#a couple days ago it was my ‘grad party’

[toastspirit]

.

[wooahaes]

an act of caring for others

pairing: non-idol!husband!s.coups x gn!reader

genre: fluff. married life au. grad student!cheol mentions.

word count: 1.0k~

warnings: food mentions. sappy loving domestic life <3

daisy's notes: hes just so husband shaped idk what to tell u

In your married life, you never expected to become the kind of couple who hosted dinner parties regularly. 

Maybe “regularly” wasn’t the best word for it. It wasn’t as though the two of you hosted these nights every month or anything. Simply put: you learned a couple things in your two years of marriage. One was that several of your grad student husband’s friends were crushed underneath the weight of classes and jobs (you, thankfully, only had a job to worry about). Two was that a few of his friends couldn’t cook to save their lives (Wonwoo and Soonyoung and sometimes Vernon…). And three: you genuinely, truly loved cooking for other people. This one wasn’t exactly new, though. Sure, you loved cooking for your now-husband while the two of you were dating (sometimes he’d help where he could, always in love with the domesticity of it), but you loved cooking for your friends and family, too. 

A little over a year ago, you had invited his friends over with this ‘bring a side dish or a dessert, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to’ tacked onto the message. Hell, you’d mentioned that they could bring a lunchbox if they’d like to take leftovers—but they’d have to settle things out themselves. It was during that first night that you really got to listen to a few of them talking about life. You and Seungcheol were pretty lucky to not have to worry too heavily about things, since your job paid pretty damn well and you both also had family to fall back onto. But Joshua had been talking about how he kinda missed being in the U.S. sometimes because his mom only visited so often, and when you heard Seungkwan talk about missing Jeju and his family…

Well. It tugged at your heartstrings enough to ask Seungcheol how he felt about maybe picking a day every few months so that most of his friends could come together for a meal. He’d agreed pretty easily, admitting his own concerns over people like Junhui and Minghao who didn’t have family here. So the two of you started hosting little dinners here and there, always for people who were feeling homesick. Sometimes that would mean Seungkwan would call you up and ask if he could join the two of you sometime, other times it was Jun saying he would come help make dinner and Minghao would bring wine. 

Other times were like today: you and Seungcheol waking up early on a day you didn’t have to work, and immediately getting started in the kitchen after you’d had breakfast. This time, Seungcheol would have to stop helping in order to study for a bit since he had a test tomorrow morning in one of his classes, but that was fine. It was the prepwork that was the most hell, in your opinion: endless chopping and whatnot. 

You couldn’t help but admire him now. He was standing near the fridge, glasses sliding down his nose as he studied a recipe book, hair half-pulled up. Sometimes you thought that you would marry him again if he asked you, no matter how silly that would be. 

“You’re staring again,” he hummed, smiling. 

“I’m admiring, thank you.” 

He chuckled, turning to kiss you as you came closer. “I’m doing the math in my head,” he said, turning back to the book. “I might have to run to the store for more of this…” He tapped at something on the page, although you didn’t really care to look. You were still admiring him. He noticed a second later, and smiled into another soft kiss. “I hate that you’ll have to do the majority of the work this time…”

“I don’t mind,” you said. “I care about you and your friends. You can’t help that you need to study,” you wrapped your arms around his shoulders. “You’re almost done, y’know?”

“I know,” he said, dragging out the word. His arms wrapped around your waist, drawing you in closer. “But you already do a lot for me. Other people would be annoyed—”

“And other people aren’t me, so I don’t care. You’re studying hard to get farther,” you said. “I wouldn’t have married you if I didn’t support you.” 

He smiled again, a charming look in his eyes as he gazed at you. Seungcheol was always so soft when he was near you, to the point where the tender look on his face was enough to make you cry on your wedding day. In turn, it made him cry, so you considered the two of you even. “I love you,” he said, soft as a promise. “Let me know if you change your mind and want Jun to come help. He said he didn’t mind—”

“It feels wrong to say yes,” you admitted. “I mean… We’re hosting. All the others need to do is show up.”

“Jun knows how many people we’re cooking for,” Seungcheol said. “There’s nothing wrong with needing help. Especially when I can’t help you.” 

With a sigh, you nodded. “I’ll think about it. Are you going to the store now?”

“Are you coming with me?”

Normally, you would… But duty called. You had things to keep working on. “Grab me something sweet?”

“I’ll be coming back—”

You swatted at his arm, but fell only deeper in love with the warm way he laughed at his own dumb joke. “Something chocolate, please,” you said. “We can share it if you want.” 

He stole one final kiss from you before he stepped away. “Whatever you want,” he promised. 

You purposefully waited until he was about to leave to call out to him. “I love you, too.” 

And, oh, that warm smile on his face made all of this work worth it. You would kiss that smile when the two of you went to bed tonight, exhausted from the long day and dinner that you had to put away any remains of when it was all said and done. And you would kiss that smile again tomorrow morning, just to remind him that you knew he could ace it.

taglist: @twancingyunhao @wonuziex @staranghae @synthetickitsune @weird-bookworm

[eponymous-rose]

Monday!

It's been a while since I've done one of these week-in-the-life posts (and I LOVE reading them from others), and it's a particularly stressful week where I'm trying to stay off social media for Reasons, so hey, let's do this again!

It's a busy day, but it starts relatively late - I don't have to leave for the office until 10AM. So, you may ask, why on earth do I set my alarm for 8:30? Is it because I have an elaborate morning routine? Is it so I can hit the gym and go for a jog? No, no, no, it's because I have a little cat who takes the alarm as her cue to cuddle and I don't want to disappoint her, so I inevitably spend half an hour hugging her like a purring teddy bear first thing in the morning before I get up.

I respond to some e-mails as I get ready and on the bus ride over - mostly prep for our department's holiday party (I'm in the band and we're trying to get as much practice in as possible), but also a little work getting supercomputer access restored for an undergrad research assistant, offering to write a letter of recommendation so my colleague doesn't have to (we both know the student well and said colleague is traveling across the country for a funeral on a redeye flight tonight...), reworking some elements of the rubric for the faculty search committee I'm on, and confirming a meeting with my grad student.

10:45 - I get to the office and go to make my usual mug of tea... and realize in the moment I close my office door that the keys are still inside. I get the hot water from the lounge and meander by the office, but nobody's there. Just as I'm about to work up the nerve to go interrupt a more senior professor's meeting to borrow his keys, one of the office staff walks by and is happy to open the door for me, phew.

11:00 - My most senior grad student is doing an internship in Colorado this quarter (it's the location he most wants to do a postdoc at as well!), and we've set up a call to catch up after a few weeks without chatting. It's a bit of an awkward chat because he wants to go to his second conference in two months, and I had to bring out the "well, um, this is a side project you're doing with someone else's research group and you may want to check with them about where the $2000+ for conference costs is coming from". I possibly have an avenue - I might ask him to just attend for a couple of days instead of the whole time, so I can use some funding from a different grant, but I'm hoping we can get some cost-sharing going here, or possibly the other professor he's working with can present his poster for him if need be. Still, his work's going great and I'm hoping we can get him to this conference! He finishes his PhD this year, and I can attest to how helpful conferences are for landing postdocs.

12:00 - Speaking of grants, I had a successful grant come through late last summer to study wildfire smoke dynamics with novel instrumentation (something new to me!), and the whole team is meeting up for the first time to talk logistics! I also have to teach real soon, so I'm only on for the first chunk of the call, but we get some of the plan set up. Looks like we'll be meeting at a NASA facility early next year to do some siting stuff prior to the first controlled burn. I genuinely have no idea what I'm doing on this project, apart from being willing to write a big chunk of the proposal, but it's a good time!

12:30 - Class time! This is my domain-specific intro-to-python class that I developed 5 years ago and have been iterating on ever since. It's going a lot smoother this week than last, and the students are pretty responsive to my jokes (priority #1, lbr) and seem to be following along quite well, judging by the handful of questions I get after class. Not a ton of technical issues today, either, which is a HUGE win over last week.

1:30 - Forecasting time! I'm once again part of our university team in a giant forecasting contest. While I'm decidedly average at it (usually around 250th out of 1000 participants), my grad student was #1 for a while there. We chat in broad terms about the next week of weather in our targeted forecasting region.

2:30 - Meeting with another graduate student! We talk about some of the researchers he reached out to after his first conference a couple weeks ago, and we're starting to narrow down a possible author list for his first paper. He's working on writing up the methods and data for that paper while he incorporates a few new datasets into his preestablished workflow. He's been doing really well! Being a dual-major in CS means his code is a heckuva lot more organized than most second-year grad students I've had.

3:30 - ...nothing??? I've decided to skip my usual seminar and postpone one undergraduate student research meeting this afternoon (the one currently locked out of the supercomputer he needs for his project) since I have a couple of grant proposals due very shortly. I head out to grab some teriyaki to bring back to my office for lunch/dinner, but the restaurant just has a big sign out front saying "closed for FIRE" so I opt to go across the street for some chicken katsu and boba tea instead. I approve the final budget (coming up on a million dollars, no pressure) and keep plugging away at the statement of work (which is basically "what are you going to do, in detail, with one million dollars over the next three years? please tell us in exactly 15 pages, not counting your 3-page bibliography and 6 appendices"). I even find a perfect paper to reference to discuss one of our theories! We've made it through one round of reviews with our pre-proposal, and man, we'd love to do this project - it would be myself, a colleague, and a postdoc looking at some really novel stuff in severe storm predictability over the next three years. I also get a little work done on the invited talk I'm giving to a student journal club tomorrow, and work on some more e-mails (trying to set up a meeting with a friend's graduate student to help her out with some methods she's using from an older paper of mine).

5:15 - One of my colleagues has retired this year and has a farewell song he wants to sing at our holiday party, which happens to be mostly voice & piano, so we agree to meet up before the main practice and go over it a couple times before the rest of the band shows up and he has to head out to dinner. I'm really sorry to see him leaving (although I know he's delighted to get to spend more time with his kids and grandkids) - he and his wife were extremely welcoming when I started here, and were so kind and supportive when Mom died. Just very touched that he reached out to me to play piano on this one. Tragically, though, whoever was supposed to bring in the keyboard hasn't left it in the practice room, so we'll have to wait and run through it with the rest of the band on Thursday. Instead, it's back to the office to get caught up on e-mail and try to slog through more of the grant application (all today's research and work has netted me... 1 page of writing, blah).

6:00 - The rest of the band shows up! We run three songs of our eight-song setlist, and I'm somehow now playing on 4/8 of them, despite there being five people signed up for keys. It's a good time, though!

8:00 - I make it home and give Clara a bunch of new toys that have arrived with her prescription food (one of which she licks for 15 minutes straight). Luckily, tomorrow's work schedule is much more chill!

[mllemouse]

GUYS

ok so like my best friend from grad school works at another museum. she hired another canadian a couple years ago and was like, oh my god, i love her, you have to meet her, you're going to love her

then last year i finally meet her at my friends housewarming party

she's tall, blonde, ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS, and when she sees me she's like, oh my god, hello, i am SO glad to finally meet you

at the end of the night, my friend is super drunk, and we're lying on her couch yapping about the party that just happened. i was like, yeah i loved [this girl's name], you were right

and i was so drunk that i was like, honestly ... i want to kiss her

my friend goes, oh my god EWWWWW, she's like 24!! and i was like, ok ??? she's a grown ass adult who had a full time job and pays her own living expenses, like sorry i found another adult attractive

fast forward to tonight, we've hung out as a group a few times since, and every time i am like, the fact we get along really well is palpable. the banter is on fire. and also i am SO attracted to her. minor hiccup: she is a lesbian, and i'm a little bit wary of that.

however, every time we hang out, it's like the two of us are in cahoots and having such a fun time

tonight, we're at a baseball game on staten island: on the way home, i'm like, do you like the beach? because none of these new england assholes actually like the beach. and she's like, i LOVE the beach. and i'm like, have you been to riis beach? do you want to go to the beach? and she's like, i've never even heard of that, what's riis beach? we should go though; so i was like, IT'S THE GAY BEACH! you're gay! you need to go to the gay beach at least once! and she was like, oh my god, let's go to the beach

so idk; what's the move here, fellas??? we verbally set up a beach day this weekend because she loves the beach and i'm looking for someone who wants to go to the beach with me, and also we should go to the gay beach. my phone should be fixed tomorrow--it's been broken since last week--should i text her later this week and be like, so beach? gay beach?? or do we think she's just being polite

[cumulohimbus]

Life Updates

This last weekend I went to a Pride fest a little over an hour away, and wild things ensued.

1. I ran into some friends I met at my local pride this last summer, and even though it took a second for us to recognize each other, it was phenomenal to see them. I ended up staying the night at their place (I'll get to why in a sec).

2. I ran into people I went to Catholic elementary/middle school with. They were running an art booth. It was cool to reconnect with people I'd shared a formative childhood experience with and not be the only one who ended up queer.

3. I ran into my now retired therapist, the one who helped me pursue an autism eval and who wrote the pivotal letter that allowed me to get top surgery. I gave him a hug. I'd only ever interacted with him virtually and he is much taller in person. He seems like he's happy and doing well.

4. I didn't see any furries about so I took it upon myself to don my mascot head, just to gauge the reaction. A lot of people came up to me and got pictures with me, including a mom and her kid who really loves furries. I don't even consider myself a furry; like, I don't participate in the community at all anymore. I just think my fursuit head turned out vvv cute, and I didn't spend around 2 years making it from scratch for it to just collect dust in a closet somewhere. It made me really happy that other people also thought it was cute. It was nice being Spark for a while.

5. I went to a drag show with my friends from the local Pride. We were in the front row. It was so cool to see professionals performing.

6. My friends and I went to an after party at a club. I'd never been to a club before and didn't know what to expect. It wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be until the end when the establishment closed and the cops were outside directing folks. While there I ran into someone I was in the Arts Magnet Program with in high school; they were there for their sister-in-law. They told me that whenever I'm ready, other former classmates would probably like to hear from me, and that they'd probably be more accepting of me than I realize.

I didn't achieve my goal of being kissed, but that's okay. I fell in love with my friends in more ways than I care to admit. Nothing more will come of it than friendship, and that's okay too. That's what I needed tbh. I realized the full extent of my loneliness and how badly I need friends right now. I didn't know how bad it was and now that I do, hopefully I can do something about it. I cried a lot, probably because I was more drunk than I've been in years. My friends let me stay at their apartment so I didn't have to sleep in my car.

7. The next day we went to a garden and saw lots of pretty plants and fountains, including the biggest, bluest Larkspurs I've ever seen in person before!!

8. I cried for approximately half of my drive back home. I probably should have pulled over, but I was running on less than an hour of sleep, and I had grad school homework I needed to finish before midnight, so I pushed through. I realized goodbyes have been getting harder. A couple of weekends ago when I visited college friends for the weekend, I cried for a long time on my drive home then too. It seems it didn't take long of being off T for my tear ducts to function again. Something else is wrong with me though, I shouldn't be crying so much over goodbyes; I have my suspicions. I'm sure a particular goodbye that happened more recently isn't helping, but mostly I think I just feel alienated from people like me where I live currently.

I need to get a new vehicle soon so I can travel more. I want to go on dates, both casual and serious, in the near future. I want to kiss and be kissed, if just to feel like I'm alive. I wish I wasn't a terrified kid in a 25 year old's body. I feel like I can't be taken seriously when it comes to romance because of the ways my trauma has broken me into the person I am today (tbf, being transmasc means I look like a 14 year old boy, so that doesn't help the whole maturity thing either).

I'm coming to terms with how much grief I carry with me everyday. I think that's the most alienating part of it all; I think that's where all the loneliness comes from.

Sadness aside, I really like grad school so far. It doesn't feel hard yet because it's all stuff that interests me. I also got a really nice scholarship package for my first year and that's pretty cool. I'll finally feel alright ordering the print copies of my book, Fidelity to share with friends/family. The sequel, Autonomy, is currently in the works. They're both basically zines that ended up being lengthier than initially intended, and they include a mix of poetry, prose, and photography. I know I don't really have a following here, but if it just so happens that you read all the way to this sentence, if you'd like a free pdf of Fidelity, hmu, I'd be happy to send one your way.

Be kind to yourselves, and stay curious,

-Lark

[verycrackedphonescreen]

ok yeah currently in the midst of an outbreak within my friend group. right before the holidays which is unfortunate timing (we're all recent college grads so still go home to our families for holidays)

everyone's symptoms hit at the same time so we figured out pretty quickly who gave it to us and that it was at the friendsmas secret Santa exchange (9 days ago at time of posting, Im getting over the worst of my symptoms but still have a moderate cough)

found out *today* that, despite everyone testing positive and having covid symptoms, almost everyone (except for myself and one other guy) from said gathering STILL WENT HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

one guy's mother was *actively encouraging* him to come home *despite* his positive covid test from literally that afternoon

oh and the guy who we identified almost immediately as the source? is insisting it wasn't covid he had based on one (1) negative at home test that he took after the fact (at my request!) despite well over a week of symptoms leading up to the party

these are people who went thru Covid College. they should know better. and yet here we fucking are. not even saying that I've been perfect myself (accidentally exposed my mother a couple days into being sick- thankfully her symptoms were mild and it has the happy side effect of meaning she doesn't have to spend Christmas Day alone now because I'm kind of her only family anymore) but at least I'm not infecting my entire family tree for some ham and presents

I'm fucking baffled.

It is fuckin insane the sheer disregard everyone has for covid and how utterly bizarre it feels to be actively losing credibility in people's eyes just because I take it seriously. Everyone thinks I'm being "silly" but I literally was in the middle of getting a degree in microbiology when this shit started, I was literally taking immunology and virology courses when the pandemic hit, it's not like I have a poor understanding of the topic. I've been watching the death rate and keeping up with the new variants and vaccines and symptoms and I can bring up all the sources I want but it feels useless, nobody wants to hear it, nobody gives a shit.

[onethousandrbirds]

couple days ago i reblogged the poll that was like "do you know what prev's blog title means?" so here's an explainer of mine:

'Tis Pity She's A Whore is an early 17th century play by John Ford. In it Giovanni, a college/grad student comes home from school and falls head over heels in love with Annabella. Unfortunately, Annabella is his younger sister that he hasn't seen in several years. Giovanni knows this and has a crisis of faith/sanity/ethics and confides in his friar who tries to convince Giovanni that his feelings are wrong/he's just going crazy. Unfortunately, Giovanni meets up with Annabella one day who reciprocates his feelings and they begin a secret relationship until Annabella becomes pregnant. In order to save her honor and protect Giovanni, Annabella agrees to marry a rich old guy but ends up giving birth at a time that that reveals she was unfaithful. Her husband eventually finds out the truth and schemes to get revenge on both Giovanni and Annabella but she warns her brother of what is to come. Knowing that the writing is on the wall, Giovanni sneaks in to see his sister and kills her himself. Then, with his sister's heart (and in at least one production, severed head) in hand, Giovanni goes to a fancy society party and tells everyone what he and his sister had done in order to suicide by cop and take his father, brother-in-law, and a few others down with him. after the fight ends a cardinal says of Annabella, "who could not say Tis pity she's a whore?" as a question posed to those who remain and that the audience is meant to mull over its validity and fairness

anyway, signifyin' on that question became my blog title b/c i thought it was funny and apt¹

¹ insofar as that question is wholly inappropriate and the idea of calling Annabella a whore is an incredibly reductive assessment of what she did/happened to her BUT in her social context she would still be read as one nonetheless which can in a left-handed way be applied to be as a "bore"

[fairyhaos]

omggg hiiii I'm back as promised! I had a hectic week but I'm gonna have some time off next week I'm so happy oh god 😩😩😩 but omg you had your prom?? We don't really have those in my country, we just have the graduation ceremony and maybe a lil party afterwards (idk if prom means the same thing?) but anyway I hope you had the best time !! 🥹 now to rest and relax 💝

- 🍒

AAAA hiii hi beloved cherry anon :> omg a busy weekkk i hope you've been taking care of urself and that you rest properly next week ‼️ and yess i had prom a couple of days ago 🥳 it basically is a biggg party haha and it's us who organises it and it takes place after our exams, unlike the grad ceremony that happened just before exam season!

i had so much fun thanku ☹️ we had a chocolate fountain and mocktails and a photobooth and a heck of an amount of floor-shaking music LMAOOL so i really had the best time :DD

[dankusner]

DINING Elevating Bishop Arts’ youthful glow

Developer has eye on plans to add boutique hotel, more eateries

If you think you’re familiar with Dallas’ Bishop Arts District — its funky shops, pretty restaurants and fringe attitude — its most prolific developer is far from finished.

Exxir Capital developer Michael Nazerian has built out just 15% of the nearly 16 acres he bought southwest of West Davis Street and North Zang Boulevard.

Next, his company will build a boutique hotel, 600 apartments, at least five restaurants, a private club and an underground discotheque.

The project Nazerian started in 2009 is now worth about $250 million, he estimated.

Full build-out will include about 2 million square feet of restaurant, retail and living spaces in this sector of the Bishop Arts District, Nazerian explained in a series of Dallas Morning News interviews.

That’s a lot of change for this historically Hispanic area separated from downtown Dallas by the Trinity River.

Nazerian agreed. “We’re humbled by how much effort it takes,” he said.

Nazerian’s new buildings stand in juxtaposition to the 100-year-old buildings nearby majority-owned by Jim Lake, an unaffiliated “redeveloper” who makes use of aging areas.

Nazerian says the Bishop Arts District needs both old and new.

His vision was to “create the most charming, walkable neighborhood in America,” a plan inspired by his travels all over the world.

Nazerian’s parents are immigrants from England and Iran.

His brother is a shaman who trained in the Amazon for 10 years.

Nazerian studied not only the most walkable cities in the U.S. and abroad, but he also visited Portland and Kansas City, areas he thinks are more analogous to Dallas.

Today, a Saturday afternoon in the Bishop Arts District looks like Uptown Dallas did 15 or 20 years ago.

Bishop Avenue is often buzzing with couples shopping, families eating and bachelorette parties day drinking.

The neighborhood feels young, alive and diverse.

Some neighbors who have lived here for generations are still a short distance away from the cranes and bulldozers.

Some were displaced by development.

Nazerian said there’s “comfort” in a neighborhood with history.

“The culture isn’t being recreated from nothing, but rather, enhanced and grown from what it was,” he said.

Restaurants play big role

The Bishop Arts District’s redevelopment over the past 15 to 20 years has been anchored by restaurants.

Early arrivers included Oddfellows, Lockhart Smokehouse and farm-to-table restaurant Bolsa, today reinvented as Encina.

Dozens more have kept diners coming back, like local favorite Taco y Vino and nationally lauded Italian restaurant Lucia.

Nazerian’s restaurants Paradiso, Bar Eden and Casablanca have gotten reputations for their good looks.

They’re like models, standing a little too tall in the neighborhood, wearing designer shades.

Nazerian and his team designed them that way on purpose.

But he’s rarely satisfied.

“It irks me that this is seen as a pretty face, an Instagram spot,” he said over lunch at Paradiso.

It is pretty in here, I mused, sitting underneath a chandelier I’d like in my own house, and near a tall houseplant I don’t know how to grow.

The menu is serious, Nazerian insisted.

As if to drive that point home, he hired Julian Rodarte as Exxir’s new “director of experience” to help with the company’s growth in the Bishop Arts District.

Dallas native Rodarte is a Culinary Institute of America grad who co-owns Beto & Son with his dad in Dallas’ Trinity Groves.

Rodarte was also once affiliated with the group that purchased Trudy’s, an Austin Tex-Mex institution.

Rodarte has the attitude of a TV chef.

He’s calm and confident.

Nazerian was drawn to him because of his “childlike enthusiasm” for new projects and restaurant hospitality.

When Rodarte started the job in November 2023, he learned all about the Bishop Arts restaurants from Exxir’s executive chef Nick Hurry, who has been with the company from the start.

Rodarte’s first plan: Don’t mess with Paradiso.

It’s the highest-grossing restaurant in the fleet.

And even though it has a reputation as an Instagram spot, chefs here are making their own pasta, bread and pizza dough.

Paradiso’s executive chef Adam Krajewski occasionally experiments with new specials like a vegetarian smoked carbonara, inspired by the time he spent in the kitchen at Eleven Madison Park in New York City.

Rodarte will instead spend more time at Tejas, Exxir’s Tex-Mex restaurant.

He and Hurry will refresh its menu, adding new items like an appetizer of duck tacos served in tiny, crispy shells and topped with mole.

He’ll also do a riff on a Choco Taco — the waffle cone taco from his childhood. Early iterations from pastry chef Erika Vasquez show taco-shaped cones stuffed with chocolate mousse and peanuts or vanilla ice cream and sprinkles.

Rodarte has also put some work into the Casablanca menu.

The landlocked restaurant with a beach theme has become a hot spot for patio drinkers.

Its private karaoke rooms inside draw crowds in the evenings.

Rodarte is rethinking what kind of food matches this sunny spot.

So far, he’s added veggie dumplings and popcorn chicken with gochujang.

All of it — the food, the drinks and the service — is about creating places where people want to be, Nazerian said.

“I love that Julian understands big-H ‘hospitality,’” Nazerian said.

It matches Nazerian’s goal to “create beautiful places for people to connect” in the Bishop Arts District.

What’s the vibe?

If the Bishop Arts District is going to have an Uptown-like vibe, Tipsy Beach is right on time.

Tipsy Beach is a riff on Tipsy Elf, a Christmastime event in the Bishop Arts District.

It brought so many new faces to Oak Cliff that it just made sense to replicate it during bikini season, the team said.

“It brings energy,” Nazerian said. “Youth.”

At this summertime pop-up, three main bars near Casablanca will serve cocktails with party favors, like a little squeaky shark swimming in a blue cocktail.

Customers may never know it, but the juices are fresh-squeezed.

The team cores out pineapples and coconuts for drinks.

The effort is reminiscent of Paradiso, the model that made straight As.

There’s technique at all of Exxir’s restaurants and bars.

But they look pretty, too.

Between now and mid-July 2024, Tipsy Beach will host Barbie -themed beach parties, toga parties and a mai tai cocktail competition.

On summer evenings, it won’t be surprising to find groups posing on corners of Oak Cliff lit up in neon.

Is this the Oak Cliff of the future?

Maybe.

“I want to say there’s a grand plan,” Rodarte said of Tipsy Beach, “but we really just want to have a lot of fun.”

Next, Rodarte will work on the hotel — one Nazerian likens to San Antonio’s Pearl Brewery project anchored by the Hotel Emma.

Rodarte will oversee the opening of the fine-dining restaurant that will be installed in Exxir’s coming-soon hotel.

He’ll help with the discotheque and much more.

Rodarte was once CEO of Trinity Groves, another food-heavy development where Rodarte would “play restaurant,” as he put it.

Trinity Groves, like the Bishop Arts, is a growing part of Dallas built in a historically low-income neighborhood.

Nazerian is sure that his investment in the Bishop Arts District is sound. But he’s careful how he talks about it.

“I think we’re in the first inning,” he said. “We have a great base. And now we brought in this superstar, Julian.”

[myescapediary]

Update

I don't even know where to begin with everything that has been going on in my life.

School: I graduated a month ago, started grad school 2 weeks after graduation. I am half way through my summer course and i'm so ready for it to be over. It has not been terrible but i have been able to manage my time since i am working 2 jobs as of right now to be able to pay off my summer tuition. I am more than excited to graduate next year around this time. Time is going to fly by, i know its only going to get harder throughout the year but i am ready, i feel confidenT.

Work: I am still working at Deron's, I have been working at scream truck for almost three months now; I am so grateful because i will be able to pay my summer tuition. I am worried for the fall though, i will be starting my internship which is 22.5 hours and thats a whole part-time job UNPAID. Like brooo i'm gonna be broke af fr, idk what im gonna do but ima just hope for the best. i will be sacrificing my summer to be able to save up the most i can.

Social Life: I still hang with p-way crew surprisingly, its been 2 years lmao and im still surprised. It is cool, i just go out with the and kind adjust laid back from trying to become friends friends with them specially the females. i cant do it, they be doing too much so distance has been great.

Love life: J is still there cus he chooses too, he irks me now tho. I am sick of him constantly calling me. Idk when he's going to stop honestly lmao. M esquina bf is still around but only at esquina LMAO. Jz, he is cool but its not as awkward anymore we just keep our distance out of respect of his relationship, he is ugly now tho lmao. DV, bru he needs his own page cus that man stresses me out there's always something going on with us/him. On the day of my grad party, he came, left, then came back at night which we surprisingly ended up going to get breakfast and going over his house till like 11am LOL. Early that morning he spoke to me about "us" and all this bs, it was such a weird convo since i would've never thought we will ever have that conversation. We spoke about how the connection is always there and how I will be willing to date him if he's not gonna on some bs or disrespect me. We then texted for a couple days after, here and there like usual. We then hung out on June 13th, we went to applebee's , then his house to drink and smoke. it was a great time, it always is and that's what I love. He told Alexis how he would consider dating me fr, how we would be a power couple since we both have careers and how he likes that i'm family oriented, loyal and have no reg flags. I think he isn't ready to commit right now, he likes being a hoe, and he thinks i'm too busy with my work.school schedule. i am not gonna just sit here and wait around though. I do see myself getting with him but I don't st the same time. i do get annoyed or feel a type of way whenever i find something out but he's not my man so i should not care but i do cus he's leading me on. i hate it here lol

June 19th, 2024

[alanaisalive]

I hear other people of my generation talk about Kurt Cobain's death and how their schools brought in counsellors and let them out of class because the grief hit so many so hard.

My school was too numb to care. I personally didn't process much about Kurt Cobain until about 5 years later. To us at the time, he felt like one more body on an ever growing pile.

In March of 1994, I was in 11th grade. A kid from my class had recently transferred to the next district over, and on his way to school one morning, a friend of his family had a heart attack behind the wheel, swerved into his lane and hit him head on, killing him instantly. He was 17.

Only a few days later, a girl who had graduated from our school the previous year (the older sister of well loved twin seniors) was hit head on and killed by someone committing suicide by driving the wrong way up a freeway off ramp.

Then on March 28th, a senior from my school went to a party and killed 3 people. They brought in counsellors. His little sister was in my German class. She had to clear out his locker.

(His first parole board hearing was just a couple months ago. He's 48 years old and he's been in prison since he was a stupid 18 year old kid. Parole was denied.)

Kurt Cobain died a little over a week after the shooting. Life went on as what passed for normal at my school. I guess they had already spent all the grief counsellor money.

Kurt Cobain means a lot to me personally. Nirvana played music that really spoke to me. Music that screamed in pain. In college, Nirvana was my main autistic hyperfixation for a long time. They're the reason I first learned guitar and the reason I never did learn to give a shit about fitting in or being normal.

Once I started playing music, I found that my own musical voice didn't sound like Kurt. I found a few other bands that suited my playing style a bit more, and a lot of them were from Seattle too. My favorite, because I was still a Christian at the time, was Poor Old Lu.

In my senior year at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, I was accepted to a graduate program in public history in Milwaukee, but I wasn't good enough to qualify for the copious scholarships that had gotten me through undergrad. So rather than work full time while paying for grad school, I moved to Seattle to just work full time.

The only person I knew in Seattle was Scott Hunter, the then former lead singer of Poor Old Lu. They had broken up amicably in 1996. I went to his church and that's where I met a lot of people in the Seattle music scene. The two who have their own Wikipedia pages were Aaron Sprinkle (also of Poor Old Lu) who has been a solo musician and producer for decades, and Damien Jurado, another prolific solo musician. Damien and I bonded over being on the same antidepressants. He had been signed to Sub Pop records a while after Nirvana, but knew them socially from industry stuff. The way he talked about Kurt, I could tell he felt grief tinged with regret.

Eventually I left the church, and then Christianity altogether. I moved back to Minnesota for a year to get my shit together and then moved to Scotland. I never really unpacked my guitars.

My grief right now 30 years after Kurt's death is a mixture of grief related to him and his family and friends and also grief related to myself and all the versions of me who have lived and died in the past 30 years.

But as Kurt said: oh well, whatever, nevermind.

[petalsoffarose]

December 31st

I sat there earlier. I can't wait to stop talking to you in the new year. Then I remembered you are supposed to help me build my new furniture. That I wanted to drive up to campus together in April for Grad Week. That I will see you for the graduation that I don't even want to walk at.

I asked you to bring me a milkshake and fries. You told me you were working and that I should've asked the next day. I told you I was the one with plans that say and the conversation was dropped.

I asked you questions the one night but that was it. Told you something last night and then ran away. I sent you a snapchat that read "You don't talk to me, you respond. Barely at that. But I just chalk it up to me cutting you off so much that you don't try."

I sent that at 1:12AM and then turned over and went to bed. I checked in the morning to see if you had opened it, if not I was going to delete it. Only to see that you responded. I then checked your snap score and it went up by three. That doesn't make sense. I was two of them. Did you ignore my sentence and just send me a black screen? Surely that's what it was. Regardless I wasn't willing to find out until 7:37PM. Not that matters to you, but that means I left you unanswered for 18 hours and 5 minutes. I took a photo of it on my laptop and sat there for a couple of minutes before even looking at it. That's kinda what it is I don't want to overstep. But I've been taking this time to learn more about myself and grow so it's not just you.

I even said what happened. Why it was this way and still it kind of hurt. I cut off conversations a lot. It actually bothers me that we have so many unended conversations. I just: get frustrated easily, feel as if tho nothing is going to change so why does it matter, feel as if though you wouldn't understand or care and lastly, don't want to end up embarrassing myself.

For what ever reason, that second half sent me into thinking. I've been taking this time to learn more about myself and grow so it's not just you. Way to make me feel not special. But the bigger one, you need to grow. I've told you a little bit before, and it's the fight I want to have. As your girlfriend I was sidelined when it came to your friends as this twisted version of your friend I was sidelined. So yes I think you need to grow in that aspect. You need to grow to be more of an individual. That threw me even more. Am I?

Two nights ago I was at a party. One of the conversations I had, the gist of it was me being true to myself. Props to you for being 22 and being able to refuse a shot because it's not you. At that age I could never. Stay that way. Those mixed together made me think that maybe I do know how to be an individual. Maybe I did grow and learn more about myself. Granted that's not something that you should never stop doing but maybe I did it and didn't realize.

But I want you to do that with me, not against me. Not disinclude me because what if you never come back.

What if this is what you need to come back.

What if I just grow a fucking back bone and finally block you once and for all.

[deesmenagerie]

The 2023 'Year in Review' trends hit differently when you lived two distinct lives this year.

I usually avoid Instagram trends-- not because I have anything against them, but because I'm usually too lazy to pull together something worth putting online in a timely manner. But this year, I decided that it would be worth doing. So I took some time to go through all of my photos for 2023, and wow.

It started off innocent enough-- pictures of Lilly being ostensibly cute, and nature pictures that, at best, would give you a vague impression of what season it is in New England. But not too far into scrolling I came across photos of Chris and me at Frozen Fenway with Sam and Peter, and I was shook.

I SWEAR we went to Frozen Fenway with Sam and Peter like, a couple of years ago. NOT within this calendar year!!! It has taken me some time to reconcile the fact that yes, January 2023 feels like it was eons ago, and no, my grasp on time is... tenuous at best. And that's because 2023 has to be divided into two distinct eras-- before injury and after injury.

Before my injury, I skiied twice, visited Amherst, visited Montreal, got my wisdom teeth removed, saw a superbloom at Joshua Tree, saw a comedy show and a live podcast show, planned and executed a bachelorette party and bridal shower, visited my brother down in Florida, attended two weddings (and was a MOH at one), and had one of my artworks displayed at a local gallery in Cambridge.

Whew!

From January to July, I had a busy, exciting year, and August through December promised more of the same, with another wedding, an October visit from Shane, and another two trips booked.

Then, on August 3rd, I tore my MCL and fractured my tibia, and the entire trajectory of my life shifted. I stopped working and went on long-term disability, got surgery, and spent the remainder of the year focused on one singular goal-- recovery.

My injury was devastating. I won't sugar coat it. I said goodbye to my mobility and independence, only to fight tooth and nail to get them back. I experienced more physical pain than I ever have, and I also knocked on death's door for the first time in my life. It was a dark time, and it took a lot out of me, and I'm still on the road to recovery.

But despite this disruption, life went on, and the second half of 2023 was filled with lots of rehab walks, local adventures, time with friends, and plenty of time focusing on my extensive personal projects. All things considered, handling this injury was not the most difficult thing I've ever done (looking at you, grad school).

Heading into 2024, I feel like a phoenix rising from the ashes. In all of the photos before my injury, I see myself, but I no longer recognize myself in her. I am someone new, someone different, someone who's evolved from the destruction of my old life.

2023 had hands, but I'm a tough bitch, and she didn't break me. This year was one of major change and major growth. I learned a lot of lessons, and I'm gonna share them here.

Do your best to stay present. Fixating on the future is sure to give you anxiety, make you frustrated about where you are now, and bring a sense of dissatisfaction to your life. Stagnating in the past is sure to depress you, and make you yearn for how things used to be. But in the present, there are no problems, only situations to handle, or experiences to have. Staying in the present got me through the early days of my injury, when my mobility was completely gone. Thanks, Eckhart Tolle :)

Live every moment to its fullest. You never know when life is going to throw you a curveball (or a broken leg). Soak deeply in the good experiences, be patient with the difficult ones, and enjoy the transit time between experiences. It's all life, and you only have one of them. Live it!

Motion is lotion. It takes an alarmingly short period of time to lose your strength and range of motion, and an exhaustingly long period of time and concerted effort to get it back. Find a way to incorporate movement in your life every day. It's worth it.

Your perspective makes your reality. One of the most important things you can do to make your life better is maintain a positive perspective. Your perspective makes your reality. If you're always looking for problems, there will be plenty to find. If you see the worst in people, they'll show you their claws. But if you stay positive, look on the bright side, and stay relentlessly optimistic, life WILL be easier.

Trust your gut. You've made your decisions for a reason. Don't let others convince you out of doing what's best for you. ESPECIALLY when it comes to your health.

Never underestimate the power of a good walkie. Not only is it so good for your body, but it's so good for your brain, too. I don't need to explain this one. Go for a walk!!!

Anyways. Thanks for the memories 2023, but I'm ready to move on. Let's see what 2024 has in store!

[elijahkelly]

8/20/2023

I'm going to start by quickly going through some stuff that has been going on in my life that is huge and I would love to talk about later, but is not the purpose of this post.

Firstly, I got food poisoning from Cookout. It was so fucking horrible and I was incredibly miserable for a week, I went over 5 days without eating, and it not only took a toll on me physically, but also mentally. In conjunction with not being able to keep down my Prozac, being bedridden and helpless for a week while you watch your body destroy itself really ruins the self esteem.

Next, a friend of mine passed away last weekend. We worked together at my gym and he was always a fun and energetic person. Some shitty cards were dealt his way, and it was just too much for him. We went to his funeral this past Thursday, and it's been pretty tough for all of us who knew and loved him.

I was also recently made aware that Dylan does in fact have an engagement ring somewhere. He has already bought it, some people have already seen it, and I will be engaged soon. Like, within the next few months, presumably. He said he doesn't know if he's going to do it in the winter or the spring.

Two new people moved into my apartment. Dawson, who took Heather's room, and Aysiah, who took Dylan's room.

Lastly, we started classes last week! I am officially a college senior, and this time next year I will have a college degree. I am incredibly nervous, however, about the grad school search.

Those were pretty significant things that have happened lately, but were not my reason for writing this.

I wanted to make this post to voice my neuroticism about a situation that has really been stealing my focus as of late. I ran out of my Prozac shortly after getting over my food poisoning, and I will not be able to refill that prescription until I make an appointment to meet with my psychiatrist to see if any adjustments need to be made to my medication. So for the last week, I have been off my meds. I felt fine at first, but the last couple of days it has become glaringly obvious that I need to get back on them.

Because I've been off my meds for so long, I have been incredibly sensitive about my relationships with my friends. Specifically, Trent and Ozzy. They have quickly become two of my best friends, and they have also become incredibly close with one another. They have started hanging out with one another very often, which is fine of course. Off my meds, though, I think my brain is struggling to handle them being better friends with each other than they are with me. I have been so confident and self-assured lately, but that's been disrupted by my lack of medicine, so my insecurities of being outcast have started to resurface. Suddenly I really care when they spend time together without me, because my brain chooses to think that it equates to them liking me less. The logic behind it is that the more they spend time together without me, the more they might think that they don't need me.

There is another thing though. A couple nights ago, I went to a party with Dylan, Ozzy, Trent, and Grant. After the fact, Ozzy and Trent came back to my apartment with me and Dylan, and we sat in my room and talked for a while. Ozzy then said he was going to take Trent home, and they left. Being neurotic while also making sure they were okay, I watched their locations after they left. And I watched as both of their location icons went to Ozzy's house. Ozzy told me he made it home, but I never heard anything from Trent. I could see, though, that they were both at Ozzy's house. And I'm not going to lie, it made me upset. They went off to hang out together without me. I felt unimportant, forgotten, small. But I'm close with them, so I was comfortable mentioning how I felt. I texted Trent about it the next day, and he proceeded to tell me that he and Ozzy made out that night. That did not make me feel better. I, being in a relationship, have no right to speak on who decides to do anything with whoever else. But it didn't feel great to read that my two best friends were off behind my back making out and shit. I guess I'm nervous that they'll have some issue come up between them and it'll throw a wrench in our relationships? Maybe I'm upset that them doing this stuff together is solidifying a position where they like each other more than me. I don't know. But it sucks. They have full autonomy, but their actions made me feel like shit, and those feelings are just as valid as their decisions.

I don't know if I want to talk about it much more right now. Typing it all out honestly made me a little more upset about it, so I'm gonna end this here and brood for a while.

Bye for now.

[safyresky]

Crystal Springs Chapter 9: now on ao3!

Give it a read HERE :)

Chapter 9: Coffee and Cocoa

Elle and Jacqueline catch up over cocoa. Letter time proves to be very interesting when Jack barges in looking for Santa to lend an ear. The Man monologues, makes a couple of adjustments, monologues some more, and settles in for a wait...

My god. I'm so behind?????? This one's late as FUCK inCLUDING, but not limited to, the following reasons:

Two very busy weeks @ work, which is apparently where I do most of my writing? Yikes 😬

A brief break from the two week closure for a 3 day seminar in Toronto, followed by a family visit (it was a v cool seminar)

The weekend AFTER that being DOUBLY busy (Husband's grad and brother's bday), AND a bit rough, emotionally

Chapter 24/25 sucked me in all of last week

This weekend was a party day Saturday (friend's wedding!) and apparently I went, uh. a little TOO hard with the dancing because WOW! SUNDAY EVERYTHING HURT! Calves are still hurty today 😵😵😵

BUT! I got it out! finally! Will be adding 10 and 11 this week too, I hope :) The weekend is an extra-long one for me and I am GONNA CATCH UP. I SWEAR.

This chapter ALSO has the mention of the "Clifton Manor Incident", so that'll be thrown up onto ao3 in the next 1-2 business days ;). I'm making it a little series of it's own, it being Smile Shots. this way they all get the love they deserve and can shine on their own!! 😄😄😄

It'll get a post of it's own once it's up-eros. Anyway!

Wanna start Crystal Springs from the top? Read the Prologue: An Encounter on ao3 HERE and ff.net HERE!

Enjoy! Story summary below the cut:

It’s been almost a year since Jack Frost thawed and things are looking…well, not so great. Jack’s powers are seemingly gone. Without them, the Dome that keeps the North Pole safe from the cold and its magic controlled is melting, putting everything and everyone magical at risk.

Unable to hide his power shortage any longer, Jack is forced to admit the truth. Thankfully, there is a solution: enacting the Legate Law, bringing Jack and the sister that he hurt so many centuries ago back together again. But when Jacqueline starts experiencing destructive blackouts, the pair are forced to head back home to Crystal Springs, bringing Jack face to face with the rest of the family.

Needless to say, between getting his powers back, helping his sister figure out what in the FROST those blackouts even were, reconciling with his parents, meeting the two even younger siblings he didn’t even KNOW he had, NOT TO MENTION the ancient threat that’s had it out for the ENTIRE Frost family finally making a move?

Saving Christmas (regrettably) is looking to be a little bit…complicated.

[comfysocksfirst]

Board Game Shifting

One of the things I’ve loved for a good long while now is board games. I played some with my sisters after they got married and they would host game nights at their respective homes and I always had a great time with them. I was only a teenager then but then I joined a gaming after school group in high school and I enjoyed that. Of course this was a while back now and a lot of the games we played weren’t actually all that fun. They were games like Monopoly, Stratego, Chess, and I guess those are the major ones that come to mind. Anyway those games aren’t fun they’re made fun by the people around the table. And I know what you’re thinking, Isn’t that true of all games?? No. It isn’t true of all games. Some games even if you’re playing with people that you don’t enjoy much are so fun and thinky in it of themselves that they produce a good amount of to play them. At some point during the pandemic as we were all being paid $600 a week USD plus some other moneys from unemployment after being let go of a job that couldn’t exist during a pandemic I decided I wanted to spend a good chunk of the money I was getting on new board games. Is that fair? Does that misrepresent how many board games I had previous to the pandemic? Previous to the pandemic my roommate (at the time) and I would host a number of game nights but a lot of the games we would play would be easy and quick party games. Certainly not very many of the longer board games that now fill my living room and are the main topic of this point and that I will eventually get to in the post. Memory is a strange thing. I walked away from the keyboard to try and better remember that time before the pandemic and what games we were playing and I can’t say I remember too well. I remember Catan because my friend Gabriel was obsessed with it and also Scythe but only because one of them mentioned it a few weeks ago. I can’t actually remember much of us playing nor did I remember it as I was playing Scythe with several new friends. I found a store that specialized in selling used board games at discounted prices and I started frequenting it a little before the pandemic but not very much. My friend Tyler and I had been given a large number of board games from our friend Gabriel after he left to go live in Korea for some time. None of the games were any good and they’d actually been given to him from one of his professors who was eager to donate them to someone with space. We traded in the games for $90 something dollars in store credit and used to that buy a couple new used games. As the months of the pandemic lingered on more people started trading in their board games as they found themselves with enough time on their hands to clean and organize their houses. Games that weren’t being played or required large numbers--something that was hard to imagine in those deep pandemic days--started to show up at the shop. Many of the games were ones I’d heard about as I started to get deeper into the hobby and so I would buy them hoping for the day to come in the future where my friends and I would finally get a chance to play them. But my friends started to move away during the pandemic. They returned home to be closer to their families as their jobs disappeared or they headed off to grad school after having the time to finally put together an application. And I collected board games. Something I still do now. I shuffle new ones I want to play right away into prominent positions on my bench in the living room while older games that aren’t being played or have never been played get shuffled to the sun room where they can wait out the winter until they are again summoned to potentially be played. The new games shine brightly as I browse through them thinking of the strategies I’ll try while I play them. The others gather dust in storage far from thought and likely to be forgotten like so many memories that run together as time moves on.