#but apparently you have to RESTART the fucking app for it to actually take

[waterme-stories]

Haha hey HBO Max, maybe when you autoplay episodes you shouldn't do it a full 60 seconds before the current episode hits credits 😅

Not like the last minute of that TLOU episode was super important to the plot or anything 😅😅😅

[literaphobe]

im literally so confused abt what even is linguistics bc im a rare breed of gay who can do math and LIKE it but good luck with ur little trees and Hz's of sounds <3 i hate making trees can't imagine how u must be feeling

also can i ask how info systems was in general? bc i was kinda thinking taking that program but it sounds stressful

hhhhh my suggestion is don’t take it up if you don’t have experience in coding.... because if you’ve never done it before there’s no guarantee that you’ll be good because it’s a Whole other skillset. plus information systems involves like. business stuff. so you’ll be doing projects where u pretend to make an app or you’re leading a fake company and just. lots of dumb business stuff but it’s IT which. ew HAHAHAHA like u gotta give presentations and stuff and tbh i could like. somewhat do p ok at the non coding stuff but it was still like. whatever. it was kinda cool sometimes tho because i once gave a presentation about p much nothing for two minutes and my teacher was crazy impressed with me. he was like everyone else was either ok or sucked but Michelle was excellent.... “THAT is how you give a speech” he said. it was so funny because the content of my speech was nothing. it was my group mates that were saying the real stuff. anyway unless ur neurotypical and really good at math and also really eloquent and good at speaking i don’t suggest u take it up like if ur super good at math and interested in coding just be a computing major NFJDJDJDJD

like. i’m also really good at math but there’s a difference between solving a math question where the time u actually take to write down the solution is short whereas coding... ok let me say it like this. math. u solve the question. coding. u solve the question, then you TEACH the computer to solve the question and u gotta do it by typing very specific things in a very specific way. which is like memorization. and i don’t like having to memorize things. it’s not that i can’t it’s that i don’t want to and not wanting to do something is like. game over for me fjdjjdjdjd so. uh. i’m better at application. math is applying formulas, English is applying grammar rules, put simply, so yeah. i’m an English and math gay and that’s why people were scared of me in school fjdjdjdjdj but also for a lot of it i had untreated adhd. when my adhd was untreated i was like a wild card. maybe i’ll do something academically impressive. maybe i’ll get the worst grades in the whole class. when i was on concerta i still didn’t really study but i had the advantage of actually being able to process the things i hear and see on a daily basis. which. is a normal thing neurotypicals have apparently. sometimes i would accidentally forget to take my pill (v rare those days but it happened) and i would be like. it was like someone had crippled me. in the lecture. nothing. everyone making background noise. cannot filter anything. it was a nightmare. adhd is. a nightmare

anyway linguistics also. u have to remember things but uh. it’s WAY WAY WAY better than fucking CODING like. so yeah. i badly want to restart my degree because i wasn’t on my meds properly for most of it and i haven’t taken my meds in like a year. my grades are like. all over the place. it’s embarrassing and i just wanna. start afresh. i’ve applied to change my degree like twice but this time i wanna explain my adhd and going off my meds properly. and SPECIFICALLY ask to get a clean slate. meaning i’ll have to retake several classes and choose not to take several classes and do new ones instead but. it is what it is. it also probably maybe might not work but..... the least i can do is try

[girl4music]

My review of the XBOX Series X

So I’ve had nearly a full week with the XBOX Series X and here is my honest opinion on my experience with it and this is my initial review of it. I’m not gonna talk about the technology or go into anything about the console’s hardware too deeply. I will talk about the features and benefits it offers. Going into some things that work and don’t work as well as promised by Microsoft and XBOX. Finally, I will talk about all the bugs and issues that I experienced and found most annoying. Most of which have already been identified and reported. 

First up, be aware that I am coming from an XBOX 360 as my last XBOX console experience so I may say stuff that applies to the XBOX One as well.

1. BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY AND AUTO HDR: Microsoft promised that the XBOX Series X and S would work right out of the box with 1000’s of gaming titles across 4 generations. This promise holds up… However, they do not run anywhere half as well as they also promised they would. They do run better than their native platform, that is true. But it’s not a groundbreaking difference. And AUTO HDR doesn’t really work with most games that never had it to begin with. It makes the colours and textures look really odd and you don’t get that nostalgic feeling of playing an old legacy title because of the “updates”. Which is something I was very much looking forward to. It’s pick your poison I guess. You can either have a legacy game running better and looking greater on a platform that can take the graphical fidelity and framerate boosts, or have a full reunion with your beloved legacy games from your childhood. You can turn AUTO HDR off via the main console settings, but this still doesn’t really give you the latter. Not in my personal opinion anyway. It’s not disappointing as it’s not something I really expected. I just would have liked to have it. Nostalgia >>> Shiny any day.

2. QUICK RESUME AND LOADING TIMES: The XBOX Series X (can’t speak for the S) has significantly improved on speed thanks to the custom lightning fast and functional SSD. So much so that you can now travel between multiple games fully loaded up on the SSD within the time of a few seconds. However, quick resume is not only useful to be able to play between 3 or 4 games (more according to YouTube influencers who have tried and tested this out far more than me) in one sitting. You can also effectively use it to save your game. Or rather… Replace save states IN a game. What quick resume allows you to do is keep your game saved at ANY point, and completely SHUT the console down and UNPLUG it for several days (or longer, again, never tested it that far) and then PLUG it in and switch it ON again, and come back to exactly where you left off in the game. And I do mean EXACTLY WHERE YOU LEFT OFF!

For example; you could be in an all-important boss fight in ‘Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla’ and be so frustrated with not being able to beat this boss after trying many times. You could indeed just pause the game, come out to the dashboard, turn the console off and walk away from it all…. And when you came back to have another go at it, you would not have to restart the boss fight and just carry on with where you left off in chopping down their health. I did this several times because I suck at boss fights… And every time, this worked and it was the strategy that got me through them all. So a little cool off time is more than affordable with the XBOX Series X. And if you hate boss fights, suddenly you won’t hate boss fights as much anymore if you do the same. It makes a world of a difference to your experience. Believe me, quick resume is a literal life-saver.

To add to that, you also benefit from much quicker load times both with booting up the games and in-game fast-travelling or level-entering. Instead of 5 minutes waiting for a game to boot up into the main campaign or wherever,… It will take at most up to 50 seconds for the most power-taxing of games. 'Grand Theft Auto 5' for instance, known for it’s notoriously long boot into story or online mode… Now only takes 10 seconds from the company title advertisements to get into the area of the game you want to play. It is so fast that you do not have the time to read the tips and tricks dialogue that takes up the screen during the initial loading. It’s honestly a quality of life you never even knew you needed or was missing until you had it.

3. BUGS AND ISSUES: Being that I bought the XBOX Series X at Launch (November 10th), I very much expected it to come with a plethora of bugs and issues to discover and be witness to as a consumer and user of newly developed and released hardware and software. And these bugs and issues have already been identified and reported to Microsoft and the respective console and game developers. Bugs where you cannot play games that offer 4K at 120 hertz (4K/120fps) without visual and audial distortions or even without turning the game off altogether. I particularly had trouble with this in trying to play ‘Rise Of The Tomb Raider' 20 Year Celebration edition. Once I downloaded it from the XBOX Store fully, (which took a LONG FUCKING TIME, we’ll get on to that in a bit), I immediately tried to play it and because my display settings were set at 4K/120 because I have a TV that supports that setting, it was having all sorts of problems in booting up. There was all this distortion happening on screen both visually and audially that I thought my ultra high speed HDMI cable that came with the console was broken or faulty. I also remember specifically that it kept turning my Game Mode on and off rapidly and I didn’t know how to stop it avoiding a full reset of the console. This game was the worst for it but it also happened in other games I tried to play too. Including those I had as physical disks.

Speaking of… I did not encounter the ���black/blank screen of death” issue other next-gen XBOX consumers and users did where you would enter a game disk and be met with a black or blank screen. BUT I did have trouble with downloading the “updates” for the games I had bought physically. I expected the games I downloaded digitally to take a long time to download fully, but I figured that it would be much quicker for the “updates” for physical games. This was not the case, and for some games, it actually took LONGER. I don’t know why this happens or if it can even be fixed in a firmware update, but it has put me off buying games physically for it, which is certainly not a good thing for store game retailers. And I’m someone who actually cares about that and would want to help them out as much as possible since they are a dying breed. But if it takes longer to download physical games than to download digital games, I’m not sure I can hold up that promise. The time it takes to download is a major frustration for me. I’ll be leaving my console on for long periods of time doing nothing but downloading that I otherwise wouldn’t. And I’ve got to say right now that I am glad I do not have an OLED TV where this would be much more of a problem due to burn-in risks. I would highly suggest anyone who is buying a new TV for their XBOX Series X or S with all the bells and whistles to not buy an OLED for this reason. Leaving an OLED TV on with a display picture that never moves for hours at a time would severely decrease it’s life and usage capacity. I recommend a Samsung QLED TV instead. That’s what I’ve got. I bought their Q95T 55inch 4K TV for gaming alone and it has not disappointed in the slightest. But I won’t go into why it’s the better TV to buy for next-gen gaming since this is not a TV review. You can look that up for yourselves at your leisure.

Another issue the XBOX Series X has is with its sharing image snapshots and video clips feature. The new controller for the console has a dedicated share button and that works really well. I’ve had no problems with it capturing the content that I want to share. But sharing to social media and to XBOX Live itself is the issue. And this happens with video clips more so than image snapshots. For some reason, when I go to share a video clip to Twitter, the load bar moves forward partly but then it immediately stops and gives me a black/blank screen. And sure enough, when I go to check my Twitter on my phone, it has not posted the video clip. And trying to share it to XBOX Live first and then share it to Twitter from my phone via the XBOX app doesn’t work either. The same issue applies here too. Black/blank screen when trying to share it to XBOX Live. Snapshot images also has this issue but every once in awhile it will allow you to share to both XBOX Live and social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch ect…) whereas it will not allow you to share video clips at all. This is an issue Microsoft are aware of and are apparently fixing in a November firmware update at the end of the month. To what degree they fix it though is the real question because this feature is buggy as hell. So much for promoting and hyping up that dedicated share button on the controller, eh Phil Spencer and Co?

Well, that’s it. That’s been my experience with the XBOX Series X so far. Of course the pros of quick resume and loading times cut in half far outweigh the cons of faulty 4K resolution at 120 hertz gameplay and buggy sharing content features. I say do not let that put you off buying this fantastic piece of hardware because those bugs and issues can be fixed easily. The extremely long downloading for digital and physical games might not though and you might want to reconsider buying a next-gen XBOX console if you have an OLED TV. Or if you have the console already but not the TV to get the most advantages out of the console, consider buying a Samsung QLED instead. Thank you.

[musashden]

Apparently I had a virus on my mac...

I know right? How, you ask? Well I go to dirty, dangerous websites, duh. Anyway it had to be the most annoying little shit virus ever because no matter what search engine I used - I could be on Googles main page and search - that shit would redirect my search to Yahoo. 

Like excuse you bitch. If I wanted shitty results I would’ve asked for them thank you.

Who the hell uses Yahoo to search? Probably the same people who still use it for emails.

Keep in mind I’m old enough to remember when both Google and Yahoo made their debut. Google improved - Yahoo... did not. It might as well be Excite or Angelfire with how just... no it is. Just ‘no’ to Yahoo as a search engine. Fuck off.

It turns out this whole thing was caused by a malware called: BrowseMapper It infiltrated my system during a download, more than likely hitching a ride from a site called ‘savefromthenet’ I use to steal/save videos. Fuck you. Too many times I’ve come back to a bookmarked/favorited video only to find that shit had been deleted from the fucking planet. 

ANYWAY - this malware BrowseMapper somehow disabled my popup blockers as well and I didn’t notice for some days when I came here and there was just bullshit ads everywhere - you know how tumblr ads do - they’re annoying and the stock photo never has anything to do with what they’re advertising.

SO! Several searches on my laptop later (my desktop was infected, laptop was fine) I find the litter fucker wannabe app hiding where apps don’t go on a mac, got rid of it and boom. All better. 

TL;DR - The way to actually get rid of it is as follows: 

Go to Safari Preferences -> Extensions -> Hit uninstall: it claims that BrowseMapper.app is using the extension and to uninstall you have to delete it  in the finder. Hit ‘ok/open in finder’ - DO THIS!! It’s the only way to find the folder it’s actually hiding in. It’s probably the only thing in there, two apps probably - delete everything with the name ‘BrowseMapper’ -> Uninstall -> empty the bin and restart Safari

Hopefully this helps anyone else with this ‘Yahoo Redirect Malware’ that I think Yahoo came up with so people will use their shitty search engine and remember they exist.

Side note it was effecting all of my browsers - on any given day for any given reason I use three different ones (Safari, Firefox and Chrome). It’s mostly cause I’m paranoid and each browser blocks certain tracker better. 

Good luck out there. My federal agent says take it easy.

[jhope-seok]

I have a lot of things to say about Tinder.

This is a personal rant about idiot boys on tinder. So if you’d like to read my CRAZY FUCKING ESCAPADES IN THE DATING WORLD. PLEASE. GO AHEAD. CLICK READ MORE. IT’LL BE INTERESTING. And fun. To watch me implode then explode.

Warnings: mentions of sex/sexting, lots of cursing, men being disgusting--potentially triggering, and one angry ass woman.

Warning part 2: this is A LOOOONG ASS POST, probably with a lot of grammatical errors. It’s 2am. (just so we’re all aware, it’s about 2.3k worth of ranting plus pictorial evidence)

So here’s the thing about me and tinder. I’ve been on the thing since I was in college, probably around junior year when I really came into the realization of my sexuality/being a pansexual person. Keep in mind this was like.....5 or 6 years ago now. I was interested in exploring my options, exhausted from going to countless frat parties and having random makeout sessions with boys who never asked for my number, and/or went on to makeout with the next girl they found at the party. Over the years I have collected an INFLUX of over 1,000 matches. I am not saying this number to brag, I am saying this number to give you an idea of how much of a credible fucking source I am when I present my case. And my case is as such.

ALL MEN ON TINDER ARE THE FUCKING. ABSOLUTE. WORST.

For perspective I have also dabbled in the following dating apps:

OKCupid (absolutely horrid. don’t do it. the shit i went through on this app....just. don’t get me started. I could make a whole other post about the atrocities of this site)

HER (really sad option for lesbian/bi/pan/women looking for other women)

Bumble (pretty successful but forcing the woman to speak first is annoying as hell and then giving a STRAIGHT MALE ONLY 24 HOURS TO RESPOND. Utter hell.)

Hinge (just...downright annoying)

CrossPaths (for christians. Honestly a good idea. Poorly executed. Poorly advertised).

Badoo (honestly...what the fuck)

Coffee Meets Bagel (good idea; too complicated)

Skout (nope)

The Game by Hot or Not (i don’t remember using this but my phone says it’s in my cloud)

And probably some others I can’t remember

What you should take away from this list is that

I’m a needy bitch

I was VERY DESPERATE at times

And i’ve tried a LOT OF OPTIONS.

therefore: don’t comment on this saying: well this worked, well that worked, try this, try that. No. Tinder is still one of the only options that actually works consistently and will continue to work because it is one of the least complicated among the dating apps.

Now. To my point that all men on tinder are the absolute fucking worst.

Time for some examples.

I will not be using these people’s real names, because that’s just mean. So I will present them to you in cases.

Case #1:

Me and this man matched about a year and a half ago, end of 2016. We were unable to meet up because I had a bunch of plans going on--at the time I worked in a law firm and my commute was hell so i only had time to go on dates on the weekends. And being that it was december I was busy every...single...weekend. Which he was fine with! (Awww what a kind gentlemen). No.

He had made it pretty clear from the beginning that he was really only in it for the sex. which for me at the time was fine. I let him know that I didn’t just fuck around on the first date. I lived--and still do live--with my mother and so he couldn’t just come over whenever and i couldn’t just leave whenever i wanted to spend the night at his place in D.C. He said that was fine. However, apparently he was not fine with that.

We talked for a month, lots of sexting, lots of naked snaps, whatever, whatever, we were basically waiting to jump each others bones. But I had also told him that I did not fuck on the first date. I had a rule. I would not break that rule. Again, he said he was fine with that.

On our first date--in a CROWDED RESTAURANT--for brunch, he kept whispering to me about how he wanted to push all of our plates off the table and fuck me in front of all those people. I politely told him to shut up because there were people sitting less than two feet away from us and that was inappropriate for sunday brunch to be talking like that (how proper of me....). Anyways, I let him walk me to my car in a garage, and as we approached it he came up behind me and forcefully turned me around to kiss him. I was like “ooh how hot. I like this.” Anyways, I drove him to his car, we made out a little, then we went on our separate ways. We had a second date not much longer after that, where we had agreed to go out to dinner BUT that first we were gonna fuck in his car. So we met up in a garage and we waited for the cars around us to leave and then we made out, and i sucked his dick. I did N O T let him have sex with me because I was annoyed that he was trying to push me to it--he had a daddy kink--and kept saying “ooh how hard do you want daddy to fuck you”. I said “You can only fuck me when I say you can, and I say no.” thank god he respected my boundaries. So I sucked him dry, then he “MAGICALLY” got a call from his work calling him in. I barely heard from him after that. Because he told me I should come over and spend the night so we could fuck. I said no. He ghosted me.

Case #2--Who knows:

Soooo many fucking men. Have ghosted me. For no reason. Like we’ll have a good few opening lines. And then....nothing. Forever. Where in the FUCK DID YOU GO?! Did you find someone better? Did you grow uninterested with our conversation?! Did you forget how to speak the English language? Did you decide you regretted swiping on me? The worst is when they don’t unmatch you and then it’s just left there....hanging.

Case #whatever:

The fucking men who ask if it’s okay to text. And then don’t text.

I don’t even remember this dude’s NAME in the first place to omit it, but we got into an argument because he supports the store brand cheese puff that is America’s president, and I matched him only so I could yell at him (yeah I know...whatever...I like to prove my dominance and tell boys why they’re wrong. Also because half of the time I use dating apps just to have conversations with people because I’m bored). Anyways. we got in this heated debate and he was like “I like your fire, you should text me here’s my number ____” blah. So I texted him cause i was interested enough in our debate to continue it. THE BITCH NEVER ANSWERED ME. LITERALLY....FOR MONTHS. PROBABLY OVER A YEAR. And then out of fucking nOWHERE he responds like “hey who is this again?” Dude...... NO.

Case #The Never Ending Message Senders:

These men are the worst. So I should explain myself first. I don’t really ever unmatch someone unless it’s for a good reason. Like they’re being disgusting, racist, homophobic, gross, call me fat, ugly, whatever. For the most part I don’t unmatch with someone because in the old days of tinder, unmatching would just PUT THE PERSON BACK IN YOUR CIRCUIT (good job tinder). I’m assuming they did this in case you deleted your tinder, or your app crashed and you had to restart, or you accidentally unmatched someone, whatever. So I don’t unmatch for the sole reason that I don’t want these jerks, who never took the time to respond to my hello or witty opening statement, back in my playing field. I don’t revisit my old matches, I don’t try to restart conversations with them.

If only men could learn the same fucking thing. I have so many men who CONSTANTLY message me. I’m talking like once in every blue moon. It’s like they let the conversation lie for a while, and then BAM another message. The ones I do actually unmatch are the ones that don’t wait a while. They just constantly message, hour after hour after hour until I either respond or unmatch. I don’t know a woman who WOULD respond after having gotten 10 messages of the same “Hello? You there?” “Member me?” (yes one dude has actually said “member me” to me. Not ���remember me”...”member me”) etc. etc. in the course of a few hours. Take the hint dude. Please. I don’t enjoy being ghosted, but I know when to take a hint.

A perfect example of such case is the following!

(Context: I just updated the pictures in my tinder account today! So through tinder’s cool new facebook timeline! you can see when your matches update their profiles. to scroll through and judge them even further to see if they’ve gotten cuter or uglier through time).

Please take note of the dates attached to the message. For clarification, “today” is August 27th, 2018!

I have since unmatched him. Buddy. Please. Take the hint. (Also, how fucking creepy of him to say that I’ve gotten closer since a while back....like are you tracking my distance every time you message me? Please dear lord, no).

Case #THE IDIOTS WHO WAIT YEARS TO RESPOND.

This. THIS. THIIIIIS RIGHT HERE. IS WHAT HAS GOT MY BLOOD BOILED SO MUCH I NEEDED TO MAKE THIS POST. THE FUCKING IDIOTS WHO MATCH WITH ME. AND THEN CLAIM THAT THEY DELETED THEIR TINDER. OR THAT THEY LOST THEIR PHONE. JUST REDOWNLOADED. DIDN’T SEE MY MESSAGE. FOR FUCKING. YEARS.

OOOOOOOH BOY. You’ve gotta have some damn nerve to pull that shit. If you lost the app, deleted it, got a new phone, WHATEVER. Your profile would not continue to show up on the matching feed. People would not be able to swipe on your face to find that they matched with you. You would not exist in the eyes of tinder. You would be GONE from the system.

So don’t pull that shit with me. So many dudes have had the audacity to pull this shit with me, and when I call them out on it, most of the time I get either one of three responses: they say “oof yeah I’m sorry, I’m a dick can we move on?”, “Hahaha sorry” and then they continue to ghost me, or people who pull the shit I listed above.

These next photos are from THE SAME DAY AS THE PREVIOUS PHOTOS. Please take note of the date of the first message. (“today” in this sense is technically August 28, 2018 because it’s past midnight.)

Although I deleted his name, I gotta say. My insult was pretty on point. Anyways.

Like how the fuck can you live with yourself with that fucking lie?! Own up to that shit. Be like “yep oops sorry, didn’t think you were cute the first time but this snapchat filter making u look damn good” like don’t be a DOUCHE DUDE. Men are just honestly so fucking frustrating. And yes you better fucking believe I sent that reason for unmatching to tinder. You best fucking BELIEVEEEEEEE I did that. I’m so fucking mad at men. Like how in the hell.

I’ve HONESTLY had better luck matching with MARRIED COUPLES on tinder than I have had with straight men. Married couples at least know how to respect people. God damn.

YOUR MOTHERS DID NOT RAISE YOU TO BE LIKE THIS, MEN. LEARN HOW TO BE DECENT HUMAN BEINGS. JESUS CHRIST.

All in all, if you’ve ever toyed with the idea of downloading tinder: Don’t. Stay out of the fucking awful shit that is Tinder and dating apps for as long as you can. I have my settings set up to men in their 30s, and honestly older men do not mean more mature men. Just absolutely frustrating.

Also, as an addendum: 

Case #Don’t put my height in my bio/or do and say “Cause I guess it’s important/matters”

To all males on the planet earth: PUT. YOUR. FUCKING. HEIGHT. IN. YOUR. BIO. It fucking matters. As a tall as woman, it is so fucking annoying to match with a cute dude and then have them say “Hey I’m 5′2″ is that okay?” um....no. I’m sorry buddy. That is not okay. I have strict height limits for this ride and 5′2″ does not pass the riding restrictions.

We’re gonna call in a CELEBRITY SHOT for this story, I matched with this dude on bumble who didn’t have his height in his profile. (Context: my bumble profile says “5′10″ cause it doesn’t matter” <--a nice jab at all the straight dudes out there) and we go about having this great conversation, we’re clicking, he knows one of my friends from college, we bond, we go on a date. THE FIRST THING OUT OF THIS ASSHOLE’S MOUTH ON OUR DATE WAS “WOW. You’re taller than I expected.” BITCH HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CAN U READ. IT’S THE FIRST THING IN MY BIO.

Sub case: I once had a guy match with me, tell me he was shorter than me, then asked me if I would be okay owning him as my slave. I understand and respect everyone’s fetishes, considering I have a slight dominance fetish as well, but a hello would have been nice first.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[rigelmejo]

literally reading hanshe feels like reading one of those graded readers now. past self u would be so happy. like actually. that’s not an exageration. nearly all ‘unknown’ words now are words I know but still look up because I forgot the tones (mo, wo, zuan 攥 means squeeze by the way the writer likes to write ‘squeezed his phone’ like i’d write ‘clutched’ and i always look it up to remember how its pronounced). or its the words ‘suspicious’ or ‘uncertain’ - whenever i see THOSE two words specifically i am not quite sure which word means which until i click the definition. the entire experience right now is a LOT like when i read Mandarin Companion Sherlock and a few chapters in new most of the words vaguely but needed confirmation/clarification.

Also present self me is a freaking coward lol ToT. now that its easier my brain is like ‘oh man Guardian oh man Silent Reading oh man Qi Ye idk if we’re ready for that’

when like. 8 months into learning i picked up those books and tried to read with no dictionary and followed the plot. yes it was exhausting and idk how the hell i managed it. but it was something that Could be done. So of COURSE now that I know more words and literally know a chapter takes 15-30 minutes to read (compared to 1-1.5 hours when I started reading Tian Ya Ke at first), i’m too lazy.

back then, i know what i was thinking. i was thinking ‘if i read a priest novel in a dictionary Reader app i’ll have to click a ton of words and i’m lazy’ so ‘its easier to just read a page with NO dictionary and guess some stuff from context and slide past the rest.’ Which... no it was not easier. Yes it took less physical movement on the part of my hands lol and opening/closing a definition pop up. But reading without a dictionary reference was extremely mentally draining. Hence i eventually made myself go read with the dictionary Reader anyway lol.

now my brain is like ‘well look how easy reading is on the Reader - i know nearly all words and just click at a glance for anything that might take effort to guess and bam its figured out.’ versus ‘oh god if i pick up a print book i will just have to feel mentally drained as i try to puzzle this out.’ even though... i read print Guardian like... 3 weeks ago without a dictionary just fine. i’m just lazy. it wasn’t even that draining if i read the english translation chapter first. that gave me enough context to just relax and read. the Only effort i had to put in was seeing new hanzi and trying to remember them based on radicals/guess their vague pronunciation (since with my digital Reader app i just click at a glance for that). and i know... if i tried to do ‘guardian on reader app versus print guardian’ i would pick print guardian in a heartbeat. 1 because its STILL easier in my brain then having to click many words lol (truly just pausing my reading annoys me lol even if only for a moment), and 2 my print copy has scenes ONLY in the print edition of the novel and i want to know what they are. I read 3 print chapters so far and EACH of them had a few paragraphs to a few PAGES of scenes not in the webnovel version. 

anyway i’m just. going to keep reading hanshe for now. 1. because its getting very easy, and extensive reading (when you actually KNOW most words - not the ‘extensive’ reading i do where i just brute force it even tho i only comprehend like 80%) is supposed to be one of the easiest ways to improve vocab and reading skill. 2. because this baby is 155 chapters and im on chapter 41 and i want to FINISH it. desperately. 3. 155 chapters is a LOT of reading practice. the fact its now something i can read easier just means it will be less draining/more enjoyable practice. and the more practice the easier future reading things will be. better hanshe then to switch to a new story i know less of the author’s vocab for, and whats worse not getting to finish hanshe cause i’ve distracted myself ;-;. because i just love to jump stories but then i finish none that i want to finish since i read chinese so slow T-T. let me finish this oneeee. 

4. hanshe is ridiculously compelling? this writer GETS me. they know just what to write to keep me hooked. its like the perfectly paced mystery/supernatural situation with romance and found family and i ;-;. this writer is great <3. also i love original plots when done well and the many case arcs with their own morals and intensely memorable characters make me feel like im reading a really good mystery writer. 5. you have no idea how much i wanna go back and finish tamen de gushi - that was only 40 chapters i’d have had it done lol. BUT its not written this fast paced/want to know whats next like hanshe the mysteries fic, and i probably would start slow again due to author change of style and word choice. and hanshe has a happy ending whereas tamen de gushi may anihilate me. also i would. literally just restart hanshe Again if i left it ToT i dont wanna do 40 chapters again.

when will i suck it up and just read guardian? when will i accept i can’t be a perfectionist cause i’ll never understand it perfectly, so i should just read? when will i have the courage i apparently fucking possessed in month 8 knowing barely anything but am now too lazy for lol.

on a serious note though. i’m really happy with my reading progress right now. hanshe is really enjoyable to read, and i can’t believe i read 40 chapters in a month.

甭 fun hanzi i learned recently from hanshe. this one is ‘beng’ and is bu-yong contracted. its literally ‘bu’ hanzi on top of ‘yong’. saves space. saves how many words u gotta say. like ‘don’t’.  ‘bu yong - beng’ 甭 i love that visually its also a contraction since its just the usual hanzi only as a single one instead of 2. 

[sea-kingsolace]

2020

I know its only the 30th but who cares. The year is basically over to me. So much has happened, both in terms of happiness and in sadness. What an emotional roller coaster ride. 

Starting off the year thinking that I would end up with a guy (Lets call him A) that could have been my everything but what I got out of it was the constant dark thoughts and self doubt. To top it off, I was in the midst of completing my degree when everything went to shit. This was the time that I needed him the most yet he chose to distant himself from me. Slowly pulling away from me due to the possibility of me not giving him what he wanted (aka, sex). 

Then circuit breaker happened and I was almost losing my mind. But thankful that I had friends that was there with me virtually. Hazel, Huda, Shabby, Naim, Matt and so on. These were the ones who was always either on the phone with me, or video calling cause we were all dying of boredom from the circuit breaker. By this time, A was no longer in my life and I refused to go back on to the dating app because its obvious that whoever went on that app during that time was just looking for company. I didnt need that, I had my friends. So instead invested alot of time on CODM. Thats how Shafiq (Aka, matter tk menjadi) came into the picture and since then we became close friends (Who whould have thought right?! Virtual friend ley!)

Post circuit breaker; finally got to see everyone physically and not through a stupid screen no more. This was the start of getting myself to meet new people and go out on dates. There were good/ great ones that I've met and then there’s those that are just creepy as hell. At this point, still jobless and still hoping to find a full time job in the arts industry, or any industry during this time. - Ok side track abit, I did went on a few interviews but somehow I never really gotten any offers. I think I don't do well with virtual interviews. I don't know myself man. - At this point in life I was trying to find a partner that would be patient with me, knowing that I did not have anything to give him for the future just yet. I was hoping to find someone that would understand my state of mind that I will not always be as bright as day, but I do have my dark thoughts and just days where I would sound very off. But I know its hard to find someone when I myself am bait fucked up. I realise that I'm still so afraid to speak up on how im feeling about the way someone treats me. I guess it still all falls back to Radhi. 

I realise that the scars he left behind in me still lingers deep into my bones. Im afraid of speaking up about how I feel. I overthink way too much on certain situations. I over analyse every little detail. I picked up those small habits that he once did to me and now im doing it to someone else. Which was why Adi was mad at me at how I treated my date (Lets call him J). Because whatever I wrote to him, was exactly what Radhi would have done in the past. And to think about it, it actually is kinda scary that even though you tell yourself that you wouldn't want to be anything like your ex boyfriend, somehow, somewhere you just ended up like him. 

To reflect back, 2020. The number of guys ive met, the number of hands ive held, the number of hugs that I thought made me feel safe, everything. Was actually alot for me to take in. Having to restart again with every single guy that ive met on that dating app. I think to myself, until when will this stop? I just don't have the energy to reintroduce myself, talk about my likes or my dislikes, talk about what I want for my future, talk about my needs (Because apparently sex is super common nowadays in the dating world, that's all that some guys care about). Im actually tired. I might take a little break and just try and fix the flaws that I hold in me. I feel like it is not fair that I jump into the sea with a broken life vest and expecting it to be fixed during the whole process. I know I haven't been the brightest person when it comes to romance/ dating. Im still learning. 

I hope 2021 will be a better year for me. Even if it means for me to walk this road alone. Its always better than walking alongside someone that still made me feel so alone right?

On that note; Happy New Year everyone, here’s to another year of rebuilding self confidence and finding the importance of self love 😌✊🏼

[bloggerblagger]

90) Why aren’t the government listening to the one person who has been proved right?  Me.

Robert Young, aka Marcus Welby MD, from whose mouth, the word’s ‘I’m not a doctor’ first came. 

I am donning my  white ‘lab’  coat  to write this post,  and  I have a stethoscope hanging around my neck. I am wearing a reassuringly silvery toupé and  a pair of half moon glasses over which I look ��benignly, a little condescendingly, yet with suitable gravity.  In the best traditions of misleading advertising I am here to announce that  yes, I am not a doctor.

Not only that, but I have no medical qualifications of any kind nor, indeed, beyond 5 O’levels’, any qualifications at all. (And none of those were for anything remotely connected with science.)

And yet.

Sometimes - actually most of the time - I think I may know  better than THEY do.  One thing, perhaps the only thing, that  life has taught me,  is that the prevailing wisdom is often total bollocks.  (An alternative explanation of my habitual questioning of any authority might be that I  am an arrogant, deluded twat. Guilty as charged, but that doesn’t mean  I am not right, at least some of the time.)

And in the case of Corona virus, I already have one big win. On March 3rd I posted the following note on Facebook. Six weeks later most of the world  agrees that I  was right. (Not yet the perennially slow off the mark UK government  but it’s only a matter of time and a few thousand more dead.)

Suitably emboldened by the successful slaying of that holy cow, I now ready to move onto another.

One day, at the very beginning of the Coronalamity, before we were locked up but when the tsunami was clearly visible on the horizon, I actually counted the number of contacts I had that day - which I took to be the number of people I spoke to.

This is what I did. (As you will soon see, the stuff of my daily life is not likely to inspire the next  Netflix blockbuster, but please suffer the boredom if you can.)  I chatted to Wilma, my lady wot does, before leaving the house to stop first  at Gail’s ( 50 yards from front door) for my usual poison - an oat milk latté - where I spoke to the girl who took my money, to the barista who handed me my coffee, to a girl standing beside me waiting for hers.

Next I went across the road to drink my coffee whilst chatting to my friend Sid in his (highly recommended) optician’s shop and there I also exchanged ‘hellos’ with one of his assistants.  After that I walked to the Virgin Active gym in Ladbroke Grove, on the way speaking to a  man in corner shop from whom I bought a bottle of water.  I spoke to the  Virgin receptionist, to a chap with an adjacent locker, to someone on the next door treadmill, to the chap who made me my after-session coffee and to the different receptionist on duty as I left.

So far we are up to twelve people. The rest of my day  was every bit as uneventful, possibly even duller, as I spoke to only another eleven. So, in all, I had face to face, words exchanged, contact with twenty three people  that day, and, basically, I did fuck all. Tumbleweed blew through my diary - and I still spoke to twenty three people.

My (heretical) point is this:

We are told that testing, testing, testing is the answer, and, after that, contact tracing. But if I had Covid 19 that day - which I might well have done as a couple of weeks later I developed symptoms, although as I couldn’t get a test,  I can’t be sure - how would  all those contacts have been found? And would they have confined themselves for two weeks? Who would police that?

I could understand the tracing idea when there were a handful of cases, like that chap from Brighton, the first super-spreader who caught it on a skiing holiday, because there weren’t that many people to track down. But now, almost certainly millions of people have had it, and there are millions of other people who they will have infected who may or may not be symptomatic.

Presumably one is infectious for several days  and even at my rate of 23 in a relatively empty day, that’s over 160 in a week. You see my point: the numbers now are so overwhelming that tracing and confining would seem to be a completely impossible task.

A Tracer Calls.

Here is an imaginary conversation between a government tracer (I wonder who and where they are  by the way)  and one of my twenty three contacts. 

‘Hello, Gail’s Queens Park.’

‘I need to speak to the person on the till and the barista who served Richard Phillips.’

‘Who's he?’

‘- with an Oat Latte on - let’s see now - about Feb 28th.’

‘How on earth would we do that? We have lots of different people working on the tills and three or four baristas every day, and you don’t even know exactly which day.’

Etcetera.

Have I missed a trick? Is there some ingenious idea behind testing and contact tracing that I have missed, Well, helpfully, a day or so ago the Guardian  published a guide to Testing and Tracing and the ratIonale seems no more complicated than I thought: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/coronavirus-contact-tracing-explained

I can sort of understand the point of testing in the sense that you would get a big enough sample of who is infected to extrapolate the overall infection rate.  If immunity after infection is as likely as with most viruses,  you might then get an idea of when the famous herd immunity might be a possibility.  But otherwise, what is the point? That is my point. Will someone PLEASE explain whatever I am missing.

Ah yes, you say, I can explain. What you are missing is the App,  the famous App that tracks your every move that they have in South Korea and China and can interact with other people’s phones so it knows who you are in contact with at every moment. But presumably the government  would have to download this on to our phones without our knowledge and ensure it can not be removed. (An Orwellian world on steroids.) Otherwise, I would suggest, vast numbers of the population would not voluntarily download it for reasons of laziness or of principle, so it would be of partial help at best.

Anyway (exasperated harumph from author) whether I can see the point of it or not, Testing and Tracing  is about to be restarted - as the Guardian reported. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/uk-to-start-coronavirus-contact-tracing-again

So, could this be the answer?

What I can see the point of is the anti-body test. (Also known as serology testing.)  If you’ve possibly/probably had it - as I have - and assuming  you do get immunity,  as with most viruses,  this is absolutely key. Because if you test positive and you have a very low risk of contracting it again then you can begin to resume some sort of sort of normal life. Only one problem: the government keeps telling us that none of the anti-body tests are reliable. (Although on Friday, Roche, the Swiss pharma giant  announced that they had now developed a test. They presumably think it’s reliable but we wait to see.)

One key question, it seems to me, is in what way are they unreliable?  If they are providing false positives they are obviously useless. If, on the other hand, they are providing false negatives - telling some people they haven’t had it when they have - then they are a lot better than nothing. Even if you got a false negative half of the time,  50% might be stuck indoors for no good reason but the 50%  who tested  positive would know that they’d  had it and could move on with their  lives. And the unlucky 50% could be retested as the test was improved.

Did I say only one problem? Silly me. It seems there are far more. Check this out. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/antibody-tests-wont-end-social-distancing-anytime-soon.html

Oh dear, and one more thing. The WHO has now told us there is no guarantee that you can’t get it  again.

I am not also not a financial adviser - but....

Which brings me to the markets and the fact that having dropped by about 30% they have now recovered about half of that.

Nobody I know - and I regularly take expert advice  over the fence from my next door neighbour  - has got the faintest  idea why things have bounced back,

Although  yesterday, apparently, the 3% rise in the Dow was triggered by the overnight leaking of a report saying that  the Remdesivir drug was successfully treating seriously ill   Covid-19 patients at the University of Chicago. Shares in the company that  makes it, Gilead,  went up 11% even though this was not a proper randomised control study. (Something well dodgy about that leak. I’m not one for conspiracy theories but I’d bet somebody made a few bob out of that.)

For what its worth, and as my face-mask victory shows, its worth a lot, my guess is that the search for a ‘cure’ is, in the absence of a vaccine, the likeliest means of giving people the confidence to go out and start living again. Not sure any guff about testing - especially from this government - is going to get me in Gails anytime soon.

And here is my invaluable tip re: the markets. Buy, buy, buy. I say this because I have sold.  Got rid of as many shares as I could without paying tax. Taken  the losses, taken the pain. And the one inviolable rule, the ThickAsDick Principle as it is known in the highest circles of financial theorists, is that whatever decision I’ve made will always be the exact opposite of what you should do. Right about face masks, absolutely, but shit on shares.

You have been warned.

[pongpalace]

The Shark Epidemic

Day One of Charmer Week: Meet-Cute (AU~kinda)

Read on ao3 

It’s a Friday night when Caitlin finally caved to Spencer’s peer pressure and downloaded Tinder onto her phone. Well, less caved into the pressure and more lost the wrestling match and was sat on while Spencer downloaded Tinder onto her phone.

“This is so stupid,” Caitlin said, voice slightly muffled by one of the thousand overstuffed throw pillows that Spencer insisted she needed to sleep with. Somehow they’d started migrating over to Caitlin’s side of their two-bed dorm room.

“You’re stupid,” Spencer replied absently, still tapping on Caitlin’s phone. “I’m just helping you meet people.”

“If I wanted to meet people, I’d be fighting for elbow space at whatever party March and April were talking about,” Caitlin huffed.

All through practice, the volleyball captains had been going on and on about what they were going to wear to the “Haus” that night. It was apparently the place to go for a good time on the weekends, especially before any athletic seasons started. Invitations had been extended to the freshmen through the team group chat after practice, but Caitlin ducked out as soon as it was made this clear that this wasn’t part of the mandatory team bonding that had been taking place throughout the month she’d been at Samwell. She was looking forward to a night in with the new Oceans documentary on Netflix and maybe some popcorn if she decided to brave the walk up to the common room with the microwave. Spencer, her roommate and fellow freshmen setter, had agreed to the night in, but had other plans when the shitty dorm internet made Netflix buffer for too long.

“Jeez, one night off and you get boring,” Spencer tutted, ignoring Caitlin’s groan when she got elbowed as Spencer rolled off Caitlin to lay on her stomach so they could both see the phone screen. “Here, I did all the hard work.”

Caitlin took her phone back and flipped through profile. Her name and age was displayed underneath the same picture she had as her Facebook profile.

“Does Facebook know that I’m on Tinder now?” she asked, flipping through the other three pictures Spencer had chosen to display. Caitlin was lowkey surprised to see that her favourite picture, the one where she stood proudly beside the surfboard her and her mom had spent all summer working on together, made the cut.

Somehow Caitlin both saw and felt Spencer’s eyeroll. “Okay, now I’m surprised that you’ve even heard of Tinder before this. It’s connected to your Facebook, but Facebook won’t post anything.”

“No need to be an asshole.” Caitlin kept scrolling and saw a brief description under her name made almost entirely of emojis. She wasn't sure what the girl flipping her hair emoji meant in this context.

“Oh FYI, I put your preferences as men and women ‘cause I wasn’t sure, but you can totally change it.” Despite Spencer’s flippant tone, she wasn’t looking at Caitlin and was biting at her bottom lip; a tell that Caitlin had come to recognize as nervousness under Spencer’s devil-may-care attitude. Caitlin was sure she’d get sat on again if she brought attention to it though so she just shrugged.

“That’s fine,” she said. 

Sexuality had been an open topic in her house growing up so she’d been able to come to terms with her attraction to both genders and sometimes forgot that not everyone was as lucky. It’d been awhile since she needed to come out to anyone and now, retrospectively, forgotten she hadn’t gotten around to doing that with the volleyball team yet.

“Me too.” Spencer still wasn’t looking at Caitlin and actually looked like she was going chew right through her lip, so despite Caitlin wanting to thank her for trusting her with the moment like her sister turned LGBT counsellor would have, Caitlin just knocked their shoulders together before adding three emoji hearts to her description; pink, purple, and blue. She saved it.

“So how do I use this now?” she asked.

Spencer, no longer chewing on her lip, took the phone back and flipped to a different screen. “Okay. People around close to us are gonna pop up and you swipe right if you like ‘em-” she demonstrated the right swipe on the first picture that loaded: a bright-eyed Asian guy smiling widely in a San Jose Sharks sweatshirt. “-or left if you don’t.” She swiped left on the next picture: a blond guy in wire frame glasses.

“Oh damn, he was cute.” Spencer frowned.

“Aw do they know if I swipe left on them?”

“Nah. You match with someone when you’ve both swiped right on each other.”

“So everyone I’m uh, swiping on has already swiped right on me?”

“No, they’re just everyone in your range. I set that to like a 10 mile radius so you’re most likely just swiping on people from the university by the way.” Spencer tossed Caitlin’s phone back and got up to get hers off the dock where it’d been charging.

“Wait.” Caitlin caught the phone, brow furrowed as she takes in the new picture on the screen: a girl with an insane undercut. She swiped right and a message appeared on the screen informing her that it’s a match and giving her tips on how to start a conversation that she would not be taking. “Then how do I know if they swiped right on me if they haven’t seen my profile yet?”

“You get a notification thing later, kinda. I dunno Farmer, just start swiping, jesus.” Spencer’s attention was already back on her phone, which was also opened to Tinder and the rest of their Friday night passed in a matter of left and right swipes, with the Oceans documentary finally loaded and playing in the background.

Tinder was actually much more enjoyable than Caitlin had originally anticipated; there was something soothing about the repeated swiping. Through trial and error, a couple of accidental right swipes on guys pictured with douchey sunglasses, she figured out that by touching on people’s pictures she could get to their profile pages and read their descriptions.

Surprisingly, some were really fucking funny.  

“Holy shit, Spence, listen to this-” Caitlin pushed Spencer off her stomach so she could sit up, reaching for the spacebar on her laptop to pause Netflix. She cleared her throat to read out the description as dramatically as possible. “‘If murdered, I want a closed-casket funeral. However, towards the end of the service, please have the organist play “Pop Goes The Weasel” over and over, until everyone in attendance is staring at my coffin with mute horrified antici- anticipation.”” Caitlin was laughing so hard by the end that she was pretty sure Spencer couldn't understand her, but Spencer grabbed the phone the read the description herself. She started laughing too.

“Oh my god.” Spencer had tears of laughter streaming down her. “Please tell me you swiped right! No, let me find them and swipe right! We’re soulmates!”

Sometime around 11 they restarted the documentary after Caitlin realized they had laughed through most of it as they compared Tinder bios and pictures. She still got distracted by her phone though as messages started coming in along with notifications of new matches. The first message that Caitlin opened was a straight up, literally, dick pic. She yelled and dropped her phone on her face when she opened it.

“Jesus christ, no hello?”

“Welcome to tinder babe.” Spencer patted her shin while stealing Caitlin’s phone with her other hand. “Oh HELLO.”

Caitlin snatched her phone back to look at the other, written, messages she’d gotten. Most were generic hi’s or hello’s, and some were really cheesy pick up lines that had to have been googled. While she was working on a reply to one guy’s piss baby reaction to her not replying to him within five minutes of his first message, another message popped up. She swiped over to it to watch two more messages join the first.

Chris: [(hearteyes emoji)]

Chris: [ur gorgeous]

Chris: [u’re*]

Caitlin tapped into to his profile and saw it was the smiling Asian guy that Spencer had swiped right on for her demonstration. His description was empty so she settled for swiping through his photos, wondering if it was worth replying. Black, turquoise, and sharks of all varieties were prevalent themes in his photos, including the one where he was dressed in full goalie gear; San Jose jersey stretched across his chest and helmet covered in realistic sharks. Other than that photo, he was pictured smiling widely, showing off a mouthful of braces. Caitlin went into the conversation, amused by the guy’s obsession.

Me: [how do you feel about the shark epidemic?]

She pressed send, turned off the screen on the phone and dropped it on the bed, unsure if she expected or wanted a reply. Sure, he wore black and turquoise well, and she was pretty sure he had dimples, but that opening line left something to be desired. Maybe he’d have a sense of humour in his response though.

“Another dick pic?” Spencer asked, craning her neck back to look at Caitlin. She’d moved so she was halfway down the bed, her feet hanging off the edge and probably touching the ground. It couldn’t be comfortable, but she’d been intently swiping at her phone in that position for the last 20 minutes so what did Caitlin know?

“No.”

“Damn.”

“Get your own dick pics.”

“Ew, no thank you. I don’t want that on my phone.”

Caitlin kicked her side, and tilted the laptop screen so she could see the brightly coloured fish better.

*****

Caitlin woke up to a stupid amount of notifications on the Tinder app. Still cuddled under her blankets, she had to laugh as she went through them; the decline of coherent spelling in the messages as the timestamps got later was a hilarious example of everything she hoped university would be. The increase of sexual messages was less so. She had just finished blocking one guy who used their message thread as one might use a void to angrily shout in, when she noticed that she’d missed a reply from Chris in the mess of drunk messages. She went into the thread; jaw actually dropping as she read through it.

Chris: [If by 'epidemic' you mean the alarming rate at which sharks are disappearing from the ocean, I think the culling of sharks is a direct response to the fear mongering of the mainstream media that’s been consistent for the last forty years or so in order to keep beaches 'safer.' That sharks are dying prematurely outside of being killed by humans, is a reflection on how little is being done in terms of controlling global warming as the whole oceanic ecosystem is being disturbed. What little information is available about this in comparison to the widespread articles about sharks attacking humans reflects on the cultural mindset that sharks are 'bad', when in reality sharks are only naturally reacting to their homes be invaded. They were here first after all.]

Chris: [also, I’m so sorry if these messages woke you! It took me a while to type them out (smiley face emoji)]

Chris: [okay, have a good night! (smiley face emoji) (smiley face emoji)]

Caitlin kicked off her blankets, almost tripping when she jumped out of bed and they were still wrapped around her feet. She jumped onto Spencer’s bed, ignoring the groan of protest to dig through the pillow fort that Spencer slept in. After knocking aside the pillows and blankets, Caitlin found Spencer: messy haired and glaring through bleary eyes.  

“What.” The lack of infliction might have been threatening if not for the pillow creases across her face.

“You gotta see this.” Caitlin shoved her phone, screen bright, into Spencer’s face.

“This better be a nice fucking dick pic Farmer,” she said, rubbing her eyes and stretching to grab her glasses off her nightstand. She took the phone to read the message once she could see.

Caitlin sat back, clutching a pillow, watching Spencer’s eyebrows raise as they moved across the screen.

“Better than a dick pic?” Caitlin grinned when she finished. Chris had hit all the points in Caitlin’s own rant about sharks and the ocean. Though she hoped her biology major would focus on deep ocean tidal patterns, Caitlin had a vested interest in all sea life that came from living right next to the ocean for most of her life.

“Way better than a dick pic.” Spencer handed the phone back.

“How do I reply?” Caitlin stared at the screen, thumbs moving over but not touching the keyboard. Honestly, Chris’s reply was better than anything she had expected; she wanted to make her own reply just as good.

“Can you figure it out in your own bed?” Spencer asked, replacing the pillows around her. “Some of us are enjoying the Saturday off.” Her voice came out muffled, under the blankets already, and Caitlin took the hint and knee walked off the bed, only slightly jostling the bed on purpose. She threw her phone onto her own bed, grabbing her toiletry bag to go brush her teeth and wash her face.

She thought about what to say the whole time she brushed her teeth, staring at herself in the badly lit bathroom. She thought about what to say while patted her face dry, wondering what it was that Chris was looking for on Tinder. She thought about it on the walk down the hallway, slippers slapping loudly against her heels. She was still thinking about it when she let herself back into her room, but she still hadn’t thought of anything clever or witty to reply with as she slipped back under her covers. She stared at the blank screen.

The thing was, though she’d joined Tinder under duress of her roommate’s bony ass, Caitlin didn’t necessarily object to the idea of meeting someone, even if it was via a stupid hookup app. Honestly, she wasn’t sure what expectations she had of Tinder, but now, not even 24 full hours after having the damn app, it had somehow both fallen short and exceeded expectations and that in and of itself was annoying. Add in Chris’s well written message and fuck. Caitlin wanted to meet him to see if he’d fall short or not.

“You’re thinking too hard,” Spencer said from under the pillows.

“Shut up.” Caitlin unlocked her phone and went into the message, typing quickly and pressing send before she could think too hard about it.

Me: [any chance you wanna get coffee sometime? (smiley face emoji)]

Yep. That was out in the world now. Caitlin locked the screen; did it seem too forward? Well, if she hadn’t scared Chris off with her shark question, she probably wouldn’t scare him off with the coffee invitation. Probably. Caitlin rolled onto her stomach so she could groan into a pillow without Spencer commenting on it. She took two deep breath and told herself she would not let his response, or lack thereof, ruin her weekend. She still had conditioning tomorrow and that would be what ruined it.

Caitlin’s phone buzzed, once and then twice. She reached back blindly to grab it, rolling over when her arm wasn’t long enough. She unlocked it onto the conversation where two new messages were waiting.

Chris: [oh wow I didn’t think you’d reply--that was a reallllllllllllly long paragraph to get through (nerd smiley face emoji)]

Chris: [also, I’m sorry if the first message was too much. apparently my drunk teammates break into phones for fun (eye roll emoji) I’m glad they did though (blushy face emoji)]

Caitlin huffed a laugh and another message popped up while she was staring at the conversation.

Chris: [coffee would be s’awesome! (grin emoji) (coffee mug emoji)]

“What’d he say?”

Caitlin jumped at Spencer’s voice.

“I thought you were enjoying your Saturday off,” she said, but she chucked her phone across the gap between the beds.

“Your Tinder feels are keeping me up,” Spencer said, smiling and rolling her eyes while she read through. “You’re welcome by the way.” She tossed the phone back, screen still unlocked and Caitlin read two new messages, one of which she apparently wrote.

Me: [is now a good time?]

Chris: [yeah it's great! I haven’t tried Annie’s yet, but hear it has really good (coffee mug emoji) ..?]

“I can set up my own Tinder things,” Caitlin said, glaring. She typed out a confirmation that Annie’s worked and that she’d see Chris there in 20 minutes, before kicking off her blankets for the second time that morning.

“Get dressed, c’mon! You need to look good!”

With a very opinionated commentary from the peanut gallery, Caitlin got pulled on black leggings and an oversized denim shirt, leaving her 18 minutes to get to Annie’s.

“Good thing hipster chic is in,” Spencer said, while Caitlin tried not to stab herself in the eye while doing her mascara.

“I’m not the one who set the time.” Caitlin capped the mascara and considered her hair for a second before pulling it up into an impressively messy bun. She wrapped her scarf around her neck, shrugged on her puffy vest, stepped into her Docs, and turned to Spencer for inspection, arms spread. “Look okay?”

Spencer looked her up and down. “Good enough for a coffee date.”

“Asshole,” Caitlin shook her head, checked her pockets for her phone and cards and left.

“You’re welcome!” Spencer called after her.

She made it to Annie’s with two minutes to spare from when she said she’d meet Chris. He wasn’t there yet. It was still relatively early on a Saturday morning so she had her pick of tables to sit at while she waited. She picked one near the door, smiling at the tired looking student barista behind the counter as she sat and pulled out her phone to double check Chris’s picture to make sure she’d recognize him.

She really shouldn’t have bothered though. Chris was easily recognizable when he walked in exactly two minutes later, dressed in a Sharks hoodie under a plaid button up smiled widely when he caught sight of Caitlin. His braces flashed. Caitlin stood up so he wouldn’t tower over her.

“Oh wow. You’re really beautiful,” he said, cheeks colouring slightly but his smile never wavering.

Caitlin stuck out a hand, finding Chris’s grin contagious. “I’m Caitlin.”

Chris took it. “Chris. It’s s’awesome to meet you.”

*This takes place in the same alternative "Nursey-isn't-on-SMH" universe as this 

[c-is-for-circinate]

Okay fine because at least one part of this is absolutely going to be contradicted next time I play so I am getting it out now:

Way #1/? that Persona 5 is not going to end (or even go in the middle)

(this will probably be a continuing series)

So you’re pausing for breath, to pull your head back together--one of those cops may or may not have given you a concussion, and in any case you’re still a little woozy from whatever drug they gave you, so flashbacking is easy but you’re not used to monologuing for so long anyway--and you hear loud voices in the hall.

You don’t particularly recognize these voices, is the thing--but a firm, authoritative woman’s voice is saying, “We have jurisdiction over this case” in a tone that isn’t arguing so much as bypassing a whole argument and proclaiming law.

“I think you’ll find,” says a slightly more muffled voice, cool and level, not quite distinguishable as male or female through the door.  Sae frowns, looking worried.

“You’re not finished,” she says.  “Keep talking.”

The door opens before you can start again, though, the furious-looking cop standing there with two people you’ve never seen before.  You’d remember these two.

“Nijima-san,” says the taller one, the woman with the elegant coat and the blazingly red hair.  “I’m afraid this is no longer your case.  We’ll take it from here.”

“Like hell you will,” Sae says, standing up angrily.  (She has complicated feelings about you.  You have complicated feelings about her, for that matter--but you respect her, and you can use her emotions to draw this out and keep stalling for time, and it all supports the mission, so there’s no point in trying to pull it apart now.)  “Who are you?”

“This incident, like several related incidents that precede it, fall under the jurisdiction of the Shadow Operatives,” says the--man?  woman?  in the perfectly-tailored blue suit.  “However, Kirijo-san, by your leave, I would suggest we allow Nijima-san to stay.  She may have insights into this situation.”

“Very well,” Kirijo-san says.  “The rest of you may leave us.”  It’s the most casually imperious thing you’ve ever seen.  Her mind palace would be tremendous.  You’re already itching to rob it.

The cops splutter, but they go, mostly because these two don’t leave them much choice.  There are no extra chairs for them..  They stand.

“My name is Kirijo Mitsuru,” says the redhead.  “I’m the director of a special extragovernmental organization known as the Shadow Operatives.  We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Shirogane Naoto,” says the other calmly.  “A detective who liases occasionally with the Shadow Operatives.  I have a particular interest in this case.”

You could say at least two different things here, or nothing at all, but you go with, “Where would you like me to begin?”  This wasn’t part of the plan, but maybe you can eke more time out of these two instead of being entirely fucked.  No plan survives encounter with reality perfectly.  This is workable.

“You misunderstand,” Shirogane says.  “There’s no need to restart your story at the beginning.  I’m sure you’ve caught Nijima-san nearly up by now.  We’ve been keeping abreast of the situation by other means, though I must admit, you were able to evade even me for a considerable period of time.”

“Other means?” Sae echoes.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“An operative in your own house, to start with,” says Kirijo--but unlike Sae and the police, she isn’t talking to you.  “You have a young intern in your confidence with particularly keen insights and a fondness for tamagoyaki, yes?”

“Amada?” Sae looks startled.  “Him?  But he...”

“He has a particularly interesting history with us,” Kirijo says.  “Since he was far younger than our phantom thief here.  But that’s hardly the point at this juncture.”

“Tell me,” Shirogane says.  “Do you know much about playing cards?”

You blink.  You’ve been leaving calling cards at every victim--you call yourself Joker.  What kind of answer is she--is he--are they looking for here?

“The history of playing cards, to be precise,” Shirogane continues.  “Originally they were based on a tarot deck.  The tarot deck, of course, is split into both major and minor arcana, and as the cards made the transition from fortune-telling devices to mere playthings, most of the major arcana was lost, leaving only the four suits.  Were you aware?”

You were.  You nod, quiet, silently suspicious, and say nothing.

“The one exception to that is the major arcana card numbered 0, the Fool,” Shirogane says with that perfect implacable calm.  “It transitioned to our modern card deck in much the same way as the four suits of the minor arcana did, with some minor alterations, under the guise of the Joker.”

Kirijo says, “How is Igor?”

That’s enough to actually startle you.  “You know Igor?” you ask.  You’re not supposed to be startle-able, but--they know Igor?

“I see you were right,” Kirijo murmurs, an aside to her companion.  Shirogane simply nods.

“Better to say that we have mutual acquaintances,” they say.  “Please, pass on our regards to Elizabeth-san and Margaret-san next time you see him.”

You don’t know any Elizabeth or Margaret.  You say so, and Shirogane simply smiles calmly.  “He’ll be able to carry the message,” they say.

“I don’t understand--” Sae starts, and she’s annoyed by it.  She’s heard so much of your story so far, but she doesn’t quite believe it, not yet.  This is out of her depth.

“How many personas do you have at this time?” Kirijo asks.  How much do they know?

“One,” you say, to test them.  It’s both absolutely true and a complete misdirection.  You can only wear one mask at a time, after all--never mind that there are eleven more sitting in your head to be put on, and god knows how many kept in Igor’s prison waiting for you.

“And how many do you have access to?” Shirogane asks, unruffled.  They’re good, whoever they are.

“I’ve lost count,” you answer honestly.  Whoever you are any more.

“We’re not here to pour over the details of your crimes,” Kirijo says.  “My question is this.  What threat is Igor preparing you for?”

You were nearly at that part of the story with Sae anyway.  Your eyes flicker to the security camera, just the barest of an instant, before you can stop them--they must have access by now.  Your hacker is very, very good.  You trust your team.  They’ll be able to adapt to this.

Shirogane sees you do it, even though it’s less than half a second.  They’re very, very good too.

This is going to play out one way or another, and there’s nothing to lose by telling them now.  So you tell them.

“I see,” Kirijo says at the end.  “Well, it’s obvious at least why you were called.”

The very interesting thing is what she means by that.  She doesn’t mean you, particularly, or your rebellious heart--she means why you, instead of somebody else she already has in mind.

“The spirit of rebellion,” Shirogane echoes.  “Not quite the same thing as strength of will.”

“We have no shortage of will,” Kirijo says.  “But we are rather ingrained within the system ourselves.”

“I suspect that the malleability of teenagers is an important part of the reason they tend to be called,” Shirogane says.  “This is quite a different situation than those we’ve faced before--though at its heart, still similar.”

“Very well,” Kirijo says.  “You have our support.”

It’s so far from anything you expected to hear that you can only blink at her in shock.  She’s an Empress, you’ve known that from the moment she walked in the door--but you’ve already got an Empress, and you weren’t trying to recruit her.  This is...something new.

“Your support?” Sae demands.  She’s still shaken.  “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t misunderstand our intentions here,” Kirijo says.  “Persona-users are not automatically on the side of right.  We have both known cruel and murderous persona-users in our time, and I’m sure there will continue to be more.”

"You are not one of them,” Shirogane says, looking directly at you.  “You have a task to do.”

“Do you think I’m harmless?” you ask.  Kirijo smirks, and Shirogane actually laughs.

“Far from it,” Shirogane says.

“I’ve known a handful of Wild Cards over the years,” Kirijo says.  “Most can wield no more than five or six personas.  A dozen at best.  I’ve known three men, and only known of three men, in all the years I’ve been facing Shadows, who naturally had the ability to do more than that.  One of them will fulfill his duty in protecting the fate of mankind at the edge of the universe until the very day our species is lost forever.  One of them is a small town middle-school teacher who has held enough power in his right hand to remake the entire world.”

“And one is in this room,” Kirijo says.  “I can’t speak to your fate, Joker, but I know your power.”

“Kirijo-san,” Shirogane says politely.  “If we wish to intercept his escape plan--”

“Escape plan?” Sae demands.

“Of course,” Kirijo says.  “Yamagishi?”

You don’t know anybody by that name.  She’s not addressing you, anyway.  She isn’t wearing an earpiece that you can see, but--it might not matter.

“Shirogane,” Kirijo prompts after a moment.  The detective reaches into a pocket and tosses something down on the table, within reach of your bound hands.

It’s a cell phone.  It’s not one you recognize, but--it’s a cell phone.

“I--”  You look at them in confusion.  What do they want from you?

“You use an app, correct?” Shirogane asks.  “Install it on that, and we’ll accompany you out.”

“Wait, you can’t--” Sae protests.

“Nijima-san, you misunderstand us,” says Kirijo.  “We have no interest in his apparent crimes.  We are here to ensure the fate of the world.”

“I can’t just...”  It’s not like the Metaverse Navigator is in the app store.  It’s not like you trust these two at all.

“You can contact your support, yes?” Kirijo says.  “You do have a hacker on your team.  I suggest you try.”

Slowly, waiting for the trap to spring, you pick up the phone and pull up the chat program.  You have certain contact details memorized.  There’s no telling when you might need to use a swiftly-pickpocketed spare phone.

Still though--these two?  In the metaverse?  They’re strong, yes, but they as much as admitted that they don’t rebel against the system, they create it.  Who knows what they could unleash?

“I think you’ll find that we keep up more than well enough,” Kirijo says.  “We may not be revolutionaries, but we’ve both told primordial deities bent on ruling mankind our precise opinions of them to their faces.  I don’t expect our the power of our will to be a problem.”

“If one can stand against the will of the mother goddess of all Japan,” Shirogane says, and behind stand against you hear tell her to go fuck herself, with that ear you’ve developed for quiet rebellion hidden under propriety, “I don’t expect a human mind palace to be a problem.”

“And if you can’t stand against a will that great,” Kirijo says, and this time she does mean you, specifically you, “we are all in a great deal of trouble.”

[salt-sass-and-lyrium]

Working in tech support has given me a new found hatred of Baby Boomers

Long post.

Okay so, I work for lawyers, many of whom are boomers. And while as a whole I don’t have a huge problem with either group, sometimes the combination are just... fucking disastrous.

Take for example the call I just got off of a few minutes ago. Guy calls in because when he’s typing in his password, backspace is registering as a character.

Only, it took me a few minutes to get that out of him, because when he called, the conversion went kinda like this:

Me: *generic greeting* What can I help you with? Guy: I can’t log into my computer Me: *waits a moment, realizes he’s not going to say more than that* Me: Okay. What’s happening when you try and log in? Guy: *presumably hits something on the keyboard, I don’t know because I’m not there* That’s what happens Me: Okay. I’m not on your screen right now (we can remote in with users once they’re logged in, many boomers seem to think that as soon as they call in we’re immediately on their computers) so I can’t see what you’re seeing. What’s happening? Guy: *literally does the exact same thing, hits something on the keyboard, and angrily says* THAT’S what’s happening Me: *repeats myself* Guy: It’s just *he’s typing or something I guess, sounds like he’s just bamming on the keyboard at this point* It’s doing... that Me: *internally screaming* Guy: (FUCKING FINALLY) When I hit backspace, I get a dot Me: Oh. Okay. So instead of deleting it’s acting like you’re typing a letter? Guy: Yeah. Me: Okay. This can be caused by a few different things

Now. There’s no standard required ‘set up’ for the computers at the firm. People have different model laptops, desktop, docking stations, some have external keyboards (both wired and wireless), all sorts of other equipment, etc, and we have NO info on who has what

Me: Are you on a laptop in a docking station, or on a desktop? Guy: Laptop in a docking station.

So, idk why, but with our docking stations, if the wifi is on while the laptop is in it, it tends to cause all sorts of issues. So, I wanted him to reboot to make sure his keyboard is connected and the issue isn’t that his computer has been on for like 6 months (true story happens all the fucking time).

Me: Okay. Can you make sure your wifi is switched off, and then reboot your laptop? I just want to make sure it’s connecting properly. Guy: *angrily* I don’t know what you mean about wifi.

Which, is an annoyingly common occurrence. Without fail almost every boomer I talk to has no grasp of what wifi is, or anything involving the physical laptop itself. NBD, there’s only 2 ways it can manually be turned off and on on the laptops we use

Me: That’s fine. Depending on which  model laptop you have, there is either a physical switch you can toggle off and on on the side of the laptop itself, or one of the F/Function keys on the laptops keyboard will have a wifi/cell signal icon on it.

Guy: *getting more angry, now talking to me like I’m the stupid one* I can’t into the computer, what do you mean get to the function keys? How am I supposed to get to the function keys?? Me: Can you lift the laptop lid up and see the laptop’s keyboard? Guy: *like I’m saying the dumbest thing ever* Uh. Yeah. Me: *SCREAMING INTERNALLY* Okay, lift the laptop lid up and look at the F keys along the top of the keyboard. You don’t need to log in in order to do this. Guy: *literally shouting at this point* I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS.

If you’ve ever worked in customer service, you may have heard the concept of the ‘CD Skip’, which is ‘just repeat the same thing over and over again, because it’s not that you’re saying something that doesn’t make sense, they’re just refusing to hear it’

Me: *repeats myself* Guy: That doesn’t-- Me: It may also be a toggle along the side of the physical laptop itself, depending on what model laptop you have. I don’t have that information, but it’s in one of those two spots Guy: *starts sputtering and shouting at me* YOU KNOW WHAT? YOU KNOW WHAT YOU LITTLE-- (I can hear the ‘bitch’ hanging on his tongue but he stops himself) I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS. I HAVE WORK TO DO! Me to me: Good luck doing that without being able to log in or backspace Me: I’m just asking you to ensure your wifi is off and reboot your machine to make sure everything is connecting-- Guy: THIS IS STUPID I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS I HAVE AN ACTUAL JOB TO DO (because tech support isn’t a real job, apparently) I’LL CALL YOU LATER *slams phone down*

Now. This shit happens all the fucking time. At least once a day I get a boomer who gets violently angry because I ask them to do something remarkably simple. And I don’t mean “simple to people who grew up  using technology” I mean simple like “Hey, there’s a glowing button on your monitor, right?” “Yeah” “Push it” “*angry confused ranting*”.

And I specify boomers, because I almost never have this issue with younger employees. I say “can you make sure your wifi is switched off” and they either 1. Know how to turn it off and on or 2. can follow the simple instructions of looking for a switch and looking on the F keys.

The main issues seem to pretty much stem from these bullshitteries: 1. A refusal to understand that something can be done in more than one way. I’ve literally had people screaming at me that I was breaking their computer because I went to file > print and didn’t just click the printer icon 2. A refusal to learn about the device they’re using: ESPECIALLY with smart phones. They’ll learn how to do something like make a call and check an email, but heaven forbid you ask them to turn the phone off and on or uninstall an app (seriously had an attorney screaming at me because he didn’t know how to click on the app store to download an app) 3. A refusal to understand that not every inconvenience is a HUGE issue (this is often the ‘my computer was slow for .5 seconds’/ is running slow but my computer has been on for 6+ months crowd) 4. A refusal to comprehend that there’s some things they don’t know how to do 5. A refusal to understand that just because you don’t know how to do something, doesn’t mean it’s broken (I once had a ridiculously long call with a lady-who wouldn’t let me remote in with her-who kept insisting that her PDF program was malfunctioning and wouldn’t let her convert PDFs, and getting angry and lying about following my troubleshooting steps and screaming that there must be something wrong with her computer. When in reality it turned out that she didn’t know how to convert PDFs and instead of admitting that, she just kept saying that the program wasn’t working. There’s literally a big “CONVERT PDF TO WORD” button, but w/e).  6. A refusal to think critically or troubleshoot. I get a lot of REALLY stupid issues like “My computer says I need to restart it to install updates” “Okay, what happens when you restart it?” “WELL HOW I WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW TO DO THAT?” or “This document won’t open when I click on it” “Have you tried clicking on it again?” “Well, no.” or “The printer says it’s out of paper” “Have you put paper in it?” “No!”.

7. A refusal to follow simple instructions

And knowing all of this, it just fucking irks me that Boomers scream about how entitled millennials are, but they literally can’t grasp that the world doesn’t work the way they want it to. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO PUT PAPER INTO THE PRINTER? I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO HIT THE CONVERT PDF BUTTON TO CONVERT PDFS!!” “WHY CAN’T YOU JUST GIVE ME THIS ITEM FOR FREE?????”

In my customer service experience, when you tell a millennial how something works or store policy or when something can/can’t be done, usually so long as you’re polite about it, they’re polite about it. But when you tell a boomer that their coupon is expired or that they’ll have to wait an extra 5 minutes if they want fresh fries, they lose their fucking shit. Drives me up the wall how a boomer will one minute be asking for help opening a goddamn email, but then .5 seconds go on about how lazy and entitled millenials are.

/rant

[gendermesenpai-blog]

3:18pm

I just listened to 59 minutes and 51 seconds of the Kanye/Charlamagne interview while I was going through my key database and updating my contact information across my various accounts to include my new mailing address.

I feel like there is no proper way to react to Ye at this point - if you say he is full of shit and talking out his ass, you’re pretty much just a hater, you turned your back on Ye because that’s apparently considered the correct thing to do now that he’s out here wearing MAGA hats and talking about how slavery for 400 years was a choice. And the truth is that a lot of what he has been saying since he came back to public life in recent weeks makes a lot of sense, so if you refuse to acknowledge that and say no, it’s all bullshit, he’s lost his mind and reached a point of unquestionable irrelevance, the “end of Kanye” as people are calling it, you’re really just exemplifying the closed mindedness that Ye is criticizing.

Hold up, what? Is this real life? Am I serious? I don’t even know.

Because if you say he’s a genius and he’s making all the right moves right now, you sound like you just smoked PCP out of a 3 inch section of garden hose.

But I mean I just listened to the guy talk for an hour and only said “yo shut up Ye that’s stupid” one time. And I don’t even remember what it was now, because I can only really remember the stuff he said that was smart.

OK I am done talking about Kanye now.

Last night I performed my first show ever. First time performing my own music. I feel like I butchered it completely. It is really weird when you’re up there. Even if there’s only like 10 or 15 people. It feels way different than you imagine it would. But I fucked up a lot of lines. I had to restart one of the songs and still fucked up on the same part. I was much drunker than I had meant to be. I had been drinking since 3 and went on at 11 or something. And I had been smoking since at least 8. Idk, literally no one said a bad word about it. All of my friends and some complete strangers were saying how great I did. But no one can convince me that it was good. I feel terrible and cringy about it. Sick to my stomach in a way. But I still want to do it again? Is that stupid? I’m stupid.

There is video of it but the guy who is supposed to send it to me is slacking hard as shit. His fucking phone, holy shit - I tried for like an hour last night to get it to send the videos to me on like 3 different apps, Mega, Messenger, Youtube, none of them would upload the fucking videos. So he has to plug it into his computer and transfer them. He said like everyone else that I did really good, that I had fucked up a bunch of lines, but because none of them knew any of my songs they wouldn’t have known that from the way I performed it? I don’t know. I don’t see how anyone could’ve not noticed.

A funny detail he told me was that, like, ok my ex roommates and their weird Chicago friends were there the whole time, and apparently their plan was to fuck with me by clapping obnoxiously after all my songs, but because everyone was enjoying it so much and being so loud anyway, they couldn’t do it. I really, like, I keep going over moments in my head that I can remember where I like mumbled certain lines, or delivered lines at the wrong part of the verse and the adlibs were mismatched, or when I completely blanked and was just letting the beat play out. At one point I just shouted out my own beat. Hahaha. I was like “listen to this beat” lol and just waited for the next transition

I can’t even decide if I’m glad I went through with it. I guess time will tell how this affects my relationship with people. Specifically this one vet messenger we have on our squad who everyone looks up to seems very enamored with me right now. He made a big speech about how I’m an asset, and I’m part of the elite group or whatever, the privileged group of elites, and like, how I’m Baltimore now, and even if I leave, no matter where I go, I’ll always be Baltimore.

It’s so weird, I had basically just planned on being here for a while and just kind of surviving or whatever and then taking off and never contacting these people again, and I accidentally made everyone love me and respect me and want to have long-lasting relationships with me and shit. Well, not everyone obviously. But yeah it’s weird as hell. The big group picture we took at like 3 am last night when everyone was plastered drunk and coked out is pretty funny, I think I actually might pass as a girl in it. 

No one has said a word about the changes, not my face or my tits. I think they still haven’t noticed. One guy asked maybe a week or 2 weeks ago if I shave my legs and I used a couple of the lines I had prepared. We were alone, I think I had shaved the previous day and so the hair was coming back in as spots and were visible enough in the light that he noticed them. I said “why are you interested or something?” and he laughed then I said “Nah, you know that episode of Always Sunny where Frank shaves off all the hair on his body, like even his eyebrows and he’s like ‘I jussst wanntttoobeee purrreeeee’... [pause] it’s basically like that.” I think that was it, he was smiling the whole time though, I don’t think he thought anything of it really. And actually, the way he asked me was “do you shave your legs for speed?” so he kind of gave me an out at the beginning. I probably made it weirder by saying that. But they’re jokey lines and I prepared them to be jokey and he laughed and smiled so I think it worked.

I’m still not wearing a bra. I think I want to start if just to project them because when they get hit it hurts a lot. Even when I’m just taking my bag on and off. And then I always try to go in for these bro-ey handshakes with dudes and they bump their fist into my tit and it hurts a lot. Happened like 3 times last night. I have to like stop doing that handshake or somehow learn to prevent them from making contact with my tit. 

When I first started treatment I felt weird about the tits. They weren’t a huuge part of my dysphoria, and they started coming in really immediately, or they felt like they did. So it was like, all of a sudden I had these lil titty knots that I didn’t know what to do with. I felt kind of conflicted and strange, almost in a body horror kind of way. When I was younger I was chubby and had “man boobs” or whatever and I always hated them because of how people made fun of me. But now, it’s been like 4 months or whatever, I keep having these weird days or moments where I think the progress is slowing down or reversing or something, I check in the mirror and my tits look smaller, or my facial hair makes my face look worse or whatever, and I start thinking about how if my tits disappeared now I would be hella distressed, like I would be like noooo, come back lol. Even though I wasn’t even sure if I wanted them before. Now I’m like... yo.. tits are great. lol. They’re so sensitive!! It’s a blessing and a curse maybe.

Godddd I keep thinking about the show and being like “what the fuck did I dooooo”

It would help if I had the video, I need to review it to see how bad it really was, otherwise all I have is my shit warped memory that’s probably all exaggerated.

What else. I moved into a new house. It’s lit. Cheap as fuck, roommates are cool as hell. Haven’t unpacked my shit yet. No furniture to speak of. Ima get a desk and a chair soon, maybe a dresser. Buncha hangers for the closet. Posters. I need money fuck. I have to get my next dose like within the next 2 days. I only have 2 doses of spiro left. I might deal with it today actually, I smoked some pot and I’m feeling good so maybe when 5 rolls around I’ll go do a little Uber work. Currently sitting on a hot $0.42 in my bank. I do have like $6 in cash on me but that’s food money for tomorrow in case I end up just falling asleep today/tonight like has been happening. It’s almost like a mild case of narcolepsy except it only affects me when I’m laying in my bed. But since I don’t have a chair in this room yet, this is my only place to sit or be comfortable in my room. And I still have that tailbone thing. Fucking 4 weeks to heal just because I bumped my saddle on my ass. Fuck’s sake, what is that? Universe, what is you doing?

Oh, I upgraded my bike a shitload. Maaaad new parts. Like $450 worth of parts. Feels pretty dreamy. Pretty sexy. Although I am having some trouble adjusting to the 48t up from 46t on my previous chainring. I can still ride it and all that, but I do feel considerably slower than I did on the 46t chainring. Maybe it will end up making me stronger again? I don’t see how anything could make me weaker at this point lol. And I am pretty fast on flats! I just mean climbing, like heading north from downtown which is like basically one giant hill. I’m always out of breath on those climbs now. I’ve been trying to do big powerful breaths instead of constantly panting though, if I’m going to have to breathe different, I might as well try out some different stuff and see what works. Panting like a dog at all times is not sexy.

The 170mm cranks and the new ratio have made my pedals/cleats work a bit differently. I am popping out more again. I reeeally need to buy some Time pedals. In the meantime I will replace my cleats. Once they start getting worn down they are practically useless for skidding which is what I need them for, like, to stay alive, because I don’t really use my brake anymore. I am actually probably going to go brakeless after I get my Time pedals. Now that I can ride fixed, and I’ve been doing it for a while, I understand that brakeless isn’t really as edgy and difficult as people think it is. You can ride brakeless and just be fucking slow as shit all day and never get anywhere but look cool as fuck doing it. You can ride brakeless and go fast as hell, but not even skid, because you just know your city and the lights and intersections well enough to slow yourself down at the right time via reverse pressure. With clipless pedals, this is a piece of cake, really. Anyone who learns fixed on straps probably has more trouble with this sort of thing. But on clipless, it’s easy as shit to me, I do it without even thinking. I know how to control my bike well enough to not use the brake that’s on it. And that’s the point where I feel safe enough to try going brakeless. Bare in mind, I won’t be riding the same exact way - I will be extremely careful at first and ease into it with more comfort in time. I will not take unnecessary risks. The city that I work in, and the company and clients I work for, affords me the ability to ride hard only when absolutely necessary. So for the most part I will be able to practice brakeless control without flying around subjecting myself to dangerous situations constantly and without exception. Of course I will eventually probably do that, but I’m giving it time. Like when I took my back brake off after I was beginning to learn to skid. I could’ve taken it off much earlier, but I took it off when I was ready, and it’s worked out well for me so far.

I think I need to write some new songs.

[mdwatersauthor]

Family secrets drove star left-winger Cooper Banks away from the love of his life, but hot off a championship win he’s no longer satisfied with second place. Except, the daddy’s girl he left behind is now a woman no longer impressed by his charming smile. So when Savannah Jane Scott decides to put Cooper in the penalty box, she aims to keep him there…for good this time. * This is an extended version of the novella that first appeared as part of the Hot On Ice Anthology ** Includes a bonus first chapter for Tell Me No Lies, part of the Destination: LOVE Anthology coming Summer 2017 Amazon: http://amzn.to/2pPZNSk B&N: http://bit.ly/2oxiw3N Other Retailers: http://bit.ly/2og7x2H Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2q0YkbS

Preview CHAPTER 1 now! 

Cooper Banks peered around the raised hood of the Pagoda Green ’64 ½ Mustang to squint across the pedestrian-busy crosswalk heading to and from the Dove Harbor, Georgia waterfront. Slightly distorted by the coils of heat rising off the concrete, strolled the very reason he was there. Savannah Jane Scott. Bleached blond waves pinned in a loose ponytail over the left shoulder of a teal polo shirt. White shorts revealed toned, petite legs ending in nude flip-flops. She wasn’t your average twenty-five-year-old and was far and away the girl he’d last seen three years ago. He found himself smiling despite himself. He would recognize that walk anywhere. Thumbs hooked to the messenger bag strap set in a diagonal across her chest, while those fingertips played absently over her stomach. The elbows jutting out just enough to strike anyone passing by too close. They’d been a hazard to ribcages since the second grade. He took up a red, grease-stained rag and scrubbed his hands as he sauntered around the front of the car. He needed to be much closer than that, but after three years apart, there was something to be said for appreciating from a distance. “Not exactly how I planned to run into her,” he whispered to himself, utterly transfixed. Confidence shored up in him like a ship to familiar land. “But who am I to ignore a cosmic setup?” Decided, he took one step and felt an unbalancing shift as something invisible completely flipped his insides around. Having spent years being professionally checked by two-hundred-plus-pound hockey players, it’d been a while since he felt nervous about anything. Which was ridiculous because Savannah Jane was the equivalent to a warm drop of rain falling from the sky. He chuckled derisively to himself. If that particular raindrop bounced off the ground in the form of a shark. He was pretty sure the moment Savannah set those gorgeous blue eyes on him he’d walk away with a huge bite taken from the middle of his chest. Pain he would suffer deservedly while charming his way back into her good graces. Maybe his head was ready to head on over there, all thoughtlessly brave. But his heart was not yet prepared to suffer rejection. Neither were his feet, apparently, as they were rooted to concrete. Fate intervened on his behalf, saving him from the humiliation of chickening out. The tow truck he’d called pulled up alongside Betty, the name Cooper’s dad gave the classic car two decades ago. A lined face peered through the passenger window, glancing down at where Betty had wheezed her last breath. The second those eyes set on Cooper, exhaustion deepened the man’s wrinkles. Not the reaction he was used to these days, but not unexpected. Small towns like this remembered every mistake made by every resident, and Cooper’s was an unforgivable curse in most circles. This was another reason he was there. He was going to fix that, come hell or high water. The man got out and meandered around toward Cooper, his name tag boasting the name BUCK in all caps. “You’re Andy Banks’ boy.” It’d been a long time since anyone called him that, and it certainly wasn’t a question requiring an answer. More a statement of fact. Sort of like: No, you don’t use fireworks in a fireplace. Or: No, actually, the sun doesn’t set in the morning; it rises. Statements for idiots-like. And Coop was the idiot. “That’s me. Andy Banks’ Boy. Friends just call me Andy’s Boy.” Buck’s frown deepened. “What’s that?” “Tough crowd,” Cooper murmured, rubbing the back of his neck. “What’s that?” the driver asked again. Cooper’s gaze slid past Buck to where he’d been absently following the blond head. Savannah Jane had stopped in front of a bench and heaved the messenger bag over her head. She looked radiant in the late afternoon sun, and he felt an acute sense of longing. If she didn’t forgive him, he didn’t know what he would do. One deep breath later, Cooper threw on his All-Star smile like a coat of armor, and jutted a firm hand forward with only a small concern Buck would bite first, shake hands later. “How are you, sir? Thanks for coming so fast.” Buck flicked his gaze down to the grease rag hanging loosely at Cooper’s side. “Think you can rifle around a classic like that, get some grease on your hands, and that engine will just start itself?” His father not only showed him how to keep Betty running but also taught him to be polite. That had to come first and foremost to his pride. No matter what. Smile still in full force, he said, “No, sir. I plan to leave the miracles to you.” The mechanic lifted a soft pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket and propped one in the corner of his mouth. “Best idea you’ve had all your life, son. Your daddy’d be proud.” One day someone would say that without a sarcastic tone attached. Because he may be long gone, but if there’s one thing Cooper was sure of, it was that Andrew Banks was proud of his son. Those were his final words, in fact. But the rest of town hadn’t been around for that parting conversation, and their assumptions otherwise had killed any chance Cooper had of a welcome homecoming. Buck made quick work of writing up a service ticket, getting the ignition key, and hooking Betty to the tow. In fact, he barely gave Coop a chance to retrieve his bags and cell phone before hopping in the cab saying, “I’m not a taxi service. You’ll have to get his own ride.” Bags at his ankles, scowling at the backend of his dead car moving away, Cooper released a sigh. This was not how things were supposed to go. He was meant to come home and take a quick look around town before going to the house. The drive was less about taking in the old haunts, and more about avoiding his brother Josh for just a while longer. Cooper considered crossing over to Savannah. Not only for the ride he needed but finding out how much work he had to do to get her back. Then again, he’d just spent eight hours in the car under a hot sun. The first impression he made had to count. Yes, he realized he was making excuses. Time to bite the lesser of two bullets. Cooper thumbed through his contacts to “Joshua Banks” and tapped the little phone icon. Five rings later, his brother’s voice penetrated the hollow silence, sounding very far away. “This better be important, little bro. I’m busy.” “Betty broke down, and I could use a ride. I’m on the corner of—” “You’re an important guy. You need a ride? Call someone who cares that the Rajun Cajuns star leftwinger is stranded on the corner of I Could Give and Two Shits.” The click on the other end had Cooper pulling the phone away to stare at the disappearing keypad with “Call Ended” at the top. “It’s the Cajun Rage, assmunch.” “What’s an assmunch?” Cooper followed the high-pitched sound belonging to a child. A woman steered her young daughter in a wide berth on the sidewalk, glaring at him. So much for his first first impression back home. Cooper threw on his megawatt smile. “I apologize, ma’am. Didn’t see you there. I promise to be more careful in the future.” He had to get off this street. And unlike the streets he’d become accustomed to in New Orleans, there wouldn’t be a single taxi happening by. And according to his Uber app, those were still nonexistent in these parts of the world. A quick internet search gave him the number to a taxi service, and he hit call. At most, he’d have to wait fifteen minutes. The benefit to small-town life. As he waited for someone to pick up the other end of the line, his gaze drifted over the palmettos and cyprus trees sprouting up and around brick inlaid walkways along the shoreline. A raspy-voiced woman answered his call just as his attention fell on Savannah Jane’s white blond hair, the smooth strands glowing in the sunlight. She now sat facing the ferry currently dropping off passengers returning from Morgan Island. He wanted to be next to her so badly that his lungs constricted. Watching her stare over an open laptop reminded him of their earliest days. The way they held pinkies instead of hands. Lying on their backs while the merry-go-round spun to a lazy stop, in which case he’d get back up to restart them. Those childish, infatuation-ridden notes they used to pass in class. Do you like me? Check yes or no. She’d always checked yes. So had he. Always. “Hello?” the woman on the phone inquired a second time. He startled and tried gathering himself. “Never mind. Sorry.” Cooper hung up and took a shaky breath. “You better not fuck this up.” Braced for impact, he crossed the street.

[epajournal]

March 13th, 2017

 God, what a day. Okay, where to fucking start, uh-- So it started out well enough. Like, alright, technically not. I went to bed in my clothes way too late, but I did wake up at a better time-- Noon, yes, but up until yesterday or whatever it would have been eleven. So, better. I had to keep on eye on Hugo next door while my neighbor, Roberta, was up in Napa for a few hours. She gave me twenty bucks, which I didn’t expect. So I woke up, went over, let out Hugo... Came back over, took my medicine and wolfed down a couple of those oat bars, and took Hugo and Casey both out for a walk. I was a little too tired overall but managed to go for it... Very wiped. Came back home and started to work on making a checklist thing I can use easily, daily. Found an app called Habitica. Not perfect, but honestly pretty close to exactly what I need! So I got that set up and rolling. Earlier on, I called about getting Casey’s bloodwork results back in... And then I marinated chicken and the tritip and brought down mom’s comforter to start washing and brought up my downstairs lap desk and back rest so my mom could try it out. I was feeling pretty productive!    Actually, I’ve been feeling optimistic in general the last number of days-- Even with stomach cramps, which I didn’t have any of today! I’m staying away from dairy for now, mostly, because it seems that’s what’s triggering my system, which is especially sensitive from being off Prozac for a couple of days, restarting at the higher dose, now I’m back down to 20mg... Anyway, that was a great part of the day. In fact, my bowels have been plenty active! In a good way, mostly.   But then I got a text to my brother and I from my mom which led to us going in her room. She got told by her doctor there’s a very good chance her lungs will kill her, it’s miraculous they haven’t yet. Mostly because she isn’t getting enough oxygen in her sleep and I guess she’s in a space where she could suffocate and her body won’t wake her up. That and all this scar tissue in her lungs, she’s got a massive white cell count and low red blood cell count...... So we had quite a talk about that, she was very much arguing that she couldn’t stop working and we’re yelling at her, IT’S NOT AN OPTION...... but we get through THAT and it’s like “ohhhh boy” and now I’m cooking dinner which... somehow I’m cooking for everyone??? I offered Ian some chicken and suddenly it’s a task I have to do, then my mom wants in, but.... He’s like. Refusing to help me do anything except give me some rice he’d already cooked. In the end, he ended up cutting fruit salad. I go to the bathroom-- It’s an emergency because... Prozac. I see there’s toilet paper in the bowl already but I don’t want to wait to take a shit because it might not hold OR it’ll back up in me. So, I go on top of it. And then I go to flush. And it doesn’t.   So I get mad, because I cannot tell you how many conversations I’ve had with these guys about flushing after they finish using the bathroom and how much of their literal shit I’ve had to plunge. What ensued was a Very Bad Argument where I was argued every step of the way and blamed for everything, honestly so, and only focused on how I was yelling even though I didn’t call them names and my brother called me a bitch twice and I was told I was crazy multiple times. So... I said fuck it, and at like 12:30/1:00 in the morning went out for a drive around town while I called Tom and cried to her a bunch. I come home and I’m exhausted-- I don’t want to leave my mom without being monitored throughout the night. Nobody, including her, knows if she would make much noise if she started to suffocate in her sleep... But meanwhile Ian and Mom are acting like, oh, it’s fine! I bet I’d wake up. I bet I could hear it in my room. You could go to sleep while she was sleeping, you’d wake up. Ian had called me while I was in the car and was like, so are you sleeping with her tonight? And basically just was like, “well I’m so tired, I can’t stay up all night with her” and going oh, I have chronic fatigue syndrome, aohhhhh. When I come back, they’re still insisting I don’t need to stay awake all night. But now my mom doesn’t even have her CPAP machine because, surprise, missing pieces, missing manual, so it’s super dangerous.   ...They’re willing to take that bet??? And I’m crazy??? I’m the crazy one there? So I’m like, look, Ian, you’re taking the day off tomorrow as it is, how about instead of me staying awake all night, we sleep in shifts. Maybe you take the first one (mind you it’s already nearly two by now), and I’ll take the second at about five or six. But, no no, he’s so tired. And I ask when he wakes up, then. Oh, he’s been getting up at ten. And apparently that’s non-negotiable. Fuck you, dude. So now I’m up, right. I’m so tired. I’m sitting in my mom’s bed keeping awake and the time is going by SO slowly because I can’t listen to music or anything for fear of not hearing if her breathing stops, and a few minutes ago at like 3:30 a.m. I hear him in his room, I’m very sure on the phone with Laura, playing his phone game. I’m so sick of this!!!!!! I’m so sick of not being valued!! And I just talked to them about how we need to pull together as a family. I just talked to IAN about how I need his help. He won’t even get a fucking FLU shot because he doesn’t want to even though right now, if my mom got the flu, she’d be fucked.... anyway I’m so tired, I’m so tired tired tired oh my god.