to get some air. I grabbed my coat and headed out the door. I walked for a good while, too bad I don’t have a fitness tracker because I easily walked 10k steps. I finally got so cold I went back inside (no hot water for a shower, but I’ve come to not expect that), and crashed in the living room with the kids instead of in the eldest child’s room with Sunny. I slept very little, eventually getting up literally at the crack of dawn for another walk.

Friday

Overnight I had come to the conclusion that neither my blood pressure nor Sunny’s family could take me sticking around for the rest of the weekend. As soon as I walked out of the door, I was on my phone with the airlines looking for the first flight out. I agreed to be on standby; even an airport had to be better atmosphere. I called a taxi, and realized everything except for my carry on bag was still in the bedroom where Sunny, the artist, and eldest child were still asleep. I was not about to go in and risk waking the crew. Instead, I tiptoed over the boys and went to the kitchen to leave a note.

“Sunny, Needed to fly back quickly. Can you please bring my suitcase when you come? See you in a couple of days. Call when I get home. Tell your mom thanks for dinner. Kate”

I carefully gathered my few things in the living room and made for the door. The youngest sat up and rubbed his eyes, then asked where I was going. I lied to the boy, told him I was needed at work, and that I’d see him in a few days. He shrugged, nodded, yawned, and went back to sleep.

I sat in the airport for only a couple of hours before I got on a flight to Denver, where I sat for two hours before I got a plane to New York. From JFK, I took a taxi back to the apartment. As I was walking up the three flights to the apartment, all I wanted to do was take a long hot bath, cuddle with my Spazzie, and get a full night’s sleep. I planned to spend the rest of the weekend lounging around and maybe doing some packing for the impending move looming on the horizon. It was about 11 pm. I unlocked the door to my apartment, stepped in, turned on the lights and saw…nothing.

Literally nothing. Every single thing was missing from our apartment. No futon in the living room. No dishes in the cabinets. No towels in the bathroom. And, the horror hit me as I realized, EVEN THE CATS WERE MISSING!!! For the third time since I moved to New York, I was dialing 911 to report a theft. And, bless her heart, Officer Yang came to take the report. I tried to give a pretty good description of what was missing. Her partner went down to the super’s apartment but there was no response. About half past midnight, Jake’s mom came home from her shift and looked in. We found out from her that a group of men had come first thing that morning and had been packing up our stuff. She had assumed that she had misremembered the date of our move. She offered to let me stay in their apartment, but I didn’t relish another night sleeping on the floor. Instead I called a cab as soon as the police left.

I had thought about going to a hotel, but figured they would pretty much be booked solid. I decided the best place for me to go would be to the Tower. I knew there were comfortable looking sofas, at least, and I figured that all the residents were gone for the holiday. Maybe I could convince The Man to hurry up the remodel because we really did have nothing. No sense in buying furniture, moving into the old apartment to just have to move it the following week. I had the taxi drop me off at the Tower, and I stood just outside to make the phone call I was dreading. I had to tell Sunny we had been cleaned out. I got her voicemail, which made some sense to me. It was closing in on 1:30 am, which was 10:30 pm there. And her mom was always fussing about her being on her phone. I left her a message and promised to call after I got some sleep. Then I went inside.

The night guard was someone I hadn’t met before, but I had my badge so he let me in. The elevator ride up was the longest leg of my journey. I was reviewing all the events in my head and was starting to feel overwhelmed when the doors opened on the 91st floor. I had decided that I was going to have a cup of tea before trying to find a blanket and settling in on the sofa in the lounge. Surely The Man wouldn’t begrudge me that after everything I had been through. I hung up my coat and stashed my carry on in the closet and entered the common area, headed to the stove to heat water in the rarely-used kettle.

Standing at the island were three men. I recognized Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes from news stories I had seen over the years. The other one was unfamiliar to me. They were casually dressed, sweatpants and tees. It appeared they had just come down from the training room, they were slightly sweaty with a healthy glow. Captain Rogers was pouring some post-workout smoothie thing into glasses. I took a deep breath, feeling everything from the past few days welling up behind my eyes, and my nose starting to tingle and burn. I was desperately trying to contain my emotions in front of the people that I was definitely going to be running into in the halls and elevators, residents of the Tower. I was not going to lose control.

They glanced over at me as I came in. Captain Rogers welcomed me, asking if I was one of the housekeepers. I told him I was and then he said he thought we’d be back Sunday evening and where was my partner. I told him that she was still in Washington, and we were supposed to be back Sunday, but I had to leave early. Sergeant Barnes then asked why. And I think that’s where I started to lose that tenuous hold on my emotions. I tried telling them about the disastrous 24 hours that Thanksgiving had been, but I think I became a bit flustered. I don’t think I was making sentences. And then pieces of the past 2 days came spilling out and I absolutely burst into tears. Next thing I knew, I was seated on a stool at the island, Sergeant Barnes was doing his best to awkwardly comfort me with an arm around my shoulders, and the man I didn’t know was pressing a tumbler of some form of alcohol into my hand and demanding that Captain Rogers go find Mr. Stark and bring him up immediately. Before long, hthe Captain had returned with The Man Himself in tow. I will admit, he was concerned to see me sitting there sobbing, and he asked me what was wrong. I lost it again, someone handed me a handkerchief, and after about 5 more minutes, I regained some control. I blew my nose, took a deep breath and started to speak, but when I tossed back half the dark amber liquid, there went my voice.

When it returned, I told him as calmly as I could about the stress at Sunny’s mom’s house, that I just had to leave before really bad things were said, the layovers, the crying babies, coming home to a literally empty apartment, finishing up with the emotional outbursts they had all just experienced, which I assured him was a rare occasion, and could I please have a blanket so I could crash on the sofa. I finished the drink while waiting for the answer. I noticed glares aimed at The Man from the others in the room. And then the Captain threatened to call Miss Potts. Finally The Man said to follow him.

We went down on the elevator together, all four of us. I could almost feel the heat of the glares directed at my boss. This was the second elevator ride I’d had with him that was in complete silence, but somehow I felt like the awkwardness was coming from him this time. The doors opened on the 62nd floor. I followed The Man down the hall to the door opposite the one he had showed us at the beginning of the week, the others behind me like some sort of guard or something. I now thought that what he was going to do was bring up a bed for me. Maybe this convinced him to complete the remodeling ASAP. But when I stepped into the now opened doorway, I was completely flummoxed. There, inside that room, was my apartment. Complete with cats. Spazzie came racing towards me and I scooped him up cuddling and scratching behind his ears. And I started crying again. I put him down for a minute and asked what the hell was going on.

The Man shrugged and told me he’d figured it would be great if we came back and found everything already moved in. One less thing for us to worry about, as it were. They had gone in, packed everything up and moved it, though they hadn’t known what stuff was mine and what was Sunny’s, so unfortunately we were going to have to go through the boxes ourselves. I was really jet lagged, and it was after 2 in the morning, so it took a little while for everything to sink in. But when it did…

I yelled, I screamed at him, I cried big fat hot mad tears. Sergeant Barnes smirked, thoroughly enjoying every word. Sunny’s cat, Aaron, came into the room and started pawing at me. I scooped him up and continued ranting. And then I realized something was climbing my leg. I looked down to see this cute little gray tabby kitten working its way up. And that was most definitely not my cat. I’d never seen it before. The guys all insisted that it must be ours because it was inside the apartment when they packed it up. And it had a collar. About then I felt all my energy drain from my body. I ordered them out and told them that we would finish this conversation tomorrow. I fell into the bed in the bedroom and pulled a comforter up over me. Spazzie curled up behind my knees, Aaron was behind me, and the kitten sprawled out on the pillow next to me. I’ve got to call Sunny tomorrow to let her know everything is OK and to just come to the Tower as soon as she gets in. But right now I need to sleep.

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