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sitp-recs · 4 years ago

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hi love! Hope you're having a good day ❤ thank you so much for everything you do. I've been craving some really romantic drarry fics lately, do you have any recs? Like fics that make your heart wrench but in the best possible way. Maybe something where one of them just sits there and realizes that "damn. I love him so much"? Sending you lots of love and sunshine, I admire you so much!

Thanks so much anon, this message made my day! Earlier this week I posted a reclist with fics that include the glorious “oh” moment - you can check them here. Btw I love the way you describe it: “fics that make your heart wrench but in the best possible way”! There’s nothing as fulfilling as finding a story where they’re so in love it hurts. I’m listing below a few of my personal favorites combining heart-wrenching romance with soft, low stakes angst. I can’t promise they’ll work for everyone, but I hope you enjoy ;)

Light Years Away by @lettersbyelise (2019, M, 2.5k)

No one told Harry about the training courses young Aurors and Curse Breakers have in common, just like Harry never told anyone about his one-night encounter with Draco Malfoy two months prior.

Still Life by orphan_account (2019, M, 3k)

The Long Fall by @tackytigerfic (2021, M, 3.6k)

It's supposed to be a simple house renovation, and maybe it's just the paint fumes, but Harry is feeling dizzy around Draco Malfoy. And what's the real meaning of family, anyway?

Sun Stroke by @peachpety (2020, E, 4k)

Draco, Harry, and a handful of friends take a summer holiday at the beach. With the help of a sultry sea setting, encouraging friends, and a fisherman’s jumper, Harry and Draco's mutual attraction swells and things get hot on a salty summer night.

Like Gold by @the-sinking-ship (2021, E, 4.5k)

Draco runs away from home on the back of his boyfriend’s motorbike.

Our Little Life by @tackytigerfic (2020, M, 7k)

Sometimes Harry dreams. Only they're not really dreams at all, and Malfoy is always in them. It's time travel, but not as we know it, and Harry just needs a good night's sleep.

the keys to your kingdom by thistle_verse (2016, E, 7.5k)

It was nothing so elegant as fucking, the first time they came together. It was teeth just a little too sharp— against a collarbone, on the right-side curve of a jaw, drawing blood from the plushest part of a bottom lip.

Stories in E Minor by huldrejenta (2014, E, 8.7k)

Draco has found his place in the Muggle world. He's got his music, he's got his neighbours and he is content. Until a certain someone from the past enters his life again.

Life goes not backward by @shealwaysreads (2020, T, 9k)

Harry still isn’t used to gifts, but this one is different. A story of coming home, finding safe ground, and the wild courage of putting down roots.

fine i'll hold my breath / til i forget it's complicated by teatrolley (2015, M, 11k)

Harry and Draco become friends with benefits, and Harry thinks it's more complicated than it actually is.

Evolution by @potteresque-ire (2016, E, 13k)

Draco Malfoy was condemned to live a Muggle’s life for his three-year probation. His wand was locked away, and he was forbidden to set foot in Wizarding Britain until Hermione Granger secured a job for him in the Aurors’ stock room.

The Courting by the Pureblood Who Only Has Five Milligrams of Romantic Intelligence and Thinks He’s Real Smooth by @cibeewastaken (2020, T, 19k)

Draco could grab Potter and shove him into a stall before proceeding to suck his soul out of his dick, but secretly, deep down, in the part of Draco that he will never admit to anyone, he is (everyone pauses to shudder) a romantic. Potter is not someone Draco wants a one-off with. Potter is — Draco’s beloved!

White as Snow by @bixgirl1 (2018, E, 19k)

After a quick escape from danger, Harry and Draco find themselves trapped in a blizzard, a small cabin their only refuge from the storm. It's the perfect place to recover and regroup — and to have a long-overdue conversation or two.

A Hyperactive Fruit, a Nasty Neighbour and a Love Story by synonym4life (2017, E, 20k)

Potter’s pet Niffler is wreaking havoc in Godric’s Hollow and Draco, the Assistant Head to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, is the one who has to deal with it. Repeatedly.

Nice Things by aideomai (2020, M, 22k)

The first thing that happened was Theodore Nott came back from France.

Waiting By An Open Door by Femme and noeon (2017, E, 29k)

Draco starts following Potterwatch secretly during the War. He wishes Potter would come save him too. But that sort of thing only happens in fairy tales, and Malfoys don't get fairy tale endings, do they?

Against All Odds by momatu (2015, E, 53k)

Beauxbatons is hosting the first ever Quidditch Summer School for children from all over Europe, and Harry has promised to enroll Teddy as his birthday present.

Little Compton Street (One Rainy Night in Soho) by @writcraft (2018, E, 65k)

Draco is lonely, Harry hates the press and it won’t stop raining in London. Harry discovers a magical street that’s close to disappearing forever and Draco realises he’s one rainy night in Soho away from finding everything he’s been searching for.

Little Deaths and How to Avoid Them (or Draco Malfoy's Guide to Stop Dying and Start Living Instead) by nerakrose and dustmouth (2018, M, 96k)

Malfoy is way too interested in coroner reports for somebody who's definitely not looking for ways to die, Harry wants to be friends with him, and Ginny wants to break up with Harry.

Far From the Tree by aideomai (2020, E, 112k)

The arrival of Harry Potter’s children—snapped back in time, the children themselves guessed, twenty or so years—was the most interesting thing to happen at Hogwarts for years.

#asks #anon #Drarry reclist #romance

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musicoccurred · 7 years ago

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Pearl Jam -The Home Shows

Who: Pearl Jam Where: The Home Shows, Seattle, WA. When: August 8, 10 2018

I've said this before and it remains true. A Pearl Jam concert is much more than just a show. It's a celebration. A celebration of music, of a long relationship and of course, life. Very few places do I feel absolutely at home but a Pearl Jam show is one of them. Certainly we're all different people but for 3 hours we're one. These Seattle shows reminded me of a pilgrimage, I'm sure there were lots of Seattle folks there but most of the people I chatted with were from other places. For me it was a bucket-list item, to see Pearl Jam in their home city, a city that gave us so much music and so many iconic bands.

These concerts, "The Home Shows," given that name because the tour takes place mainly in MLB stadiums, had a similar feel to PJ20 the 20th anniversary shows in Alpine Valley, Wisconsin in 2011. No, there weren't multiple bands on the bill, but there were multiple activities and certainly a festive vibe. The Seattle Museum of Pop Culture, aka MoPop, had an exhibit dedicated to Pearl Jam opening on the Saturday after the shows but 10c (Ten Club, Pearl Jam's fanclub) members could gain access on Thursday during the day off between shows. London Bridge Studios where Ten was recorded also had Pearl Jam specific tours and legendary concert photographer Danny Clinch had a pop up shop with photos available for autograph and purchase. Did I mention it all took place in Seattle? Not only a great city but a city full of Pearl Jam history, we're talking The Off Ramp, Moore Theater, Benaroya Hall, Showbox, Easy Street Records, the list goes on!

Wednesday, Night 1

It has become popular again for bands to have artists make posters for concerts, particularly individual posters for each show. Pearl Jam is one of the few that's always done this. It is an expensive habit and the posters are treated as currency among 10c members. For these shows there were 5 unique posters all by artists Pearl Jam has used extensively in the past. A point of contention here, at their larger shows, the band has started setting up tents to sell merch throughout the day and even on days before and after the shows. Because they are open to the public, it's safe to say there are people there buying and going straight to eBay. The lines took many hours to navigate, there has to be a better way. How about when a 10c member buys a ticket through the band's website we get a code unique to us that allows us to purchase merch online and have it shipped to our homes? Place whatever quantity limits you want, something needs to change. A highlight of waiting around in the sun all day, I met a cool young man that had traveled from Tokyo to attend his first Pearl Jam show. There were people coming to Seattle from all over the world, this guy was in for a night he won't soon forget.

Several years ago Pearl Jam shows began lasting +- 3 hours. They always played a lot of songs but when this happened they finally shed the opening act. No complaints here. At 8:30 straight up the band took the stage to a loop of "Aye Davanita" from Vitalogy and ease into "Long Road." Now PJ's MO is that they play a quiet track or two then something noisy. Not on this night, Eddie wanted it to be an intimate gathering so "Long Road" led to "Release" followed by "Low Light" and crowd favorite, the singalong "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town." Genius. How do you transition from slow and quiet into something noisy? "Corduroy" that's how. Even though it's a song that PJ play pretty much every show it remains a favorite for me. Its long intro whips the crowd into a frenzy that continued with "Go," "Do the Evolution" and the Ramones-esque "Mind Your Manners." Each setlist is crafted by Ed with input from the band to fit the venue, audience and history of the band/city. Probably the most notable moment of the show was when Eddie broke down the meaning of "Evenflow." "Evenflow" is a concert staple, performed pretty much every time they play. In the 90s it was the song people liked when they didn't like PJ. Fast drums and guitars, weird lyrics just a fun rock song. But on this night, after the band had worked hard with politicians and local businesses to raise money and awareness for Seattle's horrible homeless problems Ed opened up a bit. When the band had just formed they spent a lot of time in the Belltown/Pioneer Square areas of Seattle. They befriended another Eddie, this one a homeless African-American Vietnam Veteran with mental health problems. He was known for his wild hair and wearing a tarp like a poncho. When he was mentally present he would tell them about Vietnam and his struggles with returning to civilian life. Other times, he simply wasn't there mentally. His visits greatly affected the band and when they came back from a tour they couldn't find him. Searching all over Seattle they finally found him sleeping on concrete under a viaduct. Returning from a later tour they again couldn't find him and discovered he had passed away. Suddenly "Evenflow" makes perfect sense, Ed held on to that story for 28 years. Other highlights, Ed performed a solo rendition of Jack White's "We're Going to be Friends" in honor of teachers everywhere. During the performance, his daughters danced with their favorite teachers (clad in Mariners jerseys with Vedder on the back) behind him. During the encore Brandi Carlile joined the band for "Again Tonight" a song PJ had covered for a benefit album. I love when other musicians join Pearl Jam on stage and look out at the giant crowd with wide eyes, Brandi ever the badass, threw her head back and screamed into the Seattle sky. They closed the show with "Rockin' in the Free World" and my least favorite live song, "Yellow Ledbetter" the show clocked in at 33 songs over 3 hours.

Thursday, Day Off

I snoozed on the London Bridge Studios tickets so that was out. I was looking forward to roaming around the city and attending the Pearl Jam exhibit at MoPop. Situated near the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project, MoPop is covered in tourists. Lucky for us this was a 10c event only. Jeff Ament is the de facto historian of the band keeping massive amounts of memorabilia in a warehouse. This band kept everything. I mean EVERYTHING. They have the cassettes that Stone/Jeff and Ed mailed back and forth to begin their relationship. Seeing these in person was powerful. Pearl Jam have provided the soundtrack to my life and quite literally if those tapes didn't exist I wouldn't have been standing there all those years later. Favorite moments: seeing the typed and written lyrics and loads of Ed's notebooks, the incredible statue of Andy Wood that Jeff commissioned (more on that here) as well as posters from every show. If you're in Seattle I highly recommend seeing this exhibit.

Friday, Night 2

Again starting at 8:30 PJ opens with three slow burners, "Oceans," "Footsteps" and "Nothingman" before blasting off with "Why Go" and "Brain of J." This was going to be awesome. I love the 2nd PJ shows, all of my needs are met by the first night. Nervousness is gone, just relax and enjoy the show. This show really focused on older material, only two tracks were post 2000. The band were much looser as was the crowd. The singalongs were louder and sharper, I refrained, choosing instead to just absorb the love and energy flying around the stadium. During "I Won't Back Down," a solo tribute to the great Tom Petty, Eddie asked the crowd to turn on their cell phone flashlights so Tom could see. The result was mesmerizing. The band also honored Chris Cornell by performing "Missing," a very rare deep cut. Speaking of Cornell, Kim Thayil joined the band for "Kick Out the Jams" and later joined Steve Turner and Mark Arm of Mudhoney (and Green River!) for "Search and Destroy" and "Sonic Reducer." Favorite moments: the aforementioned songs plus Ed hosing up the intro to "Rearviewmirror" to the point the band had to stop. Ed broke into "Fernando" by Abba saying that's what he was hearing. What can I say, the guy is hilarious. Other notable moments, Mike's solo on "Evenflow" was one of the best I can remember. What a beautiful night. 36 amazing songs over 3.5 hours in the glorious Seattle night.

Setlist Night 1:

Long Road Release Low Light Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town Corduroy Go Do the Evolution Mind Your Manners Throw Your Hatred Down (Neil Young cover) Lightning Bolt Given to Fly All Those Yesterdays Even Flow Help! (The Beatles cover) (snippet) Help Help Black Setting Forth Play Video I Am a Patriot (Little Steven cover) Porch Encore: We're Going to Be Friends (The White Stripes cover) (live debut by PJ) Nothing as It Seems Let Me Sleep Breath Again Today (with Brandi Carlile) State of Love and Trust Rearviewmirror Encore 2: Wasted Reprise Better Man (with “Save It for Later” tag) Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd cover) Alive I've Got a Feeling (The Beatles cover) Rockin' in the Free World (Neil Young cover) Yellow Ledbetter

Setlist Night 2:

Oceans Footsteps Nothingman Why Go Brain of J. Interstellar Overdrive (Pink Floyd cover) Corduroy Rats In Hiding Whipping Even Flow Missing (Chris Cornell cover) (live debut by PJ) Daughter (with "W.M.A" and "It's Ok" tags) Immortality I'm Open Unthought Known Can't Deny Me Do the Evolution Lukin Porch Encore: I Won't Back Down (Tom Petty cover) (EV solo) Thin Air Better Man (with "Save It for Later" by English Beat tag) All or None Crown of Thorns (Mother Love Bone cover) Kick Out the Jams (MC5 cover) (with Kim Thayil) Spin the Black Circle Play Video Rearviewmirror (with "Fernando" (ABBA)… more ) Crazy Mary (Victoria Williams cover) Jeremy Leash Search and Destroy (Iggy and The Stooges cover) (With Kim Thayil, Steve Turner, and Mark Arm) Sonic Reducer (Dead Boys cover) (With Kim Thayil, Steve Turner, and Mark Arm) Alive Baba O'Riley (The Who cover) Yellow Ledbetter

-JS

#concert #Pearl Jam #musicoccurred

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owl-eyed-woman · 8 years ago

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Attack on Titan Season 2 Episode Reviews - Episode 1

It’s been a hard four years. But now, the wait is finally over. Attack on Titan is back and all is right with the world. So, with the advent of a new season (and a new era of joy in my life), I’ve decided to review/recap each episode of AOT Season 2. A bit of background: I was a big fan of AOT season 1 while it was airing, and after rewatching the anime these past two days in two glorious 6 hours chunks, it’s clear that this fangirl fire still burns. However, I have not read the manga - yes, I somehow managed to repress that temptation and yes, the struggle was very real. But honestly, not reading the manga has been a conscious decision on my part. I found the twists and turns so vital and thrilling in the first anime that I wanted to retain that experience for the second season. So expect a lot of shocked reactions and enthusiastic ramblings with each revelation, and perhaps some ill-advised speculation. There will most likely be some gushing in these reviews, but I will endeavour to include incisive critical analysis, of course. Enough background, onto the review! The show begins with a wonderfully brief recap, (good work show) before picking up where we literally left off, addressing that final, tantalising shot of the last the season: a titan within the wall. This is exactly what we needed, no pussyfooting around, no wasting time, we’ve only got 12 episodes so let’s just get right to it! Before the shock can settle in, Pastor Nick begs Hanji to keep the titan out of the sunlight, which is ominous to say the least. Hanji complies with this but, desperate for an explanation, tries to interrogate the Pastor, threatening to drop him from the wall. Pastor Nick remains tight-lipped though, knowing so much more than he’d ever willingly divulge, even under threat of death. It’s a potent reminder that they’re not just fighting titans but the worst parts of human nature, be it corruption, greed, complacency or, in this case, blind faith and irrationality. As a character, Hanji has always had this intensity about her, but her personality and thirst for knowledge has been presented more light-heartedly as almost goofy. Here though, we get to see some of the frightening ways this intensity can manifest as well as their very genuine frustration that the knowledge they desperately need is constantly hidden from them. It’s a necessary reminder of the emotional depths of a character who is too often dismissed as a ‘mad scientist’; they too have seen many comrades die for humanity’s survival and are just as dedicated to the cause, willing to kill or even be killed. But even more shocking than that, in the face of this new information, Hanji, one of the most joyful and enthusiastic characters in the show, isn’t invigorated or scheming, they’re just exhausted and terrified by the depths of their ignorance. Crucial information has always been hard-won for our mains, but not only that, it’s how much they don’t know that truly terrifies and takes a heavy toll.

No time to rest, though! Further demonstrating that AOT intends to use every second of its runtime, not only is a titan attack imminent, it actually arrived 12 hours earlier and the battle is already well under way. Following this revelation, the episode flashes back 12 hours to the activities of the rest of 104th cadets who are having some downtime at the Scout Regiment barracks. Being a soldier isn’t always high-stakes, sometimes it’s just sitting around, bored. It looks like this season will be focusing a lot more on the side characters and I am very excited if this is the case. AOT has been the ‘Eren/Mikasa/Armin Show’ for a while and it will be good for the show overall to start fleshing out some of their thus far underutilised characters, like Bertholdt, Reiner and Conny, who have been sketched more vaguely in character terms. Oh, and Ymir and Krista too! Yeah, there’s a fair few I’m excited to learn more about.

As the first to encounter the incoming Titan attack, the 104th cadets are tasked with alerting the surrounding villages, but have no time to get into gear. The difficulty of prepping ODM gear is something I’ve thought about and clearly it’s on the showrunner’s minds as well with the opening featuring the gang suiting up, so to speak. ODM gear is amazing but by god does it look complicated and very intricate (I may or may not have had a dream once about frantically trying to put together my own set to fight a titan, but I digress). I’m digging this greater sense of vulnerability or even nakedness that comes with such a simple development and the ways it may change how future conflict is addressed. Not only this, the emotional stakes have been significantly raised for several of the characters as their home towns and families are explicitly and immediately at risk. The stage has been set for some tense, future moments!

In a brief digression from this main action, we visit Eren who is still recuperating from his titan battle. While Mikasa sleeps peacefully at his bedside, Eren dreams of his mother admonishing him for his weakness and his constant reliance on Mikasa. Eren has always had a complex regarding his own weakness and inability to protect those close to him – I mean, AOT literally begins with Eren unable to save his mother. He so desperately wants to protect those around him, but, unfortunately, Eren just isn’t the best protector, Mikasa is. Because of this, Eren often resents Mikasa and pushes her away when she attempts to get closer to him.

So, what does his comment about buying Mikasa a new scarf signify? The scarf is a symbol of several things; it symbolises their bond as family, Mikasa’s devotion to Eren and how he grounds her, and for Eren, quite simply, the time he saved her life. So, with this comment, Eren is renewing his commitment to being the protector instead of the protected with a new scarf showing that he has protected Mikasa as he once did. It seems as though he has entirely missed the point– Eren has always been a bit emotionally dense, especially when it comes to Mikasa. For Eren, the scarf primarily and most importantly represents the time her saved her physically. But for Mikasa, what matters is how he saved her emotionally. Eren’s heart is in the right place, as he is trying, in his own way, to say he truly cares about Mikasa. But Mikasa doesn’t need Eren to protect her, she needs him to be there for her emotionally. I’m interested to see if this dynamic plays out this season and how Eren and Mikasa continue to grow. Regardless, it’s nice to have a quiet character moment in such a plot heavy episode, even if it is more of a setup for future development than anything momentous in and of itself.

But there is only one star in this episode and that is the beast titan! Miche, who volunteers to stay behind to hold off the titans and give the others a head start, is given the dubious honour of first encountering him in all his glory. The design of the titans has always been such a vibrant, varied part of the show, in one moment unsettling, in another goofy and in yet another absolutely terrifying. The beast titan is yet another example of Hajime Isayama’s keen eye for designing unique and startling creatures. So much meaning is packed into his design! His almost ridiculously stocky, square body suggests a terrifying strength. His as of yet unseen 17m height highlights the fact that he can’t be classified under our previous understanding of titans.* His fur sharply distinguishes him from humanity and normal titans but his expressive, humanoid face and piercing, intelligent eyes throws into sharp relief his connection to us, and the threat his intelligence presents. Long ape-like arms combine the bestial with the uncanny while the decision to reference primate anatomy again suggests an uncomfortable proximity to humanity and hints at the theme of evolution. The beast titan is so effectively frightening because he occupies this uncomfortable, liminal space between species, further emphasising the increasingly unstable boundary between titan/beast and human.

It’s only appropriate for this to be the titan that delivers us a bombshell: some titans can talk. AOT has always been about breaking down the divides between monsters and humans, and the implications of this are mind-blowing. This reveal is also perfectly paced, with his first line delivered offscreen as we focus on Miche’s reaction instead. The action of the show itself seems to pause, forcing us to stew in this feeling of disbelief before confirming the origin of the voice. It’s the filmic equivalent of someone saying “is that what I think it is?”, revelling in that moment of incredulous shock. They’ve chosen a great voice too, appropriately ominous and imposing. It’s fair to say I am both terrified and mesmerised by everything about the Beast titan: his design, his voice, his intelligence, the way he can control the titans and how he seems to be studying humanity. As a side note, I want to give a shout out the to the goggle-eyed, big nosed chibi titan. He is disgusting and I love him.

In the end, Miche, shaking off his shock, tries for one last, heroic attack before being devoured under the beast titan’s orders. I will miss you, weird sniffing guy. To be honest, I found this death scene a little too sadistic. While gory deaths are undeniably part of the appeal of AOT and essential to keeping the stakes high and tense, it seems to go on for just a touch too long as we see him being violently torn and bitten apart by several titans. There’s a fine line between impressing the visceral terror of such a death and revelling in the violence thus cheapening the moment. Ultimately though, any opinion on this is intensely personal and, in this case, I won’t definitely rule on whether Miche’s death is tasteful or tasteless.

And now after waiting four long years, a new wait begins for the next episode. It’s going to be a long, long week. See you Sunday!

*Yes, there have been taller titans (colossal ones even) but I think its’ notable that his height of 17m specifically surpasses the typical classifications of titans i.e. 15m titans. **I did not expect to write this much, I will try to keep things more succinct next time

#attack on titan #aot #shingeki no kyojin #snk #anime #review #attack on titan episode 26 #attack on titan season 2

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curiouskrp · 5 years ago

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“WELCOMING APT 5A TENANT, PARK TAEKSOO !

INFORMATION

age -- 25 pronouns -- he/him occupation -- firefighter moved into treehouse -- two years ago

PERSONALITY: ISTP, THE VIRTUOSO

positive --

“Spontaneous and Rational – Combining spontaneity with logic, Virtuosos can switch mindsets to fit new situations with little effort, making them flexible and versatile individuals.”

taeksoo is a person whose attention is flighty at best. place him in a room for more than twenty minutes and his eyes start to map an escape route. he’s found the best way to live his life is in the moment. if he moves from one excitement to the next then there’s none of that muted discontent of boredom. but taeksoo moves with the skill of a trained dancer free-styling a choreography. there’s spontaneity in his actions, but built on a foundation of thought and experience. he’s able to make the leaps he does because he knows how to land. a cat who twists to land on its paws, taeksoo is able to take the leap of faith often in his daily life.

negative --

“Dislikes Commitment – Long-term commitments are particularly onerous for Virtuosos. They prefer to take things day-by-day, and the feeling of being locked into something for a long time is downright oppressive. This can be a particular challenge in Virtuosos’ romantic relationships.”

taeksoo for all of his friendly disposition and relaxed energy, is an independent person. with the risks he takes with his life, it’s hard when he’s burdened down by the expectations and needs of others. the dangers he puts himself through (and the rewards that follow) are ones he only trusts to do himself. his life is fluid, unplanned. and other people can act as rigid canals forcing his way. taeksoo prefers to keep control of his own life, but at the cost of relying on others, and letting others rely on him. it takes a while to discover that about taeksoo, however. it’s easy to fall into his charismatic trap. he seems like the type who surrounds himself with people, turns to them for affection. when there’s that miscommunication of how others perceive him and how he truly is, that’s when people get hurt. there’s a long list of scorned lovers in his past, but not many broken-hearted partners.

HAUNT

taeksoo always travels through this memory first by his senses. the nip of cold autumn air at his face, the rush of warmth and honeyed light as they step into the cafe. the air smells like fresh coffee grinds and nutmeg. the music plays too softly to be heard over the din of the customers. when they sit and taeksoo has his first sip of his drink, the hot bitterness of the americano settles slickly against his tongue. there’s a strawberry mousse placed on the table between them, and when taeksoo swipes a bite the dessert is almost too-sweet on his espresso soaked palette.

it should be just any other day. nothing significant to have it burrow so deeply in his memories like this, keep him frequently sitting at the edge of his bed contemplating how he let things get so wrong. it’s just taeksoo and his best friend escaping the oppressive bubble of their university for a while to break out of their midterm haze. they chat lightly about their classes, the exams they’re most worried about, their plans for the two week recess afterwards. his friend hooks their ankles together under the table, and taeksoo reaches forward to swipe whipped cream off of the corner of the other’s mouth, laughing as he feeds the mess back to them. nothing but warmth as tongue meets skin.

“so i was thinking,” his best friend says, and there’s such a forced casualness to his voice that it has taeksoo perking.

“i know we already have plans for this break, but maybe for christmas you’d like to come home with me? my mom has been dying to meet you, i just want to shut her up.” there’s nervous laughter that follows his sentence, and taeksoo pats his cheek affectionately.

“moms love me,” he assures, because they do. he’s polite and just the right amount of teasing that mother’s eat him up.

“I’ve just never done the whole meet the parents thing before, and this is important to me, you know? like i know i shouldn’t be nervous but isn’t it usually a big deal?” his friend continues. taeksoo slowly feels confusion creeping in.

“your parents have never met your friends before?” he asks. his best friend mirrors his confusion. there’s suddenly a schism between them, like the conversation split onto two separate planes of reality.

“well of course they’ve met my friends but… we’re not friends,” the other elaborates, though now he speaks cautiously.

they look each other in the eye, and like a car crash it slowly dawns on them both. years of friendship, of welcome week jitters and first beers and sleepovers. of the past year, drunken kisses and sober touches and whispered intimacy.

for taeksoo it just felt like a natural evolution in their friendship. friends kiss, friends fuck, it’s just another way of expressing such a close bond. he’s someone taeksoo trusts wholeheartedly, someone he knows as well as he knows himself. it just feels natural.

and purely platonic.

there’s a different war playing out in his best friend’s eyes. one that tells of chemistry and unspoken promises and commitment. an implicit bond, an evolution from friendship to something more. something solid to be built upon. something they’ve been building for a year, together.

or not.

“taeksoo,” the other whispers, and it sounds so broken-hearted. taeksoo’s chest tightens with guilt. “please, please tell me you aren’t implying what i think you’re implying.”

but he is. taeksoo is haunted every day of the look in his best friend’s eye. of when he took his cold hand over the table and had to explain to him, in excruciating honesty what this past year meant to him. and even more painfully what it didn’t mean. what it could never mean.

they left whatever relationship they had at that cafe table. because how do you recover from a misstep like that? you lead your best friend on for over a year, give them a relationship in every since of the word except for the title and the commitment. his best friend leaves his life in a harried storm, frantically pushing from the table and ripping open the door to flee. all taeksoo can do is watch, frozen, trying to make out his best friend’s figure retreating outside from where his own guilt-ridden reflection glares back at him.

HISTORY

taeksoo is born a seoul boy, and lives as a soul boy. his parents aren’t wealthy, but they never quite struggle either. in their happy four member unit, they navigate through their daily lives. young taeksoo is the type that preferred sports with the neighborhood kids rather than wild adventures. he would always end up wandering off on his own, much to the stress of his parents. things captured his interest easily and held it infrequently, and it always spelled trouble when raising a young boy. school was a nightmare of being forced into a chair for too many hours, unable to decide for himself what he was interested in and what he didn’t want to pursue.

problem child, his teachers would write his parents. bright and enthusiastic when the task suited him, but would often drift out of focus when the day went on longer. sometimes he’d even rope some of his classmates into his distraction and pulled focus from the lesson. if he disciplined himself, they’d said, he’d have so much potential. but taeksoo as he was a nightmare to have in the classroom and the frustration of any molder of minds. the frustration of his teachers always bled into taeksoo’s own attitude. he never understood the concept of school. he couldn’t fathom how kids were meant to stay in one place for six hours a day, five days a week. it was a vicious cycle of taeksoo losing focus, the teachers not caring, which led to taeksoo not caring.

one of the shining gems of his schooling life was when he was ten. it was a special day, where instead of lessons in their desks they’re told to sit cross-legged on the floor and listen to a guest speaker. and in walks two young firemen. and god, were they so cool. they had on navy t-shirts and baggy fluorescent pants and red suspenders. they spoke about the lives they saved, of trucks and hoses and axes and carrying unconscious bodies through hazy smoke. they were taught what to do in case of an emergency, given plastic red hats as decoration, and brought to the front of the school to play around with the firetruck.

taeksoo had broken away from his class and hoisted his little body up the ladder in the back. hand over hand he stumbled along the length of the truck and sat himself right in the extending ladder’s bucket where it laid ready behind the cab of the truck. he turned his face upwards, clutched his pretend helmet to his head, and imagined himself as a firefighter. it was a glorious moment, all up until when his teacher spotted him and shrieked, and one of the firemen climbed onto the truck and tossed taeksoo over his shoulder to be returned to the ground ready to receive punishment.

high school passed, then university to please his parents. then, it was off to become the fire fighter he’s always dreamed of. it took intense training, physicality, and a grit he hadn’t expected. but he loved every second of it. especially when he was given his squadron and his uniform, a bunk in the fire house and a duty. his shifts usually took over the course of days to a week. he’d sleep at the fire house, ready to be woken at any moment when they’re needed. there’s always an excited tension to the wait. fires are spontaneous, infrequent. it meant he had to be ready at any time. and the uncertainty, the intensity, there was no way his focus could drift. even in his twentieth hour on the job without a call and he’s been playing uno with his squadron going on two hours. his childhood dream turned out to be the perfect career for him.

the treehouse apartment complex is something he spies when looking through the internet for an apartment to move into. his first solo attempt at habitation, now that he has a stable job and an income. fire fighting doesn’t pay well, but the bunking life leaves him plenty prepared for the shared space aspect of the complex. it’s almost too perfect. cheap, geared towards his age demographic, and social with enough room for him to do his own thing. even when he moved in and the long list of strange rules where handed to him, he couldn’t complain. when he wasn’t at the fire house he was usually at home, tinkering with one thing or another. the hand’s on man in him feels the most stress over the rules about replacing burnt out lightbulbs and malfunctioning hardware. but he doesn’t want to risk his place at such a nice fit for him.

adult life seems to taeksoo the culmination of suffering through bad karma in the first half of his life. he’s happier now, happier than he’s ever been, even with a strange living situation and unexplainable happenings occurring all around him. taeksoo takes it all booted stride.

#cu bio #cu kim jongdae #cu istp

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dwestfieldblog · 6 years ago

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SPIRITUAL EMERGENCIES

Its been a hard nights day and I've been working like a God...Centring my chi by ( ) in conjunction with a little ( ) on Sundays but don't try this at home unless you have some. Under the influence but not persuaded, with no choice other than to follow my free will. 350 songs recorded in Prague (about a third of them are good enough) over a very long weekend and now ready to go again...Last month I heard my own voice in a dream saying 'Death is my second home', so perhaps another temporary close-down is coming. Hope that paragraph was pretentious enough. If not...meditating on 'The First law of thermodynamics...No energy in the universe is created and none is destroyed'. So all is well...

The recent magnificent Wargames with Russia and China...300 thousand men, (that's a lot) many fields of tanks and nautical miles filled with battleships, necessary because of (according to a joint statement from the protagonists) 'dangerous times' and 'unstable situations'. Reminds me of Bill Hicks quoting George Bush the older (the CIA president) saying 'The world is a dangerous place'...'yeah, thanks to YOU, quit arming the world!'. But this time around, these unstable situations are being more egged on and supported by Russia, gleefully supported as always by all those those make weapons. Trump is not the 'human' being to slow this down. Nature abhors a vacuum and she is rushing now to fill various empty heart/mind and soulless actions made by various leaders with processes of an irreversible...well... nature...Only '12 years' left now to avert climate change disaster...your newborns this year might very well inherit a desert. Well, if it was good enough for the Israelites...

Climate change debates witter on by men in suits flown in at great carbon footprint expense to sit around expensive South American wood tables and agree that time itself is running out. While those that disagree with them only do so because of well paying vested interests in the industries which drain, burn, drill and destroy. Human beings are like gangsters holed up and surrounded by the law, determined to take the hostages and cops with them when they go in a blaze of glory, just so they don't die alone. Reliance on coal continues, the need for oil because of ... 'lifestyle choices'...(ego)... back to RAW again...

'As soon as they find out how to put a meter between us and the sun, only then will we have clean energy.'

There is a very special circle of Hell reserved for the Barons of black gold, where they burn alive forever, lit by oil. And another circle for those mapping the human genome and copyrighting it so they can make billions from various medicines and procedures, holding the masses to ransom. Peace will occur either when it is more profitable than arms dealing or when there is absolute silence of death on the human side. How many people do you know who are neither whore nor pimp? Or both.

The purpose of existence is (NB. seems to me in my current long running reality tunnel to be) evolution...and as with self programming artificial intelligence, there is a type of instinctive logic which suggests that as any chain is as strong as its' weakest link...and the mass of humanity appears to be working against evolving, then nature will just erase us and get on with creating her own new thang without the apes. Quite right too. The universe is (seems to be) 'non simultaneously apprehended events and interacting processing' but until I pick the free crop of magic mushrooms in the mystic forest this late October month, I will just take RAW's cosmic trigger words for it. (The lousy alchemist cook says make sure they are washed and/or dried right. Vomiting mould covered nipple tops before any hallucinogenic gets into the blood proper is very little fun. Learning, or not from experience in the face of common sense is always a hoot. Ask my liver. ) Anyway...let's be Sirius...

'News'...Nick Clegg is to take over the Facebook worries. (Head of Global Policy and Communications in Silicon Valley) Nick Clegg. This shows JUST how much Zuckerberg gives a damn eh? Useless/Hopeless. For those who don't know or remember, some years ago Clegg was the leader of the Liberal Party in Britain who swore he would never allow an increase in University fees if he were ever Prime Minister. After the election 'win' of David Cameron and the Conservatives, (only made possible with the Liberals siding with them) it took about two weeks before he was forced to go back on his word and toe the line of his bigger coalition partner. (Can't have an easily affordable education, that would be dangerous) A weak and easily breakable man. Expect Facebook to go on paying even less tax, abusing your private information and allowing Russia et al free rein to influence the populace.

Nice to see the half a million march against Brexit in London. Will accomplish nothing but good that some people woke up before the face of this bullshit a few days later... 'Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks.....a eagle mewing her mighty youth'...Geoffrey Cox QC, the Attorney General invoking Milton at the Tory conference. Winston Churchill defined success as the 'ability to move from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm'. So, well done and three cheers boys..good luck with making Britain Great again. I would truly love to be proved wrong...but...

'In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice...and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance, a vendetta...held not as a votive in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose.' ...V for Vendetta via Hugo Weaving in an Anonymous Guy Fawkes mask. My other favourite quote from that film is.....

'And thus I clothe my naked villainy with odd old ends stolen forth from holy writ and seem a saint when most I play the devil.' Richard III by the real Shakespeare, which covers just about every politician and religious leader, bar a very very precious few. God may be great but he's not as fat as Buddha. And anyway, belief narrows reality tunnels. Which for some people, makes them feel stronger...

In October, Alternative fur (that's fur with an umlaut over the 'u', not the sexy animal hair which is so nice to stroke or be stroked by but I digress. Arf.) Germany... suggested quite firmly that middle school children report to them if any of their teachers said bad things about the new patriotic Nazi swine. Nothing dubious there, no harking back to cruel and better days of the old 'thousand year' Reich and denouncing intellectuals and subversives at all. A month before that, because of hearing shouting, I looked out of my own window one afternoon to see a six foot six skinhead, in army clothes and big black leather boots on a balcony opposite, drunk and rousingly crying out about Deutschland for five minutes in German to his mates in the kitchen behind him as he clasped a beer can. Perhaps he was only joking. Unlikely the grandmother living alone and above his flat thought so. And as for the massive shaven headed Slovak steroid monsters with tattoos on their necks who shout at each other in conversation even when both are sitting two feet away, their biggest insult to their tiny two old kids is to angrily shout 'Little gypsy!' at them when they do something wrong. All together now;Hail Victory! Fnord.

A bad death of a murdered journalist in the Saudi Arabian embassy in Turkey... followed by a lovely picture in the papers of smiling Crown Prince Bin Salman with Jared Kusher (a walking cypher of wrong cleanliness and evil married to Trump's daughter) No wonder it is yet another bastard thing for Trump to hope the connections all vanish from..as he gently damns the killing of a critic of the very royal prince while tweeting endless vitriol against the third estate in the USA. And Donald's glorious tit for tat bollocks about the old nuclear bilateral agreement with Russia... 'Well THEY started it, so we will react...ad infinitum'. Back to the happy days of being able to wipe out the planet seventy times over and rational cold war paranoia...at some point a computer will finally analyse all probable outcomes for the last time and find the one way in which a nuclear war could be won with minimal death on the home side. The computer it will say 'Go for it alpha monkeys'.

'How long o lord, how long? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be president?' Hunter S Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972. (About Nixon, but ever more relevant by the day.)

Of course the masochistic paranoia of leaders will continue to find new and further devious outlets, displays and new laws...all the usual countries (IE all of them) behaving as if they can get away with murder forever. Forever, these days, is most likely shorter than a generation, unless there is already a dynasty of cruelty in place, where the buck/baton/cattle prod is passed down as an heirloom of death. Communication never gets to the top because underlings are scared to tell their bosses the truth in case the sweethearts are offended and kill them. (Meow and woof.)

*'The machine is running the engineers' Lenin on his deathbed. Communism, huh?

China's 'voluntary' organ donor scheme. Harvested from enemies of the state...70,000 annual operations...Got the money? Need a new liver? Sort you out in a fortnight, NO waiting list. Not suspicious at all, unless you are a doctor from another country looking into the massive amount of operations and the far smaller published donor lists. Hopefully, those rich enough to afford the instant new transplants will be better, peaceful people when they have their new tee total vegetarian Falun Gong organs in place. Whereas those with less to spend will have to make do with their internal workings run by other very involuntary donations made by dissidents who dared the high insult of comparing the 'president for life' to Winnie the Pooh.

Primum non nocere, you bastards. The Hippocratic Oath replaced by a hypocritical medical ideology of murder for profit. The state does not help the healthcare 'system' much, if at all, so the military hospitals with easy access to prisoners can get to work stealing what is needed from living bodies. Those arrested who do not give their names and places of birth for fear of involving their families are simple to vanish. They ceased to exist the moment they were caught. Download the report, written by two Canadians, one a former Crown prosecutor and the other a Human Rights Lawyer and make up your own mind as to the veracity. 'The Middle Kingdom between Heaven and Earth', the land which brought the world Taoism and Confucianism...

www.organharvestinvestigation.net

Take the time and read the report. Then ask yourself, if your children, parents or close friends needed a transplant to save their life (and you could afford a fast Chinese military hospital operation) would you truly care where the organ came from as long as it was healthy? If it was only for you, would you still take it, knowing where it had been stolen from or would you allow your own destiny to be? Desperation is one sure-fire test of the perception of morality.

*Ever notice all those t shirts, sweat shirts and bags with those certain cool slogans on? 'Happy to be an individual', 'My style is my choice', 'My freedom is my world', 'The end justifies the means'. Etc. Take a very cold and realistic guess as to where they are made and by whom and under what conditions. That's right.

I appear to live (temporarily) in a world where a printed sign on the inside of a toilet door needs to say in two languages 'First unlock the door then turn handle'. That's right kids/adults, you have to be able to open a door before you open it. Almost Zen wisdom but hardly rocket science or brain surgery. Stuff you learn at about the age of three. I have lost count (triple figures now) of how many customers in a certain shop I have seen standing next to a big, clearly printed sign on the counter to 'ring for service', watching them get ever more impatient as those who are working hard behind the scenes remain deaf and blind to their existence. And signs on the front door, inside and outside also in two languages, asking customers to please close the door. A third of them never do, even in heavy winter. The evil within me takes a savage glee at the depth of stupidity of these shameless idiots. The pathetic being within rejoices that he is not quite as dumb as these retarded bipeds and the fake existentialist feels a sweeping wave of sheer galactic horror. But...

Back to the litany once again and forever...quality over quantity. I have optimism for the few. They/you WILL make it. You will create it and become it. As long as you understand how to open a f...ing door, you are halfway there.

'Whoever can scare people enough (produce bio-survival anxiety) can sell them quickly on any verbal map which seems to give them relief. i.e. cure the anxiety. By frightening people with Hell and then offering them Salvation, the most ignorant or crooked individuals can 'sell' a whole system of thought that cannot bear two minutes of rational analysis. Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising.

And once the child/adult is afraid enough, they will follow the substitute parent/s, kept pliant and submissive by further shocks administered to their truly nervous system with the promise of support or threat of punishment. Shame forever without mercy on those outside the mainstream of politics and organised religion who maintain such deeply manipulative systems in the pretence of setting the tender initiates 'free'. You should be a positive alternative, not more of the same poison.

'You gave your life to be the person you are now. Was it worth it?' Richard Bach.Running from Saftey.

Onwards and inwards, sidestepping the unnecessary. You are your thoughts,'Reality' is personal, subjective and shaped by Will, the Love you come from and the Love you create. Happy everything/Sol Invictus to you and survive the long winter. Hibernate if needed, stay warm, learning and free...

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flauntpage · 7 years ago

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Your Wednesday Morning Roundup

81 games down, one to go. And then, the playoffs.

The Sixers extended their winning streak to 15 games last night with a 121-113 win over the Atlanta Hawks. That sets a new franchise record, previously held by the 1982-83 world championship team, a squad that won 14 straight that season.

But it was surprisingly a tough game. Dario Saric exited just 13 seconds in with a lip laceration and a broken tooth. He has a dentist appointment this morning. Ben Simmons also battled foul trouble early and throughout the game, and despite that finished with 14 points, 10 rebounds, and six assists.

JJ Redick had to lead the team with 28 points. Philly’s two former Hawks, Ersan Ilyasova and Marco Belinelli, also spearheaded a big night for the bench. Ilyasova finished with 26 points, which tied his season-best, with eight boards, and Belinelli scored 20 points.

Game 82 will be the most important regular season finale for the Sixers in a long time. They’ll take on the Bucks, who could possibly be the Sixers’ first round opponent at the end of the night. Tip off is set for 8 PM on NBC Sports Philadelphia + and ESPN. A win or a Cavaliers loss to the Knicks ensures the Sixers the #3 seed. A loss and a Cleveland win would slip the Sixers to #4 to face Indiana. Here’s the Eastern Conference standings as of today:

As for Philly’s possible opponents, Miami hosts Toronto and Washington is at Orlando. Here are the possible scenarios for those three games tonight after Washington defeated Boston:

As for the 3-8 seeds in the Western Conference, it’s a mess. Minnesota and Denver play a win-and-in game at 8 PM.

The Roundup:

REMINDER: Come out to our live viewing party podcast tonight at 6 Feet Under Gastropub! It starts at 7 PM.

Speaking of podcasts, check out new episodes of Crossing Plates and Snow the Goalie.

Sticking with the Sixers for a little bit, as the team has officially unveiled their playoff campaign earlier this morning.

The @NBA Playoffs are coming…#HereTheyCome x #PhilaUnite pic.twitter.com/Tdsv1j3iu2

— x – Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) April 11, 2018

As literally every team does, there’s a banner outside the Wells Fargo Center and the team’s website has also embraced the campaign.

Outside of the playoffs, a day after Simmons said he would vote himself for Rookie of the Year, Jazz rookie Donovan Mitchell wore a hoodie with the Adidas logo on it with a definition of the word “rookie.”

rookie: noun

“An athlete playing his or her first season as a member of a professional sports team.”

Notice the third word in that sentence. Since Simmons did not play last season, he is still a rookie. And whereas Adidas appears to be on Team Mitchell, Dictionary.com is on Team Simmons?

Let us know if you need the definition of "played" next, @BenSimmons25 and @spidadmitchell. #RookieOfTheYear https://t.co/XWOiPL5vow

— Dictionary.com (@Dictionarycom) April 11, 2018

They’re smart you know. They are an online dictionary.

Simmons clapped back:

Ben Simmons just responded to Donovan Mitchell’s hoodie, and it’s glorious pic.twitter.com/IM6fqmsOQe

— Dennis Chambers (@DennisChambers_) April 11, 2018

To make everything better, Mitchell spoke to ESPN’s Chris Haynes about the Rookie of the Year discussion:

“I really don’t care,” Mitchell told ESPN. “The biggest thing for me is that we’re in the fourth seed and fighting for the third seed. If I’m worrying about individual awards, I’m giving up on my teammates and what we’re trying to build here. Clearly, I’m not the one losing sleep over this. I don’t care.”

The NBA.

We also got a Joel Embiid update. Head coach Brett Brown said it’s very unlikely he’s ready for Game 1.

In much more important news, we might have a preview of his mask:

MASKED EMBIID READY pic.twitter.com/UUgN2gw3s4

— Drew Corrigan (@Dcorrigan50) April 11, 2018

The Stanley Cup playoffs get underway tonight, and so does the Flyers-Penguins series. Game 1 will begin at 7 PM on NBC Sports Philadelphia and NBCSN nationally. This will be a fun series, as it always is.

If the Flyers pull out a series victory, it will more than likely come from superb play from goalie Brian Elliott.

A good chunk of the Flyers young guys will participate in their first playoff series, including Ivan Provorov and Nolan Patrick:

“You’re seeing the evolution of a young player getting better,’’ Flyers general manager Ron Hextall said. “This is a young guy who still has some growth to do. But he’s understanding the pro game more, he‘s understanding playing in a team concept more. When these young players come up they’ve all had the puck their whole lives. And there’s parts of the game where they don’t get it. Especially the high-level guys. T.K. had the puck his whole life. Thirteen years old he probably had the puck the whole game. Now it’s, `OK, I’m not going to have the puck the whole game, there’s other areas I can improve on. And to his credit he’s taken a lot of pride in doing things the right way, playing the game the right way.’’

Said Konecny, “I think I let that junior mentality rule when I first came into the league. It’s hard. You’re used to having the puck, creating opportunities every single shift. But for now it’s a lot about learning how to play without the puck, reading the play, slow the game down a little bit. I’m just trying to simplify my game, limit mistakes but keep my creativity there. It’s tough. But you’re not in juniors anymore.’’

For Lindblom, who played among men in Sweden’s top professional league, buying in wasn’t the problem. Feeling as if he belonged was. Shortly after the Phantoms season began, he was placed on the same line with Matt Read, an NHL veteran and someone who has gone through his own trials. Read gave him plenty of hockey advice – getting his shot off quicker, tightening the spacing that is required in the North American game. But, said Lindblom, “it was more about confidence. He was always trying to talk me into getting more comfortable.

“We talked a lot: Hockey, life, how it works up here. He was a good guy to have around. He helped me a lot.’’

Just like the Eagles, who won the Super Bowl, the Flyers are embracing an underdog role. Hungry dogs skate faster.

Here’s some other reasons why the Flyers will win the Stanley Cup.

Michal Neuvirth took part in practice yesterday but won’t be ready for the first two games of the series. As for Sam Morin, Hextall said he’s still rehabbing from an injury, but he would like to see him play in the playoffs somewhere on the run. Jordan Weal and Robert Hagg will probably be the two healthy scratches to start the series.

Hey folks, there was also a Phillies game last night! They defeated the Reds 6-1 thanks to Scott Kingery’s first grand slam of his career. And the Phillies had some fun too:

Big week for rookies in Philadelphia. . . . . rookie [roo k-ee]

noun ///

An athlete playing his or her first season as a member of a professional sports team pic.twitter.com/KMKGQ9TsRL

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) April 11, 2018

Prior to that dinger, JP Crawford got his first hit after 18 at-bats, which drove in the go-ahead run in the seventh.

Aaron Nola went…wait for it…EIGHT INNINGS!!!! He gave up one run on three hits and struck out six on 103 pitches. Hoby Milner got the save.

“AARON NOLA ISN’T AN ACE!” pic.twitter.com/eDCMy3IQpp

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) April 11, 2018

The final game of the series is tonight at 7:05 PM. With the Flyers and Sixers on the two NBCSP channels, the Phils will be on PHL 17, one of their old homes. That’s how it should have been last week. Nick Pivetta will try to get the Phillies above .500 against Luis Castillo.

Who are some running backs the Eagles could target in the NFL Draft? LSU’s Derrius Guice is one of them.

The Eagles were initially interested in Jeremy Maclin before signing Mike Wallace.

Jalen Brunson will enter the NBA Draft.

Brunson follows teammate Mikal Bridges, who announced his intention to enter the NBA Draft yesterday. Bridges could be a very good fit for the Sixers.

In other sports news, Kevin Durant will opt out of his contract this offseason. But he’ll stay with Golden State and rework his deal with the team.

After more than 380 games in the G-League, 32-year-old rookie Andre Ingram made his NBA debut with the Lakers. He scored 19 points in the loss to the Rockets.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft visited Meek Mill in jail, along with Michael Rubin.

Thursday Night Football Color Rush uniforms are done:

Bill Wanger of FOX Sports says alternate uniforms on Thursday Night Football are going away. Hardcore fans don’t need gimmicks to watch. The game schedule will also be stronger. #NABShow

— Jason Barrett (@sportsradiopd) April 10, 2018

In the news, West Chester University is on alert after a shooting occurred near campus.

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan won’t run for re-election in November.

Necco might go out of business. But people are stockpiling the disgusting Necco wafers.

Your Wednesday Morning Roundup published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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stag28 · 7 years ago

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"Queiroz would marvel at Cristiano’s dedication to self-improvement. He remembers the days before the 2008 Champions League final, against Chelsea in Moscow, when Cristiano practiced free-kicks to acquaint himself with a new ball designated for the match. Queiroz studied the biomechanics of past greats to fine-tune the player’s technical approach. When they started practicing, the results were disastrous. The free-kicks flew high and wide, and two days went by without improvement. Finally, on day three, the ball started finding the net. “Air distribution in all balls is different and that one was a nightmare to work out, but the important thing is that Ronaldo never quit. Not after two whole days with no success,” [..] When he arrived, Cristiano’s game rested on technique and speed. His body was skinny, his musculature undeveloped. Dribbling was his predominant quality, his stepovers becoming the first of many personal on-pitch trademarks. He infuriated almost as much as he thrilled. With the ball, his end-product was inconsistent and his decision-making suspect, and there were accusations of overplaying and showboating. Without it, he could be indisciplined and unreliable. [..] There was less to criticise on the training ground. Cristiano’s professionalism reflected an unusual sense of determination. When the players hit the showers, he would slap weights on his ankles and practice stepovers. Roy Keane, renowned for his demanding nature, wrote in his 2014 biography The Second Half: “After the first few days, watching him play, watching him train, my reaction was: ‘This lad is going to be one of the world’s greatest players’… He was amazing. He was immediately one of the hardest-working players at United. Most of the players I knew worked hard, but Ronaldo had the talent on top of the work rate.” [..] “Ronaldo was a machine”. [..] the club’s gym culture was sound before the Portuguese arrived, led as it was by Keane, Ryan Giggs and Beckham, but that when Cristiano arrived, it hit another level. “He would do whatever training I prescribed and more,” Clegg told The Sun. “He lived and breathed football twenty-four seven and his dedication was phenomenal.” The two developed a close professional relationship and, if the coach was eager to teach, he had been gifted an exemplary student. Clegg told the BBC: “He had in his mind: ‘I need to make myself special, and I’m going to have to learn everything I need to become special. I’m going to have to regiment my day and my week, months and years, and become as good as I can be by every possible means.’ He had a plan.” [..] In this period there was something paradoxical about Cristiano. Ostensibly his primary weapon was the fleet-footed dribbling, which motivated so many youngsters to train on replicating his style. These solo runs wreaked havoc, yet they led to few goals for him personally. When he did find the net, it was owed to his sense of timing for running into the box. Starting from the wing, he would attack the back post for crosses, or sweep into the area for cut-backs. He was still a finesse player, but his off-the-ball movement was already in refinement. [..] The Sun published an image of his wink inside a dartboard frame, calling him a “Portuguese nancy boy”. The heckling was so bad that Ferguson had to travel to the Algarve to persuade him to return to Manchester. (The Scot initially sent an avalanche of text messages, then discovered he’d been using an old number.) [..] “He walked into the dressing room and I thought: ‘Jeez, what has happened to him over the summer?’,” Neville wrote in the Daily Mail. “When he had come to the club he was this thin, wiry boy. Now he was a light-heavyweight. He’d been on the weights over the summer and it was like watching someone grow up in a matter of weeks.” [..] Gone were the showboating and overplaying. His leap was greater and he seemed stronger, faster, even better built. His free-kicks started to fly inn with regularity. He could hit low drives with minimum backlift, or smack home long shots with a speed and swerve that sent goalkeepers into a brief state of paralysis. His instinct had also been altered. He still played out wide but, when taking on defenders inside the final third, he would no longer seek a cross; the aim now was to shoot. There seemed to have been a mental reframing process in which he redefined himself from a tricky winger to a ruthless goalscorer. [..] When he did leave Manchester, he was a titan of a footballer; an athlete befitting of the ancient Mount Olympus. Everything he had become, he had built himself. [..] Cristiano had hired his own chef to make sure he had the right diet. He had bought a house with a custom-built swimming pool to aid muscular recovery. Clegg recalled that, after training with the squad, Cristiano would come back into the gym and do power work for his legs. He would then go home, eat, swim, sleep and come back for repetitions the next morning. So it went for six years. “We did speed, power and reaction work, everything he needed and worked with on the pitch,” [..] Forsaking his solo runs, Cristiano became more of a finisher: less flashy, less demonstrative; more direct, ruthless, efficient. Fewer touches, more goals. Under Pellegrini, team-mates had given him the ball and waited for magic to ensue. Mourinho constructed the team so that he be set up in ideal scenarios, be they one-on-one situations, far-post crosses or killer passes. Cristiano refined his acceleration, reflexes and sense of timing. He became the sharpest off-the-ball runner in the world, a master of headers and one-touch finishes. Mourinho’s system was built round him. [..] Cristiano thrived. In 2010/2011 he scored forty La Liga goals and fifty-three in all competitions; in 2011/2012 he hit forty-six league goals and sixty in total; in 2012/13 he struck thirty-four in the league and fifty-five in all. His productivity was stunning. An analysis of his finishes in 2011/12 reflected his evolution as a player: out of the thirty-two goals from open play—twelve penalties and two free-kicks being excluded—twenty were first-time finishes. The reason was clear. Mourinho had installed specific patterns designed to find him inside the box or in behind the defence. He no longer relied on his dribbling. He would score by the virtues of thinking faster, running quicker and jumping higher than any defender in La Liga. The notion that Cristiano’s best attributes are not technique-based feels odd, eleven years after that blistering Old Trafford debut. But it is true. His X-factors are of the mental and physical kind. [..] He reacts quicker than anyone, he is persistent, he is no longer vulnerable to distraction. Goals are scored on instinct. Off the pitch, his discipline is famous. Mourinho, despite falling out with him in their final season, called him “the most professional player I’ve ever met”. [..] This dedication has underpinned his psychical state. The athleticism he built at Manchester United has continued to improve, and he would not look out of place on an Olympic running track. [..] In 2011, Cristiano did tests in a laboratory at the University of Chichester, in England. There it emerged he could leap seventy-eight centimetres; seven centimetres higher than the average NBA player. [..] The statistical and historical comparisons between Cristiano and Messi often eclipse a fundamental disparity. While Messi’s game is based on having the ball, Cristiano’s is based on not having it. Judging by technical ability, Messi is a one-off, whose vision and intuition feel natural, almost inherent. His place is on the playground, ball in hand, driven by mere eagerness to play. He is a glorious representation of football in its purest form. Cristiano has less natural talent, but compensates with persistence, particularly through his commitment to self-improvement. If Messi’s abilities are natural, Cristiano’s have been built. If Messi is the artist, Cristiano is the machine. If Messi’s story is an ode to footballing genius, Cristiano’s is a tribute to the triumph of will. [..] Whatever he might say about trying to help the team, he is, by all evidence, driven by records and goals; the history books, his legacy, his standing among the best. His energy is drawn from a bottomless well of egocentricity. Not all players are like this. Take Thierry Henry, who, at his peak, always seemed more in love with the game itself than with personal achievement. Like his manager, Arsène Wenger, he craved the perfect football, often squaring to team-mates when clean on goal, and becoming incensed when others did not return the favour. He saw football as an art form. When time was running out and Arsenal held a comfortable lead, Henry would slow down the game in an almost arrogant way, caring little about whether he scored another goal. For Cristiano, the last goal of a 6-0 win is almost as meaningful as the first. His focus does not drop, hence his particular efficiency in the final fifteen minutes. [..] This insatiability has been at the core of Cristiano’s inexorable rise. It is his greatest asset. The hunger, the relentlessness, the dissatisfaction with everything.“

#cr7

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kitsunesbooks · 8 years ago

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My Thoughts on Alien Covenant

So I am not exactly a stranger to the Alien film series. While I haven’t sat down and watched the films all the way through, the internet had pretty much spoiled most of them for me anyway. So with a decent enough knowledge of the film series, I went into Alien Covenant looking forward to a great sci-fi horror flick done by Ridley Scott himself. I wasn’t disappointed. The film was thoroughly enjoyable and I had a great time watching it. The film is by no means perfect, but it did what it set out to do, which was tie up the loose ends of Prometheus while setting up the origins of the Xenomorphs. If you are still planning on seeing the film, but are a little conflicted about it, I advise you to go for it. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

So, the film. For one, I think it does horror well. To me horror is about two things, anticipation and spectacle. Alien has both of these traits, though if you are like me and saw most of the trailers and such then the anticipation fell off at some points throughout the film. Nevertheless the spectacle is there in glorious gory sequences throughout the film. Me being the edgy author I am, I love a good bit of gore on screen, however too much of it can make me feel sick or can just look obnoxious and dumb. Alien’s gore is what makes it so terrifying. The sounds, visuals, and overall effects. Everything weaves together perfectly to paint a grisly painting in motion. Props to the effects department because nearly every gruesome moment had me in complete shock. But I am not here to talk about effects, I am here to talk about the writing.

Alien Covenant has a decent story to tie together its intense survivalist thriller atmosphere. It’s story opens with a conversation between Peter Weyland and David, the android from Prometheus. Right from the gate, the film does nothing to hide its relation to Prometheus. Alien Covenant was planned to be the film that answered many of Prometheus’ questions, even though some of them aren’t even worth answering. (Check out the Prometheus video over at Cinema Wins, I think it does a very good job of explaining things.) The thing is, and this is true for Prometheus from what I have seen from it, both films are very straight forward. Everything you need to know is on screen and when you take that into account, there aren’t many plot holes and are more or less some questions that are purposely left unanswered. This is mainly in relation to a certain character’s motivations. That being said, the film has a simple plotline compared to Prometheus’ commentary on the “who made us” debacle. We get a few small little anecdotes of philosophy, but in all honesty I’m okay with it. There really isn’t much need for Covenant to go into those topics because Prometheus said all that needed to be said. Instead we simply get to see our cast of would be heroes survive on an alien planet that just so happens to be trying to kill them. The plot serves nothing more than to carry our heroes through the gore slick locales of the film. Now this is where I am going to get into the spoilers for the film as I can’t exactly analyze the writing without going into its plot. If you haven’t seen the film then I advise you to stop reading here.

With spoiler alerts out of the way, I wanna begin by giving a brief mention to our main character. Daniels is far more badass than Prometheus’ Elizabeth Shaw, and can easily stand among the likes of Ripley (and her daughter if you wanna count Alien: Isolation.) Daniels is an amazing lead and Katherine Waterston did a fantastic job, but she isn’t the only great character here. The entire cast is thoroughly enjoyable, even if some of them don’t last very long. Hell, James Franco is in the movie for a whole five minutes, in which he is burned alive while in hyper sleep. The characterization is also very well done as that first five minutes of roasted James Franco gives us a bit of a glimpse into the minds of Covenant’s crew. This is where I should probably mention that Covenant, the namesake of the film, is also the name of the colony ship our characters are crewing. The film opens with the ship getting hit by a radiation storm in space that causes a malfunction forcing the crew awake early. Sadly, not all of the crew make it and Daniel’s husband, James Franco, is killed by his sleeping pod exploding. This whole moment shows us just how much of a risk these people have taken by joining a crew like this. Their responsibility is to two thousand colonists and their safe passage to a suitable home. This of course is where we come to one of the bigger problems of the film that people are going to latch on to. What is happening on Earth that would force humanity to start sending out colony ships? My guess is simply this, just refer back to Prometheus’ answers to quite literally everything. Covenant exists simply because humanity could do it. Humanity sent a colony ship out into deep space because they could. It is as simple as that. Ridley Scott has said he would like to do a film where the Xenomorph ends up on Earth somehow, but until that happens we can assume things back on our homeworld are prosperous, more or less.

Events pass and we eventually get our McGuffin of the film in the form of a transmission from Elizabeth Shaw. The transmission is barely understandable, yet Tennessee (yes that is his name) is able to figure out she is singing “Country Roads” for some reason. From this transmission, the Covenant crew discovers a planet far closer to their current position that has all the suitable parameters for a colony. Now, I can totally see why people would get kind of pissy about this because of how tropey it is, but it at least makes sense. Both Daniels and Christopher, the captain, have valid reasoning for exploring or ignoring the newfound planet. Daniels is against the plan simply because they have no way of knowing what is down on that planet. Christopher agrees but wants to find out what is down there, especially since it has all the needs a colony would require. Basically it’s a “nothing ventured, nothing gained” sort of plot thread. I personally think it works fine, it is a simple plot thread that gets us to where our characters need to be for shit to go down. Plus it does kind of play around with the audience expectations a bit. I originally thought their original destination was going to be where the horror was waiting but, nope. The funny thing is, either option is tropey as hell. It honestly feels like the film has to use tropes because of it’s plot structure, and there really isn’t anything wrong with it because it doesn’t dwell too much on those tropes in the first place given how linear the plot is.

So, needless to say, the crew heads down to the surface of this uncharted planet and shit goes down, of course. The progression of events is pretty standard for a horror film. There really isn’t anything groundbreaking here, though I do like that we didn’t see any Facehuggers aboard the derelict Engineer’s ship. Which, when thinking about it, I find kind of amusing because the second half of the film follows classic Alien’s plot structure way too closely. The first half of the film is by far the superior half. While it does have a very standard progression in its plot, the escalation and spectacle keep it terrifying. I was struck silent once things started ramping up, and while I honestly think it was dumb as hell that one of the crew mates had his face literally RIGHT UP IN FRONT OF THE VIRUS’ SPORES, at least the crew isn’t all scientists like in Prometheus. Speaking of Prometheus, the first half of the film does a lot to expand upon Prometheus and bridge the gap between that film and Alien. We see the return of the virus from Prometheus but it would seem that this version is far more rampant. Prometheus gave us a sort of glimpse of what the virus did with humans, but after awhile and many, more than likely, modifications from David, the virus is much more potent. When two of the crew mates are infected we see the extent of what David’s virus has done. We get to see the emergence of a new alien monster, that I honestly enjoy a lot more than the Xenomorph. The aptly named, Neomorph, is an amazingly fresh creature to add to the expanding film universe of Alien and a much more memorable creature at that. The Neomorph was far more visually impressive than the creatures of Prometheus, minus the Engineer. That and it also isn’t just a variant Xenomorph, it has a different life cycle and it has a completely different behavior. The Neomorph is definitely what made the first half of the film so enjoyable, but we more than likely will never see it again, which is a little sad.

As the film goes on we eventually meet up with David who rescues our heroes from one of their own who turned into a Neomorph. I kind of like this angle they went with for David. They made David out to be this sort of survivor type of character. They even gave him longer hair and such to make him about as grizzled as an android can look. I expected him to have been studying the natural evolution of the virus and that he discovered the Xenomorphs, turns out he created them instead. Oh and he also has a preserved and dissected body of Elizabeth Shaw lying around. Fun times. But yes, that is our origin story. David basically nuked a planet that may or may not have been the Engineer’s homeworld with their own virus in one of the most disturbing scenes I have seen in a long time, and he proceeded to play at being god. Before I get more into David though, I want to talk about his counterpart, Walter. Walter is a later generation model that was designed to be more efficient than his predecessors. This means that he is forbidden to create and therefore one could see him as barely human. This is especially true from Christopher’s perspective as he treats Walter like shit. Walter’s “humanity” is also a great parallel to David’s, as David is almost too human to a fault as he essentially is repeating the same mistakes that his creator made. This of course brings us to the creation of the Xenomorph which, honestly, I think was done a bit poorly. Having David trick Chris into looking into one of the Xenomorph eggs was honestly kind of annoying. They could have done so much with this side of the plot and instead they stuck close to their guns and kept it roughly the same as the original Alien film. Guy looks into the egg, Facehugger latches onto him, Chestburster rips through guy, and Bob’s your uncle. My point is, we’ve seen this before, it’s nothing new. All it does is play into nostalgia, which far too many films and tv shows do nowadays, and that is something that doesn’t work with horror. You have to try damn hard to make something persistently scary, but after years of Alien stories, both in films and in the expanded universe, executing a scene like this is kind of a let down. Granted, the Chestburster scene that followed was pretty damn brutal and it completely outdid the original, but it still was nothing new, and that was the ultimate disappointment here. Even then, it was hype to see the Xenomorph make his appearance, and it did not disappoint. Granted the horror was kind of gone since Daniels was taking no shits and the film did the same thing it always does to kill a Xenomorph. Oh, hey, let’s chuck him out into space. Can we PLEASE get something new!? Is that too much to ask.

While I am not particularly a fan of this origin story, I don’t hate it. It fits the character and makes enough sense to be believable. David is a maniacal and manipulative son of a bitch, so this kind of thing is pretty much right in the ball park for him. However, I am disappointed that we couldn’t get a more Lovecraftian origin story that harkened back to the original Alien. The first film is hailed as a Lovecraftian horror film, especially because of H.R. Geiger’s art work that influenced the Xenomorph’s design. Instead we got a simple answer, and that’s fine, but they could have done a lot more and that is what makes me feel disappointed. I would have loved to see more Lovecraftian writing within this film series, but it seems after the success of Aliens way back in 1986, I don’t think we will ever truly return to the Lovecraftian roots of the Alien series.

I’m not going to say the film was bad, because it wasn’t. I enjoyed it thoroughly and it had a lot going for it, but unfortunately the second half did nothing to stray from the conventions of its predecessors. Hopefully when we see Alien return to the big screen we will get a much more intriguing story surrounding the Xenomorphs. All in all the film is entertaining and that’s good. The writing is to the point and straightforward and doesn’t do anything too philosophical. Granted the ending is sequel bait, and that is a bit of an issue, but if you are like me and just want to enjoy yourself watching this film then you should feel right at home. I can still say I enjoyed it despite it’s shortcomings and I think that is a good sign. Give Alien Covenant a shot if you are in the mood for some good sci fi horror. Hope you enjoyed the article.

Stay Frosty, Adam Schmidt

#Alien Covenant #Alien #Ridley Scott #sci-fi #horror #Xenomorph

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grantplant · 8 years ago

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Cry, baby, cry

William Shakespeare and James B. Grant both said, “All the world’s a stage.” Shakespeare was referring to the thing the players stand upon; JBG was referencing the stage as a synonym for a phase, and usually said it in reference to children. One of his other favorite sayings, up there with “small corrections,” was “This too shall pass.” And he really believed that. Nothing lasts forever because, indeed, everything is a stage, all things always progressing however slowly or quickly into their next evolution.

Depending on the context, this can be either a great relief or deeply discomfiting. When things are glorious and working like a well-oiled machine, enjoy it because it may not (probably won’t) last. When things are wretched, relax—it won’t be this way forever.

With regards to our little 10-month-old player, her current stage is sleepus interruptus, and has been for a while now. In the beginning of the end of her (and our) great sleeping, it was sickness, then it was rolling over, followed by sitting up, and now standing. I understand walking brings much of the same. Whatever new skill she is mastering, whatever the new phase or leap or growth spurt, it has meant that those near-silent nights of baby-snarfling all the way through to dawn are a distant memory. Sleep, we hardly knew ye!

I know I’ve said before, and I really meant, that Mira is not a crier. She just… didn’t do it. After a month of observing and interacting with her, the daycare asked me how they’d know she was unhappy, and I said, “She’ll cry.” She just wasn’t often unhappy.

Given the general lack of crying in all realms, “cry it out” at nighttime hasn’t really been in our parental lexicon. At the same time, though, we acknowledged that crying was actually a good thing, and something she should be doing to release the tensions of the day and as a means of communicating with us. In those rare instances where she did shed a tear or two, we didn’t exactly encourage it, but we did let her get it all the way out, and we certainly paid attention. (The first, and maybe most memorable, time she awoke crying, she’d vomited in her crib and was rolling around in it.)

Since then, the waking-and-crying in the night has happened so often and in so many different ways, for reasons we can occasionally pinpoint but just as often can’t possibly fathom, and it almost never involves vomiting on herself. It has now become the rule, instead of the exception.

So last week, for only the second time in our brief career as parents, we found ourselves so utterly exhausted and without answers that we stopped the spinning wheel of possible solutions on, you guessed it: crying it out. In addition to feeling like Pat and I were going to break if we didn’t start sleeping for more than three hours at a time, we were also thinking it might be useful for her to hone her self-soothing skills before out big-and-imminent international trip, which begins Thursday.

My mom told me that when she and my dad did cry-it-out with my sister, she remembers wanting to break a jar of granola over his head because it was so excruciating. Her anecdote made me wonder about the jar of granola. (Ah, the 70s. Did she also want to strangle him with the macrame hanging-plant holder?) Also, why my poor dad was on the receiving end of her aggression?

38 years after my dad almost got cerealed about the skull, I completely understood her murderous inclinations, born of complete helplessness and frustration. The most insidious thing about cry-it-out is once you start, you can’t cave or else you reward the crying. That knowledge alone was enough to make me want to wail right along with Mira.

That first night, we were spared too much agony—she only cried for 30 minutes, after which we drank martinis. (Did my parents eat granola after Mirrin finally fell to sleep?) It was early morning, after she’d nursed and wouldn’t go back to sleep that my resolve shattered. She had been crying off, but mostly on, for close to two hours when I finally scooped her up. She was asleep within minutes, arms wrapped tightly around my neck, and I renounced cry-it-out for good.

Out one side of their mouths, experts say, “Go with your gut; do what works for you,” while making very convincing arguments with ample supporting evidence that if you don’t mind the research, you’re gonna fuck your kid up six ways to Sunday.Or else they go back on their own wisdom, engaging in a terrible double-speak that feels like psychological torture. (Remember how we convinced you that Baby will break if she doesn’t nap exclusively in her crib? Well, ACTUALLY Baby needs to be adaptable and have the ability to sleep in a mop bucket should circumstances dictate. Remember when we said that Baby is resilient and flexible and hardy and you shouldn’t stress about inadvertently doing permanent damage to Him/Her because you’re a total newb? Here are One Million and One Surprising and Unavoidable Ways You Absolutely WILL Screw Your Kid Up. #1: Caving during cry it out.)

If listening to her cry herself to the point of gasping was a low low of the last ten months, then holding her tightly and ending those tears was definitely a high high. For an incurable codependent like myself, letting another soul feel anguish while knowing full well that I can end it—and how—is maybe the most agonizing thing I can conceive of. That, or being locked in a coffin full of spiders. So yeah, I was selfish and probably did irreversible damage and Pat and I have not slept through the night since.

You might say we are back at square one, except I don’t feel that way. In the wake of this failed sleep training (and god, I pray, not *because of it*) Mira has evolved into a stage of mild separation anxiety and more pronounced stranger danger. As such, she has been doing her fair share of crying during the daytime, too. This has highlighted for me that there are plenty of tears to be cried—healthy, expressive, tension-busting tears—over things I can’t fix or solve or banish or prevent (the falling! My heart.). So for those things I can cure with a cuddle, I’m gonna. Sorry, experts. Sorry, Mira. #momfail

Yesterday was Pat’s birthday, and we had a friend coming to stay with Mira while we went to dinner. Friday, we’d visited Pat’s new office and she’d wailed at each and every new person that spoke to her. We had friends for lunch on Saturday and she screamed almost nonstop the two hours they were here. So yeah, we weren’t feeling extra confident about going out and leaving her. We got her to sleep, though, and left detailed instructions in the event (the inevitability, really) she woke. Then caught an Uber, and more or less resigned ourselves to getting a call and coming right back home.

Three hours later, we were home after an incredible meal and the report was: Mira squawked on two separate occasions but both times she feel back to sleep on her own. No crying, no stranger danger, zero trauma.

Of course, she proceeded to wake up as soon as we climbed into our bed, and a further three times after that. She woke this morning an hour earlier than usual and was super cranky until I dropped her at day care, where she turned on the smiles and went right to her carer with nary a whimper.

A few other old chestnuts come to mind:

You never know. It’s worth a shot. Never say never. You can sleep when you’re dead.

In the meantime, we’ll let her cry when she needs to, and we’ll console her when we can. Even at the expense of our own sleep. Given the choice, I’d obviously rather cry myself than make her cry unnecessarily. And while I’m crying, I’ll try to remember that this is only a stage. Nothing lasts forever. This, too, shall pass. Everything will feel better in the morning. Everything feels better after a good night’s…. wait. Let’s roll that back.

It’s only a stage. Nothing lasts forever. This too shall pass.

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