#an appropriate space to spend time for big parts of a concert

[waugh-bao]

[weaselle]

The Dog Fix

several valid studies prove that dogs can accurately diagnose things like blood-sugar imbalance, heart conditions, and a number of types of cancer.

So i think every concert and big public gathering and every public space and every shopping mall should have dog handlers with various dogs that specialize in smelling medical conditions.

In this way we could offer free screening to the public and instead of having to take time out of our day to sit in a stiff office or something, we’d access this screening by going about our day and seeing lots of dogs :D

other animals can also make diagnoses (bees, rats, and felines, off the top of my head) so it wouldn’t necessarily have to be all dogs all day, but this is also part of my secret plan to fix dog ownership in this country

See to start this program we’ll need a lot of dogs right at first, and even if medical dogs have to be trained up from puppies we’ll need facilities for them as adults, so we build the infrastructure first, then we simultaneously shut down all breeders in the US. We do this first by buying all the puppies currently being born to put into the medical program (a large percentage probably won’t be a good fit for the program but i have a plan for them later)

This does mean to implement this plan there will be, like, a calendar year where there are no puppies available to the public, but i think the results are worth the inconvenience. 

Buying the puppies is like liquidating the breeder’s stock for going out of business. Then every breeder has to re-apply to be a legal registered breeder, with more inspections and higher standards to purposefully prevent anything like puppy mill style breeding. Previous breeders that don’t meet new standards have their breeding dogs taken and are compensated the value of the dogs. As a part of the new registration, breeders are given options to participate in the medical program by providing dogs.

(note: I need more research on how working dogs are already handled, ranch dogs and guide dogs and stuff are probably working mostly fine and i don’t want to disrupt that, but maybe this program could support and improve existing practices)

Meanwhile, we use our new and mostly empty dog facilities to house and take in and care for every surplus dog from every shelter, bringing all shelters down to half capacity. Some of these dogs will be suitable for the program, others can be adopted out, which will be easier to control and accomplish with all the breeders temporarily out of business. The rest can be considered retired in better conditions than the average shelter.

SPEAKING of which, shelters are now converted into training centers that work hand in hand with the breeders to implement the third arm of the dog plan.

The over-all idea is this: 

the breeders supply the training centers and the medical program.

the medical program and the training centers both operate the same basic standard of training which includes socializing to dogs, people, children, and other animals from puppyhood, re-call, appropriate home behavior, appropriate leash behavior, etc.

So as a dog owner, you would actually adopt your puppy from your local training center. You could meet your puppy right from birth even, but at first you would just visit. For the first thee or four months, you visit your puppy at the center. Then around 12 weeks old, the age you would normally receive your puppy from a breeder, you start taking them home for the weekend once a month (or any two days of the week). Then two weekends a month. Then a week each month, then every other week... when the dog is a year and a half you will live with your dog but your dog will still spend a weekend each month at the center, and that will continue until the dog is two and a half years old.

In this way, each dog will have a professional dedicating the appropriate amount of time and attention into raising the dog to behave appropriately for a household, which doesn’t happen a lot now.

I work with dogs and all the time i see dogs that are fully capable of learning how to be a good fit for a household, but are homed by people who do not have the free time or skill set to provide the training to accomplish that, which results in a stressful life for both the dogs and the people. 

Even as a dog trainer, there’s not much i can do when hired by these same people, because to make it work the way i know it can, i’d have to eat sleep and breathe the behavioral programing with the dog, because that’s how dogs work. This situation is also a huge contributing factor to how many dogs wind up in shelters, so this program of training dogs to behave appropriately in a modern household would keep shelter numbers low, allowing them to continue focusing on being primarily training centers that also house and adopt out the occasional shelter dog.

Under this program, puppies would be very expensive, but! There would be a lot of dogs between two and three years old that turn out to not be a good fit for the medical program.

These dogs would be available to adopt relatively cheaply at almost the same age people would take full custody of their expensive puppy, and would have gone through the same basic training. The only difference is you would meet your dog for the first time at two or three years old instead of being there their whole life, which is what the people who buy puppies are paying for.

Plus, the local centers are working under the same training parameters, so when you take your adopted medical drop out to your local training center for any training issues, they are using the same training program your dog is already used to.

The training centers will be a hub for dog supplies and services, of course, helping owners access appropriate exercise activities and clinically assessed food and all that.

Naturally they will have a partnership with the local vets, because they are housing a lot of puppies and dogs. A portion of each expensive puppy cost goes to vet costs, and everyone adopting/buying basically pays a monthly pet insurance to provide any medical treatment their pet may need (because we’re not going to adopt out a dog and then have it brought in needing medical attention and say no to that).

HOWEVER. Dogs that are being retired from the medical diagnostic program after a full career get homed for free, AND the diagnostic program waives the pet insurance cost, paying for all their medical needs through the local training center/vet network, so if you want to adopt an adult, very well trained dog, it is free and your cost of caring for them is basically just food.

This means almost anybody can have a dog.

i’ve got a whole other arm of the program planned out for dogs for homeless people that dovetails into a plan for homelessness solutions which involve infrastructure supporting transient populations, for example, buildings with kitchens and bathrooms scattered throughout large parking lots where camper vans and RVs can park as semi-temporary measures that turn into social norms for traveling lifestyles when other homelessness solutions are created... but this post is too long already

(that’s my dog Badger in our camper van)

ANYWAY the whole thing ends in there being no more puppy mills, no more over-crowded shelters, and dogs being set up for success in fitting into a modern home, plus the public gets free screening for a bunch of medical conditions, catching early such things as breast cancer, lung cancer, diabetes, heart murmurs, etc.

[beholdthemem]

The 1992 Nockfell Junior High Christmas Concert Incident: Part 5

In which the backstory continues, and one begins to question Nockfell Junior High’s hiring process.

"So, just checking that I've got this all straight- Ms. Ludwig used to be the only music teacher here," Ash gingerly pulled a hat out of the box someone had brought out from storage. "And then they hired Ms Petrikov-"

"Don't touch that before it's been disinfected, you'll get leprosy or something." Mason ordered. Ash made a face, and dropped the hat back inside.

"They spend all year in storage with anybody whose garage has the space," Trish eyed the box, neatly labeled as 'Costumes- Winter. (Junior)', with undisguised malice. "And nobody's ever brave enough to try and get them to have an unfortunate accident during that time, so they just keep coming back…"

"Like leprosy."

"...I think that's herpes?"

"They could have herpes, too-"

"They don't have herpes," Allen, who had been housing the box, rolled his eyes. "Just probably spiders. Maybe fleas."

"FLEAS?!" Trish screeched, while Ash almost fell over a desk scrambling backwards to get away. 

"I said 'maybe'!" Allen defended himself, putting his Twine Parks themed backpack between himself and Trish like a shield. "I know the cats go over there a lot- look, we're going to disinfect them anyway, sorry I don't have time to keep the fucking ELF COSTUMES in mint condition-"

"We have to WEAR THEM!" Trish hissed 

"After they're disinfected!"

"Anyway, like you were saying," Mason reappeared with a spray can of something ominous smelling, and began liberally dousing the (potentially) flea-infested costumes while Allen went into a violent coughing fit. "Ms. Ludwig's been here since the dawn of time. And then, some years back, they hired Ms Petrikov."

"Supposedly it was to flesh out the music department again."

"Supposedly?"

"Well…" Trish pursed her lips. "I'm sure it was handy to have the excuse that the music department was missing a lot of teachers. But I think if it had been a famous scientist, or a famous athlete, or a famous anything who showed up out of the blue and graciously offered to work at a crappy little school in the middle of nowhere instead, then suddenly there would have been a spot in THAT subject that needed filling."

"Wait, so Ms Petrikov actually IS famous?" Ash asked in disbelief. "I thought she was just, like- self important and weird!"

"She can be both." Allen managed in between attempts to hack up what sounded like a lung.

"Like… famous might be an overstatement. I don't think she was ever a huge household name or anything- but she definitely had a career." Trish elaborated. "If you were into musical theater-"

"Or your parents were into musical theater."

"Then you'd have heard of her. She was a very big deal in a very specific sub-culture. Which I guess tells us something whoever was doing the hiring at the time, because the way I heard it, they took her on without even an interview. As soon as she got off the plane from New York, she had a place here."

"Why'd she leave New York?" Ash found herself fascinated. She was usually the last to hear gossip of any kind, much less about the staff, and much less anything this unexpected. 

"Nobody knows," Mason said, lowering his voice for the appropriate air of mystery. "The way she tells it, she decided she'd been in the spotlight long enough and wanted to give back to the community."

"Yeah, right," Allen wheezed as Ash pursed her lips skeptically.

"Yeah, nobody with half a brain actually believes that," Mason agreed, still in the same furtive undertone. "Nobody gives up NEW YORK to work for peanuts in Nockfell, Pennsylvania. Especially not Petrikov. She'd be up on her feet the day after a world ending explosion if she thought there was a chance she could star in a concert for the cockroaches and mutant survivors. As long as there's an audience, she's there. Nah, she left because she didn't have another choice."

"What happened?"

"Well, there's a lot of rumors," Trish took a quick look at the door, as though to double check Ms. Petrikov hadn't suddenly materialized without warning, then leaned closer to the rest of them to whisper, anyway. "Some people say it was an affair with a director that got found out, other people say she got involved with the mob and had to skip town, maybe she just ran out of money and couldn't afford to stay somewhere that expensive… but I think everybody knows that it was really-"

"The Cassandra Calloway thing." Allen and Mason finished at the same time. Trish grimaced, nodding.

"Who's Cassandra Calloway?" Ash asked curiously.

"She's another big name in musical theater..." Trish trailed off, looking a little uncomfortable.

"Okay…?" Ash prompted.

"It's not for the reasons she wanted." Mason finished awkwardly.

"Eight years ago, Cassandra Calloway was a rising star in the theater scene," Allen began. "She made her mark with a couple of small parts in some off-Broadway productions, nothing huge, but consistent work. I think it was one of those 'I-Know-Somebody-Who-Knows-Somebody' things, where you first get a shot because somebody owes a friend of yours a favor, and then it's on you to prove you're worth keeping around past the first show. My dad says that in the beginning, all she proved was that she wasn't deadweight-"

"Way harsh!" Trish objected, looking put out.

"My dad said it, not me! But to be fair-"

"Don't 'To be fair' that-"

"Look, I'm not insulting her! She was good, I'm not saying she wasn't. But nobody knew HOW good until she got a musical part, because that's what everybody remembers her for."

"Hmph."

 "She had, like…" Mason gestured wordlessly while he tried to figure out what he wanted to say. "There was a quality to her voice that was really special. That first musical she was in, she got a really small role, but three separate reviews mentioned her. People came in to check it out and hear for themselves, and they're not disappointed. Nobody sounds like she does. And the next show that theater does, she's jumped up in the pecking order and gets a big part, solo included, because the people in charge are noticing that a solid chunk of the audience came there for her."

"It pays off," Trish took up the next part of the story. "She gains a following. In maybe two years, people are coming to see shows just because they've heard she's in them- she hasn't made the jump to mainstream yet, but the kind of people who follow off-Broadway shit all know her. A year after that, she's reached a point where the kind of clove-smoking weirdos who only like stuff before it's cool don't bother with her anymore, because she's become too popular for declaring yourself a fan to be avant garde. And that's when Petrikov's crowd starts taking notice."

"See, at the time this is all going down, Petrikov's already been in the game for a while. She's well established, well connected, and generally considered a good investment for your production- a reliable one, because you know exactly what you're getting, and it's always worked before. And that's fine, because when you know what you'll get, there's no risk…"

"...but if you never take any risks, you'll never get anything new, either." Ash realized.

"Bingo." Mason sang. "Now if you're an audience member, that's no biggie. The audience is not, as a whole, a complicated beast. It's made up of people who came to see a show with fancy costumes and pretty singing, and as long as nothing's glaringly awful, they'll be satisfied. They have no problem seeing the same people doing the same kind of shows over and over again. But if you're a director-"

"Bah! Too pedestrian!" Trish scoffed in a terrible French accent that Ash assumed most directors either had or aspired to.

"They don't want to play it safe. That's NEVER what they wanted to do. They became directors because they wanted to make daring, artsy shit, and then had to spend years doing the exact opposite in order to eat every day. Once you've made it big, though, that's when you're supposed to start making the things YOU wanna do, because now you can get away with it. New ideas, new perspectives…"

"New people," Allen said meaningfully.

"Uh oh."

"Now, in THEORY, it should be easy to start working on your own projects when you're a guy as famous as Armand Fontaine-"

"She doesn't know who that is," Allen interrupted again.

"I do!" Ash denied, nettled at the assumption.

"Do you really?"

"I might! You don't know that I wouldn't-"

"But do you, though?"

"He's… a…" Ash stalled, mentally scuttling through context clues. "He's a director."

"See?" Trish spread her hands magnanimously. "She knows!"

"Anyone could tell he was a director from the conversation-"

"OH MY GOD, can I finish the story or not?! Jesus. Armand Fontaine! World famous director! Debuted dozens of famous shows, spends more time with Lucinda Petrikov than he does his own wife-"

"Both on AND offstage."

"Holy shit Patricia, what is it going to take for you to let me finish a fucking sentence?"

"It's context! I'm helping!"

"You're INTERRUPTING is what you're doing!"

"So the affair thing might’ve been real, too?" Ash thought back to the rumor Trish had mentioned and dismissed, and felt her skin attempt to flee her body in one sharp, full-body shudder. The mind boggled. "Was he like… an adrenaline junkie, or something? I could be wrong, but after a month in this room, I'm pretty sure that Ms. Petrikov is the human equivalent of a praying mantis where every time she mates with someone she bites off his-”

Trish howled with laughter, all arguments forgotten.

“There’s something wrong with you,” Allen said in a way that seemed less like an insult and more like a scientific observation. “Something deeply, deeply, biblically wrong with you.”

“You know that if she walked in here and heard you say that, she’d kill us, right?” The hands covering Mason’s face did nothing to muffle how high pitched his voice had become. “Not just you, but all of us, too, for hearing you say it?”

“It’d be worth it," Trish wheezed, drying her eyes. 

"Maybe for YOU."

"We'd already be dead for having acknowledged the Calloway Incident at all " Allen shrugged, seemingly resigned to his death. "Anything else would just be.a coup de grace."

"I still don't totally understand what Whatsername Calloway has to do with anything."

"Well, you would if anybody would let me finish." Mason looked up to scowl at Trish and Allen. "Can I do that now? Nobody has anything else they desperately need to derail with?"

Trish shrugged, as though to say she could make no promises. Mason grunted irritably, taking that as the best he was going to get, and began again, the potential threat of Petrikov returning him to an undertone.

"Armand Fontaine and Lucinda Petrikov used to be… kind of a duo. People associated one with the other. She was his big star, the one he wanted in everything he directed, and he was her favorite, the director she chose to work with above all others, the one she'd say was in a class all his own. They worked together because each felt the other was the only one with the kind of competence to meet their incredibly high standards.

But the trouble with that is that they were both really… temperamental. When they got on, they were incredible, nobody was that good. But when they were on the outs…"

Allen winced, making a hissing noise. Trish shook her head silently.

"Their fights were legendary. They were messy in the way that only Broadway elites can be. They'd make it public, they'd have screaming matches out on the street without giving a shit who was around them to see, they'd do weird, incredibly petty shit to upset each other, they'd be forcing mutual friends, acquaintances and co-workers to pick sides- and then they'd make up. They'd make that really dramatic and public, too, fawning over each other like the last few months had never happened, like they'd been separated by forces out of their control for a thousand years and would never let each other out of their sight again. I think the only reason the people around them put up with it is because the shows they'd put out fueled by one of those make up kicks would be some of their best works. Really… passionate."

"Eugh."

"You'll understand when you're older." Trish assured Ash.

"Eugh." Allen echoed, suggesting that age didn't make this a given.

"Nobody can be like this for years without something starting to give, though. People aren't built to put up with that indefinitely without getting sick of each other. And around the time that Cassie Calloway's getting noticed by the big dogs, folks around Fontaine and Petrikov are noticing that their blowouts are getting a lot more frequent. I think to some extent that might've been fueled by Fontaine hitting middle age and reaching some sort of weird I'm Getting Older And What Do I Have To Show For It crisis. He's done the thing you're supposed to strive for. He's gotten the fame. He's earned the respect. He's had all these successful projects that everybody loves- now what? He's still here, and it feels like he's just going in circles, churning out things that people like because they don't know any better. He has the soul of an ar-teest, and it's being stifled. Petrikov, though, doesn't get that. As far as she's concerned, things are great! Why is he moping and trying to create problems where they don't exist? She's not a particularly patient woman at the best of times, and she has even less patience for Fontaine's on-going existential ennui. Fontaine feels she's not being supportive, if she doesn't see the problem, maybe she's just not artistic enough to understand the needs of a creative spirit. On and on, and back and forth, which is making the show they're trying to work on more complicated than it needs to be. And then Fontaine makes shit even MORE complicated- he wants Miss Up And Coming, Cassandra Calloway, in the cast."

"...How'd Ms. Petrikov take it?" Ash asked, after taking a moment to let that sink in.

"How'd you think?"

"She doesn't do SHARED publicity. In every production she's been in with her Armand, she's been the star. People come to see her. And now, people have the nerve to suggest this little upstart might get more butts in seats if they include her- like the famous Lucinda Petrikov isn't enough on her own."

"Cassie never should've said yes," Trish sighed.

"Who's gonna turn down working with a living legend?" Mason shook his head. "If I was offered a chance to be in a show directed by the guy who gave the world The Spirit of the Boathouse and Los Tristes, you bet your ass I'd take it, no matter WHAT I'd heard about the guy. And to be working alongside someone whose records I'd grown up listening to? No question."

"You'd think to watch your back though, wouldn't you?" 

"Well," Mason sighed. "I'll admit it, that was naive."

"It was dumb," Allen said, but it sounded pitying rather than cruel.

"It was dumb," Mason agreed, with that same pitying tone, tinged with genuine sadness. It didn't sound like the way you talked about anyone who was still around.

"Did…" Ash could feel a tendril of wariness, of suspicion, of something a little like fear working its way up from her stomach as a question came to mind and refused to be dismissed no matter how ridiculous she told herself it was. "Did…"

'Did she die?'

"Did something… happen to her?" Ash forced herself to ask instead, still unsure she wanted the answer.

"A lot of things happened to her," Allen rubbed the back of his neck. "And they started when she joined the show."

"Y'know, the really fucked up thing is that in the end- I'm not even sure Fontaine wanted her there for the sake of his musical. He might've- but I think her being talented was a good excuse for him to ask her, when what he really wanted was to upset Petrikov." Trish drew her arms around herself as though suddenly chilled. "What a waste."

"Might've been both," Mason shrugged. "No way to know. It was definitely a bonus for him, if nothing else."

"What happened?" Ash asked again, covering how unnerved she was with frustration. "You keep dragging it out, what actually happened to her?"

"She had a role alongside Petrikov, where she'd be able to show off but not outshine her," Allen summarized, taking matters into his own hands to finally get things over with. "But then Fontaine decided to make her an understudy, where she'd fill in for Petrikov if for some reason she couldn't perform. Petrikov didn't like that. They argued about it for weeks. And then two weeks before opening night, Fontaine lost patience and announced that no, he didn’t care WHAT Ms. Petrikov said, Cassie would be taking the role he'd originally written for her- Petrikov-  during the opening, whether she was able to perform or not."

‘Ms. Petrikov doesn’t take ‘no’ well at the best of times.’ Ash suddenly remembered Trish saying weeks before.

“Oh,” she said numbly, suddenly dreading whatever the next sentence was going to hold.

“No amount of money in the world could’ve gotten me anywhere near that theater during those two weeks,” Mason muttered, massaging his temples like he could see it all too well, and wished he couldn’t. Trish turned abruptly, and began brusquely disinfecting the abandoned elf costumes like a woman possessed by the need to be anywhere else.

“Petrikov has a full scale meltdown. Finally storms out screaming about how he’s gone too far this time, he doesn’t know what he’s done and it’s too late for him to fix it. They’re all going to be sorry. Everyone’s heard that before, so they assume it’s going to be a longer period of time before they make up, but nothing more drastic than that.”

“Stupid,” Trish muttered.

“Things proceed as planned. Maybe even better than as planned, because now they aren’t having to stop every couple of hours and wait for Fontaine and Petrikov to finish snapping at each other before they can all move on. And then the day before the show, Cassie gets this huge flower arrangement… from Petrikov. There’s a little note wishing her luck, saying how she was upset with Armand, but she was never mad at Cassie, Cassie didn’t do anything wrong, she’ll be great, blah blah blah… she’s sorry she didn’t come by with these in person, but she wasn’t sure if Cassie would want to see her after how they left off. She leaves her phone number, in case Cassie ever wants to chat, get some advice… meet up for coffee or something to clear the air.”

“Stupid,” Mason repeated.

“Cassie makes the phone call. She and Petrikov are seen meeting up at a coffee shop. They spend a long time chatting, and when it starts to get late, they catch a cab and head over to the theater, for some fucking reason. It’s so late that for once, no one else is there. Cassie goes in, with Petrikov walking her inside- she probably said it was for some good luck ritual or something, actors buy into that sort of bullshit all the time- and then a LONG time later, Petrikov comes back out. Without Cassie.”

'She doesn't take no well at the best of times.'

"So what?" Ash asked stubbornly, shoving the haunting little sentence back down in her mind, and refusing to take the obvious bait. "So Cassie decided to stay a little longer. What's wrong with that?" 

She had a feeling she- no. She KNEW what Allen was implying. But people did background checks before hiring teachers, didn't they?

Even famous ones.

…didn't they?

"She was still there when everyone came in the next morning," Allen said quietly. "Lying at the bottom of the stairs."

The room seemed to swell around them, the air growing colder.

"She…" Ash felt her lips forming the words, but the sounds that came out sounded nothing like her, more quietly than she'd thought she knew how to be. "She died?"

"No," Trish shook her head without turning around. "She didn’t die.”

“She had a leg broken, and the other one… I forget exactly what was wrong, but the knee got damaged. The kind of thing where even after you recover, it’s never going to work as well as it used to. It might not have been as bad as it was if it had gotten treated immediately, but if you spend an entire night with it just getting worse and worse, while you fuck it up trying to drag yourself to your feet and move because you know nobody’s around to hear you screaming for help…”

Ash's stomach roiled.

"Ms. Petrikov did that?"

"Not according to the judge."

“An unfortunate accident,” Trish parroted. “She fell down the stairs after Lucinda Petrikov had left the theater. It may have FELT like someone pushed her- but the prosecution admits their client has said the exact memories are fuzzy. While an undeniable tragedy, the court rules that the evidence does not establish probable cause that Ms. Petrikov has committed any offence."

"The show was cancelled," said Mason. "Cassie couldn't perform, of course, she was going to be in recovery for nobody knew how long- and no matter what the ruling was, no one felt comfortable with Petrikov taking the role back."

"She asked?" Ash gaped, aghast. 

"Oh no, she wasn't THAT stupid. She already knew nobody was going to agree to that- and probably how bad it would look, even if they did. And she was smart enough to know which way the wind was blowing- maybe she didn't do it. Maybe it really WAS an accident. But the fact that you had to ask, and couldn't be sure of the answer, meant nobody was going to want to work with her now. So she announces that she’s elected to take an early retirement, (presumably so she can get out of New York while still making it look like her idea) and mentions in a few carefully selected interviews that DON’T ask her about Cassie that she’s been thinking it’s time for her to give back to the community. To do something that really matters. Like maybe… oh, I dunno, just throwing something out there… teaching."

"So she moves to a crappy little town in the middle of nowhere, where nobody’s going to question her too deeply about the past. And as luck would have it, that crappy little town has a crappy little school, that happens to need a music teacher."

“I feel like half the reason she agreed was because she was expecting people to fawn over an ex Broadway star. I mean, what with how the schoolboard fell over themselves to hire her, I can sort of see why she’d think that? But, uh,” Trish sucked in a breath through her teeth. “That didn’t last.”

“Like, yeah, theater nerds and music nerds are gonna know who she is, but this is not a big school. We’ve got like, what, maybe a thousand kids here, tops? If even that many. How big do you think the theater-music kid population is here? How many OTHER kids are going to know who she used to be or why they should be impressed by her? Had YOU ever heard of Lucinda Petrikov before this year?”

“Maybe in my nightmares as some kind of bad omen?” Ash offered.

"I know you're joking, but I'm not convinced she can't do that."

 "So just to recap- she was on top of the world, and now her career is over. She's on a teacher's salary. She's teaching kids who don't know or care about her subject. And last but not least…" Mason was now just above whisper territory. This was evidently the sorest of many sore spots for a woman even more unpredictable and ruthless than Ash had come to expect. "... she's not even respected enough in her field to be the head of the department- she's sharing it with an old lady who doesn't respect her, refuses to die, and who's taking as much of the funding as she can get her hands on. And you know what those two are like about sharing."

[maybankiara]

PHONE SWAP (DREW STARKEY)

10: BAD DAY, HUH?

summary: Addie Mallory is just your average economics student when she meets Drew Starkey at her local Target in Atlanta. This is where the story is supposed to end – a short meeting and a picture to go – except Drew accidentally leaves with the wrong phone, and the story begins, instead.

w/c: 3k

a/n: ah. the bittersweet taste of our own flaws. -- probably addie in this chapter tbh. basically marianne being very british and making addie Question Everything, as best friends do

read on wattpad

previous part | series masterlist

Virgin Mary | 3:47pm so the gang is planning a night out this week, you free saturday?

Me | 5:07pm why this saturday? Me | 5:07pm is it someone’s birthday?? Me | 5:07pm pls say no

Virgin Mary | 5:08pm Tom’s is in two weeks and you better not forget that

Me | 5:08pm ffs marianne i won’t

Virgin Mary | 5:09pm you better not bitch I need your help with the present Virgin Mary | 5:09pm can’t give my boy anything less than perfection

Me | 5:10pm wow what a way to not put pressure in your about-to-burst-from-stress friend

Virgin Mary | 5:11pm you mean my overdramatic friend? Virgin Mary | 5:11pm get your hole and you’ll be fine

Me | 5:11pm MARIANNE

Virgin Mary | 5:12pm BITCH WHAT Virgin Mary | 5:12pm you need to shag Virgin Mary | 5:12pm when’s the last time you got your hole

Me | 5:13pm I��m busy okay i don’t want a boyfriend rn

Virgin Mary | 5:14pm so that’s totally why I’ve been hearing about Holden for the past three months 👀

Me | 5:15pm you do realise we work at the same place right Me | 5:15pm i can’t just hook up with a guy i have to see every day for at least 8 hours

Virgin Mary | 5:16pm fucking hell you’re a tuff nut

Me | 5:17pm go make me some tea pls Me | 5:17pm I’m home in 20 and I’ve got some late emails

Virgin Mary | 5:17pm whatever bitch Virgin Mary | 5:18pm you’re a freaking workaholic Virgin Mary | 5:18pm shag Holden

Me | 5:19pm shut up Me | 5:19pm ur blocked ❤

Virgin Mary | 5:20pm so are you free on saturday or not? Virgin Mary | 5:33pm ur cancelled❤

◇

The music coming from their apartment is loud enough that Addie hears it as she walks up the staircase. She can’t distinguish the song, but the beat’s there, and she’s either imagining Marianne singing along, or it’s actually happening. One is just as likely as the other. 

  It gets louder when Addie walks through the door, and she figures it’s safe to assume it’s her friend rather than her imagination. The door closes behind her, sound swallowed by whatever rock song Marianne is blasting through the speaker – this is what Addie is used to. 

  She leaves her purse on the drawer at the side of the hallway, one that’s filled with trinkets they’ve got nowhere else to put, and she hangs the raincoat right next to it. Her shoes are the next to come off – the loss of the three inches that the burgundy platforms come with comes as soon as she steps out of them. Her feet are grounding her on the floor, now, and a moment’s break is all she gives herself. It’s peace after a tedious day of relentless work; it’s the calm from the scent of cinnamon candles, Earl Grey tea, and the dish Marianne is making that smells very Italian – this feels like home. 

  Addie makes her way to the kitchen. Her roommate is singing her heart out to music coming from the speaker on the round table, stirring whatever’s in the pot in front of her. Marianne doesn’t notice her come in, so Addie walks over to the speaker and tunes it down, low enough for them to talk. 

  ‘Honey, I’m home!’ 

  Marianne turns around with a big smile on her face. Her ginger hair is pulled into a high ponytail, loose from what Addie assumes must’ve been a kitchen concert. This is paired with sweats and a loose crop top, and Marianne’s demeanour is enough to tell her she’s ready to tackle the weekend ahead of them. 

  ‘Honey, welcome home’’ She points behind Addie. ‘There’s your tea. I’m making lasagna and it’ll be ready in about half an hour.’

  ‘Shit, I've actually been craving that today.'

  The girl goes back to stirring the pot, swaying her hips to the tune of the music. ‘Sixth sense, Addie. Bruce Willis had it right.’

  ‘I told you that movie creeps me out!’

  ‘It’s a masterpiece and you’re a pussy.’

  Instead of a reply, Addie huffs with an eye roll, taking a sip from the cup. It’s midnight blue with a quote from one of the books Marianne likes, imported straight from the British Isles. The colour is faded on the holding part of the mug, but it remains the girl’s favourite mug despite a variety of prettier, newer mugs she’s acquired over the time. 

  Marianne is simple. She’s got things she loves and doesn’t stray from that. 

  They chat for a bit, Marianne preparing the lasagna to go into the oven and Addie drinking her tea. Addie learns that the firm Marianne is interning for has gotten a new project for a family home on the outskirts of Atlanta and the interns are being allowed to try out their hand at designing it, and the firm will end up critiquing their work and possibly giving one of them the chance to have their design turned into reality. 

  It’s an exciting thing – the most Marianne has gotten in the past three months of working there. 

  The lasagna is put into the oven and Addie announces her shower time, and promises Marianne she better tell her about her day after she scrubbed off all that reminds her of the office. Taking her contact lenses out and getting into the shower after a long day is the one feeling Addie cherishes more than just the arrival home in itself. Her showers are long, with steam rising and fogging up the blurred glass sides of the shower and the mirror in the bathroom. 

  When she gets out of the bathroom, she’s wearing an outfit that mirrors her roommate’s. Her hair’s wet and wrapped into an old T-shirt, basking in a curl-defining product she got the other day. She’s got a facemask on, too, and Marianne sighs at the sight of it. 

  ‘Bad day, huh?’

  Addie walks up to the counter beside the oven, taking out some cutlery and begins to set the table. ‘I envy you. All your bosses are so self-absorbed that they don’t even notice you guys. Mine are self-absorbed and narcissistic, so we get all the work nobody can be fucked with.’

  Marianne taps on the table with the fork she’s just been given. ‘No swearing, missy.’

  The brunette raises an eyebrow, trying to figure out if her roommate is joking. Then she remembers her resolution from a few days ago -- “I will swear less because I’m not a fucking sailor.” “That’s a quarter in the jar, Miss.”

  ‘Whatever,’ mutters Addie. She places the last of the dishes on the table and plops into the chair across from her roommate, resting her head in her hands. ‘I’m so tired of Harrington. The divorce isn’t going well because his ex has actually got a brain, which he hadn’t anticipated, and now he’s literally just throwing the worst shit at us. And to complete it, Patty is just being her regular cruel self.’

  ‘That’s horrible.’ Marianne scrunches her nose. ‘That’s also three quarters now.’

  ‘I’m allowed to say shit!’

  ‘Well, you’re the one who decided to swear less.’

  ‘Saying shit isn’t swearing. It’s basically a normal word.’

  The look Marianne gives her is full of friendly scorn. Addie sighs and fishes three quarters out of her wallet that’s on the table—she can’t believe saying “shit” alone cost her two quarters—and throws them into the jar that's on the part of the table closest to the wall. There’s hardly anything in it, but Addie reckons that’s more because of the fact that she’s hardly both home and awake anymore, as opposed to her not swearing a lot. 

  Marianne walks over to the oven, checking the lasagna. She pulls the door open and hot air fills the small space, alongside the smell of a beautifully done Italian dish – or Addie is just really hungry. 

  ‘Patty made Holden and I work on a budget plan for some Grubson’s subdivision upstate. We did budgeting. He majored in finance and I majored in economics and we’re doing damn accounting.’

  ‘You’re interning for a law firm,’ notes Marianne, putting oven mittens on. ‘You shouldn’t expect to do exactly what you want to do.’

  Addie’s lip curls into a bitter grin. Her friend is right, and she knows it and she hates that this is what her career has come to -- wasting her actual talents because the industry is shitty as it is. She’s got to put in triple the effort her white male colleagues do, and even then, her brilliance is hardly registered. 

  The lasagna is on the table. Marianne gives each of them a piece and Addie fills their glasses with some Coca Cola-ripoff they got at Tesco. The music from the speaker changes to something more dinner-appropriate. 

  ‘This looks delicious, Marianne.’

  ‘It better be. Took me nearly three damn hours.’

  Both girls blow on their slice before taking it, and both of them still end up having to half-blow through the food while it’s in their mouths, bursting into laughter as they watch one another struggle. 

  ‘I don’t know what’s your excuse,’ says Addie, having finally swallowed the piece, ‘but mine is that I’m absolutely starving.’

  Marianne pretends to chuck some food at her. ‘My excuse is that I invested a lot of time in this.’

  ‘Fair. It’s amazing.’

  At this, the girl beams with happiness, and Addie can’t hold back a smile even as she struggles through the heat of another piece, her stomach grumbling. 

  ‘Anyway, it’s shit. It got so bad today that I ended up spending nearly all of my time with Holden— No, hush, I’m not having it— Seriously, Marianne, we’re literally work colleagues!’ Addie sighs in exasperation, one finger raised in the last effort at getting her friend to stop nagging her about her colleague. 

  Marianne pouts, then gives away an innocent shrug. ‘All I’m saying is that there’s something there.’

  All Addie can do is roll her eyes and focus on the plate in front of her. Her fork pierces through the lasagna with a little too much force than warranted, and the brunette concludes that’s enough to show how irritated Marianne got her.

  Despite her hardest attempts at denying it, Marianne’s kind of got a point. Addie’s been at the internship for over three months now and it’s not like she has gotten close with anyone – at least, not enough to call them friends. Her career and education have always taken the priority over friends and temporary relationships, and it’s never hurt her in any way. Sure, she might’ve been lonely from time to time, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t end up with great friends, regardless. 

  With the internship and a Master’s degree to work on, Addie doesn’t really have time for personal connections that won’t last. 

  Addie shakes the thought out of her head. The lasagna bit is steaming in her mouth and Marianne rolls her eyes, but it eases the tension between the two. 

  ‘There’s nothing between us, Marianne,’ says Addie, once her mouth isn’t burning anymore. ‘We’re a good team. Patty and Harrington noticed that we get more done than any other teams.’

  ‘So there’s work chemistry. You don’t have that with just about every other person, Addie. Especially not you.’

  Especially not Addie, who likes to have her work done at specific times of the day, filing it in a specific way, handling her responsibility like a drop of water. Again, Marianne’s got a point. 

  ‘Plus, he’s pretty good looking.’

  The memory of showing Marianne pictures of Holden makes her chuckle. ‘You flipped out. I was scared for Tom.’

  ‘Please,’ scoffs Marianne, waving her hand. ‘There’s no one better than Tom. But after I spent a whole month listening to how well you’re getting on with this Holden guy, how much better it’s to work with him than other people, how much he’s helped you join the group… How else was I supposed to react when I found out that he’s a hot piece of blonde-hair blue-eyes?’

  ‘I just…’ Addie’s fork moves some of the lasagna around the plate. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t want you to think he’s hot.’

  Marianne huffs. ‘All I’m saying is, don’t write him off.’

  ‘I’m not writing him off. I just don’t have the time to focus on anything romantic right now.’

  ‘That’s bullshit and you know it.’ Marianne finishes the last of her slice and puts her fork down, leaning back in the chair. ‘Addie, you’re the most organised person I know. You never have a problem making it to any of the things our group organises, so why do you always say you don’t have time to hang out with people from work?’

  For a few moments, the only sounds in the kitchen/dining area are whatever’s coming out of the speaker, Addie’s work scratching the bottom of the plate, and her chewing. 

  She knows Marianne’s got a point, again. It’s starting to annoy her.

  ‘Things are good the way they are,’ she finally says, the admission heavy across her lips. ‘I get closer to any of them, it’ll become more difficult to point out what they’ve done wrong, or do my own work if I want to know about their day. It’s already difficult enough with Holden, and we’re just friends.’

  ‘That’s different. You want to shag him.’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘Are you seriously trying to deny the fact that you’re attracted to someone who looks like a damn nineties movie star?’

  Addie grunts, burying her face in her hands. ‘Fine. He’s hot.’

  There’s a pregnant pause and when she finally dares look at Marianne, the girl has a tired smile on her face. She knows this look -- a combination of I told you so and I could be your therapist, you don’t need to pay for one. 

  ‘What.’

  Marianne taps her hand, her smile widening. ‘I know your career means a lot to you, but you’ve got to loosen up. You’re going to burn out.’

  ‘Everybody burns out.’

  ‘Yeah, but you’re gonna do it at, like, thirty.’

  Not dignifying this with a response, Addie rises to her feet, taking her plate and Marianne’s, then stacks the cutlery on top. She’s acutely aware of Marianne waiting for a reaction, even if she doesn’t want to give her one. Instead, she gets to washing the dishes. Running water drowns out the tension easily enough for it to slip into the back of her mind.

  She hears Marianne’s chair let out a squeak a moment later. Her ginger hair appears in the corner of Addie’s eye, and she sees her put the uneaten half of the lasagna into the fridge, wrapped up in aluminium foil. When finished, Marianne rests against the counter with the small of her back.

  Neither of the girls says anything. Addie is trying to ignore the gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach that’s trying to convince her Marianne is right.

  She sets the washes dishes aside, letting them air dry on the dish rack.

  ‘All I meant was that you could go out with them, for a change, not turn your life upside down,’ says Marianne. ‘Just think about it.’

  Addie presses her lips together. ‘Okay. I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Great! Anyway, you need to come out with us on Saturday. Leanne spent fifteen minutes of our coffee date today just freaking out over the fact that you met Drew Starkey.’ A beat. ‘She binged Outer Banks yesterday.’

  ‘I can’t believe my life is finally interesting to you guys.’ Addie puts away the last of the dishes and wipes her hands with a kitchen towel, smiling. ‘All it took was meeting an actor.’

  Marianne pushes herself up on the counter, grinning like a fox. ‘It’s not just that you met him, Addie. It’s been three months and you still talk.’

  ‘Not really. We haven’t talked in’—she counts the days in her head—‘about two weeks.’

  ‘Oh, so you haven’t talked since he read your essay and shared it to his hundreds of thousands of followers and said how much he liked it?’

  ‘Nope.’

  The sigh Marianne lets out is pure exasperation. Addie walks out of the kitchen and the girl follows suit, bringing the speaker along. Both of them plop on the couch as they usually do for half an hour after dinner, before going each to their own studying sessions. Deciding to room with Marianne, who’s currently also doing an internship and a Master’s degree (in architecture), was one of the best decisions Addie has ever made.

  Except for the times when Marianne is awfully nosy for a Brit – must be the French part of her.

  With her legs criss-crossed and an arm draped over the back of the couch, Marianne is in her element. ‘That is not your average celebrity interaction.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So you’re telling me you’re not trying to get on that?’

  ‘On what?’ asks Addie, feeling her irritation levels steadily rising again. ‘Jesus, Marianne. I’m not trying to get with every guy who’s good-looking and nice to me. We share some opinions on social media and whatnot, he agreed with them. It’s not that big of a deal.’

  ‘So you’re saying you wouldn’t shag him if you had the chance?’

  Addie looks away. Her cheeks are hot and body is on fire, and she’s had more than enough of Marianne’s attitude today, and that’s on top of already having had a pretty fucking shitty day in the first place.

  ‘You can’t be ser—’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore.’

  She grabs her phone and, absentmindedly, checks her Instagram notifications – none. The feeling in her stomach intensifies and she opens up her work group chat instead, and curses herself for hoping that maybe there’d be a specific person in her messages.

  Maybe Marianne isn’t that far off.

◇

11: WELCOME TO MY LIFE

tagging. @jjmaybanksbaby​​​​ @taiter-tots​​​​ @sacredto​​​​ @snkkat​​​​ @drewswannabegirl​​​​ @yeslifeofateen​​​​ @rudypnkw​​​​ @stfukie​​​​ @x-lulu​​​​ @sacredto​​​​ @drewstarkey​​​​ @butgilinsky​​​​ @solllaris​​​​ @hyperactive2411​​​​ @chasefreakinstokes​​​​ @surferkie​​​​ @jroseron​​​​ @k-k0129​​​​ @starlightstories​​

[purplesurveys]

820

what venue was the last real concert you went to at?: It was in a local arena and seeing as it’s the only big and also the most modern arena that we have in the city, all foreign acts usually hold their shows there because other venues are too small. 

does your best friend and their mom have the same last name?: Not fully. Their moms hyphenated their surnames.

when was the last time you watched a horror movie? what was it?: Sometime in June-ish. It was Midsommar, and we watched the last full show so it was very late at night :c Loved the movie but hated the ride home as I could barely look at flowers or the color white after.

does your mom think robert pattinson (twilight) is attractive?: I’m not sure actually. I think she found Taylor Lautner to be a bit more attractive.

what color is your cell phone?: Answered this on a recent survey, but while Apple calls it space grey it’s really just fancy talk for black.

are you currently waiting for a phone call? from who?: Gab and I are gonna video call later tonight.

do you have any drugs in your bedroom?: I think I have a couple of Biogesic pills left. I remember taking a whole pack of it from my parents’ room because I had a phase not too long ago where I had a headache almost every night.

is there a feature on your face that people compliment you on?: My eyelashes and single dimple get the most compliments. I also never really had acne problems so I get a lot of comments on that too.

what are your plans for the rest of the week?: Professors are starting to put our grades on our student portal thingy so I’m just spending the week waiting for my record to be complete so I can start really feeling like I’m graduating. I’m also thinking of trying to make a Monte Cristo sandwich hahaha but I’m just not sure if we have all the ingredients needed for it. Safe to say that my plans are all over the place.

have you taken your license test yet?: Yes, four years ago. I’ve already told the story on old surveys but I’ll never forgive the LTO for giving me a car I was completely unfamiliar with to use for my driving exam, since it affected my performance and made me nearly fail the test altogether.

are you annoyed with the side-bang phase?: I don’t remember being annoyed with it. It was a big trend and honestly it looked okay on a lot of people lmao, I never felt like I wanted to complain about it.

what kind of perfume do you mainly use?: I haven’t used perfume in a whiiiiiile because I haven’t gone anywhere anyway, but I’d normally put on Beyoncé’s Heat Rush.

how many studded belts do you own?: Exactly zero.

has your boyfriend/girlfriend ever had braces?: Yes. We had braces put o around the same time, but she was permitted to have them removed much later than me. I only had braces for a year and a half, whereas she needed them throughout high school so that’s four years.

if you could get one piercing and one tattoo, where would you want them?: I’d get either a nose ring or nose stud for piercing; as for tattoo, I’d get Kimi’s pawprint on my wrist.

what have you eaten today?: I had garlic rice, scrambled eggs, and two hotdogs for breakfast; milk tea in the afternoon c/o my dad; and afritada for dinner.

what was the last thing you dissected in a science class?: If my memory serves me right, it was some sort of fish. We didn’t dissect often, just three times: an earthworm, a frog, and then that fish.

have you ever experienced being in love?: Yes.

what’s your favorite thing to do?: I don’t have a top 1 favorite thing to do but one of my favorites is to lift my dog up and carry him around like a baby until he gets annoyed and starts squirming around as if to say “put me down” lol.

have you ever drawn a portrait of somebody? who?: No thanks.

did you wear a jacket today?: No, I don’t wear jackets at home.

where did you buy the last album you purchased?: I have no clue, it was such a long time ago – 2013 to be exact. My best guess would be Mega since their CD shops are always the most updated.

what is your best class in school?: In college, I fell in love with my international relations class right from the first lecture. So easy to appreciate a class when you see your prof’s passion bleed through the readings, lectures, Powerpoints, etc. Back in high school, I loved all the specializations of history that we covered: Philippine history for freshman year, Asian history for second year, and world history for third year.

what was the last kind of vitamin water you consumed?: I don’t drink vitamin water but I do take a vitamin C pill everyday.

how many times a week are you told that you’re beautiful?: Uhhh lately, not that much since we haven’t seen each other and we don’t really do video calls that often. Gab usually calls me beautiful when I send her a selfie, but I don’t do that a lot either.

how many years apart are you and your boyfriend/girlfriend?: A month and a half.

have you kissed more than two people of the same sex?: Mmm just one. I kissed Andi on the cheek once and looking back I now acknowledge the fact that I had meant to do it romantically, but I don’t really count it cause it’s just a cheek kiss.

how many times have you had sex in one day?: Such a personal question lmao but I think my record was 3 or 4 times in a day.

did you exercise at all today?: I don’t exercise.

what color of hair did you have the beginning of this school year?: It’s always just been brown. It’s never changed. < Same sentiments, except change brown to black in my case.

who are you planning to hang out with this weekend?: Just my family, as has been the case for three months now.

when are you getting a new phone?: Idk, maybe a few months into my job once I get one.

have you ever seen a transvestite in person?: That’s a politically incorrect term that pisses me off greatly. < Oooooh. Honestly, genuinely did not know this, so thanks for teaching me something new. I’ve since looked it up and apparently the more appropriate term is cross-dresser, and yeah I know several. My university welcomes all forms of expression, so anyone can dress and project themselves in however way they desire.

what was the last show that you almost went to but didn’t?: This doesn’t count as a show but there was supposed to be a wrestling boot camp in Manila as part of a publicity campaign for a brand new wrestling promotion, and Andrew and I had plans on cutting class so we can attend the boot camp and learn basic wrestling moves. It was gonna be the coolest thing ever since WWE legend Rikishi was gonna be the one teaching at the boot camp, but unfortunately and shittily enough, the whole thing had been scheduled right around the time panic over Covid was at its peak. Lockdown started at the same week the boot camp was supposed to happen, so yeah I never got my chance to step into a ring.

what did you wear today?: I wore a UP shirt and a pair of shorts, but I’ll be showering after this.

what book are you currently reading?: Nothing at the moment. I can’t decide which wrestler’s autobiography to read next.

[yoongissilver]

BTS Concert Checklist

Hello everyone!!

Since the overseas part of Bangtan’s Love Yourself concert tour will be starting soon, I thought I’d put together some kind of checklist for everyone attending to serve as a little help! If I write a lot of things that you already know, please bear with me; there might be a lot of fans for whom it will be the first (KPOP) concert and I’m just trying to help with some of the experiences I’ve made. I’m also not trying to sound like a mom, I also don’t know everything^^”

If you will be going to one of the concerts then CONGRATS on getting a ticket!! I can assure you that you will have an amazing, unforgettable concert experience with our seven boys that you will keep in memory for a long time.

In order to ensure that you will enjoy your night, some things to remember!!

Before the concert

Checklist:

-Ticket (of course)!

-ID/passport

-snacks/drinks

-a bag (please check your respective venue’s guidelines for the size of the bag!)

-weather-appropriate clothing, but as light as possible clothing for inside the concert venue – it will get hot in there

-for the pit: good shoes. I know they look great but you won’t have fun in heels or other uncomfortable shoes after standing and jumping for hours

-posters/fans/fan project merch

-extra money

-if needed, a powerbank to load your phone

-edit: earplugs!! Especially if you have sensitive ears but even if not, the concert will be incredibly loud and can lead to a rushing or ringing in your ears! That’s no fun. (thank you for the addition, cryingallthefeels)

 1. Public Transportation

Most of you probably already know how you’ll be getting to the concert venue, but do keep in mind that public transportation towards (and especially after the concert, from) the venue might or will very possibly be pretty packed and experiencing delays!! So plan some extra time to get there (even if most of you will probably already be at the venue long before the concert starts). If you drive by car, there might be traffic jams on the way, and you might have problems to find a free parking lot. Get there as early as you can!

2. Merch

Keep in mind that a lot, and I mean A LOT of people will be waiting for concert merch, don’t underestimate the waiting time!! In most cities there will be 2 or more concerts, so if you can it would be good to line up for merch on the day you DO NOT also attend the concert!! Often, merch is sold until after the concert starts, so if you line up too late you might have to give up your place in line to attend the concert if you don’t want to miss anything, and that would be a shame after lining up for hours. In most overseas concerts it’s very much possible that they don’t bring a huge stock of merch so be aware that most of the things will be sold out quickly. It’s also possible that different merch from the Seoul concerts will be sold overseas.

3. Lining up

If you have a seat, it’s not necessary to line up extra early, but the people in the standing will, sadly, have to line up HOURS before the concert if you want to get a good spot in the pit. Bring a lot of extra time to the venue. If you arrive a day or more early, visit the venue once to see how to get there with public transportation, how to get around the venue, where the merch will be set up, where the right entry is, etc. It’s always good to have a plan beforehand, because you can lose a LOT of time if you don’t know where to go! If you come alone, talk with the fans in line around you! It’s always good to have a concert buddy, and someone who will keep your spot in line if you have to go to the toilet or anything. Sharing snacks can make friends, too! :D

4. Snacks/Drinks

PLEASE remember to bring nutritious snacks (like a pack of nuts, cereal bars, fruits like bananas or apples if you can) for the time you’ll be spending in line, because a concert does NOT work with an empty stomach!! PLEASE bring at least a half-liter-bottle of water or another not too sugary drink!! I know that in some venues there’s a possibility of getting in early if you don’t bring bags security has to check, but getting in earlier than others won’t help you if you faint from dehydration. Standing in line for hours on end and then jumping around in a heated pit during a 3 hour concert is unbelievably draining. EAT WELL the night and morning before the concert!! Please be kind to your body.

 During the concert

1. The PitTM

PLEASE DO NOT PUSH OTHERS!! It always happens during a concert that the crowd goes from left to right or back and forth a bit, but please do not openly push others! Even if someone pushes you on purpose do NOT start a war of pushing; that could seriously hurt the people around you! Just move away as good as you can or ignore them. Please remember that there will be younger fans in their teen years who might be in a concert pit for the first time and they can easily be pushed to the floor and land under people’s feet. Please be mindful of the people around you to avoid injuries. Give the boys a good image of the overseas fans! As I said above, bring a bottle of water and take a sip or two every once in a while if you have to. With all the adrenaline rushing through you, you might not even realize that you’re dehydrated until it’s too late! Please take care of yourself. If you bring posters etc. please try not to block other people’s views with them too much! If you take an ARMY BOMB with you, be careful not to hit others with it!! (I speak from experience, that does happen.)

2. Fanchants

Please try to learn the official fanchants for the songs that will be played at the tour!! You can find scripts etc. for that everywhere on the internet! It doesn’t take a long time to learn and it can be really fun, especially if you learn them together with your friends. The fanchants are very unique for kpop and always make for an amazing concert experience and atmosphere!! Let’s flash the boys with our perfect fanchants! Also, learn the right chant for their names!!

3. Filming/taking pictures

As far as I know, taking pictures or videos during the concert is allowed in most overseas venues. But please try not to film too much as mobile phones will block the views of others, and the phone screens are bright and might cause disturbances. I know that it’s tempting to have some kind of memento of your concert experience but filming too much will just keep you from enjoying the real thing. (I know I sound like a grandma here but that is, in fact, the truth) Take a few pictures, film your favourite song or a little special moment, but don’t have your phone out during the whole concert.

 After the concert

1. Health

Please be aware that concerts, even if you have a seat, can be incredibly draining for your body. It’s very hot, stuffy and loud in there for hours, and that does affect your body. When you leave the venue it’s very possible that you will feel dizzy, so watch your step and be careful on the stairs. Don’t push through the crowd leaving the venue, that might only lead to accidents because everyone will be a bit out of it and basically stumbling around like post-concert-zombies. Please be mindful of others. Hold onto your friends or concert buddies so you don’t lose them in the crowd. FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS OF THE STAFF. If you’re confused or have any questions, ask the concert staff for help. When you get out, and it’s not too late in the night, try to grab something to eat and – more importantly – drink to keep you hydrated and nutrition-ed! Or eat and drink something at home or at the hotel/hostel before you go to bed.

2. Public Transportation/getting home

As mentioned above, the public transportation will be even more packed after the concert than before. Check the bus/train/subway timetables beforehand so you know when the last possible bus/train back goes so you won’t miss it!! If you have no other possibility of getting back home/to the hotel, either try to get some people together to walk with you (or walk together with your friends), have someone pick you up a the venue after the concert, or take a taxi!! Walking home alone after a concert late in the evening could be very dangerous! And I don’t just mean being robbed or assaulted or anything, but post-concert-zombie-walking through a big city could also lead to accidents! Try to avoid going home by foot alone!! Agree with a family member/parents or a friend who doesn’t go to the concert to call them afterwards, and to call them when you get back safe. Make sure that someone knows where you are, and worries if you don’t check in with them! Keep yourself safe!

 ARMY ETIQUETTE

1. If you’re at the venue early and eat something together with your friends etc. PLEASE either take your rubbish with you or throw it away!! Do not litter! Leave the space around you clean.

2. I already said it above but please DO NOT push other people in the pit! Everyone wants to enjoy the concerts, so please don’t make Bangtan have to remind us to behave.

3. Be nice to other fans. Make friends. Help other fans out if they have a problem. If you belong to the 20+ crowd (like I do), help out the younger fans with questions/problems and watch out a little bit for them in the pit. We’re one big family, right? Help each other.

4. Don’t make inappropriate posters or yell inappropriate things during the concert. The boys, especially Namjoon, DO understand English. Please don’t make them uncomfortable.

5. Most importantly: HAVE FUN!! A concert is all about having fun, and setting up all these rules above is just to ensure that everyone has a good time! Be on your best behavior, make new friends, make new memories, and enjoy your night!! <3

If you have anything to add, please feel free to do so!!

[lyricalafrica2]

Technology and survival tactics.

Well, what a whirlwind month. I'm now solely trying to write my blog from my phone. I'm also having trouble accessing photos downloaded from my camera, so I may have to do that separately. After allowing someone to look through photos on my ipad and having dropped it on concrete, it's never been the same. The screen flickers faster than a humming birds wings. To say I'm upset is a bit of an understatement. When you're so far away from home and it's been a reliable means of working and keeping up to date with everything, it is a huge loss!

I will try to update you with some visuals in due course!

So here I find myself in Zimbabwe. After a few days turned into a week at Vic Falls. Extended as I was really at a loss of what to do. I'd spent so long just hanging around, waiting for people to make decisions, I thought perhaps I was due a little time to just please myself and so I set off.

The falls were spectacular as I remembered them. Such magnificence and such force behind them, it's hard not to be affected by the energy.

It took me two whole days to actually get to the national park, after deciding to have a lie in on the first day after a long 7 hours on the bus from Lusaka. I opted to do an afternoon walking safari with the rhinos. A good decision as far as I was concerned. The experience wasn't busy with copious amounts of tourists and to encounter the whole herd at the one time, with a 14 day old calf, was just something so incredible! Again, a little teary eyed. I will never tire of seeing such animals. They're obviously under 24/7 protection with armed rangers who keep track of them and ensure that they are kept safe and well within the park.

The trek wasn't so long, but the guide was pretty keen to educate us on anything we came across, from impala middens to mopani trees and the pumbas that eyed us from a distance.

I was in my element. I do just feel utter peace when I'm around animals. Whether they're cats and dogs or lions and elephants. Respect them, give them their space and don't underestimate them.

I stayed at the same backpackers as last time Livingstone backpackers. A lively establishment, pretty much unchanged from the previous time where I met my lovely bunch of Norwegian Friends. I pretty much had the dorm to myself, until a German girl Lucy checked in. We got along and so hit the falls together the following day. It was a relief to have a bit of company by that point. Cliques and groups had formed through the volunteer scheme there and being a bit of an introvert around newbies, I'd say hello, but inevitably end up doing my own things.

To spend long in Livingstone, you need money. The activities don't come cheaply, so I chose wisely. I chose the rhinos over the devils pool. At $105 to go and perch on the edge, which I have already done, came literally rather steep. If money was no object then fair enough, but I'm very happy I chose the rhinos, why wouldn't I!?

I ended up going to the falls twice after realising that during full moon there was going to be a lunar rainbow. Slightly anticlimatic even for the locals this time. It has been known to shine much brighter and be more vibrant, but still it was there, if not in all it's glory. Wet and cold, I returned with a small group I'd become acquainted with at the backpackers, eager for the warmth of a hot chocolate.

It was around this point I met Jesus, hailing from Wolverhampton. Even more appropriate was that the couple who I got talking to, who had just booked into the lodge, swore by him. Sorry, I'm not taking the pee, but I had to laugh at the irony. They were very sweet and seemingly took me under their wing for a day or two until I fled the nest that was the backpackers. Sending me on my way with a bar of chocolate and a few other treats for my onward journey. I had made the decision to follow Jesus (or Matt the bearded, named Jesus because this is what the locals called to him as he walked the streets 😏) to Zimbabwe. I figured rather than lounging around the backpackers waiting for things to transpire, I'd take matters into my own hands. Jesus seemed clued up as far as the whole travel thing went. He'd already done the whole west side of Africa including the Congo and Nigeria, and the tip of the continent in S.A. Now he

was venturing back up through central africa, having covered namibia, botswana, a little of southern Zambia and next stop Zimbabwe. Our stories tallied in the fact that we were both overworked, unfulfilled in some way back on home turf and drawn back to Africa, just not in the fact that I could grow a beard of such magnitude.

I arrived in Livingstone Zimbabwe, a day after Matt, on my way across the bridge over the National park (the one where people dice with the health and safety of Zambia, at the end of some stretchy umbilical chord, holding them onto life) I took the usual pictures and selfies. Stopping only momentarily, so locals wouldn't think I was an opportune customer for their wares. I made it through the boarder unscathed with a smile and a cheery greeting and onwards to the meeting point.

My luggage as little as it was, was heavy and I was feeling it through my shoulders and neck. But with the backpackers apparently being five minutes away, it seemed unnecessary to give into a taxi, especially as I'd made it this far.

Well, that was in my head, until a friendly local who had just returned from Zurich to see his family, insisted he give me a lift up the hill. When I walk like that, I'm usually on a mission and I guess it showed! Once I got there, I was pleased he had stopped me. We had a short, but friendly exchange in the five minute ride.

Next piece of the jigsaw was to fathom out the currency of Zim. So for those of you living blindly to the affairs of Zim, apart from the leaders of said country, Zim doesn't exactly have a straightforward currency.

They have blackmarket bond, US dollars and ecocash. Eco cash is a fairly new way of doing things in that, you can buy a simcard for your phone with a company called econet. You buy airtime to concert to data or calls etc, then you can also load it with bond, bought with US dollars. So depending upon the current rate, the deal can be better or worse. If your bought eco rate is better that that of the shop rate, you use your phone to purchase through ecocash. If the eco cash rate is higher that the rate you bought the ecocash for, it's often better to buy with dollars.

If you go to the cash machine in the unlikely event that your foreign card works, you will receive bond, but be charged by you bank in dollars. You can buy bond with dollars if you wish from random floating around the street, but their rate rarely seems to budge above 9.5, even if the official rate is higher. It's to put it crudely, a bit of a headfk. Coupled with the regular load shedding or power cuts due to the low water of Kariba dam, it can make life taxing for citizens of the country. It's true, their country is in a wee bit of a mess and once you get past the ones who make untimely assumptions about you as a foreigner, people are generally lovely and very helpful.

I had a chat with a girl who insisted I take her back to the uk as she loved the "chilly weather". She loved the idea of swimming in the sea. Hmm I thought. I wonder how you'd feel on New Years day? She asked for my necklace. I told her it was a birthday present from my mum. She seemed to understand the significance. We had a brief light hearted conversation before I caught back up with the others.

I'm saying others, I've gotten way ahead of myself....

I've failed to tell you about Man Biscuit arriving later on the same day as us. The first class overnight train to Bulawayo 🤔 the fact that the basin looked initially like a fold down bedpan and that's where I thought the smell was coming from. The buffet dinner that we served ourselves carrot sticks dipped in.. yup more peanut butter. It's all part of the journey so to speak. At times you don't think you can take anymore and then something happens, good or not so and you still come out the other end and hopefully smiling!

So Matt (Jesus) and I decided to go exploring once we'd freshened up from the long journey. We found a lovely cafe with a beautiful garden that did good coffee (always appreciated!) and cake and from there, we worked our way around the inner city blocks until we got to the National Gallery. Big tick from me, that this was a mutually agreed must see. The natural history museum was also on Matt's list, but by the end of the day, we bypassed that in favour of food.

The surprise came when after having a good look around the gallery, I went to see the artists who had studios. They are set off a little garden/courtyard in the center of the building. They are on two levels, and there are probably around ten studios in all. There were only maybe 3/4 studios open that day, though I only made it into two. After opening my mouth and saying how I wished I had a studio, the lady artist, asked if I was also an artist. I said I was and that I really missed my practice. She said that she could put me in touch with someone who I could chat to about it. Uh oh, what have I done? She seemed keen, not just to give me a number, but to find the person for a face to face conversation. Well we did, we talked and at the end of the conversation we were taking about a residency! My only thing was finding suitable, safe and financially agreeable accommodation. Even at the backpackers, it chews into your money quickly. I've always been a one for buying more into experiences than things, (she says this as she watches her ipad have a meltdown and wishes she could be writing her blog on it, rather than thumb typing on her phone...)

And so, why would I pass up on a opportunity to do a residency at the National Gallery? I submitted all I was asked, so I waited for the official, "everything is cleared" and obviously to find a room. It was that evening, when we got back to the backpackers in my semi stunned state, that Man Biscuit arrived or Johannes, from Germany. He had also been on the road for a while and so two became three.

Our little jaunt out the next day saw the three of us hiring a car to take in Matopos National Park, it is a large, rather dramatic park. I liken it in some ways to Yellowstone, for it's large rocky outcrops and almost fosilised trees. The park contains many points of interest, including 360degree views from apex points, cave paintings and war memorials. There are also white rhino and giraffe in this park. The game park another 21 kms down the road has more, but come the end of the day and our mileage limitations with the car hire company, we decided against a trip there too. We'd seen impala by the time we got back to the exit. Lovely, but slightly disappointing, given the promise of rhino. We were starting to think they'd been hidden in some unreachable corner of the park, unaccessible to out little fiat. Only tar roads was our mantra for the day. As a last gasp, we managed to talk a ranger into taking us to see them, having spent most of our dollars on park entry another 60 was going to be a hefty chunk. There were other guests eager to see them from another lodge, so we basically just tagged along, after they'd stalked the bush for an hour trying to locate them. Amongst these guests was an impressive young irishman, cycling across the continent on his own. As lean and lythe as serious cyclists are. It reminded me of my considerations of doing the same one day.

Once we got word, we trekked maybe around a kilometre to the site where a mother and her 14 month old calf stood in the bushes, just grazing away and minding their own. Again, just one of those life defining moments. The mother had her horn removed and her ears were tagged. It's an expensive business to do that and the process takes around 2 hours to complete. It's sad that it has come to not allowing an animal to retain what is rightly theirs, in an attempt to keep them alive. In some cases they're killed anyway by poachers, if they've been following scent trails for days, only to find a hornless rhino, what use is that? And so to reduce their chances of wasting their time again.... well you get the picture, its tragic! I hope though this mother and calf at least get to see out their years. They truly are magical beasts!

And as the sun dipped lower in the sky, and the golden glow lit up the landscape, they backed off further into the bushes.

Their eyesight typically isn't so good, but every now and again, the rangers would give a certain pitched whistle, if they started to look at all unsettled or got too close. Apparently, they think its a bird and this distracts their attention away from their visitors. It was over all to soon and as we made our way back though the bush, catching our legs on thorns and having rogue branches snap back on our shins, your mind turns to the fact that this is someone elses norm. This is their life. 0600 till 1800, six days a week. Trekking through the bush, being near these beautiful beings, taking in this visceral life.

We gave the rangers a lift back through the park, before heading for town. We needed food! We pulled up in a darkened street next to an oxfam truck. We decided to move on from the dubious area after a couple of guys scoped out the trunk as we opened it to grab our wallets. I didn't feel easy, a gut wrenching, not happy came over me, even before we parked up. And there it is, after previous experiences, sometimes you just have to listen. That feeling, this dis-ease it's usually there for a reason.

Again, so much more has happened since that point in time. I have found a new abode with a beautiful family, I am fully immersed in gallery life with opportunities literally pouring out of the woodwork. I still miss my people and I've done a public talk as an artist 😱 been disgustingly ill, found the yoga retreat from heaven where I regularly hang upsidedown like a bat..... and so much more.... but, I think for now, I've given you enough to mull over!

Whatever next? Answers on a postcard, the most imaginative wins... I've sure as hell stopped trying to plan or predict!

[meddows-theblondebastard]

Girl Crush (Ben Hardy!Roger Taylor Imagine)

I wrote this after listening to ‘Girl Crush’ and broke my own heart. 

Also posted on AO3.

Warnings: angst, bits of fluff, bits of swearing, as a whole, very, very lovely. 

Additional details: → Based on the song ‘Girl Crush’ cover version by Harry Styles. It’s on Spotify if you wanna listen to it or maybe I’ll put it down there. 

           → Ben Hardy!Roger Taylor, but you can imagine Roger alone or Ben, if                  you feel like it.

           → Action taking place at present.

PLOT: You are confused as hell while Roger knows for sure that he’s in love with you. So, he puts that into a song. 

                                                        Imagines

(Credits to Greta Myklegard for the GIF on Pinterest.)

„C’mon, he wants you there more than anyone else.” Brian says, in a final attempt to make you move from the couch you are sitting in this moment. You know he’s in a rush and you are only making things worse for him, but he doesn’t give up. „Y/N, look, we have 40 minutes left and if you think about doing something, you should make a decision right about now. Forget about the argument, it’s the most insignificant thing now for you both.” So many thoughts, so little time. You thought. Brian looks up at the clock on the wall and you feel the urge to tell him to go. You just don’t want to make him be late or annoy him even more. And he, being the sweet guy he is, never admits the fact that you annoy him.

For maybe the millionth time today, your mind travelled back to a particular person. Blue eyes, beautiful blonde hair and, you should add, a big temper even though he acts like this shy boy every once in a while. And you were mad, but having his image in your head helped a bit through the phase. You are a very bad person and Roger is the last person to deserve to be treated like this. That is why staying in your pajamas in your house to spend the rest of the night was a better idea than going anywhere out . You wouldn’t hurt anyone.

„I still don’t hear you saying a single thing.” The curly one says again, somehow resisting to the impulse of pinching your arm or something like that.

„That is because I don’t feel good. I don’t feel comfortable coming tonight. I’ll ruin your moment, I don’t wanna do that.” You say with your thoughts all a mess inside your head.

„Neither does Roger. I saw him today, he clearly was pissed. But you know what? Yours and his pride shouldn’t be bigger than they way you need each other. Remember that you were there everytime.

Bloody hell. He shouldn’t have said that like that.

„Brian.”

„I’m right here.”

„I don’t have a very good feeling about it, but I’ll be back in 12 minutes.” You say and in one second, you’re standing on your own feet. Brian smiles at you, somehow relieved that he didn’t have to spend too much time convincing you or contradict your opinions. You reached your bedroom and put on the most easier to find clothes. It wasn’t a formal thing or something which needed a significant part of care, it was just a little concert in a bar. You combed your wild hair, applied some mascara and lip gloss and you thought you were ready. Phisically, at least. You put your phone in the back pocket of your jeans and then went back to Brian, who was up from the couch, waiting impatiently for you.

„I’m okay.” You assure, but don’t know from where this comes from. You grab your house keys from the coffee table and in a few moments you are in the passenger’s seat in Brian’s car.

Roger. Your mind whispers. While you bite the inside of your cheek, his face appears in front of your eyes. He is so naive. Or, are you naive?

You didn’t have to tell him all those things. It was obvious that he didn’t need any of them, nor was his intention to confuse you. Yet, you are still so confused. Because you have no idea how you should act around him. He does these things … And you don’t know if you’re supposed to accept them or not. He has feelings for you. This is showing on him, it has been for a lot of time now. And somehow, this complicates your situation even more. Roger is a great person. He is a handsome man and an amazing friend, but is this how it should be? His actions towards you have always spoken more for him than his words. How he looks at you when you’re around him, how he tries to make you laugh and how he offers to help you so often you feel almost ungrateful. He’s so nice, it’s almost unbelieveable. You, on the other hand and in comparison, are in doubts and can only create complications with your beliefs.

„This … I think this is not right. Please, why you keep doing those things for me? I-I can’t make up for it, I don’t think I could feel the same for you, Roger. I don’t know, don’t force me.”

„I’m not trying to force you, Y/N, don’t say that. Why is this so hard for you to get? I just want you good, it’s so nice for me to see you smile and all that … But maybe that makes me a damn burden and I can totally understand it.”

Ugh, remembering this day’s events is awful. And the argument. It’s miserable.

„Remember that you were there everytime.” And Brian is right. Not just because he’s more conscious than you, but because it is true. You met Roger and the band he’s in exactly at the bar you are now heading to. It hapenned on a night when you decided to stop studying and stressing over final exams and get out of the house. Your mood was completely shitty, you reckon, and that made you give up for some hours. You entered the bar which was, back then, filled with teenagers who were almost the same age as you, drinking and simply having fun to your disadvantage. You found out that someone’s about to light up the atmosphere with some music only when a group of men became the center of attention. One held a mic, who’s name was Freddie, two of them had guitars, Brian and John and one more, Roger, positioned himself behind a drum set in the back. His messy hair back then was the first thing to catch you attention. When they started singing along with playing their instruments, there was this blast for your ears. They have totally disconnected you from your too full universe. Made you smile while admiring their talent and then cheering with the crowd when they were done. The memory makes you tremble now. It’s been almost two years since. Ever since, you were lucky enough to be present everytime they sang there. You got to know their songs in order and witness the new ones on occasions. They had power, a lot of talent, they were skilled and entertained every single person in the little crowded bar which became, by the way, more and more popular because of them. By having the courage to congratulate them, without even noticing, you became friends. It was an uncertain fact at first, but it became stable on the way. The truth was they were normal people, all in all. Normal people with a passion that brought them together to amaze the others. Music was an important hobby for them, but they have said that it would never be serious enough to make a living out of it.

Oh boy, how wrong they were.

The more people came to watch them playing on different nights and get drunk in addition, the more popular they became. And it just happened for you to be there when a man in uniform offered them the occasion to visit a recording studio. That was it. Everything went smooth, enjoyable and crazy. Absolutely crazy. Their first album followed shortly after that and now they go under the band name ‚Queen’.  

To get along with Roger was an interesting process. He was the ladie’s man with fast hands and drumsticks. But the thing was that he never looked after any woman in particular. He only looked after … Well, you. It was confusing to understand how and why, but you just assmued that you don’t have to explain everything and believed that, eventually, things will clarify. It was easy to say that Roger didn’t give up on his purpose. He never really lost any opportunity to take you out to dinner, flirt with you and smile in that way he does. Although you tried to avoid getting closer and closer, he’s always managed to pull you closer. He didn’t try anything on you still, never kissed you or tell you clearly what was that he wanted. But it was already obvious and the thought, the aspects of it scared you, if it’s to be honest. Why? Is still your question.

Why letting Roger to have you was so confusing and hard to get?

You wish you had an actual answer to that.

There were a lot of guys around you. There was this one, Anthony, who got under your skin a little, unfortunately for Roger. Not that you wanted to be rude. Only God knows, you cared about Roger too much, he earned that from you, but the way Anthony was seemed to feel right. It seemed to feel like it was appropriate for you, while when you were around your blonde one made you feel your skin burning, your stomach squeezing and your hands sweating. Could you name that?

No. You never did.

 „You seriously scare me when you are so deep into your thoughts.” Brian’s voice snaps you back to reality when you realize that you are biting your lower lip hard enough to make the blood spill out. Hopefully, that didn’t happen.

„What? We arrived?” You ask.

„Yeah, we’re here. 20 more minutes.”

You got out of the car, facing the bar. The wind blowing freshened your tenseness. Your hands are squeezed into fists, but there’s barely a thing you could do about that. Still, you manage to move, nervous. The inside of the bar is already full and the smell of alcohol and cigarettes gets to your nose quickly. It’s loud in here, mostly because everyone is excited. The boys are back from tour and decided to have a mini-show back at the bar where it all started. Like a ‚hi there again’ for everyone who watched their performances throughout the years. They were clearly important individuals now.

Brian suggested you to stay near the stage and then he rushed somwhere in the back. No one could call that a backstage because there wasn’t one. It was just a tiny space behind the stage, where they got used to encourage themselves before the show, laugh, have shots and practice a little. You know Roger use to play with his drumsticks there, hitting the air imaginary and throwing them up. Once, one of the drumsticks even hit him in the eye, but he didn’t complain, because he saw that you were secretly looking.

Lovely.

You ordered a glass of something strong for your state of mind and waited patiently. That is all you can do for now. The air is filled with eagerness, people are moving too fast around and there is no trace of your boys. No.

Stay. Don’t you dare to think of leaving.

The crowd started to whisper loudly when the lights dimmed and the little stage was all Freddie’s. He appeared, wearing a not so bold of an outfit as you were used to, smiling and waving to everyone. From behind, there came John, Brian and finally, the ladie’s man. He lifted his hands in the air, along with his drumsticks and smiled warmly. You suddenly felt the need to smile as well, seeing him form afar. He has his hair slightly wavy maybe from the humid air and wears black skinny jeans with a plain white, elbows-lenght shirt. This look makes him be even more handsome, with his white teeth and soft, blue eye. You bite your lip unconsciously.

They start playing and it’s pure bliss. The people are absorbed by them, singing along and dancing around like some super happy freaks. Their hands are quickly in the air, yelling from excitement and spilling their drinks on the floor without being bothered. You stand still, in a poor-lighted corner with your empty galss in your hand, wanting so hard to move and dance with the others. These boys are awesome. But you can’t move, just swing a little from left to right because Roger managed to see you at some point. He seemed a bit shocked until trying to hide it. His drumming was intense, hair being a mess, cheeks flushed and wet lips while he was looking in your direction. You tried to grin, liftting your glass in the air and making him smirk for a bit.

Yeah, your pride wasn’t bigger than the way you needed each other. It’s true, for God’s sake, but you’re a fool for the record and will never admit this.

Only looking at Roger, a last song was heard and then people started to scream again, loving the atmosphere the boys created. They stood on the stage and took all the noise, all that cheering into their souls, breathing fire and joy. You placed your glass on the the bar’s counter and exited your ‚safe’ place, approaching the stage but still being covered by the crowd.

„Alright, we’re not done just yet.” Freddie says in the mic. He looks at Roger from behind his shoulder and continues. „Our friends right here needs to do something. Come here, buddy.” You watch as Roger steps forward. His breathing is fast, you can see. A moment of silence later, he speaks:

„I’ll apologize in advance if I’ll sound like shit, I’m trying though.” His face is all sweaty and red, but he’s so beautiful. With the mic now in his hands, he looks at Brian who jusy enjoyed him. He nods, everyone becomes quiet and you tense up.

A gentle guitar sound is heard and your hands start shaking. Roger finds you in the crowd and while looking right into your eyes, he says:

„This is for my girl.”

 „I got a girl crush …”

 Your heartbeats speed up. Your feet take you right in front of the stage in a desperate attempt to understand what is happening. You know this song. You know this song and it sounds painfully good from his mouth.

 „Hate to admit it but

I got a heart rush

It ain't slowing down

I got it real bad

Want everything she has

That smile and that midnight laugh

She's giving you now”

 You pity him. It’s so lame and unecessary, but you do. Something inside of you flinches and a knot is forming in your throat.

 „I want to taste her lips

Yeah, ’cause they taste like you

I want to drown myself

In a bottle of her perfume”

 Roger is nervous too, you can see that by the way he tightens his grip on the mic. His voice can tremble in any moment, he’s so concentrated as he lays his forehead on the mic head. The lights are all on him, at a decent amount of intensity.

„I want her long blonde hair

I want her magic touch

Yeah, 'cause maybe then

You'd want me just as much

And I've got a girl crush

I've got a girl crush”

 You can barely look around to see everyone watching him in awe. It almost makes a tear drop down your cheek, but you shouldn’t do that. They lift their hands up in the air once again, moving them along with the rhythm.

Oh, Roger …

 „I don't get no sleep

I don't get no peace

Thinking about her

Under your bed sheets”

 Anthony. For a strange reason, Anthony comes into your mind. The music reminds you of how you slept with him for the first time. Roger knows nothing about this, and should never find out. But you feel guilty. On that night, Anthony, although he was hugging you from behind in his bed, wasn’t the one you thought about. Roger was.

 „The way that she's whispering

The way that she's pulling you in

Lord knows I've tried

I can't get her off my mind”

 You couldn’t breathe properly. You’re so nervous and you have any idea why. It’s so frustrating and it makes your face red with feelings. There was this day once, when you cut one of your fingers with a knife while trying to cook something alone. You’ve tried to cook before, but only simple recipes. You swore a lot when the knife slipped in your hand and cut a wound in your finger. You couldn’t stand blood, so you rushed to the hospital to get stitches. You called both Anthony and Roger, maybe one of them was willing to take you back home. And guess who came first.

Not Anthony.

Roger. And he was worried as hell. He checked your finger, the bandage and asked if you were okay. His touches on you were gentle, they were sweet and caring and you remember how warm that made you feel.

 „I want to taste her lips

Yeah, 'cause they taste like you

I want to drown myself

In a bottle of her perfume

I want her long blonde hair

I want her magic touch

Yeah, 'cause maybe then

You'd want me just as much”

 It’s so weird, you feel him so vulnerable. You can’t be pissed anymore, there’s no point in that. Everything in you tells you that you need to go up there and hug him. He doesn’t look at you anymore, he’s looking at the crowd. Some of them are crying, some of them are leaning against each other and dance in silence. Brian plays at his guitar with fine touches. Freddie and John are doing the backing vocals, they murmur together like two birds and you can swear you are in love.  But Roger loves you and he’s trying to get this right for you.

And you feel so bad for it.

„And I've got a girl crush

Oh, and I got a girl crush”

 You try to handle when Roger turns to look at you and dries his lips. His eyes glow, and seeing him this way, you try to smile as beautiful and true as you can. He swallows hard before singing the last notes of the song that made you love him so freaking much.

 „I got a girl crush

Hate to admit it but

I got a heart rush

It ain't slowing down”

 When he finishes, a silent moment goes by. He lets out a shaky breath and then, right there, the crowd begins to applaud and call out his name. And you can’t lose this chance. You clap your hands so hard while he gets your sight and smiles so little. You close your eyes and decide it is time to slow down. All these things for you. Roger Taylor is ruining you right now, but it’s fine as long as you did that too to him.

Trying to calm down from your weak moment, you wait for the bar to empty in order to catch your breath. The need for fresh air is inevitable. Still, you can hold on for a couple of minutes more. Brian, Freddie, John and Roger aren’t anywhere close so you start wandering around. Suddenly, Brian takes your hand and points you forward, where Roger is staying, unable to see you. He is holding his head down and the image is terrible. You nod to Brian and he smiles back at you, trying to send you some boldness. You walk towards Roger and when you are right behind him, your arms wrap around his warm body. He doesn’t jump taken aback, he doesn’t move. Your head creeps on his shoulder where you see him with both of his hands placed on a glass with a dark-colored liquid in it.

„’Drowning your sorrows in alcohol, huh?” You speak in his ear, his bittersweet scent hitting on your senses.

„It’s just Coke. If it was alcohol, then I would’ve been wasted by now in terms of how I’m feeling.” He doesn’t turn his head at you and you can guess it’s because he’s somewhat ashamed.

„Roger?” You whisper. „Look at me, please.”

He does. His eyes find yours and they’re a bit red. Did he cry?  

„We will stare in each other’s eyes now?” He asked with sarcasm. Still, his voice was weak.

You giggled. Then, your hands cupped his cheeks. What followed was shocking for both of you. Lips to lips, you two kissed. It was lingering, a little needy at first and then slow. Your lips were hot, feelings tangled and fingers numb on his skin. He placed his hands on your wirsts, applying pressure as he kept his lips glued to yours. A light strong taste from his tongue was now in your mouth and you immediately knew he lied earlier.

„Is that whiskey I’ve just felt in your mouth, love?”

„Just a little.” He answered, giving you that smirk which, right now, makes you lose your mind.

„Thank you so much, Roger. So, so much. You were beautiful out there. So, damn sweet.” You know your words could be meaningless compared to what he did tonight for you. But this was all you could do. You feel dizzy even tough you barely drank. You assume it’s because of what happened.

„It wasn’t a big thing. I’m not the romantic type, you know?”

„I know. I need some air, do you want to take a walk with me? We need to talk.” You say, not breaking eye-contact for a single second. He dared to intertwine his fingers with yours and then stand up. You hold his hand carefully while guiding him to the exit. The night is chilly just as it has to be to cool you down, but with Roger by your side, your whole body is burning. Confusion is lost, hopefully forever.

Let’s talk about Ben Hardy as Roger Taylor wearing a plain white, elbows-lenght shirt, okay? My heart is too weak for that. I’m nervous about this because I spent a lot of time writing it and I hope you will enjoy. Thank you so much in advance for reading! Heart, reblog, comment, whatever, it will be enormously appreciated and kind of you! Opinions really, really help me and make me wanna continue writing. :)

xoxo, D.

[liminal8]

2/11

I’ve been meaning to do something like this for a while, especially since this tour started. In truth ‘blogging’ - or something like it - has been a childhood ambition of mine, ask any of my high school friends (it was kind of a running joke). I feel like now might be as appropriate a time as any to start something like this. Also so I really don’t like people who don’t practice what they preach. I have a strong opinion and hope that everyone will go for stuff they want to do without hesitation or fear of judgment. Personally, fear of judgment has been something that’s always loomed over my decisions to do or not to do, and as I recently discovered, has really been a hindrance in my singing. Like, physically causing tension in how I sing. I’m rambling, but the point is: go for it. This is me going for it.

I’m driving from Columbus to Chicago right now on a ‘travel day.’ I guess we’re eleven shows into the tour now, which is insane. It’s going by so fast. Birmingham feels like a year ago. I’ve been to so many places already in this short amount of time, and have many more miles to go still. If I can say anything, it’s that I’m thankful. I’m really trying to consciously be present in each moment, this time - when it’s just the four of us traveling across the country - may not exist like this again. I could die tomorrow! Making every second matter is important to me. I think some of the most memorable moments so far for me, as I take a second to reflect -

- Walking out on the stage at The Saturn in Birmingham (hours before the show), and thinking ‘holy shit, this is the kind of room I would have gone to in high school to see one of my favorite bands!’ A venue in the early hours of a show day is somewhat enchanting. It has so much potential. It’s this big space that is just waiting to be filled - with music and people alike. Being a part of this thing that happens to an empty room is really cool, especially having been on the other side of it for so long (as a concert goer).

- Again, in Birmingham, hearing a large part of the room singing the words to Something I’ve Been Waiting On, when there is no reason they heard the song before the show. It’s been very strange, in the best way possible, to look out at each crowd and see people singing the words to my songs. This is still something I haven’t fully processed, and I’m so grateful for you is all I can put to concrete words now. But this moment, which is a repeat thing in our sets, stood out especially on this first night in Birmingham because I could hear the crowd singing over my in-ears. That’s pretty impressive given they are molded to my ear canal to block out outside sound.

- Driving into the city of DC. Driving through Philadelphia. We’re towing a fairly big trailer behind our van, and navigating the narrow and hectic streets of one of these cities (can’t take credit for New York, all Noah there) is nerve-racking, to say the least. I’ve learned it’s a do or die attitude that’ll get a southern boy, like myself, through a situation like that. If you let fear or doubt into your brain, you’re doomed - trust your instincts! At least that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself.

- Staying the night in this really creepy hotel where the only channel on the TV was the Twilight Zone. We are getting to experience a lot of hotels. Most have been normal, this one was not. But as you know if you’ve coordinated driving a trailer, unloading that trailer, parking, setting up a bunch of gear, taking down all that gear, re-loading the trailer, and finding your way out of NYC on a cold rainy night, any bed is a welcomed bed at 2 AM.

- Noah somehow getting us out of a closed-off street we’d parked on through a parking garage that we couldn’t fit through. This was just one of those situations where my thoughts were ‘well, we’re either getting out of this or we’re sleeping in the middle of this parking garage.’ Luckily, with the help of an attendant, we managed to back out and onto the street. By then the construction vehicles had cleared a path for us.

 - Most recently, when we started playing the first song of our set, King of Nothing, and the whole front of the Columbus crowd was jumping and going wild. That was really cool to instantly connect with a crowd like that. As a listener and concert-goer myself, I understand the inherent skepticism that comes when seeing an opening / new band. A band needs to earn your respect, at least in my opinion. In a commercial market, given the desire to be commercial, earning an audience’s approval and trust is important.

This tour has been good. It’s been very rewarding and exciting. It’s also been eye-opening and challenging. Being on a real tour like this is a whole other level. Obviously. But just stuff that you, or at least I, didn’t think about reveals itself. Since it’s just the four of us, we really have to be on top of all the minute and mundane details that will bite you in the ass, such as realizing no one has found a place to stay after the show, so you end up spending a ridiculous amount of money on a hotel. There’s also a lot of lifting and carrying stuff. Around the block, up a flight of stairs? What’d you expect!’ I personally don’t mind that when all is said and done,  as it helps ‘keep me in shape,’ or so I tell myself. Navigating cities, waking up early to be on time, lots of stuff. I’ve got to give a huge shout out to all of our parents for their help - both emotionally and financially. Our workload (outside of the music) is a fraction of what it would be without them.

That’s all for today. I don’t know how regularly I’m gonna do this. When I want to. And who knows what I’ll write about. But that’s where we’re leaving it today. If you have questions or topics you’d like to hear incorporated please let me know. Hanging in Chicago tonight, back at it at Lincoln Hall tomorrow night.

Graham Laderman

[benbarnesescape]

Dive - Part 5

Warnings: M for Mature (language, suggestions of 18+)

A/N: Remember this little gem. This is one of the first series I wrote and FINALLY after MONTHS I know where I want to take it. Thanks for all of you being patient for it and enjoy. Also, for the sake of this story, Ben still has luscious locks, I’m not against the short cut just yea lol

Special shout out to my girl @binbonsadoration for the banner for the series! 

Four Months Later

You sat on your kitchen counter, your legs swinging idly over the counter top as you bit down your lip, fidgeting with the object in your hands. There were a thousand things going through your mind right now, the biggest question being how? And what the fuck where you going to do about it? You checked the instructions again, before you give a deep sigh and look at the narrow stick once more.

+

The large plus sign is taunting as it showcases itself and you can’t fit the pit in your stomach, trying to bite back tears as they try to make their way to the forefront. This could not be happening. This had to be a glitch in life. Or finally, the well-deserved karma you had been putting off was coming to nip you in the ass.

The soft sound of keys jiggling in the lock of the door draws your attention and you jump down from the island, quickly moving to your purse to throw the object in before your return to your spot, crossing your legs and picking up your phone, opening up your Instagram feed and scrolling through photos idly as Ben walks in, two large bags in his hand.

The night after you admitted to him the whole truth behind Charles and yourself and him, finally being honest about the previous events, you both decided something had to change. It was the next morning as you lay by his side, looking at your engagement trying to figure out what you should do from here on out that Ben decided that a break would probably be best. It was obvious you were conflicted about your loyalties and he realized that outside of sex, you both barely got to know each other on an emotional level. So – you decided that you would both stick to being friends. That you would take it slow – take your time and see how things would progress as you slowly told Charles the truth if it was even worth telling him.  

Once sex was taken out of the equation – the easy beat of becoming friends slips easily into your relationship. You complied to take hikes with him and in return, he allowed you to beat him mercilessly in tennis. You both enjoyed going to shows, checking out book stores for rare first editions, and going to plays and brunches. You both enjoyed snuggling on the couch in the afternoons watching Netflix or having him teach you how to play the guitar.

You and Ben always fit well together in bed. But in life, you both moved as one and there are nights when you know who you should choose though the thought idea lives you uncertain.

Because despite all of the ways that things were working for you and Ben, things were shifting for the better with you and Charles.

It seemed that since the engagement, something had clicked in him and for the first time in a while he is aware of the large rift occurring in your relationship. You had moved back in together after your breakup, marking it for a year and a half now, and the whole time you were together he had been a ghost. He barely ate dinner with you, stayed in the same space and both of you would fall asleep at different times. Now, he took one day off from the work week, dedicating that time to work from home. He took the opportunity to make you breakfast, helping you to get ready for the day as you both sipped over coffee. He would clean up and do the laundry, grab things from the stoer and help you make dinner. You both started getting into shows together, introducing him to the world of HBO and would opt to go to bed together.  

He took you to the ballet, your favorite restaurants, the zoo and out to lazy beach days. He was different, this Charles you had thrown a cold shoulder too. Now he was more intimate, finding random moments to grab your hands, placing soft kisses on your forehead, wrapping his arms around you while you cooked and whispering how much he loved you. You’ve even started having sex again and Charles was like a fiend, taking any opportunity to have you and thought at times you felt guilty – it felt like it natural for it happen. It brought you back to the man you missed was how you knew him. Sweet, charming and full of love for you.

You were so conflicted and torn.

So a few weeks back, when you were out with Ben and few of his friends and he had asked if you wanted to spend the weekend with him in Malibu, reading by the ocean’s edge and enjoying time at the beach, you had been hesitant. Hesitant because it would mean spending more than four hours with him, not being able to escape his aura and despite your mutual agreement, sexual tension was at its thickets between the both of you. And you just knew that two nights of drinking and having a good time could only result in one thing.

When you had asked Charles if he’d be ok with you hanging out with friends in Malibu, trying to find some scapegoat out because at the end of the day, you were too selfish to make the decision yourself, he had happily encouraged it. He was going to be out for the weekend and was feeling bad for it, so hanging out with friends seemed like the appropriate reaction. He knew you were social and greeted the opportunity that you had expanded your friend base.

Great.

Which had led you sitting on the counter island, looking down at a pregnancy test, completing forgetting where you were because you’re period was two months late and that was NOT like your body chemistry. Ben had sent a text earlier letting people know they could come in whenever they arrived, so you had taken the opportunity to pay for the small stick, waiting for anyone to show up. Of course, naturally, it would be Ben.

Ben had changed even over the last time you saw him. It had been two weeks – both of you being occupied with work – and his evenly buzzed hair was growing out along with his beard. But despite that, there was no hiding those large, brown eyes that were looking at you, his bright smile taking you in. It had been subconscious wearing the tank top that did wonders for your cleavage and the short skirt but it had been in the late 90s all week and you were hot – not thinking that Ben was going to drink up your appearance the way he was now, his tongue flickering over his lips as he drank you in. But he doesn’t say anything, instead he moves past you, placing the groceries on the counter before he says,

“When did you get in?”

You try to ignore the way his cologne infiltrates your senses, returning your eyes to your phone as you let out,

“About a few minutes ago. Saw your note and was going to make my way into the living room until I got distracted by Instagram and alas.” You put your phone down and Ben nods as he starts to put things up in the refrigerator. There’s a knowing smirk that still plays on his face as he slowly puts things away, silence eating up your words before he says,

“It’s no worry. Thought I’d get a jump on dinner – its late and figured by the time you all got in you’d be starved.”

He turns to you as you jump down, throwing your phone on the counter as you move past him to look at the ingredients.

“Burgers?” you ask, quirking up an eyebrow and he nods as you grab the target meat, moving past him to get a bowl and he nods.

“I’ll help out. Traffic was brutal coming down here.”

He nods, not paying you any attention and you curse at yourself inwardly. This was going to be harder than you thought.

Its halfway through meal prep that you hear him curse under his breath. You look up from the tomatoes your cutting, as Ben looks down at his phone, his hair falling in front of his face with a frown planted on his lips.

“What’s wrong?” you ask and his eyes snap up at yours and you know its something he’s debating. Whether he tells you fully was always 50/50 with him. Typically private it was rare that he gave in to his thoughts.

“Jason, Lily and Denea…they’re all bailing on me. Jason got pulled into a last minute gig, Lily and Denea forgot about some concert they paid for in San Fran so that leads just you and me. I don’t mind or anything but…I want to respect your boundaries.”

His eyes have that predatory glint in them again and you give a slow nod, returning to your potatoes,

“It’s no big deal. Charles is out for the weekend so I’d just be by myself…I’d rather be with you.”

“I’d rather you be here too. That’s not the issue – we know what it is.”

He leans against the counter, his dark eyes drinking you in and you feel yourself shiver. When Ben got this way, quietly possessive and lust driven you never could resist. It was a shift in his normal, playful nature. Typically gregarious and shy, the goofy friend that could shoot off quotes and give you a top five book suggestion that varied each week – this darker side never emerged. But when it did it turned you on – you loved that he would take control and practically demand to bend to his will. The control freak in you that loved to be challenged thrived for it.

You bite your lip as you place your hands on either side of you, knowing that this was the last thing you should be inviting. The pregnancy was looming in the back of your mind and yu didn��t need to complicate your life evne more by jumping back into old habits. But four months was a long time and despite your brain listing off all the reasons it was stupid, it was not enough to fend off the way you had to press your thighs together.

Because you both fit perfectly, sure. Ben got you in ways that Charles despite his efforts, couldn’t. But when you guys were together physically, you both were practically electric.

“Should be fine if you are.”

He nods as you clear your throat, trying to change the subject.

“Well I’m not really hungry. We could finish food prep and then maybe head down to the beach for a walk? Kill some time and build up an appetite – still got some sunlight outside before it sets. Cool down…”

Ben doesn’t say anything, just continues to lean across the counter, hands crossed as he watches you. You can’t help but stare back, even though everything is willing you to look elsewhere. Instead you’re drawn to the way Ben’s muscles moved under his dark t-shirt, watches the way he licks his lips as he watches you before slowly uncrossing his arms, a knowing smirk on his lips.

“Right. Help us cool down. Deal with the nasty heat wave spreading.”

It’s a metaphor for the bigger issue at hand but neither of you let on to it. Instead you return to finishing your task as he starts to put things away. You both are silent for the rest of your time together before you move out, getting ready to get dressed. Because you both knew exactly what you were doing.

And there could only be one outcome for a dumb disaster like this.  

He was, he finally decided, a complete and full idiot.

It only takes one night before he realizes he can’t make it. That you were probably going to be the death of him either mentally or physically. You never gave him in any warning, couldn’t be aware of the power you had over him. It had been four months of you both mutually working to not pull each other into the closest tight space and fuck each other silly. Had set a maximum limit of being with each other for four months. Four hours – any more time and you both were setting each other for failure. It had worked so far. Could continue to make it work now.

So when he had walked into the space into the town home, surprised to find you casually sitting on the island, your legs that he swears is going to be the death of him crossed over each other as you looked down at your phone he knew he was fucked. Your hair was pulled back loosely in that way that always made him want to card his fingers through it as he kissed you deeply, your sunglasses lying idly on top of your head. It was the damn skirt to tank top combo, the lacy red bra straps peaking from underneath. It made him wonder which bra you were wearing – the red lace and black one or the all red push up that he could spend hours massaging your breast in. The idea of seeing the way your body squirmed for him as he massaged your fatty tissues, his mouth pleasuring your pussy sent blood straight to his penis and he had to distract himself putting the groceries away.

Fucking Jason and Denea.

They had easily picked up on the friend zone vibes you both had built up on the last outing you went on. They didn’t know the extreme details of why – you always took your engagement ring off when you were around him and his friends – but knew that you two were into each other. Didn’t understand this new distance you had built. So they had staged this whole thing, of course after he had bought enough food to feed a family, to provide an opportunity for some intimate one on one time.

“Enjoy a romantic weekend with Y/N. We all know how much you’re into her and by the way she looks at you when you’re not paying attention, she’s still really into you too.” Jason had said over the phone later that night and Ben had groaned, shaking his head.

Of course they both were. That wasn’t the problem.

After breakfast you had suggested heading down to the beach and make a day of it. At the time it sounded like a good idea. Watching you now as you surveyed the private beach for a spot, easily finding one a few yards away as you set down the bundle of things you’ve brought he knows he’s fucked.

You both had made a promise. You both needed to learn one another without sex being a driving factor, temporarily putting a hold on your romantic relationship while you figured out what you wanted. How to deal with the complicated aspects of your love life.

But as he watched you take off your beach cover up, exposing the emerald blue cutout one-suit, the thin material barely covering you he groaned inwardly.

He was going to fuck you. How could he not?

You were made from him, from your personality to the way you physically looked. You were, he had decided, his dream woman. He wanted to make you happy. Lived to be the other man in your life.

“Gonna bring that umbrella over here? It’s hot as hell today.”

Your voice breaks him out of his thoughts and he gives you a smile as he follows you, throwing down the boom box and cooler as he situates it to shade you.

You give a grateful sigh as you fall back on your towel, placing your sunglasses over your eyes as you throw your hands behind your head. He had started putting sunscreen on and he knows his mouth noticeably pops out, drinking the way your breast fall back and rise and fall with the movement, the way your legs look in the shaded golden light and he has to think about dying puppies and how horrible it had felt when he broke his thumb to fight his erection from rising.

Because fuck you were a fantasy, a dream and all he wanted was you.

It was what had you in this place to begin with.

You have a knowing smirk on your face, probably very aware of how he was drinking you in as you say softly,

“Mind rubbing some of that stuff on me? You know my irrational fear for skin cancer…”

It’s not meant to sound dirty but god if it doesn’t turn him on. He’s quick to move toward you, practically shooting sand at you as he falls beside you and you giggle as you lean up a bit, raising your sunglasses. Innocent eyes looking into his lust filled ones and the way you bite your lip, taking in his body has his nipples taut.

“Got sand on my hands, don’t want to grainy.” You say as you lift your leg and he wants to curse you, pin you down and have you begging out his name as he rammed into you because you were being such a goddamn tease. Instead, he squirts out a bit of the cream on your leg and he sees the goosebumps rise from the contrast of coolness from the warmness and he snickers as he turns his attention to your skin. Needing a new distraction,

“Sure. Don’t mind at all.”

You fall back on your place as he takes time rubbing down your right leg, then your left. He moves his way up to your stomach and bites his lips as he brushes against your breast, but you don’t say anything. Instead you rise, lifting enough for him to massage above your breast, then your shoulders, fighting everything in him not to look at your face.

He can feel your gaze on you, the heavy way you are watching him and he has to clear his throat multiple times before you whisper out,

“Ben – look at me.”

He closes his eyes and can feel the soft breath of your sigh as he feels you shift closer to him.

“Benjamin, please? Look at me?”

It’s a soft purr and he can’t resist snapping his eyes back to you. Your pupils have shifted, dark and wild and he bites his lips as he asks,

“Yea?”

“Maybe we need to cool off. I’ll finish….doing this.”

You give a heavy sigh and he nods, handing you the lotion as he stands. You shake your head as you put the lotion over the rest of your body, giving a frustrated huff as you try to put it on your back with no success. Your eyes flash to his again as he walks further and you both know exactly what’s on the others mind.

“No worries. I’ll just….run in real quick and avoid laying on my stomach.” You start to stand, putting the lotion down and he sighs, shaking his head.

“No way. The whole time you’ll be thinking about how the rays are fucking up your cells. I’ll help you out. We can do this.”

You betray a smile, grateful because he understood and knew and you give a grateful nod as you hand him the lotion. He takes long breathes, thinking about getting stung by jellyfish and his grandma as he walks toward you, squirting more of the screen onto his hands and massaging it onto the back of your shoulders – your back. You give a grateful nod, your head tilting to the side as he works you over, his hands moving lower and you both naturally gravitate toward you. He’s aware of the blood rushing to his erection by the time he gets to your lower back and you give a low moan, the kind that reverberates your throat and he groans, gripping your waist and pulling you back to him.

This was a bad idea. He should have just told you to go home. You both knew that being in situations like this – the kind where you both were alone – always led to the same thing.

Blissed out amazing sex.

“I missed being able to touch you like this.” His voice is low and husky in your ear and you mewl, your ass rubbing against his erection and he groans.

“You trying to drive me insane,” his mouth moves down your neck, feeling powered by something else. “You literally have consumed me and that’s before you even touch me. feeling you again, its make me just……”

Your hands move over his, squeezing him as you shift, your ass jirating against his before you’re pulling away, turning and shaking your head.

“Fucking insane.” You finish, throwing a smile over your shoulder as you wade into the water. He growls, needing to feel your body, hating that you’ve taken yourself from proximity and he follows you easily, the warm water cool against his already warming skin. You’re a stronger swimmer than him but his mind is set – he needs you and the feeling you can provide. Wants ot be so buried in you he can’t see straight and as he swims toward you as you wade in the water, a teasing look in your eyes, he knows you want it too.

“Why you running away from me baby girl?” he whispers as his arms wrap around you and you shrug, giggling as he nuzzles his face into your neck.

“You know why….you asked me to remove myself if you got this way.”

You fall into him easily, your body pressing against his own hard one as you wrap your arms around his own.

“Why are you wearing my favorite swimsuit. You’ve been playing an unfair game since you’ve arrived.”

You shrug as you giggle out,

“Only clean suit I could find. I was packing quick.”

“Uh huh. Packing quick my ass. You’re such a goddamn tease,” he cups you in the water and you gasp as he nips you in the water. “You’ve been messing with me since you’ve arrived.”

You turn into him, your lips brushing against his own as you whisper,

“Well what are you going to do about it?”

[rotationalsymmetry]

What I personally am doing in terms of covid (as a fully vaccinated person in a state that is about 50% fully vaccinated) is: wearing masks in public indoor locations, generally speaking, and avoiding crowded indoor locations (including public transit) until the population vaccination rate is at 70%. I’m still washing or sanitizing my hands after coming back home, and wiping down my phone if I took it out outside, although at this point that’s probably more general disease prevention than covid.

This is different from my pre-vaccinated behavior, where I wore masks indoors 100% of them time and outdoors very close to all the time. I can count on one hand the number of non-essential trips I took during the entire year and a quarter. (Not counting, like, walking around the neighborhood without going into anywhere.) Anything outside of walking distance involved renting a zipcar; there was exactly one time when the zipcar fell through that I went in a rideshare instead. No public transit. Two trips out of town: one to see my husband’s mom where we maintained social distance, one to a cabin out in the woods. (I was gonna say no interstate trips to see family, but technically my mother-in-law lives in a different state. No interstate trips to see my family.) Absolutely no plane trips, anyways. No restaurants, indoors or out — just takeout or delivery.

This is the longest I’ve ever been in my life without being in the same room as a member of my family. I have a cousin who postponed her wedding. (The celebration part, not the legal part.) None of this was easy. But I feel assured that it was the right thing to do.

Over the 4th I’m going to see family several hours away. My partner and I talked about taking the train, and decided not to, due to the large number of people in a confined space issue. (I’m concerned that my chronic illness puts me at higher risk, so that was a factor.) We’re driving instead.

I don’t, personally, think the CDC is making a bad call on its recommendations. I think it’s pushing hard for people to get vaccinated, which is a good thing: the vaccines are shown to be incredibly effective for keeping people from getting sick, and pretty darned effective at preventing spread. I think the best thing we can do at this point is get vaccinated, encourage/provide logistical support to help everyone we know get vaccinated (if there isn’t eg a medical reason not to), and maintain caution around events and activities that are highest risk (indoor crowds)… but I don’t think there’s any logical reason for us to act as though nothing has changed since before the vaccines started getting distributed. In the US, the number of new daily cases is the lowest it’s been since March, 2020. We’re in the low three digits. Down from a high in the thousands in January.

From where I stand, it’s about the numbers. A lot of people, myself included, were warning against traveling for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And cases went way up after Thanksgiving, and then kept going even higher in the couple weeks after Christmas, which seems like a pretty clear cause-effect relationship to me. New cases have been consistently and sharply going down since the vaccines started rolling out. There hasn’t been a trend back up with the CDC and individual states releasing restrictions. It’s OK. It’s worth being a bit cautious, again I personally am avoiding public transit and air plain travel still and I’m not going to be going to any big concerts or sporting events or cons any time soon. But…to me the numbers are pretty clearly indicating it’s ok to relax a bit, for people who want to do that. Go to stores. Go to restaurants. Small get-togethers with friends and family. Swimming pools. If you personally want to be more cautious that’s fine. But I don’t think the evidence supports telling other people who are vaccinated that they have a moral obligation to act like they’re not, to act like nothing has changed. Even though, yes, people follow other people’s cues and are more likely to not wear a mask if no one else is either. If you know someone who’s doing that you can have a heart to heart with them and you can refuse to go places with them. You can refuse to enable behavior that’s risky. But…the numbers are going down. Mass vaccination is working. It’s a working strategy. This thing where people are “nah, the CDC just doesn’t understand human nature” the numbers are down the numbers are way down the CDC is fine.

(It’s true there’s a recent rise in UK cases, although that’s relative to a few months of low case rates. It is worth paying attention to these things, and I’m not saying it’s impossible for cases to rise again in the US or that we shouldn’t reevaluate if it does. I just don’t think I personally am responsible for the behavior of other people who can’t figure out that you have to 1. Either get vaccinated or 2. Act like you’re still not vaccinated, you know, like you should have been this entire past year — especially since a lot of those people have never been acting particularly safely or cautiously this entire time. If me being careful meant that everyone else would be careful too, this whole pandemic would have gone a lot differently. I can control my own behavior, and I have some influence over the behavior of people I know and spend time with. But no amount of caution on my part is going to make people who think it’s fine to go to mega church worship or whatever stop doing that. They’ve been doing that this entire time. I do not have the power to stop them. And I’m not going to deny myself the pleasure of getting to walk around a real actual physical bookstore for the first time in a year or leisurely enjoying a mug of tea at a cafe or seeing my baby nephew a few states over because other people don’t have self control. I am going to base my risk assessment on what I think is appropriate for me and the people I love. Not based on what I think someone who hasn’t been vaccinated should be doing.)

(I hear a lot of people working retail/food service etc and people who are housebound have been having a lot of trouble getting vaccinated, although that information is kind of a month old and might not be current. If you know someone who’s been having trouble getting vaccinated and you can help them get an appointment or find a walk in or get a ride there, do that. Vaccination works. Herd immunity works. Right now hitting herd immunity as fast as possible is going to be a lot more effective than trying to peer-pressure covid truthers into wearing masks. We haven’t been able to do that at any point in the pandemic. It’s not going to get any easier now.) (Also, keep washing your hands, protect immunocompromised people who can die from stuff you’d shake off with a week of over-the-counter meds and some sleep. If one good thing comes out of this I hope it’s people keeping ramped up disease prevention practices. Including the invisible ones that it’s hard to shame people over. I know some of you are fixated on masks because that’s what you can see.)

[merriammusicinc]

Baby Grand Piano - Everything You Ever Needed To Know (2020 Updated)

Introduction

Hi, everybody and welcome to another piano video here at Merriam Pianos. My name is Stu Harrison. And in this video, we're talking about baby grand pianos. This is a follow up video, where I'm really gonna be focusing on what are the questions you need to ask yourself to dive into this whole shopping process and have this experience be a positive one, and not get bogged down and lost trying to navigate all of these forums and understanding exactly what's important.

So, we're gonna try and simplify that a little bit in today's video and boil this down into a few simple questions that is gonna accelerate your shopping process and hopefully make it a little bit more enjoyable. So, let's get started with this right away. Thanks so much for joining us.

So let's get started. First thing I wanna say is the point of this video is not to tell you what model to buy or what brand to buy or how much money to spend. The purpose of the video is to help you navigate your shopping process so that you know what questions you should be asking. And you're just better informed when you start to either walk into some showrooms or start to dive into websites, you have some type of framework to understand how you could be making this decision.

Don't Start With a Brand

And the first piece of feedback I'd give on that front, is do not start with brand. A lot of people enter this shopping process knowing not very much about baby grand pianos, but they probably have heard about a brand and that's generally where they start their shopping process. It's no different than how we start shopping for televisions, computers, cars. We've heard a friend say something good about a particular brand. We've seen it on the street. We've seen it in living rooms like, "Oh, wow, yeah, that must be a really great option."

And without totally understanding how the industry is structured or how much money you need to spend in order to get a certain quality point, we dive right into the ecosystem at the brand point. And we deprive ourselves of a lot of really valuable information and understanding exactly where we wanna be in the overall structure of the industry. So, my first point of advice is, don't start with brand, there are four or five other questions that I would strongly suggest you do start with.

Start With Size

Start by deciding how big an instrument you can actually fit in your home. We've used the label baby grand in the title of the video, and that's a really loose term. I mean, baby grand in terms of the industry, we call anything from about a 4 foot 9 to about a 5 foot 3. A baby grand, and when I'm talking about length, really, just so that we're clear, we're talking about the distance between here on the piano back to about the back edge or the back curve of the instrument. That's how we measure grand pianos. And so, when people in the business say baby grand, we're talking about anything that's about 4 foot 9 to 5 foot 3.

But people who are just shopping for an instrument, even sometimes pianists themselves, usually use the term baby grand piano interchangeably with just grand piano, which we think of as anything from about 5 foot up to 6 1/2 even 7 feet in length, and that's when we start to get into semi concert grand or grand pianos. So, the information we're gonna be giving to you in this video is applicable pretty much to any size of piano. But of course, if you are looking for a baby grand, which is sort of something in around that 5-foot range, it's gonna be extra helpful hopefully.

So, as I said, a really great place to start is actually deciding what size of instrument you think you can accommodate because you can get a 5-foot piano used for probably $5,000, you could get a brand new 5-foot piano that costs $100,000. And so, the size and the budget really are quite disconnected. So, deciding what you can fit will then allow you to continue moving through the different questions, which will hopefully let you start to hone in on your perfect solution.

You can get templates often from websites or dealers that will help you decide what size you need. As we said, there are lots of places where you can get free or very inexpensive templates so you can understand how much floor space you need for a particular size.

But there's another really important consideration, which is the bass string length. Now, when we're talking about bass string, bass strings are of course the lower strings, which are copper in color. So, we're talking about these fatter bass strings down here. And these strings, even though it's not intuitive to sort of look at this fact, the shorter the string, the fatter they actually have to make the string because you're basically substituting length with thickness so that the string still has approximately the same mass. And that's how you wind up being able to generate the same frequency.

But the shorter the string, and the more they have to wrap it with copper, the more there's a chance that all that extra copper winding is gonna create a lot of additional frequencies, they call it overtones or uncontrolled overtones. And you're hearing more of those overtones, which are kind of extra color tones on top, then you are of the actual string itself. So, sometimes you'll hear people refer to that as clarity or lack of clarity, or whether a bass string is really kind of noisy or not producing a nice clean tone.

So, the shorter the piano, the shorter the bass string, and the shorter the bass string, the very good chance that you're gonna wind up with this lack of clarity, you start to see that change right around the 5-foot-2, 5-foot-3 mark. And so, I would say, for people who are more serious players, or they've already had some experience with pianos before, if you can fit 5 foot 1, 5 foot 2 and you're like, there's just no way that you can get any bigger than that fair enough. You can find other ways to make sure that the piano you get is gonna be really satisfying. But if there's an extra way to just push that a little bit and make sure that you're kind of in that 5'2", 5'3" range, which is gonna be in around 150, 156 centimeters or above, there's some extra tonal benefits that you get from that.

Choose a Price Range

Second question after size that I'd suggest considering is exactly what quality or price range you think you might wanna be in. As I said right at the beginning, you can get a 5-foot piano that costs $5,000 or $100,000. So kind of figuring out where you think you should be or what level of investment is appropriate for you, I would say is the next most important thing.

And when we talk about quality, like why is this piano one price? Why are those pianos over there another price? What makes any of these instruments so much different than one another? That the price point would be that wide. Well, I'm just gonna walk over here and talk a little bit about why those price ranges are as wide as they are.

Now, these are two displays from Bechstein and you will see that I referenced some brands. This is not to say that these are the brands that you should be buying. They happen to be the brands that we carry here at the store, but there are several more that I will be suggesting and that we might be referencing. But if you're wondering why you're seeing these particular brands, well, we are a piano store and these are the ones that we happen to sell.

So, these two diagrams that we're looking at are really good examples of what two different quality ranges will give you when you're kind of under the hood of the piano. Because when you're looking at them from the exterior, they kind of do look the same. You've got this black or often black, shiny exterior, and they all have steel plates, and they all have the copper strings, and they kind of look the same. And you're thinking yourself, well, maybe the only difference in price really is brand, maybe the brand is what's creating this extra layer of cost.

Well, in pianos may be more than any other high-end good, for the most part, for the large part of the industry, you're getting what you pay for. If you're spending $100,000 on a piano, there's a very good chance it's not just the brand you're paying for. It's because that instrument has two or three times more cost involved in the instrument. The cost of materials is there, the cost of labor is a whole lot higher. The piano industry is not an industry where a lot of people are getting super rich and super wealthy. And the margins are actually fairly tight. So, when you have a price point that's getting up into the six digits, it usually means that you're, as I said, getting what you pay for.

What Makes a Piano More or Less Expensive?

I'm not going to drill too much into the weeds here, but I'm gonna give you an example of why two different price ranges might result in two different quality levels. So, on the left, we have a diagram of what approximately a US$50,000 grand piano would get you in terms of certain components, and I'll point those out. And on the right, we've got an instrument that is basically twice the price. So, they're both from Bechstein. They're both made in Germany. So why would one piano be US$100,000? Why would another piano be US$50,000? And by looking at these two, you start to understand why really the entire industry have these types of price differentials.

Grand pianos can be broken down into about four different components: you've got action, you've got the rim, you've got the soundboard, and then you've got sort of the scaling and the harmonic components. And when you start to take a peek at the differences of that, you realize what a massive difference in production time and just the tolerances and the quality materials can exist. Let's take a look first at the rim.

So, here's an example of $50,000 piano, and we have the outer rim and the inner rim. I should point out that most pianos all have an outer and inner rim with a couple of exceptions. Steinway is well known for having their continuously bent rim, meaning the outer and the inner rim are actually formed at the same time. There is some debate as to whether that actually results in any sort of a musical advantage. However, it is something that they have done right from the beginning of their time in the industry. And they use hard rock maple for that. So, certainly, just the longevity of the design and the success of the design speaks to that.

However, most pianos have an outer and an inner rim. And with the lower cost Bechstein, you can see that there are far more laminations and that those laminations have more imperfections, and it's a lower quality of hardwood that's going into those laminations. So, you're taking a lower grade wood and you're essentially substituting the quality of the wood for a laminating process that kind of compensates for that. So, you probably have 30 or 40 laminations through here, which means more glue, it may mean more stability in the structure. However, that rim is going to produce less of a tonal effect, less of a speaking effect than a rim that has highest-quality fiber, less wood, and is just able to resonate more.

So, we've seen that. Now, if we go over here and take a look at what $100,000 rim looks like, you can see there's actually quite a big difference, far fewer laminations. A greater variety of hardwoods that have been selected there with all sorts of different pore lengths so that different frequencies can respond. And of course, the tolerances by which those laminations are created and sanded and manufactured are extremely high. There's just literally not a thousandth of an inch gap in between any one of those laminations.

And so, as you go down from this type of a concept, all the way down to say a $5,000 or a $10,000 piano, you basically continue to get a cheapening of the materials, a thinning of the rim, and more glue and more laminating taking the place of thicker laminations, higher-quality wood where the wood itself can do quite a bit of the tonal generation of the piano.

So, there's just one example in a piano where a very different design, different use of material, and a different set of tolerances actually produce both a different musical effect as well as quite a desperate pricing effect as well. And you see that as you go all the way through the piano.

You get the same type of effect when you get to soundboard, where soundboard that uses a slow growth spruce versus one that's grown at lower altitudes and has thicker rings makes quite a big difference in terms of the responsiveness of the soundboard. You get a big difference when the soundboard is tapered, such as you see here. It sort of becomes narrower when you get to the outside and thicker when it's on the inside, versus this one, which is actually a uniform thickness all the way through. So that's another difference that you see on instruments as you go from a lower price point to a higher price point.

You see differences in how well the overall frame of the instrument is integrated and cohesive. So that energy that's received at any one point of the rim is able to be reflected through the entire structure. You see steel plating, often in higher quality instruments, versus ones where it's basically left up to the carpentry to ensure that you get all of that reflection and all of that connectedness.

So, these are the questions that may help you to determine what price range you wanna be in because all of this results in clarity and consistency of tone. Action is another really, really big one, which has more to do with the feel of the piano than it does the sound of the piano. But those two things together are gonna produce either the $10,000 piano or the $100,000 piano.

So, if you are new to piano, and this is something that is you're just really passionate, really excited about, and you think that having a beautiful instrument in your home is gonna inspire you to sit there and wanna make music, and you don't really have too many reference points, and you're not say, an avid audio file, a $10,000 piano may totally satisfy that need for you.

If you've already got some experience with instruments and you're moving from an upright to a grand or your ears developed and the $10,000 piano is gonna have too many inconsistencies in the tone or it's not gonna have the resonance out of the body that's gonna cause you to want to sit there and be moved to play for hours, then maybe $20,000 or $30,000 is what you are going to want to invest in to get an instrument that's very consistent and your ears aren't gonna be picking up on imperfections.

Clear of the $30,000 mark is where you might get somebody who's truly either a higher level player or a passionate audio file, who isn't just looking for a lack of imperfections, which is what you kind of get when you get up to around the $30,000 range. But beyond that, then it starts to become more of a connoisseur's art. The difference between buying a bottle of wine for under 20 bucks versus spending $200 on a bottle of wine. It really becomes how focus towards a very specific tone and a very specific touch do you wanna get?

So, price is the second question that I would say you really, really wanna make sure that you can spend some time thinking about. This is where getting into showrooms and sitting down and playing a number of price points without being too scared that you're going to fall in love with something. But that'll help you educate yourself in terms of what your ear really needs is... My advice to every customer is always, if you can hear the difference, it may be worth it for you. If you can't hear the difference, there's a good chance it's not a good investment for you.

And I think that holds true for many, many people who are shopping for this. If you can discern it, and you can afford it, then it may be a really good spend. And if not, just find that point where you're not able to discern anymore, and there's a good chance that that's probably where a logical spend for you would be.

Choose The Right Action

So, we've talked about rim, we've talked about soundboard. Piano actions are another really big factor, which contributes to your overall enjoyment, as well as the price. And here's why this is such a big impact on the price of an instrument. It's often said that on a digital piano, more than half the cost of the piano is the action on its own. And on a grand piano, it's not quite half, but you're definitely looking at 20%, 30% of the cost of the instrument is wrapped up in either the construction or the preparation of the action. And here's why.

There is an enormous number of parts that go into a grand piano. And so just the sheer complexity of how this action is built, assembled, and designed on its own, would certainly add an incredible amount of cost of the instrument. And different manufacturers will have many different approaches to how they design it, how they build it, how they prepare it, and how well it lasts out in the field. Whether you're using a laminated key stick or a solid wood key stick, the length of the key, the geometry involved, whether it's using composite parts or whether it's using all wood parts, whether the hammers a single felted or a double felted, whether the shank is a particular type of wood and how well it's balanced.

And you have different levels of fanaticism as you go through all of the different price ranges. And for every one of these parts, you can get into essays on whether one particular design versus another particular design is the most advantageous route to go.

And so, basic designs that don't receive a lot of time and regulation to refine them, and don't really try and push the envelope in terms of innovation are not very expensive, and a lot of Chinese manufacturers will supply you an action like that for $800, $1,000 as a manufacturer, it's not a big deal. But you're not gonna get a very stable action or very consistent action or one capable of translating a lot of nuance.

As you go through the various price ranges, the biggest difference tends to be the time that they take to regulate the piano action, meaning how much time they're spending to adjust every single one of these tiny little components so that it's operating perfectly. And then the second big one is materials. The cost difference between a basic hammer and a really premium hammer that's got nice felt on it, double felted, the time that they take to choose the shank of the hammer, how well the damper felt is regulated. It gets insane to the point where some manufacturers are spending 40 or 50 hours regulating an action. And those are being done by artisans which are being paid $40, $50, $60 per hour as well.

And so, even before you get into the cost of materials, you're already looking at several thousand dollars at the manufacturing level to get this action arriving in a showroom absolutely perfect. So huge range in cost, materials, and design and actions. And for somebody who's a more advanced player, this is gonna be one of the most critical points critical decisions that you are gonna make.

Other Components

Now, the fourth aspect that I really wanna highlight are some of the internal scaling components of the instrument. I'm just gonna walk over here. This is a Kawai GL-10. This is their entry point, baby grand piano. It's 5 foot 1 in length. And I gonna draw your attention to this area right here. And you'll notice that the strings, which are coming across the bridge right here, are then wrapped around these pins. And this whole section is muted, these strings are being pressed up against this piece of felt, and it's just not possible for these strings to ring. Obviously, there's no allowance for them to be able to sympathetically resonate, and this is very common for pianos that are kind of in and around $10,000, $15,000 even some $20,000 pianos have this type of string as a part of their design, as part of the scaling.

However, when you look over at something like a GX, which is also part of the Kawai grand piano line, and you look at the same section, you see something quite a bit different. And this is what is called duplex scaling. Now, duplex scaling enables this other section to ring so, you notice that as I'm plucking this, you're actually hearing pitch instead of just a sort of a thunk, like you did the other way. Now, the energy to get that string activated isn't crossing the bridge. This is actually just sympathetic resonance that's happening for energy that's just being transferred through the entire instrument. And all of that extra sort of frequencies and extra color thicken the treble. And so this is something that adds a lot of very specific character to an instrument is what they do with that top end.

You'll also see that on the front of the string, there's another section, which sometimes is called a double duplex. And again, you'll see on the Kawai that this is actually a very specific fulcrum here and here. And so these are also allowed to ring sympathetically. So, how a manufacturer deals with those two sections, the front and the back duplex section, affects quite a bit of the tone of the instrument.

The Bridge Matters More Than You Might Think

The very last part of piano design, which I'm going to highlight, because it's one of the most misunderstood or least talked about, maybe is the best way to say it. It's actually the bridge. Now, you just saw two bridges because it was this piece of wood that's actually kind of snaking along through the piano. And this is the piece of wood whose responsibility is to take the vibrations from the string and kind of squish it down into the soundboard, it translates or it transfers the vibrations to the soundboard. And that's actually ultimately where the sound comes from.

But not many people know that bridges are one of the most complex little piece of carpentry in the whole piano. What we're looking at here is often thought of as kind of the top-level design that you can get in a bridge, and they call this a vertically laminated capped bridge. And so, you can see that there's a little piece of wood right on the top, which is horizontal, and that's where all of the bridge pins are tapped into. And that really helps to cushion the incredible tension and weight that the strings are pushing down on.

But then you've got all of these different types of wood, which are vertically laminated. And the purpose of that is that just like the piano rim, different types of wood have different pore lengths and different densities and they're better at communicating different frequencies. And so, this bridge is really like a highway for the frequencies to travel from the string down into the soundboard. And when it's only one piece of wood, or there's all kinds of glue in the middle of it like a laminated bridge, lots of frequencies, lots of information actually gets omitted.

And so, the point of a bridge is to basically not be there, you want the bridge to be able to communicate a maximum amount of that tonal information that's contained within the string. And so, the type of bridges that you're getting on the instrument will have an influence in price for sure and definitely an influence on the color and the range of frequencies and harmonics that your piano is able to produce.

And so, there's a pretty wide variety of the type of bridges you can get. The most common is literally just a single piece of wood. There's no vertical lamination, there's no cap. It's just a single piece of wood that might be maple and might be hornbeam. Then you have a solid bridge with a cap is kind of the next one that you get up. Then you might get some sort of a laminated vertical lamination that's just a single piece or a single type of wood. And then finally, at the very, very top, so you have Hamburg Steinway, Bechstein, Shigeru Kawai, and Fazioli would probably be the four examples that come most readily to mind for me, are bridges that actually have this type of configuration.

So that kind of rounds off the discussion of specific components and why they can have such a huge influence both on the musical experience as well as the price that manufacturers are charging for it.

New Versus Used

Third question that I would say you need to address is whether you're looking at new or whether you're looking at used. And this ties directly into question number two, which is what price am I looking at? Because sometimes these are highly related. Let's say you decide that you wanna spend $20,000 on an instrument. And if that means a new piano, then you may be looking at a certain set of instruments. But as soon as you start looking at used, it opens up this whole other realm of instruments. And so, you're thinking yourself, well, how do I know what the better spend is?

And unfortunately, there is no simple answer to that. And the reason is that pianos are not static in terms of their design, in terms of craftsmanship and manufacturer. This industry is always evolving and always changing. And so, if buying a piano in 1990 meant that you basically were getting the same instrument then, then you were if you went and spent the same amount of money today, like in other words, if the design was static, and nothing else was different, this would be a very, very confusing... Well, basically new pianos probably would never sell.

But the reality is that there are a lot of constant evolutionary forces acting upon the industry. I'll just give you an example right here. This piano, which is a Kawai GX series, is evolved from really it's kind of a combination of both the Shigeru Kawai as well as the RX. And there's a bit of a debate amongst people who know Kawai well and are involved in Kawai whether the GX really is an evolution up from the RX or whether it's a devolution down from the Shigeru. My vote is that it's actually kind of devolved from the Shigeru, but this is getting into a bit of an esoteric debate.

The point is that this instrument represents Kawai's mid-range offering, which they focus towards their institutional market, or they're better players for home. And different markets will have different specific price points for this. But it's a Kawai GX-1 and so in US dollars, this pianos usually floating somewhere in the low to mid $20,000 range. For that price, you could probably find a 7-foot version of Kawai's RX or KG series.

This one is actually a 5 foot 6. So it's a 5 foot 6, this is still kind of considered a baby grand piano. But if you were looking at a longer instrument, which was older, you'd probably be talking about the same price range. And so, where's the better value?

Well, here's some advice when it comes to used instruments. So first of all, you have to investigate every single used piano on a very individual basis because there is no uniform way in which a used piano degrades over time. But this is the important thing to know, all used pianos do degrade over time. There are aspects of an acoustic piano, in which it's just physics and time don't work in its favor. You have 30,000 pounds of tension that are operating on the frame of the piano. You have two or three times of tension that's constantly pushing down on the soundboard of the piano. You have thousands of moving parts in the action, which is basically just an engine. And over time, those parts also wind up wearing down.

So there's no such thing as a used piano that's in the same physical condition as a new piano, if it has been used, even if it's been used really responsibly, with regular maintenance and follow up and tuning and all of that. It's like a car. Pianos are not like violins that age gracefully and in fact could improve. The main difference between a violin and a piano? Violin has what? Four or five moving parts. And there's only a couple hundred pounds of tension on a violin. You're talking about thousands of moving parts, and tens of thousands of pounds of tension on this instrument. They just don't last forever. They all slowly degrade.

So, the trade off with a used piano, or the way that I would suggest thinking about a used piano is if clarity of bass tone and volume are priorities to you then a used instrument, a larger used grand could make a lot of sense. If you're thinking in your head that really the only thing that you wanna be doing is trying to save some money and you're thinking that you're actually getting more for your money with a used one than you are with a new that actually just does tend to be true.

If you buy a $20,000 piano used, that's now $10,000, that's maybe 15 to 20 years old. And you measure that instrument against its new equivalent, here is what you're often gonna find is that the sustain is now nowhere close to what the new one is. So you're dealing with a lower level of sustain, you're dealing with an action, which is going to have a lower repetition speed, and probably more loose and less life left in the hammer. It will probably distort more than a new instrument because of the compression on the hammer and the aging of the string. It's not gonna hold its tune as well.

So, you start to add all of these things up and you think yourself, "Well, how much would I pay to make sure that the tuning was the same? Maybe, I'd add $1,000. Well, how much would I pay to make sure that when I'm playing every one of the treble strings, there's no false beating? Or I'm not having to get a tune twice a year instead of once a year? How much would I pay for that? Well, maybe another 500 or 1,000." You go through that whole exercise. And you realize that you're actually not that far away from what a brand new one would be with a warranty.

So, this is not a whole lecture to say that new is always better. What I'm saying is there are specific situations in which used is going to make a lot of sense. And that's where the priority is on bass tone clarity, which I find for the dollar does tend to be better with the used piano. And then overall dynamic range, even though a larger piano might have degraded a bit, it's still probably gonna give you more volume than a brand new smaller one.

But where you never really get more value on a used piano is if you're looking for action and touch accuracy, tuning stability, or of course, clarity of tone really from about the mid range up. So that is the third question that I would implore you to explore as we're talking about instruments. And just once again, to reiterate size, price range, and now we've addressed new versus used.

Consider Your Favourite Brand Last

So, after those three questions have been explored, then is when I tell customers is a great time to start thinking about brand. So, you know whether you're talking about a specific price range, you know what sort of quality points you're interested in, you know the size you can fit, and you know whether new versus used is really where you wanna go. When you start to get into the brand, is when you can get to know very specific models.

And really, most companies have specific traits about them that you may enjoy. And these are far less objective. This is something that you might just sit down at some of these instruments and just love it and you may not be able to explain why. And you shouldn't be forced to have to think about or articulate sometimes why you fall in love with an instrument. This is a very emotional and a very personal connection that you have with a machine or a work of art or kind of halfway between those two things. It's gonna allow you to just find a different dimension of relaxation and expression and I mean it's wonderful. The connections that I have with the instruments in my life are precious to me and I really even thinking about parting with them is causing some anxiety. So, you wanna find that connection. And the point is, you don't always have to be able to explain it to anyone except yourself.

But getting back to brand, different brands will have different characters and this is really now where you're all the way at the bottom of your kind of research. And you're drilling finally into the last little nuances and minutiae of what you're gonna find in these instruments you might really love. People talk about the Kawai, Yamaha differences, being a little bit warmer, a little bit brighter. People talk about Bechstein versus the Steinway & Sons difference. And Bechstein maybe being a little more precise or a little more clear throughout the range. But the Steinway being really growly and highly dynamic. Other brands many consider such as Baldwin, Samick, Wurlitzer, Bosendorfer, Perzina, and the list goes on.

There's all of these comparisons that you'll find good information on and lots of ongoing debates in the forums and in different websites and in different books. And you can do all the reading you want on that, but nothing is gonna be being able to just get into a showroom, and actually try these instruments yourself so you can finally hone in on those final little details that's gonna make this just one of the most exciting and satisfying purchases that hopefully you will ever make.

Thank You

I hope you found the video to be useful. We encourage you to leave comments and questions. We try our best to respond to as many of those as possible. And if you are in the Toronto area, we would love you to stop by either one of our showrooms and just say hi, talk to us about the videos, talk to us about your piano, or if you happen to be in the market for a piano, of course, drop-in as well. And we'd be happy to show you what we've got.

So, the very best of luck to you and your family on this exciting journey. Owning a baby grand or grand piano is one of the most rewarding possessions or instruments or things that we can have in our life. It can last for decades. It's sort of our artistic partner in crime.

So, thank you so much for watching. Hopefully, we will see you back for more videos again shortly. And if you haven't subscribed yet to the channel, we would really, really appreciate it if you did. It'll let you stay up to date every time we bring out a new video. And we're always trying to post content that our subscribers or we think that our subscribers will love. So take care. We'll see you back soon. My name is Stu Harrison, and you've been watching Merriam Pianos on YouTube.

The post Baby Grand Piano - Everything You Ever Needed To Know (2020 Updated) first appeared on Merriam Pianos

2359 Bristol Cir #200, Oakville, ON L6H 6P8

merriammusic.com

(905) 829-2020

[latitudesunknown]

Day 45 in Tiny Haven

Today in Tiny Haven: 1st of May extravaganza, new neighbour, old friends, and the end of all things.

The morning starts with a lovely thank you card from Renée, in return for that flower I sent her the other day.

(1) Another blatant example of shy lesbian flirting; have I worked on this game and just don’t remember it?

Later, she even finds me a new nickname. I worried it would replace “champ”, but from later interactions with the other inhabitants, it seems I can have several nicknames at once.

(2) You can call me whatever you want, honestly.

But without further ado, let’s check out Tom Nook’s “1st of May extravaganza”! 

(3) 

First surprise, I can’t take ANY item with me, not even my trusty tools. Tom Nook is taking this relaxing thing very seriously, isn’t he?

But then I actually step on the island and...

It’s a maze!

The only reason I couldn’t take my tools with me is that part of the maze riddle is finding the tools I need to uproot trees and smash down rocks.

I’ll have to talk to Marie about the meaning of the word “relax”, but no matter, I’m actually fairly excited...

... especially when I spot a mysterious figure waiting at the end of the maze. Who could it be? Why are they here? And most importantly...

...how the FUCK do I get out of here? 🤔

I’m very bad at mazes. After a lot of running around in circles, sitting down on logs to stare at emptiness, and jumping over holes like a kangaroo, I finally make my way to the exit, and meet the loveliest purple cat I’ve ever seen. 💜

(4) Charly is adorable, and I am BEREFT at not being able to invite them on my island.

(5) I like you too! Please move to my island?

Unfortunately, no matter how many times I try talking to them, the option to invite them over never pops up, and I leave the island dragging my feet, a bit lukewarm about Tom’s extravaganza day.

I get back home to find Nacer is also dragging his feet, wondering if he should move away. Why can’t it be Phebus, or even Raymond?

(6) I do love the fact that he would rather move out than clean his house. 

Even better when you know his house literally has a bed and a table and that’s it.

(7) Yes! Let’s run together, hand in hand, in slow motion!

Talking about Phebus, I have to admit he’s been acting nicer, which I’m guessing is thanks to Intimidating Marie, but that won’t save you, Phebus. You WILL go away the first chance I get.

(8) That’s a lie, as well. I couldn’t squeeze in on that bench!

And talking about my neighbours, I have a new one to visit!

(9) Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Kali’s neck deep in cardboard boxes, but I love what he’s done with the place so far, despite the lack of windows (what do all these people have against daylight?). However, considering what Raymond and Phebus did with their place, Kali’s probably going to fill his with trash or something.

I run into Abraham in the shop, and we both consider mortgaging our house to buy a diamond ring.

(10) I always suspected Abraham was surviving on fruit water and candy. 🍬

The only thing that saves me is that I literally wouldn’t be able to decide who to offer it to. Marie? Renée? Vanessa? Cousette? Thibou’s sister?? Lili??! DON’T MAKE ME CHOOSE!!!

Since there is yet another inhabitant on the island, I decide to drop by City Hall, to see if our island’s rating has gone up.

It has, we’re rated ⭐⭐⭐ now, and there is a new review...

(11) “K.L.”?

I swear, the second I read those letters, my blood turns cold.

And Tom’s reaction only confirms my suspicions.

(12) We got a review from Keke!

Marie is appropriately shocked, bless her.

I’m assuming nobody needs a subtitle for this one.

I’m honestly a little flummoxed myself. Getting Keke to the island was supposed to take a lot of hard word and dedication. I assumed I’d need to tidy up the island, create a proper concert space, spend a ton of money, but in the end all it took was getting more people to live here?

(and Abraham’s cell door, obviously)

Considering Keke’s coming to the island is the “end” of the game, I had expected more, and also... I’m not ready! Reaching the end of a game, no matter that the “end” is a lie, is something I hate! I can’t tell you how many final bosses I haven’t beaten just because I didn’t want the game to properly end! (Zelda’s still waiting for Link to come back in Breath of the Wild. It’s been two years)

But what’s done is done.

And Tom impresses me to no end by being bold enough to actually call Keke on the phone, right then and there. He doesn’t even rehearse the conversation before picking up the phone!

(13) You’ve got balls of brass, Tom.

Anyway, long story short, Keke is supposed to drop by for a concert soon, no idea exactly when that will be, or if I need to prepare anything for him.

When I ask Tom “What should I do”, he gives me the answer I never thought I’d read...

(14) Well I’ll be.

Still a little rattled by all those incredible developments, I realize I haven’t said “hi” to someone today (my phone keeps track), and I honestly have no idea who I might have missed, until I enter Vanessa’s house...

The poor dear’s been sick all day and I hadn’t even noticed she wasn’t around!

(15) My poor darling. Here, have a cure!

She’s back on her feet in no time, thank god.

I end this incredibly busy day by stargazing. The skies in Tiny Haven are beyond compare, especially to a city girl who, at one point, so forgot what stars looked like she mistook one for a plane and wondered why it wasn’t moving at all.

.

Subtitles

(1) Maddy, The most beautiful gifts are the ones we do not expect! I cannot find the right words, but I know you understand what I'm trying to say. See you very soon, I hope! That was Renée.

(2) I thought I would call you... "waffle". Do you like it, big foot?

(3) He'll keep an eye on your possessions in the airport while you're going on your mission with empty wings. Or empty hands.

(4) It's the first time I come here. Isn't this island... a little weird? What brings you here, by the way?

(5) Mia ha ha! I knew it! You're fun, I like you.

(6) I haven't cleaned my house in forever. It's not a mess, it's a domestic apocalypse.

(7) But... this changes everything. We're not done running hand in hand on the tracks of friendship, you and I!

(8) If you need a breather, there's more than enough space for the two of us on this bench!

(9) Oh, Maddy! There it is: from this morning, I live on this island. We're neighbours!

(10) A diamond ring for 69 000 bells! That's more than a month's candy-money!

(11) "Tiny Haven... what a dope island, from what people say... I'd love to visit, if I get the chance... - K.L."

(12) That message was written by the one and only Keke Slider!

(13) Yes, hello! Do I have the honour of speaking to Mr Keke Slider?

(14) You've already accomplished so much... You've earned a rest and the chance to enjoy this island as you see fit!

(15) Argh... I n-need to stop... sh-shaking...

[thecoroutfitters]

Travel Trailer vacationing has become a huge alternative for those who don’t like the restrictions of renting a room at a resort motel or hotel or traveling out of the country.

It gives them more of a variety of choices and travel freedom to literally camp out in style almost anywhere you decide to stop along the way. Due to the popularity and growth of the RV industry these things ‘have come a long way, baby!’

But how good would they be for the serious prepper to use as a useful bug out hideout, temporarily, or even for possible, long term or even permanent off grid survival living?

Here are some things to consider…

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Travel Trailers, also called RVs because they fall Into the ‘Recreational Vehicle’s licensing category in most states, have been around for a long time and come in a variety of sizes and configurations.

If money is no big deal when it comes to your comfort, style, and amenities, you can go hog wild and slob crazy feasting your eyes, and wallet, on one of the top of the line Motor Homes. Which are appropriately nomenclated as such because they are, literally, a very nice ‘home’ with a motor in it that allows you to drive it around like a bus instead of hauling it behind you.

These come in three styles. Wow, Awesome, and OMG-UnFreakingbelievable! The last category being more adapted for the rich and famous, and is what you usually see the big music stars driving across country in when they’re on concert tours.

These beauties can sometimes run upwards of seven figures depending upon luxuries. But even the ‘Wow’ models are not cheap and go for anywhere between seventy thousand to a quarter million for a nice one that comfortably sleeps 4-6 persons.

And technically, guess what? These are pretty much already completely self-sustained and off grid right out of the showroom door. Especially if it’s a diesel. You don’t even have to plug it in somewhere for electricity every time you stop if you keep the rather large fuel tanks filled.

And you don’t even need to keep the vehicle’s motor running. They have deep cycle batteries and a small compact onboard diesel generator already hooked into the power system and connected to the main diesel fuel tanks just for continuous charging of the batteries or direct off grid electricity in the newer models!

Click HERE to Get the World’s Smallest Battery, That Powers Your House For More Than 2 Days!

A Tough Choice

But would I choose one of these behemoth motor homes for off grid living? Not unless it was FREE!

Because of the comparison that for the same cost of a higher end newer motor home one could have a nice custom off grid concrete house somewhere relatively private that’s a little more weather and intrusion resistant.

Also, there are some inherent maintenance disadvantages in large motor homes as they age like not being able to work on them that much yourself unless you’re a skilled mechanic. And you can’t just bring them to your local car mechanic in town.

Plus, when you think about it, how much actual motor-homing are you going to do to justify the enormous cost of fuel? There’s no such thing as a fuel efficient motor home and if you get stuck in the mud on a dirt road to your BOL, you are not going to push it out by hand.

And unlike pulling an RV Travel Trailer, you can’t just unhook your car or truck from it, and still have mobility. Depending upon the area of the country you want to go you would require a pricey power winch installed to help get you out of trouble on a steep or rough back road.

So all things considered, what’s the cost justification differential with a motorhome compared to a Travel Trailer pulled behind your personal vehicle? What’s the critical difference in towing your living quarters or driving a self propelled one?

Not much, until they come out with the robotic self-driving ones in a couple of years. Then this will bring a whole new meaning to “over the road vacations!” But these still would only be a sunny afternoon pipe dream for most of us anyway.

However, if you are not hauling your Country Western Band from coast to coast so you don’t need a replica of an Amtrak Train but still are enamored of a motorhome, there are many smaller models and versions that are built on a larger Chevy, Ford, or other such chassis.

They’re much cheaper, especially used, and easier to maneuver into smaller parking areas.

I know a woman who lives on the TX coast in a condo and has a small 20’ Ford motor camper with all the conveniences. It’s well stocked with supplies and water and extra fuel.

When a hurricane is forecasted she just hits the road with it and when she reaches an out of danger distance, she simply parks in the nearest Walmart or Truck Stop, steps up between the front seats into the back, relaxes on the couch, and waits out the event in comfort and safety!

She even named her motor home ‘APIAS’ for Any Port in a Storm. Not a bad idea, using your RV as a BOV so you don’t really need a dedicated BOL!

Different Strokes…

But the best ‘bang for the buck’ alternative would be one of the intermediate travel trailers, 20’ to 35’ long you are now seeing a lot of these days on the road.

In the past the larger heavier ones had a front hitch set up known as the ‘fifth wheel’. This was a heavy, bulky device based on the way the big semi-tractor trailer trucks hooked up and could only be installed in the back bed of a pick-up truck. Not on a regular back bumper area ball hitch.

Since older pick up trucks were not the ‘cat’s Meow’ of comfortable road cruising, pulling a 5th wheel trailer long distances was often tiring.

Today most of the newer larger travel trailers are made with lighter materials and advertised as ‘light weight’ RVs and the 5th wheel is becoming obsolete for RV camping. Which means you can pick one up used for a really good deal if you already have a truck and don’t mind installing a 5th wheel hitch in your truck bed.

Click HERE to Get the World’s Smallest Battery, That Powers Your House For More Than 2 Days!

But the light weight Travel Trailers (TT) changes the ball game and some really nice midsized ultra lite Travel Trailers can even be pulled by regular family cars.

The designs have changed a lot as well. They’re just as comfortable and user friendly than a modern apartment with a lot of nice amenities.

Making the Best Choice

The old saying, ‘Everything’s Nice, Until You See the Price!’ tells it all here.

Since some of us who are interested in using TTs for off the grid living already can’t afford a house and then serious additional expense of converting the house to permanent off grid solar power, the only way we’ll even get close to off grid living is by opting for a Travel Trailer instead.

So it all boils down to costs. And here’s where it gets interesting. The reality is that not only is it fairly easy to live completely off grid in a trailer, and do it for a cost that almost anybody with any income can afford.

It can also be done comfortably and relatively cheaply if you think carefully about your needs and do some diligence in planning and searching for the best deal on the right trailer for your anticipated lifestyle.

Bigger is Not Always Better

When we think of living space most of us are already thinking incorrectly for practical application. Everybody, especially Americans, always likes bigger space, and more closets, and more appliances, and so on. We’re all conditioned by society to live like that.

But is it really necessary? Not for the most part.

Designers of living quarters always knew that when it comes down to it, there are only three basic areas people spend their inside time in: the Bedroom, the Bathroom, and the Kitchen.

Unless you’re a teenager who thinks their bedroom is a separate apartment or you are homebound a lot, you don’t even really spend that much time in these rooms if you’re working or active. People in other countries (like Japan) live their entire lives in one room city apartments!

Even some expensive luxury condos in New York are only 400 square feet of living space which is less than a 35’ by 12’ TT with slide outs. So even if you came from a large house style of living, it wouldn’t take you long to get acclimated to a comfortable smaller size domicile.

You might even like it better?

A Well Kept Secret

There are a lot more people living in travel trailers than you would think.

In fact there is a dedicated industry that caters specifically to people who want to live full time in their travel trailer. For a monthly fee much less than an average apartment rental, they provide a spot to park with an electric service plug in and a septic system to connect your waste tank hose into.

Your TT usually has a mini-version of a regular forced air home heating system, complete with in floor heat registers/vents powered by a couple 30 or 20 pound propane tanks, also usually filled at one of these ‘”community living” Travel Trailer RV camping spots, or available exchange refills at every Walmart in the country.

So pull into one of these camper places, set up in a couple hours, plop down on your couch in front of your HD flat screen, crack open a brewski and enjoy the playoffs!

There is an entire sub-industry lifestyle revolving around the TT phenomenon. There are guides and publications like ‘Trailer Life’ and others. Outlets and dealers and resources for RVs are everywhere.

And if you’re looking to escape from the mind numbing grind, an ex spouse, or family that makes you pop Alleve tablets like a kid chunking M&Ms every time you see them, it’s pretty hard to track or find you in your TT camper if you don’t leave a huge paper trail by paying cash for most expenses.

How Hard is to Make Your Trailer Completely Off Grid

Because most of them are already wired with built in 12 volt electrical lighting and DC to AC power inverters off a back-up battery, there’s almost nothing to it.

You would simply upgrade your battery bank with a few additional batteries, and a basic solar panel charging system or small portable wind turbine or build your own system along the lines of the(name the power unit book you are selling here?).

With enough watts to cover your electric needs and you’ve now got the power grid monkey off your back!

If you want to set up to include total disconnection from municipal systems somewhere more remote on your own land you’ll need a well and a septic system.

These are not cheap but depending upon water table depths and septic system requirements in your area sometimes you can get away with a relatively inexpensive sand point shallow well.

There are several Youtube tutorials on how to dig and set up your own well pump, and temporarily you can just use an outhouse type latrine if you have to. There’s even things like electric disintegrating toilets or composting toilets now that allow you to avoid digging a complex septic system.

There are all kinds of DIY information out there about hacking easy septic systems also on Youtube about this subject if you are not in an area with strict codes.

Buying a Travel Trailer

This is the best news about off grid living in a Trailer. If you explore the market, even on Ebay or Amazon… is that you might be surprised how inexpensive a decent used Travel Trailer can be.

Many were purchased just for occasional yearly vacations that owners evolved out of and just sit around so the people sell them and they have very little wear and tear other than needing to be cleaned up a little.

Pros and Cons of Off Grid Travel Trailer Living

PROs

…some considerable advantages for the frugal prepper.

Freedom!

I know people who say that once you escape the ‘stick built’ jungle, there’s no going back to being locked into a boring ‘hood’ where all you do is try to ‘keep up with the Joneses’.

Or worry about going underwater in mortgage debt and not being able to sell if the area economy or the environment goes bad and raises your property taxes (like in Kalifreaknia, or Illinois) so high you almost need a six figure income just to own a relatively small home!

And there’s a bit of nomad in a lot of us. After all, it was the nature of early civilization to constantly move around in caravans for improved conditions.

Cost of Living

There’s no disputing the total package efficiency of living off grid in a travel trailer. Dollar for dollar including the cost of the trailer and your expenses are far less for the same services and style of living compared to a standard house construction or usurious apartment rentals.

And your cost of your off grid electrical set up equipment is usually paid for after the first year in power costs and the continued ‘free electricity’ can be huge savings in the long run.

Travel trailers are less maintenance than a conventional house and cheaper when you do have to do some.

CONs

…really not that many.

High Winds

Although you can ‘permanently’, as they say, attach or secure your Travel Trailer to the ground with posts to stabilize against high winds, I don’t know if I’d set up my TT Permanently in a neighborhood area out west known as Tornado Alley?

But not much stands up to a powerful tornado or a Cat 5 hurricane anyway so you just have to think ahead about it.

Heating

Most TTs have adequate heaters but the nature of the need of saving weight in something you haul on the road means that the walls and insulation in these units are not nearly as thick as a regular house. So this might be an issue up North and I don’t know for sure how warm a TT would be in the ‘badlands’ of North Dakota or Alaska although I’m sure you’ll find a few—even with wood burning stoves—no doubt. But there are a never ending supply of suitable living areas in this country where the climate is not yet ‘geoengineered’ enough for the standard unit heating to work just fine, So it’s really a non-issue unless your personal situation requires you to reside in a very cold part of the country.

  So take your time and do your diligence. There are so many choices out there that it will pay off for you to search around. Make your choice to fit your plans. And you’ll be ‘good to go’!

Okay then, see you later on the road, and Off the Grid Monster. Don’t forget to wave!

This article has been written by Mahatma Muhjesbude for Survivopedia.

from Survivopedia Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

[mmwm]

Welcome to day 3 of 31 Days of Heterotopias: Motels and Hotels, a month of posts about how motels, hotels, and inns function as heterotopias and liminal spaces in society.  (More about heterotopias and liminal spaces.)  Each post will look at these ideas from its own vantage point, which may not obviously connect with the others, and which may mention motels and hotels only peripherally or may focus on them without referencing heterotopia or liminality. I won’t attempt to tie the posts together. They’ll all be listed here, as they are posted.

___________________________________________________

There are six motels/hotels that we (spouse and I) stay at over and over, in Savannah, Boston, Middlebury VT, Orleans MA, Boothbay ME, and Ogunquit ME. I’m not sure exactly what their appeal is. Prices per night range from $89 to $250, all fairly mid-range for their locations. The locations themselves are great but they differ — two are in the heart of cities, two are in the heart of towns — all four very walkable to the things we want to walk to — and the other two are on the outskirts of town, though still walkable into town (a mile or two each way, which we enjoy), and one of those is a few blocks from the ocean. Three accept pets, which mattered to us until a few years ago.

I’m going to highlight one of these hotels today, The Holiday Inn Express-Historic District, Savannah, GA. We’ve stayed here at least four times and would have stayed more but they were booked twice when we travelled and we had to stay at other hotels, including the Cotton Sail, which sits just above River Street, chic, modern, expensive, and the Planters Inn, on Reynolds Square, which is old-fashioned, falling apart (when we were there, the elevators didn’t work, almost the whole time!), and the staff was unfindable and not helpful. There was a complimentary bottle of wine in the room for my birthday, which was a lovely surprise, but things went downhill from there, and at more than $300 per night, things needed to be pretty perfect.

But I love the HIX.  Yes, it’s a Holiday Inn — which, when I was growing up in the 70s, was “the nation’s innkeeper” and its iconic sign was everywhere (my family stayed in family-friendly Holiday Inns and Howard Johnsons on our once-a-year vacation) —

(above, not my photo)

— but this one is on the corner of E. Bay and Abercorn, one block from River Street, a few blocks from the City Market, a block from Reynolds Square. The location can’t be beat. (Shown below with red tag. You can also see the Cotton Sail Hotel and the Planters Inn on the map.)

We come into town on the train,

take a cab to the hotel, and we don’t rent a car (from the airport, miles away) until we check out and leave for Jekyll Island, an hour and a half away — often via the Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens:

*

Somehow the HIX feels like a sanctuary from the moment I enter the wide, whooshing automatic sliding doors, usually for the first time each visit at 6:30 a.m., more than 24 hours after having fallen out of bed in New Hampshire at 4 a.m. to catch the 5:50 a.m. bus to Boston, then the 9:30 a.m. train from there, through a change to a different train line in New York’s Penn Station in the afternoon, with evening and overnight on the Silver Meteor (which continues on to Miami), to be awakened early again, at 5 a.m., for disembarking.

And just about always, our room is ready when we stumble in, bleary eyed, at 6:30, both needing showers and some sleep on a real bed before hitting Huey’s on the River for beignets, cafe au lait, and grits:

Nothing says “welcome” like the availability of the hotel room in the wee and exhausting hours of the morning, and check in staff who seem happy to provide it more than 8 hours before their normal check-in- time. (They also give us bottles of water and sometimes fruit.)

Chilling out on the bed in your hotel room watching television, while wearing your own pajamas, is sometimes the best part of a vacation.  — Laura Marano

*

We’re usually at this hotel at Christmas and New Year’s, when it’s decorated cheerfully and simply.

There is something especially wonderful, for me, about spending big, culturally significant holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving away from home, and it is precisely because of the heterotropic feel of it: I like the way time passes differently when travelling, when staying in a city or town where I don’t know anyone except the person I am travelling with (and if I’m travelling alone, even more so). Time is open, the future is unknown rather than proscribed as it often is when surrounded by family or friends, when in one’s usual place, taking part in the same interactions as always on these occasions.

We often spend a day or two before Christmas in Savannah, then drive to Jekyll on Christmas Eve or Christmas itself, and we return to Savannah on New Year’s Eve or the day before, spend that night there, and take the train home on 1 January. I love subverting the procession of what is often treated as “sacred” time by making it feel ordinary (ordinarily holy) through the mundane activities of packing, picking up a rental car, driving on the interstate, unpacking, finding take-out Chinese food someplace or just nibbling on snack food when most others in our culture are buying, wrapping, feasting, gathering in groups. I like interacting with cab drivers, rental car agents, restaurant staff, hotel staff on these set-aside days; I feel I am part of an underground community in some way, and at the same time I know I’m not. Our schedule and plans for Christmas Eve and Day and the days before involve not decorating a tree, not wrapping and unwrapping gifts, not making holiday foods, not meeting family/friends for a meal, not going to church, and so on, but rather just checking out of a hotel and picking up a rental car on time. Then? Nothing is certain; time could unfold any way it will.

We exchange only one or two small gifts during this period and I make some rough decoration for the room from shells, branches, sand, rocks, ribbons and rope, a few shiny things. If we were at home, I’m not sure we’d scale down to this extent, but even if we did, I don’t think it would feel the same to me, because there is something about the usual place, home, that exerts a kind of sway on time, on plans, on what’s expected to happen when, and it really does seem like it’s the place itself that has this effect.

Michel Foucault says (slight paraphrase) that “the heterotopia begins to function fully when people are in a kind of absolute break with their traditional time.” To make “an absolute break with traditional time”  — by travelling away from home, by staying in a hotel or motel that superimposes and confuses public and private space, that functions as a temporary and transitional way-station, that allows personal (and perhaps “couple” or “family”) identity to float free of its boundaries in an anonymous environment — removes or rescues us from prevailing norms, allows time and self to dissolve and re-order to some extent, blurring the boundaries of time and self as the boundaries of meaning in the space itself are blurred (public/private, familiar/strange, feels institutional/feels like a retreat, etc.). And what period of time is more traditional in American culture than Christmas and the weeks before it?  (Rivaling Christmas for traditional celebration, Thanksgiving is the other time we tend to travel each year.)

Some years, we do feast on Christmas Day at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel buffet extravaganza, and New Year’s Eve is often a special dinner in Savannah. We may attend the Christmas concert at St. John the Baptist in Savannah, or take a nighttime walking tour with a sort of Christmasy Dickensian theme (a fund raiser for the local food bank or other charity in Savannah). Even those time-appropriate, traditional “Christmas” events, however, take on a different feel, because we are in the space of a heterotopia, where multiple realities are juxtaposed. We’re in a place that’s both familiar (we have been to Savannah and Jekyll before, we have certainly stayed in Holiday Inns before) and unfamiliar, even exotic, a place where the weather is mild enough that we can dine outside at a cafe table on the sidewalk in mid-winter, when there are feet of snow piling up on our driveway at home. We are among palm trees and camellias blooming everywhere. We are wearing light clothing. We are among other tourists, also enchanted and bewitched by their surroundings and how they feel in these strange surroundings, unmoored from the usual family, community, daily household tasks. It often feels surreal, disorienting in a mostly good way.

Instead of spending Christmas morning unwrapping gifts, we light a candle or two, open a card and a gift or two, and then take a long walk on the quiet beach, admire the shore birds, maybe walk in the woods and look for stinkhorn fungi. On New Year’s Eve in Savannah, we often eat dinner fairly early, walk about on the Savannah streets a bit as festivities are starting to gear up, then head back to the waiting hotel room, where we can perhaps hear a car horn, fireworks, carousers from inside the small impersonal space.

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Back to the hotel: The room itself is simple, like the lobby, with just what’s needed: good wifi, a refrigerator, a microwave, a desk and chairs, comfortable bed(s), well-functioning bathroom, some space, some quiet.

The staff are always attentive, and the place just works well. I don’t feel in any sense that I am home there, but I feel benignly looked after without feeling watched or intruded upon. I can be anonymous, I am unknown (even after four or more visits), but I also feel the tenuous and privileged connection that being a “guest” confers.

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While in Savannah, favourite spots besides the hotel and Hueys are the Paris Market, with their unusual toys and stuffed animals, good-smelling things, jewelry, books, household goods, fantastic displays, and the macarons, especially at an outside cafe table …

… the fabulous Arches Bar in the Olde Pink House …

(Our Little Hummingbird cocktail)

And the tavern there for dinner, by the fire …

… and then there is the estimable Gryphon Tea Room, serving tea sandwiches and brunch, staffed by the Savannah College of Art & Design students …

the ceiling

Oh, and Savannah Bee honey, with two (maybe more?) locations in Savannah (and one on St. Simon’s Island) … Free samples of honey there, plus mead tastings, lots of lotions and potions …

… and the River Street Sweets and Candy Kitchens on River Street and at City Market (all with free praline samples) …

Other favourite food places are Jazz’d Tapas Bar for tapas and romantic atmosphere; Moon River Brew Pub for casual eats (big outdoor space); Churchill’s Pub in the wine cellar for special occasions; Rocks on the River and Rocks on the Roof at the Bohemian Hotel for a fun, hip nosh (Rocks on the River was open one Christmas morning when nothing else was, bless them); Vic’s on the River for great view and a comfy traditional spot. Once we get the car, we usually head to the Crab Shack on Tybee Island for seafood and cocktails. I’d love to get to the Crystal Beer Parlor next time; we walked there last time but they were unexpectedly closed that day.

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Then there’s hours spent strolling on cobblestone streets, along tree-lined streets dripping with Spanish moss, beautiful and interesting architecture everywhere …

… and the parks, gardens, squares, Colonial Cemetery …

… the stairs that are so fun to climb …

… the whimsical creche and the glorious Christmas concerts, with organ and choir, at The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist  …

I almost forgot the Telfair museums — which includes the Telfair Academy, part period house, part art gallery …

… the Jepson Center (a more modern art gallery) …

… and a tour of the Owens-Thomas House (no inside photos allowed) …

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And after walking, eating, drinking (cocktails on the street!), attending events and taking tours, enjoying tea, (mostly) window shopping, sampling gobs of pralines and honey, pounding the cobblestone and climbing up and down the stairs, it’s so nice to retreat to the unpretentious Holiday Inn Express at the corner of E. Bay and Abercorn for a little quiet, some privacy, a few Zots candies, and some moments or hours of down time in an uncluttered, embracing room, possibly overlooking a pocket garden behind the hotel.

Even after a long train ride and early morning wake-ups, no shower, gritty eyes, I always perk up a bit when I see this ….

When you get into a hotel room, you lock the door, and you know there is a secrecy, there is a luxury, there is fantasy. There is comfort. There is reassurance. —  Diane von Furstenberg

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  There is Comfort. There is Reassurance. Welcome to day 3 of 31 Days of Heterotopias: Motels and Hotels, a month of posts about how motels, hotels, and inns function as heterotopias and liminal spaces in society. 

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Last May, my wife and I spent a few days camping at Mammoth Cave National Park before heading to Nashville to catch Fleet Foxes in concert at the Ryman. During one of our caving tours, a park ranger told us about another (somewhat) nearby cave in Tennessee that served as a music venue. One year later and we finally had a chance to check out that unlikely concert space – formally known as The Caverns – for a taping of the PBS program Bluegrass Underground featuring one of my absolute favorites: Gregory Alan Isakov.

A trail marker for the Mountain Goat Trail outside of the Amish Hippie. Photo by Curt Whitacre.

The Caverns venue is nestled in the valley of Pelham, which is located northwest of Chattanooga. We stayed in the nearby town of Monteagle and were delighted to discover a “rails to trails” recreational path located mere feet from our motel. Known as the Mountain Goat Trail, the path runs alongside country roads and winds through forests en route to the neighboring town of Sewanee. As a very frequent visitor to Tennessee, I wasn’t expecting to find such a pedestrian friendly feature adjacent to our motel, nor was I expecting to find vegetarian-friendly eateries along the path! On our five-mile-long morning run along the trail, we discovered Mooney’s Market and Emporium, which carries fresh produce, locally-sourced kombucha and other sundries. We picked up some kefir and kvass from Short Mountain Cultures and then grabbed lunch at the Crescent Cafe Juice Bar, a small camper situated just behind Mooney’s that serves up vegan wraps and a great cup of coffee, amongst other things. God knows how many times I’ve had to live off of nothing but slices of cheese pizza and Sub-Way “Veggie Delite” subs when traveling through the south, so Mooney’s and Crescent Cafe were a real treat!

Operating with the tagline “A little bit Bluegrass, a little bit Underground,” Bluegrass Underground is a televised showcase of bluegrass, jam band, roots, folk and Americana concerts. The PBS program has featured acts like Andrew Bird, Jason Isbell, and Old Crow Medicine for nearly a decade, so Isakov was a perfect fit for the show’s upcoming ninth season. The May 19th taping (which will apparently air in fall of 2019) included sets by Gregory Alan Isakov along with country rock institution The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and a more mainstream country outfit called Brothers Osborne. That last act didn’t sound very “bluegrass” or very “underground” to me, but it seems like most of the crowd was actually there for Brothers Osborne.

We arrived early to give ourselves time to explore the venue before the first taping began, but we were surprised to find there was already a sizable crowd tailgating in The Caverns’ parking lot. Next time, we’ll know to bring camp chairs and a cooler! After picking up our will call tickets at The Caverns’ barn HQ, we walked a short distance to the mouth of the cave, which felt very much like descending into Mammoth Cave’s Historical Entrance (complete with temperature drop). I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the cave truly was a fully functioning concert venue with concessions, modern bathrooms, merchandise tables and other amenities that you don’t normally associate with … y’know … a cave. It was all a bit surreal.

We found our seats and soon enough a production manager was on stage to explain how the taping would proceed. Videographers spent several minutes shooting audience “reaction shots” as we clapped and laughed on command. Once that footage was in the can, the performances began. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was up first with a great set of originals and covers, including Hank Williams’ “Honky Tonkin” and a fine take on Bob Dylans’ “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.”

Up next was Gregory Alan Isakov, a Colorado-based singer-songwriter who I’ve admired for sometime but never before seen live. Isakov has been making great records for a long time, but his 2016 live concert LP with the Colorado Symphony is a real standout. Isakov’s music helped soundtrack my last two summers in Colorado, including my time at Great Sand Dunes National Park, so it was only fitting that his recent music video for the song “San Luis” centered on that stunning park.

Isakov and his five-piece band played an impeccable set for Bluegrass Underground and the natural acoustics of the Caverns only enhanced the cinematic sound of songs like “Big Black Car,” “Chemicals” and – appropriately enough – “Caves.” Due to some sort of technical difficulty on the part of the PBS production team, we were treated to two complete renditions of “Time Will Tell,” with the entire band gathered around a single microphone for an absolute highlight of the set.

Photography by Curt Whitacre.

Photography by Curt Whitacre.

Photography by Curt Whitacre.

Photography by Curt Whitacre.

Photography by Curt Whitacre.

Of course, the to-be-broadcast format of this concert meant that Isakov had to stick to TV-friendly lyrics, meaning the great “Saint Valentine” was unfortunately left off of the set list. Here’s a spry rendition from 2014’s Pickathon Music Festival, which was actually my introduction to Isakov:

The morning after the concert, my wife and I made our way from southern Tennessee to eastern Kentucky to spend a few days camping at Red River Gorge in the Daniel Boone National Forest. While I’ve been making sporadic trips to RRG and Natural Bridge State Resort Park for nearly 20 years, this was only my wife’s second visit to the area. After setting up our tent at the Whittleton Campground, we made the most of our two and a half days in the park: hiking portions of the Sheltowee Trace Trail, exploring the trails around Natural Bridge and making frequent stops to the newly-renovated Miguel’s Pizza.

We got back home just in time for me to celebrate my 40th birthday. Without a doubt, it was the perfect way to cap off my 30’s and set the tune for all of the adventures to come this summer.

Gregory Alan Isakov Graces the Underground Last May, my wife and I spent a few days camping at Mammoth Cave National Park…