#My brother was like apply for remote jobs and I have checked they need experience and also they look hard as heck

[dashingwishes]

I have an interview tomorrow for some reason I don’t feel like going at all like my energy is so drained.

[lezliefaithwade]

A Breath of Fresh Air

The summer after my first year of theatre school, I was sleeping on the living room floor of my cousin's apartment in Toronto, trying to figure out what to do with my life. My cousin had been an actor before he became a quadriplegic in a car accident, and as I unadvisedly bemoaned my unemployment status, he said something like, "Seriously? You're complaining about your life? Don't make me burst a colostomy bag." He was right, of course. I wasn't in a wheelchair, though I did have a stepmother who had rendered me homeless because of her dislike for me. She was always saying things like, "Your hair can't be as ugly as that hat you're wearing." Or simply refusing to invite me to things like Christmas dinner. I always admired people with families. My boyfriend at the time was one of five kids who were always doing things together. Their house was always full of noise and activities. Even as a shiksa, I felt more at home there than with my stepbrothers and sisters, who never lost an opportunity to point out that I was weird. I wanted to stand up to them, but not wanting to cause my father any grief, I held my tongue and sought refuge elsewhere. It occurred to me that perhaps I was using the theatre as an opportunity to say things through characters that I couldn't find the courage to express myself.

The Toronto Star was still open on the kitchen table, and I rummage through the Want Ads, that dirty part of the newspaper near the back where complete strangers will soon become complete assholes in your life by forcing you to work menial jobs in humiliating uniforms for minimum wage.

"Find anything?" my cousin called from the bedroom, where two attendants helped wash and dress him.

"Social services are advertising for camp councilors to work with emotionally challenged kids."

"Oh yeah," He said. "That might suit you."

I'm not sure I knew what he meant but, I was beginning to think I'd outgrown my welcome. My cousin probably would have encouraged me to join the circus if the option had been available. Knowing my living room days were numbered, I thought it best to make an effort and apply.

I had no experience teaching drama—no experience working with kids and no experience going to or working at a camp. Despite all that, I was hired. It's worth noting that it's probably not a good sign if you get a job with no qualifications whatsoever.

My official position was Drama Councillor, and I prided myself that with only a year and half of theatre training behind me, I was well equipped to help others benefit from the wealth of my experience. I imagined myself, Maria Von Trapp, teaching children how to sing while they looked at me adoringly. Somehow, I conveniently blocked out the rebellious early stages she experienced and skipped straight to the good parts. Also, I might add, forgetting about the Nazis and having to climb over a mountain. Still, visions of me biking around camp with a group of happy campers behind me filled me with a sense of self-satisfaction.

As I packed my knapsack with deet and a secret stash of Twinkies, I thought of how only three weeks earlier I'd been in New York walking through Central Park and savoring Cappuccinos at outdoor cafés on Columbus. Now, here I was, ready for something different. The wilderness, I imagined, would be a welcome change—fresh air and loons instead of smog and sirens. I thought smugly about my classmates sweating behind visors at take-out windows shoveling fries into cardboard cups or wrapping sandwiches in tinfoil. Thumbs up to adventure, I told myself. The fact that I'd never once in my life enjoyed the great outdoors didn't factor into my mind. All of this changed with each accumulated minute of the 391 Kilometer drive north.

It was late afternoon when I arrived at the compound. Overcast, sullen, it was a place so secluded you'd need flares to find it. It had that distinct aura of someplace time forgot. A place left behind and neglected. In the brochure, the sun was shining, flowers filled the meadow, and you could practically hear laughter floating off the page. What I was looking at bore more of a resemblance to a situation in a Stephen King novel where camp councilors discover a pack of hungry teenage zombies have lured them to a seemingly idyllic retreat. Situated right in the heart of black fly country, I spent most of my days swatting insects so big they seem Jurassic.

During our orientation, child care workers warned us that children with mental health needs tend to run away - a lot and to keep strict attendance records and all eyes on them at all times. "These kids are resourceful and clever," they cautioned. I couldn't imagine being so determined you'd risk your life by escaping through the woods that surrounded us, but then again, I'd never been around children who weren't allowed cutlery before either

I shared my cabin with three other women with who I had absolutely nothing in common. Delia, a humorless 27-year-old cooking instructor who answered every question with a monosyllabic grunt, Jennifer, a 26-year old tennis instructor with massive blond ringlets who talked so quickly she sounded like a record on high speed, and an older aboriginal woman named Sunny who made us all dream catchers and offered advice about how to heal ourselves on days when we'd feel spent. "Remember, these kids need us," she said while purifying our cabin with sage. As I glanced around my assigned bunk, taking in the spider webs and loose floorboards, I had that sinking feeling that comes when you know you've made a terrible mistake. Before long, I was eating copious amounts of peanut butter on stale bagels amid a never-ending supply of starch. I'm not sure who thought it was a good idea to feed children with challenges like anxiety, depression, hyperactivity, and eating disorders copious amounts of sugar and carbs. It certainly did nothing to help them or me.

On the first day of class, I sat everyone in a circle. "Welcome to drama class," I said with a smile. "Let's begin by sharing with everyone a little bit about ourselves. Anything at all you'd like us to know?" A hand went up.

"I'm Tracy, and I hate my stupid ass brother. He can go straight to hell."

"Okay," I said, "That's a start. Who's next?"

Another hand. "I'm Jonathan, and this place sucks so much I wish it would burn to the ground!"

"Fair enough. Anyone else?"

"I'm Jo. I'm schizophrenic. So sometimes I'm Rachel and Julia. You'll know the difference because Rachel has a British dialect, and Julia talks slang."

"O-kay." I glanced at the social workers who sat on the edge of the room and looked at me with an expression that basically said, "We can't wait to see what you do next."

"Let's write a play," I suggested. "Write anything you want. Once you're happy with the work, I'll shape it into a cohesive piece that we'll rehearse and then present at the end of the season talent showcase."

The kids liked this idea. The showcase was a big deal. It was an opportunity for them to blow off some steam and express themselves to friends and family in a creative way. My only stipulation was not to use profanity. As the weeks passed, I was impressed with how well they all threw themselves into this project—all except Eric, the oldest boy in my 12 to 15-year-olds. Eric often wandered around the rehearsal space, unfocused and sullen.

"Any ideas for your piece?" I ask, checking in to see if I could help.

"I'm thinking," he'd say and then pace.

With three weeks left in the summer, I took my well-deserved week off to decompress. My boyfriend came up from Toronto and drove me to his parent's house at Post and Bayview, where caterers were preparing the tennis courts for an outdoor party. I walked into his mother's living room, and she gasped. "What happened to you?"

I didn't blame her. I hadn't spent much time looking at a mirror the past four weeks, but one glance at the large one in their bathroom told the full story. My hair was ratty; I had scabs on my knees, bruises on my arms and legs, and I was sunburnt. I was wearing a vintage skirt and blouse that was probably more Value Village than vintage and a pair of worn, scuffed purple moccasins; in essence, I was wearing slippers on my feet.

"Please take her to the mall and at least buy her a pair of shoes," his mother said, handing me her credit card and then rushing off to make sure the stuffed alligator would float in the pool. That week I ate my way through rugelach, hamantaschen, brisket, and bagels while his family watched me with awe and disgust.

Back at camp, the smell of burning insect repellent greeted me along with the news that the sailing and tennis instructors were sacked for disorderly conduct. Never mind, I had renewed energy and a sense of purpose. There were costumes and props to make. Sound and lighting effects to create. And we needed to rehearse. It was only a tiny stage somewhere on a remote camp in Northern Ontario, but the excitement was palpable. I was excited. This would be the best talent show ever, and my kids were going to blow the socks off everyone there!!!

"Eric," I said, "How's your piece coming along?"

"I finished it," he mentioned casually

"That's great. Can I see it?"

"I want to surprise you. You're going to love it, though. I promise."

I patted myself on the back. Eric had a breakthrough. All my encouragement and patience had paid off. Perhaps I'd helped him have a developmental breakthrough.

"Can you tell me what it's about?" I asked.

"The Beatles."

"Great. Okay," and left it at that.

Talent Night arrived along with parents and family friends. The lights dimmed, the kids performed, and the audience enthusiastically applauded as each "Mighty Mite" or "Spirit of Paradise" breezed across the stage, acting out skits about fairies and monsters and assorted escapades. Finally, it was Eric's turn. Out he came, looking serious and theatrical. He cleared his throat and addressed the audience.

"This is called, The Beatles Last Recording Session. By, Me."

Three of his closest camp friends filed out and took a space on the stage. The audience was silent.

There was a dramatic pause, then the piece began.

"Fuck you, Ringo,"

"Fuck you, Paul."

"Fuck you, George."

"Well fuck you, John."

Then they bowed and left the stage.

Personally, I thought it was kind of brilliant. Needless to say, I wasn't showered with accolades about my teaching methods or the effect I had on kids. I left there having no catharsis about mental health except that giving people the opportunity to express themselves without censor is probably a lot healthier than insisting they stay quiet. I admired the honesty displayed in the kid's work. If only, I thought to myself, I could be half as brave. Wasn't that what I was spending time and money learning how to do?

A week after being home, I found myself packing, once more, for school in New York. Our term letters had arrived with instructions on where to buy character shoes, leotards, copies of The Children's Hour, and Death of a Salesman. The camp already felt like it was 391 kilometers away - soon to be 659. My father drove me to the train station with my stepmother beside him; she was there, no doubt, to ensure I boarded.

"You going to be okay?" my father asked, giving me a hug and slipping a $50 bill into my pocket.

"She'll be fine." Elsie chimed in. "You don't have to worry about her. Let's go."

But I wanted my father to worry about me. Not all the time and to the exclusion of all else, but certainly the appropriate fatherly amount.

As I settled myself on the train, I watched my stepmother pull from father from the platform to the car and thought of Eric's brilliant play. Under my breath, I whispered the immortal words of the Beatles, "Fuck you."

#stepmother #mental health #children #young people #summer camp

[i-love-regenerations]

Sign Me Up For That

There are far worse things than failure...

(Something else I wrote a while ago - dark humour warning)

“I’ve got something you’ll really like,” said Claire’s friend Judie when they were talking on the phone one evening.

“Another knock-off kitchen gadget?” Judie often got stuff from sales or offers in magazines.

“Nope, a way you can go and cuddle babies at the hospital,”

“I can’t do that,” said Claire “I’m not good at that sort of thing!”

“You could be. They’re really short of volunteers,”

“If they’re that desperate for staff, they’d best call Ingeus - another place I have no intention of going to anytime soon!”

Claire had applied for a lot of similar work – both voluntary and paid – a while ago. If she was any good, she would be doing it already. And that had been when she was unemployed and available all the time. She’d now found a fairly reasonable job at an estate agents and this position could well be weekday afternoons anyway.

“Seriously, can you at least Google it? Are you still there?” asked Judie.

“Yes. I’ll Google it later, with the malware scanner on!”

“That’s a great start! Come on, it’ll give you loads of self-esteem!”

“Loads of spam, more likely!” said Claire.

“You aren’t worried about spam when you’re downloading dodgy movies!”

“I know, but I get some satisfaction from watching movies!”

“You don’t get any from holding babies then? Okay…”

“No, I don’t!” Claire was getting annoyed. “I don’t do it because I would never get past the interview! How do you know so much about it anyway? Did you see it on an American documentary?”

“Possibly!”

“Yes then! Can’t I just come round to yours and play with the kittens?” asked Claire. Her priorities certainly weren’t the same as a couple of years ago. “It would save me a lot of hassle and I could watch a movie at the same time!”

“Not right now, I’m watching Bear Grylls,” said Judie.

“Oh gawd,”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“One, the man is a plonker. Two, I’m not eating anything you’ve cooked now, I have no idea what might be in it!”

Claire decided it was probably a good idea to rustle up an application before Judie suggested any other documentary-inspired ways to spend the evening, such as digging around in the local park for something to eat!

“I’ve got an interview tonight,” Claire said when she went to see Judie after work the next day.

“It’s at ten o’clock at night though. That doesn’t sound remotely dodgy, does it?”

“Sick babies don’t all do office hours,” said Judie. She kind of had a point but you’d think the recruitment office would still be nine to five.

Perhaps they were in there typing rejection letters, Claire thought sarcastically. She’d done some Google searching last night and noticed that some of the baby holding programmes in America had very long waiting lists. If the same applied here, that could be a lot of letters!

“Well, I’m going to get a big fat no anyway,” said Claire.

“How do you know?” asked Judie.

“None of the places I applied to wanted me three years ago, why should they now?”

“I dunno, more experience?”

“From an estate agents!? If they were sitting around cuddling babies all day in the one you went to, how on Earth did you get a flat?” Claire asked jokingly.

“Listen,” said Judie, with her serious face on, “It’s really good for babies and I know you would love it too. Can't you use your imagination? I read about babies who’ve been born on drugs, they need holding all the time so they can recover,”

“I can imagine, I was watching videos of it online last night, while you were watching Bear Grylls making a condom out of stinging nettles or something! That doesn’t change the fact I’ll be getting a big fat no, does it?” argued Claire.

“You might not. My friend’s brother had an interview at night, it was so they could give him a work trial straight away and he got the job!” said Judie. 

“What kind of job?”

“Oh, just supermarket night work,”

“Which doesn’t need a background check or anything,” said Claire “I’ll do my best, but if it’s a Big Fat No you’re paying for us to go somewhere that’ll actually give me some satisfaction. Like a gig! Deal?”

“Deal. Want to watch a film?”

“Not if it’s one of your choices! If the interviewer asks what I’ve done this evening, I can’t tell them I watched the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or the Centipede or whatever else!” said Claire.

“That could work, they’d certainly know you’re not squeamish!” said Judie, laughing.

“I’m not telling anyone I watched those!! Can I print my CV?”

“Okay, but I’ve only got pink paper left. It’ll be er, baby friendly!”

“You mean it’ll be naff! The babies are not doing the interview, the recruitment people are!”

Judie hadn’t mentioned that she’d run out of black printer ink too. Claire’s CV came out bright pink with purple text. It was starting to look very much like she might be getting this gig!

Claire had a problem with her interview straight away - she couldn’t find the place! Surely a hospital had to be pretty big and clearly signposted? Yet she’d somehow found herself outside a closed-looking office block in the backside of nowhere!

It was 21.49. She knocked on the office block door to ask for directions, hoping like crazy that she wasn’t more than ten minutes’ walk away from the hospital or Judie would have a right laugh hearing that she’d never even found it, in order to get The No.

A man answered the door. Claire heard bleeping and saw someone go past behind him. They were walking around with a drip stand, so this presumably was the right place! It just looked a bit rough on the outside, likely because of Conservative party budget cuts and it being late at night.

“I’m here for the volunteering interview,” said Claire.

The man checked his watch. “Ah. Wait upstairs,”

“Thank you. Which floor…”

He went back inside and and Claire had to kind of run after him into the lift. His voice had sounded all wrong – should he be around sick people with a sore throat like that? Not to mention his attitude!

On an upstairs floor, a woman came in and asked for Claire’s CV then walked off, leaving her in a waiting room with several inside windows. Some of the rooms were definitely staff offices. Others had the shutters down so behind there could have been anything, although the bleeping seemed to be coming from that direction so she assumed it was a hospital ward.

On and off, Claire could hear drilling and what generally sounded like building renovations. Damn, no wonder they couldn’t get the babies to sleep with that racket! She smelled burning plastic and had a terrifying mental image of the block catching fire. Sensibly, she knew it was probably just the paper laminator or whatever the builders were doing.

Where was the interviewer or anyone else? She doubted they were planning to trial people straight away because if nothing else, the background checks would have taken ages. It was Friday night, even something ridiculously fast-tracked would surely have to be done at nine o' clock on Monday morning?

Maybe they’d done it early this morning, after she applied last night? Maybe they could trial her with supervision? Maybe they were just going to give her The No straight away? Although someone actually getting around to interviewing her would be a good start for any of those.

On the upside, she had at least one requirement sorted thanks to their brilliant scheduling – the ability to sit still for a very long time!

Claire remembered one of the videos she’d seen online of a woman snuggling a baby who woke up and looked around at her. He had really big lovely eyes and it had made Claire feel funny inside. Although that was probably just because she had the sense of a Big Fat No heading in her direction.

She was just going to think about that sort of thing, unlikely though it was for her, and not some of the other things she’d read about online recently – about perverts and financial scammers and high-rise fires. That hot plastic smell was making her feel funny inside and not in a good way, maybe she should go and tell someone?

“Yeah, and that’ll make me look brilliant,” Claire thought sarcastically. It would almost certainly be the office document laminator she was freaking out over. Then when this volunteer position inevitably turned out to be admin, she still wouldn’t be getting it!

Claire wasn’t exactly sure how long she’d been waiting. Fifteen minutes or so? One of her interviews was pretty late before, wasn’t it? Although that one was in the morning at a cash & carry, which was just a bit different from this.

She started walking around the place looking for someone to ask. She’d been waiting longer than fifteen minutes - the clock in the staff office said 22.30. Did the interviewer forget about her? If the hospital was that busy, how come she’d barely seen anyone? She found a pile of documents next to the shredder with something pink in it that looked rather like her CV. This was a big fat no alright!

She picked up the pile to check whether the pink thing was actually her CV. It was, and there was something worse underneath – exam certificates! Why would anyone be shredding those? She had suspected from the beginning that there was an admin assistant here who needed replacing but that was ridiculous.

She was going to find someone to moan to, and to hell with The No. She probably would have gotten it anyway and she was now kind of looking forward to getting out of here. She was just glad she didn’t bring her exam certificates! She spotted something else that made her feel funny inside, and certainly not in a good way.

The clock wasn’t on 22.37, it was 02.37! Where the hell had she been for over four hours? Asleep? She must have been totally forgotten about.

There was a corridor at the back with more small offices, but there was nothing in them. She got the feeling that the place wasn’t even finished. What if the entire thing turned out to be some kind of horrible joke? Judie had seemed very encouraging, hadn’t she? Not to mention the weird suggestions of getting useful experience from an office job and the dodgy CV.

Judie certainly wouldn’t have had a problem with frightening her – lover of disgusting horror movies that she was. But she surely wouldn’t be mean enough to disappoint someone with a fake job interview? And how did she rustle up the keys to an empty block? Claire wouldn’t have easily been able to arrange that late at night just for a joke, and she worked for an estate agents! Judie worked in a shop.

Claire remembered something else about the interview at the cash & carry – their offices had been on intermediate floors at the sides and she could see down into the main warehouse from there. Maybe the same thing could work here? It surely wouldn’t hurt to look, if only to find out where everyone had gone and make sure the place wasn’t on fire. She found the controls to the window shutters, opened them so that she could see down onto the next floor and screamed.

There were people in there with their entire bodies covered in bandages, as if they’d been burned in some sort of terrible accident. Far worse than that, one was laying on an operating table and a worker was covering parts of his body with something that looked horribly like plastic laminator sheets. That must have been what she could smell earlier!

The sound that she’d assumed to be building renovations started up again - they were screw-drilling things into his chest. He twisted around - he was awake for this - and she saw metal bars screwed into his head and just kind of…holes for the eyes and mouth. 

She turned round and started running, only to find all of the waiting room doors firmly locked. Even if she could have forced them, she could see that someone who must have impossible strength had moved several heavy filing cabinets in front of the hallway exit doors. She couldn’t get to any outside windows either, so screaming for help or even jumping off the block weren’t going to be an option. The staff had only told people that this floor was the baby nursery because it was a lot easier to make people turn up than if they told them it was the cyber-conversion theatres. Claire realised she was about to lose a hell of a lot more than her self-esteem...

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Beneath an Aurora Sky (Ch. 2)

Summary: The South Pole Station is equipped for research and Edge has always made sure things run smoothly for the inhabitants. His charges are meant to follow his rules and regulations, and in turn, he makes sure they survive in the arctic temperatures. It takes plenty of hard work and determination and Edge, along with his crew, can handle both.

He wasn’t counting on one of the newest researchers. He wasn’t expecting Rus.

Tags: Spicyhoney, First Time, Arctic AU, Hurt/Comfort

Notes: So, @cheapbourbon came up with an amazing AU and did some lovely art for it: please look at it and love it.

To quote straight from the source because I love this:

•Expedition leader/ survivalist guide Edge •Theoretical astronomer Rus •Location: Scott South Pole Station/South Pole Telescope •Guest stars: snow, cold, stars, & budding affections

I couldn’t resist, so here we are.

Warning: I am not a scientist, sadly, and while I did some research on the South Pole Station and Antarctica in general, I can only assume I’ve made mistakes here. I also took a lot of liberties and I know it. This is all in fun, so, forgive me for my errors and since this is already an AU, let’s pretend that it’s an Alternate Earth where these things are correct and I didn’t screw anything up.Here we go…

Chapter 2

Read it on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

His bones were barely dry from the gloriously hot shower by the time Edge was readying himself to go back outside. The provisions would have been dealt with by now but Red hadn’t come in from the vehicle shed. Not worrying, yet, but always better to double and triple check when in doubt, particularly this far from civilization.

He stepped outside into fading daylight, trudging through light layer of new snow. They were coming into the cycle of shorter days, much to Alphys’s delight. Her research involved alternate power sources and the only issue that arose during this time was her reluctance to sleep while she did her experiments.

Edge’s interest for her research ended at the point where it provided the station with plenty of power and hot showers, and lately where it helped his brother. Her skills would have given her a permanent place on the station whether or not her relationship with Undyne bloomed as it did. That it had, and that it gave Undyne someplace else to focus her relentless attention was a gift to them all.

The lights were on in the shed and a brief search found his brother’s legs, sticking out from beneath one of the Sno Cats.

“Is something wrong?” Edge asked loudly, waiting as his brother jerked and then cursed vigorously, squirming out from under the Cat. His knit cap was askew, and he straightened it, glaring at Edge.

“fuck, bro,” Red grumbled, “slam the door or somethin’, would ya? and nah, nothing wrong, just some maintenance. how is the group settlin’ in?”

“If you’d bothered to come inside when they got here, you’d know.”

Red only grinned unabashedly and shook his head. “that’s your job, boss. the only reason i keep ‘em alive is there’s too much paperwork if someone croaks.”

“You’ve made that abundantly clear,” Edge said dryly. He gave the shed a glance, taking in neat line of snow-ready vehicles. “I expect some of them will need transport tomorrow, is everything ready?”

“ready freddy,” Red agreed. He picked up a dirty rag from the floor and wiped his greasy hands fruitlessly. “so, what’s with the monster in the group?”

“How did you know about that?” Edge sighed, rhetorical as the question was.

Red confirmed it with a sly grin. “undyne. said there was an actual skeleton monster.”

“There was.” Edge refused to expand on the subject despite his brother’s eagerness. Instead, he crooked a finger at Red in a ‘come hither’ motion. “Come here.”

Red scowled but he did, grudgingly stepping closer. His frown deepened as Edge pulled off his ski cap, carefully examining his skull. The spiderweb of cracks beneath it looked better than only days before, but the soft, healing glow normally concealed by his cap was fading.

“You need to see Alphys for another treatment,” Edge told him, handing back the knit cap.

“yeah, yeah.” Red wandered over to his work bench, tossing his cap on it and straightening tools that didn’t need attention. “she’s already on me. tells me a few more treatments and it’ll be fused. then i can stop playing the hipster and let my skull out for some air.”

“If you wouldn’t get your skull busted open, you wouldn’t have these problems,” Edge pointed out, but he walked over to rub gentle fingertips over his brother’s skull, careful to skirt the damaged areas.

Red knocked his hand away, but without any real force. “i’ll try harder next time, boss. now what about the other skellie?”

Edge only shook his head. “You can see him at dinner, if you bother to show up."

“uh huh. speaking of chow, might want to check in on bun-bun.”

Truly, his brother had a skill for irritating others that few could imitate. “When she kills you for calling her that, I’m not going to stop her.”

“eh, she’d have to catch me first,” Red gave him a wolfish grin, hopping up to sit on the workbench with his legs dangling. It put them closer to a height and he smirked into Edge’s face as he said, “anyway, got her the supplies but she’s about to shit a brick if you don’t give her a headcount.”

“Why didn’t you tell her?” Edge reached out to smack him, fully expecting his brother to dodge the way he did. “You could have checked the manifest.”

“coiulda, shoulda, didn’t.”

“Finish up with the vehicles,” Edge sighed, and put his goggles back into place, heading back out to face the station cook. Night had fallen completely while he was in the vehicle shed, the first swirls of the aurora twisting overhead. Edge barely glanced at it, headed for the main door to face a little wrath.

~~*~~

From the delicious aroma that was coming from the kitchen area, Bonnie was caramelizing onions for whatever was on tonight’s dinner menu. The hydroponic gardens provided enough vegetables for her to be reasonably generous with them and so long as the core generator functioned, none of his charges would be dying of a scurvy, at least.

Edge waited in the doorway, watching her expertly switch between stirring pots and scraping pans, until she looked up. Then he signed, Did you need any help?

He was a decent cook in his own right, but the kitchen was Bonnie’s domain and he did not like to impose. On occasion, she did let him play prep cook, and chopping vegetation could be mindlessly relaxing. But generally, she preferred to work alone, especially on a day like today with a new roster of Humans with new tastes and dietary needs. Anytime Edge wanted to cook on his own was scheduled in advanced.

She didn’t stop what she was doing but her pointed look was telling. He smirked a little and gave in.

Twelve new, he signed. Eleven humans, one Monster.

That caught her attention enough that she actually set her spoon aside to sign back, Monster? Never had Monster before.

He shrugged and she nodded slowly, then went back to her pots and pans. Past knowing how many she was cooking for and their needs, Bonnie had little interest in their charges.

Special needs? she asked

Two listed vegetarian, Edge signed, none listed allergies.

She nodded again, vaguely pleased. Easy group.

She would certainly know. Bonnie had been with them from the start.

As a member of the Bun clan, she was of medium height, her furry ears reaching up to Edge’s chin, and Edge didn’t know what had caused her badly scarred face, leaving her with one eye cloudy and sightless. Not any more than she knew where he’d gotten his scars. Edge also didn’t know what had driven her up this far away from her surely enormous family and the larger Monster community and didn’t ask. Bonnie had applied for the job and demonstrated her skill at it. Nothing more was required.

But she was one of them and tonight, she would find a flash drive on her side table with Red’s symbol on it, along with dozens of new specialty books for her kindle reader and in return, there would be fresh cranberry scones for breakfast this weekend, a special favorite of his brother’s.

Their friendship was a mixture of antagonism and silent affection and Edge left them to it. He was rather fond of the scones as well.

Besides, who was he to judge when he was friends with Undyne.

Bonnie’s attention was once again completely focused on her cooking and Edge left her to it to finish his checks. Dinner would be within the hour and he was resigned to the fact that it was going to be eventful, one way or another.

~~*~~

By the time Edge got to their version of a mess hall, most of the researchers were already there. The table had the capacity for about twenty people, even those like their scholars who had laptops and notepads in front of them, the barest murmur of conversation carrying through the room.

Their facility was a small one but one of the priciest to visit. The remote location kept them from being overrun with cruise ship tourists and their equipment was top of the line, the best Humans and Monsters had to offer.

All researchers and scientists paid top dollar to come here and it was Edge’s job to ensure that they had all the basic tools they needed to work, plus as much comfort as could be reasonably provided. Tomorrow Undyne would show them the recreation facilities with her version of firm encouragement to use them. Overworking helped no one, a lesson that Alphys had taught them well.

Red was sitting at the far end of the table, slouching half-asleep and still wearing his sunglasses. Not that they needed them, snow blindness was not an issue without actual eyes, but it was a good reminder to speak to everyone about wearing their goggles during the daylight hours.

Next to him was Undyne and when she saw Edge come in, she grudgingly took apart the tower of forks and knives she was building. The chair next to her was empty and when Edge glanced at it, Undyne shrugged.

“Alphys isn’t coming down today,” she said, low.

Edge only nodded. Their engineer’s tolerance for outsiders varied by the day and she often took her meals in her room for the first week or so a new group arrived.

The door opened, catching his attention and he turned in time to see Rus, the only person still missing. He glanced at a chair at the end of the long table, but chose instead to sit a little away from the others, closer to Edge and his team.

Edge couldn’t say he was surprised. Even Humans who claimed to be intellectuals could have their prejudices against Monsters and their time on the boat had surely given Rus an idea of how his companions would be treating him. Simply the differences in their wardrobes, the others in the crisp winter-wear and Rus in a baggy orange sweatshirt layered over thermals spoke volumes.

The door to the kitchen swung on its hinges and Bonnie emerged, carrying steaming serving dishes to the tables. To their credit, none of the Humans or Rus reacted strongly to her appearance. There was nothing more than murmur of thanks in a variety of languages and a few glances sent Edge’s way.

Good, they were learning.

He waved a hand at them, “Go ahead, we don’t stand much on ceremony here.”

A few more trips and soon the table was loaded with bowls. The food tended toward simpler, filling fare, generously seasoned, and all of it smelled tantalizing. If they could make one smug claim about the facility, it would be that no one had ever gone home and complained about the food.

Edge took a buttery roll from one of the plates, tearing it open to spread it with their newly received strawberry jam. He ate it in two bites, not even bothering to stifle a groan of pleasure as it fairly melted in his mouth.

Thank you, Edge signed as Bonnie sat a platter of fragrant roasted vegetables in front of him. Undyne absently copied him before snagging a roll for herself, her sharp teeth tearing into the soft bread. Her ability to talk in hands was barely past mediocre even if she’d had all ten fingers, but she was learning.

More startling was the way Rus signed it as well, adding on looks delicious.

It was possible that Bonnie’s stoic expression softened, just slightly. She nodded to him and went back to the kitchen.

The muted conversation faded beneath hungry appreciation. All of them were probably starving after the trek earlier and there was plenty for everyone. Calorie intake was important, to keep up their strength, and Bonnie would ensure that everyone had their fair share.

Undyne ate with haste past her normal eagerness for food and it was only after she washed her plate and set it in the drainer that Edge learned why.

She sauntered over to the other side of the table where Rus was sitting, and her grin was not one that filled Edge with comfort. Rus seemed to agree; he stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth, eyeing her warily.

“Well, hey there, pal,” Undyne slung an arm over Rus’s shoulders and gave him a little shake. He froze, looking at her from corner of his socket. “Don’t think I caught your name.”

“rus.” That single word was a sort of rusty squeak. The nerve he’d dredged up against Edge earlier seemed to desert him when faced with Undyne, but Edge wasn’t about to hold that against him. It showed a good instinct in self-preservation.

“Well, hiya, Rus,” Undyne purred, and it sent unease prickling up Edge’s spine. “What’re you in for?”

“research?” he offered weakly and she laughed, giving him a noogie that was firm enough for him to wince.

“Yeah, that part I know. On what?”

“for my thesis?” There was little confidence in him that this answer would satisfy Undyne.

“You’re a grad student?” Edge asked, frowning. Every other researcher that had ever been here had at the very least a PhD, more likely several.

“yeah? so?” There was a certain defensiveness there, a ghost of his earlier fire.

One of the others, an older Human male with an almost palpable arrogance opened his mouth as though about to insert himself into the conversation. Undyne only stared at him with stony coldness.

He turned his attention back to his plate.

Well, it was a definite improvement over her past ways of dealing with those she deemed as assholes.

Rus looked as though he wished he’d gotten the reprieve, no matter what insult the Human had to offer.

“Nothing wrong with it, kid, just unusual.” She bluntly ignored Rus’s muttered ‘not a kid.’ “Don’t think we’ve ever had a grad student out here before. The spots in the rotation fill up fast and it takes more than a semester of student teaching to cover the price tag. So, either you have a sugar daddy who pulled the strings to get you here or your research is of the more black ops variety. Which is it?”

Rus smirked then, unexpectedly, and tipped his head back against her arm where it still lay across his shoulders. “you have something against sugar mamas or are you just offering?”

A pinprick of crimson flared in Undyne’s eyes. For one moment, Edge tensed, waiting for an explosion but finally Undyne threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, he’s fun.” Her next noogie was nearly fierce enough to send him face first into his plate. “You’ve got it all wrong, I could use a sugar momma of my own if you’ve got one laying around. Go ahead and eat up, fashion victim, you’re gonna need it.”

Undyne went back to her seat, lounging back in her chair, and picking at her teeth with a sharp-clawed finger. Rus blinked a couple times and then went back to his dinner. But not without giving Edge a measuring sideways glance. One that Edge returned with a raise brow bone as he chewed his own food.

The muted conversation on the other side of the table dwindled as the others left, following Undyne’s silent lead in scraping their plate into the bin marked ‘food waste’ then washing it and setting it to drain.

The sight relaxed a last bit of tension in Edge’s soul. This group seemed like they would maintain their professionalism. In the past, they had ended up with the occasional researcher who didn’t understand the concept of pulling their own weight. Thus far, this group seemed to be willing to follow the unspoken rule.

Rus follow suit but unlike the others, he hesitated at the table. “let the cook know the grub was delicious, will ya?”

“Tell her yourself in the morning,” Undyne challenged.

“oh, i will, never hurts to hear it twice.” He waggled his fingers with a grin. “so to speak. i’m still whipped, think i’ll turn in early. sleep well, undyne.” He paused and Edge didn’t think he imagined the way his voice lowered in pitch, smooth as expensive whiskey, “sleep well, boss.”

“You as well,” Edge said evenly.

He didn’t mean to watch him walking away, the hint of a sway in his hips beneath those concealing sweatpants. When the door closed behind him, Edge stood to wash his own plate but there was no escape from Undyne’s sharp whistle.

“Oh, honey, he has your number,” Undyne said, gleefully.

“He said three words to me.” Edge rinsed his plate impatiently, setting it in the drying tray with a clack.

“Yeah, but was the way he said it.” From her delight, one would think she’d gotten a chance at second Gyftmas. “Lotta sex he managed to infuse into those three words. Better make sure you take him to your quarters. You’ve got better soundproofing and I’ve got odds on him being a screamer.”

“Undyne—"

“Not too late to bet that 10g.” She glanced at Red. To the unknowing eye, he would have seemed asleep, his plate pushed to the side and his skull resting on his folded arms. “You’ve been keeping quiet all fucking night, shithead. Don’t you think your brother needs to cut himself a slice of that?”

“yeah, i don’t think so.” Surprised, Edge sat back down. He was counting on his brother joining in with Undyne’s teasing. His seriousness was entirely unexpected and potentially worrisome. “that one has trouble written on his ass, in sharpie. i think you need to keep it in your pants, boss.”

Undyne’s grin faded a little. “What’re you thinking, little boss?”

He slipped his sunglasses down, the crimson of his eye lights glaring over the rims. “i’m thinking he avoided answering your question. he never did tell you what he’s researching. they aren’t required to, trade secrets and all that shit, but usually they can’t shut up about it. so why didn’t he?”

Undyne shrugged. “So? Maybe he didn’t feel like it. You’ve never given a shit about any of their research before, anyway.”

“that was before we had another monster on the roster.” Red pulled his sunglasses off completely and Edge didn’t think his brother even knew he was rubbing a light hand over the cap on his skull. “we’re here because we are uniquely suited to months of limited sunlight and better cold tolerances than most humans. we’ve never had a monster come to do research. all i’m wondering is why now?”

“Don’t think that one is going to be able to add cold tolerance to his resume anytime soon.” More seriously, Undyne asked him, “You want me to keep an eye on him?”

“nothing obvious, but yeah.” Red ran a finger over his plate, swiping up a trace of gravy and licking it away. “boss, there’s nothing i can put a finger on, but my instincts are telling me something is strange about him being here. and that jacket of his has an embassy patch.”

“That’s true,” Edge murmured.

“The embassy?” Undyne scoffed. She slammed a fist on the table, sending silverware bouncing. “Those fuckers haven’t bothered us since they tossed us on our asses. They haven’t said so much as a fuck you to us in years. He paid his dues, he hopped the boat. doesn’t mean the Embassy has anything to do with it.

“And if they are involved in his presence here, why would he be wearing the jacket?” Edge added. He couldn’t say he agreed with his brother’s concerns, but Red had sensed strange threats in the past. It was difficult to say if this was a similar situation or paranoia.

Red could only shrug. “still doesn’t mean they don’t.

“Fair enough, little boss. But I think you’re wrong about one thing. If the big boss here gets in our fashion victim’s pants, we’ll get the info live and squirming.” She nudged Edge with a vicious elbow, and he pushed her roughly away, hard enough to knock her to the floor. She lay there cackling, one leg sprawled over the seat of her chair.

And there was the conspiring glee he’d been expecting from his brother. Red laughed, showing off sharp, gleaming teeth, “hey, she ain’t wrong, might want to rethink that plan, boss.”

“You’re both fired,” Edge grumbled. “All right, fine, keep an eye on him for a few days, Undyne. I’m going to do final rounds and then I’m hitting the sack. This was a long fucking day.”

“Could be a long night fucking if you stop by to read Ruuuuuus a bedtime story,” Undyne sang out from the floor.

Edge ignored her and his brother’s snickering, and started through his nighttime checklist. He didn’t spend a moment thinking about pale eye lights and a whiskey smooth voice, of a sleepy figure in a bed, cozied into a blanket.

It was early yet but his own bed was calling his name. His empty bed, thank you, and that was how it would remain.

~~*~~

Read Chapter Three

[supportforindieauthors]

The Anchor by Ed Lehner

“Billie, set some damned anchors,” I yelled up at her. She was high up on the near vertical granite wall, much too far above her last rope anchors for the belay rope which I was holding tightly and anxiously with my leather gloved hands. 

* * *

Billie and I had taken rented canoes to the far end of a lake in a rugged mountainous area of Montana to do some rock climbing. We could have gotten by with one but, she being the independent woman she was, had to paddle her own. She was always determined to make her own way. I had learned over the eight months we had been together to stay out of her way when she was determined to do something. 

She had heard of this place from a customer at REI in Salt Lake where we both worked. After an early start, it had taken us the better part of the first day of our five days off to drive up here, and paddle across the lake to the landing site by the place we wanted to climb. The alternative would be to have a helicopter take us in, but that was way beyond our budget. 

We off loaded and carried what we could to where we would set up camp. There were six other climbers already there, probably choppered in since we saw no other water craft. We exchanged pleasantries with them and found a spot to set our tent. We went back to the canoes and got out the cooler with food and beer for the next three days. 

* * *

I had grown up outside of Santa Fe where I roamed the desert areas from almost as soon as I could walk. I was turned on to rock climbing by one of my friends in high school and was quickly hooked. I earned a degree in education with a minor in literature at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. My goal to be a high school teacher so I would have summers off to play in the desert and rock climb. After graduation, I got a job teaching in Los Lunas, resigning after two years, being disillusioned with the educational system and not quite ready to grow up. I took a road trip that summer exploring and climbing in Colorado and Utah, eventually ending up, out of money, in Salt Lake City. My outdoor experience got me a job at REI where I met Billie. 

We got to know each other and became climbing buddies on our days off. We became close friends, then lovers. She was beautiful with her close cropped dark hair, high cheekbones, finely featured face and soft hazel eyes. She was long, lithe, and an excellent rock climber with long strong arms and legs. She was like watching a spider when she climbed. Her climbing was as beautiful to watch as she was beautiful. 

* * *

It was more and more frightening watching her do this pitch. She was now way above where she should have already set several anchors for the belay rope. Right now she was free climbing. Even though she was wearing a harness, it would do her no good if she fell. She looked in complete control, but, this was not a mapped line where she was. Two of the other climbers joined me. 

“Geez Man,” one said, “she needs to set some anchors.” She’s way beyond her last one.” 

“Yeah, I’ve been telling her,” I said, trying not to show the panic I was feeling. 

* * *

Billie was raised in Boulder, Colorado along with a younger sister and an older brother. Her parents were both rock climbers and mountaineers and had all three of his children out in the mountains at an early age. Billie took to the mountains like a duck to water, she couldn’t get enough. By the time she was in high school she already had a name for herself amongst the climbers in and around the Boulder area. 

She earned a certificate in Outdoor Recreation Leadership at Colorado Mountain College in Leadville, Colorado. After that she worked at the National Outdoor Leadership School out of Lander, Wyoming for a year, working with young adults. For whatever reason, she left NOLS, moved to Salt Lake and started working for REI. 

She was one of the toughest women I had ever met. Her mornings before work were at a nearby cross fit center. I would join her a few times a week and she always showed me up with her strength and stamina. She thought nothing of a ten run mile at five in the morning. Her goal, by her thirtieth birthday, was to solo Everest. She was now twenty-three. I had no doubts she could and would, somehow, manage to do it. At this moment, I was wondering if she would live that long. 

* * *

“Billie, dammit, set some damned anchors. You’re scaring me,” I screamed up to her. 

She yelled back down to me, “Shut up Ryan. I’ve got this. You’re making me nervous.” She reached for her next handhold. Then she stretched out her leg at an impossible angle, found purchase with her toes and swung her body another two feet upward, two feet closer to the top or, possible disaster. She had maybe ten or fifteen more feet to the summit. She now had to be over sixty feet high, her last belay anchors set maybe thirty or thirty-five feet lower. 

Another climber had joined us. “Wow, she’s amazing. That’s a really difficult route, gotta be in the 5.12 to 5.15 range. She’s gotta be one of the best climbers I’ve ever seen.” 

“Yeah, she’s good alright but I wish to hell she’d set herself some anchors.” 

“Oh crap! Yeah! Oh my god, yeah, she hasn’t. That’s no place to be free climbing. That’s a dangerous wall.” 

More panic was building in my chest. My stomach was churning. I took some deep breaths. I wanted to do something, but was helpless. It was up to her. Dammit, Billie set some dammed anchors. I was wishing her to do something. Anything. 

Two more of the climbers had gathered around me, watching, not saying anything. Just when it looked like she had it made, she reached her right hand up with those long arms, feeling around for a handhold, finding it . . . I could almost see her staring in disbelief as I watched her fall, like in 

slow motion, useless rope coiling in the air above her. She didn’t scream but I saw the look of terror in face, even from so far away, as she clawed to find purchase, but found only air. 

* * *

Billie and I were lovers, mostly on her terms. I was enamored with her. I really didn’t know about love or what it was, I only knew I wanted to be with her. I enjoyed her energy, her enthusiasm for life, and the great wild abandoned sex. 

I wanted to wanted to move in together, but she said she needed her space. I made the point that she was either at my place or I was at hers every night. Her answer was she didn’t want to commit to anything, she didn’t know much longer she was going to be in Salt Lake, she didn’t want to be tied down, she wanted her freedom; NOLS was asking her to come back; she was considering maybe applying for a position at Outward Bound and several other outdoor schools. All she talked about were all the opportunities she could have here or there or somewhere else. 

All our conversations were either in undertones or overtones, neither of us ever getting said what needed to be said. She would ignore my gestures of love. She was a free spirit. It was becoming clear that I was but a momentary blip on her radar. It hurt, but maybe that was my attraction to her, her remoteness to love and commitment, her focused drive to achieve her goals. Maybe I wanted to be like her and hoped what she had in her singularity and focus would rub off on me. In many ways I was jealous of her. 

* * *

The group around me gave an auditory gasp as they saw her plunging to the rocks below. Somehow, her rope, coiling wildly above her, snagged an outcropping of rock after she had plummeted about twenty feet. I braced myself and two other guys, seeing the same thing, quickly grabbed ahold of me and braced themselves. The slack was snapped up a moment later, almost pulling all three of us off our feet, as we watched her fall instantly stopped. The rope had held on the outcropping. Her athleticism showed as she immediately righted herself and had her feet towards the wall to stop her as she swung towards it. 

“God, I hope she’s okay. That was really a hard stop,” somebody muttered. 

“Better than the alternative,” said another. We all were watching, now with our mouths open like gaping fools, at what we had just witnessed. Nobody said anything. Every one of was hardly breathing. We saw her moving and grabbing purchase on the rock. Her next move was to grab an anchor off her belt and wedge it in to a crack and tie off. She set yet another anchor and was now doubly secured, then she set a third. Stabilized, she sat there in her harness. I could see her breathing hard, wiping her eyes. 

She called down in a shaky voice, “I need to check the rope and make sure it’s okay.” She found the downside of the rope and did a quick loop hitch in her harness to secure it and then untied it from her harness and pulled it over the out cropping letting the loose end fall. She then pulled it back up and carefully examined it. “It’s pretty frayed. I’m going to cut it and get rid of it,” she called down. 

We watched her as she found her knife and cut the frayed part off, letting it drop. She retied the rope to her harness and threaded it through her anchors. “I’m ready to come down now. With the rope safely in her anchors, I could now belay her down. 

Minutes later she was on the ground and collapsed. I was first to reach her. She was on her hands and knees, crying, shaking, retching. I took her in my arms and held her for a long time until she slowly regained her composure. 

The first thing she said was, “How could I be so stupid? I’m sorry, so sorry. I was in a zone. I didn’t want to stop. Just wanted to keep going. I thought I had it. I know better. It was a stupid, stupid, stupid asinine thing to do. I would’ve died if that rope didn’t catch. Just hold me for a minute. I want to feel alive. I just want to feel alive . . .” 

Always in control, I had never seen her so vulnerable, like a child with a badly skinned knee. I held her, gently but firmly, feeling a lump rise in my throat and tears of relief form in my own eyes. She finally stopped shaking. Then she just went limp and let me hold her. 

“Okay, I think I need a beer,” she muttered. “I need more than one plus a tequila shot or two,” I said. “You brought tequila?” That was the last thing she said. I put away our gear while she slowly sipped on a beer. I prepped some food and we ate. One of the other campers came over and asked if we wanted to join them. I looked at Billie who was now staring off with vacant eyes at the granite wall that almost took her life, and said thanks, but I think we’ll pass. He nodded his head, said good night, and left. 

She said flatly, “I’d like to get out of here tomorrow. I’m finished,” She said no more. 

“Understood. We can pack up and head back early then.” She said nothing more, never looking at me. We crawled into the tent and sleeping bags. She turned away from me and feigned sleep. 

Her night was fitful. She woke me several times calling out, “No! No! I can’t. No! I don’t want to die. I want to be alive. I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry Daddy. I don’t want to. Mommy, Mommy, I’m scared.” 

We were up at dawn. She helped pack up like a robot or a zombie, with mechanical like movements and no words. Gear and supplies loaded in the canoes, we heading back across the lake. There was a blankness about her, she was empty, her eyes were vacant, like all energy, like her very soul had been drained from her, like there was nothing left. 

When we landed, she went to the van and sat still staring, maybe in her mind at that granite wall. I returned the canoes to the rental place, loaded our gear in my van, and headed down the deserted highway bordered by foreboding dark hills. She had lost herself. And I was losing myself as I wondered for her survival and my love for her. We drove on into a gathering storm of thunder and lightening where her dreams would never be the same. 

Connect with Author

Facebook

Twitter

Website

[writeforsoreeyes]

This Month’s Reads: January

In an effort to remember more of what I read, I’ve decided to track properly this year and record my thoughts in brief. Thus, here are This Month’s Reads.

highlights: I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, The Ghost Bride, They Both Die at the End, and a lot of comics

[image description: the covers for the books listed below]

Heart of Gold vol 1 (Eli Baum & Viv Tanner) Dunant is a faith healer. Ionel is a pianist losing his sight. Every week Ionel attends Mass hoping to be cured, but Dunant turns him away. Meanwhile, a series of strange deaths casts a shadow over this gorgeously illustrated tale.

While not much especially romantic occurs, our two leads are clearly leaning on the edge of something. Ionel is intrigued by the priest, both due to his own needs and Dunant’s lonely aura. Dunant confesses his innermost doubts to Ionel inadvertently, leading to some interesting discussions of faith. Those discussions and the art’s tender beauty were the highlights for me. The pacing was slow for my tastes and some scenes felt like they could’ve been edited or cut to avoid repetition.

*

I Hear the Sunspot vol 1-3 (Yuki Fumino, translator: Stephen Kohler)/ A brash college student named Taichi meets fellow student Kouhei by chance. Kouhei’s good looks attract attention, but he feels isolated due to his hearing loss. Taichi begins taking notes for Kouhei in exchange for lunch and a slow burn romance ensues.

This is one of my favorite manga from recent years, so I always reread the previous volumes when a new one comes out. Truly, the series improves with each volume. With the expanding cast, the mangaka explores different perspectives on and experiences with deafness. Volume 3 introduces Ryu, who is Deaf and lives life quite happily without hearing-- in contrast to Kouhei, who fears losing his remaining hearing.

[image description: the covers for the books listed below]

Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) I read Little Women for the first time during a young adult literature class in college. I must confess that I remembered very little of the plot, so reading it again was like starting entirely new. I forgot how funny it can be! The moral lessons for the most part still apply today, though I disagreed somewhat with a few of them.

The most intriguing and frustrating thing for me is Jo March, who reads to me as very much queer, though what flavor is debatable. My personal interpretation (and I’ll admit that I’m projecting) is that Jo is transmasculine and somewhere on the ace spectrum. And, personally, I believe the author was some flavor of queer as well.

*

Only the Ring Finger Knows (Satoru Kannagi & Hotaru Odagiri, translator: Sachiko Sato) This month’s BL LookBack!

*

Versailles of the Dead vol 1 (Kumiko Suekane, translator: Jocelyne Allen) I know very little about French history, so I have no idea how faithful this tale is to actual events. However, I don’t think the actual Marie Antoinette was her twin brother, possibly possessed by a demon. Likewise, I’m quite certain there were no zombies rampaging France.

Usually zombie stories and historical dramas don’t interest me. But I have a weakness for crossdressing plots, despite them usually being problematic. Surprisingly, this registered fairly low on the problematic scale-- so far. And while I wasn’t exactly riveted, it was compelling enough to persuade me to preorder the second volume. I hope this receives an anime adaptation because it could be quite spooky under the right director.

*

Coyote vol 1 (Ranmaru Zariya, translator: Christine Dashiell) It took me several attempts to finish this BL because the first chapter put me off. As expected of “werewolf in heat” erotica, there’s some dubious consent issues. However, once I finally got past that first chapter, the dramatic plot lured me in.

Werewolves are half-forgotten by the general populace, but certain groups still hold a grudge against them-- including the Galland mafia family, which our human lead “Marleen” is set to take over soon despite personally having no issue with werewolves. Meanwhile, our werewolf lead Coyote accepts a job to kill the Galland heir, not realizing it’s the very man he’s fallen in love with. Overall, the story has its fair share of objectionable issues, but I’m compelled enough to keep reading for now.

[image description: the covers for the books listed below]

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer (Michelle McNamara) I think that if a person were going to only read one true crime book ever, this one would be a good pick. The actual true crime element of the book is great. The writer excels at bringing the people to life-- the victims, the cops, the witnesses, even the unknown killer. She has a real knack for adding just enough evocative detail to paint a picture without sensationalizing.

However, what I find most compelling is how thoughtfully she examines her own motivations and actions-- and thus those of the reader as well. What is it about true crime that attracts people? And how can we pick apart these real life tragedies while respecting human life?

*

The Prince and the Dressmaker (Jen Wang) Frances is a seamstress working hard for a pittance and dreaming of grander things. Her designs catch the attention of Prince Sebastian, who is in need of both a dressmaker and a secretkeeper. The two become friends, often making a splash around town with Sebastian dressed up as the glamorous Lady Crystallia. However, some secrets can’t be kept forever.

This comic has been on my to-read list for a while based solely on the cute cover and title. It was indeed cute (I especially loved the comedic off-model panels) but the story went deeper and was more rewarding than I anticipated. However, content warning for a character being outed in a humiliating manner; it’s more intense than you might expect for comic like this.

*

Life Outside the Circle (H-P Lehkonen) Artist Sami leaves big city Helsinki for remote, rural Finland. There he meets his new neighbor Juha and Juha’s young daughter Maiju. Culture shock and romance ensues.

I had the good fortune to meet the cartoonist at TCAF 2018. I enjoyed the book I picked up from him there, as well as the queer Finnish comics panel he moderated. So I figured I’d check out more of his work and he didn’t disappoint-- this comic had plenty of genuine humor, heart-warming moments, and realistic angst. I especially appreciate the blasé approach to Sami being transgender; it’s just one of his traits and while it does influence some things in the story, overall it’s not that important.

*

The Ghost Bride (Yangsze Choo) An early contender for favorite book of 2019 appears! This book has it all: romance, spooky thrills, adventures in other realms, wit, plenty of food, and an upcoming Netflix miniseries!

Our hero is Li Lan, who has attracted the unwanted romantic attention of local rich boy Lim Tian Ching. Not only is he rude and selfish, he’s also dead! As Li Lan struggles to ward off Lim Tian Ching’s invasive spirit, she becomes more and more drawn into the world of the ghosts-- as well as the secrets of the Lim family and her own. I loved all the rich detail, both for the real life historical setting and the fantasy settings. Highly recommended and I’m very excited for the TV series as well.

[image description: the covers for the books listed below]

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun vol 10 (Izumi Tsubaki, translator: Leighann Harvey) Another volume of Nozaki-kun, another plea from me for another season of the anime, please! Not to say that the manga isn’t good-- it’s great-- but this is a case of the anime being better, in my opinion.

Anyway, the rom-com misadventures of Nozaki, Chiyo, and the crew continues. Relationship development continues to be slow, which is no issue for me since that’s hardly what I’m reading for. (That said, Kashima and Hori seem like they might be on the verge of becoming a couple? Maybe?) Since I read Nozaki as aroace, I’m pleased to report that he remains as aroace-seeming as ever. Poor Chiyo, however, is crushing on him harder than before, to the extent that it’s starting to become kind of creepy.

*

The Other Dress (Emmy Engberts) This month’s transreading!

*

They Both Die at the End (Adam Silvera) I’m well aware that I’m in the minority here, but I actually enjoy reading major character death when it’s done well. “Enjoy” might be the wrong word; what I mean to say is that I appreciate the experience of being moved so powerfully by a work of fiction.

My main concern going into They Both Die at the End was that the deaths would feel cheap. After we get to know the main characters (who are young and healthy) so well and they’ve been through so much together, what kind of death could possibly feel authentic and “worth it” to the reader? I won’t spoil the end for anyone, but I thought the author came through strongly. Thoughtful and emotional with intriguing world building.

[bountyofbeads]

Federal Shutdown’s Uneven Toll: Some Americans Are Devastated, Others Oblivious https://nyti.ms/2H7Oly0

Government workers are dedicated public servants who don't want a hand out, they just want to provide for their loved ones. In Trump's mind, they're just democrats or the hired help at Mar-a-Lago, therefore expendable. The more I read their #shutdownstories the angrier I get. As a former federal /state employee I know the sacrifice they make to serve the public interest. Having to serve under Donald Trump is doubly offensive. #EndTheShutdownNow #GOPShutdown #trumpshutdown #potus #Impeach45 #impeachtheMFNow

Federal Shutdown’s Uneven Toll: Some Americans Are Devastated, Others Oblivious

By Julie Bosman, Patricia Cohen and Julie Turkewitz | Published Jan. 11, 2019 | New York Times | Posted January 11, 2019 |

ST. LOUIS — Andrea Caviedes and her friend, Ximena Gumpel, live in the St. Louis suburbs, have two children and helped plan a Christmas party together, but when it comes to the partial federal shutdown, now finishing its third week, they might as well live in different countries.

Ms. Caviedes, 42, a furloughed bilingual loan processor in the Agriculture Department’s rural development program, spent the week visiting her church’s food pantry, applying for unemployment insurance and job hunting at Walmart and Walgreens.

“It has been terrible,” said Ms. Caviedes, a single mother whose 10-year-old son is partially blind and autistic. “My rent bill is due, my electric bill is due, my water bill is due, and I have medical expenses.”

For Ms. Gumpel, 46, whose husband works at a chemical company, the shutdown is no more than a recurring segment on the nightly news. She feels for her friend, but “it hasn’t affected me at all,” she said. “You kind of push it aside and figure it will pass, that it’s just political bickering.”

After all, the schools are still open, the mail is still being delivered, the trash is still being picked up, the buses are still running and, most important, her family’s income is uninterrupted.

The shutdown’s day-to-day impact on Americans — both federal employees and the people who depend on the services they provide — shifts radically from workplace to workplace and neighbor to neighbor. On one side of the divide, the shutdown is inescapable; on the other, it is all but invisible.

Some large-scale ordeals, like a recession, are pervasive, quickly gumming up the economy’s gears and seeping into the national psyche. But the fallout from this stoppage is wildly uneven, zigzagging across communities and workplaces in unexpected ways, and fracturing Americans’ reactions to the shutdown as well as the ways they experience it.

Some reverberations depend on location. The shutdown touches one quarter of the federal government. The District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia have large concentrations of federal employees, but about four-fifths of the roughly 800,000 of them who are not being paid live and work outside the capital’s orbit. Thousands are in crowded urban areas in populous states like California, New York, Texas and Florida. Thousands more are in smaller cities and remote areas, where they often power the local economy, spending their paychecks at restaurants, gas stations, nail salons and stores.

The scattershot nature of what is funded and what is not is also varying the experience of public-sector workers and private citizens. Agencies including the Pentagon, Veterans Affairs, and Social Security are operating because of appropriations bills that already passed. Others like Homeland Security, Justice, State, Interior, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Environmental Protection, and Commerce are not.

So military bases are open, Social Security checks are going out, and G.I. benefits are being processed. But farmers affected by the tariffs are unable to apply for emergency aid; tenants who depend on federal housing subsidies to cover their rent are facing eviction; private contractors working for the federal government are not getting paid, and rural homeowners and businesses who need a mortgage extension or guarantee cannot get one.

In Boulder, Colo., where hives of researchers, engineers and scientists are variously funded by universities, private businesses, nonprofit organizations and the federal government, the effects can diverge from one desk to the next.

Depending on who is providing the cash or sponsoring the research, colleagues who normally work side-by-side have vastly different prospects like the rows of numbered steel briefcases on the game show “Deal or No Deal” that can contain a disappointing penny or a million-dollar jackpot.

Consider the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, a partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Colorado, Boulder.

The staff there falls, in essence, into three camps, explained Waleed Abdalati, the institute’s director.

Worst off are people employed directly by the federal government who cannot work and are not getting a paycheck.

Then there are those paid by the university whose income is intact but who are locked out of their federal offices and may even be temporarily cut off from their research data.

The last group comprises university professors, researchers, students and others who are unconnected with the government’s work. For them, Mr. Abdalati said, it’s: “Shutdown? What shutdown? I am not feeling anything.”

The first days of the stoppage in late December had the discouraging but familiar feel of previous short-term budgetary standoffs between the president and Congress. Many private businesses were also closed or operating with skeleton staffs through the holidays. But as the work world revved back to life after the new year and many federal offices remained dark, the ripples extended further.

Twenty-six miles from the Boulder campus is the sprawling Denver Federal Center in Lakewood with 28 agencies spread across 44 buildings. Its low-slung buildings, ringed by wire fence, were abnormally quiet this week.

Across the street, at a barbershop called Sports Clips, April Guerrero, 47, said business was way down, because so many people were now on furlough.

This has meant a pay cut of several hundred dollars for employees, who receive minimum wage and count on bonuses to pay rent. “The majority of girls this week didn’t get bonuses,” she said. “I’m trying to push it to the back of my mind, but eventually it’s going to affect all of us.”

One of the few customers that day was Lauren Kramer, 33, a furloughed microbiologist for the Food and Drug Administration, who brought her son Wade, 10, for a haircut. After Wade had climbed into the black leather barber chair, Ms. Kramer put her face in her hands, clawing nervously at her chin.

She had turned down high-paying jobs in the pharmaceutical industry for what she thought was a “stable” job with the federal government.

Now Ms. Kramer, a single mother, found herself picking up food provided through a county program, unsure of when her next paycheck would arrive. “I felt demoralized,” she said. “I felt like a lot of the efforts that I have made in my life, the hardships I have had to endure to get to where I am, was just kind of taken right out from under my feet.”

When she told her best friend, Jessica Rasmussen, 31, about her situation, Ms. Rasmussen was initially unsure what getting “furloughed” even meant. “It hasn’t affected me at all, it makes me feel terrible,” said Ms. Rasmussen, a vocal teacher who is struggling with the thought that as she considers buying her first home, her best friend is worrying about feeding her son.

The shutdown — propelled by a dispute between the president and Congress over building a border wall — is splitting the nation, she said.

“It’s very frustrating,” Ms. Rasmussen said, “that wall is going straight through the country, not between us and Mexico.”

Those divides continue to shift, blur and deepen — between friends, neighbors, family members, and co-workers — as the shutdown was expected to reach into record territory on Saturday after 21 days.

Idled workers spoke of intense stress, anger and boredom.

In St. Louis, furloughed employees at the Agriculture Department’s rural development program coped in different ways. Patricia Battle, an accountant, was keeping the thermostat down in the home she shares with her husband, a veteran; her college-age son; and her 10-year-old grandson. “I’ve been wearing layers in the house,” said Ms. Battle, who earns about $70,000 a year. “Sweaters, warm clothes and two pairs of socks.”

On Thursday evening, Ms. Battle attended a meeting of her college alumni group, whose other members, unaffected by the shutdown, were surprised to learn that she was out of work.

“When they come into the knowledge that we’re not being paid, it’s like, ‘Oh my,’” she said.

At one point, two members of the group took her aside and murmured a quiet prayer, asking God to keep her covered. “I really appreciated that,” Ms. Battle said. “It made me feel like someone had a heart.”

And Rick Willenberg, 31, who earns $41,000 a year as a loan processor for the rural development program, is worrying about how to pay his own mortgage bill. “It’s so arbitrary,” he said. He had never before applied for unemployment insurance, but when he heard President Trump say the shutdown could go on for “months or even years,” he said, “I thought I better go ahead and file.”

Both he and his older brother, Steve Willenberg — who lives in a nearby suburb with his family — were drawn to work for the government out of a sense of civic duty, nurtured by a mother who is a nurse and a father who worked for General Motors. “We live pretty identical lives,” Rick said.

Except that the Department of Veterans Affairs, where Steve works processing benefits, is funded. So while his younger brother protested the furlough outside the federal office complex in wind-whipped weather, Steve was enjoying the last day of his scheduled paid vacation in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, where he swam with dolphins and drank piña coladas by the beach.

“For the months of January and February, my department is on mandatory overtime of 20 hours a month” to correct widespread delays in benefit payments caused by computer glitches, said Steve Willenberg. “Compare that to my brother not knowing when his next paycheck is going to come.”

Correction: January 11, 2019

An earlier version of this article misidentified the Mexican resort where Steve Willenberg was on vacation. It is Playa del Carmen, not Carmen del Playa.

[cacoethess-scribendi]

TWENTY SEVENTEEN.

What a year. 

A year of growth, love, heartache, identity, learning, happiness, travel, challenges, friendship, and everything in between. 

I began the year in Colorado, celebrating the new year with the Siegerts - snowboarding at Loveland, hiking the mountains after a blizzard, and four wheeling around their yard. 

From there I returned home to enjoy more crazy nights with the babe cave and focused on school and growing my art during awkward seasonal change. I became closer with Bree and visited Jess at her pageant by my self in Onalaska. 

I was feeling a need for change and cut my hair in half on January 22nd. I did it myself and felt extremely clean, but was very nervous. I feel like doing this at the beginning of the year was a reflection of what would come with the year. Being so used to something, then taking my own scissors to it, letting go, and learning how to start fresh and learn to accept the new. 

I began to work closer with KJP as a remote intern. I was hired to do a valentines day photoshoot with Marin. We got a free night at the Charmant Hotel and my photos were admired by KJP, Jeremy, and Sarah themselves. 

Jake came to visit La Crosse for the first time. We did an escape room and I showed him around for a few days. He sent my a dozen roses and a long letter for Valentines Day. During this time I was scrambling to find a way to get out of UWL for a semester and applied to be in NSE. 

Kelsey and I had the privilege to watch Theresa Caputo live at Mystic, and it opened my eyes to heaven, loved ones, and how fragile and special life is. 

I visited TCU and met the infamous house puppy. We made home cooked meals and visited an art museum together. 

In March I took another trip to Ixtapa, my 11th time I believe, with my family, Haley, and Maya. We took amazing photos, partied on a  private boat, and the BVG staff treated us to four coconuts with hibiscus flowers. It was here that I got the shocking news that I was placed at Rhode Island College. 

After that, Jake visited again and we went north to my cabin. We played in the put-put tournament and spent time with the aunts and uncles. 

I started working on an app called Sipp and won an entrepreneurship award. I helped with marketing, strategy, and went to meetings with lawyers and owners of restaurants. I had drinks with executives and was in conversation with the marketing department of Brothers. This was a huge part of my spring semester.

Then I went to TCU again for Jake’s last SigEp formal. We dressed to the nines and partied with all of their friends. We had dinner in downtown Fort Worth in a skyscraper and drank lots of drinks. This was an absolute blast. 

Finally spring rolled around and I turned 21! Finally! After a year of having to be cautious, I could finally go out downtown. I had the biggest surprise of my life that day, when Jake walked into my party and gave me the biggest hug. I still can’t believe that happened. Haley chauffeured him down and we got a short 20 hours together. 

Immediately after my last final, I flew to TCU to spend the weekend with the Siegerts and watch Jake graduate. It was a very exciting weekend with so much joy. We spent time with Yvonne and her kids, and partied the celebration away at the local bars. Dick and Lisa took us out to an insanely expensive dinner and we laughed and did high-low-ha’s around the table. 

From there, Jake and I drove all of his belongings up through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and into Nebraska. We were greeted at the lake house with an incredible sunset and a new boat to take a cruise on. After bike rides and lots of cards, we drove through Iowa into Minnesota to spend time with my family. We took a tour of Summit Brewery and Jake met my hometown friends at the speakeasy. We took photos together with Whitley and went to a Twins game. It was amazing. Little did I know that this would be the last time I saw him. 

Over Memorial weekend I went to the cabin for one last piece of MN before I took off onto the biggest adventure of my life thus far. 

Rhode Island. 

I’m still not sure how to put all of this and my emotions into words, but here’s my best shot. I arrived at the airport alone with my things and got picked up by Jeremy. We immediately drove to Massachusetts to check up on the sweaters they were about to launch. I went to the factory and met Kiel, Sarah, and Dave, and then was sent to my hotel room in downtown Providence. I had no idea what was going on. 

The next day I found myself on the southern coast of Rhode Island with my feet in the sand, saying a big hello to the Atlantic ocean. The beach was empty and I walked around for a bit. This was the day I met Sophie and us three bonded over how much we despised the landlord of our new home. 

We moved in and for the week I drove to the factory in Jeremy’s station wagon Mercedes. I got the feeling for URI, Narragansett, and hung out with Taylor Pennell. This is when I met Newport. I explored around Jamestown by myself and instantly fell in love with Beavertail State Park. I took a weekend trip home to shoot a beautiful wedding in Duluth. Jake and I began having distance issues at this point because we didn’t know when we would see each other next. Jake was beginning a new 60 hour/wk job, and I couldn’t leave on weekends due to KJP events. 

I was so excited to return to RI, where I spent time building the new store, starting to be a part of photoshoots and then met Merle. That weekend I had the privilege to meet Cape Cod with the KJP crew. They threw a huge party with the Keel Vodka people and I finally got to show off my skills. We ate oysters, drank way too much champagne and ran around the hotel like kids. Kiel treated us to sushi and took us bar hopping. It was insane, in the best way. On this trip we met Abbey and Windsor, two bloggers from Boston that invited us to visit. 

Made it to Boston. It was a quick day trip, but they were determined to give us the best experience. Dave and I went with Charlie and his girlfriend Katie. We walked around the entire city, took the subway just to say we did it, made it to little italy and got to see all of the historic sites. SUCH a cool city. Ended the trip there with a sunset on a pier overlooking the skyline. 

A few days later I walked in the house to see two people that I’d only known from photos and texts for the last two years. Erick Dent and Jacob True. I had no idea how much these people were about to change my perspective on living. I walked in the door and was immediately shocked at how tall Erick was when he gave me a hug, I had the absolute biggest smile on my face. I remember shaking because this day had been talked about for so many years and it was finally happening. It’s a very unique feeling to have known someone for so long, and then finally meet in person and see them in your living room. Starstruck is my best way to explain it. We had dinner at my favorite restaurant in town, The Coast Guard House. There was an incredible sunset, we ate right on the water with the salty air, and watched a baby whale play in the bay. 

From there, we woke up at sunrise to capture the morning rising over the Atlantic. We all sat at the Point Judith cliff, waved hello to the sun, and took lots of photos. From there we walked out on the Jetty’s and watched Erick fly fish and catch one! Days from here consisted of several trips to Newport, where we would eat meals at The Landing and get Daiquiris. The first day we all ordered one, we were crying laughing because we were drunk off life and some pink smoothies. It was so. much. fun. 

Our group took the old cars to Second Beach in Newport where we got to hang out at the Newport Film Festival for the first time. Kiel had a sponsored post for Land Shark, and they were just starting to release their “Newport” crewnecks so we spent a lot of time on the beach shooting. Sarah was pregnant so she sat back in the cars with Sophie, Jeremy, and Merle. Once the sun started to set and the documentary (Under An Arctic Sky by Chris Burkard) was about to begin, Erick pulled me aside and motioned towards the beach. The two of us ran barefoot out to the beach, where it was empty except for a few lifeguard chairs. It was our first real second alone together and it was such a fun time to catch up and finally get to shoot together after so many years. We ran up to the lifeguard stand and took photos with the sunset and he let me wear his hat. I remember my jaw dropping and being so excited because nobody had taken such cool photos of me before. It was one of my favorite moments of the summer. 

The next day we all went out to shoot a bit, watched some more fly fishing, and we found crabs all over the rocks! We picked them up and took fun photos and videos with them. We took more trips to Point Judith for sunsets and Crazy Burger runs with Dave’s friend Charlie Turchetta. One day we went out of our way to take photos of the KJP bracelets because we knew it would make Kiel happy. We searched all over for fun props to use, but we couldn’t find anything. Jacob and I walked with our heads down back to Erick on the rocks, where he stood with live starfish in his hand. We flipped. Well, I flipped. We ended up finding at least 15 of them and got the most fun photos ever. I could feel them all moving on my legs, and I was at an all time high. 

The Eno’s were set up from the tree to the car almost every day when we got home. All of the roommates would sit outside, telling stories, editing, listening to music, drinking, and swinging. We spent so much time soaking up our little Fortin yard, I will never take that place for granted. It gave us so many conversations, laughs, and “little” moments. 

Somewhere in here, Erick broke up with Olivia and we sat out on the rocks in front of the coast guard house several nights in a row for HOURS just talking about anything and everything. It was so peaceful. We watched tides rise and fall. 

The day before Dave’s birthday, we got to take Kiel and Sarah’s spots at the Oliver Hazard Perry Newport Owners event. We had a strict dress code, and walked up to a booth where our names were on the list. Immediately after arrival we were greeted with pear champagne and lots of old rich people. Needless to say, we were way out of place. But damn was that one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. This was the day I found out Erick liked me. We had a wonderful dinner as a band played for all of us. We were a little past tipsy at this point and all began to dance. I taught Erick how to dance and it was such a blast. We sat down at a high top to take a breather and an older woman walked up to us, looks at Erick, and says “You’re a lucky guy.”

On Dave’s birthday, Erick bought us all tickets to go to Block Island. We woke up early, and rented mopeds as we arrived to the island. We drove them all over with the wind blowing in our hair and the bright green bluffs surrounding us. We stopped at all the local beaches, and then biked to the final bluffs. Wow, was that a view. The stairway to the ocean left me speechless. We walked all along the rocky beach and just enjoyed each other’s company. We ended the day with Coldstone and a trip to the local bar. 

A few days before the 4th, we watched fireworks with thousands of other people off the Jamestown bay with the Newport bridge lit up in the background and a massive American flag blowing in the wind. The real 4th was spent first at Carlton’s lake, wake boarding and taking a dip in the water. From there we all went to Kiel’s and had a huge float party, lit fireworks off the dock, drank with friends, and I said cheers to the first month of my summer in RI. 

I spent July at home with my family, shooting weddings and seniors back to back to make some extra money. My 420 roommates visited MN for a day and I got to enjoy a lunch with them at Starks. I saw Bree again, and spent more time at the cabin with my family singing and dancing our asses off at birdies. 

At the end of July, I picked Erick and Jacob up from the MSP airport so they could help me shoot a wedding. We took a quick stop at the cabin to shoot some Great Lakes swimsuits at the mine pits. From there we made the long road trip back to RI. 

It started in La Crosse, where the boys met the girls and we took some photos at granddads. We then drove to Chicago and spent a night there. Most of the time was spent walking around admiring the city and shooting. The next day we drove 13 hours straight back to Rhode Island and tried not to go crazy in the car.