#but in hindsight it's fucking crazy how all of these came out in the span of three weeks

[driftwoodsix]

something was in the air in september 2023…

[lifeonashelf]

...INTERLUDE...

Come to Vegas! We can make out, gamble, and forget all our troubles.

This is quite possibly the greatest text message I have ever received. Four days later, I hit the road.

I have never driven to Las Vegas by myself. Once I complete the journey I can’t fathom why this is, because despite the extended sprawl of nothing between us, Vegas isn’t nearly as far away as I picture it in my mind. I arrive in 3 hours and 17 minutes (which, oddly, is the exact figure Google Maps gave me when I checked the route before leaving my apartment—this is even more astonishing when you factor in that Google not only calculated my precise rate of speed for the entire trek, but evidently also predicted that I would be pulling off the road for seven minutes to have a cigarette at a rest stop just outside Baker). On the way, I listen to two volumes of a 10-disc playlist I made a few months earlier. When I burn mix CDs for myself, they are ridiculously schizophrenic—crossing the state line, I hear Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, my favorite track by the death metal band Gorefest, and then “Cool For The Summer” by Demi Lovato in immediate succession, and I sing every word to each of them. Needless to say, it is an awesome drive.

Everything proceeds smoothly when I arrive. The Gold Coast has my lodgings ready for me two hours prior to the posted check-in time and they are able to accommodate my request for a smoking flat. I take my bag up to the 9th floor, set up my laptop at the table by the window, and then smoke a cigarette in my room just because I fucking can. I purposefully skipped dinner the night before so my stomach would be prepared to maximize the possibilities offered by the hotel’s Ports O’ Call Buffet. I tear that shit up, then head to the lounge to play a bit of video poker and get a cup of coffee—the machines at the bartop are not kind to me; that cup of coffee ends up costing me sixty dollars. Such is Vegas.

The day is uneventful, by Las Vegas standards. I drink more coffee, I gamble some more and win back my sixty bucks, I write a bit, I watch some basketball. But I am really just killing time. Because the passing hours are merely a preamble; the woman who sent me the text message which acted as the siren song for this trip is in the same town as me, and come “around 7ish” we will be in the same building.

She’s here on business. ___ is a reality television producer, and has been dispatched to Sin City to film the upcoming season of the show Hell’s Kitchen. I have not seen her in over two years, even though she only lives 30 miles from my apartment in real life and driving to Nevada is in fact way more effort than I would normally have to exert to visit her. But our real lives are rarely able to intersect. Besides, I love Las Vegas. And there’s something undeniably enchanting about the prospect of walking beside a beautiful girl amidst a panorama of brilliant dramatic neon and exotic stereoscopic night-sounds. Being in Vegas is like being in a movie, and the character you get to play has way more fun than you do when you’re not on-screen. Compared to my daily existence, and the daily existence of anyone who does not live here, the milieu of Vegas feels like an ethereal dream. That’s why it’s the perfect place to rendezvous with ___; being around her is so intoxicating that it feels much the same.

Our history spans nearly two decades. It is as complicated and messy and wonderful as any history I have ever shared with anyone. I cannot possibly recount all of it here, though I will tell you some. I lost a girlfriend when ___ and I became close because that girlfriend clearly identified that we were mutually attracted to each other. I would have never cheated, but my relationship imploded because I aggressively refuted her well-founded apprehensions and pretended like she was acting crazy for even insinuating I was drawn this person who I would 17 years later drive 230 miles to visit at the whim of a late night text. As a result I broke the heart of an incredible woman who deserved far better, and she broke mine by dumping me. Twenty-four hours subsequent, I was on a park bench making out with a girl who I swore up and down was merely a platonic acquaintance, and I was officially a liar.

I was 23 years old. I was also far more charming and attractive than I am now, and in the mindset to actively explore the positive corollaries which arose from that confluence. I spent a few years kissing a lot of girls because I was single and I was in my early twenties and it’s a good idea to kiss as many girls as you can when you’re single and in your early twenties because you won’t get to kiss too many more after that. Despite the sagacity I demonstrated by accurately predicting this, I was an unadulterated fucking idiot when it came to ___. I am horrified by my conduct throughout everything that ensued between us, and I will forever be haunted by the what-ifs brought about by the consequent brazen stupidity I exhibited.

From the moment we began groping each other at Cahuilla Park in Claremont, ___ became sort of a surrogate for the girlfriend I had sacrificed, a proxy upon whom I could bestow both the passion that had been extinguished and the anguish that had been stoked after the break-up. ___ did not kill my relationship, I killed it by being a callous asshole. But I think subconsciously I blamed her anyway (for having the audacity to enter my life and be the extraordinary girl she is, I suppose); that was far easier than owning up to the fact that I had acted like an irredeemable piece of shit toward the girl she supplanted. My pride and my heart were wounded and I couldn’t take it out on the person whose inescapable-in-hindsight decision had caused those injuries since she was no longer taking my calls. So I took it out on her replacement instead. And over the course of the several tumultuous months that followed, I proceeded to meticulously break the heart of another incredible woman who deserved far better.

I have never handled anyone as poorly as I handled ___. She was a dazzling and unequivocal gem, yet I treated her like she meant nothing to me at all. The mere thought of her being with anyone else drove me mad, yet instead of telling her this I told her time and time again that she could never have me all to herself and continued dating other people to underscore my assertion. More than once, I brought her to tears by stating in no uncertain terms that I never wanted to see her again, only to call her the very next night and ask her to come over as if that conversation never happened. I wasn’t simply emotionally abusive to ___, I was utterly fiendish to her. For every year of my life leading up to that one and every year since, I have been proud to conduct myself as a true gentleman, so I will never understand how I was even capable of hurting anyone as persistently and comprehensively as I hurt her. Rest assured, I didn’t understand it at the time, either. Nor did I understand why no matter how awful I was to her, she still saw the best in me and held out hope that I would come to my senses and acknowledge the singularly special thing that was standing right in front of me.

Unfortunately, I realized far too late that the reason ___ did so was because she was deeply in love with me. And I also realized far too late that I was deeply in love with her.

By then I had done about as much damage to her psyche as one person could do to another. Though she wouldn’t know it, my comeuppance was delivered by the next woman I entered into a failed relationship with, who put me through a lot of the same things I put ___ through and came up with several novel doozies of her own for good measure. ___ and I remained in sporadic telephone contact, though we rarely saw each other in person. Bizarrely, this had the upshot of emphasizing the indissoluble strength of our bond, since none of the interactions we had were stilted by our silence and distance—every time we came together, I felt as close to her as ever and she clearly felt the same.

Over the years, we’ve had numerous conversations about what happened between us. I wish to keep those private, but the essence of what has been expressed is that despite everything she considers me one of the people closest to her in the world. She also told me that “Perfect” by The Smashing Pumpkins is her song to me; I listen to it often, even though those beautiful and devastating lyrics always bring tears to my eyes.

Of course, along the way I finally did what she desperately wished I would have done 17 years ago. I came to my senses and acknowledged the singularly special thing that was once standing right in front of me. I made overtures to that effect on a couple of occasions when we once again found ourselves simultaneously single, but they were way overdue. She said she did still love me and always would, but the wall I forced her to build to shield herself from me had grown too tall and sturdy to tear down. A tacit understanding developed between us: we would be friends for the rest of our lives, but I had confused and harmed her enough for one lifetime and she was not willing to give me any chance to add to that abominable legacy. It’s a verdict I had no choice but to accept because it was a much better one than I deserved; she would have been undeniably justified in never wanting to speak to me again.

I know ___ has never wholly resolved the chaos of emotions I stirred within her, neither the amorous nor the angry. Some cuts are too deep to be sutured, and those tend to leave scars. Truthfully, I think she despises me as much as she adores me; she just adores me too much to let the other side win out most of the time. But this paradox is entirely fitting because our entire relationship is a paradox, a saga of two satellites which have shared each other’s orbit since they were launched and create a blinding explosion when they collide. Last night, she kissed me in the lobby of the Golden Nugget casino and we melted into each other just like we did that first time in Cahuilla Park, seventeen years erased by the touching of lips. When we came up for air, she wrapped her arms around me and buried her face against my chest and said, “god, I hate you,” with so much love in her voice that it made my stomach swim. It was the perfect thing for her to say in that moment, both because it is absolutely true and because it is the absolute opposite of the truth.

We had a delightful night on Fremont Street, both of us properly investigating that very cool region of the city for the first time. We had some drinks and we listened to some music and we played some poker and we held hands as we walked the promenade. For a few hours, we got to be the couple both of us wanted to be at one time or another, just never at the same time; we even fought like a couple for part of that span, since the resentment and pain she’s had to bury deep within herself to continue accepting me into her life despite my previous sins still gets triggered from time to time when we speak of the past. Regardless, I wouldn’t have changed a second of it. The night was absolutely magical, because ___ is absolutely magical.

But the spell of Las Vegas gets broken once you realize that nothing there is real. There’s an axiom people use to justify all manner of debauchery they engage in while visiting Sin City: “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”  Tonight ___ is out with a large group of people who esteem her, and I am alone in a smoky room sitting at my laptop, which is a lot closer to what our individual non-Las Vegas lives look like. This artificial vacation existence in which we were united as one happened in Vegas and will stay in Vegas, because it has to. Because, truthfully, the life she built for herself without me is much richer than the life I built for myself without her. Tomorrow morning I will get in my truck and exit this city of lights to travel back across a stretch of barren desert the length of two mix-CDs, and after I arrive home I will spend the next interminable number of days and nights sitting at my laptop in a room that is less smoky than this one but no less lonely. Meanwhile, tomorrow morning ___ will continue to work her fascinating job and then she will leave the country on some adventure, and no matter where she is and what she’s doing, she will be surrounded by people whose company is far more gratifying to her than mine ever could be.  

The hours we spent holding hands on Fremont Street were unreal. But they were also so real that I am still reeling from the aftershock of our latest satellite collision. Our relationship, both the real and the unreal, befits that manner of contradiction. I don’t think ___ and I are still in love with each other, but I do still love her in a way that I have never loved anyone else. I have committed unconditionally to other women in her absence and redistributed the connection we share into a more manageable framework, but whenever there is no one in my life I can’t help but recognize that there very well could be if I hadn’t once been a soulless beast to someone who was merely pleading for me to appreciate them the way they sincerely deserved to be appreciated. ___ is without a doubt one of the most phenomenal and inside-out beautiful human beings I have ever known and I cannot conceive of my life without her in it, yet I still to this day find it difficult to face her. Every moment I spend with ___ feels like a gift, but those moments also sting in equal measure, because she is a walking reminder of me at my absolute worst.

I don’t think she has ever truly forgiven me. I’m not sure she really ever could, or should. Nothing I do today can undo what I did yesterday. I know that no matter how exhilarating it feels to look into her gorgeous and soulful eyes after we kiss in a glittering alternate universe, there are times when she looks at me and only sees a man who likely hurt her worse than anyone else she has ever known. I know there is a part of her that will always love me, but I also know there’s a part of her that wishes she had never even met me.

While I can only suppose what the world might look like if I had treasured her instead of trashing her all those years ago, I am positive that it would look far better and brighter than it does now. I’m aware that even if I had done the right things then, it’s improbable we would still be together today. Very few relationships go that distance, and despite our exceptional chemistry, ___ and I are not effortlessly compatible. I wouldn’t change a single thing about her, but there are unchangeable things about me I know she could not abide and no one should have to. She detests smoking; I enjoy smoking more than I enjoy most other things. She dreams of spending her days traveling and exploring; I dream of sitting in my easy chair and watching blu-rays.

She thinks I was worth falling in love with; I think strongly otherwise.

I don’t specifically wish ___ and I were together now. Yet therein lies another paradox. Because I got a little glimpse of what that might look like last night on Fremont Street, and it looked amazing. But that wasn’t real, that was Las Vegas; what happens there stays there. It was a magnificent movie, but that’s not what our actual lives look like. We could make out, we could gamble, but we could never forget all our troubles—no matter how much she loved me then and loves me now, I will always be one of hers.

So maybe what I do wish is that I could really be the person she was holding hands with in that unreal fantasy, the person who kissed her with abandon in the lobby of the Golden Nugget, the person she gazed at with unbridled tenderness during that joyful interlude when both of us were able to shelve our past and exist solely and safely in our present. The person she hoped I would become before I shattered her hopes by becoming a monster. Regrettably, untethered from our mutual orbit, I grew to be someone else entirely, someone with numerous regrets he can never completely atone for, someone she will always measure with a watchful and skeptical eye to protect herself. Someone who can never be anyone else except who he is. And that person simply would not be capable of making ___ as happy as she deserves to be, because he already had his chance to do that and made her miserable instead.

Besides, he can barely make himself happy most of the time.

 ###

 The trip home is an inexorably depressing conclusion to every great vacation—you’re doing the exact same thing you did when you set off, except there isn’t anything to look forward to when you arrive. Fittingly, an unseasonable rain is coming down when I hit the 15 Freeway. The water-dappled windshield and the desolate unfolding highway ahead evoke another cinematic scene, perhaps a montage in which the central character takes a long drive to think heavy thoughts. At the risk of becoming a cliché, that is exactly what I do.

My mix-CDs play on, the music blurring past with the miles. I hear “Wonderwall” and I hear “Stairway to Heaven”, which are two songs that everyone should listen to extremely loudly on the open road at least once in their life. Seaweed… Tiamat… Purity Ring… My Chemical Romance… P!nk… The Dillinger Escape Plan... Fleetwood Mac… Each one of them imparts a decisively fantastic tune, but this time I’m not singing along. I am instead blinking away tears as it dawns on me exactly how much I am leaving behind in Las Vegas. Not the money I lost at the video poker machines, but the luminous girl I wagered at the age of 23 when I made a much more foolish gamble than I could have ever imagined and ended up losing the most precious thing I never had. The fortune that I lose over and over again every time ___ and I part from each other and return to the real world.

I discover that her hold on me, this cosmic magnetism we share, has not diminished with time. And I discover that the axiom is not absolute—not everything that happens in Vegas stays there; some things follow you all the way home.

That night on Fremont Street, she told me that she will never be completely over me. At least that makes us even in one respect.  

Though the imprint I left on her heart was shaped like a bruise, there will always be a piece of mine that is the precise shape and size of ___. That piece belongs to her, and though it is a woeful consolation prize, it is the only one I will ever have the opportunity to give her.

But it does come with a vow: forever and always, whenever and wherever we meet, in Las Vegas and in real life, I promise we’ll be perfect.

 May 9, 2019        

[interesting-blog-name]

FKA twigs MEGAREVIEW (LP1/M3LL155X/MAGDALENE

FKA twigs is a British R&B and art pop singer who came up as a backup dancer for various artists’ music videos, and decided to start her music career, releasing her first official EP, EP1, in 2012. I am not familiar with anything she’s done except for her feature in A$AP Rocky’s Fukk Sleep, so I don’t know what to expect, even though I’ve heard good things. I’ll be listening to her two studio albums and an EP she released between the two, chronologically.

 LP1

I love it.

Although twigs isn’t fond of being categorized as an R&B artist, specifically alternative R&B, as she has stated in an interview with The Guardian, there really isn’t much else to be used to describe her music, and the term is pretty convenient to embody most of the sounds in LP1, so I’ll most likely be using it. The album is a mixture of strong, dark electronic production and twigs’ beautiful falsetto singing, taking form as either the sexually charged, euphoric vocals you hear in the chorus of Two Weeks, or the hymnic elements her voice has in Closer and the intro Preface. These two key elements constantly clash and form something way more impactful than what they’d be individually, and give the whole LP a soothing and simultaneously dark and dizzying atmosphere.

The highpoints in the album are when the two combine into grand moments such as the ending of Lights On, where the production amounts into a huge chunk of pure bliss, sounding like there are tens of different sounds all in sync with one another, or the processed, multi-layered chorus in the next track, Two Weeks. Another great quality to the production style in the album is that it gets to be adventurous when it wants, how it wants, whether by pulling back completely and minimalizing its role to let FKA twigs’ voice shine on Hours, or on my favorite track Pendulum, where the whole song is built around this unstable knocking and simple yet effective manipulated keyboards, completely fading out at times leaving the high-pitched vocals to themselves.

The lyrical themes are all built around love and passion, with varying levels of aggression to romanticism (Lights On, Two Weeks vs. Hours, Give Up) or regret, such as in Numbers, which showcases how far into the electronic side the production can go, with erratic drums and beeping at the start, progressing into some gorgeous synths under some of twigs’ most heartfelt singing in the project. The exception is Video Girl, the most personal track here, where she sings about her time as a backup dancer and the struggles that came with her intent on achieving fame. The lyrics hit hard and it serves as a really nice intimate moment in the album.

For the tracks I don’t like as much I have the two closers: Kicks and One Time, the latter being only available in the deluxe version, which is not on streaming platforms. Kicks, from what I could tell, is all about being enough for yourself, specifically sexually. Without the grand ambitious production from the rest of the album, this outro is left with okay vocals and an odd theme that doesn’t go anywhere, backed by some slightly annoying production decisions, and a nice chorus which is definitely the best part of the song. One Time, on the other hand, is just really bland compared to the craziness of the rest of the album, as it is the most stagnant and uneventful of the tracks.

The sound of LP1 is definitely intriguing, and I consider it a nice introduction to an artist I have high expectations for.

 FAVORITE TRACKS: Pendulum, Video Girl, Two Days, Lights On

LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Kicks

  8.25/10

“You’re younger than I am broken. I dance feelings like they’re spoken, so my conversation’s not enough.”

 M3LL155X

Read as “Mellissa”, this EP was released in August of 2015, and features 18 minutes of music spanned into 5 tracks, and I love to say there’s not one track here I don’t like

What surprised me about M3LL155X is how “explosive” twigs seems to be compared to LP1, where most of her tracks were sung in a comfortable, soothing falsetto tone, in here she isn’t afraid to let her voice carry out a lot more, which brings some much appreciated strong emotions and power to the songs here, great examples being her fast delivery on the hook of In Time, and her enchanting finish to Mothercreep.

The EP starts with Figure 8, which places the listener dead center in the chaotic instrumentals the project has to offer, with a banging bass right at the beginning. The track slowly progresses from its slightly angelic cadence into the weird, choppy vocal effects in the latter half, giving the track a nice finish. What I find a little underwhelming are the lyrics, sometimes they come off slightly meaningless, at least at first glance, but I feel they could have been used better, maybe to convey meaning other than love and relationships, which is done in the last two tracks, but not in such an effective way in my opinion, specifically on Mothercreep, a track supposed to be a mature hindsight to twigs’ mom’s decisions to her daughter’s life, which doesn’t come off as super personal in a way it could have. Like I said, however, the ending to this song is gorgeous, and I love how the song waits to bring in that climax, it really ends the EP on a huge high note.

To me the best the EP has to offer is In Time and Glass & Patron, the first being this infectious, addictive, ever-evolving fat banger, I just cannot get enough of it at all; and the latter being the weirdest, most electronic-influenced song here (I mention the umbrella electronic genre very carefully because I know fuck-all about it), with the oddest but most interesting progression here. That isn’t to undermine twigs’ vocals, as they are as good as ever, I just wish in tracks like this and I’m Your Doll, where she reaches some great vocal inflections, she’d make more use of them, but to me they feel like the vocals are somewhat teasing themselves to the listener, when they could’ve been used to a much greater extent.

I love this EP, I love its aggressiveness and how it surprised me, but I know, even as good as it is, that all the potential here could have been used a bit better.

 RANKED TRACKS: In Time, Glass & Patron, Mothercreep, Figure 8, I’m Your Doll

 8.15/10

“Paper cut it, I feel the slightest rip is a river that’s overflowing me”

 MAGDALENE

Bruh.

I don’t even know what to say honestly, I’m completely blown away. This is heaven.

From the start, I thought this album was gonna be alright, but immediately after home with you I knew this shit was something else. This is by far her most cohesive, beautiful, emotional, greatest album overall. I seriously don’t even know what to say, I’m writing this immediately after my second listen, and I love almost every aspect of it.

I guess I’ll start by the things I liked the least, which were probably the tracks sad day and holy terrain, even though these tracks are at least great. The melodies in sad day are so unique and entrancing, really the only thing I didn’t like as much was the production, which felt like it could have gone a bit further. For holy terrain, I have mixed feelings towards it. While a part of me feels like it was a little weird, a bigger part is amazed at how well these two worlds merged with each other to form a track as beautiful as this; again, it doesn’t stand out as much as some others, and I think twigs sounds a bit like Ariana Grande at the beginning of the hook, but fuck me some moments in this song are insane.

I was a little indifferent towards thousand eyes at first, but I’ve come to appreciate a slow, ascending intro to this mindfuck of an album, and the track right after that, home with you, is pretty much perfect, I have nothing bad to say about it. I love the alternating between processed and raw vocals, and it just ends so beautifully, it’s seriously otherworldly.

“Otherworldly” is actually a great word to describe almost anything here. mary magdalene is a gorgeous look into the ethereal feminine theme this album is solidified over, and sounds like something you’d hear as you ascended into heaven after dying; fallen alien is aggressive like something out of M3LL155X, but even more polished and fits perfect into the context of the album, and after it starts a nearly flawless outro of three tracks: mirrored heart, daybed and cellophane. This is pure emotion, I cannot describe what I felt while listening to these three. The first is probably one of the best songs I’ve ever heard, or at least that’s what I feel right now. I have to be extremely careful not to listen to this too much, so it doesn’t lose its magic on me.

daybed is much simpler instrumentally, with an ambient undertone to the track that just really fits my personal tastes. The lyrics in this track are raw feels, in fact the lyrics in MAGDALENE in general sound much more mature and fleshed out, and I absolutely love it, it’s heartbreak, bittersweet beauty in every direction, all connected by this weird theme of something greater than humanity; if twigs’ intent was to make herself look extraterrestrial with her art, but at the same time undeniably human, then I think she succeeds, because, to me, it feels like she is the music, it feels like she pulls these songs straight from her soul, and that’s why it’s so alien, because it is incredibly human.

For the closer, cellophane absolutely wrecks your heart with a gorgeous piano ballad, and I’m very happy I never heard this song, considering it is the lead single to the album, because it just added so much emotion to the outro of one of the best albums I’ve heard. I seriously cannot get enough of it, and I think I’ll go sleep for a while now just to clear my mind a little bit. I’m sorry if these three “reviews” haven’t gone super in depth with the albums, but I feel like if I talk about them any longer they’ll lose some of their beauty to me, plus I’m not doing this to be perfectly objective, just to share my super biased, super inexperienced thoughts on what I listen to. So I guess just listen to them. They’re awesome. Peace.

 FAVORITE TRACKS: home with you, mirrored heart, cellophane, daybed, mary magdalene

LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: none

 9.45/10

“Aching is my laughter, busy is my pastime, telling is my silence, blurring my horizon, smothered is my distance, careful are my footsteps, possessive is my daybed.”

[everlarkbirthdaygifts]

Happy Birthday, sunflowerslyf!

Apologies for the delay on your gift, @sunflowerslyf! We hope you had a wonderful back on the 16th, and got all the presents you wished for! To bring your party back around, @ally147writes has written a story just for you!

AN: Sorry for the delay, @sunflowerslyf! I’ve been pretty sick the past week or so, but I’m kind of on the mend! Full disclosure, I don’t know if this qualifies as a ‘meet-ugly’, but you wanted some smut as well, so I had to make a few modifications. There’s no actual smut in this story (sorry...), and there’s a lot I’d love to go back in and add or flesh out since I did rush it finished a little, but I hope you’ll enjoy this anyway ;)

This story was inspired somewhat by the police station scene between Jennifer Grey and Charlie Sheen in ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’.

Rated M for mostly for language and a little touchy-feely business. Unbeta’d. All errors are my own.

At least, Katniss notes, the whole place smells like bleach and latex.

 More than she could say for the parlour Jo dragged her to. She doesn’t remember a whole lot about that night other than the stench of cheap beer, vomit, and unwashed hair.

 The only other thing that doesn’t separate this place from the tattoo parlour is the clientele.

Katniss tugs her cardigan tight and crosses her arms and darts her gaze back and forth between the others occupying the seats around her. Between the young girl with the spiked, blood-red mohawk and the two guys who look like they’re members of violent biker gang, she’s the most demure one here, that’s for sure.

“So…” A low, sensuous says from the chair two down from her. “Where’s yours?”

 She freezes. The guy’s been watching her since she came in, and she’s been doing all she can not to stare right back, because he’s somehow the encapsulation of all the things your mother warned you to be careful of in a boy. Blond hair styled in an undercut, with the curls on top left untouched; blood-shot blue eyes, lined with something dark that might be smudged eyeliner or the evidence of a good, hard punch, that somehow still hold hers with an alertness she never would have expected; a small hoop glints from his eyebrow, and another two in the ear she can see. His white shirt, maybe a size too small, is a tight fit around his ornately tattooed arms, and it hugs his tapered torso almost obscenely. A leather jacket is slung over the arm of the chair, smooth and old and worn. She wonders if he got it second-hand or stole it, or maybe both.

 She lets out a breath and faces him front on. “My what?”

 He grins lazily. She crosses her legs. “You’re in a tattoo removal clinic, remember? So, where’s your shitty ink?”

 “Oh.” Her cheeks flush. “It’s, uh… not visible.”

 He snorts. “No shit, sweetheart, you’re covered from head to toe. So, unless it’s on your tits or something, mind at least giving me a hint?”

 Her jaw drops, but she recovers quickly and flashes her most menacing scowl. And pulls her cardigan a little tighter over her chest. “Go fuck yourself.”

 He grins wider. She swallows. “You’re kinda pure, aren’t you?”

 She swivels forward. “I don’t need to defend myself to you.”

 “That’s exactly what you’re doing, though, aren’t you?” He stands, and he’s not much taller than her, maybe a couple of inches, but he’s broad, built like a wrestler. He shuffles a little and settles in the seat beside hers and leans in close. She steals a breath and nearly shivers. Cinnamon and dill, fire smoke and something like warm, fresh bread.

 And something else a little like whiskey. God, is he drunk?

 Did someone turn up the heaters? She was freezing just a moment ago.

 “What are you doing?”

 He holds up his hands, both large enough to span her waist and then some.

 “Nothing at all. Just getting to know you. Can’t do that from all the way over there.” He grins again, and his teeth are perfectly white, though not perfectly straight, which is kind of a relief. “So,” he leans in close, “is it on your tits?”

 “What the fu — no! It’s not!”

 “Bummer. Thigh? Wrist? Ass?”

 “Jesus, why do you care so much?”

 “Just making conversation. I’ve been waiting in here over an hour now.” He smiles again, a little more subdued this time. “You’re by far the most interesting thing in the room.”

 She watches him stretch his legs out. Those black jeans will be the death of her. “Those lines ever work?”

 “I don’t know.” He bats his lashes. “You tell me.”

 She rubs at her eyes. “Why don’t you just leave me alone, dude?”

 “You’re really not going to tell me where it is, are you?”

 “Just not sure why you’re so curious.”

 “And I’m not sure why you’re so scared.”

 “Well,” she says, swallowing again. “Where’s yours?”

 “On my stomach. Wanna have a look?” Without waiting, he stands and whips his shirt up, revealing a set of abs that have no place on a seedy-looking dude at a tattoo removal clinic.

 She blinks at the expanse of colour decorating his body; abstract swirls like fireworks, flowers and faces, a bird in flight and wall of flames, every single one so sharp and intricate they look like they belong on a canvas in a gallery, though she concedes this man’s body is a more than acceptable substitute.

 “I… which one?”

 “This one.” He gestures to a trident slung low on his hip, disappearing into his jeans. Please, Jesus, don’t take those off, too. Or do, maybe, fucked if I know…

 “It’s… uh…”

 He snorts. “You can say it. Looks like shit. Not my best work, that’s for sure.”

 “You did it yourself?”

 “Most of them,” he says with a shrug, like it’s no big deal. I frequently stab myself with a needle for kicks. “Just not usually hammered when I do it.”

 She breaks her gaze away from the tapered V of his hips and meets his eyes again. “Why were you doing it, then?”

 He shrugs again. “Lost a bet to a friend. Tridents are kinda his thing. I might redo it again another time when I’m not pissed as a maggot.” He tugs his shirt back down and sits. “So. Where’s yours?”

 She sighs. “Lower back.”

 “Ah.” He nods, and God damn, did she just spy a tongue piercing? “Classic. What’s it of?”

 “A katniss flower.”

 He blinks. “I don’t get it.”

 She lets out a tired laugh. “My name’s Katniss. Seems a little conceited, don’t you think?”

 “I don’t know. Depends, I guess. Not like you’d be showing a ton of people anyway, what with it back there and all.” He grins again, and for a moment, he looks so much younger. “Can I see it?”

 “What? No!”

 He pouts. “Why not?”

 “Because,” she mutters at the ground. “It’s dumb.”

 “So why’d you get it in the first place?”

 She shoots him a wry smile. “Also hammered. My friend got one that night, too. Somehow, drunk me thought it’d be a great idea.”

 He laughs. “You make it sound like you’re the only one to do anything dumb when they’re drunk. You should probably loosen up a little. Relax, you know? Not like you’re the first person to make a bad decision before.” He smiles and wiggles his eyebrows at her. “Wanna make another one?”

 “You’re not going to let up, are you?”

 “Hey, I showed you mine.”

 She shakes her head and lets out a long, low sigh, ending on a chuckle. “I really don’t know why I’m doing this.” She leans forward, reaches back to untuck her tank top from her jeans. The chilly air hits the skin of her lower back as she inches it up to expose the ink she first thought was a mutant spider when she caught sight of it in the mirror the day after it happened.

 The guy’s hands ghost over her back, radiating a heat that makes her shudder with anticipation of his real touch. “Lean forward a little more, please?”

 She does as told, and when his fingers make contact, it takes everything in her not to melt at the gentle, ginger touch she did not expect from such an oddball presence.

 “It’s exquisite work,” he murmurs. His blunt nails tracing the design ignite a flood of goose-bumps along her spine. Heat courses through her, enough to fill her cheeks and every part of her. She clenches her thighs together and prays he doesn’t notice. “Gorgeous, really. Whoever did it did a really good job. You sure you wanna go through with getting it removed?”

 “Yeah. I mean, I never really wanted one anyway.”

 “It suits you. Sexy as hell, too, if you ask me.” She didn’t, but there’s a little thrill coursing through her regardless. “And a namesake tattoo isn’t a bad thing. I’d have a piece of pita bread on me if that wasn’t a totally batshit insane idea.” He removes his hand, and some stupid part of her brain misses it like crazy.

 She tugs her tank back down and sits up. Weird guy seems much closer now, or was he always this close?

 “Your name’s Pita?” Her voice sounds almost choked.

 He smiles again, and she can’t help but stare at his lips now that he’s this close. “Peeta, actually.”

 “I probably should have asked that before I let you put your hands on me.”

 “If you had any sort of hindsight you wouldn’t be here at all.” He reaches out and tucks a loose piece of hair behind her ear. Why the fuck is she letting him do that again? “Right now, I’m kinda glad you’re an idiot. I probably wouldn’t have met you otherwise.”

 She swallows and tilts her head closer, letting him curl his hand around the back of her neck. The scent of him and the sound of his voice is kinda hypnotic… “I kind of don’t hate it right now, either.”

 She kind of falls into him then, and she’s got no real good reason why. Because he’s hot? That’s as good a reason as any. All she knows, his hands are mangling her braid and lips are warm and soft on hers, gentle and commanding at the same time, like he knows exactly what he wants and how to get it. But there’s something that she wants, too. She wrests control away, and he lets her, like he’d been waiting for her to seize it the whole time. She licks the perimeter around his lips until he opens for her, and yeah, he does taste vaguely like whiskey and smoke that isn’t cigarette smoke, and it’s weird but it’s so flipping good and God, what is with this guy and —

 “Katniss Everdeen?”

 She rips herself away from Peeta and pushes him hard enough that he falls astride the chairs making up their row. He watches with a quirked brow — the one with the piercing — as she bolts up from her seat and steals her bag from the floor. A bespectacled man in a white coat stands in the doorway leading to the treatment rooms, flashing her a knowing smirk that she kinda wants to slap off. “Would you like to come through?”

 “I, uh… sure.”. She looks back at Peeta, who’s still watching her with the most ridiculously amused grin. She can’t help another lazy perusal up… and down. “It was… uh, nice to meet you, Peeta.”

 Peeta grins and waves, just a subtle flick of his fingers. “See ya later, Katniss.”

 Oh, God, yes I hope so...

[lovesick-feelin]

Nurseydex in 3, 8, or 46!!

3. “I may be an idiot, but I’m not stupid.”

8. “Forget it. You fucking suck.”

(I’m combining the two because they’re both very NurseyDex and I can’t choose)

…………

In hindsight, he’d been so excited about getting to live in the same Haus as Chowder that Derek Nurse hadn’t anticipated just how difficult sharing a room with Dex was going to be.

Sure, it was the type of difficult that resulted from a feud like theirs. They fought for an hour over who got the bottom bunk (Nursey) and who got the desk with the outlet closest to it (Dex). They scuffled over bathroom space. When they did homework in there at the same time, everything felt cramped and awkward.

There was, however, the difficulty that no one except Derek knew, and that was that he was very rapidly and very dangerously falling in love with William Pointdexter. 

It wasn’t like they were mortal enemies. They were friends, actually. D-men had to get along, and they hung out at the Haus and outside of class. They didn’t hate each other. But they were just starting to move towards real, genuine, actual friendship, and then Derek had to go and develop a crush. Fan-fucking-tastic.

The end of December meant finals, and no one got more stressed about final exams than Dex did. (Well, except for Ransom, maybe. But at least Ransom had a system.) Dex got to a certain point where he was almost too stressed to function, but if he gave himself a break, he’d break down. So he pulled all-nighters and he drank more coffee than Derek consumed all year within the span of a week, and he worked himself to the point of death. And Derek could only watch and worry and try to offer advice. (It didn’t usually work.)

It finally all came to a head on one of the nights where Dex actually forced himself to go to bed. Finals were almost over, but practice had been rough that day, and Dex was missing shots that he never did normally. He’d stressed about it all day, lost part of his BioChem notes, and skipped dinner. Derek had walked into their room that night to find Dex already collapsed on the top bunk, exhausted.

During the night, a loud thump snapped Derek awake, and he sat up in bed, narrowly missing the bottom of the bunk above him. Blinking himself awake, he looked to his right. Dex had fallen off of his bunk, and was struggling to get up from the floor, his joints shaking. In the light from the window, Derek noticed that he was crying. 

“Dex,” he whispered. Dex didn’t hear him, rubbing his shoulder from where he’d landed on it. “Will!” Derek called out in a louder whisper. Will? You never call him that. Dex looked up like a startled deer, looking ashamed.

“Go back to sleep, Nurse,” he muttered, “just fell.” Derek stood up.

“C’mon, man,” he whispered, “it’s more than that. You’ve been killing yourself all week.” He reached out and touched Dex gently on the upper arm. “Are you okay?”

Dex paused, his lip trembling, and for a second Derek thought he’d made progress, but then Dex jerked his arm away. “Forget it. You fucking suck,” he added, but it was a weak attempt to return things to normal. He shouldered out the door. “I’m going for a walk.”

Derek looked at the clock. It was two-thirty in the morning. He forced himself to resist the urge for exactly ten more seconds, then cursed, stuffing his feet into sandals and pulling a sweatshirt over his head as he grabbed an extra hoodie and headed out into the chilly night air.

Will (okay, he was Will now) was already halfway up the block, visibly shivering. Derek raced after him. “Hey!” he called, catching up to him. Will glared at him, then looked surprised when Derek shoved the sweatshirt at him. “It’s fucking freezing out here,” Derek said. “If you’re gonna go for a walk, don’t give yourself hypothermia or something.” Will growled a little, stuffing it over his head and walking away. Derek stood there on the sidewalk. “Uh, you’re welcome?”

“Go away!” Will growled at him, and Derek narrowed his eyes. He stormed up behind Will and grabbed his arm, whipping him around so they were face to face.

“Look,” he said, “I may be an idiot, but I’m not stupid.” Will rolled his eyes. “I know you’re stressed,” Derek continued, “we all are, but this is crazy. Even Ransom didn’t push himself this hard last year. What’s going on with you?” His voice softened. “You can talk to me, you know,” he added. “I don’t actually hate you.”

Will’s shoulders shook, and he crumbled into tears, curling in on himself. Derek’s stomach knotted, and without thinking, he reached out and hugged Will, wrapping both arms around his shoulders. Will didn’t even resist, sniffling into the shoulder of Derek’s sweatshirt.

“I’m failing a class,” he whispered, “and if my GPA dips, I lose my scholarship.” Derek felt one of Will’s hands curl into fists. “My family can’t pay for college,” he added in a barely audible whisper, “and then practice today felt like I was losing it, and I just… can’t afford to do badly.” Derek pulled back, both hands on Will’s shoulders.

“You’re not going to fail,” Derek promised him. “You’ve got a whole support system in the Haus. Chowder’s here, Bitty, hell, even last year’s seniors are around all the time.” He locked eyes with Will. “Everyone’s gonna help you.” Will stepped minutely, agonizingly closer, the tears no longer falling from his eyes.

“And you?” he asked, a little jokingly. Derek shrugged, laughing a little.

“Anything. You can even have the bottom bunk, if you want,” he whispered. Will studied his face for a beat, smiling softly.

And then he leaned in and kissed Derek, quickly and chastely and ever-so-hesitantly. Derek make a small noise of surprise. Will pulled back, looking slightly terrified and bright red. Derek felt his cheeks warm up.

“Or that works too,” he added with a smile. “I can work with that.” 

Will smiled with relief, and Derek hooked both hands gently in the collar of his sweatshirt, tugging him in to kiss him again.

(Will aced his last final.)

[massthetics-blog]

New Post has been published on MASSthetics

New Post has been published on http://massthetics.net/man-camp/

What I Learned From Hanging Out With 30 Men For Three Days

What I Learned From Hanging Out With 30 Men For Three Days

To properly frame what you’re about to read, you need to grab your clock, and rewind it back to September 16th, 2016.

Otherwise known as the day I touched down in Austin, Texas for the inaugural Man Camp.

  Helmed by two of the finest gentlemen in the land, John Romaniello and David Dellanave, Man Camp is best described as being exactly what it sounds like. Which happens to be precisely how I explained it to everyone who asked why I was going to Austin.

If the first thoughts that jumped to your head at the words “Man Camp” included a group of men rolling 30 deep lifting weights, devouring BBQ, sampling some of the finest bourbons and whiskeys, shooting guns, exploring our relationships, discussing empathy, and coming to understand as presentee, best-selling author and (self-professed) semi-retired asshole Tucker Max stated; what’s your fucking problem?

First of all, I’d be damn impressed at your intuition. Second, you’d be bang on the money.

Man Camp came at a curious time in my life

Man Camp fell upon the weekend preceding my 23rd birthday (happy birthday to me).

I also happened to be three weeks removed from parting ways with my girlfriend of the prior two and a half years, whom I’d been living with for nearly two of those years, and in another three weeks I was due to embark upon a three month long solo adventure to Greece.

At the time, MASSthetics was slowly and steadily growing, I had a strong circle of friends I could turn to (even though they’re scattered across North America and various parts of the globe), I had no ties to any one person or place, and I was preparing to spend three months in the country where half of my bloodline flows from. Despite lacking any semblance of stability (financial, emotional, location), I considered my life to be “pretty good.”

Yet, I knew I wanted more, could achieve more, and to say I was close to satisfied with where my life was at would be a massive understatement.

Despite the momentus mental shifts that Man Camp catalyzed in me, it wasn’t until the time of writing that I came to realize how impactful those three days were.

Thanks to the ever-helpful gift of hindsight, attending Man Camp set the stage for a cascade of changes that were to soon occur in my way of thinking, approach to relationships, and outlook on life itself.

Kicking off #ManCamp by crushing legs with @chriscoulsonfitness and @joeypercia. Many weights were harmed in the achievement of our leg pumps. #needmeat #mancampgains

A post shared by MASSthetics l Alex Mullan (@alexmullan13) on Sep 16, 2016 at 3:53pm PDT

The story I’d been telling myself for years is that I lack depth and breadth of experience, and don’t have a place in conversation

Curiously enough, I had little hesitation about attending Man Camp itself. None. Zip. Zero.

After becoming friends with Roman and Dave over the preceding year, there was no doubt that any event those two cooked up together would be worth my time, money, and attention.

However, I did face a mountain of hesitation and resistance when it came to engaging in many of the conversations and topics that surfaced over the course of the weekend.

Here’s what I mean:

I’d be remiss not to admit that this article is coming approximately 8 months past when I intended to publish a piece on the subject of Man Camp. But for whatever reason, every time I sat down and put pen to paper, I would encounter a massive, looming wall of mental resistance that kept me from opening my heart, and spilling my soul onto the page.

Yet, as I’m finally hitting publish on this tale, I’m able to clearly see where the resistance that stonewalled me time and time again came from.

My hesitancy and struggle to pen my thoughts on the special world that was Man Camp seeped from the same place that held me back from engaging deeply in some of the most meaningful conversation that I’ve ever been involved in.

Why?

When Dr. Jade Teta took to the front of the room to discuss  the connection between your mindset, testosterone levels, and the landscape of your life, he unearthed a subject of which I’d previously read some of his writing on.

The stories that you tell yourself about who and what you are will quite literally shape your life to fit that story arc.

As I reminisce and muse upon the catalyst that Man Camp was, I can clearly see the falsehood of the story arc I was hell-bent on telling to myself, and following.

The true value of attending events, being a part of Mastermind groups, and travelling doesn't lie in the information learned. # It's the experiences had and relationships you're able to forge that make it all worth the price of admission. # @joeypercia and I stumbled upon this #speakeasy bar tucked away in one of Austin's parkades. And aside from being one of the best drinks I've ever had, it's the truthful conversations, ideas hatched, and bonds forged that come together to create a unique, unforgettable experience. #Austin, until next time. #garage #indiansummer #braingains #allofthetacos #bbq

A post shared by MASSthetics l Alex Mullan (@alexmullan13) on Sep 21, 2016 at 7:36pm PDT

Age is but a number

While I don’t know the exact ages of each man in attendance, I can safely bet that I was the youngest by at least 4 or 5 years.

By all accounts, I did not have a rough childhood. Not that everything was handed to me on a platter or that I didn’t have to work for what I had, but in comparison to the upbringings of the men around me, my childhood and teenage years were a walk in the park.

In contrast to the men I flew across the country to surround myself with, I realized that I’m but a child.

And therein lies the problem.

It’s the same problem that occurs when you scroll through social media, see all your friends *seemingly* living incredible, exciting, fulfilling lives, while you’re stuck stocking shelves at 7-11. You compare your day-to-day life to the highlight reels of every single person you’ve ever connected with.

Call it jealousy, comparison bias, or whatever you believe fits the bill. It’s a pervasive problem in today’s current social media landscape of likes, shares, and endless emojis.

Amidst the conversations held at Man Camp, I found myself comparing the relative ease of my youth to the emotional and physical abuse, broken homes, addiction, debt, and business failures that nearly everyone around me seemed to have struggled through.

As a result, this false self-comparison that had me holding my tongue, and feeling out of place.

With a dose of irony, I now see the fact that I’m able to reconcile with how I felt about myself, understand where that false narrative came from, and now finding the will to write this very post speaks to the impact and lasting changes that Man Camp impressed upon me.

In truth, I’ve travelled, more than many will in their lifetime, and lived abroad in 3 unique countries, all vastly different from the Great Land of Canadia, from which I hail.

I’ve built a fully mobile business that allows me to live life on my own terms.

I’ve competed in bodybuilding competitions twice (soon to be 3).

I’ve been in relationships spanning from 1 month to over 2.5 years of all different levels.

I’ve dropped out out of college to chase what many would call a crazy dream.

I’ve had the world hand me my ass, forcing me back to live with my parents while I sorted my shit out multiple times.

I’ve been miserable with my day-to-day life, and I’ve been incomparably happy with the same.

That’s all happened in the past 4 years.

The story I should have been telling myself is that everyone has a unique perspective to share, and can be of benefit to others.

While it’s taken nigh on 8 months for this lesson to sink in, it has not only altered the landscape of my life, but it’s helped me help others as well, on a deeper level that I could have ever imagined.

Come now; step into a new world

At the end of the weekend, buried amongst the piles of BBQ, muttered between sips of bourbon, and plucked from the car ride conversations between activities, there was one sentence, one phrase, one nugget of utter gold I wrote down that stood above all the rest.

Even though I’d heard it many times over. When it comes to changing your life, achieving a goal, or simply taking one step forward…

Everything comes back to taking fucking action.

Talk is cheap, action is rare.

If you aren’t happy with any facet of your life, begin by chipping away at writing yourself a new story about who and what you are. The more feverishly and assuredly you tell yourself that story, the more your actions will begin to align with the direction you want to head, and who you want to become.

You’ll tell yourself that there is always more time.

But the thing with time is that it never stops moving.

Suddenly, you turn around and the time you thought would always be there, is gone.

Because time waits for no man.

Get moving.

And, get your ass to Man Camp 2017 (it’s in Philly, and there’s no website for it, yet) – because if it has even half the impact on you that it did on my life, that’s well worth it.

I hope to see you there.

  PS. 4 out of 5 lifters will let their rationalization hamster run wild. Convincing themselves they’re making progress…yet you build no muscle, and burn no fat. The 5th lifter joined the MASSthetics Clan and put the information within the (free) Hypertrophy Handbook to good use. He no longer has to rationalize his progress. It simply happens. Click here to become the 5th lifter, and let me know where to send the prestigious Hypertrophy Handbook.

[andthatswhatshewrote]

A Brief Intermission

A brief intermission between two semesters. When I get to see a show, I always like to relive and talk about the best bits of the first half - what confused me, what made me laugh, what made me cry, what made me feel warm. So here goes the rambly mess that was my first semester at UNotts. 

I can safely say that I have never cried more in the span of 5 hours than I did on the morning of the 21st. Me - who hates anything involving public and emotions - couldn’t stop balling her eyes out at the airport. I was shaking and whimpering various versions of “I don’t want to go” or “I’ve made a mistake”. I can usually get myself out of situations that make me feel like I’m falling apart but there was no way out of this one. Then I zigzagged back and forth for 15 minutes in the lead up to security, wracked anew with sobs every time I’d turn the queue corner and see my family. Pretty comical when I think back on it. Past security, I was actually totally fine. I dried up and bought two cupcakes and some cheesy garlic bread. Ready to do this. 

I got to Nottingham the next day at some point, completely exhausted from the flight and bus ride over (on which I’d realized I hadn’t actually paid my accommodation and so had to panic call my parents using the disappearing Heathrow wifi as the bus was pulling away - that was fun). In the next five days I met all six of my roommates and their families. They were so incredibly nice and welcoming, offering me a place to stay over Christmas etc. Because of that, I didn’t actually feel homesick for a few months. 

The girls I live with are a crazy mix. A gay, Newcastle lass furiously studying economics (although she’d prefer I say a furiously gay, Newcastle lass studying economics), an easy-going, guitar playing, partier from Belfast, a sarcastic and sassy neuroscientist from London, a sweet and unpredictable girl from a small town in rural England, the nicest and most chill girl I have met from Milan and a new mama-to-be like no other from Hucknall. They’ve taught me quite a few things. First, I do not give two shits who buys the toilet paper (heh). If it has to be me every time, so be it. We do not need to fight about it for days and go into a toilet paper stale mate. Second, people are not always laughing at your expense and if they are, they suck. Third, everyone is super different and has their own way of maintaining their living space and their friendships/relationships - it is not for you to judge. <– That was a hard one for some outspoken/messy people to learn. All in all, I really like my little flat family, as dysfunctional and crazy as they may be. 

My actual family also came to visit at Christmas and we traveled to Italy a little. It was pretty weird seeing them after three months. Ian was just a big a pain as usual and Will and I got along just fine. Just like normal. It might sound bad but I didn’t miss them as much as I thought I would. I love my family to death but I also love living here and being my own person. Getting Chinese food with them on the last night, when Will outed me and the Australian and my dad panicked will always be one of the funniest nights of my life. Since then, there have been some cancer scares and successful hip surgeries, new girlfriends and increasingly high grades. Overall, they’re doing just dandy. I do miss my dogs a hell of a lot though. 

I also joined the rambling society where I met five girls who I love to death. They were accepting and warm, funny and rude and each had their own amazing adventures to tell. Our little group just worked. They were also from parts of Europe where you just say what’s on your mind - you’re not rude, but you know what you want and aren’t afraid to express it. If they didn’t want mango in their spring roll, they would tell you instead of the very Canadian “oh sure, that’ll be fine” with an internal monologue of ‘who the fuck puts mango in a spring roll’ (actually pretty tasty in hindsight). It was just one of the things I loved about them. I’m bound to miss them more and more throughout the semester so I’ll probably write some appreciation post about each one of them at some point… sigh. 

Speaking of the rambling society. OH MAN. That was fun. Such a great, nerdy group of people to scale mountains with. I accidentally sank down to my knees in mud on more than one occasion, slid down the side of a hill covered in snow too deep to walk in, got stuck hiking down one of the steepest cliff sides in the dark, did a night hike (ok but WHY, like yeah I did it, so cool but what is the point, you can’t see anything), met more sheep than I ever have in my life and also a very grumpy donkey. 

OH dude. I totally forgot I went caving. Brief intermission in this intermission. Holy shit, there is nothing like that. I have never ever been so cold or mud covered in my life. The highlights I can remember are squeezing myself into a tiny hole, that was just about big enough to fit half of me and sliding down on my stomach, helped by copious amounts of mud, until I landed in some sand next to a cave diving start point. Totally awesome but terrifying. Then there were the ducks, when you had to go under water for a few seconds to surface into another pocket of air. Or the times when you just had to wedge yourself against a wall and slide down, very Emperor’s New Groove style. Kronk’s muscles would’ve been handy. I also met a good friend named Marion on the trip. I would unknowingly go on a few dates with her before realizing she was gay. We’re still friends and I’m going to meet her cat sometime this week!! Needless to say, I have some pretty great memories from it (too many to fit here and now) but I will not be doing that again. 

Back to rambling. Our weekend away to the Lake District is in my top five moments so far at Notts. The hike, the people, just everything. The first day had been harder than we’d anticipated and so we ended late, got back to the hostel and just all cuddled up together on the couches before eating an awesome curry dinner surrounded by everyone, happy and tired and drunk. I also met a myriad of lovely guys on the trip, one of which I’d end up going on some of the best dates with. He’s an excellent cook and a crazy sweet guy. The crayons and the dinner will be hard for all future guys to top. Just, sadly, not quite right. 

I did, however, meet another guy. He was very special. We’d see each other only a handful of times in the next two months but each of them would leave such a smile on my face that it didn’t matter. I’ve talked about him before, but he was smart (annoyingly so, I couldn’t get away with saying things like centrifical when I meant centripetal or centrifugal), liked doctor who (I mean do I even have to say more?), had a kind heart (too many examples to even include) and made me laugh at almost every moment, except maybe english stud muffins. He was confident and friendly, everyone from random Lancastrians to my jumpy security guards loved him. It should also be said that he was incredibly good looking: tall, blonde (ironically, I’ve always said I was never attracted to blonde guys... can’t say that anymore), beautiful eyes, beautiful smile, perfect for hugs and spoons... definitely looked good in son costume d’anniversaire. I loved his stories about his roommates and dancing with their siblings, of him and his brother embarrassing their younger sister and his rants about complaining Canadians and socially-inept Australian parrot people. There were times throughout our brief overlap where I thought I regretted meeting him, though. His heart was pretty recently bruised, more recently than I’d anticipated and every time he missed his ex after spending time with me, it really hurt. It kill(s)(ed) me constantly wondering if his obscure Tumblr likes and reposts were about her or me (millennials, I can’t stand em’). But, after it all, how could I really regret any of it? I loved coercing our way into getting Indian food too late at night, loved teaching him the ukulele, loved when he met my roommates, loved when he wrapped his arms around me waiting to cross the street, loved when he tried to embarrass me by being a Book of Mormon-loving-fool in public, loved getting Turkish food at 2 am in London, and loved waking up and reading while he slept on me. Actually. I do regret one thing. We should’ve rented those damn bikes. 

We didn’t really get a real goodbye so that is kinda what I wanted to say in the train station. Thank you for it all, kiddo. Someone will be very lucky one day. 

This semester has had the highest highs and lowest lows (lots of which I didn’t include here cause bad things aren’t fun to remember a lot of the time). It’s only been four months!! I have five more… I’m honestly a little scared of everything that will/could happen. All I know is that I will try to be more open-minded, less jealous, MANAGE MY DAMN TIME OH GAWD, play more guitar, dance more, read more and try and take it easy. It’s been really fucking fun. 

I’ll probs edit this lots but here goes my ‘brief’ - did anyone think it would be - intermission.