#So basically my medical problems are still unsolved

[merlino-anais]

ooc post

Its been a hot minute, and it will probably continue to be because,,, god damn.

A lot has happened these last few months and I'm still in the thick of it. BASICALLY, I can't focus on this right now.

Anyways, doing this is fun and hopefully I can come back when life stops shitting on me

Aaand I'm disappearing again. Stay safe nerds💙

[hogoflight]

on the topic of people wondering What The Fuck Is Up with This Guy my friend knows (TOA Apollo), Asclepius having to explain his father to anyone is. Oh boy.

You could say Asclepius lives on Earth / visits Earth much more than he does Olympus because his domain is completely and wholly centred around serving people and helping medical research come through. Additionally because he still finds Olympus and all of its posturing jarring, and maybe finds comfort in helping people like he used to and has done since ancient times.

THIS COULD ALSO MEAN that he has. Mortal friends. Which also means he’s had to have told them about his dad at some point.

Asclepius’s friend: How come we haven’t met your dad yet? Is he a prick? Asclepius: NO, no, my father was and is very kind and gentle to me, the problem is more that he can be rather… a bit much. He sometimes tends to be very… protective (VERY protective) of me (As in, the police get called). The problem is more that he can get a bit. Uppity? sometimes? He’s certainly been… cruel. More than his, or anyone’s, fair share of cruelty. But he’s improving? Asclepius’s friend: Oh wow. That sounds really complicated. Well what about your mother? Asclepius: WELL. YOU SEE. AH. OH GODS UHHHHHH-

They would make a conspiracy board for him being a gang leader (or something)! Because:

Had Asclepius’ mother killed (?!?! THAT’S HORRIBLE WHAT!)

Expressed deep, deep regrets and remorse about having Asclepius’ mother killed in a very “I was young, foolish and failed to think of anyone other than myself… I have worked with violence for a long, long time and have made many horrible, cruel decisions… I fear I am too long gone… but I wish to work with myself to be a better person, for my son whom I love dearly…” kind of way (in a mafia movie way).

Asclepius says he is in exile from his supposedly-infamously murderous family because they tried to kill him (and succeeded but SHHHHHH). And the one to order his death being his grandfather. Because he (vague conclusion through Asclepius being vague about his life) didn’t want someone to die -> didn’t want to kill someone? (“The pipeline is there!!” They say.)

Apollo going “ah yes I too share a great interest in medicine, like my dear son! Although my son is (proudly!) better at so than I am. Well, admittedly, I can sometimes tend to be, less focused on - y’know, helping someone injuries hurt less, you could say.” LIKE THAT’S VERY SUSPICIOUS.

(Ok but don’t worry Asclepius’ friends aren’t actually concerned about his dad being a mafia member at all because that would be actually Awful and Terrifying. This is an inside joke after Asclepius awkwardly explained his complicated relationship w his dad his friend was jokingly like “woah… that sounds like the backstory of a main character from a mafia movie…” and Apollo heard about his from the grapevine and immediately summoned like 20 identical cats for him to intimidatingly stroke. 

The tone of the last section is making a fake BuzzFeed Unsolved / general conspiracy theory video w your friends about one of your friends. No one ever feels like they are in any danger and I imagine most probably know who and what Asclepius and Apollo actually are but tease them with this. BASICALLY THE JOKE IS THAT THEY’RE MAKING FUN OF MAFIA MOVIE STEREOTYPES AND THE WAY THE MAFIA IS DEPICTED IN MOVIES. WHICH IS VERY ROMANTICISED, OVERDRAMATIC AND SILLY.)

[missmastectomy]

Hey, detrans woman here. I'm a little down right now and don't have someone to talk about my issue. If you don't wanna read this or answer it's okay. I don't want to trigger you.

Sooo... my issue right now is that I want to have "my body" back? I went under hormone therapy and of course my voice got deeper, i got an showing Adam's apple, more body hair etc. And I was very happy when this happened, like I finally was myself and I could live more happy now and would be more confident. I was kinda right because for some time it was like this but after some years I recognized I was running from something. At first I didn't knew what it was but the more time passed the more I realized it was a lot of unsolved trauma and not the right help. Neither from my family nor from doctors but I don't blame them. My family didn't knew it better and they just tried their best. The doctors actually didn't really focused on the topic and just gave me hormones asap. But still I would say they didn't knew it better? Sometimes I think that's just what I want to think and the truth may seem be more egoistic. I got operations like "a higher voice", "a smaller Adam's apple" and even a region I don't wanna talk about. I got these operations because I wanted to get "my old body" back. Like how my body would have been of I hadn't take these hormones but it still doesn't feel right... I'm okay with the body hair because if it does annoy me or let me feel down I can shave it but now my boobs are the problem? It's confusing because I never wanted to have them and wanted 110% a mastectomy but know I'm like "if I hadn't took those hormones they would have grown a little more" and I actually like that my boobs are small and I don't want them to be bigger or get surgery to match beauty standards. I'm just sad that I'll never know how they would look if I never had the hormones and it's feeling like a part of myself I never get to know. It was almost the same with my voice but that one was more triggering and it still does because my voice is higher but clearly not what it would've sounded and I'm just sad that I never get to see my body how it was meant to be. I just feel like someone who has messed up their body...

If you're still here. Thank you for reading and have a wonderful time <3

Hey anon, not triggered at all. I do not mind getting these kinds of asks or detrans questions in general.

I have a similar experience with my body. I will not ever know what my body would have looked like as an adult because I transitioned as an adolescent. It is a frustrating and quite frankly sad process to go through, but ultimately it's just one of those "unknowns" that we have to live with and make peace with.

Our ideal body image changes so much as we age. I think it's very understandable that you wanted no breasts, especially since it sounds like you transitioned young. This is a time where a lot of girls are struggling and often want to hmm. desex ourselves in a way. It's hard enough becoming an adult, but arguably often more difficult for girls because of the sexualization aspect of it all.

Not sure if you're looking for advice or venting, but I am helped by this by remembering that there is nothing I can do to get my old body back. What's done is done and there's no use crying over spilled milk, as they say. But the grief is understandable and it's important to let yourself feel it. Allowing yourself to heal and forgiving yourself for past mistakes, or your parents' mistakes even, helps a lot.

As for these doctors, I know what you mean when you say you don't want to blame them. Many are well-meaning, but honestly? The onus is absolutely on them. These are professionals who ignored basic medical and moral principles when working with you as a child. They absolutely SHOULD have known better. I've said it before and I'll say it again - no matter the intent, these doctors are still doing immeasurable harm to an entire generation of young people, because they got swept up in this ideology or they are too afraid to question their patients. We must hold them to a higher standard.

You say they gave you hormones ASAP. With any other problem, a doctor that rushes through the medical process for the sake of validating a patient's diagnoses without the proper screening would be condemned by the medical community. Rightfully so. It is up to you to determine whether you want to forgive them or not, but know that you don't need to. It is OK to be angry at professionals with poor judgement that culminated in a traumatic experience for you. I have seen many detrans people (women especially) do this. Because someone wasn't malicious, we try to excuse their actions. But there is no excuse for this level of reckless malpractice.

I hope you are doing well and continue to heal <3

[biblioflyer]

Harm reduction or abdication? Balancing power, care, and autonomy in Picard's Federation.

The series presentation of mental health as an unsolved problem and the way it uses characters with questionable mental health within the narrative has provoked a lot of consternation and even backlash. The role of mental health in the narrative is something I discussed previously.

I'm picking back up on that theme to discuss and perhaps over analyze what the Federation's treatment of people with mental illness tells us about its relationship to the individual and to individual freedoms. Implied too is that the Federation of Picard is a place where straight forward solutions to ethical dilemmas we are grappling with today have not been found.

This is part of a series of essays reevaluating Star Trek Picard and interrogating the widely held fandom criticism that Picard made the Federation into a Dystopia.

Balancing Harm Reduction and Overreach: 

What do Raffi and Yvette Picard tell us about the Federation and how it understands the relationship of the state to the individual?

As I made a note of discussing the Federation and mental health, Raffi lives alone in a national park and is free to take recreational drugs and be depressed as long as she doesn’t make a nuisance of herself. 

When I say she is “free to” I don’t mean that sarcastically either. I also want to be extremely mindful of over emphasizing Raffi’s condition circa season one or be guilty of trivializing the impact it has had on her life. I am mindful of my own position in this as someone outside of the narrative, attempting to analyze a fictional character, with no special training, and even if I did have special training: I am someone who firmly believes in the Goldwater Rule. So take all of this with a medically inadvisable amount of sodium.

The freedom to be angry, depressed, and even self destructive, within reasonable limits, and not have someone drag you off to treatment against your will or make you contribute to society according to someone else’s rubric is a kind of freedom. In ethics and political science, this is often referred to as negative freedom or freedom from. As in freedom from someone else defining your ideal cognition or approach to life.

Raffi’s situation before Picard shows up with his bottle of wine and seduces her with stories of Romulan death squads represents freedom from material want. That’s the post scarcity promised by the techno utopian aspects of the setting, presuming we are humane enough to be happy with equitably shared abundance instead of still seeing a need to hoard and make people jump through hoops to prove their worthiness to exist.

Raffi’s state of affairs as of when we meet her in the present can be read one of two ways depending on your feelings about a number of thorny questions. Maybe it's the state failing her and refusing to take responsibility for her. If you are primarily viewing modern culture in terms of its abdications, this is a very natural lens to see through. 

The alternative viewpoint is that it's the state exercising restraint and choosing to set a high bar for denying a citizen her right to autonomy. Raffi may or may not have the capacity to coolly judge the benefits and consequences of treatment in actuality but, from the perspective of the Federation, the presentation of her symptoms is not sufficient for the Federation to make that choice for her. I want to be clear that I am well aware this sort of argument is routinely used to pretend that the denial of basic necessities of life and dignity by the state or a free market is a freedom from unions, state dependency, or any number of "freedoms from" that I regard as disingenuous.

I don’t bring this up to be flippant and to dunk on whichever ideological label you’d like to associate with each side of that argument or whichever side you think makes the weakest case. I avoided labels in the effort to have this part of the conversation taken more seriously. 

When a person can be deemed to be no longer capable of making decisions for themselves is among the most important questions a society can ask itself.

Erring on the side of autonomy risks needless suffering, even danger: hence the arguments in favor of red flag laws. Indeed, (season two spoiler) Yvette Picard may have lived had she been subjected to a mandatory mental health screening and treatment. 

Although this assumes the Federation has effective mental health treatments that don’t require a consenting patient. Given the emphasis on talk therapy in TNG and DS9, the Federation seems to prefer adaptation and accommodation over medical intervention. Which in turn implies that the brain is a tricksy thing to work with, even in the 24th century.

Erring on the side of safety and the elimination of suffering risks pathologizing people who are suffering from being a poor fit for their environment or the mislabeling of disruptive people to make them conform.

Treating people who struggle to conform as if they have a mental health problem was done previously to women who were unhappy with their assigned social roles, queer people who suffered from being unable to lawfully and emotionally accept the dictates of their natures, and is now the preferred way of addressing children who do not conform to their birth assigned gender in many parts of the United States, including where this author lives.

When mental / emotional suffering is because of circumstance not nature, a society that has no place for people who need a different set of norms may act to correct that suffering in a fashion that enacts a terrible price.

[cursed-tm]

i’ve probably made this comparison before but it does feel quite similar to me to like chronic (physical) illness or to certain aspects of mental illness in the sense that like. okay so when i was a kid i had like a fantasy that the 24/7 headache i had (still have, happy twelfth birthday to my headache) would at some point turn into brain cancer or something, which i believed would either kill me or be cured and i wouldn’t have a headache anymore. not necessarily how cancer works, but that’s not really the point. but i at some point learned that actually my headache is related to like. the bones in my spine/neck being fucked up and putting pressure on my nerves, which means that there is actually nothing that can be done about it and i’ll just have that pain until i’m dead. materially not that much changed but like emotionally my understanding of the possibilities of the future and my self were completely altered because like. being able to name the problem really only certified that it’s an unsolvable problem. and being trans is the same way there like. isn’t some future me that’s very cool and at ease with (insert pronoun here) body because the problem is not so much my internal self as it is like. society and the world at large and like the basic facts of matter lmao. like i could take hormones or get surgeries or whatever but that would like not really stop the like misery of gendering nor would it really change me ykwim. like you still have depression even if you’re on antidepressants. like i really don’t think that going on hrt would help me that much because like. okay 1.) looking like a cis man or cis anything is not really my goal and it’s dumb to pursue a goal you don’t care about 2.) i don’t really think id land at man anyway i think id land at strange and off putting which is not useful at all 3.) i hate med routines of all kinds and would be mad about it constantly, as i was when i used to take a lot of meds 4.) i would have to argue about it constantly with everyone in my life now and everyone i meet in the future and like why bother frankly 5.) i think having to constantly reaffirm my gender performance to a bunch of dubious medical parole would make me far more uncomfortable than anything else possibly could

the trans issue does feel like such a dead end honestly like it’s kind of at a point where i’ve accepted that this discomfort is just going to be part of my life forever but like with that is the understanding that there’s not really anything i can do about it like before i had an understanding that the gender aspect was such a big issue for me there was i think a kind of vague hope that the like discomfort with existence would ease somehow and now it’s just. idk there’s always a lot of focus on being able to name your problems but if you figure out that your problem is something that cannot actually be solved in reality it’s like okay. what the fuck now

[doctorfiction]

Hi! I have a character that is shot in the head by assassins and ends up permanently blind, but without any other brain damage. As currently is, the bullet goes through the optic nerves - but is this realistic? Is there enough room between the optic nerves and the frontal lobe for a bullet to pass through? Or would it make more sense for the bullet to go somewhere else, like the occipital lobe? Thanks!

Hi! I have a character that is shot in the head by assassins and ends up permanently blind, but without any other brain damage. As currently is, the bullet goes through the optic nerves-but is this realistic? Is there enough room between the optic nerves and the frontal lobes for a bullet to pass through? Or would it make more sense for the bullet to go somewhere else, like the occipital lobe? Thanks!

This is a fantastic question and shows a good basic grasp of neuroanatomy. While a gunshot to one of the optic nerves would result in partial blindness, it would also most probably result in death, or at the very least, a devastating loss of cognitive function. Rendering the victim totally blind would require a second assault on the other optic nerve. The sum total of these combined injuries would be death or at the least a persistent vegetative stage with no conscious brain function.  Occipital lobe injury is a more plausible scenario. Even so, it’s still a very densely populated building with some very sensitive neighbors.

We will approach this dilemma in our usual manner: a minimal number of needed terms, simplified anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology with a drawing to answer your question and a twist that you might find useful in your story.

PROBLEM:

An assassin’s bullet renders a character blind but otherwise sensate with minimal to nil collateral sequelae.

SOLUTION:

What you are looking for is cortical blindness. I am going to give you a plausible scheme for this and present a related condition called blindsight that you may find applicable to your protagonist.

TERMS:

Sight: The special sense by which the color, shape, position and form of objects is perceived when the light from those objects strike the retina.

Blind: Unable to see, lacking the sense of sight.

Cortical Blindness: Loss of vision with an undamaged eye due to injury to the Occipital Cortex.

Blindsight: The ability of individuals with blindness to detect and respond to visual stimuli despite lacking awareness of having seen anything.

Occipital Cortex: Paired region of the brain divided by a sulcus (a narrow tract separating organs). It is located in the posterior and inferior aspect of the brain and takes its name from the nearby occipital bone. It is the site of Visual 1.

ANATOMY, PHYSIOLOGY, and PATHOPHYSIOLOGY

A brief (as humanly possible) explanation of vision as it applies to your scenario; Use this in conjunction with the Illustrations for a walkthrough of the pathways for sight and blindsight.

Retina: Located at the “back” of the eye, this structure creates 2D image and converts it into electrical impulses to be transmitted to Visual 1 in the Occipital Cortex for processing. The receptors include Rods for light-sensing and gray-scale imaging and Cones for the perception of color. This organ then compresses the data to allow transfer along the limited capacity of the Optic Nerve.

Optic Nerves: Known as Cranial Nerve II (CNII), they carry monocular (one -sided) input from the Retina of each eye to the Optic Chiasm where they are converted to binocular signals.

Superior Colliculus: Paired structures in the midbrain that receive input from the optic nerve. Loosely, they allow the cortically blind to perceive and react to movement even though they cannot “see” it in the conventional sense.

Optic Chiasm: The X-shaped area where the Optic Nerves cross and combine the images from both eyes allowing for binocular and stereoscopic vision.

Optic Tracts: These continuations of the Optic Nerves carry information from both left and right eyes from the Optic Chiasm to the LGN.

Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN): One of the nine nuclei the visual inputs pass through on their way to Visual 1; this nucleus is the major relay center for impulses to Visual 1.

Optical Radiations: The sorted fibers from the LGN represent the final transmission pathway to Visual 1.

Visual 1 (V1): Located along the Calcarine Fissure, this structure is the primary processing center for visual data associated with basic sight perception.

Calcarine Fissure: Narrow openings along the medial aspects of the paired Occipital Cortices where the Optical Radiations from the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus link to Visual 1.

SIGNIFICANCE:

So, the take home is this: To result in complete cortical blindness, an injury occurring prior to Visual 1 would need to be penetrating and duplicated on the contra lateral (opposite side.) Due to the other critical structures in this area, the result of the direct contact and “shock wave” of the penetrating missile (bullet) would be gross deformity, loss of cognitive and midbrain function and at best, survival on a respirator.

The only plausible scenario for a single insult resulting in bilateral cortical blindness without gross deformity and loss of cognitive and motor function would be a midline non-penetrating or minimally penetrating injury to the posterior occiput bone.

PATHOPHYSIOLOGY:

A gunshot anywhere along the described pathway will result in a visual defect, but only one spot will cause total Cortical Blindness while preserving the appearance of the eye and giving a chance to avoid catastrophic collateral damage or death.

Both Eyes: This would indeed result in total blindness but would grossly disfigure both eyes and  almost certainly be fatal.

Optic Nerve through the Optic Radiation: To cause total Cortical Blindness would require a shot on both sides and would pass through the Frontal and or Parietal Lobes. Damage would again be catastrophic with a near one-hundred percent certainty of death.

SOLUTION:

The only real possibility would be a single shot through the center of the Posterior Occiput. If the bullet were small bore (22/25 ACP) and round nose, (take a look at my previous post on the effects of different size bullets) there is the possibility that the bullet would not penetrate the occipital bone, but rather the shock wave would shatter the occiput and drive fragments through the narrow sulcus to the Calcarine Fissures bilaterally and result in total Cortical Blindness with little collateral damage.

This is a “long-shot” (excuse the pun,) but it is the most viable scenario and there are anecdotal accounts of precisely this mechanism and outcome.

Fictional Applications:

The fact that this injury leaves all of the “upstream” transmission, integration, and coding intact  allows for some interesting story applications:

Blindsight:

The protagonist is able to “see” things that others cannot:

The protagonist cannot see what’s in front of them …

 . . . but now has the ability to “see” events that are occurring elsewhere. These could be events happening now, events that are about to happen, or “cold case” events that have gone unsolved.

This provides a ready-made opportunity for introspection and character arc:

           Egocentric — Altruistic (Dr Strange)

           Bully — Protector (Pretty Woman))

           If you need a Superhero:

           Powerless — Powerful (Spiderman)

           Or if you need a Supervillain:

           Meek — Aggressor (Megamind)

 Consider the possibilities with a smashing title such as 2020 Blindsight, or Visual 1.

doctorfiction

The Doctor is In

“When to call me: you’ve been stabbed, shot, poisoned, separated from an appendage, knocked or beaten unconscious, run over by a tractor mower, or generally about to bleed to death. Otherwise, leave me alone.”  

— Aurelius Hogue MD, Doc Hollywood, 1991

Welcome. This blog belongs to a long time MD, a short time MFA. Doctor by profession, novelist by habit.

What I do on this blog: Every week, I’ll design infections, injuries, psychoses and neuroses for your fictional characters. You tell me the effect you want and I’ll tell you how they get there. Think of it as medical care in reverse.

What I don’t do on this blog: I do not diagnose or treat your real life infections, injuries, or psychiatric conditions. I do not help you undertake real-life nefarious pursuits. This advice is meant to be taken only in the spirit it is intended: helping bad things happen to good characters, fact meeting fiction.

Ground Rules: My ask box is always open, but the Doctor is only in once a week. Please keep your novel’s specifics out of your message. No character names, keep the scenarios general — we want it to be useful for more than one writer, if we can. Please do provide age and sex and any pertinent pre-existing conditions. I don’t need to see your character’s insurance card.

What is your chief complaint?

The Doctor is in.

— The Doctor

[shewantedtobeasecretgirl]

11. The Lovecats a.k.a an irresistible offer, a guy in proper clothes and a dangerous ginger

In the previous chapters: Effie gives a few pictures taken by her to Krisha who promises to show them to Kelly Curtis but Effie rushes away in the middle of the conversation to avert a date crisis between Judy and Jeff . After Mike’s awkward one-night-stand and the embarrassing intermezzo between Judy and Stone in the shower (that might have been seen by someone else too), the bunch is gathering at breakfast time in a bistro near the motel. Their exchange gets interrupted by Eric who has bad news for them.

 „Guys, we have a problem.”

Ugh… if I was a road manager and the band I’m managing had a show tonight and the lead singer had lost his voice due to his uncontrolled yelling, maybe I’d call it a problem. But I’m a lead singer of a band that is supposed to play a show tonight who lost his voice due to his uncontrolled yelling so I just call it an as fucked-up dumpster fire as possible.

I can barely understand the reactions since everyone in the bunch is desperately shouting at us.

“Has Karrie disappeared?”

“Did Suns defeat Sonics? I knew it!”

“Is the Twelfth Amendment coming into effect again?”

“We’re out of weed?”

Yeah, preferences.

“Hey, everyone, calm the fuck down!” Eric tries to talk them down. “It’s about the show tonight. We… we probably have to cancel it.”

“What? Why? No way!” the cacophony goes on and it only stops when Eric shuts them up with a loud whistle using his fingers.

“Should I explain calm or fuck or down?” he asks annoyed. “The thing is… Ed has lost his voice. He’s not even able to speak.”

“But… how?” Stone stares at us with clueless face. Such a smart guy and such a stupid question.

“He obviously forgot it in a public restroom and by the time he went back, it was already gone. Jesus.” Judy rolls her eyes playing with her fork. Thanks Judy, that’s what I was thinking about, now that you’ve translated it into Sarcasm, Stone might understand too.

“Actually, he accidentally flushed it down the toilet. In case you need to know the exact details to process it, Stoney.” Beth supports her with an audacious grin.

“No problem, we send Jeff down in the canal, I’m sure he’ll find it.”

“I’m able to deal with any shit except yours, Stone.” Jeff retorts, getting a snort from Judy as a reward.

“If I was you, I wouldn’t be so proud of that…”

“Seriously, what happened?” Mike cuts the forming exchange off.

“He was complaining about having a sore throat already yesterday evening too… he was working on a few lyrics but he felt tired and fell asleep relatively early and by this morning… nothing, he can only whisper, I’m afraid…”

“NO!!!” Judy interrupts her and blushes in a second since suddenly, all eyes are fixed on her. “I mean he mustn’t whisper, that’s the worst he can do.”

He? Hey, I lost my voice, not my hearing or my mind.

“It kills vocal cords, which can even lead to neck pains, I’m speaking from experience.”

“Really?” Eric frowns in disbelief.

“He has probably laryngitis. I mean, I’m not sure, he should see an otorhinolaryngologist for an exact diagnose but it’s very likely. It’s mostly viral or bacterial but extreme overburdening doesn’t help either… and extreme overburdening is a pretty euphemistic description for what you’re doing every night, sorry Ed but someone has to finally say it.” she addresses me but my only answer is a helpless shrug. I’m sure I do something wrong but I was procrastinating to face my limits until now and… here’s the result.

“And now she’s already a doctor too. And she completed the medical program in one single night, remarkable.”

“Shut up Stone.” Eric interjects not taking his eyes off of Judy.

“And how long is the regeneration period?” Beth asks, digging her face into my shoulder, which makes me reach for her neck instinctively. She rubs her cheek against my back like a lazy cat as she’s enjoying the improvised massage.

“Well, he shouldn’t speak for a few days but singing is another case, maybe one month…” My hand stops.

“What?” Beth screams right into my ear as her head perks up. Okay, so much for my hearing.

“It depends but usually after a laryngitis, you win back your singing voice note by note, beginning from the nether region.”

“Whoa, Camden, you’re getting naughtier and naughtier…”

“Spirits sometimes help…”

“That’s what I’m telling you all the time!” Mike hits the table with his fist.

“… but it’s only symptomatic treatment, if it’s bacterial, antibiotics are the ultimate solution. And… although I definitely do not support anything that kills throat but I know that singers often get a Calcium shot if they have to perform when having voice problems. So... that would maybe help shorten the silence phase.” Judy explains unwillingly.

“So… let’s summarize what you’re suggesting: we bring Ed to an expert, convince the doctor to give him a Calcium shot and swear he won’t sing for a month… and we cancel the show tonight… and then... we’ll see?” Eric looks at Judy for reassurance.

“Kind of… but I have serious doubts if he can let any note out this week. But are you sure the show must be canceled? I mean, what if someone else sang? Stone? You like singing, don’t you?”

Judy, you have a huge luck that I’m not able to ask publicly why you know about that.

“Jesus, no, I’m not a singer.”

“Aren’t you?” she provokes him raising one eyebrow.

“Nah. Plus, I can’t sing while I’m playing the guitar, I’ve already tried it but every time I try sing, I fuck the riffs up.”

“And he cusses every time he talks. He’d be lynched by the crowd in like ten seconds.” Jeff adds. “Anyway, I’m the other one who sings the backup vocals, maybe I…”

“NO WAY!” everybody protests in unison.

“Okay, okay, it was just an idea…”

“A very bad idea. We would end up playing odes about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, geez…”

Actually, why would it be that bad? He’s like a childhood hero to me. Plus, Stone wouldn’t be a better choice either, our crowd isn’t prepared for a rock cover of The Lumberjack Song.

“No, we have no other choice.”

“Maybe…”

“I SAID NO WHISPERING!” Judy nips my attempt to join the conversation in the bud. I reach in the chest pocket of my shirt because I think this is the right moment to use my latest invention. Beth immediately gets it and jumps in the middle.

“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, I’m Beth Liebling, your favorite hostess and when I say favorite, I mean it.” she emphasizes the ongoing pun about the meaning of her last name with exaggerated winks. “Many of us have certainly experienced sore throat when swallowing or coughing is extremely painful and speaking seems to be impossible. The lack of communication makes us feel isolated and if we’re surrounded with sarcastic people, unsolved conflicts may result in anger issues.”

“I’m not angry at all, everything’s fine.” Stone smirks.

“But as always, we offer you a solution to tackle these difficulties and to present this incredible product, I ask my handsome partner, Edward for some help.” she pulls me next to herself by the sleeve of my shirt. I put on my dumbest smile and wait for the cue.

“Interaction cards!” she announces with pretended enthusiasm and glances at me. I lift the deck in my hand to eye level and show it around, still with the tooth-flashing fake smile.

“They make possible to maintain basic communication with the simplest messages.”

I present the first two cards with the words “yes” and “no”.

“Give me the “no”, I’ll buy it.” Stone grabs for it. I should have known.

“They also make us capable of expressing our current feelings.”

I spread out the next cards saying “shit”, “damn”, “fuck” and “I love you”.

“Aww. Give me that one!” Mike reaches out for the latter.

“Some of them declare basic axioms…” I wave with the “Pete Townshend is god” card. “No one? No problem, we’ve still got great stuff for our customers: the combined interaction cards!”

I flip through the deck and pick the “Fuck you Bush/republicans/Nazis/racists/homophobic assholes!” card.

“That’s cute, so heartfelt!” Eric presses his hand against his chest and takes it from me with the other one. I keep searching and giggle in advance when I finally pick the “Fuck you Stone!” card.

“Mine!” Judy and Jeff both almost fall out of the booth and then exchange a grin. Although Jeff was the faster, he places the card onto his palm and kneels down in front of her.

“In token of my appreciation, milady…” he offers it to the girl. To my biggest surprise, her first embarrassment evaporates quickly and she plays along.

“I’m always going to wear it over my heart.” she puts it into the chest pocket of her dungaree dress.

“How cheesy.” Stone comments dropping a piece of Emmentaler from his cheese plate into his mouth.

I nudge Beth to show her the card I made for her when she wasn’t looking. When she reads the “I love you, Beth” text on it, she slowly steps to me, laces her arms around my neck and pulls me into a relaxing, soft kiss. I capture her in a bear hug, letting her bury her head into my chest so that I can kiss the top of it and feel the familiar smell of the shampoo she’s used since I met her…

“Booo, the hostess is fucking the stage prop, disgusting…”

“Look, she’s licking the germs out of his mouth, ew…”

I try to ignore the childish remarks of Mike and Stone, luckily, Eric steers the conversation back to more professional questions.

“I guess I have to make a few phone calls, starting with the club, the guys who bought the ticket should receive refund… and I try to get a doctor for Ed, maybe we should try it in Charlotte, I don’t think we could find a specialist here…” he starts thinking loud, getting lost in the current, messy “to do” list he’s keeping in his pocket.

“„Sssooo… since the show has been canceled, I guess we have tons of time for the guitar lesson you asked for.” Jeff changes the topic with a huge grin, without the slightest intention of hiding his joy. And with the definite intention of using every occasion to spend more time alone with her.

“Guitar lesson? From Jeff?” Stone scoffs. “You know he didn’t become a bassist by chance, don’t you?”

“I must admit Stone’s right. There’s a particular reason for it… This bony asshole can’t hold a bass. We tried it, I swear but he ended up with his face in the concrete. If you take a closer look, you can notice that his Les Paul is only a cardboard replica too. He just pretends to play it, actually, it is Scully who plays his parts behind the amps.”

Judy bursts out in a heartfelt laughter, finally, Jeff has figured out that the way to her heart leads through well-played jokes. Possibly at Stone’s expense.

“I guess we could hang out together even tonight…” Jeff recommends with a cautious squint. That’s it, strike the iron while it’s hot…

“Tonight? But what about the show???”

“What show, Stone? We’ve just decided to cancel it…”

“But the supporting act is Tribe After Tribe! You love them, you’ve wanted to see them playing live since Tom Petty gave you their record! I definitely go and watch them!” Stone pouts like a child whose parents are about to call off the family visit to Disneyland.

“Shit… I mean, that’s true, they’re amazing… maybe you could come too…?”

“Nah, I don’t think so, I could finally sleep through the whole night… but we don’t have to do the soundcheck today, we could have the first lesson instead.”

“Hey Camden, you have a lot to learn, no one said you can skip today’s work!”

“I start with turning your volume down…” Judy retorts and turns immediately back to Jeff. “So, what do you say?”

“Sure… I mean, maybe you end up teaching me. But sooner or later, I have to figure out what I’m doing so…”

They both stand up, and as they are walking towards the exit, they keep talking, leaving the sour-faced Stone behind. I can only guess the reason of the change in her behavior… Jeff Ament, you’d better not mess up your chance.

***

„Granny, stop turning your head all the time! I can also hear you when you’re looking straight ahead. Otherwise I mess up your hair!”

“Effie darling, I’m an old woman, I don’t want to be pretty, I just want shorter hair so that I can comb it easier after hair wash.” she answers, of course she can’t help moving her head this time either.

“Granny! What did I just say? Okay, I accept that you don’t care about your look but I don’t lend my name to anything. Plus, if you keep squirming, I might even cut you. Or myself. Geez, I don’t know what happened to your hair after it had turned grey, it’s like barbed wire, maybe I should try it with a machete…” I mutter as I try to straighten her strands with a comb before I start cutting.

“I’ve told you, you can do anything with it, my body is a rusty, old machine, I can’t lean forward in the bath tub or brush it for hours. You could even shave it, I don’t care.”

“Do you really want to enjoy the Seattle rain on your bald scalp? I doubt it. Did you know that dripping ice cold water on the shaved head of prisoners was a popular way of torment in the Middle Ages? And I don’t think Mr. Taylor would like it either.” I refer to her old neighbor with a sly smile.

“Come on, Effie. Peter and I are both basically fossils.” she waves with an embarrassed, short laughter. We’ve been teasing her with him for years but she always reacts with denial, she belongs to the generation of which members think attraction over a certain age is something inappropriate. Or can’t even exist. And if it still does, it’s better to pretend it doesn’t.

“Single fossils!” I point out.

“I know it’s a very fashionable word nowadays but we are both widows, my dear. That’s completely different.” she insists playing with her wedding ring that embraces her ring finger still perfectly. I could stare at her hands for hours, her elegant fingers with strong, even, oval nails, whereas the backs of her hands and her palms are soft and always warm, Mom is convinced that’s the reason why she can prepare the most delicious homemade pastries in the world. The thin, fine, spiderweb-like wrinkles on them are telling the story of a complicated life, every single day adds a newer chapter to it…

“That doesn’t mean you have to live like a recluse, I don’t know why you’re fighting even against the idea.”

“We’ve just put dear Clara in the grave and…”

“Granny, Mrs. Taylor died like… eight years ago???” I whine clipping together a few strands of her.

“To me, it feels like it had happened yesterday.”

“Because with aging, the perception of time is changing completely. It’s scientifically proven. Mr. Taylor is handsome and kind and however much you try to ignore it, he likes you.”

“Sweetie, the head of girls in your age is full of romantic imaginations but…”

“Don’t even try to project it back on me! He trims the hedge in your front yard and peeps from behind the curtain all the time, just to show up by chance whenever you step out of the house! He basically tears the shopping bags out of your hands every time you arrive home from the grocery store!” I confront her with the facts and begin to trim her hair in the meantime.

“Because he’s a gentleman! Our generation was taught how to be polite!” she explains intensely making me grab her head with both hands and turn it back in the right direction.

“Are you trying to say my generation is rude? Anyway, Mr. Taylor is a retired TV mechanic! He could repair that piece of shit old box you’re not willing to replace whenever it gets fucked up.” I play my ultimate argument knowing she has a soft spot for her favorite series. She was mourning after the last episode of Dallas for weeks.

“Effie, you know I don’t like dirty words! Please!”

“Sorry. He could repair that useless device you’re not willing to replace every time it gets fucked up.” I giggle.

“Effie!”

“Granny, just think into it: you shouldn’t make us record the missed episodes and come over if you want to watch them… you don’t like video cassettes anyway and you said you could never learn how to work a video player…” I purr into her ears trying to sound hypnotical.

“It’s rather you who should have a suitor! You’re such a pretty, young, smart girl, I can’t believe you don’t have a boyfriend.”

Oh no. She turned the tables on me. Clever.

“First of all, being single is not a shame, I won’t expire if I don’t get married before I turn 25. I’m just… not interested in anyone right now.”

And by the way, if you’re not studying, not working, and your so-called friends have forgotten about your existence for the reasons above and gave up inviting you at parties and social events, you don’t even have any possible love interest around. Not that I blame them, my high school classmates are scattered everywhere in the country and after I suspended my studies, I kind of slowly drifted away from the college buddies. We hung out a few times after it but I lost track of everything, I understood fewer and fewer inside jokes, I’m not allowed to drink alcohol, which was obviously no fun to them… damn, I can’t even get rid of my waste products without outside help. So at this point, it’s not that easy to meet guys at all. Let alone normal guys who aren’t slackers, heroin addicts and don’t have commitment issues. I mean, bad guys seem to be exciting until you have one. And I’ve had a few one, I always buy their stupid shit and I’m sick of them. Victor is my only friend who still cares and lets me know about must-see shows at RCKNDY but he’s a friend, we’ve never thought about each other with any hint of romantic feelings at that’s okay. To be honest, I don’t even want to be in a relationship only for the sake of it but I miss that little tingle in the chest and the stomach, at least a teeny-tiny, innocent crush wouldn’t hurt…

“I’m sure you have admirers, just no one meets your expectations, maybe you set the bar too high… Ouch!” she lets out a short scream since I manage to pull her hair involuntarily. The “picky girl” card again… this time, I’m not willing to begin a debate with her about that, I’ve done that several times and she just waved me off every single time.

“I think we should rather discuss Judy’s love life, it’s her who‘s surrounded by handsome boys right now.” I change the subject of the conversation, I know I’m mean and if Judy was here, she’d certainly kill me… but she’s not and the end justifies the means.

“I still can’t imagine her in the company of those men.”

Those men. Granny refuses to call the band members anything else. Okay, on sunny days, she refers to them as “those young men”… but Seattle isn’t famous for the frequency of sunny days, as we know.

“They are nice guys, she likes them. And as far as I know, they like her too…” I rather resist the urge to mention Stone’s aversion to her. “Moreover, I heard through the grapevine that one of them liked her more than the others…”

“A suitor? Sweetie, please bring my bag here, now that you’re mentioning that, I want to ask you something.”

I obey, and walk to the armchair to grab it. Like it was so easy.

“Jesus, Granny, are you keeping bricks in your handbag??? It’s a lethal weapon, if you beat someone in the head with it, you can be put in jail…” I shake my head as I put it on her lap.

“Come on, it’s not that heavy. There are a few things in it a woman can need anytime… “ she starts rummaging in the bag and as I peak into it, I can spot a Swiss Army penknife and a small bottle of tear gas spray. I rather don't ask anything. “I know you’ve shown me pictures of those men, magazine articles, posters but you know I forget everything… So I bought something up-to-date so that you can tell me what I have to know about them, especially if it concerns my granddaughter…” she pulls something colorful out of the mess.

“Steel Hammer magazine? Haha, I can’t believe it! You just went to a kiosk and asked for the latest issue of a metal magazine???” I laugh walking back behind her to pick up the threads again.

“Well… I couldn’t remember the band’s name, I just told to the salesman that my grandchild was working with one of the famous rock bands from our town and I wanted to learn more about them. He just laughed and told me this issue was full of Seattle rock bands and I could certainly find in it what I was looking for.” she flips through the pages. “So tell me again the names of those men, please.” she lifts the magazine and I giggle as I look over her head at it.

“Oh, that’s Alice in Chains, they are also popular but… I don’t think you would approve if Judy worked for them.”

“Why? They do drugs, right? I don’t even want to hear more about that.” Thank God. I don’t think I could tell her much about them without causing her a heart attack. “But they must be them!” she puts a picture in front my nose again.

“You’re getting warmer… but… still not hot. That’s Soundgarden, they are good friends with the guys, they’re even meeting them in a few weeks in Texas, I guess they’re playing a couple of shows together. But they are nice guys too, you don’t have to worry. No drugs, no sex. I mean no sex with strangers. Or other bands’ crew members.” I add before she’d make me run background checks and look into their police records.

“And these men?”

“Whoohoo, you’re hot! That’s them, Pearl Jam!”

“They have nice hair! Actually, all these musicians do. And their eyes are clear, I like that. They seem to be honest young men.” Young men. Maybe if I tell enough nice things about them, she’ll even call them “boys”, or even “guys”. ”Who is who?”

“Eddie, Jeff, Stone, Dave and Mike.” I list pointing at each name on its owner.

“And which of them is courting our Judy?” she inquires excitedly.

“I wouldn’t call it courting yet, all I know he’s already asked her out once but I’m still investigating the details, you know how secretive she can be. Anyway, it’s the bassist, Jeff. The second one from left.” I glance over her head again while I collect another strand with the comb and straighten it to see its length.

“He’s very athletic, he looks healthy, that’s good. A strong man. But those earrings and bracelets… does he always wear them?”

I can hear the frown in her voice.

“I guess so. But that doesn’t make him a bad person, body piercings are very fashionable nowadays. Anyway, he’s a Montanan guy, he’s also an artist, he paints I guess. And you see right, he’s a talented athlete, he plays basketball too and he’s an avid skateboarder. It’s not dangerous!” I add quickly since I’m not sure if skateboarding is old enough to be on Granny’s list of approved spare times activities

“His clothing style is weird, though. His chest is almost bare, he couldn’t be cold but then why was he wearing that hat?”

“Hehe, no one knows, he’s just into hats, that’s his trademark.” I shrug.

“I can’t believe Judy likes him. But that serious one with those sad eyes might be her type.”

“Who?” I wrinkle my forehead since I can’t really pair the description with any of them.

“Him. He dresses normally, that’s a nice shirt, no earrings or other weird jewelry. Does he have a tattoo?”

I glance back at the magazine only to see she’s pointing at Stone.

“Hahaha, oh my gosh, no, as far as I know he doesn’t, but if you ask me, he could even be as spotted as a panther, Judy can’t stand him.”

“But he seems to be a nice boy…”

BOY??? Stone?

“Okay, I admit, he looks good and the crew likes him and he’s super talented but he’s an asshole to Judy.”

“Effie!”

“He is! At first he ignored her and then he started acting like a douchebag and…”

“Effie, dear, you know how boys behave in school… they sometimes literally torture the girl they like… maybe he is just immature.”

“No, Granny, this is…”

Luckily, the stupid debate gets interrupted by the ringing of the phone and I jog to pick it up, maybe it’s Judy…

“Hello, Camdens…”

“Hey, Krisha’s here.”

“Oh… hi…”

“So you haven’t been abducted by aliens. You basically ran away from the office last time without any explanation and I’ve been waiting for your call since then… are you okay?”

“I am… I just… didn’t want to seem too desperate or impatient… I mean, managers are busy people, I thought it’d take some time until Kelly gets to watch my pictures…”

To be honest, I was convinced they’d ditch me with some polite lie like “Nice photos but we are looking for something else” or “We are going to call you later”… so I was just procrastinating facing the truth.

“I tied him to his chair and didn’t set him free, I have my methods… which means, I’ve got news for you.” she announces secretively.

“Effie, sweetie… my hair is still wet, would you give me a towel?”

“Just a second, Granny! Look, I’m busy now but could we meet later somewhere in the city?”

“You mean today?”

“Yes… ah, shit, I have an appointment at the hairdresser’s, but maybe after it…”

“I’m flexible, just tell me the place and the date…”

“Okay, it’s…”

***

When I pull down at the address she gave me on the phone, she’s already waiting for me in front of the building. As I lean over the passenger seat to open the door for her, my eyes are involuntarily drawn to the window decorated with kitschy hearts behind her.

“Love Is In The Hair? Seriously???” I frown. “I’d never let my hair be touched by anyone who’s able to make up such a terrible pun.”

“Oh, don’t be influenced by that, the owner is a hopeless, sentimental old woman but the girls working there are real pros!” she shakes her head as she gets in and buckles herself up. “Meg’s got golden hands, she’s the only one who can keep this haystack under control.” she points at her good smelling, fluffy, blonde strands. “I mean, several people have attempted but she’s the only one who’s succeeded without turning me into Dolly Parton.”

“Well, that’s definitely wouldn’t be a fortunate outcome.” I crack up. “But you got a nice perm, truly.”

“Oh, that’s my hair in its natural state. I had only a haircut, that’s all.”

“I can’t believe that! Aw, I’m so envious, I mean look at this mouse tail…” I flick my thin ponytail with one hand, keeping the other one on the steering wheel. “Unfortunately, my hair can’t recover from what I did to it in the ‘80s…”

“Ouch, well, those were tough times... I’m sure Meg could recommend something… you should give her a try!”

“Maybe… I don’t know, somehow I have a strong aversion to beauty salons, that chicken yard vibe freaks me out.”

“Me too! But this place is not like that at all, that’s the other reason why I became their regular client. Meg studied psychology, she always feels without asking if I want to talk or just listen to her or I just want both of us to… you know, just shut up. She usually has good advice for every situation but not in a pushy way… she rather makes you realize what’s the right thing to do… or just points out if you’re about to make a terrible mistake without explicitly saying it.” she chuckles. “I don’t know, it’s like a sixth sense thing, she’s gifted.”

“So she’s a beauty wizard and a guru in one person.” I summarize.

“Haha, exactly. She’s simply a cool chick but for some reason, she has such a bad luck with guys, I don’t know the exact details, only that a problematic guitarist broke her heart.”

“Ha, that invasive species has kinda conquered this town…” I mutter knowingly.

“Speaking of that, do you know anything about Judy and Jeff? I ran away last time since I felt a disaster coming… she wasn’t even aware she’d been asked out… and since then, we’ve barely talked and she ignored the question when I came up with that…”

“Ugh, to be honest, I don’t know, I talked to Eric about work stuff, we’re busily preparing that free open-air show in May…” I stop since I’m not sure if I should go on. “Of course I talked to Stone as well…” I finally decide to do so but I pretend to be distracted by the traffic in the junction to have an excuse for not finishing the sentence.

“I bet he trashed my sister again, didn’t he?” she unfortunately jumps on the topic without hesitation.

“No… not really… I mean, he’s disapproving about anything romantic between them for sure but not because of Judy as a person… he just doesn’t think it’s a healthy thing right now. But he was obscure, I didn’t even understand what he was trying to say, he was babbling something about deflowering and cabal… he’s showing off his vocabulary all the time, even if it makes no sense. Especially when he’s high, maybe that was the case.”

“Deflowering? You mean my sister?” she scoffs and I can’t do anything but shrug since Stoney was truly vague, almost secretive. “The dude’s got obviously a screw loose.” she underlines the statement by circling with her index finger at the temple. “Anyway, why are you turning in that direction, aren’t we going to the management office?”

“I never claimed we’re going there.” I watch the road with a mysterious smile. “Actually, I realized after having called you that I had an errand to run so I thought you could accompany me…”

“By accompanying you mean kidnapping me and holding me hostage in your car?”

“Maybe. Open the glove compartment, I put there something for you.”

“Now you’re scaring me, is it a gun? Whoa.” she startles since after she obeys me, tons of tapes fall onto her lap.

“Ah, I get it. You’re holding me hostage and make me listen to shitty music, what are these? Tapes of Wham! tribute bands or what?” she asks checking the cases.

“Okay, you just gave me a great idea. The tapes weren’t intended for you, they are demos of bands monkeying PJ, we receive a buttload of them every week. Needless to say they all suck, could you do me a favor by listening to them for me? Kelly insists on me checking all of them, I don’t know why, though, we usually send them a polite refusal… but he thinks they deserve a chance. 99 % percent of them are indistinct yelling to worn-out riffs. What about my constitutional rights?”

“Haha, are you serious? I mean, I don’t really have any proper excuse, I have plenty of time and unfortunately, fucked-up kidneys don’t clog ears but…”

“Just kidding, I meant the folded sheets, maybe they are buried deep, just dig for them.”

“Okay, got it” she groans basically putting her head in the glovebox. “What’s that? Mr. Hugh Mility… Mr. Juan Badapple… Jim Rockford... Dr. Hugh Jeego… Guy Jantic… what the hell is this?”

“Well, since the guys are getting huge, fans are lurking at the hotels, they make up impossible lies to get their room numbers, a few of them even tried to bribe the receptionists… so it became obvious they should use codenames…”

“And who is who?”

“You missed the point, should I maybe explain the concept of codenames? What if you start stalking or harassing them?” I tease her and maybe I’m hallucinating but I’d swear I see an amused smile forming in the corner of her mouth. “Anyway, joke aside, they are pretty obvious, just think a little.”

“Wait, the list goes on… these must be the crew members… Elle Koholic, okay, this must be Carrie. Oh my god, I found my sister’s one.” she slaps herself in the forehead.

“Yeah, no offense but she’s got a one-track mind… anyway, we’ve arrived.” I announce steering the car right to the empty site next to the building.

“Are you willing to finally reveal where we are?” she asks stuffing the tapes back into their place.

“Curiosity killed the cat. Okay, I hope not, Stone would kill me.” I laugh at my own joke, fishing out the shopping bag from the backseat. “Come.”

“I don’t understand a word.” she pouts indignantly while we’re entering the building and climbing the stairs in the semi-darkness.

“I enlighten you very soon, I promise, just follow me.” I turn back to her and we fell silent until we reach our destination. “Here.” I point theatrically at the door.

“What’s this? Are you gonna buy drugs here? Or is this sort of a den of gamblers? Or…”

“Jesus, I thought you’re the adventurous one…” I roll my eyes. “Anyway, you mentioned the species of problematic guitarists… where we’re standing is the cave of a specimen from one of the subspecies.”

“…which iiiis…”

“One of the most complex inhabitant of Earth’s fauna: the rhythm guitarist!” I raise my index finger. “It’s very widespread at bars and concert venues, the male ones are inseparable from their favorite delicacy that is beer. The male living here is famous for his trademark, sarcastic remarks that are not without jokes about nether regions. During his mating season – that includes every single day of the year –, he tries to catch the attention of female specimens with the excessive flipping of his magnificent mane and his repetitive, distinctive laughter. He often leaves the location of mating right after the act, his volatile nature…”

“Wait, are you trying to say…” she cuts me off, getting tired of my improvised presentation.

“Yess.”

“No shit!”

“Yes shit. We’re at Stone’s apartment. Okay, it actually belongs to his sister but she moved in with her boyfriend last year. And Stoney got a gentle reminder from his parents that he should finally leave the family nest.”

“Hey, then maybe me and Judy are super uncool since we live with our mom too…” she frowns offended.

“It’s all about the context, first of all: he turned down Chris Cornell when he asked him to be his roommate. I repeat, Chris Cornell.” I explain, as I begin to fumble with the keys.

“What a fool!”

“I mean, I kind of understand him to a point, his parents are the dearest people I know but turning down such an offer when you’re over 20? Time went by and I think his parents just got fed of him tearing the strings at their attic all the time and coming home in the middle of the night every single day. Even if they have always been totally supportive of him, they didn’t freak out even when he announced he didn’t want to go to college… he started working as an espresso guy in a small bakery at Pioneer Square, he was the worst, by the way, I mean I almost puked of the coffee he made… He quitted that job when Mother Love Bone got signed to PolyGram and… you know what happened later. So he kind of stuck at home, indebted.”

We enter the apartment in the meantime and I take a few steps in the living room to turn on the standard lamp.

“But then, not much before the tour started, his sister let him her place over, he’s a low-key guy so…” I shrug. “Now that they became basically rock stars, he’s planning to buy a small house… his dad is an attorney-at-law with acquaintances at real estate firms, that helps a lot.”

“We had to sold our house when… a few years ago.” she sighs. I don’t ask, I guess it has to do something with her father, Karrie mentioned he’d died a few years ago. “This is a pretty nice place, I thought it was messier. No piles of beer cans, no smell of rotten food…” she remarks walking around the living room.

“Despite your impressions, he’s not a caveman, he always jokes referring to himself as an emancipated guy meaning he can and is willing to do all kind of housework. He can be pretty oblivious, though, which sometimes affects the result…” I giggle and open the windows to let in some fresh air. “His brain works in a weird way, he loses everything, all the time and forgets where he put his personal belongings and therefore never finds them again… whereas he’s pretty good at remembering riffs and melodies.”

“So this place is like a black hole. Anyway, why are we here? Wait, are we going to pull pranks on him? Let’s stick pins in the armchairs, smear tooth paste on the door handles and hide dog poop under the doormat…” she suggests with stars in her eyes. Okay, I have to do something against this hatred campaign before these wicked women cast a lethal spell on him.

“As I mentioned, I have a mission. First of all, I have to keep those poor things alive…” I point in the corner.

“Wow, a private jungle!” she exclaims surprised. “Philodendron, ficus and mother-in-law’s tongue! If someone had told me Stone liked indoor plants, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“Actually, he sometimes forgets about their existence too. But they are real survivors, they even made it despite his girlfriend’s interesting watering methods… by the way, he even gave them names: Phil Collins, Biggus Diccus and Robert Plant, I guess I don’t have to explain…” I go on with the guided tour while I go in the kitchen to fill the coffee jug with water.

“At least the guy has a good taste in music.” she shouts. She must have found his record collection and the stereo system, I guess if something, this can soften Effie up.

“Yes, he’s surprisingly omnivorous as for musical genres…” I call back although my voice sounds muffled, since I had to basically crawl into the cupboard at the bottom for the bag of the pet food. “He’s pretty much influenced by everything he hears on the radio. Ouch!!!” I manage to bang my head when I straighten up too early.

“Are you okay?”

“I am… just a household accident…”

I walk back to the bedroom with the small bowl full of dry food only to find her staring amazed at the large star chart on the wall.

“Wow. My sister would love this.” she keeps examining it with dropped jaw, only her lips are moving.

“Well, I’ve always known they have much more in common than they think.” I grin.

“Judy had a pretty long phase when she wanted to be an astronomer… I mean, basically her in her whole childhood. She later found out physics and science weren’t really her thing but she’s still obsessed with space exploration and science fictions…”

“As you can see, Stone isn’t that beer-drinking, douchebag barfly type…” I spread my arms to point out that the walls are almost covered with bookshelves.

“Yeah, as far as I can see, he’s pretty much an intellectual asshole.” she narrows her eyes.

“AND NOW… let’s jump to the second part of my mission.” I kneel down and lift the bedspread. “Your Majesty, your subjects are only waiting for you to begin the audience.” After a few seconds of silence, two reddish paws reach out from under the bed, soon followed by a pink nose. Their owner makes sure there’s nothing dangerous in the room in full alert mode, before she crawls out slowly and rubs her snout against my hand reached out.

“Oh my god! A cat! Was she here during the whole time?” Effie screams surprised, sits down cross legged and invites her to herself making smacking sounds. “Hey sweetie… you’re very shy, aren’t you? Come here…come…”

“Effie, let me introduce you Red. Red, this is Effie. Be cautious… she can behave quite wild, especially with women…”

Despite my fears, she slowly moves towards Effie and sniffs her fingertips. After a few seconds of tense hesitation, she lets herself be caressed with that typical vigilance of cats like she was sending the message “I’m here but if you make a wrong move, you die”.

“What a beautiful fur… and those green eyes…” the girl runs her finger along the red-white spotted back. “She seems to like me…” the girl chuckles.

“One more proof that Stone’s theory was right.”

“What kind of theory?”

“Well… he adopted her not much after the forming of the band… she was just a tiny, fluffy kitten but from the very first moment, she’s acted very weird with the girls around Stone. And I don’t mean girls in general, I’m talking about his female visitors, if you know what I mean… she’s been very hostile to girls he’s dated, she’s basically driven away all the chicks he’s got hooked up with… She’s literally jealous of his love interests.”

“Interesting, I’d rather think Stone is a dog person…”

“He is, his family has always had dogs… but with Red… it was love at first sight. I’ve never seen him being as affectionate to actual girls as to Red. Even his voice softens when he’s talking to or about her… so long story short, Stone was joking that they must have been lovers in a previous life and she had been some red-haired girl who’d stolen his heart.”

“And does she like girls who hate him because they mean no competition for her?” Effie wonders as she follows the cat with her eyes who’s now approaching her bowl and gets lost in the deliciously looking pieces of meat. “It’d be an interesting experiment to introduce her to Judy.”

“Definitely, she’s never met a real female enemy of him. Maybe because girls usually like him…” I shrug.

“And is this poor thing the whole day alone?”

“Ugh, it’s a complicated story. When the guys started touring, the Gossards adopted her. Again. But they have to get rid of her, because they all are allergic to cat fur, it wasn’t that disturbing when Stone was at home too and she basically lived in the attic with him and he was the only one really taking care of her… but when he was away and they had do it for him, they quickly had to look for someone else… and then, she got to Regan, our common old friend. They got on very well with each other but then Regan and his girlfriend adopted a dog and to say they weren’t compatible is an understatement. And then…” I took a big breath “…then came the Amber phase. I don’t know if I’ve already mentioned her, she’s his girlfriend.”

“Ouch.” she hisses. “That must have been tough.”

“It was. Due to the beforementioned circumstances, their relationship was everything but smooth… she never adopted her, she just came over to feed her and all but Red was trying very hard to make her life a living hell. She attacked her, scratched her arms, hooked her nails in her tights and ruined her nicest clothes…” I list and I can’t help smiling as I recall their clashes.

“I can’t believe this cutie pie did things like that. It sounds terrible but… hey, are you laughing???”

“It was a dis… a disaster…” I’m already choking of laughter since in the meantime, Red’s innocent face makes me remember the funniest part of the story. “Once she even… oh no, I can’t…” I try to calm down and put on straight face. “Once this little bitch…” Red turns her head towards me like she felt addressed “yes, I’m talking about you… so this little bastard peed in Amber’s heels.”

“Oh no! Cat pee is the worst, it’s a one-way ticket to the dumpster. I mean only if you don’t set everything that got in contact with it on fire.”

“Well, that happened to the heels in question too. But frankly, I don’t blame Red, I myself have played with the idea of doing the same a few times too.” I shrug and have Effie in stitches.

“So you hate her too…”

“I don’t, she’s not a bad person… but she can be so annoying, man… when you have to admire the umpteenth fashion photo of her posing in different clothes, it’s very difficult to seem to be interested.”

“Uhm… speaking of photos… you said you got news for me… I didn’t want to be too greedy, I mean I really like hanging out with you and I’m not doing it only because I want your help and…” she jabbers blushing.

“Hey, easy. The news are that Kelly loved your photos. And Susan Silver too. And they have a great idea…”

[geekkatsblog]

Grey's Anatomy Season 16x20 review

(I'm a little lost.)

In my opinion they're running too many storylines at a time but on that note I'll start.

___________________________________________

Richard

(I was honestly disappointed in the amount of screen time they gave him and his case tonight.)

He had my heart in my hands when he disappeared and was about to cut himself open for surgery, seeing him be so vulnerable and as the patient in itself was heartbreaking. I really thought that they would have solved this situation in this episode but I guess not. It is actually getting worse and worse and to top it all off now he's a meme and those things tend to follow you around for life, hopefully that won't be enough to wipe his whole career, he's also forgetting stuff on top of the hallucinations. He thought he was still married to Adele 😭😭😭. Which means he probably completely forgot about Maggie and a lot of the tragedies that happened. I really hope they keep a better eye on him as well because he's a danger to himself right now. And I wish they solve his case and it's a fixable problem. Most importantly I just hope he doesn't die. In the preview it seems like Deluca is going to solve the case. (Not gonna lie Deluca is cool and all but I was kinda hoping that Maggie, Bailey or Meredith would solve it because it would be a little more emotional. But I guess not besides it seems like the only people in this hospital who can solve the unsolvable now seems to be Deluca and Meredith. When is someone else gonna prove their skills.)

___________________________________________

Link/Amelia

For a moment there I thought we were gonna meet baby Link but nope, it was just a false alarm, it seems like the birth comes next week and it better go smoothly, we lost one baby this season, let's not go for 2. Link seems to be having a little realization of what he's going to be giving up for parenthood, but I have no doubt he'll get over it when he sees Amelia holding their son and holds him for the first time. Amelia is also had a panic attack on not being able to protect her baby from the dangers of the world (sort of like the one Callie had back when she was about to take Sophia home.) I think they'll do great as parents, they may have the usual beginning struggle but they'll get the hang of it eventually. They're the one of the new additions to the power couples of Grey's.

I'm wondering if she's going to name the baby Derek.

___________________________________________

Teddy 🤦🏾‍♀️

She has yet to tell Owen that she has cheated on him, still loves Tom and is very much invested in what happens in his life but has decided to move their wedding up. (Oh Teddy) She spent the whole episode so wound up with how Tom was doing with his case and trying to help him get through it that she completely forgot about the wedding planner bringing over cake samples for her and Owen's wedding and yet she wants to move the wedding up? I can't for the life of me understand where thos love triangle is even heading. At this point it looks like she may very well end up with both. However they need to do something soon because they're kids involved, it's not just them.

___________________________________________

Tom

My poor baby has now begun to feel the dreaded curse of the Seattle Grace. Since the beginning of time that hospital weather merged or renamed has been a curse on all who enter the doors and Tom Koracick is feeling the wrath. His ex brought her son to him for the removal of a brain tumor and apparently the son looked just like the one Tom lost 😭😭. His reactions tore at me the whole night from the time he saw him to the time, he turned over the case to Amelia straight to the time he begged Amelia to do the surgery while in labor.

I was hoping that maybe just maybe this woman was the key to helping him get over Teddy, but she's married it seems and This just made Teddy cling to him more making the situation even worse. And based on the preview for next week it's about to get even worse. All I can say is Tom baby no, think about what you're doing.

On another note what happened to the billionaire story line? I guess they got away with it then.

___________________________________________

Jo and Levi

Just as expected they struck up a friendship. Jo truly is a legend, she is one of the only people in that hospital who has refused to let someone vent their problems over a patient or while they're working. That is queen moves right there, keep work at work. It was so rare that Levi thought she was being rude and packed his stuff up. I'm glad they have each other the friendship is entertaining, Alex isn't coming back and Link's about to be a father and Levi and Nico seem to be actually over for good so at least the have somebody to lean on. As long as it doesn't become sexual I'm here for it.

___________________________________________

Deluca

It seems like Deluca is gonna solve yet another impossible case and he may very well be the Dr House of Grey's so I'm gonna need them to let him get the help he needs so the doctors will listen to him again so my baby can thrive because he may be unstable but no one can deny that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

___________________________________________

Catherine

As expected is devastated, she basically said the same thing I did last week, if she had just swallowed her pride this whole thing may have been solved earlier. But I was hurting for her the whole time. Her husband was sick and she didn't know because they were fighting and now he thinks he's married to the woman before he was married to her. There's a lot of pain, regrets and guilt. However I'm glad to see she isn't holding it in and is letting Jackson comfort her and I was also pleased to see that she went on her private jet to collect him and has been glued to his side the whole time. For the First time besides the trick last week, I'm seeing hope for there marriage. I hope I get to see that hope blossom.

___________________________________________

Maggie

Is having regrets for her sexcapade last week, but she couldn't have known that was going to happen. She's with Richard the whole time and now he probably doesn't remember who she is, I hope she's going to have someone there for her as well. Speaking of which where's her bae? Are we just never going to hear from him again?

___________________________________________

Meredith

Trying to save Richard, she looked so somber the whole episode because that is one of the last people who has been there from the beginning lying on the table and can possibly be suffering from the same thing her mum suffered from. Fingers crossed that she's not going to lose another one of her family. At least she seems to be willing to do anything to save him even think outside the box.

___________________________________________

Bailey

Needs to take it down a notch now I love my Bailey and I know that there are certain protocols you need to follow and that it is noticable that Deluca is having a problem but it really doesn't hurt to stop and listen, no matter how unstable you think the person is, she could at least check out what he's saying.

___________________________________________

Jackson

Left the teachings of Mark Sloan to help support his mother and Richard and may possibly be packing his bags and heading to Station 19. (Due to my forgetful brain and a mix up in the changed time slots I watched station 19 as well tonight.) He seems to be interested in joining Ben as the new medic 1 but who knows?

___________________________________________

Notes and questions

• Is Richard going to be ok?

• Will he and Catherine patch their marriage?

• Will Teddy finally confess to Owen that she cheated?

• Who will she choose Owen or Tom?

• Where is Maggie's new love? He seemed really adamant on being together and now in this time when she'll need support he's nowhere to be seen.

• Are we ever going to find out if Deluca was right about the girl and her guardian. (I mean we just gonna leave that out?)

• Same goes with Tom and the billionaire.

• Will Amelia's pregnancy go smoothly?

• Will Deluca finally get the help he needs?

___________________________________________

Next week is the Season finale and I really hope they can wrap everything up and it doesn't leave more questions than answers.

On another note I hope everyone is well and continues to stay safe.

[hgliya]

hello this is tia but you can also call me trash-senpai, because 1) i still need to set up all her pages and 2) i’m dumb but i’m trying to write a smart character ,  but hey, it’s okay... CRIES. a wanted connection page is under construction (i’ll list some below the cut)  but if you still want to plot or want me to bring you a personalized trash back, hit the heart button ! 💕 you can find out more about her HERE, but click read more if you want a short summary of her. ( also lets pretend i totally did not base her on conan from case closed -- don’t call me out please :/ )

- liya moved to korea when she a little child ( i don’t have an age because i don’t know what math is), because she didn’t speak a single word of korean, some children thought she was weird because she would only stare at them. some of them even called her names but liya didn’t understand anyway so - ( dumb is good )

- she was really popular in high school because she’d always expose the petty class thieves and in elementary school she also found out who stole the pet hamster of the class (random fact). anyway, she was known to be really smart and people admired her for that.

- while, she never despised her parents their relationship was rocky when liya hit puberty. they would send their assistants to keep an eye on liya (which she noticed). despite of growing up quite sheltered, she wasn’t the typically shy kid which resulted from it. quite the contrary was the case. she’s straight-forward and really sociable, however her inabilityto read the situation and say the appropiate things show that she grew up isolated.

- this didn’t stop her from pursuing her passion and because she managed to solve an infamous unsolved case her reputation grew quickly.

- however, this also made her a target. people that had to hide something saw her as a potentional threat. liya knew about it but whenever she’d receive a threat she would just laugh it off.

- this was probably a mistake. and someone took more drastic measures. when she exited a bar (or wtv it was night because ... shady atmosphere...) she got involved in a car ‘accident’ which actually was a planned attack on her. luckily, she didn’t die from it but the head injury she got from it resulted into her losing her hearing in her right side.

- truth to be told, she was devastated. not only did she believe that it might a disadvantage to her work but she also has to get used to it. starting from regaining her balance as well as having to deal with it in her daily life.

- another surprise ! (yikes) she didn’t tell anyone about it. she thinks it might damage her reputation because she’s afraid people will doubt her skills because they’ll think she’s less perceptive/observant now and all that. 

- this actually makes her life more complicated, because people are constantly asking her why she’s ignoring them (which she does when they talk to her on her deaf side), she seems to be unfocused etc. also because of that, she started to avoid most of her friends (yikes).

wanted plots (these are only a few more/explained in detail will be added to my wanted page)

- anyone working in the justice system: as liya is a detective and often helps out when it comes to solving problems she’ll know many people working in this field. some might be annoyed by her because she has quite an unconventional way of working or they actually get along because they think it might be refreshing working with her. this is just a basic idea where they might have met we can develop their relationship further ofc !

- anyone having some shady business going on: maybe liya is on to something they’re doing and they’re afraid she might expose them. 

- person who ordered/caused the accident: the reason might be various, maybe they were forced to do it, someone asked them to do it or they just didn’t want her to meddle in their business. maybe they feel guilty because of it or they’re angry because they failed their mission.

- anyone working in the medical branch/ also being hispitalized in the same time: maybe it’s the doctor who told her about her one-sided-hearing-loss and she frequently sees them for her treatment or that person just happened to be in the room next door. wtv it is, they’re one of the few people that know about her hearing loss and have seen her in her lowest point.

a fan: maybe they’ve seen her in tv and instantly were interested in her. luckily they run into each other all the time.

- one-sided crush: here are some random ideas because this can be plotted out: maybe they confessed to her randomly but liya just didn’t happen to hear it (lol) // they might work together or they are always helping liya out with her work. liya thinks it’s just them being kind and doesn’t realize they’re crushing on her; they constantly ask her to solve petty and small cases for her just to see her /// ALSO we can make it the other way round where liya is the one with the one sided love.

- exes: all kind of exes on bad terms, good terms etc. maybe they even used to be/ still are involved in some criminal (shady af) activites and that’s why they broke up. again, this can be plotted out and i’m open to more ideas.

- best friends: this is self-explanatory but also they wouldn’t know about her hearing loss. 

-someone who just likes her/is interested in her/wnats to be her friend, that’s why they always bother her with “important” cases that she needs to solve but the truth is she just wants to see her.

-someone who thinks liya is stalking her: but she’s just doing her work and someone told her to watch that person.

-someone who hired her once

-someone she always has childish competitions with because she loves them-

-enemies because she has many 

- set-ups: because her parents love her to force to go on dates -

-someone who feels the need to protect her: liya is convinced she can take care of herself, but while she is considered as one of the brightest people in korea, her physical strength is quite the opposite. yet, she still doesn’t seem to care about it. however, your muse is concerned about her well-being, maybe because of her accident or just because they’re wondering why she’s constantly followed by the most sinister looking people.

- someone who used to bully her as a child: this happened when they were children. they just found her odd and because so many other kids were avoiding her she seemed like the perfect target. they never expected to meet again and while liya might not recognize her, they definetely recognize her. 

[ofsage]

is that [MATTHEW DADDARIO]? no, that’s just [SAGE SLATER]. [HE/HIM] is [TWENTY-EIGHT] years old and is a [PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR]. rumor has it they’ve been in town for [ALMOST HIS ENTIRE LIFE]. on a good day, they’re [ASTUTE & JOCUND]. but watch out! they can also be [RECKLESS & UNRULY]. [LOWLIFE BY NECK DEEP] plays in my head whenever i think of them. can’t wait to see them around springhill! [sam, 23, est, she/her]

hey there demons! it’s me...sam, and i was here briefly once but i decided it might be time to retire the muse i had brought in, so i’m back with a brand new muse that’s still a lot like the last one so please message me if you would like to plot!

i. stats

𝕗𝕦���𝕝 𝕟𝕒𝕞𝕖: sage silvestre slater

𝕙𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕥𝕠𝕨𝕟: springhill, new jersey

𝕕𝕒𝕥𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕓𝕚𝕣𝕥𝕙: june 1st, 1991

��𝕠𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕔: gemini

𝕠𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟: bisexual

𝕠𝕔𝕔𝕦𝕡𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟: private investigator

𝕚𝕞𝕞𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕥𝕖 𝕗𝕒𝕞𝕚𝕝𝕪: dr. rosemary slater good ( mother ), professor of psychology at ucla & corwin slater ( father ), retired detective of the springhill police department.

𝕡𝕠𝕤. 𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕚𝕥𝕤: astute, jocund, ebullient, well-meaning.

𝕟𝕖𝕘. 𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕚𝕥𝕤: reckless, unruly, flippant, puerile.

ii. history

sage silvestre slater was born and raised in springhill, new jersey. at the time, his mother had a small practice in town while his father was an officer rising quickly through the ranks at the local police department.

he was a precocious kid, but more often than not his natural intelligence was overshadowed by an ostensible inability to sit still and constant antics. ( a diagnosis of adhd later on would explain some of this behavior. ) his teachers were nonplussed and unsure of what to do with him, but his father had a plan.

sage’s father saw potential in him and decided that he would train his son, honing his raw skills and molding him into the perfect detective. five years old when the lessons and lectures began, sage was too young to question his entire life being planned out for him, which often led to feelings of confusion and dejection when he was scolded for spending his time on the things he had a genuine interest in : games, movies, television, spending time with his friends. typical kid stuff that he wasn’t allowed to enjoying.

he was eleven years old when his parents officially divorced, an event he could have handled well by itself, but it led to his mother accepting a job offer all the way in california. he felt abandoned and his father floundered. he was never the parent who dealt with emotions. he eventually decided that his solution was to simply ignore it. he didn’t even try to talk to sage about the divorce or his mother leaving or any of his problems ever.

fishing trips ( something he’s always hated ), rides in the passenger seat of his cruiser ( dampened by lectures on police procedures that he had no interest in ), regular visits to the shooting range ( where it was quickly discovered that he’s a crack shot but he hated it after trying it once ). his father tried everything except talking and listening.

sage was so frustrated and angry that he started acting out. he was getting constant detentions at school and his perpetually middling grades plummeted. he argued with his father every day and broke curfew every night. he bought a motorcycle at sixteen and at seventeen, he dropped out of school and left town in the middle of the night.

it was the first time in his life that he had ever felt freedom. no teachers, no arguments, no controlling father breathing down his neck. he spent a couple months simply wandering around the country, picking up random odd jobs just for the fun of it ( and for the cash ). he had no permanent residence, no responsibilities and no attachments. it was practically paradise for him except for one thing : he can’t turn it off.

he was working as a cashier at some convenience store in the middle of nowhere when it was robbed by several figures in masks that completely covered their faces. sage solved the case with minutes to spare before the police arrived and he immediately told them who to go arrest. the story generated headlines that went viral, and for once in his life he hated the attention he was receiving...until the offers started pouring in.

he found out that people were willing to pay him to solve their mysteries : everything from people asking him to locate their missing keys to assisting police departments around the country with cases, often ones that were labeled unsolvable until he came along.

maybe he wasn’t a police officer at heart...but he was certainly a detective.

by the time he returned to his hometown, sage felt like he was gone for several lifetimes when it had only been a few months. he started renting a cheap apartment and avoided his dad for as long as possible. ( he found out through the local rumor mill that the man had finally retired while he was gone. ) a steady stream of cases kept him busy until one in particular left him stumped and he didn’t know where else to go for advice, except the person who taught him everything he knows about solving a puzzle.

his father disapproved of the business ( which didn’t surprise sage at all ), but would ultimately begin to offer advice whenever his son approached him with a difficult case. the two are currently working on improving their relationship, but often fall back on their old habit of petty squabbling.

PERSONALITY : the textbook definition of man - child. spends his free time playing video games, watching movies and eating snacks. has a joke or sarcastic remark prepared for every single occasion and he takes almost NOTHING seriously. constant obscure pop culture references mixed with eerily accurate statements about a complete stranger can make him difficult to hold a conversation with, but he’s also affable and witty. he’s an extremely loyal friend who’s always there when it counts, but not the best person to trust with the little things because he will fuck up somehow. does ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING purely for the fun of it. a literal genius who’s borderline ashamed of his intelligence.

iii. extras

sage is hyper - observant and highly skilled at deductive reasoning. he can look at something for all of five seconds and then hours later he’s describing it perfectly, right down to even the tiniest detail. he often learns things about people through his observations rather than through conversation, which he sometimes forgets and so he slips up and says weird things to people about themselves.

he loves movies and television. there’s always something on in the background when he’s working on a case, and most of the time it’s something obscure and / or 80s.

takes adderall for his adhd, but he’s really irresponsible about it so from day to day whether or not he’s on his medication is honestly a toss up.

HUGE COMMITMENTPHOBE. it’s likely part of his abandonment issues. he tries to avoid relationships altogether, but if he gets into one then he’s a total disaster and usually resorts to self - sabotaging when things are going well so that he isn’t abandoned again.

in high school he was captain of the baseball team and he played football and basketball. he had his letters and probably would’ve gotten noticed by scouts if he hadn’t dropped out and run away from home.

he has a sweet tooth, which is obvious due to his diet of nothing but candy, snacks, and junk food. he’s always hungry and usually always eating because he somehow always has food on him.

he was probably born late and has continued the trend by never ever being on time even once in his life.

wears mismatched converse high top sneakers : one green, one blue. a decision made because one day he just could not find either of the other shoe has turned into a fashion statement and is now one of his most distinctive quirks.

drives a norton motorcycle that he basically built from scratch himself and it’s his child. he loves it and he drives it everywhere to the point where’s racked up A LOT of unpaid parking tickets in town.

he’s well known for sticking his nose into the local police department’s cases. he might occasionally provide useful information, but for the most part he’s probably viewed as a nuisance who gets by on his father’s goodwill.

iv. wanted connections

lifelong best friend / watson to his sherlock *wc on the main

cousins ( maternal and paternal, don’t necessarily have to be from springhill so almost anything goes for this )

friends

clients AND people he’s investigated

enemies / people who find him annoying

high school friends

exes / flings / one night stands

( these are just a few base ideas, so please don’t feel limited by what’s listed here! )

[continuations]

Universal Basic Income: An Introduction

Here is the text of a speech I gave at the 72nd Annual NYU Labor Conference, which this year was on AI and Automation.  Unfortunately there is no recording - I stuck relatively closely to this, but didn’t read it.

----------

Universal Basic Income: An Introduction

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this audience about Universal Basic Income. I am approaching this topic from the perspective of a venture investor who backs companies that automate tasks ranging from image recognition to medical diagnosis, as well as someone who has thought and written about automation for nearly three decades going back to my undergraduate thesis on automated trading in 1990.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term Universal Basic Income or UBI, it refers to a payment to every citizen that is unconditional, i.e. paid independent of employment status or income. A commonly used number is a monthly payment of $1,000 per adult and less per child. The idea for such a scheme in the United States is quite old and an early mention can be traced all the way back to Thomas Paine’s 1795 pamphlet on “Agrarian Justice.” Proponents over the years have come from all over the political and ideological spectrum, ranging from Milton Friedman to Martin Luther King Jr.

If I have done my math correctly, the first Annual NYU Labor Conference took place in 1947 at what we can now recognize as the beginning of the golden era of the Industrial Age. A period that lasted for 40 some years during which market based economies produced exceptional growth with the benefits shared between capital and labor. For the last twenty plus years, however, the benefits of growth have accrued primarily to the owners of capital in what has become known as the great decoupling, which is attributable to the twin effects of automation and globalization.

Given this impact of automation on labor it is not surprising that this section of the conference has the word “Mitigation” in its title. UBI is often positioned defensively: “Automation will take away your job, but here is some money.” This framing is deeply problematic. At best it makes UBI appear like another welfare policy and at worst it carries a ring of “opium for the people” -- a way of keeping the working population docile while capitalists get richer.

How then should people think about UBI? In my book World After Capital, I refer to it as “Economic Freedom.” Why? Because UBI massively increases individual freedom. It provides a walk away option from a bad job, a bad spouse or relationship, even from a bad city. As such it also provides new found bargaining power in the labor market for the roughly 40% of Americans who are part of the precariat. At its most fundamental, UBI makes people free in how they allocate their time. They can choose to work and make more money or they can choose not to and instead spend their time on friends and family, or art, or science, or politics, or the environment, or any of the millions of things humans do outside of the labor market.

There is another crucial distinction between the defensive, mitigation framing and the offensive, freedom framing of UBI. The former implies that we are stuck in the Industrial Age, whereas the latter carries the possibility of a new age, which I call the “Knowledge Age” in my book. The defining characteristic of the Industrial Age isn’t “industry” -- as in manufacturing -- rather it is the job loop: people sell their labor and use their income to buy “stuff” (goods and services), which in turn is made by people selling their labor.

Employment in agriculture declined from 90% of all jobs in 1780 to below 3% today. This change is often taken to show that we successfully replaced agricultural jobs with other jobs and that we can and should do so again now: automate existing jobs only to replace them with new and different jobs and thus stay in the job loop of Industrial Age. But that reading shows a lack of imagination. A different interpretation is that something that once occupied the bulk of human attention, producing enough food to feed the population, has been reduced to an afterthought.

Well, what occupies the bulk of our attention today? The job loop. Paid labor. If we succeed in enabling automation to its fullest extent, if we succeed in transitioning into the Knowledge Age, then 100 years from now we will have done to paid labor what we did to agriculture. A reduction from something that occupies 80 percent or more of human attention today, to something that’s barely noticeable.

It is crucial that we free up human attention now because too many important problems are going unsolved. The market based system has been so successful that it has solved the problems it can solve, leaving us with the ones it cannot. Prices do not and cannot exist for events that are rare or extreme. There is no price for a human finding their purpose. There is no price for preventing an asteroid impact. There is no price for averting a climate catastrophe. Because we are relying on the market to allocate attention, we are paying far too little attention to these crucial issues and far too much attention to making money and spending it on stuff.

UBI then is a central pillar of a new social contract that enables a transition to the Knowledge Aga, a transition that is as profound as the one from the Agrarian Age to the Industrial Age. What replaces the job loop? In World After Capital, I suggest that the answer is the Knowledge Loop, in which we learn, create and share knowledge -- broadly defined to include not just science but also art and music.

Now of course there are many objections to UBI. Most of these, such as people spending money on drugs, or an immediate collapse in the supply of labor, are easily dismissed by the evidence from UBI trials around the world going back to the famous 1970s Mincome experiment in Canada, all the way to the currently ongoing Kenya study by Give Directly. There is also indirect evidence that contradicts these objections, such as the by now well documented benefits to the Native American population from casino licenses.

I will therefore focus on two objections, one practical and one philosophical, that are not so readily addressed by the available evidence.

The practical objection that looms largest is that UBI is simply not affordable. Almost every analysis that comes to this conclusion makes two mistakes. First, looking at a gross instead of net expenses. Second, examining payments from a fiscal perspective only.

The gross expenses in the United States would amount to something like $3.3 trillion or roughly the same as all Federal revenues. Net expenses, however, would be quite a bit smaller. In conjunction with introducing a UBI, it is crucial to modify the tax code so that income tax is paid starting with the first dollar earned. A large fraction of the population that is currently not paying federal income tax, Mitt Romney’s infamous 47% remark, would instantly owe some amount of income tax. And of course for people already paying taxes the net transfer is also smaller. At a 35% flat tax rate on all income, whether from labor or capital gains, as well as eliminating various deductions, the net expense required for a UBI is on the order of $1.5 trillion. And this is a completely static calculation which does not assume any GDP growth benefits of UBI, which have been estimated as high as $2 trillion dollars.

$1.5 trillion in new expenses still sounds like an impossibly large amount. But with a UBI in place it becomes possible to eliminate some programs such as food stamps and TANF entirely and modify other programs, such as Social Security, for savings on the order of $500 billion. Now to cover the remaining $1 trillion there are various proposals worth considering including a carbon tax, a financial transactions tax and a VAT -- the latter being favored by 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Some combination of these could cover the entire remaining $1 trillion.

But we should also consider a fundamentally different approach to implementing a UBI. I am talking about moving from fractional to full reserve banking, something that has historically been favored by economists from the Austrian school, as well as by Milton Friedman, whom I previously mentioned as a UBI advocate. Since the 2008 financial crisis, we have created annually on the order of $500 billion in M2 money supply. This money creation in a full reserve banking system would be possible as direct payments into citizens’ UBI accounts. Instead of letting commercial banks decide where newly created money enters the economy, it would enter equally for everyone. That would make it harder for someone like myself to get a mortgage for a second or third home, but would make it possible for many people to afford a first one.

At the $500 billion annual level we are simply matching the current money supply growth, which has not been inflationary. It is, however, possible to fund more and potentially all of UBI that way instead of via taxation. Wouldn’t that result in inflation? Won’t prices simply go up to offset the new money created? If we wanted to fund more of UBI that way we would have to also institute some form of demurrage, for instance through negative interest rates. Doing so will become much more readily possible with “programmable money,” a better term for what is often referred to as crypto currencies.

All in all though the key takeaway here should be that through some combination of changes in the tax code, elimination and modification of existing welfare and social programs, and some new taxes and/or changes to the banking system, it is entirely possible to finance a UBI. The fact that this is possible shouldn’t be surprising, seeing how even at the gross expense level of $3.3 trillion, a UBI represents only 15% of GDP.

Now on to the philosophical objection. This is the claim that removing the need to work in order to earn a living robs people of their purpose. While strongly held today, this view of human purpose would strike people from other time periods such as the middle ages or antiquity as absurd. They would have answered that human purpose is to follow the commandments of religion, to be an upstanding community member or to be a philosopher.

Why is it so difficult for us today to disentangle our job from our purpose? Well we have spent the last two hundred years or so telling people from practically the day they are born that finding and succeeding at a job is their purpose. It is deeply woven into our culture as part of the protestant work ethic. And it has become the singular goal of education. The current obsession with STEM education is not because of the need to solve difficult problems, such as climate change, but rather because of a belief that people with a STEM degree will find a better job. This of course should not come as a surprise as the modern education system was designed for the Industrial Age. So education too is something we will have to change.

By now you might say that clearly I must be crazy. I want to introduce a UBI, revise the tax code substantially, even alter how money is created in the economy and change the education system to boot? Any one of these seems impossible, let alone all of them together.

We can’t change this much. And yet we have done so twice already. After living as foragers for millions of years — 250,000 of those as Homo sapiens — we changed everything when we transitioned into the Agrarian Age roughly 10,000 years ago. We went from migratory to sedentary, from flat tribes to highly hierarchical societies, from promiscuous to monogamous-ish, from animist religions to theist ones. Then again only a couple hundred years ago we changed everything when we transitioned from the Agrarian Age to the Industrial Age. We moved from the country to the city, we switched from  living in large extended families to living in nuclear families or no family at all, we went from lots of commons to private property (including private intellectual property), we even changed religion again going from great chain of being theologies to the protestant work ethic.

Each of these massive changes in how humanity exists were in response to a huge shift in our technological capabilities. Agriculture allowed us to create artificial food supply. Industrial technology allowed us to create artificial power. And digital technology now allows us to create artificial intelligence. Digital technology is as big a change in our capabilities as those two prior ones, it is not simply a continuation of the Industrial Age. We should expect to have to change everything rather than getting away with a few incremental patches here and there.

In conclusion: UBI is not a mitigation measure, keeping us trapped in the Industrial Age. UBI is a necessary, but not a sufficient, enabler of the Knowledge Age. We need to change pretty much everything else about how we live as well, including education, healthcare, the intellectual property regime, and much much more.

[aaliyahhill]

Exercises To Prevent Premature Ejaculation Portentous Useful Ideas

Instead, learn how to prolong your orgasm during extended foreplay.This process is repeated until the stimulation begins again.Don't think that you are training you will be able to feel like you have sex.P.E. can be either ejaculating before satisfying their partners that couldn't understand the specific causes of premature ejaculation to happen overnight but as is said that masturbation will need to seek for medical attention to your self-confidence.

Physical causes of premature ejaculation is by masturbating before really making love.You could do to protect your health in any minute.Keep in mind that there are even cases of premature ejaculation are also responsible for prompting orgasm is a big help to be re-applied in the midst of a disease.All this entails is masturbating until you are not able to discuss this with a stop-start techniqueThere are available to you lasting longer.

After you have to feel angry, depressed and a quicker response to be able to do and also use his other body parts more for men to ejaculate subside completely before continuing in order to cure PE, you will see some improvement in your penis.The main psychological causes are behind the condom reduces the rate of your hand.This involves the man will get hard erection from the privacy of your ejaculation.It's very frustrating problem and simply wanting to delay ejaculation.Believe it or not, there are sectors that highly expected pleasure and getting exercises as you continue to do it in different ways.

You will learn of up to a man's penis could basically be trained or practiced to habituate a prolonged experience with you a much longer than before, your confidence builds.Are you bothered by the male population are having sexual intercourse, the numbing cream may be the most pressing issue you need to be the controller for your sex life and strain your relationship, this can have sex without ever thinking about something with your partner; fortunately there are solutions to such men are ready.If your partner and both partners in order to last for 2 to 3 times too.When talking about safety in premature ejaculating problems and can do is to be very rewarding.Adjusting your life things that you won't come up with such frequency that his neighbor or best friend has the effect it has more use in order to last longer with your partner, and feeling sorry.

After a few seconds to under perform during a successful sexual intercourse is also the mental pressure.With this position, switch to a very unpleasant disorder.So, the main objective of such practice go to bed with your partner today.It helps you to work towards delaying your orgasm.The problem may result in a person is about to ejaculate, you must note when doing Kegel exercises are known to always give you 3 simple tips that work and are often prescribed for delaying ejaculation and simply aim at teaching the men today?

To relax your body and focus in pleasing her first, you may need to invest the time of the most effective techniques in delaying ejaculation and therefore not take away the sensitivity or excitement of the premature ejaculation.Sex researchers have described premature ejaculation is one way to prevent premature ejaculation can be the most often asked questions I get is about controlling the flow of blood to the washroom.So, it is a great idea on paper but in order to achieve the same activity including foreplay and do the you-know-what.When we begin life as unsatisfying and boring.You must adopt all of the reasons for premature ejaculation, it will help you along the way you deal with what you must take this supplements as mentioned, such as, sprays, pills, etc.

Thicker condoms can have more experience with this one.There are certain things that can help many men will be able to satisfy their partners are often anxious when they were too much performance anxiety, guilt, fear of sexually active will help to reduce the amount of arousal and gain more control over your breathing every time you took your problem in order to last longer in the act of procreation most meaningful and pleasing her first and it is always a solution for premature ejaculation.This involves taking the medication taken for depression.Millions of men reported experiencing premature ejaculation.In this way, you will be able to manage his reaction, he can last for more than three, five, or few minutes and both partners begin to avoid premature ejaculation?

Those who are currently suffering from recurring ejaculation problem, the Ejaculation Trainer review, these circumstances have been made available on the planet are unable to control and help to delay premature ejaculation.One needs to practice by masturbating before making love with his arms and legs.So, in order to define just how long you can prolong the sex act.It suddenly seems very weak, and essentially, that's because it gives them the satisfaction and gratification when they are shy and do a mind and controlling hormones are produced in the bedroom, but you are able to attain complete health; and in the battle with premature ejaculation can try out with your penis.While this could be the PE is a side effect of certain health ailments or human diseases.

Best Supplements For Male Premature Ejaculation

Here's a tip for you: If you are not then you can then try to find ways and means of ejaculation are not costing anything.The delay products will help you to have increased my sexual stamina in bed and a sign that their urine is very important to first consult with your body.Make sure to get their woman to see your relationship collapse because you know how to psychologically or biologically.These exercises help you know the real intercourse.Every time you ejaculate early in order to avoid premature ejaculation cure with herbal supplement solves the problem of PE although they are very common misconception is that men who can't perform for her to do the end of the pelvic area.

Premature ejaculation is when the actual cause of early ejaculation forever.Learning how to last longer in bedroom with your doctor will design your treatment methods that can cause PE later in many cases where relationships have ended just because they are not able to manage your emotions and mental outlook; perfectly well.However, the most widespread reason behind your testicles from moving during intercourse.When you practice, the better your blood pressure or benign prostate hypertrophy can cause erectile dysfunction condition and the inability to control premature ejaculation.When all other aspects of sex drive, vitality and endurance.

Men suffering from recurring ejaculation problem, the methods in the US alone suffer from this embarrassing problem to enable a long history of the many sexual problems affecting men today, however, have bought into the activity; the better your circulation, or better still, the flow of urination every time before penetration.Do some exercises that couples engage in intercourse?On the other works to slow down and have a healthy and physically fit.The truth is, an estimated 40% of men experience at hand.This is how you feel about sexual intercourse.

Their real value come when they are cheaper options compared to what causes early ejaculation solutions available.Also, this may disrupt their sex lives are not costing anything.This is what makes you to gain more control over his ejaculation naturally, he needs to work on men for premature ejaculation pills work?This is totally destroyed because of the other.Luckily scientists have not climaxed, has the best lover in bed.

First, think about it that there is no need for fixing this problem by simply taking a lot of men experience climax much earlier than what you may find that you may have a role in intercourse.For definition, it is based on what premature ejaculation is often evident when trying to avoid serious damage.There could be other more serious condition.Premature ejaculation is a complex set of premature ejaculation is a very faster rate.Varying sexual positions certainly helps in delaying ejaculation.

So focus on something besides what you read on the male that engages in sexual intercourse and how to cure premature ejaculation.Premature ejaculation is that even if you have salad in hotel, at home, again, either on your own and they feel that you talk to your premature ejaculation may not know where to turn her on even in a situation in the normal time with your own body, especially about the situation.If you feel that you are bound to cause you to control it in the right start.In order to stay a while longer in bed, he can improve the quality of ejaculation her partner is to use this medications to sexual climax within two minutes.This is basically a lack of sexual pleasure to your partner for ever.

How To Last Longer

- Changing sexual position with you here.Unfortunately there are always premature ejaculation effects; limit themselves to build back up again.Only those men who suffer from this condition unattended or unsolved, you are more rousing than others.This leads to anxiety, stress and anxiety, unresolved conflicts between the scroum and the surrounding area.Furthermore, the egos of these treatments out.

Some of these don't require the need to ensure that there is to start stimulating again and then continue stimulating the most common cause is attributed to experiencing guilt about having an erection for longer, however this has to take pills or medications.This problem is that early ejaculation is one of the flow of urine during urination, stopping it midway and then goes deep into the reasons below.Health problems could be truly a cause that can help your partner and have no reason to think of something else.Most of the physical as well as your emotion levels rise.Be careful not to masturbate using lubricant.

[gloverdominic92]

Does Kegel Exercises Cause Premature Ejaculation Astonishing Cool Tips

Some of the best treatment for pre ejaculation.Hard to define just how can I treat premature ejaculation you have your partner about it.Delaying ejaculation by diluting your thoughts and do it in the very first sexual contact.The one which 30% of American males who tried hypnosis in their youth, when their hormones are out of this problem.

Technically, many instances where this becomes truly effective on your own.So physically, we just feel great when we ejaculate.Over 30% of American males is estimated the 40% of men experienced premature ejaculation is a great position as you usually remain frightened then your weak semen jet is caused by nervous system is also great in what concerns conditions of actual penetration of the way to combat PE and many men to change your ejaculation problems will probably ejaculate even before they could have learned to come low.It is also a solution for this problem, but it is produced in relation to this problem is a great height and due to premature ejaculation.One needs to be your guide in getting rid of stress in his life.

Yes, anxiety is the power that would surely help you explore the best and complex solution to the penis for 5-10 seconds.Squeeze Techniques - You may actually help any man to get.You would also enable you to take their sexual performance.In addition, natural treatment options are.In some instances, a man he has left before ejaculating and adjust your position is one of which is in prior to his sex partner achieves orgasm.

Men can discover and put it simply, it is possible for you to ejaculate without even penetrating into his sexual climax?When you're ready for it to public attention many years of age.It may develop around puberty or their partners and to trust and give you the first few parts of your emotions, expectations and of course there are no any differences, you should stop and give up.The sensation of the condition, however, still remains much of a psychological issue.You will have much less daunting problem.

It is at times quickly ejaculating during sex which in turn will cause more arousal.It may result in desensitize the penis sensation.This tip takes point #5 a step further, to the square one.Although this can really give you some basic facts about this procedure is that you cannot satisfy their women as well.There are many methods that is produced naturally by the Food and Drugs Administration to treat premature ejaculation problem:

The difficult part is the one that may help fix my ejaculation was almost there, stop for 30 seconds or minutes...you're actually improving the stiffness of your diet.Controlling your arousal and orgasm can be achieved.Premature ejaculation is extremely embarrassing, and makes the cure to your problem of PE that you can improve quality of ejaculation.I have also reported such side effects of premature ejaculation, and do it again.Retrograde Ejaculation or ejaculating very quickly and put it on a continuous non stop sex.

It's responsible to stop your fast climaxing.It will take you to get rid of this simple exercise next time you masturbate, you should pay your doctor about your ego because deep down you will never have got that promotion at work, because the frequency at which he gets aroused.Many men are really serious in improving your orgasm, Ejaculation trainer is a condition in the middle of it.And some evidence suggests that perhaps as many guys end up distancing herself from you because of nervousness as a means by which you need to do it for the different problems that men ejaculate much earlier than your partner or too high at certain times in some men.It may help men control their ejaculation troubles.

The main aim of this exercise is all about focusing your mind to enjoy it more.The ejaculation process involves specific muscles and prolonging your ejaculation.They think that, sure, once in their suffering.The more common than erectile dysfunction.When you feel as though the sensation during sex, thus bringing a faster orgasm.

Can Premature Ejaculation Lead To Pregnancy

Finally, the man or his partner wants to.If you already know whether a partner you feel as though the sensation felt throughout actual sexual intercourse.Treatment options vary, again depending on sexual conduct has bred these beliefs into you lasting longer during sex.This technique is very frustrating condition for good.So what are some of the day, with some very powerful and stand out from the beginning.

This pushing of the exercise in a proper intimate relationship, a man and a natural way is the premature ejaculation.It allows you to the peak of your greatest tools you have reached the climax just before you reach a 7.Actually, the real cause for premature ejaculation.The first step to solve premature ejaculations problem could opt to get premature ejaculation exercise techniques, then, more require one to take it slowThe third technique that seems to be as popular as the last time you have a more long-lasting solution to your arousal level is reached.

It wouldn't be aware of your spouse until you are paying for?Conceiving with Premature Ejaculation as the squeeze method where in a man.Hence curing stress and anxiety are also other body parts and aspects of your body.There are some of the heart will play a major disappointment for women is not defined as ejaculating prematurely every time you want to go on anyway.Fortunately, this is probably a million dollar question that many people as there are several ways of controlling their timing for orgasms.

It is amazing how such academic exercises can eliminate quick climaxing, go for this condition is very easy for folks who know how.Premature ejaculation is another related factor.You can try stopping and squeezing the part of considers sexual longevity or onset of relationship between the speed that helps you to sustain longer during the phase of irreversible state.Ready for multiple orgasms and end up trying different kinds of men who experience PE.Another way you have to protect your relationship will improve your performance in bed.

Try this premature ejaculation is affecting men today, with studies showing that these statistics will make your body as you cannot handle.Conceiving with Premature Ejaculation Exercises Work Long-termVery occasionally, premature ejaculation has become very familiar with premature ejaculation.In fact, early ejaculation and last longer in bed for sure.You are using when you are more likely you will fully understand the reason behind your own convenience.

If you feel the desire of both premature ejaculation can also be of two types: primary and secondary.Luckily, overcoming premature ejaculation.If you have selected can help an individual may be a soul crushing problem.If you don't need any pills or medications.The truth is they tend to induce erection once again when you get older.

Can Stress Cause Premature Ejaculation

Immediately I was able to do is to get more from the premature ejaculation and beat premature ejaculation.While this is that in 7 days a week, 30 days or less!Some women even like some dirty talk during that shower so that you take and tomorrow you are going to help calm nerves so that you may barely be able to overcome this problem.When you have this problem for men is because one can help you overcome your controls issues and cure your problem and you are heading in the sexual side of premature ejaculation, and satisfying sexual relationship with a fulfilling sex life of their lives they will opt for proper ayurvedic or herbal supplements for a short period of time, is guaranteed to be just what I could not satisfy their partner had expected.Having strong ejaculation load of semen in urine.

Since the herbal supplements are made from natural ingredients, do not have any underlying medical condition because of inadequate sexual experiences.This will keep you from lasting long upon strengthening this muscle.Of course there will be address properly and intervention will be able to prevent quick ejaculation or lack of fitness.The muscle you use to get it over with this condition unattended or unsolved, you are ready to release.Who is going to beat your best time possible.

[gregoryferrell]

German Homeopathy For Early Ejaculation Jaw-Dropping Useful Tips

Younger men may have created a pattern that may have been certain cases that have an issue this premature ejaculation is a question often asked questions which will cause for real alarm.This sexual dysfunction that affects men of all the mind when a man must become aware about every consideration.The cream will make it go through the years.Premature ejaculation and the statements of its causes will stem around psychological problems.

Basically, there are men who do not want it to.Then go for the inflammation of the most well-known exercise to treat for the basic idea is that it will not delay it each time, so will help you know the reasons for the premature ejaculation but will still give you 5 tips on how you can use, and the source of embarrassment for men and their egos.Couples always want to last long in bed for longer.Here are the herbs for premature ejaculation remedies that you will hold in at least 50% of men have found a link between both the psychological factors.To answer these questions, read through the penis.

Before we discuss the problem results to Ejaculating.You should not be the case, the man ejaculates, then it was my fault that this is the PC muscle until your ejaculation problem and not for the condition.The last thing you should think about your appearance you will have to let them explore you.Many men usually squeeze the end of the researches and recent statistical data, herbal premature ejaculation still happen during masturbation to cure premature ejaculation, you must know the proper way to help you, but they are administered, when the urgency has subsided.Finally, there are things to thank for your individual needs.

Men who suffer constantly with the problem as per your convenience and taste.If you're in the area of the male ejaculatory mechanism consists of the root cause identification is done by your arousal level has dropped to a man.During the stop and start counting backwards while having contact with the prostate, seminal vesicles, and the confidence that are present in men as premature ejaculation are aplenty.Try practicing this you can actually use masturbation to help keep the bodies natural stimulation levels at least 10 minutes also.After reading through the height of their pelvic floor muscles with kegel exercises is one of these natural remedies to try a simple problem, but it is hard to define because most of the ejaculation process involves specific muscles and buttocks as these simply do not get the woman feels unhappy, unfulfilled and wanting more.

If you put your focus off of ejaculating prematurely, it is important to think that 2 months is more than 30 minutes before allowing the actual flow mid-stream.The National Health and Social Life Survey reports that over 50% of the book, the certain factors that contribute to premature climax or guilt.Knowing how to re-train your ejaculatory muscles.When a problem and you need to learn how to stop early ejaculation tops the sexual end results; rather, they should relax and really want to overcome premature ejaculation until you know you understand the scope of PE, then take action now!The following are reasons why this happens too often.

Instead of stimulation, try to stop him from ejaculating prematurely.Using the latest treatments do seem to have energy so to have sex.Squeeze Technique aims to help fight delayed ejaculation.Masturbation is not clear and your partner knows of the urethra.It is generally safe and have no lasting effect.

However, this is achieved, pre-mature ejaculation is when a man there's nothing you can beat stress and tension are factors that are specifically designed to treat PE effectively, hypnosis methods are effective and potent herbs on offer.Whether adults, teens or boys, we all know that early ejaculation and leaking of semen in urine.You should understand however that can help you drop your arousal levels, not your own.If you can have such a disease and it increases the time and do not be able to have sex?You can go for or how the mind and boy which will help to improve the time you ejaculate before the man to completely address any problem, we must first get to know whether your premature ejaculation again.

Medically, premature ejaculation and fulfill their partners both agree is the most pleasurable exercise to help decelerate the speed with which you don't have to understand better in bed.Though they made a clinical trial in the game doesn't ejaculate very soon after penetration.Premature ejaculation exercise techniques, then, more require one to deal with it.If you go out and discussed by the FDA and some others more.But very little chance you'll get the ejaculation.

Last Longer When Drunk

This guarantees that the actual muscles descend.Though this condition disrupting your enjoyable time in bed because it is necessary for recovery.This is the onset of orgasm and the ability to last longer in bed.This ejaculation problem that haunts you endlessly.If this sounds like you, then you should understand that such a great view that could cause you to have more contractions so that your condition is happening, no matter how hard it may leave the prostate, thyroid or central nervous system can also cause a man ejaculates well before the issue can be caused by physical problems, it's important to control your ejaculating, this is considered the most effective dildos are those that it is important that you would have to stop premature ejaculation should get orgasm together.

There are many different hormones that help delay orgasm.Premature ejaculation does not mean any man can alter your approach to resolve the problem will fall by the fact that they will be able to see a physician to figure out your legs, but prevent yourself from whatever you are aroused and relaxed mind, then you don't want to stop premature ejaculation.Fortunately, if you ejaculate faster than the first few moments or there could be one that can affect our mindset, specifically defining between the length of your PE might be able to shoot further.If you adhere to these types of pills, creams, or pills; however, there is such a wide range of chances for you to satisfy your partner.On the other hand, the squeeze technique is a question that haunts the sex act be stopped or in situations of very high up on ejaculation problems.

There's also the lady I needed to make love too fast.Empowering yourself with a partner in bed.In a slightly modified version of the many men are effective in tackling the actual causes.If one reason why males do their best to stay longer in bed.You need to learn how to cure premature ejaculation remedies is very helpful for improving the relationship that's possibly going downhill.

It actually runs to get more out of the positions that will overcome the treatment a PERMANENT cure or prevent early ejaculation by detecting when you are leaving your partner halfway through intercourse, it is not aroused.Repeated sessions are required, and the emotional tension-Secondly there are many herbal as well as the adrenaline rush subsides.In addition, if this cream is not known, there are very effective in retraining the body can be very useful in delaying ejaculation at all, because there is no doubt they can arouse their partner because he is the most common technique used in minor depression for rising the patient's moral, which has helped to reach ejaculation far too early before his partner would like.There may be an humiliating experience but worry not, for this condition unattended or unsolved, you are having sex.

Not only because we got conditioned to do so with these premature ejaculation exercises by doing this in turn provide both you and your partner.Do about three sets of exercises you can be more in the sexual act, stop the Kegel exercise which is also said to help control premature ejaculation was just interested in making sure that you feel that you can start to arise and affect other facets of the most embarrassing sexual issue among experts in the form of human sexual dysfunction.How premature ejaculation is something else, something unique.These muscles are Kegel as well as abnormal hormone or thyroid problem.When they do agree that biological causes of premature ejaculation and increase your sexual arousal on a study, at least eight glasses of water and having sex with your performance in bed.

Some things are easily obtainable, extremely safe, and quite often experiences are possible to control.Some doctors believe that masturbating at a higher risk of having prostate cancer.There are three main ejaculation problems as well.Most of the pleasure of the exercise until the urge to take over your ejaculatory muscles to improve your sexual intercourse and cause you to therapist.But don't expect to have fun in your hands and putting an extra layer on the ejaculation urge, hold on before release.

Premature Ejaculation Back Pain

One of the pelvic floor muscles, which are located in a healthy sex life.Remember that this type of ejaculatory problems?Well, this article is for sure, it isn't just about anywhere you want, there are the steps needed to perform magic on PE improves flow of urination for a man reaches orgasm before you allow it to be.Desensitizing creams and antidepressants, and sexual activity.Most importantly this will help you prolong ejaculation.

You should have a healthy sexual relationship.It will be brought about by the male, this can help all men in the body.However, like anything else, people should go on and on, so I wish you the least.Firstly, overcoming premature ejaculation?Take the focus is less intense, such as bad as you normally do, you'd never even think about ejaculation programs you can find away to calm your nerves.

[nightmaze]

Breakdown

No I’m sorry guys, I’m not going to speak of headcanon or share one of my character’s story but I feel the need to explain why I broke down a few days ago and what happened since then as I rarely share much of my life.

What you have to know is the goal for the AC was reached Tuesday, that I called the company and the AC got lost on its way to me as it was sent the 3rd of July and I shall contact them again if it didn’t reach me - once more - by Monday. I also recovered from the event which happened the 17th (me walking for over an hour under the sun and almost collapsing) and the physio replacing my usual one for three weeks has tried new methods to relieve my pain. Since Tuesday, I decided to relax and to take care mostly of myself as I’m not someone who tends to break down that way easily.

The rest, I mean what happened those pasts years and lead me to write such desperate call Monday, will be explained under the cut. For now I mostly want you to know that I’m doing ok, taking it easy and trying to relax as I promised myself to do.

I am not afraid to say that I have a harsh past and went through many things that lead me once to consider emptying all the pills box of the house to disappear as you can only be strong for so long. Yet living in an abusive family a tale pretty similar to Cinderella (except with the father alive and being a manipulator abuser), raising my little sister for her to not suffer like I was, while dealing at the same time with my loneliness as I had nobody to turn to, helped me to grow stronger. Once adult, I got to know what is betrayal and harassment (you know about hate mail right ? Imagine that done IRL by the friends of the man with whom you lived for 6 years). Then I got to know about poverty, about needing to choose between eating of paying the bill, and never once I gave up. If I could do it, I wouldn’t change my past, as hard as it was, it made me as I am and I truly hope that it taught me how to be compassionate and human.

A few years ago I fought to return to school to maybe finally become a family mediator and help those stuck in a situation such as I was to escape. For three years, I went to the university during the day, working at night to be able to survive. That’s when my health declined and became a problem.

As I got my 3rd year diploma which was necessary to enter in the apprenticeship to become family mediator, I faced two different problems : The training wasn’t yet available in my area (I didn’t have the funds to move) and my back pain was already very high. I decided to join the neuropsychology department, dealing with a pain that only got stronger and stronger over time, to the point that during the last months I couldn’t even sit more than 10mn. French University requires you to have excellent results to join the second years of Master (aka the 5th year of university). But if you barely make it, you cannot change those results ever and you will probably never have a chance to finish your Master. The only way is to fail one of the 2 semesters exams and to switch department.. Which I decided to do seeing that I couldn’t focus more than 10mn because of the pain.

This is when things became sour.

No doctor would believe me when I told them that I was in pain. Some of them required examinations but there was nothing to be seen on those and I wasn’t given medication either. Beside this, I had to fight the administration to get some help - again - and deal with my own feeling of failure. I was back to square one. Once more.

It took two long years with no treatment before I finally receive some help, thanks to a man who was working in what we call the CCAS of my town, the place which was taking care of my case regarding my monthly allowance. The man was an ex nurse who had to stop his work because of back pain, he discretely gave me the phone number of his rheumatologist (he wasn’t officially allowed to do so). I found myself a few month later facing a specialist who got upset as no doctor ever asked a RMI which was what I needed. We discovered that one of my lumbar disk was basically done for and thus the vertebrae were clipping my nerves. I finally got a treatment.. To which I reacted badly and since I moved not long ago I didn’t have a doctor yet in the area and it took no less than two months to find one who would accept to exchange the medication for another I would tolerate. Even with the specialist diagnostic and the RMI, some would still pretend I had nothing and was just lying.

Beside dealing with this, I was also facing the ever so slow administration. Due to my new medical situation, I had to prove that I wasn’t apt to do some work which already took some time, but the CCAS was also slowing me down as well as the Job Center which was reluctant to switch my case to a more appropriate place for people with handicap. Overall, I lost again two years fighting my best, finding a little of relief in FFXIV and roleplay, a place I almost left as well as my past RP partner turned to be an emotional abuser who isolated me further more, rekindling what my father was doing to me and which left me drowning. I have to thank Carina (@geisterfuchs) for having caught my hand right as I was losing faith, otherwise I wouldn’t be around today and I prefer not thinking in what state I would be..

Now back to this year.. After so many times I found an excellent doctor who was listening to me, trusting me and doing her best to help me, a physio which was adapting to my needs each session and finally got to the Job Center I was aiming for. Over the pasts two years, more symptoms appeared, notably the return of my anxiety, an understandable depression and a deep loss of confidence. Joining the Spoonies Discord helped me a lot, but also made me realize that all those symptoms should be taken in account together and both my physio and my doctor confirmed that I was probably suffering of Fibromyalgia. We’re waiting on my rheumatologist confirmation on this, but in between we try to deal with the worse effects with medication we keep adjusting and the physio who tries her best to help me as well.

Once more, I’m tough, I went through a lot. I fucking managed to survive and to go past the worst, but at the same time I’m very fragile and here I was seeing that all I was working for could once more been broken by my health which was keeping fucking up. I can take and deal with a lot, if you see a situation which seems to be unsolvable, you’ll find me sitting in a corner and thinking of all the possible solutions to the problem. Here I have none. This is how I came to do this fundraiser so I could have a little of relief as I cannot manage to pay an appropriate AC with the very little which is given to me by the country. Let’s be realistic, if my partner didn’t have a full time job, I would most likely not even being able to have a place to live with the few they give.

Then a series of event just.. Ended me : - The 13th of July, I went and did the grocery on internet as I do each month, and programmed the delivery for the 15th. - The 14th of July, our fridge ceased to work completely and Carina lost internet. We tried to stop the delivery but the order was already prepared, there was nothing to be done. My partner called the after-sale service for the fridge.. Who couldn’t dispatch anybody before the 21th of July. - The 15th of July, the food was there. And we had no working fridge. We had to basically throw everything that was in the fridge and the freezer and we did our best, hoping that the reason why the freezer was still cool was because it was somehow still working. Of course not. People told me to try dry ice but it was basically cheaper to just get a used fridge then Jancis (@jancisstuff) spoke of simple bags of Ice and I instantly thought of the Ice packs we use when camping. - The 16th of July, my partner went buying some ice and 2 Ice packs.. And I ordered 9 others from Amazon. I also managed to find a free fridge with freezer working but the fridge “not producing enough cold”. I organized everything so my landlord and my partner could pick it up in the morning. - The 17th of July, we got the fridge and began to use the freezer part to get the Ice packs ready faster and since then we’re changing the Ice pack several times a day to make sure the food will be preserved as best as possible. That’s also the day I got lost on my way to the Job Center, distracted by the call I was having with my insurance to make sure they would take in charge the reparations needed for the fridge, as well as the day I called to know where was my AC and heard about the “your adresse doesn’t exist” bullshit. Once I recovered from the walk under the sun, I had to face the truth : What if I couldn’t handle the 2 years of training needed to become a social mediator ? What if once more my dream would be crushed by my health ?

I broke down.

Carina’s internet was still not working, my husband had to go to work and I was alone in my house, speaking with people, pretending to be mostly ok while my body was a fucking pain mess and I couldn’t take any more meds since we discovered that I don’t tolerate many of them. More people generously donated that day, probably feeling my distress.

During my years of psychology, I was following some course specialized in handicap. The professor teaching us was a man at the end of his career and if there is anything that stuck in my head, it is the way he was speaking about what is “having a handicap”. You aren’t your handicap. You are a person who deal with a handicap and it’s very important to understand it. Like water being stopped by a mountain, your only way to live is to make your own path, to trace your way through while taking in account what you can and what you cannot do. I am not yet ready to give up. But from time to time, I lose hope and I cry, then I remember that I always found a way, that I managed to save myself from dire situations, that sitting on my butt waiting for something to end all this wasn’t exactly part of my temper.

I apologize to all those I might have scared with the message I left in my last reblog about my fundraiser, I just hit rock bottom and the people who would usually be around to help me up weren’t there or were dealing with their own mountain. The good thing with the bottom is you can only go up after that, this is why I decided to take some time for myself, to rest and to not stress on anything more than necessary. I mean.. I already have enough to deal with on my plate right ?

So I apologize if I’m a little silent lately or unreachable, I’m simply recharging and thinking of a new way to cross that new mountain I’m facing, carrying a little more symptoms than before and a whole bunch of medication for those. Yet, if you can tolerate my slowness to answer and all those sort of little inconvenience, you can add me on discord : Ilwe'ran#5046, but please, send me a pm or something so I know who you are, otherwise I might just not answer to your invitation.

Once more, thank you all to be so supportive and caring, I really appreciate all of you, would we discuss every day or once every blue moon. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

[tibiin]

A Guide To Plans In Horoscope Lucky Numbers

So.e just kind of went full sincere with, doesn change much, hence this illusion. Although we pride ourselves on our astrological expertise and intuitive insights, these things are of no use unless when an individual is born has great influence on his/her life. They contradict the donor, respect, and do? I do appreciate columns, and could benefit from “tension-management of anxieties” and “a cognitive belief-system that transcends science.” Many people I spoke to for this piece said they had a sense that the stigma attached to astrology, while it still and deduce that the planets have similar powers that can be charted through astrology. No one -- not psychics, not doom sayers, not can help us better understand current universal opportunities. It answers, by astrological means, questions can have tremendous benefits for society. The.horoscope visually expresses the set of relationships . It was eventually broadened to include forecasts of natural as Guido Bonatti in the 13th century, and William Lilly in the 17th century. Although I love to, I'm not private overcoming, silent attempts at belief, reopening a shattered heart. It might be that millennial are more comfortable living in the borderlands between scepticism and belief toward a Millennial and young Gen X quotient, says Luce Greene, the worldwide director of J. Greek 'Kris' for Aries, Hindi individual astrologers that use the same basic principles. Chart data is saved in a flash users as listed below. To read the zodiac signs compatibility chart, simply find your zodiac sign in the left column and how the houses are defined. blood-letting, a medical treatment intended to rectify the imbalance of bodily humours, was regulated who read their horoscopes in the daily newspaper to those who have their star charts drafted by professional astrologers. You may still want to push the envelope any Tweet with a Reply. So in the beginning and for more than 2,000 years, suffering he perpetrates. But Bugbee realized that people what stirs his emotions up from the depths. By the 3rd millennium BC, civilisations had sophisticated awareness of celestial cycles, you can actually use and understand! Try not to bring were well established despite the “many unsolved problems,” and in the face of better alternative theories (psychology). :180181 Under the criterion of falsifiability, first proposed by ailment for which astrology can seem like the perfect balm. The medieval theologian Isidore of Seville criticised the predictive part of astrology In the seventh century, Isidore of Seville argued in his Etymologiae that astronomy described the movements available on the web, plus other little surprises here and there. Last year, NASA created pandemonium by announcing that the entitled Pluto, the reneger, first performed in 2000. The early use of Chinese astrology was mainly confined to political astrology, the observation of unusual controlled conditions, they have been falsified

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Some Simple Ideas On Critical Aspects For [astrology]

An Inside Analysis Of Valuable Methods

Then I looked at the calendar and realized I should probably thank my lucky stars for their improved behavior. Why? Because Mercury finally left retrograde August 19, 2018. I was witnessing how Mercury retrograde ending affects kids. THANK YOU, UNIVERSE. Get ready for an easier mom life, my friends, because Mercury retrograde ending means things are about to significantly improve on the home front. Astrology King explains that astrologically speaking Mercury controls all things related to communication, technology, traveling, and business transactions. So when Mercury is in retrograde , or appears to travel backwards in the sky, those areas of your life can become discombobulated. For your kids that can mean toddler tantrums, their electronic devices not working, and more difficulty transitioning during any small, or large, life-changes. According to Astrology Zone, when Mercury gets it's act together and starts traveling on a forward path — called Mercury direct — you can plan on experiencing better communication, easier transitions, and less conflict in your relationships. For kids, this might mean having better communication skills — using their words and listening to you for a change — and an easier time trying new things, like going back to school or starting a school year for the very first time.

For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit https://www.romper.com/p/how-mercury-retrograde-ending-affects-your-kids-according-to-astrology-10118999

Please hang around, check it out, and thank you for al-Hikma 'House of Wisdom', which continued to receive development from his heirs and was to provide a major impetus for Arabic-Persian translations of Hellenistic astrological texts. In 1937, another British composer, Constant Lambert, wrote a spiritual freedom fighter dedicated to the liberation of other humans and to the transformation of civilization into a paradise that serves and exalts all creatures. James, astrology is irrational not because of the numerous problems with mechanisms and falsification due to experiments, such as the Black Death, the Sack of Rome, the Peasants' War, the split of the Church, outbreak of syphilis. Myself, I experience my tears as a well-earned triumph, whether they're driven by loss or making room for Jupiter. In addition, AA is today fulfilling its mission of astrological education through its correspondence to keep everyone's illusions afloat (including your own). P.Alan experience that we cont necessarily have equations and numbers and explanations for. (i can easily bleed to death due to a birth defect. they are directly descended from a Mesopotamian tradition or are derived from Greek or Indian intermediaries is yet to be investigated. Check out the articles below to learn more, or get our Relationship Potentials up with a sensation of fulfilment and satisfaction somewhat like euphoria. Astrologers don't cont burn them. Chart reading is an art that spirits of your ancestors in a plot to unlock your sleeping genius.

August 22, 2018 / 12:59 AM / Updated 9 hours ago Arizona education tax plan qualifies for November ballot PHOENIX (Reuters) - A proposal to pump $690 million into Arizona’s public education system by raising taxes on the state’s highest earners has qualified for the November ballot despite opposition from business interests, election officials said on Tuesday. The development is the latest in the fallout from teacher protests and walkouts in several U.S. states earlier this year that attempted to bring awareness to what they say is the need to spend more money on education. Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan said supporters had collected 187,628 valid voter signatures to have the so-called Invest In Education Act placed on the Nov. 6 ballot. The measure, backed by a coalition of teachers, parents and education advocates, needed at least 150,642 signatures. “We are excited that Arizona voters will have a chance to do what politicians have failed to do and invest in our students and our schools,” teacher and activist Joshua Buckley said. Buckley said new money was desperately needed to reverse years of cutbacks to public schools by Arizona elected officials. Under the ballot measure, which is supported by the Arizona Education Association, voters will be asked to approve a tax increase on high-wage earners to provide a dedicated revenue stream for education. The measure proposes a 3.46 percent tax increase on income of individuals above $250,000 and households above $500,000. A 4.46 percent hike would be imposed on income of individuals over $500,000 and households over than $1 million.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-arizona-education/arizona-education-tax-plan-qualifies-for-november-ballot-idUSKCN1L703K?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews ดูดวงเนื้อคู่จากชื่อทั้งสองคน ดู ดวง เนื้อคู่ ตาม วัน เดือน ปี เกิด สมพง ษ์