#It keeps getting crappier every week

[broken-clover]

Solaxl Week- Day 1

Kinda nuts that GG is a big enough series now to have shipping weeks. I did not expect this one to be the first I'd ever seen but I'm happy! Bringing people together through the power of a couple fire-wielding idiots. Let's get to it!

I fudged this one a tiny bit seeing as how it's a past relationship, it ended up fitting the narrative better, but I promise the rest of these will be more explicitly romantic. I specifically picked the option here that felt a little more tricky for the sake of trying to be creative. And I've always got a soft spot for AU's!

Criminal/Law AU, Firsts, Sparring

-

Called in early. That was always a good start…

Frederick had been at this long enough that he knew exactly how long he could get away with dawdling before someone raised a fuss. Scraping himself out of bed as soon as he got the call meant he could cram in a good-enough shower, just enough to not show up looking like greasy, dandruff-ridden death. Food was a toss-up- after hosing down and stuffing himself into work clothes, a couple of spare minutes only offered enough to stuff a mini-muffin and a slice of cheese in his mouth before grabbing his keys and getting busy with the commute.

While one hand held the wheel, the other tried to wipe the residual tiredness from his eyes and the muffin crumbs from his button-down. His poor excuse for a breakfast had left him longing for a coffee. One of the few things he’d been willing to splurge on when he got the job was a higher-end coffeemaker, the kind with a dozen shiny dials made by a company that sounded French and Swedish at the same time. Unfortunately, the quality shit took time to make. Which meant that when he was in a rush like today, trying to brew a pot was out of the question, leaving his body crying out for caffeine.

Still, drive-thru coffee was always an option. Cheaper, crappier, but an option. He turned the thought over in his mind between turns and on-ramps. Thinking just made his head hurt more. His doctor had mentioned that as being a sign that he needed to cut down on the coffee, but he’d never been the best patient. And with how today was starting out, he didn’t need a headache on top of a headache. Yeah. Shitty coffee was still coffee.

…The exit he typically took was closed. Guess that answered the question for him, but he wasn’t happy about it. Had he forgotten about some prescheduled road work? Usually, he tried to keep a better eye on that kinda stuff. Now he was uncaffeinated and had to take a detour. Great. Whatever this was, he hoped it was goddamn important.

Only a few cars were parked in the station’s lot by the time he arrived. Frederick wasn’t sure if he was pissed off about having nobody to share his suffering with, or glad he got a good spot close to the door. He mentally crossed his fingers in hope that there would be a pot of coffee that he could swipe a cup of. Cops had to use that overinflated budget for something, right?

“Ah, Mr. Bulsara, good to see you!”

Frederick almost mustered a smile. If he made a list of all the people that worked here (and he did know them all, he spent far too much time in this concrete hellscape) and ranked them from most to least pleasant, she’d be at the top of the list by a country mile. Dizzy sat in her usual spot behind the counter, flanked on either side by the kitschy decorations that covered every free inch of her desk. The potted flowers and rubber duckies clashed horribly against the brutalist concrete in a way that he welcomed.

The woman was an anomaly. Far as he knew, she only worked there because her husband was a cop and she wanted to spend more time around him. Her taste in men was questionable, but aside from that, he held a soft spot for her. Dizzy was too good for this place. He’d gotten the impression that she was one of those pacifist types who was legitimately sure any confrontation could be solved with talking it out and holding hands, so what she was doing here eluded him.

Not that he’d ever take talking to anyone else here over her. “Dunno how you can be so perky at this crazy hour.”

Dizzy just shrugged. “I’m up to fill the bird feeders anyway, might as well come in and get started early, too!”

He feigned a gag. “Ugh, too chipper to handle without any caffeine. Do they got a pot going in the breakroom?”

“I can check, if you’d like. I’ll bring you some.”

“What, don’t trust me in there?”

Though he’d meant it lightheartedly, he saw how she winced. “Well, um, it sounded like Leo really wanted to talk to you as soon as you arrived. He told me to send you back immediately. I don’t suppose you could…?”

Any meager bit of sunlight immediately soured. Frederick scowled down the hall. “They drag me outta bed, don’t tell me what for, and I don’t even get a second to breathe? Sonuva-”

“I- I’ll have someone bring you your coffee,” Dizzy called after him as he stormed off. Any ill will he had toward her right now was just an extension of everything else. If he was feeling generous, he’d send flowers later, but he didn’t feel particularly kind right now.

A couple of officers already in the building looked up in shock at the sound of him storming past. Frederick wondered how anyone was still surprised by it anymore. Maybe he’d just been stuck with some newbies on their first early shifts. Maybe one of them had been here long enough to know where the coffee was.

No, there was no time for coffee. Of course not. Good things were kept on a tight schedule, while annoyances came as they liked. He knew exactly what halls to head down and what turns to take. The directions to holding were something Frederick knew like the back of his hand. The same went for the bulky figure that was standing outside of it, peering through the interrogation room’s small one-way glass with a severe frown.

“Whitefang.”

Taking note of his voice and footsteps, the uniformed officer turned to face the newcomer. “Ah, Bulsara. Prudent enough, I suppose, though it seems you declined to iron your suit-”

“I can always turn around and go home, Officer Brick-for-Brains. Just show me who I’m stuck defending.”

Leo blinked silently, taken off-guard by the sudden aggression. His bravado softened. “Alright, alright…suppose I’d rather not devote much more time to this, either.”

“Must’ve been bad if the judge already issued me.”

“Erm, yes, about that…” The cop scratched at his neck and averted his eyes. “Our criminal specifically asked for you.”

Frederick wondered if he’d heard correctly. ”Asked? By name?”

“Yes. Numerous times.”

He wrinkled his nose with displeasure. “Well tell him ‘too fuckin’ bad,’ y’don’t get to pick public defenders. I’ll take it if I get assigned, but- “

“Frederick, please.” Leo cut him off with a sigh. “He’s been raising a fuss for hours now. The only way we could get him to stop was by telling him you were coming. We had to do something.”

He snorted in disbelief. “Great, so I’m your scapegoat. Why’m I supposed to want to agree with this?”

“You don’t have a choice. You’re a PD, you can’t decline a case.”

“This isn’t my case.”

“Not yet.” Leo raised a finger, suddenly looking awfully smug. “But if on the off chance it becomes your case, and you refused to be involved with your client, that’d cause some legal issues, wouldn’t it?”

He wasn’t sure if that was true or not. He hadn’t run into a situation like this before. Then again, he wasn’t sure if he should expect a cop to know the law, either. The fact of the matter here was that Leo wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“Fuck’s sake, you’re the reason I still smoke.” Frederick elbowed past the other man with no attempt at care. “Fine, I’ll talk to him. What am I working with, here?”

“Criminal arson. No confirmed deaths, but they haven’t sifted through all the rubble to be sure yet.”

“Aaaaand you’re sticking me with the heavy shit, too. Sonuvabitch, couldn’t just be something petty, could it?”

“Frederick- “

He ignored whatever Leo was trying to say. No point in wasting any more time than they already had. The door was unlocked, so he let himself in without hesitation.

And immediately regretted it.

“...Of course it’s you.”

Significantly sootier than usual, pants torn and cuffs singed, but he recognized that smirk anywhere. Axl looked awfully comfortable in those crappy metal chairs. He’d already put his feet up on the table like he owned the place. No wonder Leo had been more irritable than usual.

“Finally! Got stuck slingin’ shit at the blue meanies so long, I thought you’d never get here! Damn, grew your hair out since last time, how’ve you been, chief?”

Frederick ignored his enthusiasm, merely shutting the door behind him. The room was kept chill, likely to keep criminals from getting too comfortable, but he was thankful for how it cooled the sweat on his forehead and palms. This just kept getting worse. Had he done something lately to warrant all this bad karma biting him in the ass?

“This isn’t a nostalgic reunion.” He tried to keep his focus on the job, not the person attached to it. Frederick placed his case on the table and tried to ease into something more familiar.

“Man, don’t look all that different, though! Still same ol’ chief.” Axl grinned, only to sour slightly when he went ignored. “Jeez, ya grew up and got stuffy.”

“And you became a criminal.”

“Pfft. So they already got ya started on that. I didn’t do nothin’.”

“So your clothing is singed because…?”

“Look, I wasn’t trying to do anything. Just hanging out, havin’ a drink, next thing I know everyone’s yelling, bloody pigs saying somethin’ about ‘criminal arson’ and ‘shuttin’ down the I-44.’ It wasn’t that bad.”

“Christ alive, that was you?” Part of the job was not taking things personally, but it seemed like Axl was taking that as a challenge right now. “Was a pain in the ass taking a detour around it.”

The man merely shrugged, not fazed in the slightest at his current circumstances. “Did anybody die?” He watched Frederick intently, as though waiting for some specific reaction. When he didn’t get it, he broke out into a catlike grin. “Right. ‘Cause I was real careful, just like always.”

“So you’re admitting you were responsible for it?”

“Look, ‘m just sayin’ if someone did knock it down on purpose, it was a tax repo office. No real loss. Prolly had it coming.”

Frederick realized that he had been standing the entire time. While he wasn’t happy with the idea of getting closer to Axl’s smug mug, he was getting awfully tired of standing. The chair’s metal legs shrieked against the ground as he pulled it out to sit.

As soon as he did, Axl took his feet off of the table and leaned in close. “C’mon, chief, ain’t that sorta thing what we always talked about when we were kids? ‘Fuck the establishment, fuck the system?’ C’mooon, you can’t tell me you’re all chummy with the pigs now, are ya? The hell happened to ya?”

“My own opinions on it ain’t the issue here. You can’t blow up a building and have everyone just be fine with it.”

“I didn’t blow up a building.”

Frederick pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, burned down a building. Either way. Fuck, are you gonna listen to a thing I say? My job is supposed to be trying to keep your ass out of jail."

“‘Supposed to?’”

“I can’t take your case now, anyway.” He tossed his hands in the air. “Even if you didn’t take law, you gotta know what ‘conflict of interest’ is, right?”

“Y’mean because we’re exes? What, they don’t like that much in your line a’ work?”

“It was not a relationship.” Despite himself, Frederick could feel his cheeks warming.

“We had sex!”

“Three times, and two of them were only because I felt bad for you. Goddamn it…” He leaned against the tabletop, head low and buried in his hands. “What are you doing, man?”

Axl’s sense of bravado softened. “Chief, I- I just wanted to see you again.”

“You could have done that without becoming an arsonist!”

“Wh- hey, don’t go thinking I did anything for your attention!” Frederick had to recoil as Axl leaned across the table to jab a finger at him. “Not much a point in it anyway, seein’ what you’ve turned into! Sonuvabitch, you gave up on everything we used to talk about! You went soft!”

The other man slapped his hands on the table, glaring back. “I’m not gonna take judgement from someone like- !”

The door to the room slammed open. “Frederick, that’s enough.”

The two went quiet, looking at the officer in the doorframe. “Ah, yeesh, now the pig’s come to bail ya out. 'Course.” Axl sneered.

Frederick said nothing, merely taking his briefcase and departing.

“It was a relationship!” Axl shouted after him. “You’re only lyin’ to yourself!”

Leo rapped his knuckles against the door. “Quiet down, Low. You’ll get another public defender, but it’ll be a few hours.”

“Good! Bet they’re better than you, chief! I’m not over this, you hear me?! YOU’RE NOT TOO GOOD FOR ME JUST BECAUSE YOU WORK WITH THESE BASTARDS NOW, YOU SONUVA- !”

“Are you alright?” Leo asked once the door had closed, blocking any more ranting beyond a protective barrier.

“Fine.” Frederick replied in a clipped grunt. Though his hands were in his pockets, his shoulders were nearly brushing his ears. He turned away and skulked off. “Gonna get some damn coffee…”

[stevishabitat]

Was on Pinterest (I know, I do sometimes cheat on Tumblr with the Pretty Plagiarism Hellsite, I'm not proud of it)

Anyway, I saw this and just about threw my phone...

(I didn't throw my phone because I have to use it to sign into the work VPN so I can keep my job)

But I literally saw red for a brief second.

My fridge, freezer, and pantry currently consist of about 20 eggs, half a loaf of bread (gift from my mother), several servings of cooked black beans, some cooked white rice, a bag of frozen peas, about five frozen chicken nuggets, a pound of dry white rice, a small jar of dried lentils, a small jar of split peas, a slightly larger jar of pinto beans, two packets of minute rice, two packets of ramen (another gift from my mother at kiddo's request), several cans of spaghettios, several cans of tomato paste, two tins of tuna, a few packets of instant oatmeal, a tin of hopefully not stale steel cut oats, and some bisquick for pancakes & waffles.

I do have a little less than a pound of flour, and things like sugar, baking soda, baking powder, some spices, some condiment packets, vinegar, and some boullion. Oh, and some coconut oil that's been in the freezer for awhile, meant for making hand cream, but isn't rancid so it's getting used for coating the electric skillet and waffle maker once we'd run out of olive oil and butter.

This is what we'll be cooking with until the next pay day/grocery day in two weeks.

So, I'm not quite at the level of food insecure, but I'm pretty damn broke.

And the pictures on that pin are just nothing like what we're able to eat. Ever. For at least the last 10 years. I don't even remember the last time I was able to buy meat on a regular basis.

Canned chili with meat instead of beans and chicken nuggets are like Special Occasion foods for kiddo and I rarely have any (because I can easily sub beans, kiddo has sensory issues with most beans).

I might get myself a single chicken pot pie from time to time, especially in the winter. But I can't afford to buy like cuts of chicken to make my own. It's too much money to spend at once on just one thing. My $35 grocery shops twice a month have to cover a LOT.

Plus when we moved in (2021), the stove/oven was broken, so we had a scrapper haul it away for the recycling value. So we've been using a toaster oven and small electric skillet since then.

I had a little remorse at my knee-jerk reaction to the cover photo, so I clicked into the blog to see what the actual list was like. Title of the blog is Boss Single Mama, so maybe she knows what she's talking about. Maybe she's been there for real.

Nope. Chicken, beef, ham, almost every dish has meat. Cheeses and other dairy, a variety of vegetables, all things that we get very sparingly and use in small amounts on many meals, not as a main ingredient.

And even thinking back to my childhood it wasn't much different. We shopped at Aldi before it was cool and their selection was far more limited. Most of our meals were rice or pasta based, with meat only appearing as ground beef, tuna, and sometimes bologna.

Hot dogs were a special treat and even those weren't used on a bun. They were cut up in a pasta salad or casserole. Sometimes if we had a few leftover we would eat them the next day fried in a pan and wrapped in bread or a tortilla and that was a good day! We bought the cheap cheese in blocks and had to grate it because Aldi didn't even carry shredded cheese back then.

This is the kind of thing that makes me feel like when most people talk about being broke, or living frugally, or thrifty, or struggle meals, or whatever the trendy phrase is... They're talking about something vastly different than my daily life.

And it just makes me feel crappier about how I'm raising my kiddo, and it seems like there's so few resources to help people who are actually struggling. Whose lives don't look like a Boss Single Mama blog.

Anyway, if you ever feel the same way, you aren't alone. I raise my bowl of bean & tomato sauce rice to you! We are survivors, in spite of it all.

[remembertoeat]

Dessert: Banana Snickerdoodle Cookies

TIME: ★★★✰

PRICE: ★★★★

EASE: ★★★✰

CLEANUP: ★★★✰

I have a REALLY bad habit of going through a week or two where I'll eat a banana every day, then just...stop. And that leaves me with a LOT of brown bananas. And the go-to method to take care of brown bananas is banana bread! Which I love! It's great! BUT! I have made SO MUCH banana bread. And I wanted to try something new.

AND THEN I FOUND THIS RECIPE! They are not a "slightly crappier alternative to traditional snickerdoodle cookies." They are a thing unto themselves, and VERY tasty (if you like things like banana bread. If you don't like banana bread, you will not like these, lol.) STRAIGHT UP! These are SO good!

All the ingredients are super inexpensive. It doesn't take too long to make, but you need to chill the dough for a few hours and baking is...you know. Baking.

Tips:

-The recipe says to use a stand/hand mixer. As long as you let your butter get to room temp, I've had fine luck with just hand mixing everything with a fork.

-I just added walnuts to this when I made them last night, and it is *chef's kiss* SO good.

-These cookies are pretty good warm, but they are AMAZING cold. They're so chewy and buttery and MMMMM!

-These will keep for awhile in your fridge, so you can make a big batch and then have a tiny dessert or lunch accompaniment for a couple weeks!

Soft Cinnamon and Banana Snickerdoodle Cookies (Ginger With Spice)

[rockshitty]

Thank you thank you thank you for giving me the jumping off point to talk about what's been going on in my head since this post has been eating my entire notes page for the last week. (holy shit y'all like this one. there have been some amazing additions and tags too.)

Anyway, the relevant difference between a local place and a big chain restaurant is how they determine success, and who is making those calls.

A local restaurant wants to stay open for as long as they can and turn a profit for as long as they can. That means (short version) they have to make food that people in their community want at a price they're willing to pay, and keep doing that through the local economic ups and downs. Generally speaking an extremely small number of people who live nearby are making every single business decision at your local spot, and they either reap all the rewards or suffer all the failures. The end goal, make a profit every year. The pie in the sky goal, open a couple other locations.

National chains have different goals, different structures, and different ways of calculating success. They have corporate structures and shareholders, and when you have shareholders just turning a profit usually isn't enough anymore. Shareholders expect growth. They want a higher profit than last year, every year, forever. That means the business has to constantly expand into new markets for new sources of revenue, then when they run out of untapped markets they have to find costs to cut, then when they can't make a crappier product with cheaper labor that people will still buy, there's nothing to do but to raise prices. No one making these decisions cares because no one making these decisions is affected by the outcome. The C suite gets paid whether the restaurants make money or not. If they fuck up badly enough they get a generous severance package and are in some other corporation a year later, making the same bad decisions on different letterhead.

No one with any meaningful decision making power will ever face the repercussions of the business failing, so the food keeps getting worse, the stores staff fewer people, and the prices keep going up until there's no reason to give mcdonalds $15 for their flavorless crap when the local dive bar is serving hot, fresh smash burgers made to order until 2 in the morning.

I dunno man. I found out today that a subway sandwich is $14 now. A shitty subway footlong sandwich that isn't actually 12 inches long and is occasionally made with expired ingredients and was never a great option to start with. I ate those in high school because I was broke and at the mall a lot.

There are poke bowls in my city from a local place for $16. Super fresh fish and veg, warm rice, more than I can eat in one sitting, for the price of a sandwich and a drink at america's most mid-tier sandwich shop.

Someone in another post said (paraphrased) you used to be able to get something mediocre for cheap, but now the mediocre things cost as much as the nice things so why would you?

[swgohgamer]

WEEK 44: Productive week! On the farming front, I got the mods up to where I wanted them for both B2 and KAM. I also saw the unassigned mod inventory was starting to creep up over 250, so I put some work into assigning some of them (and selling some of the crappier ones).

I got Bossk up to G13, and then my relic mat farming paid off because I was immediately able to get him up to R5. I then reattempted tier 6 of the Chewie journey, but Bossk couldn’t carry the rest of the team. That journey is tough. I’ll need to keep pushing the rest of the bounty hunters there into relics. Mod energy is now going into speed mods for Bossk. Also got the Houndstooth up to 5 stars, but it’s still not doing as much for me as I would have hoped. I think it’s because the overall fleet is still kind of hodgepodge. Hopefully once I get Executor unlocked, things will fall into place a little more.

I put an omicron on Wampa for GAC, but haven’t had a chance to try it out yet. I’m in between seasons at the moment, ranked #21938 in Carb 3 and #26 in my guild. Speaking of the guild, we did the Endor raid and I’m getting up past the 544k milestone in personal rewards. We’re wrapping up a Hoth LS TB. The officers booted a handful of folks who weren’t participating, so hopefully those slots get filled by more active players. We’ll be going back to Naboo for the next raid, so when we do I’ll experiment with a higher difficulty tier & see if I can’t score some more points.

Conquest started back up, and I chickened out of going from Easy to Normal for the difficulty level, but I regret that decision. The reason I backed down was because I haven’t gotten to the final 2 crates on Easy yet. But I don’t really have any issues with the individual nodes in Easy mode anymore; I now have enough characters in relic territory that I can alternate squads without burning all their stamina. The only place where I’m really leaving points on the table is when there are specific feats I can’t do. So my thinking now is, I want to try Normal next time and just see if the rewards I end up with are better than what I’m getting on Easy.

I was watching a Songeta video on YouTube where he was talking about assault battles, & he showed a squad tab he created to track his assault battle teams. That’s one area where I’ve always just thrown whatever available characters I have at them as opposed to farming for them. So I mirrored the tab that he had created. I won’t necessarily be dropping everything to farm for their shards, but I’m still sitting on a nice little credit surplus, so I was thinking I could at least level them up a little every day. A lot of them are requirements on my farming plan anyway, so this would help me to prioritize them.

[koganphrancis]

New Episode, New Ian

What they showed:

What we all thought of:

and that made the ending of last night’s episode fraught with emotion (as did Cam’s acting), and I was sort of freaked out by events until about an hour after the show when I saw the full scene in the church from the next episode-and now I’m back to thinking Shameless is just continuing their same old bullshit.  

Weekly warning: There will be spoilers under the cut, even one for The Walking Dead so if you haven’t seen last week’s mid-season finale of that show-you have been warned.

Another brand new writer this week-I wasn’t impressed.  Last week’s seemed ignorant about sexual orientation, this week’s seems just as uninformed about addiction (and maybe medications to treat bipolar disorder).  

I’ll try to dispense with the other storylines as quickly as possible.  The Kev and Vee stuff doesn’t interest me or amuse me in the least-it’s not my cup of tea anyway, but of course it’s not being well-written and that hurts its chances even more.  This week we saw the twins for a second, but no Yev and no Svetlana.  I guess the thrupple is over again already?

Carl is a waste of screen time this year, in my opinion.  The new love interest is a weird, bitchy sort who screams about the living hell of her teen life-which includes SAT prep, tennis camp, and cruising the Greek islands on “P Diddy’s” yacht.  You’re trying too hard, Shameless, we’d hate this teen bride to be without all the whining.  

Oh, we also find out Carl is also 16 this week-so, either Debbie’s twin or another set of (heretofore unmentioned) Irish twins.  

Frank is a total waste of time too, except one interesting line-he tells a stranger in line at a job fair he has “five kids”, so I guess he really doesn’t count Ian as his own.  

It’s Liam’s last day of school?  But Carl’s just weeks away from going back to school?  I know the time line has never made sense, but wtf?  

Also Fiona flat out states she’s 28 in this episode-what’s with the new writers establishing ages all of the sudden?

Debbie should’ve gotten fired in her first scene at work, but doesn’t, but self-sabotages the job later (in typically “hilarious” aka unfunny Shameless fashion), and from an Emmy tweet I guess the audience is supposed to think she stood up for herself but all I could think was, “Good luck getting another job where they let you bring your baby to work in a pet carrier.”  Of course Debbie IS a Gallagher and this IS Shameless, so by next week she’ll probably have some high paying steady job with in-house daycare and a retirement plan...

Snore got to have a couple of lines this week-setting up her still in the future storyline.  Lip asks her if she’s ok when she seems distracted/down in the dumps/who tf knows what she was going for, and she answers, “Sorry, just stuff.”  Lip says, “You wanna talk about it?” and she says, “Naw, it’s fucked up.”  Ian will have a similarly cryptic scene at the end of the show-suddenly they want us to think storylines continue from week to week?  

We meet Fiona’s new fella-the only thing remotely interesting about him is his Irish accent.  Nessa’s got her weekly “I’m never at work, I’m always free to hang with Fiona” scene too, in which Fiona says Ian has a “history of psycho behavior” so fuck you, New Writer.  (Fiona also has a history-of child endangerment and neglect-so she should put those stones away while she’s living in that glass house.)  

Lip had another week where I just can’t invest in what he’s got going on.  Why is Lip, the alcoholic adult child of an alcoholic so disillusioned and shocked by Youens’ downfall?  Why are they writing him so naive?  Lip is supposed to be smart, plus he’s watched Frank his entire life-we’re supposed to believe that he was gobsmacked by Youens getting drunk during an hour break at the courthouse?  Wouldn’t that be Frank to a T?  You remember Lip’s dad, don’t you?  The guy who when he couldn’t get booze down this throat used an eye dropper to get alcohol into his blood stream thru his eyes?  They have Brad say to Lip that with Youens’ record, if it was anyone else, Lip would say he belongs in jail after his fifth DUI-which rings true.  If it were Frank in the same position, Lip would be testifying against him!  Anyway, the big farewell scene at the prison, the writer to me showed little to zero sympathy (or maybe even awareness?) that alcoholism is a disease.  Instead of giving Youens a speech like Ian got to keep his EMT job, Youens tells Lip he’s “a drunk”.  Don’t any of these people watch Mom on CBS?  And I’m not being flippant-my uncle (my mother’s brother) was an alcoholic and I don’t think he had a drink during my entire lifetime (he was working on his sobriety by the time I was born), but I know he did struggle every day, he wanted a drink every day of his life.  The show keeps acting like there’s just some magic hump Lip needs to get over and then he won’t want/need to drink and it just doesn’t work that way.  That’s why the program says “one day at a time”-Lip can’t keep waiting for some magic moment one day down the road where he’ll be “cured” and never want another drink.  Lip did his 28 days, he’s been going to meetings, he should know this.  The writers definitely should know it, but they don’t treat alcoholism like a disease at all-I don’t get it and I don’t think the storyline is great.  Lip hasn’t seemed to learn anything from any of the father figures in his life.  Also?  I strongly suspect that now that Youens is “put away” and Brad’s too overwhelmed to be a sponsor,  they’ll show Lip searching for a new sponsor next week, but after that he’s going to be Snore’s rock when Terry-oops, I mean her father-gets out of prison and all of Lip’s drinking issues WILL have magically been handled to free him up to be her hero.

Now on to the only reason I keep watching this mess of a show.  When we first see Ian this week, it’s in a very OOC scene of him throwing not one but two buckets of icy water on Fiona in bed.  Really?  You expect me to invoke a suspension of disbelief so strong that it believes that A: Ian would ever do such a thing, and B: (since we find out he’s been doing it for a week) that Fiona’s mattress isn’t completely ruined?  Fuck you, Shameless.  And between “joking” about killing her and now this act of aggression, I’m really getting sick of how they’re writing Ian-he’s never been like that.  

Speaking of character traits-next we see Jerome spelling out MANIAX on the sidewa...Oops, sorry, Ian’s egging Fiona’s building and writing out his explanation of where “Cuntlord” came from as a mash up on the sidewalk in spraypaint.  He’s also got the kids from the shelter with him and they’re setting up a tent city on the conveniently empty lot next to Fi’s apartments.  Terror is...there.  Standing there.  Being useless.  Ian gets in Fiona’s face, says he wants her to “smell their shit”-oh, Shameless, you’re making it too easy-the whole show smells like shit.  Terror tries to tell Ian it sounds like a family issue, that Ian shouldn’t be using “Terror’s kids” (I cringe every time he shouts “my kids” at Ian).  Ian’s got a bullhorn, they chant some obscenities (as if Fiona’s tenants and other people in the neighborhood wouldn’t call the cops about THAT)...you can just see the wheels turning, that Shameless is trying to be shameless again, but it ain’t working.  Anyway, Terror stands there trying to look worried (it comes off more as constipated) as Ian marches off around the building with the kids.  If we’re supposed to think he’s like Mickey worrying about Ian as he was losing control, it’s not working.  

As soon as Ian leaves for work, Fiona buys all the kids off with free pizza and twenty bucks-and even the girl crushing on Ian has her price and is the last to leave.  I bet that’s the last we’ll see of the “kids”.  Fiona also pulls a totally cunty move and has all the kids’ stuff removed by a clean up crew.  It would’ve killed them to write a line where she says, “Bring it back to the Youth Center but tell someone in charge there that if they set up again, I’m throwing it out.”?  

When Ian gets back to the lot after work, he and Terror are looking on the scene and they start to pick up some stuff Fiona’s crew missed.  Fi is trying to talk to Ian, to apologize and put it behind them, but Ian’s ignoring her.  She says that Margo has another building and that she’s willing to lease it and waive the first and last month’s rent deposit, Ian says they’re not interested in charity.  Terror speaks up and Ian barks at him, and then Fiona asks Ian if he’s off his meds.  That only makes Ian madder, but she tries again, asks, “are you taking them?”  Ian is livid now, he informs Fiona that yes, he is taking them and that he’s “fucking angry” and is she going to suspect he’s off his meds for the rest of his life when he gets angry and that he’s allowed to be “angry at bitch assholes when they’re being fucking bitch assholes,” and then he stomps off, obviously upset and hurting and Terror stays with Fi just like he stayed with Monica when Ian was hurt and upset by her-because Terror never validates Ian’s feelings and is TOXIC.  Fi doesn’t go after Ian either, and tells Terror to go look at the building for the youths.  She doesn’t say the offer is time sensitive though, ffs.  

Ian doesn’t get home till it’s full dark out-where was he all afternoon and during the early evening?  At the time I was hoping Mickey’s abandoned building rooftop, but you know that’s just dumb of me.  

Terror is waiting on the front stairs of Ian’s house.  Ian doesn’t look pleased to see him.  First thing out of Terror’s mouth: “I went to look at that place on Ashland.”  (No “Hi”, no “Are you ok?”, no “Do you want to talk?”)  Ian says, “You what?” clearly pissed off.  “It’s got good bones (that’s the 2nd time in the episode they use that real estate buzz phrase-Fiona described the building to them thusly-it sounded out of place both times).  I signed a lease.”  Hold the phone-I’m really going to need to see a printed out job description for Terror’s position at the youth center ASAP.  He has the authority to sign binding legal/rental documents for the place?  He doesn’t even have a valid ID!!!  But I digress.  Ian’s response is, “Fuck, Trev.”  He just sounds exhausted.  Terror says, “She’s right about you not being yourself lately.  (Dafuq?  You’ve known him all of ten months maybe?  And you’ve NEVER let him talk/express himself?  What do you know about Ian being “himself”, asshole?)  This isn’t the mountain you’re making it to be.  Are you taking care of yourself?”  Is he asking if Ian’s having anonymous sex with randos who worship him?  WTF is Terror’s definition of Ian taking care of himself?  Ian answers, pausing between each word, “Yes.  I am taking my fucking meds.  Now get off my porch, dick.”  Terror literally steps in front of him and gets right in his face (since he’s standing a step or two up the stairs) and says, “It is my job to do what is best for those kids and that place on Ashland will make their lives a little bit better.”  So?  THAT’S the appropriate response to whatever Ian is going through?  ANOTHER goddamn lecture about Terror and what Terror does?  Like I said, Fiona didn’t say, “Rush right down there, this offer is only on the table for the next few hours.”  Terror’s all about what he has to do for those kids in need while the guy he claimed he “really loved” is in a world of goddamn hurt?  Leaving Mickey out of it all together, Terror still comes off as an uncaring, self-centered asshole.  Terror doesn’t care about Ian, it’s so clear in this (and many other) scenes.  Why does Shameless keep forcing this on us?  All Terror has been saying the last few episodes while Ian has been trying to help the kids is that Ian’s doing it wrong, and that they are Terror’s kids.  Even bringing up his job like that-if he wanted to make the point to Ian that he’s been trained to help them and Ian hasn’t-why not say THAT instead of going from, “Your sister’s right, are you taking care of yourself?” to pounding his chest and crowing about “his job”?  He’s the one that let Ian in to help the kids, now all he ever does is act like Ian’s not good enough at it.  

The last scene is Ian in his bed.  Fiona comes in to talk to him, they both say they’re done fighting.  Ian oddly says, “I shouldn’t have wasted my time on that bullshit.  Not when there are larger concerns to consider.”  Fiona asks, “Larger concerns like what?”  He takes a breath like he’s about to answer, pauses,she gives him a searching worried af look, then he just changes the topic, “Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?  I was almost asleep in here.”  Instead of saying something like, “I’m your sister, you know you can tell me anything, I want to know,” she just says, “Night, Ian,” gets up, walks to the door, pauses, says, “I love you, you know.”  Close up of Cam’s face, another pause, he finally says, “You too.”  She leaves, there’s another close up of him-his eyes move from the door to staring at nothing.  

So, when I was watching it live, that scene totally freaked me out.  He seemed like he had something bad to tell her, but just couldn’t yet.  I WANT to believe this is all leading to him mourning and missing and not coping about Mickey, but this stupid show never wants to remember Mickey and sure as hell doesn’t want to act like he ever meant anything to Ian but a puppy love Ian outgrew.  So I doubt that’s where they’re going.  I also don’t think it has anything to do with Monica because the show feels like they’ve “done” that story and it’s over.  I was wracking my brain about what Ian’s larger concerns could be referring to, and upset that we’re going to have to wait two weeks to even begin to find out.  Because another possibility is that they’ll never say what the hell he was referring to because that’s what this show is now-brand new every week.  There’s still no fall out from him going into the old couple’s house-was that just a throwaway joke?  That, just like Kev dancing at the Fairy Tail, Ian would do anything for that money?  

On The Walking Dead’s mid-season finale it was revealed that Carl had been bit by a walker in an earlier episode and that’s what this bed scene was reminding me of-that Ian had something really awful and life-altering happen, but he just can’t bring himself to tell anyone yet.  

Anyway, thoughts were spinning around in my head, and then I saw this:  https://youtu.be/ZiFnSVqu1D4   and it was a cold dose of reality, just like those buckets of water falling on Fiona’s head: by the next episode all will be fine.  Ian’s found a new passion project, Terror is on board, holding his Bible for him and supporting his man, even if he does claim to be Ian’s ex-Ian’s quick to “reassure” us that they’ll start banging again soon.  That ugly smile on Terror’s face made me want to cry.  

Now I’m thinking that maybe all “larger concerns” is gonna turn out to be that one of the youths told Ian off camera about the gay conversion program at that church-or that maybe instead of being on Mickey’s rooftop Ian was wandering around the city and saw a flyer or a poster for it.  So when he’s talking to Fiona he’s already moved on from topics of real estate and his contemplating taking on organized religion.  Because this show is that badly written nowadays.  True loyal fans keep remembering how the show was back in the day and could read a lot into the emotions played by Emmy and Cam in that final scene and were naturally worried that something personal is going on with Ian, but it probably is just him setting off on the path of becoming a zealot with a new cause with much-or all-of the reasoning happening off the page and off screen.  LAME.  

They could’ve so easily set this storyline up over time-Ian gets back from leaving Mickey to find not only has he lost the love of his life, but also his mother, his one sympathetic source when it comes to the lifelong condition he still doesn’t have a handle on, it would’ve been the most natural thing in the world for him to look to religion for answers.  But no, we had him chase after Terror like he’s Ian’s only relationship option, and in the next episode he’s got a Bible with dozens of post-it tabs marking the pertinent passages he needs to take on a pastor instead.  Somewhere between telling Fiona he was almost asleep and the next episode he’ll have read and highlighted the entire Bible and quasi-broken up with Terror with the promise that they’ll get together again soon.  Because they can’t make Terror and Ian just friends.  They’re really going to make us suffer thru this on again, off again tedious bullshit?  Why?  

One more note on how much they let happen that we don’t get to see: WHEN DID TERROR FIND OUT IAN HAS BIPOLAR DISORDER?  Was it when Fiona was asking Ian about his meds?  Was it long ago?  Was it before or after Ian ran off with Mickey?  WHEN?  First they just spring it on us that Terror apparently knows all about Ian being a teen prostitute (which the audience still doesn’t even really know about-all we got was retconning because the last we knew, Ian told the porn producer he couldn’t turn tricks at the club), now this?  They waste so much time on scenes that go nowhere and that don’t advance the story at all-they can’t give us a little bit of Ian actually talking to the guy he’s screwing?  Hell, they don’t even give us scenes of them screwing....

[muselin]

This is strange asks anon

I have gotten a bunch but I delete most so here are two recent ones. I Made a post about intimate piercings (basically a MLT post) and someone ranted about *the germs* even followed it up with another ask that I didn’t publish where they tried to guilt trip me because I said something like “aren’t there more bacterial cells in your body right now than there are you cells?”, saying that I find them weird and made fun of them? Idk it was odd. Like, this was totally hypocritical but they took it why to serious 😔

Then someone send an ask announcing that they will no longer follow me bc I made realize that they are a sex repulsed Ace person and this was on anon so I have no idea why they would tell me?? My blog has like 450+ followers how would I know who unfollowed?? ^^;;;;

To answer some questions. We are not moots but we both share a moot so I see your posts on my dashboard sometimes.

As for audience and content, I write for stray kids and some of my stories did do pretty well (two of them even have like 500 notes with is a insane number for someone like me who used to write for smaller fandoms). I’m at university so I have time and do hang out on here (probably more than I should lol).

Last year I posted something every week but now I have a bit less time but more stress :( the other thing is most of my stories are pretty long (usually over 3k words) so they take a lot of time to edit. I keep track of my wips and I have like 80 k of unpublished, unfinished wips. rip me lol

Haha strange asks anon! I'll tag you as that then.

Tell you what, those people sound like some tumblr trolls. My policy with everything is: 1. Don't kinkshame 2. don't be abusive 3. don't be moral police over people's fantasies because what gives you the right over somebody else and 4. if you don't like something then don't read it and move on. I haven't experienced weird asks like that, just occasional hate ones that make no sense, usually when I've stood up for someone who's written something controversial and is getting kinkshamed or abused.

You have so much content waiting to go!! That's insane! That's a very different writing process to what I have, I post a finished fic maybe once or twice a month and usually only have one or two things in WIPs. I keep saying this, I don't believe I'm that creative as a person really, and if I had that many fics all going at once they would just get crappier.

I'm not being very useful again, I just don't know what the actual secret is to good content. I just do what I know, which is put out fics, do some ask games (like confessional monday) but not too often, read other people's stories and share what I like about them.

I'm curious who you are now, I might have read your stuff! If you feel like it, send me a message and we can talk some more. Or anon asks are also fine if you don't feel comfortable ❤

[gyllenhaalstories]

Can you write more of best friend Jake, like a third part?

CLICK THE SOURCE LINK BELOW TO BE REDIRECTED TO THE SECOND PART (which will also lead you to the first part) <3

how about some angst, anon? listen to no light, no light by florence + the machine for vibes!

(warnings: death of a parent, blood, injury, sexual content... this also got very long)

You and Jake have been friends for a few years already. Two peas in a pod. Telepathically connected. Soulmates. You get the whole picture.

But what if you lost all of it?

Jake was in talks for a big movie. Probably the biggest production of his whole life. The director, the producer, the rest of the cast... Let’s just say it was an express ticket to the Academy Awards. But filming happened at the same time as your mother died. So he turned down the role, offering it for someone much less fitting for the part (I  am the only human on Earth who doesn’t like Leonardo DiCaprio, so let’s give it to him for funsies).

You were so thankful. He did not even care about giving up the role of a lifetime, you were devastated and in shock and in need of support. He understood you better than anybody else. He knew what you needed, whether it was a hug or some distance and time alone. He helped you with the funerals. He was a member of the family, at this point. Your mother even wrote in her will to give her collection of vinyls to Jake, who always complimented her on her music taste. He was there during the ceremony, offering you tissues to dry your tears or his hand to hold.

He was there afterwards, for all of the weeks and months you spent feeling dead inside. He was there. He did silly stuff to make you smile, he brought you to fun travel spots like the Hamptons. Why the Hamptons? So you could judge the rich ass people and laugh.

Months went by, you truly believed your friendship was better and stronger than ever.

The Oscars ceremony was playing on television that night. You had forgotten about Jake’s role, but it all came back to you now. Jake attended the ceremony with his sister as his date. It was supposed to be you, but he did not want to pressure you. And you watched the whole thing on tv, waiting until the last categories which included best actor. Leonardo won, easily. He even made a joke, thanking Jake for giving him his second award.

Jake texted you from the after party. He sent you photos of Chris Evans being a total gentleman to literally everyone and everything (he even sent you a clip of Chris holding the door for one minute straight just in case someone walked in and needed help). He sent you photos of Jared Leto and his crazy Gucci suit. He sent you photos of Maggie drinking two flutes of champagne in your honour, followed by a video of her drunkenly singing I love youuuuuu.

And you were not even replying. You were crying. Throwing things around. You were so mad and felt so guilty.

Jake was worried, so he stopped at your place after the party (he had left early). He had a key, so he just walked in and called out your name. And he found you: crying on the floor, your hand had blood stains on it, just like the vase of glass picture frame that was not scattered on the floor, a photo of Jake and you was shredded to pieces.

He ran to grab bandaids and placed one on your wound. “It’s okay, I’m here” Jake tried to hold you tight but you kicked him away. “You’re always here! It should have been you winning this stupid award! It should have been you doing this movie! It should have been you...” Doing this, and that. You yelled that you were responsible for his career slowing down. You told him you were just a burden for him and that he deserved better of a friend than someone who stopped him from being happy.

You didn’t understand that all he needed to be happy was you.

Jake left, knowing you probably needed some time to think.

You never called him or texted him. He tried, but you never picked up the phone or you pretended to never be home when he stopped by. You had one of your friends ask him for your spare key, for your belongings you left at his place in exchange of the ones he left at yours. It was radio silence. You were miserable, and so was Jake.

Jake took on a new role, a much crappier one but it was an easy paycheck. And there was a rumour he was having a fling with his co star, whoever she was you did not even care. Actually you did, but you decided to never check the medias or read magazines that talked about Jake.

Your mutual friend group split up, some remained closer to Jake and others to you. They tried to talk some sense into you, to make you understand that if Jake wanted to focus on his work instead of you, he would have done it. Your friends slowly understood that this was more than a friendship ending. It was a breakup.

You broke up with Jake because you felt like you were holding him back. You broke up with Jake because you wanted him to bloom, to enjoy the remaining years of his career to get the recognition he always deserved. You broke up with Jake because you loved him so much it terrified you.

And deep down, you knew he loved you too and that was even worse.

Eventually, a whole year had passed without hearing Jake’s raspy morning voice during your sleepovers, without his hand holding yours tight, without stealing his beanies when it was cold, without listening to voicemails when he had to explain you a joke but he just laughed the whole time. Fuck, you missed him.

And he missed you too. This romance with his co star? It was bullshit. They had sex one and she just assumed they were a thing but he never cared about her. He only cared about you.

One time, you went to the grocery store. You were with a friend. You grabbed two different bottles of maple syrup. “Do you want the one from Vermont or from Canada?”

“Actually, I have some cool theory about Canada.”

You did not even need to turn around to recognize this voice. It was shy, it was trembling, just like your chin. It was the biggest déjà vu of your life.

You both paid for your groceries and you were magically parked right next to each other. Jake would spot your car in a full parking, you had a small stuffed animal squeezed under the windshield. He bought it for you years ago, knowing sometimes you got scared to drive when it was dark or icy or snowy. He was keeping you safe.

You stood in the parking lot like two idiots. It was cold. He invited you in his car, and you were now sitting in silence like two idiots.

He changed so much, but he was the exact same as when you left him. His hair was longer. He had a few more wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, you wanted to kiss them tenderly. He was wearing that emerald green hoodie that was just so soft you stole it from him just to sleep with it at night when he wasn’t there.

“I bought you something for the holidays, and for Valentine’s day, and for your birthday...” Jake shrugged.

You put on your seat belt. You could get a cab and drive your car back home another time. Jake did not lose time and headed to his place. Presents were piling up in the living room, with deflated balloons and tons of scrunched balls of paper. It was so sad that it was beautiful.

You two spent the evening catching up. You learned that his production company was doing better than ever. He learned that you quit your job recently because your stupid boss refused to give you the promotion you deserved. You learned that Leo, his dog, missed you. His sister too, his nieces too. You told him your dad brought him up in every conversation.

You told him you missed him. He told you he missed you too. It was an euphemism.

You straddled his waist, driven by an adrenaline rush. And you kissed. You made out, it was sloppy and hungry and sad. You both let out a few tears.

He guided you to the bedroom.

And you made love for the first time, the first time since you missed him.

You woke up the next morning, you felt different. His warm body was holding yours as he spooned you. His arm was so tight around you that you just knew it would leave a mark. He was scared you’d leave without him knowing.

You felt warm. You felt good. You felt happy. You felt home. 

Home is not a place. It’s not your parents’ house, it’s not your apartment, it’s not that park bench you always sat on to watch people run and walk their dogs. Home is not a place, it’s a person.

You were Jake’s person, he was yours.

~

You started working at Nine Stories Productions. You were not just Jake’s assistant, you were the head of the communication team. You promoted the company and the projects he supported. You worked with Jake, with Riva and with their other employees.

You moved in with him, finally.

He proposed in London, after he was done with playing Sunday in the park with George.

You got married, a very small and private ceremony. It was his family, it was your dad. You knew your mom was there too. She was looking over the two of you.

Or should I say the three?

[kuiperblog]

I spent some time (and money) playing Genshin Impact

I've spent some time with Genshin Impact over the past few weeks.  (It's probably come to about 60 hours and 60 dollars that I've spent.)

All of the things that need to be said about this game has probably already been said by others: yes, it's very much similar to Zelda: Breath of the Wild in terms of the open world exploration and visuals. It's also a free-to-play gacha game where you have to put money into the slot machine if you want to be guaranteed to get the characters you want, and you have a limited amount of daily stamina to get rewards from certain repeatable content.

The thing that seems to be under-acknowledged is that Genshin Impact is largely two different games: an open-world exploration game that you’re largely free to play through at your own pace, and a “grind to make the numbers go up” game where your progress is mostly limited by daily missions and activities. These two games are sort of intertwined, but I think I’ve managed to decouple the two, and it’s greatly enhanced my ability to enjoy Genshin Impact.

Genshin Impact is at its best when it is an open world game where you wander around, discovering treasure and puzzles and shrines and fighting groups of enemies who are guarding chests.  This is the part that takes after Breath of the Wild: it does a great job of filling the overworld with content in a way that, every time you finish a task, you need only to pan the camera around to see another activity off in the distance that you can do.  And if you don't see anything to do, just climb the nearest mountain and pan the camera around to look for a glowing point of interest.  This, too, is very BotW-esque: you can climb any vertical surface (how high you can climb is limited by your stamina), then jump from the peak using your glider.  Scattered around the world, you will find orbs (usually cleverly hidden within environmental puzzles), and you feed these orbs to a statue in each region to raise your character’s stamina so that you can climb mountains more easily.

The environment has an incredible amount of verticality, and I had a lot of time in one particularly mountainous region (pictured above), gliding from clifftop to clifftop, then walking around the "mid-tier" of the mountains where everything was connected by suspension bridges, and finally exploring all of the valleys.  And of course, I was constantly switching between the different "tiers" of the environment: I would begin gliding from one clifftop to another, but then I would pan the camera down and see, "ooh, there's a chest down in that valley.  Let me take a 'small detour' to obtain it," and then I would parachute down from the sky before climbing back up to see what other goodies were hidden in the world.

Genshin Impact, like Breath of the Wild, is all about seeing an interesting landmark in the distance, walking in that direction, and repeatedly getting distracted by detours and other smaller points of interest on the way there. You can stumble across a random torch, think “there’s probably a bunch of other torches in this area that will give me a reward if I light all of them,” and you will be right. No matter where you are in the world, there’s always multiple things that you can see in the distance that make you say, “ooh, I want to see what’s over there. I bet I’ll find another korok seed blue wisp.” It’s kind of great.

The thing that it actually does better than BotW is that everything you do in the overworld feels like it is giving you forward progress, whether it’s hunting for hidden treasure or fighting enemies.  In BotW, there are genuinely some enemy encounters where you will just fight a bunch of enemies and afterwards go, "Great, I just wasted half of this sword's durability, and all I have to show for it is a much crappier sword than the one I used to kill these enemies."  In Genshin Impact, there is no weapon durability, and every enemy drops materials that you will eventually use to "ascend" your characters and weapons (essentially raising the level cap), so even time that you spend fighting trash mobs isn’t wasted (though there are usually faster ways to progress, so I don’t fight every single enemy I come across).  Every chest that you open gives you progress toward raising your "adventure rank," which determines how high you can raise the level cap. The open world is fun to spend time in, and it always feels like you are making progress.

In fact, exploring the open world is so much fun that it's easy to forget that there's actually a main questline, though the questline is actually quite enjoyable. (And, unlike BotW, that main questline actually involves a large amount of story where you meet and talk to different characters, like you would in most open-world fantasy games!)  There's voice acting and cutscenes and an interesting story that explores the different cultures in this world, including an interesting contrast between one vaguely-western European region where you meet characters with names like "Jean" and Bennet" and "Noelle," and a China analog where the characters have names like "Chongyun" and "Ningguang” and "Xingqiu" (who you can see pictured below). 

The cultural influences aren’t merely aesthetic (though they are definitely reflected in the fashion and architecture of these two regions).

There are also “character” story quests where you will, for example, meet a character who is a book nerd and help him track down a volume of a novel he’s been trying to find. In the process of helping the book geek, you will meet with the merchants guild to engage in financial speculation and market manipulation, and also there are some combat sequences where you get to play with the book nerd character and find out that he’s also pretty good with a sword and water magic, and hey, if you’d like him to be a permanent part of your team, maybe you could consider spending some money on the gacha slot machine for a chance of getting him?

(By the way, if all of that sounds like a bit much just to help some kid track down a novel, it should be noted that this game is set in a time where books are quite a prized commodity: there’s also a story set in the game’s “vaguely western European” region that involves helping a librarian character track down overdue library books, and I don’t think it’s spoiling anything to tell you that part of this quest involves entering a dungeon and fighting a bunch of enemies.)

These “character stories” do feel like a pretty obvious way to get you to care about and “try out” characters that are locked behind the paywall, but I’m glad they’re there, as they are easily the most endearing part of the game’s story. I’ve been content with my main squad of 5-ish main characters without the need to dig into the game’s roster of ~25 characters (with more to surely be added with each update).

There’s a finite amount of content, in the sense that eventually, you will explore all of the open world and uncover all of the secrets, and do all of the main questline and all the character sidequests and whatnot.  (The game does have some repeatable and “daily” content...but we’ll get to that later.) The game’s open world and story seems to represent about 60 hours of content, from my own estimates (and estimates I’ve seen by others), and it is worth noting that more content is on the way: the game currently has 2 regions, but the map (and the game’s lore) has room for a total of 7 regions, and of course I’m sure that more characters (and accompanying side stories) are on the way, since getting you to pull for new characters is how the game makes money.

I enjoyed my time with that game very much, and will probably be coming back every time there’s a major update that adds a new region.  It’s also worth mentioning that while some of the activities in the open world are one-time puzzles, there are many chests throughout the world that do respawn every few days, so there is still stuff to do if you want to keep exploring the open world even after you’ve cleared everything.

All of what I’ve described above could be a regular AAA game that I’d be perfectly content to spend $60 on (and, as it just so happens, I have spent approximately that amount of money on it, because I wanted to recruit the mischievous bard archer whose ultimate ability is to summon tornadoes, and the chuuni thunder princess whose ultimate lets you fly around as an electro-charged raven and zap everything. I don’t regret that purchase.)

This leads into the “second game” that is Genshin Impact.

One of the main “rewards” for exploring the open world of Genshin Impact (as well as doing the main questline and the side quests) is that nearly everything you do (including opening random chests in the overworld) gives you experience toward raising your “adventure rank.” Adventure rank 1-20 is when you are mainly progressing to unlock the game’s features.  This is done pretty well, for the most part: tying various features to the game’s progression system ensures that you’re not inundated with too much stuff to do right out of the gate, and it gives you an incentive to keep progressing the main quest to continue advancing your adventure rank.

The final “feature” that the game unlocks for you at adventure rank 20 is that you now have the ability to ascend the game’s “world level.”  At adventure rank 20, you ascend from “world level 0″ to “world level 1.”  (From this point on, every 5 adventure rank you gain allows you to raise the “world level” again: at adventure rank 25, you hit world level 2, at adventure rank 30, you hit world level 3, and so on.)

This is where you encounter the second game within Genshin Impact, which is a game that is basically about watching numbers go up.

You explore the open world and do quests to raise your adventure rank, which lets you raise the world level.  Raising the world level raises the level cap for all of your characters.  Raising the world level also makes all of the enemies stronger, but this is good because it means they drop better materials, which you need in order to ascend your characters to hit the new level cap.  This becomes the main “gameplay loop” of Genshin Impact: you want to raise your adventure rank, so that you can become stronger and so that the enemies become stronger so that you can become stronger faster.

This is where the complaints about the “stamina” system come in.  You see, the part of Genshin Impact that is just about watching the numbers go up is all tied to your adventure rank, and the open world has an essentially finite amount of adventure exp.  Early on, your adventure rank grows quickly because the story quests and sidequests give you generous amounts of adventure exp, but eventually the main soure of renewable adventure exp becomes tied to daily quests and the game’s energy system.

The game is filled with overworld bosses, short dungeons, and “leylines” (which are basically random points on the open world where you can spawn and fight through waves of enemies).  You can do these as much as you want, but they only give adventure exp (and other rewards) if you spend energy, which you get a finite amount of every day.  You get 180 energy per day, and each activity costs 20-40 energy.  (Also, energy constantly regenerates and you can only store 120 energy at a time, so if you don’t want to “waste” energy by hitting the cap, it means you have to log in multiple times per day to spend it.)

This means that, at a certain point, your “adventure rank” progress is gated by energy/dailies. (For me, this happened at around adventure rank 30.) Of course, you can spend money to get extra energy. This is what has a lot of players upset. (The game’s energy system is called “resin,” and doing a google search for ‘genshin impact resin’ or simply pulling up the Genshin Impact subreddit will probably turn up pages of such complaints, if you’re interested in reading such things.)

The thing is, the “energy system” doesn’t really impede your ability to explore the open world, which is where this game is really at it’s best.  In fact, there are people who have gone through the entire world and found all of hundreds of hidden orbs even before ascending to world level 1.

When I say that Genshin Impact eventually becomes a game about watching the numbers go up, I mean that quite literally: at world level 3, I am fighting the exact same enemies that I was at world level 1; they just have bigger numbers over their heads.  I am using the same characters and abilities and doing all of the same activities, but now instead of killing level 18 goblin archers to collect “firm arrowheads,” I’m killing level 45 goblin archers to get “sharp arrowheads.” The difference between these two items is that “firm arrowheads” are required to ascend my archer up to level 40, while “sharp arrowheads” are required to ascend my archer up to level 60.  Eventually, I’ll graduate to fighting even higher levels of goblin archers to get “weathered arrowheads,” which will let me ascend my archer up to level 80.

It is worth noting that the game’s “loop” of watching the numbers go up is quite satisfying: while it is easy to describe the game in a reductive way that makes it feel dumb and arbitrary, I’ll admit that once I graduated from fighting level 35 slimes (who only drop “slime condensate”) to fighting level 40 slimes (who were then able to drop “slime secretions”), and then used those “slime secretions” to upgrade my my wind archer’s attacks to do more damage, it felt good.

Whether it’s leveling your characters, ascending your characters, leveling your weapons, ascending your weapons, level up each of your character’s individual talents, leveling each of their individual pieces of equipment...it just feels good to make the numbers go up, and to keep making the numbers go up, you have to raise the world level to make the enemies stronger.  Every milestone feels like a significant achievement, and it’s great at giving you the constant feeling that you get when you “prestige” in a game like Call of Duty: the game ratchets up in difficulty, and you once again get to go through the process of grinding your characters up until you slowly accomplish the task of once again hitting the new level cap.

And so I absolutely understand the frustration that a lot of players hit once the “the wall” where only way to keep making the numbers go up is to sign in every day to do their dailies and spend their energy, or spend money to get more energy.  I myself was a bit annoyed, and even spent a couple dollars’ worth of the game’s premium currency so that I could gain more adventure exp to make the number go up faster.

But I quickly realized, “No matter what my adventure rank is, I’m still fighting the same goblins, slimes, wizards, and electro cubes that I was fighting 10 hours ago.” Even if my progress is being arbitrarily gated by an energy system, on a moment-to-moment basis, the gameplay is pretty much the same.

And at that point, I basically abandoned the game within Genshin Impact that is “make the numbers go up,” and went back to playing the thing that made me enjoy Genshin Impact, which is the game of “wander around in the open world, look for activities to do, collect all the orbs, open all the chests, and fight the various enemies that I fight along the way.” Doing this still makes the numbers go up, just more slowly than if I was spending energy on all of the game’s repeatable content.  And that game continues to be quite fun.  Eventually I’ll run out of things to do, and at that point I will probably put down Genshin Impact until the next region comes out and gives me another few dozen hours of open-world content to explore.

Most people I’ve seen recommend Genshin Impact do so with the caveat that before you go in, you should be aware of the gacha system so you don’t spend too much money, and maybe stay away if you lack the self control to avoid dumping too much money into it.  In my case, the money I’ve lost to gacha games has always paled in comparison to the amount of time and mental energy I’ve lost to playing any game that has “dailies” that make me feel obligated to sign in once a day (or more than once a day) so I’m not “wasting” a resource that the game is giving me for “free.”

Now that I’ve resigned myself to not particularly caring about the numbers in Genshin Impact, it’s not such a big problem for me, but if you are the kind of person who is going to lose a ton of mental bandwidth to any game that has “dailies” or an energy system, be aware that Genshin Impact is one of those.  Also be aware that playing the game at higher “World Ranks” is pretty much the same experience as playing it at World Rank 1 in terms of the enemies you fight against and the abilities that you use, and if you’re able to cross that mental hurdle (like I eventually did), you can loop around to not really caring too much about the game’s energy system (which prevents you from getting frustrated by having your progress, but perhaps more critically saves you from feeling like you need to log in every day for fear of “wasting” energy).

[the-ace-with-spades]

(3/6) the best is yet to be

five times someone realized Ronan and Adam were basically married and one time they actually were

Part 1 │Part 2 │Part 4 │Part 5 │Part 6

Read on ao3

Tad had been living on his own since his parents sent him to a boarding school when he was twelve. But being in high school now had its perks — he had his own credit card that he could buy whatever he wanted and never had to eat that awful cafeteria food they served in the dorms.

He usually ate out because it was the fastest and the most sociable but he tried to keep the dorm room and communal kitchen stored with pre-made meals and snacks in case he didn't want to socialize. Eating out alone wasn't really an option when someone has so many friends that go eat in the same places.

The frozen meals didn't always work and he had burned two pans already. The stuff you just have to put in the microwave was far easier.

Henrietta was a crappy small town and there were only two actually big supermarkets near the school. It was already quite late when he decided he wanted onion rings with chilli sauce so he drove a couple of streets and stared around the frozen goods alley, realizing it was probably too late and most of the good stuff was gone.

It was also unbearably hot, since the first heat waves just started to settle in for the summer, and the crappy supermarket AC wasn't working, so standing in the frozen goods alley was the only option, now that he was there and didn't have the energy to leave.

"Come on, we don't need a list," some guy said, way too loud. The voice seemed almost familiar in a sense that Tad had heard it before but he couldn't place where because it reminded him of someone but didn't sound exactly like someone.

It came from behind the alley with toilet paper and Tad couldn't see exactly who it was and wasn't exactly in the mood to go back into the non-heated area.

Maybe it was better. Next, he heard another voice but it was quiet to the point that Tad could only recognize that this someone was speaking something sharp and judgemental.

"I didn't forget it, I just think we could use going wild once in a while."

There was more hashed words in answer to that and if Tad had to guess, it was the wife. In his experience, wives had a tendency to be hysterical about the slightest misbehaviours — his dad had had four of them and every single one of them would argue with him about stupid stuff like why they didn't have a jacuzzi in the house, or why the pool wasn't cleaned twice a week instead of one, or why there was no grill in the kitchen. In Tad's experience, a wife wasn't worth the trouble. Not that Tad even wanted to have one.

"I could pay, I'm going to use up most of the stuff anyway," the man said, obviously fed up now.

He was met with even more sharp words. Tad knew how it worked — his dad often used quiet but pointed words and silent looks and it always felt even worse than being yelled at.

"Babe," the man said, trying for a softer but still frustrated tone.

There was no answer so that was the moment for silent, disappointed looks. If he didn't know that the guy chose to be with — or probably get married to — whoever he was talking to, Tad could almost pity him.

"Fuck, okay, just wait here, I'll go for the shitty list to the car."

And there was back again that annoyed tone with no fake sweetness. It definitely sounded more familiar now.

Tad hated married couples. They would always argue in the middle of the store — or any other place, to be honest — and were always loud and spend weekends in supermarkets or Home Depot like they were their regular date spots and take way too much time to decide about basic stuff like which color of a carpet they should use. He had yet to see a married couple that wouldn't argue about everything that should be casual in life.

This was exactly why he was never getting married.

The stamping sound went away with the guy leaving the store, hidden by the shelves and drawing away, further to the entrance. He was most likely pissed off, even though this was probably some stupid reason to be pissed off and grumbling to himself about his stupid wife. Tad knew the type — rural town couples that hated each other but pretended otherwise because they already spent the money on the wedding or already had a kid together.

Tad heard a deep sigh behind the shelves.

Married. Couples.

Maybe there was enough cool air in the milk and yoghurt fridges alley.

The store was mostly deserted, except for him and that married couple he still hadn't seen, he noticed only a small group of teens from Mountain View next to the chips and a woman with a sleeping baby at the checkout.

The fridges with milk were warm. Henrietta was a crappy town, and this no-name, locally owned supermarket was even crappier. The AC didn't work and the fridges felt like someone was turning them off and on every couple of hours.

The noisy sliding door opened again when he was contemplating buying vanilla milk, and the angry stamping could be heard, becoming louder and stopping in the cereal alley nearby. Tad was ready for the next argument, really, it was like the cheap version of reality tv. At least the baby at the checkout wasn't crying.

"I got the fucking list."

And the next quarrel was there.

There was silence and the cart in that alley moved — it was just a couple of seconds before it stopped again with a horrendous screech.

"Come on," the guy said. "Don't give me the silent treatment, it was just a stupid list."

There was a longer, even quieter monologue that was just as exasperated.

"Fuck, I know," the guy said, now giving in. "I'm sorry."

Tad didn't hear anything at all but there had to be an answer because the guy said, "You asshole."

This didn't exactly sound like something you should call your significant other just after a fight but Tad wasn't one to judge.

The cart moved again and Tad pretended he was busy choosing between vanilla and chocolate milk and not at all eavesdropping.

From around the corner of the shelves, Adam Parrish, leaning heavily on the handlebar, pushed the cart closer to the wall with the fridges. What made Tad freeze at once was Ronan Lynch, with his chin hooked over Parrish's shoulder and arms wound around his waist, hanging onto him like a leech. Really, this just ensured that his opinion on Lynch was right and Lynch was a parasite that fed on people who would otherwise make great friends, like Parrish or Gansey.

There had been different rumours about Lynch in school. Some said he was dead in a ditch. Some said he was in rehab in some private clinic in Florida. Some said he left with his brothers for DC. Some said he fucked off and became a farmer. None of those ideas seemed realistic but Gansey was adamant about not answering any questions and no one had seen Lynch in almost two months so the imagination was flowing wild. Personally, if he had to choose, Tad would bet for the second option.

"Parrish," he said, because he really didn’t know what else he could.

His eyes were still going up and down the weird fixture that was both of them, practically glued to each other, when Adam answered.

"Carruthers."

Parrish was wearing a black jean jacket full of tears and patches and pins and with slightly too long sleeves — too expensive to be his — and it looked completely out of place on him, Tad had only ever seen him in that crappy secondhand school uniform. Underneath he had the coveralls, tied low on his hips, faded out and stained with oil. If anything, Tad felt hot just looking at him.

The brightness of Lynch's shirt was almost as unexpected, because he had never seen him in anything but the school uniform, or black clothes — it was a red Coca Cola t-shirt, a little too small on him.

Tad made a step closer, reaching his hand for that weird handshake-high-five that Gansey and Parrish often did. Parrish took a step back and that step meant he was hips-to-hips with Lynch who was clinging to him. Instead of moving out of the way or yelling at Lynch to move out of the way, Parrish just stood there, ignoring it completely, like this was something normal.

"So," he began, pointedly ignoring Lynch. "What are you doing here?"

"Grocery," Parrish said and when Tad didn't find anything to reply with for a minute, he added. "We ran out of toothpaste. And some other stuff."

The we there was very explicit.

"You want something, shithead, or can we do our thing without your stalker eyes on us?"

Lynch was pleasant as always.

Maybe Tad should ask Parrish if he was blackmailed into, well, whatever that was. Maybe Parrish would finally realize all the hints Tad had been giving him and realize that he had options other than Lynch.

But then he realized — it had been Lynch's voice, back in the toilet paper alley, just unbelievably calm.

[generallybarzy]

did you miss me? ❤ mat barzal

Part 1-  ~2,750 words

So that video of Barzy singing this song (which I will never stop reblogging) brought up some old nostalgic memories because I kinda forgot this song existed and I used to listen to it so much when I was younger. So I listened to it and started feeling emotions. I’m sorry if this is too crazy I just really went off. @matbaezal​ because I promised you this. I hope its okay, it’s my first real hockey boy fic.

Summary:  You get the opportunity of a lifetime, but it means saying goodbye to your boyfriend for half a year. Mat starts feeling a little bit of self-doubt in the relationship. This part is literally just describing your’s and Mat’s separate sides of the experience and then a fluffy scene. There WILL be a second, emotional part eventually. 

As you pushed yourself down into the cramped airplane seat and tried to drown out the noise of rowdy children a few seats behind you, you pulled out your phone and pressed on the ‘Mat❤’ contact one last time in a final attempt to send one text to your boyfriend. But no matter how many texts you sent, that damn little ‘Not Delivered’ message just had to keep popping up. 

It really felt like the world was out to get you these past few days.

You hadn’t been able to get a hold of your boyfriend for the last three days- even when the messages did deliver- to tell him about your flight back, and now the flight itself was late and it was gonna take a few extra hours until you were back home. In all honesty, you didn’t even know if he would still be waiting when you got back. The internet connection had never seemed crappier than when you just wanted to send just one more text to him before your flight. Airports had never seemed more crowded than the moment you began to become overwhelmed with the need to just be home. Six months had never felt like a longer time than when you just needed to crawl into your boyfriend’s arms.

The last six months had really been something, huh? You could barely believe they’d even happened at all. 

As someone heading into the social work field after college, you had always wanted to get out in the world and help people less fortunate than yourself, which is why you jumped at the opportunity to fly with other students from your university to underdeveloped countries to do nonprofit work and volunteering to get a taste of what this career path would feel like. And damn, how cool would it be to put something that good on a resume? It was the opportunity of a lifetime for you, so it should’ve been an easy decision to jump on that plane. But of course, there was still one thing that made you hesitate- Mathew Barzal.

Six months ago, at the start of all this craziness, you had left behind your amazing boyfriend. Of course, Mathew was 100% down with your decision, happy you were getting the chance to do what you love and explore beyond the world you were used to, but that didn’t make it any easier to go without him. The two of you had been dating for a solid 4 months at that point and had been hanging out as much as your hectic schedules allowed, always there to pick up each other’s pieces after a hard day. Knowing that you wouldn’t have someone to curl into and hold at the end of the day was the biggest obstacle standing between you and the potential start of your dream career. God, you would miss him so much. But you wanted to go so bad, to look for your passion, your career, yourself.  

You remember holding onto Mat after telling him about your conflicted feelings, tears in your eyes as you tried to savor the feeling of his arms around you. “I want this so much. It could be the start of my career. I want to find myself, you know? But you deserve someone who can be there for you.” Mat shook his head a bit. He always made it well known that he appreciated every moment he got with you, even if it wasn’t much on certain days.

“You are there for me.” He insisted.

“But now I’m going to miss six months, Mat! Half a year! By the time I’m back, you might not even like me anymore.” With teary eyes, you looked up at him. “It’ll be easier if we just break it off right now so you can find someone else. Someone who can be there-” 

“Hey, hey.” Mat tried to hush you with a kiss, but you pulled back.

“Six months, Mat, we haven’t even been together that long yet.” You spoke softer this time. “That’s a long time to be without someone.”

“Shut up, please, babe. Shut up.” He pulled back to look at you, holding your gaze and letting you know he was serious now. “Look, it might be a long time, but I’m not gonna let you hold yourself back for me, alright? You want this, right?” You nodded. “Yeah. This is an amazing chance for you to start your dream. Your dream! You’re gonna change the world, babe. And I can promise you I won’t just stop liking you because you want to chase that dream.” His thumb stroked across your cheek and a smile finally cracked across your face as you were reminded again of his dedication to your relationship.

“It’s gonna be so hard, though. I might not be able to answer calls or FaceTime with you very often. And the time zones…” 

“I can handle it. I’ve got plenty of pictures of you on my phone for when I get lonely.” You laughed at that, reaching up to lace your fingers through his hair. “And we’ll just have to savor our time together for the next few weeks. Make every second count.” He lay a few kisses across your face and smiled into the crook of your neck. “Go find your purpose, babe. Do a little soul-searching. I’ll still be here waiting when you get back. I promise.” 

———-

Six months without Mat may have been hard on you, but you were also getting the chance to do things you loved and find your purpose. On the other hand, Mat, while he happily supported and encouraged your choice and never let you think he doubted it, wondered if maybe you would come back and realize that there was a lot more to life than staying with him. You were finishing a degree- and a freaking cool one at that- traveling the world, helping people and doing good in the world, and he was just a hockey player. A great one, sure, but still just a hockey player. 

You were smarter, more compassionate, an overall cooler person than him, and soon to be better traveled and more knowledgeable about life in the underdeveloped parts of the world that most city people rarely spared a thought for. It was just a matter of time before you realized just how much better you were than him. You could find someone out there, someone else who’s volunteering, and you’d fall in love with how selfless and worldly they were. You’d fall in love and get married and go on saving the world together, while Mat was still just scoring goals on TV, living alone-

Shit, I have to stop thinking like that. You liked him. He liked you. Done. 

He wasn’t sure when all this self-doubt started- it was so unlike him. Maybe it was after he would get back from late-night games to find you waiting on his couch, stressed over your own assignments but still there nonetheless to help him relax, putting everything aside for him. Of course, he did the same for you as much as he could, but with practice and games and roadies and media days and more practice and more games, he felt like he couldn’t be there for you as much as he wanted. 

Surely, while you were out there doing some soul-searching in a foreign country, you’d realize that you could do better than him.

After you left, Mat realized just how lonely he was without you. The two of you hadn’t even lived together before you moved out, but he understood now that you had been a much bigger part of his life than he ever realized. Sure, he had his teammates and his friends, and they hung out often, but he couldn’t really go over to their place and snuggle them at the end of the day. He couldn’t have them come over just so that he would have someone to hold- to fall asleep and wake up next to. There was a hole in his life.

Mat remembers the moment he realized why all these feelings- the doubt, the loneliness, the fear of losing you- were so intense. A month or so into your trip, he was FaceTiming you and the feeling of being separated was still new. It was almost time for you to go to bed, but Mat had just gotten back from practice and was upset that he couldn’t spend the rest of his day on a call with you. He was sitting at the table in his apartment, propping his head up with his fist and smiling at you through the phone. You were thousands of miles away, sitting up on your bed, looking exhausted with your makeup-less face and hair thrown up in a bun, a radiant smile across your face and wearing a hoodie of his, the one you took with. “A part of you to cuddle out there”, you’d said. She’s so beautiful. “Are you having fun?”

“So much, Mat!” Your smile was contagious. 

“Tell me about it.” Even if he was upset you were so far, he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “Is it everything you wanted?” 

“And more! I got to hang out with a bunch of the underprivileged kids today, they’re so sweet! We’re helping them make better schools here so that all the children can get a chance at an education. We’re flying over books and materials for them, too! They’re all so excited to have us here…” He listened intently, honestly interested and amazed by everything you were doing. “I really think I found what I wanna do for the rest of my life, Mat. I’d prefer to not be so far from you, though…” You really were finding yourself, making a difference, changing the future, and he was so in love with that. 

In love with you.

“Babe, go get some sleep alright?” Mat laughed slightly after a while as you lost your train of thought and started dozing off a bit. “You got a big day of changing the world tomorrow. Call me when you get lonely.” You nodded sleepily at him. “G’night, (Y/N).” I love you, he wanted to add before he ended the call. But you were already half asleep, thousands of miles across the ocean from him. It wasn’t the right time. 

In love. Wow. 

Mat had to take a moment that night to think. He knew that he liked you, seriously liked you, from the moment you had your first date. But now, knowing he loved you? He couldn’t stop smiling that night, dreaming of the ways he would tell you. He couldn’t calm down at practice the next few days either, all smiles and giggly to his teammates, who were honestly getting a bit tired of hearing Mat gush over you. Like, it was sweet and all but Mat, could you please for the love of God focus on practice? 

Through all the wins and losses, the stressful games and lonely nights, at the end of the day, nothing could wipe that smile off his face. Because he was in love with you.

And he couldn’t wait for you to get back home.

———-

Part of you felt like it had been years since you’d last seen Mat in person, the other part felt like it was just yesterday that you left him at this very airport. Now, back in the United States, standing in the airport and hopefully minutes away from being back in Mat’s arms, you were sure that all your time away from him was worth it, thinking back on all the people you’d helped and the lives you’d changed. You’d made it. Made it through six months without him, and you enjoyed every moment of the work you’d done there, even if it was spent without him.

At this point, you hadn’t heard from him in three days, and before that there were only a few back and forth messages that had taken hours to respond to. You’d texted him before and during the flight, reminding him that today was the day you’re coming back. He didn’t answer. Okay, you thought, maybe the times just didn’t match up and he was just busy. Maybe he was at a game or practice. For three days, though? What time is it, anyway? You sent him another text, thankful the messages were finally delivering. ‘Hey, I’m back :) You there?’ It’s fine, it’s fine, he probably just doesn’t have time to respond yet. Maybe… maybe he broke his phone? But another part of your mind wandered into darker areas. Maybe he did get tired of you. Maybe he needed someone and you didn’t respond fast enough, so he went out to find someone new. Maybe he wasn’t going to show up after all. You shut off your phone in defeat. 

Maybe you were on your own now…

“Hey, (Y/N).” 

One statement alone had never made you feel as much as at that moment. All the bustling noise of the airport went silent in your ears as you turned toward the voice in what felt like slow motion. There, a few feet away from you, your boyfriend of 10 months now stood in front of a bench, looking sleepy and disheveled and wearing your favorite hoodie, one that you had often told him he looked really boyfriend-like in. He had a bright smile and a soft flush on his face. “Mat.” All your worries of him not showing up were suddenly forgotten as you dropped all your bags and met him halfway, falling into his waiting arms as he lifted you off the ground in a hug. “Mathew. Mat, Mat, Mat…” You let out all the emotions of the last six months, tucking your head into his neck and feeling dizzy with happiness at the familiar, comforting scent of his cologne. His arms held your waist close against him, his nose finding its usual place by your temple, breathing in your shampoo. 

“Did you miss me out there?” He set you back on your own two feet and you pulled out of the hug only slightly to look up at him, studying his face as you held it between your hands. He’d changed a bit since you last saw him in person- still the same Mat, your Mat- but somehow he seemed warmer, softer, happier. Not that he was unhappy before, but now he was just… lighter. He’d cut his hair a little bit and it suited him, and his face was completely clean-shaven. But that beautiful, vast grin that always left you smiling was the same as always. You smiled and pressed your lips to his, threading your fingers through his hair. Finally. Finally. Seeing Mat on a tiny phone screen could never compare to being here in person, holding him, kissing him, feeling his arms around your waist. Six months of lost time exploded between you, and it felt like hours before you pulled away breathless, with grins on both of your faces. 

“So much, Mat. I missed you so, so much.” You pulled yourself back into him, one hand on his shoulder and the other tracing along his jaw, and choked back a happy sob. “You scared me so much. You didn’t answer my texts. I thought you weren’t going to show up. I thought you’d actually moved on.” The grin fell from his face immediately. 

“Shit, really? I was just trying to surprise you. I thought it’d be romantic?” You laughed into his chest. Mat, Mat, Mat. He was the same as always.

“I missed you. So much.” You felt him smile as he pressed his lips against your neck, just taking a moment to hold you. 

“You’ve gotta tell me everything about this trip. Was it everything you wanted?“ 

"Later, Mat. I just wanna get out of this airport and back to someplace more private.” It was physically starting to hurt that you couldn’t just jump on him and cuddle him right here at the airport. 

“Your place first?" 

"No. Your place. I just want to shower and sleep right now. And you’re crazy if you think I want to go home without you after all this” You shared a smile with him again, still overjoyed to be back home with him, not wanting this intimate moment to end. Then again, moments like this can’t be that intimate when you’re literally standing in the middle of a crowded airport. Mat grabbed some of your luggage and tucked you snug into his side, right where you belonged. 

“Well, I’m not gonna complain about that.”

❤

——

//But tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet? Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day, And head back to the Milky Way? And tell me, did Venus blow your mind? Was it everything you wanted to find? And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?//

——-

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #470

Top Ten Films to Watch on Star on Disney+

We’ve been watching a lot of Disney+ lately. This is partly due to the fact that our family movie nights have become, almost accidentally, a quest to watch every bit of Star Wars content on the service; so far, we’ve watched the entire Skywalker Saga and are now moving onto the spin-off movies. The younglings have become addicted: Daughter #1 is getting stuck into The Clone Wars, whilst Daughter #2 is demanding we jump straight into The Mandalorian. As for the Princess to my Scoundrel, well, she and I have been thoroughly enjoying WandaVision, which by the time you read this, will have finished. Sob! Nothing to do but gird our loins until the arrival of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier in a couple of weeks! At least this excellent TV programme appears to have whetted my wife’s appetite for watching more of the MCU movies. Maybe soon I can make oblique references to Mary Poppins, y’all, and someone else in the house will actually know what the hell I’m on about.

Well it looks as if there’s going to be even more use out of our Disney+ sub as the months roll inexorably on, what with their new Star channel. This is where they’ve shoehorned all the mucky films they bought from the naughty boys and girls at Fox; sweary adult dramas, sexy bits, and scenes of explicit wrist-slapping abound. So now we have this toybox of grown-up content to savour! What to watch? What not to watch? I’ve already started at the most obvious place by diving into some vintage Arnie with Commando, one of the funniest action movies ever made. It did not disappoint.

So where to next? Re-watching semi-forgotten classics, films I’ve not seen in literally decades? Or checking out things that slipped me by (there’s an entire list to be made of “films I read about in Empire in the ‘90s, got really excited about, but never saw”). Do I watch the crappier Die Hard films, or cheesy action movies (er, like Commando, I guess)? Or dive deep into prestige fair? Or just watch Spy Hard for the Weird Al theme tune, practically the only bit of the film I remember? The options are virtually endless.

So that’s what this week’s list is: ten films I intend to watch on Disney+ very flipping soon. Or, y’know, just play Zelda until Falcon starts.

9 to 5 (1980): there was a lot of talk of Dolly around the New Year, and my wife and I even watched a documentary about her. As a result, I had a scoot around to see if it was possible to buy 9 to 5 as a birthday or Valentine’s gift for my better half; it’s a film neither of us have seen in years if not decades, and we’re both big Grace and Frankie fans too. Alas, it’s a difficult film to get a hold of; there doesn’t appear to be a Blu-ray readily available. Praise be, then, that it’s now on Disney+; a terrific comedy film, with a nice bit of feminist bite. I’m not sure if it’ll feel dated or – post-#MeToo – oddly prescient. But I’m really, really looking forward to watching it again.

Crimson Tide (1995): I do love a good tense thriller, and I seem to remember this as being a particularly great tense thriller. This feels like one of those “they don’t make ‘em like this anymore” candidates; a claustrophobic two-hander with no real action, almost a theatrical chamber piece, but made with huge stars and a big-time director (the late, great Tony Scott). I saw it once, on video, when it came out, so it’ll be great to revisit.

The Color of Money (1986): another minor classic that I’ve not seen for decades, and a film I remember even less well than Crimson Tide. It’s cool to revisit (or discover for the first time!) films by great directors, and this is Scorsese we’re talking about. Cruise as a freshly-minted movie star, still taking risks; Newman as a great elder statesman. I’ve genuinely no idea what it’s like, it’s been so long, but I’d love to see it again. Just wish The Hustler was on D+ too!

Quiz Show (1994): I’d mentioned before that there are loads of films from the ‘90s that I read about as an eager young film fan but never saw; this is one of them. An apparently-great drama about corruption at a hugely popular TV show in ‘50s America, with Ralph Fiennes in a very early Hollywood role. I think I’d enjoy it.

Looking for Richard (1996): another of those ‘90s films…! This fascinated me as a teen, and I’d love to see it: a documentary about Richard III, made by Al Pacino, featuring people talking about Shakespeare (got a lot of time for that) and also scenes of the play performed and filmed. It’s a real curio; also weirdly came out around the same time as McKellen’s Richard III. Maybe something was in the water? We’re due another big Rich in my opinion.

Jennifer’s Body (2009): a follow-up from Juno writer Diablo Cody, a horror centred around high school and female sexuality, this has always seemed like it might be a dark, delicious delight; it wasn’t very well received at the time, but has grown in cult status; as has its star, Megan Fox, who I’d argue has not had the easiest time within Hollywood. Anyway, I really like the look of it, and it’ll be cool to check it out.

Tombstone (1993): I love a good Western, and I seem to remember that this is a very good Western. A story of Wyatt Earp that goes beyond the famous gunfight, my memories of this are very vague; I know that there’s a very good Val Kilmer performance as Doc Holliday, and of course Kurt Russell as Earp himself. I might try out that “watch along” feature and watch this, remotely, with my dad.

Romancing the Stone (1984): I probably haven’t seen this since the eighties so I’ve got no idea if it’s really any good, but I do remember enjoying its Indy-inspired adventurism and – in particular – Danny DeVito’s bad guy. Douglas is always great value as a leading man, although from what I’ve since read this is really Kathleen Turner’s show. It’ll be interesting to see if it holds up, but hopefully it’ll be a good stop-gap until they finally get the Indy films up on the service.

Good Morning, Vietnam (1988): another film that I want to revisit, even if I remember it a little better than others on this list. My memory is that it’s utterly fantastic, a really stark look at the realities of Vietnam during the time of the war, and also a phenomenal, very human performance from Williams. Also I remember it being very funny when he does let off some steam (sorry, bit of Commando creeping in there). And really, it’s Williams I want to see again; that earnest, real, pained but beautiful Williams we get in his very best performances. It’s very likely I’ll cry just watching him on screen. God, I miss him.

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016): I needed some crappy sequel to talk about, and here it is. I can’t overstate how much I loved the first Independence Day in ’96, so the (apparent; I’ve not seen it) terribleness of this sequel hit me like a sledgehammer. It can’t be that bad, can it? Is it not at least so-bad-it’s-good? I mean, the trailer made it look atrocious, and it’s killed off Will Smith – the best character! – off-screen, so odds are not good that it’s a hidden gem. But I’ve got to know.

This was actually a pretty tough list, and I had to knock off some films that I’d love to rewatch (Conan the Barbarian, The War of the Roses), as well as stuff like Idiocracy and Office Space that I’ve never seen. Also Kingsman: The Secret Service, which is a fairly recent release that slipped me by, and I’m not sure why I’ve never gotten round to seeing; I blame the kids! Also, there was going to be some xenomorph or xeno-monkey action on here, but frustratingly all the Alien (and Predator!) movies are missing, and the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy – which I’ve also never seen! – is only served by its middle instalment. Yeah, I can watch the seminal ‘60s original again (and I may!) or the indecipherable and strange Tim Burton version, but what about, y’know, the trilogy that everyone raves about? I assume this is due to pre-existing deals keeping the films elsewhere (elusive…), but the sagas of Alien, Predator, and the complete Die Hard package are – I believe – being kept until most profitable (mark my works: Die Hard at Christmas). Anyway, it’s a bit frustrating, that, as I’ve never seen Covenant or The Predator, and I’d love to watch the whole lot from the start anyway.

I guess I can console myself by also watching the one Die Hard film I’ve never seen, namely the critically-acclaimed A Good Day to Die Hard. I mean, I’m assuming it’s critically acclaimed. I guess I’ll find out.

[lanaisnotwool]

398 Avoiding Entrepreneur Burnout - Interview with Kristin Molenaar

http://moneyripples.com/2020/06/12/398-avoiding-entrepreneur-burnout-interview-with-kristin-molenaar/

Chris Miles, the "Cash Flow Expert and Anti-Financial Advisor," is a leading authority on how to quickly free up and create cash flow for thousands of his clients, entrepreneurs, and others internationally! He’s an author, speaker, and radio host that has been featured in US News, CNN Money, Bankrate, Entrepreneur on Fire, and spoken to thousands getting them fast financial results. Listen to our Podcast here:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/moneyripples/2020/05/08/398--avoiding-entrepreneur-burnout-interview-kristin-molenaar-1

-------------------------------------------------------

Chris Miles (00:01): Hello, my fellow Ripplers! This is Chris Miles. Your Cash flow Expert and Anti-financial Advisor. Welcome you out for a wonderful show. It's for you and about you. Those you work so freaking hard for your money, and you're ready for your money. Start working hard for you. Now! You want that freedom. That cash flow. That prosperity today. Not 30 or 40 bazillion years from now, but right now. So you have that life that you love to do what you love and to be with those that you love. But it's so much more than your own comfort and convenience, because it's about you guys be able to live the life of meaning of purpose by blessing other people's lives. Because as you become free, as you become blessed, you can be able to do the same for other people too. And so I appreciate you guys allowing me to create a ripple effect through your lives and be able to see the massive impact you're making. And again, thank you so much for tuning in. I know you guys have been bingeing on it. You keep sharing more and more. You keep going back to the crappier crappier episodes, and I appreciate you guys still listening in and learning stuff because, Hey, you know, I appreciate that. So thank you so much for doing that for share it with other people. It's awesome.

Chris Miles (01:05): Here's a quick reminder, go visit our website MoneyRipples.com. There's a great, great blogs on there. Great content you can look at as well. And also I keep forgetting to mention this. I have a YouTube channel, go check out Chris miles, Money Ripples YouTube channel. We've got some great videos on there as well. So check it out.

Chris Miles (01:21): Alright! So today I've got a special guest here for you. Again, I get pitched guests all the time, right? And most of them, I usually say, you know, that's cool, not my thing or not. You know, that's not what my listeners want, but this one I thought was perfect. Especially given the time that we're in and with all the uncertainty of the world. I know more and more of you guys, whether you're in business or not. You're definitely looking for leverage. You want to be able to work less, make more, which is kind of what we talked about in the show anyways. And that's exactly what my guest Kristin Molenaar is all about because you know, the big thing that I see happening with a lot of people now is they burn out. They can't make it, right? They don't know how to really avoid that. They've ended up creating a business that becomes a really sometimes high paying job. Sometimes it was a crappy paying job where you're like Napoleon Dynamite saying, "That's like a dollar an hour, gosh!" You know, it's kinda like that.

Chris Miles (02:12): You know, we don't want that. So we want you guys to be able to be free and to be happy and actually love what you do. And so it allows you to let you know a little bit more about Kristen here. She's an entrepreneur enthusiasts who lives by the mantra, work less, make more, right? This has enabled her to build a six figure business while working average and just get this guys, five hours a week. So this is like a woman after my own heart here, right? Permissions to eradicate entrepreneurial stress and burnout that fuels her passion for sharing these three step blueprint. Both she and her clients have been able to put into place and achieve true freedom in business. She's also the founder of the virtual agency, YesBoss VA. Where she helps her team be able to really alleviate burnout, solopreneurs, and entrepreneurs and empower them to be able to create, you know, through this online business management and digital marketing support. She runs this business for you. So it creates this online business for you guys. So you can scale it like a boss. So Kristin, welcome to our show.

Kristin Molenaar (03:05): Thanks so much for having me, Chris, I'm excited to dive into this conversation with you.

Chris Miles (03:09): I agree. So tell us about your journey. I mean, were you at the burn-down entrepreneurial at one point yourself or?

Kristin Molenaar (03:15): I was the entrepreneur that didn't know how to make a dollar. That's my story.

Chris Miles (03:21): You got a great hobby, huh?

Kristin Molenaar (03:21): Yeah. Right. So in October, 2014, I left my last corporate job. And I was in the beauty industry at that time doing brand management. And my thought behind leaving was I can do this on my own. Like, look, I'm an incredible employee. I would make a fantastic business owner. And I proceeded to struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle for about 12 months. I ended up in what I'm doing right now as I call it was my entrepreneurial failure. Like I had been struggling for a year living in my in-laws guest bedroom with my husband and two dogs, like feeling very suffocated. And I thought, I just need to make a dollar. So I went on HireMyMom.com and said like, anybody just please pay me as long as I don't have to go back into an office. Like I just want like freedom to work where I want. Right? So what very quickly happened though, is I wasn't able to turn off those entrepreneurial ambitions. Within three weeks of getting my first client, I was tasked with a blog post. Hated blogging. Thought I could do this, sat down to write it and thought, this is, this sucks! At the time the client was only paying me $15 an hour. Like that's how desperate I was just to make a dollar. I had convinced him to hire me for $15 an hour. And I proved myself in 30 days. And he would bump me to $20 an hour! Make it a lot! So what happened is I was tasked with writing a blog and I thought, you know what? I hate this. I would rather find an intern to write this for me. I'll pay them $8 an hour, which is minimum wage in their state. I would rather make $7 an hour, not doing anything than $15 an hour doing something that I hate. I became addicted to that and everything like nothing's been the same since then.

Chris Miles (05:01): Isn't it kinda funny. We almost accidentally find something that works. And you think, why didn't I think of this before, when I was trying to find the answers, right?

Kristin Molenaar (05:09): Yeah. I was making it too complicated. That's really what it boiled down to.

Chris Miles (05:14): That's right. So what do you see with other entrepreneurs? Like what happens in their lives that you think causes this?

Kristin Molenaar (05:21): Yeah. So I see a couple things happening that causes this like stress and burnout. One. I think that a lot of people have heard of this 80-20 principle. And I've been talking about this so much lately. I think that now is like the time to look at the 80-20 principle now is the time to figure out, okay, I've seen and heard that this makes sense. How does it apply to me? The principle says that 20% of your work will yield 80% of your results. I would say that entrepreneurs are getting stuck in burnout and stress because they're functioning in every capacity. They're doing all of the things. I love the analogy. I love giving this as like a visual with drilling for oil. I think a lot of entrepreneurs, they know that when you drill for oil, you have to drill really deep in order to strike oil. Right? What they do is they drill all these different little holes like this is them going from webinars to, you know, like passive income funnels, to group trainings, to Instagram lives. Like they're doing all the things. And the problem is with that lack of focus and that lack of like staying in your lane and doing the thing persistently, they're like an inch away, probably from striking oil, but they've jumped ship too soon or they're scattering their efforts all over the place. So that's like one of the foundational things that I see as just pursuing too many things. Obviously another one is continuing to do it alone for way too long. You know, a lot of people hit the six figure mark and they're like really burned out. I think that I see this happen very often is that six figure mark becomes like a, Holy cow! I can't do any more. I've got all these things on my plate and it's like, well, why, you know, I would even say like, why didn't you think a little bit more like me when I was making that $15 an hour, you know, I'd rather do nothing and make $8 or $7 an hour, then do everything. So, you know, would you rather make a hundred dollars an hour or a hundred thousand dollars a year to be completely burned out? Or would you rather make $60,000 a year and have so much bandwidth to grow your company even bigger? I think it's just a mental shift that people need to have so that they can start putting into practice the things that are really going to catapult their growth rather than just putting money in their pocket and hoarding it.

Chris Miles (07:30): Yeah. It's funny, you mentioned that because this is a perfect time for people to really reassess and say, what do I really like doing, right? Cause I remember I went through that same process a few times. Like I always had to keep evolving through my business. And I remember happening again for me about five years ago, I went through a divorce. That was like, I was so emotionally drained, right? That I couldn't work much more than five hours a week. So that's kinda how I started working at five hours a week was, alright! What's the absolute essential part of my business and what can I delegate out? And then the next thing I know I made more money than I ever made working 50 or 60 hours a week. Right?

Kristin Molenaar (08:04): Yeah. And that's why I think, you know, I don't know when this episode is going to air, but amid like COVID, right? COVID, there's so many people that are being forced to work less. And I think that, well, a lot of people may at first think that this is a disservice to their business. I think that it actually is a huge benefit, because think about how little you're able to work during COVID and when this is over, you got all this extra time on your hands.

Chris Miles (08:29): Right! That's true. But what do you think are good ways for people to figure out how to get in that lane? Like what is actually their lane versus things they should not be doing? How do you decide that?

Kristin Molenaar (08:39): Yeah, so like, I, like you mentioned in the little intro, we have like a three step process that we put into place. Like our three step. Work less make more blueprint. The very first thing is to eliminate all non-essentials, which I kind of touched on a little bit. There are a series of questions that I really encourage people to ask if they're like, well, what is it that I should be doing? One. I think that it's really important to give yourself the space and the time to go back to what your original plans for your business work. Like I think that what happens is we get so stuck in the trenches and in the tactical stuff of our business, that all the creativity just get shut down. But as entrepreneurs, like, we need to be visionary. Like that is our role that we need to take on. So entrepreneurs are visionaries that put people and processes into place. Entrepreneurs are not people that just poured all the work and get stuck in task work all the time. That's what's going to lead to that burnout. Right? So think about what it is like, why did you get into business? What were your dreams? And I love going back to that beginning stage, because I feel like that's, when things felt so free and new and exciting, and there wasn't any of that fear or like those mental games that you're having to break through. None of that existed when you were just starting out. So I love going back to that. And then I think that you have to look at your business in two categories. So looking at like, what are you doing for marketing? And what are you doing for like your monetization or the things that you're offering? And figure out in those two things separately, figure out what things really light you up. So I say to people, for me, it's so important that my business energetically fuels me up. Because when I leave my business I go to become a, you know, I walk away and I'm a wife and I'm a mom and I have other things I'm doing. And I don't want my business to deplete me. Cause I don't want to show up to the rest of my life depleted. So in your business, what things are lighting you up? What can you do, that you're walking away from your business feeling like you're ready to take on the world. And then what, look at the data too. So what is the data that supports the efforts that you're putting into it? Because it needs to be of, you know, you need to follow your heart and there needs to be that data there. And then that's telling you like where that 20% of your effort is yielding that 80% of your results.

Chris Miles (10:52): That's right. It's kind of like the eeky guy, right. That diagram that people use all the time is, you know, what do people want you for? What do you like doing? You know, what are you good at? And combining all those elements together. Right?

Kristin Molenaar (11:03): Absolutely. Yeah. Let's build businesses that we love. Like if we wanted to do work that we didn't like we could go work for the man, I guess, control of our own journey here. Let's start doing things that light us up.

Chris Miles (11:15): Yeah. It's true. Like there's been times like I'll be, be kind of a grumpy mood at the beginning of the day. Like maybe like my wife and I getting a little spat, you know, and then it's like, Oh, you know, and you have to have that state change. Right. And maybe it's easier for men to kind of shut that part of your brain off and just go like cut it off. But I notice that sometimes if I'm actually doing the meetings, I love doing, you know, doing that kind of stuff. Like I can walk away and be in a totally better mood and be like, I love you. Like, like nothing is like, world's perfect. Like that was stupid. You know? Like it's kind of cool. Like versus like saying man, this day just sucks. Like this is the worst day ever. You know? And I think that's the difference. There is really fine. What does let you up?

Kristin Molenaar (11:54): Yeah. Yeah. It's essential in the cool thing is we're in control of all of it. We're running businesses that we don't like, it's like, well, who are we going to blame for that?

Chris Miles (12:03): Yeah. Yeah. That's true. You can't blame anybody else for your, your decision. Right? They know you're the boss. Or you're supposed to be, at least. Unless you're trying to be the victim. Right?

Kristin Molenaar (12:12): Exactly. I guess you have to make that decision for yourself. Right?

Chris Miles (12:15): Absolutely. What are other things that people can do to actually help, you know, get themselves away from their business and this stuff that they're not just working in it, they're now working on it.

Kristin Molenaar (12:24): Yeah. I love this question and let's move on. Like you've just teed it up for me to move on to the next steps in our three set process. Honestly. So the next step for me is to automate and delegate. So I like to put these two things together because for me, I have seen just so much fruit out of delegation that I actually delegate the automation in my business. I don't do the automation myself, but this is really up to where you are in your business and where your strengths are. If you geek out on, you know, automation go for it, but it doesn't light me up. So you need to think about automating and delegating. Now this has to come after you've determined what things are essential. Don't automate non-essential things. Don't delegate, non-essential things like, you know, we help solopreneurs. We actually are that driving force and that team behind solopreneurs. And we tell them, don't give us stuff. That's not essential in your business because what's going to happen is you're going to bring us in as a team. And you're going to be sharing the vision of your company with us. And we're going to get really excited about us. And then when things get hard, if you've not given us essential tasks, we're going to be the first person that's cut out. And you've spent all this time investing in this team that you're building and they're not bringing anything to the table that really matters in your business. So yeah, the automation, I think that there are a lot of people that might be on the fence about, well, what things do I automate or should I get this platform or that platform? I like to use a very simple math formula. You know, if the platform that you're wanting to use to automate like a CRM or whatever, say it's a hundred bucks a month and you're spending 10 hours a month manually doing it, you need to assess, am I worth $10 an hour? Probably not. So it's time to automate that thing. So that's number two in my process. And then number three is generating effort free income. So this for me was like a big game changer. We internally like calling it white labeling, but essentially what happens is you build a team internally that produces profits for your business. This can look different in a variety of different businesses, but I think for a lot of people, what makes sense is figuring out how you're serving your clients right now and what is a way that you can add additional value to them. But in a way that's like can be systematized and taught to somebody else so that they come in, they provide that support and you make money on the backend.

Chris Miles (14:48): Give us example of that.

Kristin Molenaar (14:50): I was just going to say that! I'd love to give an example because I think that sometimes it's hard to understand how this could work for you. So you have a client who does coaching for people who want to speak on stage. And so what she does is she does all that coaching. So she's showing up and telling her clients how to do that stuff. Well, some of our clients are like, I don't have time. Like, can you just do it for me? And so what she does is she white labels, our outreach service. So for $750, YesBoss does all of the speaker research and outreach for her clients. But because she's in this elevated expertise level, as the coach, she's able to sell that same package for over a thousand dollars. Every time she sells, it puts no work on her back, but it gives her an additional 250 plus the profit margin to pull it into our business. And I think that we should be doing this with all kinds of things in our business. It adds value to our clients. It puts profit in our pocket and it continues to employ people and keeps the money going through other entrepreneurs.

Chris Miles (15:53): That's awesome! Yeah. That's the thing that many entrepreneurs never take the time to take it to that next level, which is all right. How do I duplicate me? Right. And be able to allow this to really grow beyond my own capacity. Right?

Kristin Molenaar (16:06): Yeah. I like to think about being a CEO or building a company. And that's when these things start to like, okay, if you think about, I'm building a company here, I'm not building a job for myself. Like everybody in a company brings value to the company.

Chris Miles (16:21): Yeah, that's right. And then you really just can not have freedom. If anybody's like me, listen to this right now, you probably went to business like I did. And when I did this almost 20 years ago is, I was going in because I wanted control of two things, primarily, you know, my money and my time. Right. Like it really controls my destiny, you know, overall. And I knew I would never get that. Just working in corporate America. I knew that had to be something that went beyond that. But the thing I learned, and I know that you're talking about as well as so many entrepreneurs are saying, yeah, I become the CEO. Yay. I'm free. And then you just created another job that really, in some ways sucks more because if you were like me, I mean, I remember seven, eight years ago after I launched Money Ripples and it's trying to do it from the ground up. Like it got to a point where I started to fantasize about a job. Like I remember thinking like if I could just have a job where I did have to think I could just do one task, that would be so awesome. I wouldn't have to think about all the elements of business with every aspect that has to be done. I can just focus on one job and be brainless. Not to insult any of you guys. So they know a lot of you guys are working W2 jobs and you're not brainless. I know that, but it's that thing that there's so much mental energy to be a business owner. And like you're saying just kind of to become the owner and say, yes, we can look at big picture, but we don't have to be in the trenches with each one of these areas. So, well, I appreciate having you on today, Kristin, and this is awesome. So thank you so much. If you want to learn more about your three steps and how that would apply to their business because they're wanting to be free. Right. What would it be the way they could do that?

Kristin Molenaar (17:51): Yeah. So you can get access to the blueprint. I mean, we went through a very, very quick version of this. I feel like I spoke faster than I've ever spoken before, but you can pick that up at YesBossVA.com/WorkLessMakeMore. If you're a solopreneur, that's feeling burnt out and you're like, don't tell me how to do it. Just do it for me. You can check us out at YesBossVA.com. But yeah, it was a pleasure chatting with you. We covered some really good material really fast.

Chris Miles (18:18): We sure did. Well, Hey, it's that whole like, you know, fast, little rabbit punch, you know, like it's perfect. So that was a lot of value. I really appreciate you being here today.

Kristin Molenaar (18:27): Thank you so much for having me. It's been a privilege.

Chris Miles (18:29): You bet! Everybody else. Thanks for joining us. And again, remember your life doesn't change unless you act upon, unless you do something about this. So if this really resonated with you go to the website, we'll have that in the show notes. So you guys can go there, but yes, this is the perfect time right now to, in a sense, reinvent your business to be the way that you always wanted it to be. So go take action. Check out the link in our show notes, everybody. I hope you make it a wonderful and process week and we'll see you later.

[solar-bean]

This is the very extensive and detailed rant of a fed up black, female student of class 2020

-You are free to scroll past this if you want. I really just needed to get this off my chest. But if you have advice or are experiencing a similar situation, feel free to message me-

So first off, I haven't liked going to school since I was 9. And highschool has only deepened my loathing of it. But maybe I don't hate school in general. Maybe I just hate the schools I've gone to ( 4 in total ). This rant is about highschool specifically. Perhaps what I'm about to type is normal and I'm overreacting. But I'm tired of not talking about my problems because I'm worried that I'll sound like an ungrateful brat. Typing/ writing about my issues makes me feel better. And I really need to feel better.

So here are the main points in order of severity: Low income, Advisory, Graphic Arts and Discipline/Work Ethic

Low Income:

I've only ever gone to low income schools in my neighborhood. I hoped high school would be different but thanks to the crappy education of my old school and an even crappier selective enrollment test score, I couldn't get into the schools I wanted. Then again my single mother probably couldn't afford those other schools anyway.

My highschool shares a building with another highschool. And unfortunately they called dibs on the best features and have control of the heating and ac. We don't even have our own gym. We also have the least amount of space with the smallest class being mine of 144 seniors. So there's a lot of packed classrooms.

Speaking of having way too many students, recourses are slim as a result. Our best equipment, chromebooks, need to be reserved weeks in advance by the teacher and even then they still may not be able to get enough of them for their class. Said chromebooks can often be missing keys, not work at all or be stolen easily because of their small size.

A few other issues are terrible lunches ( I've been bringing lunch from home since sophmore year), very limited field trips, mice infestation, very few clubs ( if we have any idk ) and teachers have to pay for just about everything class related.

Advisory:

Advisories were created to prepare us for greek life in college. I honestly think it's to keep everyone in check but ok. Even so I have absolutely 0 interest in anything frat or sorority related ( no offense to those who do ) as well as many of my classmates but advisory is mandatory.

My first 2 years of advisory were hell. Most of my advisory sisters were either people I'd never talk to because we weren't in the same class, had nothing in common or they were straight up terrible people. I should mention that freshman year has the worst students because about 30% don't make to the next grade or just transfer. Most of my advisory sisters I had problems with were in that 30% ( a few had already repeated ).

Since I kept to myself there were very few incidents were I was put into a tense situation with them. The main conflicts involved our advisor, who I guarantee you was not the problem. She was essentially a poor, white, optimistic, young math teacher from out of town that was thrown to the slaughter. And my cowardly self watched not wanting to be next.

She ended up leaving by junior year so what was left of my advisory merged with another and got a new advisor. The only downside is that our new advisor is a firm believer in " sisterhood " and no cliques ( even if you converse easier with a certain group of people and advisory is already a forced clique in itself ). Maybe I'd be more up for advisory events , which we rarely have , if my advisory experience wasn't sullied so early on.

Graphic Arts:

The reason I chose my school was because it had an art class. In seventh grade I knew I wanted to have a career in art and that my talent was lacking but had potential. So you can imagine my horror when I learned that the art teacher had left once I'd gotten there.

I was sad but stayed positive and even highly recommended them to get another art teacher. Then by sophomore we got an art after school program ( 4:25 to 6 twice a week ). I managed to keep my grades the same and take the classes every week for the entire school year. I only missed about 4 days total. For once I actually enjoyed staying after school.

The class taught me so much and I didn't have to wait for the summer to take an art class downtown. Even better I got to interact with other young artists of my race ( there was usually only one other black kid at the summer classes ). Everything was finally looking up.

Then the art galleries happened. The school hosted one per semester. I brought my art to display but I couldn't stay cuz of a shitload of math homework. I got complimented the next day but still regretted not staying. So I vowed to attend the next one with even more pieces than before.

The night finally came and I was hyped. Me and two seniors were in charge of doing caricatures for free ( one senior gave me a dollar tho ). I had fun with that but noticed something weird...none of our art was displayed.

Apparently they cut it out for time along with the theatre clubs performance. And I would've been fine with that. If my family hadn't come.

The icing on the cake was when they turned off the lights in the hallway where we were drawing the caricatures so they could start the show for the performing art groups. I couldn't contact my family until the show was over and booooiii were they pissed. Especially my mom. I was more sad than anything. I had a feeling my school valued the performing art more and this just proved that. At least now we have an actual art class. And my art teacher is awesome and supportive as hell.

Discipline/ Work Ethic:

These are together cuz they've equally fucked me up. Don't get me wrong. I have a 4.2 gpa and 0 detentions.

The problem is my classmates.

I have been to soooo many class/school meetings about behavior and grade issues over the past 4 years. One of which a staff member said " now i know all of ain't bs-in' but why aren't those people helping the ones who are."

Like wow! Thanks. I hate it.

I'd be happy to help my fellow classmates. It's just that their version of help is cheating off my tests and copying my homework.

So yeah my bad. I've been sooo selfish.

I can count on my hand the amount of times I've been told that I'm doing a good job directly and not in front of a class as a way to embarrass them.

This year behavior was so bad that they made a competition to see which advisory would get the least demerits. Big mistake. My heart goes out to all the poor well behaved students who lost because of a few advisory mates. It only takes one. The record for most demerits in a day was 30 I think.

I forgot the competition was going on at some point cuz I've only gotten 2 demerits in 4 years. My advisory won second and we played the waiting game for our prize only to have a pizza party with 17 other advisories. The winning advisory was salty as hell. But hey we got free lunch at least.

I managed to get good grades simply by doing everything on time and having no social life. This was by choice really. I promised myself I'd do better in college but now I gotta study for ap.

It was actually ap literature that gave me a new perspective on my classmates work ethic. We were given a lengthy reading assignment but the due date was stretched by two class days and the weekend. Even though I'd been mentally drained lately ( by lately I mean since the 1st week of school ) and had other work to do, I completed it with slightly less annotations.

Upon the due date I discovered that I and one other classmate completed the reading. Even the valedictorian didn't do it!!! And this wasn't a one time thing either.

In fact my class is notorious for never doing work on time. I'm talking completing-a-project-in-the-class before-the-it's -due- for bad. And some people I understand. Some of them really need help and resources. But every one else. Excuses excuses. The extended due dates gave me extra free time but it made the work I completed on time feel pointless. Like I could've just not done it and not face any consequences.

I tried that and was stressed out all day to the point of doing the work anyway. School's got me whipped I guess.

So if I hate highschool so much why do I go on time everyday, miss at most 3 days a year, do my work, behave myself and study??? Simple. I'm trying to get out. Having a good gpa and test scores will get me more scholarships cuz God knows my mom can't afford art college ( I got into my first choice so yeah:). Really highschool has just been a means to an end.

I've had my good days and have made some friends but I really just wanna run to hills with my diploma in hand. And thats what's kept me going. But now we're quarantined.

And my school has decided to make work optional.....and I have all A's......

Needless to say I've barely done any work at all. If we never have to go back theres a good chance I won't. I'm so numb at this point that I don't care that we may not have a prom ( aka the only dance I was ever going to go to ).

I'm just done. Done and fed up.

But thank you to my mom, family, bestie, teachers and my classmates that actually want to have a future for keeping me going. If I don't completely give up it's thanks to you. Future me, I hope you get everything you want at art school:)

[thismightbeaterribleidea]

FAQ

Hello! So, during a global pandemic and at the beginning of what will probably be a long and severe recession, at the age of 40 and with basically no knowledge of how automobiles work, I’m going to live in a van.

This might be a terrible idea. Hence, I’m calling my blog This Might Be A Terrible Idea.

If you’re reading this, I imagine it’s because you know me, so I’ll skip the introduction. I like a good FAQ, so let’s start there.

FAQ

Where are you going? Short answer: I don’t know!

Long answer: I’ll probably primarily split my time between Colorado/northern New Mexico, Maryland/Pennsylvania, and Florida. I want to stay as low-budget as I can and also avoid crowds during the pandemic. So whenever possible, I’ll opt for free, dispersed sites in national forests, state forests, BLM (which I now read as Black Lives Matter but here it’s the less-important acronym, Bureau of Land Management), state game lands, etc. I’ll pop into a developed campground every now and then to refill the water tanks, empty the portable toilet, and take a shower.

What kind of van do you have? In late June, I bought a 2007 Ford E250 with a high roof. In its first life, it was actually an Embassy Suites hotel shuttle, so when I got it, it had SO MANY SEATS. After it retired from the hotel biz, it went to a guy who owned a brewery and used the van for ski trips. Then he eventually traded it to a friend’s college-aged son in exchange for lawn-mowing work. This young man was actually going to make it into a camper too but didn’t have time, so he sold it to me.

I got the van for a very low price ($2000) because it’s really high mileage — almost 300,000. It also has a few issues: the dashboard, power windows, and radio only work sometimes. The doors are creaky and don’t like to close. There are splatters of paint (?) on the inside of the driver’s door. The air conditioning wasn’t working. And the interior is pretty beat up.

With help from my brother who actually knows about cars, I recharged the air conditioning. A new, functional instrument cluster is on the way. And the type of engine in this van (5.4L V8) supposedly has a reputation for being extremely durable. If I get a couple of good years out of this vehicle, I’ll be happy.

How are you going to afford this? A few years ago, I paid $4200 for an acre of land in the San Luis Valley, a few hours from Denver. I hoped to eventually put a little camper on it and make a very low-budget part-time home. But a few months after I bought the land, the county changed its rules to prohibit living in campers or mobile homes for more than a couple of weeks at a time. So the camper idea went out the window, and in June, I sold that land for $5000. This was my funding to buy the van and associated stuff. I’m going to try to keep the initial total cost of the van (vehicle, repairs, materials for the interior, solar installation) to about $6000.

I’m incredibly fortunate to be in a position where I don’t have to choose between my job and a weird nomadic lifestyle. About a year ago, I went full-time freelance as an editor and writer. So I’m self-employed and I work from home. I don’t even need the internet that much — aside from checking email, file downloads/uploads, and occasional googling for research and editing questions, I can be mostly offline. Also incredibly fortunate: the pandemic hasn’t affected my work, at least not so far.

I’ll have new and unexpected expenses: food will be more expensive, I’ll have to pay for campgrounds sometimes, the van will need gas and repairs and oil and new tires, and then I’ll want to make livability improvements (like insulation). But I hope that I’ll be able to cover all of that while still living within my means.

Aren’t you selling your condo? Why don’t you get a newer/lower mileage/already converted van? Yes, I am (fingers crossed that the sale goes through) selling my condo in Denver. But I also have no savings, no retirement fund, no emergency fund. And the recession is just getting started… the whole future seems pretty uncertain. I’d feel better if I kept as much of the condo money in the bank as possible, even if that means having a crappier van.

Don’t you worry about safety? Absolutely. I’m a worrying person. I worry a lot! But if I responded to those worries by not going anywhere alone, staying in only developed campgrounds, etc., then I’d have missed out on some of the best experiences in my life, and I’d never go much of anywhere at all.

To stay safe in a van, I’ll use the same approach I use for solo car camping. If a place feels sketchy, I go somewhere else. To avoid trouble from bears, I try not to get food on the ground, do food prep and brush teeth away from the vehicle, and keep the car doors locked when I’m away and at night. To avoid trouble from bros, I try to stay out of sight. I pick spots and set up my campsite so that people passing by mostly just see the vehicle and not me or my single chair or small tent. I have bear spray, which stays in arm’s reach when I’m out hiking and at night, and I have a sharp knife, which is always pretty accessible too.

In fact, safety is why I chose a van over a truck with a camper, which actually would have been preferable. If a truck ever had recurring or expensive mechanical problems, I could just get a new truck and put the camper on it — but with a van, I’ll either have to do the expensive repairs or get a new van and re-do the whole interior. And if I wanted to stay in one place for a while, I could take the camper off and just drive the truck around, saving on gas and wear and tear. But with a truck camper, if I were ever inside the camper and felt unsafe, I’d have to *go outside* and then get into the truck cab in order to leave. With a van, if things start feeling sketchy, I can just hop in the driver’s seat and go.

(Side note: It’s upsetting and frustrating to me that these safety concerns and choices are so linked to gender. Of course men also need to think about safety when they’re out camping alone, but I’m pretty sure I’ve had to think about it at least 200% as much as my equivalent 40-year-old non-threatening-looking out-of-shape single dude.)

If we’re talking about safety from non-sentient threats — bad weather, injuries, mechanical breakdowns, etc. — then I…

a) try not to get into situations that I can’t get out of — whether it’s a too-rugged road, a too-steep trail, or a spot that is likely to turn into a mud pit if it rains. I also think about whether I could walk to get help if I needed to. b) have some basic safety and first aid stuff. Tape, gauze, and a mylar blanket for me; jumper cables and a portable air compressor for the car. c) have a Triple A membership in case I need a tow.

The van came with a handy fire extinguisher strapped to the driver’s seat. To reduce the possibility of being unable to call for help if I get stuck somewhere, I eventually plan to get a cell phone signal booster.

The fire extinguisher or even my bear spray won’t keep me safe from COVID-19. But like I mentioned, I’m trying to stay as far away from crowds as possible. To cut down on contact when resupplying, I’ve got storage for 10 gallons of water (I’m actually going to expand this to 15) and plan to carry enough food for a month. Unless there’s a mechanical problem or breakdown (definitely my biggest concern), I should be able to drive coast to coast while remaining in a relatively firm bubble. The riskiest thing I’ll *have* to do is refuel at gas pumps, but I can pick gas stations that seem less crowded, refuel in smaller towns rather than busy highway rest areas, and go at quieter times of day.

Does your van have air conditioning? Nope! Well, it has the standard vehicle AC, but that only works while the van is running, and most of the time I’ll be parked. There are AC units that can go on top of campers and vans, but they use a ton of power: either you have to be plugged in to shore power at a campground, use a gas-powered generator, or have a million solar panels and batteries. I’m going to get a good roof vent and fan installed, plus maybe put some smaller battery-powered fans in the windows, so that will hopefully keep me from getting heatstroke in the summer.

Does it have running water? Nope! Right now, I have a portable foot-pump sink and a self-contained portable toilet. I plan to eventually build a nicer/bigger sink. I’m also going to order a collapsible tub so I can do sponge baths or use a solar shower (a black vinyl bag that heats up in the sun and has a hose attached). Swimming in freshwater lakes will need to become a bigger part of my life. I’ll probably be a little stinky at times, but people should be social distancing anyway, so if anyone can smell me, they’re way too close.

Does it have electricity? It will! I’m planning to have one large solar panel and a lithium battery installed. (For those who are curious, it’s a 315 watt solar panel with a 100 AH battery.) This will power the roof fan, my laptop, my phone, some plug-in lights, and eventually also built-in lights, the cell phone signal booster, and maybe a small fridge or cooler. The solar power system is going to outlast the van and will be easily switchable to my next vehicle.

Wait. “Maybe” a fridge? What are you going to eat? Ummm… I’ll figure it out? I eat like a scavenging raccoon, so I’m not too picky. I bought a bunch of freeze-dried legume-based soup and stew mixes from Harmony House, some high-protein shake mix from Huel, and I plan to stock rice, quinoa, peanut butter, oatmeal, hard cheese, packaged salmon and tuna, and dried fruit. If I’m driving, I’ll probably also keep an eye out for farm stands and grab some produce that will keep unrefrigerated for a few days. During the pandemic, I’ve been using support for local businesses as a way of justifying takeout or delivery once or twice a week, so I’ll probably keep doing that when I pass through developed areas.

Can you poop in your van? Does it smell? Yes to the first! I haven’t, um, tested it out yet. But after road trip in my sedan in May, when I had to go into a scary (no one wearing masks or social distancing) gas station in Colorado Springs, bathroom and hand-washing facilities for the van became a priority. Right now the portable toilet is just sort of hanging out in the open, but I’m going to build a plywood box to contain it. I did pee in it a bunch during my inaugural camping trip, and I’m happy to report that the chemicals I added to the tank made it not smell gross while also not producing an overwhelming chemical smell.

How will you get the internet? Unlimited data plan FTW! I recently figured out that I can use my phone as a mobile hotspot and connect to it with my laptop. It’s not fast, but it’ll do what I need it to. And I should be able to have connectivity even in more remote areas after I get a signal booster.

Won’t you get tired of living in a tiny space? Maybe. I do have some good practice, though. In the last decade, I’ve gone from living in a 700-square-foot condo (Denver) to a 400-ish-square-foot studio apartment (New Jersey; grad school) to my childhood room in my parents’ house (Maryland; post-grad-school student loan debt). Each time, I’ve gotten rid of stuff, even things it’s painful to get rid of: old books, childhood knickknacks, cassette tapes, drawings, horse show ribbons I remember winning, cutlery and glassware I got as housewarming gifts.

I also tend to feel really at home in my car. I’ve napped in my car, drafted novels in my car, had long and meaningful conversations in my car, had existential crises in my car, eaten hundreds of meals in my car. Car = house makes sense to me. And I hope to be staying in places where I have access to big and engaging outdoor spaces.

What will you do after you live in a van for a while? I have no idea. There are definitely things that I want to do — write fiction, build my career, be more involved with community/communities, get healthier, be a better human — but all of those things are geographically nonspecific. And everything both personally and nationally feels so up in the air. I could end up living in a van for a year, or five, or ten. I might eventually buy a house or a boat or a farm, or settle down somewhere (I don’t know where) in a more permanent way. But I’m not making plans for any of that, and I’m not making plans for an “after.”

I think that’s it for the FAQ! If you have any questions, let me know and I will address them in a later LFAQ (Less Frequently Asked Questions).

Also, please bear with me because I don’t really know how Tumblr works. If you want to start reading, start FROM THE BOTTOM.

[elle-stevens]

The Break Up Blog - Day Twenty Six

It’s official: I hate my nasal passages. 

It’s like there are furry kittens growing inside of them, that’s how sensitive they are today. Not that I’m allergic to cats or any other furry mammals; at least, I still hope that’s the case. I have heard that some adults develop latent allergies later in life that they didn’t have as children. Wouldn’t that just be my luck if that happened? 

While I sneezed my brains out nearly all day, I carved out time to do a few creative and productive things. First, I made scones for breakfast; I haven’t baked scones in nearly two years. This is the first time I made them while living abroad by myself. Granted, I left them a little too long in the oven, so they came out firmer than usual. But for a first attempt in a miniature oven, they weren’t half bad, especially when I spread butter and strawberry jam liberally all over it. My colleague, N, expressed a love for scones the other day at work and I thought of her while baking this morning. 

So when I decided to do my grading for my students’ journals at a cafe instead of at home, I asked N if she wanted me to drop off some scones for her near her home since it was en route to where I wanted to go. I left my apartment 15 minutes later that what I initially told N, but the traffic was kind to me and I got to the meeting point early enough. N had a harder time getting to me after doing her grocery shopping. There’s all kinds of roadworks and construction happening in my city these days to build more subway lines and the neighbourhood close to where N lives is completely discombobulated, including all the bus stops that have shifted over slightly to make way for the construction walls. 

Anyway, N finally met me and I gave her the scones, which she was happy to receive. It seems like she’s really stressed about work since she and C are part of the recruitment process that hires new foreign teachers at my school. There have been some issues with visa paperwork and flight bookings for a new hire that has many of my colleagues completely stressed out. Thank God I don’t help out with visa paperwork at my job; I’d be two blinks away from being carted away in a straitjacket if I were. 

N had to rush off to her Chinese class and I made my way to a cafe she and C frequented the week before. The cafe has cosy decor inside and a terriffic balcony section above where you can sit outside. Sadly, the balcony was closed today; the cafe probably only opens it up in the evenings when they serve dinner. So I sat inside and did my grading, which was still nice and cosy. 

The grading itself was more stressful than I initially planned. Maybe I just over-thought it and did more than I needed to. But it took me close to 4 hours to check and correct 38 journals as well as give each student feedback and a rating based on their writing. I know that H meant well when she planned for us to do weekly journals with our students. But the plan was meant to be executed at the start of the school year and it’s already the second semester. Plus, she made C design all the journals in different formats and colours for each grade instead of just ordering ready-made journals from a publication house. Now H wants us to critique each student’s writing every single week and only give them positive feedback so they stay motivated to keep writing in class. If I have to climb up more people’s asses and kiss them from the inside, including those of my students, I might never see the sun again. 

Nevertheless, I forged on and managed to finish all my grading, even though I was hungry and the cafe suddenly didn’t serve food. But they had a menu which not only had drinks displayed on it, but food as well. So naturally I was confused that there didn’t appear to be any food. I wrapped things up and tried to call my Dad to wish him happy birthday. After all the delays with my money transfers, I was happy that I managed to send my siblings some cash to help pay for my dad’s gifts and the family brunch. But the signal was really crappy on my phone since I was outside and waiting for the bus to take me home. I managed to get back to my neighbourhood after 18:00 and made a stop at the grocery store to buy tomatoes, mushrooms and garlic. N gave me some French bread earlier, so I made some bruschetta for dinner. Not the healthiest meal to have, especially right before going to the gym, but it kept the hunger pangs at bay since I inadvertently skipped lunch. 

My parents and siblings ended up going on a drive around the beach, which gave me enough time to have a good session at the gym almost unimpeded, shower and then head home. I even had time to go to work beforehand to pick up the new headband I ordered for the gym that I used for my workout. Unlike last week’s ultra-crap fat-loss regimen, I practically aced it the second time around tonight, which kept me in good spirits. 

I got home after 21:00 and called my Dad again. With most phone conversations, I don’t always know what to say to him. I don’t know why, I just run out of safe topics quicker with my dad than with my mom. My mom and I aren’t as close, but we find ways to talk about very superficial things like who’s a new and upcoming contestant on ‘Idols’ or what new wave of crime hit my old neighbourhood this time around. I’m closer with my Dad, but it’s hard to grab time with him to have a good heart to heart. Still, I was in an excellent mood and the conversation flowed well, especially when we talked about dishes we’d been cooking in the kitchen lately. It makes me realise how much I miss my Dad these days. 

It was great catching up with my mom and my siblings too; I feel bad that P and G have been treated to my depressing and morbid side too much lately. So it felt good to ask how they’re doing and make lots of silly jokes to keep the mood light.  Even though I wished I could’ve been home with my family celebrating my dad’s birthday today, I’m happy they’re still able to have fun without me too. Sometimes I feel guilty about being so far away from home, but I know my family loves and supports me no matter. I’m really lucky and it’s time that I start acknowledging and embracing it more often. 

Throughout my busy day, I still thought of X on occasion. When I walked to the grocery store earlier, this called ‘Loving Strangers’ by Russian Red started playing in my iTunes library. That brought up a flood of memories all related to X. I actually liked that song long before X and I even became friends, but I put her onto it and it eventually became one of our songs that epitomised our relationship. The song is from a soundtrack for this lesbian romance movie called ‘Room In Rome’. It’s about these two women who meet at a bar in - you guessed it - Rome, and end up spending the night together in a beautiful Roman hotel room. It wasn’t the best acting in the world, but the chemistry between the two actresses was on sizzling and the movie had a scintillating soundtrack too. 

Anyway, X and I both loved the song and the movie and watched it together a few times over 3 years. When I visited her the first time in the Philippines, we stayed a lovely 5-star hotel for our last night together. Unintentionally, we acted out a few romantic scenes from the movie. Like dressing up in fluffy bathrobes after taking a swim in the hotel and staring out the window together at the city skyline. Of course, we improvised with other things, like slow-dancing in our bathrobes to Coldplay’s ‘Sparks’ and ‘Loving Strangers’ in the middle of our hotel room. 

That night was so bittersweet for me because my flight back home was at 4am (I still don’t know why I booked that absurd flight time), so X and I only had a few hours together in that hotel room before I left her. I felt like Cinderella on the night of the ball with the Prince. For those first few hours, everything felt magical and wonderful. But as soon as the clock struck twelve, reality kicked in again and it was time to go back home in my pumpkin carriage. 

Being with X always felt like a beautiful dream that I was eventually going to wake up from. Now I’m finally awake and it’s still disorienting knowing that we won’t have more beautiful memories together or new shared experiences to make life a little sweeter than it was before. But I’m trying my best to move on and only focus on the crappier aspects of X’s personality to make me miss her less. What I need is to just land myself a hottie Sugar Daddy or Sugar Momma with low self-esteem on the next go-around with a relationship and hope to God they never get clued in on the fact that they could do better than me. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m a catch in a lot of respects, but I am also a hot mess. I’m a slow learner, but I’m getting better and wiser with time. 

Shit, it’s past midnight and I’m starving. I’m trying hard not to snack late at night, but I haven’t been eating well lately because of stress and my depression kicking my proverbial butt. Does this even still count as a diary entry for 7th September? 

Since I’m making up the rules for my own happiness now, I say it still counts. And from here on out, I’m gonna do whatever the hell I please.