#but my dad didn’t start actively parenting until my brother was 12 and playing sports | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

uozlulu · 5 years ago

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Going to stick these here for now in case I lose the file or need it to be easier to search or something.

Notes on the ES21 soulmate mark AU fic I was rambling about in this post. Just kind of organizing things so when it comes time to write it I can hopefully write it quickly.

Some characters might not show up, others might get added to the list. Those missing so far are characters I either felt like I didn’t have confidence in writing or didn’t really remember since it’s been over 10 years since I finished the manga. Also trying to keep the cast of active characters on the small side even though a lot of characters will be there if only in general. All flashbacks/scenes/etc...will need proper fleshing out and so forth of course. These are all just my initial ideas, which are highly likely to evolve as I go as all my fics tend to do.

Probably going to wait until I finish watching the anime before writing it. Kind of tried to be canon compliant but also didn’t want to spend oodles of time tracking down details, so just kind of setting the goal as having fun with the AU and letting it do what it wants to do

Headcanons:

The World Bowl VI was Sunday, August 2, 2020. (It’s where the top football teams from around the world kick off the football season with a three week tournament started in 2015). The rehearsal is Friday, August 7, 2020. The wedding is Saturday August 8, 2020. Everyone goes home sometime Sunday, August 9, 2020. They have the ranch from Tuesday, August 4, 2020 – Monday, August 10, 2020.

High school football players form Japan, pro players from around the world, friends from school, friends from college are all invited along with their spouses, partners, significant others, and kids. Family members include Tetsuma’s mom who looks like him and their Seibu high school coach.

Sena –34 in December, played for Enma University from 2005 – 2009, been with the Seattle Superstars since 2009. Starting to contemplate retiring. The Seattle recruiter saw Sena’s tryout back in high school and tracked him down to beg him to sign with Seattle when Sena finally cashed in his NFL draft invitation from the Youth World Cup. Officially been in a long-distance relationship with Panther since 2010, but really they’ve kind of been a thing for longer than that.

Hiruma – 34 since February, plays for the San-Antonio Armadillos since 2006, likes to say he won’t retire until his age is his jersey number (55). Has been living with Mamori since 2006. They’re not married, but their daughter was born in 2017.

Kurita – 35 since July, played with the Tokyo Stallions, played from 2008 – 2016, works at the temple now.

Monta –34 on August 31, played for the San Antonio Armadillos from 2008 – 2013, having to retire after a career-ending injury at the start of the 2012 – 2013 season. Married Suzuna in 2008. They have a daughter born in 2010 and a son born in 2012. After retirement, he returned to Japan and he’s been coaching and teaching at Deimon ever since.

Juumonji –34 in October, Kuroki 34 on September 1, Togano 34 in October – all went on to have fairly normal jobs (banker, office worker, advertising). Kuroki is married with a kid or two, Juumonji is gay and has a partner who works the same bank and is his “roommate,” Togano is still single.

Yukimitsu – 34 since February, never played football again after high school, became a veterinarian.

Komusubi – 33 since January – never played football again after high school, became a personal trainer.

Ishimaru – 35 in October, never played football again after high school, went on to run in the Hakone Eikoden in university, has a normal job

Taki – 35 since April, played with the Orlando Divers 2004 – 2008 and then was traded to the Nashville Fighters where he’s been since 2008. Never married. Does he date anyone? Who knows. “My brother,” “my niece,” “my nephew.”

Musashi – 35 since Apirl, been playing the the Takekura Construction Babels since 2004, still working construction, personal life is pretty private, but does have a son who plays elementary school soccer.

Mamori 35 in November, ENL teacher to small children, still helps strategize football, been living with Hiruma since 2006 and had a daughter in 2017, living her best life

Suzuna 33 since March, married to Monta since 2008 with two kids, first of the group to get married, part-time matchmaker, has a decent success rate. Hiruma = You-nii, Juumonji = Monjii, Kuroki = Kurokki, Togano = Toga, Komusubi = Kamusubicchi, Yukimitsu = Yukki, Ishimaru = Tet-chan, Musashi = Musha-syan, Mamori = Mamo-nee, Kid = Kiddon,” Cereberus = Ceru, Sena has no nickname

Kid (Mushanokoji Shien) – 35 in November, comes from a noble line, at odds with parents over lifestyle choices and is now estranged, played with the Takekura Construction Babels from 2004 – 2005, played with the Tokyo Stallions from 2005 – 2010, played with the Houston Fishermen from 2010 – 2020. Started Sports Club with Tetsuma in 2012, which is a revitalization of the Boys and Girls Club concept. Hopes to keep working and growing the club in retirement. Been with Tetsuma since 2006. Wanted to enjoy being married so that’s why they waited until they were retired from pro ball.

Tetsuma – 35 since May, his mom looks just like him, played for the Tokyo Stallions from 2004 – 2008, played for the Dallas Titans from 2008 – 2020. Helps Kid run Sports Club, very good at organizing and budgeting.

Riku – turned 34 in April, played with Enma Fires from 2005 – 2009, played with the Yokohama Belugas from 2009 – 2015, still wears the team’s squid hat merch when it’s cold outside. Retired after a horrific injury which he still uses a cane for. Runs a pet bird store. Dated lots of people, still hasn’t settled for anyone.

Buffalo – 36 in October, got rid of the dreads soon after graduation in a bid to try and fit into Japanese society, now his hair is just long. Moved to the US in 2005 and ended up doing stuff like MMA, Ninja Warrior, and UFC. Has an American wife and three daughters (ages 12, 9, and 7).

Horide – no canon age, so let’s assume he’s roughly like late 50’s – early 60’s by 2020, still coaching football, but considering retirement, proud of all the kids who have ever been on his team. He’s pretty much in a parental position in the audience seating, and treated as one might treat a dad during such an event

Saba –mid-30’s, no real wiki info, became an office worker, has one child, didn’t play football after high school.

Aiuchi Hina – mid 30’s, not much wiki info, head cheerleader, Miss Seibu, probably married to an unnamed former teammate, and probably has at least one kid

Shin – 35 since July, played for Ojou Silver Knights 2004 – 2009, played for the New England Musketeers since 2009, has many Super Bowl wins, a true legend in both the US and Japan. Ignores tabloid rumors about him dating models and singers so he can enjoy some privacy with his partner, an indie rocker who preformed the half time show in 2013. They’ve been living together out in the middle of nowhere upstate New York since 2016 in a modest house that no one really would think celebrities owned. Has a condo near the Musketeers’ training facilities.

Sakuraba – 34 since March, played for the Ojou Silver Knights 2004 – 2009, played for the Seattle Superstars from 2009 – 2018, retired because he wanted to do something else with his life. Has gone on to play in a local band that’s had moderate success around the Pacific Northwest touring clubs, lounges, and bars. Keeps his private life very private.

Panther – probably 34 (no birthday given), likely graduated high school in 2005 like Sena, so probably met Sena the summer before sophomore year at high school, maybe has a summer birthday and was already 16 when they met. Nasa Aliens/Shuttles was a travel team he was in from 2001 – 2005, also played high school football with his local high school from 2001 – 2005, played with the San Antonio Armadillos since 2005, took business courses online and has a degree since he thought that might help him keep from falling into pitfalls other pro-athletes fall into with money and retirement. Didn’t have a cellphone when he met Sena, but they exchanged e-mail addresses. When Sena went to Notre Dame High School, they exchanged AIM handles and got to talk to each other more often since they were on the same time zone. Eventually exchanged numbers once Panther got a cellphone after graduating high school. Kind of were rocking the long distance relationship chic before it was an official relationship.

Jeremy – probably 34 or 35, the kid with the glasses, still close friends with Panther. Played at Stanford from 2004/2005 – 2006/2007, knows multiple languages for fun so he’s still not the best translator. Continued his degree while playing professionally because he promised. Played with the New England Musketeers since 2006/2007 and retired earlier in 2020. Has a son and daughter (ages 6 and 9). His wife is a teacher.

Homer – probably 34 or 35, the kid with the long hair, also still close friends with Panther and Jeremy, chose to go into the NFL draft upon graduating high school. Played for the Nashville Fighters from 2004/2005 – 2010/2011, and then got transferred to the Chicago Gangsters in 2010/2011 and retired in 2018 back to Houston where he helps run a charity that picks up the slack across Texas after disasters when FEMA can’t get its act together to help people. He’s currently trying to build the charity up so it can function in multiple states.

Big Brother Gonzales – probably 36 maybe about to turn 37, biggest guy from the travel team and probably the oldest member. Played with the University of Kentucky from 2002/2003 – 2006/2007, played for the Denver Pumas from 2006/2007 – 2010/2011 when he had a career ending injury. Had his kanji tattoo covered up and started collecting more tattoos. Has also gotten the correct kanji tattooed on him at some point.

Little Brother Gonzales – probably 32, never really got as big as his brother so he never played football after high school. Had a few tattoos including the dumb one from high school.

Vague Summary:

Sena/Panther soulmate fic in which Kid and Tetsuma’s wedding brings most the gang and more together. Kind of a choose to stick together thing? Idek. See where it goes. Think of it like a romcom movie maybe?

Soulmate Concept:

In this world, soulmates are considered near-extinct but they really aren’t. Lots of people have a wide variety of soulmates, it’s just that their soulmarks aren’t very obvious. For example, Mamori and Hiruma both have a splattering of freckles on their hands that are actually a continuation of each other’s pattern, but it’s too subtle and freckley to really realize what it truly means. Other people might have birthmarks that fit together or have moles placed in the exact same places or mirrored places, etc…However, there’s a subclass of soulmate marks for those who have a truly deep bond. Those marks have a more distinct look to them. Sena has what looks like roses cascading down his Soulmate marks tend to start developing upon meeting your soulmate and evolve as your relationship deepen, so Mamori and Hiruma upon meeting in first-year were probably like huh freckles, and by second year it’s like lots of freckles but who cares it’s just mysterious high school freckles.

Flashbacks:

Panther and Sena:

2002 – Hanging out by the river bank after practice before Panther has to regroup with the others where they’re staying. Sena’s soulmate mark is on his right leg and looks like cascading roses except more impressionist since the mark is still forming. Panther’s looks like chrysanthemums following a similar pattern on his right leg. At the time they think it’s kind of weird, but don’t over think it. Sena’s dad told him that most people develop one in high school and he has something like he and his best friend have stuff like that on their arms.

2002 – Sena asks Panther for his number after the cat incident, but Panther doesn’t have a cellphone yet. He does have e-mail and AIM, so they exchange e-mails because Sena doesn’t have AIM. By this point, their soulmate marks seem more like flowers than birthmarks, but they’re still underdeveloped.

2009/2010 – Panther and Sena meet up to celebrate New Years and Sena’s belated birthday since they’re finally both living in the states now (even if it’s an almost four hour plane ride apart), end up deciding that they’re dating. They have a good idea what they’re getting in though because they’ve been long distance friends with a fourteen hour time zone difference so at least now they can more feasibly see each other when they don’t have football commitments

Kid and Tetsuma

2006 – Kid, being the only son of a noble family was going through arranged marriage hell. Texted Tetsuma, “Save me,” both kind of half jokingly, half for serious. So Tetsuma shows up in nice clothing (because Kid’s always talking about how people get overly dressed up to come over to their estate) and kind of just showed up during a marriage prospect meeting, held Kid’s gaze a long moment, bowed on his knees to Kid’s parents like a good wedding prospect, and then promptly slung Kid over his shoulder, and rescued him. They’ve been together ever since. Honestly probably would have dated in high school but social pressure got in the way.

Venue:

It’s a large, sprawling ranch/inn in Wyoming. It’s large enough to accommodate everyone. There are horses to ride, a functioning farm, and a view of mountains in the distance. Everyone chipped in money to secure it not only because it was in a location the press wouldn’t bother all of them, but also because it sounded like a fun time no one could pass up. Kid and Tetsuma helped organize the whole thing so nobody would be priced out of coming especially if they had to fly from Japan or elsewhere to come.

Wedding:

The wedding is set up outdoors with everyone gathered around the altar so it’s les syour side and my side and more umbrella shaped. Kid and Tetsuma enter together, Tetsuma breaks off at a full run and Kid quick draws the bouquet, shoot it towards Tetsuma, who catches it and holds it through the whole ceremony. The ceremony is kind of a mix of typical American wedding stuff said by the ordained and then the vows are Shinto, though there is no sake. Kind of a mix of Kid and Tetsuma’s love of the wild west and their commitment to each other which follows more of a love, respect, console, help, and protect than a love, honor, cherish, and obey.

Reception:

It’s in the great hall of the ranch/inn. Lots of wild west/ranch/cowboy chic happening. Variety of food, mix of American and Japanese traditions. Kid tells the flashback about Tetsuma rescuing him from an arranged marriage. Reception ends at sunset and they ride off into the sunset together, heading to a nearby campsite to kick off whatever their honeymoon will be.

#adventures in fic writing

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hypnomule · 6 years ago

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THE BODYBUILDERS

Chapter 1

Sam walked into Michael’s room, he wasn't really good friends with his older stepbrother they were complete opposites. Sam was a small hunched nerd; he was a freshman this year and was struggling to make friends in his grade. His brother Michael, who had graduated last year, was a tall muscular bodybuilder who had no trouble getting anyone or anything he wanted. Michael looked up as Sam entered the room.

"What's up little bro?" Michael said as Sam shut the door behind him. Sam looked around nervously for a minute or two before softly saying.

” I want you to train me so I can become strong like you." Michael perked up he had been waiting for something like this to happen for years, but he was concerned at the sudden change of heart.

“Why what is the matter lil bro?” He asked sitting up in his bed. Sam looked down with a sad look on his face.

“These kids at school are bullying me.” He said starting to cry.Michael saw how bad his little brother was hurting, and couldn’t help, but to remember when he was bullied in elementary school.

"I can train you little bro, I can make you a whole new person if you want." He said grinning.

"That would be awesome!" Sam exclaimed wiping the tears out of his eyes.

"Good we will start next weekend after you get home from school." Michael replied.

Sam excited for tomorrow night ran out of the room, Michael waited a few minutes before going down to the basement. The basement was old and dark so his family never used it; he had converted half the basement into his private gym. He walked into his gym, and began to adjust the equipment so Sam would be able to use it, he couldn’t wait to have his brother like him.when he finished he grabbed a box out of his equipment storage, and smiled.

"So I finally get to use this." He thought to himself as he peered into the mysterious contents of the box.Putting the box away he began to lift some weights, feeling the need to workout again because of his excitement. Michael left his gym around midnight his body covered in sweat.Sam watched Michael sneak upstairs, he couldn’t wait for the next weekend to come. Michael noticed Sam staring as he went up the stairs.

“Hold on lil bro soon you will be just like me.” He thought to himself as he walked upstairs getting on his laptop.He still needed to buy a few things before he was ready for the next weekend, but he was sure that Sam would love the new him.

Chapter 2

Sam woke up marking off another day on his calendar. His big day was only a day away, but michael had already been making changes. His old room filled with action figures, and video games had been completely redone.The walls were covered in posters of sports teams, and famous bodybuilders. His gamecube had been replaced with a new Xbox One with call of duty games.

“it will get you in the mindset for your new self.” Michael had said when he was redecorating the room. Even though Sam had cried when his stuff was thrown away, he now understood what he was talking about, and each day he was looking more, and more to the weekend.

Sam walked into the school. This was the only part of the day he couldn’t stand. He walked into the school, and was surrounded by a group of kids.

“Heard you are gonna get it today freak!” One of the kids shouted.

“Yea Danny is gonna kick your ass!” Another one shouted.

Sam broke free of the group running to the bathroom to cry.He eventually went to homeroom, his teacher excusing his tardiness. He made it through most of the day perfectly fine, even lunch came with nothing bad happening.Seventh period, which was the last of the day, began.

“This is our new student Tyler.” His teacher said. Sam looked at the new kid, he had a light athletic build, his hair a mahogany color.

“Hi all.” He said a slight accent coming through “I’m tyler, my family just moved here from canada.”

“Everyone make sure to make him feel right at home.” His teacher said. “Now you can sit in that open desk over there.” She said pointing to the empty desk in front of Sam. He sat down as the teacher began the daily lesson.

“Hi, I’m Sam.” Sam whispered to Tyler.

“Nice to meet you.” He replied. The two spent the rest of the period getting to know each other. He learned that Tyler had moved from his old school because of a new job offer his dad had. He liked his school a lot, and was very popular. They made plans to meet after school on friday. School ended, and sam started to leave. He saw Danny sitting outside the school in front of Sam’s bus. He gulped knowing that if he went out the door he would be beaten into the ground. Sam turned around walking against the mass of students trying to leave the school.

He walked down the hallway to the old half of the school.This part of the school had been shut down years ago after the school got funding to built a new high-tech wing.He walked down the twisting hallways that the old half was famous for. He passed by a room filled with kids making art, and another with kids smoking.As he passed by a room filled with goths, he began to smell the odor of hard work, and dedication.He peered around the corner into a huge room filled with guys most of them lifting weights or doing some other sort of rigorous activity, of all the activities that took place in the old half this was seemingly the most innocent. Sam looked around at all the muscled jock guys, they came here every day, and worked out some of them graduated years ago but they didn't seem to care, they came every day just to work out. He watched them for a few minutes before walking in.He walked around trying to find his brother.Most of the people exercising didn’t notice him at all as he walked among them looking for his brother.

Sam stopped when he found Michael, he was benching weights in the weight room. Sam sat down on a bench he knew Michael would be unable to focus on him until he was done working out.

Chapter 3

Sam woke up as the engine started. He was in Michael's car in the parking lot behind the school.

“Hey lil bro glad you are up.” Michael said looking over. “You fell asleep when I was working out,”

“Oh, I don’t remember that.” Sam said as he yawned.

“Yea. Hey! bet your excited for tomorrow night” Michael exclaimed as he drove home.

“Yea about that.” Sam began seeing the sadness instantly fill his brothers eyes. “I am still doing going to do it don’t get me wrong, but I may be late.”

“Late?” Michael asked in confusion.

“Yea after school I am....” Sam started before he was cut off.

“Do you have a date? Does my little brother have a date?” Michael questioned in happy tone.

“No.” Sam started in a sad tone.”But I made a friend in class today, and we are going to eat.” He finished in an excited tone.Michael smiled, and nodded his head. Even though he was sad he was going to have to postpone helping his brother, he knew a friend is just what his brother needed.

“Thats fine, just let me know when you get home, and take this.” Michael said throwing a condom at Sam.”You never know what is going to happen.” Michael joked as the reached home.

“Very funny” Sam said as Michael left the car. Sam out the condom into the back pocket of his backpack not knowing what to do with it.

Chapter 4

Michael woke up yawning, he checked the clock it was 12:34 in the morning. He got out of bed slipping on a pair of briefs, and walked downstairs to the basement. He didn't have to worry about dressing appropriately or making a lot of noise, his parents went on a mission trip to Chile, and wouldn't be back for a few months.. Michael checked himself out in the mirror outside of his gym. His bronzed skin and muscled body only complimented the tight yellow briefs he was wearing. He never was fond of clothes other than underwear, and always worked out in his briefs. He brushed his hand down his chiseled abs, that seemed to glisten under the little light visible in this part of the basement. He sat there for a moment admiring his body before remembering he had work to do. Michael began to workout, his body becoming sweaty, and filled with endorphins.

He finished his nightly workout around 2:30, he walked up the stairs seeing a light coming from the tv room.Sam sat up watching ESPN. He smiled knowing his messages were beginning to work. He walked up to Sam’s room flipping on the lights. He walked over to his computer downloading a file to it. He began to play the file on a loop. Sam’s room was filled with a low barely audible sound. It was a special binaural beats file that encourage the brain to gain muscle, and workout. Michael went back to his room until he heard Sam coming back upstairs, and going to bed. Michael smiled heading to sleep.

Chapter 5

Sam went to school waiting for seventh period to roll around. When it finally did he, and Tyler began to talk, waiting for the teacher to arrive.

“So right after school at the cafe a few blocks over?” Tyler asked.

“Yea just meet up with me, and I will show you how to get there.” Sam replied excitedly, as the whole class groaned.He looked up to see the substitute walk into the room.

“Who is tyler?” Tyler whispered

“Mrs. Fichburn” Sam started as she sat down at the desk. “She does nothing at all, and makes students do things for her, unless she falls asleep first.” The pair looked over at the overweight sub as she took out a pillow, and closed her eyes.The class remained silent knowing when she fell asleep they could get away with anything.Within minutes she was dead asleep, and the class was alive with chatter. Tyler, and Sam chatted as Danny walked up to them.

“Hey loser you didn’t show up for your daily beating yesterday!” He shouted spraying his spit into Sam’s face.

“Whoa, say it don’t spray it.” Tyler shot back.

“Shut up you canuck hoser, how about you go back to canada, and we will consider making your pathetic excuse of a country a state.” Danny shot back smirking, proud of himself.

“Danny, stop it!” Sam shouted back in surprise to himself, and everyone around him. “Its me you want not him.” He said in a quieter less sure voice.

“Oh yea! You earned this you little nerd!”Danny exclaimed punching him the face. Danny wailed on Sam delivering punch after punch.Mrs. Fichburn woke up in her chair watching the sight.

“Don’t just sit there! Help him!” Tyler shouted. “You are a teacher, you are supposed to protect him!” Mrs. Fichburn slowly got up yawning.

“Danny stop punching him, and wait until after school.”She said “And go clean yourself up Sam.” She finished readjusting her seat, and sitting back down.

“This is over for now” Danny said looking at the sub. “But your dead after school. “ He walked back to his seat, and Sam ran out to the bathroom. Sam rubbed the blood off the face at the sink.

“Hey are you ok?” Tyler asked running up behind Sam.

“Yea, I just...” Sam stuttered through his tears. “It will be fine my brother is going to help me.” He finished as the bell rang. “Come on lets get out of here.” Sam said leading to Tyler to the old part of school.

“What is this place?” Tyler asked as they walked down the hallways.

“its an old wing of the school.” Sam said hurrying past the various rooms, and groups. Sam looked behind him, saw tyler was stopped at the art room. Sam walked back to get him looking into the room. They were painting based off a nude model, who he recognized as the star quarterback. Sam pulled Tyler forward reaching the gym.

“Wow.” Tyler said as they entered. “There are so many people here!”

“Yea it is one of my favorite places in the old wing.Now hurry up we have to get to cafe before my brother gets here.” Sam, and tyler ran out of the school past the football field. The two arrived at the Cafe quickly ate, and hung out for hours.

Chapter 6

It had become late at night, and the pair were still talking.

“So your brother works out there everyday?”Tyler asked as he sipped his third milkshake.

“Not everyday, but he is there most days.” Sam replied watching his friend. “I don’t want to sound rude, but what was up in the art room today?” He asked.Tyler looked down twirling his straw nervously.

“I...um....” He started. “I am gay.....” Tyler finished nervously fliniching.

“Oh ok” Sam said surprised. “thats cool.” His phone rang “Hey its my brother. I gotta take this real quick.” He told tyler running to take the phone call.

“Ok I will....” was all Tyler managed to get out before Sam ran off.

Sam paced in the parking lot, he had missed the phone call, but his brother had left a voicemail. He opened up his phone playing it.

“Hey lil bro, time is running out if you really want to this you need to get home soon.” He heard his brother say. The subliminal messaging programed into his brain activated, and he texted his brother that he was on his way. Sam ran down the streets towards his house leaving Tyler alone at the cafe.

Chapter 7

Michael saw the text arrive on his phone. He knew he only had a matter of minutes to set up everything he needed.He walked upstairs to Sams room grabbing a pair of under armour underwear their grandparents had bought for him. He wanted Sam to see how good he would look after his transformation.

He walked down to the basement opening the box he looked at earlier pulling out a jockstrap. He had bought a pair of jockstraps online years ago, and he was excited to finally get to use the second one. He sat down on the bench waiting for Sam to arrive, and his own experience.

Michael was fifteen when it happened.Every guy in school had become obsessed with bodybuilding, and he too had become obsessed with it.He wasn’t willing to put in the work for the muscles every other guy was starting to develop so he looked for quick ways online. After searching for hours an ad popped up from Daemonsports.com. He looked at the ad offering quick, and easy muscles for the price of $20. He bought the item without even seeing what it was, weeks later a package arrived at his door containing two jockstraps.

Michael was confused, and mad that he got ripped off.He sighed taking them into the basement. He walked into his man cave, a room for him to get away from his little brother, and parents. The room contained a television, a pool table, and a small workout bench.There was also a mirror on the wall, seeing it he decided to try on the jock strap. He looked at himself in the mirror he thought he looked good in the jockstrap, and felt good wearing it.

Michael was overcome with a serious need to workout. He felt his legs walk over to the bench, and felt his arms begin to lift the weight without his need to tell them to. Michael spent the night lifting in his jockstrap before he blacked out.He woke in the morning body sore, and filled with pain. He got up stretching, and saw himself in the mirror. His muscles had already grown quickly, and his abs were more defined. He also felt a need to workout more, and from that point forward the new michael existed, working out everyday and loving it.

Chapter 8

Sam ran into the door panting, he had ran all the way from the cafe to his house. He entered the basement walking to Michael's gym.

"Good you are here put these on." Michael said handing him a jockstrap, and under armour boxers. Sam looked around for a moment.

"Right here?" Sam asked uncertain. Michael rolled his eyes.

"I will leave the room, I guess." Michael said leaving the room. Sam undressed naked putting on the jockstrap. The room was surrounded with mirrors making it impossible for him to avoid looking at himself.He saw himself in the mirror surprised his he looked kinda good in the jockstrap. He put the underwear on over the jockstrap, and signalled for michael to come back in.

“You look great!” Michael said as he saw sam.

“I honestly feel good.” Sam said looking at himself in the mirror.Michael took him to a bench in the center of the room.

“Just left when you're ready. It will all come naturally.” he reassured stepping back. Sam began to lift, he was surprised he could even lift that much his muscles already in pain, and a tingle from the jockstrap. It wasn’t long before he blacked out.

Michael watched amazed he knew the process, but had never seen it.Sam’s body kept lifting, his muscles growing faster than any humans should possibly grow. His flat chest becoming ripped, with larges pecs and abs chiseled by gods. Michael sat up for almost an hour watching this take place, before finally drifting off to sleep.

Chapter 9

Michael woke up the next morning seeing Sam already awake.He was flexing in the mirror checking out his new body in just the jockstrap.

“Hey bro.” Sam said not able to take his eyes off the mirror.

“You look great little bro.” Michael said. “But why do you still have the jock strap on?” Sam looked down.

“Highlights my package.” He said continuing to flex.Michael remembered this phase, being completely obsessed with how you looked, and your fitness.

“Well come on it's time to workout again isn’t it?” Sam asked walking back over to the bench. Michael joined in working out with his brother feeling like they were truly brothers for the first time in a long while.

Monday came quickly again, and Sam went back to school.Everyone was whispering about him, half of them didn't even realize it was him. He smiled knowing he looked great. The school day went quickly, and soon it was seventh period. Tyler turned around ignoring Sam’s change in appearance.

“What the hell man!” Tyler screamed furiously. “You left me alone there! Is it because I came out to you?” Half the class was now staring at the two, half of them recording it on their phones. Sam looked up, he had been staring at his arm muscles.

“No, something just came up bro.” He said in a calm manner.

“Oh.” Tyler said silently realizing all the people watching. “well want to do something later?”

“Can’t really”Sam said. “unless you want to work out with me.”

“Sure that sounds good” Tyler said.

“Cool come to my house after school.” Sam said going back to staring at his muscles. The school day ended, and tyler got on the bus with Sam. They rode in silence to his house. Sam took Tyler down to the basement, where they began to work out, after twenty minutes Tyler stopped.

“This is boring.” Tyler said sitting up on the bench. Sam stopped working out annoyed by the interruption.”Can we do something else?” Tyler finished. Sam looked up annoyed, he wanted Tyler as a friend, but could not stand him like this. He thought sitting at the bench before reaching an idea.

“I can make it fun.” He said with a wicked smile. “But you have to trust me.”

“Sure I will do anything.” Tyler said flopping out of the bench.

Chapter 10

Tyler looked at the object sam held in front of him.

“That’s yours?” He questioned. “and you want me to put it on?” Sam held the jockstrap in front of Tyler, looking at it.

“Yea, pretty much.” He said without hesitation. “Trust me they work.” Tyler looked at them for a long minutes, before grabbing it out of Sam’s hand.

“Fine on one condition.” Tyler said looking at them. “While I wear them you will go naked.” Sam shrugged, and stripped off his clothes. His full naked body visible, Tyler couldn’t help staring.

“Your turn.” Sam said smiling. Tyler shook his head trying not to stare. he stripped down naked pulling the tight jockstrap onto his body. Sam stopped in place, Tyler suddenly looked attractive, sam naked could not hide his erection. He had to have him, but first he need to make sure Tyler was like him.

“Just left some on the bar now.” Sam said.

“o.........................k” Tyler said getting distracted by Sam’s erection. He began to lift on the bar feeling his body taking over. Sam watched from the other side knowing it could only be matter of time now.

Chapter 11

Michael returned late that night having been at his girlfriend’s house all day. He walked down to his basement ready to get in his daily workout. what he saw surprised him. Sam naked on the couch cuddling against a fairly muscular boy wearing Sam’s jockstrap. He smiled covering the two up. He knew he should be mad Sam used it on someone else, and they couldn’t be sure of the consequences, but was happy his little brother had someone he loved.

Day came around again, and Sam woke up. Tyler was staring into the mirror checking out his body. Even though he wasn’t as muscular as Sam he was pretty impressive for his size. Sam walked up behind him kissing his neck.

“Damn you look sexy.” He said feeling Tyler’s muscles.

“Thanks, bro.” Tyler said treating each touch like it was a gift. The two sat in the basement flexing all morning. After working out together, Tyler had to leave to go home.

“So working out together tomorrow bro?” He asked wearing normal clothes again.

“Yea, bro just hit me up in class.” Sam kissed Tyler, and watched, staring at his firm ass, as he walked away from the house.

“So it was a date lil bro.” Michael said from inside the living room.

“No bro.” Sam said disgruntled. “Wasn’t till I saw his sexy ass in that jockstrap last night.” He finished smirking at the thought. Sam highfived his brother, and laid on the couch watching ESPN. He couldn’t wait to work out with tyler again, maybe they could both work out nude next time.

Chapter 12

Several months had past when michael realized it was almost time for his parents to be back from their mission trip. He walked down to the basement where his old gym was. He had given it to Sam for him, and Tyler to use, while he worked out at the gym, or his girlfriends house who he was staying with more, and more. He knocked on the door before opening it to prevent seeing anything he didn’t want to see. Tyler, and Sam stood at the mirrors flexing both of them already being much bigger than the jockstrap had allowed to be. They still wore jockstraps each time they were in the basement, and never got completely out of the self obsessed phase.

“Sam I need to speak to you.” Michael said. his own obsession with muscles had decreased since Tyler became obsessed with them. He still worked out to maintain the muscles he had, and let Tyler have his old jockstrap to help him grow.

“What’s up bro?” Sam said staring at tylers muscles in the mirror.

“Mom, and dad will be back from Chile soon.” Michael said. Sam looked over with sadness filling his eyes, he knew once his parents were home he wouldn’t be able to maintain this new lifestyle the way he had for the past few months. He needed to find a way to keep them there.

“How long do we have?” Sam asked already trying to plot a way to keep them away.

“About a week.” Michael said sadly before leaving the room. Sam sat down on one of the benches. He needed things to be like this for him, and Tyler they worked so well together.

“We could run away.” Tyler said flexing in the mirror.

“Where?” Sam said interested in the idea.

“ I don’t know find a place.” Tyler said walking over to one of the benches to lift more. “ A place with people like us.” He finished as he lifted.

“People like us....” Sam said thinking hard. “What about the place where these jockstraps are made? I am sure there have to be people like us there!”

“Sounds cool bro.” Tyler said completing another set. “Where are they made at?” Sam walked over to Tyler pulling his jockstrap to look inside.

“Cedar Falls, and it has an address for the company.” He said sliding his hand down from the jockstrap to Tyler’s ass.A wicked grin covered Tyler’s face.

“Never heard if it. It will be perfect.” He said tackling Sam to the ground wrestling him.The pair wrestled for some time before Sam pinned tyler to the ground, and kissed him passionately.

Chapter 13

Sam woke up early in the morning leaving a note on the table. He met Tyler at a train station in a town a few miles over.

“Great morning for a jog.” Tyler joked as Sam arrived at the station.

“Very funny.” Sam said rolling his eyes. “So which train is ours?”

“This one Tyler said pointing to an oncoming train showing no signs of stopping. “Come on!” He said running down the platform into an empty cargo car. Sam followed behind jumping into the car.

“This will take us right outside of Cedar Falls.” Sam said putting his bag in a corner. “But its a long ride so get comfortable.”

Michael woke up late that day, bummed his parents were coming back.He went downstairs grabbing the jug of milk, and drinking what was left of it burping loudly. Noticing the note, he walked to the table picking it up. He opened the letter reading it aloud.

“Bro, me and Tyler have left to find cedar falls a place we believe is filled with people like us. Tell mom, and dad you have no idea where we are. We hope you join us one day- your lil bro”

Michael finished reading the letter when he heard the door open. His parents walked through the door, home earlier than they should have been.

“We are home!” They exclaimed running into the kitchen hugging him.

“Where is Sam at honey?” His mom asked with that worried look all mothers have.

“Not sure mom, he was staying at a friends last night.” He said crumpling the note in his hand. as the day passed by their mom became, more and more scared. Michael gave her Tyler’s family’s number hoping it would calm her down, and that she wouldn’t call it, but she did.

“They say they haven’t seen their kid either!” She said crying at the table as police took accounts from Tyler’s parents. They had filed a missing persons alert, and since they were kids they became a top priority.

“It will be fine mom, they will find them.” Michael comforted his mom. He felt him secretly wishing no one would find them, and they found the place they were looking for, but he couldn’t tell his mom that. His dad comforted his mom as he walked down to his gym.

Sitting in his gym in was a box labeled Daemon Co. He opened the box checking its contents. Inside was a note, and another jock strap this one a shiny golden color. Michael took the note out reading the words imprinted on it.

“For your years of service, and service to come-Daemon Co.” He shrugged off the note pulling on the jock strap. The cool fabric felt good on his body as he felt energized, and ready to work out. Before he could think he felt himself working out again, his muscle increasing, and thoughts about building muscles also increasing. He was back better than before ready to complete his new goal of being a bodybuilder.

Chapter 14

Sam , and tyler hopped off the train, following an old cracked road for miles when they reached a sign.

“Cedar Falls, one mile.” Tyler read out loud looking at Sam. “I’ll race you!” He screamed taking off down the road Sam following behind, and catching up quickly.It had been almost a week since they left their home, and tensions were running high between the two. A large manhunt had started across the nation from them labeling them as missing. At one point Tyler losing hope suggested they went back, but seeing the sign now he was filled with hope of a new life all over again.

The pair stopped in front of the sign welcoming them to the town.

“New record.” Tyler managed to cough out laughing. Neither one of took a step forward. Even though there was nothing in front of them they both knew there was line in front of them, and crossing it would change their lives forever. Sam grabbed Tyler's hand, and the pair the pair crossed the line together.

Epilogue

Almost a year has passed since they crossed that line, and much has changed. After crossing the line almost everyone who knew the boys forgot about them, everyone except Michael, and Danny. Michael has spent the last year traveling the country participating in bodybuilding contests. He is known as the golden boy for the golden jockstrap he always wears in contests.

Danny, who was insistent on convincing people the boys were real, is now seeing a therapist two times a week to help him get over his delusions. The parents of the two boys became great friends. They are vacationing in italy this summer.Mrs. Fichburn was fired after Tyler made a fake call to the school about her receiving a DUI.

Sam, and Tyler found it easy to live in this new town living in an house that was abandoned. They often stayed in the town gym everyday where the owner had given them free lifetime memberships. Their muscle building became the center of their lives as the two lived in harmony together, but their journey was just beginning.

#hypnomatic hypnosis #hypnomatic #story #oc #jock #jock story

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onestowatch · 6 years ago

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Enigmatic Dream-Pop Band Sports Talks Biggest High School Regret & Making Sure ‘Everyone’s Invited’ [Q&A]

Dream pop band Sports formed in their small town of Norman, Oklahoma and have been playing together since grade school, yet their novel take on the dream pop genre remains excitingly fresh. Consisting of brothers Jacob Theriot and Cale Chronister, the trio first made headway with their 2015 debut album Naked All the Time. In the years to come, the dream pop trio would deliver two more much-applauded releases, 2016’s People Can’t Stop Chillin and 2018’s Everyone’s Invited, each of which would see Sports venturing into newfound territory.

Everyone’s Invited, in particular, served as a noted departure for the band, as the trio explored a range of funk influences to deliver one of the most unique dream pop projects of the year. Despite their increasing notoriety in the world of indie pop and amongst music tastemakers, including an upcoming performance at Tropicalia Fest in Long Beach, CA, Sports has retained a somewhat enigmatic persona. This may have something to do with their fashion attire of choice--cowboy hats and sequined suits. Whether it’s their impeccable fashion choices or shimmering dream pop that drew you into their world, or you’re discovering them here for the first time, we’re happy to let you know a thing or two about Sports as we sit down with the trio behind the band.

OTW: So, all of you started playing together when you were still in grade school, but at what point did you decide to form an actual band?

Cale: I saved up 200 dollars to buy a Toys R Us drum set, so I could start a band and that’s how I met Christian. He was just another guy at my school that played guitar, and I met Jacob because he was his brother. It's like we were only friends cause we wanted to start a band.

OTW: Do you all still play the same instruments as you did when you first started?

Jacob: Yeah, I wanted to play guitar, but he played guitar and of course I didn't want to do the same thing as him. I don't know I felt like I just was naturally more of a bass player at the moment. It just felt right

Cale: You had to be bass.

OTW: Your sound has evolved quite a bit, especially on the latest album Everyone’s Invited. It’s very synth heavy, but was it always that vibe? Or did it take a while to get to that sound?

Jacob: Well we'd been playing for 10 years so, we didn’t even know that music existed.

Cale: We were playing pretty much guitar-heavy songs but we were like 13 listening to just whatever was on the radio. Jacob: Going back and listening to it though, it's still kind of impressive. The songwriting wasn’t that bad. Cale: We were good for our age. Christian: And I think once we all got laptops and recording software, that's when like the synth stuff started. Pirating software cause we couldn't afford it yet.

Cale: We actually made an EP where we mic'd the drum set with all our different rock band mics.

OTW: Will we ever see that album released?

Christian: it’s out under a different name. Cale: If you find it, you deserve to find it. Jacob: if you find it, let us know we want to hear it.

OTW: So when did the name Sports come about?

Christian: We switched cause we wanted a name that was like you said it once and knew exactly what it was.

Cale: We had like 12 names.

Jacob: Sports was the beginning of us taking it seriously. We had just written Naked All the Time and a few months before we released it, we changed names. It was like, “Ok we need to completely rebrand ourselves this will be the beginning of our career, taking it seriously and making this is our job.”

OTW: We’ve heard tale that the name Sports ironically comes from you three not being amazing at sports.l

Jacob: it is true, but that's not why we named our band Sports.

Christian: I played football up until ninth grade, but I think I just looked in the mirror and I was like, “I don't think I'm a football player. Cale: it's ironic cause my dad's been a basketball coach my whole life, and their dads are also huge sports fans. So, we’re making money with Sports. Christian: “My kids are in Sports.”

OTW: And were you parent supportive throughout the whole decision to pursue music?

Jacob: I’d consider myself pretty lucky that my parents didn’t push their agendas onto me, which is nice.

Christian: “Just get good grades and stay out of trouble.” Cale: They didn't pressure college either. I went to college for a semester, and it was my parents who were kinda like, “Hey if you don't like it, you can drop out.” And it actually empowered me to just do music.

Jacob: Luckily, none of us were crazy rebellious or anything. Looking back, I kind of wish I was a bit crazier.

OTW: is that your biggest high school regret?

Jacob: Yeah, I should have been pranking more. It wasn't that big of a deal to get in trouble. Christian: Senior year, I started doing slightly more crazy things. In the computer lab, I would turn everything over. That's as bad as it got.

OTW: Less of a question, but I once included your song “You Are the Right One,” off your first album, Naked all the Time, on a mixtape for a girl I was seeing.

Cale: It’s a love song. I love that.

Jacob: You’re not together anymore right? OTW: Admittedly no. Jacob: Dang, so it didn’t work. Christian: She wasn’t the right one. Jacob: Try again, keep trying. OTW: Will include it on every mixtape from here on out.

Jacob: That's actually funny that you say that because we get a lot of people saying things like that. It's a lot of couples’ song.

Jacob: In Chicago, this couple proposed right before that song.

Cale: The lyrics I were picturing, it was this nerdy kid thinking he could get the cheerleader.

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OTW: When it comes to songwriting, is a lot of the subject matter true to life or do you invent characters?

Jacob: I invented a character for the first time on one song, but it’s usually just stream-of-consciousness for me. Sometimes you don't realize the meaning of it until way later on, or like you go through something and you're like, “Oh wait that's what I was writing about subconsciously. It's kinda weird how that works. Cale’s married so most of his songs are either fictional or about his wife.

Cale: Or girls who didn’t want to date me in high school. There was a lot.

OTW: Your latest album, Everyone's Invited -- where did the title come from?

Cale: I came up with it pretty soon after we wrapped up People Can’t Stop Chillin, and I don't remember exactly how it came to me, but it’s just like a phrase that I thought sounded like a party, sounded fun. Jacob: This is after we went through a ton of stuff, like our manager passed away. And then slowly, that name started to make more sense. Like inviting people to be ok with going through what they're going through.

Cale: And the lyrics are a little more transparent this time, it’s a little more, “Alright, this is what I’m thinking, so you're invited to see how I’m feeling. Jacob: Be a part of the healing process. There's a lot of different things you can take from it. I feel like it fits with the times. Everyone's trying to be extra aware of everybody being comfortable and not feeling invalidated, and it's just a way to bring everyone together. Cale: Honestly, it's kind of like this mantra I have now when I’m hanging out with people, cause there are so many people that are close to me where it’s like I have to make sure to invite everyone. I actually say it on accident all the time.

OTW: Speaking further on the album, the synth-driven nature of it has earned a fair amount of comparisons to ‘80s music. Was this a particular timeframe that inspired Everyone’s Invited?

Cale: I think we’re more obsessed with the keyboards that were made in the ‘80s than we are actual ‘80s music.

Jacob: I get it. We’re using keyboards from the 80’s, and of course, they’re going to be similar to sounds that you’ve heard before. But we aren’t actively trying to be like, “How can we make this sound more ‘80s?”

OTW: Tell us a bit about Oklahoma, as I’m guessing a lot of people aren’t too familiar with the state.

Jacob: A lot of people are surprised by Tulsa actually. They’ll pass it and be like, “Oh it’s an actual city, there’s like actual buildings.”

Cale: Yeah, like It actually has a downtown.

Jacob: People think we live in teepees, like, no. Did you ride horses to school? No! It’s a normal suburban area where we grew up.

Jacob: I don’t know, there’s this certain kind of mystical, dark vibe to downtown. Whenever I imagine Tulsa, I imagine it at night.

Cale: Have you ever seen The Outsiders? That’s filmed in Tulsa. So, that’s the vibe. I think it does a really good job with that.

OTW: So what’s one thing about the future of Sports that you all are personally excited about?

Christian: Releasing more music.

Jacob: I love touring; I love every process of it all honestly. Whenever we’re finished touring, I’m ready to get back in the studio and start writing. There’s a nice balance I think. I like every aspect of it.

OTW: Who are your Ones To Watch?

Jacob: Yeek is amazing. His new songs are so freaking good. He’s the best

Christian: Keith Charles. He’s going to be putting out a record

Christian: We’re actually going to be working with him when we get back from tour. He’s going to go to the studio that we record in, and we’ll just jam and see what we can come up with.

Jacob: This band, BRONCHO, from our hometown that’s about to release some stuff that’s stupid good; it's so good. Breakup, some friends of ours in Tulsa. There’s a lot of good stuff coming from Oklahoma right now actually. It’s cool.

OTW: Any final words or anything you want to say to your fans?

Christian: Thank you.

Cale: You’re invited. Thank you. See you soon.

Jacob: Thank you Ones to Watch for liking us. Your office is nice. These chairs are cozy.

Cale: They are. They’re ergonomic

Christian: They have good back support; I need to get me one of these.

#interview #sports #indie #indie pop #pop #electronic

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steamishot · 5 years ago

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I wrote the following draft on Friday, but I need to start off by saying that LA is mourning right now. It was an especially eerie day yesterday. I’m not much of a sports fan, but I grew up watching the Lakers during Kobe’s era. My dad’s best friend was a huge Lakers fan, and he got my dad into it, and my dad got our family into it. My dad would place bets at the local Cambodian noodle shop during basketball season and it was always a fun time following along. In a sense, I and many LA natives grew up with Kobe. Kobe has such a huge impact on our city (at the very least). I remember going to those Vietnamese barber shops in Chinatown, and seeing little Asian boys get their hair cut. “How do you want your cut?” the barber would ask? “Like Kobe” the kids would answer.

I heard the news after going to a yoga session at the park. My friend Steph, who also attended the yoga session with me, texted me a little right after I got home with the news. I was with my brother and SIL at the time, and we were stunned (not my SIL, she didn’t know who Kobe was), waiting for the news to unravel. My dad got home five minutes later, and I thought we would be the one to tell him the news. However, his friend Andy already texted him about it. We spent the rest of that morning waiting for more updates, learning about Kobe’s life, sitting around in shock. Til now, I still feel quite sad about the tragedy. But the best we can do is thank his contribution; legends never die.

Turned 28 last week and feel old-ish haha. Recap of the last few weeks

Sis in law threw a surprise bday party for my brother’s 30th at their apartment. Some drama has been going on between them and my parents, and a lot of it can be attributed to generational differences. My SIL is young, and in biological terms, her brain isn’t fully developed yet. She had that rich girl growing up in Cambodia lifestyle, and was pretty financially comfortable, although sheltered, when she was living in SF. My brother is kinda her bitch now, and he backs her on everything. SIL has pretty expensive taste, has a financial safety net from her parents, talks ambitiously, but we haven’t seen her progress much yet. Like Katy Perry’s song “You change your mind like a girl changes clothes” – that’s descriptive of her/my brothers plans. At one point, they decided to take over her uncles business in SF. She “moved” up there, then like two weeks later, told my brother to fly up there and help her move back down. It even gave me a headache.

Celebrated Mike’s 30th bday with a bunch of people in DTF. It was a bunch of fun and the food was surprisingly good. Mike made a little speech, saying he loves everyone who was at the table. We joked about how popular he is.

Went hiking with my aunt, sis in law, the kids, and friends.

Had a birthday dinner at pasta sisters with my immediate family (including bro and sis in law). My sis in law is a generous person, and also quite materialistic. She’s fancy for her age. This is advantageous because she got me a pair of lululemon pants as a birthday gift. I rarely receive expensive presents, so I felt pretty happy about it. I’ve also been wanting a nice expensive pair of yoga pants but thought it may be too frivolous. After trying it on, I understood what the type was about. In the back of my mind, I remembered in an episode of the patriot act, Hasan mentioned that a bunch of oil is used to make synthetics, the type of material used in lulus. Update: I wore it for the first time over the weekend to a yoga class, and it felt very comfortable, although the difference is not significant enough where I would buy my own.

My coworker decorated my office space and went out of her way to get me a specific cake from Glendale. I was never really that close or comfortable with this coworker, although we are the closest in age (3 years older than me). I felt that our lifestyles didn’t really align and that we didn’t have much in common. She was on the drill team in high school, very pretty and put together, fit body, into going to festivals/partying and drinking, not very academically inclined. Our conversations barely made it past surface level topics. However, I was really touched that she went all the way to Glendale to get a cake for me, just because she knew I liked this cake specifically and that I don’t really like sweets. For everyone’s birthdays, we normally just pick something up from Ralphs across the street. After this incident, I felt myself opening my heart to her more, and made an effort to connect with her. I find that it’s easier to connect once you actively choose to “like” a person, thus, to throw away judgment and allow human to human bonding.

Went to NOLA with G, S, and L. When people ask how my trip went, I would say, “it’s really different out there.” And it really is to me. I’m not at all familiar with that area of the country. I think the charm of NOLA lies in anachronism, and on the dysfunctionality of the city. People like the freedom of the city, the friendliness of the town, and how everyone can seemingly enjoy their lives despite any hardships that come their way. Some people on the internet refer to NOLA as Neverland, or an adult Disneyland. From what I’ve read, people there are very laid-back, prioritize fun, and it might be a frustrating place if you’re a go-getter. It seems like a good place for extroverts. I, personally, think one visit is enough. I think if you don’t gamble, drink, or party, the things you can do there are limited.

Besides that, I found the topic of voodoo interesting, although I felt like the voodoo shops we visited were largely touristy- it was hard to get an authentic feel of the locals/community’s beliefs and practices of voodoo. Luckily, one of my coworkers’ family is from Louisiana, and my student worker is from Belize. The day I returned from my trip, I got to chat with them a little and learn about their culture/religion. My coworker mentioned that her grandmother would always keep her hair in a jar and burn it every so often, to prevent anyone from getting her hair strands and practicing voodoo on her. She personally flushes her hair down the toilet. My student worker talked about their need to sweep their house every day from preventing dust buildup (I believe to keep spirits away).

Celebrated CNY with family.

Matt started on his first nights rotation last Wednesday night. It was a difficult transition because he had to work from 6am until noon or so for his day shift, then be on a 12 hour night shift that same night. He had a terrible first couple days adjusting, but now is better. It just sucks that we are now on completely different time zones. I’m unable to chat with him after work because he’s on shift. He goes home and falls asleep around 6am PST, during the time that I’m still asleep. I asked him to send me a card for my birthday. Although I received it days late, I was still grateful for his gift. He wrote me a very sweet message that filled up the card. Good news is, there will be 4 interns on the rotation that he will be on when I’m in town in February. That means that he’ll have less patients, be less exhausted, and have more time for me!

I watched Awkwafina’s Nora from Queens pilot over the weekend. In the show, she plays a “loser” 27 year old who can’t hold down a job and smokes weed every day, and still lives at home with her dad and grandma. The show is supposed to be representative of her life (before her fame). I couldn’t help but feel like I’m getting too old to still be living at home, and although I’ll need to spend money on rent when I move out, it’ll be a valuable investment.

Lastly, this past year seems to be the year of friendship confrontations for me. Growing up, I was very loner-ish and introverted. The hardest thing for me to do was socialize and “be normal”. I found it difficult to relate to people and to build connections with them. When I did start making friends, I was so behind on social skills that I had difficulty deepening friendships. One thing I am grateful for in my last relationship, is that it taught me how to handle conflict with someone else. Before that, I was never confrontational to anyone outside of my family. As I’m growing up, “finding myself” more, and developing my values and what I stand for/look for in companionship, I become stronger as an individual. I’m proud that I can be more honest with my friends, and be more verbal if someone/something bothers me. I look back on a few friendships that dissipated, and it’s usually due to something petty or fixable, if both parties let their ego down and communicated. But oh well, not all friendships/relationships are worth being salvaged.

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jeremystrele · 5 years ago

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The Best Of Our Family Column in 2019!

Family

by Sally Tabart

Clare and her husband Marty at home with her twin sons Oscar and Elijah (12) and daughter Asha (16). Flowers by Babylon Flowers. Plants by Hello Botanical. Photo – Sarah Collins of Work + Co.

Clare Bowditch On Overcoming Self-Doubt + Being Your Own Kind Of Girl

What do you find works best for you in overcoming your self-doubt? I know you named your anxiety ��Frank’, which is great.

‘Frank’ is an umbrella title for a feeling of foreboding. I came up with it during the very early recovery stage of my breakdown, when I didn’t really know how to separate my emotions. Now I know it was just anxiety that needed training. Reading Jack Kornfield helped a lot, as did a really practical little book by Dr Claire Weekes called Peace from Nervous Suffering. She was a stalwart of the Australian post-war veteran field. She helped people deal with anxiety before it really had a name. Slowly, slowly I was able to work past it, but it took until I was 27 to have the guts to put my own songs in the world. I’d been building that courage from age 21. I still have self-doubt, but these days it can motivate me. It tells me I’m onto something. My songs have always sat in me like pets. I can’t rush them. They come when they’re ready and my job is to make room for them. So I just keep showing up with my pen and paper.

Revisit our original interview with Clare Bowditch here!

Anthony and Catherine have ‘become tedious, active seniors’ hitting the gym at 6am! Photo – Sarah Collins of Work + Co.

Catherine hopes her boys to embrace the notion of logical, not biological, family. Photo – Sarah Collins of Work + Co.

Author + Comedian Catherine Deveny On Raising A Trio Of Boys

You’ve written on what you term ‘the narcissism of motherhood… the competition and judging each other from labour to Year 12 results to grandchildren.’ It’s so true, but why? I imagine you have an excellent approach for dealing with this or calling it out?

Sometimes I say, ‘That’s amazing about your high achieving, good looking, well-balanced kids – congrats! My kids play computer games, watch porn and make bongs.’ I won’t enable their competition parenting. When they ask, ‘What school do your kids go to?’ I respond, ‘What difference does it make?’ and flat out refuse to answer until they give me a rational answer. They never do.

Revisit our no-holds-barred interview with Catherine Deveny here!

With artwork for his latest exhibition The Space Into Bicheno opening on September 18th. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Artist Julian Meagher On Creating Through The Parenting Fog

Has fatherhood influenced the way you paint?

One of the biggest challenges in painting, or any creative outlet I would imagine, is to not overcook it. Fatherhood has forced me to let the work live and breathe on its own. I am painting with a lot more freedom. When I start a work I feel like I am actually now taking a run-up before I jump off the cliff. Fatherhood has forced me to accept that I’m not in control of anything at all, and nothing is really about me, so I feel more comfortable taking risks. I’m making a lot more failed paintings than I used to, but I’m making a lot more really successful ones too, I think.

Revisit the original story here.

Chloe Brookman and her family at home in Byron Bay. Photo – Lisa Sorgini.

The Co-Founder of Olli Ella Talks Business + Babies

What have you learned about yourself across your parenting journey? What do you need to be the most effective parent you can be?

To keep a sense of humour and to not try to be perfect, because it’s impossible. You will make yourself miserable in the process. I’ve learned to really sit with the chaos and the mayhem, to not wish away a second of it because it goes by too quickly.

Revisit the original story here.

Meika, 3, also started kinder – it has been a big year for the family! Photo – Sarah Collins of Work + Co. for The Design Files.

Hendrix, 5, started school as Sophie began her debut AFLW season this year. Photo – Sarah Collins of Work + Co. for The Design Files.

Meet AFLW Forward And Mum Of Two Sophie Abbatangelo

It’s been said that sport has the power to effect cultural change and advance gender equity. What does it mean to you, and your daughter Meika, to be a part of this?

I grew up watching men in my family play football, from my Dad and brother to my uncles and cousins. Even though I preferred to kick with the boys, I was still supported when I wanted to play competition.

I have always been passionate about equal rights and recognition, not just for athletes but for women in general. If Meika grows up to love sport as much as I do, I feel confident that she’ll be encouraged and accepted within any sport she chooses to play. And if she does aspire to play football, it excites me to think how amazing she could be with the talent and growth that is coming through now. I just hope she uses her strength and ferocity in competitive sport rather than on Hendrix and me!

As for following in my footsteps, I hope she feels empowered to challenge herself with things she might find difficult and if she does choose a sporting pathway, listens to her coaches and finds herself a great group of friends.

Revisit the original story here.

Que and Alfie (4) at home. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Que Minh Luu Talks Parenting Through Producing, Class Systems + Grief

What’s your experience with self-doubt? Any advice on how to not let it stop you doing ‘The Thing’?

I think age really helps. I’m in a job now that gives me some level of agency to make some kind of change, but for years I was highly anxious and full of self-doubt. I had a really great partner and he was my cheer squad, critic and fellow brainstormer. All through my 20s, I just couldn’t visualise where I wanted to be and how I was going to do it. He helped me to be strategic, rather than just focussing on whatever problem was in front of my nose. I spent a lot of time being afraid of looking like an idiot and now I’m okay with being an idiot.

Revisit original story here.

John, Augie and Alison cruising around Collingwood. Photo – Sarah Collins.

Alison Bell On The Joys And Humiliations Of Working Mum Life

How do you work through the guilt that comes with being away from home?

I am no role model there. It’s really, really tough. One consolation, and this is going to sound overly earnest and ridiculous, is that I believe in the work that I’m doing. I know not everyone has that luxury. I’m in a very privileged position where I get to practice my craft and make something I believe in. It does help to acknowledge that fact and recognise this great opportunity I’ve got. I can’t pretend that the feedback doesn’t help. That probably sounds ego-driven, but I don’t want to make work that doesn’t speak to people. I don’t want to put all of my creative/work energy into something that no one connects with.

Revisit original story here.

Royce is the Creative Director of VICE Australia, where he’s been working for the last 11 years. Photo – Sarah Collins.

Kalu and Royce make RIDICULOUSLY cute kids! Photo – Sarah Collins.

VICE Australia’s Creative Director Royce Akers On Dad Guilt + Life In The Suburbs

What’s your experience with Dad guilt? Is it a thing?

I feel guilty about constantly talking about them. I feel guilty when I’m not with them. When I get mad at them I feel guilty afterward. So without googling Dad Guilt, I’m pretty sure I get it from time to time. I’ve had other Dads tell me they feel guilty watching Bluey. The Dad on that show has become a low-key role model, which is hilarious and awesome.

Revisit the original story here.

The family pictured with the newest addition, Veda (4 months). Photo – Sarah Collins of Work + Co.

Stripping-Down The Family-Business Juggle With Pop + Scott

Moving across time, how might you like the girls to remember you to their own families – what do you think your parental legacy will be?

I’d love for them to remember us as a team! That their Mama and Papa were equals, and that their roles in caring for them and the family home were shared.

Revisit the original story here.

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dixonspeaker-blog · 7 years ago

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6th Grader’s Weren’t Allowed to Play Sports

By Dixon Speaker

For Paulette Speaker

6th graders weren’t allowed to play sports. That was the rule. Maybe they wanted us focusing on the radical transition from elementary school, where one teacher taught all subjects in one single classroom, to the middle school format where 8 different teachers taught their own specialized subjects in 8 different classrooms. This was difficult, especially for young boys who latch onto any new distraction like rodeo clowns to a loose bull. Or maybe the reason was something simpler, like they didn’t want us playing contact sports with 8th graders who were significantly more developed than us. In football, for example, the middle school league was called “The Unlimited League,” as in, wow, that guy who is about to hit Dixon looks like he weighs unlimited pounds. I did play Halfback in high school, and during one game a missed down block by our center created a free sprinting lane for Garnet Valley’s 315-pound nose-tackle. I’ve never been struck by a moving car but this was the closest thing to it. Anyway, regardless of the reasoning, the rule they had was no sports, so everyone in 6th grade had to find other things to do. For me this created a problem. I played a lot of sports growing up. You could say my life was made up of finding ways to pass the time between games. Most 6th graders just went home and played with their brothers or sisters. This wasn’t an option for me. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. I still don’t. On top of that, both my parents worked full time: My Dad travelled 3-4 days a week selling purified natural gasses while my mother worked until 6 o’clock at night as an executive in a furniture company. So every day after school I took the bus to Mom Mom’s. Mom Mom’s house was located literally on the edge of a cliff, sandwiched on the other side by a busy highway that she would never dream of letting me cross alone to seek out comrades in the surrounding neighborhoods. I was therefore left to occupy myself at Mom Mom’s cliff-side abode, which had several acres of fenced-in backyard to run through, but no other children to share it with. There was only so much a 12 year old child interested in sports and videogames and a 70 year old woman who grew up with a pet raccoon could do together before they both got bored. I had to find something to do with my time, and what I decided to do was to try out for the school play (This was allowed. No sports, but any and all other after school activities were acceptable). The play that year- the “fall drama” as they called it- was an adaptation of The Little Rascals. You can guess what the play was actually about, because I don’t remember. I was not an actor. I was never in a play before. No one in my family had any type of performance background. In fact, the only time I remembered stepping foot inside a theatre was once when I was very young. A bearded man in a yellow costume darted across the stage and terrified me down to the most central whispers of my being. I cried so hard my mother had to take me home early. A picture of that man remains vivid in my memory, even today. I joined the play anyway. I had a The Little Rascals movie on VHS tape that I would watch from time to time. Also, trying something foreign and failing badly still outweighed spending every day after school alone watching Disney in a dark corner of Mom Mom’s house. Now, before trying out for the play you have to think about trying out for the play, which was much more stressful than the tryouts themselves. Being in the school play was not considered “cool” by any standards, something I was very much concerned with in 6th grade. Middle school was a weird time for me. There was a lot of figuring out who I was and who I wanted to be going on, and I knew precious little about either. What others thought of me, how I appeared, was something that consistently occupied my thoughts. It was this type of thinking that lead to the events of this story. The day before tryouts I was approached by one of the deans, Mr. Sag. We locked eyes across the hall. I knew that I was toast. Mr. Sag was old, so old that he actually taught both of my parents when they attended that same middle school many years before. Pennsylvania teachers got generous pension benefits, at least they did back then, so it was common to see strange old men like Sag in schools throughout the state. He shouted my last name as he approached me. Speaker! I didn’t say anything, just stared up at him and blinked. He was a big man. His face was a slab of wet meat hanging in a butcher shop. I heard you’re trying out for the play he said. Well, I was, you know, just thought I. His eyes fired up and he took a step closer. His head blocked all the light in the hall. He took a deep breath before he spoke. Are you an athlete, or are you some thespian? Spit flew out of his mouth in all directions. He stomped off without waiting for a response. I turned slowly just in time to see the back of his enormous head bob down the stairs and out of sight. Students were walking all around me but I might as well have been standing alone on the moon. I was impressionable and crushed to pieces. I sat quietly through the rest of my classes without answering any questions or writing a single note. I went straight to the bus after school. At Mom Mom’s I ate a TV dinner and watched Disney in the dark until my mom picked me up at 6. In the car I told her I had changed my mind. I didn’t want to try out for the play anymore.

Halfway through school the next day I changed my mind again. Screw Sag, I was trying out for that damn play. When the 2:30 bell rung I talked a bit with my friends and by three I was headed to the auditorium. It felt strange to walk the empty halls. Like I was in the same place only very far away. Another universe, maybe another time. How the tryouts went is unimportant. I forget what it is they made me do. I don’t remember rehearsing any lines, so I probably just had to read something. I got a speaking role but it wasn’t a big role and I wasn’t even a real Little Rascal. My character was just called Dixon. When the thing was over I walked down the hill to where the busses picked us up. These were called the “Five O’clock Busses,” and they had and different numbering and routing system than the traditional busses that took most of the students home at 3. The Five O’clock Busses were for kids doing activities. I asked around that day and found out what bus dropped me off closest to my Mom Mom’s house. I had not thought about being dropped off on the wrong side of the busy highway. You’ll soon see why that didn’t matter. As I stood there, a bus which was not my bus careened into the loop and stopped abruptly. The door swung open. I looked up into the bus and saw a large woman with long blonde hair wearing a baseball cap. Her hair was flying all around. She scowled down at me. I immediately recognized this woman. Her name was Millie. I knew her because she drove me to preschool and I was her first pick-up of the day. We grew close and even had a song we would sing together until we reached the second pick-up. In elementary school I turned heinous one day and she had to pull the bus over. We never spoke again until this day. She shouted at me to get in. Silently seated on that bus, bumping forward, hands in lap, the few seemingly minor decisions and the radical consequences they created began to set in. It went like this: The night before I told my mom that I was definitely not trying out for the play. So, to her, life would proceed as usual and I would take the bus home after school to Mom Mom’s. The next day I changed my mind- now this is key- and didn’t tell anyone. If something like this happened now the change of plans could be easily communicated through a simple text message. But when I was in 6th grade cell phones were just starting to be widely distributed, and I didn’t have one yet. So I stayed after school without telling a soul. It’s also important to know that I never did anything like this. I was a thoroughly responsible child, exactly where I was expected to be at the time I was expected to be there. You can imagine the shade that descended over my poor Mom-Mom’s heart when the bus pulled up to her house that day and she watched the doors swing open, then swing slowly closed, without her precious grandson exiting. Slamming shut, they sent an impossible sadness throughout her house and therefore her life as well. This set off a series of events that moved very quickly, all while I was sitting in the middle school auditorium waiting to read my lines. Mom-Mom called my mother and told her I didn’t get off the bus, and probably that she suspected someone snatched me and that I was more than likely dead. My mom, trying to remain calm, thought to herself that I just changed my mind about the play. She called the school to check. The ladies in the office told her they could call for me on the PA system and tell me to come to the office and they would call my mom back and tell her that I was all right. In many cases that would have been the end of it, but for reasons unknown, the PA system in the middle school couldn’t be heard in the auditorium, something both of the ladies in the front office were unaware of. So, when they called my mother back 20 minutes later with the news that I had not shown up, the assumption by all parties was that I was not in the school at all. This was when my mother began to panic. She quickly flapped her arms at her desk, something she does when scared. She called my dad, then Mom-Mom again, then the school again, then several friend’s houses where I could have been. When these searches turned up empty she called the school again and it was decided that all they could do was wait to see if I somehow turned up at The Five O’clock Busses, and if I did then Millie the bus driver, who knew both me and my Mom Mom, would make sure I got onto her bus and make a special one-time drop off at a road near Mom Mom’s house. If I didn’t show up at the busses I guess they would have called the police. As I got off the bus I saw Mom-Mom’s El Camino sitting on the shoulder up the road like a cop car on a stake out. When I got home later that night there was a newly purchased cell phone sitting on the kitchen table. . . . This was one of many events I lived through while I was younger but couldn’t fully understand until I was older. I needed distance before I could evaluate the true emotional recourse of the thing. What I immediately thought was a gross overreaction I now look back on and view as a reasonable response. Of course they were going to worry. I’m their only son. My mom still tells me to this day, “I don’t have a replacement.” Even when all signs pointed to a non-event, pointed to the likelihood that I was safe, when intense love is present, it makes perfect sense to be attracted to that worst thing, to losing that love. I believe that’s what my mom and dad and Mom-Mom experienced that day, and over time I’ve learned to love them back for it. . . . I don’t know much about life, but what I do know is that it’s something like a river. You may see different sizes, shapes, speeds, but what’s certain is that it’s always flowing forward. To resist is a temporary exercise. Water finds its way. What I have also learned about this river is that although a great distance may exist between points, it can look quite the same. The beginning can resemble the end, the end the beginning. What one experiences now is not the only time the river may break in that direction. It returns to itself. At least I think it might. This is what I mean. In 2015 my Mom decided to move to Spain for a month. She wasn’t feeling particularly happy with her job, or possibly even her life (she never said this explicitly), so in the evenings she would click through Airbnb listings in Barcelona. She would even click the heart buttons, relegating them to her “favorites” so she could go back later, look at the pictures of Spanish rooftops, and for a few moments imagine herself living in a foreign land, and by extension inside a life filled with slightly more adventure. An exercise like this is probably common inside of American homes. Perhaps your mom or dad is doing it right now. And it would have forever remained an exercise if my cousin and I weren’t living with my parents at the time. My cousin was taking nurse anesthetist classes at Penn, so Monday through Friday she would stay with us in the suburbs and commute into the city by train. She slept in my childhood bedroom with a floor to ceiling baseball mural on the wall. With Cait around we would sometimes get into the wine during the week if we were bored. One of these nights we all ended up in my mom’s office, cups in hand, ooh-ing and ah-ing over saved Airbnb pages. There was one we knew was her favorite because she had shown us before, it had the best reviews, and the host spoke English. A few moments later she had her credit card out and was asking us both if she should just do it, to which Cait and I responded with a resounding yes. So she clicked the button and just like that she had a flat for a month in downtown Barcelona. My father wasn’t present for the booking and didn’t find out until several weeks later, and even then not from my mom’s mouth but from a girl I was dating at the time. It’s not that my mom didn’t want him to know, it’s that she had never done something like this before. She was waiting for the appropriate time to break the news. Well, my father didn’t get mad because he is a sweet, sweet man. Instead he decided to support my mom’s leap of faith decision by joining her for a week of the trip. When that happened I decided to join too. How it happened was both my mom and her sister would fly over and stay for a week. This was a big deal for my mom. She had never been outside of the country except for her honeymoon in Mexico and one time to Canada, and those don’t really count. Even though she didn’t admit this to me until her sister had left and she was alone for a week, I knew my mother was scared. Making big changes when you’re older has got to be scary for most people. It’s probably because you’re not as dumb as you were when you were younger and therefore not as invincible. The second week my mother would be alone, and I would fly in for the third week. The fourth and final week my dad would come and we would all be together as a family. When my father arrived she arranged for a car to pick him up at the airport and drop him off in front of the apartment. It was the same driver who dropped her and her sister off on the first day of their trip. There was an elevator in the flat but it was old and small so he carried his luggage up the stairs. When he entered he was out of breath. Rooms are scaled differently in Europe. You can tell if you see it. It’s as if everything was measured with a different ruler, which I guess is true. These optics, coupled with his outfit, a nondescript athletic material shirt from Walmart, a blank hat, cheap sneakers, all made him seem like even more of a gigantic white person than he already was. Like Gandalf inside Bilbo Baggins’s house in The Shire. Sweat poured down his face as he unpacked his bags. When he was finally settled in my mom laid out some olives and cheese and we drank wine and talked about our trips. It was still early and I had a few places I wanted to see downtown. There was a café where Hemingway and other Ex-pats supposedly drank, some church with interesting origins. We decided to part ways. I would head out on my own while they finished unpacking. They would see a few things and we would all meet back at the apartment for a short siesta. So that’s what we did. A friend told me that everyone should travel by themselves at one point in their life, but I forget why he said everyone should do it. I remember the afternoon being extremely quiet in a city full of noise. I talked to no one. Soon enough the voices of the city began to fade. I felt light and detached, like when I would go sit in my car during my break and stare out into the brown grass moving carefully in the wind. After a beer and a long sit in an alley that I could never find again, I headed back to the flat. Honestly, I missed my parents here, even if it had only been a couple of hours. I had reached a period with my parents that would last for a while longer but not forever. Like two planets coming into view every night for a few days across a warm and cloudless August sky. This is a period I hope everyone gets to experience with their parents but I’m afraid too many seldom do. A time where you are no longer too young but they’re not yet too old. When you can drink together, make jokes together. When no one takes themselves too seriously. With this thought I bounded up three flights of stairs, heart fluttering in my chest, full of hope. I flung open the door and when I saw their faces it was this same hope that came crashing down.

She told me the story backwards, starting with the result: My father had been robbed. It happened right away. The entire afternoon while I was meandering narrow streets buzzed on pinkish wine, they had been dealing with crisis. After he unpacked they left the flat for the subway. They were going to the city center, possibly following the same route I had taken just one hour before. To get there you had to transfer lines at one of the busiest stations in the city. They boarded a car on the yellow line and were followed by a throbbing mass of bodies. Person after person squeezed into the car, bumping them, touching them, limiting the space in which they could not only stand but also even breathe. My mother was wise to the thieves of this city. She had all of her belongings inside of a zipped and clipped handbag lined with mesh steel. She could have used it to block a bullet. She had it tucked up into her armpit. Now, the extreme caution she took on her part she transferred to my father, but the focus fell on his physical well being instead of his belongings. As people smaller than him piled into the car, he stood there swaying like some giant who misplaced his mammoth. He looked at my mother and smiled. Hold on to something, she shouted, just before the train jerked forward. I’m sure she envisioned him toppling over as the car took motion. He was in the middle surrounded by bodies, so he grabbed onto the only thing he could, the ceiling rack above his head. The car rounded a soft curve. Bodies and limbs pressed against him like a lung. The car came to a stop, the doors opened, and the throng of people leaning against him (all small women, incidentally) filed out of the car. The doors closed and the subway continued. My father’s wallet, which had been held in a zipper pocket of his cargo shorts, was gone. He felt its absence as the car left the station. And that was that. My dad alerted my mom, who stood in shock as the last week of her trip exploded in her mind. They rushed not home but to the Barcelona Crowne Plaza. My dad had memorized its location before stepping foot onto the plane. He was a Holiday Inn rewards member, and inside a network hotel he felt more comfortable, he felt at home. Without acknowledging those working at the reception desk he marched directly to their business center where he used their phone and internet services to cancel his credit cards and place alerts on all of his accounts. He printed out pictures of sensitive documents he had emailed himself before the trip. On his way out he did acknowledge the staff, but only to ask them to call a cab for him and my mother who had been sitting quietly in the lobby, still very much in shock. They bought several bottles of wine next door before both trudging up the steps to the flat to drink and forget. To try their best to, anyway. This is how I found them. As they told me this story emotions grew inside of me. Not sorrow, not fear or panic. What grew was an overwhelming sense of frustration. Not in them, but in myself, at the thought that if I wasn’t off on my own, if I was just with them watching, this could have all been prevented. And as we sat there for a few more hours, as my mom and I poured glass after glass of wine, as dad moved from counter to couch and slowly fell asleep, whatever energy or forces that existed between the three of us changed. What I saw and felt were not two people who for 25 years existed as protectors. What I saw for the first time were vessels of some new responsibility. . . . My father recovered from the robbery and was able to enjoy the rest of the trip. I was extremely proud of him for this, another new emotion. Two days later they were off on their own again. We were to meet in a central plaza at two o’clock. At 10 minutes past they still hadn’t shown up. I began to sweat. I kept looking at my phone even though I had no service. Dreadful scenarios formed in my head. But as my mind raced I saw them turn the corner, smiling and holding hands. I told myself to relax. I told myself that they would be okay and I began to believe it. Would I continue to worry? Of course. But I knew it was an emotion I could learn to accept. On the second to last day of the trip I took the subway to the far north end of the city, the last stop on the purple line, and I went to the beach. I spent the day laying in the sand reading Charles Bukowski stories on my Kindle. A very old couple placed their bags next to mine. The woman put on a white swim cap and they waded into the shallow waves to perform calisthenics. I finished my book and when I looked up again the old man and the old woman were dancing hand in hand along the shore. There was no music, just the roar of the breakers slowly crashing at their feet. I looked at the couple and I thought that to worry was not so bad, because behind that worry were embers of love. As I looked down the beach I saw myself dancing, real slow, very old. And what I felt again was hope. Hope that one day, when my parents are gone, when my aunts and uncles are gone, there may just be some youngster sitting on some faraway beach, listening to the sounds of the same waves, worrying about me too.

#writing #childhood #travel

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killjoytoxicberry · 8 years ago

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In yet another tag, this time by your friendly internet avian @dead-nightingale I answer a hella ton of questions that I’m not going to tag a whole 25 people in because I don’t know that many people, the people I would normally tag have been tagged already, and I think alot of people don’t like these! Rules: Once you have been tagged you are supposed to write 92 truths about yourself. At the end, choose 25 people to tag!

THE LAST…

1. Drink: apple juice

2. Phone call: my dad

3. Text message: my friend Ian

4. Song you listened to: Castle On The Hill (I could have sworn the lyrics where ‘cars along the hill’ not ‘castle on the hill’)

5. Time you cried: I teared up in the car earlier does that count

HAVE YOU EVER… 6. Dated someone twice: nope

7. Been cheated on: thankfully no

8. Kissed someone and regretted it: never been kissed

9. Lost someone special: yes

10. Been depressed: I mean, I’ve never been medically diagnosed but sometimes I really wonder but if you mean have I ever felt then yeah I would say so

11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: no and I hope I will never

LIST 3 FAVOURITE COLORS:

12. Blue(s)

13. Green(s)

14. Black and White

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU… 15. Made new friends: probably not? I mean I’ve talked to people and been friendly but I don't know if it would classify as friendship?

16. Fallen out of love: probably, with fictional characters/shows.

17. Laughed until you cried: Yeah definitely, it’s the best feeling late at night on the internet when you should be asleep but you get a feeling of summer freedom where you can do whatever you want and god its such a nice feeling.

18. Found out someone was talking about you: I don’t think so, its definitely happened but I haven’t found out about it.

19. Met someone who changed you: We haven’t met within a year but we’re gotten to know each other better and then yeah.

20. Found out who your true friends are: No, I don’t think that’ll ever be clear

21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: I do not do the facebook

22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: see 21.

23. Do you have any pets: my mom’s fish just dies, so no.

24. Do you want to change your name: Sometimes, but I think I’ll be fine as long as nicknames exist.

25. What did you do for your last birthday: Not sure, I think my parents just forced me out of the house and took me to my favorite sushi place and then the mall (didn’t get anything though, just went into shops) and then I helped make my birthday dinner which we ate along with my cake that I made the night before (I’ve made it a tradition to make myself a cheesecake for my cake since middle school I think)

26. What time did you wake up: surprisingly early today, 8 AM. I was on a couch mattress at my nana’s and it wasn’t that comfortable.

27. What were you doing at midnight last night: playing mysme and reading http://archiveofourown.org/works/592629/chapters/1066944

28. Name something you cannot wait for: the moment in life when I feel actual motivation to do something

29. When was the last time you saw your mother: half an hour ago when I was being scolded about math grades that just came in

30. What is one thing you wish you could change about your life: my personality? I feel like another person would deal with life in a better way than I’ve been probably.

31. What are you listening to right now: On The Spot #100 again because Jon Risinger.

32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: Riddle, yes, but it was very one sided. (actually we went to get subs yesterday and there was a lovely old man named Tom who was chatting my brother up while my mom was looking for chips. We wanted to get chicken tender subs but they were out so we god cold cut and he rang it up as the sandwich that was on sale at the time because we waited to see if they other employee was going to get the chicken but she just slowly continued working on whole fired chicken)

33. Something that is getting on your nerves: The fact that no employer will hire me

34. Most visited website: Youtube or AO3

35. Elementary: My dear Watson? Idk I moved halfway through second grade and spent half a year at one school before switching to a better one only a few minuted farther away.

36. High School: currently in, starting senior year in the fall. I go to a different one than my siblings because mine has a culinary academy.

37. College/university: No idea what to do with this, will burn that bridge when we come to it.

38. Hair colour: brown

39. Long or short hair: medium atm but am planning to get it cut soon hopefully.

40. Do you have a crush on someone: fictional, yeah.

41. What do you like about yourself: hair, physically, and my cosplay ability I like to take pride in.

42. Piercings: one in each ear, but they’re rarely used anymore

43. Blood type: Idk but I want to find out

44. Nickname: Several but I haven't been around any of my friends who use them in a while so I cant think of any

45. Relationship status: single

46. Zodiac sign: Leo

47. Pronouns: she/her, cis

48. Favourite TV show: atla, they still show it, so it counts.

49. Tattoos: none, but plan to, if i can ever decide on anything

50. Right or left hand: right

FIRST… 51. Surgery: none that I know of

52. Piercing: ears when I was so young

54. Sport: basketball, but only because my mom wanted me to be active.

55. Vacation: too young idk, but I remember visiting family in Maryland in the winter and there was snow any I tried to eat ice with dirt on it but my dad told me not to but I licked it when he wasn’t looking.

56. Pair of trainers: no idea

57. Eating: how are we supposed to remember any of this?

58. Drinking: My mom’s Mike’s Hard Lemonade, but only a tiny sip and I don’t remember what it tastes like.

59. I’m about to: go to bed probably

60. Listening to: OTS ended so now, ‘Lost in Thoughts All Alone’ Amalee English ver. on loop.

61. Waiting for: a will to live motivation

62. Want: love, platonic or romantic idc just somthing special and comforting with another human being. I f not that then at least a cat that loves me.

63. Get married: maybe, it seems like a bit of a hassle? But I heard there are benefits, so if we need those, or if my partner wants to.

64. Career: none currently, and too indecisive to have a clear idea of what I want.

YOUR TYPE… 65. Hugs or kisses: I feel like I’d be too nervous to try kisses until I’m really comfortable, but I absolutely love hugs ok like a lot

66. Lips or eyes: eyes

67. Shorter or taller: taller, I like being a bit shorter

68. Older or younger: I used to only think same age was an option but I don’t have a preference.

70. Nice arms or nice stomach: nice stomach, I feel like I’d like to lay down together and use it as a pillow

71. Sensitive or loud: sensitive

72. Hook up or relationship: I would be ok with a hook up, but I want a relationship

73. Troublemaker or hesitant: troublemaker, I feel like I’m too hesitant. I need someone to be able to drag me out to do things without making me hate them.

HAVE YOU EVER… 74. Kissed a stranger?: nope

75. Drank hard liquor?: does the lemonade sip count

76. Lost glasses contact/lenses: I have neither but my brothers have

77. Turned someone down: I kind of didn't give an actual answer until I felt bad enough to say yes but I ended it soon after.

78. Sex on first date: nonononono I don’t think anything I have will turn out like that anyway thankfully but no

79. Broken someone’s heart: I broke up with someone, but I’m almost certain he only asked me out because he wanted to annoy my brother and he just wanted a girlfriend and he was too chill about it so no.

80. Had your heart broken: I have never approached someone are you kidding me, conceal don’t feel don’t let it show

81. Been arrested: yeah no

82. Cried when someone died: yes

83. Fallen for a friend: I keep wondering if I have but then I think “why do you always do this you are friends and reading too much into this”

DO YOU BELIEVE IN… 84. Yourself: people actually do that?

85. Miracles: I use the phrase but I don’t believe in anything “divine’ so no

86. Love at first sight: I don’t think you can truly fall in love with someone if you don’t know them...

87. Santa Claus: yes

88. Kiss on the first date: on the cheek for goodbye

89. Angels: not in reality, but I love reading about them

OTHER… 90. Current best friend’s name: Aly

91. Eye colour: brown

92. Favourite movie: 2003 live action Peter Pan

I lied I’m gonna tag three people ok fight me

@neofox0 @paytonbriauna @littlebitofanutcase

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lauranthalasah · 7 years ago

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I was tagged by: @the-amazing-wanderer , thank you!

rules: answer these 85 statements and tag 20 people. So… I am not good at the tagging part so if anyone who follows me see this and want to do it, please do it, or reblog it, and I’ll tag you the next time… promise!

the last

1. drink: Coffee latte. At 9 am.

2. phone call: My mom, yesterday, we spent a week without talking, weird cause she usually calls a lot more often.

3. text message: a friend who came last night to do some formalities at our town and called so we could meet and have some drinks… it was Bayleys jejeje.

4. song you listened to: I was listening to a list last night, the funny part is that I remember the first song I listened (The window by Bonefield) and the one that I was going to listened next, just before I was interrupted, was Heroes by David Bowie (this version is orgasmic), but I can not remember the song one I listened last!!!

5. time you cried: for personal and real matters… I don’t remember. The last one I remember was… like a year ago. For fiction… two or three days ago, I’ve been rewatching canceled shows and I chose Backstrom, the actor who plays Valentine is really fucking good.

6. dated someone twice: pfff… 11 years!! WOW!

7. kissed someone and regretted it: No.

8. been cheated on: I don’t know.

9. lost someone special: My grandmother, last year.

10. been depressed: truly depressed? Like 22 years ago, it was ugly and I was a child and no one knew what the fuck was going on, little advice, not let the teacher of your children tell then we are all going to die soon because the world is going to end. Since then, never, I’ve had ups and downs, but I’m never have felt like that time so far and I hope I’ll never do again.

11. gotten drunk and thrown up: Never.

3 favourite colours

12. Like a ton of shades of green.

13. Pretty much from tangerine orange to yellow.

14. Prussian blue, Persian blue, Indigo, etc. (Why to choose when you can use them all!)

in the last year have you

15. made new friends: Yes!

16. fallen out of love: Nor out nor in.

17. laughed until you cried: Yeah!!

18. found out someone was talking about you: pretty hard to miss when some else came to you with a distorted version of what you have really said. But I didn’t asked for whom was talking about me, I don’t see the point, the truth is that we all do it in one way or another.

19. met someone who changed you: Not a someone, more like several people just talking their minds and me learning something new or to expand my vision.

20. found out who your friends are: Yes.

21. kissed someone on your Facebook list: Nope, and my facebook pretty much not used.

general

22. how many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: All of them.

23. do you have any pets: An all white cat (Samanta), an all black cat (Katia), my beautiful monster of a dog (Simona), my niece dog that my brother insists on leaving with me (Arwen… plus her 6 little puppies), and the cat that came with the house (Colito).

24. do you want to change your name: Nope, I like both of them, but I would like that some people used my second name, I really like it but it’s doing nothing because people use my first name or last name mostly.

25. what did you do for your last birthday: a dinner with my grandpa, my brother, my sister in law, and my niece. I didn’t want to do something, usually I prefer to do nothing for my birthday, but it turned all right at the end.

26. what time did you wake up: 8:15 am.

27. what were you doing at midnight last night: drinking Bayleys with Emiliano and talking about life.

28. name something you can’t wait for: vacations! (Holidays you call them?).

29. when was the last time you saw your mom: April, for my sis birthday.

31. what are you listening to right now: Nothing.

32. have you ever talked to a person named tom: No, wait, Yes! The son of my coworker is called Tomás, but usually I know him by Tommy or his full name.

33. something that is getting on your nerves: Nothing in this moment, but the day is new and I feel sleepy.

34. most visited website: tumblr and 1337x.to (shhh).

35. hair colour: Brown and some white there.

36. long or short hair: Short.

37. do you have a crush on someone: Nope.

38. what do you like about yourself: I like to learn, I try to have my mind open, and I’m really good at adapting even if I like it more if things don’t change around me. But really… I’m awful at this kind of questions.

39. piercings: No.

40. blood type: A+. Story time!: since I was 12 I thought my blood type was O+ because that what it was told to me. This year I went to donate blood, thing I’ve done other times, but this time, while I wait for my turn the nurse started asking me some questions while reading my file on the computer and at some point she says my age and blood type and I’m “ahhh no? My blood types o+”, she says that they have registered my blood types as A+. So I went inside, they hook me up and I asked at the technician what my blood type was, she did the test and yep… I am A+. And I keep thinking that it was good I never need blood before that moment!!

41. nickname: Yesi to anyone who can’t pronounce my name right and Chechi to the family.

42. relationship status: Single and not looking.

43. zodiac: Gemini.

44. pronouns: She/Her.

45. favourite tv show: damn it!... Stargate SG1 but I hate to choose.

46. tattoos: YES! And planning the two next!

47. right or left handed: Right.

48. surgery: No.

50. sport: I like to swim but just like an activity, I don’t compete and I don’t watch sports.

51. vacation: just leave alone (or with people who respects a little solitude) with a book, good food and a lake.

52. pair of trainers: Comfortable, functional and in a colour that will prevent the necessity to wash them.

GENERAL

53. eating: so far today? Some cereal crackers. I’m hungry!

54. drinking: Water.

55. I’m about to: keep on NOT DOING MY JOB BECAUSE I’M DOING THIS! (I’ll work today, I promise!)

56. waiting for: my bed…

57. want: I don’t know anymore.

58. get married: No.

59. career: look, I’m a librarian, I like my job. But I would love to be able to work from my home! Is still good I can’t do that because if I could it is quite possible I’d become I complete hermit.

WHICH IS BETTER

60. hugs or kisses: I love hugs!

61. lips or eyes: Both.

62. shorter or taller: Taller, but ultimately I don’t care.

63. older or younger: So far I said older but again “ultimately I don’t care”.

64. nice arms or nice stomach: Dying at the previous answer to this particular question!!! Nice arms for me.

65. hookup or relationship: Relationship.

66. troublemaker or hesitant: Neither.

HAVE YOU EVER:

67. kissed a stranger: Like in the lips/mouth? No.

68. drank hard liquor: Yes.

69. lost glasses/contact lenses: No... I don’t see without them, I keep them at hand.

70. turned someone down: Yes.

71. sex on the first date: No.

73. had your heart broken: No.

74. been arrested: No.

75. cried when someone died: No. I cried when people start crying because someone died.

76. fallen for a friend: Nope.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:

77. yourself: I believe so many things about myself!

78. miracles: JA! No.

79. love at first sight: No.

80. santa claus: I think I was like 6 when I theorize that Santa were my parents, I put my dad in an interesting place the day I asked him jejeje.

81. kiss on the first date: not as a rule but I can happen.

82. angels: I don’t believe in god, why would I believe in angels? The answer is no. No angels, no hell, no heaven. This here and right now and that’s it.

OTHER:

84. eye colour: Brown/Hazel. A bit of green next to the pupil. The iris edge is a darker shade of brown. (So… this is the previous answer but it turns out to be my eye colour as well)

85. favourite movie: Nope, not answering this one, do you have any idea of how many movies I’ve watched? Or books I read? Or songs I listened to? This “favourite” things are fucking impossible to answer!

#personal #me

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kidsviral-blog · 7 years ago

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How I Grew Up On The Internet

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/how-i-grew-up-on-the-internet/

How I Grew Up On The Internet

The internet is IRL. It always has been.

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I started navigating the internet — really, the earliest versions of social media — early in my life, and before most people even really knew what the internet was. I was 11 when I first logged on in 1993 — I’m 32 now — and I’ve spent the ensuing years invested in online communities at least as much as I’m invested in offline ones. I never understood there to be a clear line between the two. Before I ever even had a cell phone, I used the social web to document and reflect on my offline life. I’ve met wonderful people online, connected in much deeper ways to the friends I had, and I’ve used dozens of networks and platforms to figure myself out. The internet hasn’t been a way to escape, it’s been a creative outlet, a friend, a documentarian, and a tool that has made my real life better, cooler, weirder, and more fun. For me, the internet isn’t some distinct virtual universe, it’s just one part of the real world.

This is the history of my first 20 years online. It’s a happy story.

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When I was 9, my parents chose to homeschool my older brother, Mitch, and me out of frustration with public school. I had just finished third grade and he, fifth. We were both doing fine academically, but my mom felt like our personalities were changing. My brother often came home from school depressed, and we started to complain about things like reading that we had loved before. Mom and Dad hated the focus on standardized testing, and felt that our teachers didn’t appreciate the creative curiosity they treasured.

A couple years into the great homeschooling experiment, we moved temporarily from Austin, Texas, a hippie college town with a growing secular homeschooling community, to Arlington, Virginia. I missed home and I had trouble making new friends in the Christian homeschool group there.

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My brother Mitch on our Macintosh computer in the mid-’80s.

That was when Mitch told me about BBSes (Bulletin Board Systems) and saved me from my boredom and social isolation. BBSes were local networks where we could read and write on message boards, chat live, and play games. We were lucky enough to have the magic formula: a PC, a 2400-baud modem, and a second phone line. My dad had always been fascinated by gadgets — he’d bought us our (and the!) first Macintosh in 1984, when I was just two years old. The iconic modem sound that began any trip to my favorite BBSes still makes me feel urgently stoked. That sound means I’m about to arrive at the best party ever, and I still get to wear my pajamas.

I tried a few BBSes, but I quickly became devoted to one in particular called “International House of Kumquats.” IHOK was run by a chill teenager who went by the handle Surrealistic Pickle. I felt at home there. Everyone was young and smart and cool and they immediately became my friends. (Since the BBS was on a local phone number, I knew we all lived in the D.C. area.) I never really thought much about the fact that we had “met online” — the concept was too new to feel dorky or taboo yet.

The average age of people on the board was probably about 16, while I was only 12. “Star Shadow,” my earnest choice of an alias, was a dead giveaway that I was the youngest person on the board. Still, I fit in fine. The kids on IHOK shared my enthusiasm for the band They Might Be Giants and we discussed them constantly, dissecting lyrics and debating best songs. We also talked about our lives and anxieties, we made up recurring inside jokes, we quoted our favorite movies and TV shows, and recommended books. We developed real friendships.

Within a few months, Surrealistic Pickle made me a co-sysop (system operator), the official duties of which were slight enough that I don’t actually remember what they were, but I still listed it on all of my teenage resumes. It was the first time that anyone had put semiprofessional faith in me, and it was done purely because of the value of my contributions, without a thought given to my being a girl, a weird homeschooler, or an actual child.

When my mom first agreed to let me meet my friends in person, she dropped me off at the National Mall but then parked a few blocks away with a stack of books and an eye on our activities. Looking back, I’m amazed that the teenagers from the board didn’t tease me for my mom literally watching over us, and I’m equally grateful she was open to the idea at all. We couldn’t share photos on the BBS, so the first time I met my board mates IRL was the first time I saw them at all. That part seems weird now, but it didn’t feel strange at the time. We already knew each other’s sense of humor, feelings, opinions, and personalities — the rest was just wrapping paper.

A few months later, I went to my first ever show with my BBS buddies: NRBQ and They Might Be Giants (obviously) at Wolf Trap in Virginia. The Kumquat crew were splayed out on picnic blankets on the grassy hills. They were Manic Panic-ed, glasses-wearing, and trench-coated teenagers who probably didn’t fit in at high school. They were all, more than any other quality, ridiculously nice. I thought they were the coolest people in the world.

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Cool “Lion King” button + Slurpee T-shirt.

I was having an awkward adolescence. I liked talking to my parents way more than I liked anyone my own age. I wanted to have deep, intelligent conversations about my interests, which were Disney animated movies (I collected Lion King merchandise), horses, and cute boys. Not, for the most part, things that grown-ups actually wanted to talk to me about.

Luckily, Prodigy existed. Prodigy was a dialup service that predated widespread use of the World Wide Web. Like its competitor, America Online, Prodigy contained multitudes: shopping, news, weather, games, advice columns, and more. I was only interested in connecting with people, so I used the live chat, email, and discussion boards.

I joined a message board where other girls like me had invented an elaborate role playing game for made-up horses — we each “owned” dozens of fake horses, gave them names and attributes, and pitted them against each other in entirely arbitrary competitions that were just decided by whoever was running them. I kept my horse files in a giant binder full of descriptions like this:

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People who I tried to explain the game to didn’t understand it at all. It wasn’t until I was introduced to the concept of fantasy sports a decade later that I thought maybe this all wasn’t as strange as I feared.

I was even more involved with the Disney Fans Bulletin Board, which was populated mostly by grown men and women who retained their interest in all things Disney well past the age when most people grow out of it. I loved them. Many of my DFBB cohorts lived and worked in Orlando, just because it meant that they got to go to Disney World whenever they wanted. To me, they were living the ultimate adulthood dream.

I got so involved with the Disney board that I was eventually given a “job.” The job paid me in a free Prodigy subscription and one free t-shirt. My title was “Teens Liaison,” and I did just that: liaised with other teens. Although most of the community was much older , I developed raging crushes on the handful of boys my age. I can still remember, in fine detail, a photo one of them sent me of himself dressed up as Prince Eric for Halloween. I had several Prodigy flirtations before I had figured out the slightest thing about talking to boys I knew offline. We talked about our feelings, which was impossible with the teenage boys I knew in “real” life. I was myself with the dudes of Prodigy — open and honest and weird — and they liked me for it.

I eventually met my Prodigy friends in real life too. My parents planned a trip to Disney World, mostly for my obsessive benefit, and let me bring my best friend, another homeschooler named Kate. I dragged Kate and my mom to a meetup dinner with the DFBB group at a fancy Disney-themed restaurant. Almost all of the attendees were closer to my mom’s age than to mine, but we had fun anyway. I got a purple tie-dyed DFBB staff T-shirt that I wore proudly to the park the next day. Soon after our meeting, people started to leave Prodigy for the wider world of the web, and I followed.

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Editing my “Lady and the Tramp” fan site with a stack of Disney encyclopedias, 1995.

I made my first website in 1995, when I was 13, and it was dedicated to my favorite movie, Lady and the Tramp. It started with a short introduction: “I’m here to provide the major source of Lady information on the World Wide Web.” The page included an archive of tiny photos I’d been able to dig up or scan, random facts I’d strung together from my collection of Disney books, the title of the movie translated into several other languages, a character list, quotes, and the movie’s credits, transcribed from my own VHS copy.

I taught myself HTML to make the page, borrowing books from the library and reading tutorials online. Once I made the Lady and the Tramp page, I was hooked. I started expanding my website to include biographical information about me, terrible things I’d written, pictures of my friends, and more.

By 1999, the earliest date that the web archive has for my site, it was basically a magazine. It included:

A 14-part “about me” section

Thousands of words devoted to describing each of my friends. Example: “Lots of people will tell you that I’m obsessed with Dorothy and you might say that’s true — I just happen to think she’s one of tha most beautiful, funniest girlies in that whole wide world. :-)”

Pages devoted to my opinions on religion, animal rights, curfews, Bill Clinton, and legalizing marijuana

A list of reasons that you should go vegetarian

A description of my imaginary perfect boyfriend, Jimmy Tony

Dozens of poems I’d written

My “future encyclopedia entry,” including the career description “writer, artist, entrepreneur, animal handler, actress, philosopher”; the titles of several of my future books about Shakespeare and hip-hop; details of the company I would found someday; the many books I would write; and my partnership with my imaginary husband Jimmy

A daily journal cataloguing the mundane details of my life

Book reviews

Comics I made with Photoshop

“Summer’s Spiffy Sendable Celebs,” a collection of about 30 e-postcards I made of my favorite celebrities

Capsule reviews of every episode of Dawson’s Creek

Commentary on my favorite songs and a list of my favorite CDs

A “shrine” celebrating Ani DiFranco

A collection of my favorite jokes

Desktop photos of celebrities and animals that I’d edited and made available to my “public”

An elaborate, multisectioned fan page for the character Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, including artwork, personal essays, historical information, and more

A lengthy acknowledgments section that thanked AltaVista, my scanner, my entire extended family, friends, and all of my pets

Making websites was my primary mode of self-expression throughout my teens, and it was also a huge part of my mostly autodidactic education. Over the years, my family’s approach to our education had grown increasingly radical, buoyed by the writings of “unschooling” proponents such as John Holt and Grace Llewellyn. I chose what to focus on and how to spend my time based on my goals, with fairly minimal oversight from my parents. My website became an obsession, and I had all the time in the world to devote to it. Most of the other creative things I did — drawing pictures, writing bad poems, and composing essays — were in the service of making a cool-as-hell website.

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A version of my website layout, featuring a dog I found on the street and kept for two days.

Although my site wasn’t part of any specific social platform, there was an informal but intense network of teenage and young adult women doing the same thing I was, and we joined web rings, made link lists, and sent each other fan mail. I kept up with tons of other website makers, almost all of them women: from JenniCam to one gothy girl who I only remember as “Calliope.” I learned from them. I studied their source codes for HTML tips, copied their brooding photography styles, listened to bands they mentioned in passing, started taking moody selfies like theirs, and tried hard to impress them with endless tweaks and new features on my website. To some extent, I lived my life with my website in mind — do it for the dot-com! — but this was a good thing: It made me more creative, thoughtful, and adventurous.

Creating my own elaborate websites about myself was outrageously, hilariously narcissistic in hindsight. But building my own sites gave me the ability to tell people who I was in a way that I could control. It also allowed me to look at myself in a positive way, something that was missing when I looked in the mirror. I liked the me I was on the web. I still do.

I’ve always wondered about the assumption that our online personas are more fake than our physical ones. I often feel awkward and nervous in real-life situations; I almost always feel like I’m saying the wrong thing and am unable to articulate what I really think and feel. Online, I have plenty of time and unlimited space to consider what to say and how to express myself. It’s an advantage that makes me feel more like myself, not less so.

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On Dec. 7, 2000, the day I joined LiveJournal, I was 18 years old, living with my parents in Austin, jobless, ecstatically in love with my first boyfriend, and spending almost every waking second with as many of my friends as possible. My crew was comprised of other homeschooled teenagers with the same excess of free time that I had, resulting in us spending so much time together that we complained about missing each other when we were apart for two days. I documented every mundane moment of that life and the years that followed on my LiveJournal, eventually falling off but still occasionally updating until 2007.

My journal is still up, hundreds of thousands of words detailing the first seven years of my adult life, and it’s full of hilarious contradictions. I was clearly leading a blissful adventure, experiencing a new “first” practically every week — my first relationship, my first apartment, my first road trip with friends, my first full-time job — but I constantly write as if the weight of the world is on my shoulders: “Life has gotten so misplaced. I don’t even know what I’m doing, just that it can’t be like this forever.”

I was also so unaware of how dang corny I was being all the time. I would write about “candy magic” and my “yummy” days and being “so full of joy.” I think I’m a pretty earnest and even cheesy person now, but I’ve got nothing on my 18-year-old self waxing poetic about every single silly thing under the sun that day. Some parts of it make me wish I still had the ability to be so sincere, but other parts make me think I must have been the most annoying person on earth.

I shared more on my LiveJournal about my thoughts and emotions than I ever did in verbal conversations. I masked my feelings with humor and being loud in “real” life, but I was able to share my neuroses on my LJ. My best friends were reading my journal, and writing in their own too, so it wasn’t like it was a secret — when we weren’t busy hanging out and having fun in my room, we were talking and fighting and sharing our lives, all through words upon words upon words on our computer screens.

I’d write about politics or religion, about trying to understand people who disagreed with me, about the anxieties and delights of my first relationship, about the bands I was discovering and falling in love with. Most of all, I wrote about spending time with my friends, and about how much I loved them.

“I’ve just had one of the most fun-packed days of my life! This will be a long entry but it may actually be worth reading becuz there was so much weirdness today:

“Rachel and Dorothy and I stayed up ALL night last night, being goofy and bitchy and farting and just being completely delirious and silly. At 8:00 we went to Flips, and soon thereafter down to soccer.

I went to soccer and was loud and delirious and singing, and then we went to Schlotsky’s and had great conversation. Then Rachel left and I almost cried cuz she was so fun and I’m gunna miss her so much. But then I went to Flips and they were funny over there. And then I went to meet Isaac after work! And I was dressed so cool and in such a good mood, and we walked around.”

My friends’ journals have largely the same tone: documenting our lives in incredible, mundane, ecstatic detail. This is mostly a practice that seems to have been left behind on the present web, where at least most people are self-aware enough to know that others aren’t interested in an outline of their everyday lives. I guess this is a good thing — I’ve naturally grown up and become smarter and more self-aware since my LiveJournal days, and reading my writing from that era causes my entire body to seize up in embarrassment. I’m also so incredibly jealous. I look back at these entries and I read someone who was completely, 100% unafraid of being herself. I can’t think of anything more remarkable in a teenage girl, and I’m grateful that LiveJournal was a place where I could be me: purely, ridiculously, perfectly.

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I was still blogging when I first joined Flickr.com in August 2004. For five years when everything else was changing — I left jobs, moved four times, broke up and restarted relationships, got a cat, and met my best friend — Flickr was a stable and integral part of my life. Flickr was focused entirely on photographs, and those pictures were all there was to it. You were judged not by your cool list of interests or your clever status updates, but by the glimpse into your actual life that photos provide. The present analogue is Instagram.

Still, before I even had an iPhone, Flickr flipped the tables for me. Instead of the internet being a thing I did when I wasn’t ~living~, Flickr became a way to keep track of all the cool stuff I was doing with my time. And there was plenty to keep track of — the time when I started using it a lot was also when I started drinking, dating, and traveling, and met most of the friends who are still my crew today. My Flickr photos are packed with boys I had flings with or unrequited crushes on, parties, late night video game sessions at my ex-boyfriend’s house, my new best friend’s hands folded around a beer at our favorite bar, and lots and lots of elaborately artistic selfies taken with my DSLR’s timer function.

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Cute boys with cats uploaded to my Flickr, 2004-2005.

I looked at Flickr a lot. My friends who were on it uploaded all of their photos too, and it was a way to reflect and reinforce all of the things we were going through together. Looking back at my early uploads or my favorites list is as evocative as listening to an old favorite song. It’s easier to remember things that you regularly look at photos from, and as a result, the years after I joined Flickr are genuinely much clearer to me than all of the ones that came before.

When I browse Flickr now — it still exists, but active users have dwindled away since Yahoo started making changes after it acquired the service in 2005 — I’ll come across a photo of an ex-boyfriend hugging a cat or a good friend drinking coffee or a bunch of co-workers dancing in someone’s apartment, and I can hear and smell and feel everything in that frame. Flickr isn’t a window into my “internet life” of yore, it’s a window into my life-life. Maybe they are the same thing.

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Typical Myspace selfie.

Although it was preceded by Friendster, which was used by me and a handful of my friends, for me Myspace marks when the concept of “social networking” became mainstream. It was the first time that the energy and excitement I felt for the internet was shared by almost everyone else my age.

There were so many Myspace things that came and went with the platform. The entire concept of having a “top eight” friends will always haunt people of a very specific age and remain completely meaningless to everyone five years older or younger than us.

And the Myspace selfies! I used Myspace photos to exert a control over my appearance that I’ve never quite felt like I had in real life. I’d carefully apply makeup I never wore in public, borrow my roommate’s jewelry, and have an entire selfie session in the sunshine just to achieve the perfect new profile picture.

Most notably, we made music for each other on Myspace. Getting musicians and their fanbases online must have been a strategic push for the company, but it felt completely organic. It felt like one day some band got on Myspace and made it big, and then the next day everyone on earth opened GarageBand for the first time.

Countless friends put music up on Myspace, so after joking that if I had a band I’d call it Premade Bears, I made a profile and I made some songs. For one of them, I borrowed my roommate’s 5-year-old son’s tiny miniature guitar and locked myself in the bathroom, strumming along to my imperfect country-ass voice singing about having a thing for a younger dude. For others, like “Stay Sweet; Don’t Ever Change,” I arranged some generic beats and played some keys on my laptop while sort of lackadaisically rapping about having a crush in the summertime.

There was no future for me in these weirdo amateur tunes, no shows to book or albums to release. Lily Allen made it big on Myspace, but most of us weren’t thinking about scale. I worked at a bookstore, doing events and making displays. I had designs to do something more with my life, but I wasn’t ever going to be a famous musician. Still, I made something I’d always wanted to, and I shared it with my friends. That was cool. Before Myspace, making music and getting people to listen to it seemed hard and complicated. During Myspace, it was the easiest thing in the world. Our old Myspace photos and cliquey top eights were a little silly, but making tunes for each other was a truly sweet, cool thing we got to do and I am grateful.

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When I joined Facebook in 2006, it felt at first like the other social networks — a secret club for me and a select few to share our lives together. I didn’t quite get the point — most of the action was still on Myspace for the first couple years, and the wonkiness of Myspace’s customizable color scheme felt way more me than the clean, boring blue and gray on Facebook. And then Facebook grew. And kept growing. And now it remains the only network mentioned here that’s frequented by my entire extended family.

As evidenced by the teens who’ve left Facebook for other less mom-supervised networks and apps over the last couple years, being on a social network with everyone you’ve ever known is sometimes less fun than the alternatives. I mean, it makes sense: The last thing I want to do in real life is gather every friend, former co-worker, family member, and ex-boyfriend in one giant room together.

That said, my own mom is by far the coolest part of my Facebook experience. My mom uses Facebook with the same delightful, contagious joy that I used early BBSes with. Every Friday, she posts nature photos from the ranch where she lives with the hashtag #FieldNotesFriday. Rumor of her excellence on Facebook has spread among my group of friends, and I occasionally get a text from another pal asking if it’s cool if they request her.

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A typical Facebook update from my mom.

Social networking is associated with youth — naturally, kids who grew up with the internet are more comfortable adapting to new social networks. But in the next couple decades, those same kids will be the parents crashing the party. If my mom is any indication, that could actually be pretty great.

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I joined Twitter just about as soon as I heard about it, in early 2008; by that time, I was joining pretty much any social network that came onto my radar. When I first joined, my tweets were approximations of Facebook statuses.

is going to start using twitter.