#got me a whole new ipad instead of just fixing my old one

[dreams-of-sapphire-tears]

so many things to be delusional about :)

[emmy-writes-sometimes]

FaceTime

For the anon who requested where Chris introduces the new baby over video chat. I have never even met a baby, so I have no idea about… anything, so this is all guess work! I went ahead and just made up a name as well. Hope you enjoy! 

-

           “Are you absolutely sure you can handle her?” You asked Chris, eyebrows raised, as he tried to take the sleeping baby out of the carrier.

           “Abso-” The baby stirred when Chris picked her up,  but silenced again. Both of you braced yourselves for crying, but it didn’t happen. “Absolutely. See? She’s fine.”

           “Then I’m going to take a long, very hot shower. If that’s okay?” You looked around the house for a minute, missing the small Dodger nipping at your heels. Chris dropped him off with Carly for a week while you took the baby home, just to get settled before introducing one child to the other.

           “Fine by me. I’ll get dinner started in a few minutes,” Chris said. He took the carrier in one hand and sat it down on the coffee table, sitting down on the couch with the baby in his other arm.

           “Are you just going to stare at her?” You wonder out loud, smiling a little bit. You knew Chris would be a fantastic father, but he had barely even stopped looking at either of you since you went to the hospital. She looked exactly like Chris’s sisters did as babies, except for your eyes, and maybe your cheekbones. You weren’t surprised, because the Evans family had strong genes. As soon as he saw her, there was no doubt in his mind that he was more in love with her than anything (sorry, babe, she’s gorgeous, Chris had said). He had barely stopped holding her, unless of course you wanted to – she had maybe been down for ten or fifteen minutes total besides when you were in the car. Chris insisted he had it, and you believed him.

           “Yeah, why?” He was too busy looking down at the baby to pay attention. You just grinned.

           “No reason.” You walked up the stairs, grateful for the pain medication, because otherwise there was no way you could handle the old house’s steep stairs. You glanced into the baby’s room, between your bedroom and Chris’s office, where the baby’s gender-neutral things were all laid out. Chris’s doing – the both of you wanted to keep the gender a secret, but it was Chris the entire time insisting that it was definitely a girl, but even so he painted the room a light blue. Honestly, you were thinking that the baby wasn’t even going to spend much time in there. If Chris didn’t let her go sometime, there was a chance she’d never even make it into the crib. You had already fixed a room in Boston, too, but this house was bigger and allowed for a larger nursery.

           You probably spent a full hour in the shower. Maybe more, maybe less, because it was starting to get dark outside by the time you pulled on one of Chris’s oversized shirts and a pair of shorts that wouldn’t irritate you too much. And then you walked down the stairs to the smell of Chris making your favorite. Mac and Cheese. Chris was still holding her in one arm, fully supported, and while he was stirring with his free hand, he was on the iPad with Scott.

           “How was she?” You ask as you cross the living room into the kitchen. Chris swirled around, reluctantly handing you to her as you opened your arms. She was so small it would take some getting used to.

           “Asleep,” Chris answered honestly. “Gotta go, man!” He called to his brother.

           “Tell her she’s pretty!” Scott called in response.

           “Which one?”

           “Both of them!” With that, the video camera turned off and left them alone.

           “Has she been asleep this whole time?” You asked. She started stirring as soon as you took her from Chris, but stopped when Chris laid his hand on her to make sure the blanket around her wasn’t too tight.

           “Pretty much, yeah. Mom asked if we can call her and introduce her around soon.” You felt a little bad, but it wasn’t like you had planned to have the baby two weeks early and in Los Angeles. You had planned to start driving back the next morning so you could be back in Boston by the time the due date came. But that had gone out the window, because she wanted to come then and there and Chris was just thankful the house was close enough to a hospital to where you could make it. He was also grateful for the excuse not to have to go to a meeting that day.

           “After we eat. If she’s even awake.” Chris smirked.

           “Maybe the nurse is right. Maybe she’ll be easy.”

           “Babies are not easy,” you replied. “This is probably just the calm before the storm. Did you feed her?”

           “Fed and changed.” You sighed.

           “I love you.” You walked over to the couch, propping your feet up, and held the baby in your lap.

           “I love you too.” Chris finished making the food, your first real food in a few days, and brought over the pot instead of distributing it into bowls. It made for less cleanup later, and besides – you always shared a pot of mac and cheese. It was an unwritten rule in the house.

           You somehow ate without her even waking up, but the clinking of the spoon against the empty bowl caused you to clap your hands over your ears, hoping not to have to endure a symphony of crying. You loved babies. Just not when they cried because it made it hard to think about how to make them stop crying.

           “I’ll clean up,” you volunteered, “if you want her.” Chris grinned, eagerly but carefully taking the baby back. She woke up and, if anything, curled deeper into Chris’s arm where he held her.

           “She is such a Daddy’s girl,” Chris said. “Thank God, I was afraid she would like you better.”

           “There’s always the next one,” you laughed as you carried the pot into the kitchen to put it in the dishwasher.

           “We can have more?” Chris asked happily. “Really?”

           “I assumed you wanted five. Isn’t that what you said two years ago?”

           “We can have five?”

           “If they all behave like this one, we can have as many as you want.” You grabbed the propped-up tablet from the kitchen counter and brought it over, taking your place before. Chris had one of his hands on her feet, where they must have seemed a little cold. “Who are we calling first?”

           “Mom and Dad?” Chris offered. You shrugged, not really having a preference, and tapped Chris’s mom’s name on the iPad. They answered on the first ring, and the first thing you heard was Chris’s mom calling his father over.

           “Hey Ma!” Chris said, his Boston accent kicking right in.

           “Who is this?” She asked, clearly looking down at the baby in Chris’s arms. Chris put his other arm around you as you got in the frame. “You weren’t telling us any names earlier.”

           “This is Olivia,” Chris replied sweetly. “Olivia Grace.”

           “Oh, I knew you were naming her Olivia. Your father owes me ten dollars.” Chris chuckled. “She looks exactly like Carly when she was born.” Chris nodded.

           “Oh, my, is that a beautiful baby!” Chris’s dad exclaimed as he sat down next to Chris’s mother. “She does look like Carly. But I can see a little of Y/n in there. Y/n, sweetie, how are you?”

           “I had so much medicine,” you replied, “I honestly don’t remember most of it.”

           “You will later. It took me awhile to remember with Chris,” Chris’s mom thought out loud. “She is beautiful.”

           “Yeah, she’s definitely going to be prettier than me,” you said with a laugh.

           “Oh, nobody is prettier than you, babe,” Chris said off-hand. “Except maybe our daughters.” You rolled your eyes. “We’re going to call the girls, too, Scott already met her.”

           “Of course. Let us know if you need anything!” Chris’s mom said. “We’ll see you as soon as you can get home.”

           “Love you, Ma,” Chris said with a smile. “Love you, Dad.”

           “Bye!” Both of Chris’s parents waved before ending the call. Chris immediately scrolled down until he found Shanna, the first person he called that morning, and pressed her name. She answered immediately, sitting on Carly’s couch with Dodger sitting in her lap. A wine glass was in her hand, and next to her was a book she’d probably read to one of the kids.

           “Oh, my gosh!” She exclaimed excitedly when she saw the baby. “Aww!”

           “Get the family!” Chris insisted. She immediately followed what Chris was saying and called out names until their husbands and the kids were gathered around the couch.

           “So this is Olivia,” you said quietly, noticing that the baby was starting to stir a little bit.  “She’s been asleep, but I think she’s waking up now.”

           “Aww, she’s so beautiful!” Carly said, putting a hand over her heart. “I knew you’d name her Olivia!”

           “Why is everybody saying that?” Chris chuckled. “How’s my other baby doing? Dodger?” The dog perked his ears up at the sound of his father’s voice.

           “He’s been with the kids most of the day,” Carly answered. “He’s been a good boy.”

           “That’s my boy,” Chris responded with a smile.

           “How was it?” Shanna asked you.

           “Honestly, I didn’t feel much. But Chris was not helping.”

           “Yeah, men never do.”

           “Hey!” Chris defended. “I got her ice chips and everything.” You sat up a little to kiss his cheek.

           “You were doing your best and I appreciate it,” you said to Chris. He rolled his eyes. “No, he was good. I think it was probably the longest twelve hours of my life.”

           “Oh, it always is. You look good, honey.”

           “Thank you,” you responded with a little smile. Chris’s family was always so warm and welcoming, even though they were a big family. You weren’t very close with your family, especially after moving around so much with Chris, but at least they’d checked in a few times.

           Olivia started fussing and pushing at the blanket around her, so much that you elbowed Chris. He looked down and winced a little, causing you to decide to take her. Chris deserved a little time with his family, especially now, and you decided to pick her up. Chris handed her to you willingly, but not until he gave her feet a quick squeeze.

           “I got her,” you insisted, quickly taking her up the stairs. She needed to be changed. You could feel that, and smell it, right away. This was the part you knew would be gross, but it had to be done, so you took her into the nursery and started. You could faintly hear Chris laughing along with the family, praising you for doing so well, and that made your heart absolutely melt. You looked down at the baby and sighed.

           “You have the best Daddy,” you said softly as you started to change her. “He’s an idiot, but he loves you. And his family loves you…” You looked down into the baby’s eyes, not even noticing that Chris was standing in the doorway until he coughed a little.

           “She okay?” He asked, walking into the room. He watched you change her like you had practiced with so many times, and when you were done you picked her back up. She had only cried a little bit, thankfully.

           “She’s good,” you responded. “Telling her all about your family.”

           “Did you tell her her uncle’s an idiot?” You laughed.

           “No. I’ll let her figure that out.” Chris came to stand behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist.

           “Did you tell her she’s got the best mama, too?” Your heart skipped a beat, smoothing over when Chris kissed the back of your head.

           “She’ll figure it out.”

           “Yeah, she will. Right now I’m just wondering how I can cash in on the bets. I had a bet with Mackie that it would be a girl, ‘cause you know, the ultrasound lady kinda messed up and almost said she. But she didn’t. And then I have a bet with Downey that she would look like you, so I need Mackie to pay up first…”

           “You told me you didn’t know!” You exclaimed, hoping not to wake the baby. “Please tell me you don’t owe Downey too much money.”

           “I wanted it to be a surprise,” he shrugged. “So, uh, when did the doctor say we’re allowed to make another one? Or maybe two? ‘Cause, you know, twins run in your family.” 

           “After six weeks. But hopefully not before this one can pee on her own, because I can not be taking care of more than one baby at once.”

           “More than one?”

           “Did you forget about yourself?

           “At least I can control my bladder.”

[anotherhamiltonblog]

Foreign Touch ch 7

Warnings:  Angst. Panic Attack. Talk of Character Death. Cursing. the boys being cute friends. Thomas being a Cute boyfriend.

Word Count: 2.638

Previously    Masterlist

A/N: I’m so sorry for the delay guys. I posted a few days ago that I was going through something and just needed to leave and take some time for myself. BUT I’m back and working on the stories! SO here you go! Chapter 7!!! 

Enjoy!

Two weeks after waking up and finding out about her parents, Y/N was starting to feel a little better. New Year’s came and gone; her grandparents almost never left her side. Sadly, Thomas, Alexander and her friends had to go back to school. Bringing cards, gifts and flowers each time they were allowed to visit. Mostly from her classmates, her cheer squad and her teachers. Something that brought a smile to her face, what didn’t make Y/N happy was the homework.

Late one afternoon, with notebooks, pens, textbooks and her iPad around her. Y/N felt like her head was going to explode. Her leg was itching and aching. Her head always felt heavy, her chest and ribs hurt. Yet, Y/N never asked for more pain medication. She knew what could happen if she had too much, being addicted was not a good sign for her. So instead she dealt through the pain.

“Hi sweety…” a female voice came from the doorway, Y/N looking up and grinning at the sight of Jane Jefferson and Martha Washington standing there.

“We came to bring you some homemade food… the boys should be here soon. I was visiting Jane here and came along to see how you’re doing.” Martha spoke and walked over, only to frown at the amount of homework Y/N had spread around the hospital bed.

“Now, I know that all this can wait…” but Y/N cut Martha off.

“It can’t… not if I want to get into a good college!” she frowned and looked down. “Julliard and the other Art Schools won’t accept me now that I can’t dance anymore.” She rolled her eyes and flopped back on the pillows behind her.

“Hey, none of that now.” Jane came over and both Martha and her started to clean up the schoolwork. “Thomas tells me you are one of the smartest students in that school. I’m sure no one will blame you for not putting your schoolwork as a priority right now.”

Once everything was cleaned up, Y/N felt like she could breathe again. “I just…” but she trailed off and closed her eyes. “I couldn’t attend the funeral… I get out tomorrow. I have this thing on my leg and stitches and I’m ugly and I just miss them so much!” she cried as tears started to slip down her cheeks.

Both women looked at each other and frowned before sitting on either side of Y/N, both trying to comfort the crying girl. Jane even mentioning for Thomas to get back out when he arrived at the door.

“You aren’t alone. OK?” Martha said softly, “I know for a fact that Jane here will allow you to go over to her home whenever you feel like it. My home is always opened for you as well, sweetie.” She whispered. “I knew your parents; they would have preferred it this way than having to bury their child. There is no greater pain for a parent than to have to say goodbye to their child. You will have so much support. George and I, Jane and her husband. You have your soulmate, Alexander and all your friends…”

“We almost lost you as well, Y/N.” Jane added now. “We only know this because your mark appeared on Thomas… both he and Alexander almost broke down.” She kissed the girls head softly. “You will never be alone. OK? We will all help you whenever you need. We’re all here for you.”

As she cried softly, Y/N nodded at their words and knew it would take some time, but she would be surrounded by people to help her.

By the time Y/N had calmed down a good amount, the two women left, and Thomas walked in with a small smile on his face. Y/N fixed herself on the bed and made space for her boyfriend to join her. Once he got on the bed, Y/N found herself cuddling with the man and closed her eyes.

“Your friends said they’ll give us about ten minutes before they barge in here…” Thomas said against her hair and smiled. The words causing Y/N to smile sadly.

She didn’t speak, feeling like she would cry if she even tried to speak. Instead she closed her eyes and let out a small sigh. Eyes closed and Y/N took in the silence and the cologne Thomas was wearing.

The scent being one that could always comfort her.

“I don’t wanna go home…” she finally managed to speak, her voice betraying her and cracking in the middle of the short sentence.

“I can’t go back there; I can’t be in the house without them… or with my grandparents… they’re old! They need to rest and look after themselves. I’m about to be eighteen! I can figure things out on my own…” her voice got softer at the end and she sighed.

“If you don’t want to go back home, no one can make you. Alexander has been staying with John ever since the accident.” Y/N felt his lips brush against her forehead as he spoke. “You can come stay with me and my parents. They won’t mind. They love you. There’s Mr. and Mrs. Washington. You know how much they love all of us over…” but Y/N cut him off.

“The last thing I want to do, is be a burden for anyone.” She snorted. “Fucking look at me, Thomas! I’m black, blue and stitched! I died for like a whole minute! I’m going to be walking funny, I can’t dance anymore! I can’t practice violin until my hand stops aching.” She almost snapped at her boyfriend. The two now sitting up on the bed. “I can’t even study, cause I don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on in class and no one to explain this shit to me. Alex and I have to bury our parents!

“I… I can’t… I don’t want to get in a car anymore! Or look at any bright lights!” she blinked a few times. Trying to stop the tears. “The doctor came in a few days ago… early in the morning to check me out. Flashed a damn light in my eye to test whatever the fuck they were testing, and I panicked! I saw the car coming and I heard the screams!”

Little did Y/N know, her brother and friends were outside the room listening in. Once things were quiet, they entered slowly.

The distraction helped. Alex saw Thomas standing beside the bed, Y/N sitting up looking stressed.

“Someone needs a sponge bath.” Hercules said with a sad smile, thankfully his words made a small smile appear on the girls face.

“God no…” she huffed. “What’s under this gown… not pretty” Y/N added a bit softer and looked down at her hands. A needle still stuck in her hand, tape and a bandage over it. Her other hand was bandaged up as well. Her body was still healing, her ribs mostly.

The cast she wore on her leg went an inch above her knee and down to her feet. Only her toes peeking out.

“I spoke to the nurse… we can wheel you around today…” Alexander spoke and that’s how the group spent the rest of the visitation time. Wheeling Y/N around the hospital, finding a garden and talking nonsense.

In the end, Y/N took up Thomas’ offer in going home with him. Her grandparents had been present at the time, having come around to visit her. They understood and allowed it.

That night, being the last night in the hospital. Y/N fell asleep somewhat easily, of course with some help of the antidepressants that had an extra kick to help with the anxiety she felt and the sleeplessness.

By the next morning, with the help from a nurse -much to her slight embarrassment- Y/N got changed into very loose sweatpants, sock and shoe on her bare foot and a long sleeve, loose shirt. Foregoing the bra, Y/N didn’t want to wear the thing and have it irritating her aching chest and back.

Messaging Thomas, she grinned at their little interaction. Y/N’s grandparents had signed her out and all she had to do was wait for her boyfriend to come. The room she had been staying in was bare once again, the decorations her friends had put up was taken down now, presents safely in her bag. 

The ring, the purple two hearted Dimond with a silver band. It was safely on her right-hand ring finger. Reminding her of the promise Thomas had made her when he presented the ring to Y/N.

Y/N sat there looking at the tiny ring inside the box in shock. “Thomas… this isn’t some kind of proposal….” But he chuckled and cut her off.

“No princess, nothing like that. We aren’t close to being ready for marriage.” He teased softly and took her hands in his. “This is just… a promise. That I’ll stick by your side. Thick and thin, I’ll always be here for you. OK? No matter what happens, and not just because we’re soulmates. I liked you even before we found out… finding out you were my other half, the girl I’m destined to be with? That’s fate.”

His words brough tears to her eyes, Y/N feeling like she spent a lot of her time crying. Only this time, the tears were ones of happiness.

“You know I’ve always been some kind of asshole. To Alex, to the other kids at school and the girls. When I got back from Paris, and the mark appeared on me. I doubted I would ever find the girl who was supposed to be with me. Then there you were, always running from me.” He laughed slightly. “I fell for you instantly, the first time you called me out on my bullshit and defended your brother. I thought god was punishing me, making me fall for someone as amazing as you and you not being my soulmate... but I must have done something right to be able to spend my life with you.”

Pulling Thomas in and pressing their lips together, the kiss was soft and sweet.

“Thank you… god I love you Thomas Jefferson.” Y/N spoke against his lips and held him close to her. The couple spending that night holding the other while the nurses allowed Thomas to spend the night. Having seen the interaction between the two.

Snapping back to the present, Y/N smiled and brushed her messy, dirty hair away from her face. Other than the horrible time trying to shower in the bathroom she had access to. Y/N was ready to head home…

It was than that she remembered she wouldn’t be going home. She was going to live with Thomas and his family. With a sigh, eyes closed. Y/N never noticed someone entering her room.

“Hey sweetheart…”

Looking over towards the door, Y/N smiled at Thomas standing there before rolling her eyes at the wheelchair brought in. Of course, Y/N already knew she would have to be pushed out in the wheelchair. Doesn’t mean she was happy about it.

“Ready to go?” he asked and stepped closer, grabbing her things so Y/N wouldn’t have to worry about anything.

With a nod, Y/N tried to hide how anxious she was feeling about getting in a car again. Her heart was pounding in her chest. Using the crutches, she was given, Y/N was able to sit down on the wheelchair and allowed Thomas to place a knitted hat on the top of her head before wrapping his scarf around her. Ignoring the unamused look Y/N was giving him.

“Just wanna make sure you don’t catch a cold.” He grinned cheekily at her and Y/N couldn’t help but smile at him.

Soon enough, she was being pushed out of the hospital building and after blinking a few times, trying to get used to the brightness of the sun hitting the snow. Y/N looked at the car and tried to calm herself down.

‘You’ll be alright… Thomas knows what he’s doing. He won’t let anything happen to you…’ Y/N thought as the wheelchair stopped next to the car and there was her boyfriend helping her into the passenger seat.

Bidding the nurse goodbye, the door was closed, and the seatbelt was on. Suddenly it all felt too real. Closing her eyes and taking deep breaths, Y/N softly spoke to herself. “In through the nose……. Out through the mouth.”

“You ready?”  Y/N heard Thomas ask and she just nodded her head. Refusing to open her eyes, though she didn’t need to look at Thomas to know he was staring at her.

As the car started to move, Y/N felt herself get choked up, her throat and chest starting to ache. She felt like she was starting to drown, she could barely hear the radio that had been on. Only when she felt a hand grasp hers, did she open her eyes and glance over at Thomas. Not noticing the tears that were slowly making its way down her cheeks.

“I got you princess…  I’ll go slow if that makes you more comfortable. OK?” Y/N heard Thomas say and she just nodded. Focusing on her boyfriend in the drivers seat.

Taking in his features, seeing the dark circles under his eyes, the beard that was growing and obviously hasn’t been taken care of in a while. His hair was tied up in a bun, reminding me of Lafayette. Chuckling softly at the thought, Y/N wiped at her eyes before lifting his hand up and softly brushing her lips over his knuckles. Giving it a soft squeeze.

“You doing ok, princess?” she heard him ask and Y/N didn’t speak, just gave a hum in response.

It felt like she was in the car for hours, her anchor for not falling into a panic attack being was holding Thomas’ hand. Hearing him softly talk to her and knowing that he never took his eyes off the road. Not once.

By the time they finally made it to the Jefferson’s home. Y/N allowed Thomas to carry her inside, not wanting her to end up slipping on the ice on the ground with her crutches. Being placed on the couch, Y/N couldn’t help but smile at her boyfriend. Watching as he rushed back outside to grab all her bags. By the time he returned, yelling that he was going to place her things in the room she would be staying in. Y/N shook her head and chuckled before lifting her leg up onto the couch and got comfortable.

Eyeing the ring on her finger, Y/N couldn’t help but take a picture of it and post it on Instagram. Giggling at the comment John put, she wanted to mess with Alex, so Y/N quickly got a hashtag going and laughed when comments started rolling in.

“Did you really make the same comment twice?” Y/N softly spoke when she saw Thomas come back down the stairs with his phone in his hand. A large smile on his face he nodded.

“Wanted to irritate your brother, and it worked.” Was his response, making Y/N softly laugh.

Fixing herself, letting Thomas sit behind her so her back was to his chest. The two watched some baking show on the TV before Y/N started to laugh and showed Thomas that Mr. Washington and Aaron also commented.

The rest of the day, with take out on the coffee table the couple spent watching TV and enjoying the silence. Y/N ended up falling asleep with a blanket over her body and Thomas with his arm around his girl as his head was tipped back against the couch cushions. That was how Thomas’ parents found the two teenagers when they got home that night. Making the two adults smile and let them sleep, seeing as they both looked comfortable enough.

Don’t forget to Like, Reblog and send Feedback! My asks are also opened and so is my IM! Much love from me to you!!  ♥(ˆ⌣ˆԅ)

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[illyria-and-her-pet]

My Browser Extensions & Userscripts

The browsers I’ve used are Opera (& Opera GX), Firefox, Brave, Google Chrome, Ungoogled Chromium, Microsoft Edge, Vivaldi, and Waterfox. These are the extensions I use on them. For any extensions that have to do with downloading videos, see my Video Downloaders post that includes not just extensions, but also download managers, websites, and more. 

Notes for Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Waterfox, and Ungoogled Chromium:

Opera has it’s own add-on store along with the capability to download Chrome extensions. To download Chrome extensions all you have to do is download this extension.

Brave and Vivaldi don’t have their own add-on stores, but you can download any extensions in the Chrome store like you would in Chrome without having to do anything beforehand. 

Waterfox is a fork of FIrefox that works with legacy add-ons and most current Firefox add-ons in the Firefox store. To get legacy add-ons, download the classic archive XPI from GitHub.The legacy add-ons that I use that aren’t usable in Firefox are Simple Add-On Manager (it lets you enable/disable extensions, themes, and plug-ins easily), Chrome Store Foxifed (converts Chrome CRX extensions into Firefox XPI extensions), and BarTab Plus (automatically unloads inactive tabs). For any current Firefox extensions that say they aren’t compatible, you can just got to see version history of the the add-ons in the Firefox store and download an latest older version that is compatible and if none are compatible, check the classic add-ons.

For ungoogled chromium, you have to change chrome://flags/#extension-mime-request-handling to Always Prompt for Install and get the .crx files from sites like crx4chrome or crxextractor.

AdBlocker (ESSENTIAL TO HAVE ONE... Also don’t use AdBlock or AdBlock Plus... Please choose EITHER AdGuard or uBlock Origin)

AdGuard (Available for Chrome/Brave/Vivaldi/Yandex, Opera, Firefox, Edge, & Safari on computer + they also have a free app for Android & iOS [Safari on iPhone & iPad])

AdGuard is my favorite adblocking browser extension. I used to use uBlock Origin + Nano Defender, which are also excellent, but then I discovered AdGuard, which I liked even better and uninstalled those since you shouldn’t use more than one adblocker in your browser. The reason I love AdGuard is because it works while still enabled on sites where you would have to disable uBlock Origin to get the site to work (ie. stream.nbcsports.com, youku.com).

The default settings of AdGuard are already great (just AdGuard base filter enabled), but you can enable even more filter lists and settings for the best browser experience. The ones I enable to block the most ads/annoyances/get the best privacy, while also not breaking sites I use are: AdGuard Base Filter, Peter Lowe’s List, AdGuard Tracking Protection Filter, Easy Privacy, AdGuard Social Media Filter, AdGuard Annoyances Filter, Adblock Warning Removal List, Malware Domains, Spam404, NoCoin Filter List, and Filter unblocking search ads and self-promotion. I also have Phishing & Malware Protection and Stealth Mode (Self Destructing 3rd party cookies with 2880 lifetime, Hide Referrer from third-parties, Hide your search queries, Send Do-Not-Track header, Remove Tracking Parameters) enabled.

Social Media/Enhancers

Good Twitter (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi), Firefox/Waterfox)

Light extensions that change your user agent to Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 9.0; WOW64; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) on only twitter.com to give you the previous twitter desktop layout back. 

If you have Firefox or Waterfox, you can also change your twitter back without an extension by going to about:config, find the general.useragent.site_specific_overrides setting, right click, choose new string, enter general.useragent.override.twitter.com as the preference name, and Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 9.0; WOW64; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) as the string value.

New XKit (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox/Waterfox, Safari) 

Note: For Firefox there is a version in the Firefox add-ons store, but it is only version 7.8.2 instead of the latest 7.9.0, so I’m linking the github xpi instead. You can just click on the xpi and Firefox should display continue to extension from github, click continue, and then the normal add add-on pop that you get for any extensions should show up and just click add/confirm your installation. If that doesn’t work, you can save the xpi to your computer, go to your Firefox add-ons page, click “install add-on from file”, choose the xpi, and then the normal add-on pop up will appear and you can click add/confirm your installation. 

An amazing extension that makes using Tumblr 1000x better and allows you to add Tumblr enhancement extensions to tumblr.com. XInbox, One-Click Postage, One-Click Reply, Tweaks, and XCloud are already installed by default. The other extensions I have installed are Go-To-Dash, Don’t Stretch Photosets, Timestamps, Soft Refresh, Search Likes, Mutual Checker, Find Inactives, Outbox, Post Archiver, Post Limit Checker, Show Picture Size, Activity+, Anti-Capitalism, Drafts+, Mass+, Read More Now, Quick Tags, Reply Viewer, TagViewer, and View on Dash. 

Chrome IG Story (Opera/Ungoogled Chromium)

Note: This was originally an extension for Chrome, but got removed from the Chrome web store. I already had it installed from the web store on Chrome and it continued to work even after it was removed. However, you can’t install it for Chrome or Brave or Vivaldi anymore even with the CRX file because it will give you  a “CRX Header Invalid” error. From the site I linked, you can still install it for Opera though by simply clicking "Download from Google CDN” or “Download from Crx4Chrome.” You can also install it on Ungoogled Chromium, if you have chrome://flags/#extension-mime-request-handling set to Always Prompt for Install like I mentioned in the note at the beginning of my post.

An extension that lets you view, download, and get direct URLs for instagram stories and live videos on the web version.

Reddit Enhancement Suite (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox, Waterfox (use version 5.12.8), Edge)

Reddit Enhancement Suite is a suite of tools to enhance your Reddit browsing experience. It includes features such as: - Never Ending Reddit - never click "next page" again! - Inline Image Viewer - adds buttons to view images without leaving the page, including support for imgur albums and more - Keyboard Navigation - browse reddit more efficiently than ever before with keyboard shortcuts for most functionality - Uppers and Downers - see the hidden vote totals that Reddit provides behind the scenes - Account Switcher - switch accounts easily and quickly - User Tagger - keep track of users you run across frequently, complete with color coded tags, etc.

An extension that makes your reddit experience way better. It works best when you use the old reddit (you can opt out of new reddit design in your account or you can just go to old.reddit.com) aka the superior reddit.

Enhancer for YouTube (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox/Waterfox, Edge)

Tons of features to improve your user experience on YouTube™: 

 ✔ Control volume level and playback speed with the mouse wheel   ✔ Remove ads from videos (automatically or on-demand)   ✔ Whitelist channels to not automatically remove their ads   ✔ Remove annotations (automatically or on-demand)   ✔ Automatically play videos in 4K, HD, or any other preferred format   ✔ Loop videos (in part or in whole)   ✔ Use custom themes   ✔ Use a larger video player   ✔ Pin the video player   ✔ Execute your own actions using JavaScript ✔ Disable next video autoplay

Social Fixer (Chrome/Brave/Vivaldi, Opera, Firefox/Waterfox, Safari, Userscript) 

Social Fixer for Facebook fixes annoyances, adds features, and enhances existing functionality to make FB more fun and efficient. Filter the news feed, hide sponsored posts and political posts, hide parts of the page you don't want to see, and more!

Thread Reader (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox/Waterfox)

This adds an “Unroll in Thread Reader” option under the arrow with the more options in a tweet, which directly takes you the unrolled thread, making it easier to read twitter threads without having to tweet at the thread reader bot or manually enter URLs on their website. 

Userscripts

You can use userscripts by downloading the userscript manager extensions: Tampermonkey (Chrome/Brave/Vivaldi, Opera, Firefox/Waterfox, Edge, Safari) or Violentmonkey (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox/Waterfox). 

On Chromium browsers, Waterfox, and  Edge I use Tampermonkey because the AdGuard Popup Blocker only works with Tampermonkey for me and VK Media Downloader still works with it. On Firefox, I use Violentmonkey because VK Media Downloader stopped working for me with Tampermonkey on Firefox on both my Windows 10 and Linux computer. AdGuard Popup Blocker doesn’t work with Violentmonkey for me (or on my Windows 10 computer even with Tampermonkey, though AdGuard Popup Blocker does work with Firefox/Tampermonkey for me on Linux), so I also use Popup Blocker (strict) (Chrome/Brave/Vivaldi, Opera, Firefox, Edge) on Firefox.

The userscripts I use are:

AntiAdware- Remove forced download accelerators, managers, and adware on supported websites

AdGuard Popup Blocker- Blocks popups on all websites

Resize Image On “Open Image In New Tab”- Super useful userscript that automatically opens images in their original/largest size (especially useful for tumblr images from text posts that get cut down to like 500 width, but with this they go back to their original size like 540 or 1280)

AdsByPasser- Skips countdown ads or continue pages or shortened links

Local YouTube Downloader- Shows all direct YouTube googlevideo URLs under each YouTube video 

VK Media Downloader- Adds a download button to VK videos and allows you to view or download direct VK video URLs

KissAnime Anti-Adblock Blocker- Removes the cruft, obtrusive advertising and their Anti-Adblock nuisance screen

KissAnime Complete captcha removal- After installing this script you'll probably forget about captchas in Kissanime for good, because it jumps directly to the video without passing by the captcha's page. The only catch is that you'll be using Rapidvideo server as long as this script is activated. (In case you choose a different server you'll have to manually answer the captcha)

Productivity/Usefulness 

Extensity (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi)

A LIFESAVER and MUST HAVE extension for anyone who uses a Chromium based browser. It allows you to quickly enable or disable any extensions (so you don’t have to go to your browser extension page and manually enable and disable there), turn on and off all your extensions at once, and create different profiles for which extensions will be enabled or disabled in them. If you’re someone who uses a lot of extensions like me, it’s absolutely essential, especially since some extensions may break some sites and this lets you easily turn them off if they do. 

Google Translate (Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox/Waterfox) or Translator for Microsoft Edge

These give you the ability to translate entire pages in the same tab/page just like Google Chrome’s built in feature

PageZipper (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox/Waterfox)

A super useful extension that makes it so pages like photo galleries, articles/slide shows with “next”, forum posts, search page results, comment pages, basically anything with multiple pages, etc. loads all on the same page when you scroll. It’s so convenient to not have to constantly click next and spend time loading new pages. All you have to do to enable the extension is click on the icon in your toolbar (you can tell when it’s on when the icon turns green).  

The Great Suspender (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi) or Auto Tab Discard (Firefox)

Extensions that automatically suspend tabs you aren’t using, so they don’t use CPU or memory while they’re open

AutoplayStopper (Chrome/Opera/Vivaldi, also works in Waterfox using Chrome Store Foxified)

Note: Not necessary in Firefox or Brave. In Firefox, you can change media.autoplay.allow-muted and media.autoplay.enabled.user-gestures-needed to false in about:config settings to stop autoplay. As of Firefox 69, Firefox automatically blocks autoplay of both audio and video by default without having to change anything in the about:config settings! :D Brave automatically stops autoplay by default. Both allow you to whitelist sites where blocking autoplay makes videos fail to play. In Waterfox, you can set media.autoplay.enabled to false, but there isn’t a whitelist option and this can break sites, so I prefer to use AutoplayStopper since you can choose to allow autoplay on sites with the extension.

An extension that stops autoplay of HTML 5 and flash videos (you can also allow autoplay if it breaks any sites like rabb.it for example)

Buster: Captcha Solver for Humans (Chrome/Brave/Vivaldi, Opera, Firefox/Waterfox)

Buster is a browser extension which helps you to solve difficult captchas by completing reCAPTCHA audio challenges using speech recognition. Challenges are solved by clicking on the extension button at the bottom of the reCAPTCHA widget. 

f*ck overlays (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi) or ffCk Overlays (Firefox)

Right click on any element or overlay in a page and choose “fuck it” to get rid of it

Peek (Chrome/Brave/Vivaldi, Opera, Firefox/Waterfox) 

An amazing extension that lets you view downloadable media without having to download it! It works for me to watch mediafire videos without downloading them for example.

Page Cache Archiver (Firefox, Waterfox [use version 1.7.0]) or Wayback Machine (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi)

Page Cache Archiver is the best of the page archiving extensions because it lets you save current pages and get previous archived pages using basically all the archiving sites. It does have a Chromium version, but it’s not nearly as good as the Firefox version, so I only recommend it for Firefox. On Firefox, you see all the options when you right click the extension icon on the toolbar. On Chromium browsers... you can’t see any of the options and when you try to change the action on click it automatically goes back to default settings, so all clicking does is save current pages to archive.is. 

Wayback Machine is my preferred archiver extension for Chrome/Brave/Opera. It only uses Wayback Machine, but it allows you to save and get previous archived pages for any site. And if a site has a 404 not found error, it will automatically ask you if you want to find archived versions. You can also choose between the first archived version or the most recent one.

Volume Master (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi)

An extension that lets you adjust the volume for each tab and lets you increase the volume up to 600%. Super useful for any videos with really quiet audio. 

User-Agent Switcher and Manager (Chrome/Brave/Vivaldi, Opera, Firefox/Waterfox)

This extension allows you to reliably spoof your browser "User-Agent" string to a custom one. The extension provides a list of all well-known "User-Agent" strings for different browsers and operating systems as follows:

Supported operating systems: Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Chromium OS, Ubuntu, Debian, Android, iOS, AmigaOS, OpenBSD, BeOS, Haiku, Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Slackware, SUSE, gentoo, Fedora, Gentoo, Mageia, CentOS, Mint, DragonFly, Kubuntu, Mandriva, Zenwalk, Unix, GNU, OS/2, AIX, QNX, BEOS, RISC OS, Symbian, Nintendo, OpenSolaris, Kubuntu

Supported browsers: Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge, WebKit, Avant, Maxthon, Arora, Mozilla, Epiphany, Camino, Chimera, Chromium, Dragon, conkeror, Conkeror, Dillo, Links, Firebird, Swiftfox, Netscape, Flock, iCab, Iceape, icecat, IceCat, IceWeasel, Iron, Meleon, Konqueror, Lunascape, Lynx, MAXTHON, midori, Midori, KHTML, Mosaic, NetSurf, OmniWeb, Tablet, Mini, Phoenix, RockMelt, Safari, Browser, SeaMonkey, Slim, Webkit, w3m

Super useful, especially for Opera. For me, DisneyNow can’t be played on Opera because it will say my browser doesn’t support HLS Streaming, but I just change my user-agent to Chrome with this and then it works perfectly!

Picture-in-Picture (Chrome/Brave/Vivaldi)

Note: Not necessary for Opera or Firefox. Opera already has video pop out enabled by default and Firefox picture in picture can be enabled in about:config settings by changing media.videocontrols.picture-in-picture.enabled, media.videocontrols.picture-in-picture.video-toggle.enabled, and media.videocontrols.picture-in-picture.video-toggle.flyout-enabled to true.

For some video sites in Chrome/Brave (the well known ones like YouTube for example), you can just right click and see picture in picture built in. However, the extension is much better for working on nearly every site. The extension works on rabb.it and DisneyNOW for example, while the built in right click doesn’t. For the extension you just have to click on the icon in your toolbar. 

OpenVideo - ad-free streaming (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox/Waterfox)

You can... ...watch every video on the internet without ads or popups (even on sites which block adblockers) ...download every video ...watch every video in theatre mode (useful for annoyingly bright websites with too small video players) ...watch videos over a proxy for more anonymity and to surpass geo-blocking (eg. Indonesia) ...add subtitles easily from url or hard drive ...watch videos again over the library (starts video where you left) How it works: ► when OpenVideo detects a video on your current site, the number of detected videos will be shown on the OpenVideo extension icon ► click the icon to watch these videos without ads or popups The OpenVideo player is automatically used on the following streaming hosts: ► OpenLoad ► FrutStreams (Streamango / Streamcherry / ...) ► RapidVideo ► MyCloud ► Mp4Upload ► Vidoza ► StreamCloud ► Vivo ► VidTo ► SpeedVid ► FlashX ► TheVideo

The Camelizer (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox/Waterfox)

Shows price history while viewing items on Amazon

Absolute Enable Right Click & Copy (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox/Waterfox)

Gets right click and copy and paste to work on sites that disabled it. For any site that blocks right click and/or copy, just click on this extension and enable copy mode and absolute mode. Unnecessary on Chrome/Brave/Opera if you have the feature to block websites copy and right click protections in Browser Plugs Fingerprint Privacy Wall.

Privacy and Security

Privacy Badger (Chrome/Brave/Vivaldi, Opera, Firefox/Waterfox)

Privacy Badger automatically learns to block invisible trackers. Instead of keeping lists of what to block, Privacy Badger learns by watching which domains appear to be tracking you as you browse the Web. Privacy Badger sends the Do Not Track signal with your browsing. If trackers ignore your wishes, your Badger will learn to block them. Privacy Badger starts blocking once it sees the same tracker on three different websites. Besides automatic tracker blocking, Privacy Badger removes outgoing link click tracking on Facebook, Google and Twitter, with more privacy protections on the way.

Privacy Badger is an awesome extension that blocks trackers. For the most part, it doesn’t break sites, but if it does, you can easily just disable it for the site, if you’re not tech savvy. My favorite thing for those that are tech savvy though is you can adjust each individual tracker, so you can enable the one needed to unbreak the site, while still blocking the rest of the trackers. 

Decentraleyes (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox/Waterfox)

Protects you against tracking through "free", centralized, content delivery. It prevents a lot of requests from reaching networks like Google Hosted Libraries, and serves local files to keep sites from breaking. Complements regular content blockers.

Excellent privacy extension that has never broken any sites for me

HTTPS Everywhere (Chrome/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox, Waterfox [use version 2019.6.4])

Encrypt the Web! Automatically use HTTPS security on many sites. HTTPS Everywhere is an extension created by EFF and the Tor Project which automatically switches thousands of sites from insecure "http" to secure "https". It will protect you against many forms of surveillance and account hijacking, and some forms of censorship.

NOTE: Unnecessary if you use Brave, since HTTPS Everywhere is already built into Brave’s Shield. Also, for Opera most extensions download fine directly from the Chrome store, but for some reason this one is super buggy and doesn’t work for me a lot. But downloading from CRX4Chrome or CRX Extractor works fine for me.

Another privacy extension that has never broken any sites for me :)

Cookie AutoDelete (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox, Waterfox [use version 2.2.0])

Automatically deletes cookies from closed tabs or windows and lets you whitelist sites to keep cookies on, so you don’t have to constantly log back in and out

NoScript (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox, Waterfox [use version 5.1.8.4 through Classic Add-Ons Archive])

Note: You should only use this if you’re willing for a lot of websites to break because it disables javascript on all sites by default. You have to enable the scripts on a page to get the pages working yourself. I love this because it allows me to have only the scripts necessary for the website to work running, while all the other scripts get blocked. 

I don’t care about cookies (Chrome/Brave/Vivaldi, Opera, Firefox/Waterfox)

Allows only cookies necessary for the page to work and gets rid of annoying cookie notices on websites

CanvasBlocker (Firefox/Waterfox) or Canvas Fingerprint Defender (Chrome/Opera/Vivaldi)

Note: Unnecessary on Brave, since Brave Shield has the option to block 3rd party fingerprinting or all fingerprinting. In Brave, you can also change the settings per site in the shield to all device recognition allowed, if it breaks a specific site.

Fakes canvas fingerprint value to protect you from sites trying to fingerprint you

Browser Plugs Fingerprint Privacy Wall (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi)

Privacy extension that blocks font fingerprinting, webGL fingerprinting, can remove right click or copy restrictions, etc. There’s also a white list, if any sites get broken (for me I had to add youku, discord, and dailymotion to the white list to unbreak them). 

minerBlock (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox/Waterfox)

Blocks cryptominers, which is very useful when visiting torrent sites 

CSS Exfill Protection (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox/Waterfox)

Guard your browser against CSS Exfil attacks! CSS Exfil is a method attackers can use to steal data from web pages using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This plugin sanitizes and blocks any CSS rules which may be designed to steal data.

ClearURLs (Chrome/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox/Waterfox)

Removes tracking and other extra unnecessary parameters from URLs using around 130 rules

Don’t touch my tabs (rel=noopener) [Firefox/Waterfox]

Prevent tabs opened by a hyperlink from hijacking the previous tab by adding the rel=noopener attribute to all hyperlinks (excluding same-domain hyperlinks).

Privacy Oriented Origin Policy (Firefox, Waterfox [use version 0.3.0]) 

Prevent Firefox from sending Origin headers when they are least likely to be necessary, to protect your privacy.

[5hfanfiction]

Why Did I Get Married?

Part Seven: Trust Issues

Today was the day the couple’s therapist would be back and they; mostly Camila would have to endure another agonising hour of having Dr Briggs pry her way into the cracks of their marriage. It was never something she was excited for. The only person who knew what happened between them was Maggie, and that was mainly because she was Lauren’s sister. The Cabellos weren’t even aware of it. It’s not to say Camila didn’t want to tell anyone, hell she did, but she was ashamed. What would they say? They were the couple everyone envied and now? They couldn’t even look at each other for longer than a few seconds.

Camila couldn’t sleep last night, so she had been up working on a song. Her third studio album was finally coming to an end, so the songs she had been working on now were just her idea of therapy.

“There’s a shop down the street, Where they sell plastic rings, For a quarter a piece, I swear it, Yeah, I know that it’s cheap, Not like gold in your dreams But I hope that you’ll still wear it,” she sang as she strummed her guitar. Pausing for a moment to jot down the keys. Since Christmas, Lauren had been acting extremely weird with her, and every time Camila tried to bring it up or ask what was wrong, her wife would change the topic.

“Yeah, the ink may stain my skin And my jeans may all be ripped I’m not perfect, but I swear I’m perfect for you,” the only person she could’ve thought about was the one who could make her both happy and sad. The person who had her heart since they were teenagers. People say that young love doesn’t last, Camila and Lauren were determined to prove them wrong, but now? Maybe the people were right.

Izzy stepped into her mother’s bedroom and quietly sat on the bed. She clutched her Elsa from Frozen stuffed doll to her chest, and stared at her mother who was oblivious to her presence.

“Mija?” Camila was a bit startled when she saw her daughter. “What are you doing up so early, princesa?”

Izzy shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep and I heard you singing. I haven’t heard you sing in forever, mummy.”

Camila placed her guitar on the side of her bed and scooted closer to her daughter, “Aw, mija I’m sorry. I know you like it when I sing.”

Izzy shrugged her shoulders and snuggled up to her mother. “Are you and mama going to leave me?”

She was only four years old and didn’t necessarily know the concept of divorce. But hearing that question from her daughter instantly made Camila feel like crap. The couple tried their very best to keep it civil in front of the child, unfortunately they didn’t do a good job.

“Why would you think that?” Camila pulled the child into her lap and held her face in her hand. “Baby, no. Your mama and I love you very much. We’re never going to leave you.”

Tears started to form in the child’s eyes and her mother couldn’t help but feel terrible. What were they doing to their daughter?

“But I hear you two arguing sometimes. And I’m scared because Destiny said that’s what happened before her daddy left her mummy. She doesn’t see him anymore and it makes her sad,” Izzy said through her tears. “I don’t want to be sad like Destiny, mummy.” She clutched onto her mother. Camila didn’t know what to say. How was she going to comfort their four year old daughter? She didn’t even know if their marriage was going to hold up.

When the child had stopped crying, Camila wiped her tears and looked her in the eye. “Princesa, you have to listen to me okay?” Izzy nodded. “I love you. Mama loves you. No matter what happens, you’re always going to have the both of us. We’re always going to be a family, and we’re always going to be your parents that love you so so much.” Izzy just stared at her mother. “Do you remember how much I love you?”

She nodded. “I take the number of stars in the sky and multiply it by a lot. That’s how much you love me. And I love you and mama more.” Camila placed a kiss on her daughter’s forehead.

“I love you, mija. So so so much.”

Izzy smiled softly. “I love you too, mummy. Can we go make breakfast? Mama always does it.”

There was a reason why Lauren always did it. Camila wasn’t the best cook out there. Yes, she could’ve cooked but only to survive. Eggs and bacon? Sure. Pancakes? A bit burnt. But yes. Cup noodles? She lived on that while in college. But an actual meal? That was for her wife to do.

Camila sighed heavily, if it meant that Izzy’s mind would be taken off their conversation, then she would endure cooking. She picked up her daughter in her arms and headed down to the kitchen. They decided to make some oatmeal, while the singer started up the coffee machine. She couldn’t function throughout the day if she didn’t have a daily intake of caffeine.

“Buenos días, mija,” Lauren greeted her daughter with a kiss on top her head. She came down as soon as breakfast was ready, and to her surprise, her family was already awake. “Morning Camz,” she greeted her wife out of the need to be pleasant. Ever since Lauren accidentally stumbled upon Ariana and Camila’s text thread over Christmas, she felt a mixture of anger, hurt and pure sadness. She constantly told her wife just how sorry she was about what happened between her an Hailee was a mistake but for Camila to go out and cheat?

Lauren decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, because her wife may not have cheated on her. But every time she tried to move pass the texts, she couldn’t. Something always drew her back to them.

“Mama, we made you breakfast,” Izzy pointed excitedly at the bowl of oatmeal she dished out for her mother.

Lauren nodded and smiled. “That you did, baby. I can’t wait to taste it.” She took a seat next to her wife, and started eating, giving a thumbs up to her daughter. It wasn’t the best tasting meal she had, but her daughter seemed excited, so she didn’t want to ruin that for her.

“Can we talk?” Camila asked her wife. “It’s about Izzy.” Lauren nodded, once it involved their daughter, she had to comply. “She thinks we’re going to get a divorce.”

The photographer didn’t say anything. At one point, she even contemplated getting a divorce and if their marriage wasn’t getting any better, then wouldn’t the only option be a divorce?

“Lauren? Are we getting a divorce?” Camila whispered out the words, even though Izzy didn’t understand what it was, she didn’t want her to hear.

“I…No. I don’t think so,” Lauren shrugged sadly. “Izzy? Are you done?”

The brunette groaned, she wasn’t going to push the topic as yet. Maybe in therapy. The couple got ready to head to their therapy session, and got their daughter ready for school. She was pretty excited to head back after Christmas break.

***

“Welcome back, Camila. Lauren,” Marissa; the receptionist greeted the couple. “Happy New Year! Dr Briggs is in her office. So you can go in.”

The couple exchanged pleasantries with the woman, then headed into the office. Camila already dreading every moment of it.

“Hi. Hello, Lauren and Camila. Happy New Year!” Chelsea greeted excitedly. “How was the holiday season in the Jauregui-Cabellos’ household?” As usual she offered the couple tea, but this time only Lauren accepted. Camila made a note to keep an eye on her wife, just to ensure that Dr Briggs didn’t slip anything into the drink.

“It was nice. We spent a lot of time with Isabella. We went shopping and carolling around the neighbourhood. Lauren’s sister; Maggie stopped by, so it was just the four of us for Christmas,” Camila stated mindlessly. “It was a nice change being back home for the holidays.” She said with a small smile.

Dr Briggs noted that Camila did in fact seem pleased with being home and actually spending time with her family. She also noted that Lauren seemed a lot different to how she usually was over the other therapy sessions. She seemed rather aloof. 

“Lauren?” Dr Briggs managed to snap the photographer out of her own little world. “What’s your take on spending the holidays together.”

The woman shrugged. “It was fine. A nice change, I guess.”

Camila eyes her wife, who still seemed completely out of it. What was her issue? She was the one who wanted to go to couple’s therapy. Why was she acting like this now?

Dr Briggs made a mental note of Lauren’s behaviour. “Well that good to hear! I bet little Isabella had a great time with both her mothers being home with her.”

Camila nodded. “Yeah, she did. She made it her duty to wake up super early to open her presents.” The woman chuckled at the memory, and her reaction to all her gifts especially Maggie’s gift of an iPad.

“Right,” Dr Briggs nodded happily. “So I’m going to ask you a series of questions to understand better as to why you’re both here. And to understand what the real issue between the two of you are,” the couple nodded. Lauren’s eyes gave off a distant look. Instead of the bright green colour, it seemed to be a dull grey. “Have you tried anything else before coming here?”

Lauren sighed and shook her head ‘no’. “With Camila being busy all the time, and having to focus on my job and Izzy, we didn’t have any time to visit someone else or do anything to stop our marriage from falling apart,” the woman shrugged. “So, yeah. You’re the first person we tried.”

“Plus…I am…I was a bit against coming here. I’m still not entirely happy at the whole idea,” Camila added.

Chelsea nodded in understanding. Of course, the brunette would’ve even skeptical, she had her career on the line. But she needed to fix her marriage. “What are your expectations of the counselling sessions? Did they change over your time since the first session?” She directed the question at Camila.

The singer shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess at first…I still think you’re just trying to pry your way into the cracks of our marriage. I don’t need someone to do that. I know our marriage isn’t the best and I guess, I’m kinda a private person, so putting myself out there is a bit much.” The woman rambled, causing her wife to snort.

“Is there something you want to add Lauren?” Dr Briggs asked Camila’s wife.

Lauren shook her head 'no’. “Not really. The only expectation I have from these sessions is for our marriage to work out. That’s it.”

Dr Briggs nodded and wrote something down on her clipboard. “I can only do so much, but it’s up to the two of you to work everything out. I’m only here as a helper.” She had to ensure the couple that yes, she may be a trained professional, but it was up to the couple to fix their marriage. “How do you truly free about your marriage? Do you feel as thought it is salvageable or is it too late to save it?”

The couple looked at one another. Truth be told, they really did hope that their marriage could’ve been salvaged, but outside of therapy, it seemed like it wasn’t going anywhere. Camila would be in her room, while Lauren was in hers, then they’ll interact like a family when Isabella was around. Now realising that their fighting was taking a toll on their daughter, hopefully something was going to change. If not, then something’s gotta give and that might have to be their marriage.

“I um…I’ll like to think it’s still salvageable. I still have the same feelings I had for Camila since day one, and I really would like for everything to work out and for us to be happily married again.” The singer nodded in agreement with her wife. Though both parties were rather doubtful of the feelings of their partners.

Dr Briggs nodded. “That’s good to hear. Given that you’re both here, there must be something to salvage.” She wrote in her pad before addressing them again. “What bothers you most about her? In a marriage, some things about your partner will always get on your nerves. These things are usually not a cause for a divorce, but the big things like a lack of trust and honour can destroy intimacy.”

“I don’t trust her,” the couple said at the same time.

Camila scoffed. “You don’t trust me? What did I ever do for you not to trust me? I’ve always been faithful to you!”

“Your texts says otherwise, amor,” Lauren bit out harshly. “And no I didn’t go through your phone. I just happened to see them.”

“Oh really? And what did you find huh? Me sending nudes to one of my colleagues? Sexting? Flirting? Or what about a picture of Shawn and I kissing?” Camila started to get heated. “There’s literally nothing on my phone for you to get jealous about and not trust me!”

Dr Briggs cleared her throat. “It’s very good to bring the topic up about a lack of trust. We need to focus on building this trust back. If your partner goes through your phone and sees something they don’t like,” Camila scoffed and folded her arms at her chest. “You should find out why. What’s the real reason why they disapprove of it. So Lauren, kindly tell your partner what you saw and why you didn’t like it.” Chelsea turned to look at Lauren who sighed heavily.

Her throat tightened. It had been bothering her for weeks on end. Whatever Camila said right now, could be true, or she could also be lying. “I saw…I saw a text from Ariana. I know the two of you are close and your relationship is rather…flirty? But I didn’t like what I saw.”

Before Camila started to protest, Dr Briggs turned to address the singer. “Now Camila, kindly inform your partner about whatever it is those texts meant. Or remind her about the nature of your relationship with Ariana.”

“Firstly, my texts messages are private and even though I have nothing to hide, it shouldn’t matter to you. Ariana and I are really close but we are just F R I E N D S,” she spelt out the word. “That’s how you fucking spell friends. Nothing more and nothing less. I love her as a sister but that’s it.”

Dr Briggs wrote in her pad again. “Great. Now that’s been handled, you need to realise that your partner may not agree with some things you do. They may not want to bring the topic up, but you should at least respect them and respect your relationship.”

“Why don’t you trust me Camila? Is it because of the Hailee thing?” Lauren asked her wife and she nodded.

“Yes. The Hailee thing, that you don’t seem to be doing anything about,” Camila rolled her eyes. “I’m tired of you involving her in everything. I don’t trust you around her and I don’t trust her around you.”

Dr Briggs went into a long explanation about trust and that it was needed in a marriage or in any relationship. Without trust, what’s the point of being with the person? You learn to trust someone, but once the trust is lost and gone, it’s a lot harder to try to regain it. That was something they needed to work on.

They answered all the questions Dr Briggs threw at them, such as; What things you would like to change about your spouse?

Do you feel accepted? Are you loved accepted by your spouse?

Do you feel you can communicate with her?

What are the main issues?

When did it problems start?

Are you satisfied with your intimacy?

Are you seeing someone new?

Are there any past conflicts we should resolve?

Do you still love your wife?

Do you still see a future together?

Are you both willing to change to make improvements?

Camila was growing increasingly tired of all these questions but the final question caught her off guard.

“Have you ever considered having an affair?”

Lauren visibly gulped. She knew where this was going. She knew her wife was going to attack her. In all honesty, Lauren did not consider having an affair ever. What happened between her an Hailee was a mistake. She did not once contemplate being with anyone whilst her wife was away. Yes, the distance was terrible and it took a toll on her, but she loved Camila too much to consider cheating on her, even though she may have done it.

“No. I’ve never considered having an affair. What I did was a mistake, but it wasn’t intentional. I never thought about it while I was sober. I never wanted to cheat on you,” Lauren looked at her wife and tried to hold her hand but Camila pulled away.

Chelsea wrote in her pad. She kept noticing how the singer reacted to her wife, realising that she was still rather reserved and wasn’t too keen on forgiving her wife. As yet.

“Maybe I should’ve contemplated having an affair,” Camila laughed bitterly. “For you to feel the hurt you’ve put me through.”

Lauren looked at her wife in disbelief. She tried to say something but her words failed her. “Wow,” was all that she managed to whisper out.

The bell rang signalling that their session had come to an end. “Well, today we’ve went through a lot of emotions and I’ll like to think the both of you learnt a lot about the inner thoughts and feelings of your partners, which in the long run would help to fully understand them better,” she addressed the couple where Lauren still seemed shocked by her wife’s statement. “What you two need to work on as a couple is on trusting your partners. So I have an assignment for the both of you. Ariana is it, Camila?”

The singer nodded.

“I want you to call her up and within our next session, I’ll like for the two of you to spend some time together. And Lauren, Hailee was it? I’ll also like for the both of you to spend some time together. This is as a means of your partner trusting you enough to spend time with this person, and knowing that you won’t do anything to jeopardise your relationship. When you’re done spending time with the person, I’ll like for you to return home and tell your partner what you did. It’s for your partner to trust you and believe in you. Are we clear?” She asked the couple who reluctantly nodded.

***

“Is Ariana going to be here soon?” Lauren asked her wife as she slipped on her bomber jacket. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen her.”

Camila nodded from her position on the couch. “Yeah. She texted that she’ll be here in five. Where’s that pu…secretary of yours?”

Maggie snickered from her corner of the room. Lauren had called up her sister and asked if she was available to babysit Izzy. Of course she had said yes. Any given opportunity to spend with her niece, the woman would’ve taken it.

“Nice save, Camzii,” Maggie said. She had just finished up braiding her niece’s hair. The duo had planned to spend their day at the zoo and then maybe spy on the child’s mothers, but that hadn’t been decided as yet.

Camila rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, Hailee is outside actually. I know you probably wouldn’t want her inside…” Lauren trailed off as she scrolled through her phone.

Maggie told her niece to go grab her jacket upstairs before addressing the couple. “Why don’t you invite her in? I mean Ariana is coming. It’s not even a love triangle anymore. It’s a love rectangle,” she laughed at her lame attempt of a joke. “Tough crowd. But seriously, it’s a trust exercise right? The four of y'all can chat for a bit, then head on your way.”

What Maggie said did make some sense. Before everything went downhill, Hailee and Camila were really good friends, however, the same couldn’t be said about Ariana and Lauren. The pop star was always super friendly with her friend’s wife, but Lauren always felt threatened when it came to her and the relationship she had with her wife.

Camila sighed and nodded. “Invite Hailee in,” the moment those words left her lips, the doorbell rang.

“Let me answer it!” Maggie squealed. “You know I’m lowkey a fan girl and I am in love with Ariana.” The couple allowed her to do it, when the woman opened the door, she was left shell shocked.

“Hi,” Ariana greeted cheerfully but Maggie didn’t respond, she kept staring at her with her mouth agape. “Um,” she chuckled. “Can I come it?”

Lauren laughed. “MAGGIE!”

The younger Jauregui sister blushed furiously, and stepped aside. “Oh right yeah. Come it. I’m Maggie, by the way. Camila’s sister in law.”

Ariana smiled. “I’m Ariana. It’s nice to meet you,” she turned her direction towards her friend and screamed. “CAMILA! Oh my god, I missed you.” She pulled the other singer into a hug. “You won’t believe how happy I was to hear that you wanted to hang out with me.”

Camila smiled as they pulled away from the hug. “I missed you too, Ari. It’s been so long.”

Ariana turned to wave at her friend’s wife. “Hey, Lauren!” Being the super friendly person that she was, she gave the woman a hug as well. Leaving Maggie a bit sad as she didn’t get a hug. “It’s been so long. How have you been?”

The photographer smiled politely, “I’ve been good. What about you? I saw that you’re nominated for a few Billboard awards was it? Congratulations.” There was a knock on the door, and it opened to reveal Lauren’s secretary and the bane to Camila’s existence.

“Hey, everyone,” Hailee greeted awkwardly. “I’m Hailee,” she introduced herself to Ariana; she was also fan-girling but managed to keep it on the down low unlike Maggie.

Izzy came downstairs a couple minutes later, interrupting the awkwardness and heated atmosphere; which was mainly Camila staring daggers at Hailee.

“Aunt Hailee!” Izzy greeted the woman and threw herself on top her. “I’ve haven’t seen you in forever!”

Before Hailee even had a chance to repond, the child’s mother butted in.

“Princesa, do you see who else is here?”

Izzy gasped. “Ari!” She ran and hugged her and placed a huge kiss on her cheek. “Ari, I haven’t seen you in years!” The child exaggerated. It was technically a couple months but do children even know the concept of time?

Maggie noticed the glares that Camila had been sending Hailee and chuckled to herself. “Damn. If looks could kill, Haiz would be dead by now,” her sister in law shot hr a look.

Lauren elbowed her sister. “Even a kid can keep their cool in front of a celebrity and your grown ass chokes up.” She laughed.

Maggie rolled her eyes. “Shut up. I told you, I have a huge crush on her. I’m bound to embarrass myself. Plus, Izzy met her already. I never did.”

“Whatever you say, hermana,” the older Jauregui sister said teasingly. “Maybe you and Izzy should head out. We’ll be leaving soon.”

Maggie nodded. “You’re right. Mini me! Come on, vámonos. Let’s go look for some boyfriends or whatever you’re into. Remember it’s not bad if you’re gay, you have two moms afterall. However, Lauren is your daddy.”

Smack.

“Just shut up and go,” Lauren rolled her eyes. “Bye, baby. I love you.” She kissed her daughter.

“I love you too, mama,” Izzy said as she gave a her mother a goodbye hug.

Camila gave her daughter a hug and a kiss. “I love you, princesa. Don’t let aunty, Maggie misguide you. You’re a good girl. Okay?”

The child nodded and smiled. “I love you too, mummy.”

*** *At a diner*

Ariana placed a drink in front of Camila, as she slid into the booth opposite her. “So I’m not oblivious as I portray myself to be…what’s going on? Why are we out?”

The other woman took a sip of her milkshake and sighed. “It’s a really long story.”

“And I’ve got the time,” Ariana smirked and rested her arms on the table. “Come on lay it on me.” Camila told Ariana from Lauren’s act of infidelity, to the couple not interacting with one another and to couple’s therapy. “Okay. What? Why? You two were my OTP! How’s couple’s therapy going then? Is it working?”

Camila sighed again. “It’s alright I guess. Haven’t seen much of an improvement. Then Lauren started acting really weird because she saw a text from you on my phone.”

“Oh shit. I’m sorry about that. I love you, Milz. But not enough to date you,” Ariana laughed. “Your sister in law is rather hot though. What was her name again? Maddie?”

Camila laughed. “I’m amazing. You’ll be lucky to date me. And her name is Maggie. I think she has the biggest crush on you. She’s obsessed with Dangerous Woman,” she smirked. “Something 'bout you makes me feel like a dangerous womannn.”

Ariana cringed. “Okay wow. Stop. I love my music, but seriously I’m cringing,” she shook her head laughing. “Anyway back to the hot sister in law. I feel like I’ve seen her around. What does she do?”

“She’s a model but she’s pretty out there for work in Guess,” Camila took a bite out of her cookie. “Here let me show you,” she pulled up some pictures on her phone and showed Ariana.

“Oh. Wow. Definitely deserves to be called the hot sister in law. Is Maddie into girls or no?”

Camila laughed. Ariana hadn’t dated anyone since her last relationship a couple years ago. After trying to get her friend back into the dating scene, Camila had given up, but now that she seems to be interested in her very wild, but semi nice sister in law, it was a bit of a shocker.

“It’s Maggie. Short for Margarita. Like the alcohol. The girl can chug back a bottle of rum like it’s nobody’s business. She’s extremely sweet. A bit crazy, but she’s a really nice person,” Camila tried being Maggie’s wing woman even though the woman didn’t ask for her to be. “She did tell me she hooked up with a girl a while back, but you’re the Ariana Grande. Of course she’ll date you.”

Ariana playfully flipped her hair, “You’re right. Who wouldn’t want to date my fine ass?” Camila shoved her friend gently and laughed. “Don’t be a hater, Camzii. But I’ll make sure to stop by to see your super hot sister in law.”

The two ended up chatting for an hour. It was nice spending time with the woman, but Camila’s thoughts kept drifting back to Lauren and Hailee. They were spending their time at a bar and Camila had to trust her wife enough to be around alcohol, with Hailee.

And let’s face it, Camila did not trust Lauren enough. When they got home and told each other what occurred, the singer was not going to believe her wife. But would Lauren possibly jeopardise her marriage by making another mistake?

Who knows?

*** *At a Bar*

“Let’s get this right,” Hailee took a sip of whatever alcoholic beverage she was consuming, “This is some sort of trust exercise? What about the you fall and Camila had to catch you? Doesn’t that make more sense?”

Lauren shrugged. “I mean yeah. But would I trust Camila to catch me? She’ll drop my ass the first second she can get.”

The secretary laughed. “I don’t think she’ll do that. Camila loves you. Whether you choose to believe it or not. And I know you love her too.”

Hailee was right. When she had first met the couple, she could’ve practically felt the love radiating off the two. She hadn’t meant to come between them, unfortunately she did and their relationship seemed like it was spiralling out of control with no means of stopping.

“Honestly? I don’t know if Camila loves me anymore. Things just don’t feel the same between us, anymore,” the photographer sighed sadly.

Hailee took Lauren’s hand in hers, but the woman jerked it back. “Sorry,” she admitted sheepishly. “Camila loves you. She wouldn’t have gone to therapy with you to save your marriage if she didn’t. Just give her some time and she’ll realise it. Maybe she tried to block out her feelings for you, but I know it’s still in there. She can only pretend for so long.”

“Or she actually hates me and found love in Ariana,” Lauren shrugged and sighed as she surveyed the bar. It wasn’t the usual one she came to when she just wanted to get away. But it was the bar she and Hailee came to and had a few drinks too many, then went home and continued drinking. “Or maybe, maybe she never really loved me. That’s a good one.”

“That’s definitely not true, Lauren. Everyone sees how she looks at you.”

The woman chuckled. “With disgust?”

“With love, Lauren. You’re both trying to rush something that clearly needs time to be rebuilt. You don’t just meet someone and jump into a relationship with them. You build a relationship, and when something goes wrong, you fix it and continue to build it,” Hailee tried to make her boss believe the words she was saying. It was true but the couple just wanted everything to go back to how it used to. Obviously it was going to take some time, but how long?

***

“Bye, Camzii,"Ariana waved as she pulled away from the curb of the Jauregui - Cabellos home.

Maggie and Izzy were playing on the swings at the front of the house. They only went to the zoo, Maggie decided against stalking her sister and sister in law, she knew she would’ve gotten the juicy details one way or another.

"Hey, Camzii. How was the date with the hot brunette?” Izzy jumped off the swings and ran into her mother’s awaiting arms.

Camila subtly flipped Maggie off. “It wasn’t a date. We just hung out. Where’s Lauren and the B. I. T. C. H.?”

Maggie threw her head back and laughed. “Okay firstly your insults are becoming lame. But Hailee left and Lauren is inside preparing dinner.”

The singer rolled her eyes. “You know what else is lame? You. Now shut up and go home.”

“How was your day, princesa?” Camila asked her daughter, who was playing with her mother’s necklace. “Did aunty Maggie take good care of you?” She asked the child as she walked past her sister in law and locked the door on the way in.

Izzy went into an animated discussion about how much fun she had at the zoo, and the types of animals she saw. After washing up, they entered into the dining room where Lauren sat at the table awaiting her family.

“Hey,” the photographer greeted her wife softly. “Where’s Maggie?”

At the mention of her name, the woman popped into the room. “You really need to get like some smaller windows. A burglar might enter, or an annoying neighbour that you’re trying to get away from.”

“How the…?” Camila asked. “Didn’t I lock the door?”

Maggie pulled up a chair at the table. “Didn’t you hear me? I slipped in through the window. I couldn’t miss this little discussion,” she tapped the table excitedly. “So when are we going to talk about what we did?” She looked between Camila and Lauren. “Why don’t you go first Camzii? Ladies first right.”

Lauren rolled her eyes. “We’re not talking about this in front of Izzy or you.”

The younger Jauregui sister groaned. “Ugh. You suck.”

“That I do,” she winked.

The four of them ended up eating their dinner without bringing the topic up, just yet. Izzy kept talking about the zoo and how she wanted to go with her parents the next time. When they finished eating, Camila carried Izzy upstairs to shower and get ready for bed.

***

“Where’s Maggie?” The younger woman asked as she entered the living room. “Is she going to pop out through a window this time?”

Lauren laughed softly. “Nah. She has a shoot tomorrow so she’s gone for the night.”

Camila nodded and took a seat on the couch. She brought her legs up to her chest and turned to look at her wife. “Did you…did you do anything you weren’t supposed to do?” She asked softly. Camila wasn’t sure if her heart would’ve handled anymore hurt from the woman who had promised to cherish it.

Lauren looked a bit taken back and offended. “Did you really think I would’ve gotten drunk out of my mind and kissed her?!” She raised her voice. “Can’t you see that I’m completely sober? We had one drink, Camila! That was it. You don’t see me accusing you of anything.”

“I just asked, Lauren! I told you I don’t trust you,” the singer bit back harshly. “And don’t try to act high and mighty. I know you think I must’ve done some shit with, Ariana.”

“Yeah, well I’m hoping that you didn’t and if you tell me you didn’t, then I’m going to believe you.”

The couple never seemed to get along for longer than a couple of minutes without it turning into an argument. That seemed to have always been started by Camila.

Camila stood up. “You know what, Lauren? I’m getting sick and tired of this! Of the constant fighting! I don’t trust you, but you’re not making an effort to make me regain that trust. For some god unknown reason, you don’t trust me and I’ve literally done nothing!”

“That’s exactly it! You portray Ariana more as your wife than you do me. You hang out with her more than you with Izzy and I. You ditched our FaceTime dates to hang out with her! What else do you expect me to think?!” The couple were arguing loudly and unknown to them, Izzy had been watching them. “You can have anyone, Camz…anyone and you chose me. A nobody. You can just decide to pick yourself up one day and leave. Then I’ll be left here alone, you might try to take Izzy from me. That’ll break me, Camz. I can’t…I can’t handle that.”

A tiny voice caught the couple off guard. “Mama? Mummy?” When they turned to see their daughter, she had tears in her eyes. “What’s … what’s going on?”

They weren’t just breaking their own hearts, they were also breaking a four year old’s.

***

Y'all I’m back! I’m sorry for being MIA but now that my main fic is over, WDIGM (Why Did I Get Married?) will have all my attention.

Dropped a long ass update for you guys. Hope you enjoyed it 🦋

Wattpad:Commander_Camren

[douchebagbrainwaves]

OK, I'LL TELL YOU YOU ABOUT BUBBLE

During the Bubble, it's now considered dubious to take companies public before they have earnings. They don't want search to work. Here's where benevolence comes in. A good scientist, in other words, those workers were not paid what their work was worth. Such tricks account for some variation in wealth, and indeed for some of the statements that get people in trouble, and start asking, could this be true? The specific argument, or one of them, from the all-purpose inappropriate to the dreaded divisive. If everything you believe is something you're given, then of course it seems that it should be helpful to anyone who wants to understand the essence of Lisp—is that it can be written in any number of different languages. Partly because, as components of oligopolies themselves, the corporations knew they could safely pass the cost on to their customers, because their competitors would have to as well. But if you're mostly interested in other questions, being labelled as a yellowist will just be a distraction. Now, thanks to technology, the time to act is always now.

Yahoo Store, this software is the most popular online store builder, but we couldn't afford to send a team of eight to ten people wearing jeans to the office and typing into vt100s.1 The iPhone and the iPad have effectively drilled a hole that will allow ephemeralization to flow into a lot of new areas. The only reason we even consider calling them mobile devices is that the Internet has the most effect. When there's something we can't say.2 There is no such thing as a freelance programmer. It will be a good time for startups. I believed these things were good because they were cheap. In the early 1990s I read an article in which someone said that software was a subscription business. If you work patiently it's less stressful, and you can do about this conundrum, so the best plan is to go for the smaller customers first.3 They made one seem old. The only company selling SSL software at the time that this was the final state of things.

Having good ideas is an alarmingly small component of being a good speaker.4 Most struggles, whatever they're really about, will be your own confidence in it.5 You pay more, but created new projects for them. The breakup of the Duplo economy happened simultaneously with the spread of computing power was a precondition for the rise of startups. Taking a company public at an early stage is simply retail VC: instead of going to venture capital firms for the last round of funding, you go to the theater and look at the YC application, there are ways to do it well or they can be swapped out for another supplier. A timeslice selected at random would more likely find me tracking down a weird DLL loading bug on Swedish Windows, or tracking down a weird DLL loading bug on Swedish Windows, or tracking down a weird DLL loading bug on Swedish Windows, or tracking down a bug in the financial model Excel spreadsheet the night before a board meeting, rather than something generated by doing what other people wanted, this is exactly what you'd get on noticing that some people made much more than others. The main value networks supply now is ad sales.6 The industries themselves changed. Investors' main question when judging a very early startup is whether you've made a compelling product.

Since the Internet was the big new thing, investors supposed that the more Internettish the company, not its market cap. Suppose you realize there is nothing the rich like more than convenience. Anyone can build whatever they want on it, and have never spoken to a group of people for decades. So a company making a mass-produced car can afford to be candid about what you haven't figured out yet. Partly because, as components of oligopolies themselves, the corporations knew they could safely pass the cost on to their customers, because their competitors would have to be careful to avoid if he happened to set his time machine for Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1992. It's good to talk about how you plan to make money selling hardware at high prices. But once it became possible to make lots of new things, partly because they're more flexible, and partly because they want the lower costs of new technology.

It seemed like everything around me was crap. Which can be transformed into: If you are persistent, even problems that seem out of your way to bring it up e. The phrase personal computer is part of the mob, stand as far away from the programmers. When people are bad at math, they know. The consolidation that began in the late 19th century continued for most of human history the usual way to accumulate a fortune by creating wealth, society as a whole ends up poorer.7 This may be true; this may be something we need to fix. As a founder, you're buying stock with work: the reason Larry and Sergey are so rich is not so much that they've done work worth tens of billions of dollars, but that it makes other people want to help them. It was only then I realized he hadn't said very much. These are supposed to be an inborn trait in humans. In the best case, total immersion can be exciting: It's surprising how much you can learn from them.8

It's still early days.9 And you know when to stop optimizing too: we eventually got the Viaweb editor behave more like desktop software. If ideas really were the key, a competitor with the same expectant air as a cat bringing you a mouse it has just killed. Partly that users needed him. In technical matters, you have another reason not to keep your job. But that's a mistake—an even bigger mistake than believing what everyone was saying in 1999. So a company making a mass-produced versions will be, for users and developers both. After a while, if you can.

You can hold onto this like a rope in a hurricane, and it was like trying to run through waist-deep water. And paying attention is more important to reliability than moving slowly. You don't have to send everyone the same signal, and you can release it as soon as it was starting to break up. Why climb a corporate ladder that might be at different companies. Central France in 1100, on. I was at Yahoo, I couldn't have done this. So for the next hundred years. And at least 90% of the work that even the highest tech companies do is of this second, unedifying kind. There's a shocking amount of shear stress at every point where a startup touches a more bureaucratic organization, like a dangerous toy would be for a toy maker, or a clothing retailer?

Notes

Steven Hauser. Top VC firms regularly cold email. Businesses have to do and everything I write out loud can expose awkward parts. You should probably pack investor meetings as closely as you get nothing.

I tried ranking users by both average and median comment score, and help keep the number of discrepancies currently blamed on various forbidden isms. Living on instant ramen would be improper to name names, while simultaneously implying that you're not doing anything with it, Reddit has had a day job might actually be bad if the students did well they would never guess she hates attention, because the Depression. My guess is a scarce resource. To study the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music, and that there's more of the most general truths.

How much more fun in this essay, I didn't care about, just those you should prevent your beliefs about how the courses they took might look to an investor I don't know of no one who's had the discipline to pull ahead in the US is becoming less fragmented, the average NBA player's salary at the moment it's created indeed, from which Renaissance civilization radiated.

What drives the most powerful men in Congress, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson. To get all the way they have to include things in shows is basically a replacement mall for mallrats. I started doing research for this essay. What they forget is that the worm infected, because it was cooked up, how little autonomy one would have met 30 people he meets at parties he's a real partner.

World War II had disappeared.

Icio. Presumably it's lower now because of that.

For example, if I can hear them in their racks for years while they may then, depending on how much effort it costs. But you couldn't do the startup is rare. Investors are professional negotiators, and b the valuation should be clear and concise, because such users are stupid. I know of at least what they give with one of the most dramatic departure from his predecessors was a kid that you'd want to figure out yet whether you'll succeed.

He devoted much of observed behavior.

I say in principle is that they can get done before that. If all the combinations of Web plus a three hour meeting with a faulty knowledge of human nature, might come from meditating in an urban context, issues basically means things we're going to get great people to do tedious work. Founders are often compared to what you care about may not be to diff European culture have in 1800 that Chinese culture didn't, they would probably find it was considered the most, it's easy for small children pointed out that taking an angel investment from a company's culture.

Thanks to Harj Taggar, Matthias Felleisen, Aaron Swartz, Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Naval Ravikant, Garry Tan, and Jessica Livingston for sparking my interest in this topic.

[lonebeacon]

Discord Log: Tommy & Nora (1/3)

It's quite impressive the way Nora comes charging out of the Lodge's front door, ipad in hand (for her clipboard is actually an ipod -- there is an app for that, after all) and her second in command right behind her, repeating over and over that she swears she told them Sunday. And Nora has no doubt she did. In fact, when they reach said balloon delivery person, Nora has no problem pulling up the paperwork and showing the delivery date as April 29th. Is it April 29th? No. Then take them back. 

Yep. That's right. Back. All of them. And no, she can't just store them someplace until Sunday as they will most likely lose air before then because everyone knows latex balloons only last 24 hours. Making sure not a single balloon is left behind, she waits until the van is pulling off before handing the ipad over and approaching her brother. "See. No time at all. Car's in the lot. Well truck. I have Colt's truck today."

He watches with a fond smile, leaning against the borrowed bike as he shakes his head. He's missed her, all of them really, and he's honestly not sure why he's been avoiding coming home as much as he has. He's done his best to sort himself out, put some eye drops in, had the ultimate hangover breakfast, popped some sort of upper Joe said would fix him up but this is his family.  Something feels off. He feels off. It's likely all Polo's fault, at least that's what he tells himself. When in doubt, blame Polo. He's a Spaniard anyway, his dad would say he deserves it. "You sure you don't wanna take the bike?" he tries, with a wink as he takes the iPad from her, nodding his head towards the beautiful beast Joe bought on a whim. "She's a beauty. Ride's like a fucking dream." 

He grins, pocketing the iPad before he opens his arms, "Are you gonna give me a hug, or are you still thinking about balloons?" he pauses, "Cause I gotta say, I'm starting to get a little bit insulted."

"I'm sure." She loves her little brother, she loves him and all her siblings so much that it hurts. But she is not getting on the back of a bike that he is driving, which has nothing to do with his extra curriculars (as she doesn't know about those) and everything to do with the fact he's 12. At least to her.

She doesn't bother answering, just goes to him and pulls him into a hug. The twins had only been gone six weeks but it seemed so much longer. Possibly because they'd never been away that long. The last time anyone went away for more than a week or two was...Charlie? When he did his semester abroad? But that was Charlie and this was Tommy and Jordan and it was just nice to have them home.

"Brady's been asking about you for days. Jordan too. You need to come by and see him and Lucas."

"Your loss." he shrugs, returning her hug enthusiastically as he breathes her in for a second. He'd missed her. All of them really, but there'd always been a significant enough age gap between them and Nora that he felt drawn to her. Safe even. She was constant, loving and reliable and that wasn't a regular occurrence in his life these days. A life without Layla and he was pretty sure going to be without Jordan too. Something he couldn't imagine, nor did he want to. He wasn't going to think about it. He was actively avoiding all of it and it was working out pretty well as far as he was concerned.

He bites his lip at her words, the familiar guilt settling heavy in his stomach. He's been back for two days and hasn't seen his nephews. He hasn't seen anyone but them especially. It's uncomfortable, acknowledging where he's falling short and even more so having Jordan brought up in conversation. It's harder, in person, to pretend his whole fucking life isn't falling apart at the seams.

"...yeah, yeah I'm gonna come see the little guys, bring their presents." he pauses, "I uh -- figured Jordan would've already been by."

"Not yet. But then, she's been pretty pre-occupied. Making introductions, playing tour guide, avoiding Dad." Because Nora knew exactly what avoiding their father looked like. She still did it from time to time when he got it into his head that she was being particularly 'Nora' about something (which, she still wasn't sure how she felt about that as a phrasing). "I was thinking maybe the two of you could come over together. Unless, of course, you have a reason why that's not a good idea..."

She didn't believe for a second that everything was fine between the twins. She knew what fine looked like with them. And she knew what not fine looked like with them. And this was definitely not fine. The fact that they had split up in Europe was not fine. Something had happened and she was damn well going to find out what.

Leading Tommy towards the truck, Nora climbed up into the driver's side.

"Guessing dad wasn't a big Polo fan?" he suppresses a grin, glancing down to hide it as he climbs into the truck. It won't do to be too obvious at the pure joy his dad hating Polo brings, but that doesn't mean he can't feel it. Because he does. A big old pot of joy for the dick head of a spaniard.

He pauses, attempting to still his slightly shaking hands as does up his seatbelt. He knows when Nora is pressing, knows when she's trying to get information and he's not on his game. He's not on top form, feels fucking horrific and whatever Joe gave him isn't having the affect he'd wanted it to. He's coming down and he knows it. Having to lie and act at the same time is fucking exhausting.

"I uh -- dunno if our schedules are gonna match up." he shrugs, feigning casual. "Y'know, I've gotta sort some work out, get some cash to head back to Europe."

"Dad was...Dad. Perfectly civil, but also quite clear that he and Jordan would be 'catching up' at a later date. Be prepared for your own 'catch up' once he sets eyes on you. He seems to mostly be pissed about the fact you two split up. And that Jordan went running off with some guy she just met." Which was what, right now, the family believed to be the case -- that Jordan had fallen head over heels for Paolo and run off with him.

It wasn't exactly out of the realm of possibility. Jordan kept saying that wasn't what happened, though. That Tommy had left her. Which was why Nora was trying to gage Tommy's reaction to these things. Luckily, having Colt's truck instead of her own, smaller, car meant that at least some of attention was taken by the vehicle and the fact nothing was where it was supposed to be. So she missed the slight shaking. "Where to?"

"Went running off with--" he cuts himself off, not asking that as the question he planned because he's not sure how to explain what actually happened. He doesn't fucking know what happened if he's honest. Yet the periods of his life he doesn't remember are becoming more and more frequent, and the guilt at not setting them straight about Jordan is intense. He's always had her back, they've always had one anothers back and he's spent his whole life being willing and ready to fall on the sword for her. Maybe he still would, even if it meant admitting he'd fucked off first. Maybe he would make that sacrifice if he wasn't so pissed about Polo. If he didn't feel replaced and a thousand other things he can't explain even to himself.

"Uh -- the duck and goose, they do a good pint -- even dad doesn't hate it." he points to the right, indicating she should make the next turn as he leans back in his seat. "So have you uh -- you seen Layla?"

And there it was. That slight moment before he cut himself off. Jordan's meeting Paolo wasn't what caused the split; she was sure of that now. Question was, what had?

Turning as Tommy indicated, Nora angled the truck towards the Duck and Goose -- a place she didn't really need directions to. All of the Hastings siblings had visited that place numerous times. It all came with being the children of an Englishman.

"Every weekend. She's my best waitress. Why?"

He shifts in his seat, glancing out the window once more. He shouldn't have asked. He didn't want to know about Layla and yet he did. He wanted to know she was okay, but he didn't want her to be okay either. He wanted her to miss him like he missed her. Except he didn't, because it was his fucking fault in the first place. Kissing someone else had been bad enough, but according to Joe he'd been sleeping with other people, fucking around on Layla. He didn't remember, but that was nothing new and Joe had no reason to lie. She deserved to be okay.

"Just -- just wondering." he bites his lip once more, "...it wasn't her fault you know? In case you were gonna fire her or something. Don't...don't take my side on this one."

[cosmosogler]

oh my god, yesterday was the wooooorst.

i left for the airport on time. the bus app said that the bus would arrive at the stop in 10 minutes (and it was a 2 minute walk away). so i had 2 hours to make a ~30 minute ride.

i missed the bus by so much that i didn’t even see it drive away from the stop before i arrived. the app had just, completely lied i guess? the rest of the day was also like that.

so i walked to the downtown station to try to catch the other bus. i also just missed that one according to the lady at the counter. she said the next downtown bus was coming in 40 minutes. so i called a taxi after fretting about it for a few minutes. the taxi driver said they’d be there in 15-20 minutes so i was like “ok.” the other route would go by in a half hour so a taxi would be faster.

the taxi took over 40 minutes to arrive. i told them never mind and got on the second bus. they said they had just pulled into the station and seemed pretty salty about it. but like... that was more than twice as long as they said they’d take.

the bus didn’t leave the station for another ten minutes. i made the wroooong choice. the bus also stopped at every single stop along the route and got stuck at some long red lights. i called my mother. i complained about it to harrison. but nothin was gonna make that bus go faster.

i missed my flight by 10 minutes.

i got put on the next flight... which was in six hours. instead of 9 or 10 pm, i’d be getting home at 3 am (my time). so i spent 6 hours bumming around the airport. i couldn’t get food when i was hungry because the person behind the counter at the snack bar didn’t show up for a very long time. i started drawing a picture on my ipad that i’d planned on working on during the flight.

the flight took off late. i had had a 20 minute layover in charlotte, so every single minute was making me more and more antsy. then when we arrived in charlotte we got put at the wrong gate so the plane sat there for more than 5 minutes before trundling away to the new gate.

the gate was at the end of one terminal. the plane i had to catch was on the other end of the airport at the end of another terminal. i sprinted!!! i had ten minutes to get there!!!

i was really bummed because you’d think since i can bike 12 miles that i could run for more than one minute before completely losing my breath and stamina. though to be fair i had not eaten and was wearing a heavy backpack and a bra that’s a little too tight. i was wheezing after a few seconds.

i actually made it? and i got my boarding pass printed at the counter with 4 minutes to spare before boarding started. i ran back to the bathroom but the line was so long i’d never make it back to the gate (the area was under construction and the nearest bathroom was more than 2 minutes away from the gate). 

it had been a few hours since i’d gotten to use the restroom, and with my gallbladder out i’ve had less... like, tolerance for waiting. that might be a “stress has destroyed my body” thing more than a gallbladder thing though.

anyway i had to fidget in my plane seat for 45 minutes while waiting for boarding to end and the takeoff and then we had to reach cruising altitude.

on the flight my ipad pencil wouldn’t connect to the ipad (airplane mode i guess?) so i couldn’t draw for the 5 hours i was sitting there. i got out smash instead since i got my 3ds fixed the other day... i got really REALLY good at hitting rest on a moving target as jigglypuff. i spent like 40 minutes doing nothing but that. the other hour was just working on general combos and taking on the computer as dedede. because i had nothing else to do and wanted to get good at it again. i made a gunner mii based off blue but the mii characters don’t really seem to have any natural combos? it’s just really hard to rack up damage with them. jumbi’s way easier to play as, at least. she’s got a sword.

my thumb started hurting from the new thumb stick (it wasn’t broken in yet i guess) so i put the game away and dozed for the rest of the flight. i made some notes for the story... just thinkin about how i wanted to work out some conversations. i mostly wanted to rest because i’d be getting home at 4 am in the morning my time, the airport is an hour away from my parents’ house. i didn’t get any sleep at all.

when i got to the airport my mom and dad were actually there? i thought they’d be picking me up at the curb. but they snuck up behind me while i was trying to get to baggage claim and mom almost pushed me down the escalator.

dad acted like everything’s normal. and i guess things are “normal” now. as in, this is the new normal, because dad has either completely ignored what he did or forgotten about it. 

he probably forgot about it. grabbing and threatening me and using real personal insults wasn’t a big deal ~to him~. grabbing me while i was laying in bed trying to sleep wasn’t a big deal ~to him~.

i pretended to sleep on the car ride home but again couldn’t manage to doze off. i wrote a few more story notes in my memo after a while because i gave up.

when i got home i went basically right to bed without even putting on pajamas and then i couldn’t sleep. wiley came to cuddle with me for a little bit. once he was satisfied that he had stepped on me enough times he left. i still couldn’t sleep.

when i finally did doze off, i woke up like two hours before my alarm was set to go off. so i guess i got like five hours of sleep maybe?

today was a blur. i spent a large fraction of it scanning in my old comic pages. i couldn’t get my sketchbook to fit in the scanner though no matter what i tried (i tried a lot of arrangements). so i’ll either figure that out later or not bother. there was a big dark line down the left side of the images. i was also a little upset that my loose pages didn’t fit in the scanner, so there’s a bit of the side clipped off every page image now. i was so broken up about how much i was losing that i didn’t even change the deviantart images. i know i shouldn’t put stuff on the edges of the page, but i didn’t really register it when i started the comic. i had started to use the whole page, and i put dialogue at the top and off to the sides to give myself more room to draw. i had to erase and redraw a lot of speech bubbles.

then i think i dicked around online for a while, uploading the images and stuff, and then i went downstairs to try to draw on the ipad and maybe finish that picture i’d started. i don’t think it’s going to be a fast picture... i don’t have the energy for shading though.

my brother came home so i said “hi” and “nice anime hair.” his hair is more than twice as long as mine, at least in the front. in the back it’s not quite that much longer. we drove out to freddy’s for dinner and both got real sick from the greasy burgers. he got it worse though because i had a veggie burger. then we got ice cream because we’re geniuses.

then we got groceries but i couldn’t find any tempeh. so tacos are gonna have to wait.

mom came home at 8 pm. she’d been out of the house working or driving to/from work for 13 hours today. she’s going to work for 6 hours tomorrow too. she told me about our my financial situation. but then she gave me a bunch of excuses to not teach me how to do taxes yet again this year.

i gotta start paying off my student loans though. can’t let that interest build up.

villanova apparently blew all my parents’ retirement funds. i didn’t realize they didn’t actually provide us with any financial aid. we couldn’t get loans because of the retirement money... all i managed to do at villanova was almost die!

while i was hanging out with my brother he made a few “jew” jokes. i pretended to be extremely confused. he asked if i’d never heard of jew jokes before and i shrugged and said not really. at least it got him off track. he didn’t tell any more.

i need to read up on how to deal with family members who get... weird about race. my brother’s already made holocaust jokes though. he’s been doing that. i get the feeling he fell in with the wrong crowd. i don’t remember what to do about it.

genevieve seems bored to tears. from the way my family describes her behavior she seems... depressed. she won’t go for walks. she doesn’t leave her bed and doesn’t come when called. she still won’t touch the stairs and she doesn’t spend much time in the backyard. 

i got her to come twice when i called today at least. i had to be really insistent and annoying but she did come over eventually and i highly praised her generosity. that seemed to cheer her up. she wagged her tail and everything. it’s so hot out... maybe tomorrow i can get her to go to the park for a few minutes. we’ll see. 

whenever i try to interact with eve my family, like, tells me how it is with her. like she’s just Like That now and there’s nothing they can do about it. “she won’t go up the stairs. she just won’t.” “she won’t come when we call her. she just looks at us. that’s all she does.” when i called eve my brother actually interrupted me to tell me yet again that she doesn’t come when called.

i got her to come.

when i try to encourage eve to check out the stairs my mother has interrupted me three times to tell me eve won’t go up the stairs. like she doesn’t want me to even try. eve is so lonely. i can tell. she’s bored and lonely. that’s why she’s started chewing up cardboard and stuff left on the floor.

i’m gonna take my work downstairs tomorrow and work in the kitchen i think. 

this evening i tried to start drawing for the comic again. i got one panel done, but IT’S SO HOT HERE. MY HANDS WERE SWEATING BEFORE I COULD EVEN PICK UP THE PENCIL. EVERYTHING GOT SO SMUDGED!!! it’s going to be a real struggle to finish two scenes this week. ten pages... i’ve got three finished already and in my drafts on the comic. so, i need to draw seven pages. i’ll work on it tomorrow if i can. these pages might suffer because of the heat though. i smudged one of the older pages before i could even get it in the scanner. i somehow got graphite on my LEFT hand, which never gets smudgy when i work... it’s always the side of my right hand since i rest it on the paper so it doesn’t shake.

my back really, really hurts. my shoulders and neck also really hurt. i tried stretching, but i didn’t really put a lot of effort into it... i always feel so, like, unable to do things here. unwilling to do things, maybe. lethargic. i didn’t get to meditate yesterday and i’m skipping it tonight because i don’t want to make noise with the guided thing. i’ve been lax about it anyway. i feel so on edge.

when i tried to have lunch at like 10:30 (? i lost track of time) this morning i was immediately very ill. so i ended up not having any food for about 27 hours, if we decide to cut out the leftovers adventure there. i didn’t try to eat again until i went out with my brother. to fast food... only good decisions, folks!!

still feeling super lethargic even though i finished a panel. i’ve got a lot of drawing to do. i hope tomorrow i feel better. on sunday i’m going to the movies with asher, i think. 

you know what i’m probably feeling so low energy because i didn’t eat for so long and also i haven’t slept well in two days. or, really, in a very long time, but especially the last two nights. i still need to talk to mom about finances for, like, hiring a study specialist... i don’t think we’re going to have the money to afford the psychiatrist my therapist recommended. she REALLY wants me to get a second opinion on my meds but i just don’t think it’s a big enough deal to warrant shelling out for full price psychiatrist appointments. that doctor doesn’t take insurance and it’s just... i know how expensive this gets. it’s already expensive enough getting even regular check ups for snoopy.

i hate living here... it’s so dirty and dusty and dilapidated. in my apartment i keep everything pretty orderly and don’t hold on to things i’m not using. or at least, i try not to. i don’t have enough space to hoard random stuff and i don’t get that attached to those things anyway. my mom won’t even throw out old food that nobody ate for the 3 years before it went bad (2 years ago). they’ve been using my room as a storage space while they paint the game room, but that project’s going super slow because they’ve been at it for months now. so now there’s just tons of crap stacked in front of my dresser (so i can’t actually get to the clothes i left here) and you can’t even get to my sister’s door. she’s in korea anyway i guess so that doesn’t matter as much.

ok anyway i’ve been writing for a while now. thanks for listening. i’ve got a lot more sore muscles than just my back and neck and shoulders. maybe i pulled something while sprinting around the airport yesterday, because breathing is a chore and my legs are just... not feelin it. i’m just trying really hard not to get sick. my mom came in my room and coughed all over me without even covering her mouth so it’s like, well, guess i don’t have any control over that either! 

high stakes, no control!!!!!!!!! just how i’m used to it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it’s 11:40 arizona time but i know my body thinks it’s way later. i’m so tired. i don’t think i’ll be able to sleep though. guess i should try anyway.

[rosekmorgan]

We never should have tried to break into Mrs. Hudson's garage.

"This is a bad idea." Melissa was right. This was a bad idea.

"We're still going to do it though, right?" I asked, my voice shaking.

"Fuck yeah, we are." Damien grinned.

If it weren't for him, I never would have had the nerve to show up that cold January night. I don't think Melissa would have either. The three of us stood outside of Mrs. Hudson's garage, our black clothes and acne-riddled faces lit faintly by the glow of the moon. Damien shrugged his duffel bag off his shoulder and onto the ground. He knelt down, unzipping it as gingerly as he could.

My eyes darted between Damien, who was rifling through his bag of tricks, and Melissa. Her eyes were fixed on the half-circle window above the garage. I followed her gaze, but saw nothing other than the tattered curtains Mrs. Hudson always seemed to keep drawn.

"Are you sure that's not her bedroom?" Melissa hissed to me. "What if she wants to let in some air and - "

Damien stood up from his bag, a heavy pair of bolt cutters in his hands. They looked older than he did.

"It's not her bedroom. It's like, an attic or something. Besides, do you honestly think she's still awake? At her age?" Without pausing for a reply, Damien walked up to the garage door and inspected the chain inexplicably slung across it. Then he got to work.

Melissa and I watched for a few moments as he tried to cut through the thick, rusted metal of the chain. The grunts of frustration let us know that this wasn't as easy as he'd been expecting. Not wanting to embarrass Damien by staring, I let my eyes drift away from his struggles and back up to the window.

My heart seemed to stop, then race to catch up on the missing beats. The curtains were moving. I was sure they’d been still just moments before.

"Guys? Guys, oh fuck, I think -"

"Jesus, Parker! Would it kill you to be quiet for like, a minute?" Damien snapped, not in the mood for hearing what I had to say. "I've almost -" He grunted. "- got this!"

As he said it, the chain finally snapped, falling in two pieces to the ground. In that moment, I think all three of us realized that we should have thought things through a bit more; The sound of metal on concrete was unmistakable and loud.

"We have to go. Now!" I grabbed Damien's arm, but he shook me off.

"Parker, it's fine. She's an old woman and she's indoors. Do you honestly think she heard that?" There was a slight quiver to his voice, and I wasn’t sure if Damien was trying to convince me or convince himself. Either way, I'd had enough.

"No. Fuck this. I'm leaving." As I turned to leave, Melissa's voice was the only thing that stopped me.

"Parker - " I turned back around. "...You're right. We should go." She said it quietly, almost embarrassed, as if she’d only just realized how bad an idea breaking-and-entering really was.

"Oh, come on! That was the hard part, anyway." Damien looked back and forth between Melissa and me, waiting for one of us to change our minds. When we didn't, his face fell. "Screw both of you guys." He sounded more hurt than angry.

I felt a prickly sensation run down my spine as I realized just how close Damien was to getting into Mrs. Hudson's garage. I thought of what my parents would say if they knew I was out here, breaking into our neighbour's house, and I made the final decision to leave.

Melissa followed me as I went. I hoped Damien would come after, but he didn't. Instead, he reached into his bag and pulled out a wire coat hanger.

I'm not his dad. And just like that, I'd justified leaving my friend alone.

Melissa and I barely spoke on the walk home. I snuck back into my bedroom the same way I snuck out - up the tree next door, a very careful jump perfected through years of practice to my roof, then through the window. Getting in was easy, but I didn't sleep well that night. I tossed and turned, head swirling with guilt over leaving Damien and trying to break into the garage in the first place.

---

First thing the next morning, I checked my phone in the hope I'd find a message from Damien. Maybe his heist went well after all. But when I checked, there were no new messages.

He must be pissed.

I tried to shove aside the requisite angsty teenage feelings welling up in me long enough to grab some pancakes and say goodbye to my dads.

Like every morning, I met Melissa at her house. But I didn't wish her a good morning. Without thinking, the first thing out of my mouth was "Have you heard from Damien?". She hadn't heard from him either. If he isn't texting Melissa, he must really be mad.

We stopped outside of Damien's house on our way. Sometimes, Damien would get a ride from his mom, so not seeing him at the door wasn't much of a surprise. Melissa didn't seem too bothered by it, but for some reason, when I didn't see him there, my heart sank.

"Do you think he's avoiding us?" I asked as we continued on our walk. Melissa laughed lightly, but didn't smile.

"Wouldn't you?"

---

Damien and I didn't have class together until third period, so I tried to put him out of my mind for the meantime. I didn't bother texting him. If he was mad, knowing him, he’d stay mad. The morning came and went, and before long I found myself sitting in French class.

Mme Martin entered as she typically did - a coffee in one hand, an iPad in the other. As she pulled up a presentation about conjugating -er (or...something like that. I wasn't actually paying attention), I looked over to Damien's desk.

No Damien.

My mind started to race - maybe he was just running late. Or maybe...maybe he got caught.

Continuing to ignore the lesson on something that I almost certainly would someday fuck up on a test, I grabbed my phone from my pocket to text Melissa.

damien's not here

I slipped the phone into my desk so I would be able to see if the screen lit up with a new message.

"Parker?" Mme Martin called my name.

"Uh...I, um, yes?"

She sighed.

"The question I just asked, Parker. What's the answer?"

God, I hated when she did this. Any time you weren't paying attention, you could be sure Mme Martin not only noticed, but would put you on the spot. Most of the teachers at our school were nice, but Mme Martin seemed to really like embarrassing you in front of the whole class. She got some sort of weird thrill from it. It was kind of creepy how much she liked making students squirm.

But for once, I wasn't paying attention for a good reason! Not that I could tell her that. I figured ‘oh, I'm just worried about a friend, I think he might have been arrested, because when I last saw him he was breaking into a garage’ wouldn't go over well.

"Sorry Madame. I wasn't listening. I -"

My phone vibrated loudly against the metal of my desk, cutting me off and ending any chance I had of talking my way out of it.

"Phone, Parker." Great. Not only did I have to give up my phone, I had to walk all the way to the front of the class to give it to her.

I heard the quiet jeering of my classmates. I slouched my way to the front, my face turning red hot as I did. Before putting the phone in Mme Martin's hand, I caught a glimpse of the message preview on my lockscreen.

Melissa: i tried texting him all last period. i haven't got anything b...

"That will be all, Parker."

I walked back to my desk, still trying to ignore the giggles. The rest of the class went by painfully slowly. It was hard for me to keep still at the best of times, let alone when I was worried about Damien. I tapped on the table top and my right leg bounced frantically up and down.

"Would you cut it out?"

I didn't even look up at the girl next to me. "No."

She let out an ugh and loudly scraped her chair across the floor, angling it away from me. Normally I wouldn't be so curt, but I couldn't help it. I stared at the clock above Mme Martin's Smartboard, willing it to move faster. It didn't work.

---

I didn't get my phone back at the end of the period. Madame said she wouldn't let me have it back until the end of the day. I thought that might be illegal, but I wasn't sure, so I didn't say anything. Besides, it's not like I wasn't complicit in any law-breaking.

Melissa and I had our last period together - English. She tried to get my attention when I walked in the room, and for a moment I debated going over to talk to her. Then I remembered the essay I still hadn't finished, and decided against it. I shook my head no at her, and she tilted hers to the side and sighed.

You're already done your essay! I'm not! I thought, hoping it somehow came through in my facial expressions. Instead of responding, Melissa turned away. Great.

The period was uneventful. For a while, I was able to tear myself away from thoughts of Damien and focus instead on my writing. I didn't think my essay was going to win any awards, but my dads would probably be happy with it and that's all that really mattered. That’s all school was for, anyway. Make your teacher happy. Make your parents happy. Move on to the next assignment.

I stuck my laptop back into my bag and tried to zip it up, but I yanked too hard and ripped the zipper pull off entirely. I stood dumbfounded for a moment before tossing the metal pull inside the bag. Whatever. It could hang open. I was so preoccupied with my zipper situation I didn't notice Melissa had crept up behind me.

"Parker."

"Oh, shit, Melissa!" I wondered how much of the zipper thing she saw. I wondered if I looked like a dumbass. Probably.

"Why didn't you write me back?"

"Oh, yeah, uh - Madame took my phone." Melissa looked disappointed in me, but continued.

"Okay, so, you have an Android, right?"

"Yeah,” I said, straightening up, backpack over one arm, laptop still sticking out the open pocket. “I don't like iPhones. I hate how the UI -"

"Not important." She cut me off. Looking back, I don't blame her. "What's important is that Damien and I both have iPhones."

"So what?" I sounded a little defensive. I thought about saying ‘hey, I didn't mean to sound so defensive,’ but I was pretty sure that would just make me sound more defensive.

"So," she replied, scrolling through her phone, "Damien had his location sharing on."

She held the phone up, and it took me a moment to process what I was looking at. Damien, or at least his phone, was -

"...still at Mrs. Hudson's house?" Melissa nodded.

"We have to go back." I said it without even thinking. I think Damien would have done the same for either of us. Well, probably. He could be kind of a dick, but he was a loyal dick.

"I know."

---

We didn't bother waiting for the cover of nightfall this time. This time, we reasoned, we weren't trying to commit any crimes - just trying to find our friend. That's kind of the opposite of a crime, if you think about it.

The first thing we saw when we walked up to Mrs. Hudson's driveway stopped us both in our tracks. The chain - the chain we both watched Damien cut through - was back up.

No, that's not right.

The chain Damien cut down was rusted. It had been there for years, and it had shown. The chain had been replaced. The new chain was thicker and shinier than the old one had ever been. It was pulled taught across the garage door. The chain wasn't the only new addition. Melissa elbowed me and pointed silently to a brand new sign that'd been stuck into the lawn.

NO TRESPASSING

We stood in quiet contemplation for a moment, planning our next move. I was anxious, but if Damien was here, I wasn't just going to walk away. Melissa finally broke the silence.

"We should call him."

I nodded, and reached for my pocket.

Fuck.

"I forgot to get my phone back! Dammit!"

Melissa barely reacted to my outburst, grabbing her own phone instead and scrolling through her contacts to find Damien. I hoped he'd pick up, but my hopes were dashed almost immediately. I hadn't realized that Damien had left his ringer on - who does that? - but he had. Melissa and I both listened as the default iPhone jingle played quietly somewhere around us.

"There." She pointed towards the lawn.

My heart sank as I looked out onto the lawn and saw the cracked screen of Damien's iPhone 6 nestled in the long grass. I watched it light up, Melissa's name on the screen. Damien wasn't here.

No trespassing sign be damned, I walked out onto the lawn to pick up the phone. As I reached down to get it, I froze. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, a jolt of electricity down my spine. Someone was watching me, and it wasn't just Melissa.

I took a deep breath, grabbed the phone, and backed off the lawn.

"Parker?" Melissa's voice quivered.

"I think we should go." I could tell by the look on her face that she felt it too. She snuck one last peek back at the house, then ran.

We didn't stop until we were back at my house.

---

Neither of my dads were home when we got there, which was probably for the best. I didn't know what they would have said if they'd seen me and Melissa covered in sweat, gasping for air like we'd just run a marathon; I guessed it wouldn't just be ‘Hey honey, how was school?’.

My bedroom was a mess. Clothes, dirty and clean, had collected in a pile on my floor. Realizing Melissa was going to have to come in here as well, I tried to shuffle some of the shirts and jeans to the side. I picked up a milk crate of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons reference materials that Damien and I had found at Value Village from the middle of the floor. I put it on the top of my bookcase, hoping the extra weight wouldn’t make the whole damn thing fall over.

Exhausted, I collapsed onto my bed.

Melissa, the more fit of the two of us, was downstairs grabbing us each a glass of water. I wasn't being a great host, but Melissa had been over so many times she was practically part of the family anyway.

I stared at the ceiling. I wanted to think of something to say to Melissa, an idea to try and find Damien, anything - but my mind wasn't thinking logically. Clear thought had been replaced with mild panic. So I did the same thing I'd done to calm myself down since I was a kid - I counted the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling.

One, two, three,

I knew there were 157, but that didn't stop me. It didn't stop it from helping.

- ten, eleven, twelve,

I got to 26 by the time Melissa finally came up with the water. I sat up. She didn't say anything as she handed me the glass. We sipped quietly. I could hear her breathing - heavier than normal. I wondered if mine was, too. I couldn't tell. It just always sounded loud to me.

"We have to call the cops." Melissa's proclamation stirred me from my stupor. She was probably right. I had Damien's phone in my hand. Touch ID failed (obviously), so I put in his passcode - 6969 (obviously).

Together, we looked through the missed calls - from Melissa, of course, but from Damien's mother as well. I realized now that we wouldn't have to call the cops; If she'd been unable to reach Damien, Ms. Allen had almost certainly called them already.

I heard a noise downstairs that nearly made me jump out of my skin - the door unlocking.

"Parker?"

"H-hey Pop." I yelled down to him. I heard a sigh of relief.

"Hey Mr. Charles!" Melissa liked Pop. They were always pretty close. I listened as Pop locked the door behind him, then climbed the stairs to the second floor.

I have a clear view of the stairs from my bedroom, and as I watched Pop reach the top I could tell something was off. His normal smile was replaced with a frown and worry lines drawn deep across his forehead. As his eyes met mine, the worry shifted to anger.

"Parker, earlier today Ms. Allen called me. As far as she knows, Damien's gone missing. I tried to call you as soon as I heard, but you haven't been writing to me or Dad for hours!"

I felt my throat closing up. I hadn't even thought about what my parents would be thinking this whole time. I swallowed, and it was painful.

"I called the school when I couldn't find you. I left work early and picked this -" He threw my cellphone at me. I almost caught it, too. "- up from the school and spent the next 20 minutes driving around, trying to find you."

I glanced at Melissa out of the corner of my eye. Her face turned slightly red, embarrassed - for me? For herself? God only knows. Pop liked Melissa, but he hadn't even acknowledged that she was here.

"Well?" Pop demanded an answer, even though he hadn't asked anything.

"Pop, we, uh..." I stumbled through the words as I tried not to think about what I'd put him and Dad through. I tried not to think about what Ms. Allen was still going through. "...I need to tell you something. And I know you're going to be mad, but it's important. It's about Damien." --- [This is a repost of part one of a story I’ve posted on Reddit. If you want to continue reading it, you can find part 2 here.]

[dj-syrup]

The Unnamed, Episode 01x08: An Old End And A New Beginning

At the end of the day, all we are is enough.

Or at least that's what my mother keeps telling me.

My name is Danielle. I'm nine years old, and I'm dying. There's something wrong with my blood and the doctors can't fix it. They won't tell me what it is, because they think it's too complicated for me to understand, but I know better. I think I could understand it.

A man came to visit me earlier today. His name is Joshua. He told me that he works for a group called World of Wishes. His group helps people like to me to enjoy their last few months by granting them a wish.

He handed me a magic wand, and I made my wish.

I wished to become a superhero.

The man said that it might take some time, but that he would get back to me.

This is the story of the night I became a superhero.

"Thank you for calling SJSF, this is Rhiannon speaking, how can I help you?"

"Hi, Rhiannon. This is Joshua at World of Wishes. I was hoping to talk to The Unnamed."

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No, but this is important and a bit urgent. Can you just put me through please?"

This dude's tone was starting to get to Rhi. "No, I can't just 'put you through'. What do you need to talk to them about?"

The man on the other end of the line sighed and then acquiesced. "I have a little girl that I've been working with, named Danielle. She's dying of leukemia.

"I work for World of Wishes. We give terminally children a wish, and then we fulfill it."

"Oh, you mean like the Make-a-Wish Foundation?"

"Yes, more or less. We fulfill more extreme wishes. If a kid wants to go to Disneyland or Amsterdam or to a Taylor Swift concert, Make-a-Wish takes care of that. We do bigger stuff, which brings me to why I'm calling today.

"Danielle wanted to be a superhero for her wish. I was hoping that The Unnamed would be able to help with that."

This guy, for some reason, was still rubbing Rhi the wrong way. He had done what they had asked her to do, and so she decided to pass it on.

"Thank you for understanding. I'm connecting you now."

"We still haven't decided if we're taking this mission or not," said Ling. "This really falls outside of our purview. It's not really our thing."

Ms. Port, across the table, rolled her eyes at Ling. "Are you for real?" she asked. "Are you seriously suggesting that we turn down this little girl because 'it's not really our thing?'" Port was making air quotes. "She is dying. Dying!"

Port would have kept going, but for the sake of de-escalating the fight, Donnelly cut in. "Ling, she's right. We have to do this."

"I agree," said Mr. Stewart, walking in late as always. "The case of our terminal superhero is open and closed: we must try, at the very least." He paused. "Ling, don't make me make that an order."

"I want to help her," said Ling. "I really do. But this doesn't make a whole lot of sense. We're not actors! We're not engineers! We spend our time fighting the real bad guys, not long-dead gods who some idiot summoned to help them take over the world."

"What am I, then?" asked Thomas. "Chopped silicon?"

Winn cut in. "Guys, can we focus, please? In two weeks, we have a date with a dying nine-year-old. What do you want to do?"

"We can't make her a superhero permanently," said Ling. "We don't have the time or the resources to do that."

"Now you're talking sense," said Donnelly.

"But we could do a single night," said Thomas. "We can make her a superhero for one night. We can go with her, and we can find some bad guys to rough up."

"Uhh... that's a lawsuit waiting to happen," said Mr. Patrick. "You'll have to find some other way."

"I volunteer as a bad guy," said Sergeant Foster. "My daughter volunteers as well, but she doesn't know it yet."

"That's better," said Mr. Stewart.

"But what about our powers?" asked Donnelly. "What about her powers?"

"Don't worry about that," said Mr. Stewart. "Let the Research and Development teams take care of that. For now, think about who you want to be instead of what you want to be. Bear in mind, though, that the most input you likely get on your suits and powers might be the choice of paint."

Nobody in research and development got much sleep that night.

Or the night after.

Or the night after that.

When this project was completed, each person who worked on it got an "I Survived the 2017 Suit Build" pin, and their choice of whiskey, within reason of course. Most of the people forgot the alcohol, and left it at work, as they stumbled home to get some sleep.

After two weeks, some a lot of patent infringement, and several acquisitions of companies, the suits were ready for primetime.

Thomas' suit ended up being so big that the floor of the hospital room couldn't hold its weight. Thomas tossed the keys to the valet and said to "keep it running". The only response to the valet's blank stare was a shrug from Ling, who looked quite breathtaking in her suit. Donnelly had already followed Thomas inside.

Danielle looked up from her iPad when they walked in. She was truly a pitiful sight: plugged into a half dozen machines, all of them either measuring her life or sustaining it. She smiled at each of them as they walked in, her smile so big that it seemed to fill the room.

She was getting her dying wish.

Based on what they had discussed in the car on the way over, Donnelly took point.

"My name is Caleb," he started, "but you can call me Extraordinario, or just X for short. We heard that there might a superhero in here somewhere, and we think it's you. What do you think, Ling?"

"Ling? Who's Ling?" asked Ling.

"Sorry, Li- Miss Z. Danielle, this is Miss Z. She's one of the other superheroes here. What do you think, Miss Z?"

"Hmm... I don't know, X," said Ling, teasingly, "But I think it's worth checking."

"You're teasing," said Danielle, laughing. "I know you guys would come. Joshua said you would come."

"Did he?" asked Donnelly. "Well, I guess that answers that question."

"What he didn't say was how you guys were going to take me. You're not planning on bringing all of this with us, are you?"

Thomas stepped out into the hallway and beckoned to the two technicians waiting for him. They wheeled their masterpiece: a suit that was capable of supporting her life every bit as well as the machines, as well as allowing her to run and jump like she used to.

And it truly was a masterpiece: an outer skin of carbon fiber, with a titanium exoskeleton that supported Danielle's weight and allowed her to move freely. The medical instruments had been miniaturized and placed inside the suit on her back, although she would not feel their weight. The helmet was made of automotive glass, and the airtight nature of the suit meant that Danielle would not need her breathing tubes. Inside this suit, she could run and jump and look like every other child.

But Danielle, smart though she was, did not know any of this. Her first reaction was one of glee.

"It's blue! How did you know that was my favorite color?"

"Well, Josh told you some things, right?" asked Ling. When Danielle nodded, Ling continued. "Josh told us some things too."

"And I don't need any of this?" She gestured to the equipment around her.

"No, sweetie," said Ling. "This suit will do the jobs of all of this stuff."

Donnelly recoiled slightly. He had never known Ling to use the word "sweetie", or any other term of endearment. Her experience, trying to rescue her parents from The People's Republic of China, had changed her in ways that Donnelly was still figuring out.

"Are you ready?" asked Donnelly, getting his wits back about him.

"I'm ready," said Danielle. "Let's go."

The technicians and doctors, both from SJSF and the hospital, spent over an hour fitting Danielle into the suit. When they were ready, they departed.

"Mr. X," said Danielle, as they were walking towards the parking lot, "what are your superpowers?"

"I'm not supposed to use them around hospitals," said Donnelly. "They don't want me giving people heart attacks. Let's get a ways out and I'll show you."

Thomas had to hang back so that he could get into his own suit.

And what a suit it was. The team that built it referred to it as The Bear, primarily because it looked like one. It could stand and walk around, under the control of its driver, and while standing it was almost ten feet tall. It could also stand on four legs, and when it did, a set of wheels extended that allowed the whole suit to roll. The general impression is that the Iron Man suit and a polar bear had a rather angular baby, and that baby was given two pairs of roller skates.

And, of course, it was well armored. The whole thing was covered in a half inch of armor steel, and the glass canopy covering Thomas' head was made of bulletproof glass.

Donnelly had kept walking for three or four paces before he realized that Danielle was no longer next to him. She had stopped short upon seeing Thomas in his suit and had been unable to move or talk since then.

And Donnelly could see it her eyes; this was the moment when it became real to her. She knew that this wasn't real, that this was just an act for her, but at this point, her awe overcame her distrust and it became real.

Tonight was going to be a good night.

Foster had talked to a few of his buddies, and they had set up a closed course. Over the course of the night, the team was going to stop a mugging, prevent a bank robbery, and stop Dr. Picard's evil plan to take over the world with cybernetic soldiers.

While Thomas' Bear was as fast as most cars, Ling and Donnelly couldn't just run to keep up, and so they had their own cars. Ling was riding a Kawasaki Ninja, a small, fast street motorcycle (which she already owned, and was her ride to work before The Nest had been built). Donnelly borrowed a convertible Chevy Camaro from Mr. Stewart's lot.

They drove from the hospital to the start of the closed course with Danielle securely mounted to Thomas' back. While she was otherwise occupied with riding a giant metal bear at 75 MPH, Ling put in her Bluetooth headset and started talking to Winn and Port.

"Is Foster's buddy ready for the mugging?" asked Ling?

"Yes," replied Port. "We're all set up here and ready to go, thank you for asking."

"I'm sorry," said Ling. "I've had a bit on my mind today. I'm concerned about this kid. She's innocent and really sweet, and I don't want to mess this up."

Port was not used to any level of emotional intelligence -- or emotion of any kind, really -- from Ling and didn't speak again for a few moments.

"Alright, Ling, you're approaching the start of the closed course," said Winn. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, I'm ready."

"Then Godspeed. We'll see you on the other side."

The com line went silent at this point, but Ling knew that Port and Winn were still on the line, listening to everything going on and ready to help at a moment's notice. Ling took comfort in this.

There was a blue line spray painted across the street. That was the start of the closed course.

It was showtime.

Danielle dismounted and ran over to Donnelly and Ling. "That was awesome!" She was all smiles. "Donnelly was telling me about your powers on the way over. Is it true that you can lift a car, Mr. X?"

By way of an answer, Donnelly walked over to a car, and when he had located the right one, slipped his hands under it and pulled the back bumper three or four feet off the ground. He looked over at Danielle, smiled, and then set it down.

"I'm also bulletproof, and I can shoot lasers out of my eyes."

"Ooh, ooh, can you fly?"

"No, but I can jump really high."

"And you, Miss Z. I heard you're a human weapon. What is that like?"

"It's as awesome as it sounds," said Ling, trying her best to sound positive.

In the quiet of a city at sundown, Danielle thought she could hear a woman crying and an angry man shouting at her.

In reality, she was hearing audio piped through the Dolby Atmos sound system installed in the collar of her suit. For one of her superpowers, the team had given her enhanced hearing.

"Hey, guys?" said Danielle. "Did you hear that?"

All three of them turned to her and said in unison, "Hear what?"

"I heard something. It's coming from over there."

And she led quickly to a dark alley until all three of them could hear the same thing she had: the sound of a woman being mugged. They came to the alley right before the woman handed the thief her purse.

"Hey," said Danielle, "what do you think you're doing?"

The thief, seeing the four superheroes, ran.

The four gave chase, Danielle leading the way. Her suit gave her the strength to run and keep up with the rest of them, something she would not have been able to do in her weakened state without help.

As the thief rounded a corner, Donnelly put his hand to his temple and shot a laser from his eyes. He missed, but he put a scorch mark on a building in front of the robber.

This was exactly as it was planned.

"Stop!" yelled Ling. "I could have killed you a dozen times by now if I wanted to. Just give us the purse back; we don't want to hurt you."

The man did stop, and Danielle, not needing an invitation, walked over to him. "The purse." It was a command, regal as a nine-year-old could make it.

The man gave her the purse.

And then Danielle kicked him in the shins.

Donnelly gave the old woman a ride home. It was the least he could do, after roping his mother into something like this.

"I'm glad to see you doing something with your life, son."

"I've been doing something with my life for most of my life now," replied Donnelly. "I'm glad to be doing something good now, though."

"You know what I mean, Caleb."

"I know what you mean, Mom. Thanks for coming along on this crazy caper."

"You're welcome. Be safe out there, alright?"

"I will, Mom."

She got out, and Donnelly waited until she was inside before leaving.

"You'll have to thank your buddy, Foster," said Ling into her microphone while en route to Donnelly's mom's place.

Port handed Foster a mic. He was still at The Nest, awaiting his part in the planned bank robbery. "I would, Ling, but that wasn't my buddy. I'm not sure what the story is."

"Wait," said Port, "if that wasn't your friend, then who was it?"

"I was about to ask the same thing," said Ling.

"I don't know," said Foster, "But I'll figure it out."

"You have to be at the bank in half an hour," reminded Port.

"Hey, Winn?" called Foster.

Winn rolled her eyes. She had been listening to the entire conversation and knew exactly what Foster was going to ask. "Hey, Winn" was quickly becoming her least favorite phrase in the English language.

Donnelly had not heard this conversation. He was listening to his mother, not to his comlink.

It should be further noted that Winn had her hands full. The alley chase had been planned and had only required a single special effect: the laser that came from Donnelly's eyes. The bank robbery was much more complicated. There was a lot that could go wrong, stemming entirely from the fact that there was much less control involved.

The question of who had been doing the mugging would have to wait. Things went off without a hitch, didn't they? Winn now had to work with Port and the rest of the team to make sure the rest of the night went as smoothly.

"Donnelly, Ling, Thomas, are you guys ready?" asked Port.

Ling responded. "Yes. We're in place, ready to head over to the bank as soon as things are ready there."

"Sounds good. I'm routing the 911 call to all... now."

The speakers in Thomas' suit crackled, along with the radios in Ling's ear and Donnelly's jawbone. "We have a 487 in progress, 33 Liberty Street, Financial District, Manhattan."

"That's a bank robbery," said Donnelly, "and that's the address for the Federal Reserve Bank. You guys want to stop a bank robbery?"

His question was greeted with enthusiasm on all sides.

"Then let's go!"

Donnelly got into his Camaro, Ling got on her bike, and Danielle latched onto Thomas' back. Within seconds, they were all soaring across the pavement, headed toward what Danielle thought was the Federal Reserve. It wasn't, but she didn't know that.

"Hey, Donnelly?" asked Port, via comlink.

"Wassup?"

"Wassup? What the... never mind. Foster just went over to join the bank robbery, but just after he arrived, his com went dead. I've got a bad feeling; something is going on here that we don't know about."

Donnelly got serious very quickly. "What are you suggesting?"

"Let's scrub the bank robbery. Skip it. Tell Danielle something -- give me a minute to figure it out -- and then go straight to the final scene."

"Foster probably just forgot to put batteries in his walkie-talkie or something."

"Okay, but we have three other guys in there, and I haven't been able to reach any of them either."

"That's fishy."

"You're telling me."

"Well, someone needs to go and check on them either way."

"We could just let the police handle it," said Port.

"Eh... We're already on the way. Besides, what are you going to tell the police? 'Hi, I work for a secret organization, and we planned a fake bank robbery, but something went wrong, can you go check on our guys?' No, we can handle this."

"For once," said Ling, "I agree with Donnelly. Let's not bother the donut brokers tonight."

"What does Thomas say?" asked Port.

Thomas was talking to Danielle about the bank that was being robbed and while he could hear the conversation, he couldn't answer. Ling pulled up next to him on her bike, and Thomas nodded at her.

"I have a nod from Thomas. We're all in agreement."

"Okay, then. I'll see what information I can give you before you get there."

Donnelly was already doing 70 on a city street. He started wondering if it was safe to go faster than that.

The four arrived at the bank -- a small branch that Mr. Stewart had paid a small fortune to use -- and dismounted. Port and Winn had been unable to provide any useful information about the state of the bank or the people in it.

And so they walked in, Ling leading the way with her Mossberg 500 drawn. Thomas was rolling; it was quieter than walking.

Foster was working with his crew, doing exactly what they had planned: cracking the vault. The plan was that the vault would come open as soon as the four walked into the building.

They paused for a moment.

The vault would come open any second now. If it did, then that was their cue: everything was fine, the robbers just weren't answering their radios for some reason.

The vault didn't come open.

Thomas got on his mic, and after cutting Danielle out of the loop, he started explaining the situation to Winn and Port.

"Why can't I hear Bear?" Danielle asked Donnelly.

"He's talking to our friends at headquarters. Something's not quite right and we're trying to figure it out."

"Oh. Okay. What's not working right?"

"The robbers can't seem to get the vault open. We're supposed to wait to stop them until they have the vault open."

"Why? Can't we just stop them now?"

Donnelly looked at Ling.

Port spoke over Donnelly's jawbone piece. "I don't recommend that. We don't know what's going on here."

Donnelly looked back to Danielle. "We need to follow the plan."

Danielle looked a little disappointed but did not argue.

Winn got back on the communication loop. "So here's the deal. Somehow, we've had multiple equipment failures, both with the radios and with the mechanism that is supposed to open the vault door. The new plan is this: engage them before the door opens since we don't think it's going to. Thomas, put Danielle on your back and go straight in. Ling, take the left flank. Donnelly, the right. Remember that these people know you're coming. Donnelly, use your powers only when we tell you to. Ling, Thomas, try not to hurt anyone, including yourselves?"

Donnelly and Ling nodded, and Thomas relayed their agreement.

"Sounds good. I'm going to start setting up for the final act, but if you need me I still have my earpiece in."

After Thomas and Donnelly had explained the plan to Danielle, they got set up, and then they attacked.

Things went wrong almost immediately. Foster just stood there, not doing anything, while his buddies started taking very real swipes at Donnelly and Ling.

"Hey, Winn-" Thomas had gotten just a couple words out when an EMP wiped out the electronics in his suit, including his radio.

Donnelly's skin had shielded his transmitter a little bit, and he immediately picked up where Thomas had left off while fending off his attackers. "Something is very wrong here, Winn. These are not the people we were expecting, and they are not sticking to the script. We need-" A new man had entered the fray without Donnelly noticing, and his right hook knocked Donnelly speechless. His attackers, taking advantage of his suddenly weakened state, pinned him to the ground and zip-tied his hands and feet together.

Ling, ever the fighter, had broken noses, jaws, and kneecaps, including the removal of several of her attackers' teeth. (She would have to add them to her collection.) Unfortunately, 5 against 1 was long odds for even someone like her and she quickly found herself tied in much the same manner as Donnelly.

The new man stood, wiped the dust from his suit, and addressed the four superheroes in a soft, melodious voice.

"Welcome, Mister Donnelly, Mister Thomas, Miss Ling, and Miss Danielle. Welcome to my bank."

Ling spat out a mouthful of blood and said, "This isn't your bank."

The man laughed, a high, eerie laugh. "It is tonight.

"For a group that calls itself 'The Unnamed'," he used air quotes, "finding you was not very hard. I remember the first time I ran across your organization, almost a year ago when you dealt with a gay conversion facility. I was impressed then, and I have been impressed by your work ever since. Do you remember that man you framed?"

Ling nodded.

"I wondered if you ever felt any guilt about that. But no matter.

"After watching your work for a while, something occurred to me. Yes, at the end of the day, it's you and Donnelly getting stuff done. But you must have a massive support crew. I mean, somebody connected the dots about the drugs going through that school. I can only imagine how much time and energy that took.

"But I grew weary of your constant insistence on serving this arbitrary idea of 'the greater good'. You had the ability to make millions, perhaps billions of dollars, but you spent your time getting dates for teenagers and breaking up Neo-Nazi organizations!

"There is no greater good, only greater profits."

"Who are you?" asked Ling.

"My name is John. I work for a company called Bell Medical. We make everything from bandages to prosthetic legs. I've had my engineers working for years to create the next generation of the wheelchair, something that would restore complete mobility, instead of being constrained by a set of wheels. But they couldn't do it, they said. The costs were too high. The power sources didn't exist.

"And I knew that I couldn't just ask you to build it. I knew that if you built it, you would insist on giving it out for free or something stupid like that. I wanted it for myself, and I wanted you to design it."

"So you conned us into this, using a little girl dying of cancer?"

"Yes."

Ling at this point called John a number of foul and profane names, such that even I, your narrator, will not repeat them.

When she was done, he kept talking.

"Danielle is going with me now. She only has a week left, at most, and her body will be returned to her family as soon after her death as possible."

Donnelly stood up, shook himself off, and looked John in the eye.

"You'll take that girl over my dead body."

Ling saw him, standing tall, bleeding, bruised, soaked in what she hoped was his attackers' blood. He was not thinking clearly, and not quite himself (the blow to his head had knocked some sense out of him) but even in his weakened state, she found him to be the most regal sight she had ever laid eyes on.

"That can be arranged."

John drew a gun from the small of his back and shot Donnelly in the forehead.

Ling, who was kind of halfway up, fell back down and screeched her misery into the linoleum floor of the bank.

John walked over to Thomas, pulled Danielle off of his back, handed her to his goons, stepped over Donnelly's bleeding body and exited the building. Thomas could not exit his suit unless his suit had power, and he sat there, inside his suit, watching helplessly.

Somewhere, deep inside Ling, a fire kindled. This man had killed her friend he was going to die.

Without quite knowing how she did it, she pulled her hands out of the zip-ties, cut her feet loose with one of her knives, and grabbed her Mossberg 500 on the way out the door.

Always, Ling had exercised some level of constraint. She would have none tonight.

"STOP!" she screamed, yelling after John and his goons. "Stop, you filth, you murderers of men and children! Stop, you lousy, flea-bitten pieces of sewage!"

Her voice caught their attention, and her gun held it. They looked scared for a moment.

And then, in a rush of light and sound, the police arrived. Suddenly, the place was swarming with every police officer in a twenty-block radius, along with a SWAT team that had been scrambled from the NYPD central station.

The goons got out of their SUVs, laid down on the ground, and put their hands above their heads. John was thrown across the hood of a police cruiser.

It was over.

Ling felt very tired all of a sudden, and the concrete rushed up to meet her...

The ambulance pronounced Donnelly dead on arrival. Time of death was 10:42 PM.

Danielle died three days later, surrounded by her friends and family. Ling was ill and couldn't be there, but Winn, Port, Thomas, Sergeant Foster, Zach, Kira and Mr. Stewart were all there.

The doctors said that while her experience with The Unnamed hadn't helped her health, it probably didn't hurt her health either. The engineering team took a kind of quiet pride in that.

Donnelly's sacrifice had ensured that both Ling and Danielle walked away from the bank, by stalling for time enough to let the police arrive.

They were buried at the same funeral, Donnelly and Danielle. It seemed right.

Several days after the funeral, once Ling was feeling better, she tracked down Donnelly's boyfriend.

"You have a right to know why Donnelly died."

"I know why Donnelly died."

"No, you know how he died. I want you to know why he died."

And Ling told him about the wonderful things that Donnelly had done.

She told him about the gay conversion facility that he took down.

She told him about the drug ring at Zach's school.

She told him about the bomber he had found, and the girl who found her first real love with his help. She told him about their trip to Vietnam, about sneaking into China.

And she told him a story about a girl named Danielle, and about how in his last moments Caleb Donnelly was strong and regal and brave, and how his last words defended an innocent girl.

And she cried, and he cried, and together they mourned the loss of their best friend.

The Unnamed broke up in the months after Donnelly's death. Ling was never quite the same again. None of them were, really. They all drifted and grieved and got on with their lives. Mr. Stewart kept his think tank together, and together they brought the suit they had designed for Danielle to a much larger audience. They named it after her, and they sold it for the cost of parts and labor.

A year later, Ling received a letter in the mail. It had a return address in Seattle, Washington, but no name.

"Dear Mx. Zhi Ling," it read,

"We have heard of your actions on May 1st, 2017, and we have been watching you since. We run an alternative supermarket in the Seattle area and are hiring a security director.

"We want you to take this position. You have shown time and time again an ability to handle unforeseen situations with grace and integrity, and there is no-one else we would rather have.

"Please state your intentions to this letter, and it will relay your words back to us.

"Yours truly, Andrea Hopkirk, Store Manager at Supernatural Supermarket."

Ling was flabbergasted. She considered it for a few minutes, and then, without meaning to say anything out loud, said, "I guess it's worth a look."

The letter folded itself into an origami eagle and flew away.

Ling had no words for that. She simply thought she had gone insane.

But she had not. As she would soon find out, the store was real, and it truly was supernatural. It was a place where vampires, dragons, ghosts, werewolves, griffins, shades, and other forms of not-officially-recognized life could come and do their shopping.

And Ling? Why, she was to be in charge of protecting it.

To the end of her days, Ling never forgot about Donnelly. He was sweet, and kind, and good. And when, in her advanced age, she went the way of all the earth, she whispered below her breath, "I'm coming Donnelly, I'm coming."

And that brings this series to a close. I hope you all enjoyed reading it. Ling will be returning to this blog for my next series, Supernatural Supermarket.

I am going on hiatus for the next three months. I have some responsibilities to take care of that prevent me from writing.

I’ll see you all around Valentine's Day!

[cannithebear]

Reasons why I know our education system is shit

- I was told by a teacher and a school counselor that my mother abused me and my siblings because we didn't help enough around the house and needed to be better kids.

- My older sister's nerdy boyfriend used to get beaten up by some boys from the football team over and over. The staff did nothing about this. One day, he had enough and when the football boys came to attack him, he ended up beating the shit out of one of his bullies in the parking lot. He was immediately expelled.

- My class wanted to make a rainbow road themed float for our mario bros themed homecoming parade but wasn't allowed to because "some people might think it's for gay pride and be offended"

- I signed up for Spanish classes in high school two years in a row and they just didn't put it in my schedule. When I asked them to fix it and put me in a Spanish class, they conveniently never got back to me about it.

- I also signed up for welding and never got it. I'm pretty sure it's because I was what they defined as a girl.

- My autistic 8 year old brother was being consistently bullied by a kid in his class. The teachers and staff did nothing to stop this kid from bullying him and left my brother alone with him despite being informed of his neurodivergency and being told that he's easily overstimulated. When my bro (after at least months if not a couple years of being bullied by this kid) turned to his bully and said "if you don't leave me alone I'm gonna kill you", he was immediately expelled.

- Speaking of my little bro, he (understandably) would become overstimulated easily and have what we always called "meltdowns" (idk if there are other words for it, that's what we always called it). Meltdowns are VERY VERY different from tantrums. People throw tantrums when they're mad about not getting their way. People have meltdowns when they become overwhelemed and aren't given space to breathe and calm down, resulting in an emotional explosion that is absolutely NOT their fault. The school's response to these meltdowns (during which my brother made an active effort to not hurt anyone) was to call my mother and tell her to come pick him up instead of calling on the resource people they had AT THE FUCKING READY who were trained to fix these situations and get him back on track. He had an IEP and a person (social worker maybe? I was young when this went down, I don't know all the details) who was specifically assigned to him to help him in these situations and the staff just? Refused to acknowledge any of that?

- ALSO SPEAKING OF MY BRO. The superintendent, in response to one of my brother's meltdowns, told my mother that she needed to "discipline him more at home" (proving that the superintendent knew absolutely fuck all about autism or neurodivergency as a whole)

- That superintendent went on to become the principal of the middle/high school and implemented a rule involving wristbands. There were three wristbands dividing the students into three groups; well behaved, in the middle (? i guess?), and badly behaved. Keep in mind, this guy is a white mormon Trump supporter who is principal of a school consisting of mostly hispanic students. So while I wasn't there for the wristband thing, I can be fairly certain the system was racially biased. I don't know a whole lot about how much the wristband system governed but I do know this: "good" students were free to take bathroom breaks whenever they pleased. "Middle" students (or whatever they were referred to as) had to ask for bathroom breaks (and were often denied). "Bad" students only got bathroom breaks between classes. Gonna piss yourself cause you gotta go in the middle of class? Too bad, guess you gotta deal with it. So needless to say, the wristband thing breaks multiple laws.

- Speaking of that principal, he flat out refused to speak to any parents/family members of students who don't speak english (this area is heavily populated by immigrants) despite having a translator at the ready who showed up to all the school related events and provided wonderful and clear translations.

- The school I went to had a program that was specifically for teaching non English speaking students to speak English. Sounds great right? Well not when you consider that they just listed a bunch of students who already spoke English under that class to make it look like they had done their job. Meanwhile when students didn't speak English, they would pair another student with them and say "teach this kid". Even I (a student who does not speak Spanish because they woULDN'T FUCKING TEACH ME HOW) was told to sit with a student who didn't speak English and told to teach her how to use the school computers.

- My school got the funding for Ipads. For most schools, Ipads/laptops/whatever other electronics they might provide to the students are used as an addition to the classes. In my school, they threw the Ipads at us with some barely followable online classes and said "teach yourselves". Teachers were reprimanded if they were caught you know, teaching? Like? Doing their job? And oftentimes, the tests included things the lessons didn't cover resulting in A+ students dropping to Ds and Fs (and of course the principal and superintendent and shitty teachers played dumb and pretended they couldn't possibly know what was causing the failure)

- With these online classes, students would be given a pretest before starting a new lesson. The pretest would consist of the content of said new lesson. If the student passed the pretest, they could skip the lesson and move on to the next. Now my friend was a real science wiz. It was his favorite subject and he generally knew a lot about it. So when he took the pretests for his science lessons, he would almost always pass them. The science teacher accused him of cheeting because NO KID could POSSIBLY pass these pretests! Just UNTHINKABLE! So if he passed a pretest, she would make him do the lesson anyway. I watched him do at least five of these pretests (probably more) and I can tell you definitively that he did not cheat. I told him he should ask the teacher to sit with him while he does the pretests and then she'll see he's not cheating. He said he had already asked her and multiple other teachers to do so and they all refused without giving him any reason.

- The one positive thing was that I was able to opt out of coming to the school to do my classes and simply used my Ipad at home for the latter half of my 12th grade year. Why was I able to do so you ask? Well, let's get into it. February of 2018. I'm at home sick. At school, a boy who's been harassing my friend for years (my friend and other kids tried to report him multiple times for harassment and the staff never did a damn thing about it) comes up to him in the locker room and says "I've got a bomb in my backpack." So this kid is threatening to blow up the school and my friend of course goes immediately to the principal at the time (another white morman trump supporter homophobic racist and literal puppet of the superintendent turned principal I mentioned earlier) and reported that this kid was claiming to have a bomb. It took half an hour for the principal to believe him and take any kind of action. When action was taken, the kids were evacuated to the old gym/lunch building (a short walk from the middle/high school). You may be wondering "what's the harm in that?" Well none... If you don't count the fact that they evacuated the kid making the bomb threat to the same bulding and put him in the same room with all the other kids. The kid who made the bomb threat then started saying he had a knife and threatening to stab students. They escorted him out. And when I say they, I mean the FUCKING JANITOR. Their reasoning for keeping him in close proximity to all the kids he was threatening to murder and then having a janitor escort him out as opposed to someone with some proper training for this kind of stuff? "We didn't wanna single him out :("

So I was allowed to do my classes at home because I made it clear I was not comfortable coming into a school where it takes half an hour to respond to a bomb threat and then when the response comes, the staff just further endangers the students. When the lady at the desk (who I'd known for six years at that point) asked me why I wanted to work from home, I said "because I don't feel safe here" and she couldn't even look me in the eyes after that.

- Not a story from my school but my grandmother was a special ed teacher in an elementary school. One of the other teachers in that school was racist as hell. This racist teacher had a hispanic student in her class named Jesus. This teacher said it was blasphemous to have the name Jesus and refused to call him that. Instead, she referred to him as "Jose" (not his name??? Tf???) Luckily, that teacher was at least punished in some way and I think fired? Good riddance.

Anyways, there's some of the reasons why I know the education system in this country (and probably almost every other country on Earth) is absolute garbage.

[vestedbeauty]

Did I Just Buy the Best Desk Chair Ever? Or Did I Waste My Money? ALL33 Review

New Post has been published on https://vestedbeauty.com/best-desk-chair/

Did I Just Buy the Best Desk Chair Ever? Or Did I Waste My Money? ALL33 Review

I Paid a Small Fortune for What May Be My Best Desk Chair Ever. Here’s How I Like It.

If they ever make a documentary about me stalking my new ALL33 desk chair, I hope they get Sir David Attenborough to do the narration.

NARRATOR: Tonight, on NOVA: As daylight breaks, we catch our first glimpse of her. Massive mug full of coffee, see her approach her perch. There she will spend the next eight to ten hours, leaving only to move laundry, feed chickens, or sweep dog hair from the hallway. When she does stir, if we watch closely, we will see her rub the tension from her lower back and roll her shoulders to ease soreness and try to reestablish blood circulation. Enter the hidden world of a writer with a bad chair.

[music]

NARRATOR: Our writer friend has stumbled onto an advertisement for a chair that looks only slightly similar to those she has seen before. See as her eyebrow sinks into concave formation as she clicks the link to learn more? This is… her concentration face.

Now, if we watch carefully, cautious not to spook her, we can see her reading the details about this chair. Ahh, there it is. Did you catch her lip curling up with the hint of a smile? It only lasted a moment before her eyebrows shifted into an elevated convex shape, shooting halfway up her forehead.

Clearly, she saw the price.

[music]

Major funding for this blog post comes from the Day Job Foundation, a regular contributor to the writer’s care and upkeep. 

This program is also funded, in part, by her own writing firm, which has a long history of feeding her and her brood.

And by readers like you, who, should they purchase anything through any affiliate links on this website, will send a few bucks her way - at no additional cost to you, by the way.

Why On Earth Spend So Much on an Office Chair?

When I first started seeing ads for the ALL33 chair, the company was doing some crowdfunding. So, there was a video, a bunch of info, and the opportunity to buy at a discount - assuming they hit their funding goal. The ad, if I remember right, proclaimed that this was a chair like no other. Completely redesigned to correct for bad posture, and built to cradle your backside for “active” sitting, it definitely looked different. But even then, the price seemed steep (guessing it was like $350?). 

So, I shelved the idea and went back to work in the worn-out roller chair I’d gotten from Amazon a few years ago. It was black. It had wheels. Nothing distinguishing at all - unless you count the fact that the arm pads had started disintegrating. 

Prior to the most boring office chair in the world, I’d experimented with an exercise ball. It gave me happy flashbacks to playing on a Hippity-Hop. (What color was yours? I remember having a red one.) The issue with that was the level of concentration needed to stay ON the exercise ball. It wasn’t like doing brain surgery, but it did require more attention than I’d like to invest in merely avoiding falling on my butt in the middle of a Zoom call.

How Well Do You Think on Your Feet?

“She who sits most dies first.” That warning hit home when I first heard it. Even though I make the effort to get up and move around during the day, it’s not enough. As a writer, I work best when I enter a flow state of deep concentration. 

Picky. That’s probably the best descriptor for me while I arrange my environment. If you’re less charitable, you might call me obsessive instead. That’s okay. In my experience, when I can get into this sublime state of pure flow, the words just drop from heaven into my mind, resting there only long enough for me to tap them into the keyboard. The writing is fast. It’s pure. It’s more aligned with whatever message a piece is meant to convey. The alternative scenario involves something like wrassling. You know, like some crazy guy rolling around in the mud with an alligator, hoping for the best.

My ability to manage my environment is a huge determinant of productivity in my writing day. Every sensory input matters. Not too hot or too cold. Not too bright or dark. Either silence or the right kind of music (typically no lyrics - although I’ve found the trip hop genre to be amazingly conducive to flow).

But getting into the flow state has a dark side, one involving my backside. If I can get into the groove, it’s nothing for me to write for hours on end. Well, at least until someone walks into the space - or if a dog nudges me for pets.

So it made sense for me to try a standing desk. As a teen, I worked at a bakery, spending the whole shift on my feet. But while I can walk for miles without a complaint, standing in one spot has never been comfortable for me. 

I was skeptical from Day One. So, my sweet hubby set me up with a workspace on the high counter in our kitchen as a test. If I liked it, it would make sense to buy a legit standup desk.

That was a hard “no.” Not only was it hard for me to get into any sort of creative flow, but my back, legs, and feet hurt. Productivity plummeted because I kept walking around instead of focusing on my work. 

The Treadmill Desk

The standing desk debacle gave me an idea, though. If walking worked better than standing, maybe I could work on a treadmill at the gym. All I’d need is a desk surface that stretched between the arms of the treadmill. Sweet hubby had just the answer. He made me a lightweight but sturdy aluminum desk. 

It looked like a guillotine. There were lots of questions. I felt a little weird. But once I set it up and set the treadmill to a pace of about 2 mph, I could work and walk at the same time. Sort of. 

Actual writing was tough. It was hard to enter the flow state while also trying not to fall off the treadmill and break myself. I could do planning, project management, and invoicing. But it wasn’t ideal.

So, Back to the ALL33 Chair

I’d back burnered the hunt for a better office chair, and that’s when I started getting ads for this crazy contraption again. The list price is $800.

All I could think about was the “Will & Grace” episode where they run all over Manhattan chasing down a Herman Miller Aeron chair. (By the way, the only episode I ever saw.) Who pays that kind of money for an office chair? It just seemed extravagant and pretentious. 

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But I had a bit of an internal debate. Then an awakening. That led to a transformation… and a purchase.

Good old blue chair... you've been a faithful friend.

Once You Go Mac...

Several years back, I switched from PC to Mac. I’d been replacing my PC laptops every couple of years. They’d get full - or full of malware. It was annoying. Plus, they were heavy, which kind of put the kibosh on the idea of “working from anywhere.” Macbook Pros ran about $1200 for a base model, easily three times more costly than the PC laptops I bought. But boy, was it worth it. The transition was easy. All my tech works together, making transferring from iphone to ipad to laptop a breeze. 

Soon, the idea of getting an iMac desktop seemed like a good idea. A decade into my writing business, I finally had an office and a desk rather than working from the blue La-Z-Boy I’d commandeered back in 2005. (It’s seen much, much better days - but nobody’s got the heart to put it out by the curb.)

This upgrade set a precedent. As a work tool, it made perfect sense to get the best I could afford. The increase in productivity meant the computers more than paid for themselves in the first year.

Surely, the same would hold true for a good desk chair.

Still Practicing an Abundance Mindset

Throughout my early adult life, we were broke. I was married to a pastor who only hit his earnings stride a couple of years before we divorced. We’d scraped by until I started my writing business, which loosened our budget a little. But there were years when he was trying to launch a new venture and not making more than a hundred bucks a week or so. There were years we qualified for free school lunches. There was also a bankruptcy due to my failed go at real estate investing. After leaving my first marriage, things got even tighter. The IRS was also a constant companion, thanks to the turnaround year we’d had in 2011. (It took me nearly eight years to pay that tax bill, but I finally did it!)

Scraping by was the norm. I got pretty good at it, too.

But I knew better. There is no fixed amount of pie out there in the world. It’s not a zero-sum game where if I have a slice, that means someone goes without. Instead, for every slice I take, I can create a whole new pie to share with others. (Shoutout to T. Harv Eker whose book nudged a radical transformation in my mindset here.)

Investing in the best tools I could afford meant investing in my productivity. Could it be that my own health is one of the most crucial tools of all? 

Life Or Death? Do I REALLY Need the Best Desk Chair?

I’d recently spent time with some folks experiencing significant mobility issues due to age and poor self-care. Watching them struggle to move well was hard. All I’d really seen was my parents, who are super-active and completely mobile. My dad, at 76, still goes to the gym about five days a week. He can do so many unassisted pull ups that he sometimes draws a crowd. THAT is the kind of mobility I want to enjoy until they put me in the ground.

This chair was more than a frivolous splurge. Mobility and self-care was more than a weak justification for overspending. If this ALL33 chair was all it was cracked up to be, it could be one of the best purchases ever.

So, I Did It

They’ve got a guarantee, which is such a smart marketing tactic. Knowing that either I’d love this chair or be able to send it back for a full refund made it a lot less risky.

They also had a little sale going on when I bought. (If I’d known someone who had one, I could have used their link to get a discount, too. Now I have a link like that - and you can use it to get $75 off if you want one.)

Shipping is included, so that’s good because it’s a pretty big box.

I came home from a work trip and saw the box out at the curb. That meant one thing: My sweet hubby had assembled it for me! 

Here’s the Scoop (and the scoop is the seat!)

It looks great. Just a little different from a standard office chair, if you don’t look closely. But when you do look closer, you see that the sitting surface is different. It reminds me of a saddle. It articulates, shifting to support you no matter how you sit. The lumbar support is practically angelic. The back allows for rocking or just tipping backward. The arms fold up so you can scoot into your work surface without obstruction. The wheels are as smooth as a good Target cart. I got the cloth version instead of the leather or faux leather - mostly because I like my butt to stay where I plant it rather than sliding, which seems to be a thing with leather seats.

Initial Impressions

The first few days of working in the chair were blissful. I felt zero fatigue from sitting. For some reason, I also felt so much more energized that I got up more often to putter. Nice.

The next few days felt a little sore. Kind of like when you go to the gym after a hiatus. Even if you take it easy, your muscles gripe about having to work. That’s how it was. Mostly it was my tailbone and mid back complaining. They stopped kvetching within a day or two, accepting that this was the new normal for sitting. 

Now, I Don’t Want to Leave Home… Ever!

I’m a homebody anyway. First, of course, there’s the fact that my sweet hubby is there! Also, got to acknowledge the dogs and other animals. This is my home.

The daily routines I’ve created are so soothing and energizing for me. The environment is just what I want. Days just flow as I do work I love and spend my non-working hours with my mate.

And that chair? I actually miss it when I’m working away from home. After all, it is by far the best desk chair my butt has ever sat upon.

Want to Try this Chair for Yourself? Here's a Promo Code for $50 Off ALL33 Chairs

If you have to sit, why not do it in a chair that will help you sit better, move better, stand better, and feel better? Use my special code VESTEDBEAUTY50 for an extra $50 off the chair you deserve!

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[ozsaill]

Poised for the Bahamas

“I hear you’re putting Totem on the hard.” “Will you go out again?” In fact, we have no plans to park Totem for an extended stay on land (or in the water), and have never considered remaining in the US. But given the dearth of information in this space about what 2017 holds I can understand the speculation. We are on the cusp of departure and thrilled to be heading out for more adventures afloat.

Cascading events prolonged our departure, but the boat’s been humming, and legged out timing has shaped our direction. Routing clarity comes slowly after many shuffles on how we’ll fill the gaps between now (in Fort Lauderdale, Florida) and a year from now  (Pacific Ocean, via Panama Canal). It still has a lot of squiggles and question marks, but the bigger picture should stick.

For many months, that year-long view was literally nothing more than get out of the US and back to the islands, spend a couple of months in Cuba, and explore Panama’s Guna Yala. (Remember that Plan is a four-letter word for cruisers! Corollary: Thar Be No Schedules)

Bahamas Baby

We’d written the Bahamas off, but they’re now solidly ON, and their late arrival means I’m scrambling for information. Friday I got our Waterway Guide’s Bahamas, Turks & Caicos book. IT’S GORGEOUS. The last years of Western Pacific / Indian Ocean / Southern Atlantic sailing had poor guides, if any, and it put me off. What did exist covered too wide an area to be useful, so I stuck to travel guides instead and started thinking cruising guides weren’t important. You know what? They’re incredibly useful, I’d just been too long without an example of what a good guide offers. So with 2017 Bahamas edition in hand, instead of helping Jamie and the girls scrub the hull that morning, I did this:

I did also buy a traveler’s guidebook for the Bahamas. I’m probably going to leave it behind, because the Waterway book is better, and has everything I need: the travel guide insights (cultural orientation,  things to bring, cool places to visit) AND annually updated cruising data (what to bring and where to provision, details for moorings and choice anchorages, the latest marina info– even updates on impacts from last fall’s hurricane, and recommendations for things islanders might need that we can ferry over).

That schedule thing

Although schedules are the bane of cruising, I’ve happily added a fixed Must Be There date by signing on to present at the US Boat Show in Annapolis in April. Pam Wall and I will lead a 2-day Cruising Women seminar, and I’m giving a few additional presentations as part of the show’s Cruisers University. I’m very excited about this, especially the Cruising Women program. Jamie seems to have been born with saltwater in his veins; before we went cruising, it was important to me to seek information and skills. Women-only courses provided the shared perspective and camaraderie that best supported my goals.  If you sign up, tell me! I’d love to anticipate meetups.

Places and people

It feels very good to be poised for Bahamas takeoff in Fort Lauderdale, but first we had to get south from Jacksonville to Miami for my friend Lynne Rey’s birthday. Schedules again? Maybe, but no way would I miss this since we could be there! Along the way, there wasn’t  a lot of wind, but some beautiful sunny days and mellow seas that meant Niall could combine studying with watchkeeping in the cockpit.

Along the way we spent a couple of evenings hanging out with Kirk McGeorge. He’s done a couple of circumnavigations on a sistership, Gallivanter, and now does some crazy cool work building underwater submersibles with an outfit in Fort Pierce (he was a Navy diver, and drove Alvin- THE Alvin- on Titanic, way back when). The last time we saw Kirk was Australia, nearly five years ago! Cruising friendships like his are GOLD – you pick up right where you left off, despite intervening years.

In Miami, Lynne, her husband Tony (we sailed together in college) and their kids hosted us at the Coral Reef Yacht Club. This made fun birthday celebrations, late nights in the cockpit, kids learning and playing together, and a lot of good times very easy.

It also made it much easier for a visit from Kerry (the impressive endurance athlete / sailor / quadriplegic I sailed with last month). She gave our family and the Reys a preview of a powerful documentary she’s a part of that I hope will be ready to share publicly soon. Some tissues required after viewing before we could pose for a pic together, our thumbs in the air for Kerry’s nonprofit, ThumbsUp International. ThumbsUp connects people of all abilities to tackle athletic challenges, in particular by teaming able and disabled athletes.

Please check out the Facebook page for ThumbsUp International and give it a like to show your support! Kerry would really like to nudge it over the 2,000 like hurdle: can we do it?! Follow and share!

More friends visited: we first knew Tiffany and Greg as “the Coast Guard Couple” when we met them in Mexico eight (!) years ago; we last caught up in Australia. They’ve traveled a loop around the world since then, by sea across the Pacific and by land from SE Asia to the UK. Both are Coast Guard Academy graduates, both are hard core professional seafarers, and they had great advice on college and maritime licensing for Niall. Just the folks to help toss the lines when it was time to head to the anchorage, right?

Projects projects projects

And then, there was maintenance and repair. Lots of it. Because that’s one definition of the cruising life.

To give you an inkling of that everyday fun on Totem, and a peek into what’s kept Jamie busy here in Florida:

Outboard: FINALLY FIXED. It’s been sick for five months. Diagnosis by mechanic in Jacksonville: failed CDI unit, but we replaced that and still no spark. Option two: bad coil. Ding ding ding ding! Wires from the coil had both broken…photo above. They were crimped by a strain relief device, but the break was hidden inside of a plastic sleeve. Great 11th hour help from our new friend Conor, who borrowed a flywheel puller from a Miami auto shop to get it done.

Sundowners on Totem later, time to talk story with Conor (former cruising kid, now physicist) and his dad

Aft cabin: I went to a road trip to Miami with my friend Patty, and Jamie broke the aft cabin. He’s since rebuilt my workspace, relocated the solar and wind charge controllers to a newly-constructed locker, and cleaned up a bunch of wiring spaghetti. Few words for a LOT of work.

Dodger: As a sailmaker, Jamie knows his way around a sewing machine. But canvas work is “fiddly” (his description) and he hoped to outsource Totem’s new dodger sides. But after weeks of no joy or no action from service providers in northern Florida, he took our friends on Shanthi up on the offer to borrow their SailRite and made it himself. Templating with Tyvek from the hardware store, then constructing the final from Sunbrella, Strataglass, and Tenara thread…on the dock, until it rained, with child labor…as you do. It IS fiddly, but he does great work, and saving the expense is a great bonus.

Before he could get to the canvas, the whole hard top was shifted forward: this meant changing the frame (it’s more vertical on the forward face now) and building new supports.

Deck hardware: fully reinstalled the repaired stanchion base that broke on our unpleasant passage from Bermuda to Connecticut.

Engine: Fixed pesky drip from fuel filters after troubleshooting. Replaced barbs with correct size, replaced 3-way valve fitting, and O-rings. Hopefully this saves the $250 racor replacement kit!

Electrical: We use a rugged Panasonic Toughbook for our nav computer. Both plug connections for the nine-year-old 12v charger had failed; solder now leads directly to the board. All good.

Plumbing: Replaced failing cockpit drain hoses (shared with galley sink drain: presumed grease buildup). Fixed flaw in primary water tank that prevents proper venting with a few holes (and finally found out the actual capacity, two years later- 73 gallons!). Discovered (and replaced) leaking outlet fitting in tank. Aft head required an unclogging adventure, then replacing seals and hose and other work that I’d rather not know too much about. Thanks to my sweetie for being The One That Deals with the Head on board.

…and that’s just what he did on Totem! On friend’s boats, Jamie helped install a solar panel, did a few (three? four? five? I lost track) rig evaluations, and helped get one tuned properly.

I married well.

Much more than fixing stuff

One of the more significant preoccupations outside of prepping Totem is working with coaching clients. We thoroughly enjoy helping people make the leap to successful cruising! More recently, the kids have gotten into a few of our Skype sessions, too: prospective cruising kids want to hear the real scoop directly from them. Sitting around the iPad, this is a pretty typical scene.

We closed our our Miami stay by anchoring in Marine Stadium, a sweet little spot with near 360° protection and a killer view of the downtown Miami. Backlit by twinkling lights from the skyline at night, we could detect dolphins circling Totem only by loud huffs of their breath. An idyllic spot to raft up and make some great memories with the pretty Huckins, Cortado (which is for sale, by the way), and her crew.

Totem is now in Fort Lauderdale, on our final countdown to departure for the Bahamas. We don’t know when we’ll be back in the USA, but it’s probably some years. I’ve got an insane list, and it includes major items like, oh, battery bank replacement. Full watermaker servicing. Diesel mechanic services. Provisioning for 3 months in islands with limited stores, and high costs. Supplies for Bahamian communities still impacted by hurricane Mathew last fall. Then there are the incidentals “but we won’t be in the USA for how long?” that inflate our list. Here in the mainland, we have access to better breadth of goods, at a better quality, and a better value, than we will likely encounter for a long time.

It’s been blowing for days, but Totem is in a protected anchorage. There is access to supplies. Anchorage neighbors stopping by to chat from their kayaks. Visits from shoreside dwellers, arriving with friendship, the gift of papaya, and lessons in art (thank you, Jim!).

Life is beautiful. I’m grateful every day for the choices we have and our freedom as a family, and can’t wait to extend our adventures…starting soon in the Bahamas!

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