#and none of my kids spend the whole lesson crying four weeks in a row so like! what about it!

[oldtestleper]

this kid is a better and certainly more productive teacher than I am but like he’s been terrorizing this little girl every week bc he keeps trying to get her comfortable and then like. dunking her. just stop it. either you can be bad cop and dunk her or you can be good cop and do what you say you’re gonna do, which is be a safe place for her to hang out

[kelyon]

Golden Rings 3: A Savior

The Storybrooke sequel to Golden Cuffs

Ruby and Granny scramble to make rent before Mr. Gold comes calling.

Read on AO3

Ruby Lucas was going to lose her goddamn mind. 

Ever since yesterday when Mrs. Gold had stopped by the diner, Ruby and Granny had been frantically trying to gather up enough cash to make rent before Sunday evening. 

It wasn’t like this every month. Most months only had four Sundays, so Granny knew that the last Sunday of the month was rent day and she could have everything ready. They usually had a week that was dedicated just to earning rent money. But this particular October had five Sundays. So when Granny had planned out the spending for this week, she had spent that money on stupid shit like food and the electric bill. She had planned it like it was a regular week. Not the week that rent was due. 

The worst part for Ruby was that they had the money! Friday had been a great day for business! Granny had deposited the cash at Storybrooke Savings and Loan on Saturday morning! When they checked the account balance at the ATM, there was more than enough to cover the rent!

But Mr. Gold would only take cash.

And the bank wouldn’t open again until Monday at nine.

And Granny could only take out $300 out of the ATM in a 24-hour period. 

So the diner and the bed and breakfast had to net a four-figure profit--in cash--in less than one day in order for them to make rent. Mrs. Gold had made it clear that there was only one alternative if they didn’t have it all when Mr. Gold came for it at 8:15 PM. 

And Ruby was damned if she would let that happen. 

So it was time to get to work. 

Normally, Saturday nights were her one guaranteed night off. Depending on how wild things got on Saturday night, she might need to take Sunday morning off too. But on that night, Ruby pulled a double and hustled like she had never hustled before. 

The first thing she did was scrawl OUT OF ORDER on the back of some receipt paper and tape it over the card swiper. The machine was working fine, but it could take up to three business days for the company to deposit the funds from card purchases into their bank account. Ruby didn’t have three business days. 

“What do you mean by this?” Albert Spencer said when he came up to the counter to pay for his meal of liver and onions and decaf black coffee. He held up his platinum credit card  like it was the world’s tiniest battle axe. “Why can’t I use my card?”

“Sorry!” Ruby lied in her cheerful customer service voice. “We’ve got the guy coming in to fix it on Monday. Right now it’s cash only, but there’s an ATM right across the street.”

“I’m not going across the street!” The old man was so angry it was like she had told him the card machine was at the bottom of a full dumpster. “How dare you not accept my card? I’ve got a fifty thousand dollar limit!”

“But you don’t have ten bucks to pay for dinner?” The words were out of Ruby’s mouth before she could stop them. She was too busy thinking of all the problems in her life that would be solved with just five thousand dollars. Or even five hundred.

Mr. Spencer’s face went purple. “Who is your manager?” he shouted. “I demand to speak to someone with power!”

Then talk to Mr. Gold, Ruby wanted to say, but didn’t. Instead, she told Mr. Spencer that the manager and owner of Granny’s Diner was, in fact, Granny, and that she would go get her now. 

Granny had been in the kitchen. She was relieving stress by yelling at Tony, and the wait staff, and the food itself when no other target was available. When Ruby told her what was happening out front, she squared her shoulders and marched out for battle.

“What kind of slop house do you think you’re running?” Mr. Spencer spat when she came out front. “Why won’t you accept my credit card? Don’t you want my business?”

“Of course we want your business,” Granny lied. She didn’t shout at Mr. Spencer. But she kept her arms crossed over her chest and stared straight at him. Ruby had seen that look in her eyes every time she had ever been in trouble growing up. “But the machine is broken. I’ve already called the repair man. He can’t come in until Monday. So for the time being, we can only accept cash.”

“This is ridiculous! Whatever happened to ‘the customer is always right’?”

Granny leaned forward and gave Mr. Spencer a tight smile. If he was steel, she was stone. She wasn’t going to budge.

“Right now we’re living by another motto. ‘Cash is king.’” 

Mr. Spencer looked like he wanted to order them beheaded and then burn down the diner as a lesson to anyone else who dared question the authority of him or his platinum credit card. But instead, he just pulled out his wallet, counted out ten one-dollar bills, and dropped them on the counter.

“See if I ever come back to this shithole,” he said very loudly as he left.

“See if you’re ever welcome back,” Granny muttered. She looked around the diner. “Anyone else take offense to our technical difficulties?”

No one else did.

****

That was the night that Ruby perfected the art of up-selling. Sure, you could have a cup of coffee, but wouldn’t a latte just hit the spot? We’ve got pumpkin spice, for a limited time! And avocado! Just a dollar extra! Are you guys celebrating? You should get dessert! No, get separate desserts! None of this “one sundae, two spoons,” nonsense! Live a little!  

And it worked. By the end of the night on Saturday, they had almost half of what they needed to pay the rent. It was a record profit for the day before rent day. 

But it wasn’t enough. 

It was less than half of enough.

So Sunday morning, Ruby dragged herself out of bed to keep the hot streak going. She hissed advice to the other waitresses, and threats to the ones who were slacking. She led by example and smiled, smiled, smiled. 

The rush started as soon as the churches let out. The same rich people who had been there for dinner on Saturday night swung by in the afternoon for brunch--except for Albert Spencer. You would think that spending an hour in the presence of God would sweeten people’s attitudes, but no. If anything, they were more demanding and sour on Sunday afternoons. Maybe worship had made them uncomfortably aware of their hypocrisy. Or maybe they just hated squeezing into fancy clothes every week.

According to rumor, Mr. Gold always started his rounds at the Sisters of St. Meissa Convent. Every month, wealthy parishioners came into the diner chatting about how he approached the Mother Superior just as mass was letting out. Mrs. Gold always stayed behind in the Cadillac. Ruby could imagine Mr. Gold in his black suits, parting the seas of the brightly-dressed faithful. His presence would be a reminder to people of what was coming to them, the reckoning that would come due that very day. 

Walking up to a church, Mr. Gold probably looked like the devil. 

That was why it was only the rich people who came out for brunch on the fourth Sunday of the month. Rich old people got the same cheap meals they always ordered no matter what Ruby suggested. And they tipped badly no matter how much Ruby smiled and laughed at their stupid jokes. 

Even worse than the rich old people were the rich young people. Technically, Sean Herman and Hunter Duke and their friends were all the same age as Ruby. She had vivid memories of them all going to Storybrooke High together. But in terms of experience, those kids had stayed in preschool their whole lives. Without asking, the group pushed two tables together and stayed for two hours. They ordered nothing but nachos and sodas and they didn’t tip anything.   

Plus, when the housekeeping maid Ashley Boyd saw that Sean was in the diner with another girl, she started crying so hard that Ruby thought she was going to go into labor. It had taken fifteen minutes to calm her down. Fifteen minutes where Ruby had to let another waitress take her tables and her tips. 

Somehow, she got through the day. The diner closed at seven and Granny went back to count the register. Ruby stayed out front with the door locked and half the lights off. She told everyone to go home and used her nervous energy to do all the cleaning up herself.  

Would they have enough? Was this going to work? Or had Ruby just pushed herself to the limit for no reason? If they didn’t have enough, was there any way that Mr. Gold would work with them? Would he let them have one day to take cash out of the bank? Could he possibly be persuaded to take a check? Or her car?

But as Ruby sprayed glass cleaner on the bakery display case, she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Mrs. Gold had made it very clear what her husband wanted Ruby to offer--something red and sweet.

Herself.

Or at least her body.

“Fuck!” Ruby muttered as she scrubbed at her reflection with a paper towel. The cleaner fumes made her eyes sting and water. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!”

The dining room was as clean as it was going to get, and Tony had already taken care of the kitchen. It was seven-thirty on Sunday night, and Mr. Gold always came by at eight-fifteen sharp. 

Ruby wheeled her bucket of dirty mop water to the utility closet and drained it out. That was all life really was in this stupid town, wasn’t it? Life just made people dirtier and grosser until they weren’t useful anymore and then they went down the drain.

Fuck.

When she got to Granny’s office, piles of cash were lined up on the desk in neat rows. Granny was bent over them, counting out loud. 

“Five, ten, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen--”

That was bad. If Granny was counting out fives and ones, they were scraping the bottom of the barrel. When she got to twenty, the counting stopped. Granny straightened up in her chair and let out a long sigh.

“Do we still have quarters?” Ruby asked, trying to be hopeful.

Granny didn’t turn to face her. “I’ve counted it three times,” her voice was as wrung out as a dirty mop. “And every time it comes out the same.”

“We’re millionaires!”

It was a stupid joke, but she was so desperate for them to have the money. She would do anything to put off the inevitable. For just a few more seconds, she wanted to live in a world where she didn’t have to prostitute herself out to her landlord and his wife. 

“You worked hard today,” Granny said. “Harder than I’ve ever seen from you. We had to come up with a lot of money in not much time. You--you did good, Ruby. I’m proud of you.”

Granny was not normally one to offer praise. For as long as she could remember, Ruby had never made her proud. If she was saying something nice now, it was only because something very bad was coming. 

“But…?” Ruby whispered.

“But,” Granny agreed. “We’re still short. By a hundred and eighty bucks.”

Ruby’s stomach cramped, like she had been punched. She was so stupid. She should have never gotten her hopes up. She had known this was coming. But the hurt still knocked the wind out of her.

“A hundred and eighty dollars?” Ruby repeated weakly. “Is that all?”

Granny spun around in her office chair to glare at her. “Is that all? Do you have that much squirreled away somewhere? Because I sure as hell don’t!”

“No.” She shook her head, crossed her arms over her chest. “No, I don’t have anything.”

She looked away from her grandmother. Without consulting her brain, her legs began to move through the kitchen from the diner to the bed and breakfast. She didn’t know where she wanted to go. All she knew was that she had to move. Some deep and primal instinct howled for her to run.

But she had nowhere to go. 

A hundred and eighty bucks! The amount was the final twist of the knife. They were so close! Compared to how much money there was in the world, it was almost nothing! A hundred and eight bucks. Mrs. Gold probably spent that much going to the hair salon! Mr. Gold probably spent that much on a tie!

It was almost nothing. 

But it was something they didn’t have. 

So it was everything. 

Ruby bolted through the kitchen into the other building that housed the bed and breakfast. She paced around the empty lobby, going in circles until she felt like a wild animal trapped in a cage. She was sure as hell ready to bite and claw and howl.

“It’s not fair!” She heard the tears in her voice when she spoke out loud. “We worked so hard! And we’re so close!”

Granny had followed her. She stood in the doorway to the lobby, looking at Ruby and wringing her hands. 

“We could ask somebody?” Ruby tried. “It really isn’t that much money. Just twenty dollars from nine people. Or ten from eighteen! Don’t you have friends, Granny? Can one of them help us out, just until the bank opens?”

Granny took off her glasses and let them fall from the chain around her neck. “This afternoon I called everyone I knew. What we’ve got here--” she patted her sweater pocket where she had a wad of cash wrapped in a rubber band-- “is with all the help I was able to get.” 

Ruby looked at her in disbelief. 

“Don’t forget, everyone we know who’ll lend us money also has rent due today. But they dug in, and they did the best they could--”

“And it wasn’t enough,” Ruby finished, so quietly she could barely hear herself. “And the best we could do wasn’t enough. Nothing is enough. No one in this town can do anything, can they? I’m so fucked.” 

  She slumped against the front desk and covered her face with her hands. After a minute, she felt Granny’s hands on her shoulders. She was holding her, hugging her, giving her affection that Ruby hadn’t felt in as long as she could remember.

“It’ll be okay,” Granny assured her. “We’ve been in this spot before and we’ve pulled through.”

“Yeah, remember when he wanted your jewelry?” Ruby was trembling. “And the time before that, it was that old wolf doll from when Mom was a kid. He took those things, and now we don’t have them anymore. Think, Granny, what else do we have? What else would a man like that want?”

It only now occurred to her that she hadn’t told Granny about Mrs. Gold’s visit. Not about the specifics, anyway. But she must have seen the truth from the look in Ruby’s eyes. She could put the pieces together without Ruby ever having to say the words.

“Oh, sweetie,” Granny breathed. “Oh, Ruby Red, you’re not going to--”

“What choice do we have?” She backed away from her grandmother, wouldn’t look at her. If she thought about what she was doing, if she confronted this reality and then had to look into the face of love that she so rarely saw--she would scream.

Granny sighed and let her go. “At least it won’t be too bad for you.”

Ruby blinked. “What?” She turned her head sharply to the old woman. “What did you just say?”

Instead of backing down, Granny stood her ground. The moment of sweetness between them had passed, and all their old resentments were coming back to the surface. “Well it’s not exactly like you’re saving yourself for marriage. I know you’ve been around the block--been around every block in Storybrooke from what I hear.”

Her mouth dropped. For the second time in ten minutes, Ruby felt like she’d been physically attacked by something Granny said. But this wasn’t a punch in the stomach, it was a slap in the face! It was an insult. From her own goddamned grandmother!

“Is that what you really think of me?” Ruby whispered.

Face going red, Granny tightened her fists. “I think if this was a normal Sunday, you wouldn’t have woken up in your own bed--or at least not alone.”

Ruby opened her mouth, but no words came out. “So--so what, does that make me a hooker to you? Do you think I deserve for this to happen? You think because I’m such a slut I’ll be able to just fly through the act of selling my body for money?

“Ruby…” Granny tried to come closer, but Ruby just backed away.

“Don’t act like I’m the unreasonable one here! Yeah, I go out on Saturday nights. Yeah, I like to have a good time. Yeah, Granny, I like to have sex!” She hissed the word, like it was just as dirty as Granny seemed to think it was. “But that doesn’t mean I’m for fucking sale!”

“I don’t think--”

“You think I’m just like her, don’t you? You don’t think I’m any better than Mrs. Gold!”

“Well you certainly don’t look any different!” Granny snapped, clearly done trying to make things better. “Maybe that’s why Mr. Gold thinks he can treat you the same as her. Because you do dress like a hooker, Ruby. And before today, I wouldn’t have said you were much of a waitress.”

Ruby slammed her hand down on the counter. “I’ve worked my ass off my whole life for you! You’re the one that doesn’t know how to run a business!”

“What would you know about anything that isn’t boys and beer?”

“I know enough to know that a hotel in New England isn’t supposed to be empty on every weekend of fall! And I know that there are five Sundays this month, Granny. If you knew that, I wouldn’t be about to put myself up for rent just to save your shithole of an existence!”  

   “Don’t act like I asked you for any of this, young lady! You are free to sleep your way up and down the eastern seaboard whenever you--

“Hello?”

A new voice entered into the conversation. Ruby and Granny both looked at the door. There was a woman. She was blonde and pretty, but tough-looking. Her red leather jacket was amazing. She lingered in the entrance of the lobby, unsure of what was going on. 

“Is�� this place open? The bed and breakfast?”

“We sure are!” Granny recovered more quickly than Ruby could. She put on a smile and pulled out the hotel sign-in book from under the counter. There was a thin layer of dust on the cover, and Granny wiped it away with her sleeve before she opened it up to the woman. “How long will you be staying with us?”

“Just a week, I think,” the woman said. “That should be enough time for me to figure some things out. Then I’ll be on my way.”

“That sounds great,” Granny kept smiling. “Now, we have a forest view or a square view. Normally there’s an upcharge for the square view, but we can waive that--”

“If you pay in cash!” During the course of their conversation, Ruby had done some quick and desperate math. “It’ll be two hundred dollars, right?” She looked at Granny. “To stay for a week in the smallest room, that’s two hundred. But we can give you the best room in the house for the same price. If you pay up front. In cash.”

The woman looked skeptical of the bargain, but willing to go along. “Sure,” she said. She put her wallet back in her jacket pocket and reached down to her combat boots to pull out a wad of bills. “Two hundred, you said?”

“Yes!” Ruby squealed and reached out to take the cash. The precious cash--twenty whole dollars more than what they needed! 

With a wordless look, Granny handed Ruby the roll of bills. Smiling more than she had in her entire life, she took out twenty dollars’ worth of measly fives and ones and added the blonde woman’s twenties to the roll. The twang and snap of the rubber band were the most satisfying noises she had ever heard. 

Granny took up a pen and held it over the register book. “So what’s the name?”

“Swan,” the woman said. “Emma Swan.”

“Emma.” It was a man’s voice, deceptively soft and friendly-sounding. Mr. Gold walked into the lobby. “What a lovely name.”

Ruby glanced at the grandfather clock. It was 8:15. He was right on time.

But he was also too late.   

Ruby slammed the roll of cash onto the counter. “It’s all here.” You son of a bitch.

If Mr. Gold was disappointed or angry that he wasn’t going to get his “something sweet,” it didn’t show on his face. There was something weird about him right now. His expression wasn’t sharp and calculating. He didn’t look like he was on the hunt for souls to buy. He looked at Ruby as he took the money, but he didn’t seem to see her at all.

“Yes, I’m sure it is,” he said distantly. He turned his eyes back to the blonde woman. “You enjoy your stay--Emma.”

The woman, Emma, gave him a pleasantly blank look. The kind of look women all over the world give to men who seem too interested in their lives. “Thanks.”

And then, as quietly as he had come in, Mr. Gold walked out. Poverty and desperation passed them by for another month. 

When the front door closed behind him, Ruby burst out laughing. She had never felt so light. Emma Swan was the first guest the bed in breakfast had seen in as long as Ruby could remember and right now she was the most important person in the world. 

“Oh my God!” Ruby had been smiling all day, but now she meant it. “Thank you for paying in cash! You do not know how much you saved my ass!”

Literally.

Emma kept up the same cautious-but-amused half smile she had given to Mr. Gold. “Who was that guy, the local mafia heavy?”

“Mr. Gold is the landlord for just about every place in town,” Granny said as she wrote down Emma’s information.

“Including here, huh? Must be some kind of hardass.”

“You have no idea!” Ruby was still giddy with relief. 

“Anyway.” Granny pulled out one of the keys from the wall and handed it to Emma Swan. “Welcome to Storybrooke.”  

[violetsystems]

#personal

I watched most of the inauguration through Lady Gaga on Wednesday.  Regardless what you think about politics in America, we can all admit the moment changed decisively.  Or at least the side of us that don’t storm capitols with guns or anything.  My landlord stutters to find words for me other than “good” when I deliver the rent check early.  So by now, these kind of winds of change solidify something about me at least.  Regardless what you’ve heard about me people talk nonetheless.  Just like they talk shit about the president whoever it happens to be at the time.  America has always been extremely tribal.  You don’t have to watch Gangs of New York to figure that one out.  I live in a city with a well defined Sanctuary culture.  I’ve walked the walk and talked the talk the last four years.  Living under Trump with that kind of pressure and fear daily starts to turn neighborhoods into pressure cookers.  Everyone is on edge.  Nobody knows how to be nice.  Wednesday I decided to put my best foot forward in this new era and shovel the snow on the block.  It didn’t go unnoticed.  I definitely got some dirty looks which is something I’m used to by now trying to put some good in the world.  One of the gang members on the block came up to me later that day to thank me at least.  They don’t live here on this block but they also shovel the snow.  They’re named after a chess piece.  I’ve already told the story about footwork dj’s bragging they used to come over here and beat the crap out of them.  The savagery I’ve seen and heard about over the years doesn’t shock me.  Rich people have been pitting poor people against each other out here for years.  Some might call it the “Daley Way.”  Others might look to scandals surrounding machine politicians who’ve held offices for years on end.  Trump couldn’t get enough of calling us a corrupt city.  But generally he got away with a lot of dirty tricks on the ground here without much consequence.  Anyone with half a brain and street sense these days doesn’t trust much authority at all.  And yet I voted in this election pretty clearly for the current candidate.  So I do pay attention to the presidency a little more intently these days.  While watching some executive orders get signed the subject came up about the damage of what happened to people like myself.  It was a word I hadn’t heard.  The word was dignity.  Through the last six months, I seemingly lost it all.  My job, my entire friend network, the last twenty years of professional connections.  It vaporized as if it was never there in the first place.   Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically.  When I think about dignity it makes me cry.  Because it’s the thing I never had.  Most of us do not have it in this current climate even though we kid ourselves we do.  We don’t even bother to treat each other with dignity because we’re so busy looking out for ourselves.  Communities lose trust.  People become isolated and edgy.  Hope dies with the days that don’t change.  It is just me out here.  Or is it just us?  In that six month void of watching ancient history peel away and forget you even existed, I thought a lot.  I struggled and became something more resilient.  And I saw the same old problems staring back at me from a different vantage point I call home.  I kept my dignity intact paying the bills and keeping my mouth shut.  And yet things have not gotten much better other than my finances and my muscle tone.  I’m humble about everything by default because I’m still deeply hurt it was all taken away.  The dignity for others is pretty much linked to self respect.  Some people don’t know how to treat themselves better.  Some people don’t know how to be good because we reward absolute vapidity, selfishness and greed.

I will always strive to be good.  I’ve written here on my “vent blog” week after week to report that.  Only to have it joked about, ignored, copied, and dismissed by some people.  You can’t stop good connecting to the source.  If you stay focused and in the proverbial light you will some day make it through.  My birthday is next month.  A third birthday in a row where nobody other than my parents and the internet reach out.  One year I flew to New York during fashion week and spent the entire trip alone.  Of all the fourteen trips to Korea, none of them were with anyone but myself.  I’ve only had myself to rely on through all of this at times.  And yet through the process of trying to be better I’ve met better people.  Maybe through all this I’ve learned how to be a better person for people as well.  But for the most part I’m still just as invisible as I was.  Neglected and disrespected for years by people I trusted.  And whatever happened was a sort of forced letting go.  I was a black hole on a balance sheet during a pandemic.  My pension was a liability.  Friends that I still talk to now feel comfortable acknowledging that I was done dirty.  But that’s it.  No resolution.  No opportunities.  A period of intense exile.  Like I was being taught a lesson.  And the opposite happened.  As dumbfounding as it is to go through the entire process, I’ve found hope in bettering myself in small ways.  I didn’t close off or shut down.  I managed intense feelings of sadness and anger by pacing myself.  I wrote about what I felt week after week.  I made small corrections.  I added up my spending.  I tried to live my life without friends or company other than my cat.  A neighborhood exists around me that is persistent with characters of all backgrounds.  My mother is getting vaccinated next week.  Others will follow shortly after.  Chicago for the most part has adjusted to the hardships of the new normal.  We just keep pushing on like the song.  And yet people become callous, elite, and separate.  Two sides of a city.  The rich and the people who live and walk the streets here.  If you’ve held it down this long most people appreciate when you are still around.  And yet people around here are still deeply motivated by fear and scarcity.  America is the same way.  It judges people’s worth not on their singular talents but by comparison and control.  It’s nervous when you have the confidence to go it alone and embarrassed to admit it did so out of neglect.  America is worse.  Much like the army, it tries to break down your uniqueness for the benefit of the whole.  Herd you into groups that can be managed instead of celebrating the individual will.  The mediocrity that is celebrated is the celling in which you threaten to crash.  Everybody would rather sabotage your plans than see you succeed without them taking a cut.  Everybody would rather have a judgement to hang over your head when you creep past them in a race fair and square.  And when things start to get less dirty and the air clears, the history remains.  People still lie.  People still try to tarnish everything you have done out of a deep hatred.  A hatred that they couldn’t rub you out.  That you remind them how worthless they really are.  Being good gets you targeted time and time again by jealousy and lawlessness.  And I don’t want to be anything but good.

Lies and truth have their own infrastructure.  Blockchain as a technology is based on trust.  We keep secrets possibly because no one knows what we risk at the end of the day.  We tell lies instead of saying nothing at all because we feel pressured to be transparent.  Everyone wants to know every little thing for both good and bad reasons.  Being able to stand up to the lies and speak the truth can be subjective in a post truth era.  After all the things I’ve lost, I have no real time for games that are set up against me.  I play enough Hearthstone for that.  But communities are often to blame for proliferation of disinformation.  Sometimes people get manipulated.  Sometimes entire histories on a person get buried accidentally.  Sometimes people tell other people behind your back never to talk to you.  I’ve lived this.  I have never felt so isolated in my life.  As if the real intention was to break down my dignity to manipulate me further.  And largely that is what happened whether you want to process that or not.  I’m reminded when I deal with how fucked up my health insurance is that nobody really gives a shit.  But there’s a reason it persists.  And there’s no consequence to the lies that people uphold in the face of a fairly inconvenient truth.  We make a choice to support or ignore.  We make a choice to acknowledge the dignity of somebody being alive and in pain.  And I’ve seen people just walk away.  I’ve also seen people in my life grow closer in a way I cannot explain.  When I feel that feeling.  When I feel that love, I try to put more love back into the world.  I try to create a little bubble around me that protects all the good in my life I still have.  To make a place for us to all live with dignity regardless of what we believe, who we fuck or what kpop band we ship on the internet.  I literally fucking tried every day and then some.  And I literally have faced the worst kind of loneliness you could ever face.  Uselessness.  That whatever I do doesn’t matter much compared to what I used to be.  I used to be a slave.  A revenue generator for an investment scam maybe.  A body to manipulate for information.  A person to spy on all over the world without my consent.  I’ve lived all these situations in such damaging ways for years with no recourse and nobody to listen other than here.  Week after week on my vent blog people joke about behind my back.  No one really knowing that this is about the truest I could ever be with anyone.  And knowing after all the hell I’ve been through, that it matters.  What I say and what I write.  Because it’s the truth.  I am a good person.  I do try to be in the face of the worst kind of attack on my freedom.  They tried to take away my dignity.  They can lie about it all they want.  It doesn’t mean they’ll get anywhere further with me.  It’s already behind me.  That’s how you keep your dignity here in America.  By proving them wrong. <3 Tim