#and i was stupid to believe otherwise and to waste all this time and effort . like girl move on

[vanishintoyou]

the way this is all pointless and hopeless and i am gonna end up as a disappointment. whatever

[insidekatmind]

Professional-Hwang Jun-ho

The sharp night wind sweeps through the alleys of Seoul as you walk briskly toward the squad car parked behind the police precinct. The lit cigarette between your fingers burns slowly, while you watch the neon lights reflect in the dirty puddles. You've always been like this—cold, distant, untouchable. Not because you like it, but because it's necessary. In this world, showing weakness means you're done for.

"Are you planning to ignore me forever?"

Hwang Jun-ho’s deep voice cuts through the silence. He’s leaning against the car door, arms crossed, that piercing gaze studying you like he can read every secret you keep.

"Interesting attempt," you reply with a mocking half-smile, flicking away the cigarette and crushing it under your boot. "But you should know I’m not the type to get easily distracted."

"Could’ve fooled me, considering you were the one who asked for my help on this case." His voice drops lower now, almost a whisper, like he's daring you.

You don’t give him the satisfaction of reacting. You’re the best detective on the narcotics squad, and you don’t have time for stupid games. But him… he's different. Stubborn. Sharp. Suspiciously attuned to your every move.

"Don’t mistake work for something else, Jun-ho." You step closer, locking eyes with him. You're near enough to catch his scent a mix of coffee and prefume. "I’m not one of those women who fall at your feet."

He smirks, that smirk that makes you want to either punch him or kiss him—and that’s the problem. Because Hwang Jun-ho is dangerous. Not just as a colleague, but as a man. Because he sees past your mask, senses the cracks in your icy walls.

"I know," he murmurs, leaning in slightly, his face just inches from yours. "And that’s exactly why I like you."

Your breath catches for a second. You shouldn’t let him get this close. You shouldn’t allow him to see that beneath all this armor, there’s something fragile. But it’s too late.

Because deep down, you already know.You’re screwed.

“Come on now, we have work to do” you say coldly as you put your hands in the pockets of your leather jacket.

Jun-ho chuckles, the sound almost like a throaty purr that wraps around your senses. He pushes off the car, closing the distance between you in a few effortless strides. His lips curve into the kind of smirk that says he knows exactly what effect he's having on you."Always business first, huh?"

You cross your arms looking at him seriously. “Are you seriously trying to waste time when we have something important to do?”

Jun-ho raises a mocking eyebrow, clearly amused by your reaction. He knows you’re trying to hold your ground, to keep up appearances. But the spark in his eyes suggests otherwise. “Waste time? No, never. I just happen to believe multitasking is a skill.”He takes another step closer, his gaze never leaving yours. “And a little distraction now and then isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Detective.”

You try to maintain your composure, but the way he says those words,a hint of mockery, yet filled with a deeper meaning,makes your heart flutter betraying your stoicism. “We have a suspect to tail.” Your tone is sharp, but it does nothing to diminish the heat radiating between you. Jun-ho simply smiles, a smirk that feels almost predatory. He leans in, his breath whispering against your ear.

“I know a thing or two about tailing,” he murmurs, the low timbre of his voice sending a shiver down your spine. “But I was thinking of a different kind of tailing.”You can feel the heat rising in your cheeks, despite your best efforts to contain it. You clear your throat, attempting to regain control. This man is too damn confident.

“Focus, Jun-ho,” you snap, trying to keep things professional. “This isn't a joke. Our case is serious.”

He straightens up, a hint of mockery still lingering in his smirk. “Oh, I am focused,” he says, his gaze dropping to your lips for a moment before meeting your eyes again. “But I can't help but notice you're a little... distracted.”You glower at him, knowing damn well he sees straight through you. He's pushing your buttons, enjoying watching you squirm.

Jun-ho leans in closer, his face mere inches from yours. He reaches up, tracing a finger lightly along your cheek. You try to swat his hand away, but he catches it effortlessly, holding onto it. His thumb grazes over your knuckles, the gentle touch sending electric sparks through your veins."You’re cute when you’re irritated," he murmurs, amusement glittering in his eyes. "But I prefer the look on your face when you’re flustered."

"Let. Me. Go." The words come out in an irritated hiss, but it does nothing to dispel the tension hanging in the air. Instead, it just makes Jun-ho's smirk widen.He leans even closer, his body almost touching yours. You can feel the heat radiating from him, his breaths mingling with your own. “No.”

His answer sends a shiver down your spine, but you try to hide it. Even as his touch ignites a fire beneath your skin, you refuse to give him the satisfaction of knowing he's gotten under your skin. You try to pull your hand away, but his grip tightens. He steps even closer, his breath warm on your neck. You can feel your heart hammering in your chest, pounding against your ribcage as if it’s desperate to break free. You’re a detective, for crying out loud. You’re supposed to be strong, aloof. But here you are, struggling to keep your cool while your colleague,your friend,is driving you insane.

"What's the matter, Detective?" His voice is a soft purr, his body pressed against yours now. He knows he's pushing all the right buttons, knows he's getting exactly the reaction he wanted. "Can't handle a little distraction?"His free hand drifts up to your chin, tilting your face towards his. His gaze is intense, almost predatory. You feel like prey.

"We have a case to solve" you repeated, trying to maintain your cool facade, but you didn't seem very convinced by what you were saying. You were hating yourself for being so weak, you're not like that. You've always been cold and closed.

"Oh, come on," Jun-ho whispers, his fingers tracing a path down your jawline, "we both know work isn’t the only thing on your mind right now."He’s so damn infuriatingly smug. You’re trying to keep your cool, to keep things professional, but he’s making it impossible. Every look, every touch feels like it’s designed to unravel your defenses.

"You're reading too much into things," you manage to respond, though your voice lacks the usual conviction. Jun-ho gives you a knowing smile, his eyes never leaving yours."Am I?" He murmurs, his breath now hot on your ear. "Or am I just seeing what’s right in front of me?"He's too close, too confident, and it's driving you crazy. Your heart is pounding like a drum, a maddening rhythm that's threatening to drown out your rational thoughts.

Jun-ho senses your internal battle. He steps even closer, his body now flush against yours. You can feel the heat of him, the subtle pressure as he pins you against the car."Just admit it," he whispers, his voice low and intense, "you're not thinking about the case right now. You're thinking about me."

“I hate you so much right now,” you whisper, looking at his lips. Jun-ho's smirk widens, his eyes sparkling with a mixture of satisfaction and arrogance. He knows he's got you right where he wants you, and he's reveling in it.

“You don’t hate me,” he murmurs, his voice lowering into a sultry purr. “You just hate that you can’t resist me.” With a swift motion, he captures your chin between his fingers, tilting your face up towards his. He's so close now that you can feel the heat radiating from his body. He leans in, his lips skimming the shell of your ear.

"Admit it," he whispers, his breath hot on your skin. “You want me just as much as I want you. Stop fighting it. Let yourself go." The urge to surrender is strong, but you stubbornly cling to the last vestiges of your composure. You can't let him win so easily. You're not some helpless damsel in distress.

You push against his chest, trying to create some distance between you two. "You're cocky, you know that?" Jun-ho chuckles at the feeble attempt to regain control, catching your wrists in his hands. "And you love it," he retorts, his grip tightening slightly. "Admit it. My cocky attitude drives you crazy."

You hate that he knows he's right. His arrogant confidence is infuriating, but it's also strangely alluring. It's as if he knows exactly how to push your buttons, how to make you crumble."You're a jerk," you mutter, but the lack of conviction in your voice betrays you.

"Mmhmm." That cocky smirk again. He's enjoying this far too much. He takes a step closer, his body now pressed against yours. You can feel the solid planes of his chest against your back, the heat of him seeping through your clothes."You can call me all the names you want, but I know the truth," he murmurs, his lips brushing against your jawline. "You're craving this just as much as I am."

The speed and ease with which he pins you against the car takes your breath away. In an instant, you're backed up against the cold metal, your wrists caught in his firm grip. Jun-ho's body presses against yours, his hands pinning your wrists above your head, leaving you completely at his mercy. Every part of you is hyper-aware of his presence:the heat of his body, the strength in his grip, the spicy scent of his cologne. His gaze is intense, his eyes dark with a desire that's making your heart race."You’re so stubborn," he murmurs, his voice low and gravelly. "You just can't help but push my buttons, can you?"

He leans in, his lips brushing against the hollow of your neck. The touch is light, barely there, but it sends a shiver down your spine. His breath is hot on your skin, making you feel strangely vulnerable."You know I have a weakness for stubbornness," he whispers, his lips finding the sensitive spot beneath your ear. "But you're really testing my patience."

You try to stay composed, to act like his touch doesn't affect you, but it's a losing battle. Your body betrays you, melting into his touch, seeking more. With a low chuckle, Jun-ho notices the change in your demeanor."You can act tough all you want," he murmurs, his lips now on your jawline, "but I can feel the way your pulse quickens when I touch you."

Jun-ho's gaze locks with yours, his eyes studying your conflicted expression. He's enjoying this,the way you're fighting to hide your feelings, the way your eyes betray your true emotions. He lets out a low chuckle, his grip on your wrists loosening slightly."You're struggling, aren't you?" He murmurs, his lips hovering just millimeters from your own. "Trying to decide whether you want to punch me or kiss me."

His words hit too close to the truth. The mix of anger and desire bubbling inside you is driving you crazy. You want to push him away, to tell him to back off. But the way he's looking at you,with that arrogant smirk and those intense, dark eyes,makes it damn near impossible to resist.

His lips capture yours with an intensity that takes you by surprise. The kiss is hard and hungry, his mouth claiming yours as if he's been craving this moment. He's still pinning you down, his body pressed against yours, his grip on your wrists now loose but possessive.He deepens the kiss, his tongue delving into your mouth, and your resistance falter.

You kiss back and moan softly as you cling to him. Your response emboldens him, his kiss growing more possessive, more intense. He releases your wrists, his hands now roaming over your body, exploring every curve with an expert touch. He knows exactly how to drive you crazy.He breaks the kiss, his lips leaving yours to trail down your neck, sucking and nipping at your skin. His hands slip under your shirt, his touch searing against your bare flesh.

You moan softly. “Jun-ho,” you whisper, holding onto him. Jun-ho responds to the sound of his name coming from your lips, a low growl rumbling in his chest. He continues his assault on your neck, his tongue grazing the sensitive skin below your ear.

"Say my name again," he whispers, his voice huskier than before. "Louder."

You try to cling to your remaining shreds of control, but your resolve is crumbling under his touch. The way he's commanding you, the way he's making you feel, it's all too intoxicating.You let out another soft moan, his name tumbling from your lips. "Jun-ho." It almost sounds like a plea.

Jun-ho lets out a possessive growl, the sound low and primal. He captures your lips again, his kiss rougher this time, more desperate. His hands explore your body with fervor, slipping beneath your shirt to touch skin. His touch is electric, setting your senses ablaze.

He grabs your waist, hoisting you onto the hood of the car with ease. He steps between your legs, his body pressing against yours, trapping you in his embrace. The heat between you is palpable, the tension almost unbearable. Jun-ho's hands slide down your thighs, his touch leaving a trail of heat in their wake. He breaks the kiss, his lips moving to your neck once more. "You have no idea the things you do to me," he murmurs, his voice rough and laced with desire.

His lips move lower, towards your collarbone, leaving a trail of hot kisses along the way. You're melting under his touch, unable to resist the fire he's igniting within you. His hands grip your thighs, his fingers digging into your flesh as if he's trying to brand you as his.

The sharp crackle of the radio breaks through the heated atmosphere, jolting both of you back to reality. Jun-ho's eyes dart towards the sound, his gaze sharpening. He mutters a curse under his breath.He looks back at you, conflicted. He's clearly torn between duty and desire, the moment shattered by the reminder of their job.

You give him one last kiss and walk away to the car. "You drive" you say, adjusting your jacket and returning to your detached attitude.

Jun-ho watches you as you compose yourself, his eyes still dark with unspoken desire. He can't help but feel a pang of disappointment as you put up your detached and professional front again. But he knows that the moment has passed, that the job takes precedence now.

He takes a deep breath, composing himself, and heads to the driver's seat. "Right. Let's focus on the target," he says, his voice cool and business-like.

[fuck-customers]

There's literally NO point to this! WHY are you wasting my time?

Our store forces customers to hand over their phone number and other personal information under the guise of a "rewards system" that 100% does not exist. The phone numbers are purely for tracking purposes.

I only ever actually ask customers for their number if a manager is within earshot, otherwise I just keysmash a bunch of numbers and make a fake "customer." It literally does not matter. I've been doing this for over a year and no one has noticed.

Anyway, this particular day, the manager was backing me up on registers, so I was actually asking customers for their number. I asked one customer for her number and there was a clear language barrier and it was very obvious that she did not understand at all what I was asking of her, since I asked for her phone number multiple times and she handed me her item, then she handed me her basket and then handed me her phone itself.

I figured I made a genuine effort to get her stupid ass phone number and hit "skip" and started scanning her items.

Cue my manager FLYING over to my register to rip the scanner out of my hand and demand that I get the customer's dumbass phone number, despite her literally watching me try and fail to do so. I'm sick of her shit, so I tell her that I tried and couldn't get through to the customer, but she should switch with me if she thinks she'll have any luck. She does.

20 minutes later, I've gotten the line completely down by myself and she's still trying to get that one woman's stupid phone number. I don't believe she ever actually got through to the woman and simultaneously completely failed to back me up, since I ended up having to ring everyone else up aloe while she was dicking around with one transaction. A+ management.

[imtrashraccoon]

Normally I would write the characters in some sort of competition or playing a board game for a prompt like this, but not this time.

TW: Implied/Referenced Alcoholism

First & Next Day

@owl-bones

Bad Sansuary II: Dust - Show Off

Word Count: 1,781

Night had fallen hours ago and you had headed out with Reven to look for any suspicious activity, splitting up to cover more ground and to avoid the patrols. Unfortunately, there were a lot of guards, so much so, that you weren't able to do much investigating. As a result, you ended up studying the guards instead and noticed something odd.

All of them had a large symbol of a purple eye painted on their helmets. You hadn't thought this was that unusual earlier, but now you noticed that the symbols varied in design. Some were larger, others more sloppily painted, and yet they all had the same distinct outline of an open eye. It was a rather crude symbol, too simple for a military standard, and seemed to have nothing to do with the city itself nor the kingdoms nearby.

Hearing footsteps, you abruptly reached for your dagger, only to make eye contact with Reven. He paused and eyed you warily for a moment, moving closer when you relaxed again. You waited until he joined you leaning against the wall before saying anything.

"Did you notice the amount of guards in the streets?" you whispered. "Certainly seems like overkill to me..."

Reven nodded in a thoughtful sort of way. "yeah, it was annoying," he grumbled.

"Have you ever seen a symbol like the one on their armour?"

"nah, but there's a weird temple with the same symbol plastered all over." He held up a dark bottle you hadn't noticed earlier and chuckled. "someone in this damn city has good taste in offerings though."

"What?" you hissed, turning to look at him fully. "Why would you steal from a shrine?!"

He raised a bonebrow at your outburst but otherwise seemed unfazed. You could only stare at him in shock, hardly believing he had actually just stolen from a holy place. Apparently, he was more insane than you had first thought.

"it was going to waste." He shrugged and popped the cork before adding, "why should i care about a god i've never heard of?" You watched silently as he took a swig from the bottle of spirits. "why did i have to get picked for this? i'd rather be anywhere else but this stupid city..."

With a sigh, you motioned for the bottle. "Yeah, but it could be worse. We could be trekking through a desert and be dealing with sand or heat."

Reven nodded solemnly and passed the bottle over.

You took a swig and nearly coughed, finding the spirits much stronger than you had been expecting, but managing to swallow it down. You weren't a lightweight by any means, but you had a feeling you wouldn't be able to drink much of the alcohol without suffering the consequences.

"What's really bothering you?" you asked while passing the bottle back.

He grunted and took another drink. Apparently he wasn't interested in talking and his brooding act was starting to get on your nerves. So, you tried a different approach.

"I never took you as the religious type," you hummed softly, motioning at the Rytos amulet he was still wearing.

His mismatched eyelights flared up for split second and you had to bite your tongue in an effort to keep a straight face. Judging by his reaction, you had a feeling you were on the right track. Now you just had to coax the answer out somehow.

"If you just tell me what's wrong, I promise I won't bother you about it for the rest of the mission."

He stared at you for a moment, his red eyelights glimmering with irritation and another emotion you couldn't place your paw on.

"tell you what," he started to say, his voice low and dangerous. "if you think you can hold your liquor and beat me in a drinking contest, i'll tell you."

You glanced at the bottle, watching the way the dark liquid seemed to leap with every subtle movement of his arm. You should put a stop to this foolish plan right away. Both of you needed to keep a level head and the last thing you wanted was to get charged with public intoxication. Still, you really wanted to get to the root of the problem.

"Fine," you sighed. "What are the terms?"

Reven thought for a moment. "we take turns, taking a drink and asking a question. if either of us don't want to answer, we take two drinks." He grinned maniacally at you and held out the bottle. "sound fair? or are you too chicken?"

You rolled your brown eyes. "Please, I eat chickens for dinner," you muttered and took a swig from the bottle. The liquor burned going down, but you were determined to drink the spellsword under the proverbial table. "Did the amulet belong to someone?" you asked.

He frowned and shook his head. "it was always mine," he huffed. You watched as he took another drink, mentally noting that this might be a sore topic for him.

"how did it feel to kill someone for the first time?"

You felt a chill run down your spine at his cold tone of voice. He wasn't looking directly at you, but in the dark of the alley, the red of his eyelights seemed to glow brighter than usual. You hadn't even considered what questions he would ask and now you were wondering if this game had been a mistake.

"It was...exhilarating," you murmured. "We were told it was all part of the job and not to let it get in the way of our duties, but no matter what I do, nothing compares to that first taste of EXP."

Reven grunted in response and passed you the bottle.

You took a deep breath and chased it with another drink, wiping your muzzle on your hide bracer. "When did you leave the Order of Rytos?"

"nine years, five months, and twelve days."

You didn't expect him to be so straightforward, staring at him for a moment before realizing he was waiting for you to pass the bottle back.

He swirled the contents around for a moment, staring down at the cobblestone in thought before tipping it back once more. "would you ever want to see your family again?" he asked quietly.

Family. The word felt bitter on your tongue and sat like a pit in your gut. You didn't have many back in your old kingdom, but they would have been informed of your death. As far as they knew, you had died a warrior's death during the failed attack on the Dark Fortress. If you were to see them again, that image of your legacy would be shattered and there would be questions. Questions that you didn't want to consider answering. Of course you missed them, but you also couldn't bear the thought of disappointing them.

Wordlessly, you took the bottle and downed two gulps of the powerful liquid. Your body shuddered at the harsh taste, but other than your eyes beginning to water, you maintained your dignity.

"i figured as much," Reven commented and took back the bottle. Without hesitation, he drained the last of the contents and set it down on the cobblestone.

You gave him a confused look. "I didn't even ask you anything..."

He shrugged, still not making eye contact. "you were going to."

You huffed and looked up at the night sky. He must have cottoned on to your line of questioning and now you weren't sure what to do next. You could already feel the buzz from the alcohol and if you weren't careful, you had a feeling you would be a complete mess in the morning.

The fur on the back of your neck prickled and you got the distinct sense of being watched. Half turning around, you caught Reven staring and for a moment, you said nothing, only staring back to see if he'd realize and get the hint.

As the unofficial staring contest stretched on, his permanent grin sharpened with an odd sense of glee. "you have a higher tolerance than i thought for someone so small," he commented with a dry laugh.

"Excuse me? I'm only a little bit shorter than you." You crossed your arms, feeling your fur bristle and the tip of your tail twitch with irritation. "Look, I just... I have plenty of experience."

He nodded, letting out another bitter sounding chuckle. "yeah... some demons can never be defeated." He clutched at the amulet and sighed. "acting as paladin again has brought up...a lot of dark memories that i prefer to keep buried. it doesn't help that perez has been...angrier than usual."

"Who's Perez?"

Reven's skull whipped around as if he had been slapped. His eyelights had shrunk down to little pinpricks of angry crimson and he clenched his fists at his sides. You stumbled back, but before you could make a run for it, he opened his mouth to speak.

"perez is my brother," he said in a now deathly calm tone of voice.

The cool night air seemed to turn frigid and you inadvertently shivered. Your fur stood on end and your breath came in short gasps as your heart threatened to explode in your chest. In that moment, you felt compelled to look around, to search for a presence that wasn't there, and yet, you couldn't shake the eerie feeling in your gut.

"W-why...is he angry...?" you whispered, your nerves finally getting the better of you.

"because i killed him."

Your mouth dropped open in shock at his admission, but before you could even begin to process it, his expression darkened and he clapped a hand over his mouth.

"no...i didn't! i love him... i wouldn't-!"

He suddenly dropped to his knees, clawing at his skull, barely registering the resulting harsh sounds of his steel gauntlets scraping against the bone. He kept muttering variations of denial over and over as his voice grew rougher by the second. Purple tears pooled at the corners of his eye sockets before cascading down his cheekbones and to the cobblestone below.

For a moment, you stood there frozen, not knowing what to do. Your partner had just admitted to familicide and then denied it in the same breath. How were you supposed to react? Should you say something? The longer you hesitated, the more you began to feel bad for him. He was clearly having a mental breakdown and you wanted to run away? No, you couldn't leave him alone in a place like this.

Moving carefully so as to not startle him, you knelt down in front of him and took his hands in your own. "It's okay, I'm here if you need me, Reven."

[magpiking]

The Diary of A Desperate Schoolgirl

ₓ˚. ୭ ◦˚.୭ ˚○◦˚ Magpi's Intro ˚◦○˚ ୧.˚◦ ୧ .˚ₓ

❧ name: Magpi/Em

➺ pronouns: any is fine! idrc.

❧ age: 17

➺ fun fact: I used to have a thing for all things creative, though thats died down as school got tough.

I'm making this blog as a way to hold some accountability over my studies. Unfortuantly, as surely many out there have experienced - I'm a classic case of :

"I used to do quite well in school! What happened to me?"

In primary (K-6), I was always a crappy student. In my memory, I often got C's, though now my parents tell me I got a few B's and A's too - but their word cannot be completely trusted. I remember the dread of reports coming back in their A4 yellow envelopes, and how I never wanted to open them because my parents, my family, my extended family even, thought grades were god. And to that line of successful, responsible thrivers of high stress, letting anybody besides intermediate relatives even have an inkling that you were supposedly stupid would mean that they would be less inclined to waste time lending you a helping hand in the future. I suppose, they had no reason to believe otherwise - all values are borne from foul truths somewhere, somehow.

Then, when I reached highschool (Yr7-12), I had the luck to manage making it into a decently academically-prestigious school, filled wih those who all shared in some degree the same sentiment.

The ugly duckling surrounded by swans all it's life had no doubt in its mind that it had the capability to fly.

This is not simply that case where the monkey, fish and bird were examined on how fast they could scale a tree. It is in human nature to wish to excel - a person who has never wanted to better themselves is firstly:

not a happy person

and secondly:

To not want better of yourself is a person with no dream, and a person who says they have no dream is a liar.

And what is this dream? Where did it come from, and how did it form? Surely such intangible impressions are sprung from fragments of what you have seen, heard, of those around you?

The monkey, the fish and the bird do not value climbing the same way as the animal that came respectively before them - but surely they too seek to excel in what matters to them, like the carp to the marlin, the monkey to the ape?

Anyways, in my classic case, maybe I'm meant for something different, something not academic. But I want to be...! "Find what you're meant for" doesn't take into account what I want to be made for. It's not common, but what happens when I put passion into something, and find out that I'm still not enough?

And anyways, even if I'm meant for something else, discovering that can come later, after this year, after my final exams, and during this time, I will continue to hold on to the belief that grades are god until I actually somehow manifest an academic comeback.

In high school, it was revealed to me that my primary school had some messed up way of marking and grading, and those poor scores finally shot up to where I wanted them to be. Where I wanted to be.

And maybe, thats where I got cocky.

Of course, theres a certain pride that comes with passing an exam with flying colours when everybody knows you hadn't been paying attention in class, or studied majorly for. It was my defining trait for a few years, how did I forget all my efforts from primary school? It was an evil sort of pride, one that brought me to the state I am now. Sure, I'm still passing, but from high 90-somethings to straight up 50% is not a good look. In fact, it's something that brings out that sickly cold in my gut, and maybe a sense of sea sickness despite sitting on my bed, on land.

... hubris. That was my hubris, what am I, a character in a play? Why am I going through hamartia??? Someone tell whoever's writing my life story to put the pen down and stop being a wannabe Aristotle, it's lame, and it's not fun.

So, I now see where I went majorly wrong. And of course, I wouldn't spend my time lamenting. And I recognise that I need to actually lock in hard, and theres still a chance for me. As much as school sucks, learning is fun, and honestly, in proper adult life, not many people have time to purely dedicate hours to master new crafts and knowledge.

But here's the problem. I'm so used to doing absolutely nothing, that I keep procrastinating, and probably a bunch more mental blocks keeping me from picking up my pen to study. It kinda physically hurts to switch from doomscrolling to focusing - which is also a warning of sorts, I guess. Doomscrolling actually kills your brain, I swear. My dopamine receptors are utterly fucked. I visited Instagram reels and Youtube shorts maybe a total of 7 times while writing this? It's insane.

I don't actually have any clue on how to run a study blog, so maybe I'm just going to put my to do list's and progress checks here, and maybe some sappy motivational quotes. Anything to keep me going.

[squidknees]

depth perception

(short piece about a mostly routine mission. 987 words.)

"Sorry I'm late!"

The moon pool techs quieted down as Hiro stumbled into the room. Ichika turned, and her frown deepened as she laid eyes on him. One of his pant legs was unrolled, and his hands were busy jamming his tie into a clumsy Windsor, but that wasn't unusual for him. What caught her attention was his eyes: one was its usual dark brown, but the other was an inert grey.

She cocked her head as she tried to find a delicate way to phrase the obvious question. (Not that Hiro deserved the effort, but she preferred to save the serious vitriol for later in the mission. Waste of energy otherwise.) "I don't suppose you're just trying out a new eye colour?"

He blinked. "What? Oh - yeah, no. This thing had a big software update today." The grey eye made a tink sound as he tapped at it. "Vision through it is gonna be weird for a few hours while it downloads and recalibrates stuff. I spent like an hour trying to delay the update or something, but I couldn't figure it out... So I ended up turning it off so it wouldn't distract me during work. That's why I'm late - sorry again."

Wonderful. Clover's shift hadn't begun yet, so now she had to run this mission with only a stupid kid with no depth perception for backup. She could already feel the headache coming on. "You know we're on extermination today, right? If this is going to impact your performance - "

"No, no, it'll be fine," Hiro insisted. "I get a lot of these updates, so I'm used to having only one eye for a while. Besides, it'd be awful if we delay the mission and someone ends up getting hurt just because of this, wouldn't it?"

She sighed. She hated it when he was right. "We're already behind schedule, so I'll brief you on the way over."

"Sounds good!" The moon pool whirred to life behind her, casting a blue glow on Hiro's stupid grin. "Let's do this."

-----

Their target today was a pack of sunlight-rank demons. Alcyon Corporation wouldn't usually bother with small fry like these, but they were headed straight toward a major population centre, so extermination it was. No difficult terrain on their way there, and the demons didn't have much in the way of power or strategy. Hiro swung at empty air a couple times near the beginning of the battle, assuming his opponents were closer to him than they were. But Ichika had enough range to deal with the faraway ones, so after a few shouted commands, things went much smoother.

She was beginning to think they would manage it after all. And that was when the seahorse-octopus thing lurking in the back started shooting globs of tar at them.

"Uh-oh," Hiro said, raising his sword. By some miracle he parried the first one, and the second missed entirely - but the third nailed him in the face. He tumbled to the ground, blinded. Two other demons took the opportunity to close in, claws unsheathed.

Shit. She sent a wave of ice toward his assailants - but the seahorse swiveled around to face her. A barrage of shots forced her to leap aside, making her attack fizz out before it could reach. What about blocking, then? She threw up a wall of ice; a few shots sizzled against it - but then it darted around to open fire from another angle. No go; she'd have to surround herself completely to avoid this, and then she'd have no way to fight back.

Beyond the ice came the sound of bone against metal. "I'm fine!" Hiro yelled. "Just take that thing down!"

Ichika growled as she pushed an ice wall toward the seahorse, and again when it skated around it with ease. Did Hiro think she was stupid enough to believe he was fine in this situation? And who the fuck did he think he was, lying and giving orders to his commanding officer? The lecture would have to wait, though, since they didn't exactly have any better options. "Fine! Don't die!" She snarled, and charged toward the seahorse.

She hated close-range combat - it was always so messy and unpredictable - but in this case it was the right call. Its eyes widened in panic, and it turned to flee. Damned thing was fast for a demon made of the slowest animal in the world, but mist-boosting made it easy to catch up. She feinted to the right, and grabbed its tail as it tried to dart to the left. Ice burst forth from beneath her fingers, trapping it in a cocoon before it could react. She took a second to catch her breath, then formed a blade in her other hand and stabbed it through. It let out a faint whine, and then dissolved into ash. Good riddance.

By the time she made it back to the main battlefield, Hiro was standing over a pile of already-disappearing corpses. He turned to give her a tired little smile. It seemed that in a sudden burst of competence, he'd managed to get the tar out of his working eye, then made short work of the small fry. That was good; she'd half-expected to come back to him still blind and struggling. "Not a scratch on you, huh?" He said. "You're so cool, as always."

Ichika scowled. "Demons of this calibre shouldn't be landing hits on you, either. We need to do something about those eye updates."

"Yeah, I've definitely learned that." He raised an arm to scratch his head, but winced and stopped as he made contact with the tar still matting his hair. "Ugh. Let's go back and shower first, though."

Ah, and he was already reminding her of his infractions. "I hope you haven't forgotten that I'm literally your boss. I make the calls around here."

"Oh, uh - "

"But yes," she relented. "Let's do that."

[cariantha]

Prom

Book: Open Heart, Book 2

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Sawyer Brooks)

Rating: Teen

Category: Fluff

Word count: 2.2K

Summary: Ethan helps Sawyer remedy one of her biggest regrets.

A/N: This fic was inspired by an ask from @jerzwriter who wanted to know whether Sawyer and Ethan attended their high school proms.

Sawyer slept peacefully in his arms for a couple of hours before waves of excruciating stomach aches began to crash over her. Having done everything he could medically, all Ethan could do now was hold her hand through it and hope that the others would be able to manufacture a miracle.

Sawyer could no longer diminish the severity of the pain. She cries and wraps her arms around her waist as the next bout of sharp cramping cripples her body. 

“I know, Rookie… I know,” he gently rubs her back, feeling otherwise helpless. As her suffering subsides, Ethan eases her back against the pillow and dabs the tears from her face with a tissue. The dull reflection in her eyes concerns him. As the maitotoxin steals the strength from her body, the hopelessness of the situation robs her of the will to fight. 

“What a waste,” she whispers looking up at the ceiling. 

“What’s a waste?”

“My life.”

“How can you possibly think that?” he questions, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. With plastic-covered hands, he brushes some stray hairs from her face.

“I spent half of my life doing what I thought other people expected of me. I’ve spent the other half working myself to death to become a doctor. And for what? I’m finally at the finish line and it’s all been for nothing. I could have spent more time with my family. Hell, I could have had my own family by now. I could have traveled. I could have… I could have gone to prom!” she turns and sobs into the pillow. 

“Sawyer, you can’t think like that. Don’t think about what you didn’t get to do. Think about what you’re going to do when you get out of this room.” 

They both sit in silence for a moment when Ethan shakes his head with a chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” she asks, wiping away the new tears.

“Prom? Really? That’s one of your biggest regrets?” he laughs.

Sawyer plays it back in her head and starts laughing with him, realizing how ridiculous it sounded. 

“It’s stupid, I know!” she admits, “But it was just one of those rites of passage moments that I missed out on.”

“Why didn’t you go? It’s hard to believe that no one asked the smartest and most beautiful girl in school.”

Sawyer can't help the big smile that spreads across her face. A small win for Ethan as he tries to keep her spirits up. 

“Thank you. No one got the chance to ask because I graduated from high school a year early. I didn’t get to do any of the senior year stuff like spring break, ditch day, prom, graduation parties…” 

“I didn’t go to my prom either.” 

“Really? Why?”

“I couldn’t justify digging into my college savings for an over-the-top one-time date. My dad offered to help with a little extra cash, but I didn’t feel right accepting when he still had to work overtime to make ends meet. And honestly, there wasn’t anyone I was willing to suffer through that kind of evening with.”

“If I had been in your class, would you have asked me?”

Thinking of all the things he would have done differently since meeting Sawyer, “I would have been the first in line to ask and I would have spent my whole damn savings just to impress you.”

She holds onto that thought as another agonizing wave of pain rolls over her.

********************

It’s been several months since the attack and Sawyer slips into a period of depression, the aftermath still too heavy a burden at times. All that hangs in the air as a result of the impending hospital closure causes overwhelming anxiety and sadness. 

Ethan begins to notice the signs. Lack of interest. Withdrawal. Tiredness. Dwelling on the past. 

To his credit, Ethan’s made quite the effort to remedy his biggest regret. Determined to make every precious moment count, he holds Sawyer in his arms every chance he gets and shows her as often as possible just how much she means to him. But he wants to do something more. Provide a distraction. Give her something to look forward to. Make up for lost time and missed chances. And that’s when the idea comes to him. He’s going to take Sawyer to prom. 

********************

“Hey, Dr. Hottie! What brings you to my neck of the woods?” 

“Kyra,” he warns.

“Sorry. I need to remember you can report me to HR now,” she laughs. “What’s up, Doc?”

“I was hoping for your assistance with a personal matter.” Ethan takes a seat in front of her desk and explains his idea. “Given your experience with event planning, I figured you’d be the best person to ask. So, what do you think?”

“What I think, Dr. Ro-man-sey… is you just got my vote for prom king.”

Rolling his eyes at the new nickname, “Ok, so where should we start?”

********************

A few days later, Ethan is in the cafeteria waiting in line for the cashier. From behind him, he hears, “Hi, Dr. Ramsey!” 

“Trinh.”

“Kyra filled us in last night and I’m so excited for Sawyer. Let me know if I can help in any way.”

“Thank you.”

“So, how are you planning to ask her?”

“I was going to mention it tonight during dinner.” 

“No, no, no,” she shakes her head, “You have to come up with a cute prom proposal.”

“A what?”

As they reach the register, Ethan pays for both of their lunches. 

“Thank you!” She follows him to a table, sits down, and continues. “A prom proposal. Hold on… let me show you.”

Sienna pulls out her phone and opens the Pinterest app. She starts showing Ethan the different ideas and he vehemently shakes his head. 

“No.”  

“Ethan, it’s a major part of the prom experience nowadays.” 

As he pinches the bridge of his nose, Sienna scrolls down the page, commenting on the different photos. “What about this one?... Ooh, this would be super cute… Aww, look how sweet…”

“Go back up,” he instructs and points. “That one.”

She pauses to consider, realizing that was probably as “cute” as it was going to get coming from Ethan Ramsey. “Yeah, that’s perfect. Here’s what I think you should do…” 

********************

The next day, Ethan asks Sawyer to meet him for an afternoon break at Derry Roasters. He arrives twenty minutes beforehand to place a special order with the friendly barista who is more than happy to accommodate.

Arriving right on time, Sawyer greets him with a quick peck. “Hi.”

“Hi. I placed our order already,” pulling a chair out for her to sit. He notices the slump of her shoulders and the circles under her eyes. He reaches for her hand and holds it in her lap until their order is called.

“For Ethan!” the barista shouts. 

“Here you go,” Ethan returns, strategically setting the cup in front of Sawyer. 

“Thank y– wait, I don’t think this is mine,” she responds, looking around the café for a pair of teenagers.

“That’s your usual. It’s what I ordered.”

“Yeah, but it says, ‘Prom?’ I think this is meant to ask someone to prom,” showing him the writing on the cup.

“It is. So? Will you go to prom with me?”

“What?” she giggles, looking at him like he’s crazy.

“I want to take you to prom.”

Ethan can see the smile starting to form at the corner of her lips and a twinkle of excitement in her eyes. 

Raising her eyebrows, “How are you going to do that?”

“I have my ways.”

“And when is this happening?”

“Saturday after next. You can go dress shopping this weekend.”

As she looks at the cup in her hand again, a huge smile spreads across her face. Her eyes start to glisten with happy tears and she moves into Ethan’s lap wrapping her arms around his neck. Placing a gentle kiss on his lips, “I would love to go to prom with you, Ethan.” 

“Sawyer! Your date is here!” Sienna sings out. She and the other roommates all gather in the living room to see their friend’s grand entrance. 

With one last check in the mirror, Sawyer makes her way down the hall. A vision in glittering gold sequins, but it's the sparkle that has returned to her emerald eyes that captures Ethan’s attention.  

“Hi,” welcoming him with an uncontrollable smile. Her fingers run over the lapel of his tuxedo jacket, “Wow, you look great.”

“And you look–”

“Appropriate?” she teases. 

“Will that joke ever get old?” he wonders out loud. Leaning close to her ear, “I was going to say hot. If we didn’t have an audience right now…” he trails off placing a kiss on her cheek. Offering his arm, “Shall we?” 

“Oh, real quick. Si? Would you mind taking a couple of pictures before we go?”

Minutes later they step out onto the street and Sawyer can’t believe her eyes. “You rented a limo?” 

“Of course I did. It’s the prom.” As the chauffeur comes around to open the door, Ethan reaches into his pocket. “I have something for you. Hold out your hand. It’s not the traditional flower corsage…” he explains clasping a vintage Tiffany’s bracelet around her wrist, “but I wanted you to have something to always remember this night.”

Looking up into his sincere eyes, she kisses him. “How could I ever forget?” wrapping her arms around his waist, “And in case I forget to tell you later... thank you for the most amazing night.”

While Ethan and Sawyer enjoy a five-star meal at an exclusive restaurant downtown, her friends change and head to the venue with their plus ones. 

As the limo pulls up in front of the hotel and the chauffeur opens the door, Sawyer immediately spots a familiar face. “Alan?” she meets with a hug. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I had to see my boy off to his first prom and get a photo for the mantel.” Taking a step back he squared up his phone, “Squeeze together and say ‘Prom!’” 

Alan escorts them inside, and when Sawyer enters the beautifully decorated ballroom, her eyes begin to swell. There is a dance floor in the middle of the room flanked by a couple of tables on each side. On stage, a live band plays a Bruno Mars’ cover of “Just the Way You Are”, a popular song from the year Sawyer graduated high school. As she turns to Ethan, she sees a small crowd gathering behind them. 

“What?!,” she spins around in shock, “I can’t believe you were all in on this!” 

She hugs each of her friends and exchanges pleasantries with the newcomers. Elijah and Phoebe. Bryce came with his kid sister, Keiki. Jackie, Aurora, and Kyra with dates that Sawyer hadn’t met before. And Rafael who had suggested to Sienna that they go together, knowing she was still struggling to move on after Danny. 

Off to the side, Sawyer noticed one other person.

“And where’s your date, handsome?” she kisses the older man on the cheek. 

“Oh, I’m not here as a guest, my dear. I’m your chaperone for this lovely event,” Naveen jokingly clarifies.

“Well, I’m going to save you a dance anyway. As you know, I sort of have a thing for authority figures,” she quips, backing up and wrapping an arm around Ethan’s waist. 

As the evening carries on, Sawyer hits the dance floor with her friends. Ethan cuts in for nearly every slow dance, only allowing turns for Alan and Naveen. Sawyer tries to get Ethan to stay for a couple of upbeat songs. Arm looped behind her and around his neck, she rocks her hips from side to side. Ethan stands in place, and with his hands on her swaying hips, it looks as though he’s moving along to the beat.

When the band starts playing another lively tune, Ethan makes his way to the bar for a drink. 

“It’s like a trial run!” Naveen shouts over the music.

Alan clinks his glass against Naveen’s.  

“What are you two conspiring about now?” Ethan interrupts.

“Naveen was just saying tonight could be seen as a trial run… for you know… da-da-da-dum, da-da-da-dum,” Alan hums with a crooked smile. 

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Ethan rolls his eyes and moves around them. “Bartender, a double?”

After Sienna surprises them both by announcing Ethan as prom king and crowning Sawyer prom queen, the evening begins to wind down. Naveen offers to give Alan a lift back to Ethan’s apartment. The friend group splits off, some heading home while others continue their date night activities elsewhere. 

Sawyer finds Ethan, his hand outstretched to tuck her into his arms.  

“This has been the most amazing night. I don’t want it to be over yet,” she breathes into his chest while squeezing him.

“It doesn’t have to be,” he says, holding up a hotel key card. “I’ve arranged for a private afterparty in a suite upstairs.” Leaning down to whisper into her ear, “If you think I’m not going to make a play on my girlfriend and try to steal her prom virginity… you’ve misjudged me.”

“Well then, consider yourself lucky, Ethan Ramsey. Because I was definitely planning to put out for you tonight.” 

Tag List: @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics @potionsprefect @jamespotterthefirst @annfg8 @peonierose @socalwriterbee @tessa-liam @jerzwriter @quixoticdreamer16 @mysticalgalaxysstuff @inlocusmads @txemrn @trappedinfanfiction @mvalentine @takemyopenheart @ofmischiefandmedicine @openheartforeverinmyheart @doriopenheart @coffeeheartaddict2 @genevievemd @starrystarrytrouble @hopelessromantic1352 @kyra75 @lsvdw-blog

[queenharumiura]

🎂+ "Did you even notice me or am I just a replacement for Juudaime?" ((you already know who this is from))

Today is the day I celebrate Haru because of her shorthand (86) and I'll answer any questions. [x] ||Time's up! No longer accepting!|| I do know this is to take place in the future, so I'm taking some creative liberties as I don't exactly know how things lead up to them being a thing, so bear with me.

“Huh. Fuck.” What was the saying, tongue in cheek? It would be better for her to keep her silence and storm off in a fit of anger, but she was told to be honest and to not hold back, hm? She looks down at the piece of paper giving her directions for the day. All she knew was that she was going to have a strong word with a certain mun later for this horrendous idea of hers. When can a Haru ever have peace? “So this is how we’re ending things tonight with the questions? Okay.”

She honestly thought that she was safe and free, and yet everything snowballed at night, and look at this now. She’s ending things off with a bang, hm?

“You know, I expected something more out of you than this, Gokudera.” A derisive snort, “You waited until now to ask because I have to be honest and you didn’t trust me otherwise, is that it?” A relationship had to be built on top of trust, and she was being made to feel that he didn’t trust her. That deep down he felt that she still had a flame for Tsuna.

He didn’t believe that she loved him, and for someone who wore her heart on her sleeve, he’d effectively taken her love and slapped her in the face with it, thinking that he was just a replacement. This entire situation left a bad taste in her mouth both figuratively and literally. She could taste the blood from her biting so hard on her lower lip in anger.

Her line of vision kept shifting on different spots on the ceiling as she was trying to calm herself to not just launch into a slew of explicatives. Deep breath in and deep breath out, keep the tears at bay. Staring at the ceiling in an attempt to keep her composure for long enough to not break down into tears as she’s forced to address this.

There were a few things to note about Haru and her speech patterns. When she stopped referring to herself in third person, she was being very serious, and the moment she ever utters a curse word, you know you messed up, royally.

“I sure am curious though. Is this something you came up with yourself, or is it because you hear things other say about me and now you doubt me?” Don’t worry, regardless of the answer she’s still mad at you. You still went and fucked up. Mun-san really had a lot to make up for, that��s for sure.

She takes a deep breath in, holds it for a few seconds before she exhales, trying to release a lot of her frustrations with it. She managed to center herself with that one. “When I gave upon Tsuna-san all that time ago after exhausting everything I could try, that was the end of things. I had a clean break with my feelings. I did all that I could to have him see my way, but it didn’t work. I did try to hide it and I don’t know how well I did at that, but I was a mess sometimes because of it all.” She hated the fact that she was being made to admit to anything and everything.

“Did you think I didn’t know who he was pining for? Sure, I’m a stupid woman as you say, but I won’t have anyone come here and tell me that I was in the wrong for trying. The stupidest thing you can do is NOT try and lament that it never happened. I did my best to appeal to Tsuna-san. I did everything I could to try something… ANYTHING, but nothing came of it. What came out of it? Me understanding that it wasn’t going to work out. After that, all I needed to do was sever my feelings and move on.”

She says it as if it was an easy thing to do, but it wasn’t. She needed time to come to terms with the futile efforts and to understand that this was going to be viewed as a waste of time to everyone else.

“I don’t regret all that I did then, as I learned a lot from him. I developed some skill sets that I’m proud of to this day. Everyone else may think that my time spent pinning for him was a waste of time, but I see it as my journey of going through my first love and seeing it to the end. Some people can get stuck and get hung up on it forever, but I’m not like that. When I stopped loving him, that was the end of it. It was time for the next stage of my life, whatever that was.”

If she had to regret anything, it was the amount of emotional baggage that followed her after the fallout of her feelings for Tsuna. “I know that others pitied me for my futile efforts… and I know I probably looked stupid to a lot of them (if not all of them). I pretended to not see it, even if it was coming from those I cared about.” It was one thing to be pitied by random people, but to be pitied by your friends and family? It was the absolute worst. They were seeing her at her lowest, but she kept a smile on her face, pretending to not see it. Haru thought that it would hurt more if she let them know that she saw the looks.

It would be worse to acknowledge it and have them be more discreet about it.

“Ahh… fuck” she ruffles her fingers through her bangs, “there was a time where I really thought I’d be okay with being a shadow woman if only it meant he’d notice me when he thought to look down.” A scoff. “It’s stupid, how low I was at that time. Just how badly I was willing to degrade myself to relegating myself to being a shadow.” She really hated that part of her. It disgusted her every time she recalls that.

She shouldn’t have ever thought that way or spoken that way, even if at one point it may have been a joke. That’s the thing with jokes, they can feel real once you say them enough. She’s irritated on all accounts now as she’s reeling over the real question at hand and the memories relating to the question. “Do you just want me to stay hung up on the past? You just won’t let me get past it to heal and feel better about myself, will you?” She’s biting back with her own words. “Does it make you feel better to kick me down when I’ve already done that enough? Was my self-confidence and self-love tanking not enough? You have to kick me down too? Is there a point to this? Is it a game to see who can break me worse?”

What was that about holding back tears? Well, she tried.

“You know, I always wanted to have an average life by getting married to someone who loved me and start a family one day—but I can’t have that. By some twist of fate, I am affiliated with the mafia. I can’t just love a civilian and expect them to follow me into the Mafia. That then involves their family too by extension. I don’t have other options available to me. I lied to myself telling myself that it’d be okay if I was alone moving forwards. It’s too late for me to go back to being a regular civilian. I gave up on one of my dreams to stay with you all.”

That is to say that she treasured the bonds she made with everyone more than her dream of having a happily married life with some normal guy. She would’ve been plenty happy with that. Not to be a narcissist, but she would make a great wife! She’s wasting her potential here, you know?

Damn it, she couldn’t stop the tears from flooding down her face NO THANKS TO SOMEONE. She stopped as she was hectically rubbing at her cheeks, trying to wipe away the tears. Well, the show must go on, right? You wanted the full truth, after all. She won’t have anyone accusing her of wasting time by stalling.

“I already had the reputation of being the silly woman who pined after Tsuna-san for so long. That moniker will never leave me for as long as I live, I’m sure. People are going to talk and make whatever they will about my interpersonal relationships with others. They’re going to suspect that I still hold a torch for Tsuna-san, or that I’m secretly hoping for Kyoko-chan to reject him or what have you.” It was so tough on her to think that’s how people may perceive her character.

She spent the majority of her life being a regular civilian girl. She wasn’t some conniving person who lusted after power. She wasn’t someone who was willing to do any underhanded means to get what she wanted either. She was just an innocent girl who wholeheartedly loved the wrong person.

“I didn’t want to fall for anyone else associated with the Vongola. I knew that people would talk, assume that I was using them as a replacement. I didn’t want to be the reason for any of you to be looked down on. I… I’m not worth your reputations being sullied because of me.” Haru walks over to a chair and brings her knees to her chest, hiding her crying face in her knees. “I trusted that you’d believe me.” We see where that got her.

“I was fine with anyone viewing me as the worst if only my lover trusted me. That alone would be worth it. Maybe I could prove myself in the eyes of others if they saw just how much I loved you but I can’t even convince YOU that you’re the only one that I have in my heart?”

What was the point then? What is a relationship without trust at a bare minimum?

This is incredibly heartbreaking.

“You deserve someone who makes you feel confident in the fact you’re the only one for them, and I deserve someone who doesn’t doubt me even when I gave them everything that I had to offer. If with all the love I had to give you, you still had an ounce of doubt in me, I can’t stay here. I don’t deserve this.” She may have trampled her self-worth when she was pining over Tsuna, but she made a promise to herself to not do that again.

“If you truly think that you’re just a replacement for me, consider today the last time you can call me your girlfriend. I’m NOT tolerating this bullshit. Not from you.”

It’s past midnight and that’s the last of the questions she was accepting for the night, so she storms out the questioning room to cry for the rest of the night.

[olderjodijournals]

Monday, May 1, 2000

I forgot to write about Sunday’s sex. It was predictable in the sense that I knew he wouldn’t cum, but it was otherwise not very predictable. I decided at the last minute to have him go down on me and he not only did, but I got off. It seemed to take forever, though. I thought that because he went down on me he’d bail out of screwing cuz he never really liked doing more than one thing per session, but we screwed afterward. He went faster this time as if he had more strength and energy from working out. He was either putting on a good show or else he really was just out of shape. I think it was always a combination of him being unfit as well as scared.

He knows that I got my period at the end of last month. It wasn’t possible to hide it from him when he saw he had blood on his dick that could only have come from me. So, that means he’s gonna chicken out on me and want to play games around the 10th of this month. Like I could really get pregnant even if he did cum? Yeah, right! Anyway, I’ll probably avoid him myself at that time cuz I won’t be in the mood to play games of any kind and have him conveniently “forget” how to get inside or something like that. As long as he can’t admit his fears on his own, then I’m gonna have to be the responsible one here. I don’t want him put in a position that makes him uncomfortable and I know that although I know I’m sterile and he hates having sex, as cumless as it is, when I’m mid-cycle.

Wednesday, May 3, 2000

I don’t believe this. I just don’t believe this! Smokey’s dead. Yesterday evening, just like with Scuttles, he was totally out of it, barely moving, eating or drinking. Then when I got up at 9:00 today, he was gone.

Why are so many of my animals dying lately? Depending on how long Fudgie lives, I may wonder about this store. I got a rat from them that only lived five months, and now a rat that didn’t even live one month. Or maybe it’s a punishment. Meaning, just like I wondered if Scuttle’s death was because of what I did to the Bear, I wonder if Smokey’s death is because I got sick of Butter Rum being such a bully and bopped her upside the head with a nibble stick. I’m just grateful I didn’t get that attached to him so I don’t have to be miserable all over again so soon after I was miserable over losing Scuttles.

I’m really seriously considering quitting singing, although I’ll miss it terribly. I’m just so sick of having to cough and clear my throat just like I did when I smoked. It really takes the fun out of it. Do you know how humiliating that is, having worked so hard for so little?! No, God does not help those who help themselves. It’s even more of a bummer knowing that my lungs will never get better either, even though I’m gonna be stupid and schedule a doctor’s appointment that I know will be a complete waste of time, gas and money. I’m still convinced there’s nothing they can give me that’ll help me. They’ll either give me something that won’t do a damn bit of good (or it’ll at least seem like it’s gonna help at first, then I’ll be like I usually am - tight or congested), or it’ll have bad side effects like that Aerobid did. And as I’ve learned in life - there’s no such thing as “solving a problem.” At least not for me there isn’t. For me, all I can do is trade one problem in for another, so even if I could get something to help my lungs, all I’d be asking for was a brand-new problem to have to deal with year after year. All God gave me for my efforts at quitting smoking was 20 pounds I could never get rid of, and that’s another depressing thing right there.

I’ve pretty much peaked as far as the weight and inches go. After that initial tightening I felt, that’s as far as it’s obviously going to go. I’m never going to have that muscular look I’d like to have. Part of that is because I can’t seem to burn the fat. All I can do is build a little muscle underneath the fat like I did. Also, 123 pounds is as low as I can go from what it looks like, and I can’t lose any more than the inch or so I’ve lost from a couple of select areas. Not unless I start working out for a few hours a day and put myself through lots of starvation. All of which I don’t have the willpower for.

On the bright side - as long as I keep rowing every day and working out a few times a week, I should be able to maintain my weight and inches and keep from ever going above 125 pounds. I’ll also be a little firmer and not feel as energyless or too non-active.

Anyway, I’m not surprised at the results. I mean, I got just what I expected to get - just a few pounds lighter, and an inch smaller, and slightly firmer. I expected to feel the results much more than see them. Especially in my arms and legs. They look just like they always did, but they feel a bit firmer.

I finally got Tom to start working on Jade yesterday, but not without starting to work on her myself. I just get so sick of him saying he’s gonna do things that he doesn’t do. I know he’ll never clean up the property when it gets hot, either. Tom, why do you lie to me so?

Anyway, firming up Jade’s been much quicker and easier than I thought it would be. This is mostly because we cut the body at the sides, arms and legs so we could pack the stuffing in easier. All bodies should come with zippers to these areas if you ask me. Trying to stuff batting down into the legs from the neck is nearly impossible. He got the arms stuffed and stitched up, and part of the body and where the knees are. He’ll work up the legs and down the body till he meets at the sides where her hips are, then we’ll stitch the sides up and take in an inch or so of material at the sides to make it better proportioned. I’m still certain that this body was sewn all wrong. It’s totally disproportionate in the hips. Also, the whole body seems too long for a 32” doll. I really think they gave me a 34” or 36” body. A disproportionate 34” or 36” body.

Later...

Quitting singing is easier said than done. I could never quit. It’s just so much a part of me as my arms and legs are. I’ll just have to sing when my lungs/nose will allow it.

Carol Kane was in a 1984 movie earlier. She only had a little part and looked like a geek. She got better looking with age if you ask me. Well, I’ll be checking out other movies on the 5th, 8th, and 14th of this month. I can’t wait for Office Killer and When a Stranger Calls Back to run again!

TV shows and movies still seem to be riddled with childbirth and I still don’t know what the obsession’s all about.

Thursday, May 4, 2000

Wow! I lost a pound. I weigh 122, but the question is - will I ever drop below 120 and stay there? Cuz trying to stay between 110-115 in early 98 to early 99 was a nightmare. Of course, I didn’t have the Bowflex then, either. Well, we’ll see in time where my weight goes, but wherever it goes, it goes. There’s not much I can do about it.

Cybertrails’ service has been absolutely horrid. They’re just like how AOL was for a while where I either can’t get online or when I do, pages won’t load and I get knocked off. Tom says to expect lousy service in a rural area and to just take what I can get from them. Yeah, but it’s never been this bad. This is terrible. It fucking figures, too. Just when I find something I want to do online regularly, I can’t get on. I discovered Carol Kane items being auctioned on eBay that are constantly changing. The web pages, though, stay the same for months, even years, at a time.

Yesterday, I got another garden/floral magazine from Evelyn. I guess Miss Opinionated really likes me. Anyway, there’s nothing I really care about in the magazine, but Tom’s interested in some of their ads. There were also a couple of packets of flower seeds, which we weren’t supposed to get even though they gave them to us. Mary was going to plant them. We offered to give them back, but she said not to bother. Besides, she’s only got so much room for them. Even so, we should never have gotten them because we just can’t grow things here. The animals eat and destroy them. Rabbits, birds, lizards, and probably Gophie too, are eating the seeds and chewing off whatever does start to grow. Tom said we can try planting them indoors till they take off, then put them outside, but I still think they’ll destroy them.

Saturday, May 6, 2000

I finished my story Burned Soul yesterday! Now I’m proofreading it, then Tom’s going to do the same, before sending it off to publishers so it can get rejected. Although it’s easy to say that God won’t allow me to make any money by writing because he’s never allowed me to do things I’ve wanted to do in the past, I also don’t want to be a writer nearly as bad as I once wanted a kid and to be a singer. That still isn’t necessarily a point in my favor, though, since most people rarely get the first thing they submit published, anyway. You usually have to write lots of stories or articles before someone publishes something you’ve written.

Yesterday I woke up at 121 pounds and was still able to shit. I’m back to 122 now. There’s not much of a difference since I began working out four weeks ago, although yes, I am firmer, and yes, I am smaller. But barely. And in some cases, it doesn’t last long. My thighs went down an inch for five minutes, then they were all bloated out again to the usual 23” they are. My chest dropped to 36, my waist is 29½, and my hips are 37.

I can’t be certain, but I might’ve seen a snake sticking out of Gophie’s hole the other day. That may explain why she’s now living in a hole at the other end of the house and why there’s been less lizard activity around.

Today we saw a cute little gray baby jackrabbit sitting out front in the middle of the wash. Tom filmed it, along with Fudgie and Ratsy playing.

This is going to come as a shocker, but I love Fudgie way more than I did Scuttles. He’s a super cool, fun, loving little guy. He’s less of an explorer when I have him out. Instead, he loves to sit and cuddle with me. I lay on the floor and he hides under my neck. Then periodically, he walks a few feet away, then turns around and runs back to hide under my neck. He also climbs on top of me at times, too. He’s a lot mellower than Scuttles was. He’s about as mellow as Mickey was, and he’s not a biter, either. He doesn’t nibble on my toes and fingers like Ratsy loves to.

Although Tom did do a little more work on Jade and play some computer games, he’s spent the whole day in front of the TV, showing no interest in sex. God, he is so unmanly in that way! Again, that’s OK with me. I’m as drained of an appetite as I have been for the last few years now, and when I do get up the urge, I just want to take care of myself, quickly and efficiently. It’s easier to do something yourself than to have to direct someone to go higher, go lower, softer, harder, etc.

Sunday, May 7, 2000

Jade’s finally done and standing against the wall in my office! Tom stuffed her real good so she’s really rigid. Although she’s a beautiful doll, her head seems a bit big for her 32” body. Her feet and hands are the same sizes as Bailey’s who’s 24”, and her head’s the same size as Ciara’s who’s 38”. She’s wearing Bailey’s sleeper and Bailey’s wearing a dress that came with a big teddy bear of mine. It doesn’t look as good on her, but someday I’ll get new outfits for both Bailey and Jade. 32” dolls are a good size. You can see them well enough without having to walk right up to them, and there’s a lot more wall space to lean them against in here than there is furniture to put them on.

The sex we had at the end of his day, as usual, was very predictable. He was in and out of me in no time at all. It was very obvious that he didn’t want to cum. Especially with how hard he was.

Afterward, I started to get both bummed out and pissed knowing that if I did decide to have Invitro someday I’d have to use someone else’s sperm. Or so I thought. Tom told me something that really made my day. You see, I was always under the impression that a guy had to give sperm right there in the office in a cup just like you do with urine, but that’s not so. He said you can do it at home on your own time, as long as you keep it warm and don’t wait longer than a few days. I didn’t know this, but that’s great! It makes perfect sense too, now that I think about it. Now I can have an easier time letting him be himself and not feel so controlled and manipulated by him like he’s cheating me out of options. It’s nice to know, though, even though I doubt I’ll ever do the invitro, that I have more choices than I thought I did and that I don’t necessarily have to use someone else’s sperm unless his is dead. I don’t have the choices most women do since they can get pregnant for free the natural way, but at least I have more choices than I thought I did, and yes, Tom you can feel very free to be yourself and not cum!

Before he enlightened me on how he’d give his sperm, he said he felt I was controlling him and that he thought I said I wanted him to be him. To me, this is saying he’s admitting he wants to be the way he is and he doesn’t want to be made to feel like he has to change. This is fine, now that I know what I know, but I still don’t get why he’s so determined not to cum when it’s already been established that I can’t conceive naturally, anyway.

Anyway, I’m just so glad to learn what I’ve learned. That still doesn’t mean that I’ll ever want to have Invitro, or that he’d still cooperate and give his sperm, or that God would allow me to have a kid no matter whose sperm it was, but it makes me feel a lot better. Also, every negative has its positive - Tom’s not cumming keeps the sheets nice and dry, and we’ll never need birth control or tubes tied, or vasectomies.

He told me something else, to use as an example, that made no sense to me. He said he didn’t like not sleeping together, but that he just accepts it because he doesn’t want to control me or complain. I get the not liking it part, and I too, wish we could sleep together like any other normal couple, but as I told him, he’s not controlling me or complaining by asking that we try to sleep together at times. As long as he doesn’t make demands, he’s not controlling me. I want him to ask me things because I want to know if there’s ever anything I can do to please him because I love him, so I suggested we try sleeping together on weekends. I said we won’t say that we have to sleep together every night, just try to on weekends. Meanwhile, there’s no control involved. If one of us decides we don’t want to do it, we don’t do it. Period.

No music this weekend. Just the faint beat of a car stereo cruising by somewhere around here for ten seconds last night.

I don’t understand my mice’s behavior. Since when do females and males fight? And since when do mice that have lived together before fight? The mice that lived together in the store that were bought together fight. Out of the five mice I got, three of them are tame, one’s sort of a bully, and one’s a big-time bully. As for the three I had before - Freddie’s tame, Oreo’s sort of a bully, and Butter Rum’s a major bully like Toughie.

Monday, May 8, 2000

I set Jade up so she’s standing, leaning against the wall, holding one of the musical dolls. It looks really cool, and Tom thought so, too. I still like to have her hold one of the little teddy bears I got at Game Works, too.

Tom says I don’t look watery or bigger, and that’s what I thought, too. Then why did I gain my weight back? I’ll never be thin. I’ll just never ever be thin. My thin days are long over like I’ve been saying. I’ll always be in the 120s. Period.

I gave Tom a good scare today without even knowing it. He said that on his way home he saw an ambulance turn onto Bitter Root and immediately thought they were headed here. Anyway, it turned out to be going to the house across from Dan’s. Two houses away. The equivalent of twenty houses away in the city.

He brought home a picture that Dennis left him which the selfish opportunist himself took. It was of us standing by the trailer. It wasn’t close up, but even so, you could see my pudgy legs, fat face, and rounded-out arms.

I’m taping another Carol Kane movie right now I haven’t seen yet. This one’s a 1999 movie, and as I said before, I think she got better looking with age. Especially in the face, although I do have a picture of her from the 70s that looks great. I saw her in a 1990 movie the other day and her face didn’t look as good as it did in Office Killer, but her hair sure looked better. It was long, curly, and down to just below her waist. I don’t know if it was all hers or if some of it was hair extensions of any kind.

I had a very strange dream last night about a teacher I had in 5th grade named Joan B. I was about eight the first time I saw her, and in a way, she was my first crush. She was like Norah was at the Harley where no one else liked her or would consider her attractive except for me. She was a toughie, though. All the kids hated her for being so mean and so strict. I would’ve too, if I hadn’t found her attractive. She may have been a bit on the plump side and had brown eyes and long brown hair. She always kept her hair up and I remember how I’d wonder how long it was and what it’d look like down. I remember I looked her up in the phonebook and called her a few times, which she was not happy with. She bitched to my parents about it. She certainly wouldn’t have come out and said so, at least not to me, but I know she had to have despised me. I could just tell.

Anyway, I haven’t seen her in about 25 years and haven’t thought of her in ages. Then last night I had a dream that she was reaching out to me as I was running by her. I woke up with the feeling that she was saying goodbye from the other side. At first I wondered why she’d bother with me, but I had to have stood out in her mind. Any teacher who ever dealt with a loud-mouthed, attention-getting bully like I was could never forget me. I always stood out, and although it wasn’t usually in a good way, I had to have made a lasting impression on her.

If I’ve got my facts straight - she has one son. Her son and her husband’s first name was Richard. Joan lived in Agawam for as long as I could remember. Many years. Anyway, I went online to see if I could find obituaries, but couldn’t. So I looked in the directory and found a Richard B living at a different address in Agawam. Is it the son? The husband? Is Joan really dead? She had to have been in her late 30s to early 40s when I knew her, which means she’s probably around 65-75 years old today. She could be dead, but so could anyone you haven’t seen for 25 years. I told Tom I wanted to call the Richard Bowe I found listed and see if I could find out, but he advised me to wait a month or two. He reminded me of my accuracy rate within the world of the paranormal and said that now wouldn’t be a good time to go calling and asking for someone if they just died. That’s what I’ll do, but I can’t wait to find out if she’s dead or alive in a month. Or at least try to.

Tuesday, May 9, 2000

Carol looked absolutely terrible in last night’s movie. Just as bad as she did in most of Office Killer. She didn’t look better in that movie till the end when she took her glasses off and let her hair down. In this movie, they had her dressed as a conservative, even geeky school principal with her hair up and thick-rimmed glasses.

Tom said we’d go out today, but then he said we’d go out tomorrow instead so he could milk the gas tank. Just another one of his many delays/procrastination. He felt bad, though, and insisted we could go out today if I really wanted to, but nah, we can wait one more day. Instead, we’re gonna make Bailey a new outfit! At least, we’re gonna try to.

Wednesday, May 10, 2000

Dan’s still here. I see lights on at night and I saw him driving off his property earlier.

We’re going out to Circle K (wish Jennifer still worked there) and to Dairy Queen when he gets in later on.

I figured out what Tom’s doing. At least I’m virtually certain of his motives. You’d think that anyone would be like - what’s he got to lose by cumming when he knows she can’t conceive naturally anyway, so he doesn’t have to worry about having a kid too soon after moving, or whatever, but he doesn’t know I can’t conceive. He may suspect it, but like I always said, he’s not as thoroughly convinced as I am. So after I thought about it for a while, I realized he’s counting on the odds. That’s what he’s doing. He’s decided to himself - I’m not going to cum in case she really can conceive cuz I don’t want a kid. Meanwhile, I’ll count on the odds of her not bothering to have the invitro either, and assume that if I don’t cum and if she doesn’t have the invitro, I won’t ever have to worry about a baby. I still don’t understand why he feels he has to go to such extremes, but like he said, he doesn’t want me to complain and he doesn’t want to feel controlled. He wants to be him. No problem. No problem at all. If I wanted a kid and felt I could conceive, that’d be different. Meanwhile, he’s perfectly welcome to do as he pleases and not cum. I don’t know how he can stand it after getting hard and excited, but obviously he can. He’s been doing it for years and I wasn’t kidding myself when I told myself he was perfectly content to be the way he is and that that’s what he wants. If he didn’t, he’d do something about it, and I don’t believe he needs a doctor to do it for him, either. No doctor can tell him to cum when he gets excited like we know he can/does. Only he can do that, but only when and if he wants to.

Meanwhile, how do I feel? Well, knowing I can’t conceive and that I don’t want a child these days has me OK with how he chooses to be. I’m sorry, but cum is a real pain in the ass. It makes quite a mess. Not only does it mess up the sheets, but it also makes a mess of me, too. I can’t just wash it out of my pussy. I have to put on a liner and let it slowly seep out. How do women with guys who are normal sexually stand it? Most guys don’t just cum, they want to screw/cum just about every day.

Later...

Today turned out to be an exciting day. No, we didn’t go out cuz Tom had a meeting at work and he didn’t get in till 7:30. He would’ve taken me out if I’d insisted, but I didn’t want to. He usually goes to bed at 8:00 and I knew it could be close to 10:00 before we returned if we went out. So, we agreed we’d go out tomorrow and even to the store that has the skater Barbie I want, along with the other stores, but who knows? I get the feeling something doesn’t want me going out this week.

It’s a good thing I wasn’t out at 4:00 today. Gophie hasn’t been using the hole in front that’s about a dozen or so feet away from the house. Instead, she’s been using the hole in the bush further back where the iguanas are. This is where I first saw her, too. Anyway, there were a couple of times I could’ve sworn I saw the tip of a snake sticking out of the hole by the house, but couldn’t be sure. Today, though, proved my theory to be correct about why she hasn’t been using that hole. It sure as hell was a snake! I saw it come up out of the hole while I was working out and this sucker was at least 6’ long! Only 1”-1½” wide, though. It lay sprawled in the middle of the wash and I ran out and got about 8-10 feet up to it and took its picture. I also took one from inside too, to show how close to the house it was. I lost it at one point, but I warned Tom to look out for it when he called to ask if I wanted anything else at the store cuz it might’ve headed down towards where he parks.

I showed Tom the pictures I took of it when he got home, but neither of us is sure if it’s any type of rattlesnake (he’ll investigate online). It didn’t have those diamond markings. It was a grayish-black color with no particular markings, and I don’t remember seeing the rattle at the end of its tail. The tail seemed to get skinnier and skinnier till it tapered off almost as skinny as the tip of a rat’s tail.

Anyway, I guess I’m getting to be quite the wildlife photographer! We’ve got pictures of iguanas, snakes, prairie dogs, and a scorpion, although he took that shot. I need a picture of a jackrabbit and a roadrunner if they’ll stay still long enough. I’d even like a tarantula. Just think of all the people who would think I was absolutely crazy, having rats and mice indoors and snakes just outside my house! Dureen’s gonna cringe when she sees what I live with. Dureen, Tammy and Andy could never stand it out here. Andy would not only hate the long drive to work (when he happened to have a job), and not being able to get to a gay bar in ten minutes or so, but he’d be terrified to be alone out here, whether or not he had a phone and a car. He’d be terrified of homicidal maniacs coming to get him and of the desert creatures out here.

I love this house, living here, not knowing what I’ll see when I look out the window.

As for my animals - yes, this store’s definitely up to something. As Tom suggested, they could be inbreeding too much which will cause early death and sterility. The five mice I just bought are definitely females, which were definitely in with males, which should definitely be pregnant and showing it, but they’re not. This has me really worried about Fudgie and wondering how long he’ll live. I love this rat more than any other pet I’ve ever had in my entire life and it’d be a shame to lose him so soon. He’s so cute, loving, and fun to play with. I lay down on the den floor and he walks a few feet away, then Tom moves and scares him and he comes running back to hide under my neck. He climbs on top of me too, and stands straight up and peers around the room.

In other news, my hair, which was an inch shy of my waist, got cut to about a couple of inches below my shoulders. I’m just sick to death of long hair! Sick of the snarls and having to always braid it to keep it from getting overly knotted. It’d take forever to dry, and I’d have to braid it just to go to bed. If my hair was thin and straight, then yes, I’d let it grow and grow forever, but I just couldn’t deal with it anymore and ran out of patience for it. As I said, I left a little length so I could keep my femininity and gather it into a ponytail to get it off my neck when going out on hot days.

Both of us are pretty proud of what we ended up doing yesterday evening. We each made, from scratch, without any pattern, a dress for Bailey. The one Tom made was just a practice one using this ugly Indian-print pattern that his ma gave me, and the final version, which I traced, cut and sewed, has splotches of lavender, pink, and light blue on a white background. In the end, I sewed a piece of lace around the neck and boy does she look better than ever! It’s short too, so her legs show from the knees down like I always wanted them to cuz she even has such realistic knees, as well as feet. Her body bag has lace trim at the legs, which sticks out a bit under the dress just above the knees and it goes well with the lace up top, making it really look just like a little girl’s dress, rather than a nightgown or a long shirt.

We called to brag to Mary about it and to tell her about the snake. Not surprisingly, she said she’d never have gone outside and a handful of feet away from it.

Tom also told her to think about timing hers and Dave’s vacation with his, so they could go somewhere while Ma was here since we have no desire to go anywhere even if we could afford to. We’ve had enough hotels to last us a lifetime. Of course, Tom doesn’t have to have vacation time while she’s here, but if he did, she could spend more time with him, someone she knows, rather than with me most of the time.

Friday, May 12, 2000

Here we go with the early spotting again. Sometimes I spot a week or two before my period. Why does there have to be such a big deal leading up to my period? Why does it have to start so slowly and be such a long drawn-out process most of the time? Why can’t I just get my period when it’s due? Better yet, why can’t I just have a hysterectomy? I can’t imagine my ever wanting Invitro bad enough. I’m content with life the way it is. We may not have the money we wish we had, but life is good, so why go and change a good thing? Besides, I thought of another way Tom could get his way with it. He’s smart enough to find a way to kill his sperm and have it appear dead when he brought it to the doctor, not that that couldn’t be the case for real. Like I said, a man who can get hard but won’t cum is the way he is for a reason. Not wanting a kid is the only thing I could ever think of. He sure as hell ain’t got no disease he’s trying to protect me from, so what else could it be? All I know is that whether or not I decide I want a kid again in the future, I’ll never have one because God will forbid it and Tom won’t allow it. He’s been manipulating and conning me out of it since day one, save for the few times he came around prime time.

Yesterday we went out to Walgreens and I got that skater Barbie I’ve had my eye on for nearly a year now. She wears a nice outfit with a top, skirt, and stockings mostly in blue. The skirt has a layer of purple trim and one of pink. Her skates are blue too, and there are feathers on her shoulders. She has a USA Olympic gold medal around her neck. She’s perfect for the Barbie stand that came with the Peruvian doll. Regular Barbie feet can’t quite touch the bass of the stand, but one with skates on can. There’s this thing on her back that you wind up to make her spin at the waist that doesn’t work, cuz you know I have to get the broken one. That’s fine, though, because I didn’t buy her to play with her and spin her around. I bought her to decorate with.

I got a couple of doll poster ads from Ashton-Drake. They take notice of what you like/buy. Since I bought Indians and ballerinas, they sent me a poster of an Indian girl and of a baby ballerina which I put on my office wall. My office looks more like a giant dollhouse rather than an office.

I almost broke down and made a doctor’s appointment, but decided against it. I’ve been a little better lately and I still don’t see how they could help me. I just hope it never comes down to where I need medication, for any reason, that my life absolutely depends on because doctors just can’t be depended on. They’re too incompetent and unreliable these days.

I see Gophie out there. It’s nice to know that the snake never got her! In fact, maybe the snake moved on, cuz she’s by its hole right now.

Later...

Oh, my God! We just might be having two houses on our land!! Evelyn’s planning on moving to an apartment in Phoenix because her trailer park is getting bad (I can just imagine!) and she told Tom that if we wanted her trailer, she’d just give it to us. Just give it to us! How great that would be! It’d be the perfect storage/workshop for Tom since we don’t need a guest house. The house is about 40’ long and 20-30 years old. It’s a two-bedroom/one-bath. It only has a living room besides that. No dens or retreats. Tom said he doesn’t remember what color it is, but either way, I’d like to paint it peach. We’ll have to pay a few hundred bucks or so to haul it out here and we’ll have to get permits for it, but it’ll be well worth it. We have different options as far as electricity goes. We have the generator we could use, or we could also use a windmill since it’s windy here most of the time. We have a 2 horsepower well pump that can pump 3 gallons of water per minute, so that’s where its water will come from if we decide to plumb it, and we probably will. It’ll probably go in the back, either just in front or just beyond the second wash, because we’re reserving the land at the master bedroom side of the house for the Arizona room/pool, and the back of the land for horses. Tom again mentioned wanting to get a mare to breed thoroughbred racehorses, and a couple of geldings (castrated males) to use for riding.

We did some research and according to what we could find out, that snake is not a rattlesnake. I didn’t think it was. I never saw any rattles on it and my vibes told me it was harmless. There are two possibilities as to what it could be, and both are anti-venomous. It could be either a coachwhip snake or a king snake. Actually, from what we read, a king snake would be a good thing to have around cuz they eat rattlers.

Saturday, May 13, 2000

Oh, these fucking goddamn, motherfucking allergies! They just never quit! I never had anything like this back east. Why is it that I always must trade one problem in for another? Why can’t I ever just solve a problem and let it end there? Ever since I stopped wheezing so bad since quitting smoking, my allergies have been a nightmare. I traded in my smoking addiction for a weight problem. Everything in life for me is a tradeoff. I have to be given a problem in order to get rid of one, and I have to be cursed in order to be blessed. Take Evelyn’s house, for example. You think God’s just gonna let her give us that house without making us pay in some way? Ha! We’ll have hell to go through just to get it and sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it, but we really could use the storage and workspace, so if we have to fight for it, we’ll put up our fists and fight.

My allergies got particularly bad when I first got the mice and I wondered if I should just let the ones I have die off and not get more, and if their sterility wasn’t a good thing after all, but Tom said he doesn’t think it’s the mice. He says that if it was, I’d have this every day. Yeah, but will I? It used to be that I’d take a Benadryl, crash for a couple of hours or so, then wake up fine. But now the allergy attack that used to last hours is lasting for days, so what’s to say I won’t end up with this shit every day where I can’t sit and do something for more than five minutes because I have to jump up and blow my runny, sneezy nose? This has been going on now for about 25 hours. I can’t even go a week or two without this shit.

Even though I’m sure I’ll still have this shit every week or two, I condensed the mice’s living quarters. Instead of having 5 or 6 houses set up with a zillion tubes, I’ve got Butter Rum and Oreo in a little cage with just one tube and hideaway, and the others in the big tank with just wheels, their crinkle paper box, and a few tubes.

Having allergies wasn’t the only thing to cause me to wake up on the wrong side of the bed, either. Tom said he screwed up and couldn’t get the groceries early this morning as planned. At first I thought he was saying that he bounced a check, but what he really did was assume that a certain company wouldn’t cash their check till Monday, which is payday anyway. But they did cash the check, so he sold a coin of his for $95 and bought groceries with that. I know he wanted to sell that coin anyway as he said, but all I could think about, once again, was ripping the shit out of Steven and Dan. It’s their fault that we’re in this situation. When are we ever gonna be free of these assholes’ fuck-ups?! They’ve been out of our lives for months now yet they’re still controlling us!

Anyway, I was pissed off cuz I thought our other weekend plans were shot. I said to Tom - so there goes the evening out of my hair, the putting up the flag outside, any sewing we may want to do, and the boring, predictable sex I know would’ve happened tomorrow at the end of your day. I explained that last one by pointing out that while he claims to want spontaneity, I not only know what’s going to happen in bed but lately, I know when it’s going to happen, too. Sunday, late afternoon or early evening, when he’s more tired so he can have an easier time holding back. Anyway, he said we could screw right then, so we did and I only had to know what was going to happen. I could tell it was a struggle for him. He had a hard time holding back, but he managed.

Week five and things are going just as predicted. My weight still bounces between 122-125 pounds, my thighs still bounce between 22-23, my waist still bounces between 29-30, and my tits and hips still bounce between 36-37. It’ll never change. Not without lots of starvation and many hours a day of working out. Neither of which is going to happen because I just don’t have the willpower to do it. Tom, though, insists that little by little it’ll work its way off and areas that haven’t gone down yet will go down in time. Ha! Not a chance. Yes, I went down a little in the lower back, the backs of my thighs, and my upper abs, which is nice, but what about the worst areas, such as my inner thighs, hips, and lower abs? And what about my face, neck, and arms? It’s hopeless. Totally hopeless, just like I’ve been saying week after week. Even if I could weigh 100-110 pounds tomorrow, I’d just have a whole new battle to fight. Maintaining lost weight is almost as hard for me to do as it is to lose it. Like I also said, I’m sick of fighting for the impossible. All I can do is maintain my current weight/inches, which isn’t too hard. Not as hard as it was to maintain 110-115 pounds the last I was there because that’s not natural in this day and age. Middle-aged people are supposed to be 20-50 pounds overweight.

Dan’s still here. Isn’t it a little late to still be here? Makes me wonder if my vibe about his quitting the summer getaways upon our arrival was an accurate one. At least he hasn’t been engine-gunning. All I heard so far this weekend was five seconds of someone’s car stereo. Probably whoever visits the house towards our front. They’d actually be in front of next door. It’s still too bad we couldn’t own all the land within a five-mile radius of this house! But if we did, God would just allow some desperate, attention-seeking asshole to create stereos that could be heard for over five miles, although the stereos that do exist are close to that. Anyway, I’m sure there’ll be stereos that can be heard for 20+ miles away eventually. Eventually, they’ll be too loud for the owners to blast without wearing ear protectors, but they won’t mind. They’re that desperate to put on a show and get noticed.

Monday, May 15, 2000

At 10:30 last night, Dan got a little desperate for attention. He came out and gunned a thunderous engine for about 20 seconds. You could tell he did it just to do it too, and that he didn’t drive off anywhere. Then, a few minutes later, his music started. He had a lot of outside lights on, so it was obvious that he was outside and that the music was either coming from a vehicle of some kind or through an open window/door. I was trying to read so I threw the fan on. When I turned it off a half-hour later, the music was off, so who knows how long it went on? When is this cock leaving? That’s what I want to know. Or is that a thing of the past now that we’re here? At least this thing doesn’t like the heat and at least it’s hot more often than not out here, cuz I’ve been hearing less and less of him as the weather’s warmed up. That’s why he was out so late, or else I’d have heard him in the afternoon. I’ve never heard his music that late before.

Tom said he’s seen one of the owls we have around here that we can sometimes hear hooting at night. They live in the big Palo Verdes that are close to the house. He said the one he saw was huge.

He also said he’s heard buzzing that sounds like that out of a horror movie, but cannot find any hives. He said he thinks the buzzing could be from katydids, but I doubt it. I think it’s bees.

To do a test to see just how much these allergies are related to the mice, I’ve condensed their living space and am going to change them twice a week instead of once a week.

Standing in the mirror, I took pictures of myself with my haircut. God, I have aged! I just don’t look like I did in my 20s. I’m graying, sagging, wrinkling and fat!

We decided we’d sleep together next Saturday night. I’m going to work with him for a few hours on Saturday, so we don’t want to disrupt my sleep the night before.

Tom just called from the cell phone saying he was approaching Circle K and asked if I wanted anything. I told him he could get me my favorite - caramel coffee.

I have a grand plan to lose this extra weight once and for all and if this doesn’t work, nothing will and I’ll just have to accept the 20 extra pounds I’ve got and live with it. I’ll just maintain what I’ve got and keep my weight between 120-125 for the rest of my life by watching what I eat and by working out if this plan fails.

Having 1000 calories a day for several weeks just won’t cut it for me. It’s too long and drawn out a process and I just don’t have the willpower to cut down my food week after week. Also, cutting down food is an awful lot like cutting down cigarettes; it doesn’t last long. You either smoke or don’t smoke at all. Same goes for the food. So, I’ve decided to try crashing my weight off at 5-pound intervals. It shouldn’t take me more than two days to starve off 5 pounds and if I could just lose at least 15 pounds, I would lose inches. Especially since most of my extra weight is fat at this point. If I can shed that outer layer of fat, then it’s OK if I gain the weight back with muscle, as long as my inches stay down. Anyway, I decided to pick Wednesdays and Thursdays as my crash days because on weekends he’s here eating a lot. I didn’t want to pick a Monday because that’s the day I usually go out and I wouldn’t want to go out if I couldn’t stop somewhere for a bite to eat. Anyway, the idea is to crash down to 120 pounds this week, then try to maintain that till next week. Then I’ll try to crash down to 115 and maintain that till next week when I try to crash down to 110. I’ll settle for 110 for now, depending on how it goes. One of three things will happen. I either won’t be able to do it at all, or I’ll be able to do it but won’t be able to maintain it, or I’ll be able to do it and I will maintain it. The last time I struggled to maintain a weight of 110-115, I didn’t have the Bowflex. Maybe this time around it’d be easier to do, but I will admit it is a long shot because I’m fighting nature. It’s not natural to be at an ideal weight when you’re middle-aged.

God, I wish we had money right now! I can’t believe the Gloria things they’re auctioning on eBay! Concert programs, posters, and CDs I’d love to have even though I’m not into her like I was in the late ’80s to early ’90s.

The amount of childbirth on TV never ceases to amaze me. It’s getting more and more, too. It used to be that every other show, movie, and commercial had childbirth in it, but now they’ve got a whole series just about that! There are three different series that I know of that are on every day and it’s nothing but people having babies. I don’t understand the obsession. I can see the murder mysteries, the sex, and the comedies, but the childbirth? I just don’t get it.

Later...

Just took some gorgeous sunset pictures out back. It’s absolutely beautiful out right now and I can’t wait till we have an Arizona room! That way we can be outdoors and not have to worry about bugs.

Last Saturday was the last of The Others.

Tuesday, May 16, 2000

I finished proofreading my story and now it’s Tom’s turn.

Not that I want to have sex more often with this guy, but every day I see he’s such a liar about saying he wants more sex. He spends the bulk of his time that he’s home sitting in front of the TV, never making time for sex when the opportunity’s there, except for once during the weekend.

Later...

Tom put the flag up yesterday. I had him put it by the front door. I’m flying a flag of a cactus and coyote. The same one that hung on the wall in the back room over the microwave in Phoenix.

He also evened out my hair.

It’s very windy right now, as it usually is. It’s nice to hear the wind chimes, but this wind gets old. All it does is scatter the shit outside about the land and interfere with us burning trash. Tom said he heard we could be in for some rain today or tomorrow and it could be only in the mid-60s. Yeah, right! Well, it sure as hell isn’t going to rain. I doubt it’ll rain till August when the monsoons set in.

Wednesday, May 17, 2000

I decided not to do my grand plan of a diet because I know I’ll only end up working so hard for so little if anything at all. As soon as I started eating again, I’d only gain back whatever weight I lost.

I’ve been working out for six weeks now and Tom says I look different overall. Oh, yeah? Then how come I’m the same exact weight since I began and how come my measurements are the same as they were when I began? I’ll tell you why - because I just don’t have the willpower to eat 1000 calories a day and work out for at least three hours a day. I need 1500-2000 calories a day and I can’t bring myself to work out longer than 20-60 minutes a day.

To top it all off, I’m sick of dealing with it. I’m fat and I’m always going to be. Period. Sometimes the best way to deal with a problem that can’t be solved is to just ignore it. Just crumble it up like an unwanted piece of paper and chuck it in the garbage. That’s all I can do. Just forget it and accept the 20 extra pounds I carry as a part of me that just is. Just like my arms and legs are a part of me.

Later...

Tom fixed one of my programs that wouldn’t run in Windows 98 which is what I’ve been using since my mouse and word processor first died.

Evelyn’s serious about giving us her trailer. She sent home a few pictures of it with Tom. It’s recently been painted, so I guess I won’t be painting it any time soon. It’s white with light blue trim. Again, it’s a 40’ single-wide and looks like Dennis’ trailer, only it’s bigger and newer. It may be a while before we get it because it may be a while before she moves. We’ll have to come up with the money to haul it out here and have it set up. As Tom pointed out today, the thing has to be strapped down with the way the wind is ferocious out here, or else something that size (a fourth of the size of this house, barely) will blow over and smash into this house. We want to put it where half is behind the house, and the other half sticks past the master bedroom end of the house, blocking the view of the rentals. You could probably see the rentals from the kitchen and den windows, but not from the retreat, once it’s here.

Just think, I told Tom, a workshop that comes with a ton of storage space, a place to wash up, and a place to pee! Now he won’t have to come all the way to the house just to pee.

I feel so bad for Evelyn. Yes, I know all too well what it’s like to live in a shit neighborhood with shit neighbors that I just can’t wait to escape! Like most trailer parks, hers is loaded with scum freeloaders. I can just imagine all the noise she has to put up with! I’m sure this place has always been bad too, and that she just couldn’t resist wasting her time like I used to by asking the lazies to lower their music and that by now, she’s just asked one freeloader too many, causing their shit to escalate. You don’t do that to them. You just don’t ask blacks and Mexicans to turn their music down. First they’ll ignore your request, then they’ll get pissed over it. There’s no changing the blacks and Mexicans of this world, although Joebitch’s boy toy did quiet down in the end. Why, they didn’t raise holy hell right before they moved, though, still baffles me to this day. What would they have had to lose at that point if they were out from under the city’s wing?

They have a new series on HBO all about the lives of blacks. No thanks. I don’t care to watch blacks stand out on the streets dealing drugs and shooting people any more than I care for the childbirth.

Thursday, May 18, 2000

Yesterday was a major breakthrough as far as any resentment I’ve ever had towards Tom for not cumming. Even though I have long since stopped wanting a kid and although I’ve always known I was sterile, even if doctors could never tell me why, I had conflicting emotions, nonetheless, that I feared would never change. I felt controlled by Tom and I resented his not cumming regularly to let me play things out, despite the inevitable outcome of me never conceiving. I was angry with him for taking the chance to do that away from me. Let’s put it this way, I still feel it was always within his control and that he made the choice not to cum, and I always will feel that way despite how much he denies it. I also don’t buy his feeling bad about it, because if that’s how he really felt, and if he really had a problem that was out of his control, he’d have done something about it a long time ago. So obviously my feelings about it never mattered that much to him, and if they did, they didn’t matter as much to him as his being and staying the way he is mattered to him. For his own reasons, it was always more important to him to keep me from conceiving, than it was to deal with my feelings and do things to give that a chance to happen, despite the odds against it. I’ll never believe Tom’s lack of cumming is out of his hands unless a doctor came out and told me - look. It’s not his fault and there’s nothing that can be done about it. If he couldn’t get hard in the first place, that’d be different.

I still have no regrets about how things turned out. I’m glad we never did have that kid or else we wouldn’t be where we are today in life. I just wish I never had to go through the damn pain of wanting one and knowing I could never have one in the first place. This is why I can never shed my hard feelings towards God, no matter what he blesses me with. That, and how he allows so many horrible things to happen throughout this world. Any God that can let a woman suffer the way he let me suffer can never be respected or loved by me. I’ll never forgive him for robbing me of my right to choose, even if it was the best thing he ever did for me. Still, that should’ve been my decision to make.

Anyway, I finally feel any hard feelings I’ve ever had towards Tom dissipating. He doesn’t ever have to cum, I don’t ever have to play out scenes that weren’t meant to be played out, and I don’t ever have to have invitro. And I don’t resent him anymore. His happiness and his being how he wants to be is what’s most important to me and life is good, overall. Why change a good thing? Like I said, I really appreciate those dry sheets and not having to use birth control! He’s happy, I’m happy, and life will go on and be just wonderful, no matter what it holds for us, as long as we’re together forever. I know we’ll still have our bad days. I know things will still break, money will still be an issue (at least for a while), he’ll still get colds, I’ll still have breathing problems, but I’d rather the car have a flat tire every day if it means being with him than to have any of my old life back. Especially the part before I knew him.

Friday, May 19, 2000

Just went out and threw some food out for Gophie. Haven’t seen that snake since I first saw it. I guess it moved on.

Freddie’s gotten to be the fattest mouse I ever had and he’s so lazy, too. I wonder if he doesn’t have tumors.

Anyway, maybe there are still some hard feelings toward Tom. God, all the problems with sex. Sex, sex, sex! Always sex-related! I’m so fucking sick of it! Eliminate all the fights over sex and having a kid and we’d hardly ever fight. At least we don’t fight nearly as much as we used to since I became OK with not having a kid. He’s not only lied about why he doesn’t cum and about wanting a kid, but he also lied about cumming back when I tricked him by playing dumb and commenting on how he came regularly. He was caught red-handed, yet he still had the gall to lie to my face. So, he’s already proven that he’s capable of lying when it’s in his best interest. Aside from his lying about sex and a kid, I appreciate him for a million reasons, but does he fully appreciate me? I’ve done a lot more than just save him time by doing his laundry and cleaning the house. Do you know how many women would’ve left him because of the sex, and mostly because they couldn’t have a child with him? He, right along with God, has taken so much from me, regardless of if I’m OK with it. Not that I desire to leave him or cheat on him, but I’m doomed to a life of shitty sex, when he wants it, how whatever’s up there wants it, with no regard for what I may want, and God help me if I ever want a kid again. Yes, God would see to it that I miscarried as many times as they did an implant in me if I had invitro, but do I really think Tom would ever let me get that far? Right! I’m sure he’d either refuse to cum or tamper with it if he did. If I never mentioned a kid again, neither would he for as long as he lived.

I’m also a little tired of his getting so defensive over simple little comments I may make. Last night I offered to have sex, but he wasn’t in the mood. It wasn’t the weekend. All I said was, “Yeah, I know you’re a weekend kind of guy,” and he was like, “Yeah, well, let me be me.”

Now what did that comment have to do with him being him? All I did was make an observation. Not demand he be somebody else. As far as dominating and controlling the sex, he sure is your average, normal male! Thank God he doesn’t want it just about every day like most males do! That’d really drive me crazy.

Anyway, the reaction to my comment and to a test I ran him through is what upset me most. I said I was thinking of experimenting with calling the gay lines just to see what his reaction would be. Sure enough, he was against it. So, he can do what he wants sexually, but I can’t. It’s amazing he even goes down on me at times. Nonetheless, I would never step out on him and I know it’s a good thing that he objected, and I figured as much, but I just had to see it anyway.

My sex life isn’t over just because of him and his boring bullshit. It’s cuz of me. I just have no interest anymore. The only thing that interests me is to close my eyes and imagine a woman down there while I use the vibrator and this isn’t nearly as often as it used to be, either. It’s just that when you’re dealing with fantasy, and I’ve always felt this way, there are no problems. The vibrator could break, but it doesn’t lie to me and play games. It doesn’t make me feel controlled, manipulated or cheated out of things that should rightfully be mine. So, I guess I was wrong to say I was over my hard feelings towards Tom. Perhaps I never will be and perhaps this is the one thing I can never ever forgive him for. I’m going to try my damnedest, though, not to give him the satisfaction of knowing how I feel, even though I’ve told him. I just don’t want to let it show if I can help it. I’ll just go along with him and let him dictate when and how we have sex. I still could do without a kid, and at the same time I have hard feelings, I want him to be happy and do what he wants more than I want him to change to suit me.

I feel this is more than just a case of his not cumming because he doesn’t want the expense and responsibility of a child and because he doesn’t think I could handle a child (even though he denies all this). I think it’s also about arrogance and stubbornness. It’s like a competition to him that he’s determined to stick to and win. It’s almost like he’s been saying to me all these years, “You got your way with this, this and that, and you’re not getting your way with this one.”

Fine Tom. Just remember - the next time you say you’re bothered by how you are - do something about it or don’t mention it at all.

It’s important that I note that for every time he’s lied about sex and a kid, he’s done and said thousands of wonderful things. I love this man dearly, despite his flaws, and I couldn’t imagine life without him. Even if I returned to wanting a kid really bad and knew I could conceive by a man who’d cum regularly and was attracted to men in general, I’d still give that up in the name of love. I love Tom enough to give up anything I may want that I can’t have with him for whatever the reason may be. I only wish that he’d be honest about things. He should’ve told me up front that he was against cumming and a kid. I still would’ve loved him and stayed with him.

Now, after nearly 7 years of this sexual shit, I’m SICK TO DEATH OF IT!!! So, hopefully, you won’t be hearing much about it from me from here on out. I’m fated for the sex to be how it has been for the rest of my life. Period. Why cry over spilled milk?

Later...

This is just too damn weird! I usually get up around 10:00 these days, but I’ve been up since 7:30 today. That’s because I had a dream someone was knocking on the door and got up and checked to be sure and couldn’t fall back asleep. I didn’t see anyone, and I was sure it was just a dream seeing that I’ve had dreams like this before and how early it was, but now I don’t know. Surprisingly enough, it turns out that Tom had that same exact dream at 2:30 in the morning, 6 hours after going to bed, just like me. I can’t find any other common denominators, though. He said he was sure his was a dream because it didn’t sound real and because of the hour, but this sure is a bizarre coincidence, not to mention the footsteps I could’ve sworn I heard inside the house. Although the animals could’ve easily made this sound, shortly after he went to bed, I went and vegged out in bed with coffee. Well, he sometimes shuffles his feet when he walks. Especially if he’s tired. I could’ve sworn I heard him come shuffling out into the kitchen and fumble around with something in there, be it a glass or whatever, but he says it wasn’t him. If our dreams weren’t dreams, then who the hell would be knocking at the door at such odd hours and why? Burglars don’t make any sense because 2:30 in the morning just isn’t the time to go breaking into houses unless you want to risk getting killed. At 7:30, someone could’ve seen that the car was gone, but if they knocked with plans of breaking in if no one answered, why didn’t they? I peeked out the window cuz I can see the stairs from there. I didn’t see anyone, any fresh tracks, or any cars, so who knows if our dreams were just dreams or not? It’s a hell of a coincidence, though.

The first thing I think when I think of knocks on the door is - oh, no. Somebody did something to the blacks or Mexicans and they don’t know who did, so they’re conveniently naming me just to get at me and just to punish somebody for whatever shit happened to them. 

These people are sick enough to do something like that, and besides, this world is so black and white, lacking fairness and gray, balanced areas. Meaning that where whites once had more rights than minorities; now it’s the other way around. You think Mr. Biased would jump to defend a white person being harassed by a black or a Mexican? Somehow, I don’t think so.

Saturday, May 20, 2000

My hair is the healthiest it’s been in over a decade. I certainly don’t have any split ends anymore. Maybe a few, but they’d be hard to find, just like it used to be hard to find any that weren’t.

I couldn’t have been righter when I told Tom in Phoenix that old curses never die, and that we’d be playing leak in no time at all after moving. This is leak number three already! Those mother-fuckers at Palm Harbor! Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhh! They’ve got two marks against them. They’re males (mostly) and they’re Mexicans. I love this house, but I totally regret not taking Tom’s suggestion and getting out of Phoenix sooner than we did. I didn’t know, though, that we’d have to go through the four months of bullshit we went through, although I should’ve known, and I didn’t know the house would be made in Mexico! We should’ve cut our freeloader time down, skipped out on the freeloaders altogether, and left Phoenix sooner. We could’ve gotten land and a cheap trailer like what we’re getting from Evelyn and lived in that while we built a house for us and built it right. These fucking Mexicans half-assed so many fucking things with this house, it’s fucking pitiful! The leak we had under the house the first night we were in here, though, was Brian’s fault (always a fucking male), but the half-assed tightening of the pipes under the kitchen and second bath sinks were completely Mexicans-made. Tom just discovered the second bath’s sink leaks and believes this may be the cause of the foul odor we’ve smelled in there. Now why can’t these lazy bastards do something as simple as tightening a valve all the way, huh? Is this really that difficult to do? Pathetic people do pathetic things. Anyway, even Mary was astounded. She was like - you mean you’re fixing leaks on a brand-new house?! Yup. And I’m sure we’ll be fixing something else they’ve fucked up real soon. Anyway, I’d like to know what’s causing the foul odor in the master bath. So far, I amazingly can’t find any leaks in there yet, although this odor is different. The second bath smelled kind of like the smell of hair dye that hits you went you walk into a salon. The one in the master bath smells like seaweed. I’ll keep an eye on it, but it looks like they may have left us one area that actually doesn’t leak. What’s next, though? The toilets? The dishwasher? What?

Household problems aren’t the only unfortunate vibes I have. Right now, I have the feeling we’re not getting a printer in June like we had hoped and talked about. Something does not want me sending pictures to Doe, Art and Tammy. Tom said he’s not ready to give up on it and I told him that I was, so when he sees that I’m right, don’t beat yourself up for it, I said. It’s not your fault. You know whose fault it is.

Steven and Dan, you lucky, lucky mother-fuckers! They’re just as lucky as Bill and Larry and so many others for escaping my fists. How I’d love to scar up Steven’s face so that every time he looked in the mirror, he remembered me!!!

Well, I’ve been working out for six weeks now and where do I stand? Really close to where I started. My starting measurements were 37-29-38 with 22½ thighs. Now they’re 36½-29-37 with 22 thighs. Big deal, huh? Although I suppose it’s better than nothing. I still think I’ll always fluctuate between weighing 122-125 pounds and an inch or so in measurements, but he says that in time, if I stick to working out, I’ll fluctuate between smaller numbers. That’s OK. I can accept maintaining what I’ve got. I mean, at least I can maintain and never have to worry about getting bigger. Carrying 20 extra pounds for the rest of my life won’t kill me. There are worse things than that. Also, I’m glad I finally found something I can enjoy sticking to. I can’t imagine life without the Bowflex! I’m 122 pounds today, but today I can’t shit, so I’m sure I’ll be gaining. Last week I was stuck for four days and ended up going from 122-125. I hope I’m not stuck that long, but if I am, I am. There’s nothing I can do about it.

Tonight’s the night Tom and I agreed we’d sleep together, but I have a feeling that if I don’t mention it, he won’t either, so we’ll see. I’m not going to mention it because I want to see how much it matters to him. I don’t want to push him into doing something he doesn’t want to do. As for me, you know I hate sharing a bed so I can live without us sleeping together. I wake up at the slightest movement, and his snoring is horrendous. What’s important is that we love each other and stay together forever.

We were going to go to where he works together today, but he didn’t need to work, so we visited Mary, Dave and Mom today, stopping at Circle K first.

Her evaporative cooler felt nice. I miss those things. We were there for a little over two hours and made sure not to arrive till Pepper was gone. They brought him to be groomed. It was nice not having him out back barking his ass off. All I had to listen to at times was their obnoxious birds. The hamster and fish are quiet, though.

Before we left I copied a few pictures for them onto a floppy. Pictures of the snake, the iguana, the scorpion, and the outfits we made for Bailey.

We all watched the Preakness horse race on TV (boring) and Mary and Dave went out to get pizza at one point, too. Dave and I teased Tom and Mary for liking pepperoni pizza and they ranked on us for liking mushroom pizza. I had two pieces which fortunately didn’t fuck up my stomach.

While Mary and Dave were getting the pizza, Mom said, “Have you seen the really cute commercial? The one where a woman’s having a baby and out pops a Japanese baby?”

I’m like - oh, please! I’m so sick of commercials, movies and shows with that shit. I’ve seen childbirth on TV more than murder!

Speaking of TV, I guess part of the reason we’re not getting the printer in June is my fault. I mentioned how our TV is a little small and definitely too dark since it’s very old. Well, they took this to mean more than just a casual comment. I guess I came off as not being able to live without a good TV. I said something about the TV a few times and they ended up calling us once we got home offering to buy us a new TV for our anniversary unless we could think of something we wanted more. Well, I want a new printer more than a new TV, but a new TV would certainly be nice. Very nice, and I know Tom would love it because he said he wants a TV more than a printer and because of how much he loves TV. He spends 90% of the time he’s home watching TV, I sometimes feel I have to compete with it and that he doesn’t want to spend time with me. There’s not much we could do together, though. He doesn’t like sex all that much and we can’t go swimming together, that’s for sure. Anyway, I have mixed emotions about them getting us a TV, which is so generous of them to offer. I want Tom to have what he wants, but like he said, I threw a monkey wrench in his plan. He was hoping for more money than usual for our anniversary cuz Ma’s upping the amount of money she’s giving people to avoid us being taxed when she dies, and now we may not get that if we get the TV. If I was smart, I’d drop the idea of sending pictures to people, like I said before. If I’m right about something not wanting me to do it, and it gets more and more obvious that that’s the case, I don’t want to get in trouble over people I can’t stand anyway. I only wanted to rub it in their faces (the new house, etc.), but not that bad. They’re not that worth it, trust me.

Mary’s yard looked great. She’s got those wildflowers at the side of her house, a pretty primrose bush in front, a rose bush, a tall palm tree, etc. We can’t plant things here from seed because of how the wildlife eats them, but hopefully we won’t have any problems planting things we’ll get from a nursery someday.

Mary told us a cute story about a woman she saw playing with a rat in her car at an intersection. She said it was running around her neck and that the woman was picking it up by the tail and tickling its stomach.

I can’t believe how good Mary’s thighs look for being as overweight as she is. I mean, she’s much bigger than me, and she is overweight, but not like Nora and Evie and so many other women are. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she jogged. Her thighs seem skinnier than mine and firmer. Also, she has no craters on the backs of her thighs like I do. How does she pull it off and eat McDonald’s every day and not exercise?

Later…

Looks like I guessed right. Sleeping together once a week isn’t that important to Tom, or else he’d have remembered our plans. Still, I’m not going to make him do anything he doesn’t want to do, and besides, I doubt I would’ve enjoyed it. I like sleeping with people in my imagination.

I totally dread my next dentist appointment. My teeth are a mess and I’m going to have a dozen cavities! My teeth have even been sensitive to hot and cold lately.

Later…

I decided that once Tom mentioned going to bed and heading towards the guest room, I’d ask if he forgot about our plan, or if it just wasn’t worth remembering. He said he forgets to do things he wants to do all the time. Whatever. I asked him what he wanted to do and he said he’d sleep in his room tonight, but that he wanted what we discussed to have time to “sink in.” He said that people usually go to bed around the same time, but not to go to sleep with the hopes of trying not to wake the other person up. He said it’s a shared thing where sometimes you wake each other up, both intentionally and not. Sometimes you just wake each other up by accident, sometimes you deliberately do so to screw, etc. So what do we do from here? I asked him, and he said there were no plans and no steps to take, cuz this is something that just is. Not for us, it isn’t. I think we’d have some work to do in order to make it something that just is if that’s possible, but as I told him, I’ll do what he wants, and whatever’s fated to be will be. I have a feeling, though, that if we try to adapt to new ways, something up in the sky will get awfully mad at us, cuz wouldn’t we have been sleeping together all along if we were meant to in the first place? I told him that the spontaneity of it sounded nice, but if he liked spontaneity, then why does he announce when we’re gonna have sex? He always says something like - let’s get together in ten minutes, or something like that. He said he would prefer to be spontaneous about it and that the reason he announces it is that I’m always saying I’m gonna listen to music, have popcorn, or do something, so he feels that’s the only way to wedge it in. I kind of took that as a lame excuse, though. Yes, I’d like to be left alone when I’m listening to music and yes, I’d like to eat my popcorn in peace, but what about the other things I do? They’re interruptible. I take breaks from the things I do all the time, anyway. If I’m reading in the bedroom, he’s welcome to come in and join me because that book will still be there when we’re done, and I don’t mean just for sex. I mean for anything, be it to chat or whatever. In the end, whatever will be, will be. I still truly believe that. We’ll go where we’re destined to go.

Sunday, May 21, 2000

I’m experimenting with and trying to get to like this newer, more modern word processor I’m using. I like how it automatically caps the first letter after a period and the I’s in words like I’m, I’ll, etc. This word processor is three years old and the one I’ve been using all along is eight years old. It has all the functions the other one had, plus some new features that are hard to figure out, but I’m working on it. This is the word processor we’re going to use to send my story to publishers.

Paula definitely had to have lost her phone for her not to have called this long. I’m rather disappointed that she never sent me the letter and picture she said she was going to send. Why does she have to be such a bullshitter? Maybe something happened to her, though. Maybe she punched someone else out and is in jail, or maybe she got killed. In my next letter to her, I’ll say something about stopping my letters in case something happened where she wasn’t getting my mail, and see if that prompts her into writing.

Dan’s got his place lit up and has his music on. This time it’s softer than last Sunday night and I can just ever so barely make it out. This is one lonely, dude. I said to myself – I’ll bet come Sunday evening, after spending the whole weekend alone with no one to talk to, he’s gonna get desperate for attention and play his music when it cools down. Well, I was right. I guess I know a lonely person when I see one. I’m amazed he isn’t engine-gunning. Other than that, it’s been a quiet, peaceful weekend. I finally get to live the way I want to live and the way that should be my right to live if I want to – in peace. I’ll enjoy every second I get of it! It’s so wonderful not knowing next door’s habits and who they have for visitors and when they have them. It ain’t my business and I don’t want to know!

On the wall in my office where I intend to put that beach mural, one of these years, I hung two rows of flags. Two rows of three. I’ve got irises, Tweety, an underwater fish, Bugs Bunny, Snoopy, and musical notes. Personally, I think it looks sort of tacky. Especially with Indian dolls in front of it. I may take it down. We’ll see.

I’m having one of those screwy periods that are slow in starting. I had spots, then a light flow, and now I’m waiting on my full flow. I thought that was coming on early cuz I got all crampy and asked Tom for a raincheck on sex if he had any plans for that today. No problem, he said. He took it so well as usual. I guess this means we’ll have to wait till next weekend since he doesn’t really like sex during the week, even if he won’t admit this. If I’m right, and I’m only going by his actions, cuz actions do speak louder than words – what’s the big deal? Why can’t he just admit he likes sex on the weekend? And at the end of his day? He seems to copycat me, though. Meaning that when I bail out of sex for whatever reason, he does the same thing. So, next weekend, he may bail out. Better yet, my guess is that we’ll get in bed together, but we won’t screw. Something will happen where he’ll conveniently forget how to go inside me, or I’ll be too dry, or he’ll be sore, tired, or curious about what’s going on outside. One or the other will happen for sure, but he’ll bail out. I’d bet my dolls on it.

Monday, May 22, 2000

Two nights ago I put Ratsy and Fudgie in the big barred cage, but when I got up this morning just before 9:00, I noticed that Fudgie escaped. I should’ve known he was still too skinny! I haven’t seen that little devil, whom I’m guessing is asleep under the couch, but come tonight when he gets hungry and thirsty, I expect I’ll see him. At least he’s not a chewer and hasn’t damaged any wires.

I’m not even stuck and I’m back to 125 pounds. I feel like a giant balloon! I don’t know if it’s water or what, but this period has been super screwy. I woke up with cramps today but never bled a drop. My tits are still a little sore too, so when am I gonna flow out and be done with this shit for the month? I hate having these periods be such long, drawn-out ordeals. Can’t I just get my period? Just simply get it? Better yet, how about a hysterectomy? Why not, God? You and I both know I don’t need my uterus.

Later…

Well, I’m not stuck anymore. Still 125, though. Why is it so natural for me to be 20-25 pounds overweight? Why??? Stupid question, I know. Just about everyone who’s over 30 is overweight. Although I knew it wouldn’t, it still would’ve been nice if I could’ve lost weight and inches with the Bowflex, but if I bounce back and forth between 122-125 it’ll be better than going over 125. Same with the 1-2 inches I bounce between. Better my thighs go bouncing between 22-23 than to wake up one day with 25” or even 30” thighs!

The only way I could lose weight would be to starve it off, but what’s the point? If I were 110 tomorrow, I’d be back to where I am now in a few weeks, so why bother?

I know it’s daytime, but it kind of bothers me that I haven’t seen Fudgie. I’d like to believe he’s under the couch, sleeping happily and comfortably till he gets hungry enough to show himself, but why do I have the feeling I’ll never see him again, and that if I do, he won’t be alive? God, please don’t take this rat! At least not so soon!

Later…

Fudgie’s home! I just got up to head into the kitchen for coffee when I saw him at his bowl eating. I had moved Ratsy into the tank and left the door open to the big cage so he could get food and drinks. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, in light of losing Scuttles so soon, but man is this rat scrawny! I hope it’s nothing bad and that he fattens up soon.

I see Gophie out front playing right now. Now that my inside pets are situated, I think I’ll go out and give her a bite to eat.

Later…

It’s hot out there. I don’t know how hot since as usual, I’m having trouble getting online.

I took down the flag wall I made. Tom climbed the ladder and tacked the top row of flags up, and I only had to climb about three rungs of that shaky ladder, fortunately, and could just yank the flags off the wall. It was just too much. Too tacky looking. The beach scene mural will look a lot nicer.

I guess I’m officially moved over here and done with the 1992 version of this program that had been such a good friend of mine for so long. Another thing I like about this program is that I can use more than eight characters for file names.

Later…

Tom called about a half-hour ago, saying he was leaving work. Last night he told me it’d be a late day for him, but because his boss doesn’t want him working overtime, he gets to leave work early later on in the week.

Oh, how cute. Gophie’s out front running back and forth. I wonder – is this the same animal I’ve been seeing and feeding? Or are there other Gophies? I get the feeling this is the same one because I’ve never seen more than one Gophie at once.

I changed the mice’s cages earlier. I’m trying to change all the animals on Mondays and Thursdays instead of just Mondays. Although I always have the group of six mice in a large tank, I always do a different tube design. This time around I have a tower of straight tubes sticking off of T-tubes at different angles, stemming up from the bass of the tank.

I guess Fudgie could live like a cat if he’s not going to chew and damage anything. Or decide to go pissing and shitting wherever he felt like it. If I left the cage door open, he could come and go as he pleases, using his cage as a litter box and for food and drink. Ratsy, on the other hand, is a chewer, so unless I want to separate them, which I don’t, I better keep the door shut. Maybe I’ll separate them sometimes and let Fudgie run around loose for a while. Maybe tonight, before bed, I’ll stick him in the big cage, and then let him escape for a while.

Tuesday, May 23, 2000

I’m a bit rundown now. Something just hasn’t wanted me to sleep without interruptions these last couple of nights. The night before last, cramps woke me up. Last night I was up for an hour with cramps too, and then I woke up for a second at 8:00. I would’ve gone right back to sleep if I hadn’t noticed that the power was out. I wasn’t planning to get up till 9:30. The first thing I thought was – oh no! Tom forgot to pay them or couldn’t pay them and now the power will be off all day and I won’t be able to reach him for hours and it’ll get to be a sauna in here! And what if we lose the phone, too? Well, I never did reach him, but fortunately, it wasn’t turned off for lack of payment. It was off all over Maricopa. Since I couldn’t reach Tom or fucking APS, I called Mary’s. I expected to get Mom because Tom told me Evelyn was going to stop staying with Mom during the daytime and that Mom would be going into an adult daycare center, but Evelyn answered. I told her that I couldn’t reach Tom or APS and that I feared they shut us off, but she was the one who got through to APS somehow and found out that they were having problems in the area and that it wasn’t just us. So I was without power for nearly an hour. Then again, a couple of hours later, it went out for about ten minutes. Due to the loss of power, it shot the well, so now I have no water, but I can certainly live without that compared to the AC. Of course I’ve had to piss and shit like hell since I can’t flush the toilets. Hopefully, they won’t back up once the water’s on again. I wish there was an easier way to reach Tom!!! He might be able to tell me how to reset the fucking pump. Anyway, I don’t want to get into too much computer work in case the power fails again.

For now, I’ll just say that I put Fudgie back in the big cage yesterday and let him escape since he doesn’t seem to be harming anything. I really think he goes under the couch. He escaped sometime after I went to bed at 12:30 just like the night before, and Tom and I noticed he was gone at 3:30. He should be getting hungry for lunch soon, or rather a midnight snack, for being the nocturnal creature that he is. Anyway, when I found him gone I put Ratsy in the tank since I don’t want him loose too, cuz he chews more than Fudgie. After putting Ratsy in the tank, I opened the door to the big cage so he can get in when he wants to go home.

Later…

Tom showed me how to record a macro so I could insert the time with just two keystrokes that I hit at once. Ctrl+8 is for the time and ctrl+9 is for the date and time. In the other program, I recorded a macro for the ½ sign, but this program automatically inserts the ½ sign when you type 1-slash-2. It also makes the ‘st’ of 1st smaller and the ‘rd’ of 3rd smaller. Yes, I like this version much better. I just need a new mouse. I miss having the motion wheel.

I took a nap for an hour or two. Hopefully, I’ll still be able to go to bed around midnight and sleep straight through till around 9:00 without interruptions.

Earlier, I heard a boom car stereo go by for the second night in a row, but I never did see the car. Tom still insists they can’t live out here because they can’t take the vibrations of the bumpy dirt roads, but obviously they can, although it may be someone who just visits someone else frequently. Nonetheless, I heard it and I’m sure it was from a car and not from a house. God, what am I going to do when they get more and more frequent?! They may not be able to get as close to me as they used to, but when they progress a little more and get even louder, that’ll make up for the difference. When it comes to these things I wish I was born earlier than the mid-60s. The turn of the century would’ve been nice. Then I could be dead or close to it when the damn things came out. People get worse and worse and pushier and pushier when it comes to doing their thing. They get more and more selfish and more and more desperate for attention. I saw a case on Cops the other night where a baby’s parents took it to a bar. Then the parents had an argument and they ended up outside in an alley. At one point, the mother handed the baby to a homeless bum so she could fight with her husband. My point? My point is that these are the kinds of people that are becoming parents more and more often. Eventually, all parents will be like them. Well, this baby – these are the kinds of kids that grow up to be the selfish losers like what we had to live next to for years. This neglected baby is going to grow up wanting to be heard, to be noticed, to seek the acknowledgment of its existence. It’ll do anything for attention. Just like a religious fanatic wants to spread God’s so-called holy word to as many people as possible, these fucks want to spread their music to as many people as possible. The best way to reach more people with noise is with music. I mean, what else are they gonna do? Stand out on a street corner and yell? That’d get some attention, but not as much as a moving car would with music blasting from it that’s way louder than a person’s voice. Anyway, it’s quiet here 99% of the time. The best thing about the power failure, which makes a house dead quiet, is not having to listen to barking dogs, let alone noisy blacks and Mexicans. You rarely hear dogs in here, thank God. They haven’t even been booming in the sky. It’d be nice if they only did that January 1st – March 15th every year, but fat chance. I’m sure they alternate flying schedules. Maybe they’ll start again on June 1st, which may be a good thing. It may help me stay on schedule till my next appointment.

I finally got a hold of Tom at work around noon and he came home to reset the well, which shuts itself off after a power failure. I tried to do it myself, but the buttons are fucked up thanks to when it shorted out before. Thanks, Dan, you mother-fucking cock! Will there ever be a day when I don’t want to kill Steven and Dan? I doubt it!

He reminded me that I could’ve called his old work number, cuz there’s always someone there that could go get him in an emergency. I did call that number, but it was busy. Maybe I dialed wrong.

Another thing Tom pointed out is that due to this house being so well insulated, it wouldn’t kill me if I had no AC all day. It’d get uncomfortable, but not to the point where I’d roast to death.

Anyway, I learned a lesson from this, which he pointed out – don’t attempt to take a shower after a power failure cuz that’ll just drain all the water from the pressure tank. If I don’t, then I can flush the toilet 20-30 times. Having two toilets helped so I could divvy up my peeing between the two, trying to use as little toilet paper as possible, although if I’d had to do them all in one, it wouldn’t have backed up.

Fudgie, whose nickname is Houdini, after the famous escapist magician, lost his freedom today. I discovered one of his hiding places, which neither of us was too surprised about since it’s close to where I sleep. I still think he may have gone under the couch, but he was definitely hanging out in the corner of the master closet behind the guitars. He chewed the toe up on one of my old ballet slippers, which I thought was no big deal. I simply moved the good shoes up to the shelves. But then the little devil had the nerve to chew holes in the airbed, so that was it. He’s in the tank till he can’t squeeze through the bars. I also think it’s best that he remains in captivity so he doesn’t get too used to being free and less and less wanting to be handled by me and to play with me. I want him to want to hang out with me too, and not just to want to explore.

Wednesday, May 24, 2000

Oh, that fucking spit doctor! He just doesn’t give up. Like he needs any more money than he’s got? The cock that cleaned my ear out is still trying to bill us for it yet it was supposed to be covered by our insurance. Tom called them once or twice and told them it was an insured appointment, they said they “screwed up their billing,” but they keep billing us. Well, we’re not paying for something we don’t owe money on, that’s for sure. And I don’t believe they “screwed up their billing.” I think they deliberately bill people for stuff they’re insured for to try to make an extra buck, hoping some sucker will get fed up with the bills and collection agency letters and just pay the damn thing, but their scam won’t work on us.

What was weird was that I not only got a letter about it from a collection agency, but I got a certified letter. I never got the letter, though, cuz they sent it back. They try a couple of times to get the letter to you, but when that doesn’t work they give up and send the letter back. I didn’t get it because Tom didn’t go to pick up the mail on the days they tried to get it to me, but that’s OK, I’m not interested. I found it strange that they’d send a certified letter and not just a regular letter. Since when do collection agencies send certified letters? Tom said he’s sure that’s who the letter is from and he pointed out how there was no return on the envelope of the regular letter or the slip for the certified letter. I hope he’s right, cuz those freeloaders have me so paranoid (even though I haven’t done a damn thing to these shitfucks). Especially when they’ve got cops on their side like Mr. Biased who wouldn’t believe a damn thing I told him, anyway. He never wanted to see the truth as to which one of us was really the victim. Tom said not to worry and that if it was anything official, I wouldn’t be getting a certified letter over it.

Evelyn left a message for me to call her, saying Ma wanted to talk to me, and I was like – what could she possibly want to talk to me about? Anyway, I called her (I must’ve had the music blaring when she called) and Evelyn answered. I apologized for getting hysterical on her yesterday and she was like – no problem, and even gave me her home phone number. It’s funny to think that of all the people Evelyn hates, which is almost everyone, she likes me. I can see her liking Tom like she does, but me? When Tom told me what she was like, I expected to be the last person she’d like. Anyway, she handed Ma the phone and she thanked me for the letter and I was like – oh yeah! I forgot about that. Evelyn told Tom that she thought it would be nice if Ma got letters so I typed her one. She thanked me for the letter and told me that she was going to be checking out that adult daycare center. I hope she likes it, but I worry about her. I just get very nervous when I think of hospitals, daycare, nursing homes, schools, etc. There’s always some hotshot on power-play.

I’ve devised a self-help plan regarding my rage over Larry. I’m hoping this will be very therapeutic for me. For some reason, I just can’t seem to get over how furious I am at that sick cock. I just want to kill him! I want to break his and Bill’s neck so fucking bad. They need to be taken down a peg or two by a female and I’m just the bitch to do it. They are so lucky I don’t live there! Anyway, I’m speaking my feelings into a tape just as if I were talking to his face and I plan on mailing this tape to him at some point. I just wish I could know he’d listen to it, but I doubt he’ll have the guts to hear me out. I’m sure that as soon as he hears my voice he’ll ditch the tape. I’m still gonna send it anyway and make sure I don’t put enough postage on the envelope so he has to pay to get the tape, hee, hee! I won’t waste my time praying to God for him to listen to the tape, because just like 99% of my prayers, he’ll only ignore me. He obviously ignored me when I begged for the freeloaders to read my mail. There’s no way those freeloaders would read my mail first, then call the cops. It’d take people like this, who are slower and dumber than your average person, weeks to read through all that shit. They can barely write, so imagine how long it’d take them to read about 200 pages! Anyway, even if the cock doesn’t listen to me tell him what a lying little wimp he is, it’ll still feel good to make the tape and make him pay for it, too.

Later…

We put up this really neat thing that his mom gave us. She used it in her old house, I guess. It’s a digital thermostat that tells you both the inside and outside temperatures. We used the Mexicans’ half-assed ways to our advantage. They didn’t seal up the back door very well, so we were able to run the wire out through the door without crushing it. That wire needs to be outside to sense the outside temp.

I forgot to say that I’m back to 122 pounds, but it’s not encouraging, believe me. I know I’ll be back to 125 pounds soon enough.

Thursday, May 25, 2000

Tomorrow I should be able to get Carol Kane’s TV schedule for June. Please be on, Office Killer and When a Stranger Calls Back!

UPS delivered Tom’s award from work. A giant portfolio.

Larry’s not going to be a happy camper. Again, I acknowledge and admit the fact that this was very childish and immature of me, not to mention a waste of time if he doesn’t listen to it, but I couldn’t resist making that tape I mentioned where I told him just what I felt about him. If he does listen to it, he’ll be shocked at some of the things I had to say. I also looked up D online and found two listings in the area. The one in East Longmeadow is Sandy’s parents, which I verified by calling last night. I called and a woman answered. I asked for Clara and she said, “Yeah,” then I mumbled Larry and Sandy’s names and hung up.

I’m sure she called them to see if they were OK. There was an Agawam listing for a James D and I’m pretty sure that’s Sandy’s brother. They’ll both be getting similar letters all about what a fucking asshole Larry is. I know they’ll tell Larry that they got their letters. That’s a done deal. But will they show it to him or read it to him? I hope so! I also hope he’ll want to listen to the tape to see what I might be saying to other people, but with my shit luck, Larry just won’t be that curious and will never read one word of the letters or hear one word of the tape. That doesn’t change the principle of the point – letting him know I’m still out here, still hate his guts, and that I’ll always be a problem for him. Hell, he’s lucky, cuz I’d be more than just an annoyance for him if we lived close to each other. I’d be his worst nightmare! Me sending the letters to these people, even if he’s not exactly close to these people, should piss him the fuck off. As much as I’m anxious to get these letters and the tape off in the mail, I’ll probably wait till I send Dureen, Art and Tammy their pictures. If I send the tape and letters now, it may cause Dureen and Art not to even open my mail if they get that pissed over it, cuz you know Larry’s gonna call them and bitch about it that very day. They may not have the guts at that point to open any mail from me for fear of what may be enclosed. That’s OK. I don’t mind waiting. Good things are worth waiting for.

Later…

Fucking Cybertrails! They’re as bad as AOL was for a while. Most of the time I can’t get online. I’ll try around midnight tonight. Hopefully, I’ll not only be able to get on then, but I’ll be able to get the schedule, too.

It’s 86 degrees outside and 82 degrees inside. It doesn’t feel like it’s that much in here, though. It feels like it’s 75 degrees in here.

I had a craving for fruit so I had Tom get me watermelon, strawberries, blueberries, and kiwi when he stopped at the store. The kiwis are a bitch to peel. No wonder I don’t get them that often.

Thank God we won’t be in Phoenix for this 3-day Memorial Day weekend that’s coming up. Thank God! How I dreaded this particular holiday in Phoenix! Although the Mexicans were quiet for the last Memorial Day weekend they were next to us, and I don’t remember too much of a ruckus from the blacks. Even so, I don’t expect this place to be without music. The only difference is that I’ll hear the beat of the music faintly. It won’t sound like someone’s trying to hammer our walls down. And I won’t be able to hear any people or dogs. Just the beat of Dan’s music. Or someone else’s. Probably Dan’s, though.

Well, I don’t feel like reading, I don’t feel like working on another story, I don’t have anything more to say here, I don’t have any letters to do, there’s nothing on TV at the moment I care to see, so I’ll go row. I may even work out too, although today’s not a workout day. I’m just so glad I’ve finally found something I can stick to. It may not bring me the results I’d like, but it’s still something I can stick to. I got so sick of the floor work after a few weeks or so and just totally lost interest and motivation.

Friday, May 26, 2000

The Memorial Day weekend is starting early from what I heard. When I got up at 10:00 and turned off the fan I could hear the faint beat of music and I was like – you gotta be kidding me! Thanks, God. Thanks a real lot. I expected music tonight, Saturday night and Sunday night, but Friday morning? Anyway, it only lasted two minutes and again, I’m virtually certain it was that boom car stereo Tom says can’t live out here. Well, it probably doesn’t or else I’d hear it every day, but it sure visits a lot. The reason I’m sure it was a car is because of the way the volume faded in and out and because it only lasted a couple of minutes. Usually, when someone turns on a house stereo or radio, it’s for more than a couple of minutes. Again, I’m pretty sure it was coming from the front, too. I just thank God we’re not in Phoenix, but of course there wasn’t too much of a ruckus from the Mexicans last Memorial Day weekend. That’s because they weren’t there yet. I remembered after my last entry that they didn’t move in till June 1st. So, in less than a week they’ll have been freeloading it for one year. Well, in the house, that is. I’m sure they’ve been on welfare and ripping the state off for years.

I see Gophie now, so I’m gonna go give her a bite to eat.

Later...

Gave her some lettuce this time around. It was last week’s lettuce for the animals that are just starting to wilt and it’s more than she can eat, but maybe the rabbits will eat it, too. It’s biodegradable, so it’s OK. Whatever doesn’t get eaten will dry up and disintegrate like old leaves. She just popped up out of her hole and is attacking the lettuce now. She’s gotten to be more trusting. She used to stay in her hole for about fifteen minutes after I’d return to the house after dumping her some food, but now she’s back out in five minutes. I put the lettuce by her hole, but not too close to it in case there’s a snake that may jump out at me, although I doubt she’d be near where a snake was. Still, I always take precautions. Anyway, it’s cute how she jumps out of her hole, runs and grabs a piece of lettuce, then runs to eat it by her hole so she can hop down into it if something dangerous comes by.

Speaking of a certain indoor pet that just won’t stay home, Houdini is the perfect name for him. Sometimes you’ve got to have a pet for a while to come up with the best name for them. Well, Houdini certainly suits this guy. I put him in the big cage last night, along with Ratsy, figuring that even though he is growing, he could still escape, but probably wouldn’t do so till after I went to bed. This time, though, I put food and water outside the cage for him, lifted Ciara’s outer skirts, and blocked off the retreat and my office. Sure enough, I found him in his favorite spot in the closet when I got up, then I put him back in the big cage. He didn’t fight me, either. He let me pick him right up. Because rats are normally nocturnal, including this one, I figured he’d sleep and not escape again till tonight, but I was wrong about that. I walked by a little later and found him sitting by his cage, and boy did he want to play! He ran around his cage and climbed around and under me. I put him back in the cage and found him out again when I was on my way to pee. I went and peed, which he had to follow me to do, then decided it was time to tank him. He’s still wound up too, running on the wheel. I don’t know what’s got him all hyped up today.

There’s a quail hanging out by the bush the iguanas used to live under. Now they seem to be living under the bush by the bedroom.

They still haven’t updated Carol’s schedule and I don’t know if they’re going to do it later today or if they’re going to do it later this month. The last time they updated it, they did it on the 26th. Maybe they don’t do it the same day every month.

Later…

My God! Today this rat’s as dayturnal as Gophie and gerbils are. I just put him back in the big cage to see what he would do. He escaped instantly and ran under the bed, which I shooed him out of, and into the closet to his favorite spot behind my guitars. Then I made sure he heard my footsteps walking away, then quickly and quietly I tiptoed back and lay on the bed where I could see under the closet door. I wanted to see if he’d stay there and go to sleep, or if he wanted to explore. As I figured he would, he stuck his head out from under the door and saw me right away. Then I went into the closet cuz he had run back to his hiding spot. I sat down on the floor and he walked up to me. Then I picked him up and re-tanked him. He’s still too hyped up to go to sleep anywhere.

I forgot to mention the dream I had earlier. I dreamt I weighed 115 pounds. Is this a sign of weight loss to come? Well if it is, it hasn’t happened yet cuz I’m still 122 pounds. The thing about it is that I dreamt about gaining weight before I gained it the first time around, after quitting smoking. I think I had dreams about losing it too, before I lost it, although I can’t remember for sure. I’m not going to get my hopes up, but we’ll just see what happens. At this point, especially after working out now for nearly 7 weeks, I think I’ll always bounce between 122-125 and that I’ll never lose the 2 inches from my thighs and the 3 inches from my tits and hips and the 6 inches from my waist that I’d like to lose.

Later…

This has been the most erratic period I’ve ever had, with such a slow start and a slow ending. Never have I had such intermittent cramps, bleeding and spotting. It starts and stops, starts and stops. Since when do I spot for a few days after my period? That’s something I usually do before my period. Maybe this is when God has something go wrong so I need a hysterectomy. Or maybe this really is normal for me. Who knows? I still don’t get why it was so important to God that I ended up with a man if he knew he didn’t want me to have kids. Not that I regret meeting and marrying Tom for an instant, but why was my true love fated to be a man? Why couldn’t I have had what I have with Tom with a woman? I’m sure I’ll wonder about this for the rest of my life.

I think I’ll go see if the new schedule is posted yet, but I doubt I’ll be able to get online. Between noon and 9 PM, getting online is impossible.

Later…

Cool! For the first time ever, I see three Gophies out there! Two big ones and a baby one. No wonder all that lettuce got eaten so fast.

It’s a scorcher out there now at 112 degrees. Gonna try again to get online to get the schedule, but I doubt I can get on now.

His mom offered to pay for us to have the trailer moved out here, making it more possible. How generous! That’d be wonderful of her.

Later…

Yes! Office Killer and When a Stranger Calls Back are on this month (got the schedule a couple of hours ago)!

Saturday, May 27, 2000

When I got up this morning, the first thing I did before getting my coffee was go into the closet to pull Houdini out and put him back in his tank. Again, he didn’t fight me. It’s amazing how he stands still and lets me pick him right up. I don’t put him in the big cage till around 8:00–9:00 and he doesn’t bother trying to escape till after I go to bed because he wants to play with Ratsy during those hours.

Thank God I’m not in Phoenix now! I’ll especially be thankful I’m not there on Monday.

Tom told me that somewhere in the Midwest or the East, a 13-year-old boy was sent home from school for being disruptive. A while later, he returned to school with a gun, said something to his teacher, then shot him in the face. That’s your all-American kid for you. It seems that once we hit the 90s, kids went downhill. That’s because the parents got worse and worse. I asked Tom if the kid was white and he said they didn’t say. Not that white kids aren’t bad enough themselves, but this sounds kind of blackish to me. I think shooting up teachers is a black thing. And the sad thing about it is that this kid’s not gonna be tried as an adult. It’ll be put in a school similar to Valleyhead, although it’ll probably have its windows barred, and it’ll be free by the time it’s 21.

I didn’t bother weighing in this morning or taking measurements like I have been for the last six Saturdays or so, because I know I’m still right about where I usually am. I know I’m 122-124 pounds, and my thighs are 22-23, my hips and tits are about 37, and my waist is 29-30.

Got another doll poster for my office wall yesterday. An Indian girl doll that’s pretty nice. I like having these doll posters. It not only makes for good decoration, but it’s almost like having these extra dolls that I don’t have and I don’t have to dust them or worry about breaking them.

Later…

We haven’t even been here six months and we already have a boom car stereo driving by regularly, just as I predicted. Thanks, God. Thanks a lot. Sure, it’s not nearly as loud as the boom car stereos that’d drive by in Phoenix, and sure, we don’t have to listen to people screaming, balls bouncing, and dogs barking, but the point of the matter still stands – I don’t want to know others exist when I’m in my own home and I don’t want to hear anyone else’s music but my own. This time I saw the car. It was a red car that came up from the front bedroom side of the house and drove up Meadow Green, the bedroom side of the house. As far as I could tell, it passed the renters. Of course the drivers were cocks and of course they just had to be blacks or Mexicans too, from what I could tell. Tom still swears that by the end of June, the stereo will either be broken, or they’ll get sick of driving on these roads if they want to keep it working. But it’s now become rather obvious that they live here. I’ve heard them too many times now for them to be just visitors. They live here and no one who’s into attention-getting stereos like that is going to just give that up, nor can they necessarily just up and move as soon as the thing breaks. Moving takes money and if they just moved into the area, and obviously they did, they’re not going to want to move again so soon, so they’ll just keep fixing the fucking thing. Although, I don’t believe Tom when he says they’re that sensitive. I think they can stand up to these roads just fine and even if they couldn’t and the stereo broke and they didn’t fix it, some other boom car stereo will drive by regularly enough. God will see to it. It’s in my cards. I’m destined to be forever stuck with these stereos and eventually, they’ll get tougher and tougher and louder and louder, so it’ll be as loud as it was in Phoenix without having to drive right up to the house. The good thing about it is that because they have to drive so slow on these bumpy roads (some of them are graded well enough to go 65 MPH on and some aren’t and you have to creep) is that I’ve got a good two minutes or so warning when they’re approaching. I can hear them for a couple of minutes before they get up to the house. Plenty of time to be waiting for them. What’s to say they can’t have a little meeting with me? Hee, hee! I told Tom I wasn’t kissing ass out here and I meant it. I’ll take care of anyone or anything that becomes a problem around here. I lived how others lived in Phoenix, but this time around, we’re gonna do things my way. So, come July 1st, when they’re still banging by like Tom says they won’t be, I’ll arrange a private little get-together with these cocks.

Tomorrow, Tom’s going to meet Mary and Dave at Fry’s Electronics store and pick us out a new TV all the while they get badgered and harassed by salespeople. I opted to stay home since I can’t stand crowds and pesky, pushy sales reps. Mary and Dave are going to waste their time and gas following Tom home to help him carry in the TV. I appreciate their taking the time to be helpful, and I know Mary’s old-fashioned in the sense that she thinks men should do the carrying, but I’m just as capable as any of the guys. I can help my husband myself just fine.

Later…

Our blasting boys haven’t been by again yet. They probably went into the city to do some drug dealing or to get wasted at a friend’s house, but they’ll return at some point today. At least they won’t be in and out every 45 minutes like the Mexicans were. The only thing that makes no sense is that so far I haven’t heard them more than once in a day. Well, wouldn’t I have to hear them at least twice if they went out once; when they left and when they returned? Maybe I was listening to music and missed one of their attention calls.

When I called Tom in to check them out as they were going by the bedroom, he tried to convince me that he couldn’t hear their music, but he had to have heard it. Why does he do these things; try to tell me something is when it really isn’t, or vice versa? He’d have to be deaf not to hear it, even if it wasn’t nearly as loud as in Phoenix. He also tried to tell me a few times he didn’t see or hear the sickos when I knew that couldn’t be.

Later…

I just looked back, and if this is the same car I’ve been hearing, we heard them on April 15th, then again on May 7th, then nearly every day since the 21st. Sounds like someone started visiting someone then moved in with them, or was having a place prepped and now they’re fully moved in. This proves Tom doesn’t know what he’s talking about if it truly is the same stereo, but we’ll see for sure over the next few weeks. I think it’ll be an everyday thing until I put a stop to it, and believe me, I’m only too happy to do so!

Later…

I can’t believe this dryer doesn’t buzz when it stops. It’s a pretty good dryer too, that you’d think would have that, but it doesn’t.

Tom’s dozed off on the couch right now. Let me guess – tomorrow evening we’ll get together for a boring, predictable round of sex, huh? And let me guess some more – he’ll either not want to go inside, or he will, but he won’t cum, right?

Life may be full of surprises, but our sex certainly isn’t!

Later…

Haven’t heard anything else, but the long weekend is still young, and the day is still early. If people are gonna blast music, they’re likely not to start till nighttime when the weather’s cooler and they can open their windows and doors to let the sound out.

I can’t wait to finally send these pictures off to Tammy, Doe and Art and to be done with them. I just want to rub this new house and things like that in their faces, and I can’t wait to send off Larry and his associate’s mail, too. Wish I could be there to see his reaction! The last time I said I was sending shit to people he knows, I bluffed him. So, just when he thinks I wouldn’t do that, here he’ll be getting two phone calls all about the mail they received. I just hope they read it to him or at least tell him the contents of the letter in enough detail. And I hope to hell he hears that tape, too. I wonder if he’ll try to do something about it like look up those with my last name in Phoenix and send them mail. Well, if he does, he’ll have an awful lot of mail to send out, cuz there’s a zillion people with my name. He does what he does, but nothing he can do can get to me the way I can get to him. What can he do? Take me to court? Have me thrown in jail? The funny farm? There’s just nothing he can do. This isn’t mail between non-related people where a white person refers to blacks and Mexicans using nasty words, after being harassed by them with noise. The police are gonna give him the same brush-off they gave me if he goes to them as when I tried to call his local police department and bitch about him making prank calls to me. They’re less hesitant to get involved when it’s family, and all they’ll do is tell him what they told me – she’s on the other side of the country. The cop I spoke to did say he’d call him and tell him to knock it off, but I don’t believe for a minute that he really did. Of course, there’s always the chance that Larry recognizes my handwriting on the envelope, although I tried to disguise it, and ditches it right then and there. Who knows? He may even be afraid to bother opening things with no return address. Whatever happens - the ball’s now in my court and I hold the threat over him. He’s completely powerless against me. There’s nothing he can do to ruin me or hurt me in any way, but there’s plenty I could do to him.

Later…

Not surprisingly, Dan’s place is all lit up. If he’s blaring music, I wouldn’t know it, cuz I have my own on right now.

Thank God I’m not in Phoenix!

Later…

Just added Jenny’s father to my mailing list. Yeah, I went online and looked up her last name and of course Jenny wasn’t listed, but her father was. He’s in the same house they’ve been in for nearly 20 years in West Springfield. Her father has got to be really old now. I know her folks were older than mine. He must be in his 70s. Anyway, the idea is to piss both Jenny and Larry off with my sending the letter to him. I not only hope Jenny will read the letter, but I’m sure she will unless her dad gets so disgusted that he tears it to shreds. Anyway, I bet on the odds of her reading it and wrote at the end of the letter: shame on you for reading your dad’s mail, Jenny! The worst thing that could happen to me for this is that they send me a letter about it to our old address which will get forwarded, of course, and which I’ll have returned to sender. I’ll recognize their handwriting, and of course, they wouldn’t put a return address on the thing. God, on the other hand, is gonna get me good for this, but it’ll be worth it.

Sunday, May 28, 2000

Tom left an hour ago to meet Mary and Dave at Fry’s. They should be back around 1:30. I have mixed emotions about this arrangement. I’m grateful for the new TV, but I feel a little insulted by her insisting Dave help carry in the TV when I’m perfectly capable of helping my own husband.

Haven’t heard the boom car stereo since yesterday morning, and I doubt Dan ended up blasting off. If he did, it was for a very short time because his lights weren’t on for long at all. I was surprised.

Time to go out and feed the Gophies.

Later…

OK, I just fed them.

Houdini didn’t stick to his usual routine last night. He doesn’t usually escape till after I go to bed, but at 9:30 I caught him running around in the retreat after I had come out of my office. He was hiding under the walker (I’ll store that in the trailer). I put him back in the big cage and later found him in the closet. I put him back again and he stayed in the cage till 9:00 this morning. He probably came out looking for me wondering why I was late. Animals are pretty sensitive to time. I upped the alarm from 9:00 to 10:00 cuz I couldn’t fall asleep till 2:00, and he was probably wondering why the alarm didn’t go off at 9:00. How I know he didn’t escape till 9:00 was because Tom said that’s when he last saw him. When I got up at 10:00, he was under the walker. I had blocked off the retreat by putting a towel across the bottom of the door, but he simply clawed it away, so I made that room safe for him to hang out in. He was wound up, as usual, for a while after I tanked him, and even tried to bite Tom.

Later…

The new 25” TV is here. Sure beats our old dark 19”. It was on sale for $200 and fits in the entertainment center perfectly. Mary and Dave visited for about 20 minutes, then they took off for the casino to win another thousand dollars of money they don’t need.

Later…

Tom’s still watching the new TV. He did take a break to race his car on the computer, though. Good, this, along with his cut toe and cut face, will delay our boring sex. I don’t know how he got the cut on his toe, but he obviously got the cut on his face from shaving. I know Sunday evenings are his favorite time to screw around, but I still say I’ll get to get out of it altogether cuz of I was cramped out last weekend and not in the mood. I just wish he’d make his excuse before we bother to get into bed and go through all the bullshit motions. And I swear he wants to wear my hand out at times, making me do him by hand forfuckingever! Long after he’s hard he still has me doing him by hand, probably to make up the difference for screwing for only a few minutes, and I’m like – come on, buddy! Let’s get this over with. You’ve been hard now for ages.

It’s amazing how many channels they’ve got! Fifty channels alone for music is total overkill. I’m surprised they don’t have a channel just for commercials. A channel for current commercials, one for old commercials, and then one for each type of commercial. A channel for car commercials, one for having babies, etc.

Monday, May 29, 2000

Thank God I’m not in Phoenix! I’m surprised it hasn’t been a bit musical around here yet this weekend, but I’m sure someone will blare their music today. Either Dan will blast off, or that boom car stereo will drive by.

Anyway, Tom’s doing his favorite thing – watching TV. He did do computer stuff, though, too. Since we didn’t screw Saturday or Sunday, I guess that means we’ll have to go through the bullshit motions today. He’ll wait till he’s been up for 10-12 hours, though. He said he got up at 6:00, so I don’t expect him to make a move on me before 4:00.

I changed the animals earlier and realized it was a waste of time putting food and water outside of the cages when all Houdini has to do is go home to eat and drink. If he can get out, then he can surely get back in, and Tom verified this today. When I got up at 10:00 he was home, but Tom said he wasn’t home earlier. So, he can come and go as he pleases when he’s in that cage, but until tonight, I have him tanked.

Later…

Wow! It looks like he may not touch me at all. If he doesn’t, I’ll have mixed emotions about it. A part of me will feel like he doesn’t want me anymore or find me attractive, although who could at this day and age? A bigger part of me will be glad to get out of something so planned and predictable. If we do screw, I’ll have mixed emotions about that, too. I’ll be bored with the same old, same old, but will feel there’s still a little bit of attraction still lingering. He tells me I’m beautiful, but I think that’s just another one of his lies. What’s beautiful about me? The freckle on my shoulder?

I wrote another letter to Mom.

Maria called telling us that the water’s getting really low, so don’t forget to pick some up! Some idiot in this area, who obviously doesn’t have a well, left this message yesterday. How stupid can they be? I mean, didn’t they realize that Tom’s voice wasn’t familiar, or does Tom sound exactly like someone they know?

Later…

He finally brought up the subject of sex. Right now he’s taking the 2-3 hours he likes to digest (it used to be 1) before we screw, and waiting till the very end of his day. Maybe he wants to finish himself off in bed. That’s another thing – the sleeping together hasn’t happened and I doubt it ever will. I put the ball in his court to see what he’d do and he hasn’t said or done anything differently. I don’t think either of us wants to sleep together that bad and I also think we’re so used to the way things have been that it’s all the harder to change.

God, give me the strength to come up with an excuse every weekend! I’d just feel so guilty, although I know I shouldn’t because he wouldn’t miss the sex any more than I would. I’m just so sick of the same old, same old. It’s so damn planned and predictable and boring me to tears. I can see why so many couples cheat, only it’s for different reasons than ours. I’ve got a predictable, dry dick here that’s boring me to tears, and other women have guys that smother them. Also, they bitch about how the man gets it over within a few seconds and doesn’t take the time to do it slowly. Yeah, that’s what I’ve got with this man here, but again, the reasons are different. Other women’s men are in and out because they’re horny and want a hole to squirt in. This man’s in and out because he’s too scared to cum in a place that he doesn’t know whether or not a kid could result in.

Later…

I was right. He didn’t go inside. I asked him if it was due to my being too cramped out last week and told him that I wrote how I suspected this would happen and thought it was quite a coincidence. He swears he wasn’t copycatting me and said he wondered if my subconscious led to his not being able to go inside (meaning, maybe that caused me not to put my heart into it), although he admits he “jumped the gun” the first time around by not having me do him by hand longer. The first time around when I went to warm him up he got fairly hard, but as soon as he went to go inside, he was his usual dry, limp self. The second time around, although I thought I was doing my best, I just couldn’t get him into it and hard, so I stopped and told him I thought it was hopeless and that I was sorry I couldn’t do a better job. He then went on to say that he wanted more variety, I won’t hurt him as long as I stay away from his balls, don’t give up, and he wants me to be happy. As I bluntly told him, he couldn’t make me happy sexually, because he couldn’t and wouldn’t make the changes necessary to make me happy, but that that was OK because his happiness is more important than mine. I want him to be himself and do what makes him happy. I’ll sacrifice sexual happiness to please him because he’s worth it and I love him. But he wouldn’t be happy doing things that’d make me happy. What would make me happy would be to not know what day of the week we’re going to screw, yet I know it’ll be Saturday or Sunday, but probably Sunday at the end of his day. It’d also be nice if I never knew when he’d cum, but instead I always know he won’t. Even so, and like I told him, I know how important it is for him to be himself and do what makes him happiest and most comfortable. It’s still hard to get used to a man needing so much foreplay, I told him, and that I’ve got to keep in mind how different he is. Then he said he’s just him. He’s both. He’s himself and he’s different. We’re talking about a man, who like a woman, needs a lot of foreplay, has a lower appetite, and rarely cums.

Tuesday, May 30, 2000

It turned out to be the quietest Memorial Day weekend I’ve ever experienced out here. The Saturday morning boom car stereo was the only thing I heard. Even Dan’s place was dark and quiet last night. Makes me wonder if he finally fucked off and headed for Indiana.

I can just imagine what must’ve gone on at our old place. Must have been quite a riot, but then again, maybe not. The noise was aimed at me for the most part, so maybe they happened to simmer down once I left, but I’ll never know. I’ll never know how the Hs feel about living next to them, either. I figure there are not too many possibilities. They either don’t mind having their yard trashed and the noise to listen to (if they are up to their same old tricks), or they don’t like it, or they shut up and kept their garbage to themselves. Maybe it’s a combination of things. Meaning, maybe they are quieter, but still noisy by most people’s standards, and the Hs just don’t care.

Again I woke up at 121 pounds. Maybe that dream will turn out to be a premonition, but at the rate I’m going, if I were to be 115 pounds, that won’t be till November. It’s funny how I gained and started losing weight at the exact same time of year as the last time. The first time I gained weight (after quitting smoking), I started gaining in October and didn’t start losing until May. Same with the second time around and I also gained the same amount each time I gained weight. I peaked at a little over 125 pounds. Since I can’t muster up the willpower to eat 1000 calories a day, I upped my workouts and workout every day now. I even worked out twice yesterday.

I have a dress that I don’t need to wear a bra with when I’m around the mid-120s because it’s a snug fit at that weight. Now that I’ve dropped a bit, it’s not as tight around the chest.

Later…

Not only has my body gotten used to shitting at 121 pounds, but I just had to up and take my second dump of the day. What I wonder is – will I go back up to 125 pounds before my period?

I forgot to mention that last week I finally received a newsletter from the doll company I got some of my cheap dolls from. The dolls I got at K-Mart had a card you fill out for their club, but all their club is newsletters about other people’s collections. Like I really care? I don’t want to meet or talk to other collectors. I thought they’d send catalogs or coupons or something like that.

Houdini’s so funny. He was in his usual spot in the closet when I got up. I put him in the tank and didn’t bother to put the lid on it. I knew he could jump out, but I didn’t think he’d bother. Well, he did. He jumped out and right into the big cage.

Later…

And he jumped back out of it too, so now he’s in the tank with the lid on.

I just went out to feed our many outdoor critters. Tom said that when he was out yesterday, he saw one on each side of the house and says there are at least 6 of them around here (I know I should spell out numbers the professional way, but I’m writing a journal, not a book, so I won’t be so formal and proper).

Later…

This phone has rung the most it’s ever rung in the last couple of days. I just got an out-of-area call where the person never spoke, but I know someone was there because I could hear them before they hung up on me. I forgot to block our number when I called Sandy’s parents. I hope to hell they don’t have Caller ID.

Maria and the stupid Mexican Elena called, too. Maria’s this New York-sounding woman who thinks we sell water. Again she called saying she was low on water, and after the 3rd call from the Mexican, they finally left a message. Not much of one, though. They just made this sigh-like sound before hanging up. I could hear a radio or a TV on in the background, too. Getting 3 calls in one day is a lot, till the sales calls come in a dozen a day like they used to. I still don’t understand what it is with these people, though. Maria made it sound like she’s talked to the guy she was looking for before, so why doesn’t she realize that Tom’s voice is different? And what about these Mexicans? Shouldn’t they not recognize Tom’s voice?

It’s funny how Mary and Dave have been in this house 3 times in the 5 months we’ve been here, yet they were never at the Phoenix house in the 6 years we were there.

Later…

Oh, please! Just when I thought Dan was gone for a few months, it starts an engine-gunning spree.

Anyway, Tom’s looking into a really cool program that lets you make your own fonts. I want one that’ll let me write out the letters which I can then scan into the computer. However, having a dead scanner doesn’t help. Something’s really been cursing my computer this last month or two, and one of the many things to get fucked up is the scanner. Tom said he hasn’t figured out what’s wrong with it yet. Well, I hope he figures it out soon, cuz I have a really funny idea. The idea is to forge Andy’s handwriting, something I can do very well, from samples of stuff he’s written in a few journals of mine, and write a letter to his mother. No, I’m not gonna say anything mean, violent or sexual. I’ll just write the kind of letter Andy would really write, and then laugh over knowing how confused he’ll be when he hears about the letter he never sent. Then he’ll really wonder about his pot brain!

Wednesday, May 31, 2000

They’re back to booming again. At 10:30 I heard a slight boom. Not the kind that’s really thunderous that you can feel. This one didn’t vibrate the house. I’m surprised they’d start up again on the last day of the month. I thought they’d start up on the 1st or the 15th.

Dan only gunned his engine a few times, but even so, I’d like it better if he’d get out of here. The fewer people around, the better. If he’s still here this late in the year, I doubt he’s going to be leaving at all.

My allergies are going off starting last night, but fortunately, they’re not constant sneezing fits. Not yet, anyway. I’m just having a few sneezes here and there. Not the kind where I sneeze 20 times in a row and have to jump up to blow my nose. My nose isn’t runny. My eyes were itchy, though. I had to put some eye drops in.

When I got up I got Houdini out of the closet and put him in the tank with the lid, but as is the usual case for two hours after I’ve tanked him, he’s all wound up. I took him out a couple of times and let him run around on the bed till he tried to jump off the corner closest to the closet.

There was a Gophie by the snake hole and I brought out some food. This time she waited till after I’d stepped out the door before diving into the hole. That’s getting brave.

Maria called again today but she didn’t leave a message. Yesterday, there was a fourth call. A private number with no message. Please, God, don’t let it be that Clara got our number! Even if she did, though, I suppose it wouldn’t harm anything. Larry wouldn’t want to talk to me any more than I’d want to talk to him. I don’t think he’d even bother leaving me a fuck you message after the mail I intend to send. If anything, he’d give the number to his mommy and daddy and have them do his dirty work for him. They’d call to bitch about it. Since they probably couldn’t get the number, though, and therefore can’t call, it’ll be interesting to see if they call any other people with my last name about the letters or if they send me a letter to the old address. I just wish we’d hurry up and get that printer! I don’t want to send Larry and his associate’s mail before Doe and Art’s, cuz then Doe and Art may be too afraid to even open any mail from me.

Later…

My allergies are acting up worse, so I popped a Benadryl. However, I’m sure it’ll fail to dry up my nose and stop my sneezing, as usual. Instead, it’ll dry up my mouth and cause me to take a 1-2-hour nap. Oh well. I felt like I had to do something. So much for the cutting down on the mice space experiment. I swear you could put me in a sterile environment and I’ll still have allergy fits for no apparent reason whatsoever.

Later…

My allergies have been making me miserable all day and I wonder – am I going to have this every 2-3 weeks for the rest of my life? And if not, what will the problem be that replaces it? I’ve racked my brains trying to figure out the cause of it, but there’s no pattern. I just can’t see a cause. That leaves only one thing – God. God’s the cause of this and I hate him for it!

I decided to spread my cleaning schedule out from 3 days a week to 6 days a week, so it won’t seem so overwhelming. Here’s my plan:

Mon. - master bath Tues. - liv/my office Wed. - den/his office/guest Thurs. - second bath Fri. - kitchen/utility Sat. - laundry Sun. – bedroom/retreat

[firelord-frowny]

you know what fucking tires me???

when people think that a person being racist actually has anything to do with them believing that black/brown people are inferior.

LISTEN.

You know how you can tell that these people don't actually believe black people are inherently bad in any way???

BECAUSE THEY MAKE SHIT UP! Because they LITERALLY pull shit out of their ASS as justification for their "beliefs".

Why does that indicate that they don't actually believe it???

Because when you tell a lie about something, YOU KNOW YOU'RE LYING! YOU KNOW THAT WHAT YOU'RE SAYING ISN'T TRUE!!! You know nobody told you this untrue thing! You didn't read it anywhere! You didn't see it happen! You made it the fuck up!

And THAT is why any attempt to ~reach across the aisle~ or otherwise educate people out of their own racism is often an absolute waste of time.

White supremacy is not simply some misguided ideal that brown people are dumb and evil and ugly and therefor the world would be better if it was exclusively led and populated by smart, good, beautiful white people. that's not what it is. that's not what it is AT ALL.

white supremacy is an effort to secure all the world's wealth and power among one small group of people via the exploitation and/or extermination of all other peoples.

And how do you get an entire populous to agree to the exploitation and/or extermination of millions of people?

By making shit up. By conjuring up lies that the liars already know aren't true, because that's the fucking nature of lying.

Idk, maybe it's true that some backwoods redneck from klan country really has genuinely come to believe the falsehood that black people are blah blah blah or whatever, but I fucking promise you, NOBODY sitting in any high office anywhere actually believes that. I PROMISE that there are 0 billionaire CEOs who actually believe it. I promise. Racism is an inherently illogical and stupid philosophy, and the people who are the architects of exploitation are neither illogical, nor stupid.

They're just evil.

[geraldinesgarbagepit]

slop, maybe a heavy one. year in review.

been a year since it feels like my life was completely uprooted. even though things weren't the best, i feel like i at least had some kind of plan. even if it wasn't anything i myself wanted to do, i had it. that changed completely out of the blue. temporarily staying with someone for a weekend has turned into a week, month, and now ive been here for a year. lost jobs, left jobs. in and out of therapy, little success. paranoia, ideation, the works. picked up a nasty habit. plus, there's a figurehead that specifically wants people like me six feet under. it really makes you wonder how much one person is meant to take.

though i feel like im worth less than spit but, for some reason ill never understand, there are people who cared. people who spend time, crack jokes, cement stupid bits. its been a highlight of my otherwise exceptionally dull days.

even so, december is always a rough month. the passage of time is a very scary thing to me; i barely remember my own age half of the time. cried what felt like every day. had to reassure myself that very clear delusions werent reality. it was easy at first... but ill be honest, at this point im willing to just believe anything to stop the constant alarm bells in my skull. its not like i do much already. isolating doesn't have that many consequences, if locking myself away quiets that part of my brain then so be it.

ive loved my friends and my partner all i can. even if i never stuck to any project long-term, ive created art and characters people have loved.

...frankly, i just dont think im cut out for this world. i dont think i ever was.

i dont have the willpower to do anything drastic unfortunately, even the slightest modicum of effort feels wasted on something like that. ill stick it out for another couple of months, see how i feel then. knowing the patterns in my life, december will roll around again and ill be having the same kind of 5am manic episode i am now. its just how it is.

im tired. so, so tired.

[knwbetter]

day 5 since we last talked: i've definitely been thinking of him today. there were moments where he entered my mind and face would grimace in pain. i missed him still a lot today. i miss talking to him, i miss his presence, i miss our banters and subtle flirting that we had every day. i miss when he so clearly wanted to talk to me every day... he would bombard me with messages, i don't have that anymore and i miss him so much. i want him back so bad even if that's probably not the best idea. i really thought we had a connection especially when he first mentioned that he had the same situation as me growing up. he seemed really intrigued by me from the start. he would make the effort to talk to me every day and i did the same as time went by bc i felt like we had a connection going on. he seemed genuinely interested in what i was into that he ended up watching the films i love and the games i love. how could he spend all the time for me when in reality he wasn't into me? i'll never be able to wrap my head around it. i'd never waste all that time on someone i didn't like, it's just crazy behavior. was he just bored and found me easy? it's hard to believe in anything he's said to me now, i don't think i trust him. but at the same time, i still want to talk to him. i feel like i'm expecting him to text me again out of the blue. it doesn't seem likely tho. i still can't believe he played with my feelings. i don't think i've done anything to deserve it tbh. what was his intentions when he talked to me? i've always wondered about that ever since the beginning. it felt like he had some kind of intention with the way he was talking to me which was probably why i felt so guarded. he was overly familiar and trusting too in the beginning which made me feel so uncomfortable bc i didn't know who tf this person was. slowly but surely tho he made me open up to him. i did notice tho that when i shared small tidbits of myself that he didn't ask for, he didn't acknowledge them. that hurt my feelings tbh bc i rarely share something like that and knowing that he simply ignored it definitely hurt me. after that i told myself i wouldn't share much of myself unless he asked. he did ask a lot about me but that was it, only interested in what he wanted to know about me. i must say, he was interested in a lot but in the end i didn't know what he wanted from me.

around two weeks of talking he told me i was a joy to talk to. even said he's become pretty comfortable with me. and a bunch of other flirting with me but idk any of that was real which hurts. now he can't even be bothered to talk to me, when old him would text me about anything. did i do something wrong? was i too ugly for him? after reassuring me countless times too that i was perfect and that he already likes me for who i am. i didn't believe him of course bc how could you say that without seeing someone's physical appearance? well as you would have it, he started acting off after i showed him my picture. he even said that he'd obviously like to see me in person first before entering a relationship but could say yes for now, even if he already saw what i looked like. and prior to saying this, he said that i was definitely his. so what is what honestly? he made me more confused and i was super hurt ngl. i might've been stupid to bring that up but i wanted to know what his intentions were and if he was serious about me, otherwise i didn't want any of this fake shit. we'd just be wasting time, feelings, and effort for each other. yes it was fun but i don't want it if it isn't going to go anywhere.

i yelped a few times whenever i thought about him today. i couldn't believe i was that open and vulnerable with him. i also cringed at myself for my behavior with him, i didn't know i could be like that with someone. i had the hugest urge to pull up our chat and text him. how would that make me look tho? desperate and needy, when he probably doesn't even want me like that. it hurts! we were cute but he had to ruin it. i really thought he had a pure heart from how he presented himself to me. he was so sweet and patient with me and i thought it was too good to be true. and it really was. it's like i just imagined the whole thing. like none of it was real or that it happened. now i'm super curious what he wanted from me. i guess he wasn't the person he pained himself to be. god, i really fell for that act? oh he's good, lemme tell you. i really felt that he was genuine and usually i'm pretty wary around people and go super analysis mode on them. i guess i misjudged him hard, i was probably blinded by how much i liked him. which is so funny to think about bc i was annoyed at him in the beginning and felt that he was cringe. anyway yea, i still missed him a lot today even if i shouldn't be. i need to think of the way he treated me last and think if i really want to be with someone like that. he should've at least communicated that he didn't like me that way. i remember we agreed on communicating and talking it out is the best and i told him i was glad we were on the same page. i guess i was worried about it for a reason. turns out he's not the best at communicating. he's not the person i thought he was. i honestly thought he was mature enough to talk about these things like proper adults but nope. he still has a lot of growing up to do. i felt sad a lot today whenever i thought of him. plus why does every damn thing have to remind me of him? from tv series to music like give me a fucking break.

[enderwoah]

"Impulse, don't let them get to you," Tango warns, shutting the chest and jumping to sit on it. Impulse, who was looking a bit nervous and probably about to say something he shouldn't have, snaps his mouth shut. "He's trying to get in your head." "I'm doing no such thing," Owen says, adequately vexed at being interrupted, as that was exactly what he was doing. "I don't even know what that means."

(ao3 link)

(6,150 words)

Gems do not need to sleep, nor was Scott entirely sure they were capable of doing so, but he and Jimmy found the idea so novel that they put their first bit of effort as a part of Life into refurbishing the large bed they had found inside of the Crastle, complete with new blankets and sheets made of wool they had found and dyed blue with the help of several dozens of flowers (as the idea of using the naturally-generated lapis, as the others had been doing, found itself to be a bit much for Jimmy). Cleo found the endeavour to be partially a waste of time and partially sickeningly heartwarming, so she let them be.

He is fully aware that there are three Homeworld gems that are inside his base (albeit way, way down), but he finds himself laying on that bed, staring at Jimmy's gem resting on the soft wool beneath him. When he closes his eyes, he doesn't see images of Jimmy shattering anymore, which is a wonderful bit of relief in an otherwise oppresively anxiety-inducing situation.

His eyebrows sets and the corners of his mouth downturn into a slight frown. "You promised you wouldn't do anything stupid."

Jimmy, predictably, does not respond, though Scott likes to imagine that he feels an iota of shame radiating from inside.

He picks up the gem with all the gentleness he has in him as a sapphire and smooths his thumb over the surface, biting the inside of his lip as he tries for a smile.

"You take your time, okay?" he finally whispers, taking note of every blemish in the blue that he's already seen and noted dozens of times before. "I'll be fine. All of the others are here to protect me, too. You just...stay out of trouble."

Jimmy still doesn't respond, whispers a quiet, "I love you, Jimmy," then sets down the lapis and exits the room.

Almost immediately, he has to side-step out of the way of Bdubs almost barreling into him, his eye somehow looking even wider than it usually is. Cleo is not too far behind him, and he can only imagine that Tango and Impulse are taking care of things nearby—or down-downstairs, where the Homeworld gems are.

"Scott, what is your plan here?" Bdubs all but shrieks, making Scott wince and take a step back. "Why are there Homeworld gems in our base?! Why did we let Homeworld gems into our base?"

"I was technically a Homeworld gem that you let into your base," Scott says densely, pretending to not understand what he meant.

"You were a Homeworld gem that just fused with a different type of gem!" Bdubs shouts, his voice turning into something of a squeak towards the end. "You asked us to stay!"

Scott glances out the window with a sigh, squinting into the forest for any sign of the Homeworld gems' ship and finding nothing. "Look, Bdubs—"

"They poofed Jimmy!"

"And Jimmy poofed their quartz," Scott says sharply. "We're lucky it didn't break out into a full-on fight."

Bdubs looks scandalised. "We could've taken them, easy! There's—there's six of us and three of them!"

"Four of them," Scott corrects. "They have a pilot."

"Whatever!" Bdubs says with exasperation. "The point is, they have a bunch of fragile gems and one quartz, we have Cleo and Impulse and Tango and me!"

"And you," Scott says dryly. Bdubs gives him a stink eye rather than responding, and Scott obnoxiously rolls his own eye, despite nobody being able to see it. "In any case, it isn't kind to judge a gem by their cut. Owen could probably take out most of us with little resistance."

Bdubs scrunches up his face. "Who in the world is Owen?"

"The padparadscha," Cleo interjects. Scott looks up at them, and he cannot believe he missed the stern look they've been giving Scott this entire time. Their gaze is piecing as they ask, "Right?"

"Erm. Yes."

Bdubs stares at him. "Why do you know his name?"

Scott starts to move towards the steps leading downward—not to be rude, but because he doesn't want to embarrass himself by getting stuck to the floor with ice during this line of questioning. "I know him."

"You know him?"

"Yes, Bdubs, I know him," he says irritably, making his way downstairs. Bdubs and Cleo both follow him closely. "Is that so hard to believe?"

"Is that why you wanted them to stop fighting?" Bdubs asks incredulously. "Because he was your friend?"

"I never said he was my friend," Scott replies, though it sounds weak even to him.

"You were at least close enough to know his name," says Cleo. Scott can hear her skepticism. "And it's not like padparadschas are so common that they need them."

Scott ignores his comrades. The silence is painfully loud.

Scott can't actually remember when he first met Owen. He supposes it must have been on some mundane deployment where they regarded each other with little more than a nod—just enough for Scott to be able to recognize him later. The second time (or third, or fourth—it doesn't matter to him, it's the first time he actually paid attention) they met, they were traveling with a couple of quartzes meant to protect them as they were assigned to help advise an expedition on a volatile and rather dangerous planet.

Scott remembers getting a vision of himself poofing—and then a sudden, terrifying darkness. It made him immediately freeze in his tracks, just as the padparadscha in front of him suddenly darted into the surrounding foliage, drawing a short, crackling blade out of his gem and swinging at something unseen in the bushes. His long garment turned into an dress much more suited for moving through the underbrush, and Scott immediately drew closer to the orange gem, despite what may have been best for his health.

He then got to witness what may have been the most entertaining display in his life: a padparadscha—a sapphire beating the life out of some native, stalking beast that was half-translucent and about three times his size. By the time the quartzes caught up and actually managed to dispatch the creature, the padparadscha had already caused it significant enough damage with his weapon (his weapon that he shouldn't have even had) that it couldn't have hurt anyone if it wanted to. It was, in simple terms, incredible.

After that mishap, they were assigned on two more missions together before the padparadscha introduced himself properly—Rose-OW32, or Owen. Scott didn't have a nickname, but he didn't need one—Owen said he was recognisable enough.

It took one more mission for them to start developing what Scott would dangerously call a friendship. As it is with gems, it was primarily born from usefulness—Scott had a vision that he, rather foolishly, chose to ignore, as he figured it wasn't very probable considering their situation. Owen, as he later explained, had a retro vision of Scott's future vision (something Owen took delight in explaining to other people and watching their faces morph into abject horror and confusion), combined that with the very, very reliable information he obtains from his retro visions, and proceeded to save the both of them from whatever may have been posing a threat at the time.

They realised that the combined retro and future vision turns the branching streams of the future into something much closer to a river—that is to say, far clearer than Scott ever could have seen on his own. It was this reasoning that got them placed together for almost every assignment, aside from the times where Owen would be busy with his own specialised missions.

Scott tries very hard not to think about how this entire situation would have been different if Owen had accompanied him on this mission. He can't tell if it would have ended up better or worse.

Reaching the bottom of the steps, he realises that Bdubs and Cleo have been waiting for him to speak this entire time. He sharply turns on his heel and disregards how Bdubs abruptly stops and causes Cleo to almost bump into him.

"Look," he starts, floundering to figure out how to speak like he's still the rational and sensible one around here, despite the unprecedented circumstances. "We went on several missions together and grew fairly close due to our work. It's only because I know him personally that I'm willing to assume that he wants to work this out in logical manner."

Bdubs and Cleo both look extremely skeptical, the latter sighing and shaking her head. "Scott—"

"Cleo."

She glares at him. "The damage has already been done. We're willing to follow your lead if you're sure that he's..."

She trails off, trying to find her words. Bdubs helpfully fills in, "Not going to try and shatter us as soon as we let our guard down?"

Cleo nods. "Yes. That."

Scott lets his shoulders slump with relief. "He's not. He's not like that. Look, we'll just—we'll wait for their quartz and for Jimmy to reform, and then we'll just...answer their questions like they want us to."

Bdubs makes a face at that. "Why can't we just do it now and send 'em off? I know Jimmy's quick at reforming, but we have no idea how long their quartz will take and I am not keen on sharing a living space with Homeworld gems for any longer than I have to." He crosses his arms in defiance, closing his eye and turning to the side.

Scott shakes his head. "They won't want to do anything with us without protection. Owen—Padparadscha isn't stupid, okay? He's not going to do anything when we clearly overpower him, and I'm not even sure their jade can form a weapon."

"I don't even know why he's apparently able to form a weapon," Bdubs grumbles. "What kinda sapphire—padpraska—whatever, knows how to summon a weapon?"

Scott stares at him, deadpan. "...those who find a need to do so?"

"But even you didn't even know how to summon a weapon before you showed up here!"

Scott blinks heavily. "...because I never had the need to do so? I always had—" He trips over his words and tries to make it as subtle as possible, clearing his throat. "—someone else to take care of things for me. You know how it works. I told them where to hit, they hit."

He looks past Bdubs, who looks unhappy about the situation but begrudgingly accepting of it, towards Cleo, who is staring at him with such scrutiny he feels like he's being disassembled piece by piece. Out of nowhere, she abruptly says, "Bdubs, stay here. I need to have some words with Scott."

She brushes past Bdubs as gently as possible so as to not knock him into the banister and picks Scott up, not even looking back as she holds up a hand and says, "Back in a minute."

Scott can see Bdubs cross his arms and drop onto the second step, grumbling to himself about something or another. Cleo takes him to the closest room with a table, placing Scott delicately onto the wooden surface so he remains standing and so they are somewhat close to eye-level with each other.

Cleo continues to stare at him, picking him apart with his eyes. He clears his throat. "I'm feeling judged."

"Good," they say. "I'm judging you."

"Ah."

They cross their arms, look him up and down, and let their head drop with a sigh. "Scott. You know I trust you, yeah?"

"I should hope so," he replies, a bit of concern in the edges of his tone. "Considering we've been working together for dozens of years."

"And I'm sure you trust Padparadscha for the same reason, yeah?"

Scott blinks, hard, and almost takes a step back. He wasn't exactly expecting that one, and he can only make out a weak, "Well—" before Cleo cuts him off again.

"Don't try and pretend, Scott," they say sternly. "You're good at hiding your emotions from everyone else, not me. Maybe Bdubs couldn't tell because he wasn't there, but I was, and I saw how quickly you wanted to just...bring him along with us as soon as you recognised him for who he was."

Scott opens his mouth to try and respond, but no words end up forming. He grips his dress again and looks off to the side, a heavy frown setting on his face. He can't even imagine how this might end up going. He feels a twist in his chest just thinking about properly talking to him, and he's too terrified to use his future vision in case something goes wrong. It's selfish, he's sure of it, but he just wants to hold onto whatever hope he has remaining that this will go well.

Cleo lays a hand on his and holds it, a sort of gentleness that starkly juxtaposes their rather firm tone as they say, "Scott. Look at me."

Scott looks at them. Most wouldn't necessarily call Cleo an expressive person, but Scott has generally figured out how they look when they're feeling certain emotions by now, and he can see something along the lines of pity (which makes him feel a bit sick, if they're already looking at him with pity and nothing has even happened yet) and a fierce determination at the same time.

"I know you want to believe that this can all go well. I know you want to believe that your friend and his friends will suddenly decide to stick around once we show them how beautiful Life is, and that they'll never want to go back home." They start to say something, stop, and furrow their brows. "But...Scott, I don't need future vision to be able to tell that that's not gonna happen."

Indignation flares up inside of Scott's chest as he balls up his fists in the sides of his dress. "You don't know that."

"You're right," Cleo responds immediately, tone unchanging. "I don't. And you don't know whether he's going to stay with us or not. And I'm not saying you should give up all hope, but you have to consider which situation is worse for us if we don't see it coming. If we're prepared for them to stay loyal to Homeworld and they surprise us by being...swayed by the beauty of Life—sure, that's great. But if we're prepared for them to be kind and they get the jump on us..."

Scott clenches his jaw and turns away again. Cleo sighs and takes a step back, proving her hand from Scott's. As angry as he tries to feel, the worming anxiety in his heart knows that she's right. She's right, but Scott is too much of a coward to see which outcome is the most likely. All he manages is a weak, "He's not like that."

It rings out into a disbelieving silence, and he musters up the will to continue, "A-At the very least, he would make his intentions known. If he does or doesn't plan on listening to us, he would say it. He wouldn't betray me."

"But you're willing to admit that he might betray your trust," Cleo says. "You're willing to admit that no matter what we say to him, he might still find a way to go back to Homeworld and report us."

Scott grits his teeth and shakes, but he nods. It feels like betraying Owen, in a way, but he knows it's true. He knows it's true and he can't put other people in danger because of his personal biases. If this was any other group of Homeworld gems, a group that Scott knew nothing of, they probably never would have made it into the Crastle in the first place.

Cleo nods and steps back, holding her hands up at chest-level as if surrendering. "Then we're on the same page. That's all I wanted to say."

Scott nods again and slips off of the table, smoothing out the wrinkles in his dress caused by his nails, swiping as discreetly as possible at his eye before raising his shoulders and saying, voice strained, "I'm gonna go...find something to do to pass the time. While they reform."

He starts walking out, and he can hear the surprise and slight confusion in Cleo's voice as she says from behind him, "Aren't you going to go talk to him?"

His stride only falters for a moment, a squeeze in his chest warning him against even thinking about the situation too hard, let alone confronting the source.

He walks out of the room without another word.

"We're going to die here."

Owen sighs for what might be the billionth time in the past few hours. "We are not going to die here."

"We're stuck down here, Padparadscha!" El repeats for, again, what might be the billionth time in recent memory. "We're stuck in the basement of a bunch of volatile, deserting, rebel gems that poofed Beks without so much of a second thought!"

"Seemed to me like there were a lot of second thoughts," Owen says dryly, leaning his head back on the wall and closing his eye. "Seeing as how they stopped as soon as it happened."

He can feel El's glare without having to look at her. The room they're 'trapped' in is made entirely out of stone, giving off an unfinished feel despite the deserters' attempts to make it seem purposefully threatening. All they did was section off the room into two halves—one half dedicated to their terrible storage system, the other half separated by metal bars that would be too thin for either of their gems to fit through without scratching. It seems to be working on El, who has not stopped freaking out ever since they were put down here hours ago.

"We're going to die," El says miserably, and Owen cracks open his eye to look at her. "They're conniving about what to do with us before they shatter us."

"Personally, I think they'd do the shattering first and the conniving later," Owen says helpfully.

"You are not helping," El snaps, hands raising to grip her hair. "Isn't this why you're here? To make sure nothing goes wrong with these—these—maniacs!"

"I'm here to help you interrogate these maniacs," Owen corrects, stretching out his legs. "It was Beks job to keep them under control, and. Well."

"And she's somewhere we don't even know," the jade supplies, a very obvious tone of dread descending upon her words. It's worth noting in the back of Owen's head that she and Beks seem to know each other somehow—perhaps El has somehow managed to be important enough to have a constant personal guard? He's deathly curious, but he supposes this isn't the time to ask. "They've probably shattered her already! We're completely defenseless in here, and you're just—fine with it!"

Owen winces. "I just don't think they're going to try and kill us. Why would they put us down here if they were just planning to get rid of us? You saw what they had—a bismuth, a jasper..."

A sapphire, his mind rather unhelpfully fills in. Your Sapphire.

He clears his throat. "They could have taken us out, easy."

El glares daggers in his direction. "Is this supposed to make me feel better?"

Owen shrugs. "It'll make you feel however you want to feel, Jade."

"El."

"El," he amends, rolling his eye. He hesitates, then continues, slightly more quiet, "And, in any case...this is sort of my field of work. These gems that stay behind on worlds they deem too precious to be colonised are far more inclined to talk than fight if you don't come off as immediately hostile. They're soft."

El looks at him suspiciously. "Is that true, or are you just saying that because you and the sapphire know each other?"

Owen's hand crackles with electricity. "Both."

El remains silent.

It doesn't help. There was a part of him relying on El's constant panicking to keep his mind off of what he saw—or, he supposes, who he saw. He still feels a bit ill due to his retro vision going on the fritz because of his panic, which is not a thing that happens particularly often (but has still happened many, many times) because he doesn't panic. He's almost known for keeping a level head at all times; even while he's in what could be a particularly emotional situation, he doesn't...freak out and become half-comatose. The most emotion he thinks he's ever shown in front of anyone besides Scott is anger.

And yet, there he was—floundering in front of four gems he barely knows and Scott like a child. His reputation must be in shambles. They must think he's utterly incapable. It's been years, Scott must think he's grown soft—

Owen's face is immediately shadowed by a deep-set scowl. He's nothing close to soft, compared to the gems he's currently being 'trapped' by. He's heard it all before, really—about the beauty and the native wildlife and the nature; deserters all seem to follow a textbook script to try and convince him that what they're doing is right. He almost pities the poor souls.

He reaches up his hand to bite at his nail. He supposes Scott is part of that group, too—he can still hardly wrap his head around it. There's something that just doesn't click. Scott is funny and dry and sarcastic. He's useful and utterly proficient with analysing and interpretating his future vision, certainly thanks in part to Owen. He's talented and very smart, something that Owen would call a friend, and above all else, he was trustworthy.

...to him, at least. To everyone else, Scott was the most skilled liar to ever walk the face of several planets, but he never lied to Owen. Maybe it was because he knew Owen could tell, but he never even seemed to want to. They never had anything to hide from each other.

It speaks volumes, then, how this feels less like a rogue sapphire betraying Homeworld and their race and more like his Sapphire (his Scott, he supposes), personally turning around and stabbing Owen in his back. With a corrupted knife. While setting him on fire.

"We're never getting out of here," El whines again, and Owen's focus immediately shifts to the nearest distraction. "They're going to torture us until we give them the location of our ship and then shatter us and pilot themselves to Homeworld and then shatter everyone there, too."

"What—no, no, no!"

Owen flinches at the sudden appearance of a new voice, though it is nothing in comparison to El, who ducks he head behind her arms and scoots into the furthest corner from the bars. Owen turns his head slightly to see the bismuth coming into view, carrying an assortment of random items that have covered his arms in multicoloured stains.

"Nobody's getting tortured or shattered, here," he says decisively, popping open a chest with his foot and haphazardly dumping all of the items inside. He lets it drop shut while dusting off his hands and approaching the bars. El seems to reach to her gem out of instinct, and for a moment, Owen thinks she might have a weapon—and then she pulls out a folded up fan. He rolls his eye.

She points it at the bars with a shaking hand and barks, "S-Stay back! I know how to fight!"

The bismuth holds up his hands and takes a step back. "I'm not looking to hurt either of you. Can't we just have a conversation?"

El looks at him suspiciously. She glances at Owen, who shrugs, and she lets her hand drop but keeps her 'weapon' held tightly to her side. "You stay out there, we stay in here."

"Easy," the bismuth says smoothly. He holds a hand to his chest. "My name is Impulse. We've only put you in there so you don't do anything silly and try to hurt one of us. We're not planning to kill or maim any of you."

"We were, but Scott told us not to," comes a voice from elsewhere in the room. Owen has to hold back a snort, but El immediately pushes herself further into the corner again and points her fan at Impulse.

"You—I knew you were all wrongens!"

"Tango, shut up," Impulse calls towards the voice, turning his head and narrowing his eyes. Owen tilts his head to the side and catches a glimpse into the past of a short, red gem dropping into the room with a box in hand from the other side of the main entrance. Seems like there's multiple ways in.

"I'm right!" 'Tango' replies, finally crossing into vision to start unloading the box he was holding into the chests. These names are bloody ridiculous—Impulse, he can at least understand—maybe it's his defining characteristic—but...Tango. What even is a 'Tango?'

"No, you're not," Impulse says, turning back to the pair of jailed gems. "He's lying. Nobody ever planned to kill you."

El then proceeds to directly face Owen, asking whether that's true with her eyes. He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut as he looks back into his retro vision and shrugs. "I believe it."

"Thank you!" Impulse says brightly, not really understanding that Owen can just tell that it was true, no belief necessary.

El looks at him suspiciously. "And where is Beks?"

Impulse blinks at her. "Beks," she repeats. "My—our quartz? Where is she?"

"Oh!" He exclaims. "She's fine, her gem is in the other room. She hasn't reformed quite yet, but she'll be safe when she does."

El turns to Owen again, who nods. Impulse smiles very widely. It's a bit unnerving, in Owen's opinion. "See, we're all just here to be cordial." He pointedly looks back at the shorter gem unloading a box. "All of us."

"That's wonderful," Owen says, tilting his head to the side. "You are cordially invited to let us out of here, please."

Impulse sucks in air through his teeth and looks off to the side. "Sorry, man, I can't do that. Boss' orders."

"And who's the boss?" Owen asks lightly, staring up at the bismuth.

"Um," he replies smartly. "I don't—we don't really have a boss, really. It's just sort of something I say."

Owen almost immediately clocks the lie for what it is. "Come on, now. I'm just curious."

"Impulse, don't let them get to you," Tango warns, shutting the chest and jumping to sit on it. Impulse, who was looking a bit nervous and probably about to say something he shouldn't have, snaps his mouth shut. "He's trying to get in your head."

"I'm doing no such thing," Owen says, adequately vexed at being interrupted, as that was exactly what he was doing. "I don't even know what that means."

Impulse smiles brightly and wags a finger at Owen. Owen almost feels sick at how lighthearted he's being. "Ohhh no. I am not gonna be the one to leak important rebel secrets to the Homeworld gems, no siree."

"So you are willingly and with full intention betraying Homeworld?" Owen asks with a smug smile. "I see no reason as to why you would refer to yourself and your group as 'rebels,' otherwise. El, make sure you—"

"Already on it," El replies, having already pulled up her screen to make a transcription of what this poor idiot just said. The bismuth is opening and closing his mouth like a fish, pale as a sheet, and Owen could almost feel bad, if it wasn't so funny.

And then...Tango starts to giggle. Owen can't tell if he's just hysterical or if he's laughing at his friend, but then he wipes a tear from his eye and says, "Oh, Impulse. Never change, buddy. Never change."

"Hey, it's not my fault!" Impulse protests, suddenly looking very flushed and embarrassed. "He—he—"

"Got into your head?" Tango offers.

"Yes!"

Tango continues to cackle, and when Impulse looks down at Owen with an almost betrayed expression, he can only offer up a tight-lipped smile in return.

"If it's any consolation, we probably could have guessed," El says, still tapping away at her screen. "Verbal, explicit confirmation is always better in court, though."

"Court?" Impulse says with an air of disbelief. El laughs, evidently delighted at the idea of not being the cornered one anymore.

"Yes, court," she confirms, finishing off her sentence and pulling the screen down and away. Stars, how Owen wishes he didn't break the recorder. He would have loved to be able to listen back to this. "If you're lucky, you'll be rejuvenated—though, I don't see why they would waste the effort on either of you. You both will most likely just be shattered, and your jasper, too. The lapis and the sapphire, maybe not."

"I'm quaking in my boots," the red one says dryly.

"Don't forget Bdubs," Impulse says lightly, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

"Right, right, we have a nepherite, too," Tango realises. "What are your predictions for him?"

El snorts. "Of course he's being shattered. You think we can't spare a pilot?"

Owen is a step away from facepalming. There is simply no way she hasn't noticed that they're not taking her seriously, right? He can't be the only competent one in this group, right?

"We can't let Bdubs be shattered," Impulse continues, putting his hand on his cheek. "Cleo'll have a meltdown."

Tango shrugs. "Guess we'll just have to keep them in there, then."

"Hey—" El exclaims, sitting up with a frown on her face. Stars above, Owen is getting a bit tired of this back and forth. "Hold on a tick."

"Until the end of time, I'm guessing?" Impulse carries on, ignoring El with a cheeky smile on his face. Tango nods solemnly, and Owen takes this as a chance to do something about their situation.

He laughs at them. Tilts his head back until it hits the wall yet again and makes it known how amusing (and tiring) he finds this situation.

Tango raises an eyebrow. "What's so funny?"

Owen lets his laughter die down slowly, holding a hand to his chest. He lets his head hang for a moment, then turns to them with as much sass as he can muster and asks, "Do you seriously think you can keep me locked in here?"

The two gems on the other side trade glances. Impulse stops leaning on the wall and comments, "You seem pretty locked up to me."

Owen takes the opportunity to stand up, pushing off of the wall and standing a centimetre or two away from the iron bars. The red gem also slides off of the chest and stands up, trying to look threatening in all of his tiny, lonely glory. Owen genuinely doesn't think he's seen a gem that looks like him on his own...ever.

"How much are you willing to bet that I could get out of here in..."

He makes a show of squinting at the bars and tilting his head to the side. "Less than five seconds?"

"Ha," Tango practically barks, walking up to the bars and looking Owen dead in the eyes. "If you could've done that all this time, why didn't you do it until now?"

"Maybe I just wanted to show off," Owen replies, smiling in that infuriatingly smug way he does to purposely get on people's nerves. It works wonders in trying to get them to say things they shouldn't.

It seems to do its job, as Tango's hair amazingly starts to curl off into tiny flames as he crosses his arms. Owen can't help but look at him with mild awe. What a delightful malfunction—he almost wants to see how far it could go.

"I don't believe you," Tango says stubbornly. Owen isn't looking, but he can see Impulse's expression turn mildly concerned in his mind's eye. "You have no weapons on you. And I don't see why either of you would have summonable weapons, but she definitely doesn't."

"And what if I do?"

"Then I would love to see it for myself," Tango says hotly—literally, as the wisps of flame flare a bit on his emphasis of the word 'love.'

Owen raises his eyebrow and turns back to El. She's staring at him with furrowed confusion, but he ignores it. "Did you hear that? He said he'd love to see."

El nods slowly. "That...is, indeed, what he said."

Owen nods understandingly, taking his time to turn back to face the barrier in front of him—then tears his weapon from his gem and cuts through the bars like air.

His weapon is about as shockingly unfitting as it gets: a short weapon with a curved blade that is essentially a scythe crossed with a sickle. The orange blade crackles with light that snaps in haphazard bands of 'electricity' around it, and the gem connecting the two parts of the weapon emits the lightest of glows into the otherwise dim cell.

With two swipes, the middle part of the bars are swept away, clattering onto the floor as Owen stands there, unmoving, weapon over his shoulder with that diamond-forsaken smile that has gotten him in so much trouble before.

A majority of Tango's hair is now flame, rippling and flicking with every twitch in his utterly laughable expression. Impulse's isn't much better, but he seems to be on the verge of breaking out into laughter as he holds a hand to his mouth.

"'Impulse, don't let them get to you,'" the bismuth mocks, snickering through his words. "'He's trying to get in your head.'"

"Shut up," Tango snaps.

Despite himself, Owen feels a twinge of annoyance in his chest as he poofs away his weapon. "You two are arrogantly unserious."

"What kind of sapphire has a gem weapon?!" Tango shouts, his hands flying into the air as his hair fully and properly bursts into fire. Owen stares in amused surprise.

"The kind that finds a need to have one," he replies, like he always does. Tango kicks at a rod that fell onto the floor and marches back towards the chest he was perched on before. Impulse holds out his hand to bar him from sitting.

"You're gonna burn through the chest," he explains apologetically. Tango looks like he wants to bite off Impulse's head, but refrains from doing so and instead sits on the stone ground.

There's a moment of silence as Owen looks at the red-hot remains of the barrier between him and freedom. He glances back at El, who looks almost as shocked as the two rebels had. She's more pushed into the corner than she was before.

"So..." Impulse starts, scratching the back of his neck. "You broke our bars."

"Our perfectly good, expensive bars," Tango grumbles, looking much like a child throwing a tantrum on the floor. His height doesn't help him at all.

"Oh, cool it, Tango," Impulse chides. "They weren't that expensive."

"Tell me that when you're the one mining the iron."

"I probably was the one who—nevermind."

"Indeed," Owen says wryly. "Are you going to attempt to lock us up again?"

Impulse looks vaguely exasperated as he holds out his hands and shrugs. "I'd rather not waste the materials."

"Perfect," Owen says. He hoists up his dress and takes a step over the bars, causing Tango to snap his head up and Impulse to hold his hands out as if to placate him. "You know I'm not going to do anything. You seized our communication devices and anything else that may have been used to contact the ship. I'd just like to take a look around, if that's alright."

Impulse and Tango look at each other, as if having a silent conversation, before Impulse shrugs and Tango's hair dies down a tad, turning back into actual hair at the roots. "I don't think we could stop you without things turning ugly, so."

"So?"

Impulse sighs. "Just don't break anything that would make Cleo try and kill us."

Owen could almost laugh. Deserters; he swears, they get more gullible every time he sees them. "I'll try my best." He turns back to El and asks, "Are you coming?"

El's eyes slowly trail from him to the other two gems in the room. She looks completely and utterly frazzled: her dress is torn, her hair is a mess, and her hands are trembling in their position in front of her face.

She shakes her head. Owen shrugs, and mutters, "I'll be seeing you, then."

He turns back and stares at the positively archaic door before twisting the handle and taking his leave.

the other side of the war

summary:

Scott likes to think he is a sensible person. Because of this, he doesn't find it at all unreasonable for him to start freaking out when he catches a glimpse of a Homeworld ship passing over the Crastle. Owen is rather certain that he is a sensible person. Because of this, he feels as if his response of dropping his recording device onto a rock and breaking it instantly upon seeing the sapphire that exits the large castle is entirely reasonable.

or: owen, beks, and eloise go from homeworld to find the deserters on earth. owen very much recognises scott. title from story of tonight (reprise) by lin-manuel miranda. au by @chrisrin. fic is life on earth by @sixteenth-days. read the tags!

(ao3 link)

(2,593 words)

Scott likes to think he is a sensible person. Whether that is true or not is entirely subjective, but he's quite sure he is one of the most level-headed gems currently residing on Life, if not the most.

Because of this, he doesn't find it at all unreasonable for him to start freaking out when he catches a glimpse of a Homeworld ship passing over the Crastle.

"Glimpse" is a loose term—he both sees it in a vision and then sees it out of the corner of the window only a few seconds later, almost too fast to catch and not looking like it was planning to stop. The vessel was yellow in colour and rather small, which at the very least tells him that it's not another colonisation attempt or scouting expedition. His relief from that realisation is very quickly undercut by the strangling anxiety at what it could be instead, and his efforts to try and pry into the future to see what could be on the ship are suddenly interrupted by the knowledge that Jimmy was going to come barreling into the room from the window in a few moments.

He does so with as little grace as Scott saw, his foot catching on the ledge and making him lose his balance on his way inside, all the while yelling, "Scott- Scott, I saw another ship fly by-

"I know," Scott says coolly, pretending like there aren't fractals crawling across the wooden boards around his dress.

Jimmy fixes himself from somehow being tangled up in a stone slab. "You know?"

Scott grips the sides of his dress. "I saw."

"Oh," Jimmy says shortly, shoulders slumping. He looks back out the window as if expecting the ship to come around again—which it very well might- before turning back to Scott. His wings are refracting the light of the sun onto the ground, making their trembles all the more obvious. "What do we do?"

"Tell the others, if they haven't seen already." He kicks his legs to break the ice sticking his dress to the floor before it becomes unbearable. "Hopefully, it'll just pass by without encountering us at all."

Jimmy tilts his head to the side like a bird, which are quickly becoming one of Scott's favourite things on Life. "I don't see why it would fly this close to the surface if it was just passing by."

"'Hopefully,' dear," Scott says with a weary smile. "I said 'hopefully.'"

"Ah."

Scott laughs lightly, the warmth in his chest chasing away his anxiety as Jimmy giggles to himself, face turning a slightly darker shade of blue. He reaches out to lay a hand on Jimmy's arm—

—and then there's a small ship in a forest, there's orange and green and blue, there's weapons and shouting and a lapis falling to pieces in front of his eye—

—and Scott's grip on Jimmy's forearm turns almost violent in its intensity. Jimmy looks down at him, concern preciously obvious in all of his body language. Scott doesn't look up. His hands are shaking.

"You saw something," Jimmy says softly, immediately crouching to be at eye level with Scott.

"I did."

His face is pinched with concern and worry and stubborn, stubborn love, a fierce protectiveness that has lead to his hypothetical death in several timelines in Scott's vision. "Was it about the ship? Was it bad?"

Scott shakes his head on instinct before catching himself and leaning more into a head-tilt, like the birds. "They're coming. They've spotted us. There's only three gems, I think, and they're going to land in the forest in front of the Crastle."

Jimmy's face goes pale. "Could you tell what type of gems they were?" Scott shakes his head, and Jimmy immediately pulls him into a hug, which has been his thing lately. Spontaneous displays of affection—though this one, Scott supposes, is not that spontaneous. He hugs Jimmy back and does his best not to touch his wings so as to not drench his arms. "It's gonna be okay, Scott. We'll be alright. We always end up alright."

Scott simply hums in return. The amount of confidence he speaks with is almost hilarious, considering how many times Scott has saved him from shattering without him even knowing. It would be hilarious if they weren't visions of his flower dying gruesomely branded onto the inside of his eyelid. "I know. Just stay close to me, okay? Don't do anything stupid."

Jimmy pulls back but leaves his hands on Scott's shoulders. "I never do anything stupid."

Scott is not content with giving him a look that he will not be able to see. He pushes his bangs out of the way and fixes Jimmy with the most lightheartedly withering glare he can manage.

Jimmy bursts out laughing. Scott can hardly help himself but follow.

-

Owen is rather certain that he is a sensible person. If the contrary was true, he is almost certain that he would have been shattered ages ago, or at the very least, reconditioned due to his innate value. He is almost completely positive that he is one of, if not the most level-headed gems that has ever stepped foot into consciousness.

Because of this, he feels as if his response of dropping his recording device onto a rock and breaking it instantly upon seeing the trio of gems that exit the large castle is entirely reasonable.

There is a jasper that positively towers over him, a lapis lazuli that is shooting him and his company a very distasteful look, and a sapphire, front and centre, just like him.

He gazes into Sapphire's bangs, and Sapphire stares right back.

They're both frozen, the plant matter around Sapphire's dress freezing so quickly the lapis begins to try and kick it away and the matter around Owen's dress cooking to a light sear. The vision of El and Beks' confused expressions flashes like a spotlight into the front of his mind, and he can see equally as perplexed looks on Sapphire's friends' faces.

He cannot believe what he is seeing—it shouldn't even be possible for him to be seeing this. This is wrong, this is terrible, this is—

"Owen?" Sapphire says, taking a step forward. Beks immediately matches the step, but Owen holds out his hand to keep her still. "Owen—Padparadscha, is that really you?"

"Yeah," Owen breathes, before clearing his throat and fixing his posture to be more straight. He glances at Beks and she immediately snatches up the pieces of the broken recorder. That was entirely his fault, be will admit—a reasonable response to seeing a friend currently siding with a bunch of deserting rebels he was sent to interrogate, but his fault nonetheless. "Yes, Sapphire, it's me. What are you doing?"

Sapphire's demeanor almost seems to brighten at that. "Oh, Owen, you wouldn't believe the things we have out here—I go by Scott now, by the way."

"'Scott?'" Owen repeats, rolling the name around in his mouth. "Why? That has nothing to do with you or your cut."

"No, no," 'Scott' says, shaking his head. "It's an alien name. I chose it myself, do you like it?"

"Do I like—Sapphire—Scott, whatever, do you realise how serious this is?"

Scott falters a bit, taking a slight step back as the lapis frowns at Owen. Owen stares directly at him, and he shrinks a bit but still asks, "'Serious?' What makes this so much worse than all the other trips out here?"

Scott elbows the lapis in the thigh, and before Owen can really process the fact that this...group of gems have encountered the other missions, El steps forward and clears her throat. She has been furiously tapping on a holographic screen ever since Owen broke the recorder, most likely transcribing the entire conversation. She doesn't even look up as she begins to speak.

"The Great Diamond Authority has recognised the presence of living and functioning gems on this planet that have not returned to Homeworld after several scouting and retrieval missions. The three of us are here as an extension of their luminescent grace and power to decipher and report upon the locations and intentions of these...missing gems."

The word 'missing' is dripping with distaste and scorn, and Owen is rather sure everyone felt it. Scott takes another step back and Owen stamps out the resulting twist in his chest. It isn't his problem if Scott decided to run off onto some planet and desert his home for...whatever reason. It isn't his problem that the sapphire has seen this writhing, damp, cluttered mess of a planet to be worth more than his life and the lives of those that took the mission with him. He is not going to think about it too hard because he is sensible and would prefer to remain that way.

"So what does that...mean?" the lapis asks, fiddling with his fingers.

"It means we're here to get answers, moron," Beks snaps, leaning on the hilt of her greatsword. "Though I honestly think the fact that you're not begging us to take you home is answer enough."

All three of the gems standing across from them (including Sapphire, and Owen really is trying to wrap his head around the idea that Sapphire is over there and he is over here and they are enemies?, he supposes?) make some sort of scowl, and he sees the water in the pond not too far from them start to ripple, except that was about ten seconds ago and now the surface of the water is choppy and the lapis' gem is starting to glow.

"Owen," Scott says quietly.

"Padparadscha," Owen hisses, digging his fingers into his dress and staring down the lapis lazuli. He feels lightheaded. "No deserter is a friend of mine."

"Stars, Homeworld gems," mutters the jasper, who has looked nothing but mildly intrigued this entire time and is now gazing down at Owen with an unidentifiable expression that makes his skin prickle. "So dramatic."

"There's really no need to get overly-hostile, here," El says nervously, though the fact that she actually glances up from her holoscreen is sign enough that she is ready to bolt at any given moment. "We just want to ask some questions."

"No, I think the quartz may have been right," the jasper says, stretching in a way that cracks her knuckles and other assorted joints audibly but plays it off like a normal stretch. "We've given you answer enough."

"Are you suggesting we fight?" Beks asks, though she sounds more like she's gleefully proposing something rather than asking a question. "'Cause we're not leaving until we complete what we've been told to do. Unlike some, we still have a modicum of responsibility left in our rays."

"Beks," El says irritably, shooting the quartz a glare. "Stop antagonising them."

Beks stops leaning back and forth on her sword and instead properly wraps her hand around the hilt, raising an eyebrow. "I'm not doing anything. I'm just talking."

"We'd appreciate it if you stopped," the lapis insists.

"We'd appreciate it if you shut up," Beks snaps back, the tip of her sword digging further into the ground, piecing through the layer beneath their feet. Owen can't stop staring. "Really, I mean—a bloody lapis? And a sapphire? I mean, I wouldn't expect anything more from a jasper, maybe even a lapis under insane circumstances, but a sapphire? For this? This disgusting, pulsing planet?"

Owen blinks, and he can see serrated spikes rising from the water's surface.

Scott blinks, and he can see that same image of a lapis shattering in front of his eyes.

For a moment, the two of them are in sync again.

And then the spikes go flying, and Owen shouts out Beks' name as she lifts her sword to attack and the lapis kicks into the air with his wings. El immediately shrieks and ducks away, dress snagging on the sharp edges of the terrain as Beks' sword goes swinging in a terrifyingly wide arc in front of them. The only thing Owen can do is yell, really, until he realises he can do more and throws himself into Beks' back as hard as physically possible. He lands on top of her, and then falls straight onto the forest floor, something sharp digging into his abdomen.

At the same time, Jimmy's name is torn from Scott's throat as he lunges towards the lapis, attaching himself to his legs and pulling him down, yanking him closer to the ground just as weapons make contact and suddenly, Scott is holding nothing.

Scott snatches Jimmy's gem off the forest floor (thank the stars, thank the stars, that was entirely too close and he can barely breathe and he is shaking so hard he's scared the vibrations might end up shattering Jimmy, anyway) and shouts, "Enough! Enough, please. Cleo, please."

Owen's vision shifts back to reality (after watching three shards of ice go directly through Beks' head as her sword cut clean through the lapis' neck) and he realises that he is at the end of the jasper's weapon—'Cleo's' weapon, apparently. He looks up at her and sits up, scooping Beks' gem into his hands and clutching it close to his chest.

"This...this will get us nowhere," Scott says through ragged breaths, and Owen blinks and he sees a lapis gem shattering from Scott's point of view- a disorienting past-vision of Scott's future-vision that makes him feel dizzy. He hasn't done that in so long. How long has Scott been out here? Owen knew he went on a mission somewhere, but it isn't that uncommon for those to take several months, or even years before becoming a real concern. How long has Scott been missing?

"I—I agree," calls El from several feet away. Her dress is shredded at the bottom and Owen is quite sure this is the first time he has ever seen her legs. He blinks, hard, and sees Scott holding the lapis' hand as they walked out of the castle in front of them. A deep, painful pit settles in his stomach. "Please, let's just sit down and talk."

Owen feels a bit ill. The present and the recent past are often a bit too similar and a bit too frequent for him to properly categorise, and he suddenly fears the idea of getting them very, very badly confused like he has done several times before. For some of those times, Scott was there to help him. He sees Scott pushing his hair back, staring at him, except when Owen actually looks, his hair is down and his hand is hovering by his chest. Around where his heart would be.

"Owen," he says quietly. "Let's go inside."

Owen blinks and sees Scott and this lapis encouraging each other, warning each other just behind the door, hugging each other, Scott standing on his toes while the lapis leans down and—

Oh. His vision shifts focus again. He's too dizzy for this. The sun is going down and the sky is painted in brilliant shades of yellow and orange and red and purple. It's black and tainted with trillions of stars in his vision alone.

"Yeah, alright," Owen whispers, looking down at Beks. He swipes his thumb against the face of the gem and holds her tighter in his hands. Scott is pressing the lapis to his forehead. The lapis is in a blue bubble within Scott's hands. Owen feels dizzy. "Let's go inside."

[itsclydebitches]

Nitpick November

Okay, this is an ancient nitpick now and I’m like 95% sure I already ranted wrote about it in a previous year, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Why oh why didn’t we learn what Ruby bought at the gift shop?

This is a fantastic, lighthearted moment in an otherwise depressing Volume! It shows off the characters’ personalities in a natural way, helping to distinguish what will quickly become a fairly homogenous group! Ruby is spending her money (Qrow’s money?) buying gifts for her teammates. Weiss thinks it’s all a waste of time (getting annoyed over inconsequential dolt stuff to hide how anxious she is about returning to Atlas). Yang is actually acting like a sister, getting playfully mad that Ruby won’t say what she got her and making a grab for the bag. “You’ll have to wait and see~”

Except Yang - and the audience - never get to find out what Ruby chose for her. It’s like a domestic Chekhov’s gun, but the included element is actually inconsequential. You wanted the story to follow up on a question it posed, one another character expressed enthusiastic interest in? Lol don’t be ridiculous.

The fact that RWBYOQ seem to have lost all their luggage (except the bike) and never comment on that is downright weird to me. Yang rants about gaining a “defenseless old lady,” but not that they presumably lost whatever was in the 9+ bags they were traveling with.

Which, given that they expected to have a nice, leisurely, day long ride into Argus on an otherwise dangerous quest, most likely includes things like dust and weapons supplies. You know, the important stuff a huntress would miss when suddenly stranded in hostile territory.

Give us a bonding moment where Ruby tells Yang what her gift was in an effort to cheer her up. Add tension to their travels by limiting the means with which they have to defend themselves. Hell, give a meh, but technically believable line about how gee golly gosh, we sure are glad everything we were traveling with was up front with JNR. I’m sure they’ll have it all unpacked at whatever safe house we’re heading towards. Oh look, there we go. Here’s your gift, Yang!

As always, the most annoying part is that RWBY’s nitpicks are, often, not actually nitpicks. The show forgot Ruby’s shopping spree in the Argus train station. Okay, big deal. Problem is, the show forgot everything else that happened in the station too.

Like the letter Qrow sent to Ironwood, the one that goes a long way towards explaining his increase in security (among every other justification) and providing the group with a means of entering Atlas if they just show a little patience. It would be real silly for our conflicts to revolve around entering the city + the group’s cliff-hanger shock at Ironwood defending his Kingdom + then seguing into total suspicion of the general when Qrow started the Volume with a letter that boiled down to “Things are awful and if you get this first, oopsies, things likely got worse and you’re on your own.”

Or, a revision:

“Dear James,

Things are really fucking bad right now! Worse even than you’re hearing and definitely worse than is safe to say over mail. So we’re coming to you. Trains are faster than letters, so if you get this first then, uh, something bad probably happened to us? Like, I don’t know, we got stranded in the woods with apathy-inducing grimm. Or something. Just tell your people to be on the lookout for wandering huntsmen because you’re smart enough to realize that getting this letter before we show up is a #BadSign.

You and I, we’ve had a playfully antagonistic, but ultimately respectful relationship over the years, which is why I’m warning you ahead of time. I look forward to resuming our partnership. I definitely don’t plan to become so randomly suspicious of you that I try to live in Atlas as a fugitive, then return your hug, then lie to you for weeks, then trust you again, then decide you need to die for my own stupidity. That would be wild, right?

See you soon!

Love,

Qrow

P.S. I bet Ruby bought you something at the gift shop. She’s a nice kid and would definitely want to thank the guy who gave her beloved sister a state-of-the-art arm, helping to bring her out of the depression that Ruby then had intense guilt over leaving her in to hunt a power-hungry murderer. Something to look forward to!”

[a-kaash-me-outside]

Hiya! I am definitely on the writing block train with ya, I’m sending all the positive writer vibes your way tori!

You’re writing is always something I look forward to reading- I just- *chef’s kiss*

In the event of overcoming this writing slump I would love to req. some nsfw bokuto x reader with the lovely smut prompt of either #55 or #99?

Thank you and I truly believe that you can ko this writing block’s ass😉.

but I’m hungry

// nsfw (minors dni!!), f!reader, oral f!receiving, no seriously some good good pussy eating thanks, domestic smut mmm

ty for the posi vibes, but more so, thank u for req bokuto because i have been on a bokuto brainrot for like,,, mmm ~~ weeks thanks ,, srsly one of the best things I’ve written I think so this is a part of my 3k event ! ~ go request smthn or send me hcs

“You know, there wasn’t a single thing to eat in the kitchen until you walked in.” His head is still in the refrigerator when you enter the kitchen. Either he is disgustingly aware of your morning routine or your footsteps aren't as light as you thought.

"It is 7 in the morning, don't you think it's a little early for stupid pickup lines?" Your eyes are half-lidded, still contemplating going back to sleep instead of starting your day as a blurry Bokuto takes 3 strides to meet you where you stand.

He wastes no time wrapping his arms tightly around you. "Who said it was a stupid pickup line? Maybe I'm just hungry for something in particular this morning."

"Don't you have practice in like an hour?" you ask, rubbing your eyes with one hand so you can actually focus on your boyfriend.

"But I'm hungry," he whines, pressing his forehead to yours, pleading eyes waiting for any bit of approval that you'll give him. You lock your arms together around his neck as you nod. What were you supposed to do? Turn him down?

The pleas in his eyes are replaced with excitement and a more unapologetic hunger as he lifts you, quickly making his way to the counter. You can't help your laugh, "What? No bedroom?"

His fingers are already hooked into the waistband of your shorts and underwear when he looks up at you, joking confusion all over his face that almost immediately turns into a grin. "I'm eating in the kitchen where I'm supposed to."

He pulls them off in one motion, nudging your legs apart with his own before lowering himself and hooking his arms under your knees, locking his fingers together on your lower back.

It's always a gamble when Bo gets in between your legs. Some days he takes his time, teases you for hours using only the tip of his tongue until you're so sensitive that his breath could make you come if he asked you to. Some days he savors it, letting you come whenever you feel it approaching, but staying buried between your legs for as long as he can hold his breath so he doesn't have to be away from you.

Some days he wants to make you come as many times as you can handle just to prove to himself and you how much power he has. Some days he goes as hard as he can, using whatever he can to hear those unbelievable noises you make, making a huge mess of you and wherever you are.

Today... Today your boyfriend is hungry, starving actually from the looks of it as he stares between your legs, mouth watering as he just takes in how fucking pretty you are.

He looks up at you, not for permission, but so that you can see the gratitude that's taking over every single one of his features. His eyes are locked on yours, focus resting on the golden color as he inches closer to you, mouth open and tongue out.

Your jaw relaxes, mouth opening slightly as your tongue rests against your bottom lip, waiting with bated breath as you feel yourself growing wetter.

He licks a long strip between your lips, dipping into your hole before running the flat of his tongue against your clit. It's the most control that he exhibits all morning. Tasting you on his tongue, feeling your juices coat his tongue, all of his restraint is gone.

He buries himself as deep between your legs as is physically possible, his nose pressed up against your clit as he slurps whatever wetness he can, using his bottom lip to make sure that he doesn't miss any of it.

"mmm taste so fucking good," he mumbles against your pussy, the vibrations making your thighs clench. "fuck, baby, baby, you taste so fucking good." You're already coming, lacing your fingers into his hair as he moans into you, tongue diving so deep into your cunt, scooping out all of the cum that he can.

But he wants more. He needs more. It's not enough. He pulls you closer to him and you're convinced that he can't breathe. Your thighs are engulfing him and your pussy is suffocating him and he has never looked happier. You've lost his eye contact from how submerged he is between your legs. You know that they're probably shut in concentration and appreciation, but your fingers are digging into his shoulders and you're whimpering and you just want to see how much he's enjoying it. "Bo, mm, please look at me."

He pulls back only enough for you to watch his eyelid flutter open and see the drunk-like look in his eyes, but it doesn't last for long because you're coming on his tongue again and he needs every drop.

Time doesn't exist in this moment. You've lost track of how many times you've came and how many breathes he's taken. Your legs are tired from tensing so hard and you're sure that Bo's back is raw at this point and you have absolutely no thoughts in your head other than how in love with him you are and he shows zero signs of stopping.

Despite his best efforts, between his spit and how many times he's made you come, you're dripping onto the counter beneath you so much so that you are so grateful for the hold that Bo has on you because otherwise you would be sliding all over the counter. Your fingers are gripped onto the edge of the counter now, no longer clawing down Bo's back.

You're coming down from what you're quite positive is your 15th orgasm when you hear a vibration against the counter. You're out of breath and your mind is foggy, but you can see Bo's phone buzzing, the screen lighting up with Atsumu's face and a time that is most definitely later than you thought.

"Baby," you murmur, but it's like he doesn't even hear you. "Bokuto," you say, louder his time, reaching to grab his phone, sitting upright as you unclench your thighs from around him.

At the absence of you completely surrounding him, he looks up at you. The entire lower half of his face is sheened with you and no matter how many times he swallows, it's not enough. It's catching up to him now being buried between your legs, taking deep breaths to compose himself.

"'s Atsumu," you say, offering his phone to him. "You are very late for practice."

By the time Bokuto finally composes himself, the phone stops ringing, but he doesn't make any moves to get up. He licks his lips, savoring the lingering taste of you and you swear to God if his phone didn't start ringing as soon as it stopped, he would've kept going.

You can barely hear Atsumu from the other side of the line, angrily asking where he's at and if he slept passed his alarm. Your eyes are trained on Bo as he looks up at you and then between your legs once again. "Yeah, I'm actually not feeling good this morning. I thought I texted Meian, but the text must not have sent. I'll be there Thursday though."

You can't focus on whatever response Atsumu gives, but it sounds apologetic enough, all you can focus on is the way that the corner's of Bo's lips upturn into a smile as he nods with fake concern. "Yeah, right, I will. Thanks, 'Tsumu."

And then he hangs up the phone.

"Sorry, where were we?" he asks, wasting no time before closing the gap and picking up right where he left off.

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[freshsprout]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ || "smaller dose." her answer is quick this time, unwavering, as she meets tighnari's gaze. she doesn't even ask any questions—what do you think would be best? what are the pros and cons of each option?—because logic has no place in her young and frightened mind. all she knows is that most "medicine" she's been given has caused her nothing but pain.

though she has no reason to believe that the medication she's been offered during her stay here is nothing but helpful, she'd really rather not be on any medication at all; a wish that is unlikely to be fulfilled given how sickly she is, but a wish nonetheless. "i don't... i don't like it." there's more to it, but she can't find it in her to voice all the thoughts, the fears. how medicine makes her think of treatments that make her think of experimentation that make her think of—

she swallows thickly, looking away again. one of her hands moves to clutch at the hem of her shirt. it's stupid that she's nervous; tighnari is supposed to be a helpful person, right? collei has no reason to believe otherwise, and yet...

she's trying, at least. it's the least she can do, to make sure the kindness of her friends in mondstadt will not go to waste. it's a shame her efforts don't look like much when she's still far too on edge to act like the child she is. she's still relearning how to laugh and be carefree, learning that there are people in the world who wish for her happiness.

It doesn't take long for the leaves covering the door to move aside just enough to be taken as an invitation into the hut. Though it's only been a few weeks, Tighnari hopes he can convince Collei to decorate a little. Make the space her own more than just a place she occupies. The walls are still mostly barren, with the furniture already there when he moved her in.

She's still very quiet, but luckily Tighnari can talk enough for the both of them. He thinks it's lucky at least, and hopes Collei shares the sentiment.

"I think we can start changing your medicine regime." Tighnari starts carefully, laying his bag on the table and unpacking the things he'd brought with. "Since you've been stable for a few weeks, I think you can take it less frequently and at a lower dose. If you have a flare up, we can adjust. But otherwise I think it may be more effective to work on stretching and mobility exercises. They'll put you in a good position to tolerate flare ups of your eleazar, and hopefully bounce back a little easier with muscles that are more apt to hold up to it."

He wishes he could give her any treatment with certainty. That it wasn't a constant guessing game and testing of theories. She isn't the first eleazar patient he's assisted with, but she's the first he's taken the lead on, and the only who'd been brought to him after extensive Fatui experimentation. Her case is... unique.

"However, your current dose will not hurt you by any means. If you would rather maintain that, we can do so. Or simply wait a bit before changing it." He adds, glancing over at Collei, where she resides near the wall, arms crossed over her chest. It still breaks his heart a bit to see.

"What do you think? We can stay the same if you want time to consider, or we can change it today. You may also ask any questions you may have about it."

These choices are... difficult. There's part of him that thinks it would be easier on both of them for him to have a strong, firm opinion to enforce. But after all she's been through, he wants her to have as much say in her care as possible. Then again, she's still a child. She doesn't know anything of medicine. Not for the first time, Tighnari wishes there was just a right way to do any of this. Or even someone to ask.

Still, he stays quiet, allows Collei to think before she answers.