#guy who realizes he grew up in an impoverished city for the first time

[seraphim-soulmate]

my friends time and again as i tell them there are fruits I've never tried

[abcooper]

So right now I’m in the process of switching from a Title I school, which means more than 50% of the students are below the poverty line, to a pretty privileged school in Park Slope (rich neighborhood in Brooklyn.) I switched because this new school is doing a lot of cool things that are important to me - it’s providing a lot of extra social-emotional learning for students w autism as it integrates them fully into mainstream environments. It has advisories, I’ll have a group of 20-ish freshmen who I meet with everyday for their entire 4 years of high school and form a family out of. But it’s been weird to see the difference, working at a school where the students AREN’T impoverished. Right out of the gate, the differences in resource and expectation are enormous. ENORMOUS.

So between that and the political uproar of our rotting democracy and the upcoming election, I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationships between wealth and education and political perspective, and I wanted to tell u about my brother-in-law, tumblr, bc I don’t think I ever have.

My brother-in-law T is a good dude from Louisville, Kentucky - one of the most segregated cities in the country, and where I grew up. Now - I grew up wealthy in Kentucky. T did not grow up wealthy. T dropped out of high school at 16 when his dad died, and devoted himself to earning a living and supporting his mom and his much younger niece & nephew, who’d been orphaned when his sister died a few years prior. T has always been an upstanding guy and a caretaker, with a firm sense of duty and of right and wrong. He was also a diehard republican - the kind of guy with bumper stickers and hats and shirts about it. It never made sense to me as a kid how he could be so good and also believe that shit, but then - my own political opinions were about as developed as his. He grew up Republican and Christian and a UK Basketball fan, so those were things that he was and he didn’t look into it that hard. I grew up Jewish and Liberal and Too Intellectual For Sports, and so those were the things that I was and I didn’t look into it that hard either.

T & my sister got married and had their first kid, and T realized that he wanted to be able to offer that kid a better life than he could on his high school drop out salary. He worked his ass off for awhile, juggled a full-time job and a baby and studying, and got his GED. And then my parents, who are wealthy and could afford to do so, provided some financial support to help them get through for 4 years while T worked part-time and went to college for his undergrad degree. He wanted to do engineering - his goal was to set himself up for a steady reliable high salary in 4 years - but school was hard for him. He’d dropped out over a decade ago, he was working & had a family, he didn’t have the background knowledge or the academic literacy or the time to really thrive. He pulled back from engineering and instead got his degree in environmental management, and got a job for the city monitoring air quality & pollution.

This was in Louisville - again, one of the most segregated cities in the country. In the course of his day-to-day job, T realized that consistently, the black residential areas of the city had dangerously bad air quality, the kind that caused asthma in children and killed the elderly. The white residential areas of the city, even the impoverished white neighborhoods, did not. The black neighborhoods did. T started looking into the history - why were the black neighborhoods where they were? He started to read about the enforced segregation, the enforced poverty, and the long history that is still being propagated in Louisville to keep black people less financially secure, less educated, and less healthy than white people.

He’s a good guy, and he didn’t think it was right. So T started to take an interest in local politics. Who was working to fix these problems in Louisville? Who was willing to regulate air quality in fair ways? And while they were at it, who was working to put grocery stores in the food deserts around black neighborhoods? Who was working on education? It wasn’t the Republicans, so T got rid of his bumper stickers and his hats. It wasn’t the democrats either, though they were doing a slightly better job. T looked for the people who were lobbying for the work he knew needed to be done. He joined the DSA.

It’s the years 2020, about a decade after his college graduation, and my parents are worried that T will get himself fired for the leftist rhetoric he posts on facebook, and the political debates he gets into with his coworkers.

It’s a story I go back to when I hear people, especially people on the east coast, talking about the politics of the Republican South, and especially of the impoverished white South. We talk a lot about misdirected anger, and a rhetoric of hate and blame, about the way that the wealthy elite have convinced the poor white population of the US to look fearfully at immigrants instead of at the bosses who are getting rich off their labor and paying them minimum wage. Something that I think gets left out sometimes is the incredible isolation of the South - the way that you can grow up directly next to an injustice and NEVER hear about it. And I think it happens here too. I think the kids at my new school have no idea how much better their education is than the kids one neighborhood over, for reasons that are deeply entrenched in the racial history of this country and this city. I think the first step of real education is communication, is giving people a clearer view of the world around them, and that’s easier said than done. We’ve got all the resources imaginable these days, the internet makes communication the work of an instant, here I am typing up a whole long-ass post while I eat my breakfast, and YET. It all happens in bubbles, doesn’t it? This post will never get seen by anyone but my friends, and you’re my friends because we already believe the same things. The same bubbles exist on bigger more important levels, don’t they? Google’s algorithm does its best to show you the stuff you already agree with. We choose the news sources that match the perspective we already have.

IDK the solution. Grassroots politics and going door to door and forming communities that listen to each other right here around us, I suppose. Anyways, I’m worried about my new job and what it means to be working there, and I love my brother-in-law who is a very good dude. Good morning tumblr, thank u if u read this whole-ass ramble.

[imasimpforstevengrant]

I feel you

Author's note:

@raven-romanoff

@maristela1968

For you again, lovelies!

This is the first smut I write after almost two years. I hope you like it!

As always, sorry for any typos. English is not my first language.

____________________________________

Summary: Follow up to "I understand you".

As his strange relationship with Harleen oscillates between friendship and desire, Arthur takes the things to another level.

Warnings: angst, self hatred, mentions of masturbation, swearing, house breaking, strong sexual themes and smut.

Words: 6.258

Part 1:

Part 2:

____________________________________

Arthur couldn't sleep that night. His mind, overtaken by a growing confidence, tormented with new feelings for her created a dark, devilish smile in his face. He closed the door carefully, taking off his hoodie, shirt and shoes, wearing only sweatpants around the house, smoking a cigarette. He sat on the couch, knees bouncing. Something in his chest burns. That night Arthur felt different. He felt sure of his actions, instead of the usual anxiety and fear. Replaying the wonderful moment which he was the protagonist of, savoring every detail, while directing to the table. Her voice echoed through his head, her smile painting across his memory, the way she looked at him. His feet weren't able to keep still and Arthur knew this hyperventilation was caused by the shock of his first intimate contact with a woman. He already planned what he would do once they'd meet again. Probably to take her to dinner or simply going to the playground with a coffee and cigarettes to spend the night talking.

Handing himself his treasured journal, Arthur searched for the section dedicated to her. Grabbing a pen, he wrote her name. Misspelled, but affectionately.

Harlen Quenzel.

He tried in vain to write anything else, because his mind clouded basking in a bliss he had never felt before.

The blinding white light coming from above the kitchen hindered the happy replay of the image of Harleen coming closer to him to kiss his lips. But he simply turned it off. The tips of his fingers touched the dry flesh blessed by her mouth. Lighting a cigarette he fantasizes now. Taking her in the floor, in the bedroom or in the couch... She would love it. Arthur guaranteed himself that. The proof was clear: she had enjoyed his sudden and explosive display of passion. He suppressed a chuckle, afraid of another fit of laughter. But it did not go further. He stood in the dark for a while, before going to the couch to try to get some sleep. His mind was way too excited to even hold his legs still. The lucky loner grabbed the pack of cigarettes, smoking another one immediately after finishing the other one. Thing was, he couldn't consummate his passion in this moment... But he certainly could let his mind fly by thinking about Harleen and her virtues for now. Arthur headed to the bathroom.

A little joy given by himself wouldn't be so bad. ________________________________________

Over the next two months, the strange relationship between Arthur and Harleen grew from a friendship that had frequent outbursts of passion to long hours of talking about anything, from work to jokes.

As much as Arthur felt a silently uncontrollable lust for Harleen, he truly felt affection and caring for her. This was shown in small gestures like inviting her to dinner or waiting up late when her shift was over whenever neither of them would spend the entire night sleeping. They had each other and it was okay with that. In was in these situations where their bond grew. It was so ironic that the one thing that prevented an actual rest to his tormented mind also allowed to have the closest and most meaningful relationship he ever had in his life.

Arthur became more introverted than he already was. He didn't talk too much at work and had the growing tendency to isolate from others. To his co-workers this was probably another demonstration of his deteriorated mental state but Arthur was too busy trying to cope with these new feelings. He was asked more than once about this but he avoided to answer, limiting to reply he was okay. At the end of the day, the party clown left with a anxious pace. His co-workers were sure Arthur had finally lost his mind. And in some way, he did. Why was he in a rush? They would never know.

It was saturday when things changed. Arthur came back from a gig to Haha's with his clown make up on. Once in, he cleaned it from his face to leave without saying anything afterwards, too withdrawn into his daydreaming. He set a foot into the bus, as always, facing the window. The lights of daylight disappeared into the darkness or the night, rain pouring out. Arthur shielded from the cold sinking into his partly tattered hoodie. By this hour, Harleen should have been in her workplace. He just hoped no one would harm her at the time of her return. Arthur thought he could wait for her at the building's entrance, making sure she was safe. Harleen would like it.

He thought this weekend would be different. And Arthur had a very good reason why.

_________________________________________

It was Sunday when Arthur got up early to clean the house and to prepare breakfast for Penny to feed during the first lights of day.

It was in this way he could focus completely on his upcoming date at night. As the day vanished for nighttime to arrive, he put a cheap cologne on, his pants perfectly ironed. Same with the shirt and red vest. And the usual yellow hoodie Harleen learned to love so much. His excitement reflected in his voice as he waved goodbye to his always distracted mother, who simply waved back, not interested on how much brighter Arthur's eyes were in that moment. Heading to the door, he heard a frustrating ask:

"Happy, can you put this letter in the box?"

His shoulders lose strength. Arthur tried his best to hide his annoyance.

"It's for Thomas Wayne".

"I know, mom", the whisper was almost inaudible. Returning to the living room, he took the letter gently just to jump back to the door to free himself, "I'll be back at night".

She just nodded. And he finally breathed his freedom, feeling more confident than ever. But his sense of victory over the world vanished as he realized he still had that fucking letter in hand. A tired sigh leaves his lips. But he ran as fast as possible to reach the first floor to get rid of the piece of useless attempt to get attention from a man who maybe didn't remember her. The rusty locker received it and Arthur at last could set a foot outside the building, crossing his arms.

Harleen arrived a few seconds later. Arthur smiled, coming closer to her. Her outfit was unpretentious but neat: black pants and sneakers, a red wool sweater. Her hair was done into two colourful buns and a few strands which fell into her face. But the thing he liked the most was that blood red lipstick... And her grin made it better.

"Hello, clown man", Harleen nuzzled his nose tenderly. It was an habit he loved from her, as any other touch. He chuckled, greeting her back. Then both got out of the building, leading to the donut shop so they could have coffee and toast.

"So, how was your week?", Harleen asked as Arthur held his cup, drinking the steamy hot liquid.

"It was fine. I had a gig in a children's hospital. It turned out great because it was a charity event".

"Really?"

"Yeah. They were... Getting money for families that cannot afford to pay treatments".

Harleen nodded, warming her hands with the mug. Arthur then returned the question. Harleen told him the bar had more regulars than usual. This caught her eye, and paid very much attention to it during the weekly shift.

"What is it?".

"People are drinking their souls out" she replied, after eating her toast, "and that's not all. There was a recently fired guy that feared if Wayne is elected mayor, unemployment and riots will get worse."

Arthur lowered his head. He ate the toast to state:

"Why do so many people believe in that man, anyway?"

"He's rich, successful and an entrepreneur. Men like him have no idea how to run a city for the simple fact that entrepreneurs like him see people as numbers, not as complex sentient beings."

"How come?", Arthur fixed his collar.

"They only care for economy, Arthur. They disregard the fact that not everyone has the same chances for success they had and therefore any help for impoverished people is nothing but a "waste of money". Wayne is convinced that everyone who receives any kind of welfare doesn't want to work." Arthur remained silent for a while, processing what she just said.

"Men like him will never know what is like to be someone like you or me", Harleen concluded, finishing her coffee.

"But at least we have our jobs" Arthur commented comically.

"Yeah, as long as we get paid" and both laughed.

The shop was almost empty, which made easier to listen to the radio while talking. This gave them more topics to talk about. But then a song came out. Arthur knew it, he closed his eyes, engulfing himself in the gloomy tune of the song:

"King of all

Hear me call

Hear my name

Carnival"

Harleen did not interrupt. She understood that Arthur, as an extremely introverted person, couldn't be interrupted when exploring, talking or listening. It was pleasant to see him glad or enjoying things for once. She smiled as he mouthed the lyrics, which he knew perfectly. As the song came to an end, Harleen extended her hand, eyeing Arthur to look for his approval. As much as he enjoyed the sudden outbursts of affection, Arthur still wasn't used to publicly show it. Harleen comprehended as well and wouldn't force him to do it. She discovered it when going back from a previous date when she just held his hand. He became a blushing mess but it didn't go further, thank goodness.

Arthur noted the hand whose black and red nail polish established a hurtful contrast in comparison to her light skin. He then looked at her. He slid his own towards Harleen's. Their hands intertwined. Another little touch and he was already yearning for her. Arthur wanted to love her without words, without distance between them. Just the two of them. He wanted so much to tell her, but didn't dare to. Despite the fact he adored her, there was something he could never tell her... Yet.

There was something Arthur loathed about himself but he did his best to not to give it too much importance, choosing to focus on other things, instead. Arthur Fleck was a man and as such, he had needs. But the need wasn't the problem. Satisfying it was. He was comprehensive enough to understand that motherly affection was the closest thing he ever had to love. Devoid of any bond with anyone else, he frequently masturbated to soothe the sexual need. Usually to porn magazines whose pages he tore up to stick them in his journal. A fulfilling sexual life was a dream, far away from his reach. He could only see it but never take part in it, as it was with everything in his life. An eternal spectator, never a protagonist. Thinking of her, lusting after her... And he wasn't able to even mutter a fucking word. He cursed the emptiness roaming during all his life. Because he had nothing to offer her except desire. His inexperience was never a problem, given his surrender to embrace a life of solitude. Until now. Her arrival to his life made him remember how much of a man he was. And her kindness just fanned the fire within him.

Harleen squeezed his hand a little more, noting his unsettled nerve. Arthur sighed, out of the gloomy, bleak storm that creeped out as a dark mist in his mind. But her face shines as a small light of hope. Her eyes promised so many good things that he couldn't bring himself to believe.

"What's troubling you, Mr. Fleck?" her smile was accomplice, as if she knew what was lurking into the labyrinth of his mind, but wanting to hear it from his mouth.

"I just... I was thinking about...", Harleen encouraged him to tell her. He inhaled deeply, lighting a cigarette to cope with the newfound stress. Once again, his everlasting negative thoughts clouded the moment. The vocal cords were unresponsive. His hand broke contact with hers to hold his forehead, looking for the right words to speak. His knees bounced. Harleen leaned in, waiting.

"Artie?"

The tender pronunciation of the diminutive form of his name turned his gaze to her.

"I think I prefer to tell you... In private".

Harleen nodded. The response sounded too dark. And she knew that if Arthur talked like that, it was something serious. They left the donut shop, walking towards the subway. It was almost empty and dark. Just a few people were on it. The couple sit down, with Harleen tangling the arm around his to tilt her head on his shoulder. Arthur kept his eyes on the window, trying to figure out how the fuck he'd tell her about it.

As they reached the last stop, they left the subway station to step up the stairs and then Arthur reached a dirty, dark public restroom surrounded on the outside of a fence. Both stopped for a moment before the gnawed door. Harleen looked up to the party clown's dark features. He pronounced no words.

"Arthur?"

"There's something I need to tell you", his murmur comes shy, cast down.

"What is it?"

He stepped away from her. His hands clasp his mouth, disapproving his thoughts. He shook his head, eyes shut. Circling his own personal space, lightheaded. Harleen came closer to him.

"Is it bad?"

Arthur glared at her, guilty.

"I mean... I don't know how to tell you. I just hope you don't laugh at me".

"Why would I do that?".

Arthur half opened his eyes.

"I want...", It took a long, deep inhalation to pronounce the first part. He coughed, to clear his throat seconds later, "I need to tell you... That I really like you... And--", he silenced his words, trying to put them correctly in his mind.

"And?"

"See" he sighed, "I've..."

Harleen widened her eyes in anticipation.

"I've been thinking about you a lot... and I would be lying if I tell you I don't want something else".

"What is 'something else'?" Harleen whispered.

Arthur processed the question. And then answered:

"It's just..." He brushed the small beads of sweat on his forehead with the palm of his hand, "I love the way you touch me, Harleen" Arthur continued, "and I simply can't get enough of it".

"Because we both need it, Arthur. I love just as much as you do. That makes it so satisfying", he chuckled, humbled. Harleen expected more of him.

"That's not all", he gazed not to her. This was the one moment that could end it all or strengthen this precious bond of theirs.

"Arthur" she called him, "don't be afraid. Please tell me".

"I want to sleep with you", Arthur finally confessed, gazing at her. His eyes confirmed the statement. He blinked slowly, wanting her to see the animalistic yearn on them.

Harleen stared at him, shocked of how much he trusted her to confess something so intimate. His breathe had shortened. His green eyes glowed like emeralds, embellished even more with his pupils dilated. The blonde invited him inside the bathroom so they could keep baring their souls. Arthur inspected the place to make sure it was completely safe to stay there. Harleen locked the door once they knew it was unoccupied.

"I don't want to beg for love" Arthur said, his voice raspy, "but I don't want to lie to you. I want to know if you feel the same" Arthur spoke in a very low voice. Harleen looked at him, infatuated before this new dark vibe from him. He looked like a totally different person. Her fingers slid into his curls.

"I knew it already, Arthur."

"And why doesn't it bother you?"

"Because I can understand why you want it".

Arthur turned to her. Never in his life he felt more expecting. Harleen explained, in very simple terms, that she found his attachment understandable: Arthur had been deprived of love during all his life and this new bond made him feel important. From becoming visible and cared for to reaffirm his manhood through sexual desire. Arthur heard every word carefully, and it made sense. Everything made fucking sense. It was through sexual intercourse that men felt loved.

Love.

It was always about love, at the end of all.

Harleen returned the cigarette to him.

"Don't blame yourself. You're a human, after all. Sex is the most pleasant of human activities, so don't feel bad for enjoying it".

"It's not that I don't enjoy it. I don't feel ready to do it, despite of how much I want it".

Harleen frowned, and her silence just made Arthur confess one of his most (if not the most) shameful secrets. Only now she knew the extent of her impact in his life. She knew a lot about him, including the seven medications he was in, but this? She had been aware of the way he looked at her, but hearing him actually admitting it out loud made her shudder. Her arms locked around his shoulders to pull Arthur to a kiss in the cheek.

"It's not a race or a competition. You just feel and act according to your instincts. Also, I'd be lying too if I said I don't want anything else" Arthur sank his eyes into Harleen's, "quite frankly, we were close to have sex the night we first talked if it wasn't because I was too tired to do so, but now, if you don't feel ready to do it, I won't pressure you to do anything".

"Starting a friendship in that way? I like it" he hummed, mischievous.

"We are not friends... Because... Friends are not supposed to touch each other. That's what lovers do. But... We aren't lovers, yet" Harleen whispered.

"Then what are we?" Arthur asked.

"We are, Arthur. We simply are" this time her kiss directed to his mouth. _________________________________________

Arthur changed his damp clothes to avoid the cold. The bedroom TV was turned on as well as the hall lights. The usual. He prepared the dinner for his mother, bathing her and making sure she'd go to bed. The conversation was the same. Thomas fucking Wayne and the fucking letters. Arthur had no interest on losing energy on nonsense, so he only nodded. He took a shower and shaved the growing beard and wore his grey sweatpants. A few observations written in the pages of the journal about his day at Haha's and Arthur felt his routine was finished, therefore he could count down to the moment when Harleen was back at home from work. His eyes darted at the clock. 1:14 am. Less than two hours for her return. He felt confident enough to go to her apartment and stay all night with her. He smoke five cigarettes in the meantime, walking over the house. Turning the TV on so time wouldn't pass so long. He sat at the couch, waiting for an old rerun of Murray Franklin's Show. An actor was to be interviewed but he couldn't focus entirely on it. He laid down. His mind pictured her beside him. However, as much as he cherished all the physical and emotional affection from her, it wasn't enough anymore. It was hard to accept it but that's just the way it was. As the show ended, an old movie ran. Arthur turned the device off. The clock sets the time: 2:24 am. Less than hour. He got up, turning the lights off, hoodie in hand and determination in his mind. Locking the door, Arthur left. He walked across the halls, stepping down to the destination: 7H. The door was unlocked, much to his surprise. The loner felt truly in home. If only she was in there for him to shower her in his affection. But he then realized the neon lights were on. His heart skipped a beat. The air seemed... Different. He stood as quiet as possible to see what was going on. The rain slightly broke the total silence that ruled the place. Arthur reached the living and then, only then, he saw her.

Harleen was placidly sleeping on the couch, wearing a two part, peach coloured pajamas. Her mane was a mess of white, blue and pink strands that fell over her face. Her head rested on a pillow and her pose revealed how comfy her sleep was. Kneeling beside the couch, Arthur leaned over her face, his fingers set aside the colourful mane to obtain the beautiful vision of her peaceful facial expression. His thumb glided over her lips, which he soon joined with his. It was slow, intimate kiss, full of subtle hunger.

Seconds later, her hands cupped his face to make the caress steadier, humming playfully. Arthur broke the kiss to eye her. Half sleep, Harleen smiled at him.

"Hey" he called, secretive.

"Good night, Mr. Fleck", she muttered, voice pasty, "another insomnia night?" but he shook the head.

"I thought you weren't here. I couldn't help it", he muttered.

“Never said I mind. Bar closed earlier and here I am”.

“Really? Why?”

“The riots, Arthur. Boss preferred to send us home before any damage could be done by the protesters”.

Arthur made room for himself in the cozy, fluffy long couch. Asking if she was okay, Harleen just replied she took a taxi to make home safely. Arthur sighed, relieved. The blonde smiled at him but didn’t move any further. He noticed that, blaming for being so inconsiderate. Getting into her apartment and disturbing her rest like that? What a awful friend (lover) he was! Recoiling with guilt and diving again in the brooding mood so typical on him, he distanced from his love. She fell asleep once more. Arthur kept his gaze on her, tracing invisible touches in her curves. She was so close yet so far. He wanted to be a part of her, to be with her.

Inside of her.

The calloused fingers held his face to wash away the shame. The nerves were too much to take. The laugh gestated in a noise initially deaf to hear from afar to a thunderous fit. Harleen jolted at the sudden outburst. Arthur couldn’t feel worse. The expression on his face was so desperate for silence that the blonde immediately went after him when he shrugged, attempting in vain to drown the horrible noise that made his vocal cords bleed. Harleen dissuaded Arthur of any idea of escape just to hold him. The mentally ill loner sank his face into her neck. The embrace didn’t stop the scandalous explosion to keep shattering the quietness of the place, sensing Harleen squeezed his faint figure, seemingly trying to put every piece of his broken yet beautiful soul to help to soothe the pain.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—“

Her voice hushed his apologize. As the din disappeared into nothingness, both returned to the living room on the couch but Arthur took a step back from her.

“Why?”

Puzzled, Harleen frowns. She gave him space to recover.

“Why what?”

“Why me?”, Arthur regained strength to ask her, staring at her for a long period of time, “of all men you can have, why me?”

For the first time, Harleen seemed upset.

“If you think I do this out of pity, you are very, very wrong” the fire in her eyes was fascinating.

“Then why?”

Harleen processed the question while Arthur desperately awaited the reason to be verbalised.

“Please”.

She gulped.

“Because you’re a good man, Arthur”.

The response was too simple to be believable, though it was grateful to hear a compliment from her. Desiring more, his stare pierced her soul, to let her take the hint. Imprisoned under the green spell of his, Harleen proceeded to continue:

“I mean- you are always trying to make people laugh, yet people don’t see you and you still continue. You love what you do, you have been kind to me, you care about your mother putting your well-being aside. Don’t you think that is worth enough?”

Arthur shut his eyes, his head to the left, lighting a cigarette while the bouncing knee betrayed his feeling of unsettlement. Harleen noticed it. Wind took words away. Actions prevailed in time.

Time! That’s precisely what he needed. Both battled uneasiness in their own, unique way. While Harleen on her own end of the couch thought on a way to help him, Arthur tried to give order to his convulsed mind. He constantly touched his forehead and chest but never dared to eye her, terrified that she would vanish. The damn cigarette placed again on his lips. The muteness grew so uncomfortable the loner returned to glare at the blonde. She slowly approached to him, searching in his face his approval to get closer. Afraid to disturb his personal space in the same way someone would be cautious when getting closer to a wild animal. Arthur gasped, his blood boiling in what seemed the exact moment that would define his life. Harleen crawled to him, reaching his shoulders to concrete her goal: sit in the space between his legs.

If Arthur believed that just a hug put him on fire, this new contact aroused him to the point of insanity. The blonde crowned the physical bond placing her head in the crook of his neck. The temptation to take her and possess her now was insufferable but he found the will to not give in into the impulsive reaction. How? He’d never know. His heart rate was so violent, so overwhelming that the threat of a heart attack was becoming more real. Harleen placed her hand on his chest, like caressing his damaged heart like a mother would do with an scared child. His lungs finally caught a calmer rhythm as minutes went by. Arthur craved new touches, new discoveries, yet he wanted to remain like this forever. He savoured the closeness of their bodies… but it wasn’t enough. Harleen surely knew it by the moment Arthur stopped smoking.

And whenever Arthur Fleck stopped smoking, it meant something serious got his attention.

As the last fire on the cigarette died on the ashtray, Arthur turned his focus completely on her. He’d return her the favour, since she invaded his personal space so shamelessly. Harleen distanced a bit from him to allow the hoodie to come off. She approved the sight with a wide smirk: despite what people could say about his figure, Arthur was not as thin as his outfit revealed. His bare upper body had a plenty of muscle in the biceps. She traced a finger across the aforementioned part to touch his jawline now, going down his neck and collarbone. Next, a nuzzle against his face to continue the intimate bond, brushing her lips with his, without kissing him. However there was no further reaction from him except for a serene look on his face at the caresses. As the touch came to an end, she kissed his mouth repeatedly, her lips curved into a smile. The gesture motivated his instinct to get the better of him. He rose his dark, thick eyebrow to let her know how much of an accomplice he turned out to be, like a warning of what he had planned for her.

It was almost a ritual. Whenever a situation turned out to be too unfamiliar or too good, his hands would act as the link to confirm his psyche wasn't playing tricks with him. But this wasn't only a situation. This was a person who unchained a situation. And how he thanked every second of it. It seemed a spark of happiness enlightened his life, for once. Probably because even fate believed that no human being should be so miserable. He needed a constant reaction from her to keep convincing himself this wasn’t a dream. To increase the enjoyment of his hands touching her, Arthur executed a move directed to her chest, gliding his hands over her breasts, covered by the thin fabric of the sleeveless shirt. Harleen gasped, eyeing the curious hands as they roamed upon that delicate part of her. Arthur was fascinated, as his grin evidently brought out.

Since he had understanding about sex, Arthur craved a woman’s touch. It began as wet dreams, continuing with the subsequent discover of porn, a source he always went to in order to provide himself a little satisfaction. He remembered the particularly unhappy time of highschool, where bullying and harsh looks were a routine. The laughing fits during class, boys from all ages mocking at him during recess. But lunchtime was the worst part. If he wasn’t beaten up, his food paid the price. Starving and tired, Arthur was relieved in part by dropping school. He wouldn’t have to deal with the brutality of his classmates anymore. Girls usually avoided him, scared by his weak appearance. He never asked a girl for a date, afraid to be taken as a pervert. He just repressed any sexual need, feeling like a depraved creep for being curious about female body.

The mental drift continued for a couple of minutes when he noticed that Harleen wasn’t too quiet now, her shortened breath revealing an intense joy at his touch. As it happened always in a moment of adrenaline, through his arms an herculean strength ran so intensely that made her sit on his lap with no problem. The most exciting part of this new bold position was that he could face his lover, aiming his interest to her neck, covering it with slow, paused kisses. Harleen supports on his shoulders, delighted at his intimate exploration. Her shortened breath became a heavy panting while the latter morphed into a loud moan. Arthur immediately looked up to the blonde, her mane tickling his face. Did he caused such wonderful reaction? Him? Arthur Fleck, the perpetual loser, the unfunny clown, the embodiment of what a man should never be?

Suddenly, the grip loosened. Arthur felt he couldn’t concentrate anymore on Harleen in the same way. A sensation similar to fainting snatched away the energy on his arms. A surge of boiling blood flowed down his groin.

Arthur knew what this meant and her thighs straddling his hips, exactly where his searing intimacy reacted to such delectable recreation.

This encouraged him to let his wildest side come out. The pale hands lifted the shirt to the level of her neck, obtaining her bare chest to devour while getting into the inner part of the shirt, leaving the barrier between skin and fabric behind his back. Harleen reared up before the fulminant demonstration of lust, screaming while clawing at his shoulders. She felt his mouth, eager and famished, assiduously paying dedication to her soft sinuosities. The position enabled her to coddle him as well.

Because he fucking deserved it.

Her fingers stirred the dark curls under the cloth, begging for more. When Arthur felt the arousal was too much to keep building it up to simple caresses, he threw the shirt aside to obtain her upper nude body to admire. His eyes widened as the glimpse was even more beautiful in reality than in his fantasies. He hummed, approving the sight, too anxious to take her and yet so insecure if she’d be satisfied.

The blonde tugged into his belt, making clear her desire to pursue a deeper insight of their relationship. Her body performed a subtle movement to make him lay down on his back. As Arthur got rid of his clothes, so she did. Once she reached her own full nudity, he covered his mouth, amazed. Forget the models in his journal. Harleen had no comparison. And she probably knew it.

“Do you like what you see, mister Fleck?” she purred, seductive. He panted, regaining the oxygen to answer.

“Yes” was all he answered. Arthur could hardly speak at this point. His eyes said everything, anyway. The tease was a gift before the beloved blonde climbed atop him. Arthur helped her, grabbing her by the hips he longed so much to trace his fingers on.

Harleen leaned over his face to grant it a last kiss, enjoying this final step preceding to the loss of individuality.

She seemed so unreal, even when her full weight upon him proved wrong. And he knew exactly what to do to prove his psyche otherwise.

The last trace of doubt disappeared completely as his own sex found itself inside of her at last. The insertion was very slow, no rushes, so both lovers could memorize every sensation. The pressure around his hardened length turned out to be a pleasure beyond the thinkable, causing a shuddering, fastened breath to crumple his lungs. He arched his back, a loud, pleasurable moan escaping his mouth. As he got used to the warm welcome she gave him, his hands held her hips to proceed. Harleen lolled her head back, moaning softly, rejoicing at his presence inside of her delicate womanhood. Stillness held their bodies together as they enjoyed the sensation brought by the union.

Arthur recovered from the initial shock before the long desired loss of his hated celibacy started to take place. Harleen, naked much to the delight of his eyes, had her white, porcelain skin beautifully shaded by the pink and blue dim neon lights. Arthur smirked at her, admiring her body with his hands, not to convince himself that he was not hallucinating but to make sure to tell her how much he had desired to do this.

Just then Harleen did her magic.

“Let me show you that you’re not invisible”.

The rhythm worked in a slow pace. The blonde’s masterful moves made him moan and groan loudly as she straddled his hips. Everything he imagined with her appalled in comparison to this. Harleen, so provocative and prodigious, was so delicate in this erotic surrender. Like almost floating in the air. Arthur wondered how much it could take until reaching the peak of the carnal pleasure. But the obnoxious thud that beat his brain even in this moment found itself defeated by this lovely and pleasurable novelty, eventually. Watching Harleen on top of him was an irresistible landscape and Arthur couldn’t be more grateful for it even if he tried.

And her moans didn’t help either. Harleen was too lost in the moment to even talk to him, restricting her vocal expressions of pleasure just to plead for more.

Arthur plunged in this novelty to feel like a man for the first time in his life. He chuckled, joyful. His concentration centered exclusively on her. Harleen was a living mess of ecstasy, away from reality. He couldn’t love her more, specially when she called his name. The grip on her hips became tighter, as the warm space that surrounded his arousal narrowed. Her moans arose to louder screams. Now that was something he wanted to hear, sliding his fingers up to her waist to her chest.

The sense of control began to disappear eventually.

The instigation inspired a new move from Arthur, who got up to enclose her waist to absorb her essence. Fastening the moves, the blonde threw her arms to his neck, increasing the union as much as they were able. Their screams echoed through the apartment, announcing the proximity of the climax.

The final frenzy took ahold of the lovers. It hit Harleen first, as the convulsion whipped her insides, her figure trembling.

Arthur was convinced his soul was living his body at the time of his climax. While Harleen allowed him to flood her with his seed, he held her hips to keep inside her the longest time possible. The passionate, fulfilling embrace that served as the conclusion to the act recomposed their sense of reality. Once the physical bond was broken, the lovers laid back in the couch. Arthur still had a hard time recovering from his first sexual experience. His lungs finally eased down as Harleen reassuringly talked to him. Arthur opened his eyes, to smile to her.

“That…” he stuttered, breathless, “that… was… fucking sensational”.

Harleen supported her head in her hand.

“Couldn’t agree more”.

Arthur smiled and didn’t resist the temptation to sink into her arms, awaiting for sleep to come. He gave himself in completely, handing his vulnerability to her. Harleen sighed, palming his back. Arthur recoiled in pain and she didn’t hesitate to apologize.

“What’s this?” Harleen was going to get up to check him out but he prevented it, shaking his head. Apparently it didn’t have too much importance for him.

“I want this” his whisper sounded legitimately grateful. He took her hands to kiss them dearly, “I want this”.

She nodded and then changed her position so Arthur could place himself upon her. Her open arms received his fragile, starving shape to grant it comfort, like remind him of how much of a man he could be. The loner muttered something, but Harleen was already sleeping. Arthur didn’t move at all, silently enjoying her chest moving up and down. He planted a kiss above her right breast and closed his eyes.

The rain intensified. And Arthur fell asleep in a state of complete inner peace for the first time in his life as the pink lights dissipated into black as his eyes slowly closed.

It was the most beautiful darkness he’d ever been in.

[allsystemsarenotgo]

A friend and I were talking one day, and she shared this with me.

She was much like me, raised with a quarter between the knees, terrified of the things we were taught to avoid and trying to live reasonably noble lives. She wasn't allowed Birth Control for religious reasons (pro-life) as well as to prevent enablism. Her family was much more religious than mile, though I still went to church during my Sophomore, Junior, and Senior years of high school.

She married a guy 10 years older than herself, who was a long-time routine customer of her family's business. They married right after she graduated high school, long before she applied to higher education.

She is a nurse now. She has 3 kids, works long hours at a hospital, and her husband is a successful farmer as he always has been. She struggled at times, but she made it through.

She knows life would have been easier without the first child, but she was innocent and naiive and I think she realizes that she jumped in the deep end of the pool before learning how to swim.

I did the same thing.

All through high school I pledged to abstinence until marriage. I hated everything to do with sex. The topic, the drama, the action, the result. I wanted nothing to do with it.

But I also never dated through grade school at all. I never had a girlfriend. Plenty of crushes (M.S. above being one of them), but just as many denials. Because I didn't drink, smoke, do drugs, have FFA animals, or play athletics, I also wasn't a member of any social group. I was always the kid in the corner of the cafeteria scarfing food down in 5 minutes and sleeping the other 20, or asking to go to a teacher's classroom, where it was serene and quiet.

My freshman year of college, I even wrote an essay on abstinents for English class. That really didn't go over well in regards to having to read it out loud. There might as well have been fruit flying at me.

My dorm was set up such that we had 3 private bedrooms that shared a living space and bathroom. One of the roommates always had girls over, and he never tried to be quiet (or if he did, he failed...badly).

So those two things were my indoctrination to college life. Getting judged and leered at for writing an abstinence essay, and having to listen to a roommate multiple times a week.

Towards the very end of my freshman year, a girl from high school messaged me. We started talking, and she admitted that she had always had a crush on me and was too shy to ever say anything.

Error #1: For no good reason whatsoever, I agreed to formulate a relationship with this female

So when I moved home from the dorms, I hung out with the lass a few times, but my parents were moving out of the country and closer to my school, so I could live at home. That meant that this would now be a 1.5-hour-each-way medium-distance relationship.

So every 4th or 6th weekend during the remainder of that summer and into the fall semester, I would drive up and spend a day with her. Sometimes, I would drive her out of the country and into the city to give her a glimpse of escape (it was very impoverished where we grew up).

Error #2: Doing whatever made her happy

I really enjoyed the time that we spent together. She got me a purity necklace for Christmas that year. She said she understood that my preference meant something to me.

But then, something changed. She would start dropping enuindos and jokes and send me photos that I didn't ask for.

Error #3: Not standing up for myself

She said that I meant something to her, and asked me if she meant something to me. At the time, I did not comprehend that as a trap...but I wanted to make her happy, so I said "yes".

The next thing I know, she is booking a hotel for us for Valentine's day. Wherein, I learned a thing or two or five or ten that I really wasn't interested in learning in the first place.

-Provides Clorox to help scrub the thoughts from your mind-

After that, she wanted me to come see her more and more often. But I was tied up with school and life.

Mind you, we usually had a phone call every night, or at least every other night. Same time, right before bed. Sometimes we would fall asleep on the phone with eachother.

Error #4: Accepting anything as fact

Well one night, I called her, and she answered...but it was noisy in the background, like she was driving. But she never talked while driving, and wouldn't answer the phone with family in the car.

She said she was in a friend's car and they were going to the beach for the night, which was completely reasonable for the time of year and her group of friends. She cut the conversation short saying they had arrive, so we bid our greeting. But she didn't hang up, and something told me that I shouldn't either. So I didn't.

"Who was that?"

"Don't mind him. He was just calling to check on me. He's controlling like that."

"He sounds like a jerk"

"Enough about him. He won't do this."

-Provides more clorox-

And that's how I found out that her primal needs were more important than our "relationship".

Unfortunately, shortly after I broke up with her, I was sent a photo of her quite visibly pregnant. Fortunately, the timetable did not add up to Valentine's day (aside of the fact that it was physically/biologically 95% impossible).

That summer, I started a job at the student newspaper. Right off the bat, one of the graphic artists and I got along very well. We spent way too much time at work talking to eachother and goofing off, instead of working. Enough so that our boss took notice and things got tense for a bit with him. We still cranked out work no problem, but we were both too young to understand workplace policy and procedure when it comes to "dating but not dating", which is basically exactly what we were doing. We spent alot of time together. I would go to her dorm after class and we would watch movies and just goof off or do whatever. We enjoyed time together.

Error #1: So cliché. So, so cliché.

So Valentine's day rolls around, and she asks 'the question'.

So something in biology: There is a term called "Once an animal has the taste of blood, they will always hunt for it." Unfortunately, humans can sometimes be considered a sub-species of the animal kingdom.

Like the dumbass that I am, I accept to the terms and conditions.

And at the end of the night, she asks: "So are we officially dating now?"

"I...I guess?", I answered nervously.

Errors #2 to #457: Not escaping

And just like that, I was suckered into nearly 2.5 years of having a FWB while having to, very creatively at times, mask it as a legitimate relationship.

We enjoyed the time we spent together.

We enjoyed going places together.

My mum liked her, her parents liked me. (Dad was skeptical at best and thought I could do better)

The small issue: I struggled to communicate at times. I didn't know how to find my voice, so there were times that I would have to text her how I felt. Sometimes I would hide in a corner just so I could cry. (I later learned of my autism, and it all made sense and I learned how to resolve this)

The big issue: I was completely burned out on intimacy. After almost 2.5 years of emulating laboratory rabbits, I was done. My usefulness had expired.

The biggest issue: We were both suffering academically. We had no common interests at all anymore, and we had put eachother ahead of our own academics so much that we were both risking academic expulsion.

So we mutually agreed to break up.

She dropped out of university (and never went back or finished her schooling), and I changed majors twice before getting my Bachelor of Science.

My first relationship lasted from June 2009 to April 2010.

My second "relationship" lasted from February 2011 until May 2012 (Although we started spending time together in significant amounts starting August 2010)

I have not had a girlfriend since May 2012.

I had one friend in my senior year of college, who gave me some non-physical affection while also keeping me firmly locked in the friendzone. But quality time, by itself, only goes so far.

I have not had any physical affection since May 2012.

I have not spent quality time with a female since May 2013.

For most of that time, from May 2013 to August 2019, I really didn't mind it at all. I have been so tied up in working, hobbies, and life in general, that I completely ignored women.

But as my birthday loomed near in October 2019, it donned on me....I was on a crash course to being eternally lonely.

So I have tried online dating. I have gone on a few first dates, but no second dates.

Sometimes, I want to give up. The fight just doesn't seem worth the reward.

And honestly?

Sometimes I feel exactly like my friend's remarks at the top of this post. Sometimes I wish I would have been a little more rebellious, a little more care-free, a little more out-there.

But at the same time, ...

Sometimes I wish that neither relationship would have ever happened.

That I would have never learned the true definition of intimacy.

That I would have never done whatever it took to make the other person happy.

That I wouldn't have been such an easy push-over.

That I would have stuck to my initial pledge in life

That I would have spoke up more and defended myself.

All I am now, is damaged product.

I don't truly know how to love.

I don't truly know how to feel.

I don't truly know how to be myself.

I don't truly know how to be intimate.

I am human, I am male, so of course I have my moments. But I don't want that to be the reason for a relationship. I want it to be the least-important factor, or not a factor at all.

I want a relationship founded on trust, honesty, fortitude, common interests, personality, maybe even a little faith.

Not intimacy.

I just want to not be invisible, or to only have one attribute visible.

I want to be seen for all the other attributes.

I am not A-sexual. I still feel emotions and feelings. I just don't want to let them out of the locked box which contains them. Not without lots of context and preparedness.

[rewolfaekilerom]

ginny & georgia is good.

//NOTE: This was originally posted to Wordpress on 05.01.2021//

Let me start by saying that I tried to think of a clever title for this post, but all I could think of was the simple fact that I really like Ginny & Georgia. Excuse my lack of cleverness this week. I’m not sure if it’s my body responding to the first vaccine dose or if it’s the fog of seasonal allergies, but my brain is mush; my sense of smell is also not right. Also, Bug scratched the hair off of one of her ears (I’m pretty sure that’s seasonal allergies, poor thing) and I’ve spent a cumulative 15 hours this past week rendering, exporting, and uploading one single video onto YouTube for work (lost story short: I’m back at the rendering stage after I realized the audio got unsynced in the second half of the video. Ugh). It’s been a WEEK.

Excuses, excuses.

So, while I wait for my laundry and as I take a break from New Pokemon Snap (omg, it’s so good), I thought I’d brain-vomit my thoughts about Ginny & Georgia. Proving true to the portrait I gave of myself in my last post, I’m happy (or embarrassed?) to say that I watched Ginny & Georgia (henceforth G&G) twice this week. I finished episode 10 and immediately started rewatching episode 1, and it’s taking everything in me to not start rewatching for a third time. But depending on what you consider a week, I might be on week two now? ANYWAY.

I’ll start this brain-dump by saying, again, I really like this show. I described it to friends as a cross between Gilmore Girls and Pretty Little Liars or Outer Banks–maybe with a touch of Dexter. I don’t think it’s just that, but I think that’s a good way to summarize how it feels to watch the show, and those are good things in my book. GG and Dexter are probably in my top 5 favorite TV shows, and OB is up there too. I’ve watched OB through twice, and it definitely quenched my mid-winter thirst for the beach and my perpetual desire for a solid mystery/intrigue. I grew up watching the Travel Channel, so any show set in an even moderately interesting locale is immediately catching my interest. Oh, and I watched the entire PLL series with my mom while I was a teenager and even after I went away to college; it was “our show”–our way of sharing cultural ground even when I was away from home for the first time. We watched each episode together when it aired on TV, and we’d be the first to admit that the show was–at best–illogical, comically dramatic, and unrealistic to the umpth degree. But sometimes it’s fun to watch a show and laugh at its absurdity.

G&G doesn’t fall into the same traps that a lot of those types of teen shows do. It has drama and intrigue; it has sex and “teen problems” (which are really just person problems). But it also has real conversations about race and sexuality and parent-child relationships that go beyond the CW/Freeform problem-for-problem’s-sake model (hi, PLL)) or the WB squeaky-clean-problems approach (I’m talking to you, Seventh Heaven). It takes a Skins approach to issues young people face–well, if Skins was made for a puritanical US audience, but not THAT US Skins reboot. We’ll never talk about that. Shhh. Look away.

I’m not going to rehearse the plot of G&G, so look it up for yourself right now. I’ll wait.

Just kidding. I’m not waiting. Go look it up on your own time.

The similarities between G&G and GG are glaring (hell, Georgia even calls herself and Ginny the Gilmores with bigger boobs). In both, you have a young, single mom who had her daughter at 15/16 and then ran away from home. The mom is plucky, charismatic, and doesn’t always navigate the world by making the most, er, ethical choices. The daughter initially seems a bit more reserved and like she wants to play by the rules, but deep down is just a younger version of the mother, and that comes out of the course of the series. The two relate to one another as friends, but it’s complicated by the fact that they’re parent and child and that there is an inherent power imbalance there. The daughter is a little too mature for her own good and the mother is a little too immature for her own good. They butt heads, usually over the mother’s past and present choices (particularly regarding men) and the daughter’s present and future choices (also often regarding men). Their fights and falling outs are truly spectacular–they fight like only a mother and daughter could, but they also love one another–though they can’t express that love in the most logical or legible ways. They’re dysfunctional in every way you could imagine, and they really should be in family counseling.

But that’s not all. If that were it, I’d say, “oh, boohoo, they have similar types of characters. As if this is novel? Hasn’t this been done before? Get off your high horse.” NO. The parallels between these two shows go WAY deeper than that. Georgia is Lorelei and Ginny is Rory–hell, their naming practices are even similar. Georgia named herself after the state she was in the first time she had to come up with a pseudonym; this initiated a naming practice wherein she names her children after the cities/states they’re born in–hence Ginny, for Virginia. Rory is a nickname for Lorelei. (Side note: Lorelei is a hard name to type.)

Fine, fine. But we also have the tripartite relationship dynamics. Lorelei’s Big Three are Christopher, Max, and Luke; Georgia’s are Zion (Ginny’s dad and Georgia’s “penguin”–still not positive what that means, except that they can’t let go of one another?), Paul (the mayor, a white collar, public-facing profession), and Joe (the cafe/restaurant owner). If teenaged Rory has Dean and Jess, Ginny has Hunter and Marcus, respectively; Rory and Ginny obviously belong with the “bad boy”–they have infinitely better chemistry and get one another–but struggle with how good they “look” with the good guy, who’s actually kind of a judgmental jerk (as the bad guy points out).

Stars Hollow looks a whole lot like Wellsbury–hell, they’re both in New England. Wellsbury IS the most New England town name ever. Period. I love me some picturesque New England town bullshit.

Oh, and the side characters. Ellen and Sookie fill the same niche, and it’s a good one. They’re easily the most likable characters in both shows, and their husbands are genuinely funny characters in their own rights. GG has the sexually ambiguous (until he’s not) but oh-so-sarcastic Michel while G&G has Nick. Arguably, you could lump Kirk in with Michel to get Nick, but Nick isn’t as bumbling as Kirk, so maybe that point doesn’t stand. Hell, for friends Rory has the angel and devil on her shoulders in the form of Lane and Paris; Ginny has Max and Abby. And if Stars Hollow has Taylor Doose, Wellsbury has Cynthia Fuller. The list goes on.

Of course, a staple of GG is Emily and Richard Gilmore, but we glimpse that in G&G’s flashbacks to Zion’s parents, who help Georgia and Zion when the two first have Ginny. They’re similarly exasperated with their child’s choices and come off as a little overbearing but nonetheless have good intentions. They don’t have nearly as much screen time as Emily and Richard, which is a shame, but they serve a similar function.

Oh! And the flashbacks. They’re one of the charming parts of GG–they give us really important backstory on Lorelei’s life and life choices prior to the series’ start (and Rory’s birth, frankly). They’re less charming in G&G because Georgia’s background is far darker than GG ever could or would have conjured.

This gets me to why G&G isn’t just a GG rip-off. G&G isn’t just a woke GG. It isn’t just GG with people of color, in the LGBTQIA+ community, of varied socioeconomic classes, or from outside New England. If you like GG, you might like G&G, but you also might not. G&G addresses real life challenges teenagers, women, people of colorm hell, most Americans face in 2021. It depicts the US in its multiple angles, some of which are very, very ugly. Some might say that it’s GG for 2021, and maybe it is, but if that’s true, I’m not sure it’s a bad thing. I’m just not sure it’s totally true.

I’m going to cool it on the GG-G&G comparisons for a moment and just talk about G&G because I think you get my point. Before I cool it completely, though, and as a point of departure, I’ll say that if we do go with the idea that G&G is GG for 2021, then we need to recognize what G&G does differently: it gives us glimpses into how a whole range of people experience the US, and it doesn’t look away from ugly, unflattering, hateful truths that reside just below the surface of sparkly, shiny, pretty, picture-perfect towns. It doesn’t shy away from reality, even if that reality is uncomfortable for white, middle-class, cis, het viewers.

The important things about G&G that I haven’t yet mentioned in specifics are a’plenty.

Ginny (and Hunter) is mixed-race, a subject that comes up on a number of occasions in the form of explicit conversations about how being mixed-race doesn’t necessarily mean belonging to two communities but can instead mean feeling out of place in both. It also comes up in a very hard-to-watch argument between Ginny and Hunter where the two trade insults about one another’s lack of belonging; the argument escalates into a screaming match in which the two effectively diminish not only one another’s claims to their Black (in Ginny’s case) and Taiwanese (in Hunter’s case) identities but also the prejudices they experience at the hands of a hegemonic white society that systematically denies opportunities or a sense of belonging (among other things) for those who don’t fit into readily identifiable “boxes.”

Georgia ran away from her childhood home in rural, impoverished Arkansas because she was being sexually abused by her stepfather, who then went on to sexually abuse her half-sister.

Georgia has killed people, often for “legitimate” (???) reasons, including posing threats to Ginny.

Georgia used to be in a biker gang and still has connections with at least one member, a lawyer she has on retainer to help her “disappear” her misdeeds, including said murders.

Marcus and Ginny have struggled (or are currently struggling) with self-harm and suicide ideation.

Literally every single one of the teenagers in this show is under immense pressure to over-engage in extracurricular activities that will make them competitive candidates at top universities.

Parents’ unhealthy relationships with one another, divorce, and everything else in that realm also shape the teenaged characters’ lives.

Abby struggles with an eating disorder that’s fueled in part by comments her male peers (notably, an asshole named Press) about her body. Male characters make sexist, stereotyping comments to Ginny about her body, too.

I’ll stop there, but I do so with full knowledge that I’m likely leaving something out. Hell, as I type this I remember that Austin (Ginny’s younger half-brother) literally stabs a kid in the hand and there’s a private detective trying to figure out Georgia’s past, including if/how she murdered her previous husband (the impetus for the family’s move). Like I said, there’s so much more to this show than just its similarities with GG. But I’ve also seen articles online decrying viewers who make the connection, and I don’t think that’s quite the right approach. The show clearly isn’t copying GG. Even if G&G did take inspiration from GG, it takes that inspiration in a fresh direction.

I wonder, though, about how we, the viewers, are supposed to respond to certain aspects of the show.

For instance, the show pits the US South as the source of obvious Bad Stuff ™–child abuse, incest, poverty, etc.– and the US Northeast as a place where the Bad Stuff ™ is hidden beneath a picture-perfect veneer. I get what the show’s creators are going for. They’re attempting to give us a multidimensional perspective on the US in all its prettiness and ugliness, but I wonder if associating the South with only the Bad Stuff ™ is doing a disservice to a region that has a rich cultural past and present–a past and present that’s certainly included problems like poverty, racism, and abuse but cannot be defined by those things alone because those things are not all that’s there. To tie those things primarily to just one region because those are stereotypes that are often perpetuated about that region seems a bit . . . overly simplistic? Troublesome? Dare I use the old grad-student favorite–problematic? It’s too easy–it’s lazy, in fact–to pit South against Northeast as the source of the US’s outright ugliness. It’s the rhetoric surrounding the 2016 presidential election all over again, and, frankly, we could all use a break.

The other thing that regional competition does is it makes it possible for the show to gloss over the fact that those Bad Things ™ exist in the Northeast, too. I feel silly saying that because it seems so obvious, but the simplistic portrait the show paints of the US means that it sacrifices accurate representation and complexity for the sake of–well, actually, I’m not sure what it’s for the sake of. Maybe straightforward storytelling? That might make sense if the show didn’t dwell in other complexities and commit itself to attempting to represent other identities and aspects of American life with some degree of accuracy, so I don’t know.

I can’t speak to whether the show accurately represents the experiences of mixed-race people, LGBTQIA+ people, or people with disabilities. I suspect that it represents the experiences of some people accurately but, of course, not all people because that would be impossible. I’m also not sure if I think the show’s commitment to representing a variety of experiences of US life borders on tokenism. I can’t speak for how someone who occupies one of those subject positions experiences the show because I do not occupy that subject position. My gut reaction is that the show does seem to make an effort to go beyond the whole “look at us, we cast all sorts of people in our show” by attempting to humanize all of its characters as real humans with rich, complex lives. It weaves the characters’ lives into a tight web, making clear that a character like Max and Marcus’s dad isn’t noteworthy just because he’s deaf. You don’t look at Clint and think “oh, that’s the deaf character.” You think, oh, that’s Clint; he’s Ellen’s husband, Max and Marcus’s dad, he’s deaf, he makes pithy remarks about his over-the-top daughter and slacker son, and he performs strip-teases for his wife. He’s noteworthy because he’s an engaged (and absolutely hilarious) husband and father whose deafness is one of many identities of his that influences his children’s lives as any other cultural identity would influence a family’s dynamic. The entire family is (at least) bilingual, communicating in sign language and spoken English while also teaching their sign language skills to friends and significant others. His deafness is one identity among many that the show invests him with, and he’s not in all that many scenes.

I could be wrong, but that was my experience while watching the show and thinking about it a bit afterward and while writing this post.

The show depicts mixed-race identity in a complex way, too, but it dwells on it a bit longer and with a bit more detail. I mentioned that Ginny and Hunter are both of mixed-race parentage and that their mixed-race identities become a subject of a relationship-ending argument. To back up a bit, though, the show attempts to paint a vivid portrait of the challenges Ginny in particular faces as a she navigates middle-class, white suburbia as the daughter of a Black father and a white mother. We see how she reacts when a police office walks toward her at a gas station while she pumps gas in her mother’s BMW, when a teacher tells her she’s being “aggressive” (while her classmates, who display similar behaviors, are unremarked upon), when her hair frizzes out after her friends pressure her to let another student’s white mom brush her curls into a ponytail using a boar-bristle brush, when a male friend (multiple male friends?) tells her that she doesn’t look like a stereotypical Black girl, and, among other things, when another student asks her “what are you?” in an attempt to pinpoint her racial/ethnic identities. Each instance is painful to watch because the actress who plays Ginny plays her well; the camera stays trained on her face as she responds to each of these interactions, allowing the viewer to observe the range of emotions she feels as she repeatedly navigates a community of peers and adults who can’t get their shit together and respect her existence. These interactions aren’t quirky neighbors asking silly questions about why she hangs her laundry a certain way or informing her that she needs to only mow her lawn on Thursdays. These are interactions that repeatedly undermine her sense of belonging, that tell her she’s somehow different, and that question her very right to exist. It’s heartbreaking, but I think it’s important that it’s depicted because that’s reality for many, many people.

The scene with Hunter is interesting because it shows the two turning something that was common-ground into a source of conflict for them. I’m not entirely sure how to read this scene. It’s difficult to watch because it rapidly descends into a “who is the most disenfranchised?” competition rather than a respectful conversation about each partner’s different experiences with prejudice. I wondered if the subtext here was some commentary on how members of one racial community pit themselves against members of other racial communities. (I’m not being clear here, and I’m struggling to clarify even as I go back to edit this post. I guess what I mean is that, when I initially watched this scene, I worried that this was a negative commentary on the Black community in particular and how it engages with other racial communities. I hope that makes sense.) Frankly, I’m still not sure if that’s not what’s happening there or if that’s not what was intended. What I’m fairly certain of, though, is that the scene makes clear that we, the viewer, are being told pretty explicitly that we can’t identify the two as “good partners” on the sole basis that they have mixed-race parentage in common. In other words, the scene undermines the idea that experience of racial prejudice is the only (or even the most important) factor that brings two people together and makes them good partners for one another. It also undermines the belief that experiencing prejudice doesn’t mean a person is automatically awakened to the prejudices other people also experience.

This is also one of the scenes where Ginny truly is unlikeable. Hunter is, too, but he’s unlikeable in a number of scenes throughout the show. He’s the Good Guy™ character in a nutshell–says all the right things, does all the right things, is all the right things, but maybe isn’t all those things for all the right reasons. In this scene, Ginny enacts the prejudicial treatment she’s suffered at the hands of her peers against Hunter; she questions the validity of his identity and the veracity of his experiences of prejudice at the hands of his peers. This scene is the breaking-point where the two have to come to terms with the fact that they’re not compatible even though, on some surface and by some set of metrics, they might appear to be.

Hunter sucks, but so does Marcus–for different reasons, though. Marcus is detached, withdrawn, sarcastic, unmotivated, disrespectful, and dishonest. He’s unaware–and doesn’t attempt to improve at all on this–of how his actions impact other people. He just doesn’t care about anyone but himself–until he does, a little bit. Some part of me has sympathy for Marcus and genuinely likes him; I’ll blame the show for that. Another part of me–the part that’s 30 years old and has known plenty of Marcuses–doesn’t have time for his shit. I’m conflicted, but the majority of me wants Marcus and Ginny to end up together because the things they have in common and the things that bring them together are the things that most people look for in a relationship. Marcus is a lazy shit most of the time, but he makes a genuine effort to understand Ginny. By the end of the season, we see that he also respects her and accepts her as she is–warts and all. He seems to genuinely want the best for her, which is a nice development in character from our first introduction to him, tumbling out of his mother’s minivan after having been caught smoking weed on a street corner. Again, though, he wasn’t always so respectful. His past behaviors make it hard to trust him, so it makes sense when Ginny doesn’t bring him along at the end of the season. It does, though, make you hope that he’s back in season 2 and that we get to see more of their relationship.

Speaking of which, I hope that season 2 also explores Georgia and Joe’s relationship a bit more. It seems like they’re headed in the Lorelei-Luke direction, which will make me happier than words could express, but I could also see the show’s creators flipping the script on us and setting Joe up with his own gloomy backstory–something to do with the ethically ambiguous labor situation he’s got going on at his farm and in his cafe, perhaps? Still, I think that might make him and Georgia even better suited for one another than they already are. After all, he’s one of the first people who showed Georgia true, genuine kindness after she ran away as a teenager.

And of course I want more of Ellen in season 2. The actress who plays her is hilarious and her character is just . . . really likable.

On a somewhat lighter note, one little thing I noticed while watching the show is that the characters slap their thighs a lot. This, again, might by my seasonal allergies brain, but the “[slaps thighs]” notation on closed captioning came up an infinite number of times over the course of this show. It came up so often that I started thinking you could catch the entire plot of the show if someone just spliced together every instance where a character sighs and slaps their thighs. I’d watch that video.

After all that, I still think the parallels to GG are there, but I still defend that G&G is also more than those parallels. And the “more” it offers is good. It’s intrigue; it’s gloomy realities and often-ignored truths that don’t offer viewers a sunny break from reality. But I think that’s good. I don’t like the argument that TV should be a “break from reality” or that a show is good on the sole basis that it offers us a “break from reality.” I think that argument is an excuse used to defend media that is too lazy to do the responsible thing and convey storylines that are inclusive and meaningful.

Well, my laundry is done, so I have to go deal with that. Happy Saturday, and happy initial inoculation!

XOXO, you know.

[gapimnydiaries]

Diary Entry #17

Dear Diary,

I have a story to tell you –

“Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” I asked him.

He thought about it for a while and responded.

“Um, I want to have a house, and I want to have a job. On the weekends I want to go to the movies, and I want to have a group of friends to go with.”

“That sounds pretty good! How can you get there?”

Another pause.

“Well, I have to quit meth…”

It was a warm, sunny afternoon. I sat across from a friend on a balcony looking down on a calm street. We got into a conversation about his struggles with methamphetamine addiction, and I wanted to understand where he was coming from. I thought it would be a good idea to talk first about his aspirations rather than the gritty details of how he became addicted. I was shocked by how simple and “normal” his dreams were for the future. I had always taken shelter, school and friends for granted, but my friend didn’t have those things. He grew up in an impoverished neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York where drugs and violence were rampant. He joined the military, which was his ticket out of that environment. He finished his service only to fall back into a life of drugs and destitution. All of these complicated social issues were also intertwined with his sexuality. In our conversation, he told me he just wanted to be normal – a place to live, a job and friends. What was noticeably missing in his vision was a family.

◆◆◆

I recently read an article in the Huffington Post called “The Epidemic of Gay Loneliness” by Michael Hobbes that I thought captured very well some of the psychological problems that plague the modern gay man, and it has become one of my most referenced articles. One concept that stood out to me was minority stress that describes the constant psychological strain associated with being a stigmatized minority. In the case of being a minority in sexuality, relatively minor stresses dealing with perceived or actual social rejection and prejudice accumulate over time and lead to prolonged psychological trauma. It also talked about the sadness of not being able to have a traditional family. That was definitely an "aha!" moment for me because up to that point, I had not realized that a significant portion of my own depression could be attributed to my sexuality.

In junior year of college, I was going to a weekend retreat with the board of one of my college organizations. It was one of those bonding opportunities that gets the board closer to each other so we can work better together. The retreat would start with talks of organizational agenda setting and annual planning and eventually progress into secret sharing after a few rounds of drinks. When everyone was having a good time playing “Fuck, Marry, Kill”, I had already retreated into the corner anxiously like I always did in similar situations. I had to mentally prepare all kinds of reasons why I didn’t have an extensive dating history by college and came up with stories of attractions to various imaginary people. I would be mentally exhausted by the end of the night trying my hardest to provide unsatisfactory answers. To everyone else, it made me seem secretive and unwilling to share, defeating the point of a bonding night. It took me a while to process how those experiences shaped my interactions with others and my own psyche. I now realized how much my sexuality contributed to my social anxiety and unwillingness to get emotionally close to others. I felt like I had something to hide and was afraid I would be “discovered”. It was difficult to develop the kind of close friendship I saw in others because I couldn’t let my guards down.

I am much more comfortable with my sexuality today, but unfortunately the stress persists. When I visited relatives in China this past summer, I had an earful of questions about why I didn’t get a girlfriend in medical school or when I would get one. My family members were making all kinds of commitments to attend my wedding, including my 80 year old grandmother. When this came up, and it did a lot, I simply smiled and nodded. To them, I was an exemplar child -- well educated and professionally accomplished. To me, I just felt like a fraud – I likely would never be able to deliver the kind of “normal” marriage and family they expected. I was going to be a disappointment to people who loved me the most. I believe that the closer one is to family, the worse the feeling. It only took me half a week before I couldn’t take it anymore and wanted to take the next flight back to the U.S….

◆◆◆

When I asked my friend why he kept using meth despite all its negative consequences on his life, he said he felt powerful and sexy with it. It’s boring to meet guys without it because he didn’t feel attractive and confident. He had been struggling with depression and loneliness, and taking drugs was his way to have a moment of feeling like normal, no matter how temporary. He actively looked for people who party and play (hook up while on drugs) on Grindr. He just wanted to feel good about himself, and drugs were his gateway to that feeling. I nodded with an implicit understanding – I knew that feeling too well.

Perhaps you have read my last year’s diary entry on my entrance into the gay world, and it wasn’t full of rainbows and unicorns, so to speak. When I first came into contact with the gay world, a series of painful rejections quickly crushed my naive idealism and simple desires for acceptance. My self-esteem was at an all-time low, and what came with it was depression and a sense of self-hatred. There must’ve been something wrong with me if none of the pretty profiles on dating apps wanted me, right? In Hobbes’ article, he describes a process of being “re-traumatized” as one enters the gay world, a community where we are waiting to be accepted for who we are, only to be ruthlessly rejected for our ethnicity, appearance, income or demeanor. A quote that stood out to me was that “every gay man I know carries around a mental portfolio of all the shitty things other gay men have said and done to him.” In an age of anonymous, headless profiles on dating apps, it’s easy to forget all social etiquette, and we end up with a collective toxic culture that makes everyone miserable.

I have been ghosted or blocked on datings apps more times than I can keep track in the past years, but I do remember a few notable ones. One time I talked to a guy for several weeks and made plans to get boba. I was blocked right after finally sending him a picture. Another time I went rock climbing with a guy and never received a reply to my text after. There was a time that I traveled all the way from Boston to Hartford for a second meeting with a guy who said “you are a great person with a great personality and career, but not exactly my type physically.” Over the years I have struggled with deleting the apps but only to go back on a few days later. I think using dating apps is like gambling. We are on it to hit whatever jackpot that we imagine for ourselves, whether it’s the perfect boyfriend or the hot-boy-next-door hookup. But just like the casino, the player never wins. We end up creating an environment where guys with the best profile pictures get all the attention and can therefore pick and choose and leave the rest of us miserable and desperate from the trail of rejections.

The rejections, especially in the form of ignoring, ghosting and blocking, left me confused and depressed. At times it seemed like I was bracing myself for the eventual rejection in all my interaction with guys. I was defensive and quick to jump to conclusions whenever there was even a lag in response. Many of my friends have told me that I just needed more confidence, but it was very hard to find confidence when I had just received so many rejections. It was especially bad when this was compounded by being Asian and getting racist responses from apps. A friend once commented to me, when you have low self-esteem, you become desperate. And when you are desperate, you do the most irrational things. People engage in risky hook ups and drugs in an attempt to fill this painful void, but it’s like scratching an itch; they offer ephemeral relief but only to make the problem worse long term.

◆◆◆

“Sometimes, I only eat a little bit of my food, like a quarter of a sandwich, and it would make me feel really fat, so I just threw the rest into the toilet.”

A while into the conversation, my friend admitted that he had been struggling with bulimia. Even though he had a normal Body Mass Index, which is how weight is measured to determine if someone is in a healthy range, he had an altered view of his body and believed he was overweight. He mentioned to me how there are so many fit and muscular guys and Grindr, and it made him feel unattractive.

A few years ago, I met up with a guy in Downtown LA. I was surprised that he even responded to me because he had what looked like a modeling picture on his Jack’d profile with the most amazing tan and ripped muscles. Fortunately for my anxiety, he looked a lot more normal in person, and we had a discussion about what he believed to be an inevitable progression for many guys in gay life. He said that when someone first enters the gay world, the person has this vision of finding and settling down with a normal looking, nice guy. Then he gets into the partying culture and starts to work out and look better. All of a sudden the nice guys are not fun and attractive enough. At the time, I was quite surprised and told myself “no, that’s not going to be me, I will always want the nice guy”.

In my exploration of the gay world, I have discovered more and more a whole lifestyle centered on partying. I started in West Hollywood and made my way around some of the gay centers in the country like the Castro and Hell’s Kitchen. I have been to clubs in LA, NYC, San Francisco, Boston, Miami, San Diego and even some international spots like Valparaíso, Mexico City and Bangkok. I started learning about the various colors of circuit parties in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Interestingly, the attendants are typically young professionals who can afford the ticket and travel expenses to attend these parties, and I have gotten a glimpse of the scale of the drug culture in these events.

I went to Songkran in Thailand during April, and I think I finally understood what that guy meant with the progression of gay life. What I saw were professionally successful gaysians with model-like bodies from around the world descend upon the city overnight, filling up all the hotels in the well-known Silom district and meandering around in the busy streets of Bangkok. I was told by an acquaintance that the parties served as body building check-points for these guys who planned their travels around Songkran in April, White Party in May and EDC in June, etc. and that the most muscular guys are the ones who are perhaps most insecure about their bodies. Perhaps these guys are the ones who have “succeeded” to reach the body image zenith that gay guys strive for and are now enjoying the partying life, but then what?

We live in the era of social media and are under the constant bombardment of impossibly muscular guys from around the world who fill up our Instagram feed. These guys put Adam West’s Batman and George Reeve’s Superman to shame. The western standard of beauty for men has changed over the years to “more muscle and less body fat the better”, and the world is catching up. It takes an incredible amount of training and dieting, as well as good genetics, to reach that level. Most of us with normal lives busy with school and work will find it hard to pursue that lifestyle, but our Instagram and Facebook give the illusion that it’s ubiquitous and anything less is unattractive. We could blame professional makeup and Photoshop for the guys in magazines, but Instagram is real people! We forget that people take painstaking effort to curate their social media profiles by picking one out of hundreds of pictures with the best lighting, angle and shading. We are now all looking for someone who looks like that and feel bad that people don’t like us for not looking that way.

That day, I tried to offer as many words of encouragement and comfort to my friend as he shared his struggles with mental health, substance abuse and body image. I tried to tell him that it’s possible to be gay and to have a normal and perhaps even “successful” life. I wished to give him more hope for the future so he could heal from his past traumas and end his drug addition. But deep down, I don’t feel so different from him. I struggle with my own insecurities and psychological void. I have a hard time defining my own vision of “success” in life in the context of the gay world. Just like my friend, I need to figure out where my own path leads to and define a vision that is worth striving for.

I would like to suggest that one way to counter the toxic culture in the gay community is to create supportive, friendly and less-sexualized spaces both in person and online. I admire the work done by organizations such as GAPIMNY in NYC and AQUA in DC that offer in-person communities and safe spaces for gaysians to explore their identities and connect with others in a more meaningful way. However, not everyone lives in a big city with a large enough gaysian population, so online communities become extremely important. I want to put in a pitch for G3S where we offer an opportunity to discuss gaysian related issues and offer a supportive online space for those who might not have any organizations locally. We also have a mentorship program that connects people in a more personal setting where someone new to the gay world can be paired up with a mentor who have more experiences with coming to terms with their identities. Additionally, we are working to expand our model to more in-person groups by developing local chapters in cities like LA, SF and Toronto in an effort to create a more affirming gaysian culture.

I think we all have an individual responsibility to improve our collective culture. For me, I think it’s about treating myself and others well and with respect. I want to keep a realistic perspective of how many of the above mentioned issues affect me personally and take myself out of a loop of negative thoughts. I want to have goals for myself, whether it’s body image or professionally, but I want to keep them realistic and measured against my own growth. I am also making an effort to treat my online interactions with the same courtesy I would with my in-person interactions. I do my best to clearly communicate my intentions and only make promises I can keep. I think my life would improve significantly if I surround myself with kind and supportive people who are invested in my success. I want to thank all my friends in G3S and GAPIMNY who have supported me and encouraged me to write this follow up entry!

Fish

[lookitsjill]

I’ve Never Been to Heaven, But I’ve Been to Oklahoma

It’s been 5 years since I’ve gone to Tulsa. I think back to what that trip was for me and the outcome was revelation that I am capable. That I am bold and independent enough to go it on my own. Knowing afterwards so assuredly that I could accomplish whatever it was I set forth to achieve. I had a goal in my mind for 15 years at that point – someday I would make it to Tulsa and explore the place that birthed my band. The place that had been imprinted on my childhood.

My trip to Tulsa began way before the Hanson Day weekend. It started when I was taking a walk with Zac Hanson. See, the band used to put on these 1 mile barefoot charity walks around whatever city they were touring in. It was a way to connect to the message of supporting our impoverished communities. Most fans didn’t take it that way and instead fought for facetime with the band in ways that were borderline aggressive and all together silly. Zac and I found each other more than 1 time in the New England crowds, and this time was no different.

I’m talking to this guy – this person whose face I had plastered over my adolescent bedroom walls and yet somehow I feel like he is an old friend – and he is asking me not to leave his side because I’m “normal and they’re not”, as he gestures left at a group rapid-firing pictures. Okay, fine. I ask about song lyrics and he sings me a bit of Billy Joel. He asks about my favorite songs and where I come from. He talks about home, and then ask me if I am coming to Tulsa for this year’s Hanson Day Weekend. My answer is that I don’t think so, and he challenges me on this. The conversation is something like…

“So you’ve never been to Tulsa?” “No. Again, I’m not … them.” I gesture left. The girls are taking selfies with Zac in the background. “I want to go some day. It is our Graceland, after all. It’s a dream I’ve been chasing.”   His smile is so wide. “Graceland? Your Graceland?” I shrug, laughter in my words. “Yeah, it’s a thing people say. Tulsa is our Graceland. You haven’t heard that?”

His laugh is explosive. “No. I have not heard that. That is amazing! I love it.” Selfies turn into picture requests and he is not present. He comes back and I shake my head at him. He picks right up where we left off. “So if Tulsa is a dream you should come. We’re doing the 20 years since we were a band thing – it’s the perfect timing for your first visit. It’s going to be epic.”

I can’t commit. I don’t know. “I’ll… think about it. It does make sense to go now or never.” He nods but the crowd moves us apart and Taylor is then doing a half-way talk about the message behind this madness. Zac always looks disinterested and Isaac the opposite – attentive, pragmatic and fatherly. We walk back after that and again I’m a few paces just behind Zac. I catch up.

He notices and starts in again. “Oh hey. I’m still trying to remember what the first line of ‘Give A Little’ really was.” He recants a question I had earlier. “It’s driving me crazy. I’m going to wake up in the middle of the night and remember it, you know.”

I laugh. “Well, if you remember on stage just shout it out!” The joke is cheesy, given that their album is titled Shout It Out, and he knows it but rolls past it anyway.

“Deal. Coming to Graceland?” He wags his eyebrows and winks, he must be making fun of me.   “Shut up.” I roll my eyes and contest. “Maybe.”

“Your mistake if you don’t.” So, I did.

I went, and with great trepidation begin to explore a city that all at once felt like a place I could call home. I did all of the cliché fan things; starting with a secret Hanson sandwich at the Blue Rose even though I was alone and that felt altogether strange and liberating. I stood on the deck and imagined what that place was like 20 years ago when three boys that were too white to sound so much like the Jackson 5 played to a 21+ crowd for the very first gig. I took a picture of the snare screwed to the wall with their signatures and traveled Route 66 to my hotel room.

There were signs welcoming Hanson fans in the lobby, which I found odd. Clearly this city fully embraces this weekend of tourism and commerce. I can never stay idle so I took my car and drove around, recognizing way too many things on the street. I realize how much of Tulsa I have unknowingly absorbed in the past decades. I remembered that I should check-in with the band’s staff… at their recording studio.

I waited in line with strangers, silently listening to all of their conversations and categorizing their level of crazy in my brain. The girl with the giant Hanson symbol tattoo across her forearm, the one with the keyboard leggings, the one wearing a jean jacket with Hanson’s faces on the back, and the girl who would not stop talking about their children were the folks that made me look anywhere but at their faces. I willed them not to notice me. But then there were these other two. These girls, standing next to me, were so brilliantly sarcastic that I found myself snickering aloud just before they pulled me into their conversation.

They peppered me with questions. Soon “Are you alone?”; “Wait have you been to Hanson Day Weekend before?”; “Where are you from?”; “How many shows have you been to?” quickly lent themselves to “tell us your story.” So, I did. I told them everything because they asked and actively listened to my responses. They echoed my impressions of the city. They understood the songs that were laid as the soundtrack to my adolescence. They connected with me more in 1 hour than many other people have done in a lifetime. I know that is part of the magic.  

These girls introduced me to other like-minded fans. We took over the special Hanson store located just inside the studio. I sat down at the piano from “Lost Without Each Other” and ran my fingers over the keys. We snapped pictures of the art gallery even though we weren’t supposed to. We squealed just a little bit when we realized that the band’s younger siblings were manning the cash register and that Taylor was calling to them on a walkie-talkie from out back. We canvased the area until we found Zac’s truck and watched as Isaac took off down the railroad tracks on his bicycle.

The next day I woke up to do it all over again, only this time I took my rental to one of their houses and they showed me the city… and the outskirts and pieces of the city that we’re supposed to pretend don’t exist. The cliché and taboo - like taking that picture outside the modest house Hanson grew up in and taking a drive through the compound they moved to - less economical and more militaristic. We toured to every recording studio in the city where we know various albums were created. We went places we know would put us on the those people list, but we did it anyway in the name of my first trip.

We ate and drank our way through the famous Hanson watering holes. Pizza at Joe’s, Hanson cookies at Dilly Deli, shopping at Ida Red. We cheered on another friend whose team wound up winning a bowling tournament. We watched Hanson’s first terrible and childish VHS movie as it played in an actual movie theatre. We laughed so hard I swear it was 1995 again.

The next morning I grabbed a coffee and a book, pretending not to watch Taylor’s wife wrangle her children across a café. She was young and tired, but maintaining that ever present Southern charm. She had an air of amused frustration that was transparently inauthentic. I caught the little girl – Penny – just before she would have slammed face first into the dessert case. Natalie was grateful. I had to go.

I went down to the Block Party that Hanson was hosting in the street. I met up with my new friends and spent the afternoon sipping Dr. Pepper on the sidewalk as we people watched and they smoked all the cigarettes. We ate the worst food truck food and made fun of other fans. We watched how polite yet annoyed one of the Hanson siblings acted when people were unwilling to form an organized line.  We watched their Dad stand stoic and proud in front of the venue. We watched their Mom carry one of their babies like it was made of glass.

At one point, Isaac’s oldest child asked me to play cars with him in the street. Just like that. I got down with him and Taylor’s youngest (at the time) joined us. I felt altogether scrutinized, but they kids wanted to play and I always have a difficult time saying no to hopeful little faces.  Strangely, not one Hanson cared. I think their aunt Zoe was supposed to be keeping them safe, but she seemed overwhelmed and thankful for the small break from all of their energy.

Taylor sent an email inviting everyone to a tasting to determine the brew for the new Hanson brew, and the promise of a cold beer pulled us away from the Oklahoma sun. He said he would tell us where at the very last minute because we couldn’t all come – but we anticipated the location anyway. We had our pints before he even sent the info thanks to a confused bartender. Taylor and Isaac popped out for some sips, banter and feedback. I pretended like they all didn’t taste like I was chewing on hops.

The show that night was unprecedented. It was a culmination of so many things and a moment frozen in time. I felt alive. I felt vulnerable and empowered at the same time. Above all else, I felt connected. I was connected to this band, to this crowd of family, to the music that represented so much growth and so many learnings. The band played a song written for the first album that resonated so deeply with me I was crying before the second verse. I took one look left and right and realized I was in good company, and audibly cursed him out for playing it. Then Zac opened a song written for the event that made my jaw drop and shake my head in incredulity. Of course he would write a song about chasing down your dreams. Of course he would.

On my last day I said goodbye to these fated friends. I traveled the entire city again, only that time it felt small and quaint in some way.  I took more time with it on my own, soaked it in and stopped to watch the trees and try to capture this feeling in film, the music playing softly as my only comrade. I spent time relishing in the chance to explore a city that felt something like home. There is a small piece of me that is still there – on the highest point or the dustiest road; chiseled outside the studio door or hiding in the Center of the Universe.

I still reconnect that slice of reality whenever I can; the time that I got totally lost in the middle of nowhere and wound up finding myself, after all.

[eretzyisrael]

HOW A PRO-PALESTINIAN AMERICAN REPORTER CHANGED HIS VIEWS ON ISRAEL AND THE CONFLICTBYHUNTER STUART  FEBRUARY 15, 2017 12:17

A year working as a journalist in Israel and the Palestinian territories made Hunter Stuart rethink his positions on the conflict.

The author walks past Ofer Prison near Ramallah, during a Palestinian protest outside the facility in November 2015. (photo credit:COURTESY / JONATHAN BROWN)

IN THE summer of 2015, just three days after I moved to Israel for a year-and-a-half stint freelance reporting in the region, I wrote down my feelings about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A friend of mine in New York had mentioned that it would be interesting to see if living in Israel would change the way I felt. My friend probably suspected that things would look differently from the front-row seat, so to speak. Boy was he right.

Before I moved to Jerusalem, I was very pro-Palestinian. Almost everyone I knew was. I grew up Protestant in a quaint, politically correct New England town; almost everyone around me was liberal. And being liberal in America comes with a pantheon of beliefs: You support pluralism, tolerance and diversity. You support gay rights, access to abortion and gun control.

The belief that Israel is unjustly bullying the Palestinians is an inextricable part of this pantheon. Most progressives in the US view Israel as an aggressor, oppressing the poor noble Arabs who are being so brutally denied their freedom.

“I believe Israel should relinquish control of all of the Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank,” I wrote on July 11, 2015, from a park near my new apartment in Jerusalem’s Baka neighborhood. “The occupation is an act of colonialism that only creates suffering, frustration and despair for millions of Palestinians.”

Perhaps predictably, this view didn’t play well among the people I met during my first few weeks in Jerusalem, which, even by Israeli standards, is a conservative city. My wife and I had moved to the Jewish side of town, more or less by chance ‒ the first Airbnb host who accepted our request to rent a room happened to be in the Nachlaot neighborhood where even the hipsters are religious. As a result, almost everyone we interacted with was Jewish Israeli and very supportive of Israel. I didn’t announce my pro-Palestinian views to them ‒ I was too afraid. But they must have sensed my antipathy (I later learned this is a sixth sense Israelis have).

During my first few weeks in Jerusalem, I found myself constantly getting into arguments about the conflict with my roommates and in social settings. Unlike waspy New England, Israel does not afford the privilege of politely avoiding unpleasant political conversations. Outside of the Tel Aviv bubble, the conflict is omnipresent; it affects almost every aspect of life. Avoiding it simply isn’t an option.

During one such argument, one of my roommates ‒ an easygoing American-Jewish guy in his mid-30s ‒ seemed to be suggesting that all Palestinians were terrorists. I became annoyed and told him it was wrong to call all Palestinians terrorists, that only a small minority supported terrorist attacks. My roommate promptly pulled out his laptop, called up a 2013 Pew Research poll and showed me the screen. I saw that Pew’s researchers had done a survey of thousands of people across the Muslim world, asking them if they supported suicide bombings against civilians in order to “defend Islam from its enemies.” The survey found that 62 percent of Palestinians believed such terrorist acts against civilians were justified in these circumstances. And not only that, the Palestinian territories were the only place in the Muslim world where a majority of citizens supported terrorism; everywhere else it was a minority ‒ from Lebanon and Egypt to Pakistan and Malaysia.

I didn’t let my roommate win the argument early morning hours. But the statistic stuck with me.

Less than a month later, in October 2015, a wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks against Jewish-Israelis began. Nearly every day, an angry, young Muslim Palestinian was stabbing or trying to run over someone with his car. A lot of the violence was happening in Jerusalem, some of it just steps from where my wife and I had moved into an apartment of our own, and lived and worked and went grocery shopping.

At first, I’ll admit, I didn’t feel a lot of sympathy for Israelis. Actually, I felt hostility. I felt that they were the cause of the violence. I wanted to shake them and say, “Stop occupying the West Bank, stop blockading Gaza, and Palestinians will stop killing you!” It seemed so obvious to me; how could they not realize that all this violence was a natural, if unpleasant, reaction to their government’s actions?

IT WASN’T until the violence became personal that I began to see the Israeli side with greater clarity. As the “Stabbing Intifada” (as it later became known) kicked into full gear, I traveled to the impoverished East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan for a story I was writing.

As soon as I arrived, a Palestinian kid who was perhaps 13 years old pointed at me and shouted “Yehud!” which means “Jew” in Arabic. Immediately, a large group of his friends who’d been hanging out nearby were running toward me with a terrifying sparkle in their eyes. “Yehud! Yehud!” they shouted. I felt my heart start to pound. I shouted at them in Arabic “Ana mish yehud! Ana mish yehud!” (“I’m not Jewish, I’m not Jewish!”) over and over. I told them, also in Arabic, that I was an American journalist who “loved Palestine.” They calmed down after that, but the look in their eyes when they first saw me is something I’ll never forget. Later, at a house party in Amman, I met a Palestinian guy who’d grown up in Silwan. “If you were Jewish, they probably would have killed you,” he said.

I made it back from Silwan that day in one piece; others weren’t so lucky. In Jerusalem, and across Israel, the attacks against Jewish Israelis continued. My attitude began to shift, probably because the violence was, for the first time, affecting me directly.

I found myself worrying that my wife might be stabbed while she was on her way home from work. Every time my phone lit up with news of another attack, if I wasn’t in the same room with her, I immediately sent her a text to see if she was OK.

Then a friend of mine ‒ an older Jewish Israeli guy who’d hosted my wife and I for dinner at his apartment in the capital’s Talpiot neighborhood ‒ told us that his friend had been murdered by two Palestinians the month before on a city bus not far from his apartment. I knew the story well ‒ not just from the news, but because I’d interviewed the family of one of the Palestinian guys who’d carried out the attack. In the interview, his family told me how he was a promising young entrepreneur who was pushed over the edge by the daily humiliations wrought by the occupation. I ended up writing a very sympathetic story about the killer for a Jordanian news site called Al Bawaba News.

Writing about the attack with the detached analytical eye of a journalist, I was able to take the perspective that (I was fast learning) most news outlets wanted – that Israel was to blame for Palestinian violence. But when I learned that my friend’s friend was one of the victims, it changed my way of thinking. I felt horrible for having publicly glorified one of the murderers. The man who’d been murdered, Richard Lakin, was originally from New England, like me, and had taught English to Israeli and Palestinian children at a school in Jerusalem. He believed in making peace with the Palestinians and “never missed a peace rally,” according to his son.

By contrast, his killers ‒ who came from a middle-class neighborhood in East Jerusalem and were actually quite well-off relative to most Palestinians ‒ had been paid 20,000 shekels to storm the bus that morning with their cowardly guns. More than a year later, you can still see their faces plastered around East Jerusalem on posters hailing them as martyrs. (One of the attackers, Baha Aliyan, 22, was killed at the scene; the second, Bilal Ranem, 23, was captured alive.)

Being personally affected by the conflict caused me to question how forgiving I’d been of Palestinian violence previously. Liberals, human-rights groups and most of the media, though, continued to blame Israel for being attacked. Ban Ki-moon, for example, who at the time was the head of the United Nations, said in January 2016 ‒ as the streets of my neighborhood were stained with the blood of innocent Israeli civilians ‒ that it was “human nature to react to occupation.” In fact, there is no justification for killing someone, no matter what the political situation may or may not be, and Ban’s statement rankled me.

SIMILARLY, THE way that international NGOs, European leaders and others criticized Israel for its “shoot to kill” policy during this wave of terrorist attacks began to annoy me more and more.

In almost any nation, when the police confront a terrorist in the act of killing people, they shoot him dead and human-rights groups don’t make a peep. This happens in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh; it happens in Germany and England and France and Spain, and it sure as hell happens in the US (see San Bernardino and the Orlando nightclub massacre, the Boston Marathon bombings and others). Did Amnesty International condemn Barack Obama or Abdel Fattah al-Sisi or Angela Merkel or François Hollande when their police forces killed a terrorist? Nope. But they made a point of condemning Israel.

What’s more, I started to notice that the media were unusually fixated on highlighting the moral shortcomings of Israel, even as other countries acted in infinitely more abominable ways. If Israel threatened to relocate a collection of Palestinian agricultural tents, as they did in the West Bank village of Sussiya in the summer of 2015, for example, the story made international headlines for weeks. The liberal outrage was endless. Yet, when Egypt’s president used bulldozers and dynamite to demolish an entire neighborhood in the Sinai Peninsula in the name of national security, people scarcely noticed.

Where do these double standards come from?

I’ve come to believe it’s because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appeals to the appetites of progressive people in Europe, the US and elsewhere. They see it as a white, first world people beating on a poor, third world one. It’s easier for them to become outraged watching two radically different civilizations collide than it is watching Alawite Muslims kill Sunni Muslims in Syria, for example, because to a Western observer the difference between Alawite and Sunni is too subtle to fit into a compelling narrative that can be easily summarized on Facebook.

Unfortunately for Israel, videos on social media that show US-funded Jewish soldiers shooting tear gas at rioting Arab Muslims is Hollywood-level entertainment and fits perfectly with the liberal narrative that Muslims are oppressed and Jewish Israel is a bully.

I admire the liberal desire to support the underdog. They want to be on the right side of history, and their intentions are good. The problem is that their beliefs often don’t square with reality.

In reality, things are much, much more complex than a five-minute spot on the evening news or a two paragraph-long Facebook status will ever be able to portray. As a friend told me recently, “The reason the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so intractable is that both sides have a really, really good point.”

Unfortunately, not enough people see it that way. I recently bumped into an old friend from college who told me that a guy we’d both known when we were freshmen had been active in Palestinian protests for a time after graduating. The fact that a smart, well-educated kid from Vermont, who went to one of the best liberal arts schools in the US, traveled thousands of miles to throw bricks at Israeli soldiers is very, very telling.

THERE’S AN old saying that goes, “If you want to change someone’s mind, first make them your friend.” The friends I made in Israel forever changed my mind about the country and about the Jewish need for a homeland. But I also spent a lot of time traveling in the Palestinian territories getting to know Palestinians. I spent close to six weeks visiting Nablus and Ramallah and Hebron, and even the Gaza Strip. I met some incredible people in these places; I saw generosity and hospitality unlike anywhere else I’ve ever traveled to. I’ll be friends with some of them for the rest of my life. But almost without fail, their views of the conflict and of Israel and of Jewish people in general was extremely disappointing.

First of all, even the kindest, most educated, upper-class Palestinians reject 100 percent of Israel ‒ not just the occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. They simply will not be content with a two-state solution ‒ what they want is to return to their ancestral homes in Ramle and Jaffa and Haifa and other places in 1948 Israel, within the Green Line. And they want the Israelis who live there now to leave. They almost never speak of coexistence; they speak of expulsion, of taking back “their” land.

To me, however morally complicated the creation of Israel may have been, however many innocent Palestinians were killed and displaced from their homes in 1948 and again in 1967, Israel is now a fact, accepted by almost every government in the world (including many in the Middle East). But the ongoing desire of Palestinians to wipe Israel off the map is unproductive and backward- looking and the West must be very careful not to encourage it.

The other thing is that a large percentage of Palestinians, even among the educated upper class, believe that most Islamic terrorism is actually engineered by Western governments to make Muslims look bad. I know this sounds absurd. It’s a conspiracy theory that’s comical until you hear it repeated again and again as I did. I can hardly count how many Palestinians told me the stabbing attacks in Israel in 2015 and 2016 were fake or that the CIA had created ISIS.

For example, after the November 2015 ISIS shootings in Paris that killed 150 people, a colleague of mine ‒ an educated 27-year-old Lebanese-Palestinian journalist ‒ casually remarked that those massacres were “probably” perpetrated by the Mossad. Though she was a journalist like me and ought to have been committed to searching out the truth no matter how unpleasant, this woman was unwilling to admit that Muslims would commit such a horrific attack, and all too willing ‒ in defiance of all the facts ‒ to blame it on Israeli spies.

USUALLY WHEN I travel, I try to listen to people without imposing my own opinion. To me that’s what traveling is all about ‒ keeping your mouth shut and learning other perspectives. But after 3-4 weeks of traveling in Palestine, I grew tired of these conspiracy theories.

“Arabs need to take responsibility for certain things,” I finally shouted at a friend I’d made in Nablus the third or fourth time he tried to deflect blame from Muslims for Islamic terrorism. “Not everything is America’s fault.” My friend seemed surprised by my vehemence and let the subject drop ‒ obviously I’d reached my saturation point with this nonsense.

I know a lot of Jewish-Israelis who are willing to share the land with Muslim Palestinians, but for some reason finding a Palestinian who feels the same way was near impossible. Countless Palestinians told me they didn’t have a problem with Jewish people, only with Zionists. They seemed to forget that Jews have been living in Israel for thousands of years, along with Muslims, Christians, Druse, atheists, agnostics and others, more often than not, in harmony. Instead, the vast majority believe that Jews only arrived in Israel in the 20th century and, therefore, don’t belong here.

Of course, I don’t blame Palestinians for wanting autonomy or for wanting to return to their ancestral homes. It’s a completely natural desire; I know I would feel the same way if something similar happened to my own family. But as long as Western powers and NGOs and progressive people in the US and Europe fail to condemn Palestinian attacks against Israel, the deeper the conflict will grow and the more blood will be shed on both sides.

I’m back in the US now, living on the north side of Chicago in a liberal enclave where most people ‒ including Jews ‒ tend to support the Palestinians’ bid for statehood, which is gaining steam every year in international forums such as the UN.

Personally, I’m no longer convinced it’s such a good idea. If the Palestinians are given their own state in the West Bank, who’s to say they wouldn’t elect Hamas, an Islamist group committed to Israel’s destruction? That’s exactly what happened in Gaza in democratic elections in 2006. Fortunately, Gaza is somewhat isolated, and its geographic isolation ‒ plus the Israeli and Egyptian-imposed blockade ‒ limit the damage the group can do. But having them in control of the West Bank and half of Jerusalem is something Israel obviously doesn’t want. It would be suicide. And no country can be expected to consent to its own destruction.

So, now, I don’t know what to think. I’m squarely in the center of one of the most polarized issues in the world. I guess, at least, I can say that, no matter how socially unacceptable it was, I was willing to change my mind.

If only more people would do the same.

[netflixanthrothings-blog]

Born a Crime - YSJ

Trevor Noah is the author of the autobiographical comedy memoir Born a Crime. The title of the book was inspired by the relationship between his black African mother and his white Swiss father, which was legally prohibited by the 1927 “Immorality Act” (Noah, 2016). Born a Crime provides an exemplary blend of sociopolitical analysis as well as a first-hand account of the days under Apartheid rule and its aftermath. The main issues addressed in the book include racism, gender, colonialism, religion, and class. Noah predominantly highlighted the institutional racism experienced by South Africans during the Apartheid era. The author’s purpose of the book is to showcase his perspective as a mixed child under Apartheid, from a micro level of Trevor and his family’s experiences but also from a macro level of forces and powers at work opposing each other.

After the development of Apartheid in 1652, first influenced by the Dutch East India Company (Feinstein, 2005), the system was based on institutionalized racial segregation that installed policies to protect white supremacy, by separating residential areas, educational institutions and places of worships to maintain racial differences (McEwen & Steyn, 2016). In this racial system, it has its own social mobility where the lighter the skin of each race, the more likely that an individual of said race can rise up in the social hierarchy.

Guest (2017) defined culture as a system of knowledge, beliefs, patterns of behavior, artifacts and institutions that are created, learned, shared and contested by a group of people. In Soweto families, women were responsible for taking care of the children and cleaning homes whereas men were obligated to be the breadwinner of the family and had to move into the city to look for jobs to feed the family (Noah, 2016). However, under the apartheid state, patriarchy co-existed with colonialism and developed a racial and gendered hierarchy that resulted in segregated employment locations. White men were given managerial jobs and black men were delegated to hard labor such as mining and farming (Jaga et al., 2017). Eventually, structural separation caused their husbands to leave their families permanently. Most women and mothers were left to raise their families alone, and the empty void left by absent men were filled by religion - commonly Christianity. Another element of the black culture in South Africa is the ‘black tax’ which is the curse of being both black and poor (Noah, 2016). Poor black families remain in a vicious cycle which sees them spend all their time and money fixing problems of the past instead of focusing on progressing forward, economically.

Trevor’s mother, Patricia Noah was an independent woman who raised Trevor to know that there were no limits to what he could accomplish. She defied all societal standards and taught her son to survive in a racist society. By doing so, she brought Trevor to places that were common for the whites because she didn’t believe in division among whites and colored was and she wanted his son to see the world beyond the ghetto. Most importantly, she never let oppression define who she was. With the acknowledgment that being a black woman meant being the minorities that were most oppressed and lowest of the social hierarchy, she still fought hard for her son to become more than what society determined him to be. The predominant social ideology would put black people in lower social hierarchy for work, commonly hard labor, whereas Noah disregarded the societal expectations of a black man’s career, and instead used the platform he had as a comedian and political commentator to provide insight and voice out for the extensive issues faced by the black community. As Laurel Thatcher Ulrich said, “Well-behaved women seldom make history” (Ulrich, 2007), Patricia was one of the rebellious women that made a small difference in Trevor’s childhood that led him to a successful career that made a substantial impact in the world we live in today.

Ghetto is defined as an impoverished residential area of a city which houses a minority of neighbors who are unemployed, on drugs or in and out of jail (Pattillo, 2003). In his teenage years, Noah grew up in the ghetto - the chaotic yet systematic social hierarchy based on which avenue people lived. Living in the hood, cheese symbolized the rich; the poorer you are the more ghetto you are and the richer you are, the more cheese you are. Crime is not an exception but a norm in the ghetto. The only difference is the type of crime and its severity. The ghetto does not discriminate - it does not exclude its people from the crimes that define it and it does not allow its people to leave it either (Noah, 2016). As an illustration, Noah was not an exception, although he was biracial, growing up in the hood encouraged him to commit crimes, in particularly the CDs and video games he copied and sold.

Colonialism is the implementation of a political coalition that denies its indigenous people equal rights and exploits its nation economically (YPI, 2013). Similarly, colonialism in South Africa created a flawed system of institutionalized racism that made people turn against one another so that the government could overrule and control the people - South Africa went to war itself when Zulu and Xhosa blamed each other for the problem that the whites created.

It shaped the culture of South Africa in which the colonists used the hegemonic aspect of power that people propagandized themselves to believe that interracial marriage was invalid. In relation to the book in the chapter of Go Hitler!, colonial powers never indoctrinated history with emotions or moral dimension to the people in South Africa. Ergo, under no circumstances, they grew to be aware and sensitive on complications such as the impact Hitler had on the world. During one of his DJ sets in a Jewish school, the dancers around him chanted “Go Hitler” repeatedly. Trevor and his crew did not realize that Hitler had a negative connotation to the Jewish because the name ‘Hitler’ in South African culture was to indicate a person with great strength, not the dictator of Germany’s Nazi Party.

In the course of introduction to cultural anthropology, the standpoint of colonialism was the reason race was constructed all over the world. Many colonists during that era theorize that all cultures develop the same approach; where it begins as savage, then barbarian, to cultured. They acknowledged the unilineal cultural evolution and repudiated the historical particularism the nation had. Besides, the course has explored the importance of intersection language and culture, through which the social power of the speaker determines language acceptability.

In the book, he stated “If you’re Native American and you pray to the wolves, you’re a savage. If you’re African and you pray to your ancestors, you’re a primitive. But when white people pray to a guy who turns water into wine, well, that’s just common sense.” Colonialism forced the majority of humanity to believe and follow the process of how Westerns developed in their culture, these colonists continuously westernized and Christianized places to go because they think they were helping them for the better. However, they became ethnocentric as they did not justify the history of their culture and judged them as being wrong and barbaric. Moreover, the author stated, “Language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.” Language creates an imaginary bond instantly when someone speaks of the same language or accent and it meant that you belonged in that tribe and that you are capable of crossing boundaries, handling situations and navigating the world.

According to Trevor’s purpose, his exploration of culture was comparatively subjective because the insightful memoir strikes in as personal and historical. Noah wrote about his childhood amidst weaving in cultural and political information about the legacy of Apartheid with humor and relayed it in a natural way that made it relatable to the audience. His life in South Africa ingrained him with fearlessness as he discussed the subject of complexities and contradictions of race and how his personal story embodies them. Born a Crime has demonstrated the extreme lengths that black people had gone through to survive the abuse, discrimination, and racism they faced.

Personally, I’ve learned so much more about the history and culture of South Africa that I previously had knowledge on. The stories have shown me the importance of a mother’s role in her child’s life, such as ideologies like to be the man you are today, to never let painful memories hinder you from trying something new, and not conform to rules that are not rational. This book demonstrated the importance of Noah’s relationship with his mother and helped the audience feel what he went through in an emotional aspect which is unlikely to be taught in classrooms. The most important lesson I took away from this book is when Noah stated, “People love to say, “Teach a man how to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime,” but never “And if would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.” Minorities all over the world spent their whole lives being discriminated at the bottom of the social hierarchy will never have the opportunity to progress economically or socially because they are never given access to resources or support. I’ve become more aware that I am privileged to not experience oppression daily as the black community.

[theconservativebrief]

Not long ago, my wife, a composer, asked me if I would ever advise a student from a low-income family to pursue a career in the arts. I am a writer, librettist, and an arts and literature teacher. I thought the answer was obvious.

“What do you mean? Of course.”

“But they don’t have money.”

“If a student were really passionate and talented, she’d figure out a way.” That’s always been something my parents told me. “Think about what you’d do if money were no object, and then work hard. You’ll find a way to make money.”

“Your parents give you $28,000 a year. They paid for your tuition. They made it possible for you to do what you’d do if money were no object — because money was no object for you.”

I got a little defensive at this point.

“Well, my parents did it themselves. They started out with nothing. My dad worked at a bookstore and taught himself to program computers by reading books about it. He started two companies, one from his garage. My mom helped and provided additional income by teaching—”

“Right. Your dad loved technology. He loved business. He did not try to go into the arts with no money. Do you really think it would have been the same?”

“You sound like a Midwestern grandpa,” I said. “Not mine — he was the one who said the thing about ‘what if money were no object’ to my dad in the first place. But like a stereotypical conservative Midwestern grandpa. ‘It’s time ya quit that artsy-fartsy stuff and get yerself a useful degree.’”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“You would tell a low-income student to go for it? Take out the loans?”

The truth is, I’ve never actually been asked that by a student from a low-income family. despite the fact that I have taught English, drama, and opera composition in low-income communities — and a few students have even enjoyed my classes. The reason, I’m guessing, is that for the most part, they’ve already ruled that out, likely because they have never met someone who actually acts, sings, writes, or plays an instrument for a living.

For the most part, students say they want to be doctors or social workers or lawyers, sometimes professional athletes. When students tell me they want to be professional athletes, I always ask, “What’s your backup plan?” Sure, some might make it. But most of them won’t. With sports, though, it sorts itself out pretty quickly. The students get the college scholarship or they don’t. I don’t really have to discourage them. I just have to say, maybe have a backup.

But if students want to pursue the arts, they may be accepted to an arts program without a scholarship and find themselves $200,000 in debt before realizing they aren’t going to be able to get a real paycheck with their arts degree — at least in the next decade. Sure, there are exceptions. But for every exception, there are many more people who are impoverished by their arts education or by working part-time or temporary jobs as they struggle early in their careers.

“Don’t you think conservative Midwestern grandpas occasionally have a point?”

It’s not a point that I conceded lightly, but my wife, who lived with student loans, pushed me to continue thinking beyond the often unrealistic narrative that all it takes is talent and work.

We spend a lot of time in the New York City theater scene talking about ways to create more performance opportunities for “new voices,” meaning historically underrepresented groups, such as women and people of color. We talk about ways society as a whole tends to favor straight white guys and how that manifests itself in the arts. And while these conversations are important, and while I agree that society is, often, skewed to favor those SWGs (bless their hearts), it’s amazing how little time we spend discussing the largest, most obvious barrier to new voices in the arts: money.

After college, I was expected to earn my own living. My parents had paid for tuition and room and board through my undergraduate degree in English at Yale, which, because we didn’t quite qualify for the school’s generous financial aid, meant something like $180,000 a year. I was able to graduate debt-free, unlike 71 percent of American students who graduate with student loans.

After school, I worked as a receptionist, then as a public high school teacher and coach in Baltimore making around $45,000 annually. For me, it was plenty. My rent was low. I never ate expensive meals, almost never shopped for clothes, bought my groceries from Aldi, and was able to pay off my heavily subsidized MA in writing at Johns Hopkins. Baltimore City paid 75 percent of my master’s degree cost; I covered the rest.

I was able to pursue my goal of writing in a very part-time way during the academic year and in a more serious way over summer breaks. I finished drafts of three novels and a short story collection, but I didn’t have time to think about publishing my work. I didn’t have the energy to do the submission/rejection/revision routine (an extremely time-consuming, somewhat expensive process with low returns). I didn’t have any connections to the publishing industry, and I didn’t have the time to go to conferences or do additional networking. So, aside from a couple of stories that I managed to get published in small literary magazines, most of my work sat on my hard drive, where it still is today.

Then my dad received several million dollars from his shares in the sale of his second company. That’s when my parents told me they were going to give me about $2,000 a month — ultimately, this grew to $28,000 a year.

$28,000 is a dollar figure familiar to children of the wealthy. It’s the maximum amount a couple can give to an individual tax-free. Wealthy individuals are frequently advised by their accountants to do this to avoid the (quite low) inheritance tax. It results in free income for wealthy kids. I don’t even report it to the IRS — and that’s entirely legal. I could get this money every year for the rest of my life, or as long as my parents choose to give it to me, without having to lift a finger. I took the money, spent part of it helping my then-boyfriend pay off his student loans, and put the rest in the bank.

After three years of teaching, completely exhausted from my crazy schedule and the emotional toll of teaching in a broken system — and frustrated by my inability to finish or publish any major projects — I decided to move back to Missouri to see if a normal “9 to 5” job might leave me time to pursue my creative writing career. It didn’t. I still couldn’t find a foothold. I ultimately managed to scrape enough time together to self-publish a novel, but I didn’t have the extra time to market it. Despite positive reviews and feedback, the book didn’t sell many copies outside of my friends and family.

I needed to change tactics and mediums. I decided to bite the bullet and move to New York to pursue writing for theater full-time. This time, I knew I’d need regular feedback and networking connections. I started a graduate degree: an MFA in musical theater writing at New York University. My parents agreed to pay the remainder of my tuition after a small scholarship, spending another $70,000 or so for the two-year program. I was nervous, but I was driven. And I had enough money — $28,00 a year, to be exact — that taking a “risk” wasn’t exactly risky.

Of course, New York is expensive. When my boyfriend suddenly left me, I had to pay $1,450 a month, or $17,400 a year, for rent on my own, not including utilities. I quickly drained my savings and found myself dependent on the gift money from my parents. My work-study position and stint as a brunch hostess — all I could manage during my intensive program — were not enough to cover basic living expenses.

Still, when I graduated, I had a huge advantage over many of my classmates. I was debt-free, and the $28,000 kept coming.

$28,000. A person in my home state of Missouri can work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, and make only $16,328, and still have to pay tax on it. So what does this $28,000 a year mean to me as an artist? The biggest thing it buys is time. Instead of working 50 to 60 hours a week at “survival jobs,” like many of my art school friends, I was working 20 to 30 hours a week, which included reffing for an adult sports league, “matchmaking” for a dating company, typing payroll for a law firm, and coordinating for a youth tennis league.

I was able to use the remaining time to write. I was able to take fulfilling, career-enhancing teaching artist residencies, participate in a well-connected biweekly workshop, and network through an unpaid internship, all of which helped get my career started — none of which I could have done with a full-time job.

I could also cover the “little things.” When my hard drive crashed, I just went to the Apple store that day and picked up a new $1,000 MacBook Air. I had money to pay for recordings and submission fees for workshops and contests. I wasn’t living extravagantly, and I wasn’t putting away enough to retire, but I could keep pushing ahead in my career in those crucial years immediately after school.

I finally made those connections. I got my work to increasingly bigger stages. I did that without the financial anxiety that so many of my friends have — anxiety that can lead to panic attacks. I did it without having to rely on a partner for steady income. My parents always spoke of the gift as an investment, and I did my best to make it pay off.

Still, it wasn’t until I got married this year, moved to an affordable part of Connecticut, and took on a new full-time teaching position, that I felt financially stable and responsible. Shortly after we started dating, my wife began her graduate program at a music school that covers tuition and provides a stipend and teaching opportunities for all of its students. Between teaching and commissions, we now make enough in combined income that we no longer live off the gift but can pass it along to others.

We can also start planning for a family and saving for retirement while continuing to work in the fields we love, oftentimes together. We still have to put in long hours — and we certainly aren’t famous — but we don’t have to worry. Finally, at age 33, I can earn my own way and still move forward in an arts career.

All it took was a hell of a lot of work and nearly half a million dollars from my parents.

Of course, I don’t like to talk about money around my colleagues who are struggling. It’s uncomfortable (to say the least) to think about our financial advantage. When people asked me how I made it work, I would mumble something about my teaching artist gig paying well. (It did, but it wasn’t that many hours.) If I were feeling honest, I might have said something vague like, “Well, my parents help a little.” When the talk went to student loans, I would go silent or say something super helpful like: “Well, almost everyone has them, so they probably won’t hurt you in the long run,” or, “Yeah, it’s a crisis.”

But I think it’s important for us to have real numbers to think about, which is why I’m sharing mine. We should understand the reality of the situation we’re in. Or rather, the different realities of the situations we are in. My friends are out there hustling and making all kinds of sacrifices to get a foothold and, when it’s not working, feeling like failures.

Their voices are the “new voices” we are losing. Theirs and the those of the people who gave up long before. Musicians who couldn’t afford lessons to begin with. Actors who couldn’t pay rent and eat on temp work. Singers who couldn’t afford to go to unpaid young artist programs. Writers who couldn’t afford to take a risk.

There’s a romanticized view of the bohemian lifestyle — but it’s one thing for a person to go for a while subsisting on ramen and food squirreled away from work events if she knows she has family, a spouse, or people she can fall back on or a regular paycheck ahead of her. It’s quite another if she doesn’t have that support — or if she has others she needs to support. So many potential “new voices” fall into these categories.

Many of them are also the “new voices” we frequently speak about — people of color, queer people, or women. There is a significant intersection, which makes sense considering that people of color and women were not even allowed to own property for a long time. Many white men had a huge head start — similar to the head start I have now, despite being a queer woman. Historically marginalized people also have additional factors working against them, making it even harder to get by as artists — fewer roles, unacknowledged biases, societal pressure, “biological clocks” — all problems that are exacerbated if they don’t have financial support and a safety net.

We need to be advocating for more far-reaching solutions. We need to fight for free tuition for all higher education. This solution frees not only artists but all people from a major financial burden that derails those living paycheck to paycheck and prevents them from moving forward toward their goals. Artists, of course, are not the only people suffering from student loan debt and low wages. We need to find ways to make any job that requires an educational investment accessible to all in a financially responsible way.

These solutions cost money, but it’s not hard to see where the money is. Wealth inequality is mind-boggling and getting worse. At the very least, we can require the children of the wealthy, people like me, to pay a reasonable amount of taxes on their income. Employers and contract workers have to report wages of $600. Why wouldn’t we require rich kids to report gifts of $28,000 and pay taxes?

We can also lower the amount of inheritance that can be passed along tax-free upon death. The latest tax bill just increased the amount that kids can inherit tax-free from their parents from $10.98 million (per couple) to $22.4 million. (Money above that is taxed at 40 percent.) That’s $22.4 million of unearned income for the children of the rich. The wealthy, including my parents, paid taxes when they earned it, of course. And they are entitled to give it away as they please. But we adult children of the wealthy should have to report our income, regardless of the source.

If we work to reverse this income gap through public policy, we also help disrupt the feudal artist-patron problem, which, again, is a barrier to new voices. People other than a handful of wealthy donors and producers might be able to have a say in what is funded. People other than the wealthy might be able to afford tickets to performances. I know it’s incredibly difficult to “bite the hand that feeds us,” but if we don’t, we will never be able to feed ourselves. We can’t be free if we are constantly in debt.

I do not want to continue teaching in a world where I have to caution a talented but poor student against pursuing a career in the arts. I don’t want to succeed as an artist because no one else can afford to hang around. I want to be surrounded by art that I can’t even imagine. By truly new voices. By perspectives that I have no access to, or that have no access to me. It will make me a better artist and a better person. Everyone will benefit deeply and meaningfully from sharing — even those of us who stand to lose an initial competitive advantage.

This essay is adapted from a blog post.

E.J. Roller is a writer, librettist, and educator. Feel free to share this article, but be sure to cite your source. (I’m an English teacher, after all.) Find her at ejroller.com.

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

Original Source -> We need to talk about how family money can make or break an arts career

via The Conservative Brief

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5 Common Sayings That Mean The Opposite Of What You Think

Sliced bread was not a groundbreaking invention. Not all pictures are worth a thousand words. An apple a day doesn’t keep the doctor away — that son of a bitch can’t be bargained with, he can’t be reasoned with, he doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear, and he absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are properly treated. Uh … a lot of common sayings are full of crap, is our point here. But some are so full of it that they end up meaning the opposite of what they were originally trying to convey. Case in point …

5

To “Pull Yourself Up By The Bootstraps” Is To Try An Impossible Or Stupid Task

To pull yourself up by your bootstraps is to succeed against all odds using the sheer power of hard work. Whether that’s possible or not. “Sure, Paolo may be the son of impoverished immigrants and stuck in a school system riddled with racism, incompetency, and asbestos, but if he pulls himself up by his bootstraps, he can easily become a brain scientist or space astronaut.”

What It Actually Means:

Experiment time: Go try to lift yourself into the air by tugging on your bootstraps. You may need to acquire boots with straps to perform this experiment. We’ll wait.

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How did it go? Unless your parents discovered you when your spacecraft crashed into their cornfield, we’re guessing it wasn’t a success. And that’s the point. Originally, “pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps” was meant to refer to an impossible and futile act, like licking your own elbow or talking to a Comcast customer service agent. The phrase apparently comes from people fudging the details of a scene in the 1785 book The Surprising Adventures Of Baron Munchausen. In it, the titular baron pulls himself out of a swamp by his own hair, using a method that physicists refer to as “some Bugs Bunny shit.”

Gustave DoreThis is how that scene in The Neverending Story ended, right?

Soon enough, hair was swapped out for bootstraps, and the phrase grew in popularity before being corrupted and turned into a political talking point, following the same basic life cycle as the average meme.

“Did you see Paolo trying to pull himself up by his bootstraps at lunch? He must have been getting into the lead paint chips again.”

4

The Proof Is Not “In The Pudding” — It’s “In The Eating” (That Is, Experiencing Things Yourself)

“The proof is in the pudding” essentially means that as long as a claim is backed up by evidence that seems clear-cut and authoritative, that claim’s assumption can safely remain unchallenged. Like, if you read something on Wikipedia and it has a ton of tiny blue numbers next to the words, you can stop there and assume it’s true.

“You may say my Harry Potter / Gobots slash fiction is derivative and bad for society as a whole, but over 13,000 people have downloaded it, so the proof is in the pudding.”

What It Actually Means:

The original phrase, which dates back to the 14th century, is “the proof of the pudding is in the eating,” which is a rather clumsy way of saying that someone should experience something for themselves before making up their mind about it. In other words, all the evidence in the world can’t replace firsthand experience … which is the exact opposite of what the saying is used for today. That hasn’t stopped politicians from using the phrase to demand that we agree with their claims without question, of course.

“Sure, clinical studies may show that my Harry Potter / Gobots slash fiction regularly causes erections lasting more than four hours, but you really should read it for yourself. After all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating — or in this case, the masturbating.”

3

“The Luck Of The Irish” Was Meant To Be Sarcastic And/Or Insulting

The Irish are simply a naturally lucky people. That’s why four-leaf clovers are so closely associated with Ireland’s offspring, as one mutated leaf definitely makes up for a history filled with brutal invasions, potato famines, and racist hiring practices.

“Seamus found a big bag of mescaline in the bathroom on St. Patrick’s Day. Must be the luck of the Irish!”

What It Actually Means:

This phrase was originally an insulting shot at the Irish, which is weird, because history is normally so friendly to those guys. There are two ways the phrase can be taken, and unsurprisingly, both are filled with the same kind of intolerance and bigotry that saw Irish people classified as their own race just so America could discriminate against them more specifically. Some consider the original intent of “the luck of the Irish” to be a sarcastic reference to the country’s long and troubled history of alternating periods of oppression and starvation — which, on the whole, is a pretty shitty thing to be sarcastic about.

James Mahony“lol ‘My family is dying’ lol”

Alternatively, “the luck of the Irish” may be a backhanded compliment which means that any and all success achieved by Irish men and women must be attributable to luck. Because who could possibly believe that those potato-farming, whiskey-drinking, marshmallow-cereal-hoarding bastards could accomplish anything on their own merit?

“Seamus started a rewarding career as an investment banker. Must be the luck of the Irish, because those pricks can’t count to 20 without taking off their shoes.”

2

“A Foregone Conclusion” Is Something That Already Happened, Not Something That Will

Used primarily for things like climate change and celebrity breakups, a “foregone conclusion” is something that has to happen someday.

“My cousin Franklin is so hilarious, he’s definitely going to become a famous stand-up. It’s a foregone conclusion!”

What It Actually Means:

The phrase was coined by Shakespeare, a notorious inventor of word-things, and it was first used in Othello. In the play, Othello hears that Cassio has been talking dirty about Othello’s wife Desdemona in his sleep. Rather than considering the ethical implications of believing the word of someone who listens to other men sleep, Othello immediately decides that the only reason Cassio could be whispering sweet nothings to himself about Desdemona is that the two have already boned.

H. C. Selous“Look upon thy slattern’s exposed wrist; a grievous skankage hath she committed!”

It is, as Othello says, a foregone conclusion — meaning something that has already happened. Something like the moon landing, or the disco era, or Kevin Spacey’s non-direct-to-video career.

“My cousin Franklin isn’t going to become a famous stand-up, because he died of rubella. It’s a foregone conclusion.”

1

“The Left Hand Not Knowing What The Right Hand Is Doing” Is Supposed To Be A Good Thing

An organization whose “left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing” is one that is poorly managed, with multiple factions working against one another’s interests without even realizing it. This is how companies end up sponsoring youth soccer while simultaneously employing third-world child labor, or how the NFL promotes inner-city education while paying young men to smash into one another brains-first.

“Justin Timberlake tried to be woke in his newest music video, while his website is selling T-shirts sewed exclusively by lazy-eyed Malaysian children with psoriasis. Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing!”

What It Actually Means:

This time, the phrase comes from Jesus himself, who dropped this pearl of wisdom: “But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.” While this may sound like it’s about pleasuring yourself with your non-dominant hand, it is in fact about doing charitable acts and not bragging about them afterward.

John Singleton CopleyThis is why he tries to keep each hand as far away from the other as possible at all times.

Jesus was commenting on people taking selfies of themselves giving money to homeless people. It’s a bit unclear why he wants people to do charity with their left hands only, but we’re not biblical scholars here.

“Justin Timberlake donated $1 million to the #MeToo campaign and then didn’t brag about it on social media. Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Which is a good thing. I don’t know why I’m applying a semi-sarcastic phrase to the situation, now that I think about it.”

Stephan Roget sometimes tweets frequently over @StephanRoget, but sometimes he doesn’t for weeks on end. Follow him there, or here, or not at all. Don’t let us tell you how to live your life.

Support Cracked’s journalism with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

For more ways everything we ever said is totally wrong, check out The 5 Most Frequently Misused Proverbs and 5 Things You Say Often With Horrible Historical Origins.

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Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_25531_5-common-sayings-that-mean-opposite-what-you-think.html

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How Dwyane Wade & Gabrielle Union Make It Work Despite Their Careers (Exclusive)

Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union are a couple on the move.

The NBA pro talked to ET at the West Hollywood premiere for Shot in the Dark -- a documentary he co-produced with Chance the Rapper -- where he opened up about how he and Gabrielle Union navigate being a celebrity, and very busy, couple.

"Well, it’s definitely not the easiest thing in the world," the 36-year-old Miami Heat player admitted. "I think the biggest thing with me and my wife -- what we’ve always tried to do in our short period of time, especially being married -- is just to stay in constant communication with each other, try to support each other in everything. And it’s tough at times."

"We may go a month without seeing each other, definitely weeks for sure," he elaborated. "That’s common. But you know what, we love each other, we try to make it work, but I would tell people out there it’s definitely not easy when you got two people who have their own careers, their own individual brands, and you’re trying to have your own family and own life. But you know, we definitely try to make it work."

With that said, their professional lives are beginning to move into the same realm. As Wade starts to think about his post-NBA career, he revealed that he's been asking his wife, an industry veteran at this point, for a lot of advice lately.

"I always ask my wife for advice. I’m not that guy who feels like he knows everything," Wade explained. "Especially whenever I’m entering this world where my wife has been so successful for so many years, I’m always asking about any projects that come my way, anything I should look for and there’s things that me and her want to do together, and I gotta get my feet wet first before I jump into doing that with her, but definitely. I always depend on her to give me the advice of someone who’s been in the business for so so long."

For Shot in the Dark, however, Wade is able to draw from his own experience. The documentary the Chicago native is backing follows two promising high school basketball players in the city, who hope to overcome impoverished surroundings and realize their NBA dreams.

"I know the struggle and how I grew up," Wade said. "So I know the lane of what this story is talking about more so than the producing side of it, but I had fun in the process, you know?

Shot in the Dark premieres on Fox on Feb. 24.

Reporting by Angelique Jackson

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[anavoliselenu]

Hiched chapter 9

Chapter One

Justin

What a fucking public relations nightmare.

I’m at a charity event on behalf of Tate & Cane Enterprises. My new wife hasn’t been seen or heard from in two days; my best friend, Sterling, is in the bathroom fucking a waitress; and I’m standing here with a spatula in my hand, cursing them all a slow death under my breath.

We’re at a charity event at a soup kitchen. Supposedly, we’re doing good for the impoverished youths of our community, but it’s really just an excuse to empty the pockets of New York’s elite by serving them a very overpriced lunch. And considering I’m one of the cooks, I doubt it’ll taste like much. I enjoy cooking; I just rarely do it. I have one, maybe two recipes my mother used to make that I’ve mastered, and curried chicken salad isn’t one of them. The smell alone is nauseating. Though that could be because I have no appetite.

For the hundredth time, I wish I’d just hired Rosita and written her a blank check. If I had, they’d be eating like kings today. But the good cause isn’t the only reason I’m here. Hell, it’s not even my main reason.

As soon as I arrived at the soup kitchen this morning, the vultures of New York high society descended, peppering me with questions. How was the wedding? Why are you alone? Where’s your blushing goddamned bride?

Even if I had a clue how to answer, it was none of their fucking business. Selena’s father, Fred Cane, stepped in and saved me, telling everyone the ceremony was intimate and beautiful, and that Selena sends her regrets but was unable to make it. I volunteered for kitchen duty just to get a few hours of peace away from the public eye.

Or at least, that was the idea. I force myself to grin at the photographer who invaded the kitchen twenty minutes ago as his camera clicks away. If he asks me one more time where Selena is, I’m going to shove his thousand-dollar camera up his ass.

“How’s it coming?” the lead cook asks, looking into the massive stainless steel mixing bowl of chopped chicken dripping in amber curry.

“All set.” I slide the bowl toward him just as another cook sets a tray of pre-sliced croissants on the industrial kitchen’s counter.

They thank me for coming today as I remove my stained apron and toss it in the laundry basket on my way out of the kitchen.

A few more hands to shake, a couple of photo ops, and then I’m out of here. Sterling is still nowhere to be found, but the prick can find his own ride home. It’s not as if New York City isn’t crawling with taxis. And I’m not in the mood for company anyway.

When Selena stood me up at the altar, something inside me broke. I’d worked my ass off to try to show her that we could actually work as a couple, and I thought we were getting somewhere. Sharing an apartment, sleeping in the same bed, our sweet make-out sessions that were starting to turn into something more. And we were gelling at the office too . . . slowly turning the company around, one executive decision at a time.

I blow out a frustrated sigh. Never in my life have I worked this hard at winning over a woman. But Selena’s not just any woman. I grew up with her, placed her on this untouchable pedestal for twenty years, and she was this close to being mine. Before she ran off. And I still don’t even understand why. Though I have a damn good idea—

The heir clause in our inheritance contract.

Sterling was right. I guess she didn’t want me putting a bun in her oven after all. But I never thought she’d react like this. Scream and swear and cut off my balls, yes. Vanish without a trace, no.

In the event hall, people are mingling, shaking hands, and munching on the crudité. I spot Selena’s father at the far end of the room and start toward him. He’s a short, squat man with silver hair, a round belly, and a perpetual grin on his face. Basically, he’s like Santa’s brother. It’s hard not to love the guy, even when he won’t tell me what I need to know, and is being a royal pain in my ass.

“You ready to tell me where she is?” I ask, leaning in so only he can hear me.

He excuses himself from the man he was talking to and turns toward me. “Justin,” he starts, his tone jovial as if we’re discussing our upcoming yachting weekend on the Hudson.

“Cut the shit, old man.” I maintain a friendly grin in case anyone is watching. “Where is she?”

He lets out a heavy sigh, and for the first time, I can see that this is weighing on him almost as much as it’s weighing on me.

“She’s somewhere safe, that’s all that matters, and she’s mulling things over. She’ll be back when she’s ready. This is Selena we’re talking about.”

I nod solemnly. She’s as stubborn as the day is long. And he’s right. She’ll be back when she’s good and ready. Probably with an iron-clad argument, ready to negotiate the terms of her uterus with gusto. I smirk at the thought. At first I figured she was staying with Camryn, but after ransacking her best friend’s apartment, my new guess is one of Manhattan’s five-star hotels.

“When you speak with her again, tell her to call me,” I hiss under my breath. Fred and I have always been on good terms—he was my father’s closest friend, after all—but my patience has run thin.

He nods. “Of course I will.”

Just then, Sterling approaches with that just-fucked look. You know the one. Mussed hair, wrinkled collar, shirt untucked, smug-ass grin on his face like he just got his nuts off. The fucking bastard.

“Well, that was quick.” I check my watch. “If you need lessons in stamina, all you have to do is ask.”

An elbow in the ribs kills my smile. “Fuck off, Justin. We both know why you’re in a foul mood, and I don’t blame you.”

Fred excuses himself as Sterling and I trade jabs.

“So, was she fun?” I ask as we walk toward the exit.

“Of course,” he replies. But his eyes are on the door and there’s no conviction in his voice.

I’ve been there. Quick, unmemorable fucks with girls whose names I couldn’t even recall a mere twenty-four hours later. Which is all the more reason why Selena’s disappearing act feels like something had been ripped out of me.

Sure, we had our ups and downs, but I miss the banter, miss the way I could rile her up with the slightest of provocations. I just missed her.

I’m not looking forward to going home alone. The apartment feels stale without her. She hadn't even been there long, and already the place felt empty and void without her. Like all the warmth and charm has been sucked out by a vacuum. Only her scent lingers, and it makes me ache for her even more. Just when I started to get used to a woman’s touch at home, it was all ripped away. And that damn teapot she got us as a housewarming gift sits unused on the kitchen counter, mocking me. Why give me a peace token if she was just going to run out on me?

Sinking down onto the vinyl backseat of a cab, I let out a sigh. I’ve been hounding Fred about where she is, but the truth is, I don’t care. Well, I do care—every time I turn around and see she’s not there, her absence hurts all over again. But what I really want is to know why she ran out on me. Left me standing on the beach like a fucking idiot, waiting for our ceremony to start.

My head is swimming with questions, with anger and confusion and loss, and there’s an unexplained ache in my chest. It’s eerily familiar. Almost like the relentless throbbing I felt when Mum died. The kind of pain that fades a fraction with each passing day, but never goes away completely.

“You okay, buddy?” the cab driver asks, peering at me in the rearview mirror.

“I’m fine. Sorry.” Shit, I spaced out. I’ve been just sitting here in the back of his cab.

“You have somewhere you need to be?” he asks.

“Yes, home.” I give him the address, bewildered about the fact that I’ve started thinking of our shared penthouse as home.

My phone rings. My heart rate kicks up—for a second, I wonder if it’s Selena. But the name flashing on my screen for the third time today quickly informs me otherwise.

“Hello?” I mumble, deflated.

“How are you holding up?” Rosita asks.

She’s been calling every couple of hours, but this is the first time I’ve answered. Something about discussing it out loud—let alone with another person—might make this whole nightmare too real. But the sincerity in her tone is genuine and honest, and I suddenly feel like a dick for putting off her calls.

“I’m okay, I guess. Just confused.”

She sighs, and I can imagine her nodding her head, agreeing with me.

“When I learned you were getting married, I wasn’t sure what to think of this whole arrangement, but I figured if it was what your father wanted, it was for the best. He was a good man. And he loved both you and Selena.”

“Yeah,” I say, agreeing with her. But in times like this, where everything seems so fucked, it makes it hard to figure out what Dad was thinking.

I hear a rush of static as Rosita takes a deep breath. “But the more I got to thinking about it all, I realized I liked the idea of you getting married. Someone to cook you breakfast in the morning, someone to make sure you’re okay. A wife getting after you to make sure you take your vitamins. I liked the idea.”

I chuckle at her. “I can take care of myself, you know?” Rosita’s always been such a mother hen.

“I know, hijo,” she replies without missing a beat. “I know you can. But I liked that you wouldn’t have to.”

“You do know I was left at the altar, right?” As sweet as her sentiment is, the timing is horrible. Besides, it’s not like Selena is the doting, domestic type, bringing me slippers and serving me breakfast in bed.

“Of course I do. What I’m saying is that even though your ego is bruised, you need to take a deep breath and figure out why she left. See if there’s something you can do to fix this. Because I really think the two of you could work.”

I swallow the boulder in my throat. The only time Rosita has really seen Selena and me together was at her daughter Maria’s birthday party. A rare smile graces my lips at the memory. It was a fun day. Navigating Rosita’s enthusiastic extended family with my timid Snowflake by my side.

“I will listen to every word she says, I promise you that.” Whenever Selena gets around to coming back. If she comes back.

“Okay. Be good. Love you.”

“Love you too, Rosie.” I stuff my cell back in my pocket and hand a twenty to the cab driver as he rolls to a stop in front of our building.

Upstairs, I toss my keys in the wooden bowl by our penthouse door and wander inside. I’m really not looking forward to sleeping alone tonight. I consider heading back out, maybe to the bar down the street to drown my sorrows in a glass of fine whiskey. I flip on the light—and I freeze.

Selena is sitting on the couch. Her hands are folded in her lap, and she looks tired. Her dark blond waves are disheveled and that glow in her cheeks is gone.

“I need your help,” she says.

Has she been waiting for me? How long? And is that all she has to say? Four simple words . . . when four thousand wouldn’t be enough. And she’s asking for a favor?

My jaw tightens as disbelief darkens into anger.

“First, I need some answers,” I demand.

Chapter Two

Selena

I arrive back at the penthouse early in the afternoon. Justin’s not here, so I change into fresh clothes and eat a granola bar while I wait. I lie down for a nap, but end up just staring at the ceiling; try to work, but stop because I can’t focus; try to read a magazine, then resign myself to waiting on the sofa.

Where the hell is he? He wouldn’t be at the office on a Sunday—this is Justin we’re talking about. I try not to think about the possibility that he stayed the night with another woman.

But if he did . . . well, I’m the one who abandoned our wedding. I can’t blame him for thinking our relationship is over. For wanting to be done with me, and find a new girlfriend who isn’t such a hassle. Even though the last thing on my mind yesterday was hurting him.

God, the nightmare of the last forty-eight hours is still spinning through my head. I can still hear Brad’s voice on the phone, slithering into my ear like some horrible alien parasite . . .

• • •

“Good afternoon, Selena,” Brad said. “You really should check your e-mail more often.”

“Wh-what do you want?” I choked out.

“Check your e-mail and tell me if you recognize the attached photos.”

I hammered the End Call icon and tapped my e-mail app. One new message. I opened it . . . and my breath froze solid in my throat.

Of course I recognized those pictures. Back when we were still dating, Brad had nagged me to take some sexy naked selfies for him. And I’d caved, because I was still a gullible girl who thought he might turn into a decent boyfriend if I just tried hard enough and gave him whatever his slimy, shriveled little heart desired.

He’d had me convinced that he was a good man and all his selfish, controlling behavior was my fault. Whenever he was mad, it was because I’d provoked him. (Of course, when I was mad, I was just a childish bitch who looked for reasons to get offended.) He’d sulked when I didn’t want to touch his boner; he’d sulked when I suggested he could maybe touch my clit once in a while. Even when I’d caught him flirting with other women, he’d claimed it was because I neglected him.

So I guess I shouldn’t have put it past him to lie about destroying these nude pics either. I’d made him delete them off his phone while I watched, but he must have backed up the files somewhere beforehand. All twenty-two of them. Fuck.

I hit redial. Brad’s phone didn’t even finish one ring before he picked up.

“So?”

Squaring my jaw, I put on the hardest, most contemptuous tone I could. I refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing my voice shake. “Do you have some sort of point to make? Or did you just want to remind me what a scumbag you are?”

“Give up and let my father buy Tate & Cane,” he demanded. “I could also ask you to get down on your knees and suck my dick, but we both know you’re not even good for that much.”

“Only because you always jammed it down my throat like you were drilling for oil. Or compensating for something.”

“Do you want the deal or not?” he snapped.

Oh, Brad hadn’t liked that. I could just imagine his curled lip. I felt a rush of simultaneous triumph and terror at having pissed him off.

“I’m afraid this is a limited-time offer. If you want to save Tate & Cane, have your board e-mail me a buyer’s contract by the end of the week. Or I’ll release these photos—destroying your reputation and probably your company’s too—and then Daniels Multimedia Enterprises will just buy Tate & Cane anyway when its deadline is up. One way or another, my father will get what he wants.”

My heart was hammering so hard, I could barely catch my breath. I tried to buy time to think by arguing with him, digging for any crack in his resolve. “Is this all about your dad? What are you getting out of this?”

“Being a good son is its own reward. As well as building a strong company to someday inherit . . . and seeing a snotty bitch get what she richly deserves.” His tone impaled me like shards of ice as he went on. “Whatever explanation you prefer. Pick your favorite; it doesn’t matter.”

So that’s what this was really about—punishing me for daring to break up with him. Even for Brad the Demon Ex, this was insane. I’d never dreamed he’d go so far for such petty revenge.

“What matters,” he continued, “is your own decision. My offer is quite generous. I’m willing to pay millions of dollars for your company instead of just demanding you hand it over.”

I swallowed. “You said I have one week?” I asked, hating how small and weak my voice sounded.

“That’s right,” he said, sounding pleased to have finally reined me in. “Good-bye for now, Selena. We’ll keep in touch.”

At least, I thought that’s what Brad had said. I couldn’t hear over the rush of blood pounding in my ears. His last words could have been you’re fucked.

And they might as well be. I stared down at my phone, wanting to cry and puke and scream all at the same time. What the fuck was I going to do? What could I do? No way out. I couldn’t think straight. My already-simmering anxiety had boiled over. Animal panic flooded my brain. Can’t breathe. Trapped . . .

Even then, part of me already knew I needed help. I should have asked Justin. But how could I possibly face him? I’d handed Brad the rope to hang us both with. I’d given him exactly what he needed to destroy our fathers’ legacy and six thousand jobs.

Brad’s toxic influence came roaring back full force, making me relive all the sick, distorted feelings that our relationship had ground into me for over two years. My vision clouded, my lungs burned, my stomach twisted with anxiety.

No, I couldn’t tell Justin. The way he’d look at me . . . I didn’t know which would be worse, his disappointment or his pity. My pride couldn’t take another blow. I’d just shatter.

In that moment, I hated myself more than I’d hated anyone in my life. I was trembling with shame and helpless rage.

Why the hell did I ever take those pictures for Brad? I’d always let that scumbag use me, just rolled over and did whatever he wanted. If I hadn’t been so naive and desperate, I wouldn’t be in this mess right now. Why did it take me so long to hear the tiny voice in the back of my head screaming this relationship is wrong, it’s killing you, get out now?

Well, I’d listened too late. And unless I did something right now, our whole company was going to pay for my mistake.

I had to find Brad and stop him, although I had no idea what I was going to do or say when I got to his office. My instincts just screamed that there was a threat and that I needed to meet it and fight and kill it, because if I stood still, it would find me and hurt me first. Letting it come to me would mean that I’d already lost.

Half-blind with adrenaline, I ran out of the cottage, jumped into our rental car, and hauled ass for Nantucket’s only airport. I had one thing on my mind: taking down Brad and making him pay.

Dark and frantic thoughts barreled through my brain. I’d been right all along to feel skittish about marrying Justin. If Brad was going to ruin our company no matter what I did, then what was the point? If this exploded into a media scandal, the best-case scenario was that I’d have to step down while the company carried on without me. In which case, the question of my inheritance was moot. I could already see the headline—“CEO Forced to Resign Amidst Nude Photo Scandal.” Not how I wanted my first appearance on CNN to go down.

Nauseated, with tears stinging my eyes and still decked out in all my meaningless finery, I floored the gas pedal and left our wedding far behind.

The flight from Nantucket, as short as it was, still forced me to sit and think. I realized that I’d let my emotions run away with me—quite literally. How the hell was bolting supposed to fix anything? As satisfying as it would feel in the short term, I couldn’t just barge into Brad’s office and start screaming obscenities at him. No, I needed a plan before I acted.

I needed help too. But with my stomach still churning with anxiety and shame, I didn’t want Justin to know about my dirty pictures—or about how much power Brad apparently still wielded over me.

So instead of meeting Brad, I took a cab to an Upper East Side hotel, promising myself that I could solve this problem alone, and nobody would find out what I’d done for Brad or what he’d done to me.

I just wanted to feel like I wasn’t totally useless. I knew that stopping Brad wouldn’t make up for the way I’d treated Justin that day, let alone justify it. But I figured that a victorious return was better than slinking back with my tail between my legs. It was bad enough that I’d betrayed my fiancé; I didn’t want to dump all my problems into his lap too. I was determined to stay independent. I was Selena Fucking Cane. I would find a way to fix this.

In the end, though, I couldn’t keep inventing excuses to avoid Justin. I spent two sleepless nights pacing my hotel room, trying to brainstorm ways to defuse Brad’s blackmail threat . . . and I came up with jack shit. Every idea was worse than the last. There was no way I could fight back without getting other people involved and drawing attention to my dirty little secret.

At sunrise today, I gave up and went to bed, where my mind kept spinning until I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.

Later in the morning, as I stared into the mirror, I was forced to admit what I’d known all along. I can’t do this alone. This mistake was too old and too deep to be undone easily—or maybe at all. And Brad’s claws were sunk too deep in me. Just remembering his voice on the phone made my heart race and my stomach twist. I could barely think straight, and that asshole wasn’t even here right now.

No, I had to face facts . . . and Justin too. So I took a shower and made my haggard face as presentable as I could. With nothing else to wear, I put on yesterday’s clothes—what should have been my wedding dress. I went downstairs, ate a bagel without tasting anything, and took a paper cup of coffee from the continental breakfast bar, then called a cab to take me to our penthouse.

It was time to go home to my husband.

• • •

The sound of the doorknob turning startles me out of my painful memories. I jolt upright and watch, my heart beating fast as our front door swings open.

Justin steps over the threshold . . . then sees me and freezes. He stares into my eyes like he’s seen a ghost. Anger, relief, and hurt fight for control of his expression.

All my carefully rehearsed words desert me at the sight of him. My throat feels dry, and with my heart hammering, I utter the first words I can think of.

“I need your help.”

For a minute he says nothing. He just keeps staring at me, fighting to school his features. Finally, he replies, “First, I need some answers.”

His voice is tight, barely keeping control. But he didn’t say no. That’s about the best I could have hoped for—hell, the best I deserve. I nod and rise to my feet.

“Where the hell have you been?” he asks. He still hasn’t moved from the door, as if he doesn’t want to get too close to me.

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