#blows on dusty ass credit card

[cantstayawaycani]

Hozier is doing Pop Up shows for Eat Your Young! I have another chance to get tix tomorrow @10AM PT!!!!

Y'all PLEASE PRAY FOR ME.]

[incarnateirony]

So here we are, The Great Supernatural Rewatch, 01.01 Pilot. If unfamiliar with this rewatch, please check my Objectives and Bracketing post [x], and then my Methodology Notes [x]; Also, reminder that I’m not the only person doing this, though each in their own ways. My Objectives and Methodology are my own. 

I’m trying to get a little ahead of the official Jan 3 start date, since I know I will... inevitably fall behind, and this episode was ripe for the initial pick-through for the inevitability of a thousand call backs.

That said, with level  1. SYNCHRONIC: As it reads, unto itself, as best divorced from future knowledge of the story, it’s difficult to do much actual “meta” as much as review and commentary since literally it’s all character and story introductions. There’s some to be had, but beyond things like lighting, the Level 1 viewing tier is not going to lend towards much beyond basic archetypes, and a lot of mythology breakdown. This post will be heaving Level 2 weighted as a result. Most tier-1 posting is going to be an early build of key words, phrases and signs to assemble throughout the season watching (and tap back on later for tier 2 by tagging.)

Also a few unannounced side projects; I’m about to start a “Combat Counter” and “Marksmanship Counter”, to see how Sam and Dean handle both in physical battles/scraps over time compared to each other, and who has the better overall aim in the long term.

Some things saved in this post will seem random and arbitrary, but are potential flags I intend to keep, mostly for later level 2, DIACHRONIC study.

Now to get to the meat:

STUDY: REWATCH/REVIEW STAGE

Allow me to lead with: this episode even unto itself is a fine spectacle of just how much the genre shifted over time. I am a huge fan of David Nutter’s directing; many would know him from, say, Game of Thrones. He didn’t stay long--just Pilot and Wendigo--before moving on. But some of his touches stayed with the show for a few years. The entire ambiance is a giant testiment to survival-horror, a grimness to it, even if the CW itself could never truly capitalize on it. The mood and ambiance was successfully played on. The entire episode is rife with cloudy lighting beaming between bars and through windows, bold silhouette shots, and more that gives an air of mystery even after some characters are established. Dynamic shots are plenty.

Your early reading here isn’t going to tell you much you don’t already know, but is for filing, review, and even reminder/refresher purposes. As the season unfolds, there’s going to be more to interconnect, obviously. If you would like to read more observations on actual parallels, scroll to the DIACHRONIC STUDY header. If I’ve taken a screenshot, even in Synchronic, it’s because it’s a flag I do expect to come back up in diachronic study later and need to catalogue for future parallels and address.

So, imagining it’s 2005, we’re watching Supernatural for the first time. We’re in a very different world, Both in the show, and in the real world. A standard, haunting discord rattles the minds of the audience as a tree moves like a hand towards the window of a suburban home.

We see a classic, nuclear family in this standard home, saying their charming goodnights to an infant. But within moments, we’re told in every classic way that everything is wrong. The infant’s mobile turns on its own accord; the clock stops.

It’s 8:12pm when the world goes haywire. The decorative moon in the room flickers, growing dim. The mother wakes to the sound of a distressed infant on the baby monitor. She rises from bed in her gown.

This is a point I’m left to negotiate cursed knowledge: to all visual cues, the mother’s attire appears to be white. The audience perceived it as white. But we know it, and Jess’ gown later, was actually pink; the film stock failed to capture it. Both short term and much louder in the long term, these two colors can deliver two very different meanings. But for us, a viewer consuming a digital medium with no knowledge beyond what they published, I’m left to decide that the text seems to determine her in a white gown.

The wife sees a stark silhouette, asking if the child was hungry, assuming it was her husband that quieted her. She turns away, tapping on a flickering light over an old marriage portrait that one can only assume was a previous family generation. She descends the stairs.

Here she finds her husband is sleeping. Panic takes her, bringing her to the room. Quickly, chaos erupts. As does she, once seen bleeding down onto the hand of the father from above the crib. We see her, sunken eyes, already dying, screaming without a sound. Silent. Unable to make a noise.

The camera details the desperation of the father rushing his infant to his older child. “Take your brother outside as fast as you can, don’t look back. Now Dean, GO.”

I’m unclear what John thinks he’s going to achieve running back in for Mary as fire takes the home. But soon, he finds young Dean, 4, outside, holding an infant, “I've got you Sammy.” John erupts out of the house as the windows begin to blow, sweeping in to carry Dean, who carries Sam.

As the fire department arrives, the first cords of a song we would later come to recognize as Americana haunt through otherwise chilling music that climbs actively to punch out through our first cold open.

The Winchesters are our first cold open.

We find ourselves in modern day with the rick of a rock cord, and a young woman in a white nurse outfit adjusting her earings while framed by an image of John and Mary--the mother and father--in a picture frame. Though she calls for Sam, we see nothing of Dean--not even a picture. The image on the counter tells of a life Sam(my) was too young to even know, but perhaps is in his blonde-haired woman who teases him about halloween while standing in front of a mirror.

Sam is clearly in his young prime, celebrating his LSAT with a 174 score much to his chagrin with friends dressed up in all styles of wardrobe. Behind Sam a neon black cat sign may just jinx his future in warm but dull lighting; ghostly drapes hide behind Jess in a blue, sharper light.

Sam’s friends perceive he must be the Golden Boy of the family. Jess is proud of him. “What would I do without you?” “Crash and burn.”

Night onsets. Dim lighting feels dusty despite the otherwise hopeful environment. Heavy creaking, groaning, footsteps; Sam rises on instinct, spying an open door and catching haunting noises--sounds. An intruder. And one fateful fight. The choreography spares little.

In actual combat, the intruder--quickly identified as Dean--comes out on top. (Combat ticker: Sam vs Dean: Dean 1) Easy there, tiger. As Dean haunts, revealing his roguish personality quickly, he’s then gotten the better of (this is not going to be considered a combat ticker, it’s not actual combat, but aftermath).

Sam challenges why Dean broke in, but Dean knew Sam would have never picked up without him. They’re interrupted from their silhouetting by the light flicking on, and Dean further displays his roguish charm, enjoying her smurfs, not dreaming of her getting dressed; but soon, it’s down to business--Dean says it’s private family matters. Sam, a unit in the doorframe with Jess, says it can be said in front of her. Until the fateful line: “Dad’s on a hunting trip, and he hasn’t been home in a few days.” The camera zooms on Sam’s set jaw to tell the audience how much weight is in that line as the audio itself drags a raw cord of suspense.

The dizzying stairs are a descent into a world Sam seems to have left behind, with the audience viewing from below. Quickly, we’re introduced to ideas: the Poltergeist in Amherst, the Devil’s Gate in Clifton, “always missing and always fine.” Sam’s bitterness is thick: rather than telling him not to be afraid of the dark, “dad gave me a .45″, though Dean challenges what he should have done. They soon stand in a cage of sharply lit bars, arguing if this was what their mother would have wanted--to be raised like warriors.

Dean challenges if Sam would want a normal apple pie life; Sam slaps back: not normal, safe. “And that’s why you ran away.”--But John told him to stay gone. Regardless, Dean doesn’t want to do it alone. Sam asks what he was hunting, and why Dean wasn’t there; Dean was working a voodoo thing in New Orleans.

Dean reveals Jericho, California--10 men over to years on the same 5 mile stretch of road.

The “Ran it through A Goldwave” is a funny side comment but I’m not gonna get into why beyond LOL “through a goldwave”, that’s-- whatever. But we hear, in EVP, “I can never go home.”

The average viewer, at this point, isn’t going to be deeply instructing the story parallels--and in the scheme of it, Sam’s fear of going home barely scratches the meta surface. We do know John has been missing for three weeks. And find out Sam has a Monday deadline for his entry to lawschool, “whole future on a plate.” Jess worries over disappearing with his family, reminding of the deadline, but he promises to be back in time.

A sharp cut to JERICHO, CALIFORNIA. The driver shares similar concerns to Sam, “if I miss it, dad’s gonna have my ass,” he tells his girlfriend on the phone. A woman in white appears down the road as the car clock fries at 10:17, asking to be taken home. “Take me home?” “She lives at the end of breckenridge road.” “A girl like you shouldn’t really be alone out here.” She hikes her skirt. “I’m with you. Do you think I’m pretty? Will you come home with me?” hell yeah.

They arrive at a dillapidated home. “I can never go home.” No one even lives here. He steps out, turns around, and she’s gone. An eerie handprint appears on the window.

He decides to leave, clearly feeling the offsettling vibes, but isn’t alone. She steams with animosity in the backseat.

He looks into his mirror.

And wipes out.

After a violent death, we cut back to our boys and another exposition: credit card scams (jesus, could sam have yelled it any louder?), breakfast in a gas station bag, you gotta update your casette tape collection--why? because for one, they’re casette tapes. Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Metallica--it’s the greatest hits of mullet rock. “House rules Sammy, Driver picks the music, rider shuts his cakehole.” “Sammy is a chubby 12 year old.” “What, can’t hear you.”

ENTER, JERICHO

Internal impala shots galore will end up being a major vibe of our next few years. A spunky guitar theme plays that we will eventually come to know.  Dean pulls out a cigar box full of fake badges ranging from FBI to Bureau of Tobacco from the glove box, quickly showing us how deep this path goes for them already.

The cops review the mystery: no fingerprints, spotless; we find out that the victim was dating the cop’s daughter, who was posting missing flyers downtown. The boys introduce themselves as federal agents, are challenged for being too young, and Dean sasses his way through, “that’s very kind of you.” -- while gathering basic intel, we quickly find Dean’s tongue getting ahead of him, calling their lack of ability to find a connection beyond them all being male victims, calling it crack police work. The brothers’ dual personas exit the crime scene with a cuff upside the head from Sam to Dean, a bickering match, and Dean leaving a Mulder and Scully crack on the cops.

They quickly find Amy, the girlfriend, and lie to claim that were Troy’s relatives and had heard about her, and move to a diner to talk about events.

No major unusual things to warrant events; Sam compliments her necklace. She jokes that Troy got it for her to freak out her parents for “devil stuff”, but Sam quickly educates her on the pentagram meaning the opposite, a symbol of protection.

But there are weird rumors in town--people talk. In-sync, “what do they talk about”; a local legend. She tells them of a girl murdered on centennial where anyone who picks her up disapears forever. The brothers quickly move on to a library with a clunky monitor, fully dating us; not just the lack of good cell phones and wifi, but the equipment and the appearance of the search engine alone. Right, we’re watching this in 2005. 

The brothers slapfight again, but Sam shows that even away from the life he never lost his prowess. He asks, “Angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?” and searches for suicide. 1981, 24 years prior. “Our babies were gone and Constance couldn’t bear it.”

 So they go to see where Constance took the swan dive.

The brothers begin to fight.

SAM Dean, I told you, I've gotta get back by Monday—

DEAN turns around.

DEAN Monday. Right. The interview.

SAM Yeah.

DEAN Yeah, I forgot. You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just going to become some lawyer? Marry your girl?

SAM Maybe. Why not?

DEAN Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?

SAM steps closer.

SAM No, and she's not ever going to know.

DEAN Well, that's healthy. You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are.

DEAN turns around and keeps walking. SAM follows.

SAM And who's that?

DEAN You're one of us.

SAM hurries to get in front of DEAN.

SAM No. I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life.

DEAN You have a responsibility to—

SAM To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back.

DEAN grabs SAM by the collar and shoves him up against the railing of the bridge. A long pause.

DEAN Don't talk about her like that.

They’re interrupted as Constance appears, diving off the cliff, and immediately taking control of the Impala.

“Dude, who’s driving your car?” Dean holds up his keys.

They flee, over the bridge, and share another movement. One more fake card later, they find themselves in John’s room, room 10, in a motel. Sam remarks that the place is covered in Salt, and Cat’s Eye Shells. The entire room is covered in case work and lore. 

I’ll break down the lore of these in a later mythos reblog, though the Asmodeus one really catches my eye for reasons outside of this episode.

Sam finds a photo-- a distinctly different family than the one on his college dresser. There, it’s John and Mary as an ideal image that framed Jessica. Here, it’s the life he walked away from. But while Dean heads out, he’s spotted by police, and their old coded dialect pops out, “Five Oh, take off.” Federal marshalls confront him: They’re looking for his partner (cue Wincest fans trying to make meta that’s about to be shot down one scene later, in the distance), fake US Marshalls, fake credit cards, is there anything about you that’s Real. My boobs.

Just putting a flag in the name Sheriff Pierce, we’ll figure out if that’s ever valid to anything later. But he tells Dean of the trouble he’s in with a room full of missing people and devil worship, for Dean to snap back he was 3 when they went missing. But they knew he had more than one partner. An older man. John’s journal is thrown out (Wincest meta dies a terrible death beyond previous scene)

Again, I’ll translate the FUTHARK in a follow up post, this is already taking a lot of time as it is.

Meanwhile, Sam is investigating the leads they and John both found. Previously spoken intents to burn her has him ask about her being buried at an old plot by Breckenridge at their old place.

SAM And why did you move?

JOSEPH I'm not gonna live in the house where my children died.

SAM stops walking. JOSEPH stops too.

SAM Mr. Welch, did you ever marry again?

JOSEPH No way. Constance, she was the love of my life. Prettiest woman I ever known.

SAM So you had a happy marriage?

JOSEPH hesitates.

Putting a flag in this for later.

But Sam decides to call the man out.

SAM A woman in white. Or sometimes weeping woman?

JOSEPH just looks.

SAM It's a ghost story. Well, it's more of a phenomenon, really.

SAM starts back toward JOSEPH.

SAM Um, they're spirits. They've been sighted for hundreds of years, dozens of places, in Hawaii, Mexico, lately in Arizona, Indiana. All these are different women.

SAM stops in front of JOSEPH.

SAM You understand. But all share the same story.

JOSEPH Boy, I don't care much for nonsense.

JOSEPH walks away. SAM follows.

SAM See, when they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them.

JOSEPH stops.

SAM And these women, basically suffering from temporary insanity, murdered their children.

JOSEPH turns around.

SAM Then once they realized what they had done, they took their own lives. So now their spirits are cursed, walking back roads, waterways. And if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him. And that man is never seen again.

JOSEPH You think...you think that has something to do with...Constance? You smartass!

SAM You tell me.

JOSEPH I mean, maybe...maybe I made some mistakes. But no matter what I did, Constance, she never would have killed her own children. Now, you get the hell out of here! And you don't come back!

Sam is flushed out, and makes a fake 911 call to break Dean out, pointing out that the husband had been unfaithful. More dramatic silhouette shots really capture the early spirit of the piece, with Dean using a phone booth in lieu of other options. Hell, Dean was able to find a phone booth, let that take you back. They determine that John left Jericho, and establish his ex-marine habits with the coordinates, 35-111 that Dean had lied through to the cop. But while on the phone, the woman in white appears in front of Sam on the road, non-crashing. 

She controls the car again, and forces him to drive to a broken home, repeating, “I can never go home.” Sam recognizes: “You’re scared to go home.” And that’s when the creepy ghost rapey vibes start, mounting him, demanding he hold her, she’s cold. “You can’t kill me, I’m not unfaithful.” He argues. You will be. Just hold me.

As she goes to rip out his heart, she flickers with the beat of his.

Dean breaks into the scene, unloading 12 shots into the ghost with iron bullets to disrupt her manifestation, giving Sam time to sit up and say, “I’m taking you home.”, where he drives through the house. Dean helps Sam out of the car, only to be telekinetically pinned by a dresser to be disabled.

The lights flicker again. Children manifest, water runs down the stairs, looking eerily like the light could be the Winchester’s old home

Here, she falls when reunited with her children. Sam clarifies--she could never go home, she was too afraid to face her kids (while not viable for the synchronic study, for my own sanity I’m going to note this season, Home will be all but mandatory to touch back here.) Dean says Sam found her weak spot.

They drive down the road with a blown headlight, Sam using an old map and ruler to locate the coordinates. But it’s realized Sam isn’t going with Dean to blackwater ridge, colorado 600 miles away. His interview was in ten hours. Dean declares, “I’ll take you home.”

There’s banter over meeting up later, and being a good team, but Sam goes inside and calls for Jess. “You home?” He finds a plate full of cookies with a note “missed you, love you” and relaxes in bed with the distant sound of a running shower.

And of course.

And so it began.

SYNCHRONIC STUDY: IN-EPISODE PARALLELS

In a first episode, there’s only so much to address. While we may question how much the Woman in White being in White may have been intentional with Jess and Mary, who wore pink (a diachronic full text body note later), in the initial review, it’s worth mentioning for the reasons in part 1 I’ve decided to air towards white in the final text product. Resultingly, the tie between Constance->Mary->Jess seems tangible. But it isn’t really so simple.

“Home.” Home is a huge keyword.

"I can never go home."  within the episode unto itself, Sam is struggling to well, get back home. And frankly, returning home is the key of it. (hears distant uppity Wincest stans) The difference here is, this isn't a direct parallel, of course, as much as a general ambient mood that will haunt is forward through the show, even if current viewers just watching episode 1 don't recognize it yet. Sam going home kills Jess, essentially; or at least witnesses her death. At the same time, Sam fears returning to the hunter life, or more doesn't think he can because John told him not to come back. But now that Jess is dead, well, Sam can never go home to the life he was building. He has no choice but TO go back to the other home--the hunter life. Even if he’s certain it’s not what Mary would have wanted for them.

DIACHRONIC STUDY: IN-SEASON PARALLELS, LOOKING FORWARD

There’s no way I’ll have them all in mind, these are just what are flagging me along the way.

1.09 Home As the “Home” rewatch is not that far away, I’m going to save this as a placeholder with general notes about “Mary apologizing to Sam,” even if frankly, she should have to Dean too. But even if, at the time, the exact details of the deal may or may not have been established or hashed out by the authors--we’re not picking at arguing if the authors intended it or not here. Here, Mary apologizes for her deal. Here, Mary apologizes--for drowning her children. For magnetizing this poltergeist to this place that she demands let her sons go, where she forces the spook to let go of Sam. She couldn’t really go home in the truest sense until that passed. (I’ll have deeper chain-link connections on this looking-forward once actually at the episode.

DIACHRONIC STUDY: IN-ERA PARALLELS, LOOKING FORWARD

They’re here, but not pinging me at 1 AM beyond vagueblogging about Lucifer showing up as Jess to haunt Sam and the inevitable time travel episodes about Mary, so placeholder for later updates.

DIACHRONIC STUDY: BEYOND-ERA PARALLELS, LOOKING FORWARD

Obviously compare to above-dropped screenshots.

11.04: Mistakes were made.

Listen, Dean’s grimace seat has been in discussion lately, don’t blame me for thinking of Joseph’s mistakes right after the season as Dean-mirror Pastor Joseph. Funny how Sam’s get shown and Dean’s don’t.

11.23/12.01: Mary’s return in the (white or pink, I’m rolling with white as-above) gown, and all extending details.

12.22: Mary's dreamspace.

12.23: Dean, Castiel's death, Sam removing Dean

15.01: Woman In White, We've got work to do

I feel like the Woman in White is the most interesting of these that hasn’t been as talked to death as, say, the 12.23 elements with the Destiel parallel. After all, the Woman in White largely focused on Sam. It was his fear of home. It was him being faithful to Jess (and being unfaithful can be more than sex, really; after all, he made a promise to come back.) But in season 15, it’s Dean that the ghost of the jilted lover approaches, shortly after Dean nearly killed Jack in his pain. Was Dean the weeping woman? Or was Castiel? Who held the animosity in the back seat?

Or is this a shared path? As Dean puts the Equalizer away under the Cigar Box, he has his own haunting issues in the mirror.

Those will be addressed more deeply when we get to that episode in like half a year. But for now, I’m just putting a pin in it. With a side scribble of “Cas got his Secrets/Mary, Sam got his serial killer and clowns and Dean got... the woman in white with Belphegor.”

15.02: Road Closed

15.03: If one insists Mary and Jess’ dress are pink, Rowena’s dress upon wedding and unbirthing to death (and queendom)

15.04: I still think about Jess (shortly before Eileen’s return.)

15.13: If one insists Mary and Jess’ dress are pink, atop the eventually-addressed meaning of lighting (death and transformation) vs the Empress symbolism (fertility, rebirth), Castiel in pink light.

15.15: If one insists Mary and Jess’ dress are pink. Amara’s trenchcoat.

15.20: Beyond the obvious quotes, and the (IMO failed) attempt at nostalgia, there’s honestly very little callback to the original episode. 

That’s it on first glance, I’m sure more will rattle out as we go forward. Well, mostly. Keys to the Legacy from Mint Condition is flagging me alongside control mechanisms like Castiel losing control of his vessel. But those are thoughts to put pins in for now and develop later.

COMBAT COUNTER:

DEAN VICTORIES: 1 (sam vs Dean)

MARKSMANSHIP COUNTER:

DEAN SHOTS: 12 shots, 12 hits.

(hits for any individual will be considered accurate even if targets teleport/flicker out as long as it should have hit the body)

The mythology pasted all around John’s Room is worth a second trip, but off the top of my head I see the Bell Witch and Asmodeus from the Lesser Key of Solomon (near the motel door).

I’ll reblog later to add commentary on that.

[wonderlandleighleigh]

7 Birthday Gifts Dean Winchester Got and 1 He Got Again

1.

It’s a little toy car that looks just like Daddy’s, and he lights up like he just won the Superbowl when he opens the little package.

His mommy doesn’t do big over-the-top gifts, but that’s okay. Dean doesn’t need ‘em.

This is the best gift ever.

2.

The diner they’re sitting in is cold and mostly empty; maybe their heating is out.

Dean deosn’t know what day it is or what time it is, or where they are. They've been driving a long time and at this point, all the scenery looks the same, especially after dark.

Dad looks up at the waitress as she comes over to clear their plates. “Hey, can we get a slice of cherry pie?”

Dean frowns deeply at his father as he nudges Sammy off of his shoulder. The kid’s dead to the world; sleeping soundly after a full meal of nuggets and fries, and Dean’s…

Well, Dean’s confused because his father is not a pie kinda guy. Dean is though.

The waitress smiles and heads off and Dad glances at Dean and lifts an eyebrow.

“What?”

“Nothin.”

“You’re givin’ me a look.”

“Well I-”

The waitress is back in record time with the pie, and John takes it with a nod of thanks and slides it over to Dean.

Dean blinks down at it, and then up at his dad.

“Happy birthday, Dude.”

“Wait,” Dean snaps. “Wait. What day is it?!”

3.

He’s woken out of a dead sleep, and pulls the machete out from under his pillow, shooting to an upright position, eyes wide and alert.

“Whoa! Holy crap!”

It’s Sam’s voice.

Sam who left for college last year and hasn’t been around much.

And by much...well…

Dean squints in the darkness and flicks the bedside light on. It flickers a little; not from ghosts or anything. It’s just a really shitty hotel.

“What the hell?” their father growls from the other bed, sitting up slowly.

Sam is standing there, looking sheepish.

John groans. “Boy, didn’t I tell you not to come back?”

“I’m not here for you, old man,” Sam snaps, and it’s then that Dean notices there’s something in his hand.

It’s a pie.

A whole pie.

Dean shakes his head. “Sammy, what-”

“Happy birthday, Jerk.”

Dean blinks and shakes his head one more time. “You drove all night to bring me birthday pie?”

“Yes,” Sam snaps. “And you better eat it, or I’m gonna be pissed.”

Dean snorts, grinning a little. “I don’t have any forks.”

“I know.” Sam drops the pie box in Dean’s lap and pulls two forks out.

“Who said you could have any?” Dean asks.

“My credit card,” Sam says, sitting down next to him. “Now open that thing up, I haven’t eaten since like four and I’m starving.”

“Dad, you want some pie?” Dean asks.

“No,” John snaps, laying back down. “Keep it down.”

“‘Happy birthday Dean, glad you’re still alive, Dean, enjoy your pie, Dean, good to see you, Sammy.’”

“Just eat,” Dean tells him. “And...Thanks.”

“You weren’t gonna remember,” Sam comments. “Somebody had to.”

4.

They get to Bobby’s for a pitstop. It’s snowing and chill-your-bones cold and Dean can’t wait to get inside.

They hustle in, Sam first and then Dean, and he stops, lighting up when he sees a big metal toolbox with a bow on it.

“The hell is this?” he asks, bewildered and thrilled.

“Today’s your birthday, ya idjit,” Bobby chuckles from the kitchen. “I gotcha a gift.”

Dean wastes no time in opening up the toolbox on a brand-spankin’ new, shiny set of tools; socket wrenches and screwdrivers in all different sizes and shapes. A big new hammer. A few sizes worth of pliers.

From beside him, Sam produces a pie.

“Where the hell did that come from?!” Dean laughs.

“I mean...you were looking at the dirty mags in the store, so I just snuck off and bought it,” Sam admits.

Dean laughs harder, and they spend the night going through Bobby’s beer, laughing and talk. Bobby makes burgers; they eat the pie.

It’s the best birthday Dean’s had in a hell of a long time.

Too bad he’ll be going to hell in a few months.

Still.

5.

“What’s this?”

“It is your day of birth gift,” Castiel tells him.

Dean frowns deeply and picks up the book, looking it over. “You got me a book?”

“You mentioned Vonnegut once,” Castiel comments. “I wasn’t certain if you had that one but the shop-owner said it was very good.”

“I don’t know this one,” Dean grins. “Thanks, Cas.”

“You’re welcome.” Castiel pauses for a moment. “What did Sam get you?”

“Nothin’ yet,” Dean shrugs. “Either he’ll show up at a weird hour with pie or he’ll forget. Either is fine.”

“Ah.”

“Birthdays aren’t a big deal.”

“It seems that some humans make them big deals.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not just some humans,” Dean shrugs. “We got bigger problems then birthdays.”

6.

They’re back late from a hunt, and Charlie is waiting for them.

Both boys light up, and cry out in surprise; delighted surprise.

She beams at them and gets up from her chair, holding a brightly-colored gift bag, dangling it on one finger. “Happy birthday, big brother I never asked for.”

Dean laughs, a real belly laugh, and steps over. “What?” He snatches the bag and looks inside, laughing harder.

“What?” Sam asks. “What’d she get you?”

Dean holds open the bag, and Sam starts laughing too.

“Oh, god.” He lifts the complete Star Trek Original Series blu rays out of the box.  

“What do you say we order a pizza, and then boldly go where no man has gone before?” Charlie grins. “And by that I mean, like...the DVD’s. Not...y’know.”

“We know,” Dean grins, pulling her in, his arm wrapped around her neck as he kisses the top of her head. “Thanks.”

7.

The singing starts and Dean’s eyes nearly fall out of his head.

Jody, Donna, Claire and Alex are carrying out the biggest fucking pie he’s ever seen; candles stuck in it.

“What?!” Dean cries, laughing.

“Happy birthday dear Dean,” they and Sam finish singing. “Happy birthday to you!”

“I picked the pie,” Sam tells him. “And it was my idea.”

“Course it was,” Dean shakes his head. “You guys didn’t have to-”

“Shut up and blow out the candles,” Claire snaps.

“What she said,” Jody adds.

Dean shakes his head, grins and blows them out with one puff. They all cheer.

Donna rubs his arm. “I bet you wished for something good.”

Dean grins at her, before turning back to everyone. “So what’re you guys eating?”

For his trouble, he gets five napkins thrown at his face.

8.

Mom hasn’t back to the bunker in a while, and Dean can’t help worrying, but hell. She’s a grown-ass woman. She can take care of herself.

Still.

He looks at his phone to see if she’s texted, and instead, sees the date.

January 24th.

“Crap,” he grumbles.

“What’s wrong?”

He looks up quickly, seeing his mother standing at the door. “Uh...y’know? Nothin.”

She descends the stairs, looking curious. “Where’s Sam?”

“Don’t know,” Dean lies. His kid brother is probably on a mission to find pie. He just…

She forgot.

She forgot his birthday and it stings, but it’d hurt her more to realize it, and he just-

“I got you something,” she says, grinning and sitting next to him.

He blinks. “What do you mean?”

“Did you forget your own birthday?” Mary asks, looking amused. “Dean.”

“Well, I…”

Her smile fades a little. “You thought I had.”

“I mean, with everything that’s been goin on...Jack and Michael and-”

Mary wraps her arm around his shoulder, and pulls him closer, kissing his temple. “Happy birthday, Dean.”

He shuts up.

From her purse, she pulls a dusty little toy car.

“This is a little cheesy,” she says. “A little sentimental, and I don’t know if you remember, but-”

“I remember,” Dean beams, picking up the little tiny black Impala, rubbing his thumb over it to clear the dust.

“It’s not the same one from when you were little,” Mary admits. “But I looked everywhere for one.”

Dean smiles at her. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

The door opens again and shuts loudly as Sam bursts in, pie box in hand.

“Found one!” he says, and stops, his eyes widening. “Mom made it!”

Mary smiles and pats Dean’s hand. “Mom made it. That thing smells amazing. We got candles?”

Dean sits back and watches them fuss about and bustle around for candles and plates and forks, and spins one of the wheels with his index finger.

END

[fuck-customers]

I honestly had to try to remember these instances because I think my mind tried to block out the memories of my first job. Granted I’m only on my second job right now, but hooooo boy. Here we go..

I worked at a local business. It’s pretty weird: one side is a huuuge gift shop (at least, for gift shop standards), while the other is a toy store with an outdoor dinosaur attraction.

Some highlights:

*People going through the wrong fucking door. Okay, so how it works is that you go into the gift shop. All the way down to the left end of the store is the entrance to the toy shop, and in the toy shop is another door to go to the outdoor park. In order to exit there’s ANOTHER door, but there’s a railing seperating the toy shop from it, so you have to exit the toy shop and go back around to the entrance in order to shop in there after going to the park. The amount of people who, after we POINT and TELL them WHICH DOOR TO GO, go through the exit anyways is astounding. There are also FLASHING LIGHTS. OVER THE ENTRANCE. AND A GIANT SIGN THAT SAYS “ENTRANCE TO TOY SHOP”. THE OTHER DOOR HAS ANOTHER SIGN THAT SAYS “EXIT DO NOT ENTER!”. It blows my mind.

*We had to check any bill that’s $20 or more with a pen. The jokes…..they aren’t funny. Stop. I heard them 20 times a day.

*A dude and his wife came in. I tell them hello ask them how they are. The dude just…held up two fingers, with the smuggest ass grin on his face. Like what am I supposed to take that as???? You’re an asshole??

*PARENTS👏TAKE👏CARE👏OF👏YOUR👏KIDS👏 I’ve cleaned up shit from the floor, followed the kids around as they made messes so that I could clean them up (if I don’t manager gets pissed), all while you’re aaaalll the way on the other side of the store in the gift shop. Please. I’m begging.

*A little boy wanted a blue bird purse to keep his money and stuff inside. His mom told him no and that little boys like trucks not purses and led him away.

*The store only had 2 registers. Only 3 people were scheduled at a time: the manager and two cashiers. Every hour we would switch registers, so the person who was at the front would come back while the manager stayed there, check bathrooms, and then we’d switch. But the thing was that these people literally ALWAYS. TALK. ALWAYS. AND THEN THEY’RE LATE I WANNA TAKE MY *ONLY* 30 MINUTE BREAK IN MY 8 HOUR SHIFT TO HAVE LUNCH HURRY UP.

*Speaking of talking, I had 2 managers. Only time they are both there are Wednesdays, when one would act as a cashier. One was okay, but really, really condescending. All of my coworkers were older white women aged 55 and over. And I was a 16 year old latinx person. She either treated me like a kid and tried to teach me “"life lessons”“ or tried to belittle me. The other manager talked shit about customers WHEN THEY WERE STILL IN THE STORE. FIVE FEET IN FRONT OF THEM. AND THEN TRIED TO ROPE ME INTO IT. I hated Wednesdays.

*they thought every person with an accent was latinx. No matter the accent. A guy was talking a language that I’m 90% sure was from the Middle East on the phone and my manager asked why I wouldn’t talk to him in spanish.

*A guy with his wife and grandson wanted to go into the park. We let people go in and out as many times as they want as long as they don’t leave the parking lot. The woman had a nail appointment but wanted to come back after. I told them that they’d have to pay again if they left. The man is outraged that we wouldn’t let them back in after they left, even with a receipt, and yells at me "Why would you do that?!” He was easily over 6 feet tall while I’m around 5'5, at my first job, and already dealing with high levels of anxiety, so sure enough I was pretty scared. Like??? I don’t make the rules???? They decide to still go inside, and I shakily go through the rest of the transaction. By the time they come back in I guess he realized he scared the shit out of me and was unreasonable and began to be super nice to me, and congratulated me on landing my first job. I don’t pin him as an asshole, he genuinely did try to make me feel better (he even gave me a fistbump).

*My mom is….not the most responsible person? And was often late or forgot to pick me up from my job. And apparently the managers felt it their DUTY to stay with me until my mom got there because “a child like you shouldn’t be alone” like, I’m not 12, there’s a 7-11 right next door and it’s literally not your problem. At first it wasn’t a big deal and I thought it was a nice gesture until my boss gave me a letter to give to my mom. She basically reprimanded her and told her how to parent, and that her employees have to get home after a long day at work and didn’t have to be responsible for me. So they complained to the boss about waiting with me even though they LEGIT DIDN’T HAVE TO. AT ALL. AND THEN MY BOSS HAS THE GALL TO TELL MY MOM OFF LMAO LIKE I’M OFF THE CLOCK AND IT’S LITERALLY NOT YOUR PROBLEM. My mom was pretty fucking pissed which only improved my home situation so thanks :))))

*Our credit card machines ran on dial-up. We couldn’t run both at the same time because they were on the same line. The cash registers didn’t have scanners and we had to input the prices by hand. I once charged a lady $50,000 by accident. You wouldn’t believe how often this happens to everyone in there.

*Confederate and Trump memorabilia everywhere. Right next to little vintage statues of Black people and “"Native American”“ merchandise.

*That girl with the "Redneck lives matter” shirt

*We clean the floor every morning. With a Dusty broom/mop that probably hadn’t been cleaned in 20 years. And no cleaning solution. Just the dry dusty ass mop. There’s always dust and bugs everywhere.

*the owner’s daughter came to visit once and said that half of the shit in the store has been there since she was 12. She’s in her 50s now.

*The airforce soldier who came in and showed me pictures of his plane and literally got how dead inside I felt in that place and so tried to make me feel better, THANK YOU. You are my hero and I give you a million thanks for your service.

*The only reason the business is still here is because of the park. Sooo many people come for nostalgia or a way to kill time. There was once a wedding in there.

I finally found my escape when my mom got a job at MalWart and couldn’t take me to work anymore. My boss literally could not have cared less, and I just feel bad for my other three coworkers that are left without another cashier. But, fuck the rest of em. I start my first day of my new job Saturday (today is 1/11) so wish me luck. $8 an hour was never worth that bullshit.

[cheollies]

Brothers

a/n: I’ve always loved the idea of Soonyoung being more of a father figure to Chan. 

warnings: it’s a badboy au, what do you expect. there’s lots of cursing. 

© 

Growing up, Soonyoung wished he had a little brother. Being the youngest, he loathed playing doll house with his princess of an older sister. Sure, as the only male of the pair of siblings, he was treated rather nicely. He was pampered for being the boy, the future man of the house, the one most likely to be taking care of his parents.

He followed everything his parents said, like a little obedient dog. If his parents told him to do well in school, Soonyoung would place in the top five of the entire student body. If his parents told him to get a black belt in taekwondo, he’d grab onto the belt faster than any of his other friends. Soonyoung always listened.

But as days passed and years swept by faster than he could recall. He started to feel smothered, suffocated by the hands of his parent. And he watched in complete envy as his sister did as she pleased. She’d stick her tongue out at him as she left the house, waving as he continued to sit at the table, studying for his japanese exam.

That’s when Soonyoung began to wish he had a little brother. So he wouldn’t have to hold such a burdensome title. So he could have left someone behind with his parents.

“Where are you going?” The younger boy ran out of his room once he saw Soonyoung pass the door of his room.

Soonyoung pulls on his black boots, groaning when he hears footsteps follow him, “Out.” He says quickly, trying to tie up his laces, “Don’t follow me.” Soonyoung stands to his feet, a cigarette between his lips as he pulls the light from his pockets, lighting a flame before blowing a puff of smoke at the boy, “Go hang out with Seungkwan or something, you’re such a little brat you know that Chan.”

The whole apartment building stinks, that’s what Soonyoung thinks when he walks out into the hallway. Before he can take another step, an apartment door burst open, the shrill shriek of a woman irritates Soonyoung’s ear.

“I hope you rot in hell bitch.”

“Sleep with my boyfriend again and I’ll make sure to drag you there with me whore. Don’t fucking touch me Jihoon.” While one woman disappears down the hall, the other finds her way back into the rotten apartment.

Soonyoung smirks when the dark haired male peeks his head out of the door, taking a nice look at the woman leaving before making eye contact with Soonyoung, “I was so hammered, I swear she looked like my girlfriend.”

“Fuck you Lee Jihoon.”

Soonyoung laughs, “Good luck dealing with that monstrosity of a woman.”

He makes his way out of the building, stopping once his foot lands on the cement sidewalk. Soonyoung tosses his cigarette onto the ground, squashing it with the tip of his foot.

“I thought I told you not to follow me.”

“Minghao and Jun are going at it again in the living room.” Chan states quietly as he stands next to Soonyoung.

Soonyoung sighs, glancing at the younger from the corner of his eyes, “They’re always going at it. Who threw the first punch?”

Chan shrugs, “Jun.” There’s a pause in the air, Chan looks up to Soonyoung who gives him an intimidating glare to fess up, “I told him Minghao’s girlfriend was the one who gave his girlfriend that black eye.”

“True?”

Chan tilts his head with a rather bored expression, “Could be.”

Soonyoung grimaces, “Brat.”

Chan follows two steps behind Soonyoung. Periodically, Soonyoung glances backwards to look at the boy from his peripheral vision. The junior digs his hands into the bomber jacket that Soonyoung vaguely recalls is his own. He decides he’d give Chan shit once they reached home.

The bell rings overhead as they enter the dusty old shop. Soonyoung doesn’t give a glance to the woman at the register while he proceeds to the closed off back of the shop.

“Stay here.” Soonyoung orders Chan, the boy stares at him with doe eyes. Soonyoung takes a step forward and Chan follows, “I said stay here!” Soonyoung snaps at the juvenile. Chan grumbles, making himself comfortable by leaning against the wall of the darkened hallway, “You’re such a spoiled brat.” Soonyoung spits out before he enters the room and slams the door.

He feels as though the door could have broken apart when he slammed it. It was so old and he knew that, but he wanted to tick off the younger in revenge for ticking him off.

“Chan’s here?”

Soonyoung grits his teeth out of annoyance, “that brat is always with me. He acts like i’m his father or something. Such an idiot. For god’s sake Jeonghan, at least put on some pants.”

Jeonghan concedes, throwing on the first thing he could grab onto, “Chan thinks of you as a brother. Can you blame him?”

Soonyoung lets out a scoff, “Wish I hadn’t picked up that good for nothing off the street.”

Jeonghan hums. He digs his hands into the bottom of his drawer, pulling out stacks of cash, “Here. Your part and that good for nothing’s part of the deal.”

Soonyoung flips through the money in his hands, “No. This isn’t right, Chan gets double for getting pummeled by the security since your ass couldn’t get out of that mansion fast enough.”

Jeonghan sneers, “Didn’t know you cared so much.”

“I don’t.” Soonyoung rips the new stack of cash out of Jeonghan’s hand. His eyes twitch in annoyance when Jeonghan laughs behind him and he slams the door once again.

“I can’t believe you let him fuck around with other women.” Soonyoung spits out the remark as he passes the woman at the register.

She doesn’t look away from her cell phone, “It pays the bills. Chan if you ever need a job….”

“Fuck off.” Soonyoung growls, he was once again annoyed as he stepped out into the world. Soonyoung lights another cigarette, blowing a few puffs of air out. Soonyoung narrows his eyes at Chan, “If you ever get involved with those idiots, i’ll personally kick your ass.”

Chan nods solemnly, “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me that brat.”

From what Soonyoung can recall, Chan was never a hardcore partier. He never bounced from women to women nightly, he’s only ever had the occasional fling once a month unlike Soonyoung who always sent different women packing once the sun peeked over the horizon.

Despite being the largest buzzkill in Soonyoung’s nightlife, Chan at least was useful to him.

“What’d you get.” Soonyoung finally spoke after leaving the lips of a woman who clearly displayed the ring of a married woman.

Chan emptied his pockets, “Credit cards, cash, wedding rings, watches, cell phones, even managed to slip off some necklaces.”

Soonyoung claps his hands, leaning forward to marvel at the wonderful sight, “What a good little boy you are.”

“Hey!” A man pulls Chan from the booth, gripping the child by the collar of his shirt, barely lifting him off the ground, “Did you think you could steal from us without noticing.”

The man lifts his fist at Chan. Soonyoung jumps to his feet, shoving over the glass table, shattering it to pieces before he lunges himself at the guy. Shards of glass sticks to Soonyoung’s skin while he groans, having thrown himself harder and faster than he had realized.

“Fucking--”

The room spins when Soonyoung feels fingers bash against his cheek. He doesn’t know if maybe he had turned numb for the collision on his face had ceased. Despite the glass, Soonyoung places his hand on them as he lifts himself. The spinning finally calms and Soonyoung can finally process everything. He spots the group of men gathered together, legs kicking at something, or rather someone.

His blood boils, eyes turning red at seeing the helplessness of his younger friend. Soonyoung grips onto the nearest stool, dragging it along and swinging it on the first guy he could see. The stool breaks immediately. If it had only been three guys or less, Soonyoung knew he could have taken them, but the fact that six, maybe seven, men were gathered around, only one thing flew across his head. Run.

Soonyoung’s fist smacks the next guy to approach him, sending the third to the ground with a swift kick to the groin. He manages to escape the hands of the rest with doges of their curled fingers. Soonyoung grips Chan by the neck of his shirt, forcing the young to stand to his feet while his mouth oozes of blood.

“The stuff.” Chan manages to make out with his bruised up face.

“Fuck the stuff, you’re a little brat if you think I’m going to grab the stuff.” Soonyoung practically lifts the boy onto his back, dashing out of the club just as cops begin to pour in.

The cool air brushes against the skin of Soonyoung. He had managed to run far from the club and away from the sirens. Soonyoung rests Chan up against a brick walled building. He sits next to the barely conscious kid. Chan’s head bobs from side to side, trying to juggle everything that had happened before a fit of laughter leaves his lips.

“You’re completely insane right now.” Soonyoung speaks with laughter.

“Soonyoung?” Chan croaks with his head resting on the brick wall.

“Hm?”

“Am I really a brat?”

Soonyoung stares at Chan. His eye was completely bruised, his cheeks were already darkened with purple, his lips busted with dried blood, chin covered in small cuts. Soonyoung chuckles, bringing a hand to ruffle the boy’s hair before wrapping his arm around Chan’s neck and headlocking the child to his chest, “The biggest brat I could ever know.”

Soonyoung recalls wanting a little sibling when Chan ends up knocking out on his lap. The idiotic excuse of a man that let seven men beat the shit out of him. Soonyoung laughs alone into the empty air.

“At least you’re okay.”

[seanpatricklittlewriter]

A Man of Mystery

--An Abe & Duff Short Story by Sean Patrick Little

  The young woman walked into a bar with all the subtlety of a tornado touching down in a suburb. She kicked open the door with a long, slender leg and strode into the center of the narrow club with all the eyes in the place on her. She had a short black skirt that hugged her hips and a billowy white pirate blouse that was cut in a low vee at the neck. She flashed a brilliant smile and made eye contact with all six of the men in the bar. “What’s up, gents?

None of the men answered her. Women were not forbidden at Wheels’s Bar, but they were never exactly running rampant there, either. There were a few ladies who might stop in now and then, but none of them were regulars. Wheels’s place was one of those hole-in-the-wall dives that had a couple of TVs that played a nonstop dose of Chicago-area sports and a few tables along one wall opposite the bar where the regulars took up tall stools. It was not a hip hangout. It did not have fancy blender drinks. Most of the place seemed to be the exact opposite of the sort of joint a woman of any sort of discerning taste would ever set foot. From the outside, the place looked like it was a few days away from being condemned. It did not attract customers. If you were there, it was because you wanted to be there.

None of the men in the bar could be considered a catch. The bartender, Wheels, was a former one-percenter gone into nomad status in a sort of semi-retirement. At one point in his life, he would have struck fear into the heart of anyone who saw him coming down the road on a heavily customized Harley-Davidson. The other five guys were all pudgy, soft, blue-collar minions, most with a Tinder profile that went perpetually unswiped.

The men in the bar were not exactly agog at the sudden presence of an attractive and dynamic woman, but neither did the know how to process her suddenly showing up in their depressing little den of waning testosterone.

The woman did not seem to notice their discomfort. She walked right up to the bar. “How’re the Cubs doing?”

Rodridgo “Sally” Salazar, a paunchy Latino who normally worked as a painting contractor, swallowed the mouthful of Miller Lite he’d forgotten to swallow when the woman kicked in the door. “Uh, not great.”

“Typical.” The woman slapped a black Visa card onto the bar. “You take fantastic plastic, I assume?”

Wheels Wright shrugged. “All forms of legal tender and credit are acceptable at Wheels’s Bar. What are you drinking?”

“What do you have that’s expensive?”

Expensive drinks were not usually served at Wheels’s place. A retired bus driver with abnormally hair eyes named Billy Butkis, leaned forward. “I think Wheels has a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue somewhere in here.”

“Perfect!” The woman nodded toward the stack of bottles at the mirrored counter behind Wheels. “Let’s crack that sucker open and pour some drinks for me and all my new friends.”

“I can’t afford to drink no JW Blue,” said Billy.

“I’m buying, friend. I’m Tracy, by the way. C’mon, let’s have some fun.” She pushed the card toward Wheels.

The bartender picked it up and swiped it through the old card machine next to the register. After a second, it spit out a receipt. His eyebrows arched in surprise; he had probably been expecting it to be rejected. “I guess everyone’s drinking Blue tonight.”

There was a mild cheer from the guys at the bar.

Sally was impressed. “Can I make mine a double? I ain’t never had any fancy whiskey before?”

“Fuck it; make ‘em all doubles,” said Tracy. “Doubles for everyone.”

Wheels stacked up five glasses and poured a health slug into each.

 Tracy did a quick head count. “There’s seven of us here. We need two more.”

 “Nah.” Wheels pointed to his ever-present mug of black coffee. “I’m sober almost ten years, and that sad sack in the corner only drinks beer.” Wheels jabbed a thumb at a chubby man in a hooded sweatshirt and Milwaukee Brewers cap. He was bald beneath the cap, and clean-shaven. He had sad eyes and a pale complexion.

 “You only drink beer?” Sally looked at the guy in the Brewers cap. “I never noticed.”

 The man held up his Miller Lite. “If you’re buying, you can refill this thing for me.”

 “Done.” Tracy nodded at Wheels. “Give the man with the bad taste in baseball teams a Miller Lite on me and split whatever’s left in the bottle of blue into these glasses.”

 Wheels did as she bid and killed the rest of the bottle, filling each of the five lowball glasses to a potentially lethal level. “That’s a lot of whiskey, hey?”

 “Hey, indeed.” Tracy picked up her glass and held it aloft in front of her. “To new friends.” The other men at the bar quickly snatched up their glasses and held them aloft, echoing her toast. Tracy clinked her glass to the other four glasses of whiskey and nodded toward the Miller Lite drinker in the corner. He did not return the gesture, only picked up his bottle and took a drink, his eyes drifting back to the TV where the Cubs were blowing a three-run lead in the top of the seventh.

Tracy was bubbly and fun. The regular barflies were a little shocked by this. They usually sat at the bar in sullen silence, ate the free peanuts while they drank their bottles of major-label beers, and cursed at the Cubs’ middle-relievers when they hung curveballs over the center of the plate that ended up getting tattooed into the deep left field bleachers. Tracy told bawdy jokes. She laughed easily. She asked the guys questions that made them feel like she was really interested in them. And most importantly, she kept buying drinks.

At one point, she noticed the dusty jukebox in the far corner of the bar. “Does that thing still work?”

Wheels nodded. “Works great. None of these cheap-asses ever uses it, though.”

“We’d rather hear the game,” said Sally.

Tracy turned on her stool and dropped to the floor on unsteady legs, the effects of the copious amounts of booze evident as she swayed over to the machine. She flipped through the lists of available songs. “Christ. Is there anything on this thing from before 1976?”

“No. I wouldn’t risk accidentally hearing disco,” said Wheels.

“I tried to get him to put some Duran Duran on there once.” Sally covered his neck with his hands defensively. “Wheels threatened to cut me with a broken bottle.”

“Plenty of Beach Boys, if you’re into real music.” Billy added his two cents. “Far as I’m concerned, Brian Wilson is twice the musical genius John Lennon ever was.”

Tracy patted her miniskirt. “No pockets. Anyone got a dollar?”

Sally rushed over to her side, his roly-poly body jiggling all the way. He handed her a five-dollar bill. “Least I can do to pay you back for the drinks.”

“This will get us thirty songs.” Tracy fed the bill into the machine. She started tapping in the codes for different tracks. In seconds, the thin audio of the ball game commentary was buried beneath the harmonies of the Beach Boys.

Tracy danced on wobbly legs. Sally started dancing along with her, doing his own, arrhythmic version of 1950s craze, The Jerk. Tracy danced back to the bar and bought another round. The Blue was gone, so she had Wheels fetch his second-best whiskey, a liter of J. Henry & Sons from a micro-distillery in Dane, Wisconsin.

Wheels watched Tracy with concern. “You’re kind of poring it on there, miss. You going to be alright?”

“Are you my dad? Believe me, I can hold my liquor.”

“I never doubted you could. Just pointing out that you’ve had a lot for someone your size.”

Tracy winked at Wheels. “You calling me skinny?”

“Something like that.”

“I’ll take it. How ‘bout you use my card and order us a few pizzas? You boys want some pizzas?”

“I could eat.” Sally resumed his seat at the bar.

“I ain’t never seen you turn down food,” said Billy.

Dirty Ernie, a tall, almost anorexic Black man who got his unfortunate nickname because he worked for Waste Management, ponied up to the bar next to Sally. “Get extra. I only got this skinny because I end up in the chow line behind Sally too much.”

“Hey, if you can’t outrun me, that’s on you, Ernie.”

Wheels handed Tracy the cordless phone from under the bar. “You want pizza, go ahead. I don’t have a problem with that.”

Tracy winked at Wheels when she took the phone. She called the place down the street, ordered three large pies, and gave them her credit card info over the phone. Twenty minutes later, three pizzas were walked through the door by a college kid. After he set them on the bar, he handed Tracy the receipt. She scribbled out her signature on the receipt along with a tip.

When the kid saw the tip, his eyes got big. “Ma’am, I think you made a mistake.”

“I know what I did. It’s a gift. Thanks for all you do.”

The kid could barely stammer a thank-you. He backed out of the bar with a smile on his face that even a kick to the nuts would not have washed away.

“What’s the occasion?” Dirty Ernie helped himself to a couple of slices of pepperoni. “You’re spending a lot of money here tonight.”

“I won the lottery,” said Tracy. “I just wanted to spread some of my good fortune.”

“No foolin’?” Sally’s jaw dropped open. “I been buyin’ them fuckin’ tickets for twenty years. Once, I won twenty-four bucks. That’s about it, though.”

“Some days, it just feels good to be lucky, I guess.”

Tracy kept buying drinks until the rummies were good and soused. They ate the pizzas, even Wheels and Duff had a couple of slices. They danced to the thirty songs. Billy and Pauly Ryecliff fell asleep on the bar. Sally eventually got logy and collapsed in a sitting position against the wall. Ernie fell asleep sitting up with his jaw propped up on his hand.

Tracy took the hint. She was practically asleep herself. “Well, I should get on home, I guess.”

“You want me to walk you home?” Wheels looked around. “I could lock these idiots in here for a while. They’d never notice we were gone.”

 Tracy held up her phone. “I’m getting an Uber. I’ll be fine.” She kicked off her heels before she dared to climb down off her stool. She was listing hard. It took effort and a hand on the bar to steady herself to pick up her shoes. “I’ll be fine,” she reiterated. “I had a good time with you guys. Thanks.”

“Come back anytime.” Wheels held out the black credit card for her. She grabbed at it, missing a few times before she finally caught it. “You sure you’re okay?”

 “I’m perfect.” Tracy saluted Wheels. “It was nice meeting you all.” Her words slurred together in a drunken jumble. She looked at the fat man in the Brewers cap. “Even you, Mr. Baseball.”

The man just nodded at her. He hadn’t said more than three sentences all night. He just kept watching the game.

Tracy inhaled a deep, cleansing breath of stale barroom air and let it go slowly through pursed lips. It helped to clear her head. She glanced down at her phone. “My Uber is almost here. Thanks, fellas.”

From his spot on the floor, an extremely inebriated Sally tried to say something, but it only came out as nonsense. Hearing the nonsense made him laugh. Laughing made him tip over onto his side, which only made him laugh harder until the laughter suddenly switched to snoring.

Tracy smiled down at him. “Lightweight.”

“Might be the first time he’s been called lightweight in his lifetime.” Wheels flipped the switch by the end of the bar that controlled the open sign in the window. The red neon in the window went dark.

Tracy stumbled out to the sidewalk. It was late September and far too cold for a miniskirt and pirate blouse. The booze had screwed with her internal thermostat, though. She felt the cold press at her skin, but that was as far as it got. Her head was hot, and her face felt warm. The cold air felt good. It was trying to balance out how hot the booze made her feel.

 Tracy walked down the block. There was no Uber. There had never been an Uber. She did not even have the Uber app on her phone. Where she was going, she did not need an Uber. She walked to the parking garage down the street on the corner. She ditched her shoes in a trashcan next to the garage. Then, she slipped into the enclosed staircase and started walking up the sixteen flights to the eighth floor. Ten steps up, turn around on the landing, and another ten steps to the second floor. Repeat until she hit the top.

 She was winded and jelly-legged by the time she got to the eighth floor. The booze was really surging through her bloodstream now. It made her eyelids heavy and her body feel like lead. She had come to far to fail, though. She had a plan and was going to carry it through.

 Tracy pushed through the door at the eighth story of the parking garage and froze. The fat guy in the Brewers cap was standing there leaning on a cane.

 At first, Tracy was amazed but then she got angry. “Are you stalking me? You some kind of pervert?” She could not remember his name. Dan? Dave? Fluff?

 “Nope. Not in the least. I just figured I’d come up here and try to talk you out of killing yourself.”

 His words ran through Tracy like a spear. She suddenly felt very, very cold.

 “What?”

 “You heard me.”

 “How? How did you get here before me?”

 The fat man pointed with his cane toward the opposite corner of the garage. “Elevator over there.”

 She looked over and cursed under her breath. “Well, I came up here for a reason.”

 “I know. That’s why I followed you.”

“How did you know?”

 The fat man shrugged. “I’m a private investigator. That’s what I do.”

 Tracy turned and walked toward the nearest ledge. “That didn’t explain it.”

 The man followed her limping badly and leaning heavily on his cane. “I knew you were planning to kill yourself about thirty seconds after you came into the bar.”

 Tracy stopped and turned back to him. “How.”

The fat man stopped. “Four things, really: First, you were spending way too much money on strangers. That meant you did not care about paying bills; you were having a last hurrah. Second, the fact that you came into a dead-end bar where you knew you wouldn’t know anyone. You didn’t want to run into anyone you knew either because you felt they might know what you were doing and try to stop you or because you were scared or too sad to see them. Third, you were drinking like someone who wanted to get drunk enough to make bad decisions. You weren’t about to have sex with any of us pathetic degenerates from the bar, so it had to be that you were prepping yourself for a different sort of mission, one where being too drunk to think would be helpful. And lastly, and most importantly, that’s a hell of a tan-line on your left hand where the engagement ring used to be.”

 Tracy’s cheeks were suddenly cold. She was crying and the wind was freezing her tears on her skin.

 “You want to talk about it?”

 Tracy shook her head. She started to climb up the chest-high wall at the edge of the garage. “Don’t try to stop me.”

 “Wouldn’t dream of it. We are all free and independent, aren’t we? If you want to take yourself out of this world, well that’s your right as a sentient being with free will.” The fat man limped over to the wall ten feet to Tracy’s right. He was taller than she was. He leaned his head over the edge and looked down. A low whistle escaped his lips. “That’s a long way down. That’ll do the job, for sure. You won’t even know what hit you.”

Tracy boosted herself to the ledge by using a Volkswagen bumper as a stepping stool. “I’m here for a reason.”

 “No doubt. If you want to die, this is a guaranteed way to do it. You’ll probably bounce when you hit the pavement. Did you know that? Human bodies actually bounce when they hit pavement from these sorts of heights. People thing they just go splat, but it’s actually way more disgusting.”

 “Stop talking.” Tracy’s stomach was starting to roil. She looked over the edge and a combination of booze, fear, and adrenaline made her guts lurch like she was going over a big wave.

 “The trauma of hitting the sidewalk from this height, there’s no surviving it. You’ll probably break a lot of important bones. Your chest cavity will collapse, and rib fragments will pierce your lungs and heart. Your skull will probably fracture. Your aorta will tear. You won’t feel a thing, though. You’ll be dead the second you hit the ground. No pain.”

 “Stop. Talking.” Tracy tried to put emphasis on her command, but her stomach betrayed her. She suddenly spewed a whole night’s worth of pizza and booze eight stories down to the sidewalk.

 “That was a good precursor to the main event.” The guy limped a little closer to her. “Before you do this, why don’t you tell me why you’re doing it? You know, for the statement I’ll inevitably have to give to the police who show up and demand to know why I didn’t try to physically restrain you before you did your best Franz Reichelt impression?”

 “Who?”

 “Franz Reichelt. He invented the parachute. Well, sort of. He tried to test his invention and took a header off the Eiffel Tower. It’s not important. Tell me what brought you up here.”

Tracy did not want to be on the ledge at that moment. Her stomach was still reeling. She launched a second volley of vomit to the sidewalk. Her sinuses were burning from bile and whiskey.

 She dropped off the wall and slid to a sitting position alongside the silver Jetta. “It’s been a bad year.”

 The fat man limped around to the front end of the Jetta. He stopped eight feet from her. “Tell me about it.”

Tracy swiped vomit from her chin with the sleeve of her shirt. “It’s just another woe-is-me sob story. Everyone has one.” She was suddenly very lucid and sober as if puking the booze in her stomach eight stories down had rid her of all the poison in her bloodstream. Maybe it was the adrenaline that was giving her clarity.

 “I like woe-is-me stories,” said the man.

 Duff. Tracy suddenly remembered his name.

 “What kind of a name is Duff?”

 “Irish.”

“No, I mean, what does it mean?”

 “It means I’m mad at my dad. What’s your story?”

 Tracy shook her head. She looked up at the night sky. In Chicago, only a few stars were visible high above them because of the light pollution. “I never knew my dad.”

 “By choice?”

 “My mom said he died in Iraq when she was pregnant with me. She never told his family.”

 “Ah. By accident, then.”

 “My mom worked her ass off to raise me and keep a roof over our heads. She only had a G.E.D., but she did it. I didn’t have much, but I never went hungry. And we used to laugh all the time. We had fun together.”

 “Past tense, I see. I imagine she died, then? I’m going to guess she died in what? March? April at the latest?” Duff took another step toward her. He leaned against the front fender of the Jetta.

 “March twenty-third. Breast cancer. How’d you know?”

 “It would take that long for you to get the bottom of your proverbial barrel. Let me guess what’s next: Your fiancé was banging your best friend?”

 Tracy’s eyes went wide. “Yes! How’d you know that?”

 “Logical guess. Your mom’s death was traumatic. You probably retreated into yourself for a bit. Your best friend was around a lot trying to make you feel better. Your boyfriend was doing his best but felt powerless. You were too depressed to do anything for him, so he felt neglected. Things happen. I’ve seen it before.”

 “Found out about their affair a few weeks ago when Danny called off the wedding. He got Jasmine pregnant. All my friends sided with them because I’ve been so depressed. They actually blamed me for the affair.”

 Duff grimaced. “Ouch. That’s a kick in the ass.”

 “I lost my mother, my fiancé, and my best friend inside of six months.”

 “Let me guess—it gets worse?”

 Tracy bit back a sob. “I found out last week that I can’t ever have a baby. Congenital infertility.”

 Duff’s eyebrows raised on his forehead. “Wow. That’s…wow. I get it. All that shit happens to me, I’m probably chucking myself off a parking garage, too.”

 “Why am I even here?”

 “Because you were going to go out in a blaze of street pizza. Did you forget?”

 Tracy rolled her eyes at Duff. “No, I meant, why am I here in the big picture sense? What’s the fucking point?”

 “Of Life?”

 “Of Life. Why do we bother? All my dreams got wrecked in six months. My mom never got to see me walk down the aisle in a white dress. I went from planning a wedding to single. I lost my best friend. I’ll never get to be a mom. What does it all mean if I can’t have the life I want?”

 Duff shrugged. He slid down to a sitting position alongside the Jetta. It was a painful series of movements to get to that point. He moved like an old man despite being in his mid-forties. “You want to know a secret? Most of us never get the life we want. My parents wanted me to be Ph.D. in some sort of highfalutin degree program. I ended up being a dirt-poor private detective because it’s the only thing I’m good at. It’s nowhere near the life I wanted, but it’s the life I got.”

 Tracy looked over to Duff with red-rimmed eyes. “What keeps you going?”

 Duff thought about it for a moment. He weighed a few option in his head before he declared, “Pure fucking spite.”

 “Really?”

 “Really.” Duff gestured toward the sky. “Look at that. You get more than a few miles up and we die without oxygen tanks or pressurization. Get out of this atmosphere, and we die. Seventy-something percent of this big, stupid rock is covered with water. We can’t breathe in that water. A lot of this planet is freezing cold. We die without the proper clothing and shelter. A lot of the planet is burning hot. We die there without shade and water. The parts of the planet that do adequately support human life have things like tornados, flash floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.”

 “What are you getting at?”

 “I’m saying that since we evolved out of great primate ancestor as a minor surface annoyance to the planet, we’ve had to deal with the fact that Earth doesn’t want us here. It is constantly trying to kill us. Not only that, but we’re the only creature that understands that this grand failed experiment eventually ends. We have to live every day with the specter of death hanging over us and the knowledge that none of us truly knows what comes next. That’s a pretty heavy burden for a normal mind. That’s an even heavier burden for a mind that’s dealing with trauma. Believe me, lady, it never surprises me when someone chooses the easy road out. In fact, I’m surprised most of us don’t do it. This world is crazy.”

 “Then why haven’t you?”

 Duff looked around them. He shrugged. “Because it’s the only way I can flip middle fingers at the whole system. The system doesn’t want any of us here. The Earth is trying to kill us. The Universe is trying to kill us. We can’t live in the oceans. The atmosphere occasionally throws wind, arctic cold, and random bolts of electricity at us in an attempt to kill us, and we just keep going.” Duff raised his right arm to the sky and extended his middle finger at the dark blue-black heavens above them. “I’m still here because whatever runs this whole thing hasn’t figured out how to kill me yet. I keep living because by living, it means I’m outsmarting the big organism that continually tries to shuffle me off its mortal coil.”

 Tracy swallowed hard. It felt like there was a stone in her throat. It burned when she swallowed. “I don’t think I can go on, though.”

 “Why not?”

 “Because I just feel like I can’t. I can’t stand to see one more day. I don’t know why.”

 “If you don’t know, then you’ve got a mystery on your hands. You can’t quit life with a mystery to solve.”

 Tracy bit back a sob that tried to escape. “Spoken like a true detective.”

 “Spoken like a guy who has been where you are. Spoken like a guy who knows what you’re going through. I weighed it out. I did the math. Quitting Life is easy. For some people, maybe it’s the right thing to do. Emphasis on ‘maybe.’ Me? I want to piss Life off some more before I finally go. We get few enough precious spins around the Sun anyhow. It’ll be over before we know it. No need to end it early.”

 There was a long silence between them. Tracy let tears slide down her cheeks.

 “My ass hurts.” Duff listed to his right side and rubbed at his butt with his left hand.

 This made Tracy laugh. It was a short, barking laugh but it was still a laugh. “Was I being stupid?”

 “When you were rooting for the Cubs earlier? Absolutely.”

 She smiled. “No, dummy. I mean just now.”

 “There was a Superman comic some years ago where a girl was going to jump from a ledge. Superman told her if she honestly did not believe she would never again have another happy moment, then she should jump, and he would let her fall.”

 “Did he let her fall?”

 Duff shook his head. “She took his hand, and Sup’ got her the help she needed.”

 “So, I need help?”

 “We all need help.”

 “Even you?”

 Duff gave her a half-smile. “Especially me. I’m a fucking slow-motion train wreck.”

 Tracy got to her feet and walked back to the ledge. Her legs were unsteady. She felt sick and dizzy. She looked down at the sidewalk far below. “If I want to jump, will you let me?”

 Duff gestured at his bum ankle with his cane. “Look at me, lady. I’m half-crippled, obese, and slow. If you wanted to jump, you could be kissing pavement before I could get to my knees.” Duff made no move to get up. He laid his cane across his lap. “We are all creatures of free will. If you want to go, you’ll go. Maybe not now. Maybe not tomorrow. But, if you’re dead set on going, pardon the pun, no force on the planet could stop you.”

 “Not even you?”

 “Especially not me.”

 Tracy looked back at the sidewalk. Her eyes drifted up to some of the high-rises around them. People were living in those buildings. They were watching TV or sleeping. They were raising families. They were raising pets. They were learning new languages, or learning how to play guitar, or playing a PlayStation game they played too many times before because it was a comforting escape from reality.

 “Duff?”

 Duff did not answer. He knew she knew he was right there.

 “Duff, I think I want to go home.”

 Duff said nothing.

 Tracy turned around. The big man had somehow gotten up silently and was already limping away toward the elevator.

 “Did you hear me? I said I want to go home.”

 Duff stopped and turned to face her. “So go. Free will, remember. You’re a creature of choice, not habit.”

 “But, you—”

 Duff turned back toward the elevator. He kept going.

 Tracy was confused. She started to walk after him.

 “You’re wasting your time.” A voice from the door to the stairs stopped her cold. The bartender, the man they called Wheels, was standing in the doorway with two Chicago cops, a tall, Black man, and a shorter, stouter White woman.

 Tracy’s jaw hung open. “How long have you been there?”

 “Long enough.” Wheels jutted his chin toward Duff. “You’re wasting your time with him.”

 “Why? What? Where is he going?” Tracy was confused. “I thought he was concerned.”

 “He was, in his own way. He wouldn’t have followed you if he wasn’t.” Wheels walked over to Tracy and took her by the arm. He walked her toward the stairs leading her gently.

 “So, why did he leave?”

 “Because he’s Duff.”

 Tracy let herself be helped by the two police officers. The women took Tracy’s other arm. She spoke lowly to her, comforted her. The staircase was warmer than the top of the parking ramp. An ambulance came around the corner of the ramp and stopped at the staircase. Two EMTs got out. They had one of those silver foil thermal blankets and they wrapped it around Tracy while they helped her into the back of the unit. Tracy let them.

Wheels watched as the EMTs strapped her to the bed in the back of the truck. “Get better, okay?”

Tracy nodded. “Tell Duff I said thanks, will you?”

I will. He won’t care. But, I will.”

One EMT climbed into the back of the truck with Tracy. The other closed the doors and ran back to the driver’s seat. After a moment, the truck lurched forward and began the slow descent down the parking ramp.

Wheels watched from the top of the ramp until the truck was spat out the ramp’s exit. It drifted off into the night, red-and-white lights spinning on the roof rack, but no siren. In moments, it blended into the wash of lights and was gone.

    A fat guy with a cane limped back to his apartment. He stopped at the taqueria on the first story of his building and got three carne asada tacos to go. He climbed the stairs to his apartment slowly, using his good leg to propel himself up each step and dragging his weak ankle after like a dead weight. He stopped to rest twice, and in those rest periods, a taco met its fate.

Duff keyed the door to his apartment and limped into his room. There was no bed in his room, only a plush recliner. Duff flopped into the chair and popped the footrest. He turned on the TV. A MASH rerun was on. It wasn’t one of his favorite episodes—it was the one where Hawkeye and B.J. pretend to be nice to Frank—but it would do.

The next morning, when his business partner, Abe, would come into the office, Abe would ask Duff, “What did you do last night?”

Duff would answer, “I watched MASH.”

Abe would ask, “Is that all?”

 And Duff would answer, “Yep.”

--End--

If you liked this story, please check out the full-length novel THE SINGLE TWIN, available now on Amazon Kindle or at your favorite local independent bookstore.

https://www.amazon.com/Single-Twin-Abe-Duff-Mystery-ebook/dp/B0829D4F4L/

[gloster]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! To my good friend Maia aka @oh-my-fancan who requested a fem-drarry story for her birthday. Thus my newest story, The Struggles of Spring Cleaning, which was sooo much fun to do. Maia, I hope you love your gift. 

The Struggles of Spring Cleaning

It was a perfect Saturday morning. The sun was golden-bright and shining, the sky was a clear blue with not a cloud in sight, and from the distance the sounds of birds chirping happily could be heard-

“YOU ARE A SICK, SICK SADIST!”

Of course, the sounds of the birds’ happy chirping were easily overshadowed by the ear-killing, head-splitting shriek.

The answering response to the allegation was a simple but well-effective (and deserved) double dosage of bright, bright emerald-green eyes rolling in annoyance.

“A sick, twisted, cruel sadist with a dead, cold heart!”

Just the thing every girl wished to hear at the weep, early hours of the morning. “You always say such the sweetest things, Nisa.”

Piercing, dove-gray eyes flashed angrily at her, clearly un-amused by sarcasm. With a scoff, the owner to those eyes that could be harsh as ice or gentle as a stream (depending on her mood) dismissed her with a flip of her platinum, white-blonde hair and turned her nose the other direction, crossing her arms against her chest. “Sure, Potter, mock the girl you claim to love. Laugh at my expense. My woes are clearly your source of entertainment.”

Aria groaned, massaging her temples, feeling a migraine that was seconds away from erupting. Caused by the one and only Draconisa ‘Nisa’ Malfoy.

It was no secret that Nisa was a drama queen. It was a fact Aria quickly caught onto during the full year Nisa visited the Starbucks she worked at, watching Aria like a hawk with her nose scrunched-up as she fixed up her usual frappunico and blueberry muffin combo, always making a point to wipe the mouth-lid before she drank it, as if she feared someone was out to poison her. And always requesting that Aria be the one to handle her order, never minding the fact there would be three other persons working behind the counter or that she was on storage duty in the back. During the two years they’ve been together as a couple after Nisa stormed up to her as she was closing up and demanded not only to give Aria a ride home, but to also see her seven 'o’ clock on the dot tomorrow night at her favorite restaurant.

Sometimes Nisa’s dramatic tendencies were actually amusing, endearing even. But most times they were a pain in the ass that always brought on headaches and the deep need for coffee.

Or liquor if Aria felt like her head was about to explode.

Today was one of those days. At first Nisa was pleasantly surprised, happy even, to see her girlfriend standing outside her impressive penthouse suite. Then her eyes narrowed suspiciously when she noticed the sheepish but unapologetic smile on Aria’s face, and then widened in fear when she noticed the big empty boxes she had with her.

“Wh-what are those for?” Nisa asked, voice tight, as Aria kicked the boxes inside before letting herself in.

“Those are boxes.” Aria calmly answered.

“I can see that, Potter. I didn’t ask what they are. I asked what are they for.”

Aria already knew the vicious drama queen was going to be unleashed before she coughed up the answer, bracing herself. “They are for the clothes we’re either gonna put away in storage or give away.” At the blank look in Nisa’s eyes, she took in a deep breath and delivered the final blow. “For spring-cleaning.”

“Over my dead body!” Nisa snapped.

Close to an hour later, Nisa was still glaring at her like she was a heartless criminal and the empty boxes lying at her feet were her instruments of torture.

“Nisa,” Aria tried to make her voice as light as it could be. “Keep in mind that your dear girlfriend out of the goodness of her heart is here on a Saturday, quite early may I add, to help you out when there are a number of other things she could do. Like, oh I don’t know, sleeping.”

Nisa shot her a look that could have been a full-grown man piss in his pants. “Don’t you dare patronize me, Potter! I’m not a child.”

Sure acting like one. Aria bit her lip to keep the thought from being voiced out.

The way Nisa’s glare darkened, it was like she could hear her thoughts. “I am perfectly capable of cleaning out my own closet, thank you very much.”

“Not according to your mother who thinks you’re long overdue for a spring cleaning,” Aria said. “Or Parkinson who texted me, terrified that your closet was going to collapse on her like an avalanche.”

“Traitors,” Nisa muttered under her breath.

Aria fought the urge to roll her eyes again. She glanced over at the window, where the morning sun was shining bright in the clear blue sky. The perfect spring day. Then glanced over at her girlfriend who wasted nearly an hour of that nice day arguing.

“Nisa, look. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can kick back and relax.”

Nisa was on the verge on rolling her eyes until they widened halfway through, an idea stuck. Annoyance was wiped off her face as a smile curved her mouth.

“Or…” Nisa leaned forward on the couch, reaching out to hook her fingers onto the belt loops of Aria’s jeans, reeling her in. She gave Aria her favorite smile, soft and sly as a cat. “We could forget about spring cleaning and do this.” She captured her lips in a slow, sensual kiss that caused that all too familiar warmth to fire through Aria’s veins.

Damn her, Aria thought, melting against her willpower.

She doesn’t play fair. Smiling, Nisa slipped her tongue into Aria’s mouth, brushing it against her own.

She really doesn’t play fair. Aria was pulled onto her lap, straddling Nisa, as the blonde devil nibbled away at the tender spot on her neck, her hands slipping underneath Aria’s purple STAR WARS t-shirt and stroking her bare skin.

Aria’s willpower was crumbling into mush with every touch and kiss.

“Still interested in cleaning?” Nisa murmured against her skin. “If so, I can think of a number of things that could use some real tidying up.”

If her point wasn’t clear enough, the hand was stroking Aria’s bare skin slid up to her chest, fingers toying with her bra-clad nipple that hardened underneath Nisa’s touch.

Dear God, she really really didn’t play fair. Lying so sultry underneath her, blonde hair mussed from their snogging session, lips red and bare, eyes mischievous and bedroom-inviting, the tie to her short night-robe falling apart and revealing the even shorter dusty-blue nightgown underneath. Aria was so tempted to take Nisa up on her offer, to forget the cleaning and continue where they left off, but…

With all the strength she had, Aria straightened herself up and pulled away from Nisa. “After we get your closet organized.”

At the words, the sly seductress vanished and the drama queen returned. Nisa let out a long, suffering groan and slumped against the couch.

“Okay, look, how about we make a deal,” Aria proposed. “We get this done and I’ll treat you to a large Java Chip frappunico.”

Nisa stared at her, left brow arched.

“Okay, fine, I’ll treat you to lunch.”

The arched brow went higher.

“Fine, I’ll personally accompany you on your next shopping spree.”

The brow went higher, accompanied by the slow scan Nisa did on her, taking in the faded but well-loved purple STAR WARS t-shirt, the red plaid shirt tied around her waist, her dark-denim jeans, and ratty black sneakers.

“Fine,” Aria groaned. “I’ll be your little fashion doll and won’t make a fuss over the clothes you decide to get for me. As long as they’re not too pricey. Or tight. Or girly.”

“Deal.” Nisa grinned, leaping from the couch, renewed with energy.

The look on Aria’s face must have been dreadful because Nisa’s was too delightful as she dropped a kiss on her lips, saying “Cheer up, Potter. You get to clean, I get to shop. With a new doll to dress up.”

Why did Aria somehow feel like she’d just been played? She couldn’t shake the feeling, but decided to save that for another day, grabbing one of the boxes and following her girlfriend upstairs. When Aria nearly turned down the left to Nisa’s bedroom, she was pulled back by her braid.

“What the…” She shook Nisa’s hand off. “What the hell? We’re here to clean out your closet, which involves going to your room.”

“Um, not exactly.” Nisa said.

Aria’s brows rose. “What do you mean?”

“In the room, there’s a fraction of closet space devoted to clothes I plan on wearing every two weeks.” Nisa linked her arm through Aria’s and led her down the hall, to the opposite direction. Down to a room that was usually locked whenever Aria stayed over. “This is my full closet.”

Full closet? Nisa only smiled at her, as if to say You’ve been warned. She turned the knob, pushing the door open.

The box dropped from Aria’s hands, just as her mouth dropped wide open.

Holy…

Clothes.

Mother…

So many clothes.

Fucker….

Too too many clothes.

What she was seeing…was the result of a daddy’s girl who’s never been denied anything, with unlimited credit cards at her disposal that went spent regularly on huge shopping sprees, and still wasn’t used to living without a maid.

Sunlight poured in from the wide, glass windows that were posted on the upper walls. Below the windows were wide, in-the-wall closets that stretched from wall to wall with shiny clear-glass exterior for doors. Tall, multi-shelved dressers stamped in between three glass closet doors, with five lined up in front of them. The room was almost the double the size of a master bedroom, and every inch of it was taken over by clothes. Clothes spilling from the dressers, as if they were hit by a tornado, pouring from the closet like upchunk vomit, carelessly flung and piled up onto the lounge chairs like trash. Tops, dresses, jeans and shorts and pants, skirts and dresses, shoes, pursues loose hangers. All scattered over the room. So many clothes that the mess nearly reached their knees, looking like some kind of fabric ocean.

Once Aria managed to pull back up her slacked jaw and find her voice, she stammered, “Never ever are you to call me a slob!” A quick glance at the clutter, and her body broke into a shudder. “Never again.”

Nisa rolled her eyes. “Calm down, Potter. It’s only a little…small mess.” She made a point to look away, twirling a lock of her hair.

“Sure,” Aria nodded. “And World War II was just a small misunderstanding.”

*for more click on the llink: ff.net*

[kpsandlcs]

Tour

3/2 - Drive To Columbus

I get off work and Aaron and I grab the van. At first look, surely it will fit everything...it has to. Aaron never falters in reassuring that things will work. In his mind, they always will. It helps. We get to Aaron’s and start loading. It’s gonna be tight, but we do what we can. We arrive to get Peter and he’s got many items. How the hell is this gonna work.

“Did you use the stowaway yet?”

What the hell is that? He says nothing and starts opening a hidden compartment underneath the feet of the back seats. Woah. We load that up and sure enough, we’re golden. Off to pick up Gabe. I’m in the driver’s seat feeling the immense weight of a fuckload of gear and 3 people in the car and am skeptical this thing will get us around.

We get Gabe and start going to Columbus. Another human’s weight. Aaron can’t guess Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest until “2 Weeks” comes on, which is alright. We kill about an hour as I tell them what my day job really is.

“Isn’t it crazy that for the average user, credit card companies are just capitalizing on my money YOU ALREADY OWN?”

It’s a fucking dastardly-ass scheme.

We get 1.5 hours from Columbus and have enough gas to get home when Gabe says

“Are we gonna be stopping again?”

“No way! We have enough gas and it’s like 1am”

“Ahhh….ummmm I maaaay have tooooo ahhhh Urinate-oooo”

This becomes a theme. But the goofy and pleading delivery was too funny for me to not reward.

We arrive at the Hampton inn and the check-in person was like “y’just made it. Was about to be gone for a few hours.” We’re tired as fuck. We get to our room and fall asleep.

3/3 - To Ithaca

Tonight is our first show in Ithaca. I slept like shit. Peter woke up an hour early to fucking work out. We get a scrappy breakfast from the lobby and Aaron hands me a tea bag that says “I Love Lemon” on it.

“It’s a love letter.”

We get going. It’s icy and Ohio-y. Aaron is driving, which I’m glad for. Right as we get on the highway, Peter says

“Would anyone care for a gorp?”

That = grape.

We spend the ride trading the aux cable and me trying to sleep. We get to a patch of snow which makes me hella nervous but, again, Aaron doesn’t give a fuck. We stop in an upstate NY town that I forget the name of, but was classically upstate...one of those “main street” type towns. We get to a rest stop and this place was crazy...cracked stone floors and a grocery area in the back that had a lot of offerings, but seemingly just spilled out into the back storage/trash area, where there were relics of the distant past everywhere...cardboard cut outs, random furniture...separating the front and the back was an archway, and above it was an old “video rental” sign, but like all wooden and bulky, and dusty as fuck...It was like walking into an abandoned Chuck E. Cheese, or something. Super unsettling.

We arrive in Ithaca and it’s all twilighty and pale pink sky and all that. We hit Wegman’s quick for dinner and Gabe talks about how the prices have doubled since he used to work there during high school. Peter roams around trying to find something to eat, because he’s on Whole 30. Perfect timing!

We get to the venue and start loading in. My keyboard stand “breaks.” Duct tape. (I later learn that all I needed was an allen wrench). I have a lot of history in this area - life changing concerts, day trips, hikes, food, sad escapes, past loves. I change into my Dan Deacon sweater which feels fitting. I’m dazed with a lack of sleep. My friend from Binghamton comes with a whole crew, which is much appreciated. The room fills up for the openers, which are intriguing experimental solo projects. Some college friends show up last minute before we start. The set was solid, but we ran into some sound issues and had to cut a lot of songs. I think we did alright, and people dug it. The whole crowd was intently watching, and laughing at every slight banterous comment I made. It felt like they were legit waiting to hear me all week.

I note that one of the songs I play is about someone in the room, but I had yet to see her.

I go to sell merch. My college friends who I haven’t seen in 6 months - didn’t really get to relax with them, as we need to tear down shortly after, and not to mention it’s late and they gotta get to their place too. This ends up being what always happens - tour is work. There are not many free moments outside of the car.

Someone asks me to sign their CD, a friend reveals she’s been listening to my EP on repeat, and someone nervously compliments me and mentions the music video. Woah.

It’s time to tear down so we have to go down these narrow stairs with everything and load our van which is in an alley and has the neighboring bar employees yelling at us to leave. We can’t get the damn van packed, though. It’s being a bitch. We finally get it after much stress.

Peter and I split off to get to the place we’re staying, which is the house of someone I know who is not there. Thusly, we don’t know his roommates. We park semi far away and lug heavy shit to the door. Knock. Nothing. Call my friend. Nothing. I knock on the door of the lower apartment and get a helpful young dude, who says I should just go right in. So I do. There is a dude standing atop the stairs looking confused.

“Hey, I’m Jesse - Does Remanu live here?”

“Uh….”

Someone else comes by.

“Hey, um, hi, what the hell is this? Why are you knocking at 11 and just coming right into our house? We don’t know you? What are you doing?”

Tired as fuck, nervous, and already shaken up, I just start stumbling to explain myself before he cuts me off-

“OH I’M JUST KIDDING WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE GET ON UP HERE! MI CASA ES SU CASA”

Wow.

We get upstairs and start unloading when a tenant starts enthusiastically talking to me.

“I was at the show! It was so cool!! It seems like you have a great following!”

Nope - just had an alright crowd that Ithaca Underground is good at catering to. But I learn that the narrative spawned by things like this is as good as your image, whether or not the story’s there.

The house is classically Ithacan. “Free condoms” jar in the bathroom. Plants everywhere. Tribal woodworking on the walls. “Capitalism is a pyramid scheme” poster on the wall. Welcoming attitude.

As Peter and I lay on the air mattress, I say

“I’m glad this is your first experience here, because this house is literally an Ithaca museum.”

3/4 - Ithaca -> Syracuse

I wake up to the view of snow lightly falling, and it was unusual how fearful I became of it as it took new meaning for this trip where I am underprepared and need to travel hundreds of miles. This is obviously at odds with my initial delight and feelings of home - Tennessee certainly has weakened my capacity for snow and the cold - making me a creature I swore I’d never become.

I’m off to meet an old friend for brunch -

“Hi so I am house sitting as well as dog sitting and the heat is broken and the dog is shivering, so I can’t leave him here. But also it’s not really comfortable to be at this house because it’s cold. So why don’t I take the dog to my house and we can make breakfast? But I don’t have eggs. So how about you get eggs on the way? But also I don’t really have coffee. So maybe you should also get coffee on the way?”

This is exactly what happens.

I set out in my fucking boat shoes (glorified socks) in inches of snow and am slipping all the way down the front stairs of the mysterious house. I finally get my bearings and am greeted to the classic Ithaca - the same open minded and welcoming place that it never fails to be. A man snow blowing says good morning. Students mill about. I stop in the Green Star which is a fair trade sort of grocery store. I help a delivery man get his stock cart into the store. “Thank ye much, sir.” I get my coffee and local eggs. I arrive at my friend’s house. She pulls up in a car and leads out a tiny dog wrapped in a red sweater. Holy fuck.

We go upstairs and after undressing the dog he immediately curls up in the sunlight of the window.

“His name is Peabody.”

WHAT

We go to the kitchen to make pancakes and eggs and get to talking about basically what happened over the past 6 years and how we’ve both felt a lot of damage and successes and how different we are now.

“Why weren’t you at the show? I played a song about you.”

“Well. I was curled up with Peabody because it was so cold last night, and we were watching TV, and…I fell asleep. And then I woke up at 9pm being like “fuck, there’s no way I can make it now.”

The song is called “Asleep.”

“You can hold this over me for like 1.5 years, it’s warranted.”

The thing is I wrote a whole album about this person in 2012 and I spent that last 5 years trying to get her to listen to it, and she wouldn’t.

Breakfast is delish, and we reminisce a lot about what it was like dating each other long ago. It’s really something how unprepared and ignorant I was at the time, but this is something I already have severely grappled with. It’s really quite good to have such an uninhibited conversation with someone so key to your life/past. It’s like being able to revisit era-specific weaknesses and moments in a tactile way.

Peter comes to pick me up in the van. I ask if he wants to meet Peabody. He says yeah, but doesn’t like small dogs. Whatever…

She hugs me bye. Peter and I go to pick up Gabe.

“What’s the best way to Syracuse?”

“Through Cortland. It’s like a place where everybody’s aggressively trying to mate with each other.”

Me: “And they’re all judges.”

Peter: “And they all love tennis.”

“Yeah. It’s a city of court judges courting each other on tennis courts.”

We get to Syracuse and my college friends await me. We go to armory square and snack/drink. Our waitress is a girl I TA’d 3 years ago. Insane.

We go back to my friend Jay’s apartment, which is where I stayed during that whole Utica deal last september. It feels similar, which is awesome. We’re drinking beer and eating burritos and laughing really hard. It’s time to load in down the street, so we get going.

The room is small, but works, and the crowd is paying a lot of attention. Show goes really great, especially with Jay on back-up vocals. I step outside to hang with my college friends. My one friend who’s helped direct the art of most of my past albums all of a sudden realizes that I just played next door to The Westcott theater, where he and I saw Reptar, Rubblebucket, and most importantly - Dirty Projectors.

“Shit, this is the Westcott? It’s been here the whole time?”

He gets wrecked realizing that we’ve literally been sharing a wall with one of the most important spots of our friendship and artistic development. All of those concerts rocked our worlds.

Peter and Gabe split off to Jay’s, Aaron and I split off to his house. On the way over, we talk about how touring is a real test of teamwork, and every bullshit ‘training’ and ‘seminar’ in school and jobs has never offered a real application of those skills such as it has been.

3/5 - Sunday in Binghamton

Wake up to a good ol’ family breakfast at Aaron’s. Peter and Gabe join shortly after. We eat and decompress before heading down to Binghamton. Snowy and sunny, it feels Hella Home-y. We arrive in Binghamton and hell is it dreary/sad. Everything is dulled, everything is grey, and it feels like nobody's around. We catch up with Eddie, who is hosting the show at his house, which is actually a commune that holds classes, dinners, and is a general stayover for nomadic types that need it. He leads us to the loft above ihs garage where we will play...it’s really nice. Wall outlets all over the place, nice carpeting. We load in early so all we have to do is set up, night of.

I drop off Peter and Aaron at Cyber West to get work done - Gabe and I drive to Target to get a “Quickie Blank Blank?” and pizza at Mario’s, listening to rap on the way obviously. I ran into a family friend in Target. Talk to the new owner of Mario’s while eating real pizza...Nashville pizza...just no.

We grab some beer and the Cyber boys and get to Eddie’s and set up.

“Hey, if no one shows up, we can just chill with some wine.”

But people DO show up. 35 to be exact. 35 people came to this weird garage hippie loft to see us play on a depressing as icy Binghamton Sunday night while the DORMS ARE CLOSED. It felt like a weird judgment day, where various people from pockets of my past all congregated in agreement. I knew everyone, but most didn’t know each other. I actually made a ton of money on merch that night. I spent like 40 minutes talking to everyone before they cut away. Shortly after, a member of the collective (the house) comes up to the now empty room, and says

“Gentlemen.”

He procures a small white rod.

“The band spliff.”

We all look at each other. None of us, at this point, have been keeping up with smoking in our lives.

“I’m sorry dude, we’re all too nerdy and responsible to partake.”

“Seriously? Really? Even for the road?”

“Ah...I can’t keep it in the van, it’s a rental. I feel terrible man. We’re all too lame and nerdy. But I realize this is considered GOLD to many a band. Thank you so much.”

We were too fucking responsible to smoke weed on tour.

After the show Eddie shows us his surprisingly sophisticated mushroom farm, which is essentially falling apart as he explains it to us. But, nothing he can’t control, nothing he hasn’t seen before, and nothing he can’t patch up.

On the way out, everyone in the living room is warm. Eddie and I chat about his future plans and current evaluation of self as we lock the door to the loft. The band and I head to my former neighbor’s house to have a v comfy night of sleep.

3/6 - New Yolk

We get up and cut down to Manni’s, which is in the square of the neighborhood I grew up in. Fresh made donuts, EVERY day. We get a half dozen of all sorts of flavors and Gabe and Aaron and I split them all, savoring every detail as Peter drove and probably gritted his teeth knowing Whole 30 would keep him from this hometown DELIGHT.

We have a long conversation about respect, friendships, dating, and these 3 boys really bolster my self confidence and self-respect.

As we get closer to the city:

Peter: “Alright man. Start playing like, New York songs.”

??

Peter: “Like Empire State of Mind and Billy Joel and stuff.”

Peter: “Someone honked!! *HONKS* Hey fuck you!! ...I love this city.”

We get a perfect spot for load in. We all split off to see respective people. I eat edamame/avocado toast in an assuming brooklyn cafe, and drink an americano.

Jay, from Syracuse earlier, comes to meet me. We post up in one of his favorite taprooms in Bushwick. We catch up on lots of things, musical and life-wise. An old mutual friend and continued collaborator shows up-he’s been engineering the Modern Instincts songs. Revelry continues.

We make our way to a vegan diner and the conversations continue.

“Yeah, well really spot mic-ing a quartet, it’s more there for body and leveling purposes, but the overheads dominate that tone, really”

Jay’s gonna sing tonight again.

We start loading in and MUAH this venue is everything I dream of playing. The front bar is golden, ornate. The stage is fairly elevated, and the wall behind is plastered in clippings of ANY kind - news, or softcore porn. When the wall stops, an industrious black guard railing protects the open end of the stage. Skeeball machines, photo booth. The sound guy is so easy to work with, and so good.

The place starts packing, and soon enough I’m looking out to a huge room of people - we fucking DESTROYED that place. We play our last song - Thinking In English (an old one,) which is easily the peak of the set. Enormous cheer. The mains start playing change-over music, when we start to hear ‘BA-SIC PRIN-TER *clap, clap, clapclapclap’, and the sound guy lowers the main. A fucking encore. On our first tour.

We don’t have another song, and we need to give the time to Quail Turret. But damn, that was the best.

I spend the rest of the night loving all of my friends, selling merch. I settle up with everyone - the booker is nice as hell. The sound guy said we were of the top tier bands he’s seen in his 1.5 years working there. The door girl asks if we need a place to stay. Man, what a success.

Peter and I head to my friend’s house and we settle in to sleep on his floor. I count the money from the past 4 days and look through the pictures so far. Never felt so cozy on a couch before.

3/7 - Philly

Rainy in Brooklyn. Peter and I solve a puzzle of getting the van, going up and down 4 flights with different heavy things, and making sure the auto-locking door doesn’t fuck up our whole charade while loading.

We get the other boys and get a ways out of the city before stopping in one of those ‘all in one’ rest stops. Coffee and chapstick. We congregate at the front doors on our way out.

Peter: “This would be a good place to buy a watch.”

I turn my eyes to see a tiny glass case with your typical array of luxury brand watches. Armani, Rolex. I look at Peter. His face is totally normal.

Aaron and I have always done this thing, but it got exacerbated on this tour, where we would misread signs with liberal exaggeration on the syllables.

Mcdonalds, Subway, Sbarro.

“Look, this stop has MOME-DONSON, a SRABAWOONI, and a SUH-BARRR AR AR ARHHH AH...:”

We drive to Philly. I put on Swing Lo Magellan because it’s warming up. We talk about musicianship. We talk about musicianship every car ride, and it’s amazing how much it evolves day to day for me, because I learn so much every day.

We drop Aaron and Peter off to do work/meet up with family, while Gabe and I go to get Cheesesteaks. Gabe does NOT pull his pants down. We wander into a bar that I realize I tried to book to pee. We get cash, and cheesesteaks, and laugh. Then we get blindsided by an ice cream craving. So we go near Fishtown and get icecream.

And then we go to this record store which is hella sad. I go to the back, and it’s all dusty and yellow. Though, I do find a Kyle Fisher record which I thought was super weird. It was like, new, amidst all of the standard used-record leftovers you always find. It kinda made me sadder.

Some pretty good music is on, like this really tasteful blend of 70’s psych americana stuff, like that smoky Doors stuff or the more stoic Beatles moments like Norwegian Wood. I talked to guy at the desk, and he told me who it was, but I already forgot. But he had a lot of real things to say about it, and clearly cared a ton, which lightened it up for me.

Gabe and I step outside and I ask him if he was bummed out at all? Tour downtime felt really stale to me. You get to this city you barely know and feel incredibly small all of a sudden, and then I guess the massive drop in relative energy it causes can put the lowlights on display.

Gabe: “Not really, I dunno dude. You’re depressing me!”

Paraphrased, and he says it with a flimsiness - he’s perfect for keeping the tour light and funny.

We get to the venue and start to load in. Up some narrow ass stairs...get to the venue. Tiny, all wooden. Wooden everything. The sound guy is a BAID-ACE (badass). Extremely positive, efficient, helpful, quick. There’s nowhere to store gear in this place. We’re basically shoving all of this shit in this 1 x12 foot (no joke) space behind the DJ booth. Which is literally the worst case scenario for gear storage.

One artist is Skeleton Lipstick - a delirious electro boy. I talk to him and ask him if he likes Tobacco, whilst in my Tobacco shirt. He does love Tobacco. We reference interviews we’ve read.

Stage is tiny, but we fit alright, and I kinda liked the feel of it.

Sound guy - “I’ll letcha know when you’ve got two left!”

Oh yeah, the person we’re staying with - she’s the inspiration for one of my songs. She shows up as we play our first tune. We get to this part where we do a transition between two songs. After the second, sound guy lets us know we have just one left. I play the song about her to close it. The songs ends in a fully distorted 1 minute synth solo, then just cuts off.

“I wanted to let you know you had two, but you jumped right into your next one!” It’s okay, sound guy. You were awesome.

We load out, which sucks. I meet up with namesake girl, and our mutual friend. She doesn’t appear to know what to say, which is fair. If someone showed up to my town to blast a dramatic orchestral synth-ballad with my name as the chorus in my face, I wouldn’t know what to do, especially in front of my friends who might not know the whole story. We’re sleeping at her place later.

The final band plays, and Gabe and I drink our discounted PBRs. I get barely tipsy and he asks if I’m drunk. For the tour, probably the drunkest I’d been, which is ‘not that.’

The really dickish door guy comes up to settle with me. Gives me this nicely written breakdown, and the payout, which is honestly not so bad. But the production fee was mega high, mostly to include the ‘promoter.’ Promoter? The guy that made the FB event page? I’m thinking so. Hella side eye.

We get outta there and get to the place we’re staying. Namesake girl comes out to help us in. She lives above like, an ethnic gift shop, I believe. Maybe it was a tattoo parlor. I forget, but it was a kitschy place of business. And in a way, you had to like enter the business to get to the stairs that lead to her place.

We get up there and we’re all sitting around and visiting for a moment, which is nice. It hadn’t happened too often at our overnights yet, so it was cool to actually have a moment of hanging out. We tell stories. No one talks about the show.

The girls turn in upstairs, and the band and I are all laying down for bed now. At this point we started doing this thing. There’s this band we played with a long while back called Noelle Tannen and the Filthy No-Nos. At the time, I kept forgetting the latter half of the name, so I picked a random filler. Like Noelle Tannen and the Green Tigers, or something. So I brought it up, and we started doing it again, for like an hour. It devolved into this super weird place.

Noelle Tannen and the stupid idiot morons.

Noelle Tannen and a couple of chairs.

Noelle Tannen and that 5th pocket they advertise on jeans, that you’re like, where the hell is it? And then you realize it’s the little pocket made for keys or whatever INSIDE of the main right pocket

So like it’s Noelle Tannen but, you walk in and there’s a huge draft and you realize you forgot to wear socks, so you put some on and it’s a bit better.

3/8 D-Ceptive

We wake up. More Noelle Tannen for like an hour. We gather our shit, and shower. I neaten up the blankets and put a note on it

“Thanks so much for letting 4 weird boys stay. Let us know if we can ever help in Nashville. Good luck with flipping cigarettes and jet lag.”

Texts,

“I hope it was more good than weird to hear a song about you.”

“Definitely a first. But good”

We stop at this cafe which is surprisingly good. I feel my throat starting to get scratchy. We talk about Aldi. Also, prior, we went into an Aldi and were like what the fuck, EVERYTHING is a knock off...and the graphic design is SO close to the original.

We get the hell outta Philly. We get 30 minutes from DC when Gabe has to pee. We pull off. First gas station we go to has no bathroom. We got to the 7/11. No bathroom. Where the hell does anyone URINATE on this street, then? We go to the McDonald’s up the street. Gabe gets a full big mac combo. He’s also been driving. Aaron makes a joke so funny that I drop my keys in the McDonalds.

We go to a suburb north of DC, and it’s amazing how robust and corporate even this suburb feels. Still plenty of tall buildings. We catch up with one of Gabe’s best friends, who’s now living here. When he has to go, Gabe and I explore a bit while Peter and Aaron do work. Metallic silver ball installation art. We come across this brewery and get a pseudo dinner and beers. Spice Girls comes on...Gabe and I have our longest heart to heart yet.

Additionally, 3/8/2017 will be forever known as Ass Wednesday.

My throat is still scratchy and I’m getting mucusy. Fuck. I have 3 more days to sing.

We reconvene, I’m feeling like Philly again, except this one’s weirder. DC’s vibe is so strange. Philly felt like, at least dingy and like you could grab hold of some of it. DC just felt like, immovable. Impossible to influence.

We get to the venue which is this teensy cramped slab inside of this bustling strip. There’s a neon sign they don’t light at any point. More narrow ass stairs. We get to the top and it is tiny - stage is an alright size, though...it’s dirty as fuck, there’s stickers everywhere. And it’s DARK as hell. It’s hard to make out anything a few feet in front of you - like the merch for example. Not that anyone’s buying. The sound guy - I can barely understand what he’s saying. I get none of the information I need without my deliberate asking. Weird to me.

The opening band plays and they were dope as hell! And they liked us a lot too. At least we got them out of this night. I hope to stay in touch with them.

It’s clear no one’s really gonna show. I ended up drawing 6 people though, which is honestly a lot! And originally it was going to be 8, but two couldn’t make it. That’s a lot more than my Philly draw. It’s a shame that the night had to be such a dud, because I felt I pulled my weight.

Peter’s amp light wouldn’t turn on, my keyboard died towards the end of the set, and my throat was scratchy. We did all right. Tear down is a bitch because we can’t see anything.

The sound guy has to ask me to tell the sound guy he’s ready to cash out. Lotta self efficacy, here. I go up and he’s legitimately laying down on his back...for real, no one could be bothered.

$10!

We get to my friend’s where we’re staying...parking is a major bitch. Crowded as hale. It’s nice to see my friend again, and we talk about Dirty Projectors and Delicate Steve.

3/9 - Long Drive To Sanctuary

We get up early because my friend has to catch a bus. We gather our shit and are all carrying respective piles of that shit down a block and a half to the van...7 hour drive ahead of us. My only stipulation is that we listen to Bitte Orca, because it’s sunnier than when I put on Swing Lo Magellan. To me that’s obviously how it goes.

As we exit DC, I see it in this totally different light...Regal. Robust. Shining, golden! Ornate. It’s all cramped, and there’s all this architecture, and all these embassies all lined up and neighboring each other, flags everywhere...as we leave, we cross an enormous white bridge, passing elegant statues. It was quite the changeup.

We stop at a Wegman’s in Woodbrige, which is contained in this shopping center, which felt so odd...sterile...like the buildings were just a little too big, and too clean - too separated from humanity. And the way the sun shone on everything, it was like a page from one of those I Spy books. This is something I think about all the fucking time and severely colors my mind, so the I Spy thing makes a ton of sense to me. Would love to know if you get what I mean, here.

We get going to Charlotte, and yes, put on Bitte Orca - we also listen to a ton of Flying Lotus, the new Thundercat, and Hiatus Coyote.

We arrive at my parent’s town house, which is in a development. We sit on the couches as a golden sunlight peers through the main window, and I think we all felt pretty tranquil.

We FEAST at Mario’s.

We get to the venue, which is definitely the diviest one yet. It’s just a scant bar with some rugs in the corner and a PA. Hella broken tiles outside the bathroom.

The opener cancels 15 minutes after he was supposed to show. Yeah. Quail Turret’s filling in.

The second band plays, I booked them because I was really diggin their album. They brought a handful of people that stood right around the perimeter of their setup and lightly head-nodded, which I thought was neat. They were good too.

We played to a bunch of my family, which is always weird. I cut the song Ironface out because I thought it would be too slow/emotional for them. E-Slow-Tional.

Door girl pays out really well! And the sound guy takes a new excitement when he says “Hey guys, definitely hit us up if you want to do it again!”

...we probs won’t

3/10 - End

We stir awake. Dad makes huge breakfast...so good. We hang out with my fam a bit, and I feel like I’m too listless to connect. It’s been a theme lately, but I guess I’ve always kind of been like that, too.

We hit Mario’s before we head to Hendersonville to get like, 3 pizzas, a salad, espressos and San Pellegrinos to go. Yeah. My dad gives us all a tour of the massive kitchen. I step out of the back door for a sec while the other guys are checking it out. I’m in like the trash room outside basically, which has an open ceiling...sun is leaking in over the edges. Thing about driving and sleeping in close quarters with 3 dudes all the time is that you don’t realize that you’ve literally had no alone time for days and days.

We get going to Hendersonville.

“What kind of heavy shit do you like?”

I put on Treats by Sleigh Bells.

We get to Hendersonville, and it’s this adorable little one road mountain town. We stop in this music store, which Peter gets willingly stuck in as he talks guitars with the old dudes. Aaron and Gabe and I come across a timbale which was hilarious to us for reasons too stupid and long to explain.

We find the coffee place we’re playing in, and it’s really cool. The point person let us know the deal and pretty much said it was gonna be dead tonight, but we could do whatever we want and call it a night an hour early.

We set up, which takes a while

“Woah...you guys have a lot of gear.”

The thing about this show is that I told the booker we were like a full out band, and he was all -yeah yeah, do you want this show or not?

We set up and it is EMPTY. I drink a free white russian and eventually a high end wine. We end up just chilling and drinking fancy teas/coffees/alcohol as per show payment. We play all of the BP songs either like half as loud or half as fast...it was pretty trippy to try out.

“Man, I’m sorry we didn’t bring anyone out. What did you guys agree on for payment over the email?”

I tell him.

“Oh….”

“What, is that way too high?”

“No, way too low…”

He pays us extra, and buys a tank top. We end up making more than philly and DC combined. How ironic that this little coffee shop in the middle of nowhere is the place that believes it’s up to THEM to bring out people...any other venue proper is pretty dickishly strict about saying “the only reason people come is if you bring people out, so all promotion is on you.” Lot of merit to the ideology, and also a lot of bullshit...if you own a venue, it’s also up to you to make sure you get some business, if you want to stay open.

We have a long drive through the night to get to Nashville, and Peter asks me what’s next for BP. So we talk about it for like 1.5 hours and it’s super energizing, and amazing how new my perspective has become on music in the past week.

I don’t think an illustrious ending is needed here. Tired and agitated, we rush the fuck home and drop everyone off.

Thanks for reading, please feel free to reach out to me.

[dustiarab]

Let’s talk money shame (And my crazy ass goal for next year)

Being in debt fucking blows.

If you’ve been there, you get it.

You’ve got this constant heaviness hanging over you.

I’ve been busting my ass double time trying to make everything happen, including asking for help a couple weeks ago to make my new apartment happen, because I’m finally getting caught up on credit cards and late payments.

But the thing with debt is that not only can you not get ahead, you can’t escape the worry that goes with it. What if there’s an emergency? What if I lose ground? What if… I’m doomed to stay in this cycle?

The reality is I don’t believe that for one second. I think I was born into poverty and systematic injustice is real. I think that people are made to feel shame when they can’t pull themselves up by their bootstraps, figure it out, and carry on. I think it’s easy (and normal and predictable) to take the occasional backwards step when you are managing to find your way out of it.

So it won’t surprise you when I tell you that, historically, I haven’t been great with money. I grew up poor, learning my money managing habits from someone who still doesn’t know how to manage their money. My siblings and I were raised in the church of 25 cent McDonald’s cheeseburgers and grandma’s canned green beans.

But I’ve also been working towards real, sustainable growth. I’m finally making a consistent living wage, so cheers to that. But, the reality is that I have a whole lotta debt I’m still carrying around. How much, you ask? Well, let’s get real for a minute.

Dusti’s Debt Breakdown

D 5465 M 1600 N 1,000.00 B 750 D 1800 G 5671 Credit Cards 4,000.00 Consumer/Personal Debt 20285.71 Student loans 36800

I’ve accumulated a grand total of 57087 in debt. 

I’m not ashamed of it. I don’t think it speaks volumes about me as a person. It’s a picture of someone who didn’t have the support network she needed, who made a handful of mistakes and has learned to do better, and was told college was her ticket out (it wasn’t – don’t go to college, guys).

But considering it’s 10,000 less than it was this time last year? I think it says I’m making progress, even if not as fast as I’d like to, and I’m trying. And now? I’m trying to get it all erased in one fell swoop.

This next year? I want to pay off every last cent of it.

Every month, I’m going to check in and tell you know about the progress I’ve made paying my debts down. I’m also going to show you exactly how much money I made freelancing. This will help me continue to stay accountable to myself (though this has been such a constant din in my ears for the past year, I’m not sure I could forget if I wanted to), as well as continue to challenge myself when it comes to rates, what something is worth, and more.

Given what I make at my job, it’s a serious reach goal. I’m going to have to try things I never have before to make it happen. Some thing will work, and more than likely, some won’t. The one rule I have for making it happen?

It has to be fun – and simple for both of us.

That’s why starting week one of January 2018, you’re going to see weekly offers from me. You can purchase them for a week (there are ten of them available), and then they are gone. I’m going to test it for a month and see what happens.

Week One of January 2018: $100 tasks.

Edit and revamp a blog post of your choice (up to 1200 words)

Create a lead magnet in one of 3 styles (standard text-heavy, standard image heavy, or mixed) with a cover using your content (up to 800 words.)

Setup your email marketing on ConvertKit with 4 automated welcome emails (you write ’em, I’ll edit ’em) – comes with a short video of how to send an email to your list.

Want to book one?

Fill out this form. And then pay $100 here. I’m getting started January 2nd.

It’s that easy. You either need it or you don’t. No long term commitment – just deliverables. Quick and easy. And hey, if I can book these every week, I reach my goal. If I can’t, I’ll try something different.

Here’s to new ideas, fresh challenges, and making it happen.

The post Let’s talk money shame (And my crazy ass goal for next year) appeared first on Dusti Arab.

from Let’s talk money shame (And my crazy ass goal for next year)

[rachelclewis]

Cohabitation

I started this blog after a breakup – a really bad one – with the idea that I was done with relationships.  I decided that I was tired of comparing myself to my ex-husband (married with two kids, while I was still single and lonely).  I decided I was done waiting for a guy to come along and stay in my life.  I was going to take myself to a sperm bank for my next birthday.  I was going to write about this process as it went along, as I made lemonade out of my sour relationship lemons.

I didn’t get far.  I went to my doctor and told her my plan.  She was discouraging.

“Your eggs are old; they won’t be very high quality anymore.”

I was 37 at the time.  I thought I was still in the window.  When was I supposed to freeze them? In my twenties?  Teens? No one told me!  My poor eggs.  I knew I had passed the ideal age, but I imagined there was still some green in my inner garden.  Suddenly I saw my eggs, not as colorful uncut blooms, but as the dusty and mold spotted roses rotting away on Miss Havisham’s wedding cake in Great Expectations.  Intended for a joyful event that never took place.

“Have you thought about adoption?” my doctor asked.

I did.  I thought a lot about it.  I certainly wasn’t opposed to it.  I did contemplate the fact that it is much cheaper to make a baby from scratch than to adopt one.  But the real deterant to me was the the fact that I would have to convince a number of people that I would be fit and capable of doing it on my own.  The sperm bank doesn’t have that obligation.  And I imagine they take credit cards.

The thought did leave me with the question… Could I prove to some strangers that I would be a good single parent?  If not, what did that mean? Would I be a good single parent?  I’ve got a paycheck, insurance and a spare room.  But it’s just me.  There’s no fall back plan.  If something happens to me, what happens to the baby?  Would bringing a child into the world, or even just my life, be a terribly selfish thing to do?

I decided it was.  And that was the end of that lemonade stand.

Let me say with full caps for emphasis: I AM NOT SAYING THAT SINGLE MOTHERS ARE SELFISH!!! THAT IS NOT WHAT I REMOTELY THINK OR FEEL!!!  I just decided that I didn’t have the resources to do it.  I have an amazing family, amazing friends, and I’m living a rich life that a part of me would love to share with a child.  The rest of me, however, is afraid.  Afraid I don’t have the physical or mental staminal to handle it.  Afraid that I would be too anxious or too sad to do it well.  And what if I get injured or sick and slide into destitution or a coma…?  As it stands, I already lie awake worrying about things like this.  If a little person were depending on me and only me?  I don’t think I could function.

ONCE MORE! FOR EMPHASIS! THAT IS JUST ME!  THE WORLD IS FULL OF AMAZING SINGLE PARENTS WHO KICK ASS ON A DAILY BAISIS AND I HONOR YOUR CHOICES AND YOUR AWESOMENESS!

Also, I heard a story on the radio about a woman whose 35 year old autistic son took a shit in the back of her car, and it terrified me so much I couldn’t blink for forty-five minutes.  So, just in case I implied that I am NOT selfish, that’s not what I meant.  I am.  I’m completely selfish.  That may be the real problem.

Anyway, that was three years ago.  And I did move on with my life.  I sold my condo and bought a house.  I got a promotion at work and that was a good thing.  I found other ways to connect with the children that were already in my life.  I focused on being the best damn aunt that I could be.

I didn’t want a relationship.  Frankly, the pain just wasn’t worth the reward.  I was never going to throw that much time and energy and love away on anyone ever again.  But time passed and – like I always do – I started losing my resolve.  Because I got lonely.  And I have these coupled friends that I hang out with and they make it seem so… possible.  So, I got back out there.  I met somebody.  And yada yada yada… my boyfriend and his five-year-old son moved in with me in September, just after my 40thbirthday.

So far, it is going really well.  I was worried I would feel invaded and have a hard time downsizing enough of my stuff to make space for “the boys” (two human males and one snake that I am told is male; I haven’t verified).  There were a few pieces of furniture that I gave to charity that were harder to let go than they should have been.  Perhaps because they were things that I bought immediately after the divorce and it were emblematic of my independence?  I bought them during the first period in my life when I had the freedom to choose a piece of furniture for myself.  First, I had to figure out what my own “taste” was, and I honestly had no idea.  I chose a few things, including a red armless chair and a faux leather trunk, that may well have been completely ugly, but they were new.  And all mine.  It was a scary, fun, and luxurious place to be.  Maybe giving those things away felt like closing of a chapter on my life, and that’s the issue?  Even though I wanted to close that chapter.

Or maybe I just liked that chair and that trunk and now I don’t have them anymore.  I guess I don’t need to get all Freudian about it.

My other concern was for Ethan, the kindergartener.  He expressed enthusiasm over moving in from the beginning.  He most often expressed excitement about getting to live with Wensley, because apparently moving in meant that the dog “will officially be my big brother!”  There was one other time that he told me he was really excited to come and live with me because I have Blu-ray, but mostly it was all about Wensley.

Still, I was concerned.  I was worried that once he saw his stuff in his new room in my little 1940’s house, he would realize just how much smaller it is than the one he had in his 2010’s town house.  He didn’t have a backyard at the town house, but there was a playground with a slide and swings.  And the old living room was more accommodating to wrestling.  Similarly, the old couch was more suitable for cannon-balls and similar.  I had the idea that I would set up his room with all of his old things but also put up a few new things that he could get excited about to distract him from the habitat shrinkage.  So I set about doing one of those HDTV makeovers, but on a much smaller budget.

First I got a Totoro night light.  You can choose if you want the stomach or the umbrella to be lit.  (When I turn it on for him at night I ask him, “Belly or brawly?”)  Then I got a large wall decal showing an X-wing and TIE Fighter battle over the fate of the death star from any one of the Star Wars movies (am I the only one who has noticed that they all seem to end the same way?).  His rug is five foot Millennium Falcon and his light switch cover says “Light Side / Dark Side.”  Admittedly, that last one was for me. Ethan will appreciate it when he is older, I’m sure.  But puns are not the natural purview of five-year olds.

Ethan got a tour of his room and he loved it.  Matt even helped make the light switch a success by acting out the difference between “light side” and “dark side” at the speed of Ethan’s switching.

It was a little strange because we were heading up to Idaho that day for a long planned visit to see Matt’s parents, so Ethan got to see his room but not stay in it that night.  While we were in Idaho Ethan and I were hanging out in Matt’s childhood room, looking through his old knickknacks.  We were blowing dust off sports trophies and holding sea shells up to our ears to listen for the ocean while Matt and his parents talked in the other room. Ethan put down his sea shell and told me again how excited he had been to move in with me.

“Daddy said we were moving and I said, let’s move Friday!”

I laughed. “Yeah, it took a little time to get it all planned.  We still have a lot of unpacking to do.  But I’m glad you are happy about it!  I’m happy too.”

Then he looked me in the eye and said, “You and Dad made a really good choice.”  I know it sounds like I’m putting words in his mouth, or like I don’t know how to write children’s dialogue.  But he talks like he is 28.  He just does.

I was charmed and more than a little bit verklempt.  He’s such a sweet kid; of course he wasn’t focused on the size of his room, or his stuff in general.  He’s been through a lot in his five years, and he is good at making lemonade, too.   I felt like he was telling me he’s glad I’m in his life, Totoro night light or no.  It suddenly occurred to me that he is gaining more than a dog and a yard – he’s gaining me, too.  I’m glad so glad he thinks that is a good thing.