#eclectic grandpa men | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

athenasbloodyspear · 3 years ago

Text

Don’t Make Me Beg Now Baby

CHAPTER ONE: EDGE OF DARKNESS

Hello fellow Greta Van Freaks. This is my very first Greta fic! I hope you enjoy.

MASTERLIST

Note: This fic contains mature themes, discussions of past non-con (no members of GVF involved) and drug use. Minors DNI. 18+ only and please take care of yourselves. (See Ao3 for full tag list)

You can also read this fic on Ao3 if you prefer!

Jake Kiszka x Original Female Character

Picture this: The boys are in Northern Michigan to write the new album and they meet a wild young woman who works at a local record store who has a rough history with rock bands.

She doesn’t want to fall into the same traps she fell into before. He doesn’t want to hurt her.

The rest of them just want them to figure their shit out.

Note: While this fic is based on the members of Greta Van Fleet, I obviously do not know them personally (lol) and nearly 99% of this is a fever dream I decided to write down. Some tid bits are based on things said in interviews/photos/songs but please do not come for my neck if you dislike my portrayals as this is a STORY that I have entirely made up.

This will be a slow burn, overly dramatic, cliché fest of me missing my Mitten State and wishing more than anything I could move back home. Their music makes me homesick and for that I’ll never forgive them. ;)

Chapter Under the Cut

CHAPTER ONE: EDGE OF DARKNESS

The tiny bell on the door to “The Edge” clanked as Jake pushed his way in, followed by Josh, Sam and Danny. The afternoon sun streamed through the slats in the windows at a harsh angle, illuminating the swirling dust. The boys all immediately took a deep breath. They all loved the smell of this place. A mix of dusty old vinyl's, incense and weed.

The Edge was the shop owned by an old friend, Levi, who had been a longtime family friend of the Kiszka’s. The boys had made the near three hour drive to the shop whenever they had a spare weekend in their younger years. They bought Levi out of his guitar strings and drumsticks and always looked through the boxes of vinyl's hoping to find treasures. Levi sold an eclectic mix of music equipment, records, books, home goods and comically horrific coffee.

The Edge is where they had each bought their very first instruments, had their first beers and even smoked their first joint. It was a special place for them.

The old wood floors creaked with every step, the wood walls were covered with old articles from Rolling Stone, photos Levi had taken and autographs from the artists who had cycled through the place over the years. There were stacks upon stacks of vinyl's. Shelves of old autobiographies and music theory books. There were speakers stacked from floor to ceiling, and the whole right side of the store was jam packed with basses and guitars. The back corner had a few keyboards and a drum set, but plenty of catalogues to pick even more instruments from. There were cases of drumsticks and guitar picks and strings. The middle of the store had tables full of incense, candles and interesting home goods. There were tables where local artists sold jewelry, art pieces and furniture. It was full to the brim, most shelves rising way up to the ceiling. Most needed a ladder to reach the top. The basement had a sound studio with even more equipment set up to be used to record, or to test out.

Levi had inherited the place from his father, who had built up quite a legendary roster of friends over his years. The shop was just off Front Street on the main drag of Traverse City. Levi’s father had made a name for himself as a great host to bands looking to escape to northern Michigan to hole up in cabins and write albums. Levi continued the tradition and took it a step further by buying the space next door and turning it into a club with live music on the weekends.

If you were lucky, you could catch some super huge bands playing for only about 100 people in the dark side room of The Edge.

“You bastards finally made it!” Levi called out as he came sauntering out of the back room. Levi looked the exact same as the last time the boys had seen him. Tanned skin from his days paddle boarding and hiking along the Lake Michigan shore, sandy blonde hair that was brighter in the summer, perpetual 5-o-clock shadow because he just couldn’t be bothered to shave, shell necklace around his neck, light wash jeans low on his hips with the same old cowboy boots he’d been wearing since the boys were 12.

“Is that grey hair I see Levi?” Josh leaned forward with an exaggerated squint. Levi laughed, snagging Josh’s head to give him a noogie.

“I may be older than you punks by a few years, but I’m not greying yet.” Levi released Josh from his headlock and gave him a shove.

“I’d say 37 is more than a few years older than us, grandpa.” Sam snarked.

“You’re makin me regret extending my hospitality, kid.”

Jake felt himself relax fully for the first time in a really long time. It was just like old times. Exactly what the boys needed.

“Welcome back dudes. I’m surprised I’m still cool enough for you Rockstar types.” Levi crossed his legs and leaned back against the front counter.

“We’ll never be too cool for The Edge. This place will always be way cooler than we could ever be.” Danny piped up, walking forward to wrap Levi in a hug.

“It’s been too long man.” Levi commented as he smacked Danny on the back.

“We know.” Sam said “Way too fuckin long.” He hugged Levi next. Josh and Jake followed up with hugs next. The room was heavy with a tinge of melancholy. Old friends who had missed each other finally reunited.

“Well, have you guys been to the house yet?” Levi stepped around the counter and started pouring four cups of the famous nasty coffee.

“Yeah we dropped our bags off before we headed into town.” Danny spoke up.

“Isn’t it sweet?” Levi asked enthusiastically.

“It’s wicked man. Thanks so much for getting that set up for us.” Josh grinned as he snagged a cup off the counter.

The house was a mid century modern cabin right on the east bay shore. It came equipped with a huge garage studio, front deck and a dock out into the bay. Levi had bought the house in foreclosure and along with help from a bunch of locals (in exchange for beer of course) they turned the house into a perfect getaway for any artists looking to come take a break up north. The place had five bedrooms and three bathrooms with a giant living room with overstuffed couches and velvet chairs. The walls were covered in art and the shelves were full to bursting with plants. It was a kaleidoscope of colors and textures, with mix matched rugs and lamps. It was Levi’s pride and joy.

“I’m so glad you guys like it.” Levi smiled even bigger as he passed coffees to the rest of the boys. “Once you’re a little more settled, feel free to send me a list of equipment you want me to set up downstairs and you can start coming in whenever to work. But also, I think you should probably take a week or two off first. You all look about two seconds away from collapsing.”

“Yeah we’re pretty fuckin beat dude. But we’ll send you a list ASAP.” Jake said, taking a burning sip of the coffee. It singed his nerve endings and he couldn’t have been happier about it.

Levi opened his mouth to speak again, when a voice filtered through the window to the loft above the store.

“Yo Levi!” the person shouted “Can you please get off your fuckin ass and pick music to play? I know Wednesdays are your day to pick but if you take forever I’m just gonna put on whatever I want and you can suck it.”

All four boys' heads snapped up to the window to the loft, but whoever was up there couldn’t be seen. All they could see was that the loft had clearly gotten a makeover. What used to be an upper level where Levi stored surplus supplies now looked like it had a plush velvet couch, lava lamps and plants in it.

“Alright alright! I’ll get on it.” Levi called back up, shaking his head and chuckling to himself as he walked toward the central sound system behind the counter to scroll through Spotify playlists.

“Who the fuck is that and what have you done to the loft?” Josh asked, hopping up to sit on the counter.

“That would be the very best thing that’s ever fallen into my lap. A.k.a my new store and venue manager Maven. She moved back to the area after living in Hollywood for a few years managing bands and she completely changed my life. We finally have consistent stock, a longstanding line up at the club and I have had the time to start photography again. Truly a godsend, if not occasionally a pain in my ass. She turned the loft into a breakroom of sorts. There’s a couch and table up there now. She practically lives up there sometimes.”

“Damn she must be some woman if she finally got you to get your shit together with that club.” Sammy piped up.

“She’s hellfire, I’ll tell yah that.” Levi chuckled, finally hitting play on a playlist. The first bars of Surfin USA by the Beach Boys came on the surround system and matching groans came out of Jake downstairs and Maven upstairs.

“Not this shit again!” Maven yells. Jake chuckled to himself. Hellfire indeed.

“It’s my day to pick so suck it!” Levi called back before faux stage whispering to the boys “I mostly just play this to piss her off.”

Levi clapped his hands together once “Well boys, It’s close enough to five o'clock and I owe you a beer. Let’s head over to Little Fleet for some grub and beers and we can catch up.”

Josh grimaced as he sucked down the last bit of his coffee before lobbing the empty cup into the trash at the end of the counter. “You still make shit coffee Levi.”

“It’s the one thing I wouldn’t let Maven fix.” Levi said with a grin as all five men exited out the back door.

~0~

The boys took a week to relax, as per Levi’s request. They spent the days hiking the shore, kayaking and drinking beer around the fire. It had been way too long since they’d done this. The release of The Battle at Garden’s Gate had been exhilarating and the fans' response had been everything they’d hoped for. People seemed to love the album and they were all so proud. But with press interviews and touring, they hadn’t gotten more than a day or two to relax at a time. And they certainly hadn’t gotten a chance to get back to their favorite old haunts in years.

They stopped by the store almost every morning for a cup of coffee strong enough to jumpstart their hearts. Sometimes Levi joined them on their escapades, and sometimes he stayed behind to help out at the store. The boys spent a few afternoons sifting through albums and strumming on some of Levi’s vintage guitars.

Mostly they caught up on each other's lives. The boys recounted their more personal lives that happened outside the coverage of the album and Levi talked about the past few years of his life in Traverse City. Levi told them all about Maven and how she was practically his little sister. They laughed. They drank. They had a blast.

The boys noticed Levi was a little on edge occasionally, typically when they heard someone shuffling upstairs or equipment moving around in the backroom of the shop. They assumed it was Maven but weren’t sure, since they had yet to see her in the flesh. A week from their arrival they were all sitting in lawn chairs in the alley behind the store, smoking cigs and drinking their coffee when Sam finally asked.

“So, why haven’t we met your precious Maven yet? Hiding her from us or something?”

Levi shifted a bit in his chair. “Um..” he coughed out a laugh. “I am actually. Yes. But it’s the other way around, I’m hiding you from her.”

“Afraid she’ll fan-girl or something?” Josh commented as he ashed his cigarette.

“In… a sense.” Levi coughed. “But in quite the opposite way you’re imagining.”

“She’s a fan then?” Sammy piped up.

“She loves your music. A lot.” Levi sniffed and coughed again. “It’s a real safe haven for her. When she’s having a bad day I catch her upstairs laying on the floor smoking a J with sound cancelling headphones blasting your albums as loud as she can.”

“Exactly how it’s meant to be enjoyed. With a joint in hand.” Jake chimes in.

“Yeah..” Levi toes the asphalt a bit with his boots, but doesn’t continue.

“Soooo” Sammy drawls “Why can’t we meet her? We’re no stranger to super fans. I’m sure she’s cool.”

“Um, well. It’s a bit complicated.” Levi heaves a sigh before flicking his cigarette butt into the coffee canister at the center of their little circle. “I suppose I can trust you guys. You’re friends. Do you remember the huge lawsuit that the band Undercover Heart went through last year? The one about the um” He coughs again, “Rape of one of their staff members by the lead singer Ryan?”

“Yes. That shit was horrific man.” Danny spoke up. “I read all the details I could. They kept the poor girl's identity private but goddamn I felt so bad for her. She was a badass for filing that suit though.”

“Yeah. She was.” Levi breathed. “So, this is strictly off record and if you repeat this to anyone I will skin you all alive, famous rock stars be damned.”

“Jesus Levi.” Jake said.

“It was her.” Levi choked out. “Maven. That’s why she ran back from Hollywood and ended up here. That dude messed her up and she just… she struggles with meeting famous bands now. You know how many people cycle through this joint writing stuff. She just… has a really fuckin hard time with it sometimes. Particularly bands she likes. I think it’s because once you meet someone, and in her case, discover how much of a monster they can be, their music isn’t… safe anymore.”

“Fuck.” Jake said, flicking his cigarette into the canister.

“Well I feel terrible for joking about her being a fangirl.” Josh mutters.

“She just genuinely loves you guys a lot. I never really told her I was an old friend because I didn’t want her to be worried about y’all stopping by. I just know that if she knows you’re here she’ll take off and avoid coming by the shop as much as she can and not only do I need her here, but I think she needs the safety of the shop too. I didn’t want to wreck it.” Levi sighs again. “I know she’ll find out you’re here eventually, it’s inevitable. I just was a coward and didn’t want to break the news to her.”

“She was a pretty well known band manager wasn’t she?” Danny asks. “She like… completely made Undercover Heart what it was. Before they hired her they were slated to be a one hit wonder but she hauled them into relevancy basically by her will alone.”

“Yeah. She basically built that man's career for him. She gave him everything, and he took everything from her. If I ever see the man I’m liable to get my ass thrown in prison.” Levi mutters.

“I’ll help.” Danny says immediately.

All five sit in silence for a few minutes, smoking the last of their cigarettes. When they’d all finished, they stood and stretched to head back inside the shop.

“So yeah. Anyway, If you see her that’s fine, just… well now you have context for… her.” Levi says as he yanks open the door.

A few steps into the back hallway, Levi suddenly halts, causing all four boys to nearly bash into each other. The front door to the shop had crashed open and there were footsteps stomping across the store toward the front desk.

“Listen Levi,” Maven’s tense voice carried down the back hall. “I know Wednesdays are usually your day for music but I’m having an absolute shit fucking day so I’m playing Greta all day and there’s absolutely nothing you can fucking do about it, kapeesh?”

The very opening chords of Edge of Darkness scratch through the speakers after she finishes her sentence and the boys all exchange a slightly amused look, grins spread on all of their faces.

“Kapeesh.” Levi calls out to her. He spins and silently nods to the boys to head toward the back door. The boys attempt to be as quiet as they can as they creep toward the door.

“Also, Levi?” Maven calls again. Everyone halts in their tracks. “You said there was a band coming in soon. Are they here yet? Do you need me to set up the backroom?”

“Uh, yeah they’re here.” Levi squeaks. All five men share nervous looks. “They’re uh… up at the house.” He cringes at his lie. “I’m getting an equipment list from them today and then you can get started.

“Cool cool.” Maven calls back. “Do you think I’ll like their stuff?”

“Uh. Yeah.” Levi grins then. “I think you will.”

“Wicked.” Maven calls back.

All five men repress giggles as they skedaddle out the back door and into the alley.

~0~

The next morning the boys wake up to a group text from Levi.

COME BY THE SHOP ASAP. COME IN BACK DOOR. HEAD DOWN THE STAIRS TO THE BOOTH. BE AS QUIET AS YOU CAN.

A weird request, but they did as they were told. They all piled into the SUV they had rented and headed to the shop. Danny peeled open the back door as quietly as he could, and Sammy opened the door to the stairs. They tiptoed down and through the door at the end of the stairs that opened into the booth of a sound studio. Levi sat in front of all the mixing boards with a cup of coffee to his lips. He glanced over at them and softly said “coffees on the table.”

“Why the weird text?” Jake asked.

“Because of that.” Levi responded softly, pointing through the dark glass into the soundstage.

The sound stage was littered with mismatched rugs, and a few milk crates that doubled as tables. There was a gorgeous seafoam green drum set toward the back wall and stands full of various guitars and basses. Along the left wall was a piano and a Mellotron set up exactly to the specifications Sam sent over. However, with all these beautiful instruments to look at that would normally catch their eye, it was the woman sitting on stool in the center, cradling a dark purple Fender guitar that made Jake stop in his tracks.

Maven, Jake had to guess that’s who it was, was wearing checkered distressed pants, with a ripped up old band t-shirt cropped at her ribs, revealing a sliver of the rounded part of her stomach. Over top she was wearing an orange leopard print cardigan that ran down to her thighs. Around her neck was a series of long necklaces, and her wrists were adorned with interlacing leather bands.

She was plucking out a melody with her eyes closed, rocking back and forth on the stool. Jake had seen countless numbers of people playing the guitar before. On the road, in the studio, studying old masters on YouTube. There was nothing overly special about the way she was sitting or playing, but he felt a little bit like he couldn’t breathe.

“She never fuckin plays anymore man.” Levi whispered. “It felt like magic hearing music coming out of the basement this morning. I just felt like you should see it.”

The melody she was playing was sad. Haunting is a better way to put it, and Jake couldn’t look away. Not even when Sammy placed a cup of burning hot coffee into his hands. She was moving her head along with her playing, the strands of her dark messy hair shaking back and forth. The group watched in silence as she played out the riff a few times, Levi cranked the volume of the mics in the space and they could hear her humming softly.

“She has a strong presence.” Josh murmured.

Maven suddenly stopped. Everyone froze as she heaved a sigh and stood from the stool to put the guitar back on it’s rack.

“You in there Levi?” Maven said then. The boys still didn’t move a muscle. Jake’s head was spinning, having finally seen the face that went with the voice he’d heard in the loft for a week. She was beautiful. He couldn’t even really put his finger on why, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Even seeing her through the thick dark glass of the studio.

Levi hit the button to the mic in the booth and responded “Yah.” He paused before adding. “Sounded good.”

Maven snorted in a self-deprecating way and said “Thanks.”

Levi hit the mic button again and said “You should play more.”

“Don’t push it Levi.” Maven snapped back. Levi released the button to his mic and let out a heavy sigh. “Can you check some levels on the lines for me? I think I have everything pretty good but I want to make sure before they get here today.”

“Sure.” Levi replied.

Maven pulled the amp cord out of the Fender she had been playing on and plugged it into another guitar, one more similar to the guitars that Jake regularly used while they wrote.

“Are we looking for a punk or a rock-y sound?” Maven asked.

“Um.” Levi hesitated. “Rock. Their sound is like…” He tossed a small smile over his shoulder at the boys. “Like Greta’s actually.”

“Dope. I hope they’re not just copying the boys. They’ve got a mellotron in here and everything.” The boys smiled. She pounded out a few chords on the guitar. “Good?”

Levi looked over at Jake for confirmation. Jake, who still had not taken his eyes off Maven, nodded.

“Yeah, that should be good for raw sound. They can play with stuff too. They’re a pretty well educated bunch.” Levi called back.

“Thank god.” Maven snorted. “Not like that indie punk bunch you booked last month who needed me to do fucking all their sound mixing for them.”

“Maven, I don’t think they kept asking you down here because they need help with their sound.”

Maven just rolled her eyes at that.

They repeated the process with each instrument, Levi silently asking for confirmation from the respective Greta member until they were sure the sound lines were all functioning properly.

“Great work kid.” Levi called into the studio.

“Ew don’t call me kid. I’m a 27 year old woman.” Maven called back.

Levi chuckled. “You’re a kid to me.”

“Whatever.” Maven muttered. “I’m gonna go take a walk along the beach. Smoke a little. Text me if they need me.”

“Will do.” Levi called back. The boys all tensed, looking for places to hide, or to run up the stairs and back into the alley. Luckily, Maven took the back door out of the studio and up another hallway instead.

“Well boys, it’s all you.” Levi said. “Text if you need anything.”

Sam piped up and said “Yeah actually, can you pick my brother’s jaw up off the floor?”

“Jake see pretty lady play guitar and Jake brain break.” Josh teased.

“You guys suck.” Jake grumbled.

Levi cackled. “I thought you’d like her.”

~0~

Maven walked along the coast of the bay and absentmindedly smoked a joint. It was an overcast and drizzly day which meant there was no one around, which she preferred anyway. She was feeling on edge. The drizzle was very slowly building a small sheen of water on her arms and hair, but she didn’t mind. The cool water and gentle breeze combination was perfect.

Maven sat her butt down in the sand and stared out at the waves. She normally wore headphones on her walks, her world was a near constant stream of music, but she had opted for silence today.

Levi was being weird. He was edgy around her all week, sending her out every morning for tasks and disappearing without saying where he was going around 4:30 every day. She had come to the conclusion that whatever band was in town this week was a pretty big name. Or big enough that he was nervous about her being around them. She sighed. She hated when he tiptoed around her. Maven didn’t blame him. When she first started working at the shop she had had a couple pretty bad PTSD episodes that had scared the shit out of him. She owed him everything for staying with her, talking her down and making sure she was fed and had water when she got into one of her states.

Levi was her best friend, to put it mildly. He cared for her, kept her safe and in return she busted her ass at his store making sure they had the best products, the best shows and that their artist getaway was something that people would go back and tell their friends about. She loved Levi like an older brother, and he cared for her like his little sister. She would forever be grateful to whatever power in the universe made her stumble into The Edge two years ago.

She had been high out of her mind, as she had been most days after she came running back to Michigan with her tail between her legs, and Levi had been struggling with an amp in the shop. She had walked in, spotted his struggle and didn’t even say a word to him, just walked over and fixed the wiring so that it was functional again. Levi had looked up from where he sat on the floor and said “You don’t happen to need a job do you?”

The rest was essentially history. It only took two months of seeing him every single day, and him not letting her sour moods go by unnoticed, for her to spill her guts over some bourbon one night. About Ryan and Undercover Heart and how badly the whole situation fucked her up. How after she’d recorded her testimony she’d boarded the next flight to Grand Rapids and hightailed it up north. She came crash landing into Traverse City because she’d always loved it as a kid, and figured it would be a great place to start over. The small town she’d grown up in had too many people who knew her.

He was extra careful with bands for a while. Never letting her be alone in a room with too many male band members, and carefully vetting everyone who came through. Eventually she told him off about treating her like a porcelain doll and he backed down a bit, giving her free reign over lots of the equipment set ups and giving her plenty of hours in the shop by herself. She was happy to do so, so Levi could focus on fixing up the artist house and starting his photography again.

But he was still very gentle with her sometimes, and she’d always love him for it even when it pissed her the fuck off.

Once she’d smoked the joint down to the roach, she tucked the end into her pocket. It was sacrilegious to litter near the lake. It was too precious to be fucked with. She meandered back toward the shop. Her plan was to grab her bag and head back to let her Pitbull, Stacy, out for a walk and pee. The girl had been cooped up all morning and Maven felt bad.

She threw her whole body against the front door, as the latch often stuck, and the loud sound of the chimes clanged in the empty space. She rolled her eyes. Of course Levi left the shop unattended and unlocked. It was Traverse City, no one was gonna rob them, but what if someone wanted to buy something?

She was humming softly to herself as she made her way around the edge of the counter and plopped down on the stool by the register. She whipped out her phone to ask Levi where he was. She had the message halfway typed when the door behind her, the one that led to the staff restroom, popped open.

“You know, crime is especially low in this town but that doesn’t mean someone wouldn’t come in here and try to steal your precious coffee maker.” She tossed over her shoulder.

“Oh.” Was all that came back. It was decidedly not Levi’s voice. Maven spun back quickly.

“Sorry I…” But that’s as far as she got. She was suddenly face to face with Jake Kizska and all thoughts quickly left her brain.

They both stared at each other for a long moment. Maven couldn’t quite figure out why he looked just as shocked to see her as she was to see him. He also almost looked afraid for some reason that Maven couldn’t figure out.

He was dressed in an outfit she’d seen him wear plenty of times. A black button up, half unbuttoned, loose fitting light wash jeans and a pair of well worn boots. His wrists were full of bracelets and his hair was longer than the last time she’d seen footage of their concerts, well past his collarbones at this point.

“Hi.” Jake finally broke the silence. “I’m Jake.” He reached out his hand for a handshake.

“I know.” Maven replied, and then coughed. Why did you say that you freak?

Suddenly the front door bell chimed again, and Maven whipped her head to see Levi coming in the front door. She stood abruptly from her stool, skirted around Jake’s outstretched hand, and out from behind the counter. She scooped up her leather satchel on her way.

She headed straight at Levi. He glanced over his shoulder and saw an apologetic Jake looking forlorn and lowering his hand back to his side.

“Oh hey Maven-”

“Hey dumbass, don’t leave the store unattended again. I’m going home to check on Stacy. Probably won’t be back for the rest of the day.” Maven spit as she stormed past him toward the front door.

“Maven wait-”

But she was already outside, the hinges bringing the heavy wood crashing back into the frame. The chime of the bells rang through the space.

“Sorry.” Jake muttered.

“Not your fault. I knew she’d find out eventually. Right now she’s probably just pissed I didn’t tell her. Which she has every right to be.” Levi sighed.

After a few more beats of silence Jake spoke again. “Who’s Stacy?”

Levi huffed a laugh. “That would be her Pitbull.”

“Oh.” Jake said again. He felt crazy because his brain couldn’t come up with anything else to say. She was prettier up close. She smelled like the Lake and weed and sandalwood. He really wished she’d taken his hand. He shook his head trying to find his brain in it somewhere.

The other three boys came clambering up the stairs and into the store. They all looked between Levi, who was still standing in the middle of the shop, and Jake behind the counter.

“Are you two playing freeze tag or something?” Sam quipped.

“Jake met Maven.” Levi responded. The boys' heads whipped toward Jake.

“And… I’m guessing it… went well?” Danny questioned.

Levi finally walked back toward the counter. “She left for the day. This is on me. I should have told her y’all were here.” He snagged his keys from below the counter and walked toward the front door to lock up. “I’m closing early, boys. Let’s go get a beer.”

“Kowabunga baby.” Josh said with a grin.

~0~

Maven sat curled up on her velvet couch, Stacy was her little spoon. There was incense burning, a bottle of wine open on the side table and a lit joint in the ashtray. She had changed into a giant t-shirt and boxer shorts. The soft sounds of John Denver playing off her record player.

However, none of these things were easing her mind.

She was pissed, mostly. At herself. At Levi. She was pissed he didn’t tell her they were coming. She was pissed that he felt he couldn’t tell her. She was pissed that she had acted like a freak in front of Jake.

The anxiety was an endless pit in her stomach. She couldn’t go back there tomorrow. She couldn’t see any of those people. Not when she felt like this.

She whipped out her phone and quickly shot a message to Levi, before chugging her whole glass of red wine and snagging the joint out of the ashtray.

~0~

Levi’s phone dinged on the table where all of the guys sat drinking beers and chatting. Levi glanced at it and quickly picked it up when he saw her name.

“It’s Maven.” He said.

“What did she say?” Jake asked, sitting up a bit in his chair.

“Fuck.” Levi said, tossing his phone on the table, still unlocked.

All four boys leaned in to read the screen.

CASHING IN ALL MY VACATION DAYS. I’LL BE OUT FOR TWO WEEKS.

“Fuck indeed.” Josh said, pounding back the rest of his beer.

#jake gvf #jake kiszka #greta van fleet #greta fic #jake fic #gvf #greta van fleet fan fiction #greta fan fleet fic #peaceful army

54 notes · View notes

finca-arcoiris-sin-fin · 5 years ago

Text

Pura Vida Adventures: A True Story About a Day in the Life

Many people here are true odd-balls. We assumed that we would stick out like two sore thumbs in this small, rural community -- that the people would think we were super weird with our grungy-unabashed hippie gayness -- but we were kind of wrong. People don’t judge us or find us weird because everybody is a rare creature in this community. They are mega hipsters (the Latin American version) without even knowing they’re cool. The most memorable and interesting person we’ve met yet appeared in our life about two weeks ago. He is an extraordinary coffee farmer and tinkerer from Northern Costa Rica named Manuel (pictured above, left). He had been referenced to us several times by our helpful neighbor, Don Juan (pictured above, right), as “the ariete man.” Arietes are amazing old-fashioned machines that use a series of hoses and tubing to redirect natural sources of water to wherever it is needed, often pumping it hundreds of meters up a mountain, all without using any electricity. They told us that he could help us become water self-sufficient, but they did not tell us what a cartoon character he is…

Last week, we went to visit Manuel’s farm, which is close to ours and we arrived to find that his driveway consists of miles of rocky road carved into the side of a mountain. Thankfully our newly-acquired vehicle is 4x4 and just high enough off the ground to handle this boulderous and uneven terrain. As we bounced along in our Tracker, we tried not to acknowledge how utterly impossible it would be to turn back should the need arise...and just enjoy the beautiful scenery of La Amistad National Forest and Volcan Baru in the distance. Our grandpa-neighbor Juan was chillin’ in the backseat verbally processing the crazy ride we were on.

When driving or riding in buses it’s always reassuring to have locals around because they are accustomed to the insanity of the road conditions. They are a thermostat for actual danger on the road.

When we pulled up to the main gate of Manuel’s 500 acre farm, we waited for a while, unsure if he was even aware that we were there. We took the time to check and make sure nothing broke off of the car on the journey, but within minutes he appeared on his moto to let us in. We could feel the buzz of energy and excitement immediately. Manuel was JAZZED to show us his farm. From those first moments we knew that this tour was going to be a way bigger thing than we had anticipated waking up that Sunday morning. He started by showing us his coffee drying area. The harsh midday sun was beaming down and glaring off of ten or more giant wooden-framed boxes covered in fabric and filled with drying coffee cherries. There he literally screamed from the mountaintop about his passion for growing coffee and using the four elements of nature to run his plantation -- earth, water, wind and sun. The intense energy radiating from the sun and Manuel’s spirit made for an abrasive but fascinating start to the experience. After that we drove through pathways lined with luscious vetiver to Manuel’s work shed to learn about the innovative technology he worked with. His shed was dark and cluttered with all kinds of machine components and other odds and ends. Even inside that small space, standing only inches away from each other, Manuel’s surprisingly high-pitched voice ranged from loud to louder as he explained in great detail the different types of arietes he has utilized to irrigate his entire property. He has three different pumps made from 50-year-old parts that he somehow acquired from Germany and England.

We still have a lot of questions - probably always will...

After that, we took a lunch stop at his house, as is customary whenever a Tico family invites you to their farm. We were seated at a small booth table with a white tablecloth outside of a wonky-looking little cabin. Through the open windows we could see that the house was not much different inside than his eclectic work sheds. Outside there were various plants and succulents suspended from the awning in planters made from old, plastic soda bottles and jugs. Everything was adorably handcrafted from reused and repurposed materials. There were also a few awkwardly quiet young men staring off into space on the porch who never spoke to us and were never introduced. Manuel’s wife promptly popped out of the house with fresh-squeezed lemonade and lunged down three hilariously oversized concrete steps at the front door to serve it to us. We looked at each other and giggled because at this point we felt like we were straight-up trippin’. Everything was so overwhelming and funny. Our hosts did not eat with us. While Manuel’s wife waited on us like a pro, he was busy showing us fancy framed photos of himself on huge horses and rattling off stories at 1000 words per minute.

After lunch the tour resumed. Manuel guided us on a 300 meter descent into the jungle at the edge of the pasture. He told us to be careful as we climbed down the steep slope to the river where he basically said that the temperature would suddenly drop and that we could fall off the edge to our death at any moment. As we neared the bottom, the rhythmic sound of the pumps got louder and louder. He had built a series of concrete tanks and used various hoses and pipes to store and redirect the water from the stream into the ariete which would pump aka “shoot” the water hundreds of meters back up the mountain. As he showed us the first ariete, we realized that it functions like a heart. Using only the momentum and pressure that gravity lends, it continuously pumps water up from the ravine back up to the top of the property so that it can be distributed throughout the farm. Every time we thought we had seen everything, he would take us further in our descent. We wish we had pictures to show because there is not enough time to describe all the crazy mechanisms he had crafted down there. At one point we found ourselves scaling down a ledge on a narrow, vertical hand-made ladder of rebar with the river flowing below us. We nervously watched as our 80 year old friend, Juan followed us down the ladder without hesitation. Every step of the way, Manuel was telling us so many random stories in high-speed Spanish we could not keep up with what was going on. It was endearing at first, but he never stopped. Eventually it became stressful and we wondered if he would even have a voice the next day…

The final stop on the river was a breathtakingly beautiful jungle spot. There he showed us the last ariete (which supplied water to his house) and also a giant rock with an impossibly flat underside that he said was an ancient, overturned sacrificial table made by the indigenous people long ago. Considering that this area of Costa Rica has more indigenous people and artifacts than any other region, we believe him.

He told us that he never goes to that area too late in the afternoon because one time he did, and a spirit appeared and violently shook all the trees as if an earthquake was happening yet no rocks were moving, making it clear that he was not welcomed there at that moment. At that point we thought surely the tour was over (it was definitely the climax), but about an hour later we found ourselves at the top of the mountain about to pass out from being talked at all day. We didn’t want to be rude, but we simply could not take any more talking--we HAD to get out. Manuel was not picking up on our body language either. As we got in our car we shook hands, expressed deep gratitude for his time and energy and made plans for him to come assess the natural water sources on our farm so that we could implement an ariete here also! A week later he showed up at our farm (of course with no warning) to check it out, and hopefully by next month we will be using all of our own water for our house and the farm!

This is just an extreme example of the type of crazy adventure we have to be prepared to roll with on almost any given day down here. It may not be what we had in mind for the day, it may be exhausting and overwhelming...but the payoff in knowledge, friendships and sweet perks is always more than worth it.

1 note · View note

stevenuniversallyreviews · 6 years ago

Text

Episode 90: Restaurant Wars

“Thanks for calling Fish Stew Pizza, we do fries now.”

After a streak of episodes about neglect, mourning, disability, consent, and harassment, I think I’m ready for a goofy one.

Restaurant Wars is the stupidest episode of Steven Universe, and I don’t say that with an ounce of ill will. I do say this with the knowledge that Say Uncle exists: non-canon goofs are what they are, but this story takes place in continuity so it is official that Steven once saved the boardwalk by turning his house into a restaurant and making better food than two food professionals. That will never again be a thing that didn’t happen in his life.

From the start, there’s no attempt to hide the silliness. The conflict begins with Fryman and Kofi screaming “RESTAURANT WAR” at each other and cutting to black. The episode is presented in a series of titled vignettes and never stops treating the Fryman/Pizza feud as seriously as a...

...I can’t even finish that sentence, the principal characters here are named Mr. Fryman and Kofi Pizza. We don’t even know Fryman’s first name, and Kofi’s last name is the word “pizza” and he runs a pizza shop. This is so, so, so dumb. I love it.

A huge strength of this series is its ability to balance depth with humor, the big term serialization with the normal daily life of a magical kid. It sometimes swings hard at plotty episodes, but rarely does it swing this far in the opposite direction. I’m not talking about Restaurant Wars being a townie episode, because plenty of townie episodes affect the overall plot and develop important characters. Steven’s connection to humanity is critical to his status as a child of two worlds, so while alien stuff might be cooler, there will always be a place for the mundane in the actual plot.

This is a matter of tone, and Restaurant Wars is the tonal opposite of a plot-heavy story that expands the characters and lore. Uncle Grandpa and Log Date 7 15 2 and Kindergarten Kid have a similar devotion to comedy, but we still get arcs for the characters within them. Nobody grows in Restaurant Wars. The conflict’s resolution is about returning to the status quo we saw at the beginning of the episode, not moving forward or learning critical information. The single consequence is that Ronaldo gets dumped by a girlfriend we didn’t even know he had until moments before it happens, which is just deliciously cruel.

This might actually be my favorite Ronaldo episode, if I’m including episodes featuring him on top of episodes where he’s the focus: it’s not that I revel in watching him suffer (not fully, anyway), but Zachary Steel is really good at making that suffering funny, from his livid “Do you know how much BLOGGING I haven’t been able to do!?” to lasting despair after his surprisingly real girlfriend breaks up with him. It’s a welcome change of pace from his smug buffoonery, and it’s such a surprising and mean joke for the episode to end without throwing him a single bone. This subplot alone is worth the price of admission.

The breakup, like everything else in the episode, borrows its tone from the cheesiest anime melodrama anyone could ask for. There may be a reference to a more specific show, but I’m frankly not huge on slice of life anime, and despite how much I love writing about Steven Universe I draw a line at doing extensive research about friggin’ Restaurant Wars. Regardless, we get the drawn-out gasps, the kabuki emoting, the dramatic camera flashes, the works. It’s not just anime stuff—the vignette titles evoke the sort of Ken Burns parody you’d see in a show like Community, let nobody say Lamar Abrams and Katie Mitroff don’t have eclectic comedy tastes—but even a casual like me can see the Japanese influence here.

This is the sort of episode that only works every once in a while, because it’s so much compared to the general mood of the series. I understand anyone who dislikes Restaurant Wars, because it’s really different and nothing happens and it’s unbelievably stupid. But dammit, I can’t stay mad at it. Its timing is perfect, in the middle of a stretch of Beach City episodes that have been varying levels of stressful. It’s not interrupting anything or wasting your time for a second by pretending to be anything it’s not. The crew just wanted to tell a stupid story about grown men feuding over who gets to make what food, and that’s okay.

It helps that we get a better look at Fryman and Kofi, two adults that Steven understandably doesn’t hang out with very often. We already know Kofi has a temper, but Fryman until now has been defined by his gruff acceptance of how weird the world around him is, and it’s fantastic to see him revved up. My favorite joke of the episode has Steven explain that Fryman’s supposed to do fries by acknowledging his name and absurd hair, only for Fryman to not realize his hair is shaped like fries. These ridiculous names and his ridiculous character design already exist, so they might as well be used for a ridiculous story.

To be clear, this better look doesn’t actually mean much for their characters, because in a normal episode I doubt Kofi would try branding people with an iron. Again, this isn’t an story about growing, so at best we understand by the end of it that these two take their jobs seriously, but that’s something we already knew. Perhaps it would be funnier to use more established characters for something this zany, but I think we benefit from the flexibility that comes with relative blank slates: Restaurant Wars was never going to be believable, but it would be even less believable if people we knew acted this out of character.

Their kids get a nice amount of focus as well. I love finally seeing Jenny and Kiki hang out with Ronaldo and Peedee, even in this situation. I get why they wouldn’t normally interact, as Peedee is an anxious kid and Ronaldo is Ronaldo, but these are neighboring families that each have two siblings who work in their dads’ food shops. Add in the fact that both families seem to have single fathers (although Jenny and Kiki are lucky enough to have the world’s greatest Gunga) and the Frymans and Pizzas have a lot in common.

Unlike their parents, we get grounded character moments here that show these four probably have some history together. The highlight is Jenny stage whispering her doubt about Ronaldo’s girlfriend to Peedee, who immediately agrees; these are people who are able to stand the guy enough to hang out with him, but know he’s usually full of it. Jenny gets a sweet moment supporting Kiki, and Kiki’s people-pleasing attitude might be “helpful” here, but her focus on the needs of others above her own will be addressed in our very next episode.

There’s really nothing else to talk about in an outing like Restaurant Wars, but I have two stray thoughts for this stray episode. First, I’m glad it happened after Greg got rich, because even if it’s not mentioned it at least adds some realism into the conversion of Steven’s home. Second, I’m baffled by the pairing of the mundane pizza bagel with the revolutionary fries filled with ketchup, but I’m not exactly gonna be taken out of the moment by a strange plot point here. I’m glad I live in a world where this episode exists. But I'll also be glad to get back to the actual show.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

This is by no means a favorite, and it’s not an episode I’m ever gonna rewatch outside of a binge or for reviewing purposes, but come on. It’s not hurting anybody.

Top Fifteen

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

When It Rains

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

No Thanks!

5. Horror Club 4. Fusion Cuisine 3. House Guest 2. Sadie’s Song 1. Island Adventure

#restaurant wars #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

14 notes · View notes

classicallyclarington · 6 years ago

Text

|| THE UNDERGROUND MAN ||

WHO: Hunter Clarington WHAT: Amidst personal crises, Hunter finds himself at the door of a Commons psychic medium. WHEN: 9/15/18 WHERE: Enchantments, a Commons-owned occult shop. WARNINGS: tw: death

Another day, another walk down 5th. Hunter had tried time and time again to fix things for good, to make a decent show of it. Something so rich and visually pleasing that the world would have no choice but to forgive his many trespasses, the fury of his hands. Something so wonderfully complex that they would have no choice but to admire and exalt him again. But that was emergency learning, in the truth of it all, and it wasn’t enough to make it stick. He kept disappearing.

Why did he have to keep disappearing? Why did he have to... fail? Freeze up?

He had everything he needed to have to make things better.

Right?

He tried to shake the thought away as he continued down the street. Back to dissipation, he thought. However, in the seconds following he became suddenly alert to the sound of a slow fiddle, the strong aroma of frankincense and myrrh. His olfactory investigations led him a few feet away, to an eclectic shoppe.

Inside, there were women. Twenty or thirty at the least, which crowded the humbly-spaced shop. Some stood carving sigils into candles, others browsed a collection of books and spells, moonmists and oils, enough crystals to crush twenty men together. They were Commons, Hunter realized on a breath, peering in with furrowed brows and puzzled eyes, but how could they - what were they -

“Uh - excuse me... could you, uhm -?” A voice behind him inquired. He was blocking the entrance.

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Hunter nodded. He turned to go back, but...

And then he went in.

“Hi there! Can we get you started with a candle?”

“Oh - no thanks.” Hunter replied.

“Welcome to Enchantments, you let me know if you want to know more about any of these crystals in our library, okay?”

“Thank you,” Hunter called back, to no one in particular, as he wondered, bewildered, deeper into the store. They had to be Commons. But they seemed so infatuated with it all, the metaphysicality. They often appeared to be floating through the aisles, they were so deeply soothed, whispering their enchanted secrets about the angels who whispered to them from the underground.

Where were they in Salem?

Suddenly, Hunter started to the grasp of a hand around his wrist. He turned to meet the smiling gaze of a young woman. The meaning of this smile was unknown to him, and frightened him quite thoroughly.

If he was honest in himself, he would profess that he had half-expected, in the moments following, to be wordlessly led to a shaggy, rundown dwelling in the back of the shop, and ravished below the fiddle song of the spiritual world, to be sent on his way with a shove and another mysterious smile. To wonder as he stalked back to Notos, smelling through his clothes noticeably like myrrh, if she had been sent there that afternoon to read the stars in his eyes and show him some lost satisfaction.

That didn’t happen.

Instead, she said: “Can I interest you in my services?”, and pointed to a wall where they were listed, next to offensive price points.

“No thank you,” Hunter replied over the noise, and went to move past her.

“I speak to the dead now too.” She said, and crossed her arms.

Hunter paused in his tracks. Now. Huh.

“I don’t know any dead people,” He said.

It was a pointless lie. One which Hunter, again, in all honesty, had expected her to reject and counter, some witticism that smiled at him and drew him in.

That didn’t happen either.

She merely wished him a nice day and went on her way to the next customer.

It shouldn’t have surprised him, but it did.

So when she found a customer and disappeared into her room in the back of the shop, he waited patiently for his turn on a stool outside. The appointment that preceded his own must have lasted an hour, but he persisted, studying the Commons Wicca in the meantime.

When she poked out of her door to see him sitting there, her eyebrows furrowed together. “Hello. Uh... can I help you?” She asked, befuddled.

Hunter nodded, “Yes. I changed my mind. You said you were a medium? Can I come in?” He asked, and she nodded, very gently, so he came in.

He didn’t quite want to acknowledge it, but there was something vindictive in his chest. He was angry at her, but why? Why on earth would he be angry at her? Perhaps it was because she was a Commons, but this was something more than the usual baseline of anger that Hunter had reserved for Commons. Then, perhaps it was because she had fallen short of his expectations - of his fantasies, yes, his fantasies. But they were fantastical, so why should he care? Either way, he had the strong urge to humiliate her about her practice for no reason at all other than to humiliate her.

He sat down at her table and drew in a breath, and she watched him steadily as she settled down herself. “I thought you didn’t know any dead people,” She said

Hunter quirked an eyebrow. “If you were a medium, you would know I was lying, wouldn’t you?”

The medium sighed. She leaned forward in her chair and occupied herself by lighting her candles. “It’s not my job to try and catch my clients in a lie, sir.”

He stayed quiet a moment, the smirk on his face disappearing after moments passed between them at the table, utterly silent. She only looked at him for a little while, looked at his face for as short a time as she could.

Then she said: “It was a man you lost.” Hunter scoffed, but she cut him off as she continued. “You’ve lost many people, women too, but it’s the man you want to talk to. He was like a father to you, in many respects,” She said, and her exasperated gaze locked with Hunter’s again, challenging him this time. The candles flickered with the draft that came from under the door, which was particular to Hunter’s attention for some reason, or none. “Stop me if I’m wrong?” She offered.

Hunter shook his head.

“Good. He’s not your father. He’s a friend you didn’t cherish. Am I wrong yet?”

“No,” Hunter said sternly, growing angrier at her demands.

“Great! Yeah, so I’m talking to him right now,” She said, feigning shallow tones and smiling too brightly, “And he totally thinks that you should - let’s see, he thinks you should be more respectful to women, and other people who aren’t like you... he thinks that you should probably try to care about how your actions affect other people, yeah, that’s in there for sure. And uh, hmm... oh wait, wait I think I’m getting something. He’s super sorry that you two didn’t get to say goodbye, but he wants to let you know that when he was alive - you were a real asshole.” She spat off, never losing her smile as her voice grew from soft tones.

Hunter’s anger got dizzier and dizzier in the swirling haze of the criticisms that the medium was lobbing at him. Each one seemed more elaborate than the last, more unknowable, until finally he realized: this wasn’t really her. It was another one of his grandfather’s stupid god damn illusions. It had to be.

“Fuck you!” He shouted as he sprung up, and moved in toward “her”. She backed away, losing the emboldened look in her eyes as she did so. “Why can’t you just leave me the fuck alone, huh? Just leave me alone! I’m trying to change, I’m trying, but you keep showing up and trying to clue me in! I don’t need your fucking clues, grandpa, I’ve got it!” He felt his face growing red. He flipped the table over to punctuate his ranting, breaking quite a few items in the process - among them several crystals, expensive no doubt.

The woman looked back at him, bewildered and frightened against the wall. Tears were burning in her eyes from the screaming and the unwarranted destruction until he had said the word ‘grandpa’. Then her expression shifted. “Are you fucking crazy? Look, I don’t know what your deal is, but I’m not your grandpa.” She swore, eyes trained on him as she inched toward the door.

Hunter’s jaw dropped as he realized his mistake. Oh God. “Oh god,” He moved in again, and she went for the door but he moved their before her. The look in her eyes was like she expected him to do something terrible, and she had no reason to think otherwise, all things considered, but it wounded him deeply nonetheless. “No, wait, I’m sorry - I thought - I thought there was something going on. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled, okay? Hey - really sorry.”

She relaxed, but only very incrementally. The horror drained from her eyes and subdued anger replaced it. “Please get out of my room.” She whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Hunter said again, just as softly as her plea. Then he took out his wallet and started to thumb out a variety of bills - large bills, “Take this - please. Ah, it’s about 100,000. You can move out of here and get a real place in Manhattan, find a real job. On me. I promise, it’s real, please.” He said, offering the cash toward her with expectant eyes.

She rolled hers. “A real job? Get out.”

Hunter sighed and shook his head, pressing his hands on the door to keep her from opening it again, “Look, whatever you just did - it wasn’t magic. It wasn’t talking to the spirit realm either. I know.”

“I know too, asshole. It’s called deduction. I knew you didn’t respect women when you walked in here. I can only assume the people you make friends with are also big manly men - and you know what? You seem like you really have some daddy issues that you need to work on. There’s no such thing as a magical witch. I know people. And I would rather not know you.” She said.

“Hey, I - I do. Respect women,” Hunter returned, thought admittedly meek.

She chuckled, upper ground secured. “No you don’t. Trying to prove I’m a fake before even seeing me, telling me my profession isn’t real, that is not respectful behavior. And let me tell you why you’re offering me an obscene amount of money right now.” She said, stepping toward him with furious eyes.

“Why?” Hunter asked.

“Because the noble hero loves to save the poor prostitute.” She spat.

“You’re not a prostitute,” He said, intimidated into soft tones.

“And you’re not a hero. But in your fantasy world, where you live, where everything that comes out of your mouth sounds like it was written for a passion play, you are. And I’m the lowly but beautiful urchin selling false transactions, giving pieces of myself away to the worst of men.” She swept forward in dramatic enactment and Hunter stumbled backward, arms moving across his chest in a protective stance.

“But guess what, Hero? Those romantic fantasies you have in your head? They are only ever gonna lead to chaos. And death.” She said, feeling sorry for the man who had died in this preposterous man’s life, and wondering if he was the victim of his preposterousness, too. “I don’t want your money,” She said, finally, “I’m satisfied. Get out of my room.”

Hunter furrowed his eyebrows and put away his money. He stepped out of the room when she opened the door, and walked out of the shop back into the chill of the afternoon on the East Side.

He couldn’t help but think about what the medium had said his whole way home, and how it had been true, to some extent, and how he was sorry for having wanted to humiliate her, and how his sanity had quite broken down.

He had tried to save Sadie, but with no plan in mind save recklessness itself. He could have gotten her killed, had the right things gone wrong. Who was to say that Sadie had needed him to save her? She knew more than he did about her situation. And all his actions did was get her thrown somewhere else - somewhere Hunter for sure, and Sadie in all likelihood, knew nothing about.

Chaos and death.

The Shedim, too. He’d wanted to save the Shedim without a plan. And who could know what would’ve happened if they were found? And they would have been found.

Chaos and death.

He closed his eyes and pulled his hood over his head.

He had to stop disappearing.

#self para #//home sweet home uwu #tw: death

9 notes · View notes

richjapan · 9 years ago

Text

#RichJapan - 2.0 - Tokyo

Fun-employed (when you’re having fun while unemployed because of a culmination of freedom + savings) since January 11, 2019. In late March 2019, accepted an offer to start another new venture on April 15, 2019. With two weeks to spare, I booked a trip to Japan. I knew my next venture would be the most challenging of my career so I chose Japan as a place to prepare my mind and body for the journey to come. Coincidently, it was also Cherry Blossom season (which only lasts about a week) in Japan.

Another reason why I chose Japan is because of how many great, deep thoughts I had last time I was there. This time I was hoping to go deeper down the rabbit hole of my own subconsciousness to find and define my purpose in life. During this trip to Japan, I read books and articles on this subject.

The last time I was in Japan I wrote a summary of each day in-the-moment. This trip, I did not have the time or energy to sit down every day to write, but I did compile notes each day of memorable experiences. Now that I’m back in San Francisco, I’ve decided to write a few entries to share with the world segmented by each city I visited.

Major update since this blog was written. I turned the Google Sheet which listed things to do in Japan into an app:

https://richjapan.glideapp.io

Observations:

- It’s hard to fathom how international travel was possible before smartphones. It’s mind blogging how everything is easier and faster with an iPhone in my hand.

- No one in Japan jaywalks. There could not be a car for miles in either direction, but people will NOT cross the street until there’s a green light for pedestrians.

- Japan’s snacks, sweets & beverages are on another level. The variety and quality of each treat is out of this world. I gained at least 10 pounds in less than two weeks. Is this the equivalent of Japanese Freshman 15?

- Japanese vending machines are like the 9th Wonder of the World. They are EVERYWHERE! I played a game of Pokemon Go while I was in Japan (”Gotta catch them all!)”. I was determined to try EVERY variety of beverage displayed in each vending machines I ran across. I would sometimes buy something new only to take a few sips and then throw it away. I could write a whole separate blog about my critique and ranking order of each beverage I tried.

- When I learned Japanese in college I learned the word “no” which is “iie”, but no one in Japan actually says “no” because it is seen as impolite. They use different variations of no.

- A couple of months ago I was in Brazil for Carnaval, but while in Japan I found it easier to read and pronounce Japanese than it was to do the same in Brazilian Portuguese. Maybe this is because words in Japanese are pronounced phonetically or because their words are pronounced syllable by syllable.

- I love listening to Japanese speak their language. They speak with such enthusiasm and, to me, it sounds very melodic. When I hear some Japanese speak it almost sounds like notes going up and down on a piano.

- Not sure if this was just for Cherry Blossom season, but Japanese put cherry blossoms (sakura) in everything and it tastes amazing. I had cherry blossoms in alcoholic beverages, tea, mochi, dumplings, donuts, etc and it was all sooo good!

- Uber has a presence in Tokyo, but it’s about 1.5x more expensive than cabs and even cabs are expensive. For instance, taking a cab 5 miles will cost you about $20. Without Uber, I forgot how much energy is expended when you have to walk from place to place or take trains. One day I walked 11 miles and on average I walked 7 miles a day in Japan.

- Japanese really take pride in their work regardless of the role. When I encountered train ticket agents, restaurant workers, retail associates, or any other service worker I was impressed by their enthusiasm to serve me.

- Japanese are very sexually repressed. For example: I’ve yet to see any public displays of affections and married couples sleep in separate beds. There are times and places where the Japanese express themselves sexually but it’s very underground and not spoken about publically.

- There’s always the most random American pop music playing in the background of bars, restaurants, and shops. Usually songs at least 15 years old.

- I found myself cringing every time I heard an American accent and doing everything I could NOT to mingle with Americans (or any Westerners). Americans abroad have the worst reputation (and for good reason). I found them to be loud talking, inconsiderate, culturally ignorant, and arrogant.

Memorable moments:

- I forgot how much I missed Japanese bathrooms. Japanese bathrooms are a microcosm of Japanese mindfulness. They’ve thought of everything and incorporated it into their bathrooms.

Don’t want people to hear you pooping? They’ve thought of that.

Brought your baby in the toilet with you? They’ve thought of that.

Need someplace to put your umbrella? They’ve thought of that.

Need a deeper clean than just toilet paper? They’ve thought of that.

Don’t like the cold shock of a toilet seat? They’ve thought of that.

Need to quickly wash your hands after you’ve flushed? They’ve thought of that.

- Ate at a Chinese restaurant in Tokyo and tried new foods including: 1,000-year egg, pig ear, jelly fish, and. . .fried scorpion.

- Walked an area called “Grandma Street” on a Saturday morning. They close down a strip of streets every Saturday to spur community engagement. On this street are a bunch of shops and activities accommodating the elderly. Witnessed grandpa’s dressed in fancy clothes hitting on grandmas and took notes ;). This street is also where I discovered and fell in love with sweet potato pastries.

- Drinking with Japanese businessmen is like an episode of Mad Men. Conservative suits and ties, dim-lit bars, lots of cigarettes, binge drinking, and conversations too offensive for ultra-liberal San Francisco.

- Ate at a small, family-owned sushi place in Koenji neighborhood called Kiku Sushi. I was the only person sitting at the sushi bar. This position gave me the sushi chef’s and his mother’s full attention. They asked me questions about where I was from and what I planned to do in Japan. I spoke to them in my broken Japanese. They were so genuinely AMUSED by my stories. Everything I said was greeted by positive verbal and non-verbal communication. They were feverishly nodding their heads up and down, smiling, and giggling at everything I said. I was so amused by their amusement. Their warm, genuine intrigue, and hospitality really encapsulates Japanese culture for me and it was one of my most memorable experiences of this particular trip.

Learnings:

- You can buy a JR Rail pass when you land in Tokyo and available at the airport or select stations like Shinjuku. Also, I didn’t realize this when I was first in Japan in 2017, but JR Rail pass is not only good for traveling from city to city but also good for certain rail lines within Tokyo.

- According to a few locals I spoke with, Japan is NOT a Socialist country. I categorize a Socialist country by high taxes, free healthcare, free college, free child care, government-owned major industries. These locals said Japan does not have any of those things. Think of Japan as Collective Capitalism.

Places Visited:

- Kōenji（高円寺）- The thrift shop capital of Tokyo. Picked up a couple one-of-a-kind shirts. Thanks, Brian for the recommendation!

- TeamLab Borderless - An art exhibit made for the post-Instagram world. It was alittle bit like you were in the middle of the movie Fantasia. An internet meme that definitely lived up to the hype. We were there for two hours before they closed, but would recommend going earlier and staying longer. Thanks Ian for the recommendation!

- Kagaya - Wow. What an experience! Think Improv meets Sesame Street meets South Park meets Japanese cuisine. If you like irreverent, random experiences make a reservation. As my friend, Dan who recommended says, “Don’t Google it! Just book a reservation and show up with an open mind.”

- Jazz Blues Soul Bar - Cool place with walls lined with old records and an eclectic mix of soul jams playing in the background, but too many Western tourists so I wouldn’t go back.

- Jiroumaro - Small restaurant where you stand-up and eat a super-tasty array of pieces of wagyu. Highly recommended!

- Odaiba Oedo Onsen - The DisneyWorld of Spas. Bars, restaurants, and spas. It’s an experience the whole family would enjoy.

- YAKITORI燃 - Best yakitori. Get the wagyu and ask for sake pairing recommendation from the manager (he's kind of a celebrity chef in Japan).

#Japan #Mindfulness #Tokyo #sakura #cherry blossoms #teamlab borderless

1 note · View note

heyitsgigisadventures · 11 months ago

Text

How To Create An Eclectic Grandpa Capsule Wardrobe With Just 20 Items

How To Create An Eclectic Grandpa Capsule Wardrobe With Just 20 Items Eclectic Grandpa is the newest fashion trend for 2024 according to Pinterest – and here’s all you need to embrace it fully! Are you looking for the most effective ways to have the most earth-shattering, all-around glow up this 2024? Click here! Hey, pretty people! Eclectic Grandpa will be a big hit in the fashion…

View On WordPress

0 notes

mystlnewsonline · 7 years ago

Photo

New Post has been published on https://www.stl.news/todd-snyder-rolls-out-ny-fashion-week-with-nod-to-nerds/81432/

Todd Snyder rolls out NY Fashion Week with nod to nerds

NEW YORK /February 6, 2018 (AP)(STL.News) — With a nod to jocks, nerds and 1960s Savile Row rebel Tommy Nutter, Todd Snyder rolled out a men’s fall collection of grandpa cardigans, East Coast prep and slacker trouser suits cropped and loose as New York Fashion Week kicked off Monday with three days for the dudes.

Nutter had the distinction of dressing Elton John, Mick Jagger and three out of the four Beatles (not George) for the cover of their 1969 “Abbey Road.” Snyder did him justice with swinging London silhouettes shaken up to offer a vintage flair worthy of the decades to come.

He also showed loose hoodies and sweats, acid-washed denim and shrunken schoolboy sweaters in a collection dominated by tweeds, wool, corduroy, plush Sherpa fleece and mohair in hues of olive, brown, camel and aubergine — and pops of varsity red, Oxford pink and bottle green.

Grammy-winning trumpeter and songwriter Keyon Harrold, who fuses jazz, classical, blues, hip-hop and rock, kept Snyder’s crowded runway moving as he wailed on one end while the models walked. There’s a romance to color for men these days, Snyder said in a backstage interview.

“Velvet is really important because it shows color well,” he said. “I like mixing that up with some of the softer colors, like the pinks and the yellows.”

He offered roomy volume in nubby tweeds and lumberjack plaids for that touch of retro chic. “I’ve always been inspired by classic American style and you always find some of the best stuff in thrift stores,” Snyder said. “Even the mohair sweaters mixed in with the retro plaids do it.”

Snyder called Nutter a “huge inspiration.” He “brought the ’60s to a looser style and we’re going a bit toward that looser style today. Things aren’t quite as buttoned up as they were 10 years ago. It’s a slacker vibe but mixing that up with some of the glam like the velvet.”

He included a black shearling top coat in a charcoal mohair, paired with a schoolboy sweater and white Oxford shirt and black denim five-pocket jeans.

Snyder’s eclectic ode didn’t forget the ’90s, a throwback decade in his mind, including a few tailored joggers as part of an ongoing collaboration with Champion. Nutter died in 1992 and Kurt Cobain in 1994. Snyder served both.

By LEANNE ITALIE , Associated Press – published on STL.News by St. Louis Media, LLC (RA)

#New York Fashion #Snyder said

0 notes

morningsunstudio · 2 years ago

Link

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: LL Bean pure Wool sweater Made in Scotland Dad Grandpa vintage.

0 notes

bastardtravel · 7 years ago

Text

November 22, 2017. Prague, Czech Republic.

There are different kinds of surreal. Barcelona was a psychotropic fever dream, everything outsizedly absurd, the kind of ridiculousness that even dream logic can’t slip by you. Fifteen-foot tall matadors burst from an alley to the sound of spirit flutes and you stop and say, “Wait, this is a dream. Obviously. Okay.”

Prague is different. It’s cooler, more refined and lucid in its creeping abnormality. It’s easy to understand how a place like this churned out a mind like Kafka. The city carries an overtone of dread, the subtle but implacable discomfort that comes in the strange vision quests that too much NyQuil gives you.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful city. It’s just, when you walk through it, you feel like it’s being made up as it goes along. The architecture is eclectic to the point of the random. You can stand on a single corner and look around a square and see three, four, five different styles of building, ordinarily separated by centuries, now jutting against one another.

That’s what’s so unsettling about Prague, I think. That’s what gives it the static buzz of a medicated dream.

Think about your last nightmare. You’re running down a hallway, maybe a childhood school or something, you get to the staircase, you run up the steps, two at a time, you throw open the doors to the roof and you’re suddenly in the middle of the woods.

It’s like that every time you turn a corner. The same jarring sense of something being wrong.

Good thing morbid absurdity is my bread and butter. I’ve been bumbling around Prague for two days now, fending off a chest cold in the rainy, 30 degree weather. I walk into a Baroque alley and come out a Gothic one. Roman churches suddenly give way to municipal buildings covered in arabesques. Down another alley, which gets so narrow that you can barely fit two people through it at once, and I walk out into an expanse of Soviet Brutalism that goes on for as long as my vision does.

I caught a snippet of an interview on a TV screen in some museum or other, a local architecture teacher was saying, “Builders just kept coming. We had some from Germany, we had some from France, we had many from Italy, from Portugal, from Spain, from the East, all these builders came to add something to Prague.”

Well, mission accomplished. It felt to me like a weird echo of the Great Bazaar, jumbled miscellany writ large and rendered permanent.

I crossed the bridge out of Old Town and climbed the hill toward Prague Castle, a standing complex that had been restored (and, in keeping with their whole theme, remodeled) since the 1300s. That’s where I found the crown jewel, a Gothic masterpiece called the St. Vitus Cathedral.

The pictures don’t do it justice. It was like a factory that mass-produces religiously themed nightmares. It’s like the Devil made a church as a joke, and it was so over-the-top that they decided to keep it. The whole big bastard looks like a 2-page insert from a gritty early 90’s Batman comic. I was so awed by it I didn’t even mind the Asian families doing noisy selfie-stick gymnastics next to me.

I climbed to the top of the South Tower. Allegedly 287 steps. Bull. 283. I counted.

It didn’t start to really suck until step 140, but that was probably just the chest cold. Probably.

I made my way back down the hill and discovered a “Medieval Tavern” with a row of blackened skulls across the door.

Welp, my hands are tied. I went in, figuring that I’d grab something to eat here.

It was nearly pitch black inside, lit only by candles. Lots of rough-hewn stone, lots of weird haunted house decorations like skulls, chains, robed mannequins. I don’t know how prevalent robed mannequins were in actual medieval times, but I have to imagine they used more lighting and fewer bones in general tavern decor. Maybe it was a special dungeon-themed tavern. I wandered down some winding stairs into some dark, empty rooms, and then eventually into a well-lit modern kitchen, which is when I knew I’d gone too far. I wandered back up the stairs and sat at the head of a table, looked over the menu.

After maybe 10 minutes of alternating between looking at the menu and a candle, a beautiful blonde skeleton appeared and asked what I wanted to drink. The menu said “Home made beer with love”, so I ordered that. She slam-dunked it on my table on the way past and either didn’t hear my attempt to order food or ignored it.

It was a porter, and it was okay. Nothing to write home about. Not particularly strong. A little light and hoppy for my tastes, but beggars and choosers; I hadn’t gotten my hands on anything darker than a lager since Ireland, and even that had just been knockoff Guinness.

Well, I finished it, and she never came back. Guess I was gonna eat somewhere else. I paid my 25 ckz (about $2) to a dour-faced young man in a shirt that was, for some reason, full of holes. Maybe it was supposed to be a peasant throwback, but the effect was ruined by the visibility of the Calvin Klein logo on his boxers.

I guess a porter is a lunch. That’s around 200 calories. That’s 2 bananas. Or 3 eggs. 3 eggs could, arguably, be lunch. I drifted through the spontaneously rendering streets calculating how much actual food could have taken the place of that mediocre beer with love when I happened upon a “Ghost Museum”. Well, those are some of my favorite things, and it had a student discount, so why not?

The upper floor was a collection of badly but wittily translated ghost stories printed on single sheets of giant fake scroll paper that was then pasted into giant fake books. The downstairs was advertised as “a walk through the ghost-haunted streets of the underground”, but was more of a long basement full of cheap haunted house decorations. I wonder if this part of Prague has a guy. Like, a Party City wholesaler, so they just wound up with all these lame Halloween decorations and went, “All right, what can do we do with this?”

I found my way to the surface and walked the mile or so back to my hostel, then down the street to yet another pho place. I’ve been subsisting mostly on pho in Prague, partly because both hostels I booked have been in Little Vietnam (it is not that little, considering they’re a mile and a half apart), partly because pho is basically chicken soup and that’s as close as I can get to eating healthy here.

Here, let me walk you through Czech cuisine real quick.

anywhere else it would be reasonable to assume “tatar sauce” is a typo

So far, I’ve only had the opportunity to sample 2 totalitarian classics in Prague.

This one was right after I got off the bus, before I understood how much Czech money was worth. This was the first and last time I would pay $15 for three mouthfuls of deer meat and some tater tots.

This monstrosity was much more reasonable, something like $7 all told. On the bottom, it’s around a half lb of chicken breast and all sorts of delicious peasant vegetables, broccoli, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, the usual. And then also, giant fried potato wedges. Then cheese. It’s like shepherd’s pie without any broth, and then instead of mashed potatoes, a gallon of cheese. It was called Žižkov, after a popular student district. It was cheese fries gone out of control.

I’ve done more than I’ve written since arriving in Prague, but since everything has felt so haphazard and disjointed, that’s how I’m going to tell the story, too. I’ll tell you one thing for damn sure, though, I’ve got to find a better place to get breakfast.

This morning I opted for the $6 hostel breakfast. “English Continental”, he said.

“Yeah, but what’s in that?” I asked. “I’m from the States, When hotels say continental breakfast, they usually mean coffee and a danish.”

He looked at me strangely, possibly because he was, himself, Danish, then showed me the list. Lunchmeats, bread, milk, eggs, omelettes optional, just ask the cook. I forked over some of the Czech currency and he said, “Okay, now go outside, across the courtyard, through the gate, to the other hostel on your left, and give them this voucher.”

Uh. All right.

I did that, and the man at the door was obviously displeased to see me. That seemed to be a recurrent theme in Prague, truth told. No one has seemed particularly excited to see me, but I’m trying not to take it personally. The dining room was full of three lazy German shepherds, which I approved of for reasons more moral than sanitary.

The spread. Ah, the spread. Three types of stale bread! It was great, if you ate around the mold.

Canned eggs, served chilled. Ice-cold, perfectly circular eggs, their yolks a distressing and unnatural orange color. A pinch of parsley had been applied to the top, presumably to simulate “preparation”.

Wet tortillas rolled up with apple jelly. Just like Mom used to make, during her psychotic breaks.

Some sort of single-serving spreadable ham.

Small, sad apples, their skins all withered and pruny and generally looking like grandpa testicles.

I looked at the angry Czech men. They glared back at me, as if daring me to ask for an omelette.

I ate an entire plate of tomatoes and lunchmeat, then more tomatoes, then a quantity of bread and butter that even I found sort of alarming. Feed a fever, starve a cold? Feed a cold? Then I went back to the hostel, where the possible Dane asked, “how was breakfast?”

“Fine,” I lied, then passed out for another 3 hours. I think that was more immune system than food, though.

If I get to the Kafka museum tomorrow, I’ll double it up and tell you about my Adventures in Communism!

Love,

The Bastard

Prague: Architectural Anarchy November 22, 2017. Prague, Czech Republic. There are different kinds of surreal. Barcelona was a psychotropic fever dream, everything outsizedly absurd, the kind of ridiculousness that even dream logic can't slip by you.

0 notes

renoxa · 7 years ago

Text

West Sweden and The Design Shops of Gothenburg

If you follow me on instagram you will have noticed that I’ve recently been in Sweden. Gothenburg and West Sweden to be precise. It was a full-on three day trip organised by Frida Ramstedt (Trendenser) and the West Sweden Tourist Board to promote West Sweden as a design destination. And they certainly exceeded all expectations with a very special tour of towns, shops, factories, castles, hotels, and restaurants. All fortified with lots of stops for fika. There’s so much to share that I’m going to break it down into cinnamon-bun bite-sized portions, starting today with a run-down of the amazing and trendiest design shops we visited in Gothenburg on day 1.

Rum 21

Rum 21 was without doubt the best introduction to Scandinavian design for the home. It was started as a family company in 2006 in Borås by Helén Rudholm and Gustaf Rudholm and acquired by The Royal Design Group in 2014. Rum 21 has since its inception been steadily growing and today is one of Sweden’s leading retailers of furniture and home furnishings on the internet. But visiting the store is a must. Its layout is in room sets that are designed to inspire and tempt you. Tempted we were. More than once I heard whispered ‘I could just buy everything here’.

Rum21

Kungsgatan 31-33, 411 15 Göteborg

*****

Engelska Tapetmagasinet

Engelska Tapetmagasinet is Sweden’s largest online wallpaper store. The Gothenburg shop is situated in an old bank with the original mahogany panelling and period features still in evidence. And they sell much more than wallpaper. They also have a whole department of fabrics, cushions, paintings and interior details for the home. But it’s the wallpaper ranges that make this store stand out. If you can’t find it here, it doesn’t exist. End of.

Engelska Tapetmagasinet

Västra Hamngatan 18. 411 17 Göteborg

*****

Norrgavel

The motto at Norrgavel is simplicity. Their furniture and furnishings are made with the utmost care to detail, function and form. A kind of quiet design that you notice more, the more you use it. A chair that really supports the body, a handle that, with its design, helps your fingers and hand to pull out the drawer, for example. And the more you walk around the store, and touch, and examine, the more you understand.

Norrgavel

Magasinsgatan 22, 411 18 Gothenburg

*****

Floramor och Krukatos

Across a cobbled courtyard and up some rusty metal stairs I really found my happy place. Floramor och Krukatos is a treasure trove of ceramics, botanical prints, curiosities, ornamental plants and cut flowers in season. The building itself is old and atmospheric, with bare brick, metal shelves, and an abundance of natural light keeping those plants as happy as me. As the name suggests it’s owners are a ceramicist (the mother) and a florist (the daughter). A match made in heaven.

Floramor och Krukatos

Kaserntorget 8, 411 18 Göteborg

*****

Artilleriet

Artilleriet was another of my favourites. A true destination store full of an eclectic collection of rugs, furniture, lighting and accessories. Also situated in an old industrial building, the lack of windows only served to improve the cosy, exciting and inviting atmosphere. And to demonstrate the beautiful lighting on offer. As in everywhere else in Sweden, candles were burning on all of the tables and displays. The founders have filled this store with everything that they love and things they have found on their travels. Its displays change regularly so it’s always the place to go for inspiration, and to find just that thing that you have been looking for. Even if you didn’t know you were looking.

Artilleriet

Magasinsgatan 19, 411 18 Göteborg

*****

Artilleriet, The Kitchen

Artilleriet, The Kitchen, is as bright and cheerful as its sister store is dark and atmospheric. Here, you’ll find beautiful handcrafted kitchen products, utensils and unique everyday objects, beautifully presented on aged wooden dressers and marble counters.

Artilleriet, The Kitchen

Magasinsgatan 19, 411 18 Gothenburg

*****

Grandpa

Grandpa sells Scandinavian and international fashion and interiors. Clothes for both men and women are displayed alongside prints, bags, books, interiors accessories, jewellery and electronics. They only stock brands that fit in with the Grandpa aesthetic and commitment to organic production and sustainability. In their own words, “for us, the brands are never more important than the product itself.”

Grandpa

Vallgatan 3, 411 16 Gothenburg

*****

Da Matteo

All of this shopping required a stop for fika and that’s when we visited Da Matteo. Founder Matts Johansson has a passion for coffee. Da Matteo means Matts’ house, of course. They roast their own coffee, and with help from knowledgeable agents among the coffee growers they focus on sustainability and quality. The bread and pasties are also baked on the premises. The cafe itself is located in another of Gothenburg’s old industrial buildings and has been largely left untouched. And pride of place is the giant roaster – see below.

Da Matteo

Vallgatan 5, 411 16 Göteborg

*****

This list is not exhaustive by any means. There were so many other shops that we just didn’t have time to visit. All of them are conveniently situated in a very small part of the city. You’ll just have to visit for yourself.

I was a guest of The West Sweden Tourist Board for this visit, but all views, and images unless otherwise credited, are my own.

The post West Sweden and The Design Shops of Gothenburg appeared first on Dear Designer.

West Sweden and The Design Shops of Gothenburg published first on http://ift.tt/2wJKpgB

0 notes

rueur · 8 years ago

Text

Morning Pages #37 (26.02.2017)

Sunday 26th February - 11:44 p.m.

I decided that I’m going to write my way into my twentieth birthday, after Isaac sent me a super enthusiastic message in anticipation for my becoming a twenty-something. Ugh, that horrendous term. I do not want to leave my adolescent years behind me, I really don’t. But then again, I am also somewhat excited to begin on this new chapter of my life. I’ll still be in uni yes, but things are supposed to start getting more serious now, right? All of a sudden it’s supposed to be more disappointing that I don’t have a job, and that I’m living at home. It’s become more dangerous for me to be immature because now I don’t have free reign to do so, as a nineteen year old. To be honest with you, I greatly enjoyed turning eighteen. It was my first year of tertiary education and I had so much to look forward to! Nineteen, I merely tolerated. I mean I was still a teenager but nineteen was most definitely guaranteed to be a weird age, as well as a weird year. Last year was an immensely weird year. But twenty! I just don’t want to have to deal with this age. I mean I am so excited for this year, naturally. My undergraduate course is coming to a neat close and I have a very kind love in my life and I’m actually hopeful about my career after the slam poetry venture. But earlier today even thathi asked me about what I’m going to do for MONEY after uni and I just had no idea. The idea of selling my labour makes me uncomfortable, but if I don’t do this I will most likely become a beggar and beggars cannot be choosers.

I want to see how much I can type before midnight. It’s been five minutes or so and I’m halfway through the first page of these three pages. I kind of just want to spew these out so that I can go to bed at a reasonable hour. Ideally, I’d be asleep right now. But I just don’t want to sleep through my last few minutes as a teenager. There’s a massive spider in my room, just chilling on the wall. In the corner, above my desk. I can’t deal with this right now. I’m just praying that it won’t move at all for the next eight or so minutes and then I can deal with it once I’m twenty. This is awful, goodness. I have to sleep. This is just the worst timing. First day back at uni and my twentieth birthday. At least I’ll have an interesting fact for whatever introductions I’ll have to provide in my first class tomorrow. I have a lecture first thing in the morning, well actually it starts at noon. I’ll need to be on the train around ten then. I’m trying to get back into that morning commute mindset. My bike is at the station. Should I walk there in the morning or should I get a lift? A walk might be nice. Serene, peaceful, you know. I need a bit of time to myself. I spent all day with my parents and my grandpa, in a car mostly. We went to Warburton, to the Bodhivana Monastery, because I asked if we could and they couldn’t say no to me on my birthday. See that place is insanely beautiful and being there greatly improves my emotional headspace, even if I arrive there already feeling quite fine. I needed it today though, because I managed to speak to the saddhu for a bit about dealing with grief. It was helpful for the most part. Oh no, five minutes left. I’m at least at the bottom of the first page, or at least I’m nearly there. Isaac sent me another message. He wished me a happy birthday a little prematurely because of the time difference between Australia and New Zealand. I thought he’d just remembered ahead of time that it was my birthday, but apparently not! I’m aware of how little he really cares about me and how tiny a person I am in his ‘larger than life’ life, but sometimes I just kind of like to think I mean more than I do. Because of the way we met and the person that he is. He’s eclectic, and so vibrant and unique, I just want to keep him in my life. I think he wants the same from me, perhaps. He just doesn’t feel like he’s in a place to demand that from anybody because of how transient he is and will continue to be for most of his youth. He’s going to be twenty-six this year, and I know that I will not be as successful as he is at twenty-six. Well obviously not with that attitude. I need to be more optimistic, and have some faith in myself. I killed that poetry slam. My raw score was 28/30, and I know I can do so much better the next time round, because I have a firm foundation now.

Nearly one minute left now. I’m seeing Evan tomorrow, I think. We haven’t discussed it too much, but the plan is that we’re supposed to go out to dinner to celebrate my birthday and the first day of uni, and his last day of work too a little. And his birthday too, maybe. Everything is happening right now. Oh goodness thirty seconds left. I’m making this a bigger deal than it is, I know. I think about the nine months I spent in my mother’s womb and I know that I’ve technically been alive a lot longer than twenty years now, because of those months I was a foetus. Just because I wasn’t born, doesn’t mean I wasn’t alive. Midnight! And the first song I’m hearing is ‘Silenced By The Night’ by Keane which literally started right on midnight. iTunes is on shuffle as I type. I’m officially twenty. Well, I mean I can go by the hour and minute I was born but I don’t want to, I mean the Facebook notifications start from midnight onwards so I’ll just go off of that. Isaac went to bed. My first birthday wish of the day was rather brief. Goodness, I need to get this over with and go to bed. I have to sleep. I have to be ready for tomorrow. It’s going to be hot. It’s going to be hot for all of next week. I don’t know if I have enough clothes for five thirty-degree days. I don’t know what I should do on Wednesday and Friday of this week. I think I should get my monthly myki pass as soon as I can, though. Once I do get that, I’ll need to travel every day to make the most of it, or at least try and travel every day. I can just take myself out if I have nothing else to do, but I should be looking for work, I know. I do have some spare time even with uni and it would be nice to make some money using that spare time. Maybe I should actually run english tuition classes. Malli’s studying ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Twelve Angry Men’ this year and I studied them both in Year 11. I actually studied ‘Twelve Angry Men’ in Year 10, but it was a Year 11 Literature class. It was taught by that mousey goth teacher, the old Kiwi woman who looked like the human equivalent of a baby raven. She was so small. I forget her name, but I remember her face and her accent. She was a lovely woman, just a little too blunt at times and she had a bit of an attitude. She was witty on occasion, but more sharp than anything else. She was a little like Mr. McClenaghan except Mr. Mac was a lot more affable in his eccentricities. It helps that he was a man though, I mean you could argue that. It’s usually easier to get along with male teachers, because you can’t take them seriously. Female teachers get respect just for being ladies, or at least that’s what I remember from high school. Varrasso is on Facebook. People have added her. I think Marcus might’ve too, but Marcus was actually pretty friendly with her. A lot of people who have her on Facebook were cheeky with her, not sincere and oftentimes not even kind. I’m onto my third page! Would you look at that, huh? I think I’m actually writing these pages correctly, like as actual stream-of-consciousness and not just as a diary, which is what I’ve been doing for the past month, I feel. I have a bit of a nasty cough left, the dredges of my monster cold. It’s irritating me, not because I’m coughing, but because I haven’t stopped yet. I want to just wake up tomorrow and be all good again. That would be a fantastic birthday present from the universe. It’s been thirteen minutes and I don’t feel twenty yet. FUCK. THE SPIDER HAS MOVED. I actually have no idea where it is now. Oh no. I should’ve dealt with it immediately upon seeing it, I know. Whatever, I don’t care too much right now because my cold has been my biggest thought for the past couple of days (aside from Evan sometimes). Ikaros sent me a weird message this morning. He said ‘Good morning’ and then ‘Sorry for everything’. It sounded really finalised, like I was afraid he was going to do something. I don’t know, I mean I know he never would. He cares about himself too much to let himself wallow over anything. He didn’t cry at all the first time we broke up. To be fair, he initiated it all on his own and I don’t think he’d thought it all the way through either, but he didn’t even cry after he had given it some thought.

I took a break because my brother came back and he helped me find and then vacuum up the big spider. Bless him. Anyway, yes. Evan sent me some photos that he’d taken on Saturday morning, when we were out all night. He sent me four photos of the two of us on the top of the hills, whilst we were watching the sun rise. The lighting was pretty lovely and we were both wearing red that day, funnily enough. I was wearing a red turtleneck and my red puffy jacket, and he was wearing his big red hoodie, so we were accidentally matching. That tends to be our signature style: accidentally complementary, or unintentionally complementary. It’s pretty lovely, and as he said earlier, also rather cosmic. This just feels so right. I can’t get over how RIGHT this feels. For both of us too, I mean it’s so fantastic and so weird being this in sync with another person, but I love it. And I am so looking forward to seeing him tomorrow, I really am. It would just be the perfect way to end today. Hell, I have to start today first though, don’t I? It’s half past midnight and I have about a third of this page left to go. OH! I sent Evan photos from the Bodhivana Monastery and he said it looked beautiful (not in those exact words, his exact words were a lot more M-rated and enthusiastic, believe me). I also told him that I want to take him there some time soon, and he said ‘as soon as he gets his license’. ‘LIKE ON THAT DAY’. What a sweetheart, I swear to god I did not believe that there could ever be a boy this sweet, but here he is. I won’t lie though, I was a little taken aback by the fact that he just straight up said ‘I want to have sex with you’ to my face after the brief conversation we had about my poem, but I also think I appreciated him being straightforward and also for being considerate of me and letting me know what his intentions were rather than just making it happen. This means that next time we get some alone time we’ll be able to just...let things happen. I can’t imagine what it’s going to feel like, I mean if I’m just going off of the intensity I feel JUST when we’re KISSING, my estimate on the intensity during our sexy times is going to be through the roof. Right? Speak of the devil, he just messaged me. My love. My drunk love, apparently. I think he’s had a raucous weekend. It’s his birthday too after all.

#morning pages #37 #26.02.2017

0 notes