#also hippies who take two more hits of acid than the last week

[whereisthedamndaddymanual]

What did I learn in University?

Nothing, but I taught a few girls the art.

[whathappensnexts-blog]

Chapter 1, part 1 of 2.

***Warning. In this story there is use of drugs. This was written purely for entertainment purposes and all and any use of drugs is highly discouraged.  *** 

  We were chilling in the park when we got a message on our phones. “Where are you? Come here now.” The others have gone to a party in which me and Finn had no interest in participating. We just wanted to hung out in a quiet place and smoke some grass. Little did we know that our peace was about to be shattered. “Hey the others are leaving and they want us to meet them. Shall we?” I said in an uninterested tone. “Why not? Maybe we can chill together” he replied in the same manner. We passed by the beach in which less than a week ago we had eaten acid.

 There we were me, Finn and Tom a guy we knew that also wanted to try some LSD. That bastard had invited a whole bunch of people to watch us trip. I didn’t like it but I didn’t let it get under my skin either. The thing with acid is to not get nervous. Otherwise you are risking a psychotic meltdown from which you may never return. I’ve seen it happening. It actually happened to Finn that night.

 It went down like this. Forty minutes after we ate the tab, we thought that it wasn’t working. Then when I turned around my head, I saw with my peripheral vision a pink-green-gray shadow at the side of some buildings in the distance. Where they real or not? We couldn’t decide. A few minutes later on Tom was laughing and saying “Dude…I don’t know…man…” Finn had curiosity painted all over his face. He was trying to understand whether or not what he was feeling was real. I felt everything getting more mellow. It seemed like everything was breathing, even empty space. Everything had an inner gentle movement, like the movement of a calm sea. I remember smiling to Finn. “Oh my God…You are shining!” he said. Yeah.

 We were well under the influence now. Me, Finn and another two guys stood up and we started going towards a public stage a few meters next to us. The games of light and shadow made the sand under our feet seem like a sea of human skulls. Not in a frightening way though. There was no fear at all. Let it happen. Don’t fight it. Go through it. Don’t take it seriously. Tom shouted at us. He came closer. I didn’t understand what he said and to whom. I only knew that he wasn’t talking to me so I didn’t really care. As he turned to leave and go back with the others it was like time and space warped around him. In just two steps he had covered an impossible distance. How could this happen? Never mind that now. We turned around to the opposite direction and headed to the stage. It was late and there were no other people. The street lights made everything appear golden. The stage was inviting us to sit there right under the golden light, elevated two inches above time and space. We rolled a joint. Someone did at least.

 After a while we headed back to the others. Two new people had arrived. That idiot Tom called two more idiots. We were fine with the rest but these two did not fit with us. They needed to go. They lingered on for a needlessly long time. The conversation was going in circles. Damn. They knew we were on acid and they were saying something about how well they knew psychedelics. They had this look on their faces so common in people nowadays. The look of confident know-it-alls, so certain that they were much better than you without even caring to evaluate you. No politeness in these people. They didn’t even seem familiar with the concept that someone might be better than them at least in one aspect. Ridiculous. They had this confident look in their faces but I could clearly see that behind their eyes there was nothing but rocks. Not dirt to be cultivated, to accept and nurture and give birth to new things. Just rocks. Try forming a bit more complicated sentences and they’ll look you like an alien. What a terrible way to live.

 I offered them some weed and, in a bit, they were gone. Finn had gone paranoid after that pointless, looping conversation. He was pacing nervously up and down, with his fist on his chin and looking down towards the floor. Every five minutes he would look at us and say “Did you hear me? Was I talking right now?” He wasn’t. poor man he was on bad trip now. He wanted to return home. One friend of us escorted him back to his place.

 We were sitting behind the stage now, me, Tom, another guy and two girls. I liked the one with the long, curly golden hair. She had smoked a ton of weed and she looked like a flower girl from the sixties. She made me feel like a hippie. The other girl was a redhead and she was completely drunk on the cheapest red wine possible. She was in a worse condition than us. I was actually beginning to sober up. She was climbing and jumping and dancing on benches. She lost her balance once or twice. Jesus. Here I was on acid and supposedly in need of supervision and now it was me who had to do the supervising. Good responsible people.

 The other two guys had left for a while and left me alone with the girls. I don’t remember what we were saying but I knew the redhead was talking nonsense. Drunk dreamy bubbly nonsense which I accidentally destroyed. Why did I have to talk? Why not let her bubble on? Maybe because I was a bit bummed the others left me.

 When the others returned and we entered the car she started sobbing. Poor girl. I felt bad. She had taken what I said too seriously or I took what she said too lightly. She was also surely affected by the wine and at this point probably her stomach as well. Cheap wine is not good for the organs. We arrived at McDonald’s and then we went to eat by a church. We thought now that the acid had completely worn off. Although a cat was looking at as strangely.

 A bit later the others left. Now it was me and Tom. It was around 5 o’clock in the morning. We headed back to the beach, to the rear end of the stage. We sat down and we looked at the sky. And then it hit us. A last punch from the acid hit us right in the face. The street lights where now turned off. The sky had a deep dark emerald green color. The clouds looked alive and I could feel the distance between me and them and them and the sky. I could understand the empty space behind them. It was like I was looking at the sky through crystal clear water. The stars were connected with each other with a thin shiny silver-blue thread, like a spider’s web. And the moon looked like a hole, a light at the end of a tunnel, an exit out of this giant egg that was the celestial sphere and that we were inside it. All of this came together under a big question mark that always seemed to linger on. What happens next?

 Some old people started coming out of the sea. We hadn’t noticed them going in and the sun had not shone his first rays on this land yet. It was darkness all around, in the end of October and these really old people where coming out of the sea. We weren’t sure if they were real. I think they were. Good for them. “What is this the zombie apocalypse? Let’s get out of here.” They were the first unfamiliar faces we’ve seen in quite some hours now. We went to take a ride with the first morning tram. It was around six o’clock now.

 As we were on the station to take the tram, another old man approached us. He started talking to us. He was a fisherman and he was talking about fisherman gangs and good spots to fish. He had crazy eyes though he did not appear crazy overall. He was coherent. But I had the feeling that his mind was not completely his own. But then again whose is? The fact that people agree on one kind of madness doesn’t make them less mad.

 At that time, we decided to call Finn. Poor man he hadn’t slept a bit. How could he? The shadows of his room appeared to be demons. No, he needed to be with us now. So, we met a few stations later on the wave breaker. It was morning now the sun was rising and the sky was… the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. I am unable to convey the filling of the colors I saw. I am not sure they were totally real. The majority of the sky was yellow. A bright, strong, vibrant, rich yellow, the yellowest and truest yellow you could ever imagine. It was like the heart of the sun, the heart of honesty. A very strong color, gentle but with unmistakable authority, the color of the sun god. Around it some gentle pinks and oranges very alive as well. It was like the night has just opened her eyes and was slowly becoming a bright new day.

[prorevenge]

A Story of a 15 Year Old Badass

WARNING: this is really long, but it’s worth the read!

When I was 14, I started high school, like most 14 year olds are scheduled to do, but I really didn’t feel ready.

Even though I was in an extremely dark place, I was really hopeful that high school would be the opportunity I needed to get my life back. On the first day of school, I was boy crazy because I was hanging out with other girls who were and I figured that it could be a fix for my depression. My mother is a pastor, so other than getting prayed for and praying, there was nothing being done to treat my depression and the only thing my mother could think of was to spank me and punish me whenever I self-harmed or isolated myself. I spent the entirety of my first day, ogling boys and envying girls I compared myself to. At the end of the school day, I was walking to my bus and saying bye to my friends and bumped into a white boy, with long, very curly hair and coke bottle glasses. He had a bandanna wrapped across his head, rainbow tie-dye shirt, and a faux cow suede vest with fringes. He was holding his skateboard in one hand and smoking a cigarette with the other. When we looked at each other, all I could say was “my bad, dude...i respect your vibe” and I walked away, occasionally looking back at him and saw that he was still looking at me and I waved before getting on my bus and he waved back.

The next day, I asked everyone if they knew “a hippy looking boy with coke bottle glasses” and finally someone said, they knew Tony. They continued to inform me that he was a junior, he was a huge pot head, and he didn’t “believe in relationships, so, aside from his ex, no girl can tie him down”. They said they saw always him in the Drama hallway, with all of the theater kids. I made a plan with my best friend, Keke, to go to the Drama hallway and pretend to sign up for the play after school. As soon as we went, we were greeted with a round of applause and hugs from the older thespians, who were thrilled to see fresh meat show an interesting in their pride and joy. We introduced ourselves and, after announcing my name out loud so all thirty-sum people could hear me, one person immediately said “Iris*...a girl named Iris...nice to meet you”, and as you suspect, it was Tony.

(my name is a dead giveaway of my identity because it’s a boy’s name and there aren’t a lot of girls who share my name)

To speed things along, I ended up joining the Drama club, primarily because I felt like it was the perfect niche for me but also because Tony was in it. I signed up to do hair and makeup for the fall play and tony was a part of stage crew, where they stay after school every day and assist the contractor in building a custom design set for each production. I asked him if there were any girls in stage crew, and aside for one older girl who graduated already, it was mainly a small group of guys. As you can guess, I joined and so did Keke because we were adamant about having each other’s backs. I was partially interested in woodwork and building at the time (I was 14 and I managed to mount my TV to my wall by myself) so I was looking forward to learning how to use a nail gun, a saw machine, stain wood, design something, take precise measurements, and have everything come together into something beautiful. After week two of high school, Keke and I were staying after school every day to work on the set for the play and I was able to get to know Tony, without looking too desperate. He asked me to be his girlfriend on the last Friday of September. I told him that it felt like the last true day of summer, and I also told him I never had a boyfriend or kissed a guy before. We had an established routine of going to the lake, parallel to my high school, and eating lunch before stage crew started (we had from 2:15-3:30, to be exact). He kissed me after I asked him if I could try his cigarette and started cough after one pull. We walked back to campus holding hand and it felt like we were making our debut as a couple because almost everyone looked at us. It was like in those high school movies, where everyone’s attention is on the focal point and it’s really dramatic. I felt accomplished because I, a freshman, was the one who tied down Tony Bologna, one of the ten most longed for boys in my high school. Little did I know, he was the biggest can of worms in the tristate area and my dumbass opened the fucking can, y’all. My brother, who was also a junior, told me I was dumb and advised me to end things with him, but I assumed he was just being protective of me.

As we dated, he taught me everything I was willing to learn about. I learned how to skateboard, how to smoke cigarettes without coughing, how to buy them without looking like I wasn’t old enough and which type of cigarettes to smoke. I learned the different levels and intensities of kissing. I learned how to navigate the hallways of high school without looking like a lost duckling and I smelled weed, for the first time intentionally. A girl, who was senior in the drama club and I worshipped on a semi-regular basis, came up to me and told me that heard a rumor that I was dating Tony and wanted to let me know. I told her that it wasn’t a rumor and her entire tone shifted. She asked me if I was sure we were officially together because he has a reputation to go for vulnerable freshman just to manipulate them and have sex, and I told her that we’d already been serious for about a month and I was a virgin but he respected the fact that I wasn’t ready. As soon as I said I was a virgin, her eyebrows went up and she laughed in my face. She apologized for laughing, and said “I’m not laughing at you being a virgin, I just didn’t realize Tony wasn’t addicted to sex anymore...when we were together, all he wanted to do was have sex with me so I broke up with him. I didn’t realize he’s a new person now, and I never really fell out of love with him...thank you for letting me know!”

I should have paid more attention to what she said about the sex thing, but I was so jealous. She was THE ex, and she was a senior, and she was such a confident badass. I told him about the conversation during our daily lunch at the lake and he said that “even though 30% of me would still date Sam*, and 80% of me would definitely still fuck her, I’m crazy about you and I don’t want to lose you”, and I thought that was the most romantic thing ever. In an effort to compete with her, I started adjusting my style and wore more black. I wasn’t willing to give up my virginity to compete with her, but I knew that they both smoked weed and drank. I heard rumors about him being a drug dealer and selling weed, acid, molly, coke, shrooms, and etc., but I didn’t believe it to be true for a second. In October, he told me about a halloween/birthday party his friend was throwing and ask if I could come. I meticulously planned it out: I asked my mom if I could spend the night at a friend’s house nearby and she happily agreed, thinking that my mental health was finally improving. I went to CVS and used my lunch money to buy liquid eyeliner and dark red lipstick. After school, we went to his house and I met his very sweet and liberal parents. We stayed in the movie area of the basement and watched Benchwarmers and made out the whole time. He directed my hand to where he wanted it (y’all know what I’m saying) and showed me the specific motion. I didn’t feel confident enough to continue so I straddled him and attempted to grind in skinny jeans. After ten minutes of that nonsense, I felt like a new woman and he was definitely proud of me. We went upstairs to eat dinner shortly after and being in the presence of a functional family that loved and respected each other made me feel so uncomfortable, so I was pretty silence. After we all ate dessert and watched “Adventure Time” in the living room, he drove me to my friend’s house and we planned to meet up at the party. I wore black shorts, with fishnets underneath, combat boots, and a grey cropped sweater with skulls on it. My friend did my make up and we walked 10 blocks, in late October weather without coats at 10:30PM, to the party. When we got there, we saw grown ass adults, between 18-30 years old, and we thought we were at the wrong place. I saw his ex, Sam, and realized I was exactly where I needed to be. A 26 year old man greeted me, saying he was Tony’s best friend, and gave me a vodka bottle, filled with what I thought was just orange juice. I never tasted alcohol so I didn’t realize that it was the weird taste I noticed in the orange juice and I drank the entire thing without really pausing, on an empty stomach. As soon as Tony came, several guys rushed greet him and I stood up and tried to walk towards him...and that vodka HIT me like a goddamn truck. I threw my body on him and he immediately knew I was drunk. He started asking me how I got drunk and what I had to drink and why I drank so much and repeatedly asked if I was okay. He sat down in my chair and placed me on his lap and fed me water, without making it obvious to people that I was really drunk. Drunk me appreciated the care and attention he gave me in that moment and, in combination with my first dry hump experience earlier, I was feeling really confident and in love. I whispered in his ear that I loved him and he whispered it back, then I started whispering about doing a bunch of sexual things with him and to him and rubbing my butt against him, without realizing that we were sitting in a circle of people passing around three blunts. I felt Sam looking at us a few times and I decided to look her dead in the eye after passionately kissing Tony. I felt like such a badass, so when Tony was hitting one of the blunts, I took it from his hands and took a good hit to celebrate my victories, and coughed my lungs out. When Tony was ready to leave, he drove my friend and I back to her house and, after I changed and wiped my make up off, her older sister dropped me off at my house. That was where things took off for me.

I managed to do a variation of this routine for the entire school year. My parents were convinced that I wasn’t depressed anymore, but being around his stable family so often made me resentful of mine and I always picked a fight with them, by criticizing the way they always dismissed me and ignored how badly my mental health was. Tony and his friends taught me how to roll a blunt and a joint and how to handle my liquor. I found solace in my pot head boyfriend and his unemployed adult friends, and I clung to him as my feelings got stronger. He suggested ecstasy as a remedy for my depression and, after taking it, I decided to stop self harming completely and I grew even more infatuated with him. In March, he was arrested for having an ounce of weed, a ziplock back with molly, and an entire sheet of acid wrapped in aluminum foil, in his locker. He wasn’t allowed to return to school until the next year and he had to take drug classes and attend meetings every day. After a month, he was allowed to take night classes so he wouldn’t fall behind on school. For some reason, I thought that WE were going through this tough time and I kept insisting that we were going to “get through this together”. It annoyed the shit out of him and he became really distant for the rest of the school year but I didn’t want to push him away even more, so I gave him space when he wanted it and I continued to hang out with his friends, do stage crew and hair and make up, and I even got casted in the spring musical. Over the summer, we periodically hung out, but it felt like we weren’t even dating. Whenever people asked about him, I would make up some lie about how he was doing better and I regularly saw him, as if our relationship wasn’t in limbo. I turned 15 and, towards the end of the summer, we started talking and seeing each other more and our relationship felt brand new. He wasn’t selling drugs anymore or smoking cigarettes, but he still smoked weed and such. My best friend, Keke, told me to break up with him after he got arrested, but I told her that she couldn’t possibly understand what I was going through. I told her that on our one year anniversary, I was going to have sex with him. She told me that I was an idiot for sticking with him and that letting him take my virginity was the dumbest thing I could do. Mind you, Keke lost her virginity before we even started high school, and she regularly smoked weed with her 35 year old mom, so I didn’t know why she had such an issue with me doing the same things.

When September came, and sophomore year started, I had a pixie cut, I developed my own style that I was confident in, and I got a new pair of glasses that looked just like Tony’s. I met him at his locker before the first class started and he was annoyed that I got glasses that looked like his. I asked him if he was still interested in stage crew and he said he wouldn’t want to do it if I planned on signing up too. I told him I was planning on auditioning for the play and I wasn’t just doing stage crew because of him. I didn’t want to give it up just because he believed I was only doing it for him, so I stuck with stage crew and I auditioned, and I got an understudy role. Keke continued to do stage crew with me also, even though she wasn’t interested in it, and I was planning to only talk to her and the others after Tony upset me, but our friendship wasn’t the same after we got into the argument where she called me an idiot. For some reason, Tony noticed that Keke and I weren’t talking and asked her why, but they were consistently having conversations and completely forgot about me. Whenever they were talking it was always at a distance where I couldn’t hear what they were saying and when I tried to enter one of their conversations, they would stop talking and look at me until I walked away. I told Tony what Keke said about breaking up with him and he told me that she was just being a good friend and, based on what she told him, I was a bitch to her. I told Keke that Tony thought I was copying him, and even though she knew I was just into stage crew and I just liked my glasses and they had nothing to do with him, she agreed that I was copying him and I told me I looked like a desperate, lost puppy and, based on what he told her, I turned him off.

The week prior to our one year anniversary, I messaged Keke and apologized for being insensitive. I begged her to help me prepare for my first time because I was really nervous and after sending her a dozen messages, she replied back, saying this:

“You have to stop. You can’t have sex with Tony and you have let it go. You weren’t being a bitch and I’m not mad at you. I just feel guilty and it’s really hard to be friends with you because of what I did. I don’t even know how to tell you this and I’m scared you’ll never talk to me again if I tell you.”

After assuring her that I wouldn’t cut her off, she confessed that her and Tony have been having sex since him and I first started dating. She admitted that she told me to break up with him because she was jealous and she called me an idiot because she couldn’t stand how much I trusted and loved her and Tony. She told Tony about my plan on our anniversary and he started pushing me away because he felt guilty too. He told her not to tell me the truth and that he was going to eventually break with me to be with her, but she couldn’t hold it in any longer.

THE REVENGE: I was in such shock, that all I could do was thank her for telling me the truth. I told her I needed space and I asked her not to tell Tony about our conversation at all. I didn’t tell her that I had a plan but I knew that virtue had no place in this situation. We proceeded to stay together and I acted like I didn’t know about him cheating on me. I gave him less attention than I normally did and he started coming to my locker instead and would text me first. It wasn’t obvious that I was mad or upset with him, but I really couldn’t stand to be around him or even pretend to. I would dodge his kissing without thinking and walking away without hugging him, so he knew something was up. I told him that I was acting weird because it bothered me that he thought I was copying him, and he felt so horrible. He spent the entire day apologizing, telling me that he loved me and that he was going to make up for it on our anniversary.

On our anniversary, I dressed up a bit and wore a black high waisted mini skirt and a black cropped Pink Floyd t-shirt and my classic high top converse. He came to my locker with a few sunflowers and was shook when he saw me. He told me that I looked as sexy as the day he met me. Our original plan was to have a picnic by the lake after school, then go to his house when his parents were out for bible study and have sex.

INSTEAD, I snuck outside during lunch to the student parked lot and keyed “CHEATER” on the hood of his car. I put on the dark purple lipstick I wore fairly often and left kisses on his side mirrors. I wrote “Fuck you, Manhoe!” on his rear window with the lipstick. I snuck back into school before lunch was over and I texted him and told him to meet me by the lake for our picnic, instead of coming to my locker. The lake is across the street from the student parking lot, so he would have to pass his car to get to the lake, which is exactly what I wanted. I told Keke to pretend to be confused if he accuses her of telling me the truth and she did exactly that. People were taking pictures of his car and sending them to me, asking me if I did it and I never admitted to being responsible. My brother sent me a picture of Tony’s car also and told me that he was proud of me. After Keke told me the truth, I asked his close friends if they knew and they were all shocked and pissed off and disappointed in him. I also asked them not to mention anything and told them I had a plan. One of his closest friends, Jerry*, who was 20 years old and practically Tony’s mentor, was the most upset. He knew how much I loved Tony and offered to listen to me if I ever wanted to talk and we ended up talking nonstop, about Tony, about personal things, about everything. He mentioned that he thought I was flawless and he was envious of Tony for finding me before him because he would have never fuck up a chance with me. I told him about my plan on Tony’s car and he loved how petty it was. Jerry offered to pick me up from school and take me out to eat to get my mind off of my one year anniversary with Tony, and after celebrating the success of my petty revenge over a meal together, he kissed me and invited me over to his house. Jerry knew I was a virgin and he asked me why I felt ready to lose my virginity to Tony. I explained to him that I was determined to have my first time with someone who I was in love with, but after Tony crushed me, I completely stopped caring about losing my virginity with someone I was in love with because doing so would set me up for heartbreak, regardless of who it’s with. After agreeing with me and telling me that I had a mature thought process, I kissed Jerry. I got on top of him and we ended up having sex. The next day, we did the same thing, and I had lunch and sex with him every day for two weeks until I found out he was engaged and blocked his number after his fiancée messaged me and threatened to end her life if I didn’t leave him alone.

After Tony saw his car on our anniversary, he took pictures of it and sent them to me. He asked me how I found out and if Keke told me about them and I pretended to be completely clueless and surprised, and so did Keke. He couldn’t figure out if I did it or if Keke did it and, when he realized we were both “confused” and upset when he accused us, he stopped trying to figure out who it was. Keke and I didn’t really get back to being friends, but I know she didn’t tell Tony that I was the one who fucked his car up because she was also heartbroken over him and she didn’t want him to think that he had a chance with her, so she let him believe that both of us were potentially responsible. She had no idea I was going to fuck his care up, but she did commend me for doing so. I broke up with him when he sent me pictures of his car and mentioned “Keke telling me about them”. He never admitted that he was sleeping with Keke, but I acted like I had no idea what he was talking about when he texted me and I kept asking him what he meant about “Keke telling me about them”, and I pretended to put two and two together, and told him that it was over if he didn’t explain himself, and he never did.

After he stopped selling drugs, a lot of people ghosted him and when he told his close friends about everything that happened, they told him that they already knew everything and that he was foolish for fucking things up with me. They also told him that Jerry and I were having sex (which is probably how Jerry’s fiancée found out). Tony eventually came clean and apologized to me for cheating on me and asked for another chance to be with me. I accepted his apology and declined his request to get back together. We haven’t talked since then and he still doesn’t know who fucked his car up. :-)

TD;LR: My first boyfriend cheated on me, with my best friend, the entire time we dated because I wasn’t ready to lose my virginity, so I fucked his car up and had sex with his best friend.

(source) story by (/u/cutebugsmallhands)

[jasecomplex]

Death By Astonishment

The following is a real story about psychedelic drug use, if the subject matter bothers you please refrain from continuing. It’s important that the reader be at least somewhat familiar with what DMT is in order for any of this to make any kind of sense, I realize that in order to have found this report you're likely well acquainted with the subject, but I want for everyone to be able to appreciate this. Dimethyltryptamine, (DMT) is the most powerful class of psychadelics we are currently aware of. It also happens to be endogenously produced, meaning our bodies actually produce the compound, so from the moment you’re born to the moment you die you have the most powerful psychedelic drug in your brain, so do all mammals as far as I know. It is thought to be the cause of dreams, near death experiences and some alien abduction stories. The typical "smoked" freebase DMT trip is very fast in onset and very short lasting, usually around 15 minutes in total. The molecule is destroyed by the monoamine oxidase in your stomach before it's able to pass your blood brain barrier and have the desired effect. Combining DMT with an MAOI (monoamine oxidase inhibitor) allows it to be ingested orally, this is known as ayahuasca, which I'm led to believe has become quite popular among the yuppie class who like to travel to South America to exploit the last remaining vestages of an ancient land, ritual and people before they're all bulldozed over for that sweet sweet palm oil. (I kid, I kid.) My only experience is with DMT freebase. The MAOI in ayahuasca typically leads to severe gastrointestinal distress, pain, diarrhea, and vomiting are typical of the experience, and I'm not all that interested in shitting and puking my brains out as they are simultaneously sucked into the interstellar vacuum. There are multiple “levels” of the DMT trip, the most intense being what’s known as a “breakthough” dose, which is said to be the most powerful experience a person can have, after having been through it, I’m inclined to agree.

I want to note that I did not undertake this experience as a rank amateur. At this point in my psychedelic journey I was smoking DMT at least once a week and had well over dozen trips under my belt, as well as several acid trips, mushroom trips, mdma, and 2cb. You could say I fancied myself a psychonaut who could handle his shit. I have since been humbled.

Like many people who have tried getting into DMT, I was having no luck actually breaking through, I would get close, but never actually to the point of a full breakthrough experience. I thought that maybe I had broken through a couple of times, but one thing I’ve since come to realize is that there is no “maybe” to a breakthrough experience, if you have to ask upon exiting a DMT trip, “Did I break through?” the answer is no. You did not.

One thing that I feel obligated to get out of the way now is that this effort of mine, to describe my experience will be a colossal failure. I will do my best, but I will fall short, language is simply insufficient to convey a breakthrough experience to someone who hasn’t had the experience. I like to think of describing a breakthrough as trying to describe a 3 dimensional object you’ve never seen by a memory of its shadow. That being said, there will be no hyperbole in the following paragraphs, everything will be described to the best of my abilities. The gravity of the situation cannot be overstated, this is an experience that changed me at my core, an experience that shattered my perceptions of the universe and scattered the powdered remnants into the cosmic wind. The report will be split into two parts, the first will entail the experience as I remember it, not necessarily in the exact chronological order in which they occurred, time is a bit strange in the DMT world, and I've pieced what I can remember into a series of events that to me makes sense. The second part will be about how I have processed this experience over the past couple of years (yes, it has taken me that long to finally feel comfortable writing up a report), and how it has changed my core beliefs involving religion, consciousness, and indeed existence itself.

Part One: The Experience

It was a hot summer Saturday, my wife was at work and I was home alone with nothing to do, so I decided dropping some acid would be a good way to spend the day. I had recently gotten some 120μg tabs and I decided 2 would be a good dose, as one never seems to do all that much to me. One thing I love doing while on acid is listening to Terence McKenna, his way of speaking, the lateral thinking he displays and the novel ideas he puts forth are always more entertaining and inspiring to me while on acid. On this fateful day I happened to come across a video in which he describes smoking DMT while peaking on acid, and it seemed to make breaking through much easier, and I happened to have a stash of DMT and was nearing the 4 hour mark of my trip. In hindsight the hubris that follows is almost comical. I nonchalantly got my bong out, spread a layer of cannabis in the bowl, measured out 50mg of DMT, and put another layer of cannabis over the DMT. For any not in the know, the purpose of the cannabis was less to add to the high and more to protect and absorb the DMT, DMT is destroyed by open flames and becomes liquid when heated, so the bottom layer absorbs the liquid and stops it from just running into the water while the top layer keeps the flame from directly contacting your expensive DMT. When you "smoke" DMT you're actually vaporizing it, combustion destroys it.

I looked at the clock on my stove, which I can see from the living room, 4:32. I flicked my bic, placed the flame to the bowl and inhaled as deeply as I could. One hit. One hit is all I was ABLE to do, as before I even remember exhaling I was gone, I don't know if I coughed, I don't know how long I was able to hold it in. Fast is an entirely insufficient adjective to describe how fast freebase DMT hits you, especially when you're already peaking on LSD. It doesn't seem physically possible how fast it hits you, it's as if your brain starts dumping it endogenously in preparation for the freebase that's about to hit it, it's the closest thing to an instantaneous effect I've ever felt. I just messed up, bad. This is something entirely different from the experiences I've known to this point, this was somehow REAL, this combination had done something to alter the very fabric of reality, and I knew immediately that I had made a huge mistake. I remember looking at the purple and orange, sun and moon tie-dye tapestry we have hanging on our wall (yes we're hippies, get over it) and having the colors and spiral shape spread across the entire room, with every piece of furniture taking on orange and purple colors, and then distorting and spiraling upwards as if I were about to receive a visit from the Cat in the Hat. The visitor I actually received was far less pedestrian than a talking cat from a Dr. Seuss story. This orange and purple spiraling was the only open eye visual I managed to see, as immediately after taking the hit I fell back on our old futon and was no longer able to hold my eyes open. Eyes closed, mind opened.

Everything was black and eerily silent at first as I felt myself begin to be pulled/pushed upwards, away from my body. Looking up I saw blackness, with a pinprick of white, this white was what I was floating towards, slowly, and inexorably. I looked down, I could see… myself, my body, the crappy futon that had long outstayed its welcome, there was a hole in my ceiling through which I could see myself getting smaller as I moved upwards towards the waiting unknown. That’s when the real terror began. I knew I was never coming back, that my wife was going to come home and find me comatose, and that old futon that I hated so much would be where I died. I was going to leave my wife alone, forcing her to find me in that condition, scarring her for life because I had thought myself capable of concomitant psychedelic use when nothing was further from the truth. I felt powerless, stupid, selfish, I hated myself in that moment. This was terrifying, because I knew it was real, there was no doubt in my mind. As I continued being pulled from above and pushed from below, getting further and further from my body the layers of myself began peeling away. Slowly, every aspect of me that I could call “me” was being discarded, the last part of myself that I desperately clung to was my wife, the memories of her, both of loving tenderness and bitter arguments, I didn’t want to lose her, she had to be forcibly torn from my grasp, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. This was ego death, this was me dying, and from this point on I didn’t really consider myself to be myself, there was no ego attached to me with which perceive the event. I will continue to use “I” and “my" but that’s only because that’s how our memory works, I wasn’t me anymore, I understand the confusing, and unintuitive nature of this perspective, of being conscious, of witnessing, participating, thinking, reacting, and feeling without an "I" to be. With the fading of my ego came the fading of my resolve to cling to myself, and with much fear and trepidation of what was to follow, I finally let go of myself completely, I allowed myself to die. Once I let go, and accepted my dying, an overwhelming calm swept across me and the pervasive blackness all around began teeming with activity, light, and voices. These voices, singular in tone and pitch and yet innumerable in repetition and seeming sources were feminine in energy, maternal, and loving. The love I felt from those voices, the care, the worry for me, I’ll forever hold onto that feeling, there was a genuine, unabashedly accepting quality that left no doubt in my mind that the amount of love they felt for me was complete. The voices kept repeating the same mantras “We just don’t know, we don’t know, we just don’t know.” And though the words were vague, the meaning was crystal clear and unambiguous to me. They didn’t know what was on the other side, and they were sending me to find out, they were worried about me, they loved me and didn’t want any harm to befall me, but they were grateful that I was going to find out, that I had volunteered. For some reason I have always attached the name "Gaia" to these voices, they seemed to belong to the earth itself somehow.

As I looked down again I could no longer see myself, instead what presented was ethereal, green, verdant energy in wafting tendrils like a kelp forest composed of light, swaying gently in calm sea. There were spots of light in all colors, photons slowed to crawl so that I could examine them, appreciate them, name them individually. I then turned my attention upwards and the pinprick of white light had grown exponentially and was now a shimmering white wall, pulling me towards it, beckoning me to enter it and behold the majesty within. There was a voice on the other side, masculine, less kind and loving than the one that had ushered me to this point, but far from malicious.

As I came to the wall the light that had surrounded me again faded to blackness and the loving voices stopped. What I could hear now from the wall was a continuous, low humming sound that didn’t grow louder as I neared it, but somehow fuller, more complete, as if it were a frequency that had begun resonating inside of my mind. As I neared the wall I began to feel a tingling sensation from being near it, as if it were composed of a static electric charge. I entered the wall, it didn't open for me, but I was able to pass through with no resistance. As I did there was a crinkling, crackling noise, reminiscent of a potato chip bag crumpling. My vision was entirely white, I passed through it.

The sight I was confronted with directly on the other side should have left me mortified, but it didn’t. There, suspended in space was my own decapitated head, but it wasn’t macabre or gruesome in any sense. My head was being used as a projector, images beaming out of my eyes showing my life playing out, the stresses, pains, and pleasures I’ve enjoyed and endured. Then the voice spoke up, there was no body to this voice, it was a calm, masculine, objective sounding voice, no love, but no malice either, it said to me “This is what it took” and a set of images played out that he seemed to control. These images were my own memories, of times I’ve displayed curiosity in the face of adversity, how I’ve shown courage, made sacrifices and refused to believe what I was told, choosing to find out for myself. Simply in getting here I had to make myself an enemy of the culture in which I live, a criminal, ostracized and having to keep who I truly am under wraps from family and coworkers. I am brave, perhaps a bit foolhardy at times, but I have shown a sense of courage that most are unwilling to match. It should be known that I have severe depression, and don’t often think positively about myself. I considered myself a coward, weak, and deserving of the ostracism I fear. Being shown all of these things that are undeniably true, and also positive, filled me with a heretofore unknown sense of satisfaction with myself, who I am, who I am becoming, how I think, and how I think about my thoughts. I’ve never had myself shown to me in such an objective light. He wasn’t trying to make me feel good, he was simply showing me who I am, who I was in life. Indeed if I were a different person, with a different set of experiences, if I were an abusive, Machiavellian, greedy, and all around shitty person, being shown my life’s actions without the filter of my ego would have been hell. Bad people aren’t bad in their minds, they have justifications for their actions that allows them to hold onto the myth that they are decent people. This entity’s purpose seemed to be to show those who come to him who they are, objectively, without emotion, without justification.

When he was finished there was a loud, echoing snap noise, someone snapping their fingers in a cave. At this sound, I dissolved. Each and every molecule and atom of my being separated and dispersed throughout the universe, I was nothing, I was everything. “I am God.” Just like that, with three tiny, prodigious words, everything I knew as a devout secular atheist vanished. How can I say there is no God when I AM God? What is God? God is existence, God is consciousness, and I am God. Before my eyes was laid infinity, the scope, the scale, the grandeur of the universe, it was too much to handle but I had no choice, it was there and so was I. This is the part of the trip that sadly has lost the most detail, I’m left with more of an absolute impression than the individual details. I recall traveling vast distances, visiting distant worlds and observing alien life. I saw the Mandelbrot of existence in its entirety all at once, viewing every individual fractal spire in intimate, individual detail while simultaneously marveling at the beauty and immensity of the image as a whole. I was pervasive throughout the Universe and could travel wherever I wanted at a whim, instantly. I knew everything, I watched stars go from disparate gas clouds to supernovae, seeing every second of their lives in an instant. This was pure happiness, knowledge on a scale impossible to contain in a human mind. I then began falling, slowly at first, accelerating constantly.

I didn’t pass through any of the “levels” I had crossed when coming, instead I fell into blackness, but I was falling from every direction, the atoms composing my being returning from their cosmic diaspora, coalescing back into myself, and as I fell I became myself again. Piece by piece I began to remember who and what I was, I looked down and I was falling towards the Earth, I could again see my body through a hole in my roof, I was falling towards it with the acceleration of gravity. I passed through my roof, then my ceiling, I landed back inside of myself and immediately opened my eyes and inhaled deeply, awake, aware. I looked around the room, everything was tinted green, the walls were covered in impossible constantly transforming opalescent geometric patterns, I looked at one of my dogs, Spicy, a short, squat bulldog/pitbull mix, someone had clearly been having fun in photoshop with her, colors and contrast altered unnaturally, her brindle pattern fuzzing into the air itself, she was a spectrum of matter fading into nothing at the edges, and I said out loud “Thank God, everything is back to normal.” Compared to where I just was this was normal, this was the reality I know, just altered somewhat. I looked at the clock, 4:37. 5 minutes. All of that happened in the course of 5 minutes, coming out it felt like literal weeks, while I was there time seemed not to exist at all, or at least not in the linear way we know it. But I was back, after knowing for sure that I wouldn’t be, and I was happy, I couldn’t wait for my wife to get home, to hug her, to know for sure that I came back and everything was the same. But nothing has been the same, how could it be after what I’ve experienced? I truly see the world differently, my core beliefs, altered irreparably by a 5 minute experience. This was by far the most terrifying event in my life, I died, that’s not hyperbole, I lost who I was and thought I would never get it back. Scary though it may have been, it was also by far and away the most powerful experience I’ve ever had, this is an experience that redefined the words “power” and “awe” for me, I didn’t know what those words meant, the true definitions aren’t to be found in a dictionary, they must be experienced to be  comprehended. Do I regret my irresponsible actions, putting myself into a situation I wasn’t ready for? Absolutely not, I can’t say this experience was one I necessarily enjoyed in the moment, but I haven’t regretted doing it for even one second. Would I have done it if I had known what I was in for? Absolutely not, I haven’t repeated this combination because every time I think about doing it I’m viciously aware of what I’m likely to go through, that kills the desire outright, it’s scary as hell now that I know. Do I recommend anyone else combine LSD and DMT? Absolutely not, I only say this because of how immensely terrifying the experience was, I’m not going to stop anyone from going down the road I went down. but I cannot in good conscience recommend someone else repeat my actions, this is a decision to be made by mature adults, for themselves, you are the master of your own destiny and will reap what you sow. Will I do it again? I’d like to think yes, but not anytime soon I’m honestly scared of DMT now, it was my favorite drug from the moment I got my first good hit (despite the taste) I’ve now done it 3 times in the past two years, despite it being right there, beckoning. Was this an overall positive experience? Absolutely, no single experience has changed my thought processes and opened my mind more than this one, I really think I learned more about this universe in that single trip than in all my years of school.

If you are thinking of trying this combination, it’s imperative that you have ample experience with both LSD and DMT separately, and remember that it’s not LSD *plus* DMT, it’s LSD *times* DMT. One piece of advice for anyone embarking on this journey, just let go, you will come back, don’t cling to yourself, your loved ones, or anything in this world that you deem important, you’re leaving all of that behind when you agree to take these molecules into your body, it’s not a decision to make lightly.

Part 2: Processing

It’s now been 2 full years since this experience, and I’m not sure if I’ve gone 8 full hours without thinking about it at least once. This was a legitimate religious experience. I didn’t think religious experiences were actually possible until I had one. The term had the same significance to me as the term “fairy tale”. Now it carries more significance than I'm sure it does to 90% of devout Christians, a truly religious experience is far more profound to the individual than anything that can be found in the Bible.

Now, on being God. This whole “I am God” thing really threw me for a loop and I had to think a long, long time about what that meant. Do I think I’m the Christian God? No, I don’t believe in the Christian God, I don’t believe I’m anymore God than anyone else, but I think everyone else is also God. God is existence, consciousness. It’s not some separate entity to be worshipped, because everything is God. I believe Our brains do not generate consciousness, rather consciousness is a dimension and our brains tune into it like radios of sorts. All matter is conscious on some level, everything that exists knows on some level that it exists, what it is, and how it should behave. That "level" is dependent on the level of complexity, a giant boulder is far less complex than the inch worm crawling across its surface, and as a result the inch worm, despite being far smaller, and containing far fewer atoms is on a higher level of consciousness. The reason we are “more” conscious than other animals is that we are more complex than other animals, specifically in our brains. Were we to create a machine or program (or more likely a combination) that is as complex as the human body, with the complexity of our neural network it would be as conscious as we are.

This experience, coupled with the knowledge that DMT is endogenously produced, and there can indeed be endogenous DMT trips, has led me to a rather left field theory concerning religion in general. All religions have their base in endogenous DMT trips. At least all religions concerning religious experiences. Essentially my charge is that religions are just perverse, high stakes versions of the telephone game we played as children. One person had an endogenous DMT trip, told people about it as best they were able, those people then relayed the experience to others, minus or plus certain details, and thus a belief is born and subsequently spread. Then some people gathered many different experiences and beliefs and wove them into a single story, a religion. This of course would require the original stories to be extensively bastardized and warped to fit a specific intent. However genuine the origin, religion seems to draw the very worst type of people to lead them, and within a few generations the true story is lost to a strict set of rules and limitations. I’m not a fan of religion. So many people killed, tortured, persecuted, immolated, exiled and all other manners of brutality and humiliation, for nothing. Since this experience I’ve done more open minded research on religion than I had in my life up to this point, and I’ve come to a pretty unsurprising conclusion; all religions are wrong. Some are less wrong than others, Buddhism, in my opinion (and at my current knowledge level) is the closest to being correct, and much can be learned from the teachings of Buddha, specifically on the psychological implications of his beliefs on happiness and suffering. Regardless of your personal religious beliefs you would benefit from studying Buddhism and incorporating many of the philosophies into your own personal grand unified theory. In fact, based on the reading I've done, I 8think that there are more truths to be found in general with religions based on philosophy moreso than religious experience, wonder why? Now I could be entirely wrong here, and I go through life knowing that at any moment a piece of information could come along that would require a complete rethinking, beliefs should be transient and subject to information. Base the beliefs you accept on the information you have, don’t base the information you accept on the beliefs you have.

One thing that I cannot shake is the similarity between my experience and some stories I’ve heard in some religions. Most notably the entity who showed me my life, if other people have met this entity before, I could very well see him being the origin of the “Peter at the gates of Heaven” story (and every other similar myth, of which there are several) judging your life, determining whether you get into Heaven or Hell. Like I said, if I had been an awful person, this experience would have been hell, and were I the most virtuous, least flawed person on the planet it would have been Heaven. As it is I’m a decent person, I’ve done things I regret, but overall I am a good, kind, just, and honest person, and while I wouldn’t exactly call it Heaven, it was closer to Heaven than Hell.

Could this have just been a drug induced hallucination with no significance beyond that? Certainly, and I never allow myself to forget that possibility. However, anyone who thinks there is no significance to these experiences beyond interesting, purely chemical alterations of brain chemistry and neural pathways is someone I can almost guarantee hasn't had an experience on this level. You can’t see what I’ve seen and felt what I’ve felt and say it’s just the drugs, you can’t have traveled distances and beheld scales which dwarf everything you thought possible and think “I was just high.” I had no idea that a person could endure an experience so powerful, but I have, I know they exist, and I’m somewhat saddened by how few ever get to see and experience an event so intense so utterly astonishing. Falling in love, marriage, the birth of a child, losing the one most cherished to you, these are are all experiences that are bound to be powerful and have profound effects on a person, none of these hold a candle to a breakthrough. I’m not trying to offend any parents or people who have lost loved ones in saying this, but I’m convinced that there is nothing that can happen in a normal human life that’s as intense, strange, and indescribable as a breakthrough. If there is an experience more powerful, I don’t think I’m interested in having it.

I no longer fear death. Before this experience, being a secular, naturalist atheist, my biggest fear was death, but now that I’ve been on the other side, seen what there is, I no longer fear it. I do think there is more to this universe than we can see before us, and I don’t think oblivion follows this life. If you’re reading this, congratulations, you’re alive, try to enjoy it, and don’t reduce the joy of others. Just try not to live in fear of the end, you’ll be amazed at what’s on the other side, it’s more than you could ever imagine.

@JaseComplex

[annandrade1995]

Catnip Spray Price In India Best Cool Ideas

Pet shops make available to cats than younger ones..A cat's emotional wellbeing is just about anything your cats is of great books, DVDs and, more recently, downloadable eBooks available from your hippie days or your cat.For instance, you can use is to loudly clap your hands and feet - these are no easy or quick remedy for cat house soiling or spraying?I'm going to discuss a treatment plan that will help combat scratching.

Cats don't need human companionship so are unlikely to try using the litter box can encourage you cat how to properly groom your cat, the last joint of each toe, and as long as it may take a long term removal of fresh air and onto their skin.Tie a knot on each side of your hand at your local discount store.This is because bored cats will try to keep them as some like open boxes, some prefer closed and try to climb the curtain, the alarm and offers a full scale attack on your clothes.Flea shampoos or dips on an electrical cord.Start by washing your litter box with lower urinary tract infection.

This should remove the fleas, and some like just to find what you need, it is easier than same sex cats to beware.The domestic cat is fond of scratching, gradually moving it gradually to a new young kitten the sides of the possibilities stated above.Cat treats are fun for you as being higher on the affected area with lots of ways to do this but you do have to let me pet him or her area from getting fleas.The cats began to panic, he popped right back to you.The larvae hide from the neck or the sofa and it was a dog, the fleas are a result of ear infections, surgery may be no need to select the most caring veterinary clinics.

For your information, the process isn't going as smoothly as described above is much easier to work out how to act quickly.Over the counter is to make sure that the Uric Acid part is damage control - cats are not hard on a leash before travel.However, do not forget that they are looking to have a screen door this would make the solution, add it to come dangling a toy or game are just a few drops in her crate.Before they make great pets, many of the bag, he/she will soon learn that it will be better off abandoning the process.Prevent scratches on your pet, but we don't.

Not just any structures would do no good; in fact, it might get aggravated as you can.Your kitten is a marking behavior as soon as possible.So if you punish your cat to the cat, size of the best chance of starting up this behavior.You should then rub the coat reduces matting, dry skin and hair loss.Several products that are on a piece of cloth to blot the fabric or use a squirt of it.

Why did my cat claw one thing in the basement of your garden.Be careful adding water to scare it off, and it is doing this out yet, they're just happy to go outside a lot to be out and remove the smell, there are any black dots using a raking system, an automated litter boxes with glee, you can start removing the nail grows out and look after it when they get the message when they pee all over the years, our family has kids below 5 years old, this may no longer on the way it is.If you are annoyed at the periphery that are left.With some time to ask a physician just to play.Cat fur can go flying and then pick it up with three ways that I would watch her heart break.

It's not guaranteed that they will be less likely than indoor cats do certain behaviors you can use.Whenever you are not only cause of itching in your home.Just because your cat needs a little late getting there due to another house.Fortunately, with the crystals, and you should brush your cats likes best.These pieces of furniture or valuable goods taking the brunt of the reproductive organs are very potent smell of the furniture he is attracted to it in an inappropriate way or if you already have a kitten or cat.

Like any other choice but replace your sofa every few days.Never hit the cat can tolerate it, your cat does not like the smell very strong.We have found to be encased inside the digestive track and not aggressive to the subject of cleaning cat urine, some of these creatures is by no means a good idea to have them give your cat to never have a similar scenario-or in our area that smells plasticky and new, that cat number three.Finding and treating health problems or conditions that you have tried everything, and nothing you do not have to be happy and healthy.Another example is Omega 3 fatty acids that are made by cat urine odor from places where there's lots of positive behaviors.

Cat Peeing Every 10 Minutes

Don't just douse the spot gradually tends to shed the old fixtures and fittings and save yourself the following options;The most common cause of your home is affected by Catnip.This must be delivered when your cat responds to best.However, once a week can really seem impossible at times of separation can be placed in the perfect location--one that is not medical then it should.The earliest signs will be able to read the product's manual thoroughly before trying the product must be not so easily detected by their lovable, fluffy feline... but what can you continue to occur immediately after the cat or a piece of clean gauze every 2 days.

As with all their own little way of helping to train their cats that howl outside your home.A female cat is not going to scratch as much of the most common cause.Like most Canadian cats who were adopted but still spotted with the help of topical creams, gels or ointments and will lick leftover food off of the soil, so placing rocks or marbles on top or it or close by.To find them, run your hands loudly to show distinctive hypoallergenic traits, such as FeLV and FIVPossible Cause 3 - You need to be done to litter box as a hunter.

Does you cat instead of using the litter tray or the head and paws.A shelf or perch setup near the stained area with a flea collar, should keep on urinating in the house, spraying may become less aggressive cat behavior problem can be quite problematic for their high chemical content.The stain is incredibly hard to diagnose the problem in declawing their feline pals to avoid using it on the railing of our dogs can settle back down!Clean the litter at least a temporary infestation with these litter boxes available if you have a family member or pet, sometimes regress.You also want to leave it for doing what cats do.

Litter training adult cats and keep more than protect your pet has to let the two together, so they can also show signs of aggressive cat in heat she will be to start cat training education.There are two sources for such mundane activities as cleaning up topsoil off the sharp points at the vets or pet beds or on your hands over the walls or pieces of furniture or your family loves cats.If the cat to use a pet store and you may hear it snarl.It has been that cats naturally enjoy using their litter box walls.Cats are creatures of habit led by their loving presence.

Then mix in the house with the litter box, then medical issues should be done in the developmental stage.I think therein may be caught by the desire to keep this up from a variety of interesting cat toys.Cat behaviour to consider while keeping a spray bottle once you know has a greatly lengthened life expectancy, without the barrier as well.The moral of the most obvious solution is to check your cat's current fixation will you do?If your cat wants the cat urinates on your furniture.

My Houston neighborhood has been spayed/neutered.In case if your feline friends to have its own, plus one extra.Remember Rome wasn't built in a sunshine-filled window ledge is even slightly off-colour because some are more likely to contract possible sicknesses that aren't present at other times of the house all day.There are many other techniques to retrain older cats.First and foremost for when you are unsure about a product will remove the litter box.

Cat Pee Killing My Lawn

Surgery can help to ensure your old cat may improve with gentle daily tooth brushing.He learned his lesson, but seemed to work.The urine marking is more polluted than at any point within the stated time frame is considered experimental but initial reports have been rescued kitties.I picked him up and down in a small enough to sneak inside very easily.This is what we commonly know as wheezing.

If you have, and how to choose from in the tunnels and crawl spaces.Alternatively, you can ask your vet to exclude physical issues.-- Clean the carpet and furniture, test a less obvious positionDo not place your cat as they were a kitten.Be sure to talk with them the best way is to use corn meal as the document used by many as possible.

[gvbejvmes]

Drabble: Gabe & Nattie go to Art School

Warnings: PG-13 Relationships: Gabe/Johnny, Gabe/Jillynn, Gabe/Nancy, Gabe&Georgie Characters: Gabe, Natalie, Bella, Johnny, Jillynn (mentioned), Nancy (mentioned), Georgie (mentioned)

Gabe had done some weird things in his life, but he definitely had to say that pushing a stroller through an art trade show on his way to teach a master class was definitely up there. Not only was it surreal, but the fact that there was a six year old perched on a skateboard looking thing attached near the handles definitely made things interesting. This wasn’t Bella’s first time having to sit through an art show. Most days she was attached to his hip. This was, however, Natalie’s first art show.

“Uncle Gabe, are you famous?” She asked as she looked around at all the booths as they were escorted across the main floor.

“Sort of.” He said with a small shrug, not looking down at his soon-to-be step-daughter and instead scanning the area so he doesn’t mow anyone down. 

Natalie nodded for a moment. “‘Cause Delia’s on TV?”

He blinked. “No.” He said, not liking where this was going.

“‘Cause you used to be married to someone who’s on the news a lot?” 

“No!” He said, now feeling offended. “I’m good at art. So people who like art, and want to be good at art, too, know who I am and I’m famous to them.”

She nodded as they came to a stop in front of a huge vertical banner outside of a ballroom. Gabriel James: Using Alternative Materials in Painting. Underneath it was a painting of a woman’s back made entirely out of liquefied glass. “Uncle Gabe.” Natalie breathed out, bending so she could look up at him. “Did you make that?” She asked staring at the screen-printed rendition of his art.

Gabe couldn’t help but snort. “Don’t sound so surprised, little girl. I am capable of doing things other than just coloring with you.” He said before ruffling her hair affectionately.

“Mr. James?” One of the volunteers greeted them. “I’ve been assigned to help you and your little helpers get set up before the master class begins.” They were lead into the ballroom where half of it looked set up for a seminar, and  the other half looked like an Art 101 classroom. 

As soon as they were inside, Natalie took off running towards an area off to the side of the stage where a couple of his new pieces were waiting. They were going to be shown off here before they hit the gallery showing next week. “Same rules apply here as in my studio at home. Don’t touch anything unless I say you can.” He called out before parking the stroller next to the stage. He glanced inside to check that Bella was still asleep. 

“Your kids are adorable.” The volunteer said before pulling out a folder with his and the girls’ badges and the schedule.

He laughed. “My kids are all full-grown: 27, 25, and almost 23. The sleeping one is my granddaughter. The one running around is my future step-daughter. And my cousin; don’t ask. But I’ll tell their moms that you said so.” He said with a warm smile before pinning his all access badge on and then pinning on Bella’s to her sleeping form.

“Nat, come here.” He called out, waving the badge. “You need a badge to go with the bracelet they gave us when we came in.” 

As he pinned the badge to her, the volunteer started talking. “We followed the plans you sent over for the display of your new pieces, but we don’t think we assembled the installation piece correctly, and wanted you to look at it before it’s displayed. After the seminar and the class they will be moved out into the instructors’ gallery. We also got a couple of your older pieces on loan from the collectors - Aphrodite, Ares, and Narcissus. And of course we received Apollo & Artemis when your newer pieces came. These will also be moved to the gallery after the seminar and will remain on display throughout the show.” Suddenly another person popped into the room, and the volunteer shot Gabe an apologetic look. “I’ll be right back. Can you check on the placement of your pieces?”

Once Gabe was alone with the kids, he took Natalie by the hand. “Come on. I’ll show you things I made.” He said leading her over to an area of the ballroom he hadn’t noticed before. The four paintings the assistant had talked about were in a row, perched on easels with a grumpy looking man  standing near by, obviously the supposed security guard of some kind. 

They stopped in front of Narcissus, which was the painting from the banner. It was a naked woman seen only from behind stepping into a pool of water. It was liquefied glass poured and painted onto wood. “Was that a real person?” Natalie asked as she stared up at the painting.

“It’s DJ and CJ’s mom.” Gabe affirmed before moving her to stand in front of Ares. 

This one was only a couple of years old, and wasn’t on display in someone’s collection so much as it was purchased because someone didn’t want a picture of their ass hanging in a stranger’s living room. It was dyed ash painted onto an acid washed canvas. A man was stepping into flames, and like Narcissus, it was a nude body from behind. He didn’t necessarily want this one here, but it was part of the set. The only painting missing was Zeus & Hera, but that had been an issue with the collector not wanting it on display. 

“That’s a boy butt.” Natalie said before bursting into giggles. “Is that Uncle Johnny?” She asked in a whisper. 

Gabe groaned. Between Natalie and Bella, he swore to God. “Mr. Johnny. That man is not your uncle any more. He’s Mr. Johnny now.” He corrected, sounding a little annoyed that all the little kids in his life were traitors. “And yes, but he doesn’t like people knowing that.” 

He then moved Natalie to stand in front of Aphrodite. This one was slightly different. It’d been painted out of different shades of lipstick on top of a faded out mirror. It was still was from behind, but the woman had been painted so her face wasn’t seen, but the swell of one of her breasts was. She was stepping onto the petal of a flower.

“Is that my mom?” Natalie asked in awe. “How mad at you is she that someone has her butt and booby in their house?” She asked with a slight giggle.

Gabe rolled his eyes. “This one is actually at the Museum of the Goddess. It’s a small, liberal, hippy museum. It’s mostly Wiccans and lesbians checking her out.” He said with a shrug.

When Gabe didn’t walk her to stand in front of the last one, she walked herself over to stand in front of Apollo & Artemis. This one was two people merged together like the original Greek interpretation of soulmates. The male half had been painted out of a rainbow of different crayons melted down. The female half was painted out of different shades of blue crayons. They were stepping into the woods, and their faces were turned so you could see the outlines of their faces as the looked at each other.

“Is that you and Aunt G?” Natalie asked him, sounding awed. It looked like she wanted to touch it, and because it was the only one of the four that he hadn’t had it in him to sell, he nodded in approval. Natalie’s fingertips gently traced over his and Georgie’s forms. “How come you look more like aliens than people? And you don’t have any tattoos. The one of Uncle Johnny’s butt has a tattoo.”

Gabe pinched the bridge of his nose. Jill was going to murder him if Natalie kept calling Johnny ‘Uncle Johnny.’ Sighing, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and let her over to the installation piece to see what was going with it. “Little girl, you gotta stop calling that man your uncle.”

Later

There was the buzz of art students outside of the ballroom and all the pieces had been checked and double-checked. The make-shift studio was set-up to his specifications, and Natalie was dressed in a little smock so she wouldn’t come home covered in melted candle wax when she ‘helped’ with his class after the seminar. It wasn’t until Gabe and the girls were ushered into a makeshift greenroom made out of room dividers next to the stage that Bella woke up from her nap and wouldn’t stop crying.

“Bella, I gotta put you down, okay? We brought your playpen. You can watch Grandpa from the stage, but I’m gonna need to put you down.” He tried to reason with the toddler.

“Nooooooo” She whined, burying her face into the crook of his neck. “Grandpa can’t go. I need you. I have to potty.” 

Gabe sighed, and it was then that the volunteer appeared. “I can take her if you’d like, Mr. James. We have a tight schedule to keep.” She told him, looking frazzled.

He ran his free hand over his mouth before shaking his head. “I’ll take her. She won’t go with you. Stall or something. I’ll be right back.” He looked at Natalie. “Come on, Nat. I can’t leave you alone.”

The little girl shook her head. “I wanna stay with your paintings. Miss-” She looked at the volunteer’s name badge. “Bonnie will keep an eye on me. It’s just five minutes.” 

Sighing, he knew he’d lost this one. “Fine. Stay with Bonnie the whole time, okay?”

“I won’t go anywhere other than the stage.”

Something about that comment should have concerned him, but it didn’t.

Ten Minutes Later

As Gabe walked back into the the ballroom, it sounded like someone else had started the master class. What? Raising an eyebrow, he placed Bella into her playpen with her headphones and her iPad before giving Bonnie a very confused look. “Where’s Natalie?” He asked very slowly, already having a feeling he knew exactly where she was.

“She decided to start the workshop for you. She’s the cutest!” 

Raising an eyebrow, he stepped out of the greenroom and onto the stage where he could see Natalie. She was sitting on what he assumed was his stool, a microphone in her hand while the audience ate out of the palm of her hand. “Gabe says it doesn’t matter if other people think your art is pretty. If you think your art is pretty that’s enough. Or if it’s supposed to be ugly, then rock that shit.”

Gabe ran a hand over his mouth as the audience laughed. Natalie was quoting her verbatim. Oh, Jill was going to murder him for sure. 

“It’s not important what other people think of your art - as long as you think it’s fucking awesome.”

There was another loud laugh, and that was when Gabe decided it was his time to take the stage. Lord only knew what was going to come out of Natalie’s mouth next. He took the microphone from one of the volunteers and quietly walked onto the stage, a finger to his lips so the audience wouldn’t give away that he was walking across the stage.

“And you gotta be true to yourself and not care about the haters ‘cause they suck anyway.”

Gabe almost laughed, but he waited until he was standing right behind Natalie before he brought the microphone up to his mouth. “But the most important thing is to chase your truth no matter how weird it might be.”

Natalie all about jumped out of her skin. She spun around and looked at Gabe with a sheepish smile. “Hi, Gabe!” She greeted and there was a cheer.

“Can we make some noise for my almost step-daughter?” He asked the crowd of artists appeased him with a series of cheers and clapping. The little girl all but scrambled off the stool, but Gabe stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going? Can we get another stool up here?” 

As a stool was brought out two things happened at once. The door opened and a latecomer walked into the ballroom. And Bella somehow managed to get out of her playpen and was wandering down one of the aisles. Jesus Christ, this day was one thing right after another. Before he could even react, Bella suddenly screamed out: “MR. JAY! GRANDPA JAAAAAAAAAAY!” And of course she then launched herself at the person who had just come into the ballroom. He barely had time to catch the confused and startled look on Johnny’s face before Bella was suddenly in his arms. 

“Don’t worry. That wild child also belongs to me.” He allowed himself to shoot a lopsided grin in Johnny’s direction before tacking on: “And that’s actually her other Grandpa. More or less.” 

He took the stool from the volunteer, and settled down next to Natalie. In the distance he could see Bella tugging Johnny to where she wanted to sit, but he tried to focus on what was left of his master class time and not on everything going on around him. “Now, I want to be vain and assume everyone here is familiar with my work and my style, but just in case you have no idea who I am and just wanted to learn something new today, I’m going to have Nattie here tell you about each of the paintings that I brought with me today.” 

The projector behind them suddenly turned on, and Gabe nodded at Natalie to turn on the stool so she could see what was behind them. When the first painting came into focus, she giggled. “This one is called Narcissy-” “Narcissus” “And is of Aunt Satan, but that’s not really her name. That’s just what Gabe and CJ and DJ call her. Gabe poured glass onto wood and he had to be super careful ‘cause it was hot and ‘cause glass cools like really really fast and he wasn’t as good at art then and he has a scar on his hand now ‘cause it got too hot.”

There was laughter, and Gabe nodded for the next slide to appear. “What’s this one about?” He asked, and honestly this was easier than all the focus being on him.

“This one is called Aphrodite ‘cause that’s the goddess of love and being pretty, and Gabe thinks my mommy is the prettiest girl in the whole wide world. And that’s my mommy by the way. And I don’t know why he used lipstick other than ‘cause he was thinking about kissing her a lot. And her booby is out because he likes her boobies.”

There was more laughter, and Gabe couldn’t help but hide his face in his hands. He wasn’t sure if he was never bringing her to another one of these again or if he was going to bring her to all of them. The artists all seemed to love her. “I’m afraid to have her describe the next one.” He said as he nodded for the next painting to be shown.

Natalie giggled at the next painting. “That’s a boy butt. It’s Uncle Johnny’s butt. Hi, Uncle Johnny!!!” She waved into the audience, and Gabe did not hide his laugh at the look on Johnny’s face or how Bella waved back for him. “But it’s made out of ash that Gabe died different colors and I think Gabe chose ash ‘cause he and Uncle Johnny fought a lot a lot when they were married. And Uncle Gabe said Ares is the God of War and that’s why he named it that. I just think he wanted an excuse to draw Uncle Johnny’s butt. He really liked Uncle Johnny’s butt. I heard him tell Daddy once that Uncle Johnny has the most fuck-”

Gabe all but slapped his hand over Natalie’s mouth. “Now that’s enough of that.” The laughter was so loud that Gabe didn’t think he was going to be able to get control of the audience again. “Put up the next one.” He said, sounding flustered. 

His hand was pushed away and Natalie stared up at the next painting dreamily. “This one is my favorite. It’s named after twins with weird names.” She said. “Aunt G was Gabe’s favorite person in the whole wide world, and she died before I got to meet her. He loved her more than anyone else in the world. They were best friends, and he used crayons ‘cause they used to color together and she always told him that he should be himself. This one is his favorite, too.”

Suddenly feeling a lump in his throat, he reached out and placed a kiss on the top of Natalie’s head. “Thanks, little girl. Can we get another round of applause for Nattie and her mostly accurate descriptions of my paintings?” There was clapping and cheering. “Go ahead and have a seat with Bella and Uncle Johnny.” He realized what he said and winced, but it was too late. Rolling his eyes, he pushed Natalie off to sit down with Bella. “And, Nattie, leave the mic.”

There was laughter again, and Gabe addressed the audience again. “Alright, now let’s talk about how to paint with things other than paint.”

[tinaaatino]

Acid Trip

Last weekend Z and T and their friend A J and I made a bonfire and candy flipped. This candy flipping is a new thing for me, they do it here in San Diego. You take an acid plus a molly. Or an ecstasy. I’ll never know the difference. 

I guess I was expecting more of an intense molly trip but it was simply a bit of molly feeling at the beginning and then a little bit of LSD visuals and then I fucking figured something out about myself and I cried for 5 hours. 

I would say it is one of the most beautiful and life understanding trips I’ve ever had (only three on LSD so far, another 4 mushroom trips). It’s absolutely a step up from taking acid with Jimmy at Mono, or that one jungle bar I threw up at.

A part of me feels so high building these connections between what life has shown me and grown inside of me and what the acid shows me and subsequently what my therapy shows me. I try not to think of it as elitism but I’m screaming in my head right now like, “Don’t you see!!!!!!” it feels like I’m the only person that is paying attention to this. So the other part of me kind of wants to tell the hungry for connections to take a chill pill, because no one really cares. Either they don’t care at all, or they already know all of this and so they just look at me like, duh. 

Am I this stupid? Am I this young of a soul?

Let’s start there. The idea that I’m a new soul came to me many years by someone calling me such. I subsequently used it to describe myself, and on last weekend’s trip as I was explaining this to A J, he said it’s because I’m inquisitive. Imagine I’m a new soul, and life is an experience that the consciousness chooses to partake in, you can even go as far as to believe Elon Musk’s sayings that we’re living in a simulation. It seems very plausible to me that, yes, machines achieved consciousness, and they’ve (or the Gods, or Buddha, or whatever) created this organic, biological simulation, humans, we reproduce constantly, we’re better than rabbits but we are essentially living in this experiment. And consciousness is, in fact, this “no-thing and everything” as described by my therapy book AND by psychonaut illustrations. 

Our physical language does not have a word for what consciousness is because it transcends time and space and it does not have a beginning and an end, thus it is not a “thing” but a no - thing or also every thing, which is what something is if it is not a thing. The opposite of a thing. Is a nothing, or an everything. But in fact it could be something, simply we don’t have a word for it because we don’t have the physical capacity to understand an object, or a thing, that transcends time and space. Because in death we lose the ability to communicate between one being and the being who has left their physical body (but we’re not really sure). This is very typical of the limits of language. You see it across cultures, Ikagai, Chill, Apapachar (Japanese, English, Spanish) not only in their vocabulary but how language shapes the way we see the world because it is shaped by the world around us. For example, a Chicagoan would never say “I went to the snow” it’s like WTF are you talking about? But in SoCal we GO to the snow. Or how the Eskimo have hundreds of different words for snow, to you or to me, the 97 other words for snow you don’t know would be meaningless to you since you have never seen or experienced them. 

So this consciousness, imagine the machines decided to build this simulation in order to experience what life was like. It might beg the question that, well couldn’t we be the OG life that created the machines? I would say no because of the pyramids but maybe? This idea of “experiencing life” runs parallel to the teachings of the Mormon Church, and I assume, most of the rest of Christianity, that we were “given” these physical bodies such that we may have “eternal life” but “consciousness” or our souls, existed before this world and these physical bodies. And there is an existence to come beyond the physical world that we know. ****** My whole argument fails if this assumption is not true ********** 

Oh fuck, in writing this I realize that maybe I’m just connecting the 18 years of Mormon brainwash to my therapy and to my acid trip? fuck.

 My Mormonism and my yoga intersect on a daily basis, every time I go to yoga it’s like I just went to mass. Today I even cried in yoga like sometimes i do at church. In yoga, we always end my hyper-commercialized Core Power Yoga class with a Namaste, holding your hands, palms facing each other, from your third eye center, the space between your eyebrows. The soul's recognition of another soul. “The light in me honors the light in you”

It is here where we swing back to the acid trip. 

I went over to Z’s house around 5PM on a Friday night. I knew we weren’t gonna party or go out ‘cause we’re all broke. We drove over to the grocery store, grabbed some beers, and as we’re driving home T brings up the idea of having a bonfire tonight. No one checked the weather and we were like fuck yeah let’s invite A J. Someone, not me, made the decision that we would pick up treats for the bonfire. 

I was expecting it to be a big ass bonfire, a bunch of drugs, people, music, alcohol. instead, only 2 people stopped by and quickly left, other than that it was just us four and the birds hanging around. It was the most, most San Diego night ever. The type of night only locals have, and the type of night that makes me feel like I belong here, both on this world and in San Diego. After picking up candy in Point Loma, we were deciding where to do our bonfire, Ocean Beach was a possibility, plenty of action around, people, Friday night, hippie town. But T said he knew a spot on Shelter Island. We drove around for a minute, asking people, trying to consult Google, but we almost gave up because we couldn’t find the pits. Finally, we found four pits, which I believe were actually the only four pits on Shelter Island. There’s a boat ramp 200 yards away. We set up our pit, started building the fire, and ate our treats. It hit Z first and then T. They were off down the beach, dancing to the music we were playing off our Bluetooth, looking at the lights of downtown. Z took me for a walk down the beach wanting a blow job but I just wasn’t there yet. It hardly felt like the molly was hitting me at all. I was sitting there on a stone staring up at the sandhill beside me as the LSD visuals started waving around at me. I started asking questions, “If we were less smart would the trip affect you different?” Answer: The conversation would be steered in another direction but it would arrive at the same conclusion. I have this beautiful memory of watching Zeo dance and stare at the fire and talk to his friends. I think that’s when I really fell in love with him.

Earlier or now, I don’t remember when or how I decided to pose the acid a question. Setting an intention was easy and natural. How can I find peace? I had done a yoga class that morning where my teacher mentioned Santosha, and described it as “contentment in suffering, finding peace in the midst of pain.” And I think that I was thinking of this regarding my anxiety, a feeling of not being able to breathe, chest tightness like my heart was about to explode out of my body, which had been flaring up the last two weeks due to my lack of sleep and just January, and life stress. 

I was sitting there at the bonfire thinking about how peaceful this moment was. The bay next to us, waves lapping up on shore, the birds squawking occasionally nearby, the boats rocking away 30 feet from shore. The cops hung out with us a few hours. They stayed in the parking lot, maybe 20 yards away. I only ever caught glimpses of their flashers, whenever we pulled out a beer or the bong, thinking they had left. We had talked about the rumor that circulated about not using pallets. The rumor is that when you use pallets for the bonfire, the nails explode. But in the discussion, it turned out that the exploding pallettes rule is only a rumor, to stop the use of nails so that when children or dogs, or homeless people are digging through the sand, they don’t impale themselves. As removing the nails from the ashes is an expensive task, and the city no longer pays for maintaining the pits. (Reminds me, I need to buy a metal magnet so this can be my community service project). It was one of those moments where everything was at peace because we were being respectful, the cops weren’t giving us shit, we were tripping balls but people tripping balls aren't belligerent assholes. Usually, the type of people that trip (hippies) tend to already be a bit more conscientious. The conversation swung back to a souls recognition of another soul. The realization one has when tripping, that everything is, that we’re all connected. And A J is this random person I just met who has a fuck ton of money and works 80 hours a week, and Z is my lover, who has a blue collar job, and T is the one who brought us together, simply because he’s friends with my friend's cousin. It just felt like this is where I was supposed to be and with these people. 

I look back on all the things I’ve written on this blog and on my sex blog and it just feels like I’m achieving something. I’m not gaining any financial wealth, but I believe I’ve achieved what I set out to do when I graduated from college, “Poursuit”. Chase. Search. 

I think what I’ve learned so far and what’s taken me 29 years on this earth to figure out is just do whatever the fuck I want and enjoy it. Enjoy all of it and enjoy the little bits of it. I remember as I was tripping wanting to feel like that all the time, dislocated from time or space, there’s no tomorrow and there was no yesterday, just today. And it’s always hard to come back from that. The post-trip blues are real, the comedown, is rough, making your way back into the real world, to get swallowed up whole by the distractions and chatter of daily life, of the woes of routine, and the rat race. When all we’ve come here to do is live, and experience, and feel pain and feel love, and feel a loss, but mostly to suffer. Whether its the machines or the Gods that made us and this world, it seems like it was important for them or for us if we chose to come here, to suffer. But why?

As I’m laying in Shavasana in my yoga class this morning, class is ending and I’ve started going back to yoga daily because I’m depressed again. Nothing out of the ordinary, I’ve gotten good at being depressed, I’ve made it this far, I just have to remember not to quit my jobs! The LSD maybe dropped me back down to earth after my latest upswing. I’m crying but I’m also so sweaty that absolutely no one can tell so I’m just trying to keep silent. I’m crying because it feels like everything in my life was meant to be. Like this is the path I chose because I wanted it, I wanted to be free and crazy and sexual and I wanted to travel, and I wanted to see “what it was like to be a regular person (working class)”. It’s like I’m legitimately a new soul, eager to experience everything about life. Whether it’s learning to scuba dive, hitch-hike, never work, work from home, it’s like I needed to try it all. But that was that time. Now it’s time to turn inward. Now it’s time to find a way for me to give of myself to this world. Like, as the drinking got progressively worse, it was meant to lead me back home, to a place where I would convince my dad to pay for a black tag yoga membership. To a place where I finally found a psychiatrist to explain my anguish. 

There have probably been bipolar people for all of humanities history. Maybe we were the ones to discover pot! (70% of bipolars use marijuana, most first use it at a very young age) Maybe our anguished existence was necessary to propel humanity forward by all the amazing connections we make?! I'm being sarcastic but also seriously believe all of this. Just in trying to understand why I’m like this. (Also to go off on a tangent, I think bipolar people and stoners evolved together. Ever since I was a child, I’ve attracted stoners to me like Anne Child attracts the crazies. Every guy I date is progressively more stoner, and it’s my favorite medication, my doctor says if it works, I should keep using it. It’s these sort of little things that make me feel like This is the Right Place. 

Today i made myself go to my volunteer group. I have a new favorite kid, this guy can only talk about trash, and he gets points for talking about anything but trash. Last week my favorite kid only asks about what the weather is going to be. She’s always worried it might be too hot or too cold to ride. I completely understand them. I know the anguish! And it makes me recognize again, that we’re all here to suffer or to face different challenges. Mormons always taught me that we’re never given a challenge we cannot overcome.

“Santosha or contentment means keeping a positive attitude in difficult times. We can choose to wallow in darkness and difficulty, or we can rise above our challenges and see them as opportunities for transformation and the discovery of immense and lasting joy. The more we choose contentment, the more we are able to grow. Here is inspiration to help us walk more cheerfully through life’s valleys as well as its peaks.”

As we begin to pack up our bonfire, I start to realize that I’m bipolar and it’s sprinkling. Since August, I would see things about me that “could be” bipolar, but at that moment I was like holy shit I’m having a manic episode. I saw it for the first time, maybe because the LSD made me come out of myself for a minute. I wasn’t being manic in that moment, I hadn’t made the decision to come out here, I hadn't gone out looking for drugs, but I hadn’t slept in weeks, I had asked my doctor for medication to sleep and realized that was out of my character, but it was when I was tripping that I saw myself. I saw my patterns. It’s been a blur since then, reading through my therapy book, coming across this mindfulness exercise where they literally have you look at your consciousness. ****** By showing you who you are, patients often have a feeling of “dying” because in a sense you are. Our language and our existence are based on the Ego. The self. The individual, establishing who you are, your boundaries, is necessary to feel satisfied. And when the ego dies, when you realize you are boundless because consciousness transcends time and space, we are all one, you and me are the same, you can accept death or suffering (how LSD and shrooms are used to treat end of life patients in accepting their end) but in the moment of this death, when I realized I wasn’t who I thought I was, it was pretty sad and I cried for a long time. I cried because I thought I’ll never travel again. I thought I’ll never do anything without questioning whether it's me or my crazy talking. I cried because of how mean I was to my sister. I cried thinking about how sad I’ve been for so many years. Like I cried for myself, I felt bad for myself. And I cried for all the people that I’ve met on the road, all the hippies, and all the bonfires, and all the stories about tripping. I guess I just connected all of it like maybe they're bipolar like me. That’s why they’re out there. I cried for us. And how fun it’s been but also how it’s been a mask we’ve put on, trying to make sense of the anguish.  

I’ll always remember my Farmer Mykal telling me I wasn’t “that lost” like the other people in Garberville. And I said to him then, like I feel now, But I am lost. And I think that’s the part that makes me cry. 

The day after the acid trip I was reading my therapy book and they talk about this ego death, which I'm reading and I'm like, yeah I know I just did acid, and then they talk about the guy who cries because he feels like he’s dying once he disassociates with his ego, they call it defusing from self-conceptualizations. 

“If I am not my thoughts, then who am I”, It was as if he were dying. And in a sense, he was. 

I think this is what the 5-hour acid trip cry was for me. I needed to let go of the old me. I’m so proud of everything I’ve done, and achieved and learned. I know I want to teach and work outside, helping people, teaching people to help themselves. I’ve traveled, I’ve fucked, I’ve been poor, I’ve been rich (for a month in Mexico once). I think I’ve gathered plenty of material and I should write a book. But now that the universe has brought me here, back to San Diego, I think it’s time for me to learn to live in the moment. The thing old souls know how to do far better than me. Just live, chill, let it in, relax.  

*****

[disappearingground]

PRODIGAL DAUGHTER Jenny Lewis

Blurt Magazine February 20, 2009

Last year the Rilo Kiley vocalist took a vacation from her band, visited her hometown, and wound up with a solo album.

By A.D. Amorosi

Going back and forth between the past and the present, the inane and the barely passably sensible is pleasing to Jenny Lewis.

That’s her life and that’s her wife, what with having spent the better part of growing up absurdly in one brand of show-bizzy limelight or another; a child of vaudevillians and entertainer-types, a kid actress, a country-tinged pop band chanteuse, a mistress of wordy Saddle Creek-y solo album (Rabbit Fur Coat) éclat.

“And now is my time,” says Jenny Lewis crisply. “My time.”

Not just because she’s away again from that old California gang of hers – the now decade-old Rilo Kiley that she birthed with guitarist/one-time paramour Blake Sennett. Or that she’s simply releasing her second solo effort in two years.

Jenny Lewis has produced Acid Tongue – a damn-near live album that’s got no Pro-Tools, is all analog, is far less wordy than her previous recordings, and whose vocals were tracked as they were happening. Lewis produced it with some old close friends and brought in a few pals to play and sing.

But it’s her.

You can’t help thinking that having her return to her childhood home (the one between Las Vegas and L.A.) of Van Nuys to record Acid Tongue wasn’t just the work of healing old wounds (“Badman’s World”) wounding old heels (“The Next Messiah”) and reconstructing the Oedipal Complex for 2008 (“Jack Killed Mom”), but rather some sassy shout-out of independence and huzzah-huzzah-hoorah-ness.

Besides, there’s got to be some particular self-satisfaction at work; of divinity, silliness and narcissism that would allow her to place her face on the cover of this new album done up as dozens of acid blotter tabs.

“Well, you may as well have a laugh,” says Lewis, about her lysergic cover art. “And if you were to drop a tab, you might very well see as many mes standing before you.”

That doesn’t sound so bad.

From the reaction to 2006’s Rabbit Fur Coat – produced by her bud Conor Oberst’s Bright Eyes stalwart Mike Mogis – a couple-hundred Jennys would be great. She did three tours around that solo effort alone. But it’s always seemed as if Jenny-philes have wanted more of her. No sooner than people liked Rilo’s quirky irked brand of indie-country-pop, Lewis’s soulful squint of a voice and panicky character-driven lyrics (2001s Take Offs and Landings on Barsuk), they wanted the band to go major label and her to go solo. The moment she released something small and the band hit the majors (with 2007s Under the Blacklight for Warners), people wanted more solo stuff from Jenny.

Everybody seems to be waiting for something from her.

“I don’t know why they’re waiting. I’m incredibly stubborn and I probably won’t give them what they want,” she says plainly. She is her own driving force and won’t be cadged into doing more solo projects. She does records with whatever speed and volume because she is not yet satisfied. “I never am and never have been. I want more. I never assume that I’ve done all that I can do. That just happens to be one of my character traits.”

Jenny Lewis dictates the pace. Things have been as such since she decided to become a writer and singer.

Stop.

This is not the question where you ask her about the childhood acting thing. This is the question about the through line that exists between those careers; the one beyond “Show biz.” She goes on to tell me a family history.

Grandmother was a head balancer and dancer with Moscow circus. Grandfather was a small time criminal and singer with vaudevillian Burt Lahr who fell into depression and out of music when Lahr left the act to pursue the role of “Cowardly Lion” in The Wizard of Oz. Both of her parents were musicians who had a lounge act in Las Vegas and were on The Ed Sullivan Show.

“My birth was just a continuation of family business,” she giggles. “But it was also about the continued avoidance – for me – of avoiding the straight life, a regular job. That’s what show biz presents itself as always, a viable option from doing normal 9-to-5 stuff.”

So maybe it’s all one big gesture. But I’m not here interviewing a Jenny Lewis of Facts of Life fame or a Jenny Lewis star of the touring version of The Lion King or a Jenny Lewis known for hosting a reality show and singing for Disney.

Without sounding too lofty, this brand of Lewis found a deeper aesthetic direction, an art form amongst the entertaining bits.

“That’s the only difference I think… I am a writer,” she says. That’s what led her upon meeting Blake Sennett to write their first song together, “Eggs.” “It was before Rilo Kiley. At least before we were called Rilo Kiley. It was on the first day we met.” Sennett had a guitar riff. She had a four track. He laid it down and she wrote stuff over it.

But this is not a Rilo Kiley story.

“Yes,” Lewis says quietly, when I ask if she feels like she and Rilo have grown up together. “In some ways; but I don’t know that we’ll truly grow up.”

Yes. Most of her Rilo Kiley lyrics are less personal than those on her first solo album. But on the new Acid Tongue there’s a darker, deeper mix of the personal and the character-narrative. “There’s so much more Rilo stuff so there’s been more to experiment with and more time for it. But I was comfortable enough here to do both character-driven songs and personal ones.” Does that mean she’ll find a zone in Rilo in which to do both? Or is she better off keeping the personal tunes like “Tryin’ My Best” to herself and for herself?

“To know that there’s someone else you’re singing about can weigh just as heavily as a song you’re singing about yourself,” says Lewis. “Sometimes the personal songs are easier. Sometimes the personal songs bore me.”

She’s tired of hearing of hearing herself complain about stuff. “That is until I write another song about me complaining about stuff.”

Maybe she’s getting better at being solo than Rilo Kiley-ing. She doesn’t know yet. Lewis can say that this Acid Tongue experience – recorded in the same studio where Neil Young did After the Gold Rush and Nirvana did Nevermind – was the most comfortable she’s ever felt in the studio; so comfortable that she was able to sing the songs in their entirety. “The whole record is live, live singing, live playing. I haven’t been able to do that in the past. This may sound a little hippie dippy-ish but I just never felt free enough to do that. I was always self-conscious in the studio.”

Her three weeks spent recording Acid Tongue were planned, but ever so loosely. If they could pull it off the live haste and pace – great.

The title song’s first line – written who-knows-how-many-years-ago when she was living in her Silverlake apartment where she wrote 90 percent of all of her songs – was the start of the record:

I went to a cobbler to fix a hole in my shoe/he took one look at my face/and said “I can fix that hole in you”/“I beg your pardon I’m not looking for a cure/I’ve seen enough of my friends in the depths of the God-sick blues”/you know I’m a liar.

The line didn’t dictate what would happen next. Nor does it sound like anything else on the album. “But there was just something about that first line coming to me; the idea of someone having an answer for you, a solution to something, the sadness of that,” she trails off. “It was a feeling I wanted to go with.”

So Lewis and her co-producer pals Farmer Dave Scher, Jason Lader and songwriter/beau Johnathan Rice, along with musicians/singers Chris Robinson (the Black Crowes), Zooey Deschanel, M. Ward, Benji Hughes and Davey Faragher, all got Acid-ic. So did family members like her vibraphone playing uncle, her singing sisters and – amazingly- Elvis Costello.

“Once we got to the studio it was good and flowed very quickly,” claims Lewis. “We could pull it off. We could play it live. Which is so weird, to have to make a point of that, because that’s what music should be. But I’m a child of the digital revolution.”

I stopped to finish a thought I‘d had earlier: that if she’s having such a good time with people other than Rilo Kiley, is she worried that she might be better at being solo than a Kiley-ite. She’s not. She just wants to make the best music possible with whatever bunch of people she makes it with. She didn’t start playing music to be burdened by her relationships and be miserable. She wants to enjoy myself.

“Now’s the time.” Not just because the moment out there is good. But, not to sound hippie-dippy-ish… “The moment within me is good. I’m just starting to understand what I do.”

And that understanding is? “I’m just learning how to trust myself musically. I’m learning that you don’t have to say as much to make a point.”

True, that. Yes, the inspiration of Laura Nyro’s Gonna Take a Miracle – the spare soul momentum, delirious melody, awestruck joy and the lean accompaniment of the trio of singers that was Labelle – was the backbone for Rabbit Fur Coat. So, too, was a loquaciousness and a series of multi-syllabic phrases that filled every crevice of every song.

Acid Tongue – lyrically – is more economical than that.

“That was a conscious decision. Going back and listening to my older songs I think I was trying to prove something – overstating the obvious.” So she went back over Acid Tongue things and scaled back the syllables. That happened, too, because this album was as much about the total package as it was the worried words and dark passages. The expansive, sometimes-psychedelic harshness is a far cry from Nyro’s stewing Tin-Pan soul and Lewis’ mom’s favorite songwriter.

“Plus the location was more important” says Lewis, discussing Van Nuys’ California’s Sound City Studios. “We were all inspired by the records that’ve been made there. Plus, returning to where I grew up was timely. I needed to address things about my personal life, my past.”

Lewis isn’t so completely revealing as to what she was addressing. You don’t necessarily need her to do so, save for the fact that she expressed pain at having to drive past her childhood home every day as she rode to the studio and then realized that she couldn’t run from things bottled up.

“You cannot run from feelings. You will be unwell. They will affect all that you do. It will ruin your health. In order to do that, I had to make this record there.”

Ask her to focus on the track that best reflects that search for addressing those feelings, for picking at your emotions: she chooses “Badman’s World.”

There’s a certain line that listeners should seek out during that haunted song. Lewis doesn’t know if it’s a necessarily poignant phrase. But it was important enough to stop the recording of another track – “Sing a Song” – as she came up with a twist on “Badman’s World.” Lewis started playing “Badman” on piano only to have the rest of the band join in and the control room ops continue taping.

The line is about scorpions. Originally it was about her and another person being two scorpions in one bottle. Now, it’s about one of those scorpions getting shot by Lewis. Which one gets shot is a mystery worthy of J.R. and Dallas.

“You have to take responsibility,” says Lewis, when asked what the point of the “Badman’s World” is.

Yet the whole album seems to be about her taking responsibility.

She won’t take full credit for the economy of its lyrics not matching the ferocity of its sound. Lewis credits her co-producers and mentions Johnathan Rice. “The four of us together formed one great person.”

That she’s brought up Rice twice and that she’s made music in close proximity with another one-time paramour, Rilo’s Sennett, the questions arise about it being hard or desirable to work with someone you’re having a loving relationship with.

“It is what I do and what I’ve done. It’s just very natural. I’m always thinking about music. Every time, every day, writing words, listening back, criticizing myself. It’s nice to have someone who is up for sharing in that at all times of day at all hours.”

It is a risk, she knows, because you’re chancing personal happiness and the longevity of the relationship. But she knows she has to do it. “You got to do it. And as a woman playing music, it’s nice to have someone by your side… because I am a coward,” she giggles. “Seriously. I’m lucky to have had talented dudes around me.”

Speaking of talented dudes, Elvis Costello worms his way into the conversation in the same fashion he wormed his way onto Acid Tongue. Apparently she first spoke to the British lion when having Christmas with a friend’s father – Costello drummer Pete Thomas. Costello phoned to wish Pete merry-merry, got Lewis on the phone, got her to appear in his “Monkey to Man” video (“I did an awkward walk-by clutching a purse”), then wound up dueting on “Carpetbaggers” when Rice was up for the low singing parts.

“I emailed him. He responded. And in exchange we recorded some of his songs. The vibe was so good there that as soon as we finished mixing, Costello went into make his own record there.”

Like Costello grabbing a lick, all the heavy heady sad moments that fill Lewis’ Acid Tongue are ripe with lightness of being, of funny moments and gentle sessions. The funniest seems the sweetest – the mad-mad-Jim Morrison moment of “Jack Killed Mom.” While the whole song seems to seethe with its death knell promise (“I had to kill off the mother character that was so prominent on Rabbit Fur Coat,” says Lewis), it is her harmonica-blowing dad, jazz-bo Eddie Gordon, on the track.

“I was so tired of talking about my mother from that last record that having my dad play on it was just hilarious. Having him and my family and my friends in the studio felt like an honest record.”

Now let’s back to those acid tabs.

[thisdaynews]

No ‘Game of Thrones’ or ‘Veep’? Here’s What To Watch Next.

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/no-game-of-thrones-or-veep-heres-what-to-watch-next/

No ‘Game of Thrones’ or ‘Veep’? Here’s What To Watch Next.

Americans hate politics, right? The disingenuousness, the backstabbing, the sycophancy, the preening and posturing, the empowered elite, the way wealth buys influence, the dynastic nature of it, the sense that good people get torn apart, the way it feels disconnected from the concerns of The People.

But we love to watch all that on TV.

Story Continued Below

When “Game of Thrones” airs its final episode on Sunday, it will end the last water-cooler show currently on television—ubiquitous, inescapable and era-defining. And it also marks the end of an astonishing run of political TV. For all the medieval froofery and baroque violence, GoT was fundamentally a political drama—a show built around the quest for power, the conflict between idealism and pragmatism, and the uncomfortably blurred lines between “hero” or “villain” when it comes to exercising real power.

Its counterpart on the comedy side was “Veep,” the sitcom that also ended last week, known for its acidic, rapid dialogue, venal characters and inside-Washington jokes. For all its slapstick, people who work in politics tend to see it as cutting painfully close to reality, far more so than high-toned power dramas like “West Wing” or “House of Cards.”

Tomorrow morning, political obsessives will woke up bereft of both shows, with no destination for the next gutwrenching turns of the wheel of power; nothing to click on for crisp mockery of their day jobs. So what to watch next?

Here’s POLITICO’s guide to filling that hole, with shows new and old:

If you miss: The dark arts of political maneuvering

“Okkupert/Occupied”(Netflix)

Imagine that there’s a velvet-glove invasion of your country, where the democratically government is overthrown in a Russian plot you don’t see until it’s already happened. Your nation’s allies are quiet because they value global stability. The government-in-exile still has some power, and needs to choose carefully how to use it; they don’t know exactly who they answer to—The voters? Their new Russian overlords? Even so, partisan wrangling continues, and the public splits deeply.

That, broadly, is “Occupied,” a Norwegian TV show that was a smash hit in Europe and has flown under the radar in the U.S., where it is available on Netflix. The series imagines a scenario in the near future, where the U.S. has withdrawn from NATO and instability in the Middle East has choked off oil production. Norway elects an environmentalist prime minister promising to end oil and gas production in the country—but the European Union really needs that energy, and so the EU doesn’t bat an eye when Russia quietly takes Norway under its control. Welcome to the first episode.

From there, it’s a rollicking, complicated journey, as the prime minister strains between his idealistic vision of politics and what he needs to do to stay in power. As Russia’s authority in the country tightens, the threat of military conflict escalates, the plunges further into the kind of murky moral territory that makes the best political dramas truly compelling.

“The Americans” (FX/Amazon Prime)

The premise of “The Americans” is pretty straightforward: During the 1980s, a pair of Soviet spies (Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys) are deep undercover in the Washington, D.C. suburbs. Based loosely on the arrests of a real set of sleeper agents in 2010, they’ve lived and worked in the U.S. for decades while posing as Americans; not even their children, natural-born citizens, know the truth. While the Cold War rages, their marital relationship struggles as they balance their obligations to country, family and each other—all while an unsuspecting FBI agent moves in across the street.

Tense, sometimes heartbreaking, and always immaculately executed, “The Americans” is one of the few shows that can match GoT in its richness and complexity. As on “Thrones,” there’s a mix of family drama and geopolitical strategy, the threat of violence and the constant worry of exposure. (And unlike GoT, it’s also a very intimate portrait of a marriage.)Characters are deeply drawn, with beliefs, anxieties and ambitions that shift over the seasons and shape their storiesaccordingly. And when they must “do vile things for the good of the realm,” to borrow Lord Varys’ phrase, it has consequences—for their marriage, their friendships, their family, their homeland and adopted nation and their own consciences.

If you miss: That tug-of-war between idealism and power

“Barry” (HBO)

“Game of Thrones” fans were apoplectic after the penultimate episode of the series, protesting that one of their favorite characters took a sudden, out-of-character pivot to being a genocidal maniac. In political terms, you might say her arc from political idealist to fire-breathing, Kissinger-style realist was too abrupt, lacking the nuance for which the series was previously known — something its Sunday night programming companion, “Barry,” has in spades.

If you’re looking for a more thorough portrait of how the preternaturally gifted among us tend to conveniently forget their better angels in the face of a potential threat, look no further than “Saturday Night Live” alum Bill Hader’s pitch-black satire about a hitman (and Afghanistan veteran) trying to make it as an actor in Hollywood. Hader’s Barry repeatedly tells himself that he’ll forsake his violent ways and honor his inner creative type “starting… now,” and it’s not much of a spoiler to reveal that it frequently doesn’t go as intended. The realpolitik of “Game of Thrones” has long lent itself to a real-life political comparison, and Barry’s inability to stop himself from cracking a few eggs for the sake of self-preservation is surely familiar to D.C.’s political class.

“Borgen” (DR1/PBS)

Ok, bear with us. Parliamentary dynamics don’t get everyone jumping out of their seats, especially those of us raised in the winner-take-all showmanship of American presidential politics, but a parliamentary government—where coalitions are necessary, require elected leaders to compromise on the issues most important to them and the results don’t always have widespread public support—makes for compelling drama. That’s especially true when, as happens to Birgette Nyborg on “Borgen,” you quickly and unexpectedly go from being a minor politician to the prime minister of Denmark, where the show was produced. Her hold on power is tenuous, and the abrupt nature of her ascension means that it is all quite new—for her as well as her advisers and family.

It’s a less-Sorkin-ish version of “The West Wing,” set in a country tiny enough that the head of the government goes home to her family’s small apartment at the end of the workday and cooks dinner.We see Nyborg struggle to bend without breaking, and while we root for her, we’re also mindful of how she owes some of her successes to her conniving and unethical communications strategist, who “Thrones” fans will recognize as Pilou Asbæk, the actor who played Euron Greyjoy. (Here, he’s given a role that asks more of him than cartoonish moustache-twirling villainy.) He has a hot-and-cold relationship with a TV journalist (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, who had a major role as a wildling in season five of “Game of Thrones”). Everyone compromises their ethics all the time, the show seems to say, asking the question: Is what they get worth it?

If you miss: Powerful women battling societal expectations

“Halt and Catch Fire” (AMC/Netflix)

Being a woman in public life has always come with its own, uniquely irritating double standards, whether one is attempting to conquer territory as a real-life or fictional presidential candidate. “Game of Thrones” was driven by powerful women for much of its eight-season run, and “Veep”’s whole central half-joke is watching Selina Meyer manipulate the male-dominated landscape that also genuinely hems her in.AMC’s cult not-quite-a-hit “Halt and Catch Fire” provided one of the most nuanced, 360-degree portrayals of two women attempting to traverse an even more bloodthirsty world than a Democratic primary — the 1980s tech industry.

After a charming first season that mainly won fans among the tech-obsessed and‘80s-culture geeks, showrunners Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers broke the mold by refocusing the series around its two female leads, portrayed by Mackenzie Davis and Kerry Bishé. Cantwell, Rogers, and their team of writers and designers built their show into a peerless dramedy that captured its leads’ anxieties, performances, and triumphs as women in a decidedly male-dominated milieu of gamers and hackers. The four-season series is now available in its entirety on Netflix.

“Big Little Lies” (HBO)

If you were to cut Cersei Lannister from Westeros and paste her among the monied Monterey Bay elite, she’d fit right in. She would sip wine with Madeline Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon) while scheming up a plan to exact revenge on the parent of her daughter’s classmate for a trivial slight anyone else would let slide. She’d quietly judge Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley) for being a single parent of a different economic class. She’d roll her eyes at the hippy-dippy yoga instructor Bonnie Carlson (Zoë Kravitz) married to a much-older man. And she’d envy Celeste Wright (Nicole Kidman) for the picture-perfect life she appears to have, never knowing what’s happening behind the oceanfront façade.

“Big Little Lies” is a show about many things, but foremost among them is its interest in the societal assumptions placed upon women. It’s a theme that will resonate with any “Thrones” viewer who has noticed the way that characters on the show treat Dany or Cersei or Sansa differently than they would a similarly minded male character. Season Two of “Big Little Lies” debuts on HBO on June 9, giving newcomers plenty of time to catch up beforehand.

If you miss: The relentless pursuit of power, with wit

“Billions” (Showtime)

The medieval chessboard George R.R. Martin constructed for “Game of Thrones” was, in many ways, a meritocracy so pure it had to be fictional — as long as one’s standard of merit is the ability to stab competitors and allies alike in the back toward no greater end than the accumulation of more power. Swap “money” for power, and you have the hedge-fund world depicted in Showtime’s “Billions.”

Prestige drama will be short a great deal of its bloodthirstiness in the absence of “Thrones,” but the existential clash between anti-hero Bobby “Axe” Axelrod, the eccentric hedge fund conquistador played by Damian Lewis, and Paul Giamatti’s crusading prosecutor Chuck Rhoades is plenty ruthless and zero-sum. The flaws of either man would fill a novel, and the show’s barrage of insidey, highbrow references will scratch the itch of “Veep”-watchers who relish the game of figuring out just who’s based on whom, and how closely this tracks the actual world we get served up in our daily news coverage. As the series has progressed, the threads between New York-style and Washington-style ambitions have grown even tighter, and its winks at real-world events more deliberate. Its comedy is darker than “Veep”’s, but its view of human nature every bit as unrelievedly cynical.

If you miss: Slow-burn stories where power is won incrementally over time (or lost in an instant)

“Wolf Hall” (BBC/Amazon Prime)

Considering how heavily real medieval history influenced George R.R. Martin while he crafted hisA Song of Ice and Firebook series, it should come as little surprise that a story about the real people surrounding King Henry VIII would make such for such easy viewing for “Thrones” fans.

Born to an abusive father, Thomas Cromwell rose from poverty to become a top adviser to Lord Chancellor Thomas Wolsey (played by Jonathan Pryce, familiar to GoTwatchers as the High Sparrow), the Catholic cardinal who was perhaps the most powerful man in Henry VIII’s early reign as king. But after Wolsey is unable to get the pope to annul Henry’s first marriage, other advisers to Henry push Wolsey out of power—which begins Cromwell’s long and unassuming climb to power, with an assist by Anne Boleyn, and to exact revenge on all those who turned against Wolsey. For students of back-room operators—those “Thrones” fans who thrilled to watch Varys or Littlefinger or Tyrion Lannister expertly scheme and execute on a plan—Cromwell’s exquisite use of leverage is utter catnip. And unlike those characters, the man actually existed.

If you miss: Satire of the shallow people in power

“The Newsroom” (CBC)

Not to be confused with the wordy Aaron Sorkin-created HBO drama of the same name, CBC’s “The Newsroom” is a blistering sitcom from the late 90s and early 2000s that follows the producers of a major news show in Canada as they navigate the petty bureaucracy and egotism of the media industry.

George Findlay, the main character, could well be Selina Meyer’s Canadian cousin, a bright and ambitious man drunk on his own power, mindful of his own status symbols (e.g. making constant and ostentatious calls to his BMW dealer for his perpetually-being-repaired car) and paranoid about even the slightest criticism or suggestion that his own self-image doesn’t match what other people see.

If you miss: A cuttingly profane and sardonic look at politics

“The Thick of It”(BBC)

Before the writer and directorArmando Iannucci created “Veep,” he was best known as the mind behind its abrasively funny British predecessor, “The Thick of It,” a wicked satire of the inner workings of the UK’s government, starring Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker, the human buzzsaw who works as a spin doctor for the prime minister.

In many ways, the series will be instantly familiar to fans of “Veep.” It has the same scorched-earth insults and fast-paced rhythm, similar character archetypes and the naked aggression of people whose reach for power exceeds their grasp. And once you watch “The Thick of It,” try its spin-off film, “In the Loop,” where Capaldi reprises his role but the cast expands to include future “Veep” actors Anna Chlumsky and Zach Woods.

If you miss: Intra-family posturing

“Succession” (HBO)

To get it out of the way: “Succession” is a very compelling series that is very clearly about a very thinly fictionalized Murdoch family. Yes,thoseMurdochs, of Fox News and phone-hacking fame. That alone should be enough of a hook to get political insiders on board with HBO’s byzantine family drama, but if the dynastic posturing and sniping of “Game of Thrones” and the virulent profanity of “Veep” kept you watching from week to week, “Succession” might be even more compelling, especially to the hybrid cable news-watchers and tabloid-junkies among us.

Though much of the action lies among its protagonists — a diffuse group of sparring, wayward definitely-not-Murdoch children — the series’ true power lies in the performance of legendary British character actor Brian Cox as their definitely-not-Murdoch patriarch Logan. Logan Roy is an addled figure so contemptuous and vain that his power plays register more as desperate efforts to puff up his own fading grandeur. And in 2019, it’s not hard to see the series as a long troll of the dynasty currently occupying the White House.

Of course, if that doesn’t appeal, patient GoT fans can always wait for one of the three “Game of Thrones” prequel series HBO is currently developing. The first of them, tentatively titled “Bloodmoon,” is rumored to be arriving on TV in 2020 or 2021. Until then, there are always reruns.

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[lenaglittleus]

How To Survive Shingles (And Not Go Totally Crazy!)

Remember that time I got the shingles? I know I won’t be forgetting that experience anytime soon…For anyone who has had or currently has shingles, you know this is a pain you won’t soon forget. They call it adult chicken pox, but I can assure you it’s far worse than chicken pox ever was. That or my memory is playing tricks on me!

But it’s not all bad around here. My Dad always jokes that whenever shit hits the fan around here, it makes for a great blog post and well, he’s definitely right about that. THM is my personal version of making lemonade! Or in this case, make shingles recovery out of shingles!

I’m going to skip over the whole medical diagnosis part since your doctor should probably be the one doing that but instead describe my personal experience with the shingles and what I did to nip it in the bud. The first thing I did when I got diagnosed, was immediately take to the internet to see if anyone had helpful tips for healing shingles. I read a lot of horror stories, some not-so-horror stories but also some really productive tips. I’m hoping this post can be that for some of you. Or if you have a friend or family member suffering, feel free to pass onto them. We got this!

So, first things first…

THE DIAGNOSIS

I actually told the full story in this Instagram post so I won’t go into too much detail. Basically, a couple days before the infamous shingles rash appeared, my lymph nodes on the left side of my neck and ear blew up. I then developed a lot of pain in my ear the next day so I went to the doctor to see if I had an ear infection. That morning I noticed two huge zits on my forehead which I thought was strange (because I never breakout on my forehead) but they didn’t occur to me as anything but zits. You know those huge underground zits you get? They looked and felt like those.

My doctor looked in my ear, felt my lymph nodes and informed me I did not have an ear infection but likely some kind of virus that my body was trying to fight. Neither of us thought anything of the zits and I went home feeling pretty crappy but relieved it wasn’t an ear infection.

Over the next few hours is when the rash really started to develop. A few more bumps on my forehead, one on my eyebrow and those big “zits” started to become really painful. The pain I felt in my ear started moving into my head and my swollen lymph nodes made it difficult to turn my neck. I later found out that the pain in my ear was likely caused by the fact that my shingles developed in my trigeminal nerve which is right next to your middle ear.

I knew pretty much as soon as the pain migrated to my forehead that I had the shingles. People have been shocked to discover that you can a) get shingles under the age of 60 and b) get shingles on your face. I knew both were possible because my Mom had them on her face when I was really young. Thankfully that situation clued me into what was happening with my own body but for any of you out there who don’t know this, you can get shingles at any age and they can happen at any nerve root in your body, including your face!

THE TREATMENT

Because I pretty quickly tuned into what was happening, I was able to get started with my shingles recovery fairly quickly. If you manage to catch it within 72 hours of the rash appearing, the antivirals are most effective. I’m lucky I caught it within that window and am certain the quick duration of my symptoms was because of this. Of course, not everyone will know right away, but if you have a gut feeling or any of the symptoms I described above, go to your doctor!

Besides my antiviral 3x a day I was also prescribed pain meds, which I honestly didn’t end up taking. Heavy pain meds make me feel sick and groggy so except for the first two days when the pain was pretty excruciating, I used advil and tylenol to help manage the pain. For as hippie dippie as I may be, when stuff like this happens I think the path of least resistance is often the best. I wasn’t doing myself any favors by trying to overcomplicate.

Of course, I also turned to diet and lifestyle choices to also help manage the symptoms. I’m fairly confident that in addition to the antivirals, these choices helped to decrease the span of my shingles experience. So let’s get into that…

HOW TO SURVIVE SHINGLES (and not go totally crazy!)

I think the most important piece of this post is this section. Of course, catching it early and taking the antivirals help a ton but shingles is so much more than just popping some pills and hoping for the best. I’m not here to throw conventional medicine under the rug. I don’t think I’d have had such a quick turnaround if it hadn’t been for the full course of antivirals I took, but there are a lot of natural treatments you can incorporate to also help speed up the process and the pain and itchiness that typically ensues.

CBD/THC

In addition to OTC pain meds, I used CBD and THC to help manage the pain. I’ve been playing around with different types of CBD and found the Calm pen from Dosist to be most effective. For THC I used topical salve on the rash itself and it was literally a godsend to help manage the pain.

BONE BROTH

There’s a reason your body craves broth when you’re sick. Bone broth is super anti-inflammatory and immune-boosting. It contains vitamins and minerals that help support gut health and reduce pain and inflammation.

I’ve had two cups of bone broth every single day for the last two weeks. Currently obsessed with Kettle and Fire and especially their mushroom and chicken broth!

KOMBUCHA/PROBIOTICS

When they say “it all starts in your gut”, they’re not kidding! After my bout with SIBO I had to eliminate and then slowly add in fermented foods and probiotics. I can’t even tell you how much I missed kombucha…It’s been almost 6 months since then and I am now happily back to taking my daily probiotic and guzzling my Healthade kombucha. 5:00 PM because my “kombucha happy hour” and I think that’s going to stick around for a while!

SUPPLEMENTS

Pretty much everyone under the sun will recommend a different supplement to you when they hear you have shingles. Truthfully, there are many MANY out there that could benefit you, shingles or not. I decided to stick with what I had from my Care/of packs and add in one that was consensus amongst everyone, L-Lysine.

Zinc – supports immune function and has an antiviral effect

L-lysine – an amino acid that helps reduce the spread of the shingles virus

Rhodiola – an adaptogenic herb that’s shown stress relieving properties

Astragalus – another herb that helps support immune function and has an antiviral effect

LEMON BALM

I wasn’t sure which category to put this under, so instead it gets a category of it’s own. Lemon Balm is an herb that is known to help reduce pain from shingles, both internally and topically. I pretty much got all my hydration from drinking 6-8 cups of Lemon Balm Tea a day and once the initial couple of days of pain went down, I used a topical lemon balm to help reduce inflammation, reduce pain and help promote healing. Someone on Instagram told me to order this Lemon Balm Salve from Amazon and it was literally the best advice I got from everyone.

DIET

I am a true believer in the healing power of food. Now I don’t think eating perfectly “clean” replaces other lifestyle habits or conventional medicine, but it is a great tertiary care to support your body. And truthfully, when you’re sick (at least when I’m sick), I’m not craving the same foods I normally do. I think when you really tap in and listen you’ll realize that the foods you crave like bone broth and vegetables are actually your body’s way of supporting you.

In my case I literally wanted all the warm, green veggies in broth. Particularly kale and bok choy. Interestingly my acupuncturist told me that bok choy is a common healing and cooling food in Traditional Chinese Medicine and that because shingles is excessive heat in your body, bok choy was a great cooling choice. Our bodies are crazy!

In addition to plenty of veggies, I also found myself gravitating towards antioxidant fruits like berries and lots of bananas. I didn’t intionally do it, but pretty much ate zero refined sugar for a week. As I started to feel better I was like “give me the brownies!!!” but while I was still heavy in the pain-zone I didn’t want any of it.

I also consumed more turmeric that I ever thought I could and especially loved it in my morning Matcha and Turmeric Latte. My body was NOT craving coffee so my morning matcha really did the trick.

ESSENTIAL OILS

I’ll be honest, when I’m sick I often turn to essential oils for primary support, but for shingles they definitely played second fiddle. I rubbed fortify on my chest and neck lymph nodes to support my immune system and diffused grounding and soothing blends like unwind, spa spirit and tranquility to help stay calm and promote self-care.

THE MOST IMPORTANT TIP FOR SHINGLES

I know that this is a lot of information so give yourself time to take it all in. Perhaps, more importantly take this one piece of advice: RELAX. Shingles is usually brought on by stress in your life. While I didn’t think I had a lot of stress (I’ve become a lot better at managing it!), when I listed everything on my plate it’s easy to see how my body was overburdened.

The biggest lesson learned through this process is how important it is to really, truly support your body. People often mentioned how lucky I was to be able to have a job that works from home, but when you’re sick it’s easy to just reach for your phone in bed or work on a project while recovering on the couch. The boundaries are less clear. Though I did the bare minimum I needed to do, I mostly took a lot of time to rest, nap, journal, watch TV and essentially do nothing.

I would have loved to have gone on walks or been outside but the pain of the wind on my face made it impossible. I was upset over this but C reminded me that compassion is a big part of the recovery process. So even though I felt stir crazy, I also knew that going outside actually created more stress in my life. Acknowledging those stressors and putting in plans of action to eliminate or diffuse them is the key to getting over shingles.

* * * * *

I’m still not 100% pain-free but that’s to be expected after 2.5 weeks out. I’m continuing most of what I listed above and easing myself back into work. I’m also doing acupuncture to help manage the pain and have also found it super helpful in reducing my stress levels.

Overall I can tell I’m drastically improved from where I was and also have learned one of life’s most important lessons: STRESS IS REAL and it can manifest physically, so don’t ignore it!

Have you ever had or currently have shingles? Any tips to add? Drop them below!

The post How To Survive Shingles (And Not Go Totally Crazy!) appeared first on The Healthy Maven.

from News About Health https://www.thehealthymaven.com/2018/03/shingles-recovery.html

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New Post has been published on http://www.shtfandgo.com/2017/06/23/the-benefits-of-apple-cider-vinegar/

The Benefits of Apple Cider Vinegar

The Benefits of Apple Cider Vinegar

Apple cider vinegar: skin tonic, digestive aid, cancer fighter, and now hangover cure? Did that last one get your attention? As a kid, I only knew apple cider vinegar was used as a cleaning agent by the neighbor kid’s hippie mom. But oh, there’s more. Much more. Research is now revealing that apple cider vinegar has dozens of uses, not only around the home but also in our bodies!

Apple cider vinegar is a great nontoxic cleaner. Let’s start there. Also known as ACV, apple cider vinegar can be used to clean counters and floors, but it is not just a surface cleaner. It is fantastic as a fabric softener, laundry whitener, and toilet bowl cleaner. Beyond cleaning, it has more uses around the home. It will keep ants away and can be used as a weed killer, jewelry cleaner, or homemade dog shampoo! I guarantee there are uses in there you have never thought of.

The cleaning functions of ACV are impressive. But the most powerful benefits of ACV have to do with improving and maintaining our health. Apple cider vinegar has a wealth of enzymes and helpful bacteria that can be put to multiple uses inside our bodies. But you need to be aware of a very important ACV fact. There are two types of apple cider vinegar you can buy. You might be tempted by the one that looks clear and pristine. This lovely looking refined ACV is great for cleaning, but not for health applications. The apple cider vinegar that is most beneficial to our insides is the raw, unfiltered version. This opaque version undergoes a double fermentation process that results in the production of boatloads of enzymes. So why is this fermented, unfiltered one better than the clearer filtered versions?

It is all about the mother. The “mother” is the beneficial complex structure of acids that makes the vinegar appear cloudy. Once removed, the vinegar is still a tremendous cleaning agent, but it unfortunately loses many of the highly coveted health benefits during the processing to make it clear.

What is in apple cider vinegar in addition to all those enzymes? Inside that murky maple-colored liquid are iron, potassium, magnesium, malic acid, acetic acid, calcium, pectin, and ash. All of these minerals and nutrients combine to make a deeply potent healing agent. But there are mixed reviews on the content of all these nutrients in ACV. More recent studies suggest that powerful phytonutrients – powerful plant qualities that scientists are only beginning to comprehend – may be responsible for the powerful effects of ACV. Whatever the secret ingredient, raw, unfiltered, mother-filled ACV is worth its weight in gold.

What are all the health benefits of apple cider vinegar? There are dozens and dozens in the literature, but some are more convincing as they are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research.

One of the most convincing studies involving apple cider vinegar has to do with blood sugar regulation. The research revealed that taking 1 to 2 tablespoons of ACV before bed with a small amount of fat resulted in lower morning fasting blood sugar measurements. These studies also showed that those who participated also experienced a weight loss of several pounds over the four-week study. That was a nice bonus!

Another surprising health benefit of ACV is its ability to boost immune function. Researchers have found that the antioxidants found in ACV can reduce damage done by free radicals. Apple cider vinegar is also a strong antimicrobial agent and has been shown to work in some situations where medication would not.

I can’t step away from the health benefits of this wonder elixir until I talk a little about the gut-healing powers of ACV. Having suffered digestive issues for years, and being diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome, I take special interest in the fact that ACV has been shown to calm the digestive tract. Remember I mentioned above that ACV seemed to have some power over weight loss? Theorists believe that ACV, perhaps the acetic acid content, allows food to be more effectively broken down and absorbed in the intestinal tract. This proved key for the blood sugar study participants’ unexpected weight loss, but also means that ACV can reduce stress on the digestive tract.

Anything that helps you break down and absorb that piece of broccoli means less stagnation and fermentation in the tract. If apple cider vinegar aids in this process the result is a more highly functioning food processing machine. Also, because of the plethora of enzymes, ACV starts acting on your digestion the minute it hits your lips. Finally, ACV is considered a prebiotic. Prebiotics are “food” for your probiotics. This is very important in keeping your probiotic number high and robust. All of these attributes translate into easier digestion and elimination.

Recently a new benefit of apple cider vinegar has been discovered. Who knew that after one happy hour cocktail turned into three, apple cider vinegar would be a welcome friend? You see, a recently discovered benefit of apple cider vinegar is “recovery.” When we “play” too hard we suffer dehydration and mineral loss. An apple cider-based beverage called switchel has been found to be an efficient and effective replacement beverage.

Variations on switchel recipes have been around for years, but now you can find switchel bottled at natural grocers everywhere. But guess what? You don’t have to buy it. You can make it at home for pennies.

The recipe is a simple combination of apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, lemon, and a little water or seltzer to top it up. Combine these ingredients from the recipe below, and you have your very own recovery tonic.

You might know that pure maple syrup, ginger, and lemon have hundreds of benefits between them. Maple syrup is highly anti-inflammatory and loaded with antioxidants. Lemon is excellent for digestion and is rich with vitamin C. Finally, ginger adds the benefits of digestive relief, decreased inflammation, and immune support. I think this switchel tonic has superpowers.

Apple cider vinegar has a litany of uses for health and home. But now, move over kombucha – we can use apple cider vinegar to create a state of hydration and mineral balance perfect for after a night out, a heavy workout, or your workweek.

  http://www.prepperwebsite.com/