#bear in mind that i am completely uneducated in these matters

[choccy-zefirka]

Well then. I had to take a plane ride with some obnoxiously talkative neighbors that would have prevented me from taking a nap, so instead I decided to put on headphones and watch a movie. The in-flight entertainment catalog was not very varied, so I ended up settling on the live action Aladdin, which I have been blissfully avoiding all these years. And yeah, that sure was a movie.

I'd say that I enjoyed it less than both the Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, particularly the latter, which I actually had genuine fun with, albeit most probably because I watched it with a friend and we were so carried away by pointing at the screen and riffing off each other that it might have created an illusion of a grand old time, softening the flaws of the film. Anyway.

There were a number of things that I kind of liked about live action Aladdin. They almost, just barely, brought the experience to the brink of being fun.

I remember all the Blue Will Smith memes back in the day, but he actually was one of the least meh parts of the movie for me? His performance was charming, when he was being himself rather than emulating Robin Williams. And I really appreciated the idea of this version of Genie turning into a human once he was freed from the lamp. Aside from that, I was rather interested in some of the new additions/character expansions (and I actually laughed out loud at the "I am going to get some bread... To go with all the jams" bit, it aligns perfectly with my sense of humor), but then they sort of... slipped away.

I wanna draw a parallel with the visuals here: in some parts of the movie, like the cave of wonders and the landscapes in A Whole New World, the backdrop was rather muddled. Both in terms of a diluted colour scheme and in terms of overcluttered details that do not pop the same way as the more simplistic yet bold and expressive animated scenes.

The plot buildup feels the same: there were moments that made me mentally go "Ooh, nice", like the backstory of Jasmine's mom, or the hints that Jafar and Aladdin are foils of each other, with similar backgrounds as thieves, or the attempt to make the captain of the guard more three-dimensional than "Grr gotta chase Aladdin with a sword"; but then they were not explored in-depth.

And I get that, I am beset by blorbo concepts that come to me as kernels of potentially intriguing plot and then simmer into nothingness all the time. But I am a small gremlin with a mundane day job, not a big-name creator at a multi-billion business meant to entertain people across the globe.

My biggest disappointment, though, aside from the almost complete loss of Iago's personality (which is also why I felt it made little sense for Jafar to pull Iago into the lamp at the end, as this is now less of a sidekick that you want to take down with you, but a random borb that talks sometimes), was the fact that I fully expected the himbo Fantasy North European Prince to show up when Jafar tossed Aladdin into the middle of the snowy nowhere.

I wanted it to be his kingdom, and for him to come riding in on a sleigh or something, and be like "Hey man, I see you got the princess over me, no hard feelings, let me give you a hand". The story paid way too much attention to him during the first act, turning the original asshole suitor from the animated movie into a dumbass but well-meaning jock that got bitten by Rajah not because he was being a douche to Jasmine but because he could not resist petting the Danger Kitty, which. Valid.

Justice for Himbo Prince.

Oh, and I guess the nostalgia bait of the songs worked on me to some extent, and I am now having flashbacks to my own retelling of Aladdin that I toyed with but obviously shelved because I did not want to come off as culturally insensitive. Overall, not the worst alternative to failing to nap.

[krabmeat]

𝚓𝚞𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚎𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎

𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚜: Wilbur Soot

𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚗 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚜: he/him

𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚐𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐: mentions of death, implied s_!c!de, aggressive and angered yelling, glass shattering

𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚎: this is gonna be a 7 part series im doing where I write all of the songs from the album "Your City Gave Me Asthma" by Wilbur Soot as short stories! this is the first one of the 7, jubilee line- hope you enjoy!! this short story does deal with extremely heavy topics, so please reach out to a professional or a trusted person in your life if you deal with similar emotions or similar situations. your emotions are valid and deserve to be dealt with, no one expects you to handle your sh-t alone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wasting your time.

“Wilbur, what are you talking about?” She’s trying to help again. It’s tiring. She’s my therapist, but also my friend and roommate so I see her often. She can see how much I’ve been struggling with my job, and she’s been trying to help. I don’t think I want it. My eye bags are more defined since I’ve tilted my head down to lace my fingers through my slightly greasy hair. I’m thinking. My eyes are closed when she speaks up again. “Wil!” I snap my eyes open and look up at her.

You're wasting mine.

I don’t know where my body is taking me. Pent up impulse has taken control of my body, and I stomp my way over to the door while briskly grabbing my beanie and trench coat from the coat rack.  “Wil, where are you going?” “Away.” She desperately grabs onto my upper arm. She’s concerned, but am I? In any other situation, I would be. But it doesn’t feel like me talking. 

I hate to see you leaving,

Her voice was shaky when she spoke. There are tears in her eyes. It’s strange, really. She always managed to let her tears roam as they pleased, it’s always been something I’ve found fascinating about her. But my curiosity doesn’t seem to be where it usually is on my mental shelf. I think I may have misplaced it.  I take one last glance around the place before calmly removing her hand from my arm.

Fate worse than dying.

I don’t know how late it is until I hear 11 distinct chimes roll out across the city like a blanket. Even then, I don’t know how long I’ve been walking but I think I’m getting close to my destination. But why am I feeling dizzy? Oh right, 

Your city gave me asthma

Probably one of the only things I brung with me, I found an inhaler in my coat pocket. It’s got enough to last me to where I’m going. With the last puff in it, I chuck the empty inhaler into a nearby alley. Climate change hits hard everywhere, but it gets bipolar in London. It doesn’t matter to me right now. I’d turn it all to ash from the fleeting joy I get from adding more smoke to the sky.

So that’s why I’m f*cking leaving.

The inhaler helped me breathe, but the dizziness is still there. The inhaler doesn’t even matter, the air is still dense and damp from the drenched night before. The world around me is melting, but when I blink it’s like everything was inflated back to normal with an air pump. Before I know it though, my lack of eyesight sends me tumbling to the ground. My arms and legs are damp, I tripped on a puddle. 

And your water gave me cancer.

I’m never usually this mad. Bottling up comes easy to me, yet I find myself angrily stomping on the puddle, causing me to fall again, leaving more scrapes scattered across my pale, cold skin. The concrete meets my knuckles, aggressively landing blows to its invisible face.

And the pavement hurt my feelings.

I get up from the ground. The blood from my knuckles is unrecognizable, washed away by the sudden downpour. The buildings have become a haze. Familiar, but I don’t know what it is. Not the familiarness associated with a home, or a warm and comforting hug. As if I’ve seen it before, constantly looming over me, watching me like a renewed episode of their favorite show. They already know what’s happening, they know what’s coming. I can’t take it. There’s a rasp in my voice and I’m surrounded by re renovated apartments and business buildings, factories puffing their black cigarette smoke out for the ignorant tourists to see. 

Shout at the walls,

My tears are confused with the rain, but both are dripping viciously from my face as gravely shouts and yells stream out of my mouth. Nearby bottles and littered beer cans are pleading for mercy, crushed and shattered by my aggressive hands thrown against the walls.

Cause the walls don’t f*cking love you.

My senses are getting overwhelmed, my arms and legs shaking from either the cold or the jolt of sensation I get when the glass shatters into a million pieces before I could stop it. 

Shout at the walls, 

“SHUT THE F*CK UP, WILL YA!?” My head tilts upwards to see a man at his windowsill with a dirty glare coming my way. A few seconds later, a little girl appears behind the man, seeming to have just woken up. A soft and whispery “Dad…?” Can be heard from the little girl. The softness I feel from the small wholesome moment soon turns into mind-numbing guilt. I run away, the numbness going to my legs as they once again travel on their own.

Cause the walls don’t f*cking love you.

My legs burn and sting with every stride and step they take along the path. I’m almost there. The strange looks and stares I’m getting are blocked out by the splashing and slapping of my damp shoes against the thin puddles on the ground.

Clap, clap

It’s almost as if this place is a second home for me. It’s my home, crowded with chatter and people making their ways through the Jubilee line. I’m so familiar with this place, you’d think I actually live here. I make my way to the glass barriers that block me from reaching the train, my damp feet still slapping against the ground.

Clap, clap

The barrier frustrates me. The visitors see it as a safety precaution, London’s trying to keep us safe! But we know, I know.  It represents ignorance, laziness, failure. London’s desperacy to please those foreign to this place while ostracizing those who have been fed to the brim with government immaturity. I’ve broken barriers like these, it was easy for me to shatter the flimsy glass. The crowds and crowds of people stop, scream, panic, run and express their disgust all at once. I stood on top of the railing, the only other thing in my way. The tracks are calling to me, but so does a voice.

There’s a reason that London puts barriers on the tube line!

This voice isn’t familiar to me, which is why it bothers me so much.  Foreigner. They don’t know. They COULD know, it’s not as if our hierarchy here has made a completely opaque wall between their intentions and actions. I’m still on top of the rail, but my back is faced towards the tracks. My eyes land on a short, blond white woman. Her voice sounded like she was talking with sticks in her mouth, nothing like the smoothness of a British accent. I fail to turn around in time before another voice is heard from another part of the station.

There’s a reason London puts barriers on the rails!

A tall man with ginger hair and lanky arms speaks up. He’s just like the woman, uneducated. Poor foreigners. The brotures and online ads and magazine cut-outs only give webs of lies and deceit when advertising to come to London. It speaks of the grand sights but not the horrid trauma that children here have to bear their sight to because of our crippling economy. The photos show places with warm rays and never the vicious rain and storms or scolding heat. The videos show clear, blue skies and never the gray turning grayer from the remains of society's mass-production. I’m done listening to these people. But one in particular stops me.

There’s a reason that London puts barriers on the tube line,

A tone I recognize, but a face that’s a haze. The man is from here, his voice says it all. His gray outfit and security guard patch on his vest. He knows what I’m thinking. He understands. Understanding would have been useful about an hour ago, yet I still find a soft smile slowly etching on my lips. I spread my arms out, like a bird with its wings spread out from its body. I wish I had wings, I would fly out of this wretched town. Fly out to freedom like Icarus. He flew too high, however. Where I’m going, the only upwards I’ll be is 6 feet under. But I’m ready for that. My face expresses a feeling of relief, tranquility, satisfaction. I haven’t smiled like this in years, it’s nice to close things off with a smile. The buzz of a train can be distantly heard, and I look out to the crowd. With the breeze of the air pushing against my falling back, I manage to breathe out a final arrangement for the crowd to hear.

There’s a reason they fail.

[daphuu]

I hope you don't mind me asking but how did you know you were asexual? I think I might be but I don't know... like maybe I'm just confused and it's not like I ever tried it? You don't have to answer if the question is too private or something

Hi hiii!! No, I certainly don’t mind you asking! Okay, I’m going to answer this ask as thoroughly as I can for you, anon!! Let’s break down your questions—

“How did you know you were asexual?”

My journey to realizing my asexuality was a bit unusual compared to most stories I hear. I’m 25 now. When I was figuring this stuff out, I was just hearing about genders and sexualities for the first time. I didn’t know asexuality was a thing until I was in college (around six or seven years ago—did I mention that I’m old?).

My journey began when I was 14. I saw people kissing and going gaga over people of the opposite gender. I’m going to make a numbered list so you can see my thought process in order, and how I sort of “moved” through several sexual self-identifiers.

Boys are gross. Totally a lesbian!!

But hey I think I like guys? Maybe I’m straight??

Both are pretty equal, actually. Bisexual?

More genders?? What’s this? And I’m attracted to them all the same amount, so?? Pansexualllllll~!!! (And at the time “bisexual” was much more limited than “pansexual,” or so my uneducated self thought!)

Well, yeah, I’m attracted to them all the same amount, but it turns out that amount is “barely existent at all.” Asexual.

Romantic attraction is different from sexual attraction? What?? So!! Panromantic. Asexual and panromantic. Yes!!!!

This process took me around six to seven years during which my poor parents were getting whiplash and my friends weren’t taking me (or my sexuality) seriously much anymore. My mother still calls me a lesbian, though I think that’s more about the stupid jokes we make than anything else. The process included me sleeping with a lot of people mostly out of curiosity. What was it like with a girl? With a boy? With people who identify as both, neither, anything in between and outside those restrictions? I realized I was having sex not because I wanted the person I was sleeping with but because I wanted sex. I wanted the intimacy of sex. I still do. I am not sex-repulsed, though you might find a lot more of that in the asexual community than in other areas of the sexual attraction rainbow.

(Sex-repulsed: when someone finds the idea of being involved in sex absolutely abhorrent and repulsive. These people tend to go one of two ways: never have sex and live with the repulsion, or try to work through that repulsion with their significant other. Both options are equally valid. There may be other paths for these people that I’m unaware of—if you think you might be sex-repulsed, please do more research and collect more information that what I’ve provided here!!)

Liking sex was a huge blow to me when I realized I was asexual. I didn’t think I could be asexual and like sex. I didn’t really know a lot about asexuality. I cried when I first fell in love after realizing my asexuality. Could I never have sex again? Were asexuals allowed to love? I didn’t know.

I started researching. I needed answers. Who am I? What are my limits? How does being asexual affect my day-to-day interactions with people? Do I need to tell people I’m asexual so they don’t lust after me? Are people allowed to lust after me? It took me about a year to realize that love is “allowed.” It took me a few months longer to realize that sexualities don’t “limit” people. I came to the idea that people lusting after me wasn’t something I could control, and I genuinely didn’t give a fuck whether people knew I was ace or not. What would they do with the information? What did it matter to them? To me?

It didn’t matter. It still doesn’t. I have no limits. I’ve felt sexual attraction before. I’ve looked back through my past. Asexuality isn’t limited by whether I’ve had sex or whether I’ve wanted sex or whether I’ve ever felt sexual attraction before.

“I think I might be [asexual] but I don’t know...”

Alright, the worst part about asexuality is trying to figure out if you feel sexual attraction or not. Some asexuals feel sexual attraction and still identify as ace (like myself, who feels sexual attraction towards my romantic partners after a while—though this, too, I often mistake with the desire to be intimate rather than sexually desiring my partners). First, let’s look at asexuality a little differently for a moment. People often refer to the “spectrum” of asexuality, but what does that really mean?

Now, I’m certainly no expert on every form and shape of asexuality. I’ll do my best for you, anon! Let’s look at some sexual orientations the term “asexual” encompasses.

Asexual Spectrum & Terms

Straight Up Ace As Fuck (commonly known as “asexual”): never feels sexual attraction. Ever. Pretty straightforward, really. Also the generic term greys

“Grey-A” (or “grey(s)”): rarely but occasionally might feel sexual attraction. Known as the “grey area” of the asexual spectrum. Fits anyone between asexual and allosexual (not asexual). Might identify with other sexualities as well. (There are many variations of this, but since I’m not gray-a I really don’t feel comfortable delving into it too deeply.)

“Demisexual” (also called “demi(s)”; also, me!!): Someone who doesn’t generally feel sexual attraction until after forming a strong romantic bond with someone. For example, I sometimes feel sexual attraction towards my romantic partners. I seldom feel sexual attraction towards anyone when I’m not in a strong, stable relationship with them.

“Allosexual” (aka “allo(s)”): someone who isn’t asexual. That’s the easiest one, in my opinion.

So there’s a whole spectrum here—mostly ranging from “I feel no sexual attraction ever” to “I feel some sexual attraction sometimes” to “I feel some sexual attraction in a very specific situation” to “I feel more than ‘some’ sexual attraction!” You could fall anywhere in this spectrum of sexuality. While allosexual isn’t under the asexual spectrum, it is a term found mostly when talking about the asexual spectrum.

To make matters even more confusing, there’s also romantic attraction. Romantic attraction is very different from sexual attraction. Romantic attraction is wanting to romantically be with/date somebody. Sexual attraction is wanting to sexually be with/fuck somebody. Do you see the difference there?

Romantic attractions follow the same prefixes as sexual attractions. “Homoromantic” is to feel romantic attraction toward members of the same sex or gender. Likewise, biromantic, panromantic, and aromantic, etc., all have correlating meanings. Some people identify as ace/aro, and that means they’re aromantic and asexual. They feel little to no romantic or sexual attraction towards other people. I identify as ace/pan—asexual (demi) and panromantic.

You can feel romantic attraction without feeling sexual attraction (and vise versa—aro/bi, for example). You can crave romantic intimacy but not want the sexual part of a relationship. You can crave strong friendships instead of romantic relationships. You can have strong sexual desires without wanting a romantic relationship. The attractions you might feel are limitless and may vary with time.

“...like maybe I'm just confused”

Most people are confused, anon. If you aren’t completely sure about your sexuality, well, nobody is rushing you to figure it out. For a long while I just gave a vague shrug when people asked about my sexuality and laughed it off. Who knows? Who cares? Certainly not me. Don’t think that just because you aren’t 100% certain about your sexuality that you aren’t just as valid as the people who are. Honestly, it’s more than fine to say things like “I’m still figuring it out,” or “I haven’t fully explored my sexuality yet.” Don’t stress about it, anon. I know that trying to understand your sexuality can be as frustrating as taking a university-level math exam with only the most basic of grasps on mathematics. Just know that as you live and learn and grow so will your perception of your sexuality, alright? Keep it in the back of your mind, but don’t let it overwhelm you.

“...and it's not like I ever tried it?”

“It?” Do you mean sex? Oh, anon, please please please do not limit yourself like this. People can have had sex with only members of the same gender before they realize they’re heterosexual. People can have had sex loads of time or not at all before they realize they’re asexual or bisexual or pansexual or any-sexual. Who you have sex with has no bearing on who you’re sexually attracted to. Let me repeat: Your sexual attraction to others is not based on previous sexual encounters or lack thereof.

If you want to add to this post then please do so!!! I love hearing how others explored and figured out their sexualities. 💜☺️

[momo-de-avis]

There is a saying in Portugal---but bear with me before I tell you what it is. There’s a collective consciousness about ‘popular knowledge’. Everyone knows the people---the rural, the uneducated, the non-city dwellers, what have you---know best. It’s them who teach you that you use white wine to take a red wine stain out of the table cloth. It’s them who make benzeduras with olive oil to heal you of all evil. It’s them who know just the right tea to heal your every malady. It’s them who recite the mnemonics you’ve known since you were a kid that become life-savers as an adult. Knock on wood three times. Never open an umbrella inside the house. Putting a shirt on backwards brings good fortune. A dog who barks doesn’t bite. A spider in the home means money. Seagulls on land, storm at sea. Use a broom to sweep the feet of an unmarried person, they’ll never marry. Get rid of unwanted guests by turning a stool upside down behind a closed door. Rural knowledge.

All of these have a background---they’re superstitions in a country with a strong pagan heritage. Most of these exist side-by-side with catholicism, they’re not really frowned upon---hell, you’ll hear an old lady say she knows better than the local priest. They are just there. They have been passed down for generations and held close to heart. Most of these exist in sayings, popular singings people chant, just that.

But there’s one particular saying that has stuck with me because it exists in spite of something really wicked. ‘Never stick a spoon between a husband a wife’ (it’s silly because it’s supposed to rhyme). It means you should never---no matter what---interfere with a husband and wife fighting. I suppose in principle, it sounds about right. Not in praxis.

When Conta-me Como Foi was on---a show about a family living back in the dictatorship---one of the episodes was about domestic violence. The family kept hearing the woman screaming while the man beat her so loudly they could hear his hand smack against her head, cutlery clanking against the floor while a glass, or a dish, or the whole dining set given by one of the in-laws as a wedding present, shattered. Something knocked over, a table or a cabinet. And those wailings in the background, of a woman begging to stop, the man’s roars, imposing: shut up, bitch. The family ignored. The kid was terrified. To ease his spirit, the mother said: never stick a spoon between a husband and a wife. 

My mom was watching and said: I remember that being common, everyone had a neighbour whose wife lived through hell. We all heard women crying, weeping, begging to be saved, and no one did a thing---because you never stick a spoon between a husband and a wife. She shook her head. I remembered the tons of books she read about muslim women being oppressed with hijabs, niqabs and burqas, the tone of disgust on her face when she explained the story of one poor woman who was stoned in public because she put her hand on her brother’s knee. My mother always tried to be a feminist, but in the end, she’s very western.

A few years later, we were watching the news---her, me and my uncle. Domestic violence had increased in the past few years. With Troika and the financial crisis, the number of mothers committing suicide-homicide---suffocating to death inside their cars with their children because they couldn’t bear to witness them go hungry---had gone up. But so did domestic violence. The victims: overwhelmingly women, and the children: unreported. The subject was severe: it demanded to be talked about in public, urgently.

My mother looked at my uncle. “I don’t remember this ever existing back in our days.”

I immediately went pale. I remembered the day she agreed with that domestic violence episode of the TV show, the piles of books about oppressed muslim women, the anger on her face when she told the story of widows in India being forced to beg because they were barred from working. Her very own story ceased to exist. The things she had witnessed, that had been such a common territory for every portuguese person of her time, erased.

I said: “You’re joking, right?”

My uncle added gasoline to the fire: “You didn’t hear about this.”

I was already breaking off. “Because it was a dictatorship. You had censorship torturing people. You told me you were scared to death of reading a Gorky book. You work with lawyers every single day of your life, you know the constitution acknowledged women as objects. You had to ask your dad permission to drive, otherwise it was illegal. As it was illegal to talk about it. What are you talking about? Of course, you didn’t hear about it---and however uncomfortable it is for you to hear about it at the dinner table, I’m glad I at least live in a world where it is on the news and I am allowed to publically discuss it.”

More years down the line. I’m in my mom’s living room when I hear screaming outside. I lived in a street where often drunk people walked past to get home, so I didn’t mind---until I heard a child cry. And a woman’s voice. And a man, angry. ‘Stop,’ she was saying. ‘Please, not in front of the kid’. I went outside, to the balcony, but couldn’t see very well. Then, I heard a slap. It just echoed across the roundabout and reverberated into my goddamn brain---I had absolutely no doubt about what I was witnessing. I looked down and saw two women holding a child, a man---drunk---throwing kicks and punches. I looked up: the younger people in the building were peering out their windows, phone in hand, calling the cops. One of them screamed: hey, you’re such a man why won’t you come here and beat me, you piece of shit? The man ignored him. I grabbed my phone, just when my mother appeared next to me.

She looked down, quiet as a mouse. Whenever there was a fight in the building, she never said a word. Often, she’ll talk about someone who is not there in whispers, because she’s afraid someone will hear. Secrecy was a big part of one’s education back in the dictatorship. She told me several times one of her father’s greatest lessons: never talk about politics inside the house, you never know who’s listening. There was a snitch living in the next building. She said he used to sit for hours on the balcony, watching. Occasionally, someone in the city disappeared---reappeared then completely torn, broken. Everyone knew they went to Caxias, got tortured because the snitch gave them away. It wasn’t hard, after all---this is a communist city.

Every time there was loud screaming, my mother’s immediate reaction was to shut off the sound of the TV and perk her chin up to listen carefully. My downstairs neighbours made her do that a lot. The upstairs neighbours---all of them---as well. She never intervened. Her second reaction was---after everything had quieted down---to pick up the phone, call my godmother (who lived one floor below) and ask: did you just hear that? And then they would discuss. When my godmother wouldn’t answer, she’d ask me---I always brushed it off, pretended I didn’t hear. I hate prying into other people’s businesses, and could tell the fight was just a fight. But they would never interfere: that meant taking sides, listening to someone. This way, they could speculate all they wanted without really having to admit someone was in the wrong. This way, the husband and the wife were both crazy.

So when we both witnessed a woman and her child being physically assaulted by the kid’s father in public, her immediate reaction was to draw back. “Close the window,” she said. “They might see you.” And she disappeared back into her room.

Never stick a spoon between a husband a wife.

I can guarantee you there isn’t a single person in this country that does not know one woman who has been physically abused. We all had grandmothers, mothers, great-grandmothers. My friend L’s grandmother was forced to give birth to all her children completely alone because her husband wouldn’t let anyone look at his wife’s vagina. I know women who are in long, excruciating judicial battles against their aggressors, while their children are forced by court to live with the man they witnessed beat their mother on the ground. I’ve heard women tell me ‘my grandfather beat my grandmother to death’. I know people whose grandmothers and grand-aunts had 20 children because their husbands had their way with them, and there was no possible way for them to prevent that from happening. I’ve heard stories spoken so sweetly it took me years to realize it was abuse. ‘He beat me, but he was a good man’ and ‘he only slapped me once’ is a common thing to say.

That night, I called the cops---a bit late, too. The caller told me I was about the fifth one to make the call, which gave me a breath of relief. At least, I saw the guy being hauled into the back of a police van, screaming ‘I’ve been in jail before’ (and you’ll be again, said the cop---a woman, too). My mother went back to her room, didn’t think about it again. That same room was stacked with books about non-western women being oppressed by their societies, the same she preaches on about in that gloriously ironic western way. She still thinks it’s so funny that my grandfather once ran out of shirts to wear because there was not a single woman nearby to wash them for him.

This thing, this saying---never stick a spoon between a husband and a wife---it’s so ingrained into our brains even the most liberal woman (like my ever-growing-feminist mother) acknowledge it as law. In theory, the contrary works---you should really see the way she talks about oppressed women everywhere else in the world. But the moment it happens before our eyes, we have to snap them shut. 

Every single one of us knows a case of a girl who was in an abusive relationship. A guy who stalked. A dude who gaslighted her into insanity. A guy who showed up unannounced at her doorstep, who followed her everywhere after they broke up, who controlled her social media. At one point, we accepted it, because you never stick a spoon between a husband and a wife. I’m not going to pretend I was very avant-garde in this matter: I wasn’t. I was taught to shut up whenever I witnessed abuse. I was taught to swallow cause life is just that way. So there’s this taboo that abuse doesn’t belong in the public space---it belongs in the home, in the secrecy that my mother was brought up with---and consequentially taught me---that allows for a man to beat his wife to death.

Because you don’t challenge, you avoid. My brother still thinks his friend was stupid for geing back to his wife because he quit a high-paying job, and she got fat. My sister-in-law goes berserk at the sight of her son in pink. My mother wasted her every effort into forcing me to be a girly-girl: cleaning products for toys, loads of baby-dolls, pushing me into maternity. You never know---you have to avoid, you have to prevent. But you never speak about, never make it public. It’s impolite to say those things in public.

Over the past few years, our country has reached the highest numbers of women killed by their husbands in many decades. The judicial system protects the abuser. One guy just recently took the electronic bracelet off a guy’s ankle after he beat his wife until she became deaf. The same guy, a while back, absolved a woman’s husband and lover from beating her to unconsciousness together by quoting the bible to justify how much the man’s dignity had been affected by her cheating.

I live in a country where the judicial system, the men in charge---white, old, the ones who ruled the country when my mother had to ask permission to drive---consider us toys to garnish the men. We exist in a script, inside and outside our bodies. I remember the case of a 50-something-year-old woman who had invasive surgery to her vagina and was given a last minute change she didn’t consent to. As a result, she has to wear diapers and is in constant excruciating pain. The doctors did that because ‘at 50, a woman’s sex life is non-existent’. The court ruled in the doctor’s favour. She got financial compensation---not nearly enough for a few month’s rent. I am thirty---I suppose I have twenty years to enjoy my sex life, then. Because the men in charge have dictated the next line in my womanly script: I can’t fuck. So they can just... ravage me on a surgical table if they wish. No court will ever stand up for me---as they didn’t in the past.

I have no brilliant conclusion to this. In fact, I have no conclusion at all. Tonight I was faced with yet another piece of horrific news: a woman’s head was found inside a plastic bag. People are making fun of it on Facebook, joke after joke: haha, she lost her head! Who ate the rest of the body? Women are gonna lose their head with this one!

And I am just overwhelmingly tired. I acknowledge that I live in a backwards country that refuses to grow out of its own catholic past, imposed by 50 years of fascism we just cannot, no matter what, let go of. I am just completely worn out by the women on TV like my mother, who think they’re so avant-garde by saying a niqab is oppressive, but who will slam their window shut when they hear a woman screaming for help. I am tired of people who tell me this saying I was brought up with, smothered by the need for secrecy, that just strengthens every abuser in their own home and ruins the lives of women and children everywhere you have to live with bruises and scars inside and out: never stick a spoon between a husband and a wife. Because though right now I am in a loving relationship with a wonderful man who witnessed this same domestic abuse and will stand up himself---however necessary---in the face of it, me, as a woman---then a girl---there was a time in my life when I couldn’t help but think: it’s going to happen to me, because it happens to everyone.

Sorry for the long post.

[feastwaiter6-blog]

Frequently Asked Queries About Marijuana Usage in Colorado

Very first and foremost, the basic guidelines of legalized leisure marijuana drug use are: • Coloradoans might only possess or obtain 1 ounce of cannabis at a time. • Smoking, vaporizing, or consuming cannabis in general public areas (I.e., Crimson Rocks Coors Field 16th Avenue Shopping mall parking heaps or airports) is completely forbidden. • Driving under the affect of cannabis is illegal. So, all Coloradoans can use cannabis for satisfaction now? Correct--to an extent. All authorized people of Colorado 21 several years and more mature could possess, use, display, obtain, or transport one ounce (virtually sixty joints) or less of marijuana for recreational use. Even so, many cities and counties have passed their very own amendments to make issues these kinds of as marijuana developing facilities or retail pot outlets unlawful (here is seeking at you, Colorado Springs, Westminster, and Centennial!). Likewise, your employer has the right to produce his or her personal policies with regards to cannabis use amongst employees-even in the privateness of their possess properties. Given that cannabis is lawful in Colorado, petty drug offenses aren't that massive a offer anymore, right? This is a typical misunderstanding. The federal government still considers marijuana illegal, which means any evidence that you have partaken in or bought the drug could impact your federal college student loans, specific employment positions, and social positive aspects these kinds of as meals stamps or public housing. In addition, drug offenses will often show up on your history checks. I am 21 several years outdated could I share my weed with my 18-year-previous brother? No way. You are not able to offer marijuana to any person young than 21-even if it truly is free and not for monetary payment. Also, the zero-tolerance law means people under 21 face an automatic loss of their license if they are identified driving underneath the influence of cannabis. Can I resell the weed I bought lawfully? No. You may, nevertheless, reward an individual above 21 up to one ounce of cannabis-as extended as you will find no trade of funds included. If my higher education roommate visits me from Alabama, do all these regulations utilize to him as nicely? Only if he has a government-issued Colorado ID. Non-citizens may acquire up to ¼ an ounce of marijuana for each transaction, whereas they may possibly possess one particular entire ounce at a time. Basically, your friend could make four diverse buys in a single working day, but that is a grey situation where the repercussions, or lack thereof, just are not specific so significantly. Is there a lawful restrict for how significantly weed I can have in my technique and nonetheless generate? The lawful restrict is 5 nanograms or much less of delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, the active ingredient in cannabis) per milliliter in total blood. This isn't really a fantastic measurement due to the fact various strains of cannabis carry various potencies of THC also, people metabolize the drug at considerably far more varied charges than liquor. For this cause, you may likely never see a chart that tells you how a lot of joints or brownies are too numerous to get guiding the wheel. How is the volume of marijuana in my body tested? If they have a justifiable cause, law enforcement officers suspicious of drugged driving will ask for a blood attract. As this Westword write-up points out, nonetheless, these blood exams have not yet been refined and they can be instead inaccurate. In this scenario, the reporter's blood test showed that he was seriously stoned hrs soon after he had last smoked anything at all. Other experts think people construct up a tolerance to the drug and they may possibly nevertheless be sober at 5 nanograms. I urge you to extremely consider refusing the blood take a look at if the scenario arises. If you do consider the take a look at, make sure you protected a single of the blood samples to reaffirm the final results independently later on. You imply I is not going to have to pee in a cup? A urine take a look at has no benefit when it will come to cannabis simply because traces of the drug may possibly present up in your program extended right after you happen to be sober. A blood take a look at is the only correct indicator of lively THC at the minute. How long do the authorities have to conduct the blood check? With liquor, they need to prove a person's BAC (blood alcohol content material) is .08 per cent or far more inside two several hours of driving. They have not issued a defined time time period for drug screening nevertheless but, rest certain, it will be some thing "sensible." Will I drop my license if I refuse the blood check? Perhaps. As with DUIs, you could shed your license for a yr if you refuse the blood examination. Unlike drunk driving though, there will not be any administrative penalties on your record this is crucial simply because marijuana intake carries on to be banned at the federal amount. Keep in mind, nevertheless, that you can often politely decline to do the standardized field sobriety checks (strolling in a straight line, reciting the alphabet backwards, and so on.) with out penalty. Why should I refuse to consider a standardized discipline sobriety examination? In limited, there are unique checks developed for assessing drug intoxication and not every single police officer is skilled in these very nevertheless. Legislation enforcement officers uneducated in marijuana recognition certainly is not going to aid your case as they do not have the methods to make an precise judgment of your sobriety. Wait, so will I be arrested if I have any traces of marijuana in my body? No, the mere existence of hashish in your blood is not a enough reason to arrest you. Additionally, obtaining 5 nanograms or much more of marijuana in your program is not enough to routinely convict you of a DUID either if you had a BAC of .08 per cent or far more, on the other hand, you would automatically be charged with drunk driving. Everyone's declaring cannabis is safer than alcoholic beverages what is the hazard in driving stoned? Studies display marijuana consumption has an effect on spatial perceptions, that means drugged drivers have slower response times and tend to swerve or tailgate other vehicles a lot more often. Consider about these traditional stoner film scenes the place the dudes are totally fascinated by the dimensions of their hands would you want them driving you down I-twenty five? I'm a medical-marijuana person does this make me an easy goal for DUID checks? It shouldn't. According to a Colorado monthly bill, a person's healthcare-marijuana status (I.e., a legitimate healthcare-marijuana registry ID) can't be employed as evidence of impairment or probable result in for a blood check. Can I at least generate all around with cannabis merchandise? As with alcoholic beverages, it is illegal to drive with an open up container of marijuana undertaking so will result in a targeted traffic infraction that shows up on federal checks (as I explained previously). The law applies to anything that contains cannabis that is open or has a broken seal, or has partly-taken out contents. The greatest suggestions I can provide at this point is to preserve it as significantly out of reach as feasible. In simple fact, Place IT IN THE TRUNK. My car doesn't have a trunk. Okay, as with Vape pen , there are particular exceptions. If you generate an SUV or minivan, you could preserve unsealed cannabis guiding the very last row of upright seats. Open up cannabis is also authorized in the residing quarters of trailers or motor homes. Can I smoke/consume weed in the vehicle if I am not the driver? No. Individuals in the passenger region of a car cannot use or eat cannabis, and the no open up- container law applies to them as well. Whilst we're at it, you also can not smoke marijuana in a taxi or on public transportation. You may, nevertheless, smoke cannabis if you are in the rear of a privately-hired vehicle. As long as I purchase the pot lawfully in Colorado, can I take it to other states? Absolutely not--not even to Washington. First of all, bear in head the TSA is a federal establishment and that marijuana is banned at all airports, including DIA. You cannot fly with the drug, and truly, you can not even depart marijuana in your auto at the airport that would count as unlawful possession and matter you to a heavy good. Secondly, our neighboring states are cracking down on these driving into their borders with weed obtained in Colorado. Wyoming, for example, will not even acknowledge a Colorado-issued healthcare-cannabis card and will make arrests for unlawful possession appropriately.

[findingherpath-blog]

Self Discovery.

This is long, I apologize. 

CHILDHOOD:

I was a weird child, I was obsessed with crime scenes. One christmas, I got three CSI kits with a microscope in each. I was thrilled with this, but sadly had no crimes to solve. This obsession lasted two short years, but a small part of me always gets enthralled in an episode of criminal minds. I always wonder if I would have followed the biology/CSI field, if I would be enjoying it as much as my 8 year old self did. My family didn’t really shape my choices of what is important, they did however help me figure out myself by not telling me how to think/act like much of my community did. If I wanted to dress a certain way, my mom wouldn’t stop me (so long as appropriate for my age). My career goals came from a summer program in New York City, where I had an intro to business course and field trips to the stock exchange, federal hall, and other important landmarks for business. My love for politics came from a strong love for standing up for what I believe in and having my voice heard, no matter the result that ensues. I remember having fake ‘voting’ in my kindergarten class in the 2004 election. I was the only little 5 year old who voted for John Kerry!! I had no flippin clue who he was, other than the fact that my mom talked about him, but that moment I knew I was not in the majority. But 5 year old me knew there was not anything wrong with that, and even though I was uneducated on it, I had a right to my own opinion.

Now, I know exactly what I like and don’t like, even if I am the only one I’ll stand by it. I think that is a skill, not putting up with negativity towards my own opinions. I’m not sure there’s a word for it but I guess it is a little brave. I never thought about my skills and talents, until I had to start asking for letters of recommendation from people for college applications. One in particular, was from a professor at Pace University where I took classes the summer before. I emailed him and asked if he remembered me and could write me a LOR. He said of course, just to email him a list of my best attributes. I was dumbfounded, he wanted me to write was I was good at? Is that conceded of me? I started writing, and it was hard at first but eventually got easier as I went. I’m a leader, I have integrity, and I have clear goals in the short run. There is nothing wrong with saying that, as long as I really believed it.

STRENGTHS & CHARACTERISTICS

I love talking, to all sorts of people of all different backgrounds. It’s hard to think what it is that I talk about and really enjoy though. If people have the same interests in books as me, I love talking about what we have read and what we should read. Some of the best conversations are when you go to a concert and start talking abroung the people around you, because you could be completely opposites but still have one thing in common: music. Future is a big conversation that I love. Whether short term or long term, plans are so much fun to talk about. It could even be unrealistic dreams but is still an enjoyable conversation.

The bad conversations are ones where people won’t acknowledge my opinion and argue with false information, or fake news. That is a huge frustration. Something obvious that frustrates me: bigotry. Also rude people. I deal with a lot of people at my job, at a movie theater, and some people are just plain ignorant. When someone asks for a manager and gets me, I don’t put up with unnecessary attitude. They want a refund on a movie they just watched because they didn’t like it? Tough. I used to cave easy but now I get so sick of it I don’t let them get their way unless they really deserve it.

My biggest Ah Ha moment was in New York City, summer 2015. I was taking a course at Pace University in the heart of the financial district. When I was standing in front of the NYSE I felt at home and a rush at once. I knew I belonged to that world, I’m still working on my way back slowly but surely.

To make a difference does not need to be huge. It can be a difference in one person's life, or to millions.

SUCCESS

You know you are successful when you can look back and look forward and be satisfied and happy. I feel successful right now, because I am proud of my achievements and hardwork, and also look towards the future happily.

The time I felt the biggest failure was not going to New York for college. I was proud of my scholarship and acceptance, but still couldn't afford to go without massive loans. It was a smart decision but I still regret it and feel like a disappointment. I told my whole family, my whole school. But then I stayed in utah, with shame. I don’t feel that now, because I go to an amazing school and feel like I’m doing really well in life- but a part of me is still sad about it all. I struggled with the decision a lot, even lost a lot of sleep and tears over it. Nobody would tell me what I wanted to hear, I even almost chose to stay in my small town and go to the local college. I couldn’t bear the thought of not going forward in life, onto something greater and worth being proud of. I am so happy to be where I am, my failure was the start of another success which bloomed so many opportunities and challenges. Maybe I’ll end up in New York for grad school, who knows.  

[paulsletters]

Dear John 1.

For the sake of God's name and His only begotten son Jesus Christ, whom I love worship and adore, who is God with us, which is the great name I honour and defend over and above all names, I say to you that, although you say, you are not convinced of the existence of God and therefore feel compelled to argue with us believers, as you do many times and oft, nevertheless I advise you, whether you believe it or not, that you have unwittingly entered into a deluded state of mind that you are completely unaware of. But you are not alone. There are many in your rank and file doing the same thing. Might and bright however, as we know, is not always right, is it. With your permission I will endeavour to illustrate how you have entered into this delusional state and how you can extricate yourself from it. But this enlightenment will initially be such a painful realisation, that many similar to yourself simply cannot bear it, so much so, that the resulting downer or attack upon their sense of self worth, is too much for them to bear, hence they will not withstand it. Better to be strong now and face life with all its bitter consequences than a firing squad when it's all too late. Yes a cavalier attitude can often be the appropriate response to some of life's difficulties, as a way through them, but not so when it pertains to the possibilities of heaven and hell. This is a serious business. Not to be taken lightly. It is your life we are talking about. Your most important asset is your life. I am, as you know, a completely uneducated person with no comprehension of academic matters, making me ill qualified to speak on those subjects, however in the realm of thought that relates to the makeup of man, I do not disqualify myself from that understanding. I am now 70 but for 40 years since the age of 30 I have been a diligent studier in this field. Please do not embarrass yourself by telling me that what I have made my study for 40 long years is something you know more of than me with doing no study at all. I am plagued by persons, saying that they think this and they think that, but actually compared to he who is typing these words, they don't by comparison, actually think at all on this particular subject. And the astute interpreter can easily discern from my writings that I am one who does know his onions. And I can say with all certainty that the prime motivator of man is the desire to achieve, in order to garner feelings of worthwhileness. This brings other aspects into play such as the desire to be admired. And whilst this desire to achieve has its good place within our motivational make up, nevertheless it can also work to our detriment if we allow it to over ride and take the place of the governor of our thinking, or the captain of our mind, and allow delusional thinking to sneak in. What I am saying to you John is that you have unwittingly allowed a mindset to reside in your mind, that shouldn't be there, but you have allowed it in because it significantly contributes to your core motivation, of wanting to achieve. If we are going to be real we need to admit that whilst we have a natural motivation to achieve, which makes us all feel good, there is nevertheless, an over arching impediment to this, meaning the degree with which we can engage in self admiration, and this impediment is God. That is a fact. Let's face it together. Compared to God ( which I suppose we have to add for your benefit "if God exists" ) we don't compare. Hence your subconscious disposition to be opposed to God's existence. There are essentially 2 ways in which we can deal with this negative of our incredulous inferiority to God. We can either join forces with God by loving Him, as we are instructed to do in the first commandment, but always forevermore be inferior to Him, or we can simply say He doesn't exist as you have done. One solution is vastly more appealing than the other. I am referring to your solution as being the appealing one. Your solution, initially in the short term, removes that inferiority very quickly and seemingly efficiently along with it's impeding effects, and this subsequence removal that you have achieved certainly produces a great clarity, which for you, not me, is a validation of its veracity. This great clarity which you now have, initially has put you streets ahead of the believers but not for long. For I, and other like me, have caught you up, and possibly surpassed you, with our accepted inferiority to our beloved creator. Now I am going to hit you right between the eye balls with a final blow to your ego, if you can take it. I am picking that you can't take this. Anyway here it is. The reason why you cannot see the existence of God via all that we see around us referred to as nature, is that in order for you to contemplate this as a possibility, you have to, at the exact same moment of this contemplation, jettison the excessive admiration of yourselves, which is more than the admiration that we believers have of ourselves, all of which you are consciously unaware of. This has occurred by removing the unfavourable comparison that we are receiving through the realisation of God's existence and His obvious superiority, and therefore you cannot or will not allow yourselves the punishment of belittling yourselves as we have belittled ourselves, by throwing out this heightened self image. Therefore, for you, the greatness of nature cannot be seen as evidence of the Creator, because for you to do so, would also require a new humility that you are not prepared to endure, hence your subscription to the notion of no God is your preference, that you subscribe to. But you don't think this is so. But it is so. I have told you so because I know it is so. You don't know. Your only way out of your atheism is to genuinely seek God on your knees and fast and pray otherwise your life is down the tubes. There is no nice way to tell you that you are wrong but my friend you couldn't be more wrong. And the odds are that you will stay wrong until the day you die. I have a friend who used to be an atheist like you. A full blown true blue one. But he ended up in a fox hole. A guy was on his trail to blow him away with a shot gun. It got him all shook up. He said a very sincere prayer. He said. " if there is anyone out there I need help" Today he gives Bible studies one on one. He is a travelling Bible teacher. Maybe he might come to your neck of the woods and teach you if you become converted. He will go anywhere to teach what he now knows to be the truth. Truly a great man on a mission. Who once was blind like you but now he sees.

[chorusfm]

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – The Nashville Sound

“Last year was a sun of a bitch for nearly everyone we know.” So Jason Isbell proclaims in the middle of “Hope the High Road,” the resilient lead single from his brand new LP, The Nashville Sound. It’s something of a mission statement for the record, which is very much informed by 2016’s shit storm of political division and deep-seated anger. However, that lyric only gains its resonance from the line that follows it: “But I ain’t fighting with you down in the ditch, I’ll meet you up here on the road.” Being pissed off and dwelling on everything that went wrong last year might feel good, but it isn’t productive. Looking forward and striving to do better and be better is what’s necessary to effect change. As a lead single, “Hope the High Road” is not indicative of what this album sounds like. It’s bright and anthemic where much of the record is dark and jagged, opting for Springsteen-style uplift instead of following the record’s lead of addressing all those nagging thoughts that you don’t want to talk about at parties. However, the message of the song—that maybe it’s a good idea to take a look inward instead of casting blame for once—is what gives the LP its beating heart. The Nashville Sound is the third masterpiece in a row from Isbell, and it gets there by never giving easy answers to the hard questions. Hard questions are abundant on The Nashville Sound, too. Isbell’s songs here blur the personal and political, addressing matters of class, race, family, heartbreak, mortality, and self-doubt. Even on the album’s most scathing political number, though—the album centerpiece “White Man’s World”—Isbell avoids the kind of heavy-handedness that might earn him the criticism of “preaching to the choir.” Far too deft a songwriter to rely on platitudes to make his point, Isbell takes what could easily have become four minutes of sloganeering and instead uses “White Man’s World” as an opportunity to take a look in the mirror. What role does he play in standing against racial prejudice and oppression? What can he do about the rampant sexism present in country music—sexism that may well have benefited him while shunting his wife to the sidelines? How can he raise his daughter in a world where women are too often treated as objects? Isbell ponders each of these questions, recognizing that he might not be the right person to answer them, but still willing to hope that the answers might not be all bad. “I still have faith but I don’t know why,” he sings in the final verse, “Maybe it’s the fire in my little girl’s eyes.” “Hope the High Road” and “White Man’s World” aren’t the only politically-charged moments on The Nashville Sound. The rip-roaring “Cumberland Gap” makes good on Isbell’s promise that this LP would be more of a rock record. The song is about a working-class southern man who lives in a town where “there’s nothing but churches, bars, and grocery stores.” He spends his days in the coal mines, trying to make ends meet—at least until the mines shut down and he’s left with a horrific dilemma: get out of town and leave his mother behind, or stick around killing time until time—or alcohol—gets around to killing him. The song is fiction, but the picture it paints—of economically devastated areas where all the jobs got up and left—is all too real for many parts of the country. You can tell from Isbell’s songs and his Twitter feed that he is an extremely outspoken critic of our current president. With this song, though, he puts the listener right in the middle of the kind of town that handed Trump the election—the towns that felt abandoned by previous administrations and looked down upon by the very people who were supposed to be “tolerant” and “progressive.” Similarly, the stripped down, twangy opener “The Last of My Kind” is a quietly searing character study about a rural man who tries to make a new life in the city and ends up feeling old, rejected, and broken down. “Tried to go to college but I didn’t belong/Everything I said was either funny or wrong/Laughed at my boots, laughed at my jeans/Laughed when they gave me amphetamines/Left me alone in a bad part of town/36 hours to come back down,” he sings, before asking the song’s titular question: “Am I the last of my kind?” In the cultural narrative of the United States, cities are often framed as the bastions of knowledge and enlightenment, while rural areas are disparaged for their backwards views and traditional values. Country music often gets caught in the blast radius of that cultural superiority, getting written off as “hick junk” (or something similar) by people who are otherwise open-minded about music that gives voice to different races, cultures, or experiences. “The Last of My Kind” presents itself proudly as a country ballad, and that fact—combined with the potent, pointed lyrics—seems to pose a challenge to the people who embrace songwriters like Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, and Chris Stapleton, but write off other artists in the country or Americana spheres. Are you really open-minded? Or are you the kind of person who would laugh at someone for how they talk, how they dance, the clothes they wear, or the traditions they observe, just because that person comes from a part of the country that you deem to be “backwards” or “uneducated”? Despite its political heft, The Nashville Sound is more than just a reaction to the brave new world we’ve found ourselves living in since last year’s election. In the time since Isbell last wrote a record, he and his wife also welcomed a baby girl into the world, and family is very much a key theme for this particular set of songs. The nearly seven-minute “Anxiety” is a dark, crashing rock epic that sees Isbell worrying about losing all the good things that have come into his life since he got sober. “Molotov” is an acoustic rocker that sounds like Springsteen circa The River, with Jason taking a clear-eyed look at just how much his wife means to him: their love story isn’t a fairytale, but it’s sturdy enough to face the darkness. And “If We Were Vampires,” arguably the most stunning songwriting achievement in Isbell’s entire catalog, is a rumination about how, in a long-term relationship, someone eventually ends up alone. “Maybe time running out is a gift/I’ll work hard ‘til the end of my shift/Give you every second I can find/And hope it isn’t me that’s left behind” Isbell sings in the fourth verse of “Vampires,” his voice wavering on the last line as if he was fighting tears in the studio. He’s always been great at writing story songs and peering into the lives of other people via nuanced and realistic characters, but his most affecting songs are often the ones where he writes about his own love story. “Cover Me Up,” from Southeastern was about how falling in love with the right person at the right time helped him pull himself up, get sober, and put his life back together. “Flagship,” from Something More Than Free, was the rare love song that looked past the platitudes of infatuation toward a love strong enough to stay alive and magical for the long haul. And “If We Were Vampires,” which closes out the trilogy, is even rarer still, a song about the simultaneous triumph and crushing sadness of a love so durable and true that, in the words of Shakespeare, it “bears it out even to the edge of doom.” “If We Were Vampires” closes out side one of The Nashville Sound with love shrouded by darkness, so it’s only fitting that “Someone to Love” end the record with love bathed in light. The song, a manifesto of sorts written for Isbell’s daughter, is a pure and touching tribute to family and the strength that a great one can give you. Strength to pick up the guitar and sing for the first time. Strength to stay out all night under the stars, marveling at the beauty of the world and the person you love instead of taking it all for granted and turning in too early. And strength to follow your dreams and be the person you want to be, no matter what the hell anybody else says. “I don’t quite recognize the world that you’ll call home,” Isbell sings for his daughter in the last couplet of the last verse. “Just find what makes you happy girl, and do it ‘til you’re gone.” It’s a perfect, life-affirming conclusion to a record that weaves darkness and light and despair and hope together as twisted, tangled threads in the same complex tapestry. Isbell’s made a lot of terrific records, but he’s never made one that felt like such a complete emotional journey. And frankly, the fact that he’s still capable of raising the bar after Southeastern and Something More Than Free, both top 10 contenders for the decade so far, is proof that Jason Isbell is headed for the pantheon of legends. --- Please consider supporting us so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/review/jason-isbell-and-the-400-unit-the-nashville-sound/