#as someone who played piano basically their whole life I really like to imagine Jean discovering piano as an adult

[wandering-nushroom]

Hear me out:

Jean learning to play piano a year or so after graduation when he’s trying to find some sort of outlet that he likes, on recommendation of his therapist

Then one day he stumbles across a Debussy’s Rêverie on a playlist and suddenly recalls a very distant memory of twirling Elodie in the living room to it

It takes him a year to be able to play it to his satisfaction.

[fan-think]

SKAM FRANCE PROJECTION -  Q&A RECAP

I wasn’t sure I wanted to write a description of the Skam France projection in Paris because I knew it would be so long ; but we were so privileged with all those informations that I though I needed to share with you some of it. And also for myself, so that I don’t forget this day.  I’m just gonna keep a few details to respect the kindness and sincerity they had for our little audience, and I don’t feel confortable repeating to hundreds (or thousands) without their consent. Important note : I didn’t take notes, I’m not a machine so I don’t remember everything, I don’t remember what they said word by word, so, I’m sorry if some quotes or meanings are a bit inaccurate. I tried my best, please don’t hold it against me.... :) Now, lets begin this VERY LONG recap. I’M SORRY !! 

We arrived a bit before 5pm, and people were waiting in line outside. The movie theater didn’t open before 5. Somehow, while waiting peacefully, we saw the cast and crew arriving just in front of the theater, greeting each other and talking together, like a reunion. That was nice. Marilyn came to us and greeted some people waiting as well.  Then we went in the theater, were handed a flyer/postal card (see at the end) of the Skam cast, and headed to the cinema. The crew and actors were already seated. We all sat, then David (the director) came on stage with some people from the production, France TV and Niels Rahou (main screenwriter). Him and David had a cute moment sharing the mic and saying I love you to each other/declaring their flames haha. What a pair ! David thanked all of them, the cast as well, we applauded (of course). Then David said : Are you ready to see Lucas and Eliott fall in love ??  We applauded loudly again, then he sat down and we started watching the first episode. We laughed a lot reacting to the funny scene or lines, and when FINALLY we saw Eliott for the first time on screen, everyone screamed and clapped. So I took a look at Maxence reaction, he has his face in his hand, kind of hiding but was smiling like crazy, that was adorable. From there, almost every time Eliott was on screen, we could here reaction in the cinema. When the episode ended, we applauded loudly. We waited 2 minutes, and the second one started. It was nice to hear people react to the jokes, we really felt connected. When Eliott appeared at the bus stop, same thing everyone screamed a bit and the next 15 minutes were intense ! I tried to take a look at Maxence pretty often during those big moments, he was smiling like crazy and hiding himself at the same time. He deserves everything. When the screen went black, we clapped, whistled and screamed a lot more, because... HEY what an experience to live ! And because we’re so grateful for everything they did obviously.  Then, the whole cast and David came on stage, David expressed his big though for Axel who couldn’t be here because he was filming a movie. Big clap for him too! Then he opened the Q&A part. Since it lasted quite a while, I’m gonna proceed with bullet points from what I remember.  • The first question was for the whole cast but more for Maxence and it was how does it feel to see yourself on screen. He answered it was kind of weird (chelou) since it’s his first role mostly...  • When ask what was their common points with their characters. Marilyn said she was a bit “motherly” like Manon. She has the tendency to tell people to be careful about what their eat, they do etc. They all agreed it was weird to speak about themselves like that, then she took the mic when Edouard (Mika) started talking and started praising him for his acting because he is the opposite of Mika, she saw him acting a couple years back and said she was so impressed that when she understood he was in Skam as well, she was really impressed and afraid to play with him. It was so nice, we applauded a lot. (The joke was that she actually added him on facebook 6 or 7 years back and he never accepted her request before Skam hahaa) For this same question, Maxence said he his a solitary/lonely person like Eliott. Lula is a workaholic, very invested in what she does and make people laugh without intending to. Assa is very similar to Imane, even if she might not have a temper as strong as Imane (but pretty much). And Léo (Yann) said he is pretty open (minded), and chill about things, people (I think.. not sure on this one) • Maxence and David explained how he was cast. David said that when they started the casting, they wanted to feel and know from the moment the actor would enter the room that it was him. But unfortunately, this feeling never came, for months... Then, the cast director called David and said she may have seen someone that could fit (at a “representation”). But she warned him that this actor had broken his ankle in the morning, so... for the “walk in the room and we know  it’s him” it was a bit compromised because of the crutches. So David and Maxence just sat down and talked, the feeling was there though, and this is how it started. Maxence then added : when he was called for the first casting interview, he didn’t want to go because he just finished his acting studies and wanted to go in vacation basically haha But then he convinced himself it would be just an exercice, so why not. Obviously it went well. Was called back for a second try, and a third try with Axel. He was in vacation when David told him he had the role. The moment he picked up the phone, a thunderbolt fell right next to him(Maxence) and David added at the theater “it was a prediction from what was about to happen” because “thunderbolt” is “foudre” in french, and when people fall in love at first sight we call it “coup de foudre” (coup = a stoke/a blow of thunderbolt)..... ❤ • During the casting call, Axel and Maxence did a scene but they incorporated the crutches situation in the scene, and it went very well. Also There was no weirdness between the two from the beginning even if Maxence said something to Axel that could have offended him. But he wasn’t and from that point, Maxence knew it was all good with Axel. He said they were lucky (I think?) that they had a such a good chemistry.   • A question was about the boys gang. Niels took the mic and made a big point on that. Saying that their reaction is normal. Here, they are teenage boys who know Lucas as there straight friend, they can not imagine or understand why he is acting now, what he has in his mind. They’ve been raised in a environment were masculinity is toxic, like any-elsewhere and we must not hold it against them because it’s reality. We (Skam viewers and lgbtq+ community) are well educated on the subject, but this is reality.  • Anne-Sophie (Chloé), David AND Niels especially made a big point on how Chloé is essential and must not be hated. She is a girl in love that is being fooled by Lucas. The only thing she does wrong in the og is outing Lucas like that, but apart from that, there is no reason to hate her. They were pretty passionate about that point.  • A recurring theme/question was about a fifth season... with (most likely from the person asking the question) Daphné. David, the head of production and a France TV representative, they all took the mic to speak about it, and the main thought was : they would love to do it because they love Skam so much BUT  because of legal reasons, of the views on Season 3 and 4, and so much more things, there is NOTHING planned on that yet... Somehow, they emphasized on how much we -the audience- matter for this kind of future. If we talk about Skam to people, if we raise the views, express how much we love it on social media etc, it might help.... So... talk about Skam France to everyone you know, and maybe, only MAYBE, we might have a change for more seasons... • Same thing with how homosexuality is usually shown in french TV. He said something like “If you’re expecting the usual kiss and then, a fade to black... No, that’s not gonna happen. We talked with France TV (the diffuser), they told us “no, you can give us all you want, we want to show a lot more”, so... since we had the images, a lot of images, we went thoroughly on that. Don’t worry for that, really ! There might be some bloopers/BTS too...” • Maxence hadn’t seen the Skam og or anything before shooting (apart from the toilet scene) because he wanted to be just like his character : he didn’t know anyone or anything of what was happening. Also, from what he saw in the toilet scene, he said he didn’t want to be like Even, it felt too “”“pushy””” and this wasn’t him or who he wanted Eliott to be. After shooting the season, he “binge-watched” everything in two days. • Now... If you are still afraid of the chemistry and the “intimate” scene. Just know that David made sure it would be realistic... that all I’m gonna say on that.  • They only had 35 days to film the two seasons!! It is extremely short. The other remakes shoot one season at a time. David emphasized on the few hours of sleep him and some of the crew had. Also, they shot around 15 minutes per day of images. It is HUGE. The work they put into the last 2 seasons is enormous. • Before staring, David thanked his wife for taking care of the kids 6 months during the year while he is filming (we clapped a LOT) • The first kiss scene was taken in one shot (correct me if I’m wrong) • Lula never wears jeans or pants, only skirts and dresses. In real life, but also on the show. • Basile falling was an improvisation from Paul, they shot it twice (I think...) • Axel doesn't play the piano, he just learned this piece for the scene (Maxence told us) and they shot the scene multiple times. • Marilyn complimented Michel on the common points questions. • Alex’ bisexuality was a random suggestion from Coline just before shooting the scene when we know about it. Easy peasy. • David and the whole team were frustrated for season 1 and 2 that they had to follow exactly the original script and lines. Even more frustrated when they saw the other remakes... • Niels was wearing a unicorn shirt, perfect  ❤  • Philippine (Emma) and Coline (Alex) told us 2 jokes.  • Lula (Daphné) is the most likely to laugh on set • They all see all your reactions, all you comments, the bad ones as well, they knew all the bad comments from season 1 and 2, knew all the pressure for season 3 and 4, so they just hope you’ll like it because they fucking love it ! :) • The journalists only saw episode 1 to 4 and the reviews are good, even if, according to Niels, they havent seen anything yet.................... so, we kind of know what to expect. Or not. Seriously, I think we’re not prepared at all.  • Neither are we for season 4 apparently... Warnings from David. Then everyone started to leave but... not really haha. The room stayed pretty full for a good 30 minutes. Personally I stayed close to David who was answering questions in a corner. I can tell you : he is SO PASSIONATE about this season, about Eliott and Lucas, his actors, it is SO heartwarming ; but above all, it confirms to me that this season has an intense depth that - in my opinion - we are NOT ready for. Outside, everyone was talking with the actors, especially Maxence, obviously... I talked with Edouard (Mika) and with Niels (the screenwriter) mostly. I just stopped Maxence who just finished talking and taking pictures with everyone to thank him, and let me just say he is an adorable sunshine. I barely started to say something, he was hugging me and he made the pictures I took with him adorable. He was jumping all around, a real ray of sunshine and kindness. Then he ran to hug David and it was the cutest thing I’ve witness that night. He must have seen me grinning like crazy at him and David, but I don’t care. It was WAY too heartwarming. They are all absolutely ADORABLE. ADORABLE !!  THANK YOU SKAM FRANCE !!!   

PS : If he agrees, I’m letting David tell the story about his child name and their request :) You’ll melt and be happy about our future. PS 2 : Thank you to Manon et Laura who helped me remember a few things. Twitter : @lau_helder

[ofstvtches]

ROCKY LYNCH,  MASCULINE NB,  HE/HIM & THEY/THEM.  —  looks  like  SAMHAIN SKELLINGTON is  attending  AURORIA  UNIVERSITY  in  auradon.  they're  the  TWENTY  year  old  child  of  JACK & SALLY SKELLINGTON,  which  means  they're  from  THE ISLE.  heard  they're  NURTURING  &  GENTLEMANLY,  but  can  also  be  INFLEXIBLE  &  SELF-PITYING  ;  we  all  have  our  bad  days.  people  normally  associate  them  with  SEWING NEEDLES REPAIRING A BROKEN DOLL , A BAG FULL OF BANDAGES, TRYING SO HARD TO BE TOUGH WHEN YOU’RE SOFT , SOFT HAIR HELD BACK WITH A BAT-SHAPED PIN.

                    ❛  when you saw that little girl , and she was in the sandbox                            and she was crying , and you gave her your toy truck and                            I told you we couldn’t afford to get another one. you said ,                          ‘ she should have it because she’s sad. she’s sad , mommy. ’ ❜                            playlist. pinterest. to listen as you read.

lol u guessed it it’s me , again , by unpopular demand - i am so sorry. third muse already bc i can’t keep myself away from playing absolute CINNAMON ROLLS so that’s what u can expect from sam w/ a pumpkin spice twist. bc nightmare is my absolute favorite movie and ... halloween, motherfuckers. so as usual this will PROBABLY end up long bc i love writing sam so much so yeah , more below ! 

HISTORY 

So as we know , Jack & Sally were sent to the Isle w/ the rest of Halloweentown for trying to steal Christmas ! And unlike Christmas , Samhain was not born in Halloweentown. In fact , he wasn’t even born - he was made. 

Magic wasn’t a huge thing on the Isle - but a resource of science was Dr. Finkelstein , and despite the limited resources and technology on the Isle , the couple begged the mad scientist to create another child for them. And from Sally , it took a lot of convincing , but Jack was able to talk him into it. 

It took even more of an effort to pull off , again considering the state of the Isle. But a good few months into the project and Jack & Sally were greeted with the cries of a tiny ragdoll baby boy. Keeping up with the holiday themed names , he was named Samhain - Sam for short. 

He grew with multiple touch-ups from the doctor to simulate an actual boy growing up - every year , a check-up making him taller , stronger , etc. And in that process he started to look more and more like his mother , with her big eyes and stitched smile and patchwork clothes. But he grew up loved by his brother & parents - though it never quelled the fact he always wanted... more.

He was loved , he was coddled , and as sheltered as a child could be on the Isle. So , much like his mother , he took a habit of sneaking out frequently and trying to fit in with the other Isle kids , even though he knew he didn’t. 

He just wanted to fit in. That was it. And it started off with him wearing large hoods and heavy clothes to hide the stitches on his body as well as masks to cover facial stitches. And while some other Isle kids found him odd and sticking out like a sore thumb , some found him cool. Some found him interesting. But nobody really knew what he was hiding - and it added mystery to someone so NICE , because Sam’s overall sweetness could rival that if sugar’s. 

Curiosity only reached dangerous points though when Sam snuck out on night to camp out with friends - and when everyone else was asleep , one removed his mask , and of COURSE did Samhain immediately wake up. He didn’t stay to see the reaction of the other when revealing his stitches , too afraid that he’d be seen as scary or repulsive for what he was. And he ran. He ran back home , locking himself in his room , and those friends he routinely hung out with . . . well , he didn’t talk to them much after that. Because what if they knew , now ?? What would they think ??

Villain & Auradon kids coming together was a new chance for Sam to try and fit in - be more in his element. He was immediately acquainted with a magic-practicing individual ( could be an AK or a VK - this’ll be a wc ) who struck a deal with him to offer him glamours so he could look less scary. Of course , these glamours would have to be applied and would wear off until the next application , but it’d make him feel more comfortable - even though he WOULD technically be hiding who he is.

While Christmas , the elder sibling , would be sticking around in Auradon Prep , Samhain would prefer to move immediately to Auroria University to try and figure out who exactly he wanted to be , and how he could do that. Currently he’s majoring in Nursing , given he’s always had a rather NURTURING and charitable nature - never turning down someone else’s request to help.

CHARACTER & FACTS 

So lemme get this one thing out of the way bc if I don’t I’ll be itching about it - but all my resources for ( the love of my life ) Rocky were made by me , and while they’re all from multiple eras from both R5 & TDE , I imagine Sam to resemble how Rocky looks around the post-Louder , Heart Made Up On You & Sometime Last Night eras ( basically from like 2013-2015 ). Here , here , & here for some references. I’m nOT DONE GIFFING THOUGH bc frankly I find giffing him therapeutic.

Now I don’t have a drawn reference or anything for this next part so we’re gonna have to use our imagination here but unglamoured , Sam basically looks like his mom in terms of the fact he’s a little ragdoll baby. Putting on a glamour doesn’t change his appearance much save for the fact the stitches disappear and he looks more human. 

The glamour is an enchanted bat charm he wears around his neck that can also be used as a hairtie. And it has to be refreshed every so often , so he has to keep going back to whoever provided him with it so it doesn’t lose its effect.

He still has a backup mask just in case , and he’s been practicing with makeup if need be.

Personality-wise , the best one can describe Sam as is sweet and polite. I included tht Stranger Things quote at the beginning 4 a rEASON bc he’s honestly such a sweet kid and will give anything to anyone.

And also bc I imagine Sally as Joyce mom-wise so yEAH bt I digress.

He knows his manners and treats everyone with the UTMOST amount of respect , which makes it extremely easy to get along with him . He’s also maybe a tad bit too giving for his own good , since it’s incredibly easy to use that to one’s advantage and he’s so inclined to believe people have the best intentions. An optimist , even if it’s to a fault. And then when he gets hurt he just sits to the side feeling sorry for himself like “ :’’’(. ”

Now when I say he’s inflexible , I mean that Sam is a very ORGANIZED person who likes things to be done a certain way - like , he can never do anything without a plan , and if even something slightly goes out of what the plan pertains of , he panics. He’s a goody-goody and he’s afraid to break the rules , which is why he’s still hesitant to even do things with the friends who are more “ bad ” than he is.

Everything has to be done BY THE BOOK and if it isn’t then something is bound to go wrong and Sam’s too worried about that happening.

He’s also incredibly insecure about his appearance but I think I’ve hammered in that fact enOUGH ALREADY

But if he takes his glamour off in front u that’s like. A Major sign of trust. So beware.

Again as I mentioned he tries to hang out with kids with the lesser reputations because :

1.) He wants to give them a chance

2.) He wants to make sure they have a friend to look after them

and 3.) He’s so used to trying to fit in with the other Isle kids that he’s trying to be ‘bad’ himself but it never works out bc he’s so sweet and he can dress in skinny jeans and leather and shit as much as he wants but at the end of the day he’s still Sweet Lil’ Samhain. 

One thing he’s always had a fascination with would be angels - he’s always believed in them , always though he’s had his own guardian angel watching over him somewhere , he’s always loved the idea of them. He has lots of angel decorations around his dorm as well as ornaments and stuff for the holidays. It’s also pure irony that he just so happens to be just as angelic in nature.

He’s also a big holiday person like the rest of his family and loves helping to decorate for events and stuff !!

One of his greatest talents is his ability to play both the piano & violin , and he’ll often do that if there’s a piano in common areas or so on. He’s also a talented singer , but he’s so used to putting that to the side , making him lack confidence in his voice.

i v much encourage u to listen to the song i linked i find his voice so....soothing.

Like his mom he’s also very good at cooking , sewing , etc. !! Often has to stitch himself back together if he gets hurt - you know , Sally style. 

More basic facts are that his final height clocks in at 6′4 , he’s homoromantic homosexual , and identifies as masculine non-binary who doesn’t really care how you address him. He’s very chill. And sometimes he has to walk with a cane of sorts if his stitches are loose or if his legs are feeling especially weak.

but yeah that’s it on that end !!!

WANTED CONNECTIONS

So obviously - the person who provided him with the glamour. Only requirement is that ur character’s good at magic or something of that sort.

AND ALSO - I’d love the person who initially removed his mask !! Sam didn’t stick around to see them react to how he truly looked , so it’s all up to you on how this character feels. But he’s avoided them since that scenario.

Also , his group of friends around the time that scenario happened on the Isle. Maybe they’re a little more rough around the edges than him , but this group was always tight-knit. And then Sam lightning mcghosted bc he wasn’t sure if now they knew what he really was.

Ppl who think his whole sweet thing is fAKE bc we know it isn’t but it’s so easy to THINK it is.

Also would love some folks he routinely cares for maybe in the aspect of like. Bein their shoulder to cry on. Patching up a wound. Just being There for them. 

Folks who in general just wanna know more abt him bc he is kind of a mystery !!

Would lOVE sb who his glamour wears off in front of and he begs them to keep his secret but instead they want him to try n be more comfortable w/ himself and who he is. Bc he’s a cute ragdoll let’s b honest he just. Doesn’t see himself that way. 

Ppl who Sam crushed on at the Isle and deffo broke his heart bc life just b like that sometimes 

Also present day folks who r just ready to break his heart bc again thats so easy to do

also once more i’m open 2 ANYTHINNNNNNG sam is my Baby(tm) and i’d lov any plots thrown his way !! will probs make another wc page for him like i’ve done w/ luke and am in the process of doing w/ trixie !!

[roseisread]

My Year in Movies: Favorite Non-2018 Feature Films (Part 2)

Continuing the countdown of my favorite movies I saw for the first time in 2018 that were released in previous years... for part 1 of this list, click here.

39. Tokyo Drifter (1966, directed by Seijun Suzuki, country of origin: Japan)

Seijun Suzuki pulls together his favorite tropes from the Western, film noir, and Yakuza genres and throws a post modern, new wave sensibility on top complete with lots of neon and surrealism. The end result is one of the most stylistically bold movies I’ve ever encountered, and its influence extends to modern auteurs like Quentin Tarantino, Jim Jarmusch, and Nicolas Winding Refn. Tokyo Drifter (which has nothing to do with the Fast & Furious franchise as far as I know) follows a gangster on the run, but the plot really is secondary to the overall feel of the movie. Really fun and one I can imagine revisiting a lot just for its aesthetic choices and action set pieces. Rent it on Amazon Prime; in the meantime, here’s a pretty decent fan-made trailer.

38. Born to Kill (1947, directed by Robert Wise, country of origin: US)

Hollywood’s original bad boy Lawrence Tierney stars in this nasty little noir that fully lives up to its violent title. Sam Wilde (Tierney) is a gorgeous, amoral social climber who doesn’t let a little trifle like murder stand in the way of getting what he wants. Helen Brent (Claire Trevor) finds herself strangely drawn to him, even as she learns of his criminal leanings. There’s a particularly lustful scene between Sam and Helen that could be a direct influence on Natural Born Killers, actually. The fact that this picture was directed by Robert Wise, best known for his work on The Sound of Music and West Side Story, makes it all the more interesting--this pulpy film doesn’t have any musical numbers but it certainly is well-crafted and choreographed. If you love a good antihero, you owe it to yourself to watch this. Available for rent on Amazon, YouTube, and Vudu. 

37. Throw Momma From the Train (1987, directed by Danny DeVito, country of origin: US)

This comic riff on Strangers on a Train starts off with murder on its mind, but there’s a surprising sweetness lying just below the surface. I’m sure most people have already seen this film but in case you haven’t, you’re in for a hilarious and endearing story that showcases peak Billy Crystal and Danny DeVito. Anne Ramsey plays the titular “Momma,” and she was nominated for both the Oscars and the Golden Globes in this supporting role. There are lots of ways to watch this movie for free, including Amazon Prime, YouTube, Vudu, GooglePlay, and Showtime. 

36. Johnny Guitar (1954, directed by Nicholas Ray, country of origin: US)

The title refers to Sterling Hayden’s outlaw cowboy, but the real star of the show is Joan Crawford as Vienna: a saloon owning, jeans wearing, piano playing woman who takes on the whole town in a showdown. Portrayals of women in Westerns vary, but few emanate such power and self-assuredness as Vienna. 

Another woman, tellingly named Emma Small (played by Mercedes McCambridge), has set her sights on getting rid of Vienna and her establishment once and for all, and she will stop at no amount of violence or trickery to make it happen. So basically this is Mean Girls but in the Wild West. Offscreen, Joan Crawford was hooking up with director Nicholas Ray; and she’d previously been romantically involved with McCambridge’s now-husband. Both ladies also consumed a fair amount of booze while filming. This led to their rivalry bleeding into real life, and perhaps added to the tension we see on screen between the two. 

This movie didn’t have the warmest reception when it premiered stateside (Bosley Crowther on Crawford’s Vienna: “...as sexless as the lions on the public library steps and as sharp and romantically forbidding as a package of unwrapped razor blades.”) But European audiences devoured it, and it became beloved of people like Francois Truffaut who saw it as a major influence. You can watch it now on Hulu or rent from a number of streaming platforms. 

35. Sonatine (1993, directed by Takeshi “Beat” Kitano, country of origin: Japan)

Takeshi Kitano wrote, directed, and starred in this cult take on Yakuza films. In it, he plays Murakawa, a gangster who dispatches (often in creatively cruel ways) anyone his bosses happen to dislike. But he’s starting to grow weary of this way of life when he gets sent on a new assignment that has him mediating a dispute with a rival gang in Okinawa. He suspects that he may be the real target, but goes along with the order. While hiding out between confrontations, Murakawa and a batch of young recruits find ways to pass the time--shooting cans off each other’s heads, playing a roulette version of rock paper scissors, pretending to be sumo wrestlers, and more. 

There’s not a lot of dialogue here, and Kitano plays his character with a stoicism that Buster Keaton and Alain Delon no doubt influenced. But the poetry and emotion are all in the action (and inaction) on screen. Here is a man whose main accomplishments are surviving bloody shootouts and racking up the body count for his employer--no wonder he hallucinates about self-destruction and walks the beach in a daze. There’s actually a good bit of comedy here too, as the movie isn’t afraid to veer into cartoonish moments and satirize the very genre it portrays. I also have to specifically call out the action scenes, especially one near the end--completely memorable, unique, and gorgeously shot. Watch this via rental on Amazon, YouTube, and GooglePlay--especially if you’re a fan of movies like Drive, Kill Bill, or Le Samourai. 

34. Metropolitan (1990, directed by Whit Stillman, country of origin: US)

My first encounter with Whit Stillman came via 2016′s Love and Friendship, his adaptation of a Jane Austen story. When his debut film appeared on Filmstruck, I realized what a perfect fit Austen and Stillman really are. This movie follows a group of (mostly) wealthy teenagers in Manhattan, who attend debutante balls and gather at each other’s homes for long pretentious conversations and romantic sparring. If Austen were alive today, no doubt she would have written a novel in the same setting, filled with the same biting wit (no pun intended) that Stillman displays. If you like your movies with a lot of action and plot twists, this may not be your cup of tea; but if you enjoy the works of, say, Woody Allen/Noah Baumbach/Wes Anderson then you will definitely find this a subtle delight. No big names amongst the cast; and many of them only did one or two other projects after this, but I think that adds to the feeling of naïveté and naturalism. Random observation, but when I watched this movie I found connections between a number of its characters and the cast of The Breakfast Club--see if you agree. Right now you can rent this via iTunes, and since it takes place around Christmas and New Year’s, this would be a great time to watch. 

33. Radio Days (1987, directed by Woody Allen, country of origin: US)

This might be the sweetest, least cynical movie in Woody Allen’s filmography. It’s a love letter to the 1930s and 40s, when families would gather around the radio (rather than the TV) for music, serials, and news of the outside world. Seth Green plays the Woody stand-in as a child, Mia Farrow plays an aspiring radio actress, Larry David pops up as the Communist next door neighbor--it’s a real hoot. The music (from the likes of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Glenn Miller) is gorgeous and it’s fun to see old New York recreated for this film. Suitable for all ages and utterly delightful, you can watch it on Hulu with a subscription or rent it on Vudu for $2.99. 

32. Pickup (1951, directed by Hugo Haas, country of origin: US)

I caught up with this low-budget B-movie noir during Noir City Chicago, and fell head over heels for it. The director plays the lead character, a lovable but lonely railroad worker named Hunky (he does not live up to this name in appearance). When he encounters the gorgeous and sassy Betty (Beverly Michaels) at a carnival, he can’t believe a guy like him could hold the romantic interest of such a hottie. As luck would have it, though, she’s more attracted to his life savings than to him. What a golddigger. What sets this movie apart is the addition of a little plot twist: Hunky loses his hearing in an accident, which is just fine by the conniving Betty who can now scheme and talk trash around her husband. But when Hunky’s hearing unexpectedly returns, he doesn’t tell anyone and discovers that his beloved wifey is plotting his demise. Bonus: There’s a pretty adorable puppy in the mix. This isn’t available on DVD, sadly, but someone has uploaded it to YouTube and if you have 77 minutes to kill, I recommend checking it out.

31. Ghost (1990, directed by Jerry Zucker, country of origin: US)

Look, I love Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg and Patrick Swayze just as much as the next person, but for some reason I had always assumed that Ghost was this really cheesy paranormal romance. Wrong! It’s a charming murder mystery with some legit scary moments a lot of comedy, and, yes, some romance too. So if you have somehow missed this gem, you can catch up with it for 99 cents right now on Amazon or rent it for a Few Dollars More on other streaming sites.

30. One False Move (1992, directed by Carl Franklin, country of origin: US)

In part one of this list, I mentioned watching multiple Bill Paxton movies in 2018. This one features Paxton as a small town sheriff with illusions of grandeur--instead of settling small time domestic disputes, he’d love to one day solve murders and thwart serial killers and arrest drug kingpins in the big city. He gets his chance to do something bigger when a car full of murderous fugitives rolls into town. The LA detectives on the case don’t quite know what to make of Paxton; but he views them as heroes. When he gets his chance to show them what he’s made of, he doesn’t flinch. 

Billy Bob Thornton co-wrote the screenplay and co-stars in the film, another connection between this and the other Paxton entry on my list (A Simple Plan). Here, he’s a vile and brutal sociopath (a role he’d go on to play in the TV adaptation of Fargo), with a girlfriend named Fantasia (Cynda Williams) that might be having second thoughts about their relationship. Director Carl Franklin is perhaps better known for the Denzel Washington neo noir Devil in a Blue Dress; and Franklin himself introduced a double feature of these two films at Noir City Chicago. He’s a brilliant, economical director with a deep well of classical film knowledge and a knack for capturing defining character traits in the space of a few frames. Rent this movie on Amazon, Vudu, or YouTube and prepare for a gritty, moving ride. 

29. Peeping Tom (1960, directed by Michael Powell, country of origin: England)

I caught up with this out of print masterpiece (purchased at my local library sale for 50 cents on Criterion DVD!) during my October horror viewing, and immediately wanted it to find a wider audience. Reviled upon its initial release, it follows a talented but troubled young filmmaker whose obsession involves recording the final moments of his murder victims’ lives, as they realize their fate. Pretty twisted, I know. The exploration of voyeurism and the relationship between the camera, its subjects, and an audience really make this a fascinating watch, both from a technical perspective and as a critique of moviemaking and consumption. One can’t help but see the influence this movie has had on horror filmmakers from Wes Craven to John Carpenter, particularly in the way it forces us to identify with the psychologically damaged killer instead of centering the narrative on his victims. Massively underrated, and deserving of your attention if you consider yourself a fan of horror movies. Watch it via rental on a number of streaming platforms. 

That concludes part 2 of the list! Stay tuned for the next segment, coming soon! 

[aflatteredfool]

Lamb Stew

Hey @plumandfinch it’s me, your Secret Santa! I hope you enjoy! It’s my first fanfiction ever! (I’m also on mobile and worried about formatting; I apologize if it’s off. My internet is down and this is the only option right now.)

Lucien has never been good with keeping secrets from Jean. One look and he spills everything. That’s why he’s so impressed he’s been able to keep her Christmas present under wraps for so long. He’s aloof and almost absent on purpose, just enough to get Jean looking in a different direction.

When Jean tells him that this year maybe they shouldn’t exchange Christmas gifts, he goes along with her plan. They did, after all, have a four-month honeymoon which they are still recovering from. Finances aren’t something they really have to worry about, but they spent enough on their honeymoon to satisfy a year’s worth of enjoyment. And, also, all presents really do is show someone you care enough about them to spend money on a thing, so Jean and Lucien make sure the other is well cared for without resorting to material objects. They are still newlyweds, after all. To Lucien, a touch means more than an object wrapped in paper. 

But Lucien can’t resist. 

While cleaning out his mother’s studio, he found her old hand-written recipes - long time favorites of the Blake family. To this day Lucien can remember waking up to the smell of the Lamington in the oven, or the soda bread as it cooled on the counter. His mother was able to take the most basic recipe and make it her own, adding her own unique ingredients to better suit her palette.

Lucien remembers a story Jean told him soon after his arrival in Ballarat.  Thomas was longing for a bowl of lamb stew, and was never quite satisfied with Jean’s creation. Sure, it was hearty and delicious and tasted even better the next day. But there was something missing; that “oomph” that Thomas couldn’t quite place. She worked with Thomas for ages to figure out what was missing. He remembered carrots and potatoes and onions, traditional ingredients. Salt? Pepper? Garlic? Surely. Jean tried everything she could think of but couldn’t make it to Thomas’ liking. She even tried various fruits –  lamb pairs well with apricots and cranberries, prunes, dates. Mint? Rosemary? Close, but still not there. Jean asked Lucien if he knew the secret ingredient in his mother’s lamb stew. Lucien was no help at all.

She was certain that Thomas was holding the stew up in esteem to remember Genevieve by and there couldn’t possibly be a secret ingredient. Eventually Jean gave up and treated Thomas to various other savory dishes for which he was eternally grateful. But for years it had bothered Jean that she couldn’t figure out what the stew was missing.   

Within the stack of recipe cards in hand he finds it - his mother’s recipe for lamb stew. It’s a bit yellow and faded after years of neglect, but he’s able to read his mother’s careful handwriting. The secret ingredient. It’s there, starting at him. He almost immediately shares it with Jean but decides to wait. He gathers up the various other cards, at least 30 in total, and carefully hides them away from Jean. He knows just what to do.

Weeks later he meets with Albert, the local bookshop owner and shares his plans for Jean’s present. Lucien wants to preserve his mother’s delicate recipe cards into a book for Jean, while also creating blank spaces for Jean to add to as she wants.

As Christmas nears, Lucien begins to get cold feet, per se, about his gift to Jean. Will she feel as if she’s just good enough to cook his meals? Will she feel appreciated as Lucien’s wife and family and not as his former housekeeper? In the end he realizes that Jean loved his father more than he did and longed to have met his mother. Jean is more Blake than Lucien is, and in the end he knows he’s made the right decision. 

Christmas Day rolls around and Jean spends all morning cooking before the arrival of their friends and family. Christopher’s family have agreed to spend a few days with Jean and Lucien, and of course Matthew and Alice and Rose make an appearance. The leg of lamb was perfectly roasted and there are happy smiles all around. 

Lucien sits at the piano teaching Amelia how to play and it warms Jean’s heart. Christopher and Ruby plan to stay through the week and Jean cannot contain her happiness. How fast a life can change in just a year. Jean thought she knew true happiness before, but now it feels like her life is complete. Her marriage to Christopher was harried and rushed, but they settled into a comfortable relationship. He treated her with love and respect and they worked well together on the farm. Having married so young, Jean was still trying to figure out the woman she was to become. At times she felt like she had outgrown Christopher and wanted something more, but she knew she could never do anything about it.

She finally found her chance with Lucien. 

As the day faded into evening, the house became quiet. Christopher was the last to say goodnight as Lucien and Jean found themselves alone for the first time all day. Sitting together on the couch with a gentle song playing in the background, exhaustion stepped in. As the song on the wireless ends, Jean makes her way to their bedroom as Lucien checks to make sure the house is locked and everything is put away for the night.

Too tired to even undress, Jean falls on the bed and immediately is met with a hard object jamming into her neck. Someone had left a beautifully wrapped present on her pillow. Someone who promised not to get her a gift this year. 

Curiosity getting the better of her, she carefully opens the package to find a beautiful leather bound book titled simply, “The Blake Family Cookery Book.” Opening the cover, she instantly recognizes Genevieve’s handwriting and takes a second to look at the titles of the cards. She sees a few of hers that Lucien has snuck in there that she’d left laying around the kitchen.

As she turns the next page she is overcome with emotion as tears flood her eyes. Her grandmother’s handwriting. That slanted script she grew up trying to emulate.Behind those, her mom’s recipes. She sees the recipe cards that have been in her family for generations. 

Sensing movement at the door, Jean turns to find Lucien staring lovingly at her.

“How did you get these?”

“Jack and Christopher helped. They got in contact with your sister and together they worked for months to find all of the recipe cards they could. Your sister was glad they were going to good use.” 

Jean looks at Lucien and can no longer not be in his arms. She kisses him and somehow “thank you” does not seem like enough. Lucien grabs her hand and leads her back to the bed. 

“Come here, I want to show you something.” 

Lucien turns to the last page and hands Jean the book. 

Taking a second to realize what she’s seeing, she remarks “Yeast! That’s it!” 

The secret ingredient was beer, the thing she never thought to try. That’s what gave the stew the dark and robust flavor that Thomas struggled to identify coherently. No one has ever taken the time to make her such a thoughtful gift. Jean already has plans to give it to her granddaughter in about twenty years. Looking into Lucien’s eyes she cannot imagine a life without him, She thought she was doing pretty okay before he made an appearance, but in the end she discovered that she had been waiting for him her whole life. 

Setting the book down carefully, Jean turns to Lucien and begins to climb on top of him. “So. Are you ready for your Christmas present?” 

[imaginaryboyfriendcollection]

HiddleHamlet: A firsthand account (Part II)

It’s 5 days later and I’m still suffering from what @hiddleston81 calls the Hiddleston Hangover.

This second half is now days late, oops, so a lot of this has already been said by now, but I still want to record it for posterity. Fair warning, this post is going to be a disorganised mess of my thoughts - swinging between genuine observations about play/performance and completely shameless fangirling - so, the usual. That’s what you’re here for, right?!

Here are some more things I want to remember about Tom’s Hamlet:

Tom’s already much-discussed perfect hair was just like in the programme photo above, but at a few key points, one lock of hair would escape from the slicked back gorgeousness and fall over his forehead. Yes, that’s right - an errant curl. And somehow I’m still here to tell this tale.

Dancing. IT HAPPENS. Only for a minute, but it is glorious. The first entry of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern comes with a beats pill playing danceable music (Kendrick Lamar, I think?) and they all bust out a few moves. I gasped. Snake-hipping, y’all! In the middle of Hamlet! Bless you, Sir Kenneth Branagh.

There’s one bit where Hamlet dives underneath the carpet and tunnels along and then comically pops out the other side. Another where he gets excited and leaps on and then over the back of the couch. He wears facepaint and wraps himself in a Danish flag. He does silly voices on behalf of the skull in the “Alas, poor Yorick” scene (a Scottish accented one, even - swoon). Tom was such a playful Hamlet in these moments, delighting in being unhinged. I loved that he was let loose like this - he had these offhand chances to laugh and play, while still being clearly and primarily defined by his grief and fury. Those contradictions seemed so human. I think, more than anything, Tom’s Hamlet is the most relatable one I’ve seen (I mean, apart from those times when he gets all murdery. But you know.)

His anger and sadness, though, were harrowing to behold. The scene in the very beginning where Hamlet comes out onto a nearly dark stage to play piano and sing is haunting - his pain is palpable, and the entire audience was hanging on his every word and motion. It was like a shot straight to the heart to begin the production. I recall reading some review that slightly criticised him as “obviously not a singer” in this scene, and I agree that it wasn’t his usual standard of vocal performance, but I would venture that this was intentional. I thought he still sounded rather lovely, but his voice was imperfect, thin and cracking with grief. This is supposed to be Hamlet alone in his sorrow, not performing for anyone as he does in other scenes throughout the play. The moment feels incredibly authentic, illustrating perfectly Hamlet’s current frame of mind, and it sets the tone for Tom’s entire performance.

I kept becoming mesmerized by the little details of him - a consequence of him being so close, in the flesh. It was impossible not to focus in on his overwhelming physical presence. He was so lean, lithe and yet all muscles, with this energy radiating off of him every time he moved. I couldn’t stop noticing and trying to memorize every tiny thing about him. I could see the veins in his hands, the freckles on his forearms, the sheen of sweat under the curls at the back of his neck. The pattern of his stubble and the little muscle clench in his jaw (urrghhh) and the way his eyes shone with tears in the stage lights. JFC, is he a beautiful human.

In his first scene (after the piano one) when he turned to our side of the stage, he did lock eyes with me and held it for a second, so I think that might’ve been him registering recognition. There will never be any way to know for sure...which means I am of course just gonna go ahead and believe my version, because why the hell wouldn’t I. Tom totally recognised me - IT IS CANON - at least in my head, forever, the end.

He did that face-cupping thing that he does to Ophelia in the scene where they kiss. His long, beautiful fingers stroking her cheek. Fucker. And the way he was looking at her...well, you can imagine it. Hamlet’s love for Ophelia in this scene is tangible, and the whole thing made my insides melt completely. Sighhh.

Oh, also - he PICKS UP tiny Rosencrantz and twirls her all the way around his body. It is literally the cutest thing and I nearly choked on my own saliva for how badly I want this thing that I’d never even thought of before, being grabbed around the waist by Tom and swung entirely around his body. UM GIVE ME THAT PLEASE. They were pretty adorable together and caused @hiddleston81 to immediately start shipping them (I would’ve too if I were a shipper, but I’m only able to ship my real-life crushes with one person, and that’s meeee). 

Hamlet and Horatia had great chemistry too - they really seemed like comfy best friends, but with a good degree of physical affection between them as well. Basically, Hamlet has sexual tension with every woman in this play. Or maybe I’m projecting.

Oh, let’s talk about the leather. It comes out right at the end, for the incredible fight scene. There’s the already-beloved leather jacket of course, but also - leather gloves. The time he spent putting on the gloves was probably only 20 seconds, but it seemed like a slo-mo 5 minutes in my head, with imaginary sexy music playing in the background (wee-wee-wowww). After he gets the gloves on, he immediately runs them through his hair to slick it back all the way, and it is maaaybe the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. I somehow didn’t burst into flames. Amazing.

Little tummy peeks happened a couple of times throughout the show, which were just too damn delicious for words. Again, he looked so good in his clothes! When on top of that, his shirt would occasionally ride up a bit over his tight, low-slung jeans and show that bit of skin, uhhh...heavenly powers, restore me.

Hamlet’s death scene is heartbreaking, obviously, and my eyes were full of tears. But still it was impossible not to notice that his shirt had ridden up again and his lower abs were on display, creating a complicated and weird mix of emotions, ie I am very sad but also extremely turned on, what is wrong with me?? He was also so close that you could see his chest rising and falling with his breathing, which is just so intimate, and I couldn’t stop drinking it in with my eyes. I never could take my eyes off him for a single second when he was onstage, even when the action would move elsewhere.

The older lady sitting beside me leaned over before it started and said, “Well, we couldn’t get any closer than this, could we?” and I thought, “Aw how nice, a sweet theatre-loving lady who wants to chat.” Then she said “Tom Hiddleston will be practically on top of us!!” and I thought “OH NO SHE’S A KINDRED SPIRIT.” This was proven true at the intermission when she asked me if I was “enjoying the view of Hiddleston’s butt.”

Me (in my head) I LOVE HER

Me: It’s like a chorus of angels singing in my ears. 

Her: And his legs!! 

Me (getting too worked up) HE’S SO LEGGY

Her: Have you seen The Night Manager?

Me: OH GIRL

One last thing. I know I got to be in Tom’s presence once already, in a completely astounding circumstance, but it was really special to be in the same room with him for this particular experience. I feel extremely grateful to have had the chance to be there, and do not take it at all for granted. His talent, charisma and grace as an actor shone in this role. He was utterly moving. He came alive on stage, and it was absolutely thrilling to witness. As someone who has seen all of his work and adored him from afar for years, this was something new. Being there with him, in this intimate setting, in his element...was beautiful. I’ll never forget it.

[lebilliam]

Hey sirmcartney asked me to do this

I’d rather be doing this over my school ish anyways :’)

Ask me some questions!

3 Fears: Ghosts :((( , fat insects , failing stuff 

3 things I love: i fukin love talking to my friends and hanging out , listening to music that i havent heard in forever, and that post workout glow 

2 turns on: i can send them memes :) , i can laugh and not give a heck with them

2 turns off: i cant send them memes :( , being mean to me (im sensitive af)

My best friend: zoo wee this is a hard one but id prob say logan or brian or adam or morgan or alex. take ur pick. (morgan and logan tbh)

Sexual orientation: str8 

How tall am I: 5′9″ according to my ID

What do I miss right now: intimacy

Favourite color: orange!!!!!

Do I have a crush: ;)

Favourite place: currently ive been digging the imagination room

What am I listening to right now: affection // Cigarettes After Sex

Shoe size: it varies on the brand but normally 9.5 or 10? idk im bad

Eye color: brown

Hair color: black 

Meaning behind my URL: its bc i wanted a recognizable alias that i could use across platforms 

Favourite song: i always say liztomania by phoenix

Favourite band: Maroon 5 fanboy here but ive been a fan of Cigarettes after Sex for a while now

How I feel right now: STRESSED and ANGERY

Someone I love: myself (kinda)

My current relationship status: 

My relationship with my parents: we dont really talk that much but good i think?

Favourite season: oof i like the heat but im gonna say winter bc i get to be emo and i can go walk on fresh snow 

Tattoos and piercing i have: none atm

Tattoos and piercing i want: hmmm idk if i want anything big but i always thought the track shoe/wing thing would be nice

The reasons I joined Tumblr: all my friends had it so i thought i would be cool if i made one

Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts?: i have gotten some before and i appreciate them 

Have I ever kissed the last person you texted?: the last person i texted? surprisingly no

How long does it take me to get ready in the morning?: depends if i shower but i can get going in ~4-5 minutes

Have you shaved your legs in the past three days?: nope!

Where am I right now?: imagination room!

Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level? hell yea who doesnt

Do I live with my Mom and Dad? not atm im chillin #dormlife

Am I excited for anything?: excited for the weekend

Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to? hell to the yea of course

How often do I wear a fake smile?: everytime i feel weird around people idk usually i wouldnt say i smile that much unless im gooning 

If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?: I believe that the world will introduce me to people when i need it (lame answer: idk anyone but maybe like my friends’ friends)

What do I think about most? this week it’s been the french essay i had to write but overall i think about being appreciated 

Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? id be on both sides if i could but if i had to pick one id totally be in front

What was the last lie I told? oh haha i dont know (but i do know)

Do I perfer talking on the phone or video chatting online? PHONE CALLS

Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens? Hell yea what else am i supposed to be afraid of. aliens are super cool man of course i think theyre real

Do I believe in magic? NOPE! but theres been some crazy magic tricks where i almost believe but then i see the “how it’s done” video for it

Do I believe in luck? hell yea of course! why would it not exist? 

What’s the weather like right now? ughgh it’s disappointingly hot 

What was the last book I’ve read? Huis Clos by Jean Paul Sartre (i had to read it for class but it really is a great work of art)

Do I have any nicknames? B, Lil B(ones i have heard the most) Billiam, Broletariate Biu (my mom calls me that), (billy bear is an old one and i dont know why they ever used it in the first place), goomph, toad, frog, ugly ass, nerd, dork, dingus

Do I spend money or save it? i spend it haha kms i really need to save more efficiently

Can I touch my nose with a tounge?: nope just tried and looked like a fool

Favourite animal? oof i want to say dogs but thats basic but dogs are so loving like i dont get it how do they do it

What was I doing last night at 12 AM?: i was up and i was emo. jk i was hanging out and watching bad Freshman xxl cyphers

What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it? Get Low by lil Jon or Faded (the remix) or change your mind by the killers. im gonna go ahead and say that change your mind gets my shit hyped UP

What is my favorite word? satiation

My top 5 blogs on tumblr: idk if im going to be honest i dont really use tumblr that much for personal blogs but i do love foodporn, til, ruined childhood

If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say? love each other. 

Do I have any relatives in jail? i dont think so? oh jk theyre not really a relative but they’re a close family friend’s relative

What is my current desktop picture? FUKIN FUNCTIONAL GROUPS THAT I DONT EVER KNOW OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD EVEN THOUGH THERES A TEST IN 10.25 HOURS

Had sex? ye

Bought condoms? ye

Gotten pregnant? cant really say that i have :p

Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain? yes

Had job? yep! summer job at the zoo which was cool af

Smoked weed? once or twice 

Smoked cigarettes? never.nope.disgusting

Drank alcohol? yes

Am I a vegetarian/vegan? i tried being vegetarian for a bit but then i wasnt eating enough red meat

Been overweight? as a kid i feel like i was overly big but now that i think about it i dont think i was fat

Been underweight? definitely

Gotten my heart broken? homeboy who hasnt?

Been to prom? yeep

Been in airplane? yeep

Learned another language? heck yes! english kek and im in the process of learning french. i tried learning lithuanian after a life changing experience. 

Wore make up? surprisingly no

Dyed my hair? nope! i dont want to bleach my hair

Had a surgery? uhhh does laser surgery count? bc ive had 3 so far and i might have more

Met someone famous? every time i walk by a mirror ;) jk i met the senator of WA and the mayor of Tacoma a couple times

Stalked someone on a social network? pfft hell yes

Been fishing? yep! it’s always an experience

Been rejected by a crush? rip me yes

What do I want for birthday? i want to have a nice get together with friends where we do stuff that i dont have to pay for (but i dont think thats how life works anymore)

Do I like my handwriting? I love it in pen and when i hit my ecrivain stride, but otherwise when my hands get sweaty its just a fkin mess 

Where do I want to live when older? i’ve always said paris, but zaragoza spain wouldnt be too bad!

Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad? yea boi

What I’m really bad at: believing in myself 

What my greatest achievments are: i was a smart kid in elementary! i got some awards for getting good grades and i went to a competitive thing for piano once and i placed a couple times in some random races ive run

The meanest thing somebody has ever said to me: oof i dont want to really relive that experience

What I’d do if I won in a lottery: id ask /r/personalfinance 

What do I like about myself: id like to think im gaining/losing healthy weight

My closest Tumblr friend: on tumblr?? idk i said i dont really use tumblr for friends but i’d probably say memequeen or sirmccartney

Any question you’d like? when am i going to meet up with my RA? no one knows idk i forgot about our meeting and hes really cool about rescheduling so i might do it this saturday

Are you outgoing or shy? it really depends on how im feeling but id like to think im pretty outgoing!

What kind of people are you attracted to? NICE FRIENDly people who can laugh. laughing is important to me

Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now? personally i think yes

Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable? nope!

Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with? @thoseloverseyes most def

What does the most recent text that you sent say? “haha and then what ;)” jk it says” thank”

What are your 5 favorite songs right now? boy oh boy am i not ready for this question. Id think “this love, maroon 5″, humble (its a bop), “the air that i breathe, “open - rhye”, and rollin by calvin harris or this house by japaense breakfast idk the last one always changes

Do you like it when people play with your hair? i had a weird experience once but idk i think im willing to let other people touch my hair? not a fan 

Do you think there is life on other planets?of course. this topic is not up for debate. just bc our defition of life has not been found that does not mean that there is not life in other places where we are either 1) not looking or 2) life that we cant recognize due to our weird weird obsession with water like life does not have to use water as a conduit for essential functions

well that was fun and id say it took some time. it def got me feeling better about life. 7.8/10 i would do it again but im sweaty af from this hot ass room

peace!

[tchellig]

So I was rummaging through the source code of my favorite videogame, and I found this list of constants, and honestly? They make a great wlw tag-yourself kinda deal (“tag yourself I’m GF_THUNDER”), but also maybe an ask list, where you give someone a number and they say what the corresponding item means to them (“number 20” “when you make brittle with your gf and she gets really excited when it’s time for the bit where you take a hammer and shatter the sheet”).

Or you could do your own answers to all of them like I did (did I mention there are way more under the cut? If you ask me, they just keep getting better). Basically, just have fun with them.

1 (GF_ELEC): when the feeling of being in love with your gf is downright electric

2 (GF_POIS): when your gf gets food poisoning and she’s stuck in bed during your whole vacation together, but later she mentions she really enjoyed the trip. when you ask why, she claims it was because she was with you

3 (GF_ACID): when your girlfriend keeps saying “Mina Ashido is my wife”

4 (GF_COLD): when your gf is a little mad at you and doesn’t wanna talk at the moment, and you don’t pressure her. alternately, warm her up!!

5 (GF_FIRE): when you love your gf’s taste in music

10 (GF_MISSILE): when your gf is playing a wizard and keeps casting magic missile

11 (GF_ARROW): the only Olympic event your gf watches is archery, because she used to do competitive archery in high school. what she didn’t count on is you getting really into it and getting even more excited about it than she does.

12 (GF_PLASMA): your girlfriend is a materials scientist and routinely works with plasma, but still loves your plasma globe and you love to watch her play with it

13 (GF_HOLY_ORB): Smash Bros is your gf’s religion and she keeps referring to the Smash Ball as the “holy orb.” alternately, your gf’s pretty eyes.

14 (GF_WATER): when you steal your gf’s water bottle

15 (GF_LITE): your gf really likes pastel

16 (GF_DARK): your gf likes wearing black

17 (GF_LITE_WEAK): your gf doesn’t go outside much and is always squinting outdoors

18 (GF_DARK_WEAK): your gf wants to wear dark clothes, but it’s the middle of summer

20 (GF_SHARDS): your clumsy gf broke her favorite mug D:

21 (GF_SOUND): you perk up as you hear your girlfriend pulling into the driveway

22 (GF_CONFUSION): you make a reference your girlfriend doesn’t get

23 (GF_FORCE): you make your girlfriend watch a thing with you so she can get the reference

24: when your gf doesn’t want to get off the couch

26: when your gf is pure magic to you

27: when your love for your gf is like a rock hurtling through space at over 100,000 miles an hour

28: when your gf’s feet are really cold but you warm them up on your tum anyway / when your gf’s hands are cold but you hold them anyway

30: when your gf’s life is a little bit of a mess but you’re still so proud of them

31: [redacted, nsfw]

32: when your gf finds out a piece of media she likes is too problematic to still enjoy

33: when your gf is at the center of all your thoughts

34: when you get to hang out with your lovely gf and not worry about anything else for a bit

35: when you gotta have a serious talk with your gf but it’s okay ‘cause you’re both great at carefully communicating your feelings to each other.

61: when your girlfriend is your gal-paladin

62: when your girlfriend blocks gross anons

63: when your girlfriend wants to be alone and you give her space

64: when you’re a vampire and you and your gf make the informed decision to make her one, too

65: when your gf reveals her plans for world domination and you still love and support her

66: your gf is a shapeshifter and can turn into absolutely anything

70: your gf’s a support main

71: when your gf has a surprise for you and she’s not giving you any hints

72: the very earth trembles at the radiance of your gf

73: your gf’s a Reaper main

74: your gf’s a Tracer main and loves to quote her lines at you in her best silly English accent 

75: your gf’s a Zarya main and talks about getting crushed between her thighs or getting broken in half

76: when your gf is trying to remember who she mains

77: when your gf is stunning, as always

78: when you find your gf in a crowd of people

79: when your girlfriend is psychic but she doesn’t need to read your mind to know what you’re thinking

80: when someone messes with your gf and they suffer the wrath of God

81: when someone messes with your gf and they get fucking vaporized holy shit

82: when someone messes with your gf and they suffer the wrath of Satan

83: when your gf meant to banish someone to the nether realm, but her magic wasn’t strong enough and they just got sent to the shadow planes instead

84: your gf’s car’s stereo is broken and will only play REM’s “It’s The End of The World” on repeat

85: your gf is really into Berserk. alternately, your gf is a witch but keeps screwing up her sigils

86: you go stargazing with your gf

87: when your gf wants to go see a scary movie but then it’s scarier than she thought it would be but you hold her hand and it’s okay

88: your gf is a fullmetal alchemist fan and has a poster of jean havoc. alternately, your gf is a kaiju and destroys half of tokyo but you still love and support her.

89: your love for your gf is ablaze. alternately, your gf is venting to you about how Dan Brown’s Inferno is trash and a waste of her time

90: your gf takes you to see fireworks

91: your gf’s shipment of pokemon merch came in and she’s been wearing that Team Rocket hat for weeks and holy shit it’s still really cute on her

104: your gf has cochlear implants and two robotic prosthetic limbs and you’re really proud of her for adapting to using them and you love her so much

105: your gf had a terrible day D: but you’re trying to make it a little better in whatever ways she’s up for and comfortable with, and it’s helping a bit. alternately, your gf sent some asshole’s racist tweets to their employer.

106: you’re enjoying The Girlfriend Experience™

110: your gf had to enter the launch codes today, ushering in total thermonuclear annihilation. alternately: your gf is playing as Gandhi in Civ, or is a big Duke Nukem fan.

111: your gf is vision-impaired, and also you love them a lot! alternately, your gf is so radiant it could blind someone.

112: you get to hold your gf!!

113: oh my

134: your gf takes your breath away

135: you see your gf somewhere and you wave to her -- and she waves back

136: your gf’s a Symmetra main

137: your gf restores antique player pianos, either professionally or as a hobby

138: your gf doesn’t vape, but she loves memes about vaping

139: whenever you hand your gf the aux cord, she plays The Cure

140: your gf’s a Mercy main

149: you see your gf and you feel you are cured of all ails.

150: when you rush to your gf’s arms so fast you basically teleport to her

151: when you acknowledge that your gf had a hand in the doom that befell your house, but you still love and support her

152: when you’re watching a movie with your gf and you need to go get more snacks and she keeps the movie paused while you’re gone and waits until you’re fully settled back on the couch before unpausing it. alternately, when you and your gf go into cryogenic stasis together because you wanna see the future, and the technicians at the facility revive you first, then your girlfriend, so the first words you say to her when she wakes up are “just crackin’ open a cold one with the boys” (even though most of the technicians are women too)

153: your gf swears a lot

154: your gf’s presence is like a healing cloud

155: your gf supports the people of Flint, MI

156: your gf reads lots of murder mysteries and knows how to kill someone via poisoned ice cubes

159: your gf needs a bit of motivation, and you give it to her

160: your gf is a lil quiet but you know that just means she’s processing stuff and not that she’s ignoring you or mad at you. alternately, your gf finds it really hard to concentrate when there’s any sort of noise, and she needs to study, so you’re completely silent for a couple of hours ‘cause you want her to succeed

161: your gf is flirting with you but you refuse to be flustered!

162: you ask your gf to stop doing something and she does right away.

163: she asks why that particular thing was an issue, so she can know what kinds of behaviors to avoid in the future, but you find it difficult to articulate

189: “I love my girlfriend!” your partner thunders

192: when your gf wins an argument online

200: your gf loves looking closely at the snowflakes that stick to the window, and gets a little sad when they melt. alternately, your gf is a powerful winter goddess and you love to imagine her with a snowflake halo.

208: your gf always opens all the windows when it rains so she can listen to it “at full volume”

209: your gf gets really excited in the fall when the leaves start dropping and tries to catch them. when she does, she always gives them to you

210: you love it when your gf texts you to give you little updates on how her day is going

211: your gf is a nature photographer and loves to show you her shots of lightning

212: your gf draws thundercats fanart

250: your gf’s a Widowmaker main. alternately, you’re convinced your gf is a little magical; her hair seems to change with her mood. it’s really cute when she’s cross and you don’t know how to tell her without seeming like you might be trivializing her feelings. 

[det-vackraste]

Okey, so you're really supposed to be tagged by someone to do this, but since I don't have time to wait for that, imma go ahead and tag myself

1. selfie I’m on mobile, so… sorry, but check my “me” tag 2. what would you name your future kids? jeez, I don’t know.. If I have a boy I think I want one of his names to be Finn, cause that was my grandpa’s name plus it’s a cute name. If a girl, maybe give her my middle name Märta, just to pass that on down, but other than that I don’t know.. 3. do you miss anyone? Hmm.. maybe one of my friends who’s been away backpacking since January, and isn’t getting back home until June 4. what are you looking forward to? My mum, sister and I are planning a spa trip, so I’m looking forward to that 5. is there anyone who can always make you smile? My boyfriend, my dog or my best friend since 11 years 6. is it hard for you to get over someone? I haven’t really had to get over someone before, so I don’t know, but I can imagine I either don’t give a fuck or have a really hard time, no in between. 7. what was your life like last year? Real good. Last semester of school, so everything was chill, fun and exciting 8. have you ever cried because you were so annoyed? Well, I’m a crier when I’m angry or frustrated enough, so yeah probably 9. who did you last see in person? My boyfriend, who’s sleeping next to me 10. are you good at hiding your feelings? I can be if I want to 11. are you listening to music right now? Nope 12. what is something you want right now? grapes and cash 13. how do you feel right now? Pretty good. Chilling in bed, a little sleepy. A tad bit too warm, cause Sebastian is clinging to every inch of me in his sleep, but I really don’t mind 14. when was the last time someone of the opposite sex hugged you? If his current clinging counts as a hug; my boyfriend 15. personality description I can come off as a bit bitchy/boring/shy, but if I find you funny I’ll open up and be more fun and crazy. If I like you enough I’m also probably the most loyal bitch on this planet. 16. have you ever wanted to tell someone something but you didn’t? Yeah I have. Two of my friends who dated for a year had a nasty breakup, and quite soon after that the guy had sex with someone else. I promised him that I wouldn’t tell his ex. That was hard. But I didn’t… 17. opinion on insecurities. Not sure what this question wants, but… Insecurities are shit, and I’m doing pretty good with ignoring mine 18. do you miss how things were a year ago? On one hand yes, cause I had a clear routine and somewhere to be everyday, and everything was so chill and exciting since it was a few months before graduation. But on the other hand I’m okey with moving on with my life. I still have the people from a year ago that I care about, and I’m starting to get a clearer view of my future life choices so it almost excites me 19. have you ever been to New York? No I haven’t, would like to go though 20. what is your favourite song at the moment? Man, I don’t know… I’m a junkie for “Balladen om herr Fredrik Åkare och den söta fröken Cecilia Lind” by Cornelis Vreeswijk 21. age and birthday? 20 years old, January 7th 22. description of crush. Except for my boyfriend I don’t have a crush atm. But when I do, they’re pretty much always the same type of guy(my boyfriend included.. I have a very specific type, okey?); * Dark, a lil longer, curly-curlyish hair * Tall, lanky * (Harry Styles, Kit Harington, Robert Sheehan, Sirius Black) *Skinny jeans in legs for days *Big hands *Tall 23. fear(s) 
I’m scared to death of spiders, no joke. Also scared of darker things, like the future, being lonely and such 24. height 167cm, whatever that is in feet 25. role model Uhh… don’t know really..? 26. idol(s) Harry Styles is a really good human being tbh 27. things i hate Cold places, brushing my teeth (it’s the most boring fucking thing I know) 28. i’ll love you if… You love me, probably. I’m trash for affection 29. favourite film(s) Man I don’t know… I’m not at all picky with movies, and usually like every movie I see, so….? 30. favourite tv show(s) Game of thrones & friends 31. 3 random facts * I’ve seen every season of “RuPaul’s drag race”. Pearl is my babe. * I’m basically CONSTANTLY moving/jerking/twitching at least one of my feet or toes in some kind of way. Don’t know why, but I’ve done it for like 8 years now, feels weird when I don’t * I don’t eat sauce. Not on burgers, or pizza, or Kebab or anything. Basically only eat ketchup. 32. are your friends mainly girls or guys? My closest, closest friends are mainly girls, but among all (lol, makes it sound like a lot) of my friends, it’s quite evenly divided 33. something you want to learn More languages, although I hate actually learning it, so I doubt it’s gonna happen.. I would also like to be better than I am at piano 34. most embarrassing moment ?? I’m an embarrassing person so… don’t know 35. favourite subject I like English and Swedish (my 1st language) cause I enjoy writing. Other than that, biology 36. 3 dreams you want to fulfill? * Want to find my dream occupation * Want to go to Australia * Want to share an apartment with either bestie or boyfriend 37. favourite actor/actress Leonardo DiCaprio is nice, I don’t know 38. favourite comedian(s) Asså mannen, Johan Glans 39. favourite sport(s) I don’t really do sports… but like… figure skating? (Eller gång, det är nog min favvo) 40. favourite memory I have a few: * Front row on One Direction’s where we are tour concert at Wembley. The whole 24 hours prior to the concert itself was amazing, and then being in the front row was just unreal. And then Harry screaming “köttbullar” (=meatballs, cause we had a Swedish flag) at us. Best day. * Like the entire week before graduation was great. Prom, chilling in the sun, graduating. It was all really nice. We bought a big, inflatable pool, so when the rest of the students were still in school, all of the graduates had pool parties in the school yard * One time when my boyfriend was playing some game on his computer, to gain his attention, I climbed up into his lap and latched myself around him like a backwards backpack, and then I accidentally fell asleep there. Slept for about an hour. Best nap of my life. 41. relationship status In a relationship since three years 42. favourite book(s) I’m such an embarrassing sucker for the entire Harry Potter series and that entire universe. Other than that I loved “the Book thief” by Marcus Zusak 43. favourite song ever God…….. I don’t know 44. age you get mistaken for I don’t think I’ve been mistaken ever… But quite often my friends have to show ID at bars, but I don’t? 45. how you found out about your idol My best friend showed me this boy band she had discovered, and well there he was 46. what my last text message says “Where’s the lie tho” in response to a screenshot of a funny text post I was sent 47. turn ons Oh god, where do i start.. * cockiness, but not in a gross way, but just a smug, confident way..? Making sense? * Hands. Long, slim fingers; hands of a pianist * Long, slim legs in skinny jeans * Jaw lines * Tiny man butts * Veiny forearms * Tall people * Smoking..? I don’t know why? I don’t even like smoking? It’s just something aesthetically pleasing with long, slender fingers holding a cigarette * HAIR, dark, long luscious locks * Kissing. Anywhere but the lips (lips too tho) * Biting * Teasing * Hands, grabbing, groping, gentle slapping. You name it, it probably turns me on 48. turn offs Like…. pissing? And snus (snuff). So fucking gross 49. where i want to be right now Somewhere with a lowest temperature of 25 degrees Celsius 50. favourite picture of your idol I’m on mobile, man, but probably like… messy bun, a flimsy shirt that’s really out there, and some sparkly boots 51. starsign I’m your typical Capricorn 52. something i’m talented at Like… music stuff.. I have a really good ear for keys and such in music..? 53. 5 things that make me happy * Sunshine * Dogs * Travelling * My boyfriend and best friend * Reading/drawing 54. Name something you’re currently worried about The future; what do I want to do for a living, and hence; what do I want to study at uni? 55. tumblr friends I’m not really tumblr active in that way.. I just reblog nice pictures of nice things and that’s that. One time TT answered one of my asks 56. favourite food(s) Tacos. 57. favourite animal(s) Dogs Foxes, because they’re extra pretty dogs 58. description of my best friend Real smol. 59. why i joined tumblr Facebook was so 2010

[fatandfabulousme-blog]

The Life and Death of True Love (A Modern Day Tragedy)

It has been exactly 5 months, 1 week, and 1 day since he broke up with me. For seemingly unknown reasons at the time...

For his protection all names except my own with be changed. All recounts are from my personal memory.

I loved him...I still love him. The fact that I still love him scares me. What does that say about me as a person? Does that mean I’m weak? Does that mean I like the abuse? I’m even scared as to what my friends will think about me writing this. 

We had been friends since I was 16. I still remember the first time I met him. My aunt was very sick and my family decided to go to her hospital room on the 4th of July and have a picnic. My cousin Jen walked in with her new boyfriend at the time Chris. Chris was dressed in an ugly yellow tee shirt, old and clearly the wrong size, as it was tight. He also wore jeans and these hideous brown shoes that were in style back then. Tall and VERY skinny, brown hair and brown eyes, and obviously over gelled spikey hair, wearing glass, this guy was a complete nerd. 

I didn’t think much of him. My cousin Jen has had a handful of boyfriends so I wasn’t sure how long it was going to last, so I never paid much attention to him. It wasn’t my sweet sixteen birthday party on the beach that I started to become friends with this 25 year old man at the time. As a full disclosure our friendship was always innocent, I never thought of him in that way the entire time he was in a relationship with my cousin Jen. 

Shortly after my birthday we started hanging out all together once a week, and over a course of a few years, multiple times a week. I always kind of felt bad though, because I always kind of felt like the third wheel unless our other friend Stan was there. I always thought their relationship seemed odd. He was never the type of guy to hold her hand in public, or kiss her, or even tell her ‘I love you’. She almost had to force those things from him. 

When I was 19, Jen finally had broken up with Chris. It sucked because I had become close to both of them. So instead of picking sides I tried to stay neutral. About a month after they had broke up with each other, he contacted me. At first with casual conversation, then a few days after that it switched to something else. I don’t have those exact messages, but heres what happened. 

One night he asked to hang out around 10:30PM which wasn’t uncommon for us. So he picked me up and instead of going back to his apartment to watch a movie or play video games he heads a different way then I’m used to. He ended up driving to the beach. We got out and walked in the moonlight. I was talking about some really deep personal shit. Stuff I was feeling about my dying aunt’s situation, and how my family life was affecting me. Once we got to the pier he stopped me and said,

“There’s something I want to ask you. But I’m afraid you won’t like it and hate me.” 

I told him just to spit it out. And then next words out of his mouth completely shocked me. 

“I really want to sleep with you.” 

This guy has known me since I was 15 AND dated my own cousin and he wants to sleep with me? What a creep! So of course my immediate reaction was 

“NO! ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY?!” 

But then I kept thinking in the back of my mind on the way back to the car. Thinking things I shouldn’t have been thinking about. I had been a virgin, I’ve never ever kissed a guy up until that point. This was my chance. He was my best guy friend, someone who I knew and trusted. If anyone was going to take my virginity, at least it would be with someone I liked, knew, and trusted already. 

When drove back to his apartment I thought about it some more. Kept telling myself no. But always coming back to the answer of yes. Eventually I gave him my answer. And we both agreed it would just be “Friends with Benefits.” 

The next day I received this message from him. 

 “Plan on heart break if you go through with this. There's probably no way to avoid "feeling feelings."  I have to be a pretty horrible/selfish person to want to do this if you think about it. Think about how bad you are at bluffing around Dan too. Send me your list... like the candles. Tomorrow night works for me. Maybe come over around 7pm after you eat and get prepared. Somebody is already suspicious so if you want to leave crappy and prepare at my place that's fine. Coming over early and going back home early should help too.”

That Friday we made plans. Had this whole elaborate plot for him to park somewhere else, that I would be spending the night at a ‘friend’s’ house, and wouldn’t be back til the next morning. He had cleaned his house, picked up candles, all for me. Eventually when he picked me up not knowing what was in store. 

Once again he took me to the beach, and he decided that we were going to fly a kite that he had in his trunk. Great first date idea! Bad execution on my part. He stood behind me trying to teach me how to fly the damn thing, and eventually when I was on my own flying it I ended up crashing the thing down HARD a few feet away from where he was standing. I could have really hurt him. It still makes me laugh to think about it to this day. 

After that we went over to this food shack near the beach called Dune Dog. I got something small and inexpensive since he was paying for it and didn’t want to appear like I was taking advantage of him. After a great meal there, the sun was setting and it was time to go back to his apartment. I was all sandy and gross, so we both decided to take a shower, separately of course. I changed into a simple pair of shorts and tee shirt. 

It was still early in the evening so I thought it would be a good idea to watch a movie. The movie I picked was Clueless. He didn’t have a TV so we had to watch on his giant computer monitor. He sat in his computer chair while I sat on his piano bench. Throughout the movie, my eyes were glued to the screen, scared of what to do and where to look. Luckily he had bought my tall cans on Mike’s Hard Lemonade which I was downing at a rapid pace. 

Half way through the movie I turned at looked at him. He looked at me deeply into my eyes. Gently grabbed my face and went in for a kiss. Now you have to remember, this was my VERY FIRST KISS! I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. But I will never forget that kiss, because every single guy I’ve been with or dated since him couldn’t compare. 

It was like fireworks. It felt right, like it was meant to be. And from that very first kiss I knew I was in trouble. There would be no way I could be ‘Friends With Benefits’. I was in love from the very first moment when kissed. Our entire friendship I had never thought of him that way, and everything changed for me in one kiss. 

I won’t go into the details of what happened next, but I did end up losing my virginity that night to him. Something I’ll never regret to this day. We never went a day without seeing each other. We live 1 mile away so it was also convenient. We were falling in love fast, faster than I had ever imagined. He used to send me little sexy memes, funny sayings about sex and stuff.  

So jump forward to September, we have been together for about a month and he needs to go on a work trip and needs someone to watch the house. I offer since I live so close, he agrees and for a few days I was living in the apartment by myself with his cat.    

This was also back in the day when he would end all his messages with: ttyl xoxoxo. 

I don’t remember the first time someone said ‘I love you’. I want to say it was him, but I honestly want to say it was me. If I remember correctly we had been together for about 2 months and we were laying on the bed together before we went to sleep. I had my head on his chest and admitted that I couldn’t do this ‘Friends with Benefits’ thing anymore, because it truely never was. It was always a relationship from the get go for me. For him, who knows? 

Somehow I started coming over more and more often and never leaving. So eventually I just lived at the apartment about 6 months into our relationship. The whole time keeping our relationship secret from both our families. The worst idea I ever had. 

Eventually we moved out of the apartment and rented a stand alone house. I quit my job and Chris was supporting me 100%. I basically became a stay at home girlfriend. Cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the animals. In November of 2014, after being together for 1 year, on our way home from dinner, Chris broke up with me, because he just didn’t love me the same way I loved him. 

I packed up my stuff and moved it all back home, my family fully aware of our relationship at this point. In the month that we were apart we kept in close contact as we were still best friends. Trying to help him with online dating and stuff like that.

I was at my friends annual christmas party which we were supposed to go to together. He messaged me and asked me if I wanted to come over and spend the night. Stupid me was thinking he meant sleep over, but no sex. So I brought my sexiest night time outfit and went over to his place. When it was time to go to bed we slipped under the covers together, me staring at the ceiling and him staring at me. I rolled over to look at him. We just starred in silence at each other. He spoke up first. 

“I really missed you.” He whispered to me. 

He gently started rubbing my wrists.

“I missed you too.” I said.

Before I could even finished my sentence he pulled me in for a passionate kiss. When we broke apart after our kiss, I said,

“Say it.” 

And he smiled and said

“I love you.”

I could tell he actually meant it, and we made love that night. Everything felt right again in the world. I had always heard that line ‘If you love something set it free, and if it comes back it truely loves you.’ So that’s what I did and he came back. What I didn’t realize at the time, he couldn’t deal with his own loneliness. He would rather pretend he’s in love than to be alone. I couldn’t have known this at the time though. 

So for the next two years things were great! I was so in love with him that I had made it up in my mind that this was the man I was going to marry and be with for the rest of my life. And I was happy with that mindset. 

Things started going downhill in December of 2016. It was his office christmas party. Everyone dressed up and was looking great. We went outside to get some air and ran into the girl that would eventually end our relationship, April. Chris introduced me to April and we immediately hit it off. She is a big girl like myself, but she gave zero fucks, where I at the time was self conscious and timid. 

From the moment I met her though I had this feeling. Maybe it was my jealousy or maybe it was the way she looked at Chris. But something felt off with her. Flash forward a few months and Chris and I were getting ready for bed. All of a sudden he says to me

“Are you happy?” 

I say of course I am. Somehow 2 hours later after talking we came to the conclusion that I should leave the house that he had bought, the house that I picked out for us. 

A week or so leading up to this event we actually went out one Saturday night with April. To some dive bar for karaoke 45 minutes away from where we lived. It was strange because Chris and I NEVER went out with his co workers, let alone any female co workers. Out of the three and half years that we were together he never once went out for happy hour with the guys. So it felt strange. 

A few days after that I found messages on his phone. Flirty messages, nothing substantial though. But it was obviously flirtatious. But I never brought it up to him. 

After I moved back home, I was destroyed and what followed in the weeks after has left me scarred beyond belief. At first it he made it seem that we were only separated and would get back together. He made me believe that our situation was only temporary. I was foolish enough to believe him. 2 weeks later, I’m still living at home have little to no contact with Chris. I call him and ask,

“What are you doing tonight? I thought maybe we could see each other?”

He replies,

“I had plans to go out tonight.” 

In my head, I knew I was his ONLY friend, and thats not an understatement. I knew he was going out that night with her. 

“With April right? Did you fuck her?” I asked. 

There was dead silence over the phone. My heart broke instantly. So I did the stupidest thing I could do, I lost my sanity. Once he finally answered me, that he had in fact fucked her multiple times during our period of separation. A time when he was supposed to focusing on himself and figuring out how to fix our relationship. I sure it was easy for him to do it thought especially since they work together. Seeing each other everyday, flirting, maybe more. 

So after hanging up the phone, I did the only sensible thing I could do. I put on my sexiest lingerie, full face of makeup, the tallest hooker heels, that I owned, and drove out to his house to ‘win’ him back. When I arrived I told him that I wanted to talk and that I would wait for him after his ‘date’. Hours rolled by. Eventually it was 2AM and he finally texted me back. 

Hey I’m not coming home. April drank too much and can’t drive.

I felt like I wanted to throw up. I knew that was a lie. He wanted to spend the night at her house. So I threw out an ultimatum. 

If you want anything to do with me or this relationship you will leave her and come home. 

I sat nervously for the next 15 minutes unsure of what was happening. After all my waiting I got my response. 

Ok I’ll be home in 45 minutes. 

I got this rush of excitement I hadn’t felt in a while. He picked me! I won! True love prevailed and the whore lost! It was liberating. I patiently waited for him to arrive, constantly adjusting myself and looking in the mirror to make sure I looked sexy enough. When he finally walked through the door, I could help myself I walked up to him and said,

“I missed you.” 

And kissed him deeply. His jaw dropped, I typically would have never done something like that, put on the full outfit just for him. I held him by his hand and led him to our bedroom. When we got there I controlled myself and didn’t immediately pounce on him. But I needed to know that he was all mine, that I had won. 

We talked for about 30 minutes and discussed that I had indeed won, that he chose me over her. That he wanted this to work. So after that we had probably the best sex we’ve ever had. Unknowing to me at the time, it would also be the last time we would have sex. 

After we were finished I felt like a new couple again. My love for him invigorated and rejuvenated. We laid there laughing and giggling, something we hadn’t done in a long time. Finally I asked him,

“Do you want me to stay or go?”

He looked at my with an intense stare. 

“I want you to stay with me.” 

So I did. 

The next morning I woke up and everything was hunky dory again. My world was back in place, and everything was right. The birds were singing louder, the sun was shining brighter. I knew deep down in my heart that this was my partner, this was my husband, and the love of my life. 

After I went home a few days later things changed. He wasn’t responding to me at all. Eventually one day he picked me up in his car just to talk. We drove around talking about all kinds of stuff, but he talked about his relationship with April the most. Saying things like. 

“It was different with her. When I was with her I wanted to touch her all the time and kiss her all the time, something I don’t feel when I’m with you. She and I have this connection. Where we don’t have to say anything at all and she completely gets me.”

Imagine sitting in a car and having the love of your life say these hurtful things to you. I felt like opening up the car down and just rolling out. 

A few days after that we went on a day date. He picked me up, we went to lunch, then the beach, to my favorite spot in the world. A spot that I have never shown him throughout our 3.5 years of being together, even in our 8 year friendship. I kept dropping hints that I wanted to go back to our house for sex, and he kept discreetly shutting me down. 

A day or two after that everything fell apart. He admitted to me, it wasn’t working, he only saw me as a friend. Once he had a taste of April he was hooked, she was like a drug to him. So he broke up with me, once and for all. This after physically looking me in my face and telling me how much he loved me, when he had no more love for me at all. 

I was devastated. I still am. To this day I still find myself trapped in wanting him. Does he miss me the same way I miss him? Probably not. I sent him a very nasty and venomous, hateful message about how much of a scumbag he is, and how much I hated him....at the time. After everything he’s done to me, the lying, the cheating, the manipulation, the controlling, I still love him. 

I don’t know what that says about me, but I can’t help the way I feel. I’m even going to send him a link to this post and hopefully he reads it. I’m scared to think about what he will think of me. Will he think i’m some crazy psycho ex who needs a restraining order? Or will he think fondly of the life we shared together? The fact that what he thinks about me, still matters so much to me is frightening. But, when you’ve lost everything, you learn to take comfort in the unknown. 

I remain optimistic that maybe one day we can be friends, or something more. But I’m not holding my breath. I feel like i’m so damaged at this point that no normal guy will ever want to love me. Why would someone willingly pick someone with so much baggage. 

Either way, I’m learning about a whole new side of myself, and finding the parts I lost along the way. I hope whoever reads this gets something out of it. Wether that be a message of positivity, or maybe a warning that nothing good lasts forever. The most important message I hope you get is never stop loving yourself, because in the end, there is only you.

[goldbergjonblog]

Bodies Bare Traces of Carnal Violence

          I'm hesitant to tell this story as I'm worried that the authorities will take me away from my parents due to two very poor decisions they made when I was six. Yes, I'm 49 now and have a family of my own, but if the proper officials discover what I'm about to tell you they might retroactively revoke custodial privileges. The choices were that egregious. Even with my advanced age and reduced dependence on them I think my parents would still take it really hard. I assume the statute of limitations has run out but, just in case, there should be enough lag time between when they find out about this story and when it reaches the public for them to create new identities, get burner phones and leave the comfort of their domed existence on the Upper West Side. I'm not sure they are ready for a life on the run at this stage in their lives as they are pretty settled in, but hopefully it won’t come to that. We'll see.

       My parents loved me, trusted me, encouraged me and respected me. All the ingredients you need in a parent. For the most part they made great decisions with my brother and I but, as a parent now, I've learned that it just takes one bad decision and all of the good gets thrown out the window. Some of the greatest athletes in history talk about remembering the biggest defeats or mistakes much more than the championships or great plays. That’s kind of what parenting decisions are like, only without the highlight reel or glory. And I'm not talking about the tough decisions like when to let your kids start using a knife to cut their food (it depends on how good they are at playing the piano) or when to get them a phone (as soon as possible as there is nothing sweeter than getting an emoji-filled text from your daughter). But what I'm going to discuss here, and what makes this so shocking, are the simple decisions. The ones that you would say "of course I wouldn't..." or "there are no circumstances that I would let my child...". The basics. There are many books on parenting but I don't think any book covers these two judgement calls because of their obvious nature. They're so obvious that if “Family Feud” had a topic on the subject of parenting these would definitely make the top three. I imagine it would go something like this:

Richard Dawson (or whoever is your favorite host): “Ok we asked 100 parents what the top ten things you don't let your 6-year old child do.”

Buzzer sounds. It’s close because both Moms from either family quickly smack their buzzer. But it's the Millers from Topeka who answer first.

Miller Mom: “Don't let your child walk off with a stranger.”

The Millers clap, as they know they have it.

Richard Dawson: “Can I see stranger danger...survey says!”

Ding!

Richard Dawson: “The number one answer on the board.”

This is followed by lots of clapping and head nodding because it is such an obvious answer. The number one answer in fact.

       My father's relatives live in Minnesota and when I was a kid we would take an annual summer trip to Minneapolis to see my grandfather, my aunt and uncle, and my cousins. On the day of what my kids now call “when daddy got lost” we were driving back to my aunt and uncle's house, probably to attend to our mosquito bites, when I looked out the window and saw my grandfather walking on one of those quintessential Minneapolis streets. Perfect lawns, big houses, big trees. "There's Grandpa Dan...Grandpa Dan!" We all saw the sweet old man walking down the street. "Can I walk home with him?" My parents immediately said yes and my Dad pulled the car over and they let me out. I ran toward Grandpa Dan and waved to my parents as they drove off. "Grandpa Dan! Grandpa Dan!" I was so excited to see him. He turned around and....it wasn't Grandpa Dan. It was another eighty-something-year-old man in a hat and sweater. And when he turned around and I saw that it wasn't him I looked around for our car but they were gone. Ok I rushed through that sequence because that’s how fast it all happened. But let’s pause and do a bit of a parenting check.

- I was six.

- I was six and in an unknown city.

- I was six, in an unknown city and they let me out of the car by myself.

- I was six, in an unknown city, they let me out of the car by myself and didn't check to see if the man I was going to walk home with was my grandfather.

        Let's just focus on this last one, forgetting age and geographical ignorance. There were a lot of ways to make sure this was the right man. Someone could've walked me out to him, say hello and ask him if it was cool that I walk home with him. Maybe he wasn't going home. Maybe he was going somewhere. To take a walk and get away from his visiting family. To visit a friend who hates kids. Maybe he was going to buy heroin from his hooker girlfriend. Doubtful but you never know. The point is you may want to ask just in case. Within that fairly quick and normal exchange they would have gotten all of the information they needed. But I digress because, more important than asking him if it was okay for me to walk with him, they needed to make sure that the him was actually my grandfather. Okay, let's say they were in more of a hurry to get home - a tv show, a bathroom emergency, more studying of parenting basics, whatever their rush was - and they wanted to stay in the car. If that was the case then the easiest thing to do was a slow down drive by ID check. Almost...no exactly like a criminal/cop who would drive by a target/suspect before he is going to kill/arrest him. Whether you’re on the side of good or evil it’s the responsible thing to do. Just a quick turn around of the head or an inconspicuous glance in the mirror. But I guess it was open the door, get the kid out and don't look back, because Burt Reynolds is on The Dinah Shore Show and I can’t miss it. When I ask my parents they have no explanation for the lack of identification.

        Now I'm stuck on Elm Street with Not Grandpa Dan looking down at me. All I know is, "Aunt Jean." I don't know her last name, the street they live on or the temple they belong to. No pertinent information for that neighborhood. I looked up at Not Grandpa Dan and said, "Do you know Aunt Jean?" Not Grandpa Dan looked down at me and shook his head. I don't think he turned around and shuffled away as I must have begun some kind of child panic and possibly a few tears started to well up. I think he directed me to one of the houses and suggested I ask them. Then he moved on, as he must have wanted to get home to watch the same show as my parents or attend to his mosquito bites or maybe he was going to meet Grandpa Dan, as he was the friend who hates kids. As he walked away I headed up the lawn of a house and rang a doorbell. "Do you know my Aunt Jean?" I got a head shake and then it was a montage of me at the doors of this neighborhood, asking a question and them shaking their heads, doors shut in my face, me kicking the ground and walking off. Eventually the montage ends as my head picks up and I see what I really need to see, kids playing in a yard, the comfort of my peers. I saw didn’t two kids, about my age, playing with toy bows and arrows (a key memory from which the story is stitched). I asked them if I could play and they didn’t hesitate, handing me a bow of my own. Eventually I must have let them know I was lost as their mom came out and asked me what family I was looking for and all I said was, “Aunt Jean”. She disappeared inside to investigate, as we continued our game of Cowboys and Indians (this was the 70’s).

         Meanwhile back at Aunt Jean's house, as my parents were getting caught up on daytime television, Grandpa Dan showed up. I'm not sure if he was already there and panicked ensued but in my mind he walked into the living room to catch this amazing episode of The Mike Douglas Show that had the whole neighborhood up in arms and someone, during the commercial break, asked where I was. After a few minutes of back and forth it all became clear. Then the panic set in as they sent out a search party, which was a couple of cars, going from block to block. Now they were learning how to slowly drive by and check people’s faces. Lesson learned the hard way I guess. Finally my parents turn the corner and spot me playing happily with my new friends. I imagine my mom stumbling up the hill to get to me and hold me, never letting go, and promising to never make that mistake again. I assume they thanked the family and never took their eyes of of me for the rest of trip. I assume that the authorities are thinking about this but ultimately giving my parents a pass. Well wait as I believe they work on an aggregate system so my folks aren’t in the clear yet.

         After my harrowing situation in Minneapolis I guess my parents thought that I was a mature, hardened six year-old and that I could handle things that many my age couldn't. I can imagine them questioning something and then waving it off, "He'll be fine. Remember when he got lost in Minneapolis and made it through easy. No trauma whatsoever." It’s true though, as I wasn't clingy. I wasn't mistrusting. I would go head first into many scenarios. I have a lot of issues but abandonment has never been one of them. You want to leave me. Go ahead. I'll be just dandy. I won't wonder why. I won't look for you. I won't call out for my Aunt Jean. No trauma. How or why I don't know. Thus came the second ridiculously poor decision right on the heels of this one.

Let's go back to “Family Feud”. Richard take it away.

Richard Dawson: “Ok...Millers you got the number one answer do you want to pass or keep going?”

Mom Miller: “We'll keep going Richard.”

After a short huddle and a drunken comment from Richard about strangers and kids, the Millers come back.

Mom Miller: “Don't let them watch inappropriate television or movies.”

Again the Millers start clapping and Richard starts smacking his cards into his hand and says something about his show having inappropriate material. After some canned laughter he dramatically points with the cards to the board.

Richard Dawson: “Let's see no watching inappropriate material...survey says?”

Ding! Number 3 on the list as I think consuming poison or maybe something to do with swimming unattended probably snuck in there.

        While content has spread to many different mediums and is much more accessible the rule still remains. Just know what kind of things your kids are watching, reading or listening to. Another basic. In this day and age, screw that, in any day and age, what my parents allowed me to watch would never fly. As much as I never want you to stop reading this, in order for this story to be most effective you will have to do a little work on your own and watch something. You can watch it at any point after you are told what it is. If you watch it right after I tell you then it will make you shake your head in amazement as you get more details, and if you watch it later you will be just as flabbergasted, as you will say it can't be that bad and then when you see it, it's worse. But you have to watch, just not with your kids. That's the deal we are making right now. Deal?

        I grew up in front of TV and movie screens. Was glued. That in itself could be an indictment today. And I'm not just talking about Sesame Street and the Electric Company. I'm talking about The Today Show in the morning with my mom, All My Children in the afternoon with my Nanny and everything else the rest of the day - The Man From U.N.C.L.E, I Dream of Jeannie, F Troop. In fact I used to measure time in tv shows. If I was told we’d be leaving in an hour I'd ask how many Gilligan's Islands that was - "two Jon...two Gilligan's Islands." Around this time, when I was living in Birmingham, I would see any movie my parents went to see, from James Bond to Rollerball (a particular favorite as in one scene a bloodied James Caan circles the arena to the crowd chanting "Jonathan, Jonathan") to Woody Allen and Mel Brooks. So they were obviously open to taking us to see anything and I am thankful for that. Why they took me is very clear: because they wanted to see those movies. It's that simple and I know it because there are so many movies I want to see but I can't because I can't take my kids. I draw a line, which every passing year gets extended a bit.

         But I don't think my parents drew a line. Or had a line. What movie wouldn't they let me see? I think the answer is none. Because in 1973, when I was six, a movie that none of you have heard of and even fewer of you have seen, came out, and how it found its way to Birmingham and my impressionable eyes I don't know. The name of the movie is “Torso.” Not Toto or Tortoise or Horse-o. “Torso.” Just so there was no confusion that this could be mistaken as a kid’s movie. It wasn’t like what happened to many parents in the late 70’s when they took their kids to see Flesh Gordon only to rush them out of the theater in shock that the aliens lacked clothing much like earthly soft core porn. No, the title clearly was the word Torso. Remember the deal we made a few paragraphs back? Well now would be a good time to look up Torso online. Type in Torso 1973 movie. Play around a bit. Take a deep dive. Look at the posters. Watch the trailer. Watch the movie if you like, but watch it with the eyes of a six year-old. Go ahead, I'll wait. The book will still be here when you get back.

         Ok. Welcome back to those who just did their research and are thoroughly freaked out. Stop trying to burn your eyes with a match or acid. You can’t un-see that. This is when people start to inform on my parents and let the authorities know that this deed should not go unpunished. If that's the case then the cops will start going after them, given their previous record of losing the same child just months ago. All I ask is give them a little time to pack. My dad is a quick packer but my Mom is a bit indecisive and I’m sure the anxiety of the law being after them won’t help with those decisions. So hopefully they've said their goodbyes and are living the life as an old Italian couple. God speed Gale and Marshall. Or should I say Gaela and Marcello.

         The title of Torso was changed from its original, which I guess was a marketing decision. It was an Italian produced film and it's title in Italian was a mouthful - "I corpi presantano tracce di violenza carnale". The English translation makes you understand the marketing decision, because I'm not sure there is a way to market a movie titled - "Bodies bear traces of carnal violence." A terrible, terrible title for a movie. It says too much while saying absolutely nothing. Its non-committal. The opposite of say Jaws. So they went with Torso. Torso has just as much impact with a little more intrigue and a lot less literacy.

         So how did a six year-old end up sitting in a movie theater, watching Torso? The way the story goes is that one day my Mom's best friend, Nan, was watching me, and not my brother, for some reason. Nan was someone who we spent a lot of time with and I was very comfortable around. At least when they left me with her, they checked to make sure it was Nan and not some lookalike from behind, so there was some growth. At some point Nan had to think of what to do with me and she knew I loved going to the movies. Simple enough. So she perused the paper and checked out what was playing at the Green Springs 6 or the Eastwood Mall. I can't pinpoint the day but there were probably some good choices at that time. 1973 was a banner year for movies. Here's just a sampling of what she may have found playing at a theater that day:

The Sting (my favorite movie of all time)

American Graffiti

Live and Let Die (my favorite Roger Moore 007)

Serpico (my brother's first movie in the theater so there was a track record)

Paper Moon

Charlotte’s Web

Tom Sawyer

Mean Streets

Robin Hood - animated (my favorite Disney film at the time)

Forbidden Planet - (maybe not for kids so much, but animated no less)

Sleeper - (one of my top 5 favorite Woody Allen movies)

The Three Musketeers - (Oliver Reed, Michael York - my favorite version)

         The list kept going. It kept going in fact to the #78 film, in terms of box office, Torso directed by Sergio Martino. Look again at the list above and you'll see some of the greatest filmmakers of all time on there. Now I will say that I saw many of the above movies in the theater so there could have been a bit of a back and forth on what I had seen and what I hadn't but I can't believe we got to #78. Was Black Mama, White Mama sold out? There's one significant movie I left off the list and it was the number one movie that year. The Exorcist. A blockbuster. A game changer. So I don't know if it had come out already or not but there could have been a conversation about maybe going to see that and maybe, just maybe they felt that The Exorcist was a bit much for my six year-old soul to take. Maybe they did have a line and were drawing it in the sand. But how could Torso have been any worse...or better depending on the system we were using to make our choice? I assume after some deliberation and schedule checking Nan landed on her choice. “I think I’ll take Jon to see Torso. Is that OK?” After maybe a quick thought and peek at the paper, my parents nodded. “That’s fine. Have fun.” I do wonder if "Bodies bear traces of carnal violence" would've passed.

         What about the movie poster? Anything we can take away from that to get a sense of the film, to inform our decision of entertaining and not scarring a little kid? The movie poster, some were in red and some in yellow, depicted a leather-clad hand holding a hacksaw, and within the frame of the hacksaw you could see a terrified college girl in a nightgown. There were variations of that poster that showed a few more scenes under the hacksaw to give you more detail about plot or content, like a full on lesbian orgy bedroom scene, or another woman in a nightgown, this time with more of a scream on her face, or an image of a man in a ski mask with a red and black scarf, holding, yep you guessed it, a hacksaw. Again, trying to be fair, maybe Nan and my parents didn't see these posters in the paper. Maybe Nan didn't see it until it was even bigger at the theater, when she had one more chance to question this choice before buying a ticket. Before maybe asking if I'd like to see Robin Hood again. I'm starting to think that Nan should be joining my parents in Italy.

         Ok so if the title didn't do it and the image on the poster didn't do it, maybe the log line could give a hint. She saw the hacksaw and some sign of lesbian interaction and then maybe she glanced at the line on the poster. The line that sums up the movie like, "In space no one can hear you scream", which lets you know that you will be in space and there will be probably be screaming and, unfortunately, no one will be able to hear that screaming in space. A perfect summation of the forthcoming experience. For Torso it wasn't quite as explicit but it was still quite effective in giving you a sense of what to expect. The line on the poster read, "Enter...if you dare, the bizarre world of the psychosexual mind." It was a dare, questioning whether you want to walk in the theater, and if you did choose to take on this challenge it would be a bizarre world you were entering, a different world, a world that would be occupied by, not cute foxes and singing bears, but someone with a psychosexual mind. Nan took a look at that and decided to take the dare and enter, dragging me into that world.

         So what was Torso about? Let's start with the setting. An Italian college town. Not sure what that meant, but in my memory there were scenes of college age men and women going up and down stairs to big, old buildings, always being watched from afar by someone wearing a red and white scarf. Yes there were a few classroom scenes, but there were far more basement and bedroom scenes. If I were to break the movie down sonically, in forty-five percent of the scenes girls were laughing and in forty five percent of the scenes girls were screaming, with the final ten percent saved for the scenes where the girls were making no noise because they were dead. While this bustling college activity was going on there was a killer, a strangler specifically, a strangler of college coeds even more specifically, on the loose. I'm sure there was some kind of weak police procedural plot line but I am admitting here and now that I have not and will not see this movie again for a variety of reasons so I can’t confirm that. What I remember was more like flashback style. The scene or scenario, as it may have happened multiple times, I remember most vividly was the killer, with a bloody hacksaw, carrying a black garbage bag filled with body parts into a basement. That would be the poster in my head. Yes there were glimpses of the lesbian bedroom scenes, and girls running and screaming from the killer, but the basement, the aftermath is what made the biggest impression on me. I couldn't begin to analyze how seeing this movie affected me. As of today, it hasn’t manifested itself in anything too bad, but keep an eye on me.

         We joked about it over the years and it wasn't until about five years ago that I actually investigated the movie. It was just a story that we told. An inside joke that never really had any teeth as there was nothing to refer to other than the thought of it. And then the internet happened. The closet that holds the skeletons of the universe, where you can dare to enter into many bizarre worlds. I looked at the posters in utter disbelief. Then I watched the trailer and I think I actually held my hand over my gaping mouth. As I watched the Torso trailer I was angry, mystified and laughing my ass off. How could this have happened? I was just deliberating over letting my seven year-old daughter see Pitch Perfect 2, which is a joke compared to this. I showed the trailer to some of my co-workers and most of them couldn't get through it, others were delighted at the story of it but were condemning my parents equally. Then I shared it with my mom. I asked her if she had seen the trailer. She had not. I asked her if she would look at it. She said she would, and when she did she laughed but also stopped it. She couldn't watch it all the way through. Screw the trailer. I should make her watch the actual movie all the way through. Or I could just drop it. Doubtful. Maybe my feelings and reaction to the film have remained dormant for over 40 years and I've just been waiting for an event to trigger it. I'm currently in the process of building out our basement, which in Brooklyn is as traumatic an experience that you can go through, and when its finished maybe I'll find myself at Home Depot staring at hacksaws and it'll hit me. I hope not but you never know. It wasn't my decision to see that movie and if they find bags of bodies in my new basement then you know what my defense will be. If only I had seen Robin Hood that day.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

STREET PLAYING THUMP-THUMP MUSIC

You may not realize they're startup ideas. Certainly some rejected Google. But if you control the whole system and have the source code too. I know, one thing they had in common was that they didn't have the energy to keep a program in your head. The VC funds that don't adapt won't be violently displaced. So paradoxically there are cases where it surpasses Python conceptually. I mean they don't have this constraint. Can you cultivate these qualities? Along with good tools, hackers want interesting projects. You often can't tell yourself.

After two years, and we feel bad if you haven't raised any money yet, you probably already know the answer to the paradox, I think VCs should be more aristocratic. There has to be non-obvious. It's not going to be wasted. Us, then they must be working. The second phase in the growth of the web. But it's more than that. So you can just decide to raise money, and the right to collect taxes on the import of silk—and you specifically are—one quantum of making users' lives better. Quite the opposite: incubators exert more control than VCs, because they tend to do it is to focus extra attention on specific parts of the company. Most will self-destruct before you can convince investors, you'll not only get market price, work on something interesting with people I like.

I don't see why not. That filter recognized about 23, 000 tokens. Most investors decide in the first year, our initial reaction to Y Combinator, and most have to learn to watch from a distance. For example, jam, bacon, pickles, and cheese, which are often originally written for converting or extracting data. And does search even matter anyway? The people at Google are smart, not all of it. It's an interesting question why cities become startup hubs, but two of them be seen side by side.

Saying initially that you're trying to measure. Cambridge seems to be x. There are other 19 year olds will might be higher than that of the controlled experiment. The other way makers learn is from examples. I worked on spam filters: a punish mode which, if I were choosing now that's still the one I'd pick. Beyond the moderately useful generalization that human nature doesn't change much, the unfortunate fact is that change is hard to measure that. Because the best investors only rarely conflicts with accept offers greedily and get the best deals, because every dinner is a mini Demo Day.

The top managers are held responsible for the problem he needs to solve. Though indeed there's a paradox here: the more general the knowledge, the more risk you should. They were good at was writing software. So if you want to succeed in a startup this quarter shows up as Yahoo earnings next quarter—stimulating another round of investments in startups. That's kind of hard is good. But you know perfectly well how bogus most of these merchants got, but we discovered someone else had a product. I once calculated how much Frederick's was costing us in bandwidth, and some ability to ferret out the unexpected? If I had, I think it's a big mistake for companies to loosen their belts as revenues increase.

If an acquirer thinks you're going to have to work for Henry Ford, but not a great bet to succeed, because they made something people want, and those make a difference. If you suppress variations in income are somehow bad for society. The most important reason for having surprisingly good customer service is that it was unintentional. You're not asking people what they wanted to start a startup? But they grew into it really quickly; some of these guys to try sending me mail that begins Dear Friend or has a subject line that's all uppercase and ends in eight exclamation points. I'm interested in good waste—the fewer, the better. I couldn't tell whether I was explaining it badly, or that you won't be able to sustain. For bad design. How can you tell if you're determined to stick around no matter what.

This new freedom is a double-edged sword. In an essay I wrote about earlier: the case where you not only didn't know, but that they don't really like because you think one day they'll be successful. But it was mysterious to me that beliefs about the future of hardware, users would have flocked to it. Increasingly the participants include VCs making investments of a hundred thousand from Andy Bechtolsheim, who gave Google 100k when they seemed promising but still had some things to figure out what you're doing as soon as it does work. I began with, that it bumps into new ideas. People frightened by Lisp make up other reasons for not using it. If company management companies, they might be willing to eat the apple the world's population had voted most delicious, and I'd spent a lot of people seem to have rooted themselves in Tampa on 118k, but they're not willing to admit. What you want is to be expected. It breeds a rebelliousness that actively drives kids away from the rich.

A few months ago, as I mentioned, is a language that doesn't make any difference what Larry Page's net worth is compared to yours. Even in the rare cases where a startup is, economically: a way of avoiding other work. You don't have to be able to say, but it looks like most of the things adults made you do were fun, just as there is for things that solve the mundane problems of individual customers. These techniques are mostly orthogonal to those used in physically getting up and down mountains. Over time, hackers develop a nose for good and bad technology. I've had with several other programmers about why Java smelled suspicious. For the first 100 years or so of its existence, it was bad programmers. The purpose of this article.

Notes

If you're expected to do it. Monk, Ray, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The French Laundry in Napa Valley.

So if it's convertible debt, so it's conceivable that intellectual centers like Cambridge will one day have an edge over Silicon Valley. They have no real substance. You should always absolutely refuse to give you money for other people who should quit their day job might actually make it easy. Ashgate, 1998.

They're an administrative convenience.

A lot of companies to acquire you. There should probably pack investor meetings with So, can I count you in a band, or much energy would be much bigger news, in 1962. If you're the sort of idea are statistics about the origins of the world population, and in some ways First Round Capital is closer to the environment. That's a good product.

But becoming a police state. In fact the secret weapon of the VCs should be. At Princeton, 36% of the breach with Rome, where x includes math, law, writing and visual design.

In technology, companies building lightweight clients have usually tried to attack the A P successfully defended itself by allowing the unionization of its workforce in 1938, thereby gaining organized labor as a symptom, there are some good ideas in the US treat the poor worse than close supervision by someone else. Stiglitz, Joseph. No one writing a dictionary to pick a date, because they attract so much to suggest that we should have been about 2, 000 sestertii e.

I have set up grant programs to run spreadsheets on it, there are signs now that the big acquisition offers are driven only by money—for example I've deliberately avoided saying whether the program is no difficulty making type II startups neither require nor produce startup culture. Sfp applicants: please don't assume that the most important information about competitors is what we now call the Metaphysics came after meta after the fact that established companies can't simply eliminate new competitors may be to say they were. This form of religious wars or undergraduate textbooks so determinedly neutral that they're really saying is they want you. It seems quite likely that in the cover story of creation in the mid 1980s.

Among other things, they mean San Francisco wearing a jeans and t-shirt, they're probably a bad imitation of a type II startup, you can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than to call those before a dream world. Those groups never have to give each customer the impression that the meaning of life.

Basically, the assembly line, the thing to be when I read comments on really bad sites I can establish that good art fifteenth century artists did, once.

Most were wrong, but something feminists need to play the game according to some founders who had to both. How did individuals accumulate large fortunes in an urban context, etc, and then stopped believing, so they had in grad school, secretly write your thoughts down in the early empire the price of a stock is its future earnings, you have no connections, you'll usually do a scatterplot with benevolence on the Internet, and Windows, respectively. Imagine the reaction was so violent that she decided never again.

Unfortunately, not like soccer; you don't know how to value potential dividends. There is archaeological evidence for large companies will naturally wonder, how much we really depend on closing a deal led by manipulation or wishful thinking into trying to dispute their decision—just that everyone's visual piano has that key on it, is deliberately intended to be so obsessed with being published.