#happy 1st october art! we are what. two and a half weeks in?

[scribsisnotdead]

waiter! waiter! more werewolf aph content please!

[bluesylveon2]

Happy Bday Gabey: Ch 1

To one of my favorite adings, @malunggaybe, happy birthday! You're finally a fossil!! I still need to finish the rest of the gift, but ch 1 is done! I apologize for any grammar mistakes. Enjoy and happy birthday! 🥳

It was 9 am, Friday, October 1st. Pancakes reluctantly trudged her way down each step of the shared 2 story home. She was still tired from Game night last night with her sisters Jello, Jess, and Gabey. She let out a big yawn and shook her head a few times to remove any excess sleep from her eyes. Pancakes strode across the living room and through the door leading to the kitchen. Seated at the 4 chair dining table sat Jello, sipping her morning coffee and reading the “General Chat” newspaper.

“Good morning, Pancakes.”

“Good morning.” Pancakes replied (word for tired here). She walked towards the very decorated standing fridge full of different artwork from her, Jello, and Gabey. Gabey’s art depicted 2 characters from her favorite show she kept raving about. One was a black hair grumpy, short man, and the other was a brunette with glasses.

I need to watch that one day. Pancakes added to her to-do list for the week.

There was also a whiteboard for chores, shopping, and multiple pictures of the sisters. Pancakes opened the freezer drawer, expecting to find something to eat there. There were the usual necessities such as meat and frozen fruit. Of course, who cannot forget the half-gallon tub of sewage ice cream at the very top of the pile?

(Why Gabey likes that specific flavor is very questionable).

“Is Jess awake?” Jello asked, referring to their other sister, who typically slept in nowadays.

“No, she was knocked out cold when I passed by her room. She must have slept later than us after game night” Pancakes chuckled to herself as she closed the freezer drawer and opened the refrigerator doors instead. “Any news today?” She asked and eyed the sliced watermelon.

(Maybe Jess would not mind sharing some?)

“Well, Cal recently opened a boba shop. We should go after Gabey is done with school. RK Minaj released a new album, and Gabey’s birthday is coming up,” Jello said nonchalantly and took a sip of her coffee.

“What!” Pancakes exclaimed after closing the refrigerator while carrying the watermelon container. “September passed by that quickly?!”

“Mhm. We should do something since she is turning 18 this year.”

“I agree.” Pancakes nodded and stood up. She decided to cook some pancakes for breakfast too.

Suddenly, the kitchen door opened, and Jess entered the kitchen in her pajamas. She was also texting on her phone.

“Good morning, Jess.” Jello and Pancakes greeted her at the same time.

“Morning,” Jess replied and set her phone down near Jello. She walked over to the pantry, grabbed the Honey Bunches of Oats, and opened a cabinet to grab a bowl. “What are y’all talking about?” She asked while pouring herself some cereal.

“Gabey’s birthday.” Pancakes chimed in while mixing her pancake batter.

“Already? That was so fast.” Jess said and sat down at the dining table with Jello once she grabbed her spoon.

“Yeah, so Pancakes and I are trying to come up with an idea about what to do.”

Jess set her spoon down and hummed in thought. “What about a debut?”

“A debut?” Jello asked, but Pancakes was already shaking her head.

“It is basically a Filipino version of a quinceanera, except the debutante (the birthday girl) is 18. Also, it is very expensive.” She added while flipping her pancakes.

“Ok, so a debut is off the list,” Jess said dejectedly and drew a horizontal line in the air of her imaginary list.

“What about a small party here at home? With her friends and us?” Jello asked, and the other two sisters nodded in agreement.

“That can work.” Pancakes nodded as she grabbed a plate for her pancakes. “We can also invite Cashew, Cal, and Moon.”

Jello grinned and pulled out her phone to type out the plans. “Sounds like a plan, and should we add anything else?”

Pancakes sat down at her spot on the table after turning off the stove. “Obviously, we need a cake. I heard that this was this really recent bakery that opened up, and it also has good reviews.”

“We can do some performances like singing or dancing!” Jess slammed her hands on the table. A bright smile illuminated her face.

Pancakes’ smiled a smile that matched Jess’. “I can dance the Todo Todo!”

“I can sing a few songs!”

“Then it’s settled. I’ll handle the cake and see if we can get other people to join in too.” Jello added while she typed.

Jess raised her hand. “Cal can cater with their bubble tea, and we can try to book RK Minaj to perform!”

“That sounds perfect! All we need now is a gift!”

“Maybe we can get something from that show Gabey keeps raving about? Didn’t she say they were in town or something? What was it called again?” Pancakes wondered out loud, and the other sisters had an idea of what she was talking about. The show was called Attack….something?

They could not recall it at the moment.

“I can handle the booking. We just need to split the list up between the three of us.” Jello said and looked at the two for confirmation, and both sisters nodded in agreement.

“Got it. This means Operation: Happy Bday Gabey is underway!” Pancakes said with glee.

Jess laughed. “Oh, we got this. What could possibly go wrong?”

[zeldasayer]

I transcribed and translated Pedro’s interview from GQ Germany for all of us. I tried translating as good as possible but bear with me, English is not my mother tongue. By @sixties-loser

Pedro Pascal, the star from “Game of Thrones”, “Wonder Woman” and “The Mandalorian” talks about becoming an adult, film, fashion, corona – and a painful surgery in the exclusive GQ interview.

It seems almost eerie how empty the streets of LA are in the sunshine. Meanwhile a new normality seems to be coming to Europe, most people in L.A. are still cutting their own hair. Many have not seen their friends for half a year. The pandemic is out of control. The reaction towards it too. Inviting someone into their garden for a “distance drink” can cause the same distress as suggesting to switch spouses.

Therefore, it was particularly surprising that Pedro Pascal immediately accepted. He accepted the drink, not to switch spouses. He is one of the rising stars and newcomers this year – if it wasn’t for corona sending the whole film industry into a forced vacation, there would most likely not have been time for said drink. After having his skull crushed in “Game of Thrones” followed the lead role as a DEA agent hunting Pablo Escobar in “Narcos” in 2015 and now he is stepping towards big Hollywood films. From the 1st of October onwards the Chilean-born actor will be starring in the blockbuster “Wonder Woman 1984”. Moreover, the second season of the “Star Wars”-series “The Mandalorian” on Disney+ starring him as the lead is going to air in October this year – but he will be underneath a helmet. Well, we all are under a helmet in 2020 in one way or another. We want to meet the man who a few years ago still worked as a waiter in New York, whose parents were political refugees who found asylum in Denmark and settled in Texas and whose son one day signed up for a theatre group in High School.

Then, the cancellation! While we were in the middle of fixing up the house and the garden for the drink with Pedro and organizing the fashion shoot, which was not easy considering the safety measures in L.A., his management called with an unfortunate message: Pedro – no, not sick with corona – had to get emergency surgery because of a damaged tooth and was lying in bed with a swollen face that was hindering him from speaking and taking pictures. The sun is shining onto empty streets. And our empty garden.

A few days later he nonetheless arrived at our front door without a swollen face but still with threads in his mouth. He was not chauffeured by a limo-service but he came with his own car – he even picked up his make-up artist. He is helping her carrying all of her utensils into the house and declares: “I’ve got time today!”. What a celebrity! It seemed like we did not want to ask him how he made it to the A-List of Hollywood but he wanted to ask us how we made it to the A-list. Pedro Pascal! Yes, what kind of a celebrity?

Pedro Pascal: Sorry for messing with your plans. The surgery was an emergency.

GQ: Really? We were wondering whether the swelling wasn’t the product of a secret visit to the plastic-surgeon. Apparently, they are drowning in work because of the quarantine in Hollywood.

PP: I have to disappoint you. A few days before our appointment I was rushing to the hospital with a fractured tooth and the worst pain in my entire life – a hospital in which treats people with severe cases of corona. I was unable to reach any dentist! Right in front of the parking lot a specialist called me back. The pain was hell despite the ten injections I got. The doctor said I was not an exception because a lot of people are grinding their teeth because of all the stress.

GQ: What are you most afraid of at the moment?

PP: How the government is handling the pandemic is worrying me more than the virus itself. This shortage of intelligent management of the crisis is a moral shame. The leadership crisis in this country is turning us all into orphans – destitute and abandoned.

GQ: How did you spend your time over the last few months?

PP: I spent it with frozen pizza and sweatpants in Venice Beach. I live in a rear house that’s in a family’s garden. Actually, there are a lot of good takeout places nearby but for some reason I just love pepperoni pizza from the supermarket.

GQ: That does not really sound like movie star-lifestyle. What does it feel like being suddenly stopped from top speed to zero?

PP: Regarding what is going on around the world one should hold back one’s own mental turmoil. I would be lying if I was saying that I am not disappointed. The whole team put a lot of heart and work into the production of “Wonder Woman 1984”. We had a lot of fun on set. I wished to travel around the world and introduce the film with the same lively energy.

GQ: You come from a politically engaged, socialist family that fled from the Pinochet-regime in Chile. What do you remember from that time?

PP: My sister and I were born in Chile but I was only nine months old when we first found asylum in Denmark. From there we quickly came to San Antonio in Texas where my dad started working as a doctor at the university clinic.

GQ: Texas is not known as a socialist utopia. How did you assimilate?

PP: San Antonio is not a Cowboy-town but very diverse with big Asian, black and Latino communities. I remember it as a romantic place, culturally open. The culture shock only came as we later moved to range county in California. There the atmosphere was suddenly white, preppy and conservative.

GQ: How were you received in California?

PP: I’m still ashamed of the fact that I did not correct my classmates when they kept on calling me Peter. I am Pedro. Even if I didn’t grow up in Chile the country and the language are still a part of me. I was very unhappy in that environment. However, I was fortunately able to go to another school close to Long Beach where I felt more comfortable. Through the theater group at that school I found my way.

GQ: Were you able to visit Chile as a child?

PP: Yes, when my parents made it to the list of expatriates that were able to travel to Chile without consequences. First, there was a big family reunion and then my sister and I stayed there for a few months with relatives while my parents went back to Texas. They likely needed a break from us. They got us when they were very young, had a buzzing social life and my mother was obtaining a PhD in psychology.

GQ: Was your mother a typical young psychologist who wanted to apply her theoretical knowledge at home?

PP: You mean, whether I was her guinea pig? For sure! I remember strange tests and sittings that were disguised as games where someone was watching me react to different toys. I cannot have been older than six but I was already aware of the dynamic. My favourite thing was being questioned about my dreams. That was a wonderful opportunity to come up with fantastic stories.

GQ: Was that your first performance?

PP: Of course! My mother worried about my strong imagination because I was living in my own fantasy world rather than reality. I hated going to school. I was always categorized as the troublemaker. At one point, the topics at school became more interesting and my grades also went up. There are so many kids that are unnecessarily diagnosed with learning disabilities without considering that school can be abhorrent. Why is it so accepted to be bored in class when there are so many stimulating ways to convey knowledge?

GQ: Considering al that has happened this summer around the world: Do you believe that we can seriously demand social change now?

PP: I Hope so. After lockdown, the first time I went out was to protest for “Black Lives Matter” on the streets. The energy was peaceful and hopeful until the police provoked severe conflicts. Nevertheless, we cannot run from problems like we used to this time and we cannot distract ourselves from them either. It seems like the pressure of the pandemic led to a new clarity: We cannot go on this way.

GQ: The “Wonder Woman 1984” Trailer revives the optimism of the 1980’s. From today’s point of view, it seems almost nostalgic.

PP: That’s right. You really are happy for two hours. The director Patty Jenkins created a film full of positive messages. We shot in Washington D.C., then in London and Spain – this sounds like I am talking of a past time.

GQ: Do you miss traveling?

PP: I’m just now realizing the privilege of just packing up one’s stuff and being able to fly anywhere. An American passport used to guarantee unlimited travel. And that’s why it the small radius of our lives is actually unimaginable. Over the last years I often retreated for a break after shootings because I was constantly on the move and overstimulated. My friends were already complaining I had become too comfortable. We all took social contact for granted and are only realizing now how dependent we actually are on human contact. Over the last weeks I often longingly thought about all the parties and dinner invitations I declined.

GQ: In L.A. people spend more time at home or nature than in other metropolises that are more geared towards public life. Could this city become your second home after New York?

PP: My Real Home are my friends. I have been a nomad since I was little and I do not have a place where I have put down roots. Up until not long ago my physical home was a place in between departure and arrival. Therefore, it was something I did not want to complicate through the accumulation of stuff. On the contrary: Without having read Marie Kondo’s book I have freed myself from excess baggage over the last few years and I lived relatively minimally.

GQ: Is there nothing you collect or something you just can’t throw away?

PP: Books! I even still have the literature I read when I was a teenager and when I was in college. Recently, I stumbled upon a box full of old theatre manuscripts and materials from my time at the New York University. I also cannot part from art easily, just like I cannot part from lamps or old photos. On the other hand, I can easily get rid of furniture and clothes.

GQ: Do you remember roles that were really only completely defined through the costume?

PP: Yes, I am particularly thinking about “Game of Thrones”. At that time I understood for the first time what it meant to be supported by a look. This is thanks to the costume designer Michele Clapton. She created very feminine robes and brocade coats for my character that nevertheless looked masculine when worn and I felt very sexy in them. Of course, Lindy Hemmings power-suits and Jan Swells bleached hairstyle for the tycoon-villain in “Wonder Woman 1984” were very important as well. At first I did not really see myself in the role because the cuts and colors of the 80s do not really fit my body. I’m more the 70s type.

GQ: Do you incorporate those inspirations into your personal wardrobe?

PP: In my free time I choose comfort over a cool look these days. Sometimes I miss the times when I expressed myself through a certain style. It is hard to imagine that I went to Raves as a teenage in the 90s; I was a real club kid with ridiculous outfits: overalls, balloon pants, football shirts and a top hat, like in Dr.Seuss’s “Cat in a Hat”. Later in New York I was hanging out with a group of people that felt it was very important to have a certain style. The fact that I am basically only wearing sweatpants everyday is actually tragic.

GQ: whoever plays roles in comic book adaptations becomes a bodybuilder and eats ten chicken breasts a day. You don’t?

PP:My body would not agree with that. It is hard enough to stay in shape normally. When you’re in your mid-forties you have to live with a lot more discipline. Up until before my tooth-incident I worked out with a trainer in my garden multiple times a week to keep the quarantine body in check.

GQ: Apart from the personal trainer, are you in a steady relationship?

PP: I am not ready for that yet. Maybe at some point I will be but until then I’ll let it be. I can’t even offer you absurd corona dating stories.

GQ: What would annoy you the most if you were your own roommate?

PP: I can be quite controlling. I have to conjure all my humanity to prevent myself from going through my entire film collection. When I don’t want something I cannot keep it to myself or be passive-aggressive, I always have to take it to the frontlines. Other than that, I tend to have tunnel view: when I am not feeling well I cannot imagine to ever feel better again. I have trouble relativizing my emotions or to wave off problems. Method-acting would really not be for me. This is why I try to only work on projects that feel good, where there is mutual support and encouragement.

GQ: When we were trying on the clothes earlier you spoke of a lack of self-confidence. How does that get along with a career like yours?

PP: Isn’t it interesting how these characteristics and circumstamces relate? Self-worth comes from inside but it is also influenced by what society values because we often internalise the public gaze. I have lived in New York for 20 years, I studied there and made a living by working as a waiter until my mid-thirties because the theatre and film jobs I got did not pay the bills. There were so many times I was almost there. The disappointment of having missed the perfect role or opportunity by a hair’s width can be crushing. When should you give up and what is plan B? That is a question that is not only on many actors‘s minds but also on many others minds who struggle for a living – no matter how much potential they have or how close they seem to be to the top. We are seeing now how our narrow definition of success destroys society. At the same time, we are realizing that where we come from and the color of our skin still decide whether we can exist with dignity.

GQ: What are the positive aspects of a relatively late success as leading-man?

PP: I feel like I can decide over my own life without the pressure of having to accept projects or to have to present a certain identity on social media. This is for sure also because I am a man. Regardless of age, Women have to try harder to stand out.

GQ: Life always consists of risk management – now more than usual. For what would you risk losing something?

PP: Generally, when you never risk something you might never get ahead. That is for friendship, love, work and creativity. I have to be ready to take risks for the things that really matter to you.

[desertdollranch]

December Photo Challenge

December 1st begins our #Happy Dollidays month-long photo challenge! This is going to be a fun collaborative project for all of us here on Tumblr. Every day of the month of December, there will be a new themed photo challenge featuring your doll or dolls. It’s meant to inspire your creativity, give you something to look forward to, getting you (safely) out of the house, and hopefully to help you learn a few new things about photographing and generally interacting with your doll(s) in imaginative ways.

I’m publishing this list today, November 1st, so that those of you wanting to participate can get at least a month head start on planning what pictures you want to use for each day’s challenge. Then, on each day of December, starting on December 1st, you’ll post your photos corresponding to that day’s theme.

Before I lay out the details, I have some people to thank!

Let me tell you that this upcoming challenge would not be what it is without the help of @adventuresindolls​, who not only encouraged me to make this happen, but gave me tons of outstanding ideas to turn into daily prompts. For that reason I can really only claim only a handful of these ideas as originally mine. And I also must thank @lesbianelizabethcole​ for once again creating five beautiful pieces of art to brighten up this post as well as four weekly posts. Thank you to both of you! I mean it when I say that this is a collaborative project that I absolutely could not have not done alone. It always warms my heart to see everyone here proving to me that this fandom is one of the best you’ll find anywhere on Tumblr. 

The guidelines of this month’s photo challenge will more or less be the same as October’s. You also may notice that some of the daily themes are very similar to the ones we did then. I kept track of the days in October that had more participation than others, and I took note of which ones were most successful and not difficult to do. I’ve tweaked them a bit to make them suitable for a December photo challenge. 

Furthermore, if you think #Happy Dollidays is going to be focused only on Christmas, think again! There are more than half a dozen holidays that will be featured this month. (That’s why I chose #Happy Dollidays and not #The 12 Dolls of Christmas which I thought sounded super cute also.)

As before, participation in this month-long challenge is completely voluntary. You can do one day, a few days, or all of them as you please. You do not need to @ me or be following me. There is no competition, and there are no prizes for participating or penalties for not participating. The only goal is to have fun. You are welcome to use any doll or dolls, regardless of brand or size. I know a lot of us in the fandom primarily collect American Girl dolls, but feel free to include handmade dolls, paper dolls, antique porcelain dolls, or any other doll you’ve got. Historical characters and modern characters are welcomed and encouraged.

Most importantly: please use the hashtag #Happy Dollidays on your posts. Two separate words, with spaces. This is so everyone, regardless of participation, can easily browse the hashtag and see what photos have been posted by other bloggers. Right now it’s a unique hashtag that hasn’t been used. I also suggest adding name of the day’s theme somewhere in your photo caption, so that you spread the word about this challenge.

I’ll reblog this post a few times until December 1st to remind everyone, and I’ll add it to my blog’s header. Then starting on the 1st and continuing every seven days after, I’ll post all of the upcoming week’s individual daily themes to keep you all encouraged and inspired.

Under the cut you’ll find the full list of daily themes, divided by weeks. (For ease of reading, I use the singular “doll”, but you may use as many dolls as you like in each photo.)

Day 1: The first day of Happy Dollidays is for you to show off your doll’s winter fashion. What is your doll wearing this December? Something warm and cozy, or something pretty and festive?

Day 2: 🎶 Silver white winters that melt into spring, these are a few of my favorite things! 🎶What is your doll’s favorite thing about winter, or December, or December’s holidays? What do they most look forward to this month?

Day 3: Have a cup of cheer. What’s in your doll’s teacup? What drinks put them in a December mood? 

Day 4: 🎶Oh, the weather outside is frightful! 🎶 Today is all about winter weather. Caroline Abbott never passed up a chance to go sledding on the snowy hills, and she loved ice skating on Lake Ontario. Take your doll outside and let them show and tell about the weather. Is there enough snow to make a snow fort? Are they skating on a frozen pond? Crunching through fallen leaves, perhaps? Or are they enjoying a nice warm winter on the beach?

Day 5: Just because it’s winter, doesn’t mean that there’s no color left in the world! Green is a color commonly associated with Christmas, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Yule, and many other winter holidays. Show your doll interacting with or wearing something green. 

Day 6: Rebecca Rubin’s teacher had the class make a greenery centerpiece at school. She felt conflicted about making a Christmas decoration when her family doesn’t celebrate that holiday, but with Bubbie’s praise and encouragement, she realized that she was happy she took the time to make something beautiful. Your challenge today is to show your doll creating something handmade. Maybe your doll likes to knit or crochet, or make jewelry. Or maybe they’re a whiz at making pretty greenery wreaths, just like Rebecca! 

Day 7: Many winter holidays are associated with special or traditional foods. And winter also means that other foods are in season, like citrus fruits and chestnuts. Addy Walker’s favorite food for Christmas dinner was her mother’s sweet potato pudding! What’s your doll’s favorite wintertime or holiday treat? 

Day 8: Let’s observe a more obscure holiday today. December 8th marks Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day. Show us your doll traveling to the past or the future! What would they wear, what would they do, and where would they go if they could time travel? 

Day 9: Samantha Parkington decorated her home with garlands and snowflakes and silk angels. Is your doll decorating their living space this month? Show us what they’ve done. 

Day 10: Happy Hanukkah! Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah, a time to remember when light triumphed over darkness. Do you have a doll who is celebrating? If so, show us how they celebrate. If you don’t have a doll who is celebrating, show us how your doll appreciates light. For example, candlelight, firelight, sunlight, starlight, moonlight, or twinkling fairy lights. 

Day 11: Many people believe that it is better to give than to receive. Kit Kittredge gave her friend Ruthie a gift of a storybook, which Kit wrote especially for Ruthie. Your challenge today is to show your doll giving a gift to someone else. Tell us what the gift is and who is receiving it.

Day 12: Wintertime often has a magical feeling to it, doesn’t it? Your challenge today is…. magic. Whatever form that might take for your doll!

Day 13: This is Saint Lucia’s Day, a Swedish holiday that Kirsten and her family looked forward to as the beginning of the Christmas season. When they came to America, Kirsten wondered if her family would continue their traditional celebrations. They reminded her of happy times and her family’s love. What favorite winter holiday tradition(s) does your doll have?

Day 14: This is a time of year when parties and formal events are happening everywhere. Show us your doll attending or throwing a party for their holiday of choice! 

Day 15: Free space! It’s the middle of the month, and like the middle square of a bingo card, you get a free space to post a picture of your doll doing an activity of their choice. If there’s something they’re dying to show and tell that wasn’t included in this month’s challenges, now is the chance to do that!  

Day 16: The sparkle of sunlight on snow, the twinkling of candles in a frosty window....glitter, glam, and sparkles are celebrated today! How is your doll appreciating things that sparkle and shine? Maybe they are trying on a new sparkly party dress, or are they sending a greeting card written in glitter ink pens?  

Day 17: Today begins the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia, a time of parties and festivities. Roman households would crown someone the Saturnalicius princeps, or “Lord of Misrule”, whose duty was to make mischief. The mock king would insult the dinner guests, play pranks, wear outrageous clothing, and revel in chaos. Surprise! Your doll has been chosen as the Doll of Misrule. What pranks, mischief, or mayhem are they causing today? Bonus points if you dress your doll like a Roman! 

Day 18: Tonight marks the eighth and final night of Hanukkah. Blue is a color commonly associated with Hanukkah. Show your doll wearing or interacting with something blue. 

Day 19: Felicity Merriman received a splendid Christmas surprise when she was invited to the governor’s palace for a dance lesson. And Isabelle Palmer, Girl of the Year in 2014, danced the part of the gingerbread cookie in the ballet The Nutcracker. Let’s see how your doll appreciates the art of dancing. Do they take dance lessons? Or do they teach? Maybe they prefer to watch it instead.

Day 20: Many schools go on a break at the end of December. If your doll is on a break from school, what activities are they doing to keep their hands occupied and their mind sharp? 

Day 21: In the northern hemisphere, December 21st marks the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. That just means staying in bed a little longer wearing some warm jammies! Show us your doll dressed in pajamas. 

Day 22: Red is a color commonly associated with Kwanzaa, Christmas, and the Iranian holiday of Shab-e Yalda, among others. When all of nature seems to be asleep, seeing something bright red can give us hope that color will return again to the world. Show your doll interacting with or wearing something red. 

Day 23: Christmas movies are a modern tradition in Western culture, especially American culture. Many of them can be enjoyed even by people who don’t celebrate it. Show us your doll recreating a scene from a Christmas movie of their choice. 

Day 24: Josefina Montoya had a special part in her village’s celebration of Christmas, when she sang a song in church in front of everyone. Show us your doll making or appreciating music in any way they prefer. Do they sing or do they play an instrument? Are they brave enough to do it in front of an audience? Or would they rather listen to music at home?

Day 25: Today is Christmas Day for non-Orthodox Christians who measure time by the Gregorian calendar. Merry Christmas! Do you have a doll who is celebrating? If so, let’s see what they’re up to today. If not, how are they enjoying their day instead? With most everything closed and most everyone off from work or school, there still must be plenty of fun to be had today! (FYI: Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas starting January 7th!)

Day 26: Happy Kwanzaa! Do you have a doll who is celebrating? If so, share a moment from their celebration. If not, then show us what your doll does to create a better life for their family, their community, or the world.

Day 27: Holidays are always more enjoyable when celebrated with family or friends. Today, we’re recognizing a longtime friend to humans: dogs! Show us your doll appreciating or interacting with dogs in some way. Do they live with a dog? Do they make extra money walking the neighbors’ dogs? Or maybe they’ve just got a stuffed dog that is special to them in some way.

Day 28: Courtney Moore received a very special Christmas gift from her dad: a Molly McIntire doll. Her dad knew she’d appreciate reading about another girl who misses her father. Did your doll receive a special gift this month? If so, what was it? 

Day 29: American Girl’s historical characters face many changes throughout their stories. In Changes for Kaya, Kautsa (Kaya’s grandmother) observes and praises how much Kaya has grown and matured since the day she got her unpleasant nickname of Magpie, and how it may be time soon for Kaya to take on the name she was given by Swan Circling. Kaya declares that she is ready for what new things may come in her life. What events this year helped your doll grow and change? What was the greatest challenge they faced in 2020? Or what new things did they learn that have helped them mature?

Day 30: Wish upon a star tonight. What is your doll’s wish for the coming year? Show and tell us what they are hoping for in 2021. 

Day 31: It’s the last day of 2020. It has been an unusual and often difficult year for everyone, in one way or another. But maybe your doll has a pleasant memory from this year in spite of it all. Show us what your doll’s most joyful moment of 2020 was. 

[lifeinahole27]

CS ff: “Walking the Tightrope” (Chapter 1/10) (au)

Summary: Killian's daily routines are a matter of habit. When he wakes up late one morning, his routines all change for the better. Emma doesn't care about routines, but she does care about Killian, no matter how reluctant she is to admit it to herself. 

Rating: E (much later in the story)

Content Warnings: There will be a part where pictures are posted without permission. It happens much later in the fic but if that’s not your thing, I want to put it out there now. And, of course, sexual content will be present. I will update these warnings for each chapter to pinpoint those sections!

A Special Thank You: Oh man, how do I put my gratitude into words? There are two constants in my CS fic writing life that I am so incredibly lucky to have. Thank you @captainstudmuffin for just downright prodding me in the ass to keep me moving when I wanted to give up. You were always there in the right capacity to keep me going. You did that reverse psychology thing with me that I always do to you with “Well, if you want to give up, that’s your choice...” and it worked. And then there’s @phiralovesloki who has listened to me self-depreciate for hours on end and still keeps me moving forward. And then you both turned your attentions to helping me get this thing edited and proofread. You handled all my tantrums, all my fits, all my problems. I love you both to the moon and back. 

And of course, thank you to the @captainswanbigbang for going with this rewrite idea. All of you modding this and putting shit in line and answering questions and being awesome and informative and helpful... my eternal gratitude for helping get this, my possible magnum opus, finished and out to the fandom. Much love to you all!

A/N: I wrote a lot of notes above here to start. Because of that, I’ll keep this line brief. Enjoy!

Find it on Ao3 & FFN!

-x-

Chapter 1: The Art of Routines

September 30: Monday

Every day, Killian Jones walks from his respectable dwelling by the Storybrooke Harbor to where he works, located right off the main drag. Storybrooke is nearly the definition of small-town America, but it houses a quaint-sized office of a British publishing firm that opened a branch over here last year. Three months ago, Killian took a chance to upend his whole life and applied for a junior editing position.

From a life in the Navy to a redirection of passions towards the fine art of literature, Killian has used a rigorous set of routines to get through every major upheaval in his life, including but not limited to the aforementioned relocation from London to a small speck on the map.

He uses his daily habits from the moment his alarm sounds in the morning until he shuts his eyes at night – operating his life in a tidy way and controlling what he can control while doing his best to accept whatever tries to throw him off.

Because of his method to build up his regimens, he knows that anything that lasts beyond two weeks becomes more likely to stick.

And for six weeks, Emma Swan has been part of his routines. Monday through Friday they cross the street together. They never speak. Sometimes they’ll smile and nod in greeting, but it’s enough in Killian’s book. Or at least, they’ve come to some unspoken agreement that it’s enough. Since the middle of August, this has been his norm, and thus it is now just another thing that marks time throughout his days.

The only reason he knows her name is because of the star-shaped badge she wears on her hip. That and being the sister of the sheriff are dead-giveaways to an identity. He’d heard of Emma long before he saw her as Will Scarlet filled him in on the townies. She, on the other hand, probably doesn’t even know his name. But he’s okay with that. He’s not out to meet the love of his life – not after what he went through with his last major relationship – but to enjoy a walk across the street with an ease he doesn’t understand and doesn’t have to. 

Day after day, he continues on, never looking back to see if she’s still looking at him. He’s afraid of what he might find if he does: either she’s also glancing back and this immediately becomes something different, or she isn’t and he’s effectively found himself with some kind of rejection complex. Both ideas are ridiculous. At the mere thought, Killian snorts and picks up his pace. 

On October 1st, Killian discovers how easy it is to throw off the delicate balance of a routine as strong as his. The alarm never goes off, or if it does, Killian either doesn’t hear it or turns it off in his sleep. He wakes, instead, to the sound of his text messages going off in quick succession, followed by the phone ringing and Will’s chirpy voice alerting him as he answers that he’s going to be late. 

With that, his eyes shoot fully open and he throws himself into action, hoping to get out the door in record time. He skips the coffee and the shower, throwing on the clothes he set out last night and hoping his hair stays in place with the water he combs through it. He’s out the door fifteen minutes late. His boss, Robin, will hopefully understand - he’s one of the most easy-going people Killian has ever met. Will is going to take the piss out of him, but that’s no different from any other day. Killian knew it was a mistake to share his location with his friend but in this case, with Will able to see that he was still at home when he should already be making his journey, he wasn’t going to complain about it. 

Instead, what he’s most upset about is that he’s going to miss Deputy Swan standing at their corner. 

And he’s right: she’s not there when he gets to the intersection. He pushes the button and diligently waits until it turns before crossing, just as he always does. It’s when he gets a full view of the patio in front of Granny’s that his steps suddenly halt. There she is, checking her phone and sipping from a to-go cup, standing at the table closest to the entrance. She glances up and sees him on the other side of the small fence that surrounds the front of the patio, and her eyes go wide. 

Quickly, she jams her phone in her pocket and exits the patio with two cups in hand, heading towards the sheriff’s station and away from him until she stops just as suddenly. She turns around to where he’s still glued in spot, knowing that each extra minute is asking for more torture from Will, but she walks up to him and he wouldn’t move if a bus came careening down the sidewalk at him. 

“Hi. This might be weird but… nevermind. Forget it.” She turns again, but Killian hastens after her. 

“What seems to be the problem, love?”

She spins around to face him again, a perturbed look on her face. He doesn’t know if it’s at him or herself, though, so he waits for her response.

“I’m not…” The words trail off, but she redirects. “I thought you might need coffee. You’re always so punctual. Figured if you were running late, you didn’t have any. But that’s probably ridiculous and just…” she trails off again, turning to dump the to-go cup into the bin nearby but Killian lunges for it. 

“No no, wait!” He catches the cup just before it leaves her grip, smiling wide when he successfully rescues it. “Thank you, Deputy. I appreciate it.”

“Swan. Emma Swan.”

“Oh, I know,” he responds, surprised at the devilish tone to the words. The only time he flirts anymore is when he’s two pints in at The Rabbit Hole on a rare night out with Will, and even then it’s with no intent behind it. His watch buzzes and Killian glances down to see Will is calling him again. When he sees the time, he can understand why. “Bloody hell. I’m incredibly late,” he says quickly, moving to continue his journey to the office and forgetting all his manners. 

“Is there something else I can call you, Incredibly Late?”

“Killian Jones!” he calls out as he gets to the corner by the post office. He spins on his heels to turn back to her, lifting the coffee again in thanks.

There’s an odd little smile on her face when he says it, but he’s still moving and has no time to wonder what it’s all about. “See you tomorrow, Jones!” 

Her words follow him around the corner and he grins as he picks up the pace to the office.

He’s amazed at how quickly his day turns around after officially meeting Emma Swan. Robin isn’t even mad when he shows up late, just happy that he’s finally sitting in front of his computer working on the endless edits he’s been helping with for a new book by an established writer. One that has terrible punctuation skills, apparently. And spelling. And grammar.

It’s barely been a half hour when he finds his thoughts drifting to the woman he only knows by name and reputation, and knows that somehow, his daily routines will never look quite the same. He wonders how much this little interaction means to her, too, if she looked so out of sorts when he was late today. And startlingly, he realizes that it did turn into something.

Running a hand over his face, Killian looks back at the page he’s supposed to be proofreading. He’s read the same sentence at least three times and still can’t figure out why it doesn’t feel right. It’s too early in the day to shut his office door and start reading everything out loud, however, so instead he saves his changes and closes the file, opening up a rain app on his phone and letting the sound soothe him while he stands up and stretches. 

“If you’re playing the calming sounds, I feel like you’re ready for more coffee,” Will says from his doorway. 

“You’re probably right,” Killian says, finishing his current stretch and turning off the app. “Shall we?”

“Ask Robin what he wants. Your treat since you were so late this morning,” his friend adds as he turns from the doorway. 

Killian makes a noise of aggravation, but still walks the short length to Robin’s office to inquire. 

Robin is locked in his own work, looking back and forth between three cover mockups that Will’s department would’ve sent over when they were ready. He glances up when Killian enters but only barely. “Coffee run?” the other man asks as he nudges each design around. 

This, too, is like clockwork in his life, which is why Robin already knows why he’s standing in his doorway. “Aye. Would you like me to bring back the usual or will you need something stronger today?”

“The usual is fine. Else I’ll be tempted to add liquor to it and no one at the home office will appreciate what I think of their last company email.”

“I have that whole rant recorded. You’d better make sure I don’t have anything stronger today or else they’ll get it verbatim.”

“Remind me to have you killed later this week after that chapter is edited.”

“I’ll pass it on to your secretary to be added to your calendar,” Killian mentions offhandedly while he leaves Robin’s office. This isn’t the first time Robin has scheduled to kill him for information he has on his superior. Killian’s sure it won’t be the last, either. 

As he leaves, Killian catches sight of the pictures on the wall. There’s a few scattered around his office, mostly of Robin’s adorable son Roland and his late wife. Marian passed just after Roland was born, making Robin’s decision to head up the American branch of NeverEndings Publishing House an easy one. The reason he’s stayed so long is also evident in the pictures of Regina Mills, the mayor of Storybrooke, scattered among the others. Regina was his “diamond in the rough” - the woman he never expected to meet and fall in love with shortly after he set up shop here. 

Along with pictures, there are paintings and his degrees, an antique wall clock that matches everything else, and a vintage bow and arrow hung behind the mahogany desk he nearly lives in some days. The whole thing feels like the den of some expensive cabin in the woods, but Killian knows for a fact that Robin put most of this together on the cheap. 

He passes his own little office again, noting the blank walls, the tidy desk, the single chair on the opposite side for small one-on-one meetings. He’s never really gotten around to decorating his work area. His degrees are still in one of the boxes in his flat, as are all the pictures of his friends and family from back home. 

There’s a single frame on his desk - just a picture of him and Liam at graduation that was packed into his luggage when he moved. Liam is beaming with pride while Killian looks like he’s about to bolt from the courtyard they had all gathered in after the ceremony. His left arm is tucked close by his side, and he knows for a fact it’s because he was trying to hide the prosthetic hook he wears from being in the pictures.

“So, why were you late today?” Will asks when they reach the doors and head outside.

“Alarm malfunctions,” Killian responds, as if there could be something besides human error to blame. Will just nods as they make the short trek down the street to Granny’s. Foolishly, Killian hopes to find his favorite deputy out patrolling or stopping for her own midday caffeine, but the only blonde in the diner is Ashley, the attentive but clumsy young server. 

Well, the only blonde woman. Dr. Whale, trying his best to flirt with Ruby, doesn’t count. 

“Have you heard anything I’ve said in the last three minutes?” Will asks, a touch of exasperation in his voice but humor lighting up his eyes. Instead of answering, Killian just pushes him forward to place his order. He pulls Killian up next to him and presents him to Ruby. “Tell Jones here that he has to come out with us on Friday.”

“The only thing I have to tell Jones is to place his damn order,” Ruby responds, her expression challenging Will in the way that only Ruby can. She looks back to Killian with a sweet smile. “You paying for all three?” He nods as he hands over the cash. Ruby winks at him, processing the change and handing it back before spinning from the register to make their drinks.

“Come on, mate. Come out this Friday.”

“I still have things I’m trying to unpack.”

“You’ve been saying you were going to unpack those things for the last three months.” He throws air quotes when he says “things” as if they’re fictitious items Killian invented for the sake of an excuse. He almost invites Will over to see what he’s talking about but feels like that would somehow turn into a standing invitation for his colleague to come over whenever he pleases.

“Yeah? And now I might mean it,” Killian retorts instead. Ruby places their drinks down on the counter before Will can press any further, and Killian spends an extra moment thanking the younger Lucas for exceptional service, as always.

“Kiss ass,” Ruby says as they gather their drinks and leave. There’s a smile on her face, though, and Killian knows that her days would be infinitely less exciting without him and Will pestering her at least once an afternoon. 

When they get back, Will takes Robin his coffee without having to be asked, which Killian is grateful for. But he’s barely seated in front of his computer again before Will is popping back up in his doorway.

“You’ve been summoned to the dungeons, mate.”

Killian drops his head for a second, trying to gather the energy to just… get up and go see if suddenly his benevolent boss has had a change in heart regarding his tardiness this morning. But Robin just waves him in and motions for him to sit down. 

“As you know, we originally hired you to be a junior editor to collaborate on projects.”

“Aye, that was the explanation I was given when I interviewed.”

“Well, we’ve gotten a new project that I’d like to see you take on. This isn’t quite a promotion, but it’s a test to see if I can trust you with something bigger than just standard edits to a pompous arse that doesn’t know his p’s from his q’s… literally.”

“I’m definitely interested. What is this project?”

“A young author has written a novella that twists fairy tales. It’s short but it’s deep, and I want your best on proofreading, but also on suggesting edits. He’ll be in to discuss the project at the end of this month, so keep working on your current progress until then. I’ll send all the files your way this weekend so you can start reviewing them whenever you’d like. Sound good?”

“Sounds excellent,” Killian says, genuine enthusiasm coloring his answer. “I look forward to it.”

Another disruption to the orderly life he’s been living, but honestly, this is almost as good as meeting Emma Swan. At least this feels like his disastrous start to October is no indication on how the rest of the month will go. 

-x- October 2: Wednesday

The next morning, Killian is back to his impeccable schedule, so he’s calm and collected when he strolls up to the crosswalk. Only minutes later, Emma walks up, eyes trained on her phone, earbuds playing music that she nods her head in time with. He takes a moment before she notices him to appreciate the view, to take in the dark jeans she likes to wear instead of a uniform, with black boots up to her knees. Her red leather jacket is half-zipped. Soon the weather is going to grow colder and he wonders if she’ll be warm enough on her walks.

She looks up, then, and smiles at Killian while he raises a hand in greeting. She hesitantly waves back, moving to stand next to him while they wait. 

“Good morning, Swan,” he greets just as the light changes and they start to cross. Her response is mumbled as she pulls the earbud from one ear.

“Have a good day, Jones,” she says, dipping her head as a parting gesture. There’s a smile pulling at his cheeks, and he turns to look at where he’s going instead of risking the possibility of running into something and ruining his mood.

For the rest of the week, they get to the crosswalk and he greets her. They part ways at the diner with her sending salutations before she walks up the path. In a way, it becomes a new routine for them. It’s one of the only changes to his days that he’s accepted as a normal progression instead of an uninvited intrusion.

On Friday, hours after his daily dose of Emma, he’s in the middle of the last chapter he has to edit when Will pops into his doorway in the afternoon. He goes to save the files and start the coffee routine, but Will enters the room fully and places two coffees and a bag with lunch on the corner of his desk.

“I hear you’ve got a bigger project coming up. Figured I’d be a good mate for once and encourage hard work instead of mucking around like we usually do on Fridays.”

The times that Will has been genuinely kind to him are definitely countable on his hand, so he’s almost afraid to ask if there’s a “but” included somewhere in there. However, Will just gives him a cheeky grin and heads right back out the door. 

When he’s made the final change and checked over the whole chapter again, it’s beyond the time that he normally leaves, even when he stays late. His eyes are burning and his stomach is growling again, but there’s a sense of victory when he sends the files back to Robin and shuts down his office for the weekend. 

He’s surprised to find Will on the couch in the reception area, asleep by the looks of it, and Killian is this tempted to leave him there because he knows exactly why his friend is still there. But the man brought him lunch and still owes him a beer for repayment of some good deed or another, so he knocks into one of Will’s shoes and snorts as he startles awake. 

“Come on, then. Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“Damn right, you are.” Will’s response is groggy and expected.

Killian makes sure the building is locked up tight before they walk the few blocks over to The Rabbit Hole. He’d rather be in bed, or watching whatever his neglected Netflix queue has in store for him. While Will obviously went home and changed into something more casual, Killian is still stuck in his suit from work. It’ll have to do.

One drink, that’s all he’s promised, and then he’s going home to get the sleep he deserves and return to his normal order of events.

They’re barely through the door when he realizes his plan is going straight into the bin. There, in all her blonde glory, is Emma Swan. She’s parked near the end of the bar waiting for Jefferson to take her order. As he moves towards her, he hears Will greeting other acquaintances, but he’s too focused on getting to interact with Emma outside of their usual crosswalk that he doesn’t veer off course. 

“Fancy meeting you here, Swan,” he greets as he props up next to her. 

She jumps a little, clearly not expecting him to be there beside her, but regains her speech far easier than he would’ve if the situation were reversed.

“I’m sorry, you’re that figment of my imagination that only lives on Main Street. What are you doing here?”

He chuckles at her description of him and rubs behind his ear in a nervous gesture. Two more sentences and this will officially be the longest he’s ever spoken with Emma, and he’s enjoying it far more than he should.

“Out for a drink with my mate Will to celebrate a project ending.”

“Scarlet? See, I always thought you had better taste than that,” she says, a smirk on her face and her eyes shifting over Killian’s shoulder to where Will must’ve come up behind him. 

“Oy, just because I’m romancing your friend doesn’t mean you have to insult me.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what it means,” Emma responds to him, but there’s lightness and sarcasm in the whole exchange. 

“Romancing? You mean you finally worked up the nerve to tell Belle you fancy her?”

“Like three weeks ago, mate. This is why I tell you to come out more often.” Will claps Killian on the shoulder with those words, accepting the beer that Jefferson deposits on the bar for him, and walking back to the large gathering of people in the middle of the room that Killian is just realizing are mostly people he knows.

“Not one for socializing very often?” Emma asks, following his line of sight and waving to her brother at the table. Killian swallows a little harder when David sizes him up, eyes scrutinizing the whole time. 

“Not as much as I used to. Will and I usually make our ventures out earlier in the evening and in the middle of the week when we do.”

“So is it the expat club or something? You and Will, Robin, Belle. I think Tink stops in and drinks with them every couple weeks or so, too.”

“Will and I work at NeverEndings with Robin. The rest is all just coincidence.”

She hums in consideration, sipping slowly from her drink. “There’s room at the table. Wanna come join us, too?”

“That depends.”

“On?”

“Is your brother going to murder me for speaking to you for longer than three and a half minutes?”

She glances back at David, who turns back to the group suddenly, clearly pretending he wasn’t watching them.

“Listen, he’s overprotective but he’s yet to kill anyone I had a conversation with. People I’ve dated, on the other hand…” she trails off, lifting her eyebrows to emphasize with a little shrug. 

He can’t help the laughter that erupts from him at that. She’s delightful. He could spend all his days having frivolous conversations with her and probably never grow tired of it.

“Come on, I promise he doesn’t bite unless you ask. Which is unfortunately more than I ever wanted to know but that’s what happens when you become best friends with your brother’s wife.”

“Thanks for sharing your pain with me. I hope it eases the burden of your knowledge,” he says low enough so only she can hear as he pulls out one of the remaining chairs for her. Her thank you is a quiet and pleased murmur, and he has to remind his heart to stop the constant drumroll so he can get through this evening with his dignity intact. He drops into the seat next to Emma and tries to bury the way his skin itches at the sudden change in his routine. 

A chorus of introductions goes around, with Emma giving names to random faces as she goes. He does know a majority of the people at the table, even if just by reputation. It’s nice to meet the kind schoolteacher that is David’s aforementioned wife, though he’s seen her in the library more than a handful of times since his arrival in town. 

“Everyone calls me Snow,” she explains after Emma calls her Mary Margaret. “Less syllables, more Disney Princess-ish.” When the topic shifts from greetings to the usual breakdown of everyone’s days, Killian seizes the moment no one is paying attention to them. 

“A Disney Princess that enjoys a little kink in the bedroom. Good to know,” Killian whispers in Emma’s ear, and her hushed laughter is music he wants to play again and again. 

When the conversation really starts flowing, he finds he’s less interested in drinking away his week and happier to engage with the people around the table. David still regards him with suspicion, but it probably helps that he doesn’t look like he’s trying to crawl into Emma’s knickers as the night continues on. He finished his singular beer ages ago but opts for water during his next trip up to the bar, along with food because Emma bursts out laughing when his stomach growls in the middle of her talking about a digital filing system they’re implementing. 

Emma nurses her one drink, and so he’s relieved to find her willingness to talk is due to genuine interest instead of alcohol’s influence. Of course, it may be because he’s supplying her in onion rings until she finally orders her own.

Their group slowly begins to break up, starting with the people who have someone home waiting on them. Then the couples start to leave, and Killian is pleasantly surprised when Emma all but shoves David out the door with Snow, insisting that she’s more than capable of taking care of herself. 

They talk of all things small: she tells him about working law enforcement in a small town, and he shares his experiences in Storybrooke since moving. She asks about his job and actually listens when he starts talking. 

“What’s this then?” Killian asks when Emma pushes up her sleeves. 

She looks down at it, scoffing a little. “A dumb symbol of youth and rebellion,” she replies. “I got it when I was sixteen because James and I got in an argument about how perfectly behaved I was.”

“James?”

“Oh, David has a twin brother. You know how people joke about having an evil twin? David actually has one.”

“Your family is delightful,” he comments, wanting to reach out and touch the heavy lines of the flower on her wrist. “Why this?”

“Buttercups are my favorite flower.” He’s learned so many new things about her so very quickly, but he files this information away in the event he has a chance to use it.

It’s when their whole group has officially departed that they realize the rest of the establishment is similarly abandoned, with only Jefferson wiping down bottles behind the bar. 

“Sorry about that, mate. Time for us to clear out?”

“I was gonna wait until I was done cleaning to see if you even noticed the place was empty,” Jefferson responds when Killian sets the last few glasses on the counter. Emma is behind him at the table still, gathering the smattering of bottles and the rest of the stuff to be washed. “Been a while since I’ve seen her talk that much to anyone she didn’t grow up with,” the other man remarks, nodding his head towards Emma. 

“My favorite bartender back home would probably say the same of me,” Killian admits, placing a few extra bills on the bar as a tip and wandering back over to help Emma get the last of the dishes from his late dinner and her ridiculously large pile of onion rings, of which she ate every last one.

“Thanks Jeff. Have a safe trip home,” Emma tells him as she hands him the items.

As they start walking, he expects anything but for Emma to fall back into casual conversation with him about the moving process he went through. He takes it in stride as they slowly amble down the street and back to their crosswalk. 

“I’m this way,” Emma says, indicating the direction she normally arrives from in the mornings. 

“I know,” Killian responds, his tone soft and content. “It was lovely getting to meet you, Emma.”

He holds out his hand, giving hers a firm shake. Once upon a time he was a lad who could court a woman without blinking an eye. It’s that thought that has him turning her hand and bringing it to his lips, eyeing her playfully from beneath his lashes as he looks up at her. This small gesture feels so foreign, but he likes the way she’s giving him a puzzled little smile.

“Goodnight, Swan.”

“See you Monday, Jones,” she almost whispers as he releases her hand. 

They head off in their separate directions, with Killian gently brushing his lips in wonder. 

Routines be damned, this is much better than a casual wave in the mornings.

-x-

Chapter 2

[baggettsathome]

September: A Month of Milestones

It’s been six weeks since our last post, and we’re happy to confirm that no news has been good news!

Out to dinner to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Nate’s third transplant. A year ago this night, Nate was in the OR and Ann was waiting anxiously in the surgical waiting room with family. We’d so much rather spend our evenings like this!

September was a month of milestones, many we’d worried Nate wouldn’t be around to commemorate. We marked the one-year anniversary of Nate’s third transplant, our fourth wedding anniversary, and what would have been the 18th birthday of Cori, Nate’s second donor.

Cori’s family has become such a special part of our lives. We got to go to dinner with some of them in early September, right around when Cori would have turned 18 years old. 

We also took our first flight since Nate’s third transplant, going to Denver for a long weekend to celebrate the wedding of friends and do some sight-seeing. We spent another weekend in Madison finding fun activities around town with three visitors (friends Lia and Meaghan + Nate’s dad) and another weekend back in Iowa for more wedding festivities with friends. In the meantime, Nate has been busy working a few hours a week for the Surgery Department research lab. (Ann has been working more-or-less full-time since July.)

It has been an incredible whirlwind of a few weeks and Nate has been stable and relatively well. Perhaps the most exciting news of all came on October 1st when, to our surprise, Nate’s last drain was removed!

On the flight to Colorado, our first flight with this liver!

Our first wedding together since Nate’s third liver transplant! Congratulations Justine & Nathan!

Nate’s weekly liver function tests have continued to be normal, indicating that his liver is staying healthy. He’s on three anti-rejection meds: MMF, prednisone, and tacrolimus. They’re medications that weaken his immune system so that his body doesn’t treat his transplanted liver as foreign tissue it should attack. But those medications have a lot of side effects including high blood pressure, bone damage, upset stomach, headaches, and –because his immune system is being weakened - increased risk of infection. A few weeks ago, his hepatologist (liver doctor) said that things were so stable, it was time to try weaning off of one of them. (Ideally, transplant patients can eventually get down to taking just one immunosuppressant.) Nate cut his MMF dose in half without any issues and is continuing to taper down.

Exploring some of Madison’s sights with Nate’s dad, including the GLEAM art exhibit at the Botanical Center

Another wedding! We are so happy to get to celebrate big events in person again! Congratulations Kaylee and Bill!

On October 1st, Nate went to an interventional radiology appointment to check in on his remaining drain. The plan was for them to exchange the tube going into his liver for a fresh one, leaving the drain in place to make sure that any infected fluid collecting in his liver was removed. But when Nate woke up from anesthesia, he was drain-free! The IR report explained that there was no evidence of a bile leak or a cavity in the liver where infected fluid could gather. They even put in a new tube just to make sure the old one wasn’t clogged and affecting their view of things. After talking with the whole team, they decided that Nate’s liver had healed so well, they couldn’t rationalize leaving the drain there. We were very surprised! Ann hadn’t even come to the appointment because we didn’t think anything would change!

The drain had been in since last spring, when the surgeons confirmed that a biloma (infected fluid pocket) had formed in Nate’s liver. At the time, they’d told us that bilomas like this often took years to heal… or never really did. Nate had kind of expected he’d have the drain for the rest of his life, and after all he has been through, he was okay with that. He had been saying, he would rather “live with a drain, than be dead without one.”

We were cautiously happy that the drain was out, but the first 24 hours afterward were pretty anxiety-filled. We waited and waited for Nate to get a fever, a sign that there was infected fluid after all. We checked his temperature over and over, ready to rush him to the hospital. But the only chills he got were from the fresh fall air. Now, almost a week later, we’re starting to feel more confident.

It’s easier to go down a slide with your godson when you don’t have any drains to contend with!

Nate’s moving better nowadays, but still with a decent amount of pain. We take a lot of breaks, sit on a lot of park benches, and park close to wherever we’re going. A big hurdle ahead of him will be working his way off pain meds. He’s on much lower doses than he was earlier this summer, but weaning off them completely is a slow, painful, difficult process.

We’re hopeful that Nate’s current positive trajectory continues into the fall and beyond. We have no idea what to expect because things are going so differently (in the best way!) than anyone predicted just a few months ago, but every week that his labs stay normal and he stays out of the hospital is another week of progress. And for that, we are so, so grateful. 

These two women were such a big part of keeping both of us healthy and sane over the last few years. Erika and Teresa have been Nate’s primary nurses on the transplant floor. We would have been lost without their endless support, pep talks, and diligence. It was fun to finally be able to host them and their awesome husbands for a backyard BBQ!

[arplis]

Arplis - News: My 22 Goals for 2019

Goal #1 — Spend More Time Doing What I Love I think we only have about 60% of the boxes unpacked, but the best part is all nervous energy is gone and I don’t even care that we’re sleeping on a mattress on the floor or that our stuff is strewn all over the house.  In another week or so things will be in their place, we’ll have a proper bed to sleep in and I’ll have found the hairdryer. Moving is super stressful, but all the hard stuff is over now {well, the HH does still have to put the treadmill together but that’s his problem, not mine}. 😉 Goal #2 — Garden, Garden, Garden The color pallet for the front garden at the new place is going to be blue, pink, white and green. I’ve already ordered 200 white, and 200 pink tulip bulbs as well as 500 tiny grape hyacinth {muscari} to plant in the front flower bed. {Don’t you think that’s a dreamy color combination?} Now all I need to do is hunt down 9 blue hydrangea plants and about 36 baby gem boxwoods and I’ll be good to go. Oh, and maybe one or two pink common hibiscus for the tall corner in the front. And then HEY… I can settle in for winter and worry about the rest later. 😉 Also, I thought I’d mention that Botanical Interests is offering 30% off seeds right now in case you wanted to do a little late fall/winter sowing. {I’ll be planting a bunch of poppy seeds just before the first hard freeze}. Goal #3 — Plant an Orchard {Calling it Quits on this one.} I never did get around to planting an orchard, but Lemon and all but 2 of her babies survived the journey and the new place has a plum tree so that part is good. And, I think there might be room for an espalier tree or two at the back of the new house so I may get an orchard after all. But, it wouldn’t be planted until next spring. Goal #4 — Gussy Up the Potting Shed Done! I left the potting bench but took the party lights with me. Goal #5 — Grow Enough Extra Vegetables, Eggs and Flowers to Earn $1500 at my little roadside vegetable stand. It was totally my intention to grow a ton of fruits and vegetables to sell at the farm-stand when I made my list of goals for 2019 last winter, but then we moved. So, that whole goal was sort of a bust. The new peeps wanted the vegetable stand, and we were happy to leave it for them since it was made specifically to match the front of the house, so hopefully the tradition will continue. Goal #6 — Finish Every Single Unfinished Rug Hooking Project in My Pattern Bin + 10 Things from back Issues of Magazines/Books I’ve Been Meaning to Make.  I finally finished the turkey rug I’ve been working on the past few weeks along with a few other things and I was able to upload them to my Etsy shop this weekend. I also hooked another pumpkin and a cat head and will try to get those listed along with some new wool bundles later this week. I still have a ton of things to hook if I’m going to meet my goal of clearing out my pattern bin, but I think once November and December roll around, the HH won’t be able to pry me off the couch because I’ll be in full on hooking mode and I’ll be able to finish all my rugs by the end of the year. 73 rugs in my pattern bin {now down to 34} 183 hooked flowers {finished 133, now down to 51} 10 “things” from back issues of magazines {finished 0} Goal #7 — Create 12 New Rug Hooking Patterns {with at least half of them being large ones} DONE! So far this year I’ve added 12 new rug hooking patterns and 13 beginner rug hooking kits to my Etsy shop. New rug hooking patterns I’ve created and added to My Etsy Shop this year: Tullia and Thomas Turkey Double Nantucket Whale Runner Miss Henny and Penny Miss Penny Simple Kitty Primitive Flowers 2 Fat Cats Annabell’s Big Day Old Fashioned Double Tulip Fat Brown Hen Busy Little Bee Queen Bee Rug Hooking Kits Busy Little Bee {in 2 different colors} Folk Art Heart Small Nantucket Whale Primitive Crow Miss Robin {in 2 different colors} Simple Kitty Primitive Flowers Sunflowers A Basket of Spring Posies Fat Brown Hen Chicky’s Garden Goal #8 — Split and Stack 2 Cords of Wood for Next Winter  All that firewood! We sold it. 😉 Goal #9 — Do Something with the 5,002 Photos on My Phone Current number of photos on phone is 10 million. Goal #10 –Lose the Muffin Top I went out for a walk yesterday and guess what I spotted… A little hello from Mrs. HB. Hahaha! I still think it’s weird there are people walking the streets and picking their teeth. Why can’t they do this in the privacy of their own homes? WHY!? WHY!? I just don’t understand. *The shoes are made by DuckFeet style: Jylland {you can get a $30 off coupon HERE}. Someone always asks.  Goal #11 — Run, Walk or Crawl a 5k, 10k, Half Marathon and Marathon Hey! I have picked out not only a 5k Turkey Trot but a half marathon as well. Looks like this goal will be wrapped on Thanksgiving. Saaaweet! Goal #12 — Read or Listen to 26 New Books {17 down, 8 to go} I finished Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand and highly recommend it. And also requested a few more audiobooks. Currently on Request: I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley Books I’ve Read or Listened to So Far This Year: Marilla of Green Gables #1 Still my favorite The Great Alone #2 The Aviator’s Wife #3 Before We Were Yours #4 Secrets of a Charmed Life #5 Where’d You Go, Bernadette #6 Carnegie’s Maid #7 The Gown #8 Unbroken #9 The Alice Network #10 The Shape of Mercy #11 Will’s Red Coat #12 Big Little Lies #13 Bunny Mellon  {Doesn’t count because it was my second time} On Writing {Doesn’t count because it was my third time} Walden Finder’s Keepers Delicious! Following Atticus Goal #13 — Try 52 New Recipes. 24 down, 30 recipes to go. OCTOBER. October is going to be my month for cooking! Goal #14 — Clean Up 52 Old Recipes on the Blog 9 down, 44 to go. I’ll get crackin’ once fall {and cooler temps} come around. Goal #15 — Fill 100 Canning Jars 48 down, 52 to go. I won’t be able to get any canning done in the next few weeks but I am planning on getting some jam on the shelves for us to use on toast as well as to give away this Christmas. I’ll probably need at least another month to get settled in though. Oh! And get this. The new house has a root cellar… AND the perfect spot for storing canned goods. 😉 I’ll have to show you the space when I get some time. So far this year I’ve I canned: 7 jars Peach Jam 7 jars of Strawberry Jam 15 jars of Carrot Cake Jam 15 jars of Spiced Pear Jam  4 jars of Almond Pears. Goal #16 — Finish Furnishing Our House So here’s the funny thing…. Even though we sold the old house and a boatload of furniture, I am still keeping this goal. I already have my eye on some pieces for the family room and then all I need is a new bed and we’re good to go. The new place is much smaller than the old one and so getting the entire house furnished by the end of the year, is going to be a snap. High five for downsizing. Goal #17 – 52 Dates with the HH {28 down, 24 to go} We went to a fancy-schmancy restaurant to celebrate.  😉 Goal #18 — Take One Adult Education Class Done {I’ve taken 3!} I’m keeping the first class I took with my neighbor top secret for now {Mel know’s what it is though} 😉 Spoon Carving Class with Heather. Mini pottery lesson {I loved it! and now I want to sign up for a full class} Goal #19 — Secret {for now} Holiday Project The big reveal will be on Friday, November 1st. So now you know why I had to push back the date on the big reveal. I have all the supplies on hand to get started and my practice piece done, but I still have boxes to unpack and the need to get the majority of the house in order before I start on the main holiday project as its going to need it’s own little assembly line set up. Goal #20 — Create 12 Wowie Zowie Party Platters 5 down, 7 to go. Finally! I made some pickety bits. 😉 Goal #21 — Visit 12 General Stores 8 down 4 to go. So far this year we’ve visited: Chase’s Daily {I think it should count} Squam Lake Marketplace Harrisville General Store Dodge’s Store in New Boston, New Hampshire Zeb’s General Store in North Conway, New Hampshire Dan and Whit’s in Norwich, Vermont Hussey’s General Store in Windsor, Maine Goal #22 — Compete with Carole….. Get on My Front Door Game On I can still compete with Carole from afar, right? Once we get closer to Halloween I’ll hang Mrs. HB’s spectacular Halloween wreath she sent me. But for now, I’ll settle for a few pumpkins and a swag of Indian corn on the door. Front Door Bling I’ve Made So Far This Year to Compete with Carole: Late January : Valentine Heart Late February : Shamrock Late March : Giant Carrot May: White wave petunia hanging basket June/July: Tin Star and Flag Bunting August : Sunflower September: Indian corn and pumpkins ************** How about YOU? What are your goals for 2019? If you told us about them HERE, check in! We want to know how you are doing. Because seriously, it’s so much easier to get those goals checked off your list when you have people rooting for you! 🙂 Have a great day everyone, Mavis You can read more about my 22 goals for 2019 HERE. Have a Great Day! The post – Week 38 of 52 appeared first on One Hundred Dollars a Month. This content was original published at One Hundred Dollars a Month and is copyrighted material. If you are reading this on another website it is being published without consent.          Comments So many questions…. *did Girl go with you? *oh no! Like ... by tia in boise A series on HOW you got rid of stuff would be helpful -garage ... by Anne The grape hyacinth image is lovely and reminds me of the ... by Mel Me too. I have been busy but somehow I must have missed that ... by Ginger Ha-ha! Yes, will HH be firing up the grill. by Ginger Plus 5 more... Related Stories – Week 39 of 52 – Week 37 of 52 – Week 36 of 52 #12GoalsForTheNewYear

Arplis - News source https://arplis.com/blogs/news/my-22-goals-for-2020

[lindsay36ho]

Chopin and His Europe

The whole piano world is teaming up for the 18th International Chopin Competition to be held in Warsaw, 2 to 23 October 2020. Initiator of the festival series ”Chopin and his Europe”, now on its 15th year, the recording project ”The Complete Works of Fryderyk Chopin on historical instruments” and ”The 1st International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments” (2018), Stanislaw Lesczcynski of The Chopin Institute sat down with Piano Street’s Patrick Jovell at the Philharmonie in Warsaw.

The International Chopin Competition 2020

This grand occasion – taking place every five years – attracts the finest young pianists in the world and the competition is regarded as one of the most important venues for creating important international careers. Past laureates lists an amazing number of world famous performers starting back in 1927 with Lev Oborin and include winners such as; Davidovich, Czerny-Stefańska, Harasiewicz, Pollini, Argerich, Ohlsson, Zimerman, Thai Son, Bunin, Yundi, Blechacz, Avdeeva and most recently, Cho. Other laureates include Ashkenazy, Ushida, Fliter, Montero, Trifonov, Wunder and also non-laureates such as Pogorelich. Its influence on piano playing in the world cannot be overestimated.

Piano Street will cover the 2020 competition and as a starter we are happy to share an interview with an important profile in the competition’s history and programming which also includes a multitude of projects managed by The Chopin Institute in Warsaw, hi-lighting the influence of Chopin’s music in the world.

Interview With Chopin Institute’s Stanislaw Lesczcynski

Patrick Jovell: Dear Mr. Lesczcynski, we all know you as a portal figure in Polish music life. As deputy director of the Chopin Institute you are responsible for the prestigious International Chopin Competition. You have also initiated the “Chopin and His Europe International Music Festival”, and started a vast project concerning Chopin on period instruments, involving concerts and recordings of a number of world famous pianists. In September 2018 you arranged the 1st International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments. Tell me a little about your background?

Stanislaw Lesczcynski: In 1978, I was appointed to oversee the classical recordings for the Polish record label Muza and I’ve been doing the same kind of job ever since. I became the first director of the Doslovski studio, which has very strong connections to both piano music itself and keyboard recordings. Our goal was to enrich the Polish Radio so that it could become like the Deutsche Rundfunk or the BBC. After much work, we have succeeded in creating many interesting and excellent recordings under the umbrella of the Polish Radio.

After that appointment, I also spent a few years as the director of the Polish National Opera, but I still kept in touch with the world of piano and pianists. When the Chopin Institute called a couple of years before the great 200th birthday jubilee, I took the job. I then had to examine the national composer of Poland from many different angles. It was extremely interesting to see the influences he had. He was smitten with Bach, who had died 60 years before Chopin’s birth. His background came almost exclusively from the great Leipzig master.

PJ: So, Chopin was a classical romantic?

SL: Well, not exactly. It must be stressed that Chopin was a Classical composer, not Romantic, regardless of when he lived. His compositions have very strict form and are quite precise. Because his music is intensely introspective – even when he’s being boisterous – he seems Romantic; however, his style is strictly Classical. Of course, he also looked forward. For example, Wagner wasn’t the only one to use the “Tristan Chord.” You can hear Chopin use the exact same harmonies on multiple occasions.

PJ: How is it possible to recreate a genuine Chopin sound?

SL: It would be impossible, of course, to perfectly recreate the sound Chopin made at the keyboard. We are, after all, not him. But through our research, practice and process of discovery, we can emulate the Polish master.

Chopin’s last Pleyel grand piano. Chopin Museum, Warsaw

What’s most difficult about approximating Chopin’s sound is that the new materials have different physical properties than the materials from the 19th century. The stuff reacts differently to being struck. For example, it doesn’t vibrate the same way. It’d be the same thing if a violin maker of today claimed to have copied a Stradivarius exactly. He couldn’t do it because not only is the climate for growing wood in the Mediterranean much different now than it was in 1680, the varnish isn’t the same because some of the ingredients no longer exist.

I’m really crazy about the history of both music and instruments. I would also like to travel to the future to see what kind of improvements they’ve made on our improvements. Haha, of course, I’m just joking. I do think, however, that it’s crucial to be able to compare sounds and construction practices between different eras.

PJ: Which are your thoughts on the subject “original instruments”?

SL: Well, not only were these instruments constructed using different techniques and materials, but they were also based on different tunings and centers of pitch. It doesn’t matter which composer the pianist plays, the two kinds of instruments, original and modern, sound quite different.

Let’s take, for example, Chopin’s Opus 10, No. 12, the “Revolutionary Etude.” Chopin wanted the two registers of the piano to sound different, which the 19th-century instruments did quite well. Contemporary models, however, are more homogenized, so we cannot achieve on them the same effect as we can on 19th-century pianos. These were not mistakes of construction; instead, they revealed a different philosophy.

Chopin’s autograph of the “Revolutionary” Etude Op. 10/12, Chopin Museum, Warsaw

PJ: You have a great many years as part of this competition. What happened during this whole time span in terms of performance style?

SL: Nothing very special, really, although we do see, from time to time, different waves of performance style. Take, for instance, the large number of contestants in the 2015 competition who wanted to emulate the style of the 19th century. They don’t keep their hands together. They exaggerate certain phrases. Some of them are typically quirky. But they all have their own vision.

If you remember, critics in the 1970s were fond of saying, “the traditional Chopin interpretation is done,” and “Romantic music is passé”. There was a group of very strong American players from Juilliard that came to Warsaw for the competition. Ohlsson, Ax, Fialkowska and Swann, all showed up with their idiosyncratic styles that reinvented how we both play and hear Chopin. They blended 19th-century style with a more contemporary style and were quite successful at it. I can remember very clearly all their bravado. They all thought, “I’m the one! I’m going to win.” In the end, Ohlsson won, but you could have made an equally strong argument for Ax or the other incredible musicians who were flawlessly prepared.

In 1965, it was also incredible at the competition. Martha Argerich was out of this world in a class by herself. Five years before that, Maurizio Pollini was equally above the rest.

The year 1955 marked the first time that there were real and gigantic differences between the performers. Comparing Adam Harasiewich with André Tchaikovsky, for example, one would notice André playing a few too many wrong notes; however, the performance was electrifying in the same manner as Horowitz. One of the Japanese performers played completely differently than the other competitors, but it was, nonetheless, very interesting.

These young players were not alone, however. In the 1950s, there were still a great many members of the old school playing and being successful. The teachings of Philipp, Leschetitzky, Paderewski and others still made relevant contributions to the interpretation of not only Chopin but also other composers. Still, their differences from the more modern approach were not as pronounced as you might expect.

PJ: Considering your experience and everything you know of the history of Chopin playing so far, what do you think is the paramount quality in performing Chopin’s music?

SL: Well, I was on the preselection committee in 2015, and we were all listening to the 450 DVD submissions from around the world. The process took two weeks. We committee members asked each other the same question. My answer is still the same. It is the attention paid to the space between the notes that is crucial to the success of a performance, particularly of Chopin. The space between the notes is what underpins the structure of the musical line. Otherwise, the notes are just a jumble.

If we pay attention to the spaces between the notes, we could play “The Art of Fugue,” or “Die Kunst der Fuge,” on a collection of beer bottles and still recognize it. If such attention is paid, it matters not upon which instrument we perform a great work. It’s like musical rhetoric, with the spaces between the notes serving as musical punctuation. This is true in both the 17th and 19th centuries.

Expression is organized silence, but it is only half of the whole. A. B. Michelangeli, for example, was never a good Chopin interpreter; however, we loved him for the specific organization of both sound and silence that made him not a good Chopin interpreter.

The trick is to impress your will upon Chopin’s music without burying Chopin completely. If someone can do that, then that is something truly special. The best thing about this music is the diversity in expression. Piano students should never copy their professors’ sounds. I think they should all keep their individuality while still learning; in this way, we can discover someone and something new at any time. This lets us experience the joy of hearing Chopin for the “first time” again and again, which is something we all enjoy.

I International Chopin Competition on period instruments – Winners Concert

The Complete Works of Fryderyk Chopin on historical instruments: http://en.chopin.nifc.pl/institute/publications/musics

The Eighteenth International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition 2020

COMPETITION SCHEDULE 13–24 April PRELIMINARY ROUND 2–23 October COMPETITION 2 October Inaugural concert 3–7 October First stage 9–12 October Second stage 14–16 October Third stage 17 October Celebrations marking the 171st anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin’s death 18–20 October Final 21 October First prize-winners’ concert 22 October Second prize-winners’ concert 23 October Third prize-winners’ concert

from Piano Street’s Classical Piano News https://www.pianostreet.com/blog/articles/chopin-and-his-europe-9747/

[xt1erminator-blog]

My History With D&D: How I Got Started

This should have been my introductory post on this blog, but, lazy.

It was a dark and stormy night.

No really, it was a dark and stormy night. I'm not just pretending to be Snoopy writing a novel. Anyhow, I recall being over at an elementary school friend's house for a sleep over I believe. Must have been 10 or 11 years old. There were three or four of us, and my friend, we'll call him Willy, was Dungeon Master. I had no actual playing experience before this night (the only time I had run into this strange game was several years earlier when I was over at the neighbour's house and their much older teenage kids were sitting around the kitchen table with their friends, the table cluttered with big books and weird shaped pieces of plastic and small metal figurines, and bottles and cans of pop and chips and all sorts of delicious looking junk food... it was similar to that scene in E.T. where the kids are playing D&D [not the photo above! - that’s from Freaks & Geeks] except it was daytime). And here I was now, sitting in a camper trailer in the middle of a big thunder/rain storm being shown how to make something called a "character". I have no recollection what race or class this character was, or his name.  I do remember though that he used a mace as his weapon and wore chainmail, and had iron rations. Maybe he was a cleric. I think it was red box Basic D&D we were playing.

I think I might have played a total of two or three games at Willy's place. Mostly with the same other friends playing it each time. The last game we played was using the 1st Edition AD&D rule books, and it was way over my head at the time. I remember stealing money from my paper route collections (which were probably due at the end of the week) and buying my own red box Basic D&D set and some dice, and I played the solo adventure for awhile (damn rust monster!) and then just hid out in the basement with a stack of graph paper, and drew out dungeon after dungeon after dungeon. They all sucked, I’m sure. I think the next major book purchase was the 2nd Edition Player's Handbook. And then the Monstrous Manual binder. Man, I hated that binder. What an awful format. I mean, great for organizing, being able to take out monster sheets and add in new ones, etc. but functionality-wise, it was a disaster. The binder didn't sit well with the other books on a shelf and whatever lamination they used for the exterior of the cover got very scuffed up if you put it in a backpack and it looked like ass in no time flat. The good old days. I would borrow other books and modules from anyone who was willing to let me take them away from them for any length of time, and sit there and read parts of them, mostly paying attention to the cool maps and the artwork. I remember photocopying many a module at the public library too.

So for several years after, I would mostly just read the books, and Dragon and Dungeon magazines, and attempt to create my own maps and even once or twice spent some money on miniatures and tried to paint them. Massive fail. If I would have know that the Ral Partha Forgotten Realms Heroes miniatures set I bought for $15 back in the late 80's/early 90's (whenever it was) would be worth hundreds of dollars almost 30 years later, I would have taken greater care with how much primer I carelessly sprayed on to those poor little figures, getting the shit all over my dad’s workshop tool bench (sorry Wulfgar, Drizzt, Dragonbait, Alias, etc.!) and how much paint I recklessly slapped on to them thinking I was doing things right. Ouch.

I tend to ramble so I'll try to summarize everything else up until now with a bit less detail. After elementary school came high school and there wasn't a lot of action when it came to playing Dungeons & Dragons, well with cool people I mean. There was a small group at the first high school I attended, that would play a game in the art room in the lower level of the school. I sat in once, maybe twice, to check it out. Wasn't my bag. These were the stereotypical super geeky, taped-up-eyeglasses nerds that were more interested in dissecting the rules and not playing with any real imagination it seemed. They were kind of like robots. Plus, not very fun when you have 45 minutes for a lunch break to try and make any progress in an adventure. I heard about others in this school who played, but I was never invited to go play in anyone's campaign. I stopped in a few times to see what was going on with another friend's home game, but didn't end up playing because they were a little too into roleplaying. Most of the playing I did happened later in my teenage years when I ended up playing in late night sessions with some older seniors at another school I went to, and then some games here and there with a bunch of fellows who have since turned out to be what you might call "life long friends". The good guys. Then, in my early 20's, I was the first of anyone I knew to do something incredibly stupid: meet a girl on the internet (1997), marry her and move to another country.

From that point on, I guess I lost interest in the hobby. I had always wanted to run my own game, but no opportunities ever arose, or I didn't have anywhere to play or I was just too on edge to be able to compose myself if a game were to actually take formation. I spent a lot of my time learning how to play musical instruments and often partied. Often. I don't regret it, those were some of the best times I've had. Years passed and I really didn't think about D&D or playing any sort of table top game at all. I grew more fond of digital entertainment, PC games, console games, etc.  I ended up attempting to become somewhat of a "photographer", and after many years I think I'm happy with where I am at with that particular hobby. It was one of those things you never thought to pursue and then one day, you end up spending several hundred dollars on a friend's used DSLR body and a strange, big zoom lens you have no clue how to use properly.

After almost six years and a "should have seen that one coming" style divorce, I returned back home and was again surrounded by my long time friends. It took a little bit of adjustment to get back into the circle with everyone - just picking up and leaving the country when you're 22 years old and supposed to be starting to explore your options for a career and everything, can kind of make a mess of your social connections.  I ended up getting back on my feet pretty quickly though, and found work a month and a half after coming home. I'm still there actually, almost 15 years later.

So, how did I reconnect with my beloved hobby?  It was almost two years ago or so (summer of 2015, I don't know if Tumblr dates these blog posts, I don't think so). My wife's step brothers had asked if she knew anyone who had ever played Dungeons & Dragons. She mentioned to them that I did. She asked on their behalf if I would run a game for them, they were curious and hadn't played before. I declined, no way no how. Been out of touch with it for years. Didn't play anymore. Made up some excuses. Left it at that. I had never run my own games before and had no confidence that I could be very effective when trying to introduce newcomers in to the game.

Then, at the end of that summer, another opportunity arose. Some mutual friends/family expressed interest in trying out the new 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. They had been watching Critical Role online and somehow it came up in discussion.  I had spent the last few months recalling my love for the game from my past, and ended up being much more receptive to the idea. I was much older, had been through a lot of situations in my life where things like social interaction was easier for me to become comfortable with, and I was developing a passion for it again, it seemed. After downloading the free basic 5e rules, and researching some things on YouTube, I was all for it. Our first session was on my 39th birthday at the beginning of October, 2015. It has snowballed into an addiction since then. I have invested a lot of my time (and money) into a small collection of books and miniatures, and some writing to fuel a small Forgotten Realms campaign. We don't play often, maybe every month and a half to two months, as it depends heavily on my wife's work schedule and when she can book a weekend off. I don't like playing on weekday evenings, as I'm usually pretty burned out from work or there just isn't much time to get into a good game before having to cut it short because people have to work the next day.

My Forgotten Realms campaign, currently one of two games I run, started out with three characters: a dwarven sorcerer, a half-orc druid and a gnome rogue. For the first session or two, I attempted to incorporate a PC that I was playing, a cleric of Bane. His appearance was very brief, as I decided it was not going to work well, playing a character while trying to hold down the fort being Dungeon Master and running the show. I'm not at that stage yet. So, I sent the cleric off in the night to go tend to an important mission while the rest of the party carried on. I used the majority of the 5e Starter Set module, Lost Mine of Phandelver. It did the job. I twisted it up a bit and definitely didn't follow it as per the booklet, and I still do that to this day. My style when using pre-written adventures, it seems, is to grab bits and pieces that are essential, and do the rest on the fly and change as necessary based on what the players may do to throw things off. And that's a good thing. It's helping me build skills to become a better Dungeon Master that can adapt to different scenarios, because it almost always doesn't go the way you plan it will go. I learned that early on. After a few months of playing and completing the Wave Echo Cave area, a situation arose that brought the party through a portal leading to the entrance to the Undermountain dungeon, located underneath The Yawning Portal in the great city of Waterdeep. This was an opportune moment to introduce a new player to the group, which happened thanks to a spur of the moment idea I had, to invite an old friend who I knew was a fan of what we were doing. I wasn't sure if he was up for joining the group, but you don't know until you ask, right? The next session, without saying too much of anything, the door bell rang and moments later the group now had a paladin amongst their ranks. It's been a way better game since.

The second campaign I'm going to start running over the next few weeks will be based upon the Eberron setting, which up until last week I had personally shrugged off any time it came up in my travels, and had no interest in even reading what it was about. I'm not sure why that is, I think the brief encounters I had with it previously were based on flipping through some 3rd Edition books, and I just wasn't picking up on what it was all about. I have never been much into anything 3e, the look and design of the books are unappealing to me. This past week though, one of my players and I got ahold of the 4th Edition Eberron Campaign and Player's guides, and I started reading them. I am really liking the setting and am looking forward to trying to use it in a new game. Lightning Rails, Airships, Warforged, Shifters, Dragonmarks - very cool stuff!  Also of help here was a video on Nerdarchy’s YouTube channel where the guys discuss 10 Reasons Why 5th Edition Needs Eberron

This leads to my next post: What Might Eberron For 5e Be Like?

Coming soon!

-runDMsteve

[chrispetescia]

My 2016 in review … Part 2 of 2

(Part 1 of 2 is here)

2016 Personal

So, what else? Plenty! If your eyes are tired, turn back now.

For anyone still here, I survived another year! Minus some misleading and ultimately unconcerning (after 3 weeks of unnecessary stress) blood results with iron levels, I cleared 2016 without anything weird happening to me.

I turned 33 this year, and, in true adventurous spirit, did a spur-of-the-moment day trip to Walt Disney World with Mike. About midday of the day before, I realized that Disney was all I really wanted (still dealing with withdrawal after four weeks down there), so I texted Mike and he was immediately onboard. I gave away Hamilton tickets I had and we booked a flight that night, landing at 11-something pm. We grabbed a few drinks at the lounge at Disney’s Contemporary, and went to bed. A few hours later we were at the Magic Kingdom for rope drop, and spent an incredibly fun day bouncing between there, Hollywood Studios, drinking around the world at Epcot and back to MK for more rides and fireworks … 30,459 steps total according to my fitbit … and back up to Brooklyn in time for morning meetings the next day with an early morning flight.

With many business travel days away from Beth and Olivia, they joined me twice in 2016. During the second week at Disney, we decided to stay the weekend (instead of me flying back to NYC for a day and a half). They came down on a Thurs or Fri and hungout while I worked, and we enjoyed the weekend together. Olivia LOVED the savanna views, spending mornings watching the animals (while they watched back) from the room’s deck. We even saw a baby giraffe playfully (and awkwardly) running around the savanna!  They also joined me in Venice, where we rented an Airbnb in August so Beth and Olivia could enjoy a change of scenery and see me before and after work out there. They even stopped by the office a few times at lunch :)

We did a few weekend trips this year, although we were barely at The Burrow between Spring and late Autumn, unfortunately. Thankfully, several sets of friends were able to enjoy it and keep our beloved, upstate escape some company. For vacation, we planned a trip to Walt Disney World for mid October way back at the start of 2016 (ahead of all the unplanned work trips). In celebration of Tony’s 30th birthday, Katy’s (?? ;) Birthday, Bridget’s first visit, Olivia’s first birthday, and my and Beth’s anniversary (all the things!), we went down during both the delicious Food & Wine Festival at Epcot and Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween festivities & decor, our first time experiencing the latter. It was also our first time staying at Disney’s Port Orleans Resort (French Quarter), and our group of friends had so much fun. We ate all the things, enjoyed a day at Universal’s Wizarding World, and had an all-around blast. Our second was the week before Christmas with Beth’s parents. We enjoyed the weekend down there in the Parks, and a really cool nature hike at Disney’s Animal Kingdom for a few hours. A few of the days saw me working from the hotel room (Saratoga Springs), which is frustrating to do knowing that magic awaits just beyond the door (working on your phone in the Parks is worse though, I discovered), but considering how much we got to visit WDW this year I can’t complain too much. Christmas at Disney is stunning, and it was wonderful to have a daddy-daughter night when we first arrived. We enjoyed some great food, rides, and got Olivia’s first photo with Santa (more Olivia firsts below). After a few days we went up to Sparr, FL to visit the Woodrings’ home and Beth’s grandfather, before flying out Christmas morning to visit my parents and siblings in NJ for two days. All summarized in photos here. We also, finally, became members of the Disney Vacation Club and officially own a piece of the magic. 50 years of Disney trips for us and our family are now guaranteed! Beth is excited, I am ecstatic. For NYE we decided to stay up past 10pm this year, getting a sitter for Olivia and heading to a party with Jon, Cassy and other friends ... and returning to our tradition of midnight fireworks at Prospect Park.

2016 also saw some big life events for close friends! It’s incredibly exciting to see great things happen to people you care greatly about, and that was the case with everyone whose weddings we attended. John and Corissa got married at the Brooklyn waterfront in Redhook, and it was a blast. Next was Badowski and Sandi, whose stunning wedding took place near Hunter Mountain (my sister Marybeth came up to watch Olivia). Tony got a ton of amazing boomerangs, which I hope he posts more of at some point. Before that, we enjoyed Steve’s bachelor party in Vegas this summer :) Ryan’s bachelor party was in Philly, and a fantastic time with Nick Nolte following us around all night… Ryan and Meli wed in Farmington, CT (where I grew up, before Sparta) and I managed a speech that was pretty well-received, I’m happy to say, at least accordingly to audience praise after. It was so much fun, with plenty of old friends, and my parents drove up to watch Olivia at the hotel while we partied.

Although we almost exclusively hangout at the office, it would be remiss not to acknowledge one of my closest friends, Jillian. Bonded over Disney, Harry Potter, cats and a plethora of moral and emotional support during tough stuff, she is a big part of the day-to-day enjoyment I have at Carrot. She is a valuable and unwavering friend, and extremely loyal. She also calls me on my shit, which I suspect is appreciated by all :) Speaking of strong women: Brittany, my assistant and our office manager, is amazing. There are not words to adequately describe her work ethic, loyalty … and patience. I count on her for a lot :)

We did some other stuff this year too … Beth and I are season tickets holders of the Islander again this season, but with an upgrade to rinkside (on the glass)! While we could only do a day of NY Comic Con, due to SOMEONE’s wedding, we still had a blast! It’s a tradition we’ve enjoyed since Beth and I met in 2010, and now a family tradition with Olivia. Beth killed it with her Rey costume (home-made and screen accurate), my Kylo Ren was top notch … and Olivia was not a fan of her amazing, Beth-crafted BB-8 (mostly wore a BB-8 themed dress instead). Maybe next year :) It was a great dry-run for Halloween, and a great basis for our Holiday card! Also speaking of Star Wars: I rented a theater for Rogue One and, once again, a horde of Carrots and guests enjoyed a special, early screening! We had a limited run of pins made as entrance tickets and everyone loved it. It started with an incredible troll that ended with an altered video of my daughter and I lightsaber battling (filmed mere days after her first steps)! I also picked up some cool collectibles from The Force Awakens this year (here and here), hugged a wookie, and said goodbye to not one, but two heroes from that galaxy far, far away :(.

We caught a screening of the Labyrinth at Prospect Park, made our annual visit to Storm King Arts Center, and ate plenty of Fornino. Beth celebrated her first Mother’s Day, and I had my first Father’s day :) Speaking of firsts … the reason anyone is still reading at this point … Olivia. She had SO many adorable, amazing and fascinating firsts! With media, here are the ones I can think of:

First trip away from home, and first flights! First time meeting Great-Grandparents and visiting Walt Disney World for a day.

First time meeting Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, (scary) Jawas, Chewbacca, Kylo Ren and more.

First trip to Disneyland, and first time on her now-beloved It’s a Small World. First attempt at pulling the sword from the stone.

First time at Hogwarts, and first raptor encounter.

First concert (Dave Matthews Band), first time backstage at a concert, and first time meeting said rockstar! Not a bad run for her first show. Thanks Maggie, for making it so special!

First “swim,” first beach (Pacific), first sled ride, first time playing in leaves.

First steps, first lightsaber battle, and first time fishing for cats.

And, a very special first birthday with friends and family who know her well.

Finally, this year and being a father was the death of concerts and a huge change in what I do with limited free time. I made it to a few though …

Dave Matthews Band (Hartford & Irvine)

This Will Destroy You at Bowery Ballroom

She Wants Revenge (Irving Plaza)

Bruce Springsteen at Barclay Center

Pearl Jam at MSG

I met my 2016 goodreads goal of 100 books ... heavily filled with comics though. It counts ;) I logged 11,198 songs played and my top listens across the board were, once again, Ludovico Einaude.

My resolution is to spend more, quality time with my family. Ironically, I am off to a horrendous start, having spent much of January 1st and 2nd writing this… but there is so much magic in the little things, that my amazing full-time-Mom wife and my daughter experience regularly together. Being a good husband and a father means providing, but also providing attention … especially during those times where I am actually there. I intend to do that more :) Here’s to 2017!

[josephborrello]

Magnitude and Direction, Issue #38 | 26 Jul 2019

Hardware, Prototyping, and Fabrication

Make functional, affordable hinges out of PVC pipe. (Definitely a technique mechanical engineering teams on a shoestring budget should have in their back pocket.) ➰➰Via The Prepared, a great twitter thread on why it's rarely ever worth it to build your own computing infrastructure (even when you get to scale). The real reasons the US won't switch to the metric system.

Software and Programming

AI and Art History aren't two topics you'd necessarily expect to be associated, but this unlikely marriage is helping properly attribute artworkacross a range of genres. Web Curios, where I originally came across this link, framed the website as a great resource for tricking people into thinking your waiting for an update to finish instead of just browsing on your phone. I'll let you all decide how you'd like to leverage the linked resources. Lots of games from the past look like they were fun to play, but it can be hard to find a rulebook during archaeological digs. That problem is beginning to be addressed through machine learning, which is helping us understand how these ancient games were played. Computers are now better at bluffing than we are. One does wonder, though, if human players behave differently when they're playing against a computer. It's one of many experiments we can't necessarily test perfectly, the focus of my Moment of Inertia musings this week.

Science, Engineering, and Biomedicine

🔜⛈ Via Gareth's Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales, a method to forecast the weather using a cup of coffee. (Definitely something I'm going to try at home.) 🤮 When it comes to romantic relationships, we do indeed appear to have a "type", whether we want to or not. I sh*t you not, here is an academic paper on the socio-psychology of BS artists. Lots of great science content in this edition. Even the lowest-profile heart monitoring devices can be cumbersome to wear for long periods of time, limiting the clinical data that can be gathered. But what if all you had to do was get a tattoo? (Here's the original paper.) ‍ This past weekend was the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. Neil and Buzz, however, weren't on the moon for a very long time, compared with the overall mission duration. In fact, a whole lot of the mission was just boring status updates from the astronauts and mission control. You can relive it all, in real time, though, through this highly accurate mission simulator.

Mapping, History, and Data Science

The story of how a janitor at Frito-Lay came up with Flamin' Hot Cheetos. (And sorry, the popcorn emoji was the closest thing to a cheeto I could find.) I've seen this article kicking around for a few weeks and decided to share it here as well, since it's just so interesting and deals with data that many of us wouldn't even consider analyzing: "Hedge Funds Are Tracking Private Jets to Find the Next Megadeal". From the majors to the minors, pretty much all baseball stadiums have netting behind the plate to protect spectators from foul balls. But, given where foul balls actually land, is the current netting setup sufficient?

Events and Opportunities

Is it just me, or is there more activity this summer than in summers past? Also, I don't mention this enough, but if there are upcoming events that I don't have listed here, and/or events you'd like me to share, feel free to drop me a line andlet me know. I'll add it!

Tuesday, 7/30 If you couldn't make it to NYDesigns' hardware accelerator lunch and learn last month, don't worry, they're holding an after-work happy hour to meet other potential cohort members, mentors, NYDesigns staff, and learn about the accelerator program.

Wednesday, 7/31 The NY Hardware Startup meetup isn't holding any formal meetings for the summer, but that won't stop them from getting together for some drinks at Other Half Brewing Co. for a summer happy hour.

Wednesday, 7/31 The Digital Health CT accelerator will be coming to NYC to hear pitches from local digital health startups competing for one of 10 spots in Digital Health CT’s zero-equity accelerator. Whether you’re interested in meeting experts in the field, connecting with startups, or contributing your own knowledge to the startup community, you're welcome to attend and share some food and drinks with you along the way! If you're interested in attending, RSVP here. If you're interested in pitching email Ben Fischbein at bf@rainmaking.io. If you think your startup could be a fit for the program, you can apply here.

Tuesday, 8/6 Taste of Science is back at Ryan's Daughter for their next drinks-and-lectures event, focusing on infectious diseases.

Wednesday, 8/7 Starting next month, BioLabs@NYU Langone hosts "Larger Than Life Science" a free monthly event series open to everyone interested in building a strong support network for New York’s life science and healthcare innovators. The inaugural event will provide an opportunity to learn about the co-working lab model, explore the microbiome, and taste clinical nutritional goodies.

Friday, 8/9 Uptown nanotech enthusiasts, this is your moment! Nanotech NYC's next Nanonite Social is being held at Harlem Tavern.

Some other upcoming events to keep on your radar...

Tuesday, 8/13 Join the New York Biopharma networking group for their August meetup, back at Tir Na Nog in midtown.

Friday, 8/23 Join the New York Academy of Sciences for a brainy comedy night where local scientists will attempt to confirm the hypothesis that science does indeed have a sense of humor.

Wednesday, 9/25 Coming off their 1st birthday party, the NYC JLABS crew is taking a short break for the summer but will be back in September for their next Innovators and Entrepreneurs mixer.

Tuesday, 10/15 October may feel far away, but I promise you it's not and you'll want to be sure to mark your calendars for GRO-Biotech's next big event the Careers & Connections mini-conference andnetworking event, held concurrently with emerging healthcare technologies conference SINAInnovations.

Map of the Month

Here's a map of all (all?) the satellites orbiting the Earth right now.

Odds & Ends

⚙🔄➡ You've heard of dial-up internet, but what about crank-up internet?

[themoneybuff-blog]

Upcoming money events that might be of interest to GRS readers

A lot of things have changed in the world of money since I founded Get Rich Slowly in April 2006. Nowadays, for instance, there are many more opportunities to meet up with like-minded folks in Real Life. From annual retreats like Camp Mustache to monthly meet-ups with Choose FI local groups, it's never been easier to connect with other money bosses! In fact, today there are almost too many events to keep track! I have a stack of invites and announcements in my inbox. Rather than write about each one individually, I thought I'd take this time to share some of my favorites all at once. Here are some upcoming money events that might be of interest to GRS readers. (At the end of this page, I'll include my planned public speaking gigs for 2019.) Financial Freedom Online Course First up, Douglas Tsoi is presenting another edition of his highly-popular Finance Freedom course starting December 1st. Tsoi is the founder of Portland Underground Graduate School (or PUGS), a grass-roots alternative education program for everybody. PUGS courses are designed to be both affordable and relevant to everyday life. (Classes include things like Sex Ed for Adults, The Art of Effective Communication, and, yes, Pizza School!) The PUGS Financial Freedom course is a two-month, self-paced class containing 32 lessons related to the basics of personal finance: budgeting, money blueprints, setting goals, and reducing consumption. Although the class is online-only, you're not going this alone. Each cohort has a private discussion forum. And after the class is over, members often form long-term support groups to help each other achieve their financial goals. Here's a testimonial from one couple who took the PUGS Financial Freedom course: [embedded content] Tsoi and I collaborated earlier this year to present a three-hour Financial Freedom workshop here in Portland. I didn't know him before that project, but now I consider him a close ally in the quest to promote financial education. He's both passionate and sincere, and his message is very much aligned with my own. If you've been looking for some sort of group-based opportunity to improve your own financial skills, check out the PUGS Financial Freedom course. (Tsoi also offers a second Financial Freedom course that covers more advanced topics.) Lola Financial Retreat for Women Next, my friend Melanie Lockert (founder of the fantastic Dear Debt blog) is back for her third year hosting the Lola Retreat, a weekend financial forum for women only. She'll host two events in 2019. The first is in Los Angeles from February 15th to 17th. Because this is a no boys allowed event, I asked former attendee Kate Nesi (who hosts the Lifelong Learning Podcast) to share some of her experiences at the Lola Retreat. Here's what she had to say: Rarely do we open up about our financial situations, and while I try to share with others in person, its a clammy subject. The Lola Retreat was a safe space to open up, discuss, ask questions, and really dive into money. There were two days of sessions. Throughout those talks I learned a great deal about what other ladies in the room may be struggling with, or how I might shape our financial future as a family. The panel discussion was very touching with moments of tears for the situations women have been in due to financial pressure. It was intense and took a lot out of me mentally, but in such a positive way. Overall, the weekend was wonderfully exhausting with so much good information to pack into such a short time. The information was amazing, insightful, and each woman brought something very different to the table. I would highly recommend going to the Lola Retreat in the future! There were women I met and have kept in touch with from as far away as California, and to the south in Florida. I look forward to continuing to follow their money journeys and supporting other women on their own financial journey after having been a part of Lola. I cannot recommend a retreat more than Lola for women to get comfortable sharing and learning about money! I've talked with several other women who have attended past Lola Retreats. Like Nesi, they all have great things to say about the event. If you've been looking for a chance to meet other women who want to master their money, you should consider the Lola Retreat Other Upcoming Events for Money Bosses While these are the two events for which registration is now open, there are lots of others that are still in the planning stages (and/or sold out). For instance, you've probably heard me mention the annual chautauquas in the past. These intensive week-long events have been held in Ecuador, Greece, and the U.K. I've spoken at both the money-themed chautauqua and the happiness-themed chautauqua. In early October 2019, I will be presenting on money and purpose at a money-themed chautauqua in Portugal. The precise date and location of the event are still to be determined. If you'd like to participate, sign up for the mailing list here so you'll be among the first to hear when the details are announced. While the chautauquas are awesome, life-changing experiences, not everyone has the time and money required to attend. Fortunately, Camp FI offers an affordable alternative. Camp FI events are held in a variety of locations around the U.S. They're low-key gatherings at which a few dozen folks come together to talk about money and meaning for a long weekend. Plus, we tend to drink a lot of beer. (And whisky.) I've spoken at four previous Camp FI events, always giving a variation of the following talk: [embedded content] In mid-October 2019, I'll be speaking at Camp FI: Southwest in Joshua Tree, California. Kim may or may not be with me (we haven't decided yet). Our hound dog may or may not be with us. Tickets have already sold out for half of next year's Camp FI events. I'm not sure how many are left for Joshua Tree. If you'd like to join us, you should book soon! Last, but not least, here's something that's an event in another sense. A few years ago, I came up with the idea of opening a money store, a place where I could provide down-to-earth financial advice for average people. I never followed through on that. My friend Shannon McLay, however, did follow through on her own vision for something similar. In 2016, Shannon opened the Financial Gym in New York City. Her goal is to provide top-quality financial advice to everyone, not just folks with half a million dollars to invest. Last week, Shannon and her Financial Gym were featured on the Today show! Take a look: Congratulations, Shannon! For anyone else who lives in New York City: If you're looking for help in achieving financial fitness, you should drop in and visit the Financial Gym. (Full disclosure: I invested $50,000 of my own personal cash in this business, so I have a vested interested in seeing it succeed.)

Author: J.D. Roth In 2006, J.D. founded Get Rich Slowly to document his quest to get out of debt. Over time, he learned how to save and how to invest. Today, he's managed to reach early retirement! He wants to help you master your money and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you reach your goals. https://www.getrichslowly.org/upcoming-money-events/

[andrewdburton]

Upcoming money events that might be of interest to GRS readers

A lot of things have changed in the world of money since I founded Get Rich Slowly in April 2006. Nowadays, for instance, there are many more opportunities to meet up with like-minded folks in Real Life. From annual retreats like Camp Mustache to monthly meet-ups with Choose FI local groups, it's never been easier to connect with other money bosses!

In fact, today there are almost too many events to keep track! I have a stack of invites and announcements in my inbox. Rather than write about each one individually, I thought I'd take this time to share some of my favorites all at once.

Here are some upcoming money events that might be of interest to GRS readers. (At the end of this page, I'll include my planned public speaking gigs for 2019.)

Financial Freedom Online Course

First up, Douglas Tsoi is presenting another edition of his highly-popular Finance Freedom course starting December 1st.

Tsoi is the founder of Portland Underground Graduate School (or PUGS), a grass-roots alternative education program for everybody. PUGS courses are designed to be both affordable and relevant to everyday life. (Classes include things like Sex Ed for Adults, The Art of Effective Communication, and, yes, Pizza School!)

The PUGS Financial Freedom course is a two-month, self-paced class containing 32 lessons related to the basics of personal finance: budgeting, money blueprints, setting goals, and reducing consumption. Although the class is online-only, you're not going this alone. Each cohort has a private discussion forum. And after the class is over, members often form long-term support groups to help each other achieve their financial goals.

Here's a testimonial from one couple who took the PUGS Financial Freedom course:

Tsoi and I collaborated earlier this year to present a three-hour Financial Freedom workshop here in Portland. I didn't know him before that project, but now I consider him a close ally in the quest to promote financial education. He's both passionate and sincere, and his message is very much aligned with my own.

If you've been looking for some sort of group-based opportunity to improve your own financial skills, check out the PUGS Financial Freedom course. (Tsoi also offers a second Financial Freedom course that covers more advanced topics.)

Lola Financial Retreat for Women

Next, my friend Melanie Lockert (founder of the fantastic Dear Debt blog) is back for her third year hosting the Lola Retreat, a weekend financial forum for women only. She'll host two events in 2019. The first is in Los Angeles from February 15th to 17th.

Get Rich Slowly is sponsoring a scholarship to the L.A. Lola Retreat. We'll be paying for one person's ticket to the event (but not travel and lodging). If you're interested, apply for a scholarship here.

Because this is a “no boys allowed” event, I asked former attendee Kate Nesi (who hosts the Lifelong Learning Podcast) to share some of her experiences at the Lola Retreat. Here's what she had to say:

Rarely do we open up about our financial situations, and while I try to share with others in person, it’s a clammy subject. The Lola Retreat was a safe space to open up, discuss, ask questions, and really dive into money.

There were two days of sessions. Throughout those talks I learned a great deal about what other ladies in the room may be struggling with, or how I might shape our financial future as a family. The panel discussion was very touching with moments of tears for the situations women have been in due to financial pressure. It was intense and took a lot out of me mentally, but in such a positive way.

Overall, the weekend was wonderfully exhausting with so much good information to pack into such a short time. The information was amazing, insightful, and each woman brought something very different to the table. I would highly recommend going to the Lola Retreat in the future!

There were women I met and have kept in touch with from as far away as California, and to the south in Florida. I look forward to continuing to follow their money journeys and supporting other women on their own financial journey after having been a part of Lola.

I cannot recommend a retreat more than Lola for women to get comfortable sharing and learning about money!

I've talked with several other women who have attended past Lola Retreats. Like Nesi, they all have great things to say about the event. If you've been looking for a chance to meet other women who want to master their money, you should consider the Lola Retreat

Other Upcoming Events for Money Bosses

While these are the two events for which registration is now open, there are lots of others that are still in the planning stages (and/or sold out).

For instance, you've probably heard me mention the annual chautauquas in the past. These intensive week-long events have been held in Ecuador, Greece, and the U.K. I've spoken at both the money-themed chautauqua and the happiness-themed chautauqua.

In early October 2019, I will be presenting on “money and purpose” at a money-themed chautauqua in Portugal. The precise date and location of the event are still to be determined. If you'd like to participate, sign up for the mailing list here so you'll be among the first to hear when the details are announced.

While the chautauquas are awesome, life-changing experiences, not everyone has the time and money required to attend. Fortunately, Camp FI offers an affordable alternative.

Camp FI events are held in a variety of locations around the U.S. They're low-key gatherings at which a few dozen folks come together to talk about money and meaning for a long weekend. Plus, we tend to drink a lot of beer. (And whisky.) I've spoken at four previous Camp FI events, always giving a variation of the following talk:

In mid-October 2019, I'll be speaking at Camp FI: Southwest in Joshua Tree, California. Kim may or may not be with me (we haven't decided yet). Our hound dog may or may not be with us. Tickets have already sold out for half of next year's Camp FI events. I'm not sure how many are left for Joshua Tree. If you'd like to join us, you should book soon!

Last, but not least, here's something that's an event in another sense.

A few years ago, I came up with the idea of opening a “money store”, a place where I could provide down-to-earth financial advice for average people. I never followed through on that. My friend Shannon McLay, however, did follow through on her own vision for something similar.

In 2016, Shannon opened the Financial Gym in New York City. Her goal is to provide top-quality financial advice to everyone, not just folks with half a million dollars to invest. Last week, Shannon and her Financial Gym were featured on the Today show! Take a look:

Congratulations, Shannon! For anyone else who lives in New York City: If you're looking for help in achieving financial fitness, you should drop in and visit the Financial Gym. (Full disclosure: I invested $50,000 of my own personal cash in this business, so I have a vested interested in seeing it succeed.)

The post Upcoming money events that might be of interest to GRS readers appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

from Finance https://www.getrichslowly.org/upcoming-money-events/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[academic-witch]

It’s 10am, October 1st, 2016, and 23-year-old actor Fionnlagh McFarlane is standing outside a Wetherspoon pub in Canary Wharf. He and dozen or so others are about to embark on a ten-mile walk across central London. With breaks, the route to Hammersmith station is expected to last five hours. Standing alongside McFarlane in the rain is Alex Morgan, 26. He is the reason they’re walking. His charity's name, Stay Brave UK, is emblazoned in luminous green across the white T-shirts the everyone is wearing.

The walk is intended to symbolise the arduous journey those who’ve experience sexual assault and domestic violence go through. It will also raise funds for the charity, which exists to help male survivors.  

McFarlane has raised £300 for taking part. He’d been encouraged to join the walk by Morgan, who he had recently met through a mutual friend. To those around him McFarlane’s participation looks ordinary – one friend helping another. But his friendship with Morgan is built, in part, on shared experiences. As they set off, Morgan was the only one who recognised the deeper emotional investment McFarlane had in finishing the hike.

Fionnlagh McFarlane grew up on the west coast of Scotland, in a rural town downstream from Glasgow. He describes his 18-year-old self as curious, confident, and bubbly. He had an amazing relationship with his family, performed well at school, and was blessed with a close friendship group that included his then-boyfriend.

In the summer of 2011, shortly after turning 18, he went to celebrate a friend’s birthday in a small local club with sticky floors and terrible music. Later in the evening his friends made their way to the smoking area. Alone at the bar, a stranger offered to buy McFarlane a drink, which he accepted. From that point on he’s unable to recall the events of the evening, aside from a few static flashes.

“I never really knew that flashbacks were like you see in films, but it's exactly like that,” he says. He speaks abruptly, considering each burst carefully. “It's like someone turns the light on, and I remember being in the bathroom. Light off. Light on and I remember being taken out of the club. And then as soon as I leave the club I wake up the next day.”

McFarlane woke up in his bed, surrounded by concerned friends. They’d left the club without him, assuming he’d walked home. By chance they stumbled upon a group of people surrounding McFarlane as he lay on the floor in a Tesco car park, covered in vomit. His jeans were open at the top. Someone from the crowd had tied his scarf round his waist to keep the trousers up. They were on the verge of calling an ambulance; instead his friends took him home where he spent the night throwing up. He remembers nothing.  

In the months that followed McFarlane was irritable. His sleep was interrupted with night terrors and he’d wake up covered in sweat. He suspected something had happened, that he had been raped, but he reassured himself with hopeful logic: that he vomited and scared the attacker off.

A chance encounter soon after left no room for interpretation.  

“I was on a train to Glasgow a few months later and then this person got onto the train … and when I saw him, my whole body went into shock,” recalls McFarlane. He recognised him instantly as the man who'd bought him a drink at the bar, the man he suspected of spiking his drink and raping him. “That’s the first point I knew that something had happened. I wouldn’t be reacting this way. I was quivering.”

It was at least 8pm and the carriage was almost empty. The man was alone. He caught McFarlane’s eye, walked past numerous vacant seats, then settled on one across the aisle, facing him.

Astonishingly, and for reasons McFarlane cannot begin to fathom, the man began typing messages on his phone and handing them to McFarlane. The messages asked if McFarlane remembered what happened that night at the bar. When McFarlane shook his head his attacker listed “the gory details”. Even with the text prompting him, McFarlane had no recollection of anything written down taking place.

“He sat down across from me,” he says. “He kept making eye contact. And I just sat frozen.” His attacker offered no indication as to why McFarlane was ill that night, or why his memory was abnormally vacant – though McFarlane is sure his drink was spiked. However, the message did confirm his suspicions: he’d been raped.

“I just remember being absolutely devastated and sitting with my eyes shut,” says McFarlane. “I eventually got off and broke down. That was the beginning of the end.”

The intentions of his attacker that day are still unclear to McFarlane. But learning the truth sent him into meltdown. His mood was “black”. He became even more irritable, selfish, withdrawn. In acute moments of anxiety his body would unexpectedly and uncontrollably shake. “It feels like all your insides are vibrating,” he says.

Unable to vocalise his experience and feelings, his relationships deteriorated; he pushed his friends away and his boyfriend left him. He couldn’t bear to upset or burden his parents so he never told them what had happened.  He hadn’t even come out to them yet.

“I was just about to reach that stage in my life and it was snatched away from me because this other whole blackness was thrust on to me,” he says. “How can you come out to your parents when you're trying to deal with the fact you've been raped? Then how do you tell your parents you were raped without also coming out at the same time?”

McFarlane began looking for professional help a year after the attack. Living in rural Scotland, he was discounted from attending counselling sessions from charities based in London and Manchester. Even accessing the services required seeing out a 4-6 month waiting list. Other more local charities he looked into simply didn’t cater to men.

“We are the victims too sometimes, but there is nothing and there still isn't in terms of visibility,” he says, exasperated. “Even if you go to places that do offer something, it's never as great and then you can wait weeks and weeks to be seen because they're not funded. [To get to] the men's section you have to trawl through their whole website to see the tiny paragraph that they've got.”

His search for help, for others like him, was always unsuccessful. He’d wait for these “dark moments” to pass, then continue as best he could until the next episode.

As McFarlane recounts his story, he repeatedly returns to his isolation. For over a year he had no one to talk to. Stigma, shame, the fear of being perceived as damaged, prevented him from talking to friends and family.

He needed someone – a professional, another survivor – to answer his questions: Does it get better? If so, when? How do you deal with insomnia? Why can’t you control your own body? How do you deal with shaking? How do you deal with anxiety-induced nausea? How do you regain the ability to react to triggering words in a normal way? How do you talk to someone you’re starting to date? How do you navigate sex? How do you overcome the guilt of not reporting the attacker?

When McFarlane moved to London to study European Theatre Arts at university, a year and a half after the attack, he was still experiencing the effects of trauma. He finally decided to confide in a friend. To comfort him, she drew upon who own experiences with sexual assault.  

“We just sat, and I cried,” he says. “It wasn't really sadness, I was just so happy. I was like 'god there is someone'. Knowing that she hurt too was enough. Slowly I started to gain more momentum, started to own it. I could talk to anyone about it now.”

It’s been three years since McFarlane confided in his friend. He still has trust issues and anxiety. He still has bad days where he catastrophizes, his shaking returns and his mood oscillates wildly. But he’s also repaired the damage done to his relationships with friends and family, and is now in a stable relationship. Empowered through “owning it”, he’s transformed his shame into tenacity.

“Speaking to someone was a springboard to getting better,” he says. “Healing is a really slow process so I’d be a few years ahead of where I'm at now. But the person I am now, amazing. I'm so proud of how far I've come.”

******

There were 26,483 recorded incidents of males being victims of sexual assault or rape in the UK between 2010 and 2014, according to a Greater London Authority report published in November 2015. Research conducted by Survivor’s UK, the country’s largest male rape and sexual abuse charity, suggests the total number in the same period, including unreported incidents, stands at 679,051.

Sexual violence remains egregiously under-reported. The reasons why are as numerous as they are well-documented: fear, stigma, shame, societal attitudes and fear of poor treatment from the police, to name but a few. For many survivors, even finding the courage to seek help, let alone report a crime, requires monumental mental resolve. When Alex Morgan did eventually seek help, like so many men before him he was ignored.

Morgan grew up in rural Leicestershire. In 2004, aged 14 he was, in his own words, a loner and the school punching bag. Despite horrendous bullying, he had struck up one friendship with a slightly older boy, who we’ll call Joe. Joe told him about a car park where he could make money from older men by performing sexual acts on them. Morgan had developed a crush on Joe and was simply grateful for the attention. He agreed to go with him.

For the next few weeks Morgan would walk four miles to the car park, an isolated spot along a B-road, and engage sexually with mostly middle-aged men. He became “known” and had regulars who would wait for him. At the time, Morgan saw nothing wrong with what he was doing. He relished the gratification and the confidence it instilled in him. It would be years before he understood that as a 14-year-old boy he legally couldn’t give consent and was being raped.

On one return journey from the car park Morgan took a short cut through a field. He noticed someone following him, a young man, 20 at a stretch, who he’d not seen at the car park. He quickened his pace then hid among the crops. When he thought the coast was clear he returned to the narrow path and carried on walking. The attacker charged at him, knocked him down, smashed his face into the ground with one hand and ripped off his jeans with the other. He doesn’t remember walking home. He never returned to the car park.

“It didn't start affecting me emotionally until about six to eight months later,” says Morgan. When he stumbled across the number for a rape crisis helpline in the back of his school diary he dialled and asked for help. “Nothing in it really said it was for girls, or anything like that. But I was told very bluntly down the phone that this number is for women and girls. I remember her saying ‘men are the abusers, women are the victims, we need to terminate this call now so we can help victims’. I remember just hanging up. She didn't finish her sentence.”

This was 2005 – Morgan is quick to point out that since then many crisis charities have improved the services they offer male survivors.

Without that help, Morgan's mental and physical health suffered; and his ability to recognise unhealthy relationships became warped.  “If someone had jumped in then I don't think I would have gotten into the bad relationship I did when I was 17,” he says.

A short while after his attack Morgan met a teacher from a different school through an online dating website. “He knew about my past and I think he used that to his advantage … because I told him about what I used to do in the car park.

“He was very manipulative in saying that he wanted to start recording what we did and sharing it with his friends,” he continues. “Then he was kind of like, ‘well I want to start bringing my friends over,’ so he started to bring his friends over. Then I realised that his friends were actually paying him to have sex with his twinky boyfriend.”

Morgan told his friends what was happening. They implored him to cut off the relationship. “I didn't see it as wrong,” says Morgan. “As far as I was concerned this guy was lovely and paying me lots of attention and calling me nice things. That’s what I thought relationships were.”

Morgan moved to university in London to start afresh. Shortly into his second year his mood sunk and he sought professional help. He was barely sleeping at all, to the point he would hallucinate. He was fired from his part time job for failing to show for his shift. A GP diagnosed him with bipolar disorder and prescribed anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medication and sleeping pills.

A decade after his attack, Morgan still hadn’t fully addressed what happened to him at the car park, in the field and in the abusive relationship. His mental, physical and social health suffered. He persevered. There was no definitive turning point; recovery was neither rapid nor linear. But in one particular low point, during a conversation with a friend he disclosed his past. Like McFarlane, he found he wasn’t alone.  

“He had told me that he had just gone through quite an abusive relationship where he lost part of his ear because of an attack,” says Morgan. “What he found was the same problem I had, which was when you tried to Google [for] help the services are very female centric or female only. When you tried to call certain helplines they would actually turn you away.

“Then if you're in a case like my friend, you end up enduring whatever situation you're in for longer, because you've lost your confidence,” he continues. “You think that you're not a victim anymore and therefore no one’s gonna help you and you're over reacting.”

Morgan set up Stay Brave UK shortly after. His goal, an ambitious one, is to breakdown the stigma that prevents male victims of domestic abuse or sexual violence from coming forward. He wants to educate the young and the vulnerable, to raise awareness about consent and stigma and ensure no one ever goes through what he did.

Two years later and Stay Brave UK now has four volunteers, six trustees and is awaiting its official charity registration. As well as providing information and working with the more established services for male survivors, the charity has begun rolling out educational modules and workshops for schools and universities.

Morgan has spoken in numerous schools already, sharing his experiences with brutal honesty. He talks candidly about his own ignorance, his experiences with rape, the underage sex-work he engaged in, his inability to recognise emotional abuse and manipulation in his relationships. He recounts the many, many times he felt that as a man he could never be a victim.

“I hear the stories and experiences of others all the time and the story is the same: people just don’t see men or boys as victims. Society only mentions them as perpetrators,” says Morgan. “And while there are services out there, I happened to fall through one of the cracks. I asked for help back when I was 16 yet was turned away. I then didn't ask for help again until I was 20. I honestly believe if that helpline I called when I was younger recognised that I was a victim my life would have been very different.”

***

It’s October 1st, and the walking party are approaching the 10 mile mark. The official finish line is Hammersmith Station, but they walk a few extra yards to The Swan, a nearby pub. McFarlane’s knees are creaking, Morgan’s feet started giving way a mile ago. A friend of theirs is waiting with a bottle of Moët; he’d been expecting them at 3:30pm. It had gone 6pm.

The fundraising walk raised just over £1800, which is £800 over target. While the charity waits for its official registration to come through – April, hopes Morgan – the money will go towards its education initiative and building an even more comprehensive information directory, its long term goal. The short term goal is simply to speak out. Simpler, maybe, but in no way any easier.

“I want to stand up, put my head up over the wall and be a visible face for what is all too often a secret or hidden crime,” says McFarlane. “I want to stand up and say: this is me, this happened to me and let’s talk about it. It will be ok. I’m here, I was raped and it will be alright.”

[caveartfair]

£33 Million Kandinsky Breaks Record at Sotheby’s—and the 9 Other Biggest News Stories This Week

Catch up on the latest art news with our rundown of the 10 stories you need to know this week.

01  Solid Impressionist and Modern sales at Sotheby’s London saw the auction record for Wassily Kandinsky’s work broken twice in one night.

(via Sotheby’s)

Kandinsky’s Murnau – Landschaft mit grünem Haus (1909) sold for £21 million (with fees), setting a new record for the artist. It stood for all of six lots until Kandinsky’s Bild mit weissen Linien (1913) went for £33 million with fees. By the end of the night, the sale had brought in £127.9 million, falling squarely within its estimate of £110.6 million to £142.6 million. The sell-through rate of 73.9% was, however, less impressive, and a special sale of small works titled “Actual Size” didn’t meet its low estimate and notched only a 65% sell-through rate. The house’s day sale drew in £19.6 million on a sell-through rate of 73.8%, falling between the estimates of £17.6 million to £25.7 million. While last year’s sale boasted a slightly higher total of £20 million, it also featured a higher number of lots overall: 277 lots in 2016 to 210 lots this year. After announcing the cancellation of its June contemporary auctions in London earlier this year, Christie’s will hold its Modern and Impressionist sale next week.

02 A man has been arrested for faking a series of Damien Hirst prints—forgeries that he began making 15 days after completing a previous prison sentence.

(via the New York Times)

Vincent Lopreto was arraigned on Monday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, pleading not guilty to several counts of grand larceny and fraud. Police picked up Lopreto and two associates after he sold fake Hirst prints to four Manhattan residents and an undercover investigator. Lopreto was also arrested in 2013, eventually pleading guilty to selling $1.5 million in forged art. In that case, he testified against an accomplice to receive a lighter sentence. Following his 2015 release, Lopreto revived his forgery operation almost immediately. Although he focused on relatively easy-to-fake Hirst works, which he sold to collectors at modest prices ($3,000–$5,000), Lopreto also attempted to pass off more complex pieces at higher costs. However, these fakes—including prints of Mickey Mouse in the style of Hirst—soon caused him difficulties. “The Mickeys are too hot,” Lopreto wrote in an email. “We need to get away from those.” Those emails, along with bank records, are key pieces of evidence that prosecutors will use when outlining their case.  

03  A New York congresswoman has introduced legislation that would forgive up to $10,000 in student loans for arts professionals.

(via Artforum)

If passed, the American Arts Revival Act could reduce debt for those working full-time as museum employees, professors, artists, and more by offering federal public service loan forgiveness. “Individuals that dedicate themselves to these professions enrich our culture and my bill would provide many of them with relief from mounting student loan debt,” Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez said in a statement. More than 100 organizations, including Carnegie Hall, CalArts, and Pratt, have endorsed the bill. On average, students who receive degrees in art, design, or music graduate with almost $22,000 in debt—a statistic that has been given additional weight by the personal stories of artists amassed by arts collective Occupy Museums. Their work, Debtfair, was on view in this year’s Whitney Biennale and estimates that, in total, artists in the U.S. today owe more than $55.5 million.

04  The Walker Art Center is facing another round of criticism from Native American communities, this time centering on an exhibition by sculptor Jimmie Durham.

(via MPR News)

Last month, the Minneapolis institution was caught up in a controversy surrounding the installation of Sam Durant’s sculpture Scaffold (2012), which recalled the gallows used by the U.S. government to hang 38 men from the Dakota tribe in 1862. Durant soon apologized, allowing the Dakota people to dismantle and dispose of the sculpture in the manner of their choosing. Now, Native American artists are taking issue with a retrospective of Durham’s work that opened this week at the Walker. Although the American artist identifies as Cherokee, critics state that researchers can find no evidence to back up this claim. Durham’s well-established practice makes frequent reference to this Cherokee heritage; he also served on the board of the American Indian Movement for many years. The show was organized by Los Angeles’s Hammer Museum and is set to appear in four major cities.

05  A collector is suing Christie’s for allegedly trying to re-auction a David Hammons print that had already been sold.

(via The Art Newspaper)

On April 18th, collector Philippe Dupont filed suit in a New York district court, claiming that Christie’s withheld Coach (1974), a David Hammons body print sold to him in March. After Dupont’s payment of $475,000 cleared from his bank on March 10th, four Christie’s employees called to cancel the sale. Claiming they had mistakenly omitted an additional bidder from the sale, organizers intended to restage the auction on March 17th. Though its terms of sale state that Christie’s reserves the right to “cancel the sale of the lot, or re-offer and resell any lot,” this suit raises the question of whether the policy applies to instances such as Dupont’s in which the title has passed to the buyer. Court documents reveal that Christie’s offered to compensate Dupont for the mistake, though Dupont refused, demanding that the work be delivered to him in Luxembourg. The work has yet to be re-auctioned or delivered to Dupont. Neither Dupont nor Christie’s have commented on the case.

06  Jeff Koons has laid off half of his painting staff, shrinking his studio for the third time since 2015.

(via artnet News)

Koons is well known for maintaining an extensive network of studio assistants to fabricate his artworks. However, this studio practice has recently shrunk for a third time since 2015, with reports that roughly 30 members of Koons’s staff were let go on June 13th. The artist’s studio now sits at a much leaner team of 30 painters after assistants—several of whom had served with Koons for over a decade—were cut, some reportedly receiving no severance pay. Last year, as many as 20 painters were let go following rumored attempts to unionize. “Everyone there is basically treading water,” one source close to the studio told artnet News. Additional sources, who also asked to remain anonymous to protect their relationship with the studio, said that lukewarm sales of Koons’s 2014–15 “Gazing Ball” series partly led to the recent downsizing.

07  Julia Peyton-Jones, who formerly served as director of London’s Serpentine Galleries for 25 years, is joining Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac as Senior Global Director.

(via Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac)

Peyton-Jones is the latest high profile institutional figure to migrate to the commercial side of the art world, following Paul Schimmel, who in 2013, left MOCA, Los Angeles to launch Hauser & Wirth’s LA outpost (he’s since left) and Eric Shiner, who left the Andy Warhol Museum to join the Fine Art Division at Sotheby’s last July. Peyton-Jones will be based out of Ropac’s recently opened London gallery and focus on the creative development of the gallery’s program of approximately 60 artists and 30 shows annually, across its four locations: London, Paris, Paris Pantin, and Salzburg. Thaddaeus Ropac told Artsy upon opening the Mayfair townhouse housing his London gallery that he intends to continue to focus his efforts on deepening his presence in Europe rather than seeking global dominance, as has more often been the trend among galleries of his scale. Joining over 100 employees, Peyton-Jones, Ropac said, is “one of the most respected and admired figures in the art world with an unparalleled level of experience.” She will begin her tenure with Ropac on September 1st.

08  $12 million in paintings, including works by Frank Stella and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, have been stolen from a Queens storage facility.

(via NY Daily News)

William Pordy, a 62-year-old retired doctor and entrepreneur living in Manhattan, discovered on June 1st that 22 works of art were stolen from his Queens storage unit. Thieves had cut the lock on Pordy’s locker and cleared out its contents, leaving behind the cardboard boxes that once held the works and replacing the broken lock on their way out to evade detection. Examination of the facility’s records by police revealed that the theft occurred on December 30, 2016—two months after Pordy last reported visiting the unit. Investigators have compiled a list of the stolen works and are currently monitoring for attempts by the thieves to resell them.  

09  In Italy, five suspended museum directors have been temporarily reinstated by the nation’s highest administrative court.

(via The Art Newspaper)

Italy’s Council of State overruled a regional court decision from May that had dismissed the group of directors—all of whom had been appointed by the Italian government as part of a plan to rejuvenate the country’s ailing museum system. Following this latest ruling, the five directors have temporarily returned to work; a full hearing by the Council of State will take place in October. The lower court had previously ruled that the appointments were not made transparently, noting that several interviews were conducted “behind closed doors” without proper oversight. The directors expressed relief at the suspension of this ruling by the Council of State, noting that they were happy to get back to work.

10  Almost every staffer at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art resigned last week, in what has been framed as either a power grab gone awry or a protest over poor labor conditions.

(via the New York Times)

On June 13th, 14 employees—five full-time, two part-time, and seven on contract—quit their jobs at the museum. According to staffers, the mass departure was a result of financial mismanagement and unfair labor practices. “How many organizations expect employees to work for 10- to 12-hour shifts without even a single 15-minute break?” one former employee wrote in her resignation letter. “How many institutions expect someone who makes less than $14/hr to be on call 24/7 for operational, managerial and executive assistant demands?” The museum board countered with the conclusions of an external investigator, who on June 6th noted that “there is no basis to the allegations concerning labor law violations and mistreatment of staff.” One board member claimed that the employee resignations were the result of a few instigators—a statement that former museum staffers have forcefully rejected.

—Artsy Editors

Cover image: The Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale at Sotheby's on June 21 in London. Courtesy of Sotheby's London.

from Artsy News

[failedimitator]

I had a dream last night. In it, I got a kitten. A tiny fluffy white thing I brought home in a cage. Then I forgot all about it until I saw it again a few days later still in its cage and barely alive. I freaked out.

It's an anxiety dream, and I've been having a few of those lately. Some are about sex. Some about money. And others about my inability to complete a task. Like most dreams, there's a greater than random chance that they have something to do with stuff going on in my life at the moment.

Well, at this very moment, my friend Ahmad is waiting on me to send him pictures I took at his wedding earlier this month. Vix is waiting on me to send him a cut of a music video I shot of him last year. There's work waiting for me in the office when I get back in tomorrow. And of course there's this -- my annual birthday-year review -- that's at least two weeks late.

So let's get on with it, shall we: All this anxiety business, how does it compare to last year?

This time last year, to the day, Hamza and I were at Digital Mall getting a laptop for my mom. The day before, Liy and I were in Jalan Masjid India getting fabric for my mom. And two days after that, Maysoun and I would be back at Digital Mall to get a phone for my mom.

I would fly back home for the first time in two and a half years at the end of April. My brother and sister would pick me up from the airport and we'd get some suya before doing the 45 minute drive back to Wudil. It would be my first time being at the house in Wudil. My dad's new job.

The one thing that stuck with me while I was back home was everyone's comment about my weight. Specifically, how much of it I'd gained. 

I got back to KL in May and started looking for apartments immediately. I called a few agents. One got back to me. We met. He showed me three apartments. I chose one because I liked the couch. I transfered him the money a day later, and two days after that I moved in.

I was in the apartment a week before I had to fly off to Greece for Afest. Matej and I shared a room. Millie and I became friends. I shot a video for Babbel in Mykonos. Matej and I took pictures in Piraeus. In Athens, I had drinks with Aurora, who I'd only met just once before, three prior, on a bus in Berlin. 

I flew to Berlin from Athens. Stayed with Dani, Seth, and Alex. I had drinks with Alex Billington, which was kind of surreal before I love his website. 

I went to the World Press Photo exhibition with Nine in Amsterdam, and then immediately rushed to the airport to catch my flight back to KL. I had to pay 150 EUR because of some technicality, and I was mad because my friend Matej -- who's white -- had the same issue but didn't have to pay. I wrote several e-mails to KLM  about this apparent racial discrimination, but in the end, nothing really happened. Because of course nothing happened.

Back in KL, Kwena came down from Myanmar and stayed with me. We recorded an episode of Before I am Black, my podcast that still isn't, and also just had a really good heart to heart. 

Around the same time, Mille helped me shoot a video with Tashny, which is still one of my favourite of the things I've shot. And at the end of May, we celebrated Millie's birthday at Bilique with ice-cream cake, shisha, and pool.

I just realised, going through my journal from last year, that July was when Shafina and I became friends. We met up four times in July, pretty much once every week. One of those times, she was my plus one to Omar's raya open house at Damansara Heights.

Soraya also got married in July. Ling and OJ and I drove up to Kuantan together.

In August, Maysoun and I went to The Garden to see Az Samad perform. And then a few days later, to Playspace to see Homeboy Sandman.

Nine, Liy and Furzann, and I, drove up to Bangi for Shafina's raya open house, and then later in the day, came back to my place to watch Mother of George. In August, I shot two music videos with Vix (one of which is the one he's still waiting on).

I had dinner with Samreen and Mano first week of September. It was one of those things that I was super anxious about before hand, but that ended up being completely wonderful.

SY and Patrick's wedding was in September. I flew to Berlin for that. The party from Malaysia, myself included, had dinner with the couple the day after the wedding. The day after that, Dan and I went to silent gig with Beula and Clement.

The day after I got back from Berlin was Ling's wedding. OJ invited a few of her close friends for a surprise dinner at a restaurant in Damansara Kim. I mention Damansara Kim here because I thought it was one of those made up places like Bangsar South. Turns out, no. Damansara Kim is legit, who knew?

Faiq, Amanda, and I drove up to Janda Baik at the end of September for Ling and OJ's wedding. The speeches from the Best Man and Maid of Honour were both very funny and heartwarming. The decor at the location was great. Food was on point. And the people just wonderful. It was the most at-home I've ever felt at a wedding. 

I shot Zack in October. My first photo shoot since I turned 27. Millie was there to help. And so was Shan. I don't know how Zack feels about the photos, but I thought the shoot went really well.

In November, I started tracking my moods. Specifically, I started tracking sleep and how long I ran on the treadmill, and how those things correlate with my levels of anxiety, happiness, paranoia, and contentment. 

For those keeping score at home, in November, I slept for an average of 6.77 hours a night. Even though that's way below my target of 8 hours every night, I'm still surprised at how I actually got. I ran for 7.38 minutes every morning, which is way way less than my target of 20.

I logged anxiety 13 times in November. Pure, unadulterated happiness 7 times. Paranoia twice. And I was contented every single day of the month expect for one: November 11.

On the 26th of November, Syakirin and I drove up to Penang for Georgetown Literary Festival. There, I hung out with Maysoun and Dhiyana and also met Manal.

In November, I also started measuring my weight, body fat percentage, muscle mass, and body age.

I have this vague memory of feeling too depressed to log anything in my journal for the first two weeks of December, but I guess not strong enough to remember what it is I was going through at the time. 

I remember that at some point in December, I think sometime around Christmas, Shan and I went to The Berlin KL and that night was a lot of fun.

For New Year's Eve, Maysoun took me to a BBQ at her friend's place, at at midnight, we went to a cemetery to watch the fireworks over KL.

January started with a day time party at TTDI which I went to with Maysoun. Millie, Andrew and Zara, and I went to see Arrival. All hail Bradford Young. I also went climbing at Camp5 with Berlina and Daryl -- my first in over 4 months -- and it made me fall back in love with climbing. 

My friends Deo and Clara got married in January in Jakarta, but I couldn't go because of visa issues.

February was Mahen's exhibition at the Islamic Arts Museum. Or more accurately, an exhibition of the photography of Sultan Isma'il of which a documentary Mahen made about the man was a part of. It was my first time at the Islamic Arts Museum and it made me want to go back again at some point.

I watched Tokyo Story in February because Kogonada told me to last year and I want to e-mail him but I didn't want to until I'd seen the film. I liked it, but I still haven't e-mailed him. 

I took part in the Lifebook workshop, and finished reading the James Baldwin book Kavya sent me -- Notes of a Native Son -- in February. The workshop gave me a lot to think about, and the book pretty much changed how I look at myself.

Kristen joined the company in February, and at least three people on separate occasions came up to me and asked if I'd met her. In my head, I was like -- Yes, I'm black, and she's black, and we've met. With my mouth, I just said yes. 

I had a screening of Moonlight at my place in February. Or, more accurately, Shafina had a screening of Moonlight at my place in February. It's not Medicine for Melancholy, but I like it quite a bit. The last third, especially.

At the very tail end of the month, Syar read my tarot. At some point, she asked if there's a point in my life I'd like to go back to. If I'm nostalgic for some better time in the past. And I realised, I think for the first time, that there's nowhere else I’d rather be.

Shafina wrote Ghosted, a short film, which we shot in March at Sid's.

Alex and Florian came down from Berlin and stayed with me for a few days. Just before leaving for home, I had lunch with Velina and it left me with a lot of questions about relationships. More specifically, one question: Why do I want to be in a relationship?

I flew to Kano on the 28th on Saudia.

By this time, since I started measuring in November, I'd lost about 4 kilo grammes of weight, lost 4.6% body fat, and gained about 3% muscle mass.

On March 31st, my dad and I drove up to Abuja for Ahmad's wedding. He drove back that same day, and I stayed with Mubarak. April 1st was Ahmad's birthday, and also his wedding reception, which is where I took the pictures that he's still waiting on. 

I came back to KL four days before my birthday, and three days before my birthday, I went to the Spanish embassy to apply for a schengen visa. I met up with Jillian to discuss a music video she wanted me to shoot for her friend's band two days before my birthday. A day before my birthday, I took Alex and Florian to Iham Gallery and Lake Gardens. 

On the day I turned 28, I had brunch at a Japanese restaurant with Maysoun and Hamza -- Maysoun got us cake (it was also Hamza's birthday). Afterwards, I went to the office and took pictures of myself, which, I guess at this point, is pretty much a yearly tradition.

The new picture is a visual representation of my transformation at 27. I wouldn't say that I necessarily learned anything new, but there's at least one thing that I've internalised more:

I've learned to stop comparing myself to other people. Just because it works for someone else and not for me doesn't mean it's not fair. And even if it was, why lose sleep over it if I can't change it.

There are still a lot of things I'm unsure of, of course. For one, I'm anxious about my future in this country. And there are questions about romantic relationships that I still cannot answer. I'm still insecure about parts of my body. And my financial life is a fucking disaster. 

I got an e-mail from my 18-year old self on my birthday (futureme.org), and I was horrified while reading it. Not only was the language atrocious, but my vision for myself at 28 when I was 18 was completely off. Not only do I not have a wife and kid, but I’m not even in contact with most of the friends I referred to in my e-mail.

Having said that, this -- me here right now -- is the best version of me yet. I've never been smarter than I am right now. I've never been more confident and capable. I've never felt more like an adult. I've never been more content about life. 

And at the risk of sounding superficial, I've never liked what I see when I look in the mirror more than I do now.

See also: Caring less about sounding superficial.

I've never been more excited about seeing a version of myself go through something like I am currently excited about seeing this version of me go through 28. 

Here we go.

"Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent--which attitude certainly has a great deal to support it. On the other hand, it is only because the world looks on his talent with such frightening indifference that the artist is compelled to make his talent important." 

- James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son.