#all the more so because blood sugar issues messes with my mood too

[nhaneh]

Anyway it really cannot be exaggerated how much the current situation with the shortage of certain types of diabetes medications is very directly the fault of fatphobia and the weight loss industry.

There are doctors out there - particularly in the US is my understanding - actively prescribing those very same medicines purely for weight loss, while plenty of us actual diabetics who kind of need those medicines to actually, you know, physically function and possibly not die, end up unable to get them because of the subsequent shortage.

This situation also, more than anything, clearly demonstrates how the claim that "concerns" about overweight are not and never were about health - that when it comes down to it, those concerns run contrary to health, if not life.

Fatphobia kills people. The weight loss industry, the tabloids, the beauty magazines, the TV celebrities - they all have blood on their hands. I need you to understand that.

[voiceswithoutlips]

Calico - Chapter Eight

— pairing: Hybrid ot7 x Human Reader (Female) — genre: hybrid AU, fluff, angst, slow burn (like real slow), eventual smut — word count: 3k — Rating: G — warnings: Slight mention of past abuse, description of a panic attack. — beta: Thank you @taegularities​ and @joheunsaram​ <3

Tag List || Masterlist || Schedule

— chapter summary:

Y/N is having a hard day, who will comfort her?

— A/N: Guys, I’m so bad at summaries, if this was an exam my grades would’ve been in the negative. Anyway, welcome to the new chapter! I know I was supposed to post fallen, but somehow I ended up writing Calico instead.

I’ve had a bad case of writer’s block this week so writing this chapter was really painful, words refused to come out of my brain xD I hope you like it! You guys have been so awesome, all your feedback is really helpful. Thank you so much <3

— taglist: @lovelyseomin @anaac28 @ghostkat23 @btswdwsmhrdt @sweeneyblue1 @luvtaeha @taegularities @ aajames217 @ littlewolfieposts @nochujeonjk @hamiltrashlebo @minyoonsh @hoebii @ sunshinee0-0 @egm09 @cstobitk @splaterparty0-0 @missseoulite @mirawi-fox @sea-nevermind-enthusiast @hemmofluke @seaoffangirling @gee-nee @woopetals @secretbangtnn @vminkook-ownsme

Ch. 1  Ch. 2 Ch. 3 Ch. 3.5 Ch. 4 Ch. 5 Ch. 6 Ch. 7 Ch. 8.5

I made my way downstairs in search of breakfast. Ice cream, that’s what I needed. It was that kind of a day. I was tired, jet lagged, and the tension in the house had me on edge. The flight home was fairly uneventful, except for the part where Jimin had gotten scared of flying. He had asked to hold my hand, but by the time we were in the air, the hybrid was practically sitting on my lap. Not that I minded, he was hella cuddly and his purring was downright therapeutic.

When I had asked Jungkook, if it would be okay to bring the newer hybrids home, the bunny had sounded excited, but as soon as we had gotten home, the mood had suddenly shifted. It was not the welcome I was expecting.

First, Jungkook’s hair was the color of the rainbow. His beautiful black locks were turned into a colorful mess, his white bunny ears poking out of it in stark contrast. It was a riot of colors, artfully mixed together, and I felt like I was looking at rainbow pasta. Not that the bunny didn’t pull it off, he looked really cute in it, but somehow I had a raging suspicion that it hadn’t been Jungkook’s idea.

Then, there was the growling match. I had never seen Jungkook so aggressive before. The usually sweet and well behaved bunny had started growling at Jimin as soon as we’d entered the house.. That had set off a chain reaction with Namjoon and Seokjin joining in to protect their younger packmate.

On top of that, I had to go to Seoul for three days to take care of business. I had to visit the main office to attend a few meetings and sign some papers. The whole time I felt guilty about leaving the hybrids alone. I was constantly worried that somehow they’d end up fighting. By the time I came back, somehow, someway, Jason had managed to convince Jimin to dye his hair pink. He was on a warpath.

And lastly, there was the issue of a certain stuffed penguin that went missing -  my nights were sleepless without him. All in all, this had to have been one of the shittiest weeks, and it felt like I was losing my grip on reality.

I stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing my eyes, struggling to keep them open. Unlike Jason, who was cheerfully humming, I was not a morning person. Seokjin was busy near the stove, cooking something and by the smell wafting from the pan, I could tell that it was something delicious. I had thanked every existing god when I’d learned that the sugar glider hybrid was actually an excellent chef. The first morning, he had seen Jason cook breakfast, he’d been horrified, promptly taking over the kitchen after that. Even Jungkook had begrudgingly ate his food.

My stomach grumbled as I peered in the pan. Kimchi fried rice, delicious. Unlike Jimin and Jungkook, the two older hybrids weren’t really that affectionate. I wondered if it was because they weren’t used to me yet or if they just had a different temperament. I needed to do more research on that.

I plopped down on the chair with a groan, resting my head on the counter, hands securely wrapped around my stomach. Jason gave me an enthusiastic “good morning” and I shot him a middle finger, too tired to curse at him. The bastard chuckled.

I was debating if I should stab him with a fork when I felt hands wrapping around my waist, long fingers intertwined with mine. Jungkook bent down to nuzzle the side of my face. His muscular body pressed close. My lips curled into a small smile as I made small happy noises. My brain wasn’t awake enough to form coherent sentences yet. I needed my cup of coffee or better yet, some delicious ice cream.

Jungkook’s arms tightened around me possessively, I could feel the vibrations in his chest as he let out a low growl. I opened my eyes to see Jimin standing near the chair, looking distressed, hands balled into fists at his sides. His tail was swishing rapidly in agitation, ears flattened to his head. He was biting his lower lip, trying his best not to respond to Jungkook’s hostility.

“Bunny no,” I croaked, patting his hands, my voice thick with sleep. I lifted my head, extending a hand to Jimin. Jungkook took his cue and reluctantly let me go, keeping hold of my other hand. Jimin grabbed my hand and with his other one checked my forehead, a worried look on his face.

“Are you sick?” he asked, gnawing on his lip.

“I’m just sleepy.” He giggled at my pout and graced me with a forehead kiss. He sat down next to me, and now I was sandwiched between two hybrids who were holding my hands, glaring daggers at each other. I rested my forehead on the counter with a sigh. What was I going to do with them?

Once again I was in a dilemma. I could scold them and make them shake hands, like a couple of kids, or I could let them handle it on their own, like adults. Taking care of four hybrids was tiring. I shot a quick glance at Seokjin, who was now setting up the table; he was ignoring the two younger hybrids in front of him, but his tail was curled tightly, ears flat. It seemed as if he was tense too.

“Guys, I need breakfast,” I said, reluctantly pulling my hands from their grip. I made my way to the fridge to grab a tub of my favorite ice cream, ignoring the stares that the hybrids were giving me. I had to stop myself from pulling Jason’s ear as I passed him, not now Y/N. The revenge for ruining Jungkook’s hair had to be elaborately planned, something memorable, just like old days. Like the time when I had super glued his shirt cuffs closed, so he couldn't put his hands through the sleeves. He had started this war, I was going to finish it.

“I like your garden!” Namjoon said as he walked in through the back door. Ears perked up, an excited glint in his eyes. I didn’t even know he was out there. I wondered if he could help me with the hybrid situation, he was a pack leader after all. He had informed me about hybrid pack dynamics on the plane while I cuddled a sleepy Jimin. Apparently he was their alpha, the leader of their pack, Seokjin was second in command and Jimin was their maknae. He was excited to meet Jungkook, since he was a rabbit hybrid, they're usually very docile and friendly. Needless to say, we had both been shocked at the bunny's behavior.

“I’m glad you like it. Maybe you could help me with it?”

“Really? I would love to!”

We all moved to the seldom used dining table for breakfast - now that there were six of us, the kitchen counter was too small to occupy us all. I debated where to sit, I didn't want to take sides in the hybrid cold war, so I chose to sit at the head of the table, safe middle ground. I knew Jungkook would want to share the ice cream. I wondered if the other hybrids would too, so I had brought extra spoons, just in case.

"Seokjin, this is delicious!" Jason said as soon as he took a bite of the fried rice. "Where did you learn to cook like this?" I couldn't help but smile at the hint of envy in his voice.

"Madame hired a professional chef to teach me when she found out I liked to cook," he said shyly, ears turning pink from all the attention. It was his cutest trait: whenever someone looked at him, his ears would start to redden.

"That was nice of her," I said dryly, the distaste apparent in my tone.

"She was really nice," Namjoon said pointedly, clearly disliking my tone.

“Clair was kind, she saved us from our previous owners and gave us a home,” Jimin joined him.

"Oh?" Jason said, trying to coax some details. The three hybrids shared a quick look. Jungkook had abandoned his fried rice and was digging into my ice cream, his ears perked, listening in on the conversation.

“My first owner was a gambler, but he didn’t play poker. He and his rich friends were into blood sports. They had their own dog fighting ring. He had raised me since I was a pup, trained me to be a fighter, forced me to participate. One day, Clair saw me at a party and she wanted to buy me, she offered him so much money that he couldn’t refuse,” Namjoon finished with a sad smile. I wanted to go and hug him, but I was sure the hybrid wouldn’t welcome the gesture.

“I…” Jimin paused, looking down at his hands. “The lady who raised me, she brought me clients. She’d sell me to people… sometimes it was for a night, sometimes it was more. She used to tell me that I was her lucky charm. Clair rescued me from her, she was really kind to me.”

The spoon in my hand clattered on the table. There was a ringing in my ear. My limbs were paralyzed, heart pounding in my chest as I felt the panic rise, almost drowning in it. I couldn't get enough air, finding myself on the verge of hyperventilating while my brain went into overdrive. It wasn’t my first panic attack, I was aware of what was happening to me, I knew I had to get a hold of myself. I couldn’t lose it here, not in front of them.

“Y/N? Hey can you hear me?” I turned towards the voice, Jason’s face slowly came into focus, “are you okay?”

“Y/N?” Jungkook said, looking extremely worried. He was holding my hand like a lifeline. I slowly removed his fingers and took my hand back.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I murmured, trying to control my breathing. I got up from the chair with wobbly knees, making my way towards the door. “You guys finish up, I’ll be in my office.”

Redemption, what a joke.

It was well into the afternoon when my stomach informed me that I was hungry. I was swarmed with paperwork. I’d been busy the whole week, running errands, filling forms, trying to keep the hybrids from tearing each other apart, so the paperwork got neglected, and now I was paying for it. I briefly wondered if I should go back home and grab something to eat, but then I remembered the look on everyone’s faces this morning. I had panicked in front of them. I had been feeling restless the whole week without a certain comfort penguin. I was too embarrassed to ask the guys if they had seen it.

I groaned, leaning back in my chair. How was I going to face them? What would I tell them if they asked? A knock on the door pulled me out of my thoughts. “Come in.”

It was Jungkook, holding a bowl. He tentatively entered the office, looking everywhere but at me. His ears were drooping behind him. “I brought you lunch,” he said, setting the bowl on the table.

“I’m sorry I pushed you away this morning,” I apologized, extending a hand towards him, which he took hesitantly. I pulled him in my lap and buried my face in his chest; he smelled like vanilla.

“Are you okay?” Jungkook asked, wrapping his big hands around me.

“No,” I whispered. “But don't worry bunny, I’ll be fine. I just need some sleep.”

“Is it because of Jimin? Can’t we just send him away?”

That made me raise my head to look at him. “Why don’t you like him, bun?”

“He’s too clingy,” Jungkook pouted, jutting his lower lip out. It made me giggle.

“What about Namjoon and Seokjin?”

“They can stay, Seokjin hyung makes delicious food and Namjoon hyung is so cool.”

“Oh, did you talk to them?”

He shook his head no. I almost cooed at him - the poor bunny was too shy to talk to the older hybrids. “Why don’t you try making friends with Jimin? I bet you’ll like him if you got to know him better.”

He buried his face in my hair and shook his head, “...don't wanna.”

I took his hand in mine. “Won’t you do it for me?” I asked dramatically, trying to sound upset.

Jungkook leaned back to look at me, pout more pronounced. He knew exactly what I was doing. “Fine, I’ll try,” he agreed with a defeated sigh.

“Thank you, baby.” I kissed his palm in gratitude. At least he had agreed to try. “Why did you dye your hair?” I asked curiously, running my hands through his multicolored locks.

“Iwantyoutolikeme,” he said in one breath, hiding his face in my hair again.

“What?”

“I want you to like me.”

“You dyed your hair because you want me to like you?” Jungkook nodded. “Oh baby, I already like you!” I squeezed him tight, letting him know how much he meant to me. Is that what Jason had told Jimin? That I’d like him better if he dyed his hair? Jason was diabolical, I really needed to come up with a good plan to get back at him.

“Bun, next time, don’t listen to Jason.”

I was curled up on the sofa with a blanket. It was past midnight but I was wide awake and restless, staring at the ceiling. I had almost turned on the TV, but then I remembered that there were four hybrids in the house with phenomenal hearing, and I really didn’t want to wake them up. And thus, I suffered in silence.

I hadn’t seen the three new hybrids all day; they hadn’t been introduced to the shelter yet, so they stayed at home. When I came back from work, they were already in their room. They had insisted on staying in the same room, something about new places and pack bonding. I was giving Jason the cold shoulder, at least until he apologized for his crimes. And Jungkook was busy playing his new video games.

Clair had saved Jimin.

The thought rang in my head. Why hadn’t she saved me? Would things have been different, if she had stepped in? I had to admit, I was a tiny bit jealous of the panther hybrid. She had saved him.

Madame was so kind.

I was furious. How dare she? Clair had been a coward, had lived and died as one. I knew it in my soul, never in a million years would I ever forgive that woman. She didn’t deserve it.

“You’re angry,” a quiet voice said. I looked up to see a tall silhouette standing at the bottom of the stairs. Seokjin stepped out of the shadows, clutching a pillow in his hands.

“I was thinking. Can’t sleep?”

“Namjoon snores really loudly,” he complained. It made me laugh. The three of them were always attached to the hip, I had wondered if it was because they were uncomfortable here.

“You know we have plenty of spare bedrooms, you can take any of them.”

“Why are you here?”

“I can’t sleep.” I shrugged. Seokjin nodded understandingly, but he didn’t move an inch. “Do you want to sleep on the couch?”

He hesitated, looking as if he was unsure if he should accept my offer before he murmured, “can I?”

“Of course! But I think, a bed would be more comfortable,” I said, moving from the couch to the armchair. Seokjin sat down on the couch, placing his pillow near him.

“Why can’t you sleep? Is it because of what Jimin said?” he asked cautiously, ears erect and attentive.

“I have insomnia.” I shrugged, but Seokjin kept staring at me. I squirmed under his piercing gaze;  staring at me like he could see right through my bullshit. “I didn’t have a good relationship with Clair. She raised me, but she was cruel, unkind. I just… can’t fathom her as someone nice.”

“So it had nothing to do with Jimin being a prostitute?” he asked suspiciously.

“WAIT! Is that what you guys thought? Oh my god, I would never…” I was shocked. No wonder the hybrids were avoiding me like the plague. “I’m really sorry, if it seemed that way but it's not like that. I’m really happy that Clair rescued him. He deserves a good home, a family. I don’t think you’d believe me, even if I told you what my aunt was like. I’m really sorry, if I hurt you guys. But believe me when I say that this is not a place where you’ll be judged for your past.”

“You mean that.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I do.”

“You could sleep on the couch with me?” Seokjin offered sheepishly, ears turning the color of strawberries. I was surprised to see him be so direct. He had been very reserved around me till now, only talking when necessary.

“Are you sure? Won’t you be uncomfortable?” I asked, eyeing the couch. It was big enough to seat five people comfortably, but Seokjin was big too.

He nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

Seokjin adjusted the pillow and laid down on the sofa, leaving room for me. I stood there with my hello kitty blanket, wondering if it was okay. The sudden change in the hybrid’s demeanor was unexpected and I gave up trying to dissect the situation. I had to admit, I was feeling a bit cuddly since the loss of my penguin and I desperately needed sleep. I scooched on the sofa, covering both of us with the blanket, resting my head on his arm.

“You’re not okay,” he murmured, wrapping his other arm around my waist, his tail curling around my thigh.

“I just need some sleep,” I sighed. Seokjin was like a furnace behind me. I wondered why all hybrids were this warm.

“Lies,” he said as he lightly nibbled on my ear. I gasped at the unexpected contact, my heart beating so loudly in my chest that I was sure he could hear it.

“I thought you didn’t like me,” my voice came out breathier than I had intended.

“I do, I just didn’t know how to approach you. You seem so independent, I didn’t know where I could fit in your life. The only thing I could do for Clair was look pretty. But this.... this I can do, I can comfort you. I want to be useful.”

I turned around to look at him. “Oh honey, you don’t have to be useful. You’re you and that’s enough for me. I just want you to be happy.” I lightly kissed his cheek.

“I’m going to be your comfort blanket,” Seokjin said with a smile and hugged me closer.

Previous || Next

[justoneday-namjoonii]

forgive me

anon request: “I really love the way you write angsty stuff so if u want, can u write a scene where jungkook is like involved in illegal stuff like drugs or maybe he's a hitman, Y/N and Jungkook have a conflict about that because she's not happy with what he does, he gets hurt a lot but he enjoys his job and doesn't wanna give it up cuz he loves the thrill. It can be an emotional scene where Y/N tells him that she's afraid of losing him because of what he does. Honestly come up with anything, I don't mind 😂”

prompt: Jungkook is a druglord, you’re a waitress at a shabby burger place. He loves what he does and even though you try to ignore it, it scares you. You fear you’ll lose him if he doesn’t quit and he’s all you have. Your so called family are full of lies and if it wasn’t for Jungkook, you don’t know where you’d be. You wonder every night if the sirens you hear are for him—you pray it’s not for him. Secretly, he feels the same about you.

pairing: Jungkook x reader

genre: angst, drabble, mental health issues, mentions of murder, mature subject matter

author’s note: For the anon who requested this, this is for you! I hope you enjoy~ did i watch Truth be Told and decide to make the OC a twin? yes, yes i did

When you opened your eyes, you started to feel around for your cellphone. When you couldn't feel for it, you rolled over and yawned, it's probably under the bed. That's where its gonna stay too. As soon as you got home from work, you fell face-first into your bed and taking a shower was the last thing on your mind. But now you're feeling the stale department store smell on your clothes. It takes about two minutes for you to roll out of bed and realize you that Jungkook should have been here by now. You grab your phone and see two missed calls and a text from 2 hours ago.

jungkook💖💫: im sorry ill be over a little later baby, something came up 

jungkook💖💫: i miss you angel

You smile, he always misses you. And you miss him too, but you know he's probably out there in the slums of the city, doing what he does. How you lucked out with him, you have no idea. One night you were trying to call an Uber to get home from a birthday party at the club. It was around midnight and you had to work so you couldn't hang with the hardcore crowd. You went outside to call for a ride but you were being watched. Some guy kept catcalling, just outright harassing you. It was the scariest night of your life. You were telling him to leave you alone but he was drunk or high, either way, he wasn't all there. He snatched your phone. Just when you thought he was going to grab you, a black sports car, one you would have had to work two lifetimes to afford, stopped at the light. And before you know it, the man trying to get you is being dragged into the alley where he probably would have taken you. You remember being frozen, all you could hear was cursing and blunt force. The mystery man, whose car is still in the middle of the road, emerges from the dark corner between the buildings.

You were completely taken. The smile, the hair, the tattoos, and dangling earrings, paired with a striking gaze—he was an angel. He was so beautiful and he was just looking at you stand there with your mouth open.

"If there's one thing I hate, oh here you go," He hands you your phone and you get a nice look at his hand tattoo, "it's motherfuckers who can't leave women the fuck alone. Sorry you had to deal with that, but he won't be bothering you or anyone else after tonight, or use his hands again," He sighs, fixing his clothes a bit and wiping the blood from the corner of his lip, "are you okay?"

"Yeah, thank you," You slip the phone in your bomber jacket pockets, "not a lot of people would stop a stupid guy from bothering a girl they don't even know."

"Yeah, I'm Jungkook by the way," He introduces himself with a smile, situating his nice clothes, "do you- Um, did you need a ride? I'm not a creep I swear," He holds his hands up in surrender when you furrow your brows at the suggesting—great, now she thinks I'm a pervert. 

"I didn't stop that guy as blackmail to get laid, I just-" He pauses to grapple for the right words, "I saw you just standing on the curb and I know it's not safe out here-"

"If it's not any trouble," You interrupt his rambling, "I live about 15 minutes away, I was gonna call a ride but if you don't mind, I'd appreciate it. My name is Y/n, by the way."

That night changed your life forever. It was the first time you had wanted to kiss a stranger, the first night you ever came close to a soulmate. He confesses to having seen you in the club, he was at the bar, refusing offers from every girl from the bartenders to cougars out on the town, at least that's what you always thought. In that little fifteen minutes, you got to know very little about him but you felt so comfortable sharing things about yourself when he asked. He dropped you off and said if you ever needed anything, to give him a call. 

You never got to use the number because you ended up seeing him again. He showed up to your job, but he wasn't there for you, he was there for one of your money laundering and pill-popping associates. You were taking a break and for some reason, the break room was eerily empty. After you heard gunshots and the whole store went into chaos. You remember trying to leave and suddenly being swept away and into an outside electrical room apart of the building. You calmed down enough to realize that it was him but you were baffled.

"What're the odds that you would work at the same place as that bastard," He fiddles with the gun, tucking it to his side and flipping on the safety and pulling off his mask with a toothy grin, "do you remember me?"

"You?... Jungkook, how did you- Why are you-..." You make a small step back and swallow, scrambling to think of something to say. "Have you been following me like some creep?!"

"No! this is just a run-in by fate, I swear I didn't plan it. I'm not even supposed to still be here but I couldn't just leave, not without saying something to you."

"Okay...What do you want to say? I have to get back on the clock." You look him up and down, his all-black clothes and heavy boots intimidating but alluring in many ways.

"Wanna grab a coffee?"

For some reason, you said yes to the familiar stranger.

"Sure- I mean no! No, I can't Jungkook, I have to get back to work-"

"Trust me, just come with me," He extends his hand for you to take and smiles, "you won't regret it."

You took his hand and never looked back.

* * *

Nights like this.

When it's too early to ruin his life and too late to pretend like he wouldn't care. So when he shows up to the lounge to enforce an unpaid debt from a client, he leaves with bruised knuckles, two grand, and a rush of adrenaline. He went a little hard on the guy, but can you blame him? He messed up his plans. Tonight is date night, also known as 'crash at your place' night. It worked out though, you had to work late so he wouldn't be too tardy. Judging by the fact that you haven't answered your phone, you must be knocked out.

He slips his hand into his pocket and fumbles with his keys until he finds the one to your apartment. When he walks inside he hears the sink on and smiles to himself, you must've just woken up. 

"Baby, it's me," He announces himself, "how was your day?"

"Fine," You step out in your work clothes, still trying to get your earrings out, "as fine as a day working for the devil could be." 

"That bad?" You take note of the silk black shirt that's rolled up to his elbows, letting you see his beautiful sleeve of tattoos. When he comes dressed like this, and smelling like smoke you know he's been out into high-end clubs. The way some of the women look at him makes you feel small and a little self-conscious. But he always reassures you that you're who he wants, not some woman who sees him as an experimental one-night stand. When he tells you to meet him in the restroom because he needs to tell you something, you're reminded that you're all he wants.

"She screwed the schedule. My only day off was taken because her favorite, Kasey, has to go out of town."

He unbuttons the buttons on his shirt with deliberate fingers. "You walked out on a job for me before, remember that?" He smiles, letting his shirt fall from his shoulders like a dream. A bruise on his upper arm catches your attention but you don't say anything. "If you're not happy, just leave. I can take care of you, you can be my sugar baby."

"Yeah, my step-mom would love that, I could see it now," You cringe at the thought, "Hey, just a heads up, I'm not working or married but I have a sugar daddy who pays all my bills and lets me use his money for free, oh, he's also a drug lord. She'd really think highly of me then." 

"Fuck Carol, she's a judgmental priss anyway," He comes up to you, hands finding your waist, "why do you care what she thinks about you?" 

"I don't care what she thinks, but if she finds out she'll tell my dad and I don't want to hear it from him. If he pretends to not be disappointed by the lesser-twin one more time, I'll actually cuss him out...He's such a liar, he lied to my mom and he lies to me.”

"Quit saying that," Jungkook grabs you under your thighs, wrapping your legs around his waist so he can sit on the edge of your bed, "you're not the lesser-twin, you're the cute and sexy twin." You sit back on his thighs and you both laugh at his attempt to lighten your mood.

"Well, I'm not a successful surgeon and I'm broke as hell, but at least my boyfriend thinks I'm cute." His hands find their way to the hem of your shirt and pull it over your head, revealing a disappointing tank top.

"See, this is disappointing. Why are you wearing a tank top? It's a hundred degrees outside." He sighs, looking up at you like a pouting little kid.

"Because I want to," You grin, brushing his hair from his brows, revealing a scratch, "you're cut."

"Yeah, had a run-in with an old friend, we're obviously not friends anymore."

"You should take me with you on these deals and stuff, I'd make a great bodyguard for you," You joke, "if you showed me how to use a gun."

"You?" He giggles at the image of you secretly acting as a bodyguard, a dagger, and a gun in a garter under a skintight dress. "That's not a bad idea, they'd be too distracted looking at how fucking beautiful you are to see you as a threat."

"Yeah, I always saw as the Bonnie & Clyde type of couple," He leans up to kiss you and you smile through it before he pulls away, "eh, you need to shower, you smell like weed."

He furrows his brows, a snarky smile on his mouth. "And you smell like French fries, but I still kissed you.”

"Touche." You can't argue with that, the French fries smell gets to you too.

He picks you up, carrying you to the bathroom with a beaming smile.

"Let's shower then."

 * * *

A deal went bad, he got grazed by a bullet and spent a few hours at the emergency room.

When he pulled in to the driveway and saw your car, he sighed in relief—he was hoping you'd come. After work, you had come by earlier to clear your head and take a breather from your cramped apartment and rowdy neighbors. Ever since his 'new position' he was put up in this huge mansion, equipped with a full staff. Luckily, they were off tonight so no need to keep quiet.

It's getting late and you've been trying to watch a baking show to stay awake but it was getting difficult. He hadn't called or answered any of your calls or texts. When you hear the garage door open, your heavy lids lift and you yawn, trying to wake up so you can tell him how your day has been.

He opens the door with a deep sigh and he's glad you can't see the thick white bandage on his upper arm and tired shadows under his eyes because of the dim lights. "Jungkook, it's so late..." You mumble, sitting up. "what took you so long?"

"Yeah, baby, I just had a mix up with someone who owed the group a lot of money, they, uh- They opened fire and we had a lot to clean up." He offhandedly mentions that and goes to the bathroom to change and you just wait for him.

The painkiller is wearing off but he manages to brush his teeth and slip into some sweats and a t-shirt. After flicking the light switch off, he falls into bed with a heavy exhale. Glad to finally have him close so you can tell him about your terrible day, you turn to hug him, and instantly a wince of pain leaves his mouth. 

"Sorry," You giggled, thinking he was just kidding until you see the bandage on his arm, "Oh my gosh," You sit up, hand reaching for his bandage with concern in your brows, "what happened?"

"It's nothing baby, I was grazed by a bullet and had to go to the ER," He spares you a weak grin, hand rustling through his damp locks, "but it's nothing, I feel fine."

It's always nothing to him. You lean down and place a gentle kiss on his forehead, one he would normally place on you. Nights go by and you know he's out there risking his life, not thinking how devastated you would be if one night he doesn't come back.  

He caresses the apple of your cheek, lips parting when sits up to try to kiss you, but you pull away.

"Hey, I've had a long day I just want to kiss you," He sits up now, "talk to me." 

"Talk to yourself, I'm going to sleep."

"Where the fuck is this coming from?" He glares at you, tone firmer than before. "Y/n, cut the crap. What's the problem?"

"Jungkook, there's no problem I just worry about you."

"I don't mean to make you worry," He speaks softly, "but you know this is what I do, I can't stop now, even if I wanted to."

"I know," Sadly, "but you're all I have."

He tilts his head, a bit confused. "What happened?"

"My sister called when I got off of work. My dad isn't doing well, his liver is in terrible condition and he needs a transplant...He's on a wait-list now." 

Knowing the severed relationship you have with your family, he treads lightly when requesting this. "Do you want to go see him?-"

"No!" You snap. "Why would I want to see him? This is what he gets for killing my mother."

"Y/n, you don't mean that..." Jungkook gets uncomfortable when you enter that head-space, you become ruthless in your words and your eyes glaze over with something he has yet to understand.

"Why not? It's true. He was cheating on her, that's why he never came home and she thought something was wrong. So drove out in the middle of the night during a storm and ended up crashing into a tree, because of him. My sister has always defended him, but I think it's because she didn't like mom either...The two of them may have cried at the funeral but I know them, they were glad she left us. That's why I need you, Jungkook, I don't have them or want them..."

"Y/n, you have to learn to forgive them for whatever you think they did, it's going to drive you insane if you don't...Fuck them, spend your energy on us, okay?"

"I'm already insane, I'm with you, aren't I? You come close to being killed every week, and it bothers me to think you might not come home...But I'll go through that if it means I get to have you, I love you, I only love you..." You lay your head on his shoulder.

He’s your angel.

You aren’t sure what you are to him.

[cuddlepilefics]

Do you even lift?

Fandom: Stray Kids

Sickie: Changbin

Caregiver: Chan

 No one's POV.:

Changbin had come under quite a bit of fire lately. He had successfully gained weight and loved how cute his squishy cheeks looked. Sadly, they came at a cost, resulting in the rapper being criticized for his belly fat. Would he cut down on food, he'd lose his cute cheeks again, so that left only one solution: more exercise to reveal his abs and hopefully still keep his cheeks. That's easier said than done though, because his schedule was already tightly packed. The only times he managed to go to the gym were after his official schedule late into the night. Changbin wasn't one to complain, so he'd take what he could get even if that meant salvaging all the discipline he could find and forcing himself to push past his exhaustion to trade sleep for exercise. The calculation was easy for him: ‘If I leave the studio at 2am, I’ll make it to the gym at around 2:30am. Exercise for 90minutes and leave the gym around 4am. Walk home and have a shower, then I could be in bed around 5am and get up to 3 hours of sleep before we have to get up again.’

He had been following this routine for the past three weeks and he was beginning to see the first changes. Mostly in his arms though, not in his abs but he was building muscles, so his abs would probably grow too, just a bit slower than his arms. The other members noticed it too and Changbin received many compliments for the size of his biceps. On the down side, he constantly felt sore and could barely remember what life was like without feeling his muscles burn with every movement. His appetite had also changed. It was so much bigger than before, which only made sense with how much he was asking from his body. Although he had deliberately decided not to diet, he also wouldn’t increase his food intake just because he felt hungry all the time. What Changbin failed to understand was that his body was desperately begging for energy, either from sleep or from some extra calories. Since the rapper gave his body neither, it was only a matter of time till he had to feel his body’s wrath. He kept spacing out, which was probably worsened by low blood-sugar levels because he decided to consume less carbohydrates and eat healthy fats instead. One day, he almost fell asleep during one of 3racha’s production sessions. Both Chan and Jisung had mocked him for it but were mostly worried because their friend had started to come home even later than Chan. They had laughed it off together and Changbin had been forced to skip his workout that day, being dragged home to get some sleep instead. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t exercise twice as hard the next day though to make up for the missed workout.

Dance practices have developed a kind of love-hate relationship with Changbin. He loved them because they were also a form of exercise but he hated them because with how slow his brain had become from how run down he was, he was always a few beats behind on the choreography. If it seemed like it was frustrating for the dance-racha that was doing their best to teach them the new dance routines, it was so much more frustrating for Changbin. He was pushing himself incredibly hard to erase something that he was criticized for, only to mess up and be criticized for something else. Over the last week, he had noticed that he could go over the choreography about five times before getting dizzy and messing the steps up even more, so he tried to use the first few rounds to show his members that he wasn’t doing that bad, going all out and using up his remaining energy. In the breaks, Felix often sat with him, massaging his neck and shoulders. The Aussie could see how tense the other’s posture was and tried to give him as much relief as possible. Changbin appreciated it, although at that point there was nothing that Felix could do to make him hurt less. It was comforting and it at least took away the stress for a few minutes and helped him relax mentally, even though his muscles couldn’t really relax anymore.

“Guys, since our schedule ends early today and Channie-hyung said there wouldn’t be a 3racha meeting today, can we maybe go out for dinner tonight? It’d even be my treat”, Minho offered. The group had barely had the time to relax or have fun together. Changbin scratched his neck awkwardly, admitting: “I was actually looking forward to visit the gym early today.” – “It’s fine, you guys can go. I’ll go with Changbin because it had been ages since I had the time to exercise apart from our dance practices”, Chan announced. Yes, he had barely been working out lately for the lack of time but his main intention was to keep an eye on his dongsaeng. The leader was afraid the younger was overworking himself. Their plan was soon settled, though a few youngers, especially Felix, tried to talk Changbin out of going to the gym but his insecurities and body image made it impossible for the rapper to skip. His head was already hurting before they left for the gym but if he thought about it, it had been hurting for the last two days already. A good night’s rest would probably fix it, so Changbin was glad he’d be home a bit earlier tonight. It’s not like he had the intention to harm himself with his excessive exercising but he failed to listen to his body telling him to stop.

On the way to the gym, Chan had asked many questions on his dongsaeng’s workout routine to figure out how hard the younger was actually pushing his limits. He was shocked when he finally grasped the extent and tried to give the rapper a few hints here and there, that he might want to think about this habit. Changbin either wasn’t getting the hint that his hyung was telling him to stop, which was possible considering how out of it he was, or he was unwilling to admit to himself, that he was slowly running his body into the ground. Chan soon gave up and realized the younger had to see for himself that what he was doing was hurting him. That didn’t mean the leader wasn’t prepared to be there and pick up the pieces when Changbin would reach his breaking point. For now, he tried to keep the mood light. They took a few pictures and compared the weights they’d be using for their individual routines, before putting in their earphones and getting started.

It all seemed to be going well. At least that was what it looked like to Chan. Changbin soon removed his earphones because he blamed the stereo-sound for the spinning in his head and his balance-issues. To his dismay, he had to accept that the change barely had an effect on his struggles. He was also shaking harder from the strain than he remembered himself shaking the previous day but what did he expect with the amount of sleep he was running on. Changbin finished up with his push-ups and stood up with the weights in his hands. Upon shifting his position upright, black spots started to dance in his vision but he was used to it. It had happened a few times over the course of the past week. He’d just drop down to one knee and wait till his vision cleared before getting up again. Changbin’s back was facing Chan, so the leader couldn’t see his discolored face, or the cold sweat that was dripping from his forehead, running down his temples. The rapper had been kneeling there for quite a while already, longer than he usually needed to, so Chan removed his earphones too and teased: “Do you even lift, mate?”

Changbin shook his head and turned his head towards Chan. He was mumbling something that resembled ‘h-hyung’, but Chan only saw his lips moving. The leader didn’t need to hear him though, the look on his face, combined with his skincolor, told Chan all he needed to know. Cursing silently, the oldest dropped his weights and rushed over to his friend. He wrapped his arms around Changbin from his back and gently pulled him backwards to sit down properly. Changbin defeatedly let go of his weights and leaned back against his hyung’s chest. “It’s okay. Just take deep breaths and the dizziness will go away”, Chan assured, holding the younger against his chest so he wouldn’t fall over. Taking a shaky breath in, Changbin failed and his breathing remained fast and shallow. One hand came up to clutch onto Chan’s arm, a desperate attempt to hold himself up, before it dropped back down, along with Changbin’s head that fell onto his chest as his body went slack.

For a second, Chan panicked before he collected himself, realizing he’d only be able to help the younger if he was able to keep a cool head. Carefully, the leader lowered Changbin to lie on the floor, feeling his pulse weak and fast. He got up and without his eyes ever leaving the younger, he collected his water bottle and a stack of lyric sheets. Chan sprinkled some of the water onto Changbin’s face before fanning him with the papers. To his relief, he soon heard the rapper groan and his eyes fluttered open. “Take it easy, you’re okay”, Chan promised, “Just blacked out for a second. I think we’re done exercising for today.” Changbin nodded and brought his hands up to massage his temples. Was his headache already that bad earlier? He wanted to keep up but his hyung held it down with a gentle hand on his chest, asking: “Please stay down a little longer, just until your face has taken on a healthier shade.” Changbin nodded again, too drained to respond verbally.

After resting for another two minutes, Changbin started to feel cold, his body not having the energy left to sustain his body temperature. Chan noticed the slight shiver and went to collect his hoodie. “Here, you can try to sit up and put this on”, the leader said with a comforting smile. He helped his dongsaeng to sit up and kept an arm around his shoulders to steady him. Changbin tiredly slipped the hoodie on, cursing his arms for burning as much as they did from the simple movement. Grabbing his towel, he dried his sweaty face. He also took a few sips of the water Chan offered him before clearing his throat and asking: “Hyung, can we go home?” The older was glad he didn’t have to argue about taking Changbin home and nodded. “Do you think you can walk or do you want a piggy back?”, he asked, studying the rapper. “Walk!” – “Alright, alright”, he laughed, pulling Changbin to his feet and wrapping one arm around his waist, while Changbin’s arm hung over his neck, “But can you give me a warning if you feel dizzy again?” – “Yeah – yeah, I think – I think I can do that”, Changbin mumbled, swaying a bit as Chan picked up both of their bags.

Their walk back to the dorm was slow and quiet and Chan was sure, the younger hadn’t fallen asleep walking. He felt a bit guilty for not stopping Changbin before it could get this bad but he also knew that if the rapper had set his mind on something, there was no stopping him. While Changbin went to their room to pick out his clothes, Chan ran him a bath. The leader was afraid his dongsaeng would slip and fall if he tried to take a shower. He let Changbin take his time and went to the kitchen to make them both some dinner. Chan had settled on making some rice with chicken to fill up their energy fast while also giving them a good amount of protein. Dishing the food onto plates, he made sure Changbin’s was heaping full. “Hey, hyung. Sorry about earlier”, Changbin apologized, walking into the kitchen with damp hair. Chan shook his head and sat him down at the table, so they could eat together, replying: “It’s alright but I hope you got your wakeup call to start listening to your body better.” Changbin nodded guiltily. “You should take the next few days to rest up because you have pushed your body way too hard. I know why you did and I’m not going to scold you because I understand your intentions but please take better care of yourself from now on”, the leader pleaded. Changbin bit his lip. It didn’t feel right to take even a day off, when it was entirely his own fault that he felt so bad. On the other hand, being able to sleep in and not having to drag his achy and wrecked body out of bed tomorrow sounded like heaven. In the end, they compromised on Changbin resting for one day and deciding afterwards if he needed another. What was sure though, was that Chan would keep a closer eye on him from now on to ensure he got the rest he needed.

[subtlereferencetomyinterests]

A Misplaced Imbalance of Fear

Ao3,   MasterPost

Relationships: Romantic Dukexiety, implied/minor Moceit (platonic or romantic)

From the power of my Art and my Shitposts comes This Fanfiction!!!

Warnings: Panic Attacks, Lots of Cursing, descriptions of gore (horror movies, it gets decently explicit so beware that), mild body horror (Remus is here and he Does Things Like That), Heavy Roman angst for a hot minute in the middle, making out (continuing my theme of remus-centric fics getting more ;3). They do some makeup and drink tea, baby. Mentions of picking one’s skin as an Anxious habit, and also ticking. Also stimming!!! nd sides 4 life bb. Also, a very brief alcohol mention (it’s soup).

Word Count: 6,553

God Fucking Fuck, Virgil was going to have a self-care day even if it killed him dead. Everybody else could do whatever overdramatic fuckery they wanted when they were topside, but he was all set down there in the Mindpalace, thank you very much.

Luckily, mercifully, thankfully, the rest of the sides all seemed keen to let Virgil have his space anyway. There wasn’t a thing stopping him from relaxing.

Well, except for himself, of course.

A thrum of condensed stress and fear tugged at Virgil’s abdomen, bubbling its way over his edges. It was equally his own and the others’, probably due to whatever conversation they were caught up in in the external world. He would not relent to the worry, nor was he summoned to help with the situation, but his body refused to stop shaking. Perched on the top of the couch, frantically clicking the buttons on a fidget cube, Virgil tried to watch the gore playing on the TV in a tired effort to calm his nerves.

Horror movies… helped. They were something for his brain to chew on for a while- their over-the-top and ridiculous plots, the obnoxious characters that almost always deserve what’s coming to them, the attention-attaining action- it was all a recipe for Distraction. But they weren’t working by that point, no matter how badly Virgil wanted them to.

And then- possibly because the universe loved to spite Virgil and Virgil specifically- a walking, talking headache flung himself into the common room about as elegantly as a wolfhound with rabies.

“Heyyyy,” Remus crowed as he sprawled himself out on the couch. Anxiety curled his legs closer under his body, unresponsive- he knew full well that any reaction would just be an invitation for trouble from the obnoxious trait. He’d remember what Logan taught them: don’t engage, just brush it all off.

Unfortunately, Remus seemed to be in a stubborn mood.

“Whatcha watching?” 

“Movie,” Virgil grumbled. 

“What movie?”

He eyed the side laying out on the couch below him, narrowing his gaze as threateningly as he could manage. He spat the words through gritted teeth and made it clear he was not having this today.

“It’s called Terrifier.”

Remus perked up at that, and oh God, if he was interested then he’d never go the fuck away.

“What’s it about?”

There wasn’t much Virgil could do but answer in as clipped a tone as he could; things hadn’t gotten too bad, too uncomfortable, yet. Maybe he could redirect Remus’ attention, if he was just boring and unresponsive enough?

“Just a cliche creepy clown flick. Not much to it.”

“Is it gory?” 

Virgil made a vaguely affirmative sound in his throat, gesturing to the screen. In truth, the movie’s impeccable special effects with gore was its main appeal, as the acting and plot was kinda atrocious. Violence was the exact reason he’d chosen to watch this. But he knew saying that wouldn’t help his chances of shaking off Intrusive Thoughts.

Remus looked ready to spout off something explicit, but he went dead quiet as his eyes fell on the scene on the television. Virgil was grateful for small mercies.

It was exactly the kind of thing that the creative trait would watch, after all; a woman getting sawed in half, lengthwise, starting from the- er, the wrong end. Under circumstances of a more typical anxious flare-up, the scene really could have been one of those ‘helpful distractions’. 

These were not normal circumstances.Yeah, this was one of those ‘too passive’ cases, but Virgil didn’t exactly have the energy for anything ‘active’. So, he stubbornly glared at the TV and pretended that his solution was working, because he had no idea what else to do. Perfect plan.

Preoccupied as he was with his internal issues, he very nearly managed to forget about Remus. Until-

“Holy fuck, this is gorgeous, you watch stuff like this?!” The Duke’s eyes were bright, but not with his usual hysteria. They were wide with genuine excitement, shiny and happy. It was- uncanny, that’s probably the word Virgil was looking for. He curled closer in on himself.

“Shouldn’t be that surprising, dude. ‘Scary’ is kind of my thing.”

“I can’t believe I haven’t seen this one,” the creative side was once again completely enamored by the television screen, “Don’t blood and guts and cool things like that freak you out? They always seem to do the trick when I try to mess with you!” 

“It’s different. The violence in movies, it- it calms me down, I guess. Cause it’s like, I don’t know, detached from reality?”

There was a pause that had Virgil hoping, naively, that Remus had grown bored at his spiel. But he wasn’t moving, he was just staring, gaze switching contemplatively from the screen to Virgil a few times over.

“It doesn’t look like that. If you were any more tense, all your tendons would be snapping like badly-tuned violin strings!” 

“Yeah, no shit,” Virgil pressed his back against the wall and shut his eyes tight. He could still hear- no, feel- Patton and Roman and Thomas arguing, snapping at each other back and forth as the situation escalated.

“Is this about whatever the others are doing? Why don’t you just stop listening to their shitty arguments?”

A harsh laugh escaped Virgil at that, dragging him back down to earth so he could blink his eyes open, glaring at the facet lying beneath him. 

“I can’t just stop, that’s not how I work. I need to keep an ear on them. Who knows what could happen if I didn’t?”

“Well, why don’t you just go talk to them?”

If he wasn’t already frustrated beyond belief, that would’ve fuckin’ done it for him.

“I don’t think I’d be much help. Not right now.”

“Why not?” Remus looked halfway between genuinely curious and mischievous, propping himself up on his elbows to get a better view of Anxiety.

“Seriously? Things aren’t exactly, like- normal between all of us.”

“What is normal?” 

Virgil opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came through. As much as it sounded like an offhanded, edgy 13-year-old atheist kind of remark, it was a decent point. Virgil had thought that there was something of a status quo forming between himself and the ‘light sides’, but how long had that even lasted for? Especially compared to the rest of his life? Everything was changing all the time. Was there anything to rely on, or was it just Virgil’s own wishful thinking for what their lives could be? After all, even in ‘peaceful times’, there had been plenty of in-fighting and disagreements and horrible uncomfortable conversations and harsh words and-

“Oh, shut that brain up,” Remus’ sharp voice pulled Virgil from his thoughts, “I know what you meant ‘normal’. You meant the six months when you got to forget about us Scary Monsters, and, DUH! It was probably way simpler for all you diet-soda-no-sugar sluts back then, but that doesn’t mean it was better.”

“Yeah, you would think that things are better now, wouldn’t you?”

Remus fixed Virgil with an unsettling sort of grimace, making the other squirm. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so by any means. 

“I dunno, but what I do know is that things are getting better. They’ll be the best they could be, soon.”

Despite himself, Virgil laughed. It was a faltering, anxious sound, revealing the true fear behind the taunting gesture.

“Really? With everybody at each other’s throats all the time?”

“While that does sound fun,” Remus sat up fully, twisting around to look directly up at Virgil, “I mean after that. After we’re all accepted. It’s inevitable- Inevitable, Anxious Lil’ Barista,” Remus accompanied the referential nickname with a wink. 

Virgil stared at him like he was crazy (well- like- crazier than usual, he guessed?). Remus just threw his head back and laughed before spinning his neck one-hundred and eighty degrees to face the TV while he explained.

“Point is, it’s painfully obvious that everything will sort itself out. It has to, or else the only other option is that Thomas is gonna drive himself insane by trying to suppress parts of himself and end up clawing his own brain out. One of those two things!”

While colorfully phrased, the certainty with which Remus delivered his point had Virgil taken aback. There was no way that Remus could possibly know that, but- in a backwards way it was comforting, how sure he sounded. He didn’t lie, not ever.

Virgil had never thought that Remus would settle for anything less than going out of his way to make others’ lives a hell. But maybe that antagonism wasn’t what exactly motivated the trait’s actions. Maybe it was just an unintentional side effect, akin to what Logan had said when Remus first revealed himself.

The moment of reprieve was over as soon as it began.

“Fuck! He just cut off her tits and wore ‘em, huh?” 

Virgil looked up and, to be fair, that was exactly what had happened on screen. Like he said, this movie wasn’t exactly poetic cinema, but it certainly was something. 

He scooted along the top of the couch, moving just a few feet before dropping down to sit properly beside Remus.

“3/10 drag look at best, really,” Virgil muttered, mostly to himself. He jumped when Remus shrieked with laughter at it, looking absolutely delighted. 

“I didn’t know you made jokes like that, VeeVee!”

Virgil shrugged noncommittally, focusing on the screen and not the facet beside him. Remus’ giggling was loud and distracting, but it wasn’t… unpleasant, unlike his typical villain-cackle was. 

Once Remus had settled down (as much as somebody like him could, anyway), he, too, focused on watching. The quiet was uncomfortable, but it didn’t stretch on for long. There was always something in the movie that The Duke felt the need to comment upon extensively, elaborating and giving details on the gore. Virgil found himself listening to the rants silently, almost enjoying the disruption. It certainly gave his overactive mind something to play around with.

“-skin doesn’t slice as easy as that, trust me-”

Aaaand there it was. Virgil winced, trying very hard not to show that the words had struck a nerve. He liked horror, gore, all that, sure, but there were just some specific things- squicks, you could call them. Remus would obviously use that to his advantage, so the only option was to try very hard to zone out and not look like he was disturbed.

“But even then- Hey, why are you making that face?”

Mission failed.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Remus shifted closer- invasively closer, his gaze studying. 

“You were calming down earlier, what's with the scrunch-nose?”

Virgil stared at his hands, chipping away his black nail polish. Remus was nearly as good at reading lies as Janus, and twice as hard to get rid of.

“It's just- skin, slicing, that stuff just-” he ticked, head spasming sideways briefly at even the thought of that kind of pain.

“Oh,” Remus said plainly, not even a hint of malice or mischief in his tone as he leaned back into his own spot, “Why didn't you just say so? Well, that last exploding head kill is way more interesting anyway, did you see that?”

That was… it? No taunting, no tormenting, he just changed the topic, like that? 

Remus, continuing to be weirdly perceptive, scoffed as though he was reading Virgil’s mind.

“What? Just because I like screwing with you prudes sometimes doesn't mean I want to give you a panic attack. Where's the fun in that?”

Anxiety nodded mutely, bewildered. Remus seemed appeased by that and quickly resumed his running commentary.

And if Virgil eventually decided to take part in the discussion, well, it wasn’t a big deal anyway. Just some polite conversation about bodily mutilation.

 The television darkened as the screen was washed by credits, filling the space where the disfigured face of the main character had been mere moments prior, the result of a pretty predictable twist ending. Virgil stood, arching his back up in a stretch. His arms raised higher, one joint or another crackling at the motion. Fuck, he was sore. How long had he been sitting still?

Remus hadn’t moved from his spot on the couch. He tapped his claws along the remote, exiting to the homescreen and looking expectantly at Virgil.

“You don't wanna watch anything else?” He asked abruptly, drawing a confused glance from his companion, “This is fun- and they're still arguing up there, so it kinda makes sense to stay, it’s really the best solution if you-”

Virgil huffed a laugh at the rambling. It sounded like some shit he’d say, for crying out loud.

“Dude, chill, I was just gonna make some tea before putting on another movie,” the clear relief that ran across Remus' face- quickly replaced by a wide grin- wasn't anything shy of… sweet. Virgil was sure this day couldn't get any fucking weirder, if he was finding anything endearing about the walking talking dirty joke before him. “Uh, you want anything? Since you're gonna stick around, and all.”

Remus jumped up, following Virgil into the MindPalace’s small kitchen happily. In one smooth motion, he swung up onto the counter and slid down it, seating himself almost on top of the stove.

“No hot leaf soup for me, thanks, but I will take one of those mugs!”

Virgil raised a brow, staring the creative trait down before shrugging. He passed him one of the mugs, a generic and patternless one- so that the other sides probably wouldn't notice its absence. He busied himself by setting up the kettle, trying not to wince at the loud wet crunch that resulted when Remus took a bite of his snack.

“Hey,” Remus said around a mouthful of ceramic chunks, “I know just the movie we should watch next.”

Virgil shifted around the various tea boxes littering the cabinets, searching for something with a kick. He hazarded a glance to Remus, immediately regretting the decision when he saw the blood dribbling down his chin from the cuts marring his lips. Anxiety cringed, turning his head back and grabbing for the first brightly-colored box he saw. It took him a moment to respond.

“Okay… what is it?” 

“It's awful- I mean, really, the acting is unbearable and it’s fucking insane- but it's funny. You like making fun of stuff, right? It's like that, but there's still a ton of agonizing death, which is always a fun bonus.”

“What's it about?” Virgil was hesitantly intrigued, his gaze flicking up from the steadily heating kettle. He wasn't exactly keen on staring down the gory scene of Remus’ mouth, so he settled his focus on the trait’s eyeball brooch. 

“Uhn-uhn! No spoilers, this is one you have to see for yourself. It's funnier that way.”

Virgil made a noncommittal sound, tapping his nails against the counters.

“Nothing too bad happens- not that you can't handle, anyway. No slicing and not many jumpscares.”

He resisted the urge to snap 'how do you know what I can’t handle?' because Remus actively trying to reassure him was. Something. Something that he appreciated, maybe, a little.

“Okay, fine. I didn't have anything else in mind. A ‘So-Bad-It’s-Good’ thing sounds alright.”

The obnoxious gnawing of Remus destroying what was left of his cup suddenly ceased, replaced by a stunned silence. Virgil finally met his eyes (finding that the lacerations around Remus’ mouth were already healing themselves, as if they'd never existed).

“You’re taking my suggestion?”

Virgil cleared his throat, finding himself unable to break the intense eye-contact now that it had been established.

“It's not a big deal or anything, man. Just a movie.” 

Remus nodded enthusiastically, a grin splitting his face ear-to-ear. Very literally. The expression was so unnatural and cartoonish on a human(ish) face, that Virgil couldn't help but be startled into laughter. Remus looked even more delighted at that reaction, leaning forward over the stove. At that point, Virgil very much couldn't suppress the noises, snorts bubbling up from his throat against his will.

“You look-” another bout of chuckling, “-you look ridiculous, Remus.”

“Aw, thank you! I was going for manic, but I'll settle for that, too.”

Virgil rolled his eyes, hunching in on himself to get his breathing back to normal. 

With no warning, Remus lifted himself up onto his knees and craned his body around the vigilant trait, snatching the kettle from the stove and flipping the dial to ‘off’. Instinctively, Anxiety recoiled from the proximity. The tension fell away when he saw that the other was simply pouring the hot water into Virgil’s mug for him.

“Dude, it wasn't whistling yet?”

“I know; it was hissing like it was about to start. You're boring and don't like loud noises, especially when you’re all on edge like this, so,” he set the kettle back down, passing the warm mug to Virgil. 

Virgil stared at him, then at the drink in his hand, then back up at the Duke. He was, for what felt like the millionth time that day, unsure of how to react.

He… really hadn't thought that Remus would pick up on stuff like that. He should probably start getting used to that, maybe.

“I'm-” Virgil dragged his finger up and down the handle of his mug, “I'm not that on edge anymore, actually.”

The look that Remus sent him was indecipherable. 

“C’mon, I’ll queue up that flick I told you about.”

“Yeah,” Virgil let out a deep breath, one he hadn't even known he'd been holding, “Yeah, okay.”

 The floor was bubbling, popping, blistering with red fury. It was lava, sending bright flaming sparks in all directions. Thankfully for Remus and Virgil, sitting close together on the couch and viciously mocking cabin fever, the vicious rage was exclusive to one small circle near the staircase.

Virgil, who had been happily tearing apart the leading guy’s acting, cut himself off abruptly.

“Shit- wait- shit.”

Remus shook himself out of his raucous laughter, looking up in confusion. His eyes finally settled on the crimson patch of carpet, a look of realization crossing them. His voice turned much quieter than what fit him.

“Oh, fuck.”

It was like a volcanic eruption localized entirely within the living room, fire blazing in a tall column. From the emotional display, Roman rose up, face nearly as red as his method of transportation. 

There was that brief moment, right when a stressful situation appeared, of antithetical serenity. Virgil felt his muscles slacken in shock, his long-empty mug falling from his hands and landing on the carpet with a dull thud. A rush of calmness hollowed out his chest, lingering for just a few seconds before being replaced by panic. Tension returned to his limbs mere moments after that, like it was pulling him taut.

Roman wasn't even looking at them- in fact, he hadn't seemed to notice his brother or best friend at all. The fire fell back down, leaving a charred patch of carpet that would likely take a long time to repair itself. The passionate trait growled, a sound that bordered on a scream as he clawed his hands down his face. He stamped his boot sharply against the ground, igniting another small fire with the impact.

“Fuck!” He cried, ever oblivious to his audience. With a hasty wave, the flames flickered and disappeared. Roman glared down at the blackened spot where it had been, winding his arms tightly around himself. He took a few shaky breaths, but if anything he only looked worse off for it.

“Fuck,” this time spoken quieter, but with no less vitriol. An immaculately-manicured hand raised itself to cover his mouth, tightening around his face desperately as tears slipped from his eyes down his fingers. He turned on his heel and took the stairs two at a time.

In his wake, as the television had been paused, the only thing that Virgil could hear was buzzing in his skull.

What had happened? What was happening, currently?! Things had gone so wrong and it was all because of Virgil’s negligence- what bad things could have been prevented if he had just been there? Or- or even just listening in! When had he even stopped listening? He was supposed to protect them but he just gave up, just because he ‘couldn't handle it’, and now something was Wrong with Roman and he couldn't even focus on listening to them all now, not like this. He couldn’t hear, couldn’t hear or see anything at all.

A rough, calloused hand wrapped around his wrist. Virgil's shallow breath staggered even more at the feeling, the warbly noise of speech failing to meet his ears. His eyes were closed tight, he realized, stinging with emotion behind his eyelids.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Four seconds, four strikingly gentle presses against the vein of Virgil’s wrist. If it weren't for the slight edge of a claw, he could've confused the motion for one of Patton’s.

The four taps were followed by a brief pause, then a steady round of seven taps. Another pause, and then eight. As Virgil focused, as much as he could anyway, on the presses, the screaming of his mind very gradually abated. First, he pried his eyes open, staring down at the hand around his arm. Watching the tapping, feeling it, was grounding enough for his hearing to return in time. Virgil could hear Remus beside him, breathing deeply as a guide, and copying the exercise became that much easier. In for four, hold  for seven, out for eight. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

Remus didn't stop when Virgil did it properly one time over, when he was still shaking and teary. He didn't speak up even when the well behind Anxiety's eyes ran dry, after what had to be a dozen rounds of even breaths. It was only when Virgil finally, hesitantly slipped his wrist out of the other's grasp on his own terms that Remus made any sounds.

“Do you remember when you taught me to do makeup? Late teens, early twenties, around then?”

Talk about a topic shift. Virgil glanced up in confusion.

“I guess so? Wasn't that, like, the only time that we hung out and actually got along?” They’d never exactly been close, Virgil had made sure of that. It was, in retrospect, a regrettable decision on his part.

“Yeah. I was so bad at it, remember?”

“Hell yes, I remember,” Virgil felt a tiny smirk tug his lips at the memory, “You literally never sat still. You were and are the most impatient person I've ever met.”

“I’ve gotten a lot better, Vee.”

Virgil glanced at the bruise-like eyeshadow circling the Duke's eyes, but refrained from saying anything. Knowing him (kind of knowing him? Starting to know him better now? Whatever.) it was most definitely intentionally off-putting, and probably not a good way to judge his actual ability.

“But I’ve seen how you do it, when you really, really try; I think you're still better than me with it, ju-u-ust barely.”

“Oh, uh, thank you,” Virgil wasn't entirely sure where this was going, but he couldn't find the soft excitement in Remus’ eyes anything other than enticing. The creative side laughed, flapping his hand.

“It would be fun if you did it for me again! Just like old times, ey?”

Virgil stared at him, considering him carefully.

“You want me to do your makeup?” 

“Yes!” Remus leaned forward with his confirmation, but for once that didn't involve violating Virgil’s post-panic attack bubble, “It'll give you something to do with your hands other than peeling back all your skin, at the very least.”

Oh, right. Virgil not-so-subtly lifted his nails from his palms, wincing at the irritated red spots coloring his hands.

Truth be told, the idea wasn't… unappealing. It was an activity well between mindless and active, repetitive and artistic. Plus, he didn't exactly love being alone after attacks, and if anything Remus would be lively company. Company that he sort of, maybe, possibly was looking forward to spending the rest of the day with anyway, unfortunate events notwithstanding.

“Yeah, alright, if you're sure you want-”

“Great! Wait right there, bee-arh-bee,” before the words were even fully out of his mouth, Remus went limp and fell sideways off of the couch, falling right through the floor. 

In his absence, there was a void where his noise had been. Virgil stared at the paused movie scene, picking apart the little details of the frame just to have something to do. His mind drifted off to the state that Roman had been in when he entered. The sight of his friend so furious burned itself on the backs of Virgil’s eyelids. He knew that the anxiety wasn't all his own, either; he could feel it like waves from the other side of the MindPalace, the origin point clearly belonging to Roman.

He should check on him, shouldn't he? Or would that make it worse? Virgil certainly didn't feel like he was in any state to help. But then there was Patton to consider- something must have happened up there. Should he look for him, too?

There was a whoosh.

“I leave you alone for five seconds and you get right back to thinking!” Remus strode across the room, flopping right back onto the couch. Held in his arms was an enormous multi-pocketed bag, items clattering around within at every jostle their owner made.

“Overthinking is literally my whole job, man, this shouldn't surprise you,” Virgil shrugged, trying not to sound as relieved as he felt.

Remus simply rolled his eyes and dropped the makeup case onto Virgil's lap, sitting criss-cross parallel to him, their knees brushing slightly.

Virgil hesitated for a moment, scanning Remus' face, but all the other did was smile and blink (one eye at a time). 

Virgil zipped open the bag, rifling through and finding an overwhelming array of gaudy colors and odd products.

“Was there, like, a 'look' that you want to go for?”

Remus shrugged.

“Just go for it! I’m a blank canvas. The worse, the better.”

Virgil chuckled, picking out a few items to fit a theme he was coming up with and getting right to work.

Though it had been years since they’d last spent time together, it wasn’t awkward. In fact, it felt more comfortable than it had back then.

Remus managed to sit almost perfectly still, chattering the entire time that Virgil worked. Yet again his voice served as something like white-noise, wherein Anxiety only had to contribute whenever he chose. Remus only quieted when Virgil had to hold his face, tipping his head back to properly apply inky-black lipstick. And then, he remained silent for a moment, as they surveyed each other. 

Virgil had cleared his throat, warmth prickling at his ears, and the ceaseless rambling resumed after that.

In what felt like hours and no time at all, Virgil was finally satisfied with his work.

“Alright, you're all done,” he capped the bottle of mascara in his hand, rifling through Remus' bag for a mirror, “Wanna see?” 

Just as he felt the unmistakable cool surface of glass on his fingertips, Remus grabbed his wrist in both hands. 

“What-?”

“Not so fast! Now it's my turn,” he announced, his zealous eyes even more prominent on his face thanks to the thick wings of eyeliner around them. 

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Virgil looked from the assortment of garish colors that he'd mostly stayed away from in the makeup case, and then back up at the Duke.

“Usually: yes. But I am dead serious right now, Vee.”

Remus looked pleading, legitimately pouting. 

Virgil huffed. The side had gone out of his way to help him, when he really didn't have to, so…

“You're not going to just use this as an excuse to draw all over my face, are you?”

“I mean, no promises that I'll be able to restrain myself, but! Gimme a chance anyway, I can make you even hotter than you already are! Plus, we'll match then.”

“... Fine. Just- nothing too crazy, alright?”

“Again, no promises.”

Virgil groaned, but he still passed the bag to Remus.

 “Holy shit...”

Remus leaned over the basin of the bathroom sink, drumming his hands on the counter excitedly. He was starry-eyed as he observed the dark, dramatic colors covering his face: metallic emerald-green eyeshadow, excessively long lashes, and winged eyeliner sharp enough to cut a bitch. His lips were black as void, but shimmered like glitter. Everything about the look was dangerous, confrontational, and grim. 

“This is more out there than I’d usually wear, but. Yeah, holy shit.”

Virgil's expression, despite his best efforts, was equally awed as he peered into the mirror. The color around his eyes was mismatched; a lime to moss green gradient over his purple eye, lavender to royal violet over his green one- both colors contrasted by smudged black eyeliner under his eye. His signature Racoon Look had been maintained in that aspect, but it was even more exaggerated. In addition to that, Remus had taken to drawing various little symbols along Virgil's cheekbones, including things like upside-down crosses. Finally, there was the fuchsia lip-gloss, stark against Virgil’s paler-than-normal foundation. 

“It’s okay, I guess,” Virgil breathed reverently. 

“I love it!” Remus crowed, clambering onto the counter just to get a better look at himself. Somehow, he'd already managed to smudge the hell out of his eyeshadow, but it kinda… worked for him, if Virgil was being honest.

“Vee, we have got to do this more often!”

Virgil looked from his reflection to Remus', startled in a way he didn't entirely understand. The intrusive facet met his gaze through the mirror, the smile sliding off his face when Virgil didn’t respond to him.

“Right, Raggedy-Anx? It doesn't have to be this, specifically, if you really don't want to. We could just watch movies together, that's fine. Or we could do anything at all! Right?”

Virgil was still silent, lost in his mind. Remus fell from a kneeling position to sitting with his legs hanging off the counter, turning his back to the mirror.

“Was this a one-time thing? That's alright, too, if you just needed help calming down. I'm not as good as the others, I know, but if they're ever too busy again, you'll think of me when you need help, at least. Right?”

Finally, Virgil snapped out of his daze when he heard the panicked edge to Remus’ voice, feeling his anxiety as Virgil noticed the wild look that had completely erased his giddiness. It was a look that Virgil had seen plenty of times before, when Remus had been ignored far too long and was right about to start ripping things to shreds for some scraps of attention. Only then did Virgil fully recognize what the expression actually meant; the deep, terrified need that swirled behind the look, unsure of how to ask for what it really wanted after so many denials of that very want. 

“Shit, sorry,” Virgil moved to stand in front of him, eye-level to Remus even though he was elevated by the counter, “Hey, it's alright, Re, everything's fine.”

Remus was still trying very determinedly to smile.

“I know! Hell, I’m not the anxious one, I'm the one that makes people anxious,” his laugh sounded like it came from a throat full of broken glass, “I just- I liked this, ya know?”

“I know,” Virgil leaned forward, coaxing Remus' arms away from where he'd wrapped them around himself, “I like this, too.”

Remus let Virgil hold onto him, surprised into something like obedience.

“You? What?”

“I like this,” it wasn't as though Virgil was expecting to hug Remus, but it seemed to have happened on its own as they moved. It was leagues nicer than he could have imagined, despite the smell. “I like you…-r company.”

“That's weird,” Remus' legs curled around Virgil’s waist. Virgil rested his hands on Remus’ hips. He listened as the creative trait's breathing evened out, vaguely aware that the situation was similar to the one just an hour or so before. Except, the roles had been reversed, of course.

“I missed you. I know I never told you, but I missed you.”

Virgil felt guilt, hot and molten, dripping down his throat. He couldn't lie; he hadn't missed Remus when he left. But now he did, in a roundabout sort of way. He missed what could have been, all of the possible understanding and friendship and likely more that he could have had for so long with Remus- all of which he'd let slip by for years. Due to just writing the artist off as disgusting, or unnecessary. 

And perhaps some of that misunderstanding was Remus' fault as well, but Virgil couldn’t find it in himself to hold it against him.

“You don't have to anymore. Miss me, I mean. I'm- fuck, I'm so sorry.”

“Me too,” Remus said, pulling back to settle Virgil with a happy-yet-tearfilled gaze.

“Aw, hey,” he tightened his grip at Remus' hips, smirking, “You're gonna fuck up all my hard work on that eyeliner, Re.”

Remus laughed, loud and shrieky and him, smiling unnaturally and brilliantly wide once again. Virgil's breath caught in his throat- not for the first time that day, he found himself trapped up in that wild, energetic face.

Before Virgil was entirely aware of what he was doing, he was leaning forward, pulling Remus in by the waist. When the cackling finally stopped short, so did he, both much too far and far too close to the Duke. 

He didn't have the chance to explain himself, or apologize, or anything, because soon enough understanding flashed in Remus' eyes.

“Oh, oh yes, oh hell fucking yes.” 

Remus didn’t wait a second longer before closing the distance and smashing his lips against Virgil’s. A startled sound bubbled up in his throat, dying quickly as he acclimated to what was happening. Just as he did, he was reciprocating the kiss. 

Their teeth clashed together uncomfortably, and Virgil was hyper-aware of the threat both his own and Remus’ fangs posed if they weren’t careful, making it far from the perfect first kiss. But he wouldn’t have wanted that anyway, nor would he have expected it. It was, somehow, better. 

Remus' hand dragged down Virgil's back, his fingers fitting onto the notches of the facet’s spine. Virgil shivered, pressing himself flush against the counter (and Remus) and digging his thumbs into the trait’s hips. The motion earned him a beautiful whine from the other as the kiss deepened, growing less awkward and more heated by the second.

Virgil was unaware of how much time was passing, but when they finally parted, both were short of breath and significantly disheveled. Remus had his back pressed up against the mirror, his hair even fuzzier than its usual state, expression dazed and face flushed. From what Virgil could make out in his own reflection, he wasn't much better off. 

Just as soon as they'd separated, Remus' hand was on his face, his thumb dragging just under Anxiety's lip.

“You fucked up your lipstick,” he teased.

“So did you,” Virgil answered with a smirk, leaning into the touch. 

“I guess we'll have to fix it later.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Remus wriggled himself out of his pinned position, twisting around Virgil. He managed to situate himself and drop down from the bathroom counter, his manner suggestive, “Because all I wanna do right now is finish watching Cabin Fever with my new goth boyfriend and makeout during the boring parts.”

“Boyfriend?” Virgil ignored the jolt of warmth he felt at that, determined to stay nonchalant as he (subtly (not subtly)) slipped his hand into Remus’.

“You disagree?” 

Virgil pretended to think it over, leading them to the door and taking his time to click it open. 

“Nah, I don’t disagree,” he said finally, “I think I like the sound of that, actuall- yyyy.”

Virgil stopped short in the open doorway, voice dragging out in his shock. Behind him, he could feel Remus trying to crane around him to see what was happening, but Virgil didn’t move to accommodate him. Well, more accurately, he felt like he couldn’t really move at all, too busy parsing out the scene in front of him.

In the corner of the sectional- sharing a cushion- Janus and Patton sat, the former holding aloft a glass of wine, the latter snacking on a muffin. They sat with their legs tangled together, and had seemed to be engrossed with each other before the interruption. Both had paused mid-conversation to gawk in Virgil's direction, twin deer-in-headlights expressions on their faces. 

“What-” Virgil began, bewildered.

“The fuck?” Remus finished, pushing his way out of the bathroom.

Janus struggled to sit up into a more dignified position and take the reigns of the conversation. It didn't take him long to overcome his surprise at the interruption, his surveying gaze sweeping over the other two Dark Sides contemplatively. The look made Virgil’s skin crawl. 

“You know, we- well, we could ask you two-” he gestured at their interlocked hands, “-just the same question, couldn't we?” 

For a moment, there was silence. Virgil looked from Patton to Janus. Janus looked from Virgil to Remus. Patton looked at the wall like it was the most interesting thing in the world. Remus looked at everyone and broke the silence.

“You didn't see us,” he announced, sidestepping his way to the staircase and dragging Virgil along with him, “And we didn't see you.” 

Janus squinted, tipped his head, and nodded conspiratorially. 

“Deal.”

With that little grant, Virgil and Remus darted up the stairs and into the sanctuary of the dimly lit hallway as quickly as they could. Luckily for them, Roman was probably either in a deep depression sleep or far into the imagination by now, and Logan Did Not Engage with Interpersonal Drama if he could help it. 

There was a second for appreciating the absurdity of the situation (and catching their breath), before either spoke to each other.

“I’ve got a huge flat screen,” Remus piped up at last, jerking his thumb in the direction of his room. 

“Any of us can conjure literally anything we want at any time, so I'm not sure what's impressive about that.”

Remus scowled, albeit playfully.

“Hush! Come watch someone slowly be consumed by a parasite with me!”

Virgil rolled his eyes and let Remus drag him off, his complaints accompanied by absolutely no efforts to avoid the situation. 

Things were weird, there was no denying that. Maybe they'd end up being that way for a while yet, and Virgil knew he had a lot of news to catch up on, but he found that thoughts like that were way back in his mind. Whatever happened, he reasoned, he would still have this comfort. The arms of someone he was finally coming to know wrapped tight around him, playing up his back, a mouth trailing kisses on his neck as he half-watched horror films. Yes, things would be difficult with the others, but it was secondary.

There was someone on his side now. Solidly, unarguably there for him. With him. And that made it all feel a little bit easier.

[shitsngiggles666]

I am not one to use social media, but this whole sh*t show is something I will not take sitting down. I’ve seen some messed up things on the internet, but the cyberbullying by the “Camily” is really disturbing me. Before I get to my criticisms and thoughts, I will briefly address Luke Deacon. The allegations against him are not without evidence, namely from a public social media account. One of these allegations is very serious, and can be considered “revenge p*rn which can actually lead to charges in the UK. I’m not sure if it’s the same in the UK, but in my country Luke can be legally labeled as a sex offender if convicted! This is all I know of the situation but since many of Luke’s fans are underage girls who are also fans of Queen and the Bohemian Rhapsody movie I don’t feel this issue can be totally ignored. I consider Luke “innocent until proven guilty”, as I am an inhabitant of Freedom Land. The first issue I will address is both of Cam’s parents, as I want to discuss them before the “Camily” as they’re not directly involved with the cyber bullying, at least to my knowledge. I admit that I have never met John or Veronica Deacon. I have no knowledge of the intimate details of their family life, and their parenting skills. I do have a fair amount of knowledge of John‘s time with Queen as he is my favorite surviving member of Queen. I find researching his life and trying to understand someone who seems an overlooked and complex figure in music. Yes, John is Cam’s father and to me he’s an interest, a subject I enjoy learning and trying to understand him like I do with other things I’m interested in. Meanwhile, to Cameron he is “dad”. I understand that it must be hard seeing people on the internet either make untrue statements or discuss aspects of one’s father that isn’t flattering. I get it, But Leopard (my nickname for the victim) made it clear when replying to asks that she doesn’t know things and addressed when discussions involved speculation or rumors. She also made it very clear that she didn’t like discussing John’s competence as a father and his children. These subjects made her uncomfortable but she still addressed them in a respectful way. John Deacon was a part of one of the biggest bands in the world. People are going to discuss him. Leopard didn’t do anything wrong. She admitted that John Deacon had flaws but was still sure to admit that she doesn’t know the whole story. I think her attitude is reasonable. I saw the stream the night Cam’s parents came on stream. At first I saw it quite humorous with a boomer bumbling in, ignoring his surroundings. He almost seemed senile. But as the stream went on things got uncomfortable and my attitude changed. Cam’s parents were doing the right thing as loving parents. They came over because Cam has a history of not managing his diabetes properly. His father (his mother explained) was becoming worried about his son’s glucose levels and tried to contact him. When he wouldn’t pick up his phone his father became worried and the two went over. Cameron was peeved and rude to them. I don’t think John cared about if people on the internet saw him. He was too focused on making sure his son wasn’t in danger and that his phone was charged. He only left when he knew his son’s levels weren’t too low and his phone was charging. He even mentioned off screen that he brought some treats (I have no idea what he said, and if it was a favorite sweet or what) from the store. I’m just making an observation of a stranger peeking in, but I think it’s clear John adores his son. Maybe the scant bit of interaction I observed of John Deacon as a person (instead of Queen’s bassist) was of a devoted father who was telling his adult son “I love you, I want you to be happy and I will be devastated if anything happened to you” without saying it verbally. People have different ways of showing their love. I know (per interviews with John) he experienced loss at a very young age when his father passed away. I don’t know John’s personal thoughts and relationship with Freddie Mercury and how his death affected him personally, but watching someone’s health decline due to AIDS is probably an upsetting and unforgettable experience. I bring these two examples up because this to me suggests Cam’s dad knows first hand how delicate and precious life is, wisdom that Cam seems blissfully unaware of due to his disregard of his parents’ anxiety. Cam obviously knows his father better than I can ever, but sometimes it’s good to have a different perspective. On to Mama Deacon. Yes, she was shouting at her adult son while he was live on stream. Like Cam’s father, she was completely in the right. When she said they were making sure Cam “wasn’t dead” and that Cam’s life was at stake, she was not being overly dramatic. If a diabetic’s blood sugar is too low their body can actually go into shock and than into a coma. If one doesn’t manage their diabetes this can happen and it can kill you. Diabetes is a life threatening condition. I’m not a diabetic, and I’m sure it sucks and isn’t easy to manage. Cameron is an adult at 27. His parents will not always be around to help him. If he wants to live by himself his priority should be learning to manage his diabetes without his parents’ help. His life literally depends on it. His glucose levels is far more important than his streaming career. Until he proves he can consistently manage himself to them his glucose levels are their business. Additionally, since they pay for his flat it’s technically their’s and thus can come over when ever they want. If anyone was being “inappropriate” it was Cam. His mother carried him for nine months, at age 43. For a woman her age, pregnancy can be risky and very hard on her body. She has cared for her son’s health issues, helped him through school and has loved him unconditionally. She seems to have done everything she can to protect Cam and pushed him to be the best person he can be. And this is only what I’m aware of. At her age, she should only leave her home when completely necessary to protect herself from Covid-19, for she is in the age group most at risk. Her son wouldn’t even leave his chair to greet her. Do you know how my parents would react to me if I acted the way Cam did Sunday? Most people can only dream about the privileges Cam has. Again, I don’t know everything about Cam’s life but what I saw was a mother and father trying to do what is best for their son. If Cam is so concerned about his parents’ privacy, why didn’t he turn off his stream? He could’ve even walked off to talk to his parents rather than continuing to play and yelling at them from his chair? This whole situation can be solved simply by Cam answering his phone, keeping it charged or even walking off camera to talk to his parents rather than barking orders from his screen. As I said earlier, to them their son seems more important to them rather than their privacy. Cam makes such a big deal over their privacy but I think he also has to respect his parents’ feelings and all that they do for him. Part of respecting them should include making a better effort to take care of himself. Five hours without food excepting a bowl of cereal could give me low blood sugar to the point of trembling and not being able to concentrate. Since Cam did just that, maybe his parents’ concern of his blood sugar is not without merit. Cam mentions his mental health issues and depression. One of the ways to help stabilize his mood would be stabilizing his blood sugar. The Camily should consider my words as they criticized Cam’s parents’ behavior. I have addressed the Mama and Papa elephant in the room, I will now focus mainly on Cam’s “Camily”. Due to time restraints, I will address the Camily in a later post. In the mean time, there is a difference between “haters” and critics. A hater says things simply to hurt or insult. A critic disagrees for a reason. If anyone thinks I’m a hater that needs to be “bunny blocked” go right ahead. I don’t care what strangers, many of them children think of me. I think bunnies are cute. Send me bunny emojis if you all think I’m spreading hate. This will only lend more evidence that the Camily is leading an internet harassment campaign. BTW I have been owned by pet rabbits since I was seven. Let me tell you, Mr. Bunny is unhappy to know his good name and image is being used as a symbol to bully. No, I am not jealous of Cam. I am proud of my family and wouldn’t trade them for any other. My dad has a profession I consider noble and was the one who raised me. The same goes for my mother. My extended and nuclear family includes firemen, a priest, nurses, teachers, librarians, a researcher studying cancer, a lawyer and engineers. None are famous but I don’t care. They are good people and it doesn’t matter how much the public knows about them or how much they earn. What matters to me is that they work hard and have a strong moral character. If you do wish to harass me, I ask of one thing. Show my post to Cameron Deacon and have him read my post (and any later ones I hope to soon put up) on his Livestream. If Cameron thinks I’m being a bully or am wrong about anything, please have him show this to his parents, the two people who love him more than anyone else does. If they think I’m wrong about anything or am bullying their son, have them PM me so we can discuss. Do not bully anyone who posts or likes this.

[illyrianwingspans]

Do Not Go Gentle: Trouble

Link to song

Synopsis: The one where Tamlin figures things out, and Feyre loses everything. 

TW: domestic violence, domestic abuse. Please read with caution.

Ao3 link

Chapter 5: Trouble

I was asleep when Tamlin got home Sunday night. Well, I was ‘asleep’. I’d felt the kiss he pressed to my bare shoulder before rolling over onto his side. Then I stayed up most of the night rethinking all that’d happened in the last few months, wondering how life had gotten this messed up.

Rhysand’s words came back to me, how he’d promised that he’d answer my questions tomorrow morning. Tamlin had never explicitly agreed to answering my questions, and at this point, I was in no mood to try and coax any sort of information out of him. Both my mind and my body couldn’t handle it anymore.

The ceaseless commotion of the city life kept me company as I stared out the floor to ceiling windows that stood on the far end of the room, the wall closest to my side of the bed. I used to sleep on the other side—I always felt like I was going to roll off the bed or something and find myself tumbling down onto the sidewalk in my sleep. But after the accident, I’d switched sides: I needed the open space. I’d been stuck inside that car for too long, and the claustrophobia hadn’t left me since.

Blood splattering across the concrete surfaced in my mind, and my eyes snapped open. I would not regress. I could not.

If I went back to who I was after the accident, I was afraid I’d never make it through this.

So I compiled the list of questions mentally until my eyelids felt too heavy and I drifted off, unable to keep myself awake any longer.

+

It felt like I was fucking up every order that came through. Whether it was cream instead of milk or two sugars instead of one, I kept pouring the cups down the sink and starting over, the white ball in my chest growing tighter and tighter with each screw-up.

What made matters worse was my wrist. It kept aching, dully when I wasn’t using it, and in sharp bursts whenever a rush pulled through. My forehead was lined with sweat, and my face was practically sore with every wince.

By the time lunch swept around, I almost got up in a man’s face because I put ‘too much’ whipped cream on his hot chocolate. He’d stormed out of the shop with his middle finger up, and I was ready to climb out from behind the counter and hunt him down. I was snarling like a feral cat as Rhysand walked in, eyebrows raised.

“Did you make him a decaf by accident?” He called out smugly from the entrance. He just stood there, leaning against the wooden doorframe, and I rolled my eyes.

I said, “Try too much whipped cream, if that’s even an issue.”

Rhysand chuckled and finally ventured further into the shop until he was leaning up against the counter, sitting upon one of the bar stools. I made him his usual, in a ceramic mug this time, knowing he’d be lingering today—and Rhysand accepted the mug gratefully.

“You know what, I’ll take one of those tuna paninis as well, if you don’t mind,” he added.

“Feeling adventurous today?”

“No, I’m ravenous.”

“Tuna hits the spot for you?” I wrinkled my nose.

“Pescatarian,” he explained, “and there are other things I’d like to devour, but that would be inappropriate to mention while I’m eating.”

My cheeks warmed—nearly as hot as the panini press—and I replied, “You’ve never held yourself back before.”

“Yes, but telling you exactly how I’d like you splayed out on that table over there would put a dent in your engagement I think.”

I choked on the breath in my throat and turned around to face him, feline smirk and all. “And what makes you think I’d ever say yes to you?”

“Well, the heated cheeks, for one. And the way you froze, for another. I’m quite good at reading body language, Feyre.”

“Can you read this?” I held up my middle finger and presented the sandwich to him, of which he immediately took a big. Pain flared in my wrist and I lowered my sweater-clad arm, trying to shake out whatever flare up I’d triggered.

“Loud and clear,” he smirked around the bite before wiping his mouth with a brown napkin. “You alright?” He pointed to my hand.

“Fine,” I said dismissively. As soon as he swallowed the bite, the first question on my mind escaped my lips. “What kind of pills are they?”

The man stared at me for a few moments before taking a long sip from his mug. The tension sat heavy upon us as our eyes locked together. He set the mug down carefully and straightened out his napkin, then said, “The pills are a variant of hallucinogens that induce intense feelings of euphoria. They’re crossed with stimulant side effects so they don’t make you drowsy. People—mostly white collar workers—are using them for party drugs at the moment, but they’re getting popular in the streets. They call them Cauldron. C’s for short.”

“Why?”

The smirk returned. “Because you never know what they’ve brewed in that shit.”

I snorted. “And I assume you’ve taken it before?”

Another sip of coffee, and a look of disgust. “Never. I don’t do drugs.”

“You work in the drug industry and don’t do drugs?”

“Some things aren’t as black and white as you’d like them to be, Feyre,” was all he said before taking another bite of his sandwich.

“And how long has this operation been going on?”

“Three years,” Rhysand said around a mouthful of tuna, and my stomach dropped. Three years? Tamlin’s been keeping this from me all this time?

He must’ve read the expression on my face because he clarified, “Your boy’s only been involved for the past six months. He’s been offered several times before and well…” my eyebrow quirked, and Rhysand shook his head. “Can’t tell you that. Confidential.”

I sighed. “Fine. How much does each shipment cost?”

“The individual pills go for about ten to fifteen dollars apiece, so I’d say a week’s worth of shipments range between…” his eyes flipped back and forth as he did the mental math. “Around fifty and sixty five thousand dollars.”

My jaw dropped. Tamlin was making that much? In one week?

“A percentage of it goes to Tamlin. I don’t know how much, so don’t ask me, but it’s a nice percentage: just enough to tease him and keep him wanting more.”

“More?”

“Hybern wants a contract. Tamlin might think this is short-term, but once you’re in with them…” Rhysand shook his head. “There’s no going back. They will extort and manipulate and black mail to no end. The law bends around them because of Hybern’s guys in Prythian PD. He’s basically untouchable.”

Untouchable. So Tamlin was going to get roped into this, and we were going to have to live the rest of our lives as fucking drug pushers.

How could he have been so stupid? Why couldn’t he have put his investments into rising stock? Open a new business? Anything except criminal activity?

“The people handling the shipments. Who are they?” My voice was low and patchy. Everything about this was only wearing me down, more weight to add on my shoulders despite the aches that were already there.

Only Rhysand noticed the dip in my mood instantly. Softly, he said, “After Bron and Hart screwed up the last shipment, it’s been my guy. He’s one of my right hands, and he poses absolutely no harm to you. The one thing Tamlin isn’t lying about is that fact that you are safe here.”

They both kept saying that word: safe.

But ever since my hands had touched those plastic wrappers, I haven’t felt safe for a second since. I kept looking over my shoulder as I walked down the street. Every time a new customer came in, I had to look them up and down and evaluate: were they a cop? A junkie looking for a fix? Low level pushers looking for some product to steal?

Everybody seemed to be fine with the drugs except for me. And I wasn’t sure how much longer I could handle this.

“How do I know I can trust you?” I asked quietly.

Rhysand took the last bite of his sandwich and stared at me as he chewed. Slowly. Once he swallowed, he said, “Because you’ve got nobody else to turn to.”

Tears filled my eyes when he said those words. It was true: I had nobody else. Not even my fiancée or my best friend could answer my questions because they were too damn head strong and stubborn. They thought they were protecting me.

I understood why. But I also really, really didn’t.

“Feyre.”

My gaze snapped back up to take in the concern flickering in Rhysand’s eyes. He licked his lips then said, “You have me. It seems like you’ve got nobody right now, but you have me.” With that, he pulled out a pen and scribbled a phone number on a new napkin, then slid it over the counter to me.

“If there’s absolutely anything I can do, you call me. No matter the time or day.”

I looked from him to the napkin and back. “Why?”

It took Rhysand a few moments before he said, “Because I see you. I see you, and I see your pain, and I just want to help make it better in any fractional way that I can.”

There were so many things I wanted to say but Rhysand swiftly got to his feet, drained the rest of his coffee then turned on his heel, heading straight for the door.

“Rhysand?” I called.

He paused and slowly looked over his shoulder.

“Thank you,” I said, and it wasn’t sarcastic or bitten out like a witty retort, but true. Sincere.

“Call me Rhys, darling.” He replied as he adjusted the collar of his suit. “Only my enemies call me Rhysand.”

This time, he'd left a fifty beneath his plate.

+

This week, when the shipments came, I stared at the man handling the units from the entry to the storage room. We exchanged no words beside a heavy, tension-filled gaze as he unloaded the pastries and sandwiches, then loaded the boxes and boxes of 'coffee' silently. He was tall, darker skinned with that same jet black hair. If I wasn’t imagining things, I could’ve sworn he was a copy of Rhys and Cassian, only with his features scrambled: where Rhys’s eyes were wide and bright, this man’s were sharper. More narrow. And his hair was shorter, sticking closer to his scalp, which only further accentuated those high cheekbones. If they were brothers, like Cassian had hinted at, it must’ve been one hell of a gene pool.

The man had said nothing, and neither had I. Just a normal day. Just a normal shipment.

Yet all my mind could think of were drugs, drugs, drugs.

To get everything off my mind, I texted Cassian.

I need to see you. Tonight.

Within minutes, he responded. Feyre, we’ve been over this. You’re engaged. Sex is off the table, no matter how attractive I may be.

I rolled my eyes. You know what I mean. Are you free?

Of course. I’ll see you at seven. You bring the wine, I’ll bring the condoms.

Asshole.

The minute hand couldn’t move fast enough today. At some point I tried experimenting with the syrups and trying to configure new drinks for the holidays coming up—pumpkin spice season was fizzling out—but everything tasted like hyperglycaemia and cholesterol. Plus, my right wrist was still killing me even after I’d iced it yesterday.

There was nothing else I could do besides wait. Wait, and let my thoughts send me careening off the deep-end, unable to roll myself back in. Even in the light of day the parasite of darkness wouldn’t go away, and I was stuck, sitting on the stool, trying to blink back tears every few minutes as the waves of emotions continued to crest through me until the day ended.

I texted Tamlin before my shift was over. I’m meeting with a university friend for dinner tonight.

His response came seconds later. Who?

You’ve never met them, I lied. It’s just dinner. I’ll be home around eight.

Fine.

It was one word, and in my mind it sounded like a growl, but at least I got his approval. Once five o’clock came around and I was off my shift, I went home, shovelled some left-overs into my mouth then set out into the streets and down to Wind avenue. This time of year I needed to bundle myself up. It was going to snow any day soon—but for now, Prythian was stuck in limbo where the rain didn’t freeze to snow but it was cold enough to bite you in the ass. Trees shed their leaves and spread them through the city like an epidemic of wildfire. Every where I walked, those patterns of orange and red and gold were stuck in the nooks and crannies of the sidewalk. Fall used to be my favourite season, but this year it fell short. The lack of daylight was a blessing and a curse—more time for the stars to shine, but more time for the darkness to reign.

Cassian was already at the reception desk when I entered the building. His mouth was set into a concerned frown. “What’s going on, Feyre?”

In the month or so that we’d grown to know each other, Cassian could read me, better than anybody in my life could for some reason. He was probably the closest person I had to a friend—him, Rhys and Alis (though it was kind of in Alis’s job description to be my friend). I could read him, too. On days where he pushed his body to the limits, when his jokes ran dry and his eyes lacked the light and amusement they usually held, I tried to liven him up in any way that I could.

But tonight I didn’t want to talk. Tonight, I just wanted to punch and kick until my knuckles bled and my knees buckled.

“Fight first. Talk later.” With that, I wandered into the changing rooms.

When I walked out, Cassian was already in the ring, fists raised. I didn’t hesitate before donning the gloves he’d laid out for me and raising my own hands.

And Cassian didn’t hesitate to throw the first punch.

+

Another punch. I pivoted on the ball of my right foot, and saw that his left side was open. Instinctively, my left hand prepared for a low hook, but Cassian anticipated the move and went for an uppercut instead. I knocked it out of the way with a simple swipe of my right hand, and winced at the bone to bone impact of his forearm onto my wrist. Even with the thick sweater, I still felt the full brunt of hit and ground my teeth.

“You alright?”

“Yes,” I spit out, and tried a right switch kick. His leg met his elbow instantly in a flawless block, and he followed up with a jab only to find I’d stepped out of the way. With every movement, though, my wrist throbbed, and I had to close my eyes for a few seconds as a wave of pain rushed over me.

“Feyre, I’m not fucking around anymore. What’s going on?” He lowered his fists and stepped out of his stance to stand in front of me. Scowling, I pushed his chest with both my gloves fists.

“Come on,” I egged him on, “stop it. Let’s fight.”

Cassian raised an eyebrow, which normally would’ve been a playful gesture, but his features were filled with contempt. “Seriously? You want to fight, Archeron?” Then he grabbed my right wrist. Hard.

I gasped out a grunt of pain and my left hand instinctively slapped his grip away. “What the hell, Cassian?” He let go and I cradled my wrist in my hand. Wildfire spread through my arm, and I had to bite my lip to keep it from trembling.

“My office. Now.”

Without another word, he stepped out of the ring and into the employee’s room. Sighing, I stripped off my gloves—careful of the sharp pains shooting up my arm—and followed suit, knowing I was in for a round of even more painful lies.

The employee’s room was a foldout table and a mini kitchen with a fridge. A hallway continued past the shared area and into an office, where I could hear Cassian rifling through drawers. When I entered the space, I blinked in surprise: it was neat, professional and extremely tedious. By looking at Cassian, most would think he was a slob, but his desk was organized immaculately, right down to the alignment of his pens next to the open folder on his desk. Only he wasn’t in this room. There was a light on in what looked like a closet space just beyond the bookshelves lining the walls, the only light shining through the room besides the moonlight entering through the wide windows.

It wasn’t a storage space like I’d thought, but an infirmary. There was a singular uplifted patient bed up against the far wall lined with wax paper, and Cassian squatted down as he rifled through the drawers.

“Sit down,” he ordered. No tenderness, no softness or concern. Concern had left the window as soon as Cassian had taken those gloves off.

“Cassian, seriously, I’m fine—”

“If you say those words again, I’m firing you as my friend. Now sit down and shut up.”

Sighing, I shuffled over to the bed and hoisted myself up carefully with my left hand. The paper crinkled beneath me, and I stared at my toes as my legs swung back and forth below me. The sleeves still hid the bruises, which had faded to a lighter shade of green-purple. Not as sickening as they were the day before, but still raunchy enough to incite concern.

“There,” he said, before pushing off the ground and standing before me. He held out his hand and ordered, “wrist.”

I shook my head and clasped my hands between my thighs. I couldn’t meet his eyes, which I knew were staring down at me piercingly, ready to explode any second.

“Feyre,” he said, “you’re hurt. Please, just let me help you.”

Ever since I was a kid, I’d never relied on anyone else.

Nesta and Elain, my sisters, both had two wheel bikes while I was still stuck in training wheels. My father told me it was because they were older and were more experienced—but I didn’t care. I wanted to be like them, I wanted to prove that I was just as good as them. So I stole Elain’s bike one day when they weren’t home and tried to pedal by myself.

I fell so many times that day I was surprised I didn’t break a limb. Scratches lined my body up and down, my mother was horrified when she saw me and told me I’d been irresponsible. Child-like. Nobody helped me as I’d poured the anti-septic on the cotton swabs and dabbed at the sensitive flesh. Nobody patted my head and told me I was going to be okay. No, I bandaged myself up, then got back on Elain’s bike the next day, and the day after that until I could finally ride the damn thing without dying in the process.

The same pattern followed me throughout my life. I relied on no one, nobody except myself.

I don’t know what it was about the words that incited the burst of fear. Maybe it was the stress or the pain or the exhaustion, but I began to cry silent tears as I rolled up my sleeve and showed Cassian the bruises. His face fell as he gently examined them.

“Feyre,” he murmured, as he gently prodded the marks, “you’ve got to tell me what happened.”

“I fell.”

“Bullshit.”

“Cassian, I’m a clumsy person. You’ve told me yourself that I’ve got two left feet.”

There was fire in his eyes when he said, “Fall injuries would’ve caused bruising to your knees, maybe torso. But wrists?” He gently took both my wrists in his hands and held them up. A breath hitched in my throat as I remembered being pressed up against the window pane and feeling like death was standing just above my shoulder. “I’m not an idiot. So stop lying to me.”

Carefully, he released me and I let my arms fall to my lap, not caring that another flare of pain shot through my nerves. Never again would I be able to look Cassian in the eyes. Not now that he knew the truth—well, guessed correctly at the truth.

“If somebody is hurting you—” he tried once more with thunder in his voice, but I interjected quickly.

“It’s not going to happen again. It happened once, it was a mistake, and everything’s fine now.” The words were hollow. Empty. Because something in me knew that they were lies.

Cassian wasn’t appeased, though. His jaw was clenched so tight I thought he was going to break a tooth as he unwrapped the compression brace and slid my wrist into it, then velcroed it shut. I’d probably have to take it off as soon as I got home to not piss off Tamlin further. If he found out I ever told somebody about this… I didn’t even want to imagine his fury.

“I can call someone,” Cassian said softly, “one of my closest friends is a lawyer. She can get you out of this.”

“Stop,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut at the tears that threatened to fall, “please.”

My voice broke on the word. So pathetic and weak and broken…

“Okay,” Cassian murmured, and as my chest began to shake with sobs, both of his arms wrapped around me and he held me tightly against his chest. “It’s okay.” He kept murmuring it over and over into my ear, but all I could thin was it’s not, it’s not, it’s not okay.

+

He told me to call him if anything ever were to happen to me, and I promised I would, but I’ve been promising a lot of people a lot of things these days that weren’t true. He gave me one last hug in the lobby before releasing me, and I was on my way back to the condo in the cool night.

Only when I entered the parking garage, Tamlin’s car was already there. He said he was coming home late tonight. I thought I’d have time before I got home to shower. Gods, I was still in my workout clothes.

My hands were shaking as I rode the elevator up. Terror streaked through me, cold and pulsing within my limbs, and I had to clamp my jaw shut to keep my teeth from chattering. I could probably lie my way out of it. Besides, Tamlin was probably just in is office losing track of time with paper work like he always did.

The doors opened after punching in the key code. Silence blanketed the apartment eerily, and my footsteps echoed throughout the space. HIs shoes were at the door, and his coat was in its usual spot on the coat hanger. Quietly, I padded through the penthouse down the hallway into our room. He wasn’t there either. I made the best of it and changed quickly into different clothes—more appropriate for an outing with a friend—then stepped back out after stuffing my workout clothes to the bottom of my hamper along with the wrist brace.

Light shined through the crevice of his office door. Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself, then knocked softly. “Tamlin?”

“Come in.” Cold, dismissive. My stomach lurched at the sound, but I opened the door nonetheless and found myself facing him from where he sat behind his dark wooden desk. Bookshelves lined either side of the room, and the windows stood behind Tamlin, looking over the city. A print of Spring Corp tower hung proudly on one wall in black and white. My eyes darted between Tamlin, whose scowl made my knees quake, and the half empty glass clutched in his right hand.

“How was dinner?” He asked, but there was no sincerity in his voice.

I swallowed hard. “Fine. What’d you have?”

He licked his lips, then pushed off his desk to stand. “I bought soup from Suriel’s again for you. But you had other plans tonight.”

My face fell. “I’m sorry, Tam. It was so last minute, and I didn’t want to blow her off again—”

He laughed, and it was empty, hollow. “Blow her off? No. But you probably blew him, didn’t you?”

Heat spread through my cheeks. “What?”

“The guy you were with. The gym on Wind Avenue?”

The burning in my chest was like wildfire. “How did you…”

“Sorry, Feyre, but you don’t have friends,” he spat the word like venom, and I flinched. “I knew as soon as you texted me that you were lying to me.”

“So you followed me?” I demanded, incredulous. How could he be so invasive?

“Well, apparently you’ve been doing this a lot for the past two months, so what’s the arrangement? Casual sex? Or are you actually in love with this low-life?” He turned to look out over the city, and beneath his white shirt I could see his muscles tensing. “Every weekend you go to Wind Avenue Gym. You meet with the same man at the reception, then there’s at least an hour that you’re unaccounted for.”

“Are you fucking stalking me?”

“Tamlin—”

“Answer me,” he snapped and slammed his fist down on the wood.

It shook something within me, and I quipped back with equal ferocity, “Where is it that you go, eh? You don’t see me prying into your life every second of the day.”

“Because I am out there working my ass off to put food on the table! To pay for this place, to pay for everything! And this is how you repay me? By fucking other guys?”

“I’m not cheating on you!” I shrieked, my hands clutching the emptiness in front of me. “Where the fuck is this coming from?”

Tamlin strode out from behind the desk until we were facing each other, our faces only inches apart. Deathly low, he said, “I know that you meet him. At the gym. What is it, you guys fuck in the locker rooms or something?”

Tears spilled onto my cheeks at the absurdity of the situation. My voice was rough and breaking as I yelled, “I’m not cheating on you, I am working out! It’s just boxing, for fuck’s sake Tamlin, I’m trying to protect myself!” My hands clutched my chest and a sob tore through me. “I’m trying to have some sort of control on the situation that you’ve put me in!” I pointed an accusatory finger at him and his eyes flared with rage.

“Why not ask me? Why not come to me for help?” His fist pounded at his chest.

“I did and you said no. You completely shut me down, like you always do.”

“You don’t trust me,” he spat, then continued louder, “Why don’t you trust me?”

“I don’t trust you because you’re a liar and a fucking drug dealer!” The words tore from me.

Like sparks and a match, we ignited. The heat, the rage, the anger simply exploded, until all that remained was my broken, limp body, and his heavy breathing as the adrenaline faded, and time regained its normal rhythm.

I couldn’t quite remember what’d happened. Either purposefully, or because I’d kept my eyes shut tight the entire time, all I remembered was lying on the floor.

He slammed me into his desk. Hard. That I knew. I think I hit my head on the floor after his hands let go and I fell limp, but all I knew was that I laid there, still. Un-breathing. Hoping, wishing that maybe this time it was hard enough to kill me.

“Feyre,” he whispered, and tears streamed down my face.

“It’s okay. I’m fine.”

“Feyre,” he moaned, like he was the one in pain, like I did this to him.

I breathed, “It’s okay. Just…” My breath rattled in my lungs, and I let out a wheezing cough. “Give me some space.”

"Feyre," he said once more, and his footsteps grew closer.

"Don't," I sobbed, "please, don't touch me. Go. Just go."

I didn’t remember him leaving. I didn’t remember how he’d stepped over and brushed my hair with the back of his hand despite my protests. All I could do was lie on that floor, close my eyes, and pray that this was some sort of nightmare, and that I’d be waking up any second.

That night, Tamlin took a piece of me. He’d taken them slowly over the time we were together, so infinitesimally small that I hadn’t noticed until I was left with a withered version of my self, the version of myself that let herself be used like a brute’s rag doll.

Today, Tamlin took a piece of me. One that I’d never, ever get back again.

+

The next morning, Tamlin got on a plane. There was a business meeting he had to attend on the west coast. I tried to convince myself that the tears in his eyes as he whispered another apology to me were genuine, that he truly felt sorry for what’d he’d done, but I knew better.

Yet still, despite the fact that I knew better, I couldn’t leave him.

Because as I stood there in the back of the storage room, trying to stifle my sobs and wipe away the tears on my face, I realized that I had no where else to go. I didn’t have money. I didn’t have friends. My family had all but disowned me after I left.

I had nothing to my name and no one to rely on. The thought settled within me like a heavy stone.

The bell to the shop rang, and I tried to wipe my face, to make myself look as presentable as I could. I smiled at the two men who approached the counter and asked, “Hi, what can I get you today?”

“Shut the fuck up,” said the first man, voice like gravel, “and bring us the drugs.”

My heart stopped. I looked at the man, who was of average height and brown, greasy hair. His eyes, though, were blue like crystal waters. The one beside him couldn’t have been older than me—and he probably looked just as terrified.

Shakingly, I replied, “I—I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about—”

The man reached into his back pocket and the next thing I knew there was cold metal pressed against my forehead. “Go get the C’s,” the man threatened, “or I start shooting.”

The bullet clicked into the chamber, and I stopped breathing.

[that-zambie-writer]

A/N : First post! Requests are welcomed!

“ Told you I’ve killed for less “.

Summary : At the beginning of the war, Daryl is saved by Y/N. It’s clear you’re the key to winning the war against Negan and Daryl brings you into the fold. This imagine follows the events after the war and how he tries to come to terms with accepting your love for him.

The day he first saw you was a day he'd never forget. Not just because you had blood covering you from head to toe or because you had just beaten three men to death for him with your bare hands, but because of the words that came out of your mouth. Daryl had thanked you for saving his life, but all you said was " Don't worry about it. I've killed for less " with a smirk as your nose bled down your lips. Normally, Daryl would've found you to be a psychopath, but in that moment he knew you could be useful in the war with Negan.So without any family or group, you accepted his offer to fight for the good of his people and you did just that.

You slayed through half of Negan’s numbers by yourself and would've been responsible for his death if Rick hadn't told you to stop. That it wasn't what Carl wanted. While you had only known the boy for a short time before he passed, you had to let Rick do this. Even though you wanted the man dead. This gained the trust and love of the various communities which earned you your own place in Alexandria after the war. You'd gained so many friends and admirers, but out of all of them you still gave your full attention to Daryl. He was gold in your eyes, but you seemed never to be able to earn his love.

Which now that he thinks back on it, he was the crazy one. Every guy in any community, even the old saviors who watched you beat Negan to a pulp, would die to be in his place, but he wouldn’t let himself believe it. Even after chasing for him for over a year, he still wouldn’t believe it. Not even when carol herself tried to tell him. Because you were all he’s ever wanted. Why would you want him? Someone could surely make you happy. God knows they were trying to. You wanted Daryl though, but eventually after being ignored for so long you accepted he didn’t want you the way you believed he did. So, you left Alexandria in hopes to put distance between you and him. Rick wasn’t too happy with your decision, but he understood it. And it turned out Carol and the king needed help running the kingdom, so they offered you their head position of security and admission into the kingdom.

You gladly took the position and one month into it, you were starting to feel better about not seeing Daryl every day. Even though you still wonder if he misses the closeness you two shared. Ezekiel and carol began to notice your sadness and begun to suggest you start to date someone they admire, but you always decline. It was only the day it begun to grow cold outside for the second time since the war that you even consider their offer.

" If I agree will you shut up finally ? " You sigh, rubbing your face too avoid seeing Ezekiel's smile. Carol and Jerry grin from his sides " I will entirely shut my mouth if you agree, Y/N ". You peek from between your fingers and roll your eyes at their smiling faces " Fine. Set it up! But I'm only agreeing to fifteen minutes of my time! ". They do a small cheer as this was a big conquest for the three and you left the old auditorium to begin your working day. The chill hit your bones welcomingly and as much as you didn't want things to change for you, you tell yourself that it’s good for you. You aren’t the woman to let a man bring her so down and to be honest you’re lonely.

Atleast when you lived in Alexandria, you had the hope Daryl would come around, but here you felt empty. No hope at all. " This will be good for you " You whisper, moving towards the breakfast line to ensure everything goes smoothly. Generally there are no issues with the food line, other than Mrs.Perkins having a blood sugar spike, but you still like to make sure it goes as planned.

Daryl on the other hand is just finishing his day. He'd spent the entire night hunting , anything to keep his mind off of the reality that you aren’t coming back. He's missing the nights you two spent together. Which was every night. Rather that was you cooking for him, sharing drinks, or watching Judith while Rick got alone time with michonne. It was his routine. It has nearly been a year since you up and left over night. You didn't even say goodbye. He feels responsible. He knows you were waiting for him to put himself out there, but you couldn't wait anymore. What truly hurts the worse for him is that he can still smell your perfume on all of his clothes. He’d given it to you as a Christmas gift and you wore it everyday. He couldn't escape you.

He’s greeted at Alexandria by the usual crew on guard, but he’s in no mood to respond.He’s tired and justs wants to crawl in bed after the long fruitless night he had. Which is exactly what he does, but as soon as he climbs into bed he smells you there too. Memories flood in of your laughter and the nights you slept in his bed, content enough with just being near him and knowing he was near. His eyes locked into the purple wine stain you left one night. You both were so buzzed that it didn’t bother either person and he remembers you tossing the rest of your wine on him. “ What are you going to do about it huh? “ You dare, eyes full and doe eyed waiting for him to react.

He only threw the rest onto your shirt causing you to scream in laughter. You climbed over to him to try and retaliate, but he grabbed both of your wrists before you could " What do you think your doin' ? ". He can still see the dark in your eyes that seemed to draw him in every time and the plump in your lips that begged to be kissed. But he didn't. He let you go. And a week later you were gone. He grips the sheet where the stain was lighter now. As sad as it was, he wants to just stay right here for the rest of his life. Or until your smell fades away. Though the world has other plans for him as his door receives a knock from Rick who lets himself in.

Daryl shoots up and finds him in the kitchen, leaning over the counter with his hands covering his elbows. As soon as Daryl is in his sights , he straightens up and gives him a look over " I need you to go to the kingdom ". This obviously is a lot to ask since everyone knows the reason why he hasn’t returned there in a year. " No.Not happenin' " He grunts, as if the idea hadn't come to him every day. Rick ignores his objections " We need you to go and discuss with Ezekiel about sending more people. I've already asked myself, but he's not willing to give us anymore than he already has ". Daryl scoffs " And what makes you think he's going to change his mind for me? ". It's obvious why as Rick grows silent. " No, no fucking way. She left for a reason " Daryl argues, pacing infront of his friend.

" She's the head of his security, Daryl. She is the only one who can convince him it's ok to lend the people we need to get the extra seeds. We won't survive without them " Rick explains, but Daryl is still pacing. " Then why haven't you talked to 'Er? " He throws his hand towards Rick. That was obvious as well. Not only did you need space from Daryl, but you needed space from everyone who knows what was going on. If anyone from Alexandria planned a visit to the kingdom you would conveniently offer to go on a run. Which Ezekiel agreed to every time. " How am I supposed to convince her to give us anything when she didn't even say goodbye?".

Rick can see the hurt in his words and offers Daryl a piece of advice " I know you don't want to believe it Daryl, but she loved you. When Negan took you she fought like hell to bring you back and she did didn't she ? With no care for her own life? ", he asks and Daryl nods ," So I'm willing to bet she still cares for you and for Alexandria. She just needs to be reminded of that ". Daryl is still uneasy about it all, but Rick now grabs his shoulder " You need to get to her before someone else does ".

---

It's nearly midnight when you find your way back to your home. Or the small office that was turned into a bedroom for you with the adjoined bathroom. It wasn't close to what you had back in Alexandria, but it was enough. You shut your door behind you and strip off your shoes with a yawn. All you want right now was a shower and a half decent night sleep, but you wouldn't get either tonight. You were gathering your clothes to do so, but your radio begins to blare and you furrow your eyebrows at it. " Front gate to Y/N. Front gate to Y/N. We've got a visitor ". You grab the device from your belt and answer it " This is Y/N. Who's the visitor? ". You're already slipping back into your boots to address the visitor. " Uh- I think you should come see for yourself ". You roll your eyes at the man on the other end of the radio. People are so dramatic here.

You leave your room and go back outside , taking your time to get to the front gate. It’s probably just Henry messing around and you would have to tell his parents so you aren't too concerned. Once there, you yell up to the gate keeper " You just made him stand out there? Open it! ". They do as commanded , slightly afraid of your tone of voice since it wasn't that long ago everyone saw you kill everything in your path , and you wait for the gate to reveal a sad looking Henry. " Henry I told you last time if you snuck out again I would tell your mom an- " You begin to scold before you see his face, but stop as your eyes land on the all too obvious not Henry.

You shine your flash light on the hunter and he squints back at you, but says nothing. Your a loss for words for the man you haven't seen in almost a year. What did he want now? " I need to talk to you" He tells you, obviously aware of what you're thinking. You narrow your eyes at him " Talk then ". It's obvious your not as welcoming as you were a year ago, but he expects as much. " Rick sent me here to talk about the run to get seeds for Alexandria ". He watches you grind your teeth, but your words do not come out angrily " Ezekiel already made up his mind. I'm sorry if you wasted a trip all the way here . I'm sure we can find you a room to stay in for the night ".

Daryl takes steps closer so that you can now speak privately " You know Alexandria will fail without those seeds. People will starve ". You switch weight from foot to foot " And I also know that Ezekiel and carol make the rules. They are the ones you need to talk to ". It's obvious Daryl can see right through you " We both know you run security and I'm sure a lot more behind tha' scenes here. If you so much as whisper something their way they'll agree ". He watches your face twist in agitation, but you still look breath taking. " What makes you think I should hear you out ? ". Your statue is intimidating, but he doesn't stand down " Because you never said goodbye and you know deep down your home is Alexandria. No matter how much you try and tell yourself otherwise ".

This causes your heart to twist uncomfortably, but you don't show it. Instead, you nod up at the guard on duty " He's coming in ".

--

You lead Daryl to the building where you interview people for admission into the kingdom. Which hasn't been used in awhile, so you take the opportunity to give it some use. You flip the lights on inside and sit at the desk , purposely keeping your intimidating composure. He sits across from you without hesitation and now in the light he can see the bags under your eyes. You haven’t slept well it quite some time and he knows you can see the same of him. " Why should I risk the lives of my people for seeds ? ". Daryl knew coming into this you wouldn't be happy to see him, but he also didn't expect you to treat him like an outsider. " So that others don't starve. The sanctuary is at risk too".

Your face holds no emotion causing Daryl to lose his patience " You use to see a future for Alexandria and the sanctuary. What changed ? ". For the first time he sees true emotion in your eyes as you stand up from your seat, sending it sliding back from you " Don't you dare sit there and asked me what changed when you're the reason why! Yes, I care for the sanctuary and Alexandria! I risked my life for them and everyone else! Or did you just forget all of the shit I did for you! ". The room grows quiet as you address the real issue between you both. Daryl looks you up and down, finally seeing what everyone has told him for so long. " You did it all for me? " He rasps, now loosing eye contact.

You roll your eyes " Of course I did it all for you , Daryl! What normal person who didn't love you fight for you like I have? Sure, it became more when I met the others , but you and I ... We were family ". Daryl can hear the pain in your voice causing him to stand up and finally make a move. Sure, he isn’t exactly sure how this whole romance thing goes, but he knows he has to do something now or he'll truly loose you. " What are you- " You begin to question as he grabs your hand, but stop yourself as you can see he's finally coming around.

" M'not good at this stuff Y/N .. You don't know how bad all of those nights I .. " He's lost for words, but you understand what he's trying to say. You always are patient with him and he couldn’t be more grateful for it right now." You don't have to " You grab his hand tighter. He shakes his head " I do. 'Cause you deserve that". You smile softly at him for the first time tonight and he takes the opportunity to get closer to you. At this point, your faces are inches away, but he is still hesitant to do anything. So , you being the blunt and impulsive person you are, you place your free hand on the back of his neck and draw his lips to yours. He's surprised at first, but after a moment he's moving his lips with yours in sync. It doesn't take long for him to find his groove with you and he moves you to where your back is to the desk with your fingers dug into his hair.

Oddly, at this moment you remember Carol and Ezekiel set you up a blind date tomorrow which causes you to begin laughing. You pull back as you can't contain yourself and Daryl gives you a confused look " What? ". You try and stifle your laughter " Ezekiel tried to set me up on a blind date for tomorrow. What am I supposed to say now? ". Daryl's eyebrows knit together harshly at the thought of how close you were to being someone else's " Fuck him . You're with me now ". You don't have time to react as he crashes his lips back down on yours, now more confident.

His hands grasp the back of your neck now and he only pauses to ask you " Where's your room ?".

--

The next morning, Daryl wakes up before you. It's clearly later in the morning as he can hear your radio going off with different voices, but he doesn't care that the world outside is wondering where you are. Currently, your cuddled into his side with your head lying on his chest. You've only got a thin sheet covering your frame right now and nothing could be more important than that. He runs his fingers down your side causing you to stir a little, but you don't wake. You haven't slept well in a long time so he doesn't try it again.

But of course the world has other plans for you.

There's a hard knock at the door causing you to jump awake and reach for your gun,but Daryl stops you causing you to realize where you are. You sigh in relief and give him a smile before calling out to whoever's knocking " Who is it ?". There's a pause before the answer " It's jerry. I didn't want to wake you, but you uh have that appointment ". You don't think of a response in time so Daryl gets up and speaks for you. He shoves his jeans on and opens the door enough so jerry only sees him " Cancel it ". You cover your mouth so Jerry doesn't hear you laugh. " Oh Hey Daryl! Didn't know you were here.. Um I'll uh - " Jerry gets interrupted. " -Cancel it Jerry ". " Right " He nods and Daryl shuts the door.

"Daryl! " You laugh, sitting up with the sheet around you. " What ? " He asks, climbing back on the bed as if he didn't do what he just did. " Be more obvious would you! " You shove him playfully. He shrugs , grabbing your hand " Wanted him to have the information right s'all". Smiling, you let his hands trail up your sides as they find their place on your hips.

" 'sides wasn't as bad as Rick and michonne ".

---

- Present time three years later -

" Daddy? " the two year old with his eyes calls for his attention as she plays with her hair. Daryl looks down at her as he fixes your coffee and hums at her. " Mama " Is all she says back, indicating she wants her mom. He smiles full heartedly down at the two year old who was your spitting image, but has his personality. Of course she wants you, she's his child. " She'll be up once daddy brings 'Er coffee " He explains,but she's not happy with that news. " N-now! " she huffs, yanking on his jeans. He just grins as he pours the sugar in your coffee. " C'mon lets go get mommy " He offers, picking her up and setting her on his hip . He carries the mini you and your coffee up stairs to where your undoubtedly still sleeping.

" Mama? " Little rose asks as Daryl cracks open the door. " Is that my little Rosie ? " You ask with a tired voice, causing rose to squeal and squirm out of her dads arms to get in yours. Daryl chuckles and follows her to hand you your coffee . Rose is already sitting in your lap ready to receive your full attention, but Daryl steals it for a moment to give you a kiss " Morning baby ". You grin at your husband before back down at little rose to give her a morning kiss " Your up early aren't you? ". She nods adorably " U-uncle 'ick ". Daryl and you laugh as she still can't say Rick yet. " That's right uncle rick is taking you and Judy to play with the horses! ".

Rose laughs excitedly and wiggles back down the bed " Go! ". You swing your legs off the bed to get her dressed and take her to Rick, but Daryl stops you " I got 'Er. You stay here ". " Are you sure ? " You ask , ready to help get her ready for the day. He nods and presses another kiss to your lips " I've got it. Be ready for me when I get back ". You nod as he refers the doctor visit he set up for you. He leaves to attend your daughter and you can't help, but smile to yourself. Today would be a good day. Rose would get to spend time with Judith, You and Daryl would get to have alone time , and hopefully at the doctors visit you'd find out for sure if you were about to expand your family again. Sure, you have all the telling signs of being pregnant again, but you wanted the confirmation.

It only seemed like yesterday that you told Daryl about being pregnant with rose. A smile creeps on your face as you can still see the shocked smile on his. This time you were hoping for a boy, but Daryl seemed to just want another girl. Rose is truly the light of his world so another little girl to hold his hand was all he wanted. With the thought in mind, you got up to get dressed and began to tidy up after your little family. You managed to clean up roses room before starting on the kitchen, but that's as far as you got when Daryl came home. " Y/N ? " He calls, slamming the door behind him with his usual fashion. You smirk to yourself " In here ". He's quick to find you with a smirk of his own " You ready?". You nod at him, tossing the rag to the sink " Are you ready soon to be daddy of two?".

He just scoffs and leads you out the door mumbling " Been ready".

--

It was as you laid down on the table with Siddiq pointing at the monitor, that Daryl thought back to the days he wouldn't accept your feelings for him. The fact that you were here with him, pregnant with his kid for the second time , and with the biggest grin on your face tells him this would’ve happened years ago. But, he was happy with how things turned out. “ Daryl, did you hear me ? “ You ask , looking up at him now. He returns to reality “ What? “. You grin at him “ Saddiq thinks it’s going to be another girl “. He smiles down at you happily. “ Is tha’ right ?” .

And as the doctor nods in confirmation and begins to explain why, Daryl just looks to your face. Sure when you two first met, it was covered in different colors of blood and you looked psychotic, but as he looks at you now he sees his family. The woman who fought like hell to keep him safe and who would now do the same for his kids. In later years to come, you'd do just that as the whisperers would pose a threat and the two of you would have to go to war once more, but it would be different this time. This time when you took Beta on by yourself to protect Daryl and once again you had a different mans blood dripping off you, Daryl was proud. That was his wife and mother of two that kicked a man twice her size down a elevator shaft.

You of course couldn't let the opportunity pass to grin at him again and say " Told you I've killed for less , Dixon ". He only rolls his eyes in return and wipes your face with a rag " Yeah, yeah. I believed you tha' first time. Didn't need you ta' remind me. Could've gotten killed ". You let him clean off your face and once done you place a kiss to his cheek " Don't worry I'm going to be around a long time. Or at-least long enough to say it one more time ".

And you would, for at-least a hundred more times. That is until Daryl actually saves you from a walker and repeated it to you. Thus, starting a new tradition of who gets to say it the most.

[medeafive]

bucky and nat meet while competing to buy the last gourmet chocolate bar

(This was so much fun. I’ll probably continue it. Gah. Next week)

AU where Nat is a cop and Bucky is… not sure yet.

Paperwork was the fucking worst. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the crime lab lost her evidence- her evidence- now she was the one who had to file a F426 for missing evidence, a F426D4 because it’s about drugs, a notice to the court and the state attorney (Matt was going to be pissed), a complaint to the police chief, to the head of the crime lab (things had really gone downhill since Bruce left), register the drugs in the state-wide watchlist, a formal apology to the police chief even though it wasn’t her fault at all, and that was just today.

She couldn’t even bitch about it to Clint because he was on family leave. On the Bahamas. Though that didn’t sound all that pleasant, with a toddler. Her apartment was empty, ever since Sharon moved out last week. The fridge was even emptier. So she stopped by a fast-food chain and now, gorged on too many tasteless calories, she craved nothing but her chocolate.

It was quite a ride across town but somehow, even these days you couldn’t get this specific gourmet chocolate delivered. Not that she would have the patience to sit calmly and wait for it. She needed chocolate, and she needed it now. Dark, 76 percent cocoa, with a hint of orange. Sharon claimed it tasted bitter, but Sharon also puts sugar in her coffee (which should be illegal, frankly). So, Natasha would buy the chocolate, go home, lounge on the couch, eat the chocolate and watch some crime show while bitching about it to- well, no one in particular, since Sharon moved out.

The store was awfully crowded on this Friday evening. Oh, she had already forgotten that it would be Valentine’s Day on Sunday. Great. Loneliness day. Well, at least this year she didn’t have to help Sharon get ready and pretend not to be a little bit jealous. But chocolate stores in early February were a nightmare. Good Lord, she just wanted her chocolate, and if it cost her an arm and a leg. More likely due to the crowd than due to the price.

She elbows her way into the right section, really, all these clueless people pondering heart shaped monstrosities, just get out of her way. Her heart sinks when she sees how empty the shelves already are. Please not. She can handle the crowd, the red and pink decorations, the long ride, but if she can’t get her chocolate- she almost sees her life flash before her eyes. Or her weekend at least. She shoves people out of her way, heart pumping. She isn’t not one for praying but right now…

Her worst fear comes to life when she saw her chocolate, her beloved chocolate, the orange packaging she would recognize anywhere, and there’s a hand darting forward, slow motion, to her chocolate, the last bar of her chocolate-

The forms flash before her eyes, the face of the stupid lab guy that she almost punched, the sorry state of her apartment, the horrible weekend and the even worse week ahead, and now her chocolate is being snatched away right before her eyes-

“Hands up where I can see them! Drop it-”

A few people startle and turn to her small but fuming stature, but there’s so much other noise that only few hear her, and when they see her, just standing there tensely, they turn back around and dismiss the whole thing. Except for, of course, the guy whose hand is still infuriatingly close to her chocolate. Which is his only hand, as she realizes upon closer inspection, the left sleeve tied at the upper arm. But most striking is the amused look on his smug face that already tells her he is a total asshole. “Are you arresting me? Why?”

“Yes,” Natasha replies. “No. No, of course not. Just give me my chocolate.”

“Your chocolate?” the guy repeats, looking around demonstratively. His dark hair slides over his shoulder. “As far as I can tell, sweetheart, none of them has your name on it.”

“Don’t sweetheart me.” She’s so close to losing it. The only thing holding her back is that Fury won’t save her if she loses evidence and on the same day draws her gun in a chocolate shop. But God, her fingers itch. “If you can’t tell, I’m not in a good mood. I don’t think you want to fuck with me today.”

“I’m just buying chocolate for Valentine’s Day.” He’s actually kind of good looking, in an infuriating way, of course. His hair looks soft. Of course he has a girlfriend. Not that it matters. She’s such a mess. “Don’t think that’s illegal. So, if you don’t mind… I guess you just came too late, sweetheart.”

“I do mind.” She has to resist the childish urge to stamp her feet. Her brain is begging for chocolate. Just chocolate. Don’t bother with this guy, just get the chocolate. But it’s not that easy, of course. “I had a horrible day. I’m going to have a horrible weekend. God, just- give me the chocolate and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Come on, this chocolate is too bitter anyways,” the infuriating handsome guy tries. “You’ll want to try something less dark. Really, I’m just taking this one because my go-to sold out.”

“Oh please, 27 percent sugar is more than enough,” Natasha deadpans. “And if you don’t like it, then just leave it to me.”

He picks up the chocolate bar, which makes her blood boil, and looks at the ingredients on the back. “Wow. 27, indeed.”

“Don’t think you can lecture me on chocolate,” Natasha threatens. “Especially my chocolate. And now leave it to someone who will really appreciate it.”

He smiles, shrugging with the armless shoulder. “Well, I guess we’ll have to make a deal, sweetheart.”

“I’m not sharing with you!” Natasha protests, mentally calculating how many Law and Order episodes half the chocolate bar would get her through. Not enough. “And for the last time, don’t call me sweetheart.”

“Guess I shouldn’t harass a cop,” he concludes, without seeming sincere in the slightest. “Okay. I’ll let you have it. Sweetheart.”

This thing stinks from a mile away. He’s still holding her chocolate bar. “What’s the catch?”

He grins. She’s starting to get the sense that his confidence is overplayed. “Let me buy you a coffee. Just one. That’s it.”

It really speaks to her desperation that she considers it. She doesn’t want a date. Romance doesn’t play well with her job. And then there’s all the other stuff, childhood trauma, anxiety, trust issues. Really, she’d rather bitch about everything to Clint and Sharon, who she knows and trusts, than even talk to a stranger. “I don’t drink coffee,” she lies.

“Really.” He doesn’t look impressed. Try harder. “Your chocolate is almost entirely beans.”

Think. This whole thing is making her nervous. Just the thought of going on a date makes her palms sweaty. After all the bad boyfriends she’s been through. “I thought you had a girlfriend. I thought you were buying chocolate for your girlfriend.”

He snorts, which looks unfairly attractive on him, his jaw, his mouth. “I said I was buying chocolate for Valentine’s Day, not for my girlfriend. You’re bad at listening, for a cop. I was going to eat it all by myself.”

That’s just what she was going to do. Chocolate. This must be what it’s like for all those drug junkies she deals with. “Okay, fine. Just one coffee. You pay.”

His face lights up as if he’s genuinely surprised. “Oh. Yeah, sure. I know this place… Well, I gotta head to the VA, but give me your number, I’ll text.”

“I said coffee, not phone number,” she reminds him, snatching the chocolate bar from his hand. He’s tall. Tall, dark and handsome. Not like she has a type. “And not on Sunday. My chocolate and I have plans for Sunday.”

“Let’s make it Tuesday,” he concludes. “It’s near the Concorde Music Hall, if you know where that is. When do you get off?”

She swallows the dirty reply she always gives Sharon. “I can make it by four. Probably.”

“Let’s say five,” he decides, sounding slightly sarcastic. Just like Sharon. “I’d text you the address but you won’t let me. It’s the Ipsento Café.”

“Thanks, I do have Google,” she replies dryly, already dying to get out of here and never see him again. He can’t make her come to a café on a Tuesday afternoon. He has nothing on her.

“Enjoy your chocolate,” he remarks, his mouth quirking up on only one side, like he knows what she’s thinking.

“Yeah,” she replies, already turning her back on him. “I will.”

[rolypolywl]

Welcome to day 8!

So, today I want to talk to you about sleep.

You may or may not know this, but your sleep schedule can have a huge impact on your weight loss journey.

So let’s start with the obvious ways it affects you. As WebMD says, “When you’re short on sleep, it’s easy to lean on a large latte to get moving. You might be tempted to skip exercise (too tired), get takeout for dinner, and then turn in late because you’re uncomfortably full. If this cascade of events happens a few times each year, no problem. Trouble is, more than a third of Americans aren't getting enough sleep on a regular basis.”

And it gets worse: “Skimping on sleep sets your brain up to make bad decisions. It dulls activity in the brain’s frontal lobe, the locus of decision-making and impulse control. So it’s a little like being drunk. You don’t have the mental clarity to make good decisions. Plus, when you’re overtired, your brain's reward centers rev up, looking for something that feels good. So while you might be able to squash comfort food cravings when you’re well-rested, your sleep-deprived brain may have trouble saying no to a second slice of cake.”

And, as Shape explains, that “drunk” effect does more. “research published in Psychoneuroendocrinology found that sleep deprivation makes you select greater portion sizes of all foods, further increasing the likelihood of weight gain.”

So just in terms of sleep deprivation’s immediate results, you tend to eat and drink more, of worse things, you tend to skip exercise or activity, and you’re likely to give in to cravings of any kind. Plus, with that staying up late because you’re full thing, you’re likely to impinge on the next night’s sleep, and start a vicious cycle.

But, when you get down into your body’s systems and chemicals and hormones and things, it actually gets worse for you.

For one, there is an effect called “metabolic grogginess”. Shape references a study that says, “Within just four days of sleep deprivation, your body's ability to properly use insulin (the master storage hormone) becomes completely disrupted. In fact, the University of Chicago researchers found that insulin sensitivity dropped by more than 30 percent.”

And there’s more. Shape continues, “Hunger is controlled by two hormones: leptin and ghrelin. [...] Research published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found that sleeping less than six hours triggers the area of your brain that increases your need for food while also depressing leptin and stimulating ghrelin.”

And, “When you don't sleep enough, your cortisol levels rise. This is the stress hormone that is frequently associated with fat gain. Cortisol also activates reward centers in your brain that make you want food. At the same time, the loss of sleep causes your body to produce more ghrelin. A combination of high ghrelin and cortisol shut down the areas of your brain that leave you feeling satisfied after a meal, meaning you feel hungry all the time-even if you just ate a big meal.”

What’s more, sleep deprivation can affect your metabolism. As HealthLine explains, “Your resting metabolic rate (RMR) is the number of calories your body burns when you're completely at rest. It's affected by age, weight, height, sex and muscle mass. Research indicates that sleep deprivation may lower your RMR.”

And, it can impact your exercise! Shape says, “Scientists from Brazil found that sleep debt decreases protein synthesis (your body's ability to make muscle), causes muscle loss, and can lead to a higher incidence of injuries. Just as important, lack of sleep makes it harder for your body to recover from exercise by slowing down the production of growth hormone-your natural source of anti-aging and fat burning that also facilitates recovery.”

We’ve all heard that you have to rest your muscles when you are breaking them down and building them up, and it turns out that that rest relies on sleep!

HealthLine adds, “A lack of sleep can cause daytime fatigue, making you less likely and less motivated to exercise. In addition, you're more likely to get tired earlier during physical activity.”

So you might not even make it into the gym in the first place, or complete your exercises if you do!

And, there’s a twist to this story. Psychology Today’s Dr Michael Breus pointed out two things to watch out for. Some people sleep instead of eating, doing a thing called narcorexia. He says, “Let me be clear, using sedatives to trigger weight loss—essentially by sleeping through parts of the day when one might otherwise be eating meals—is unhealthful and downright dangerous.”

And, there’s a second twist. Oversleeping is bad too! 12 plus hours of sleep a night has negative side effects too!

He says, “As with too little sleep, there is a greater risk of obesity among people who sleep too much. The risks and problems associated with oversleeping go well beyond weight gain. Too much sleep is linked to a number of health problems, including: Problems with cognition, including memory problems; Depression, anxiety, and other mood problems; Increased inflammation in the body; Body pain; Increased risks for heart disease and stroke; Greater all-cause mortality risks.”

But, getting sleep isn’t just an absence of all those negative side effects. There are positive ones too! The Sleep Doctor explains,

“Contrary to what many people think, sleep is not an inactive state. During sleep our bodies are doing lots of important work—repairing cells and tissues, restoring full, healthy function to our immune system, consolidating memories and rebooting the neural cells and networks of the brain. We’re burning calories the whole time. For a 150-pound person, the estimated calorie burn over a 7-hour night of rest is just over 440 calories. That’s a 40-minute jog on a treadmill!”

Further, the hormone melatonin and cool night temperatures are both linked to “good fats” in our bodies. There are apparently three kinds of fat: brown, beige, and white, and the first two are “good”. The Sleep Doctor says,

“In contrast to white fat, these so called “thinning fats” burn calories, help keep insulin working properly, help regulate blood sugar, and guard against obesity. Studies in mice show that animals with higher amounts of brown fat are leaner, and have better metabolic health. Research involving humans has shown brown fat is linked to lower body mass.”

That just blew my mind! So sleep does a number of good things for our weight loss plans, and our bodies in general, and too much or too little sleep does bad things.

So what can you do to get the right amount of sleep?

Well, most of these experts agree that 6 hours is too few, 12 is too much, and that 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night is the sweet spot. Obviously, some people don’t fall into this category, but most do. Teenagers, historically, have needed more like 10 hours a night, and some people biologically only need 4 or 5, because of their genetics. But most of us should be aiming for that 7-9 sweet spot.

Now, currently, I work nights, so my sleep schedule is a mess. But even when I was working a day job, I struggled with sleeping well. So I have looked into this quite a bit.

The first big thing is this: 1. Medications can cause sleep problems. 2. Sleep issues can be a symptom of other conditions, like depression, or of physical issues, like pain or acid reflux.

So first off, if you’re taking medications that might be causing it, talk to your doctor about potential adjustments. And if you have been having trouble sleeping for over a month, experts tell you to talk to your doctor about it.

Okay, serious disclaimer out of the way. Now, what else can you do about sleeplessness?

The experts tend to agree, so I’m going to compile the lists and advice from The Sleep Doctor, WebMD, HealthLine, and the Sleep Foundation.

1. Check your lights and schedule.

Our sleep cycles are controlled by our circadian rhythms, which operate on a 24 hour system. A burst of bright sunlight for 15 minutes early in the morning actually helps you wake up, setting you up to sleep at the right time. Similarly, you want to eliminate blue (electronic) light for at least an hour, though 2 or 3 would be better, before bed. In general, you want to dim your lights too, to get your body into sleep mode.

Now, if you need to be on your phone or computer after that deadline, then I suggest f.lux. It is made for mac, windows, linux, ios, and android, and you set it up to fit your schedule. It changes the temperature of the light on your device. Its great!

Along the same lines, stick to a schedule. Keep a bedtime and wake time the same every day, even on weekends. This will help your body get into a familiar cycle and make it easier to fall asleep.

Taking melatonin supplements can also help, as it is a sleep-related hormone. If your body isn’t producing melatonin at the right time, or in the right amounts, taking a supplement of 2-5 mg about a half hour to an hour before bed can help. They come in tablet form, and they also come in gummies!

Several other supplements, including lavender, Valerian, and magnesium, can help with relaxation and sleep quality too, but don’t work for everyone.

Now, as I’ve said, I struggle with this step particularly, because I work nights. So I’m already working against the sun and my circadian rhythms. So using lights to trick my brain, by creating “sunlight” in my “morning” and using f.lux to create “sunset” at my “night” is important. That and my sleep mask, to keep out the sun when I’m sleeping, is crucial.

2. Watch your intake.

Experts recommend no caffeine within 8 hours of bed, no alcohol or cigarettes within 3 hours of bed, no heavy meals within 2-3 hours of bed, and no drinks within 1-2 hours of bed.

Apparently caffeine lasts for about 8 hours, so you need to ideally stop it at least 8 hours before bedtime. Nicotine is also a stimulant, and causes similar problems. Alcohol and food both interfere with your sleep hormones like melatonin. And drinking too much (of anything) before bed can result in nighttime trips to the bathroom.

As someone who used to chug mountain dew right before bedtime in college, I can testify that drinking late and caffeine do nothing good for your sleep habits.

3. Exercise, but not too late. Nap, but not too much. Probably.

Regular exercise can help you fall asleep and sleep deeply. That said, if you exercise less than 4 hours before bedtime, MOST people get too much of a stimulant effect from it, the same as caffeine. Some studies have found that exercise later in the day doesn’t hurt, as it seems that some people are not as affected by this as others. This one is a little less clear cut than the others, but it is a good thing to check if you are having trouble sleeping. And some people found that doing something like yoga or tai chi is actually relaxing and helpful as part of a bedtime routine, unlike other forms of more strenuous exercise.

The studies into napping have had similar results to those of exercising. For some people, it isn’t a problem, but if you are having trouble sleeping, this could be a culprit. Experts recommend to eliminate naps, especially in the afternoon, if possible. If not, limit them to 30 minute or shorter “power naps”.

4. Check your bedroom space/bed.

Experts agree that your bedroom should be cool (60-70 degrees cool), free from noise or light that can disturb you. Blackout curtains or an eye mask can help with lights, and humidifiers, dehumidifiers (depending on where you live), fans, ear plugs, and white noise machines can help with temperature and noise. Even those little LED lights on your devices, clocks, and things, can be bright enough to disturb your sleep. And a partner’s snoring or tossing and turning can be the problem. One expert even says you should train your animals to stay off the bed so they don’t disturb you, but I can’t imagine convincing my baby not to curl up with me.

I will say, that my eye mask is amazing! You can get a normal one, but mine also has a gel insert, which you can chill, for when it is hot, and you can heat it, for when you’re stuffy or sore. It is glorious!

You should also have a comfy mattress and pillows. Mattresses only live for 5-10 years, and down pillows are about the same, while synthetic pillows only last about 2 years. Also, if you have allergies, your mattress and pillows might need to be deep cleaned or replaced more frequently, as they can gather those allergens. Further, a mattress that is too hard or soft, and pillows that are too thin or thick, can also cause problems with your sleep, and even after you wake, like stiff neck or back and hip pain.

Finally, your bedroom should be an inviting and relaxing space, lending itself to calming you down. And, as the experts say, your bed should only be used for sleep and sex. Don’t do work or watch TV in bed if possible.  And if you’re not sleeping, get out of bed, go elsewhere until you get tired, and then come back to bed. Don’t let your mind and body associate your bed with NOT sleeping.

I am particularly bad at this one, and it is on my list of things to work on.

5. Engage in a bedtime ritual.

For the last hour or so before bed, experts recommend turning off devices, dimming the lights, and doing a calming activity like reading or listening to calming music. Something that can reduce the excitement, stress, or anxiety from your day. Try relaxation techniques like taking a hot shower or bath (or foot bath, even), getting a massage, visualization, or meditating. I love my little foot bath! It can massage, exfoliate, everything!

About an hour or three before bed you should get away from work, stressful decisions, or things that make you anxious. If you have concerns, WebMD recommends jotting them down and then trying to let them go until tomorrow.

I used to be much better at this one, but again, since starting my new night-shift job, this has completely fallen apart. I have a small humidifier that I like, which also can make pretty, soothing, colors. It is small and wonderful!

And there are some great scents for it. Some are specially formulated for sleep, or relaxation, but others are simply helpful essential oils like lavender or eucalyptus. And you can buy sets with a bunch of them!

I also found both of those flavors - Lavender and Good Night - in sprays, which you can spray on your pillow or sheets to give you a burst of that soothing scent.

I also regularly used this meditation app, called Insight Timer.

There are meditations specifically for sleep, and you can pick ones with words or just music. These are also great for your morning wake-up, sunshine burst too. You can even create your own meditation mix. You can track your daily time and get stars for meditating so many days in a row without missing.

So those are my sleep steps:

My goal for this next week is to get back into the habit of my “nighttime” routine before I sleep, because I know this is something I’m not currently doing well with. What’s your goal for the week?

Remember, sleep is more important than you think! Share your sleep struggles and hacks with the hashtag #INeedSleep.

And please join me next time!

[webmarket01]

9 Tips That Don’t Work for Weight Loss, Say Dietitians | Eat This Not That

New Post has been published on https://weightlosshtiw.com/9-tips-that-dont-work-for-weight-loss-say-dietitians-eat-this-not-that/

9 Tips That Don’t Work for Weight Loss, Say Dietitians | Eat This Not That

As a nutritionist, I’ve heard all the tips for weight loss—the good, the bad, and the totally off-the-wall. From the age-old cabbage soup diet to the more recent strategy of eating cotton balls to fill the stomach, there’s no shortage of trendy ways to shed pounds–many of them are not only strange but also potentially harmful.

Even mainstream folk wisdom about how to lose weight can sometimes steer you in the wrong direction. So what do dietitians (the real weight loss experts) have to say about which tips are solid and which make them roll their eyes? I asked several registered dietitians to get their feedback. Here are nine weight loss tips they say to skip, and for more tips on how to lose weight, be sure to check out our list of 15 Underrated Weight Loss Tips That Actually Work.

“Make eating inconvenient.”

In theory, it kind of makes sense that putting obstacles in the way of your eating—like by using chopsticks instead of a fork or eating with your non-dominant hand—could help you eat less. But it’s not exactly a practical solution to the issue of overeating.

“While you might find yourself eating slower, you can still finish a full meal,” says Carrie Gabriel, MS, RD. “It is time-consuming, and if a person is busy, that could be frustrating.”

Besides frustration, eating in awkward ways might just make you look silly. “Think of the mess a person would make if it was a food such as, say, steak or a burger, which need a hand or utensils to cut it into small pieces,” says Gabriel.

“Put on tight clothes before you eat.”

Another lifestyle change that’ll only lead to discomfort? Changing your wardrobe at mealtimes. You may have heard the tip to don tight clothing before you eat in order to stay mindful of each mouthful. But keeping up a constant awareness of your weight at mealtimes creates negative self-talk—which you definitely don’t need when you’re trying to be healthy.

“There’s nothing wrong with being motivated to realistically fit into your own clothing that you recently wore, but it’s more important to dress the body you have and focus on your plate instead of your closet,” says Bonnie Taub-Dix, RDN, creator of BetterThanDieting.com and author of Read It Before You Eat It—Taking You from Label to Table.

In the midst of a busy day, there’s a time and a place for a probiotic-rich fruit and yogurt smoothie or protein shake instead of a sit-down lunch. But opting out of all meals in favor of weight loss shakes is likely to be a mere quick fix.

“While replacing food with a shake can be effective for some, there are important points to consider,” says dietitian and personal trainer Anthony DiMarino, RD, CPT. “Meal replacement shakes are normally very low in calories and fiber and therefore do not keep people satisfied for long periods of time.”

DiMarino adds that many meal replacement shakes tend to be high in sugar, which can spike blood sugar—a major drawback if you’re living with diabetes or pre-diabetes.

Instead, make yourself one of these 100 Best No-Cook Recipes of All Time.

“Eat only one food.”

Remember the grapefruit diet? Or the potato diet? Or any diet that told you to eat just one food? Monotrophic diets—those that advise sticking to a single food or food group—have been around for ages. The idea goes that you can only eat so much of any food before getting so bored you’ll basically stop eating altogether.

It doesn’t sound like a recipe for a healthy relationship to food, says Gabriel. And it sure doesn’t sound like fun!

“This pushes a person into eating disorder territory, in my opinion,” she says.

Meanwhile, if you go too long without a varied diet, you’re more likely to end up in the hospital than in a bikini competition.

“Eating only one type of food for an extended time period will make you deficient in other nutrients your body needs. Eventually, this could result in life-threatening illnesses,” Gabriel says.

“Don’t eat carbs.”

No one can deny the weight loss-boosting effects of cutting back on carbs on a diet like keto or Atkins. But for many people, opting out of carbohydrates completely can become a too-drastic elimination—one that might not even work in the long term.

“The research suggests you will undoubtedly lose weight by cutting out an entire food group,” says DiMarino. “But at what cost? Depriving yourself from carbohydrates (your main energy source) will ultimately reduce your quality of life over time. Low carb diets can cause you to experience hunger, irritability, fatigue, mood swings, constipation, headaches, and brain fog.”

If you’re considering ditching carbs for weight loss, it’s best to talk to your doctor or dietitian before diving in—as well as to be aware of the risks.

“A low-carb diet can put you at risk for kidney stones, osteoporosis, and even gout,” DiMarino says.

“Chew each bite dozens of times.”

This one’s another throwback: Simply chew your food into a liquid pulp and watch the pounds fly off! The art of “Fletcherism” had its heyday in the early 1900s when food faddist Horace Fletcher (the early 20th-century version of an Instagram influencer) advised his adherents to chew every bite until liquefied to boost weight loss.

To this day, you’ll sometimes see this tip circling back around. And, in truth, it’s not a bad idea to chew thoroughly—but it’s no magic bullet for weight loss.

“While chewing your food multiple times before swallowing is ideal and aids in proper digestion, and eating more slowly can make you conscious of becoming fuller more quickly, this can also be time-consuming,” says Gabriel. “Depending on the food and depending on a person’s relationship with food, it can make them obsess over their food and not actually enjoy it.”

For more healthy eating tips, check out our list of 9 Best Healthy Eating Hacks for Weight Loss.

“Cut out fat.”

If there was one prevailing weight loss mantra of the 1980s and ’90s, it was that eating fat made people fat. Non-fat potato chips, salad dressings, and even (ew) ice creams became staples of “healthy” households. Now, however, research has shown that the right kinds of fats are an important part of a healthy diet—even a diet for weight loss!

“Fat is an essential nutrient that not only helps us absorb fat-soluble vitamins and essential nutrients, but it also helps us feel full and satisfied to help prevent overeating,” says Taub-Dix. “The key when trying to reduce your weight or eat healthfully in general (even if your weight is not an issue for you), is to choose the right fats.”

Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are the kind to enjoy regularly in your diet. Taub-Dix recommends including plenty of nuts, avocado, and oils like avocado oil or olive oil.

“Don’t ever indulge.”

Popular weight loss advice is guilty of plenty of untruths—chief among them the idea that, when trying to reach a healthy weight, you can’t indulge in any of your favorite foods. Make one “mistake” by having a donut or pizza, goes the thinking, and you’ve done irreversible damage.

Dietitians know this is far from true.

“Why should you be denied of your favorite foods just because you’re trying to lose weight?” says Taub-Dix. “If you don’t eat any of those indulgent foods you love, there’s a good chance that you’ll wait until you’re ‘off’ your diet to enjoy them. That’s when those foods usually come back with a vengeance—in unreasonable portion sizes and too often.”

Rather than thinking of your weight loss effort as a short window of restricting the joy out of food, you’ll benefit far more in the long-term by (sometimes) including best-loved menu items.

“A weight loss plan that will be sustained should always include foods you love because, after all, this should be a diet you incorporate into your life, not a diet you change your life for temporarily,” Taub-Dix says.

“Just cut calories.”

When it comes to weight loss, we all know the basic concept of calories in versus calories out. It seems like losing weight should be so simple—yet many dieters find that just eating less somehow doesn’t budge the scale. Turns out, multiple factors are often at work in your body to complicate this equation.

“While the prevailing evidence suggests weight loss can occur as long as there is a calorie deficit, the kinds of calories do matter,” DiMarino says. “Human bodies are complex biological systems that process foods with different micronutrient makeups in completely different ways. Physiologic and hormonal changes occur in response to the foods we eat.”

If you’ve found you’re not making progress by sticking to a calorie target, don’t despair! Fortunately, you can experiment (especially with a dietitian’s guidance) with what types of foods and food combinations you consume. One possibility: work on incorporating higher-fiber, nutrient-dense foods as often as possible.

“Choosing to eat less processed, whole foods improve overall satiety (thus limiting overeating), provides steady energy all day long, and improves body composition over time,” DiMarino says.

This content was originally published here.

[riverdaleroundup]

Riverdale Roundup: 2x06 “ Death Proof”

Okay so here we are, back at it.

So first of all does Jughead just live in that white tank top now? I just don’t dig it and I honestly need him to put a proper shirt on. I get that he lives in a trailer park or whatever but it’s just trying too hard for me.

So Betty is racing down the street to the five seasons and you know she’s frazzled because her hair is down. She arrives to the St. Clair suite to see Nicky just chillin in a bathrobe with his fucked up face and she’s honestly shook that he isn’t dead yet. I don’t get what her plan was here? Did she think she was going to burst in to find his dead body or like the black hood mopping up blood stains? If she was going to stop the murder wouldn’t the first step to have been to call Sheriff Keller? Thankfully Sheriff Silver Fox is already on the premises ready to take names. Despite the drama of this whole scene I just can’t get past Nick in the bathrobe, he looks like such a little bish. He should not be brooding with that much ankle exposed so casually, it’s just not fitting.

By some mercy of God Betty has learned how to put her phone on silent and I am so very very grateful. I could not take one more round of “ lollipop”.  Archie texts betty “ You up?”  like the true Fuck Boy he is but honestly it’s like mid morning at this point so like what’s the game arch?

We see Penelope sitting down with the Lodge Loons to discuss the Nicholas issue and she’s such a stone cold bitch and like not in an iconic Alice Cooper way. What a heartless Wench. Also how is her face not fucked up? How is she not completely messed? From the first episode I thought that she was going to be bedridden but like she’s fine. Not even a scratch. Okay we see that her arm is burned later but like come on? Did Mark Sloan himself come back from the grave to reconstruct her horrible burned face back to sheer perfection?  

Toni and Jughead are having breakfast and she’s all like “ Yeah we aren’t going to happen. I don’t want to be your rebound” even though the second that Jughead was like “ Betty isn’t in the picture anymore “  she was all up in his business. So like what’s the truth Toni?

Archie and Betty are coming to Pops and Betty claims she won't be answering the blackhoods calls anymore but I mean come on that sounds fake. She also claims that the people “ at the farm” are going to help Polly disappear for a while. What kind of farm is this that they take in Wayward pregnant teens and also double as a projection program? They see Toni and Jughead eating breakfast together and it’s honestly drama.

There’s an emergency meeting at the cooper house where Alice basically tells everyone that their kids are trash and huge whore’s but that Betty is an angel. Kevin learns that Bughead is no more and is honestly shook. It’s so going in his blog.

Josie’s mom is ready to lock her in a tower for taking “ jj” and decides to clear out the south side in retaliation. Archie races to South Side high to be Jugheads knight in shining armour, but Jughead just assumes he’s there to break up with him again and is v pissy about it. The cops burst into the school ready to arrest anyone wearing leather and Archie basically has to drag jughead out of there by his ear.  Also Sheriff Keller and his boys are pure fashion in those hats.

Veronica doesn’t want to tell her dad about Nick getting handsy with her because she knows that Daddy will straight up murder him and not even think about it. Kevin is very disloyal to Betty honestly. I get that he’s friends with Veronica as well and that Betty was super bitchy to her but he’s only known V a few months and Betty is supposed to be like his ride or die. Could he not at least hear her out for a minute before slaying her with alliteration?

Black hood calls Betty and she obviously picks up even tho she said she wouldn’t because she’s a fucking liar. Black hood is like “ Infiltrate the dealers. Find the supplier.” sending betty out in search of the Sugar Man.  For once Betty realizes that she isn’t in the FBI and is literally a fresh 15 and reminds BH that she’s “ Just a high school reporter” and he’s like “ I don’t give a single fuck. Infiltrate the dealers. Find the supplier.”

Archie is willing to break up with Jughead for Betty but he wouldn’t get back together with him for her so he tell’s Jughead to go talk to her.

Betty rolls up to the new Thorn Hill to find Cheryl lounging in a bathing suit, reading a book and enjoying a little spread. Here’s the thing. What month is it? There was literally just snow everywhere and Sweetwater River was frozen. School hasn’t been in session that long. In theory is should be like November/ December ish if that.  But here Cheryl is in a bathing suit, everyone's walking around without jackets,  and everyone shows up to the race in like tanktops and shorts. What is good!?! What month is it? On the subject of months how many months pregnant is Polly? She was with the sisters for like 5 months right? And she’s been home for a good while so when are the children of incest going to vacate her womb and enter riverdale where they will probably be accused of murder or something by the time they’re 6 weeks old.

Betty asks Cheryl about the Sugar man and Cheryl is like “ Duh Betty he’s a scary story my crazy ass mom created. Try to keep up.”  Cheryl proceeds to rip Betty a new one about trying to ruin literally all of her childhood memories and shoos her away so she can enjoy her trail mix in peace.

Papa Andrews tries to make sure that Archie is taking care of Jughead and Archie is like “ yas i’m trying but it’s fucking hard”, meanwhile Jughead is slithering into the Goolies lair where Tall Boy  is chilling saying they should all be BFFs.

Cheryl goes through a box of her and Jason's old stuff and finds a crayon drawing of Sugar man and decides that he’s real. But like??????? How is that proof?

Betty and Keller chit chat about the Sugar Man and Sheriff says that Old Clifford was the Sugar Man so now it could be anyone and  they are shit out of luck.  Veronica is lurking in the background so she and Betty share some milkshakes and Betty comes clean about the black hood calls. She enlists Veronica to help her find the Sugar Man and now they’re tight again.

Jughead is pacing the trailer ranting about the Goolies and it’s really dark so I did not see Archie sitting there and I honestly thought he was just ranting to Hot Dog and I was like okay how very relatable. I bitch at my dog all the time. He’s a great listener. Archie suggests they go to FP for advice and i’m like yas I miss you come back.  He says they should challenge them to a street race and i’m like are you sure we shouldn’t just have another rumble at midnight. That worked very well the first time.

Cheryl tries to talk to her mom about the sugar man but her mom just calls her a crazy bitch and reminds her that she literally burned down their house so maybe she should just shut up.

The gang has to clean up this nasty ass park and Kevin is so disgusted by it that even he wouldn’t troll for stray dick there. Reggie and Josie awkwardly flirt and i’m like ohhh this is a thing now? Veronica ruins their romantic banter by demanding the number of Reggie's dealer. Infiltrate the dealer, find the supplier.

So Veronica rolls up to the south side to get the JJ from one of the Goolies goons. I get that both gangs couldn't just wear straight leather but having the Goonies wear studs and animal print really just makes them look like jokes.

“ What about my change Asshat?” This wouldn’t happen if the dealers were kind enough to take credit.

So we see some of the Jingle Jangle production and they’re literally putting these things together with hot glue and i’m dying.

There’s a truly tragic exchange of Veronica, Betty, Archie, and Jughead all saying each other's names and then saying “ what are you doing here “ in unison and i’m like again with the scooby doo?

Jughead and Archie gotta take their bitches and skanks and get the fuck out, but Jughead having been a serpent for a solid 45 minutes decides he has the authority to bet the family farm and offers up their bar and the trailer park as collateral on this race. A bitch is ballsy.

Nick shows up at Pops and calls Nick “ Sharon” and I literally want to vom. Nick tries to play all innocent.  Although the “ Desperate tart from a truck stop town” was a pretty solid insult he’s still a huge douche canoe. At least he paid for her lunch.

Betty is helping Jughead fix Reggie's car and I know she said she used to help Hal fix cars but I have a ton of trouble picturing Hal in his tight sweaters fixing a car. Oh shove it Hal. Jughead calls Betty out on being heartless and  dumping him via Archie and she’s like “ Ohh i can explain but like not now” and i’m over here being frustrated as hell like bitch you’ve been sitting in awkward silence just tell him it won’t affect his driving skills. You know what will tho? THE FACT HE’S 15 AND DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO DRIVE.

Cheryl finds the hush money cheque in her mom's room and i’m like yass that’s what people do with cheques for large amounts of money. They hide them in their underwear drawer and hope that the cash just magically appears in their account. So more likely Mrs Blossom is above going to the bank and took a picture of the cheque to deposit it and now Cheryl is just holding a piece of meaningless paper hostage.

Veronica and Archie are lounging in bed together and i’m like where is Fred? Does he allow this sin under his roof? Cheryl kills the mood by telling Veronica that the St.Clairs are still investing in SoDale so she goes to Daddy and Daddy promises that he’s going to fuck shit up.

So we come to the drag race and everyone has put on their fourth of july best. Kevin is pissed that Ru Paul isn’t there but is glad that there is a lot of eye candy. He clearly has a thing for gang members.

Instead of offering Jughead a lock of her hair Betty gives Juggie her declaration of love and some driving advice. Cheryl tells Toni/Cha Cha  to stuff it because this is her moment and the race is on. In what world would the Goolies  race that old ass car that was never made to go more than 25 miles an hour?

Archie is a little baby and pulls the E break which should basically guarantee that they lose but Archie called Sheriff Keller with a hot tip ahead of time. Everyone is pissed at Archie but I mean they won so……

Penelope threw that cheque that i’m convinced now that she already cashed in the fire and finally spills the tea to Cheryl. Cheryl calls Betty with the intel about who the sugar man is and like a fucking sane normal girl who doesn’t live in fucking Rosewood she calls the police. The Black Hood is pissed and we find out the Sugar Man is Charles Fucking Percy, whose name in this is like Mr Phillip or some bullshit I really don’t care.

Betty is threatening the black hood being like I’ve solved all these mysteries so I can totally catch you and i’m like Betty maybe like back the heck up, I say again you are 15.

So does Fred pop pills on the regular now? Is this going to be a story line?

So the Lodges ran the St. Clair car off the road  and they all sit around and smile about it while playing chess. Not at all menacing.

Despite all Betty's best efforts, the Black Hood is still putting a hit on Percy/ Aka Robert Phillips/ Aka The Sugar man. So sad… but….not really.

That’s it.

[bitchnuggettt]

a hypochondriac and a hypoglycemic jackass walk into a bar

M/M: Richie Tozier/Eddie Kaspbrak

Link to the Archiveofourown post for those who prefer the format!

He’s got hypoglycemia, Richie learns halfway into second term of Junior year.

Right now Eddie’s got this tiny fruit cup he’s threatening to crush in one hand, and Richie’s about two mouthfuls away from fully figuring out what kind of fruit is in it. Currently he’s caught between mandarin and grapefruit.

He wonders for a second if guessing right would impress Eddie enough to earn himself a couple of quick kisses behind the nurse’s back.

But no, Eddie looks reasonably infuriated, and decidedly not in the mood for sucking face. His brows are all twisted up and his glossy wide eyes are all fixated on the kitten poster on the far end of the wall. His nose is doing that scrunchy thing Richie likes to poke fun at but he figures that it’s not the right time to be doing anything of the sort.

Richie snorts then because he realizes that Eddie’s making the face he makes when he gets a shitty test score and is stuck trying to figure out how to approach the teacher about it.

“This isn’t funny.” Eddie snaps.

“I mean it kind of is.” Richie interjects. By the third spoonful he’s grinning with triumph and beaming, “Grapefruit!”

Eddie almost smiles just then, but instead he bites his lip and scrunches his up nose again like even the idea of entertaining Richie’s antics right now repulses him. Fair enough.

Eddie’s between his legs right now, and Richie’s more tempted than ever to just pull him even closer from where he’s perched up on the school nurse’s offices’ crummy examination table. It’s making his ass cold but Eddie standing almost a head shorter feeding him fruits and making angry eyes at the anatomy posters behind him is making his heart soar like crazy.

He’s finding it hard to distinguish whether it’s the low blood sugar making him dizzy right now, or just the warmth of Eddie’s tiny torso sitting snug between the torn up knees of his jeans.

He’d take a chance at slipping a discreet arm around Eddie’s waist if his hands weren’t shaking so bad. He knows it would just freak Eddie out.

His clunky glasses keep edging further down the bridge of his nose the longer they wait for the nurse to come back with an ice pack and a packet of saltine crackers she promised him.

In highsight, Richie thinks, he wouldn’t exactly classify any of this as being his ‘fault’, per say. He’s always been energetic and a little fatigued, and that had never been an issue for him, up until around a few week ago, when he started getting really fucking thirsty and slow and tired and groggy and generally more of a mess than usual.

Admittedly Richie’s just been finding excuses.

He reassures Eddie that he’s only dizzy because Mike’s boring study group lasted three hours this time around instead of just two - not because he’s starving just a few hours after lunch.

He tells everyone that he’s only leaning on Bev’s shoulder so much because Stan woke him up for church at the ass crack of dawn with Bill at his heels - not because Beverly has a sixth sense about this kind of shit and holds his trembling hands so that they’re out of Eddie’s line of sight like the gorgeous god-send that she is.

And of course his go-to excuse for why he’s so weak in the knees most mornings is that he spent the sweet early hours of dawn chucking increasingly heavy rocks at Eddie’s bed-side window and stage-whispering ‘Rapunzel! Let down your hair!’ until he gave in and let him inside - not because he skipped breakfast.

It’s easy to blame everything on that kind of stuff. It’s the kind of shit that tends to wear a guy out, everyone knows that.

But then he starts getting these god-awful headaches that just won’t fucking let him concentrate, and suddenly he can’t stand up without paling and needing to support himself. He’s never been able to focus much during trigonometry anyway, but lately it seems like every exponent might as well be a different language. At lunch he stops caring whether or not kids are staring and lets himself rest his pounding head in the space between Mike’s neck and broad shoulders, and he lets himself pretend it’s Eddie’s hand carding through his hair when really it’s Beverly’s.

Even Stan starts letting up, he smiles weakly at Richie’s low-par mom jokes and lets him have at the last few sips of his apple juice and backup trail mix because he knows how hungry Richie’s gotten in the past few weeks. Ben keeps assuring him it’s the sign of a growth spurt, but Richie’s sure it isn’t.

Eddie doesn’t much like being near sick people, that much is already established.

Richie figures if he keeps up the rouse that he’s fine and that everything he’s experiencing isn’t wearing him out the way it clearly is, then maybe he and Eddie can keep sucking face at odd hours, and maybe he can keep taking Eddie out to see whatever movie he wants at drive-ins, and maybe he won’t have to lie his ass off whenever Eddie shakes him into alertness after he’s spaced out for more than ten minutes.

Everything’s going fine, he handles the headaches, he handles how fucking tired he feels, he handles the body aches in the mornings and the hunger pangs at night and pretends he’s only letting Eddie run circles around him during gym to up his morale (honestly that kid can run circles around him any day, he’s ten times fitter than his physique let’s on).

He handles all of it with poise and grace and everything in between right up until everything gets fuzzy in the hallway on his way to fourth period, and suddenly it feels like the ground’s slipped right from underneath him and the next thing he knows he’s face-down on the floor and shaking, and by the time he fully comes-to, Bill’s hauling his limp ass to the nurse with a hyperventilating hypochondriac in-toe, and all Richie really knows is that his body’s sore as all hell. He guesses fainting and coming close to having a full-on seizure can do that to a guy.

Skip forward twenty minutes and here he is, with Eddie tight-lipped and crushing up a packet of ice until it’s cold like it should be. He meets Richie’s eyes and asks, voice going soft in worry in spite of how pissed he looks, “Where does it hurt?”

He actually has to think about that for a beat because his legs ache like a truck ran them over, and his shoulder feels like it got locked out of place and rammed back into its socket a couple of times in succession, synopsis: everything fucking hurts, but he settles on having Eddie hold the packet against his neck because that hurts like a motherfucker too, plus Eds has to tip-toe to reach him and if that isn’t the most endearing thing he doesn’t know what is.

Bill’s giving Richie’s contact information at the front desk and trying to reach his mom for him.

In light of everything that’s happened, a huge part of Richie is just relieved that he doesn’t have to pretend he’s okay anymore.

Eddie calls him an idiot right up until before his mom picks him up, and after school every one pays Richie a visit to do the same. It’s only until Ben takes out a few books he’s been excited about and Mike pours over them when things stop being about how much of an idiot Richie is.

Beverly and Stan start talking about the movie posters popping up on the streets, and Eddie tucks himself into the careful space between the rocky bed frame and the solidity of Richie’s sore back and starts gently kneading at his shoulders until Richie’s babbling dies down in his throat and he relaxes himself. He leans back until Eddie’s mouth is flush against the shell of his ear, where he breaks their shared silence and whispers, “You ever hide shit like this from me again, you’re a dead man, Tozier, you hear?”

And then softer, he adds, “You don’t always have to pretend that you’re okay when you’re not, Richie. We love you, I love you, and hypoglycemia is a serious condition. Do you know how many people die with that condition just because they decided to skip breakfast? Do you know how much of an idiot you have to be to die via low blood sugar? I’ve got a huge stock of granola at my place, you ass, the next time I catch you hiding shit, I’m shoving an entire box of cereal down your throat,”, then, after a second, “Jesus, I’m threatening you with snacks.”

And Richie has no choice but to smile at that.

[thanksillpass]

Holehearted [OtaYuri]

read on ao3 here

commission info here 

Otabek Altin woke up with a hole in his chest one morning. It just appeared suddenly, slightly to the left, where it definitely hadn’t been before. Just a hole the size of a fist, or maybe a large apple. Its unobtrusive presence didn’t hurt or bother him in the slightest, not physically anyway. It wasn’t ripped out of his chest; shaped like a perfect circle and smooth around the edges, it looked and felt quite cartoonish, really, almost too abstract to believe it was actually there, if Otabek weren’t able to put a fist and an apple through it.

He got used to it rather quickly, and he carried on with his otherwise unremarkable life as always. He woke up every morning and fed his boring cat, went to his average university, then to his dull part-time job in a coffee shop, fed his cat again, put ordinary effort into his homework, and went to sleep in his bed that was too standard to be properly uncomfortable and give him any reason to be unsatisfied with it. Everything in Otabek’s life was plain, and an inexplicable hole in his chest wasn’t any different.

There wasn’t anyone he could talk to about it anyway, even if talking was something he enjoyed doing.

His boss had to have a soft spot for him, because Otabek’s customer service left a lot to be desired, but he still had a job to go to every afternoon, and he was grateful for it. There weren’t many things in life that Otabek actively enjoyed, but riding a motorcycle was one of them, and a bike wasn’t a cheap thing to maintain. He didn’t begrudge it - the irreplaceable feeling of sweet freedom and almost overwhelming limitlessness riding gave him was compensation enough. During winter, when the bike was safely stowed away in the shed, Otabek skated. It was the closest thing to flying a person could experience, in his opinion, with nothing but planes of cold, unforgiving ice surrounding him, sliding through air that filled his lungs with invigorating ice shards, similar to the chilly breeze against his face when he balanced on the edge of the speed limit on the highway at night.

“You look more moody than usual,” chirped Chris, pulling Otabek away from his thoughts. “Something wrong?”

“There is a hole in my chest,” replied Otabek truthfully, not expecting to be believed.

Chris frowned. “Did you not sleep again, Otabek? I don’t want you to be embarrassed later for actually talking about your feelings to me.”

Otabek let out a soft sigh and turned away from his coworker without another word. He regretted saying anything already, remembering that Chris was the kind of person who would go around the coffee shop and tell everyone who cared to listen (or didn’t) that Otabek had feelings that needed to be addressed immediately because he had just admitted there was something missing in his life. Otabek didn’t come up with this “theory” on his own - he literally heard Chris say that to Phichit just then - but it gave him a pause. Was there something missing in his life? Was there a hole in his chest because there was an empty, shrivelled shell barely pumping blood to his brain where his heart was supposed to be? If so, what was he supposed to fill it with, if skating and riding a bike hadn’t already?

“I’m sure Chris is exaggerating a bit, as usual, but if you need a friend to talk to, I’m here.”

Otabek lifted his eyes to stare at Phichit, who looked undeterred by Otabek’s impassive expression, smiling gently like he always did. Phichit was a warm, kind guy, and Otabek didn’t like him very much. He didn’t really like anyone, to be honest, and it never affected him in any way - he enjoyed being alone, didn’t feel the need for company other than an unresponsive cat who didn’t require anything from Otabek except for food and a lap to sit on, very occasionally. People puzzled him, mostly, and seemed to be too much effort than they were worth in general. Still, that did seem to be only thing that was missing in Otabek’s life, even if he wasn’t aware it was a bad thing that warranted the universe to carve a hole in his chest to make him realise it.

“Maybe I do need a friend,” he admitted blandly, and promptly turned away from Phichit, just in time to see his bright happy smile slip when he realised Otabek didn’t mean him in particular.

Like with many things, Otabek didn’t bother following through with actually finding a friend. Testing a flaky theory was not incentive enough to turn his life upside down and let a random person in, and for what? To fix an issue that didn’t even cause him any discomfort? Otabek always believed that friendship was something that should happen naturally, so he decided to wait his current situation out - if someone came along to fill the literal hole in his chest, great, but Otabek wasn’t going to go out of his way to make it happen.

“You do need to create an opportunity, though.”

Otabek admittedly wondered how a customer was aware of his predicament and his thought process, but didn’t question it out loud, wanting to limit their interaction as much as possible. Yuuri Katsuki reminded Otabek of a shaking leaf hanging on the branch by sheer power of determination and fear of falling. He was an odd and complicated person, perhaps not much more than any other, but still too much for Otabek’s taste. He seemed shy and insecure in one moment, and resolved and larger-than-life in the next. He was five years older than Otabek, but seemed like a fragile child in comparison, naive and easily excitable, prone to sudden mood changes; Otabek sometimes had to wonder which one of them was the weird one. He was willing to entertain the thought that he was the oddball, considering Yuuri was a highly functioning member of society, with a husband and a dog, and a house he wasn’t renting from shifty Russians.

“Like, I was crushing on Victor for forever, but I was always too afraid to do anything about it, and if he hadn’t approached me, I’d die alone pining after him instead of getting married to him.”

Otabek quickly decided against that idea. “Please stop talking to me.”

“My point is—”

“I get your point. Here’s your order. Good day.”

Dejected, Yuuri moved away from the counter and sat at one of the tables, presumably to wait for Victor to come pick him up. It wasn’t that Otabek paid attention to the daily routine of the married couple, it was just that Yuuri seemed like someone who’d be afraid to go anywhere alone, lest a natural disaster or, say, a squirrel happened to end his life, ridding him of a chance to spend his last moments with the person he loved. Otabek felt a little bit sick, and he was glad his facial expression wasn’t reflecting that when the man in question finally entered the cafe. Surprisingly, there was a sample sized blond kid with peculiar fashion sense in his tow that instantly made Otabek think of his grumpy cat. The kid was visibly unwilling to hang around the couple any longer than necessary, and he was eyeing Otabek with petulant suspicion. Otabek could definitely sympathise - if there was anything more difficult than being around people, it was being around people in love.

“What can I get you, kid?” he droned when the boy approached the counter.

The kid tensed, his expression momentarily vulnerable before clouding again. “Strong black coffee, no sugar.”

Otabek shrugged, pleased with the simplicity of the order. “And what name should I put on the cup?”

“I’m the only customer here,” replied the boy as he looked around the place with a bored expression. “I think we will manage without me disclosing my personal information to a complete stranger, thanks.”

Otabek couldn’t help but smile to himself at the kid’s quite obviously forced nonchalance, but he was at least able to hold back until he turned away to prepare the coffee. They didn’t speak to each other again, and Victor soon called his young friend over (Yurio, so Yuri, like his husband, and why was Otabek even paying attention?). They stayed a bit longer, enough for Otabek to notice Yurio grimace in disgust as he sipped his black coffee a few times before leaving a basically full cup on the table and trailing behind Victor and Yuuri. Otabek would have been offended if he cared about the quality of his coffee-making skills. Or doubted it.

Yurio quickly became a regular customer, sometimes coming by with Victor, sometimes alone, and always ordered the same thing, always making the same disgusted face as he tasted the coffee, and always leaving without finishing his drink. Otabek had to admit it was rather amusing, almost as much as his blatant dislike for Yuuri. He always shouted at him, getting all up in his face, leaving him a shaking and teary-eyed mess, naturally gravitating towards Victor’s comforting open arms, which only seemed to enrage Yurio more. The kid couldn’t have been older than eighteen, and Otabek had to be in awe of his potential for emotional destruction at such a young age. He occasionally wondered where all that pent-up rage was coming from, but never for long - he was always good at accepting reality as it was and leaving it be.

Still, he felt himself drawn to that new and unexpected addition to his daily life, a little stormy cloud in a flashy t-shirt coming and going before Otabek could decide if he minded that it rained on him. People-watching wasn’t something he’s ever tried before, so he wasn’t sure if Yurio was a particularly entertaining subject or if it was always this engaging. Otabek was almost positive it was the former, so he kept watching, and he never got bored, learning something new every day and greedily storing all the information. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but Yurio had hard eyes of a soldier, which contrasted with his almost angelic look and the natural grace of his movements. If he had to guess, Otabek would say he was a dancer, and he found himself wishing there was a way to confirm his suspicions without seeming like he cared.

But he did care, and it was unsettling.

“You should just talk to him,” offered Phichit, as usual unprompted, just so Otabek remembered that he cared. Otabek seriously disliked him. “I think you’d make good friends. You’ve got so much in common!”

Phichit was clearly getting excited, so Otabek decided to humour him, and raised his eyebrows in silent question, almost curious as to how Phichit was planning to talk his way out of that particular overstatement. He patiently watched Phichit close and open his mouth, raising his finger when he thought he did come up with something sensible to say, and flagging when he finally realised how absurd that would sound. Just before Otabek decided the conversation was pointless, Phichit tried again.

“You both… dislike… other people?”

Otabek let out a genuine chuckle. “Great foundation for friendship.”

“It’s a start! Friends who slay together, stay together! Or… something… You haven’t even had a proper conversation with him! Who knows what you will find out about him if you just talk to him. Come on, Otabek!”

“Why is it so important to you?”

Phichit looked embarrassed, and it was suddenly clear to Otabek that Yuuri must have put him up to this so that Yurio would get off his back, distracted by a new relationship that would hopefully consume a large portion of his free time - Otabek had never liked Phichit more. Of course, there were probably more reasons for Phichit to push, cheesy and nauseating reasons like wanting Otabek to be happy, but no one was perfect. Feeling generous and in a rather good mood, he ruffled Phichit’s hair before proceeding to ignore him for the rest of his shift. There was no avoiding noticing Phichit and Chris basically crying in each other’s arms, but Otabek refused to let that ruin his day. When Yurio came in, alone this time, there was a moment when Otabek felt confident he would talk to him and offer something more than an impassive expression and a cup of coffee Yurio obviously hated, until he realised he had no idea what to say.

“Why do you always order that? You always make weird faces as you sip it, and you never finish your drink. Are you trying to look mature because you’re so small?”

For the first time in his life, Otabek learned what mortification felt like. It took him that entire time to come up with possibly the most insulting thing he could have come up with, and he was afraid to meet Yurio’s eye. All he could see was Yurio’s hand shaking violently as it reached for the coffee, and worried it would end up splashed on his face, disfiguring him for the rest of his life, Otabek finally lifted his eyes, his breath catching in his throat. Yurio’s mouth was twisted in a furious snarl, his blue eyes aflame, an angry blush covering his cheeks, and underneath all of that was something like betrayal and embarrassment. The hole in Otabek’s chest throbbed. He nearly had forgotten it was there, and now it throbbed almost painfully, making Otabek dizzy. Before Yurio could react in any way to the affront, Otabek blurted out the first thing that came to his mind:

“Do you want to be my friend?”

Yurio visibly started, his features gradually smoothing into mild confusion, only slightly coloured with distrust. “Why?”

Otabek thought for a while about his answer. He considered telling him about a hole in his chest, but that would only make it sound like an experiment. He could tell the truth and admit he’d never really had any friends, but that would make him sound pathetic and unappealing as a future friend prospect. He could say he has been watching Yurio and took interest in him, that he was curious and wanted to get to know more about him, but even Otabek realised how creepy that was. He took a deep breath to keep panic and anxiety at bay, and finally shrugged.

“Why not?”

It had been a bit awkward at first. Well, it was very awkward at first, but it got considerably less awkward with time. They weren’t that compatible - where Otabek barely let anything affect him, Yurio probably had the shortest fuse of everyone Otabek had every come across. Where Otabek scared people away just by looking at them, Yurio had to beat them off with a stick, sometimes literally. It was weird to talk about themselves only to find out that the other was a complete opposite. They didn’t share any interest beyond skating, but to Otabek it was mostly a replacement for the bike, and for Yurio it was a part of his training regime for the ballet, so they quickly stopped talking about it too.The only thing they seemed to have in common was, actually, the general dislike for other people.

But they made it work. They’ve put effort into it. They had the kind of friendship that just didn’t make any sense, and you stayed friends just to spite other people. Unfortunately for both of them, the people in their lives were cartoon characters made of rainbows and sunshine, and they were beyond themselves with happiness for them. Otabek and Yurio tried their best not to let that taint their relationship. Instead, they focused on the benefits of finally having someone to complain about those people to, and simply standing by each other, on principle, occasionally rescuing a certain someone from fans in a dramatic fashion involving motorbikes, or verbally abusing a horrible customer when a different someone couldn’t be bothered to defend himself.

It took a lot of effort, but they made it work.

Otabek had to admit that he was pretty… content. Considering that neither of them had anything to compare it to, and that both of their expectations were somewhat different to most people, Otabek would say they’ve became pretty great friends. There was only one thing that slightly bothered him about Yurio. He wasn’t a jealous or a possessive person - for example, he didn’t mind that when Yurio visited his entire world was instantly shrunk down to Otabek’s cat and Otabek himself might as well not exist - but he definitely thought that Yurio was whining about Victor’s relationship with Yuuri too much.

“Are you in love with Victor?” he asked one day, and was relieved when Yurio looked mortally offended, but only for a brief moment. “Do you have a crush on Yuuri then?”

“What the hell?!” snarled Yurio, his face instantly going red. “It’s one thing to accuse me of having feelings for my cousin, really, honest mistake, but for you to even think I would want anything to do with that little piggy-”

“I think you have a crush on Yuuri,” interrupted Otabek, unable to hold back a smirk. “I think you like him, that’s why you’re so mean to him.”

Yurio spluttered. “You’re mean to him too! Does that mean you want to bone him too?!”

Otabek grinned, reminding Yurio that no one said anything about sex, and Yurio pointed out that it was what everybody thought, and that was the end of it. Otabek didn’t learn the answer to his question, but if Yurio wasn’t comfortable with sharing anything on that particular subject, Otabek was going to wait patiently until he was. It wasn’t as if it had any real effect on their relationship, or on Otabek himself. As much as he enjoyed being friends with Yurio, it didn’t change that much in his life - it didn’t even get rid of the gaping hole in his chest. His existence was still remarkably unremarkable, filled with basically the same ordinary routines, and still missing something that could only be his very heart. If Otabek was willing to ignore something of that magnitude, what did he care that his best (and only) friend was involved in a hopeless love triangle?

Only he did care, a little bit.

Ever since Otabek mentioned it, Yurio would grow distant, sometimes, watching Otabek warily, or snapping at him with seemingly no reason. Even if he was in a good mood, smiling and excitable, he would suddenly dim in the least expected moment, putting up his walls back again. Otabek suspected Yurio wanted to maybe talk about it, but neither of them was any good at discussing feelings, or even expressing them properly. As for Otabek, he wasn’t very good at even having them - he wasn’t sure he could relate to Yukio’s heart troubles. He’s never been in love, never really thought he could love. He’s barely made one friend at twenty-two, who was going through something Otabek had no control over, and he wasn’t sure what he could do to keep him.

“Am I a good friend?”

Yurio looked up at him, his hand freezing still in the cat’s fur, a scowl forming on his lips. Otabek regretted asking, but he couldn’t back out again. He wanted Yurio to know he cared, because he did, he valued him more than anyone else in his life, even if he didn’t fill the hole in him, he was still more important than all other people Otabek has ever known put together. He wished he could say it out loud. He wished he was enough for Yurio, just like Yurio was enough for him. He wished there was something, anything, he could do to make Yurio say yes.

“Yes,” said Yurio, simply and honestly, surprised it was even questioned. “Why do you ask? You need references? Are you suddenly planing to become a social butterfly or something? Come on, I want to go shopping for cat collars.”

Otabek exhaled, and smiled.

All things considered, their relationship progressed normally after that. They started talking more honestly, perhaps, learned to communicate with each other better. Put even more effort. They didn’t see each other every day, as the novelty of the friendship and anxiety to maintain it wore off. Some days were better and some worse. Sometimes Yurio shut him out and locked himself in the dancing studio, and sometimes Otabek chose the bike over Yurio. Sometimes they went skating together. Sometimes, they spent a whole day in bed - a lazy, tangled mess of boys and cat. It was normal, for them at least, and Otabek liked it. He continued to live his ordinary life with his cat, his friend, coworkers, and a hole in his chest.

People teased them sometimes, and he wasn’t exactly sure why. Maybe they seemed too co-dependent, or too cold towards each other; Otabek didn’t care to know what others chose to focus on when it came to judging them. It didn’t matter anyway. How could it, when he had Yurio’s head in his lap, scrolling through one social media app or the other, scoffing and pushing the phone in Otabek’s face ever so often, half-heartedly swatting his hand away when Otabek tried playing with his hair. The cat came and went, the only indication of the time passing by. Otabek would be content staying like that forever.

“I don’t have a crush on Yuuri, you know,” said Yurio suddenly. “I was jealous. Victor has always been kind of my hero, and then the pig showed up and took him away. I was just acting like a child. I was jealous and lonely. I’m not anymore.”

He didn’t push Otabek’s hand away this time when it started gently stroking the soft blond strands of hair. Otabek didn’t think he needed to say anything, so they stayed like that until Yurio had to go back home. Otabek saw him to the door, and somehow sensed it wasn’t going to be the usual good-bye they shared. It was in the tense line of Yurio’s shoulders, in his skittish glances, as he hesitated between avoiding and meeting Otabek’s confused gaze. They stood in the doorstep, each on the other side, waiting. Finally, Yurio seemed to resolve himself, and took a step closer, stood on his toes, and kissed Otabek on the mouth. Blushing furiously, he turned away to flee, leaving Otabek with a cat rubbing itself on his calves, and a tingle on his lips.

Was he expecting that, even subconsciously? He wasn’t sure, but he felt calm, normal. He went back into the apartment, then back to bed, and tried asking himself countless questions, tried forcing himself to analyse the development and examine his feelings. But all he could feel was calm, and that peculiar brand of satisfaction you experienced when something long overdue finally happened even though you weren’t really waiting for it. He smiled to himself when he felt his phone vibrate, and his grin only widened as he read the text from Yurio, “Hope that wasn’t weird.” It was. It was the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to Otabek Altin, hands down, and he’s never felt happier. “It wasn’t,” he replied.

When he woke up the next morning, the hole in his chest was gone.

[inmomni]

No. 16

What is wrong with me

It seems like at every twist and turn, my feelings, my state of being is always at the mercy of something else: blood sugar is bad, i havent vaped in a while, i feel like i want to smoke, small things that set me off, these days small things that annoy the hell out of me, and the list goes on.  I used to not care, things wouldnt bother me, whether it was because, like Mindy said, I didnt care enough in the beginning to have things affect me, or just cause it wasnt really a big deal.  But now, it seems that every little thing is the end of the world if i dwell on it long enough. Its always tied back to my character, and who I am, and always comes back to thinking about how shitty of a person i am.  Its like the opposite of narcissism, where its more in a  self-depricating light, where i cannot detach myself from certian situations to make it all about myself. I always have to be the issue, I am always the problem.  And honestly, there isnt a way that i have found yet to talk myself out of this.  Like today with mindy, the noise was really annoying of her moving the laptop around on top of her bed.  I asked her to turn the volume down, the input volume, so i directed her after it got petty-ly unbearible, to the place where she could lower the input or switch it to her headphones.  But during the entire thing, i was thinking about how petty this was, and how emotional i was getting over this seemingly not a big deal situation.  In my head, me welling up with frustration was indicating the cracks in my character as I perceive them.  Why was i getting mad over this? Why is this setting me off? Then I began to think, “Inmo get this under control otherwise youre not going to be able to talk with Mindy tonight and that will spell certain disaster for the next day to come.” My mindset then changed to, “okay, how do i get out of this spiral”, so i whipped out New Morning Mercies and started reading, i took a couple more hits of the vape, and I tried to calm down.  But by that point, my face was screaming “IM NOT IN A GOOD MOOD” and Mindy was starting to take notice.  By that point, I was going full blast at myself:  “Youre terrible” “Why are you in such a bad mood?” “Youre ruining Mindy’s mood too at this point, and i bet she just wanted to end her day nicely with her boyfriend” “You cant even give her that?” “Im SorryIm SorryIm SorryIm SorryIm SorryIm SorryIm SorryIm Sorry...”

That seems to be my favorite phrase these days, “I’m Sorry”, for all the crap im bringing to the table, to the countless days where i have ruined everything cause of my foul temper, for influencing you in ways that are not good, for the hurt and pain i am causing you for not getting my act together, for not being the type of boyfriend you need at this point, for being so immature in my thinking, for doing so many stupid things to hurt you, for constantly breaking down in front of you, for lying to you, for not being the same type of person as you to spend all day with, for needing my time away from you, for not being adequate for you (in my own head when you tell me that im doing okay, and i dont believe you), for saying stupid shit, for being late all the time, for being so lazy, for not going out, for not being good about planning dates or keeping my word at times, for lacking respect in myself therefore not trusting you as much as i should sometimes, for lashing out when its my shit im going through and i dump it on you, for always seeming to make excuses, for not owning up to my mistakes, for not knowing/freezing up when i need to move “Im sorry” into action, for still making so many mistakes...I just feel so guilty at this point,  Everytime i mess up  seems to be adding to a stack i can never repay.  I need to learn how to move on, to get over it and keep going.  I stop at every crack and uneven patch of pavement, wondering why is it like this when i could simply jualjnfskfjas;kdfhja;sfjbha sl.  

I broke down yesterday... again.  God, im scared,  Of what im becoming.  Because it doesnt seem like this is the kind of person you want me to be. Actually, maybe i dont even know who you want me to be.  I dont know anything about myself, at least in a correct lens of how you view me and how you feel about me.  Maybe i still imagine you as a king in the clouds, sitting on his throne with a quiver of lighting bolts ready to smite me whenever i fuck up.  Maybe i dont understand this kind of love that is so radical enough to love me, to want me, to have the best things in mind for me.  God, I want to know myself in a way that you know/see me.  Teach my about myself, reveal the true condition of my heart, in a gospel centered way.  One that points out the mess but gets to work on it, not the kind that just points and stares.  And God, would you protect Mindy.  I know you have her best interests in mind and that youre constantly looking out for her.  God i want to pray that tonight she sleeps in peace cause i really messed up.  I think i made her feel like my bad mood was a direct result of herself.  Which it wasnt, and i cant pinpoint why it flipped just by that damn sound, making me even more frustrated and causing me to spiral even deeper to the point where my mood is soiled.  Fix me God, I need your grace in my life. I need it so bad, the mercies that are new every morning, i need it. I need it to survive and to be with you, my sustinance.  God, help me to do QT tomorrow morning, to reflect and start the day with you.  And as i go into tomorrow, would you be my strength, my power, my sanity, my all.  Jesus i need you.  Jesus i want to know you so much more.  God save me.  I need you.

[salisbury1980]

THE MISADVENTURES OF JAN AND TRAVIS

INTRO: I transcribed this old journal from when Mother Janet went into the hospital with her terminal cancer back in September 2014, having started it as a letter back to my Eugene family to let them know what was going on with Mother Janet, but when it became clear how far the Cancer had spread, and how low (and ultimately zero) her chances of a successful treatment were, I had to override my default “Grandpa Slowpoke” mode of doing things, and get to the point in a fifty cent postcard and a one page letter, as opposed to a fifty some odd page journal, because as it turned out, Mother Janet didn't have that kind of time left, passing just 10 short weeks after her Stage IV diagnosis, on December 03, 2014. My family thanks me for that postcard.

THE MISADVENTURES OF JAN AND TRAVIS

Dear Uncle, Grandmother, And Eugene Family 09-18-14

I am sorry, I am slow in writing this letter. We had a hard time finding a place and getting settled, it took us 10 days to close escrow on the house, so we didn't get moved in until August 22.

Then, Mom set up the back porch/laundry room area so we could bring home Lynx and Bodie, our two tomcats we took in four years ago, and last year, respectively. However, in the process of spending two to three days sanding and painting in the laundry room, she wore herself out a good spell and has not been the same ever since (weak, tired, in pain).

I would have helped her out with that project, but we'd had a horrible fight the day before (over my mentally shutting down and being non-communicative, a problem I'm sure Grandmother is familiar with), and therefore didn't want my help with that project and wore herself out. I guess I wouldn't have been much help anyway, because after that fight, I spent a day and a half bedridden with a horrible depression, unlike any I'd seen since four years ago, when we became homeless, or twelve years ago, when my best friend, Bruce Dean committed suicide. This most recent episode almost had me considering it myself, a place I haven't been in fourteen years, I even considered checking myself into the psych ward at South Lyon Medical Center here in Yerington, but thought better of it as I got better. I've since upped my dosage of St. Jahn's Wort from two 150 mg pills a day to three, and am doing better again. Mom started me on it last December, but more on that later.

Which brings us to our current problem. Last October, in 2013, Mom and I first got the papers from Stebbins & Coffey informing us that Grandpa Norm's California property had been sold, but as you probably already know, we didn't receive that money until this July 11, apart from the $20,000 that was fronted to us in April. More on that later. Back up a bit. In August of 2013, while still enrolled in my Oregon Health Plan and Food Stamps, I saw my inept doctor, Dr. Basil Pittenger at North Bend Medical Center (In Coos Bay) for the last time. Back in May of 2013, worried about my weight, 312 pounds and high blood pressure, my inept doctor switched me from Celexa, which was pretty effective at controlling my depression, albeit with gross side effects, to Efexor, which not only didn't help me lose weight, but my depression, mood swings, temper tantrums, all that got worse, so I lovingly dubbed it “Inefexor”, since the junk didn't work. During that time, Dr. Pittenger had me seeing an in-house therapist, and we clicked and made good progress, but unfortunately she became ill and I couldn't see her anymore, I'll always be grateful to her.

Okay, fast forward to November of 2013, the starter on grandpa's old minivan went out, leaving us stranded in Charleston, which is 10 miles from downtown Coos Bay and 5 miles from Empire, where the nearest grocery store was. This forced us to use the CCAT/Loop Bus to get around. We existed that way until April of this year, 2014, in December, my prescription for “Inefexor” expired and Mom had me go cold turkey (no meds) for two weeks, and big surprise, I felt better with nothing at all, than the “Inefexor”, although it's still better with the St. Jahn's, which is herbal, not synthetic, with little to no side effects. The only drawback is, it takes time to work, so I didn't get fully stabilized until February of 2014. It's not the “quick fix” that so many synthetic meds promise, but the wait is worth it. Anyway, about the bus rides, the nearest stop to our trailer in Barview was a half mile, and the one nearest to the grocery store was also half a mile, so we had to pack 40-50 pounds of groceries in each direction, wrecking both of Mom's shoulders, marking the beginning of her pain.

Okay, so we're up to April of 2014 now. Within a week of getting the front money, we get a notice from EL Edwards, our landlord (they suck) reminding us our lease was up for renewal in June and we would be inspected within a couple weeks. Since we knew we would flunk it (dead vehicle in driveway, two cats we weren't supposed to have, boxes upon boxes packed for storage, which we'd started back in October of 2013, we declined the inspection, which automatically voids your lease when you're on Section 8 housing.

So this leaves us with two months to get ourselves, the dead vehicle, two cats, and what would turn out to be two 10x13 storage units worth of stuff out of there. Mom figured it would take too long to get the van fixed for us to get “out” in time, so she bought two $2,500 vehicles, a 93' Ford F-250 pickup, and a 94' Geo Metro. Okay, at the same time, we were each getting about $2,000 of long overdue dental work done, since Oregon Health Plan does not cover dental stuff, at least the basic plan doesn't. And we were also trying to arrange vaccination and boarding for two cats (I'm sure you remember the irate phone call from Howliday Inn in Winchester Bay).

So toward the end of May 2014, we had the trailer about 80% empty, but we now had three dead vehicles in the driveway, the nice Geo needing about as much repair as it had cost to buy. Big problem, huh? Well, through divine intervention we were saved. Mom was somehow able to charge the battery on the Ford ( a diesel by the way) and we got the rest of the stuff out. However, we still had the van problem. Luckily, God willing, through our nearby neighbors, we were introduced to Ian, a mechanic-for-hire that lived in the neighborhood, who for, $100 for the starter and $100 for the labor, gladly got it rolling again so it could go in the shop (the Geo was already in the shop at this point).

However, there was still another problem. Because we didn't get Lynx in to get vaccinated in time, the boarding house wouldn't take him until June 10, even though we had to be out of the trailer on  the 1st. So we checked into Captain John's Motel in Charleston for 10 days, which was one of only two pet friendly motels in town. Bodie was already boarded at Riverview Kennel in Bandon at this point. Our Innkeeper was what Mom called an “Asian Dragon Lady”, but she was agreeable enough to check us in with Lynx, even though she preferred dogs, since we promised (and mostly kept to) keep him in the bathroom, so he wouldn't mess up the curtains or the bedding, and only let him out briefly, under close watch.

Our other guests were mostly quiet and respectful, but during most of what turned out to be 12 days, right next to us, we had this dysfunctional drunk, stoned couple who screamed, fought like cats and dogs, and thumped the walls (which I used to do during my temper outbursts before I got medicated, but for the grace of God, there go I). In spite of all that blatant racket, we had no hard proof that any actual domestic violence was going on, so we declined to call the police, or involve the motel lady, since we were grateful she let us keep the cat. Eventually, they checked out the day before we left, thank God. On a separate note, my dead friend Bruce's Mom, Vicki had worked at that motel when we were kids (mid 90's), so she probably saw her share of that garbage too.

During our stay at Captain John's, Mom took the Geo to her friend Kara Brown's place in Oakland, OR (about 13 miles north of Roseburg) and dropped off the plants she'd ordered, and came up to see you guys about cat cages. We then checked into the City Center Motel in North Bend for about three days.

The day before we checked in at City Center, Mom got violently ill (bad diarrhea), and the day after, I got violently ill (“rapid-fire” constipation). At the time, I thought nothing of it, since Mom had put us on the gluten-free diet, and had explained that we “might be sick for a bit” while we were “detoxing” from gluten. By the way, I know beyond a doubt that I am most likely gluten sensitive, because during the previous two weeks, my arms, legs, and neck were covered in hives. I looked like a junkie with track marks, even though I had not touched a drug in many years (never liked needles anyway). That was pretty solid proof that me and gluten were a bad fit. I think it was probably that way for Mom too, who said she felt a “lump” in her gut after eating a cookie.

How Mother convinced me to give up gluten was by reading me several expose books about how the food industry pushes processed foods that are chock full of genetically altered, gluten stuffed wheat. I learned that gluten sensitivity, which may affect up to 40% (and growing) of the American Population, contributes to obesity, arthritis, heart disease, diabetes, (I think I was heading in that direction, I noticed about 12 years earlier, when I began having weight issues, I had a tendency to quickly crash to low blood sugar, when not eating consistently every four hours, also known as hypoglycemia, or pre-diabetes), autism (I think as an Asperger's Person, I may well have that in some form or another, Asperger's, ADHD, High Functioning Autism, Non-Verbal Learning Disorder, that is “Not Getting It” Socially, Basic Autism and Schizophrenia, all seem to be inter-related from the intel I've been able to gather, but please don't just take my word for it, consult with professional sources), and certain cancers. The real clincher for me was the remote, but not non-existent possibility that prolonged excess gluten exposure can lead to breast enlargement in males, OUCH!

During our brief stop at City Center, we said our goodbyes to our AA friends at the nearby Alano Club, and Mom got the minivan out of the shop and put the Geo into vehicle storage along with the Ford. We then checked out of what would be our last motel for a month. Of the $20,000 we'd had in April of 2014, we now only had about $800 left by July 13, 2014. Between one “necessary” expense and another, and trying to “go it alone” with “no help, none whatsoever”. Just “No.” You Just Don't Do That, Yet Somehow, We Did Anyway. We had nowhere else left to go at this point, since about $500 of that was earmarked to board the cats at Lone Pine Pet Resort in Roseburg, since nobody in the Coos County area was willing to board them for more than a week at a time, sad but true. Divine Intervention, again.

Mom and I had a few interesting adventures on our way Southeastward to Nevada (Where I must go at once to take care of Mother's Property). At Nesika County Park, I got accused of murdering a girl that wasn't even dead. I later met my “supposed victim”, who had been separated from her dog on the trail and gotten lost. The funny thing is, my “accuser” was a paroled sex offender who was having possessiveness issues with his favorite bartendress at Coach House. He would later be turned in for alcohol, of all things, by his child neglecting white trash buddies from Georgia, just to get the heat off of their backs. Drinking while on parole/probation is a great big “no-no” by the way. So much for loyalty between criminals, huh?

The friendly neighborhood mechanic Ian, had told us he had been a park host at Nesika County Park on the East Millicoma River, when we told him the fact that we would soon run out of money. He referred us to his friend Steven, who was the new park host, and told us to say “Ian sent us”, and Steven would let us stay for free if we ran out of money. Thankfully it never came to that, but we did pay late a couple of times, it came out to $300 for 30 days, at $10 a day. We also still had our food stamps, which would expire next month (No point in renewing if you're moving out of state, right?) We used those to buy simple, not much cooking necessary, gluten-free foods, in town once a week, while topping off the gas tank, getting flashlight batteries, and catching an AA meeting. We had a lot of rice cakes, corn chips, granola bars, and various fruits and veggies, with the occasional bit of meat. I know it sounds really boring, but it actually wasn't all that bad.

Anyway, Nesika County Park turned out to be a colorful hangout of hippies, rednecks, mud truckers, outdoor enthusiasts, and the occasional tweakers (methamphetamine users, “It's Not The Drugs”, as Uncle would say). 27 year old “chubby” Steven and his smallish 52 year old girlfriend Connie, were themselves pot users, him recreational, her medicinal, but they understood our own sobriety walk in AA, having had met a few members in their travels, and therefore, made an effort to keep some of the rowdier campers from trying to push their stuff on us.

Me and Mom ended up sort of playing “relationship counselor” (also known as Dr Phil) to Connie, since their rather unusual, but still friendly relationship was starting to show cracks. Steven had undiagnosed mental health issues (sound familiar?), probably bipolar, and Connie had some guilt and abandonment issues (sound familiar?), since her husband of nearly 30 years had left her for another man, and her other male friend (platonic, we thought) died of alcoholism, and she wasn't able to be physically present for him. We advised that Steven get help for his mental problem (something I cannot do for myself very well) and take care of his ear infection (mold, lots of mold in that campground), and that Connie forgive herself for not “saving” her friend (I cannot forgive myself for “allowing” Mother to silently die from cancer right next to me, as we slept), and to stop blaming herself for being deceived about her husband's homosexuality. Connie thanked us blissfully for being patient enough to listen and talk with her.

During our month long stay at Nesika, we had a couple more misadventures. During the first week, a shaven headed tattooed camper named Elmer came to stay. Well, not but two days later, Elmer was chatting with this gal Mariah (who was married to someone else, thankfully not present at the campground at the time, or things would have been much, much uglier). Well, a couple hours later, Mariah loaned Elmer her book, and hiked a ways upriver. Well, two more hours went by, and Mariah didn't turn up, but her little terrier dog did. Elmer being paranoid and temperamental, of course, assumed the worst, glanced ragefully in my direction, and barked “You know something you autistic freak! I swear, if you did anything to her, I'll rip you a new one!!!” At this point, Steven the park host intervened, and said “Chill dude, or leave the park!” Steven grew up in tha' hoods of St Louis, MO and knew how to lay down the law when need be. Angels in disguise.

Soon, this “woman that I'd done something to” appeared on the scene, and profusely apologized for “causing such a stir”. It turned out that her dog came back to the campground, while she had been looking for the dog in the opposite direction on the river trail. Long story shorter, it turned out that Mariah had been Elmer's bartender at the Coach House in Eastside, and that somehow “made her his”, in spite of her being married. Anyway, Elmer then apologized for blowing his top, which I gracefully accepted, however, I couldn't quite bring myself to fully trust him (or his even rougher associates) after that particular debacle, and it turned out I had good reason not to. Elmer was a convicted sex offender out on parole. He was staying at the park so he could drink and smoke pot (both big “no-no's” for parolees), since he knew that his goose would be instantly cooked if he did that stuff in town.

Over the next three weeks, he had this pattern of “displaying” himself (his swim trunks stayed on, but he always acted as if they could “just suddenly slip off at anytime, without warning”) to the teenage girls in bikinis, while casually following the 40-60 Something MILF's around and pestering them. It ended when Elmer's white trash buddies who'd arrived from Georgia (Flying a Rebel Confederate Flag and always telling the kids to “Lock and Load”, Triple K Ranch, Anyone?) a week into our stay, and got in trouble with Social Services for reckless child endangerment and/or abandonment (The kids' mother had abandoned them at the campground, while the schnockered stepdad allowed them to horseplay on the back of their pickup truck, which was dangerously stacked up about 10 feet high with loosely tied cargo) had decided to turn him in to save their own hides (no honor among thieves or white trash). This was maybe about a week or so before we left the campground, so we had to endure about roughly three and a half weeks total of his crazy antics.

The other misadventure was also about a week or so before we left the campground. We had decided to hike the trail at Golden and Silver Falls State Park. However, the road to the park was closed about three miles out, so we then ended up hiking about three miles in both directions, going to and coming from our minivan where we had parked it, in addition to the roughly one mile long main falls trail, for a grand total of eight miles walked on that muggy summer day up Glenn Creek. Whew, we were beat, Mother maybe more so than expected. This had worn Mother out quite a good spell, and thus she had developed a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection). Connie, the other park host, had been an airline stewardess and a registered nurse in a previous life, and recommended this stuff called Cystex, which was supposed to kill the UTI, while turning the pee orange. Well, it worked for awhile anyway.

On the day before we left the campground, after we had received the estate money a couple days before, we had decided to do a “farewell tour” of Coos Bay by first driving 10 miles up the West Fork of the Millicoma River that morning, hiked about three miles total around the Empire Lakes at John Topits Park in Coos Bay, then spent the rest of the day hiking about five miles total of the complex trail network at the South Slough National Marine Estuary near Charleston, then closed out the evening, before returning to our camp up the Millicoma by visiting a couple of obscure roads in the Barview-Charleston area that we had never really visited before. Needless to say, this action packed busy day, had also sucked the life out of Mother (literally), and our journey had only just begun.

Our next big adventure was in Roseburg, OR, Mother Janet's Hometown. We had went there to seek mechanical assistance in fixing the soon-to-fail water pump on our minivan. Sadly, after a couple days of desperately searching around the Greater Roseburg Area, the thing loudly went “POP!” on a blazing hot 103 or 104 degree day in Central Douglas County, with thick wall-to-wall traffic there on Garden Valley Boulevard. I was strongly expecting to buy it then and there, but The Lord still had other plans for us, at least for that particular day. So we got stranded for a week, specifically eight days, the first two in Sutherlin, OR up to the north a bit, and the other six in the heart of Downtown Roseburg, and had ourselves a couple more wild and crazy adventures while waiting upon Mr “Crazy Fixer-Upper” Dan at The Mobile Tune to work his mechanical magic on our busted water pump.

“Crazy Fixer-Upper” Dan also left us with one everlasting eternal pearl of wisdom, which was, “In tha future, if yo'rs back is ever up ta tha wall, an ya tink ya might need halp with somethin', don't a bother askin' anyone, anyone at all, unless yo're at least nine-tay to nine-tay fiv parcent sures dat de're honest an are givin' ya tha straight stuff, otherwise, you's jes wastin' yo're time an settin' yo're salf up ta git screwed, good and proper like.” It was most definitely relieving to find an honest mechanic with all of those grease monkey bullshitzters out there with their hand in your pocket. In short, I think Crazy Dan was telling us, we can't trust no one but ourselves. Sage wisdom for all travelers.

On July 14, 2014 we departed for Roseburg, OR with three objectives: find a mechanic for our failing water pump, visit our cats at the boarding house, and visit Kara Brown. First, we needed a shower because we stank like roadkill death, because our only bathing option had been mucky river water in the East Fork Millicoma. First, we hit an AA meeting in Roseburg, still stinking like roadkill, half the people there also did because it was so flipping hot for Douglas County (100+ degrees). Then we went to the Roseburg Laundromat on West Harvard Avenue (one of three or four main streets in Roseburg, along with Northeast/Southeast Stephens, the Stewart Parkway, Garden Valley Boulevard, and the Diamond Lake Highway out east, also known as State Route 138) to do some washing of clothes.

There, while wearing my leather vest with no shirt under it, my long hair and beard, and two missing teeth, all that was missing was tattoos (which I now bear on my shoulders, in honor of Mother Janet and Clan Smyth), and a red hot blazing (you're going to educated progressive hell, boy) cigarette dangling from my mouth, basically resembling a rough biker dude, minus the Harley Fat Boy, I was approached by two very square looking Mormon Missionaries from 1957 who asked me if “I'd found Jesus yet?” I told them that I'd found him a long time ago, 24 years earlier, at age 10, and bid them farewell and good night. I was too polite to mention the fact that I had been able to find Him without the need of Bishops, Moroni, or that Special Underwear.

After we finished with our wash, we had looked high and low for a place to eat, but it was now 10 pm, meaning downtown Roseburg had pretty much shut down for the night, and most of the nearby eateries were now closed, so we tossed our laundry in the old Plymouth Minivan, and started cruising up NE Stephens (The old Hwy 99 that runs North-South through the middle of Roseburg), not finding much of anything. We then tried approaching the little town of Winchester, but the little Wilbur Road was closed off for construction, so we were forced into a Northwestward Detour over to Rogers Road, which we followed about 10 miles or so into Sutherlin.

We then drove all the way to the west end of Sutherlin over by the I-5 freeway and found The Apple Peddler, a quaint charming all-night diner. We both got Steak, Eggs, and Hashbrowns, skipping toast, since we were now officially on the gluten-free diet (which I need to get back to after being off of it for a year, it makes me feel more weak, sick, depressed, and less able) and followed up with a dessert of yummy caramel coated apple slices.

My Mom spent awhile chatting with the waitress Rosie, who happened to be about my Mom's age. Mom was telling her all about the rough trip we'd had so far, and she was telling us about how at her late age, she was still working, fighting for disability, and battling cancer all at once. We were like “Whoa!” (only not so much for me now) On that note, we were lucky to land the last room at the nearby Relax Inn, for only $45. It had turned out the Oregon Linemen's Convention (covers power, cable, and phone installers) had chosen those particular days and the particular small town of Sutherlin, OR, population about 7,100 at the time, to gather, and had booked up all the motel rooms.

So the next day, Mom took me to breakfast at the Del Rey Cafe down in Winchester, that we  had been forced to bypass the night before (She'd went there before about a month earlier when dropping off her plants at Kara Brown's place). We ordered Gluten-Free Pancakes, Eggs, Hashbrowns, and Gluten-Free Toast (Which Mom was largely unimpressed with, probably losing her sense of taste), made by a flamingly gay chef (Alton Brown Anyone?) who resembled the late Robin Williams (God rest his soul), who was grumbling about gluten this and gluten that, he was in a rather tight fit of pique that morning. Mom said the pancakes were pretty darn good, but the toast kind of lousy, and I sort of agreed.

Later that day, we went to Oakland to visit Jan's old high school friend, Kara Brown. Jan told her of “our great adventure” in “just trying to get out of Coos Bay”, including our month long camp out, necessitated by our lack of funds for motels. Kara, who had worked her family's farm until her late 20's, the late 1970's, when her father died, and her avaricious brother Kevin, used legal maneuvers to force her to sell and split the equity proceeds, said she hadn't been camping since then, which would be over 35 years, longer than I'd been alive at that point, and truthfully hadn't really missed it all that much.

Meanwhile, Charlie Brown (Yup, that's his name, just like the fabled Peanuts character, even has the smooth noggin head to go with it), was shamelessly soaking up his “personal” air conditioner while watching Bill O'Reilly on Fox News (Yes, now known as “not a very nice guy” anymore, but how are people who aren't on the Internet supposed to know these things?) I know my politics are a bit more conservative (at least then) but even I think he's a bit of an excessive blowhard, I liked Glenn Beck better myself. I also met their kids, Corrine (5 years younger than me, 29) and Clinton (8 years younger than me, 26 probably) for the first time, though Jan had shown me their “little kid” pictures back when I was a teenager in the late 1990's. Kara and Charlie didn't get together until she was about 35, thus the age gap between her kids, and me and Brother Connor.

Corrine, who is another autistic, but somewhere else on the spectrum (she is more of the mile-a- minute kind of talker, I am a bit more slow and ponderous, often to the quick irritation of impatient extroverts), was going on about the joys of juggling a part-time accounting job, along with her classes at Umpqua Community College, dealing with psychotic egotistical “Don't You Dare Contradict Me, Ever” professors (been there, done that), and dealing with the stigmatic label of being a disabled person. She, just like me, had previously applied for SSI, been denied, then had to get “special” people to pull “special” strings to help place her in her “special” job. Her little mile-a-minute spiel went on for a full two hours, of course. Of course, I'm writing a huge letter as usual.

Meanwhile, Clinton, who bears a rather strong likeness to dashing Italian-American indie film and TV veteran, Jeremy Sisto (has the curly brown hair and craggy features) disappeared into what had been his old room to play on his XBOX. I would have loved to have sat down and played with him, or at least watched, having been an old gamer myself (I spent much of my time with Mother playing games for her), but we had to get out to visit the Lone Pine Cat Shelter out on Rifle Range Road in Roseburg by 6 pm, when they closed up for the evening. It was at least a half hour drive from Oakland, and it was now 5:15 pm, so away with us.

On our way out of Kara Brown's Place, Mother Janet chewed me out for being a “self-aggrandizing phony”, for having told Kara that I was “concerned about Mother Janet's Health, and not to push herself too hard with our moving efforts”. I was simply paraphrasing the same words I had told to Mother Janet about a day or two earlier, before Kara was in the picture. However, the issue, Mother Janet asserted, was not the “truthfulness or veracity of my words”, but my “willingness to put my own actions and efforts behind them”. Meaning, Mother Janet still had many packed up years, if not decades of resentment against me for being utterly amoral and selfish, and piggybacking my personal upkeep and well being off of the “fruits of her labor”, and “taking her for granted”, and “not giving proper credit where it was due”. Long story short, if you are unwilling to work on yourself, then that is the textbook definition of classic laziness, and you are being a thief of the person's time who ends up doing your work for you. And someone always does, no exceptions.

We made it out to Lone Pine Pet Resort at about 5:45 pm. Their automatic gate opened, and we were greeted by a tall, slim, 20-something girl with a pleasant smile and reddish auburn hair. She then showed us to our two cats, Bodie and Lynx. Bodie, who was still a bit smallish when I had last seen him about six weeks earlier, had gone up from 10 to 12 pounds, had gained a distinctive “Mroaw!” to his Siamese-y voice, and was now crawling all over me, as he had done when he was a smaller kitten six months before. He had been the biggest of his litter of five, and the first to wean off of the milk we had fed them with the eye dropper, and onto the dry crunchy food. Lynx however, was being his usual aloof anti-social self, hunkering down like a big fat fluffy turtle in his box, although he did let you pet him.

With that errand taken care of, we returned to Relax Inn in Sutherlin for a second night, got a different room for $45, as the crowd from the Oregon Linemen's Convention had died down and shrunk to about half of what it had been the night before, so we had a much greater choice in rooms. We would have stayed in Oakland, but it is a little hamlet of a town of about 800 people, which is devoid of any motels or traveler's lodgings, although they do have their own mechanic (the important thing for such a little place). We then caught an AA Meeting at this beautiful little church at the west edge of Sutherlin, overlooking a sunset over the reddish clay hills that the Roseburg area is known for and some lightly saturated marshland.

After the meeting, I met this 40-something gal who seemed rather anxious and kind of down-and-out (I know the feeling). She said she had been meeting with rather steep difficulty in obtaining unemployment benefits after being forced to walk off her job when her employer had “cornered and attacked” her (code for sexual harassment?). I gave her a few bucks, knowing full and well they were going for a pack of smokes, our common non-inebriating, least immediately socially harmful vice, and wished her well, I do believe in charity after all. I am not one of these judgmental yuppie snobs that flat out refuse to help people in need because “they might go waste it on something stupid” or “enabling them”. You can only act when presented with an opportunity to give at a time when you are financially able, no strings attached, whatsoever. That is how giving ought to be done.

We then grabbed dinner at the nearby Sutherlin Taco Bell (what Uncle calls “Taco Hell”), taking care not to order items wrapped in flour tortillas (which comprise about 3/4 of their menu), which “Taco Hell” is notorious for. Thomas, a blondish 40-something 6'6'' 400 pound restaurant manager, was rather busy grabbing other things, right before our very eyes, mainly female customers and employees, without their permission, of course. He seemed way too “friendly” with Mom, in spite of their 20 year age gap, poured her coffee up close and personal like, and slid his flabby disgusting Play-Doh arm around her, right in front of me. I really strongly desired to pop the sick lard butt motherfucker (no pun intended) in his oily pustulent nose, in spite of our 4 inch and 150 pound gap in size, but I had to take a deep breath and normalize my skyrocket high blood pressure and elect not to send us both to jail, since we were in Roseburg for the purpose of getting our van fixed so we could move, and being incarcerated for assault alongside a bunch of tweakers, wife beaters (plenty to be found in Central Douglas County), and skinheads would not accomplish that objective.

All of this was going on while his lard butt Mom and Sister were blithely and sloppily eating away at their flour tortilla items, which easily amounted to over three times the amount of food that me and Mom got. Tells you something about the addictive properties of gluten, which Big Tobacco pales in comparison to. Their lard butts by the way, were so big that they had to completely suck in their guts in order to fit behind the table. That's quite a sacrifice for your addiction. Thomas did eventually take his arm off when Mom squirmed. We also witnessed an incident of him “caressing” yet another female employee behind the counter.

Then, as we were finishing our drinks, I witnessed a rowdy middle school aged boy, violently pounding upon his late grade school aged little sister, followed by his large, beefy, but not really fat, probably sophomore in high school aged brother, roughly intervening on the little sister's behalf and shoving him away, and them comforting the little sister and wiping her tears away. I then looked right over at Mom, and said, “That little turd.” Mom replied “Latchkey kids, their parents are probably most likely down at the tavern right now getting hammered, and they handed the kids a $20 bill and told them to buzz off and go play in the freeway.” With all of that sordid and tragic affair said and done, we gathered up the food wrappers and drink containers from our table, tossed them in the trash can and went on out the door. As we were piling into the minivan on our way back to the motel, I then asked Mom, “You don't suppose that Thomas fellow is the sexual harasser that we heard about earlier?” Mom said “Maybe.” We then returned to the “Relax Inn” for what would be our second, and by far most “relaxing” sleep we would have for at least the next week.

(Also noting it's not good for siblings or blood relatives to be fighting in the first place, but at least the older brother was ethical enough to intervene against the middle brother's bullying, rather than joining in on it, which people of more dubious morality, or less intelligent and sensitive, however you want to interpret that, like I was at that age, might have been tempted to do, in order to win “social points” with the bully, better to be on the “winning” side and all that rot, even if the “winning” side was morally dead wrong and just plain unethical to boot, what Brother Connor calls “StarScream Syndrome”, in reference to the old Hasler Made TransFormers Animated Series back from the 1980's, whereby “minor league” and mostly irrelevant bad guys, in a bad moment of moral weakness, feel tempted to throw in with the bullies and the “bad crowd” in order to better “fit in” and “be popular”, even though it is a very bad and evil sort of fitting in, with completely amoral and conscience devoid jerks that aren't really inclined to accept them in the first place, but being desperate for friends, and feeling the social pressure to fit in and be popular, even if only with “bad people”, they cave and fold like a cheap suit, part of the sinister social dynamic of teen bullying, which I never want to be any part of again, I am not the same young man as I was as an “ethically challenged” and morally ambiguous teenage troublemaker back in the early 1990's).

The next day, we set out on our original mission objective of locating a mechanic in the greater Roseburg area to get our poor beat up old minivan fixed up and in better condition for interstate travel, which is something that people who have enough disposable income to afford a newer vehicle never have to think of very much, their minds are usually more on budgeting for gas, food, and motel fare, but something that seldom ever gets talked about in middle class society is how difficult it is for people who are used to living poor (Me, with raised hand) to travel very far beyond wherever their hometown is, how we effectively came to be more or less stranded in Coos Bay, OR for the last four years since me and Mother Janet became homeless at the beginning of 2010. You just simply cannot afford to think about traveling or long trips out of town if you're desperately trying hard to stay in your place and not be evicted for lack of rent funds.

I say this extra little bit, not shame poor people for “making bad socially irresponsible choices”, but to better illustrate the fact that the few choices that people do have, are even more limited, this is something me and Father have gone around a bit, he says “Lots Of Choices”, I say “Not So Much”. You can be at a Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Store, 31 Flavors And All, but at the end of the day, no matter which of the 31 you pick, the universal fact is that that you end up with either Ice Cream, Sherbert, or Frozen Yogurt. It's sort of like being forced to pick (mostly) among Democrats and Republicans on every election cycle. Neither “choice” is very good, and what few organized Third Parties there are always get drowned out by the Mainstream Media and the Partisan Noise Machine, so nobody who has it together enough to vote knows about them, and people just choose “Democrat” or “Republican” because that's what their parents before them, and their parents before them trained them to do, and they get stuck in a mental rut and nothing ever flipping changes. Okay, off the soapbox.

Back to mechanics. First, we tried Swarm's, in the little town of Green, population 7,500, slightly to the south of Roseburg on the old Highway 99, and to the east of the other nearby town of Winston, population 5,500 at the end of State Route 42 that goes to coastal town of Bandon in Coos County, a reputedly Christian owned and operated large scale mechanic's operation. We were really hoping for a 2 to 3 day fix at most, so as to avoid lingering in Central Douglas County any longer than we absolutely had to, so as not to waste our precious few dollars on extra motel fare. It was now around July 16, 2014 and the helpful person at Swarm's regretfully informed us that they had such a big backlog of mechanic jobs (a very common thing for Roseburg, I guess) that they wouldn't even be able to look at our van until July 29, which was about a week too long for us. We then said “Thanks, anyway” and left that place.

Next, we tried this nice looking nerdy mechanic dude over in Winston, on Highway 42, whose somewhat smaller, apparently solo one man operation was in a tiny shop that was across the street from a closed and shuttered Figaro's Pizza Store (I get it, Red State area, no economic growth or progress, everything shut down and falling into decay for lack of money to fix things and keep them open for business) that looked as though it had been shut down at least a year or more, due of course to the Bad National Economy that began with the Housing Bubble Burst in 2007 and the more destructive Stock Market Crash of 2008, which ruined the fortunes of many scores of families, including yours truly.

Since the employees of Figaro's Pizza were no longer around to cuss the guy out for it, he had his personal backlog of fixer-upper vehicles parked in their lot, about 10 or 12 of them, seeing as how no one else worth mentioning was making use of the lot, because his own small lot around his shop already had a personal backlog of about 6 or 8 fixer-upper vehicles. The guy took a long admiring look at Mother's Minivan, which had originally been Grandpa Norman's back in the late 1990's before Grandma Jean died from basically drinking herself to death (Cancer Involved Death) in 1999, at age 73, and had passed it onto Mother Janet, since he was now saddled with his own 99' Ford Ranger Pickup (a good truck if you like Fords), along with what had been Grandma Jean's early 90's models Cadillac and Buick, and his own weird little funky German made NSU Spyder Convertible, dating back to about the late 70's or early 80's, somewhere in that general time period. Grandpa Norman had foolishly splurged on that thing around the time Grandma Jean died, thinking he could quickly and easily bamboozle a “younger, hotter, more socially agreeable” replacement wife into marrying him at his late age of 76. Typical dirty old man thinking, but then again, after 50 years of being Grandma Jean's psychologically harried “Prisoner Of War”, who could blame him?

When the nerdy young fellow was done sizing up the minivan, he quizzed us on “just how many miles” the poor old nag had under her belt, and we said “about 160,000”, his jaw hitting the ground, and hot, steaming crap loading his pants *just kidding on the crap part* He then also asked about the grungy looking gray streaks on the sides of the van, and we confessed, “Yes, we were from Coos Bay on the coast, and it was most likely that damned Aspergillus (Black) Mold” and he was like, “Oh.” He then said that “He really did wish he could work on our vehicle, but that he still had a backlog of about 10 days of mechanic jobs, about 15 vehicles worth”, which judging both his cluttered personal lot and the Figaro's lot, definitely wasn't “Joshing” (no offense to people named Joshua) us. He was friendly enough to recommend 5-Star Auto, closer to Downtown Roseburg, to us, but also warned they could possibly be a bit more expensive on account of the faster turnaround time. As for the Black Mold, that was most likely the same stuff that had caused our park host, Steven's Ear Infection, back at Nesika County Park on the East Fork Millicoma.

So are you now getting the idea that a whole of wayward traveler's such as ourselves, seem to break down for whatever reason, in Roseburg, OR, Mother Janet's Old Hometown? Mom had decided to try some mechanic shops in Downtown Roseburg, but along the way, had wanted to show me the “outlying boonie” areas of Lookingglass and Melrose, out at the western fringes of the Greater Roseburg Area, where she and Kara had grown up back in the 1960's, and how now it had become so built up and fancy during the economic boom period of the late 1980's/early 1990's (lots of free flowing timber dollars had rolled into Roseburg, as had rolled into Coos Bay, where we were living, about 5-10 years earlier, but Coos Bay, always being “behind” the economic learning curve of the larger towns on the I-5 Corridor, was already slipping into decline at this point) that “poor common folk” such as us and Kara's family could no longer really afford to live there anymore, at least not as easily as it had been to settle there in the 1960's and 1970's. Thus forcing most people into the harsh position of either earning more or spending less, and if there are no jobs or social support systems available, that usually means spending less. Such is the price of “so-called” progress.

We then followed Harvard Avenue, going eastward toward the Stewart Parkway, where we turned Northeast. On one side, was a sprawl of somewhat fancy apartment buildings complete with basketball and tennis courts, and on the other side, was a humongous, monolithic, White House Style VA (Veteran's Administration) Hospital, accompanied by a fancy 5-star golf course (Our taxpayer dollars hard at work, go figure), a second privately owned golf course, and the nearby VA Cemetery, which holds the tombs of probably at least 2,000 of our finest, bravest men and women in uniform, who either “made the ultimate sacrifice”, or otherwise went before us. The VA Hospital is also where quite a good deal of our alcoholic veterans get sent for detox and treatment, but sadly, few if any seem to be able to come out of there emotionally and spiritually grounded enough to keep sober and stay out for anything more than a few months at a time, so mostly it seems to serve as a “30 day spin-dry”. Such is the way of advanced alcoholism. So basically, if you want a quick slice of Roseburg history and culture in a nutshell, take a drive down the Stewart Parkway.

Okay, so then we pull up toward Garden Valley Boulevard, which is against a beautiful backdrop of dry hills dotted with Madrona Trees. I look over to the Walgreen's Store on the right hand side of the intersection with Stewart Parkway, and saw that the temperature on their digital sign read “103 degrees” and I thought to myself “Oh my fucking God, this is Hell On Earth Day!” By the way, no place here in Northern Nevada got past 98 or 99 degrees this summer, at least in the short time we've been here (Correction: we later learned that in early June, as we were running out of money, and had to ditch our motel for the campground, that Carson City, NV had reached a record shattering 115 degrees for one afternoon) and a few degrees here or there makes all the difference in the world at the upper (and lower) end of things, maybe more so on the upper. Too much heat will kill you outright, but when it's cold, up to a certain point, there are still certain things you can do to keep warm and alive.

Then the unthinkable and inconceivable happened. CRACK! GROAN! POP! That was without a doubt, the dreaded sound of our water pump going out. I saw that the temperature gauge was sitting smack on “H” for “Hot”. Then we saw the Wells Fargo Bank off to the left. Divine Providence yet again. However, to get there, we had to complete our originally planned turn leftward through the intersection of Stewart Parkway and Garden Valley Boulevard. It was now late afternoon, about 4 pm,  Garden Valley Boulevard now completely packed in with impatient pushy type “A” (for Asshole), typical of Roseburg, or any other medium to large sized freeway town. Needless to say, this was a bit of a “system shock” to Mother Janet's scaredy-cat conservative driving style from the slower going, much less populated coast area, which was not a good fit for the “aggressive populous progressives” that are more used to getting their own way that populate all the Western Valley towns in Oregon.

Mother then made the uncharacteristically quick and decisive (score points to type “A” people who are deciders and makers of things, can you say ego, rather than naively passive-aggressive, which “decidedly” infuriates people who are type “A”) fateful decision to pull us quickly through the intersection. Until that specific point, I had never previously been so scared in my life (or for it), and I've had people pull knives and guns on me before, and have other men who were less smart, but more aggressive than me, offer to “make me gay”. I then closed my eyes, and said to myself “Dear Lord, if you're going to take me now, please do it quick.” Mother spotted an opening in the left lane, after limping along westward with a busted radiator for about a block, and went for it, wheeling us into the next lot over from the Wells Fargo Bank. Thankfully, it was not yet our time to die today.

However, we also got to go to lots of AA meetings and eat plenty of Chinese and Mexican food, very yummy, and a good deal of it gluten-free. Mom and I went gluten-free before we left town, namely to help me with obesity, blood pressure, and autism. I think it also helped her feel somewhat less bloated and stopped up all the time. By the way, I have now dropped about 40 pounds from my all-time high of 312 pounds back in March of 2013, and my terrible blood pressure and arthritis have greatly improved. I highly recommend Chi's Chinese Restaurant on NE Stephens St in Roseburg, and there's this good Mexican Place (I forgot the name) not but two blocks away from the “Hole In The Ground Club”.

The writer of this material must also note that he and his mother had a horrible fight upon heading back to our motel from the Denny's near Downtown Roseburg, shortly before we went to cross the Umpqua River Bridge near I-5, no less.

Apparently, Mother Janet had taken exception to me being a “Grand Poo-Bah” who was “inherently selfish and greedy, and wanted to eat up all the food, and not do any of the paying for it, all the while not giving any thanks, or credit for the one who did pay for it.” Needless to say, the writer of this material was instantly infuriated and outraged, at these very truthful and accurate allegations, and told Mother Janet to “Fuck Off, And Leave Me Alone!”. To which was met, “What Did You Say To Me?!?”. I then replied, “Look, I'm sorry for being a pig, and I'm sorry for not giving credit where it was due.” To which Mother replied, “All right, you seem to have acknowledged your shortcoming and seem to be sincere (a very BIG deal for Mother, if you're not honest with her, she gets mad VERY quickly). Okay, let's put this debacle behind us, and cross the bridge that's in front of us.” to which I said, “Alright.”

I was a bit disturbed by this particular fight, even worse than the one we'd had a couple days before, since until the time we had hit the road, we had been getting along well before that. Suffice to say, this was a stark example of how the author's short sighted, impatient, and selfish behavior often passively causes other people to be mad at him (whether they are self-honest enough to admit that fact or not), then I “counterpunch” them with my own hyped-up disproportionate retaliatory strike, and either provoke the other person into wanting to kick my ass, or run away from me. In either case, I come off as a total tyrant, bully, and an asshole, and nobody wants to be my friend, and everyone hates me, and then I hate them right back for their own defiance and impudence. It's a vicious cycle. But now I understand, people can't bring themselves to like me, because they can't bring themselves to trust me, because of my selfish streak, mean temper, and lack of empathy, feeling, or regard for the boundaries (and rights) of others. I am my own worst enemy.

Yes, Roseburg AA is great! There's not a real huge choice in meetings for a town of it's size (about population 21,000 for Roseburg itself, 7,100 for Sutherlin, and 5,500 for Winston), but the people here seemed very honest, dedicated, and community minded, much like the rest of the good folks we have met here in Roseburg.

Which now brings me to the “other folks” of Roseburg, the sick people without any recovery program. By the way, I heard about the “revolving door of addicts” at Douglas County Jail, we would later find this to be true. One night, we came back to our cheap, trashy, roach motel at the south end of Roseburg (juxtaposed between a pot shop, an occult witch shop, several bars, and a dusty old pornography store on Hwy 99 on the way to Green), the Travel Inn, and settled into our room, after an exhausting two mile walk in both directions from Downtown Roseburg in punishing 100 degree heat, and not but five minutes later, we heard screaming and yelling, followed by “POP!” and “CRACK!” I thought there were actual real guns going off, and I promptly told Mom to kill the lights and hit the floor. Another five minutes then passed, and we heard our “other” little Asian Dragon Lady Innkeeper (not unlike the one we'd had at Captain John's back in Coos Bay, but maybe just a bit older and wiser), fiercely cussing up a blue storm at our skeezy and ratty little tweaker neighbors.

We bolstered up our courage and dared to venture outside. The Dragon Lady then asked us what happened, and we told her that he had only been back for a short time and heard what we thought had been gunshots. What had actually happened was this sleazy disgusting looking little whitebread pimp/meth dealer dude, who quite frankly, looked like a reject from Hee-Haw, had a nasty and bitter falling out (nothing I haven't had a few of myself) with his female conquest of the night, and had thrown her out of the motel room and locked her out from her stuff.

She, being somewhat spun on meth, and understandably upset, had punched out the window with her bare unprotected arms (worse than unprotected sex in most cases, in terms of short term survival), and had slashed up her arm pretty badly (Can you say Cherry Falls?). She was, of course, staggering around all over the place profusely dripping blood, while arguing with the Dragon Lady (a pointless exercise in futility) and giving her statement to a group of five Roseburg Policemen, led by a smallish young blonde fellow who greatly resembled the Ricky Schroeder character from NYPD Blue.

At this point, the poor young lady had spilled nearly a gallon of blood on the Travel Inn parking lot while idiotically arguing with people who weren't listening (the textbook classic case of insanity) and was starting to become physically weak and falter in her stance. Mom sharply spoke up (something she could do, when she had to) and encouraged strongly for the young lady to keep the cut arm elevated and maintain pressure on the tourniquet. Mom also encouraged strongly for the nearest Roseburg Police Officer who wasn't directly involved in the investigation, to summon the Fire-Paramedics, which arrived 15 minutes later (surprised the poor little flower hadn't wilted and keeled over at that point).

They carted young “Bloody Alice” off to Mercy Hospital in Roseburg, where she would likely be arrested upon receiving medical treatment for her cuts, which were simply messy, probably ordered to spend a couple days in jail, and make reparations for the window. And what happens with Hee-Haw dude? The Dragon Lady Innkeeper has RPD kick him out of there, since in spite of his general ass-holi-ness, they still technically had nothing they could arrest him for, even though he was an obvious pimping dealing lowlife. Stupid craphead was right back in there the next day getting spun with his inbred buddies. Whoever said life was fair? If you want fair, they have one of those in your County every summer. Next case, please.

A couple nights later, we were coming back from another meeting at The Hole In The Ground Club, and to change things up in our routine a bit, we followed the nearby Pine Street home instead of the usual Stephens, since that involves passing three bars, a tattoo parlor, and one of those semi-legal head shops. We passed a wide variety of older houses, some big, some small, some plain looking, some stylish, some well kept, some falling down rat traps, dating from about 1915 to 1945. As we were nearing our motel at the south end of Roseburg, we saw a terrified looking young man sprint, like a deer in a thunderstorm, out of a two story duplex, and pile into his white sports car and speed off. Then we heard a different man shouting loudly at a sobbing woman “If I (anything that starts with “If I” is seldom if ever good, this is your “oh, crap” moment) ever see you with him again, I'm gonna give you a bullet you fucking bitch!”

We determined that the voice had come from the upstairs of the building. Without thinking twice or hesitating, or regard for her own personal safety, Mother approached the house. I shuddered in my boots for a second, typical spineless dickless little girl I was, but quickly decided that I was no good son if I allowed my mother to march into certain danger alone, so I followed her anyway. Much to our disappointment, the front door was locked. We then tried the next door neighbor, who said that he knew “there was something hinky going on” in the next house over, but didn't want to get involved out of concern for the well being of his young son.

Since we had no cell phone, having just come into an inheritance from four years of “living on the edge” abject dirt poverty, the man suggested that we try the nearby J & J Market, a convenience store that was directly around the block from us, and slightly diagonal and across from our motel on SE Stephens St/Highway 99. So we went over there, I nervously wait outside puffing a cigarette (us nervous nellies do like our nicotine, it is an effective stress buster, but unfortunately you get 7,000 known toxins and 70 scientifically proven carcinogens on every puff, a bad trade of short term comfort for long term sickness, but who said life was fair?) while Mom got Charlie, the good-natured 50-something Chinese Shopkeeper to dial Roseburg Police on our behalf.

So we anxiously waited in the parking lot behind the J & J Market for another five minutes. We were soon met by a different young officer of the RPD (Starting to sound like the plot of Resident Evil), who so far as we could tell, had not been one of the five that had been sent to the “Bloody Alice, Broken Window” scene at our motel a couple nights earlier. He basically asked us “What The Hell Was Going On?” but not quite in that exact tone, so we filled him in on what had transpired in the duplex house we were now looking at the backside of, from the back parking lot of J & J Market. He and his men, three other squad cars, then decided to do a full patrol sweep of the house, scanning for any threats (are you threatening me, heh-heh, I am Cornholio, I need Tee-Pee for my, oh nevermind), then announced themselves on the bullhorn “ROSEBURG POLICE!!!”

After another nerve racking silence of about five minutes (what is it about five minutes anyway, maybe a good random estimate of the average person's boredom threshold and patience level, sort of low in some certain people I know) the light in the upstairs duplex finally turned on, and the woman opened the door up for the coppers to come in. They then spent approximately the next 15-20 minutes conversing with the woman.

Apparently, the abusing scumbag had fled the scene during the time we were going to the J & J Market to summon help, perhaps one of those things that it would be pointless to feel guilty or stupid for not having had a cell phone, since the crazed man was going to do what he was going to do, regardless of anything we did or didn't do. Also, she was still too spooked to file any charges, so legally speaking, RPD's hands were again tied and there was nothing they could do. I guess they gave her a business card for Domestic Violence Support Services and agreed to “keep her place under surveillance” for the next two weeks or something like that. Oh well, we tried, really gave it our best, at least we saved her life for one night, and that's all any human being is capable of doing.

The next day, our minivan was finally fixed up and ready to go, so we packed up our things from the motel room, a lot of them, and got ready to go, bidding the Dragon Lady a fond farewell. She had noted “I was a good son”, being of a similar age to Mother, and having a son about a few years younger than I, who although not a complete and utter miscreant, was still a bit of a do-nothing and a neer-do-well. Suffice to say, the “adults” in our lives always seem to be making harsh and unfair demands of us, but in most cases, such as Mother's and the Dragon Lady's, they are tough on us because they don't want to see us fail and suffer in the same ways that they did. Then we went out the Lone Pine Pet Resort out on Rifle Range Road and collected our big, smelly, fussy, screaming tomcats, Bodie (1 year old Black-Siamese Mix) and Lynx (5 year old Persian-Tabby Mix) and finally said “Hasta La Vista” to the Greater Roseburg Area, after having been stuck there for eight days.

We then drove out eastward on State Highway 138, the Diamond Lake Highway, passing through the little town of Glide, after about 10-12 miles, followed by Steamboat, which was little more than a fly fisherman's haven and tourist trap spot, after about another 15-20 miles, seeing the beauty that is the North Fork Umpqua River, complete with tight turns, fast rapids, and churning mini waterfalls. As we were climbing, then descending through the Cascade Range, we actually passed right through, not around, several small rainstorms, though we didn't begrudge the rain much, our filthy (and moldy) minivan sure needed washing anyway, since Roseburg, OR is like many small towns in the American West, a hot, dusty railroad town.

After we had passed the turnoffs to Diamond Lake, and then the “National Park Famous” Crater Lake (I think I've only been to it maybe once or twice in my life, but I think I went during the dead heat of summer, when the skies were literally crystal azure blue, not a cloud anywhere, and when you go on a day like that, it scared the total fucking shit out of me, since you can see clear down to the 2,148 foot bottom, and unfortunately, I've had a few personal near-misses with drowning, as well as being prone to drowning nightmares, having been raised by a tsunami-phobic mother, and having endured 1-2 months of living with a badly leaking ceiling in my room, shortly before the State forced us out of my Grandfather Norman's House back in the fall of 2009. It is the deepest lake in the United States, and tenth deepest in the world.), roughly 85 miles total, eastward from Roseburg, we pulled off and took a break.

There, we saw endless stands of Ponderosa Pines, sitting atop that reddish clay-rich dirt that dominates much of the Southern Oregon Landscape, and along both sides of Highway 138, were these  little bands of purple colored volcanic rocks, and I thought to myself, “Weird, Amazing!” It then occurred to me that nature is God's Gift to us and it's our Divine Directive not to abuse it. We then got back into the minivan and continued the last 15 miles or so, up to the junction where State Highway 138 terminates at the junction with the US Highway 97 that connects Klamath Falls with the Bend-Redmond-Prineville area and the little pass through truck stop of Biggs Junction on I-84 and the Columbia River in the north (I believe me and Father overnighted there back when I was fifteen, in 1995), then turning our vehicle southward.

We headed southward, while passing rolling hills covered in more Ponderosa Pines, sagebrush, and other dune grass, which then flattened out into a semi-desert with Ponderosa Pines still scattered about. We then passed the turn off to the little town of Chiloquin (population 724) and the bright flashy Kla-Mo-Ya Casino (Glad I don't gamble, as policy, a horrible addiction, played a major role in the divorce with Mother's Second Husband, Michael Edward Williams) and soon, we were passing the Upper Klamath Lake, a nationally designated bird sanctuary area, which does seem much like the Red Sea in The Bible, given it's immense size and general brackiness, or saltiness.

On the left side of the road from the lake was a series of barren, round topped mountains, which fenced in patches of low lying mucky farmland with hay and alfalfa fields. Of course, at this point it was getting dark, and the mosquitoes and gnats were out in full force. By the time we finally reached Klamath Falls, our poor old freshly rain washed minivan was now completely and utterly plastered in little dead bug carcasses.

We now begun navigating our way through the winding Northwestern Reaches of Klamath Falls Proper, population 21,000, trying to find the “Downtown” of the place, not an easy task for any traveler, as the physical area of the town takes up one with a population of about three times that figure, splitting outward into several forks, being constrained between a mountain range and the much larger Upper Klamath Lake in the north, and the smaller Lower Klamath Lake, the famous for hiking, Klamath Falls Falls (Yes that's a double word, but this one is excepted) leading into the Klamath River in the south, more rolling hills with Ponderosa Pines in the west, and desert-like marshland to the east, also adjoining with it's still, as of 2017, unincorporated sister township of Altamont, OR, population 19,000 (Altamont residents take their mail under Klamath Falls Addresses), to the northeast of Klamath Falls Proper, thus bringing the total population of Klamath-Altamont to 40,000 total. Ah, now I get it, you get two towns for the price of one, much like Minden-Gardnerville, NV. See, you learn something new everyday, I was confused about that one for the longest time. That's why the place “seems” bigger than it actually is, is that there's two towns. Here is a fascinating article on the Klamath-Altamont controversy from 2004: http://www.heraldandnews.com/news/top_stories/klamath-falls-population-doubles/article_aff23b8a-63b4-5af1-8a93-bcb7e7cbe96a.html

So yes, back on topic, and to the point, I both personally and professionally struggle with this particular shortcoming, we were winding our way through the Northwestern “Arm” of Klamath Falls, also known as K-Falls, trying to join up the US Highway 97 that we were on with the Oregon State Route 140, going east, and seeking out the famed Black Bear Diner (if you happen to be near one, you gotta go, it's awesome), where we had eaten seven years before in 2007, presently trying to fill our lurching empty stomach pit in 2014. We ordered up another round of steak, eggs, and hashbrowns, as well as a strawberry milkshake for me. On a somewhat disturbing side note, Mother told me that the “Food was really awesome”, but added that “she wasn't able to taste it very well”. That did seem kind of odd to me, but hey, we were on great adventure and a roll to boot.

We then temporarily doubled back westward for a mile on Highway 140 to seek out an “all-night” gas station, since it was after 10 pm, and we were the “last customers” at Black Bear for the evening, and located a Chevron on the south side of 140, where we got tanked up, and found a nice young man to use Windex and a Wiper to strip all those god awful disgusting mosquito and gnat carcasses from our windshield. We then got back on 140, and followed eastward until we were about 2 miles out from the eastern edge of Klamath Falls Proper. There, we turned south onto Oregon State Route 39, which only remains that way for 15 miles, until it crosses the state line, and becomes California State Route 139, passing the unincorporated township of Henley and the incorporated town of Merrill, population 832, an agricultural hamlet famous for their yearly Potato Festival.

Having now crossed into California, we quickly came upon the little town of Tulelake, or Tule Lake, population 1,010. It is notable for having a local duck feather pillow stuffing business, a little bitty motel, the Ellis Inn and a darker bit of history, the area played host to two internment camps during the FDR Administration in World War II, one camp was for the housing of German and Italian POW's, the other, which will stick in the eye of Liberals and the Politically Correct, was for the Internment of Japanese-American citizens, as public Japanese hysteria, especially in the Western States, was off the charts, and the people who had the ear of the policymakers felt “it was best to separate the general population from the people we were at war with”. Anyway, yes, a very harsh, horrible, immoral, and despicable policy, I wasn't around then, but from a “Military-National Security” perspective, I do understand exactly why that horrible and unpopular policy was done, even if the writer of this material doesn't necessarily personally agree with it. So that's all on Tulelake, CA.

We continued Southeastward through more desert-like marshland along Highway 139 until we reached the sleepy little town of Canby, CA (We also have one of those in Oregon, up near Portland), population 315, elevation 4,314, basically a “Post Office-Junction” stop where California State Route 139 bends Southwestward and meets up with California State Route 299 going eastward to the bigger (but still a “small red state place” by Eugene, OR standards) of Alturas, CA, population 2,615, elevation 4,370, seventeen miles away.

The Modoc County Area in Northeastern California is quite something to look at in the daytime, but of course we were doing this at night (trying to reach a certain location in Northern Nevada by morning), so we weren't seeing much, just our memories of the same trip we took in that area seven years ago in 2007, which had consisted of a hodgepodge of marshland, Ponderosa Pine forest, and high desert scrubland. There was also a nationally designated bird sanctuary in this area as well. At this time, about 2 am in the morning, the typically quiet sleepy town of Alturas, CA was even deader than usual. Not even a bar or tavern was open at this wee hour. Bad news if you're an active alcoholic in dire need of a quick drinky-poo.

If boredom makes you jump out of your skin, don't come to Alturas, CA (or anyplace like it) at 2 in the morning, go the nice Downtown of a proper “big place” like Eugene or Reno, and get yourself accosted by predatory, morally and ethically unbound street denizens (who dare to wear the “title” of human beings) looking to mug, rape, and knife in the shadows instead. That'll fix up your boredom problem right quick, I guarantee it. That is one plus side of living in the “small place” red state, is statistically being far less likely to be preyed upon by other humans (who are angry, impulsive, unpredictable, and emotional creatures), should the need ever arise to depart your lodgings after business hours, though in these high altitude places that are isolated, you may (though still statistically very improbable at best) have to contend with bears and cougars, so you might want to invoke your Second Amendment Right to bear (get it, bear) arms, provided you are able to physically and mentally do so responsibly. Just saying, you know?

We turned south onto US Highway 395 (Which connects Northeastern California and Central-Eastern Oregon with the Reno-Carson City Area of Western Nevada, it's a storied and interesting road to say the least) and began the lonely 105 mile (no gas stations whatsoever, zero, none, zilch, good we tanked up at K-Falls for this very reason). It was a mix of desert, dry pasture land, and pine/juniper forest, dotted with tiny towns, more like villages, with populations of less than 100 people (Now that's hella small by Eugene, OR standards). Much of Northern California is like this, the 18 million “Cool People” of their 36 million residents all live in or near Los Angeles.

About 40 miles into this, we took a break. Realizing we were now at 5,000 feet elevation (much bigly thinner atmosphere here) on US Highway 395, I saw a great big flowing display of beautiful stars (Where Mother Janet and Clan Smyth await me to join them). They flowed together just as if someone had painted it upon my bedroom ceiling, I don't know if you recall that weird crazy florescent glow-in-the-dark paint when you were a kid, but it was just like that. I was again, just like a kid in a candy store at 34 years of age.

After passing about 3 or 4 more nameless and largely forgettable (like my old book title) sub-100 people “small places” along US Highway 395, we started down some hills and winding curves, and off to the east, we saw a couple of very large high-tech futuristic looking buildings with a lot of bright night lights around them. My best guess is that building was a very large power station that served the entire US Highway 395 area that ran from Alturas to Susanville. We also passed turnoffs to an Army National Guard base and the semi-notorious High Desert State Prison, formerly known as Johnsonville State Prison.

Upon reaching Susanville, CA, population, 15,543, elevation, 4,186, Mother Janet and I had yet another fight, about the third one in a week. With my ultra-conservative mentality (and formerly politics), I persuaded Mother Janet (not any easy chore, as she is very immovable by manipulation or emotional needling herself, you can't even sell the woman a toothpick or a paper clip, not an open customer) to divert off of our present course on 395 by about 15 miles, as I was very concerned about our rather low gas level of a couple needles below an eighth of a tank, rather than her plan of forcing her way ahead to Reno, NV and tanking up there.

By her own admission (as well as my own personal tastes), she didn't like “big cities”, and wasn't “confident in her own ability to quickly locate a filling station in Reno, and get back on the road before “getting trapped in the city”. Yet she still wanted to push ahead anyway. Seemed like a bit of a reckless call to me, but the actual source of this fight was the fact that by the time we had wasted half an hour to forty-five minutes diverting to Susanville, and finding an all-night self-serve station, I was unable to get their flipping bank card reader to work after a ten minute struggle.

We pressed onward to Milford, CA (No MILF jokes please) population 167, elevation 4,222, where we did find a Union 76 station, with a working card reader, and we tanked up. Mother Janet was less mad at me, and we were temporarily both happier. Milford was about 20 miles Southeastward from Susanville, so yes we would have made it if we'd stayed the course, but I was fearful and afraid and had no way of knowing that in advance. Still, 60 miles from Susanville to Reno on less than an eighth of a tank still seemed like a “horrible and unreasonable” risk to me.

We then soon crossed into Bordertown, NV, basically what the name is, a tiny border town that is a bit of a truck stop place, with a small casino, convenience store, and a gas station. I get it, Nevada, bright flashy lights, gambling, exciting right? Not with Mother's dark personal history on the subject, which for her sake, I also shared her dim assessment on gambling. Where we did disagree was the matter of legality. I was for, she was against. Not because I love gambling, I personally despise how it's basically a back door tax on the poor and the desperate, and destroys many families, I don't think some of the operators are the best of people, but the horrible alternative is to keep it illegal and underground in the black market, where various organized crime syndicates without fail, will always move to fill that void. Nature abhors a power vacuum.

Having (wisely) before reaching Reno, NV, having found a filling station beforehand, we were then able to give Reno, and I-80 that partially merges with US Highway 395, a nice smooth sailing quick pass through in less than half an hour, thus skillfully avoiding the “big city trap”. It was awesome. We quickly saw the Wal-Mart and strip mall (not strip club, they have those there too) areas fade away to the bright flashy nonsense that makes up the Downtown, then before we knew it, we were sailing on out of the boring industrial and residential area of Sparks, and we were “outta” Washoe Valley.

Then we saw the sunrise break over the Humboldt River (which is the defining feature for the vast majority of I-80 in Nevada) as we pressed onward to Fernley, NV, which was where we needed to pitch the minivan southward onto the “Alternative” Nevada State Route 95 for our destination, a boarding house for our poor screaming, smelly tomcats. Here, we collected yet another steak and egg type meal at Wigwam Casino (yes Mother Janet and I hate casinos, but they're the only reliable source for decent traveler food when you're in a hurry). This time we had a polite disagreement on the food quality, which wasn't the best, I'll admit. I said a little bit “crummy”, she said “awful, disgusting”. I was seriously beginning to wonder about her losing her sense of taste, because we had used to be all about the food, that was a central part of what had forever bound us as a Mother-Son Team.

We reached Silver Springs, NV after following “Alternative” Nevada State Route 95 for about 15 miles or so, having passed the Quik Stop convenience store and Fernley High School's Football Stadium, and seeing a lot of the high desert beauty of Nevada at it's finest, rolling hills, open space, whirling sagebrush, a lot less gray clouds in the sky. Definitely a stark reversal from the endless pollen-allergy chokeout that is Western Oregon, speaking as a highly allergic, and sensitive fair skinned person.

Which brings me to the topic of sun safety, and Skin Cancer, also known as Melanoma, which took the life of my Grandfather Ralph Salisbury's esteemed pupil and famed TV screenplay engineer of A-Team, Renegade, and Silk Stalkings fame, Stephen J. Cannell (1941-2010). Mother Janet was also very quick to drub this lesson into me as well. If you're in Nevada (or any other high altitude place) where there's extra Ultraviolet Ray Exposure, you wear hats, sunglasses, long sleeve lightweight shirts,  and plenty of at least 30 SPF (Preferably 50 SPF), even in, and especially summertime. Because Skin Cancer is a one hit, one size fits all, affair. It's an equal opportunity offender that will barbecue pretty much anybody and everybody, regardless of race, skin type, or family history of Cancer.

We finally, finally, landed in Yerington, NV, at about 7 am, some 7 years after Mother Janet and I had visited here, “fallen in love” with the place, and made plans to move here “someday”, when we were done with caring for my Grandfather Norman, who by 2007, had been either directly in our care or a nursing home for two years, due to Alzheimer's, Diabetes, and Parkinson's, so therefore, between 2007 and 2014, we had either been caring for him (Norman passed in 2011) or waiting on his complex, controversial, and politically charged Estate in California to Settle from 2010 forward, after the State of Oregon booted us out of his house we had been living (with his permission, but nothing in writing, and legally ruled “incompetent” from being in a nursing home, so we had no relative or tenant rights to stay there, according to the Conservators assigned to his Estate), waiting on the colossally slow Estate Proceedings (That involved Oregon and California) to settle, meanwhile being mired in deep abject poverty and unable to travel much beyond our town and still be able to stay in our Public Housing.

Mother began by pulling off near the edge of town and finding a “bush to water”. Mother had to deal with this “leak” problem about 3-4 times during our run down California 139/US 395. Bladder Trouble, we'll just leave it at that, but it is a problem a lot of ladies my Mom's age (64) are stuck with, so naturally, I could not and did not think anything material or relevant of it.

Then we tried parking Bodie and Lynx (poor little things were completely fit to be tied after being stuck in a, thankfully not hot, car for 12 hours, we had to just grab them and go, and not meander about it) at the first “Pet Hotel”, we were sadly turned away, as it was run by a militant feminist “pet nazi” who absolutely under no circumstance would board our unfixed male cats, even though their individual kennels were distinctly compartmentalized, self-contained, and secure.

Thankfully, there was a smaller, more desperate for business “Pet Hotel” in town, that had plenty of secure space available, to separate our “feisty boys” from any females that might be there. Luckily, for our sake, it presently seemed to be mostly for dogs anyway. Yes, the whole Introvert=Cat Person/Extrovert=Dog Person seems to be the score of it, kind of old and tiring. You see, cats are “takers” of love, and Introverts want the chance to give some love, from being tired of Extrovert bullies kicking them around and taking them for granted all day. Extroverts, on the other hand, are often needy and emotionally insecure themselves, and feel a hot burning need for constant public approval, adulation, and to be the constant center of attention, and dogs are a lot better for that purpose, since they are “givers” of love, and make the Extrovert feel like “It's all about them”, which sadly, I once saw that same sound byte applied in a Casino Advertisement.

I suppose you might tell I'm a little biased against Extroverts, as they seem to have far less of an ethical problem with lying for purely selfish purposes, maybe a harsh and unfair accusation on my part, but Mother Janet got plumb tired of having the men in her life openly lie to her and flip her the bird while doing so, “Nanner, nanner, I can lie whenever I want, it's protected by my First Amendment Rights, make me tell the truth, you weak and stupid whelp”, and since I was the “last man” in her life, she sure as hell wouldn't have it from me.

I think her fierce determination to not yield on this matter has paid off to date, as I was a horrible, bordering pathological case as a teenager, bad behaviors=need for cover-up, yet still a rank amateur at actually being able to fool “and make them believe” as Adolf Hitler was able to. Hitler and Josef Stalin were kind of Introverts, there were some other political despots of the Extrovert type, such as Benito Mussolini. I suppose in their defense, Extroverts often fear being deceived and backstabbed by Introverts because of their more quiet, calm, and deliberate nature, so “if they're quiet and thinking, it must mean they're planning to screw me, right?” many befuddled Extroverts think. Would be nice if the two halves of the brain and the two halves of the American Political Apparatus meshed more peaceably. To each their own.

Well, enough of that pointless, distracting pop psychology/intellectual tangent that has no factual relevance with my story, on with the journey. After parking the cats, we spent about 2-3 days parked at the Copper Inn in Yerington, but had to leave, because it was now July 23, 2014, and Yerington's famed Night In The Country Music Festival was to be held that weekend, and Copper and both of the other Yerington Motels were booked solid. We decided to pass the weekend by doing a whirlwind tour of Eastern and Northern Nevada, to properly get a “real life, not pictures on the Internet feel for the place” before choosing on a town and a property to settle on. This was supposed to be for the rest of our lives, so we had to think and deliberate carefully.

We began by setting our sights upon Fallon, NV, the site of the fabled Top Gun Naval Air Station. I of course, foolishly started singing the dumb old “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin, from the classic 1986 film with Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, and Val Kilmer (now 31 years ago, time sure does fly, no pun intended). Mother of course, playfully slugged at my shoulder, and threatened to call me “Mr. Cruise” if I didn't lay off, so I zipped it, since to me, going through the rest of my time on this Earth labeled as a poster boy for Dianetics, was a fate worse than Death. I then crushed out my cigarette and took a lap from my Gatorade (Warning: System Toxicity Critical=Cancer=Die Early And Slowly). I was living proof that even at coming on 16 years clean & sober, human beings really are attracted to things that are bad for them. It is The Devil's World as Mother Janet says, a sentiment that even atheist and agnostic types might find some common ground on.

We collected our breakfast at the “Taco Hell” on US Highway 50, sort of erroneously dubbed “The Loneliest Highway In America”, but it's not really, then sailing on eastward out of Fallon. We actually did end up wrestling with at least a moderate amount of traffic on some parts of it. Our goal had been to do something productive while waiting on The Night Of The Country Festival back in Yerington to pass, by doing a proper tour of the state, to be 100% sure we wanted to settle in the Lake Lahontan/Mason Valley area of Western Nevada. You know, the scientific approach, weigh your options, factor in facts and information, eliminate the possibilities, then decide, don't rush full on into a purely emotional based decision without doing your homework, also known as lapping up the dipshit kool-aid (something the author of this material did shamelessly for the longest time, without any rhyme, reason, or ethical consideration).

We came upon Austin, NV, after about 80 miles of first going through the “flat”, which is rather less flat than the imagination and Popular Hollywood Stereotypes of Nevada would tell you that it is (confirmation bias=low information voters), then winding up through some hills and curves. We passed the old Stoke's Castle Hotel, up on the right, sort of overlooking Austin, built by Anson Phelps Stokes (1838-1913), in the year 1897, who was a banker and railroad and mining developer, that had built it as a summer home for his family, modeling it on what he had seen and idolized in the Roman Campagna in Italy.

Unfortunately, for all his troubles, the castle only saw a couple summers of use by his family, before they sought greener economic pastures elsewhere (a common human habit, you go where the money and jobs are, or end up freezing and starving) and it was left abandoned for 58 years, until rebought by Stoke's family cousin, Molly Maggee Knudsen in 1956. “The Castle” was eventually listed on the National Register Of Historic Places in 2003. It is currently held by HW Trapnell of Dunsmuir, CA (A small railroad town near Lake Shasta in Northern, CA, that me and Mother Janet had passed by in the Amtrak train during one of our trips in 2007) and Austin, NV. Enough on history, for now.

Austin, NV actually seemed to be surprisingly active, for a bitty town of about 200 people. They actually had a Post Office, a Tavern, a couple of convenience stores, and this will surprise you, two motels, and the beloved Toiyabe Cafe, named for the Toiyabe Mountain Range that Austin, NV sits in. Of course, you could make the case that the current uptick of human activity in Austin, NV was on account of a traveling caravan of bicyclists, perhaps some of which had made use of the local motels, as well as a couple of passing “hordes” of Vietnam Veteran Bikers (on Harley Motorbikes). We now set course for Eureka, NV.

The first 20 of the 60 total miles of the stretch from Austin to Eureka was a rather big sweeping curve turning southward, down winding hills dotted with sagebrush and juniper. Then the next 30 miles, leading into the final 10 miles going to Eureka, was mostly flat and straight, going on a slight rise elevation wise, and angling a bit Northeastward on the map, followed by a sharp turn and dip southward, going into Eureka itself. During that 30 mile straight stretch, Mother Janet found herself pulling off onto the shoulder frequently, to allow aggressive tailgaters (folks with type “A”, for “Asshole”, entitlement issues from California maybe?) to pass, rather than making the more socially popular, but likely foolish move of trying to placate their fragile egos by going faster. That is why the author of this material is very unexcited and fearful of driving at present writing, in spite of little kids thinking “he's a big fat loser”, in spite of intense pressure from family to “get a license already” after being “without” for 20 years (at this late age of 37).

Eureka, NV is what you call a clever “tourist trap” of a town of about 600 people (as of 2010, though is now estimated to be closer to 1,000), being the only town of any real size in the 200 total miles between Fallon and Ely on US Highway 50. It's got an old fashioned style brick Post Office and a lot of old-timey, old-west kind of storefronts. Once upon a time, during the 1880's, it had been a bustling mining mecca of about 10,000 people (which is closer to the size of town I'm from, Coos Bay, OR) but as was typical of a mining town, once the ore was gone, so were the jobs and the people, don't you just really love modern industrialized society? I think on some terms, American Humans still are a bit of a hunter-gatherer society (which preceded the Agricultural Age), only they hunt and gather dollar bills and paper paychecks, since there's no more buffalo meat to hunt or wild berries to gather. Eureka, also at a rather high elevation of 6,485 feet, has summers that are often in the 80's during the day, and the 40's at night, as a result of high elevation. It is also quite the popular spot for local campers and fly fishermen, as well as the “jump off” point for both the Ruby Valley and Monitor Valley Scenic Highways. We then set forth for Ely, NV, about another 60 miles eastward from Eureka.

We rolled on southward out of the strange little bottle neck valley that Eureka sits in, then started a somewhat squiggly, but still generally straight rise back up some hills of that fabled orange-y yellow Nevada dirt, dotted in more pines and junipers. As we cleared the rise in the mountains and began descending in an almost straight shot toward Ely, Mother Janet and I decided to take about a 10-15 minute side junket to the little town of Ruth, NV, for another history lesson.

Ruth, NV, with a present day population of 440, began in 1903 as a settlement for the workers of the White Pine Copper Mining Company. Three years later, in 1906, the Northern Nevada Railway project was launched, thus driving a spike in local copper production at Ruth. Six years later in 1912, a bad explosion in the mine took the lives of ten people. Some would say “boo hoo, what an awful tragedy” while others would say “suck it up buttercup, mining's a big risk, but the rewards are great”. The author of this material does not wish to insensitively denigrate the memory of the people who were killed, or their families, if he has not already done so, but he was merely trying to illustrate the simple and abject fact, however insensitive it might be, that throughout human history, that economic insecurity has been a hard driving force in a lot of wild reckless risk taking behavior, all in the name of acquiring more Benjamins to better keep a roof over one's head and food in their families bellies, under most dire and desperate circumstances.

More on the subject of mining labor being abused by, and having bargaining rights stripped by company management, Ruth became the site of a hotly contested labor dispute, in 1919, when no fewer than 150 miners walked off the job in demand of better wages. Such nerve of those men, didn't they know to mind their manners and their tongue, and know their place in society, and always obey company management without question? Kidding. The author of this material has not much love for these predatory vulture capitalists that always do far more to wreck the communities that they claim to build up, than what they initially promise to investors and stockholders when scrounging for start-up funds. The peak of Ruth's population was about at 2,300 people in 1928, the year the Great Depression (the old one, not the new one of 2008) began. In 1933, after the Great Depression officially ended, Nevada Consolidated Copper Company (which had previously gobbled up White Pine Coppper Company) was then bought out by Kennecott Copper Corporation. The mines in Ruth would slug on at a slow tick, never really being completely closed, but not really being profitable enough to support the community for the next 22 years. This hellish economic limbo finally ended in 1955, when the settlement houses were bought up by the John W Galbreath Company, who then turned around and sold the company houses to the miners that had been renting them.

In turn, apparently they actually had moved these rather small houses (it can be done, but is generally very difficult, sometimes dangerous, and always expensive) two miles to the north to make way for the expansion of the Deep Ruth Mine, which would remain open at a moderately sustainable pace until closing it's doors in 1978, thus leading to the decline of the town itself, and the closure of their grade school in 1986 (I recall getting displaced to a different school as a kindergartener for that same reason, back in 1986, a little town called Lakeside, OR, that was starting to backslide on their timber industry). BHP Nevada Railroad would then attempt to re-open the mine for three short years, starting in 1996, but being forced to fold in 1999. It was then taken over by the Quadra FNX Mining Corporation in 2004, and remains open to this day. On a couple of interesting side notes, Ruth, NV was the inspiration for Stephen King's novel Desperation, and was known to have been dosed with a small amount of rads in the 1950's, during the Atomic Weapons Testing Program, run from the 1950's-1990's by the Atomic Energy Commission (Under management by US Department Of Energy), at the Area 51 test site down in Nye County, everything from about 1962 to 1963 forced underground because of public outcry over worker risk and safety.

With that history lesson over, we pressed forth into Ely, NV in search of a late lunch and some more supplies for the road. After getting some lunch at a Chinese restaurant, we collected some supplies at this crummy little discount department store, where I had this crazy nazi shopkeeper lady actually accuse me of trying to steal a batch of old (15-20 years old) and overpriced ($10 each) DVD's. She actually physically kept following around my shopping cart like a hound dog, and would not stop until I handed them over to her for her personal safekeeping at the check stand. Such hostile paranoia. I suppose because I never smile, don't make eye contact, never initiate small talk, don't shave or shower (not because I enjoy being filthy, but because I am too far out of it mentally to remember to care for myself in that way), and have a rotten scummy attitude, I suppose people in general are inclined to be scared of, and not like or trust me very much, automatically assume the worst, and treat me as a liar and a criminal, even my own family, if only I could bring myself to care emotionally, but hard to do if you suffer from depression and/or lack of ethics and empathy. If only I could care.

Moving along, we tanked up at a Union 76 Station (much needed after a 200 mile straight run with no fill-ups) and set course for the Utah bordertown of Baker, NV and Garrison, UT, with the goal of previewing, but not doing a full visit of, the new Great Basin National Park near the Nevada-Utah State Border. Anyhow, we really did sort of want to see Great Basin National Park, but didn't feel we could afford the time or the energy, as we were trying to stay on track for getting back to our spot we were planning on moving to back in Western Nevada. However, we did follow Nevada State Route 487 along the backside of Wheeler Peak, the central defining feature of the park, and got ourselves a good gist and scope of what was there, without having to commit ourselves for an all day trip, with 2 hours driving in and out each way, which was the kind of big time waste we were trying to avoid. We stopped at Baker, NV to drink some Powerade (yes, I know, very good for us, I think it was making us sick, too much magnesium, potassium, and chemical dyes), and check our map.

Mother Janet then took a bold risk, at least for her, and ventured into Utah, also known as Deseret or Mormonland, having been somewhat wary of LDS Fundamentalist types, as back in 1984, when she was at the tail end of visiting sci-fi conventions in the Southwest, and still trying to get herself published (a very hard thing to do in her day, and the day of Roger Zelazny back in the 1960's), she had a couple of those LDS Fundamentalist types follow her all the way home to Lakeside, OR from a convention in Denver, CO, some 1,350 miles apart (that's some dedication, about 21 hours, or 2-3 days total drive time, just to expand their harem by 1), with the dark and sinister objective of abducting her for their little cult, even with a 4 year old me and 10 year old Brother Connor there. Suffice to say, Mother Janet was somewhat unfairly suspicious of Mormons after that, as was the author of this material. For what it was worth, we didn't care about fair or accurate, so much as protecting ourselves and covering our behinds. If that needlessly hurt, offended, irritated, or made to be angry, I am sorry. To all the good men and women of the LDS, who are not part of the fundamentalist cult, I am sorry, I apologize for the both of us, from the bottom of my heart.

Anyway, the original purpose of cutting into Utah was so that we could take a slightly different route to get back to the US Highway 93 that ran through Ely, where we had previously come from, try to mix things up a bit. So we continued following Nevada State Route 487 Southeastward from Baker, about 6 miles over the Utah State Line where it becomes Utah State Route 21 temporarily before entering Garrison, UT. We then turned northward onto Utah State Route 159, taking note of distant mountains and bright green, fresh sagebrush, going about 6 miles back north again to the combined US Highway 50 and US Highway 6 Route (Highway 6 winds it's way clear down to Tonopah, NV, about 170 miles Southwest from Ely, a drive intended to be two and a half hours, that Mother Janet and I once did in slightly over an hour, about half that time, in pursuit of an AA meeting in Ely that had been canceled due to lack of interest, or basically the whole town relapsing, back in 2007, disappointing, to put in all that effort for nothing, yet somehow, that effort kept us sober, that's what counts), then we turned westward back onto the US 50-6 and back into Nevada. It was now a bit after 5 pm, but the air was starting to get a bit hazy, due to some planned Forest Service slash burns and other unplanned fires, as well as Nevada's famed Dust Devils, which are basically micro tornadoes that are full of desert sand and dust. We then followed the US Route 50-6 back in a Northwestward arc around Windy Peak and the tiny community of Osceola (not to be mixed up with the one in Florida), and rejoined the US Highway 93, going south, at Major's Place, a little before 6 pm, with about two more hours of daylight to go.

Our goal for that evening was the town of Pioche, NV, a quaint little mountain foothill “straight off of a postcard” historical village of about 1,000 residents. We had just wanted to see it before it got totally dark, we had no designs on staying there, as we did not expect to be able to find quick or affordable lodgings there, being a bit of an isolated little “tourist trap” of a town. Pioche, NV was about 70 miles south of Major's Place on US Highway 93, about 90 miles total south from Ely, so we had roughly about two hours to reasonably cover 70 miles before darkness set in.

We negotiated those 70 miles southward with the sun breaking away on the mountains to the west and green sagebrush filled open rangeland to the east. It was nothing short of a fabulous Nevada Sunsetter scene, worthy of many stylish Saloon decorating Old West paintings, perhaps would both be more artful and socially tasteful than sallow faced pimpled bordello prostitutes and scarred up vicious looking battle hardened gunslingers and outlaws, which is what you usually get in one of those Old West saloons (although I'll admit that maybe I'm unfairly reverse culturally stereotyped, coming from a family of educated progressives from the Midwest, who care little for primitive Western and Southern people who aren't educated, cultured, or civilly respectful, also known as stinking white savages in Red Republican war paint).

Moving along, here's a quick history refresher on Pioche, Nevada. Pioche, which sits at an elevation of 6,060 feet, began in 1864, as the American Civil War was nearing it's climax, when local white settlers here had tried in vain to make use of the natural mountain backdrop to establish a silver mining industry here, but their efforts were beset by the local Native American peoples (go figure, you go trying to use someone else's land for selfish imperialistic colonial purposes, without either asking permission or offering any sort of financial compensation, and the Natives get kind of restless and pissed off, go figure), so the settlers were forced to withdraw for four years until 1868, when the US Army intervened and drove them off. “Economic Progress, Get It? Always Forward, Never Back, Even If It's Right On The Backs Of The Weak, Unprotected, And Underprivileged.” Capital Abhors Labor For It's Very Existence. It Cannot Personally Stand It, But Needs It For It's Own Survival, Thus Is “Forced” Into An Abusive “Love-Hate” Relationship With It. Companies Matter. People, Not So Much. If You Can Simply Bring Yourself To Disregard People As Policy, You Can Go Big Places In The Corporate World.

Anyhow, in 1869, when the Army finally “properly pacified” the town for the poor white capitalists, it was dubbed Pioche for the name of it's number one private benefactor, Francois Louis Alfred Pioche (Born 1818 in Paris, Died Unknown), a French born, former San Francisco, CA resident who was an investor and land speculator. Pioche was highly rumored to be in a homosexual relationship with his business partner, LL Robinson, at a time when the hysteria and open hostility toward “mortally sinful men of a certain sexual persuasion” could quickly and easily be met with a zealously religious and murdering lynch mob, or also a witch trial followed by burning of “gays as kindling” along with the “witches” tied at the stake, though this practice had been much more common during the actual Salem Witch Trial Days, some 150 years earlier in the late 1600's. Apparently, that's all gay men were worth in that particular social context, was “not even worth the rope and stake” of tying a “real witch”. So the history of Pioche's Death and Personal Life, seem to have been lost. There lies a man who was good at securing his Privacy, not out of personal choice, but necessity for his own survival. (Not-So-Secret Update: In spite of owning several high end properties in the San Francisco Bay Area, Francois LA Pioche committed suicide by gun in 1872 when he realized he had overextended his credit beyond the point of no return and had no means of paying it off, a lesson to be learned about the reckless borrowing on modern day credit cards).

Pioche had also earned a well deserved reputation as one of the bloodiest, if not the bloodiest town of the Old West, as there were no less than 72 confirmed killings by gunshot until the first “natural death” was recorded (an alcohol induced liver cancer perhaps?). The legend was then forever cemented in history by the creation of the Boot Hill Cemetery, also a town in the Wild Arms 3 Video Game by Sony (2002), which Mother Janet and I were playing recently. It's remoteness and isolation in a long narrow mountain valley in Far Eastern Nevada made Pioche both an easy target for Native American raiding parties and a ready playground for local outlaws and redneck ruffians to freely run amok with little interference from law enforcement. Much like some parts of Nevada presently still are.

On an interesting side note, US Highway 93 was routed around the edge of Pioche, with Nevada State Route 321 now being the main corridor, maybe perhaps to discourage local outlaws and redneck ruffians going rip roaring drunk and too fast on 93 from tearing up the town. “Yee-Haw! Vroom, Vroom, Vroom!”. Why? Because they can. Also, former US Republican President Herbert Hoover (for which the Las Vegas Dam is named) overnighted at the historic (but no longer in business as a hotel) Mountain View Hotel, while serving as President in 1930. Just as former US Republican President And General Ulysses S Grant once decamped at Grant's Pass (Or Grant's Ass, Oh By The Way, Does Anybody Know Trump's Gastroenterologist That Gave Him A Glowing Review, In Spite Of A Steady Diet Of Taco Bowls, Burgers, And Pizzas?) Oregon during the Civil War while visiting the Western Union Army Detachment, thus giving a name for that funky spot on I-5 that suddenly and violently bends eastward on the Rogue River (and yes, a LOT of people have died crashing their cars there). On a final note, Pioche is also the County Seat of Lincoln County.

So as darkness now faded over Pioche, we came upon Panaca, NV, population 960, elevation 4,729, or rather the turnoff to it on Nevada State Route 319. Panaca, NV had originally began in 1864, the same year that Nevada gained statehood. It was originally a Mormon Settlement that had been part of Washington County in Utah, before the 1866 Congress had redistricted (now known as gerrymandering) Panaca into Nevada territory, so as to better draw a straight line on their border. Panaca comes from the Paiute Tribe word “pan-nuk-ker”, which is money, wealth, and metals. William Hamblin, the local LDS Missionary assigned to the Paiute Tribe there in Lincoln County, staked and claimed the nearby Pannacker Ledge as a silver mine.

Unlike the silver mine at Pioche, this one was not a war zone, or a hotly and violently contested claim like so many others were, as the relatively nascent Mormon Church under Brigham Young, was very shrewd both politically and business wise, and unlike regular dumb greedy white settlers, they were quick to figure out that if they used their religion to pacify the local Native tribes, rather than making war with them, they could forge a strategic alliance with them, and use them judiciously to form solid defensive lines against outsiders and competing business interests.

In older times, Panaca operated a Coke Oven to supply charcoal for the ore smelters in nearby Buillionville, which dried up and died, like so many other Old West Ghost Towns that were based solely around mining, but in modern times they are basically an agricultural town. It is also notable that they are a dry town (no alcohol sales allowed, much like a certain small religious town near Salem in Oregon, called Monmouth, though their city council finally voted down 148 long years of prohibition in 2002, business reasons I guess, there will always be a certain segment of the population that will kick and fuss without their liquor, same goes for the evil cancer causing brown weed known as tobacco) and they and Boulder City, near Las Vegas, are the only two towns in all of Nevada that have a legal moratorium on gambling, in spite of it being the State of Nevada's modern central industry. No sin will be legally sanctioned in this town, however one might argue, whatever happens behind closed doors is nobody's business (so long as it doesn't involve minors or parties that haven't consented, including, but not limited to livestock).

Moving along, we sought out Caliente, NV, population 1,141, elevation 4,406, about 10 miles south from there, to hopefully quickly acquire lodgings for the evening, so that we could get a decently early start the next day, as we were planning on dipping about another 45 miles Southwest, before turning around and doubling back toward Ely on a different route, you know, in the name of variety and mixing things up.

We rolled in a little after 8 pm, and found the Mull's Midway Motel, which was about down to their last two rooms (lucky us), as them and the other two motels in Caliente, the Shady Motel, and the Rainbow Canyon Motel were well booked up in advance of a hot air balloon festival being held in Mesquite, NV that weekend, even though Mesquite was 140 miles, or about a two and a half hour drive away down on I-15. It should be duly noted that Country Music and Hot Air Balloons are a very big fucking deal in Nevada, and don't you forget it.

The layout of our motel room at Mull's Midway Motel seemed a little odd, as they usually have both beds together in one spot, for the sake of building economics and convenience, but in this one, Mom's bed was up toward the front door, then there was a little storage cabinet followed up by a little kitchenette area (with it's own small TV), then past that was my bed, in a separate room, which then led to a walk-in closet, and then the bathroom, with my sleeping area having it's own cabinet and small TV set. Now was that an odd and funky layout or what?

As the town was the kind of place that shuts right down along with the sun, all the restaurants were shut, but we were still hungry. Luckily, Mom was able to locate a convenience store/deli type place that was open a bit later into the evening, and brought me back a basket of fried chicken, shrimp and french fries (yes high cholesterol recipe for heart attack city). Then I watched a little bit of Fox News (just before they completely lost their fucking minds with the rise of Trumpism), indulged in some nice ripe pesticide laced menthol cigarettes, out in the car of course, I was a responsible smoker, though a lot of them are lazy, selfish, rebellious, defiant and don't seem to care much about other people (ignorant of sensitivities in others, may I please step on your toes a little harder till they crack?), and crashed. Was I awful and politically incorrect or what? Or maybe just a stupid, undisciplined hedonistic pig who likes things that are bad for him. If only the latter, welcome to about 80% of the rest of America.

Anyhow, the next morning we got our usual “Old West” traveler's fare, steak and eggs at the Knotty Pine Restaurant, one of about three or four local options for eateries, including that other place down the street where Mother Janet had found me that tasty cholesterol trap the night before. We saw a young, working class father depositing some quarters in the slot machine behind us (better get used to it, the klink-klink, boom-boom, flash-flash, and bling-bling are commonplace in Nevada restaurants and convenience stores), hopefully not all of the family's rent or heating money. After we filled our personal “tanks” (I think I again ordered a milkshake or sundae type item, breakfast of champions, sure beats a Bloody Mary, and much less likely to get you arrested), we tanked up the minivan at the nearby Sinclair Station, as well as getting replacement sunglasses for the ones we accidentally wrecked the day before (a lot of shit gets lost and/or broken while traveling, when pressed for time, caution and prudence are often sacrificed for expediency, no matter how careful we might be while living at home).

A few quick notes of history on Caliente before leaving, it was named that word, which is Spanish for the nearby Caliente (Hot) Hot Springs. At the height of the Roaring 1920's (Three one term Republican Presidents in a row, including Hoover Dam's own Herbert Hoover), when their train depot was built in 1923, the town's population had grown to over 5,000 residents, but had collapsed clear back to about 970 by 1940, followed by their all-time low of 792 by 1950, the year Mother Janet was born. The train depot no longer serves trains, but is now used to house some Government Offices and a Historical Museum, the seat of Lincoln County being back in Pioche (Boot Hill) to the north.

On a bit more of a controversial note, yes, I just love being the turd in the punch bowl, “Well, I'll Just Say”, Caliente is home to a Youth Detention Center, which according to the NV.GOV site, is used just as much for correction and rehabilitation as for incarceration, where inmates practice journaling (a too awesome skill) and cognitive modification therapy before being released, as opposed to punching license plates, peeling potatoes, making bricks, or some other humility building boring tedious shit work. Also, Caliente was an epicenter of scandal involving the disturbing and immensely perverse case involving Warren Jeffs (of the notorious old Mormon Jeffs family) and the FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints) Church when the case broke the news waves back in 2005. The former Hot Springs Motel, which of course was owned and operated by local FLDS Members, was the site of several forced, as in NOT consensual, “he saw, so he begat, and therefore claimed” marriages between older men and underaged (pre-teen in some cases) girls.

The case was effectively “slam dunked” in 2011, when sickened jurors heard audiotape of Jeffs consummating (raping) his 12 year old bride, as well as forcibly fondling a couple of Mormon Altar Boys in the bathroom. He was ultimately charged, tried and convicted on sex abuse charges in Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and also Texas, where an FLDS enclave containing more child brides was raided by Law Enforcement, sentenced to 20 years plus (not to) Life Imprisonment, as well as receiving charges for using his leadership role as president of the FLDS to embezzle large sums of cash and high ticket gifts from his followers, and then persuading his poorer and more cash-strapped followers to engage in Food Stamp and Welfare Fraud, to replace what he stole from them, all because it was “God's Will” to steal Government Benefits in the name of The Church. It's crooked, deceitful, greedy, short sighted crap like this that unfairly gives all Red State people a bad name with the Liberals and Democrat Elites that live in the coastal states.

Moving right on along, with new sunglasses, bottles of Powerade, and a full gas tank in hand, we set course for Alamo, NV, about 40 miles Southwest from Caliente on US Highway 93. Alamo, NV, population 1,080, elevation 3,449. Alamo is also the Spanish Word for the Poplar Tree, which is known to be present in the area. Alamo, NV, not to be confused with the more historically and pop culture popular site in Texas where legendary pioneer and statesman Davy Crockett (1788-1838) fell in battle at age 50. What a glorious and honorable way for it to all end, sure beats Cancer with a stick.

The author of this material grew up with rednecks who also sought to end him in this fashion for being a sissy boy wuss. Why? Because he made them very mad and annoyed by simply existing. Where I grew up, when I grew up, if you were a young lad, if someone or something annoyed you, pissed you off, or otherwise made you feel bad, you were automatically entitled to beat it up and throw it away, regardless of the law, rules, or social consequences. Nature, and humanity, apparently, abhor weakness, regardless of the reason. Survival of only the fittest and strongest, smart ain't got nothing to do with it. Lord Of The Flies, Buzz, Buzz.

As for Alamo itself, basically a ranching community, spread kind of sparsely across the Pahranagat Valley. The elevation here, being about 2,500 whole feet lower, makes it a bit drier and hotter here, more typical of the Las Vegas/Mesquite/Littlefield, AZ/St George, UT run we took on the I-15 during our Great Southwest Adventure of 2001, where we hit California (the Sierra Part), Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, and returned by way of Wyoming (passed Grand Teton National Park), a tiny Southwest corner of Montana (which was basically all Yellowstone National Park), and Idaho, making sure to ditch I-84 before reaching Boise, as Mother Janet simply DID NOT like big cities, nor does the author of this material. It has it's own Sinclair Gas Station, complete with the cute little turtle on the sign. Somewhat reminds me a bit of Myrtle Point, OR, where the author of this material spent about six months as a six year old in 1986, while Mother Janet served as assistant editor at the Myrtle Point Herald.

After passing that Sinclair Station by a mile or so, we found a spot with an amply wide shoulder to pull off, and reversed course back northward, passing back through Ash Springs and Crystal Springs again (minor nothingburger, by Eugene, OR standards, ghost towns). We then turned northward onto Nevada State Route 318, bypassing the famed “Extraterrestrial Highway”, also known as Nevada State Route 375, heading Southwest to Rachel (Yes, the fabled little hamlet of Area 51 fame, which was also the fictional backdrop of the Blacksite Area 51 game by Midway, that the author played back in 2007, on XBOX 360), Warm Springs, and Tonopah. If we hadn't had prior plans to go north, it would have made sense to return to Yerington this way, but we did, have prior plans, and we did not, go back that way, that was. Maybe next time, assuming there will be a next time. It is foolish and arrogant to assume something as abstract and distant as that. We live in a nuclear age, a whole world can be undone with a button push.

We pressed northward on Nevada State Route 318, passing through Hiko, NV, population 120, elevation 3,869, about 6 miles north from the Crystal Springs junction with Nevada State Route 375 and US Highway 93. Hiko is a small agrarian community, nestled in the Tonopah Basin, which is a transitional area between the Mojave Desert and Great Basin Regions, which once upon a time, during it's silver mining heyday of the 1860's, had been the County Seat of Lincoln County, before being replaced by Pioche, it's present day seat, in 1871, oddly the the year before Francois LA Pioche killed himself for financial reasons. Not much remains of the old town, other than it's original cemetery, the old ore processing mill, and a derelict brick building that had been their General Store.

We then proceeded about 80 long, desolate miles northward on Nevada State Route 318, it was good that we had tanked up on gas in Caliente that morning, for that reason, this actually seemed to us, way more “desolate” than “America's Loneliest” US Highway 50 was. After weaving through some low-slung, rocky, and tumbleweed filled canyons after passing Hiko earlier, as well as spending about 15-20 minutes stuck behind some slow moving semi-trucks and Winnebagos (this much waiting would kill Uncle, but in my experience, about eighty percent of life is waiting, and the other twenty percent action, not the other way around, those who cannot wait are just fit to be tied), the terrain started to open up again, and after a series of alternating drops and rises, we eventually crossed from Lincoln County back into White Pine County, the County with Ely in it, where we had been the day before.

About halfway through this 80 mile jog, we stopped at the Wayne E Kirch Wildlife Management Area, near Shingle Peak to the east, which lucky for us, just so happened to have restrooms, as we were starting to be in need at that point. Since it seemed to be “the only place with a restroom” in that whole 80 mile stretch, we had to wait our turn, in spite of there being three or four different sets of restrooms. As we waited our turn, I indulged in some more Powerade and Menthol Cigarettes (Shame, Shame) and watched a passing assortment of young couples, families with kids, and grubby looking truckers (I “are” a grubby person too, not judging), as well as taking note of a scary and vicious looking Rattlesnake Warning Sign, taking care to not go sticking my hands into wastebaskets or around corners for hoots and giggles, as well as seeing an actual real Nevada Dust Devil (small dirt tornado) brewing on the western horizon.

After negotiating the second stretch of 40 miles, where the tumbleweed canyons had finally given way to rolling high desert hills of pinion pine and juniper, we came upon Lund, NV, population 280, elevation 5,580, about 10 miles south from the junction with US Highway 6, which merges with US Highway 50 going into Utah. Lund was named for Anthon H Lund (1844-1921), a Danish Immigrant who came to the US when he was 12, with his maternal grandmother, as his mother had died when he was young, and his father was previously occupied in a War in Germany, somehow ended up being adopted and raised by the Latter Day Saints Church, and went from being a simple telegraph operator for Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, to becoming a high level Priest and Councilor in the Church.

Much to his credit, Anthon Lund was one of the few high level Mormon men to keep a singular, monogamous wife, at a time when polygamy (the controversial, and now illegal practice of taking multiple, or also known as plural wives) was the norm and official Church policy. The land that comprises the town of Lund was granted to the Church by the US Government in exchange for their property seizures in the 1887 Edmunds-Tucker Act, which sought to ban the practice of polygamy and reclaim some lands that had been taken either by fraud, or open warfare with the US Army, during the territory skirmishes that had happened during the early expansionist phase of the Church under Brigham Young, some 20 years earlier. The Latter Day Saints Church still maintains a full Ward (a community unit) in Lund, as of present writing.

After driving slowly (and carefully) through the tiny hamlet of Lund, obeying their posted 25 mile per hour traffic limit, as Mother Janet still retained a touch of her old “Mormonphobia” from her incident of nearly being abducted by a couple of Fundamentalist Mormon Missionaries back in Lakeside in 1984, and did not wish for us to be stopped or accosted by any “Weird Fundamentalist” Mormon Policemen, we put Lund into our rear view mirror and did not look back.

We made way to return to Ely, NV, following Nevada State Route 318 the last 10 miles from Lund, and merging eastward onto US Highway 6, winding our way up and down some more rolling high desert hills of pinion pine and juniper, and passing a couple of old sun faded billboards for the local brothels in Ely. We dropped into Ely long enough to eat, and we tanked up at a Union 76 Station, then got back onto US Highway 93, going northward to McGill, NV, about 10 miles north of Ely.

McGill, NV, population 1,148, elevation 6,204, began as a cattle ranch, in the Steptoe Valley, established by John Cowger who acquired water rights there in 1872. In 1886, Cowger was bought out by land speculators William Lyons and William McGill, and in 1891, a Post Office was built there, the place now known as McGill Ranch. In 1906, the regional copper mining company, Nevada Consolidated Copper and the local copper mining company, Cumberland and Ely Mining Corporation formed a strategic partnership to make use of the local water source as a coolant for their planned smelter operation, thus forming the Steptoe Valley Smelting and Mining Company.

That year, about 9 miles of aqueducts were built to pipe water from Duck Creek into the smelter, and the smelter construction was completed in 1908. The town was initially called “Smelter” for the smelter operation, before taking the name McGill, for the McGill Ranch that it had been built on. Copper Production in McGill went into full boom mode starting in 1910, when the town grew from about 1,000 residents, up to 2,000, then from 2,000 to about 3,000 in 1920. In 1932, with Copper Production beginning to lag a bit and lose steam, the Steptoe Valley Smelting and Mining Company operation was bought out by Kennecott Utah Mining Corporation, along with the rest of Nevada Consolidated Copper that had owned it.

The population and Copper Production would mostly hold steady at a small trickle for the next 50 years, until 1983, when the bottom fell out of the copper market and ore quality also took a sharp nosedive, Kennecott Utah Mining Corporation made the tactical decision to both close and demolish the mine, so as to not waste any more company time or resources in continuing to work a mine that had long since played out. As the Kennecott Mine was largely the main employer in McGill, about two-thirds of the 3,000 packed up and left when their jobs were gone, bringing McGill's population back to it's present level, and thus returning it back to it's more agricultural roots.

With McGill, and another chunk of history behind us, we continued northward up US Highway 93. The area here was much like the mountain ringed, sagebrush filled rangeland we had traversed on our way down to Pioche, the night before, but being further north, there was somewhat less dirt and more greenery and in spite of being August, some rather small foggy unmelted snow caps in the mountains there. On the west side of US Highway 93, was Northern Nevada's fabled Ruby Mountain Range, something Mother Janet and I had seen briefly from the other direction in Elko, back on our 2007 visit.

Cherry Creek, NV population 72, elevation 6,130, about 30 miles north of McGill, in Steptoe Valley, on US Highway 93, for all intents and purposes, could presently be classified as a Ghost Town though it was being kept as a State Park when we stopped briefly to visit, as a bit of a “make-up exercise” for not visiting the Great Basin National Park the day before. It sits on White Pine County Road 21, which had formerly been Nevada State Route 489, and formerly Nevada State Route 35, until about 1993, when the State abdicated maintenance jurisdiction of the road to White Pine County. Cherry Creek is about 8 miles west from US Highway 93.

The reason I even stop to mention Cherry Creek, NV, is that as small as it might be today, it had once been something much larger and greater 150 years ago. Cherry Creek is nestled into the foothills of the Cherry Creek Range to the west and faces the Schell Creek Range to the east, which are the defining borders of the long, narrow Steptoe Valley. The old Pony Express route used to run through Egan Canyon, a few miles south of Cherry Creek. In the early 1860's, early settlers found the area to be ripe with multiple gold and silver deposits. The community was officially founded in 1872, when two prospectors from the nearby Egan Canyon, staked claim to the “Tea Cup” Deposits, which were rich with both gold and silver, the population grew to 400 residents by the next year. However, by the next year after that, 1874, a lot of the original claims from just two years before were already beginning to dry up, and a lot of the mines and ore processing mills went with them, though the town managed to slog along on life support for about six years, until hitting it's second, and very humongous boom in the year 1880.

By 1882, having located several million dollar's worth gold and silver deposits, the population of the town had mysteriously exploded to 7,800 residents, which was nearly twenty times it's original figure of 400, although historical and census records kept at the time (this was also about the time the Government began it's modern day practice of census taking and population tracking) had suggested about 6,000, or about three-fourths of that number were temporary transient (not a nice word, but that's what they were) mine workers that had come in from out-of-state, not local people. Even so, a rather sizable coterie of side businesses, including no fewer than 20 saloons, several restaurants, a livery stable, a blacksmith's shop, a Wells Fargo Telegraph Station, and a stagecoach line running west to Toana over in Elko County, had cropped up in the wake of this new big mining boom.

However in 1883, just one short year later, the town once again hit a major hardship with a second and more momentous economic crash. This new momentous economic crash proved to be a swift and decisive death blow to both the town's population levels and it's core economic resources, which had been mining and little else, all the previously mentioned side businesses had been solely dependent on there being mining activity in the area, so naturally, when the mining went, so did the side businesses, as the miners were basically their only customers. The second, and most decisive collapse of Cherry Creek was capped off in 1888, when a fire had broken out and gutted most of the downtown area and it's businesses.

By the time the next Census was taken in 1890, the town's population was logged at being a mere 350 residents, actually 50 heads less than what had been Cherry Creek's starting figure in 1872, just 18 years before. The reason I even stop to mention, what are otherwise boring population figures for Cherry Creek, is to best illustrate the typical “boom and bust” cycle of mining towns, how the populations of those places are even more ethereal and volatile than other forms of resource extraction based economy, such as timber, fishing, and agriculture, with fossil fuels running maybe a close second to mining, as far as being a “here today, gone tomorrow” flash in the pan type of industry.

Rebuilding efforts in Cherry Creek were again slowed by two more minor fires in the business district in 1901 and 1904. However, the next year in 1905, Cherry Creek once again was spurred by a bit of renewal and regrowth, when new gold and silver deposits were discovered, but they were very small and few between, and only at best comparable to the little boom of 1872, as opposed to the much bigger one that came in 1880. Cherry Creek would patiently slug along at a snail's pace for about another 40 years until the post World War II years of the late 1940's, maintaining a few hundred residents, and very small, but steady ore production.

Cherry Creek has been in steady decline in the seventy years since, though it still once in a blue moon will continue to stir the interest of the local mining companies, but it is now clear at this point in time that ore production will most likely not again reach 1880's levels in my lifetime. It's total production level since 1872 is estimated to be around $20 million dollars, but the bulk of that activity occurred around the two big boom years of 1872 and 1880, with the minor “trickle down” (I hate trickle down economics) starting in 1905. Up until as recently as 2010, the old Barrel Saloon remained open as the “local watering hole”, however it too had to adjust with the slowing times, and finally folded after having been around for about 130 years. A museum, an old single room schoolhouse, and the long shuttered Cherry Creek Barrel Saloon are still open for tourism (so far as I know in 2014), and maintained by the Nevada State Park System.

Now moving along toward Currie, NV. We went about 15 miles Northeast from the Cherry Creek turnoff on the main US Highway 93, until reaching our first junction, where we stayed with the  main US Highway 93, going Northwest, bypassing the alternative US Highway 93 that was a more direct route to the ghost town of Cobre and West Wendover on the Utah border off to the Northeast. From there, we went 12 miles north to Currie, in which time, the terrain became a lot more wide open after having left the Steptoe Valley at the junction.

As for Currie, there's not a whole lot to say about it, other than that it presently holds about 20 total residents, two of it's former residents who now live in Utah, happen to own the little rundown downtown area, and are looking to sell, but it's somewhat of a “closed deal”, and you won't find it on Zillow or Trulia. Though the town sure seems dead, and probably should be classified a ghost town like Cobre (Spanish for Copper) on the Alt 93, it still has a Northern Nevada Railway Depot (and highway crossing, with signals and crossbars), Currie Elementary School, in operation by Elko County School District, a Nevada Department Of Transportation building and the Lear Ranch.

Currie was named for a rancher by the name of Joseph Currie, who built his ranch there in 1885. The big heyday of Currie, and the ghost town of Cobre on the Alt 93, was from about 1906 to 1941 when the rail line served roughly 4.6 million passengers, when the McGill-Ely area copper mining operation first hit pay dirt in 1906. However, when Kennecott Utah shuttered and demolished the Ely mine in 1983, the McGill smelter went with it, then service to Cobre, whose Post Office had shut after 50 years of service in 1956 stopped, then service to Currie was terminated, literally the next day. Suffice to say, mining seems to be a very big fucking deal in Nevada, at least the northern part of it. Without it, nothing else much seems to be able to go.

Moving along, we passed the first turnoff going west, then took the second one, the first being Nevada State Route 229, which turned south and joined up with Nevada State Route 767, which led to Ruby Valley and Shanty Town, the second one that we took west, being Nevada State Route 232, then we managed to spot the famous Hole In The Mountain natural landmark in the Ruby Mountains from   Nevada State Route 232, about 3 miles out from it. Hole In The Mountain is a spot at 11,311 feet in the East Humboldt Range, near the Elko-Wells area, where there is what appears to be a hollowed out “window” or hole in the actual mountain peak. Supposedly, it can also be seen from about 10-12 miles away from the I-80 Freeway in the north, but not recommended to attempt while driving unless one wants to meet with a fiery wreck at a high Freeway speed (75 miles per hour in Nevada).

We then followed Nevada State Route 232 back to US Highway 93, passing the Ruby Mountain Brewing Company (an item perhaps of interest to Willamette Valley area Microbrew Fanatics, but of zero interest to me and Mother Janet, as we had many years of recovery behind us) and Chimney Rock, before crossing the railroad tracks again and following the final 6 miles into Wells, NV, where we once again encountered serious car trouble upon entering. There was a loud groaning sound in the steering column on the dashboard, and suddenly without warning, we had no more Power Steering, and a big long stretch of I-80 Freeway ahead of us in order to get back to the Yerington/Silver Springs/Fallon area, where our property we wanted to buy awaited us.

Mother Janet and I made the quick and dicey decision to press on to Elko, NV, after tanking up at a gas station in Wells, as they were a busy little truck stop town of only 1,000 people, whereas Elko had about 16,000, this was one of those times we figured it would pay to “go where there was people”, even though we had spent the better part of 14 years living as anti-social hermits in near total isolation, and went against our default nature. We had also figured that if we tried getting our thing fixed in little dibby Wells, that we could well end up waiting a week or longer on our fix, due to the bad combination of it both being a tiny town and a busy truck stop whose mechanic services probably served scores of commercial truckers each week, so we sort of figured we most likely wouldn't even be able to get our minivan looked at for several days at least, which was the same problem we had run into back in Roseburg, OR.

Gritting our teeth, and turning westward onto the I-80 Freeway, with a refilled gasoline tank and a now busted and empty power steering fluid tank and the wimpy worthless steering wheel to go with it, we pushed the last 60 miles onto Elko, NV, with the sun starting to dip toward the western horizon, it was now 6 pm. As we nervously tried to keep the car running straight on the freeway, we took in the nothing short of fabulous sights we had remembered before on our 2007 trip, the wide open Humboldt River Valley with the Ruby Mountains to the south, strangely ripe little bits of green river-fed grass to accompany the sagebrush and tumbleweed, along with loose scatterings of pinion pines. For Nevada, it sure as heck reminded us a lot of Western Oregon with that big display of greenery. The High Desert (and frosty snowy winters that go with it) is sure a far cry from the Low Desert of the Mojave, which is how most popular stereotypes and Hollywood Myths view the desert. Let me tell you right now, it isn't all like that. We passed Alazon, Deeth, Halleck, Elburz, Osino and Ryndon as we completed our hairy power steering-less course to Elko.

We sought out an exit on the west side of town, hoping to land us near the downtown area (and near the Alano Club so we could catch some meetings while we were stuck) without having to do too much extra driving, so that we could park the car as soon as possible, for the sake of our and other people's safety. We entered in on the very western edge of Elko, passing a McDonald's and a Taco Bell, and the beginnings of their Industrial Area. We passed by a couple motels that appeared to be either overbooked or overpriced ($99 a night) before finding one that was just about right downtown near the Elko Post Office and Library, the Centre Motel, run by a kind friendly Indian (East Indian, not Native American) proprietor for $72 a night, which was about $20 more than we would have liked, but certainly better than $99, and less “Nevada Tacky” looking than the Thunderbird next door, which had a pool that we didn't really care about, since we weren't big swimmers anyway.

After settling into our room, which oddly was a corner room on the lower floor, backed right into a hill, so we surmised being that well sheltered, the room would be well insulated from the heat in the summer, and would keep warm in the winter, but of course might be difficult to escape from in the event of a fire. Luckily, Travis was a good and respectful motel guest and took his Menthol Cigarettes either out to the car (before it got put in the shop) or the parking lot, which was plenty roomy, so long as it wasn't overbooked, we sought out some dinner before making our agenda for the next day. We went to the Stockman's Casino And Restaurant (Now owned and run by the Ramada Hotel Chain), about 2-3 blocks from Centre Motel, and loaded up on a Caesar Steak Salad. Once again Mother Janet bellyached and complained (which wasn't usually her style, she was more often the “suck it up buttercup” and “quit your whining” type) about lousy casino food, and this time I sort of agreed with her. The bits of steak seemed kind of old, stale and recycled, as did the baked potato that came with the salad. Of course, that didn't stop us from going back twice more during the four days we were stranded there, as it was relatively cheap for restaurant food and very close by to our motel and convenient.

We then returned to our room at Centre Motel, and crashed for the night. We got up at about 10 am and went and got our second meal at the Stockman, the usual Steak & Eggs, which were less than impressive, as expected, then walked past the Library and Post Office, and sought out the Alano Club, about 6-8 blocks Southeast from there, skirting past the ill-reputed “Brothel Block”, near the railroad tracks and the river, which had about 3-4 working brothels there, largely featuring “young, fresh-faced Asian girls”, sorta makes one wonder a bit about their “street legal” status when the establishment makes such a big deal about them being “young”, along with a small roach looking motel that we surmised the “girls”, however old they were, used to entertain the clients. There are plenty of years in your life to indulge in that sort of thing, they don't all have to be between 18 and 21. Anyway, we went about 4 more blocks past that to the east to find the Alano Club, our noon meeting, and much needed spiritual nourishment.

After the meeting, which was good and refreshing, we wandered yet another 3-4 blocks east from there to find a nice good natured mechanic, who lucky for us said he could probably get us up and running in 3 days for about $400, which was a boon for us, since we were hoping to not be stranded for too much longer than that, we went back to Centre Motel, by way of Roy's Market, which was something of a hybrid between a convenience store and a full supermarket, collecting some more bottles of Powerade and some Ice Cream Bars, then Mother Janet left me at the room with the TV and the magazines we had been hauling around with us, after we emptied our junk from the minivan, so we'd have access to it while it was in the shop, and she took it away.

We had a few bizarre, crazy, and interesting encounters during our time in Elko. On our first night, on the main drag, Idaho Street, we saw some crazy, possibly drunk or gacked out on meth dude that was blasting loud head banger music from loudspeakers that were attached to his motorcycle, so loudly that it “raped” our ears, it was that bad. Then the next night, on our way back to Centre Motel from our meeting, we witnessed a rather ill tempered (oh no, I don't know anyone like that) redneck driver in some classy old Cadillac or T-Bird, wasn't done “Texas Style” with the Longhorn Cattle Skull on the hood, but could have just as easily been done that way, who viciously tried to run the driver in front of them off the road because they were impatient and mad at them for stopping to let us cross the street. A little chill went through our blood, as we later realized, if the good natured “Slowpoke” hadn't intervened on our behalf, she vicious psycho redneck would have been the one in front, with nothing stopping them from running us down, simply because we pissed them off by slowing them down.

We had also witnessed a couple of rather bad fights nearly break out among the AA crowd there in Elko. In one instance, a couple of “Big Wheel Spiritual Guru” types (AA does have those), got into a yelling and dick wagging match, which eventually dissipated and lost energy. In another, a sleazy young con man, who still reeked of alcohol, and had been inappropriately pushing himself at the ladies, got in the face of, and tried picking a fight with another young fellow, who was emotionally hurting, and sore from his divorce with his longtime wife, and being somewhat quick tempered himself, he very nearly took the bait, and struck the drunk little scam artist shitbag, but luckily he had a more cool headed friend on hand, to hold him back from striking the dude, who in my opinion, probably deserved to be hit, he was being a total disrespectful, irritating, annoying jackass, but legally speaking, once you hit somebody, provoked or not, unless they hit you first, it becomes assault, and you run the risk of going to jail. I am not a lawyer, but that is my best “street smart” read on physical encounters with aggressors.

Then on the last day before we left, after we had our minivan fixed up, and back on the road, we also had another big chest thumping “I'll fuck you up, f_gg_t.” type of psycho redneck (complete with Triple “K” Ranch and Confederate Rebel Flags) rip right out of a bank parking lot, and nearly clobber us head on (head ons can be very bad, even at low speeds, if the electric spark in your headlights or car battery ignite the gasoline, if your gas tank gets ruptured), with his big 3/4 ton Silver Dodge Ram Pickup. How my poor old 64 year old mother and I became “f_gg_ts” that needed to be run over, is way beyond me, but I surmise that's about where his crazy cuckoo mind was at.

We also had a couple of bizarre and awkward social encounters during our stay there. We had met one young couple from Salt Lake City, we surmised, probably Mormon, though we did not know for a fact; not everybody from Utah or Idaho is Mormon, but at least the slight majority probably are, since it is where the religion finally took hold and spread, once the Mormon Pilgrims came westward on their two step journey from New York, then Illinois, in the early days with founder Joseph Smith. Anyway, they were rather quick to explain to us that “ELKO” stood for “EVIL LAND KEEP OUT”, and were trying to resettle up in Twin Falls, ID with the young lady's folks, since they were somewhat fearful for their safety, and were fed up with the “greed, political corruption, and rampant crime” that had overrun Elko, NV.

We also had a nice fellow, maybe about 5-10 years younger, who took us out to lunch at The Coffee Cup, which is a nice homey little family style cafe, where he fed us a bit of the back story on why Elko had become so hostile and crazy in the last seven years, since we had visited before, when we had left there with the rather pleasant, relaxing, and charming perspective on the place, having romanticized the splendidly beautiful Ruby Mountains and Humboldt River Valley. Just comes to show, and you can quote me on this “Looks are often deceiving, and no matter how much intel on a town you gather from library books or the Internet, the only way you ever really know a town is to put your own personal boots on the ground and spend some time there.”

Anyway, “foolish, ignorant, non-cultured, non-politically correct” Travis made a bad verbal faux pas with this gentleman, when he referred to a couple of Mormon Missionaries as “Mormons” causing the poor fellow to wince, tighten up, and become a bit uncomfortable. Apparently, Travis did not know that they usually prefer to simply be called “LDS”, rather than Mormon, just as some Democrats (perhaps maybe the more honest ones with integrity) would rather be called “Progressive”, than “Liberal”, since there are some unfortunate social contexts, in which calling a spade a spade, or shit sandwich a shit sandwich might not be the best social strategy, honesty without compassion is brutality, but on the other hand, the Author's Mother was very vehement and rigid on people “not lying or being phonies”, or “sugarcoating a critical truth” under the guise of political correctness, politeness, or sparing one's tender ego (this applies to the ladies as much as men, they have egos too). Hopefully, Travis learned his lesson from this scathing embarrassment and will keep his mouth shut and let others lead the conversation when he is engaged in social contexts that are unfamiliar to him. But he won't stop being honest solely on account of your feelings, either.

So yes, on our way out of Elko, Mother Janet and I had a tasty Lamb Chop dinner at the Star Basque Restaurant in Downtown Elko. Mother Janet was rather fascinated by Basque (French-Spanish People of Andorra, in Southern Europe), as her grandfather, on her father's side, Harold Pinot Smyth (1900-1959, died of a heart attack shoveling six feet of snow, during a Seattle winter, at demanding wife Ruth's behest) had been Basque. We enjoyed the meal, and it was a very educational and emotionally enriching experience for us. We also paid a visit to the Northeastern Nevada Historical Museum at the east end of Elko, where we took in a lot of the old Cowboy and Miner exhibits, and the like, and Travis loaded up on a couple pounds of volcanic rock samples from their gift shop. We were grateful to have had this particular experience, as back in our 2007 trip, we had really wanted to visit the Humboldt County Museum over in Winnemucca, NV, about 120 miles to the west of Elko on I-80, but we had been shut out due to bad timing. We then took our minivan back to Centre Motel, for one last night's stay, and rounded up our things from the room as we had done back in Roseburg, OR. I also later read in Elko's Newspaper, that there had been a violent stabbing incident in the Stockman's Casino, just one day after we had eaten there, chilling. So far as the Author knows, that victim hadn't died at press time, but he did not follow up on that case. Moving onward, forward, and finally, finally out of Elko, NV, after four too-long stressful days. Next place please.

We began our much awaited exodus of Elko, by following Nevada State Route 535, which is basically just the westernmost portion of Idaho St in Downtown Elko, that comes off of the I-80 Freeway, east to South Fifth Street, then following it south over the bridge and the security fence along the Humboldt River and over the Humboldt River, onto Nevada State Route 227, the Lamioille Highway, and into Spring Creek, NV, population 12,361, elevation 5,659.

Spring Creek, NV began back in the 1970's, not 1870's, by oil baron CV Wood of McCullough Oil Company, it and the town of Datyon near Silver Springs on US Highway 50, are both relatively new “bedroom communities” that grew from older towns as the entire State Of Nevada became more developed with the big Casino Industry Boom that began in the late 1950's/early 1960's, yes back when the Mafia, The Democratic Party Of Nevada, and good old Frank Sinatra and the famed “Rat Pack” ran the Nevada Gambling Scene. It sits in a relatively flat open valley area between the Elko Hills to the Northwest and the Ruby Mountains to the Southeast. To the Southwest is Huntington Valley and the South Fork of the Humboldt River, directly to the north is the Main Branch of the Humboldt River.

The community was originally developed in three distinct, yet interconnected sections. The western section, at the base of Elko Hills, is comprised of Spring Creek Post Office, a shopping center plaza, or just call it strip mall, and we're good, and a supermarket. The combined grade school/middle school/high school campus, grades 1-12 (the school campus in Silver Springs on US Highway 50, seemed to have about this same approximate arrangement from what I observed there, all the schools literally facing and within a stone's throw of one another) is about one mile east from there.

The central section of the community is about yet another mile east from where the main school campuses are is comprised of a park and an artificial marina style lake, the Spring Creek Marina, and an 18-hole golf course, with a clubhouse. Near to that, is an outdoor sports complex, and a second grade school (the town doubled in size from 5,000 to 10,000 residents between 1990 and 2000, probably necessitating a need for a second grade school). The southern section of the community appears from what I can tell, to be a mostly residential kind of area built largely around an indoor sports complex, known as “The Horse Palace”, and is more or less fitted flush with the foothills of the Ruby Mountains.

Desiring to avoid the traffic hassle and busy social hoopla of Downtown Spring Creek, Mother Janet elected to bypass the downtown area, Mother Janet, by definition, was a hermit, as am I, and simply did not like crowds, big cities, or busy places, too much extra drama, distraction, and chaos, it's safe to say we aren't Extroverts. More simply put, private, not public people, but I am willing to temporarily suspend my shyness and Introversion to share my story with you in writing, so please consider the great bargain I offer you today.

Anyway, Mom did the “End Around”, (which more Extrovert type people denounce as “chickenshit” and “cowardly”) rather than the Direct Approach and sailed about 4 miles past the Nevada State Route 227/228 Junction in the western section of Spring Creek, and meandered Southeast onto Pleasant Valley Road, which skirts the southern edge of the southern section of Spring Creek and charts a direct path around the Ruby Mountain Foothills, complete with all the curves and squiggles. We neatly came out at the eastern edge of the central section of Spring Creek, and turned east onto Nevada State Route 227, then going another mile and a half to Lamoille, NV.

Lamoille, NV, population 105, elevation 5,889, is basically considered the official “gateway to the Ruby Mountains”. Mother Janet and I had, of course, long since decided against settling here, as the property prices, we felt were too far out of our range, since the only place we had seen available when we looked, commanded a price tag in excess of $300,000, which was about three times beyond what we could reasonably afford on Grandpa Norm's inheritance. Perhaps the National Forest Service Scenic Byway, leading into the famed Helicopter Ski Lift tourist trap area artificially skewed the value well beyond our reach, which tends to happen in popular ski places, such as Sisters OR, Grass Valley CA, Lake Tahoe, CA, Aspen and Telluride, CO (I do recall some stuck up snobby lady thumbing her nose at my plaid shorts I was wearing there back on our 2001 trip, it is quite amazing what an excess of income and wealth can do to some people's attitudes, spoil them faster than a wet, soggy, slug ridden compost heap, something Mother Janet was familiar with as an avid gardener, what the fuck was the big deal anyway, they were just plaid shorts, albeit with some tiny paint stains on them, perhaps because they were old and cheap, and didn't have the “fresh store bought” new short look to them. Needless to say that person kind of ruined Telluride for me, if there were any nice people there, I sure didn't meet them that day.)

A fast history briefer on Lamoille, NV. Apparently, a group of passing immigrants on the great California Trail, originating in the Nebraska area of the Great Plains, and ending in California, had found the grass on the main trail, better known as the Fort Hall Route, which more directly followed the concourse of the Humboldt river, to have been overgrazed by previous travelers, and didn't have enough grass to feed their wagon pulling oxen, so they turned a bit south, and found a parallel side trail, also used by the local Shoshone Indian Tribe, beginning at the Starr Valley near Wells and Deeth to the east, skirted the base of both the small East Humboldt Range (Where Hole In The Mountain Is), and the Ruby Mountains to the south of them, curving Southwest. These Immigrants found a large grassy valley, the Lamoille Valley, spanning from Elko Mountain and the Elko Hills in the Northwest, to the East Humboldt Range and the Ruby Mountains, in the east and south.

In the year 1865, the same year US Republican President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, and the Civil War came to an end, two of these Immigrants, John Walker and Thomas Waterman, having made a long arduous trek clear from the Northeastern United States, landed here and rested their oxen, and being rather travel weary (it happens even to the best of us, life on the road is both physically and mentally draining for a human being), decided to make a go of staying here. Waterman dubbed the place “Lamoille”, as an homage to his native Vermont. Walker built the old Cottonwood Hotel, the General Store and Blacksmithy in 1868, the settlement itself taking the temporary nickname “The Crossroads”.

The pair would continue operating “The Crossroads” as a resting area, wagon fixing station (think 1860's mechanic shop), and supply depot for the remainder of their natural lives (so far as the Author knows). Later, the old Cottonwood gave way to the 20-room Lamoille Hotel, and a Milk Creamery, Flour Mill, and Saloon/Dance Hall were built here, but over time, these buildings also fell to rack and ruin, and were lost in the pages of history. All that remains of the old town is the fabled Church of the Crossroads, which was built in 1907, and remains in service today. In the present tense, there are local US Post Office services, and Pine Lodge Dinner House, and O'Carroll's Bar And Grill, to refuel your tummy if you're in Lamoille and starving. That's about it for Lamoille, a very beautiful pristine natural place, very reminiscent of a Swiss Hamlet in the Alps of Europe, but literally “too rich for our poor Coos Bay blood”.

Mother Janet and I, having had a fast historical and cultural refresher on Lamoille, then retraced our steps, back along Pleasant Valley Road, coming out on Nevada State Route 228, about 2 miles south of the official city line of Spring Creek. We turned left, or south, from our current position, and set course for Jiggs, NV, roughly 17 miles south from our position, at the far end of Nevada State Route 228. It was now about 2 pm.

Along the way, we passed the South Fork Humboldt Reservoir State Park off to the right, a beautiful large man made reservoir (about 20 times the size of Spring Creek Marina, back in town, which we'd skipped in the interest of keeping a good pace) and local water sports (no piss jokes please) recreation area, which somewhat reminded me of Floras Lake, near Port Orford, OR, back on the South Oregon Coast where we had come from, which that spot, back there, had been a popular destination for windsurfers.

About two more miles on the right, was the entrance to the Te-Moak Shoshone Indian Reservation Area, nestled against the Ruby Mountains, with the tiny community, about 50 people, of Lee, NV, founded in 1941, sitting dead center of it, about three miles off of the 228. As we were not card carrying tribal members, and had no official business there, we dared not pass. About this Lee, NV, it must not be mixed up with another Lee, NV, which is officially listed as a ghost town, near the California Border in the Mojave Region down in Nye County.

After another five miles or so, of soaking in the sights of rolling pinion pine/juniper hills, and the up-and-down road that went with it, on the left, we passed the Lee-Jiggs Campground, on the right, we had also passed the Zunino-Jiggs Reservoir Area, which also comes with a campground, this one we did not see passing in either direction, it's about one-tenth the size of the South Fork Humboldt Reservoir that we had seen earlier, and roughly twice the size of the Spring Creek Marina back in town that we'd skipped before.

As for Jiggs itself, it sits roughly 30 miles south of Elko. It had once upon a time, been a year round camping spot for Shoshone Indians that were gathering pinion pine nuts for their tribe. The process of actually naming the community, which never really grew into what could be classified as an actual town, was kind of weird. It had previously had the names, Mound Valley, Skelton (Reminiscent of the Red Skelton Comedian/Clown Fellow), and Hylton, but unfortunately, all these names for the place seemed to all being used at once, and the local residents were utterly and completely unable to decide on one of the three, so much for a Democratic Process.

As the US Post Office had plans to build a new station there on December 08, 1918, a group of area ranchers drummed up a short list of names, presumably excluding the original three, since no one was able choose among those ones, the seemingly odd, yet catchy name Jiggs came up, in reference to a currently running newspaper comic strip character who was the husband of Maggie, in the “Bringing Up Father” series. The name mysteriously somehow was able to stick, in spite of previous contentious disagreement.

Jiggs was featured in a 1965 TV Advertisement for the classically popular hippie vehicle, the Volkswagen Bus, in which the Ad showed the entire town at the time, which was 9 people, and a dog, all fitting into the bus. Nevada Governors Edward Carville and Louis R Bradley, as well as famed Cowboy Poet Bruce Douglas “Waddie” Mitchell all can truthfully claim to have once hung their hat in tiny Jiggs (which is even tinier than rhyming Biggs, OR, a truck stop on the Columbia River Gorge, which had 30 officially listed residents, when me and Father made use of their Best Western back in 1995).

Jiggs was also the fictional base of operations for the “King Fisher” series, created by Dentist and Western Novelist, Pearl Zane Grey (1872-1939). Jiggs' officially listed Census Population as of the year 2000, was listed at 2 residents. That's right, 2. Less than half a hand's count. All that remains of Jiggs today is a dusty old bar, which still seems to be in use, a long discarded single-room schoolhouse, and a State of Nevada historical marker, honoring Army Officer, Politician, and Adventurer, John C Fremont (1813-1890), who had discovered the area in 1845. Well that's it for Jiggs, time for me and Mother Janet to “Jig on outta there.”

Having spent roughly an hour in our weird junket to Jiggs, it was now about 3 pm. We went about retracing our steps back up Nevada State Route 228 and Nevada State Route 227, taking care to “skirt the edge of” Spring Creek, and not get “sucked into the center” of it once more, and followed the 227 back over the hill and across the bridge into Downtown Elko. We then followed Nevada State Route 535, also known as West Idaho Street, about 3 miles westward past the Elko Municipal Airport and back onto the I-80 freeway, managing to cover this roughly 25 miles distance in about half an hour. Then we pressed forth to Carlin, NV, about another 16 miles west, taking in some more of the famous Humboldt River Valley high desert greenery.

We exited south at Exit 282 onto Nevada State Route 221, which quickly turned westward onto Chestnut Street, also known as the old I-80 Freeway, probably before local residents probably complained of the noise and disruption level of freeway traffic and petitioned the State of Nevada to reroute it farther north and away from the town center. Anyway, we followed Chestnut to Twelfth Street, then turned south, then west onto Bush Street (Please, no President Bush Senior or Junior jokes here, I've heard them all, from the totally inane, boring, and witless, to the X-rated pornographic). With that, our fast whirlwind tour of Carlin, NV began in earnest. It is also of brief note that Mother Janet's Second Husband, Michael Edward Williams, had lived and worked here as a Gold Miner back in the 1980's during his first marriage.

Carlin, NV, population 2,368, elevation 4,905, (Nothing to do with famed and acclaimed HBO Comedian George Carlin, 1937-2008), sits roughly 20 miles west of Elko, NV, along the I-80 Freeway Corridor. The town earned it's name from Civil War General William Passmore Carlin, also dubbing the slogan “Where the train stops, and the gold rush begins.” Northwest of it sits the famed Carlin Trend, one of the richest and most productive gold mining areas of Northern Nevada, including the Barrick-Goldstrike site, which employs many people in Wells, Elko, and Carlin, along with several others, which form an oddly shaped curve, when located on a gold miner's map. The Newmont-Battle Mountain Gold Corporation, the second place competitor to Barrick also has an operation here at the Gold Quarry site.

The well known, but albeit controversial Shoshone Medicine Man, John “Rolling Thunder” Pope (1916-1997) made his home here, having come from Oklahoma, which anybody who knows anything, would know that back in the early 1800's, the US Army forcibly “resettled” the bulk of the Eastern States Native Tribes there, briefly working as a brake operator (a rather important job) for the Railroad Company, before becoming both a spiritual and legal advisor to the local Shoshone Tribes. Where the controversy comes in, is that Rolling Thunder was never able to fully verify his Cherokee Heritage from Oklahoma, but the author of this material is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, being possibly distantly removed from that Heritage himself. Seems like less of a fake Native to me than student activist Rachel Dolezal seems like a fake African-American. If I've culturally offended, I apologize for that, but that is my personal opinion.

Also, on the note of trains, the City Of San Francisco Passenger Train had a major derailment off of a bridge near Carlin on August 12, 1939, taking the lives of 24 people and rendering 121 anywhere from slightly to seriously injured. The authorities investigating the crash strongly suspected human caused sabotage, but to this day, have never been able to puzzle out the “who, how, or why” of it, and probably never will, given that it's now been close to 80 years since the incident took place. The train in question was under joint control and management by Chicago and North Western Railway, Southern Pacific (I recall seeing their trains roll by on the tracks, where me and the Smyth Family lived near Lakeside, OR, as a kid), and Union Pacific. Needless to say, a horrible and exacting toll on all the people and families involved.

With our whirlwind tour of Carlin concluded, Mother Janet and I took in the sights of the gas stations, convenience stores, and mom-and-pop type family diners that dotted the main drag along Bush Street before blowing on out of Carlin. Speaking of blowing, or perhaps I should not, we came out onto Nevada State Route 278, coming Southwest, about a mile and a half from Downtown Carlin. On the right, we passed Sharon's Bar & Brothel, which is an older, less well-used establishment, on the left, we passed the more popular and better advertised Dovetail Ranch. Then we went back north to the I-80 Freeway.

We continued westward toward the turnoff to Nevada State Route 306, about 15 miles west from Carlin, looking for some other crazy tiny little town called Beowawe, NV, it was now about 4 pm. We drove about 5 miles south on Nevada State Route 306, seeing a weird mix of floodplain type of farmland, interspersed with sandy hills dotted in sagebrush. We had dropped down about 1,000 feet in elevation, so the overall landscape was back to being somewhat more barren and less greenery than we had seen in the area around Elko.

After taking a brief rest stop, we encountered yet another farm/ranch kind of place that was kind of green, and surrounded by fencing, which further in, had some reddish looking barn buildings, you know, like a farm,but then after that, off to the west, we saw a dirt road that ran parallel with some railroad tracks. We followed this dirt road for about a mile or so, then turned back, after encountering a gate that had been placed by Union Pacific Railroad, and finding that the road literally dead ended right there, and didn't want to get our poor crummy old minivan stuck there, as those kind of vehicles are infamous for low undercarriage clearance, the only thing being worse are those dumb little low rider pickups that the “gangstas” in the cities trot around in.

Our particular minivan, having caught and scraped on Grandmother's steep and rounded driveway when we had come back to Eugene to collect some things we'd stored in her basement when the State had tossed us from my Grandpa Norm's house three years earlier in his Medical Conservatorship Proceedings, something that simply does not happen to families in Europe, because they have Single Payer Health Care there, so the Government has neither the financial incentive, nor the recourse to legally eject the relatives of a deceased person from their house, in order to balance the books with the Medical Providers, since no debt is ever created in the first place. We had also tried going up another dead end road, near the New Gold Nevada Incorporated Offices, that wound it's way up a hill, overlooking the green farmland below, which as it turned out, was being directly fed by the Humboldt River, one of those, you don't know what you're looking at until five minutes after it's gone things. Growing weary of wasting too much time on dead-ends, we returned to Nevada State Route 306, and ultimately the I-80 Freeway. It was now about 4:30 pm.

We followed the I-80 Freeway about 4 more miles west, found another exit that said Beowawe, we took it and turned south again, and saw it put us onto another, somewhat winding, curving dirt road, which followed the direct concourse of the Humboldt River Valley, here the Humboldt had diverged a bit from the the I-80 Freeway, as the terrain got rougher and bumpier, along with the drop in elevation. We passed through the nice green little valley, seeing an assortment of mobile homes, trailers, and simple “A” frame houses, appropriate for High Desert Snowfalls in the winter, some of these places with the telltale redneck survivalist razor wire fence around, with all the junked cars, TV's, laundry machines, and couches, a few may have had the mean, snappy, “have you for dinner if you so much as sneeze or fart anywhere in my direction” dogs, we elected to not investigate too closely.

After about 4 miles, we strangely, from the other side of the river, had seen that same first dead-end go nowhere road with the gate, that had previously stymied us, then we found that this other road, when followed 2 more miles, dumped us back out onto Nevada State Route 306, going back north, into Beowawe, which was in fact, what we had been looking for all along, but stupidly, apparently had grown confused, impatient, stupid, and frustrated (the human emotional condition, even for folks as intelligent as me and Mother Janet, and all our love of scouting maps), and had simply not gone far enough down Nevada State Route 306, the first time we had turned off there. Was that weird and annoying, or what?

Anyway, here comes yet another Travis refresher course on Beowawe, before we go. It turns out that the real reason we could not “find” Beowawe, is because it's not a “real town”, or even a ghost town, as it is often erroneously referred to in travel guides and Internet Map Sites, but an industrial area. As you might have previously guessed from the New Gold Nevada Incorporated Offices, that we had unknowingly passed earlier, it is another gold mining area, but also a former hotbed of Geothermal Geysers, which was more recently harnessed into a Geothermal Energy Plant, which we finally actually saw in plain sight and passed coming at Beowawe coming from the south.

“Beowawe”, is a Paiute Native American Word, for a “gate”. To a casual observer, or layman, the way the hills curve around the valley we had passed earlier, resemble a natural “gate”. The “town”, if there ever was one, was founded in 1868, when the Central Pacific Railroad built their line through there. A few miles east from there, on Pioneer Pass Road is the “Maiden's Grave”, found at the Gravelly Ford site known by immigrants on the old California Trail. A tall cross in the Beowawe Cemetery commemorates the burial of Lucinda Duncan, who perished at Gravelly Ford, in 1863, while traveling the California Trail. Central Pacific Railroad had first noticed the grave near the Humboldt River, when Union Pacific Railroad took that line over in 1906, they relocated the grave to Beowawe Cemetery up the hill from the river, so that they could properly reroute the track in that spot.

The town had hit both it's population and economic peak of 60 residents in 1881, ironically about the same time Cherry Creek, near US Highway 93 experienced a much, much grander, yet still very temporary boom, with a church, school, post office, and general store, having been built in the intervening 13 years. In 1909, with much misplaced premature optimism (don't quiz the author's opinion on positive thinkers) a simple electric power plant was built, but by seven years later, in 1916, the bread crumbs that were still remaining from the old mining boom of 40 years earlier had pretty well withered to nothing, and blew out of there with the high desert wind, along with the bulk of the few remaining residents. No gold, no money, no food, no heating oil, nothing to survive on, out of there. Such is the way of life for the Nevada Miner.

As previously noted, private corporate energy interests have now given the area a bit of a second revival, but do not find it in their best business interests to reopen the area as a civilian settlement. Beowawe now hosts both a Geothermal Power Plant and a Propane Tank Farm, perhaps used to supply propane gas energy and heating companies such as Amerigas and Bimor. In the 1930's, some 20 years after the town had effectively died out, and on the upswing of recovery from the Great Depression, some private companies began surveying the area's geyser hotbed, with photos of the geyser activity, but no serious worthwhile energy studies began in earnest until about 1959.

Flash forward about 25 years to 1986, the modern day Geothermal Plant went online, but as a result of that human activity, two of the geysers went dry and stopped producing steam on the surface, the steam has to go somewhere right, heat rises. Into the plant, clean energy, presto and voila! The Beowawe Plant does resemble somewhat the facility at Fly Geyser, about 20 miles due north of Gerlach in Washoe County of Northwest Nevada (Home of the many years old, infamous, wild and crazy, sex and drugs hedonist's gathering, known as the Burning Man Festival, held every summer), in that both were man-made geysers, but the similarity ends there. The Beowawe Plant was specifically built to be a clean energy operation, Fly Geyser, not the case. The other difference is in the water chemistry, Fly Geyser produces much more Travertine (Yay, a mineral named after me, not.) Deposits, Travertine is liquid Limestone Vapor which leaches and deposits on the surface, if Limestone is present, and the steam geyser wells aren't airtight and solidly capped, which seems to be the case at Fly Geyser. Enough of “Apples To Oranges” comparisons, and onto Battle Mountain for some grub, it's getting late, and we're starving.

We doubled back the 5 miles up to Nevada State Route 306, and returned to the westbound I-80 Freeway at once, and continued westward past the little town places of Rixies and Argenta, noting the further reduced elevation and lack of greenery, between less winter snowfall, and much less direct water feeding from the Humboldt River, with the rockier and rougher terrain, covering about 30 miles in as many minutes. We exited I-80 at Exit 233, onto Nevada State Route 304, which is Hill Top Road merged with Front Street, the main drag of Battle Mountain, and arrived at Ming's Dynasty Chinese Diner, with grumbling stomachs in tow, trying to mentally blot out a very horrific and tragic accident scene that we had seen about halfway there, where the driver of a mid-sized pickup truck had run himself under (maybe drunk and/or going too fast) the back end of a semi truck. We surmised that he most likely had become deader than a doorknob strawberry jam, as they were still using both a forklift and a winch (not wench) to pry the wreck of the pickup, whose driver side was 100 percent mashed in steering column driven through the back window, body previously removed, but still plenty of blood and little bits of skin left on the seat. Dead, Dead, Dead. Pure Carnage. Isn't life in Nevada exciting? It was now about 5:45 pm.

Battle Mountain, NV, population 3,635, elevation 4,511, even after all these years, is still officially an unincorporated township, yet still has a functioning government and is the acting County Seat of Lander County (Austin, NV, which we passed through earlier, also is part of this county, back down at it's southern end). Originally, it was the home base of the Northern Paiute and Shoshone Tribes. The area was first discovered by pioneering fur trappers back in the 1820's and 1830's. By 1845, it had developed into a stopping off point for westward bound immigrants on the California Trail. According to the local lore of the area, the name “Battle Mountain” implied exactly that, the Native Americans and the passing white settlers initially, were in very violent disagreement over who socially and legally held a valid claim to the area, and many clashes and fights erupted on this very issue. A wise man, who happened to be of Native Blood, once stated “The basic problem of a fight, is nobody ever wins.” Take that one to the bank, people.

In the year 1866, Copper Ore was found in the area, and mining activity began. In response to this, Central Pacific Railroad established a station in the area to provide logistical and infastructure for the mining activity. Four years later, in 1870, Central Pacific Railroad relocated their Argenta Station directly to Battle Mountain to better provide logistical support for the mine. From this station, the township grew, and Gold Ore was now being discovered along with the Copper Ore. The Nevada Legislature, in 1874, overrode the Governor's veto, and approved a secondary rail line to link up Battle Mountain with the town of Austin, down south. Nevada Central Railroad won the contract for this line, it's secondary purpose, being to support the transport of Silver Ore that was being mined in the Austin area. This rail line would remain in service until it's abandonment in 1938.

US Republican President US Grant made a stop here during his 1879 Western States Speaking Tour. US Democrat President Woodrow Wilson established Battle Mountain Indian Colony by Executive Order in 1917. Nevada's Red Scare Miners held a ten day strike at Battle Mountain Copper Mines in 1919. In 1979, the year before the author of this material was born, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled to establish the seat of Lander County at Battle Mountain. Chiefs Frank Temote and Frank Brady rejected the Government's offer of a payoff, under the terms of the 1863 Treaty Of Ruby Valley, on December 11, 1992. In 2008, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake hit Wells, NV. This unfortunately was able to cause severe structural damage to one of Battle Mountain's oldest historical buildings, the Lemaire Building, which required it being condemned in the interest of public safety.

In modern times, on the subject of sports, and world records, Battle Mountain hosts an annual bike race on a long, straight, flat stretch of Nevada State Route 305 just outside town. The event draws teams from all over the world as they attempt to build and pedal the fastest bicycles on earth. The event is known as the "World Human Powered Speed Challenge". On September 14, 2013, Sebastiaan Bowier from the Netherlands established himself as "the fastest man alive" by pedaling a streamlined bicycle at 83.13 mph (133.78 km/h) over a 200-meter distance. Bowier's run eclipsed the prior record of 82.8 mph (133.3 km/h) set on September 18, 2009 by Sam Whittingham. Mr. Whittingham's record run in 2009 won the .decimach prize for going one tenth the speed of sound (with adjustments for slope and elevation). In 2009, Barbara Buatois, a French woman, became the "Fastest Woman Alive" by setting the world woman's bicycle speed record at 75.69 mph (121.81 km/h). Also annually held on that same stretch of road is the "Pony Express", an open road event from Battle Mountain to Austin and back. It is the longest open road race in the country, averaging a total of 130 miles (210 km). The race consists of cars from the 1960s-era muscle cars to the most modern sports cars.

Some famous Battle Mountain residents are: Joyce Collins, jazz pianist, singer, and educator; Mary Dann and Carrie Dann, (Crescent Valley) Western Shoshone activists for cultural and spiritual rights and land rights; James H. Ledlie, Union officer in the Civil War whom Ulysses S. Grant called "the greatest coward of the war"; John Marvel, rancher and legislator; Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle, of which a portion takes place in Battle Mountain, and former gossip columnist for MSNBC.com. In local notoriety and news of the weird, are the following items of interest. In December 2001, the Washington Post published an article by Gene Weingarten titled "Why Not The Worst?" that popularly titled Battle Mountain as the "Armpit of America." The town used the unofficial title as a publicity opportunity, and hosted an annual "Armpit Festival" from 2002–2005, which was sponsored by Old Spice and awarded deodorant-themed prizes to participants. On January 2, 2009, The New York Times released an article entitled "A Nevada Town Escapes the Slump, Thanks to Gold". The article regards the national economic depression and discusses Battle Mountain's economy .A meteorite fall was reported on 22 Aug 2012 on Battle Mountain at coordinates 40.66813°N 117.18913°W. It is classified as an ordinary chondrite. Twenty-three fragments with a mass of 2.9 kg had been collected by 3 Oct 2012. "Thanks to Gold," miners were hostile towards efforts to collect fragments, but a 1.4-pound (630-gram) fragment of the Battle Mountain meteorite is currently undergoing analysis at JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) in Pasadena, CA.

History and Culture lesson over, having eaten, and choked down our Barbecue Pork Dinner with some Pepsi, in relative silence, trying hard to not puke, maybe even harder for Mother Janet, with her ever creeping nausea, over the aftermath of the pure carnage we had seen on I-80, we wasted little time and made due haste in exiting Battle Mountain, and setting course for Winemucca, hoping to reach our planned destination of Lovelock, before it got too late into the evening to get ourselves checked into a motel there. We followed West Front Street back to Exit 229, got onto I-80 westbound again and made way. It was now about 6:45 pm.

We passed through Winemucca at about 7:30 pm, having passed the “small places” of Golconda and Valmy, which were probably instrumental in the local Gold Mining History of the Winemucca Area. We saw that like Ely, they had their own billboards up for their brothels, these ones were in better condition, fresher paint, and not as heavily sun damaged, a common Nevada problem. Being nearly twice the size of Ely, probably more dollars in the collective town budget for maintenance and upkeep. Also more added incentive to maintain a “professional” appearance, being on I-80, a National Freeway, as opposed to a lesser known State or Federal Highway. Location, Location, Location. Speaking of the sun, it was now dipping on the western horizon yet again, burning daylight, and now pressing onward to Imlay, NV.

Imlay is an unincorporated town in Pershing County, Nevada, United States. It has an elementary school, a general store, a post office, and a trading post. As of the 2010 census, the population was 171. It is a nearly abandoned railroad town, named for a nearby mine or for the civil engineer who surveyed the town circa 1907. Its most notable feature is a series of strange buildings called Thunder Mountain Monument. These structures were built as a monument to Native American culture by a World War II veteran who called himself Thunder. Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know? public radio show featured Imlay as the "Town of the Week" on its December 5, 2009, show. They mentioned Thunder Mountain Monument as one of the premier draws to the area. Imlay is located in northern Pershing County, Nevada, along Interstate 80, with access from Exit 145. The town is 34 miles (55 km) west of Winnemucca and 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Lovelock. The Humboldt River flows past 2 miles (3 km) to the north, near its inlet into Rye Patch Reservoir. According to the US Census Bureau, the census-designated place of Imlay has an area of 34.5 square miles (89.4 km2), all land.

US Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt paid a visit here in 1938, before his Polio illness restrained his Presidential Duties, and ultimately claimed his life in 1945, at the climax of World War II, forcing Vice President Harry Truman to fill his shoes. From the Rear Platform of his Special Train Imlay, Nevada on July 13, 1938, about 3:00 PM: “I am glad to hear the Governor call it desert -- it is desert -- it is pretty good desert. It is good to be back again in Nevada and get a chance to see things again. It seems to me they look a lot better than they did a few years ago and as you know, your Government in Washington knows that this State is on the map which is something. Some administrations didn't know it was on the map. And, I have been very glad that your State administration, from your Governor down, work so well with all of us on the other side of the continent. We have had real cooperation from the State Government. We have not had any dissention or cross words, and when all of us decided things had to be done, they have been done. You people know I am water conscious -- although not a strict prohibitionist – When I was down on the Ohio River the other day I told them I would catch bigger fish than grew in the Ohio, though I don't think I will get anything that tastes better to eat than Nevada trout -- the Senator gave me some Nevada trout for lunch -- it was delicious. It is good to see you all and I hope to get back here again some day. I hope some day to come in an automobile and stay longer and get to know you better. It is good to see you.” And that is all he spoke, before his train rolled on.

It was now a bit after 9 pm, and dark in Lovelock, NV. I think Mother Janet had to ring the doorbell at the office to summon the motel helper person at the Super 10 (no, not the national Super 8 chain), which was one of four traveler's motels in Lovelock, in addition to the old Lovelock Inn that was nearer to their downtown area that was at the opposite (southern) end of town from us. We got in (to the Inn, never mind), spent about an hour or so decompressing from a hard day's travel, we had basically covered the whole Northwestern Arc of the I-80 corridor in a single day, with four goofy weird side junkets, having originally departed from Elko about nine hours earlier, then we had a much earned and needed crash.

We also saw there was a Book Of Mormon in the nightstand, as opposed to the usual Gideon Bible (the Gideons are a Christian Society, which distribute the Good Book to motels across the US and elsewhere), clearly signifying and removing any doubt that I was in LDS Country, and should can any critical sounding noise I might otherwise make on the religion, coming from a mixed family background of various flavors of Protestantism, with some Catholics deeper in the tree, falling on both sides of the political isle, gosh, I might be something called an “American”, you think, other than to quote Mark Twain, who noted that when sleeping through one of the services he attended, that he counted the phrase “And it came to pass” about 200 times. We dragged it out of there at about 8 am the next morning, did a quick 10 minute tour of the western flank of Lovelock, passing Pershing County High School (Pershing County, taking it's name for the embattled and honored World War I General John “Black Jack” Joseph Pershing, whose wife and three daughters were tragically lost in a housefire, his six year old son Francis, the sole survivor, while he was deployed at the front in Europe in 1915), the Hospital, the Safeway Store, and the Shop-N-Go, before wheeling into their famed Cowpoke Cafe, collecting a Spanish Omelet with a side of Bacon, and exiting Lovelock (And Orenthal James Simpson's Minimum Security Prison Cell, we did NOT leave him a birthday cake with a nail file in it, in case you was asking, John Walsh and Nancy Grace) around 9:45 am.

After rolling on out of Lovelock, we were hoping (in vain) to try to catch a noon AA meeting at Fallon, but wanted to do one last weird “sidetrip”, that is not taking the most popular, main, or direct travel route, which was Mother Janet's typical way of doing things, which earned her the monikers “weird, wild, random, reckless, and unpredictable” maybe not the most popular approach for people who like plans, choices, control, and predictability, which seems to be the vast majority of people nowadays. People have a tendency to want to only put their faith in what they themselves can control, but not so much the things that they cannot. But then this presents the question, what exactly do you do with the 97% of life that you cannot control? Note that I did say 97%, and not 100%, as we are directly responsible for that last 3%, which will never go away. We only control the 3 foot circle that surrounds us, hence the magic number “3”.

Anyway, we exited Lovelock by way of Cornell Avenue, which turned into East Frontage Road, also known as the old US Highway 95 (main, not alternate), which had been “The Way” north and south before the I-80 Freeway was built, much as Mother Janet typically preferred using our old Highway 99 (The Lorraine Highway) when traveling between Coos Bay and Eugene, in spite of being born in 1950, Mother Janet was very “Old School” in her approach to life, whether it be politics, religion, “just exactly how much trust you should extend to a total stranger”, her methodology, her planning, and also how much “Intervention” should be applied to save oneself in a medical situation, or to avoid poverty. Faith based economics and medicine. Unfortunately, for Mother Janet, this drew just a lilt of skepticism, anger, confusion, and frustration from my more progressive and educated relatives, as she unwittingly demonstrated the “appearance” that she simply didn't care as if it looked like she was encouraging me and Brother Connor to “turn our brains off”, “suspend all critical thinking”, “be blindly led off of an intellectual cliff”, and “blindly lap up” all the corporate and theocratic “Red Republican Kool-Aid” being offered by Mother Janet and her parents, even though if you actually knew them as people, they really weren't all that corporate, or religious. People like labels, broad brush categorization, generalization, boxes, borders, compartments, walls, and things they can control.

We followed East Frontage Road, about 15 miles south from Lovelock, paralleling the I-80 Freeway, until reaching Miriam Road, and going through an underpass to the west, then south, where we had followed West Frontage Road, for about 1 mile, until reaching a fenced off area with “No Trespassing” sign (a VERY common sight in Nevada, they are kind of big on the old Conservative theme of “private property” here, but in this day and age of terrorism and mass shooters, if you don't know who someone is, and they refuse to say, then you are left little choice but to assume the worst of them and try to drive them out, I only know this having been at the wrong end of those exchanges a few times, being shy, introverted, or mute is not an excuse, you need to have ID on you when out in public, though I am still old enough to remember when people had more trust to give, and were far less anal retentive about it, but the comes 9-11, Al Qaeda, and now ISIS, however “real” or “not real” those threats are in terms of National Security, they are enough to keep Law Enforcement, Security Personnel, Military, and private right wing civilians highly motivated and on High Alert at all times, so one would do very well to not make them anymore agitated, afraid, or pissed off than is absolutely necessary), and then getting on I-80 Westbound from there (I-80 is more cleanly divided in this area). We then went about 3 miles westward to the Main US Highway 95 turnoff, to the south, turned there, and made use of the Fallon Rest Area, while the author of this material had more Powerade and Menthol Cigarettes, shame on that boy, he goin' to hell.

We arrived in Fallon, for the second time, at about 11:30 am, made our way to the Nugget Casino and Restaurant near downtown Fallon, about where US Highway 50 and US Highway 95 (Main) cross paths, parked the minivan on the shady side of the building, goes without saying in Nevada, as it was the typical ninety something degrees on this summer day. We waited (a common theme for Me and Mother Janet, but some may argue, and rightfully so, that only bad things happen to people who wait, because they are not decisive and aggressive in controlling their situation, thus bringing up the question of when to control, and when not to).

Unfortunately, for us, we waited about and hour, and nobody showed up to unlock the meeting door, because we were operating on bad and outdated information from our schedule, and would only learn a couple weeks later from someone in Yerington that the meeting had been moved to another building near the Cattle Yard in the middle of the residential area on the south side of town. We were screwed, yet again, on account of piss poor planning, and low information. Again, brings up the question of how much ignorance is voluntary versus involuntary. There are some people in the world who actually do want to know less, because it literally hurts their brain and makes their emotions uncomfortable to know the truth. A human brain simply does not have the storage capacity for raw information that a computer does. Do you try to fix them by “informing” them, or do you let sleeping dogs lie (a common failing of the alcoholic and the codependent, wanting to be liked by others, and not have them be mad at you by being “too honest all at once” with them?) Ethics. Truth. Honesty. Tact. Social Kindness. So much complexity, so little time.

With that time wasted, we set course for Schurz, NV. It was now about 1 pm on August 04, 2014, our whirlwind tour of Northern and Eastern Nevada, now officially coming to a close, no more fun and games, it was time to get down to the business of scouting where we were going to live, and scouting properties. Our long side adventure through the “whole” of Nevada had taken up 8 days, having left Yerington, around July 26, 2014, about three days after we had arrived, having been forced out on account of lack of motel rooms. We arrived at Schurz, around 2 pm, a small little Paiute Indian town of about 700 people, 40 miles due south of Fallon and turned west and up and over the mountains going on the Alternative US Highway 95 back to Yerington.

On the way to Schurz, we had passed the Weber Reservoir off to the west, a popular fishing and recreation spot for locals in Lyon and Mineral Counties, as well as seeing Nevada's trademark shadow cloud effect play out on the hills there, being higher elevation there than Western Oregon, the clouds were nearer to the ground itself, producing a much more instantaneous and immediate shadowing effect on the ground, than what is casually observed in Western Oregon. Back in Elko, we had also noticed that unlike Oregon, where once it rains, it's pretty much wet all day, and in some cases, for a week at a time, here in Nevada, they have quick flash in the pan style of rains, meaning, because of the aridity (dryness) it could be dumping buckets in the present tense, and you would not know it half an hour later, because the ground literally dries that quickly with that much consistent heat and aridity. Mother Janet, found this favorable for doing outdoor laundry, being a poor person, since it's very easy to burn through ten bucks you don't have doing the drying part at a laundromat.

We finally arrived back in Yerington, NV at around 3 pm. Copper Inn (the cheap place), once again had a room for us, and we made use, with plans to rest and recuperate for a day or two, catch some more AA meetings here, and make use of the wi-fi internet connection at the Lyon County Public Library and the Zillow website to start gathering intel on some properties. After those three days had passed, we drummed up a list of about 10 or 12 different places that were within our tight budget, tanked up the minivan, and began our search at Silver Springs, which was yet another place, that “wasn't really an official town”, but still a community that a large gathering of people still called home.

We had a bit of a mishap at Silver Springs on that day. After, having spent several hours, scouting properties on the eastern side of Silver Springs, which as an unincorporated town, has about 5,000 residents living there, but if the lots were more divided up, and the downtown development were more advanced than it is, you know, more Willamette Valley like, then it would easily house about 20,000-25,000 residents. All that aside, the mishap being, after having viewed about three different properties, we got ourselves stuck on the damned railroad tracks. Mother Janet, in her heavy-handedness and overeagerness, which I made no attempt whatsoever to talk her down from, I too thought it to be a worthy risk, tried to force the low clearance minivan over the tracks which were piled up with sand build up at the crossing area, and we got our front end hooked on the track, and the back end stalled out in the sand. We lacked cellphones, because we did not either believe in them or want them, the microwave emissions may cause brain tumors, and we had just come from being very, very dirt poor, and could not afford them, either. No phone, no help, no nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Just Lump It.

Since we were on our own, with nobody helping us, whatsoever, a typical situation for me and Mother Janet, we started scouting for houses that weren't all fenced off with shotgun wielding rednecks and mean snappy dogs behind them, which are a hard thing to find on the outer fringes of Silver Springs, after Mother Janet had literally ordered me out of the vehicle (could have been a drill sergeant in another lifetime), and started unloading some of our more valuable cargo, agreeing to reconvene there in about 10 minutes, if we hadn't found anybody, which we did not. Luckily, for Mother Janet, on that day, which she did not know, it was a Sunday, and the trains were not running. Also, church happened to be in session, at least it was at their First Baptist Church, the Latter Day Saints had already had their morning service and were shut up for that day.

I started walking the roughly one mile from where we were stuck, to that First Baptist Church, had a cigarette, very bad I know this very much, but I did it anyway because of emotional stress, why else do people do it? Trade years off the end of your life for a few less stressful hours today, but today is the part that matters most, but for legal and moral reasons, a choice that should not be allowed to minors. Sometimes your choices should be taken away for your own good and that of others. Freedom and Liberty do not come without responsibility, it just cannot and will not work that way. Less choices, less chaos, less confusion. Needless to say, I spent a lot of my youth “having my choices” taken away, because I was angry, mean, hated people in general, especially the fascists in my lives known as authority figures. Especially Family. You have to reach a certain age, which is later for some than others, that people have rules and laws because they are basically afraid themselves, and if they don't define a boundary or a line in the sand, it will get crossed repeatedly. The Law, which seems to be purely rational and logical on the surface of it, actually comes from human emotional nature and emotional needs.

Speaking of sand, we were still stuck. After arriving at the First Baptist Church, and standing sheepishly, speechless, and exhausted for about 5 minutes at the entryway, I popped my head into the Sanctuary and saw they were still in service, so I closed the door and waited a bit more, someone came out to me after a minute or so, and I explained that we were stuck on the tracks, and I needed to borrow a phone to get someone to get us unstuck. I waited a bit more, someone else came out with their phone, and dialed me Lyon County Sheriff's, and relayed that they had someone stuck on the tracks about a mile from the Church. I thanked them heartily, praised Jesus, and left there. As I was about halfway back to the spot where Mother Janet and our minivan were, Deputy Wright picked me up and took me back to her, he had managed to link up his vehicle with hers (high tension cable, I don't know if a winch was involved) and pull her loose from the tracks. Mother Janet was already repacking our removed cargo when Deputy Wright dropped me off. We thanked the Good Deputy, and Jesus along with him, and started dragging our sorry and badly scraped undercarriage back to Yerington, preparing ourselves for yet another annoying delay in our plans, and another repair bill.

This next repair cost us about 3 more days and about $100. We waited this one out at the (former) Victoria Rose Inn, as Copper Inn had booked up again before we set out for Silver Springs. It was for the best, as this other Inn was only about half as far from the mechanic's shop as the Copper Inn would have been, a shorter walk. We checked out of there the next day at 10 am, with plans to go scout six more properties in Fallon, stay a night there, and return to Yerington. It was now August 11, 2014. Our time in Fallon, for the third time, proved to be even rougher and more difficult than before. When we rolled in around 11 am, we were low on oil, so we had to stop at an auto shop at the outer edge of town, buy a quart, and refill. Then, Mom got pulled over for speeding 20 mph past the limit, which whenever that happened, was a traumatic and embarrassing experience for both of us, because she would try to be friendly and diplomatic with them (cops), but sometimes to the point of being overly sycophantic and apologetic, and some of the worst ones would perceive that as weakness, attack, become arrogant and angry and be total and complete dicks.

I being a young, moody, withdrawn male with lax grooming and hygiene did not build a very good case for properly sucking up and impressing them as being honest and trustworthy, their perceptions of me only seemed to confirm their fears, instead of allay them. Also, nowadays, the law enforcement apparatus has become much more decidedly right wing and militaristic, because 9-11, terror, America, and are more tuned into the alpha male bully jock mentality than ever before, meaning their natural and feral instincts (think sharks and alligators) are more tuned into thinking that people who look and act different from them are enemy combatants, as opposed to ordinary people going about their business. It would help more if I shaved, got a buzz cut, a firm crushing handshake, and a phony shitty car salesman smile. However, that person is not me and will never be, sorry Grandmother. Suffice to say, I have been told by some strangers that I come off as a creep and a psychopath because I don't communicate verbally or express facial emotions like a (normal) Extroverted Person, because I am not a normal Extroverted Person. You can argue, persuade, or be angry at that all you like, but I accept that as a static and unchanging fact, even if you cannot.

All that aside, back on the subject of being pulled over, embarrassing and terrifying as all that was, what was worse, was when we went our noon meeting, Mom spent nearly the whole thing (about 1 hour) on her back, on the floor, at the back of the room (away from where the people usually sit, maybe not wanting to be seen). I dismissed it as her old fainting stuff that she always had from the stories she had told me of her time as a kid, and being prone to fainting spells, but now in hindsight of the diagnosis, it was definitely something worse, and seems to be far less confusing now.

We checked out and returned to Yerington the next day. After about two days of nervous and tense discussions, we “decided” upon Yerington, having previously scouted three houses there, to live, as we needed to get our cats out of “kitty storage” and put them somewhere more permanent, as they had been under lock and key, ever since we departed from our Coos Bay, OR trailer, for the last time, on June 01, 2014, a total of six weeks, and needed to come to terms with the fact that they can't live that way forever. Mother Janet signed the escrow papers at Roberson Realty on August 14, 2014. By Nevada Real Estate Law, we had to wait eight days for our check to pass, and the deal to close.

We moved in on August 22, 2014, having had the first of our final three fights only a day or two later, when she got RED HOT MAD at my refusal to help her with the sanding and painting of the back laundry room floor, yes I was hot and tired, and freaked out, but that was NO EXCUSE for NOT DOING MY WORK!!! Yes, people have a right to be ANGRY if they're counting on (and trusting) you to help them, when they are in need, and you choose not to, for whatever the reason, whether it be simple laziness, fear, social anxiety or physical discomfort. I DON'T CARE WHAT YOUR REASONS ARE! If results are what matter, feelings have to be put aside, until the job is done. Period. Anyway, the purpose of sanding and painting the back laundry room floor was to make a place for our cats to get acclimated to the new house, because the floorboards were old, barren, and worn down. On a side note, we mended fences enough to visit the Lyon County Fair, which had reminded Mother Janet of the Coos County Fair, where she had entered her nature photos back in 1995.

We had our second of the final three fights, when we were preparing for a meeting, about a week ago, and she asked if I was finished using the bathroom to clean up and prepare myself. In my usual extreme silence, shyness, introversion, passive-aggression, whatever it is that's wrong with me that makes people not want to like, trust, respect, or not be mad at me, I sat in stone cold silence for 15 minutes until she finally boiled over and asked “WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM, SAY SOMETHING”, a fierce grilling I had also received from a “Wicked Stepmother” figure, back when I was eight years old, only minus the swear words, but about at that decibel level, when I was visiting at my Father's house as part of the custody arrangement he had with Mother Janet, back in 1988. For what it's worth, the “Wicked Stepmother” figure was trying her best to establish order and rule of law in her household, and I was passively obstructing her, but being eight years old, I possessed neither the intellectual or emotional faculties to understand that at the time. This time, however, I was 34 years old, and did possess those skills and had NO EXCUSE, Mother Janet had thoroughly annoyed me with her constant pestering with the question, and instead of complying, I simply shut down and said nothing, rather than opening my mouth and annoying her back and risking a MINOR fight, but my INACTION resulted in a MAJOR fight instead. This second really horrible fight, resulted in a brutal and crippling depression on my end, and I was literally so far down and sad, emotionally, that I was bedridden on the couch for the next two days, LITERALLY. I do have depression. THAT BAD.

The third fight came, about three or four days ago, when we were moving a heavy 300 pound wooden wishing well, from the front to the back yard, as Mother Janet had redevelopment plans for that front yard. We had to move the thing, by towing it with the minivan, and a crummy old rope, just as Deputy Wright had done for us on the railroad tracks back in Silver Springs. This last fight arose from, once again, my refusal to help. This time I had dared to argue with and contradict her on not being able to fit a plank board that was warped from weather exposure and had rounded off edges, into an open square (rectangular) slot on the little rooftop of the wishing well, which had come loose during our feeble and hasty towing operation. The next night, we had a minor disagreement, but still one worth reporting, nonetheless, this is the most fair, truthful, and accurate accounting of events that I can muster, here, about my being insincere and phony in my promises to better respect her in the future, as well as my assertions that she needed me and needed my help, since I had been of little to no help at all. She had also once said to me, about three or four years ago, that if “I were infinitely wealthy, that I would hire a helper to wipe my ass for me, because I was too bothered, inconvenienced, and impatient to do it for myself”, in other words, spoiled beyond belief.

Then, today, Mother Janet came out of her room, all sweating like a horse, and panting like a dog. Literally. Unable to move or speak, or breathe, or relax, she staggered over to her “Astronaut” Chair (modified) lawn chair, which she had bought about a couple weeks earlier, at the True Value hardware store, in hopes of getting her profuse swelling in her right leg to go down back to manageable levels, but no abatement of swelling present. She staggered over to it, very much like a reeking zombie undead person (this one's for you, Uncle), flopped into it, hard, but gingerly, in a bit of a controlled pratfall. There, she lay back, with weakened, terrified, donut glazed eyes, eyes that had only recently been fierce and sharp, as a hawk or bird of prey. Gazing and gasping. After about three hours of near complete silence, something she had only recently attacked me for, she weakly uttered “Barnett Clinic”, something one of the visiting 12-step ladies had mentioned. There we went tonight, and the doctor said “Metastatic”. What does that word mean? What is happening to my mama? She gave me, about a week ago, a junior Guardians Of The Galaxy Novel, from Scolari's Supermarket, in lieu of our plans to see the actual film in Carson City. In it, as a small boy, the Peter Quill character's Mother perishes from Cancer and all he has to remember her by is her Walkman with her 80's mix tape. Was Mother Janet trying to tell me something? I could have known. I should have known. Why can I not stop it, why, why, why?

-THE END OF MOTHER JANET AND FIFTY PAGES OF TORTURE

Post Script: My mother, Janet Claire Smyth, Original Author of Counterstrike: Heaven Sent, lost her 10 week battle with Stage IV Metastatic Ovarian Cancer, Aged 64 years, 4 months, and 29 days, passing away with 24 years, 5 months, and 29 days of continuous unbroken sobriety, save for doctor prescribed opioids that were medically necessary, and given for her pain control, once the cancer proved to be untreatable, at 9 am on the morning of December 03, 2014. For more information on the life, adventures, and passing of my mother, Janet Claire Smyth, Original Author of Counterstrike: Heaven Sent, please read her Obituary on page  , her Eulogy on page  , her op-ed piece for Myrtle Point Herald on page  , and my own essay, Why I Support Single Payer Health Care on page . Thank you for reading thus far, and God Bless You.