#he just yells esa when he needs me

[whydoyoucare866]

Girlll how about Miguel x Hispanic!Wife! Reader and Miguel comes home all beaten up and shit with his suit glitching and she asks what happen and he explains how he chased down miles and she yells at him for beating up a child. Like full on Hispanic mom mode then she gets all soft with him and patches him up and cooks him something nice 😊

YOU WHAT?

omg bettt, sorry this took so long, I wrote it and forgot to save it before closing the app and lost everything 😭

Miguel O’Hara x Hispanic!Wife Reader

Masterlist

Warnings: Swear words

You and Miguel had been married for some years, you both met at the spider society, but ever since you got pregnant Miguel became too protective of you and insisted on you taking a break, he didn’t want you to make too much effort and hurt yourself, or even worse, he couldn’t handle the thought of losing another child or losing you, so eventually you gave in to his wishes and took a break.

You were cleaning your house (even though Miguel told you he would do it when he came back) while listening to songs that you’re sure you learnt from listening to them when your mom cleaned when you were younger, you know those sad old lady songs like the ones from Amanda Miguel, Pimpinela, Rocío Dúrcal, and artists like that “Amor, de verdad pareces una señora dolida” (Love, you’re acting like a depressed old lady) Miguel told you once when he came home to you screaming your lungs out to Así No Te Amará Jamás as if you had been through three divorces and four infidelities.

Suddenly your thoughts were interrupted when you heard the door aggressively open and heavy footsteps, you became excited as you knew that Miguel had finally arrived, but when you heard that he was stumbling around and you turned to him you were shocked. You saw your husband covered in bruises and wounds, and his suit was glitching, you hadn’t seen him like that in such a long time, you weren’t even sure that you had ever seen him that bad.

Hearing him groan in pain pulled you out of your shock state and you soon started to realize how messed up he actually looked.

“AY MIGUEL, QUE CHINGADOS TE PASÓ?” (AY MUGUEL, WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO YOU?) you asked shocked

“Nothing, im fi-“ he couldn’t even finish his sentence without whining in pain

“Ay no, no me vengas con esas mamadas de que no te pasó nada y que no se que chingados, no puedes ni siquiera decir una oración completa y dices esas pendejadas de que estás bien? Yo no soy pendeja y tu lo sabes Miguel, a mi no me ves la cara. Dime que chingados te pasó antes de que yo me entere por mi cuenta.” (Oh no, don’t come tell me that dumb shit of nothing happened, you can’t even finish a sentence and you say that you’re fine? I’m not dumb and you know it well Miguel, you are not lying to me. Tell me what the fuck happened before I find out by my own)

“I already told you i’m fine my love, you don’t need to worry about me, really” he was now sitting down on your couch

You approached him and you now had a clearer view of his wounds “Ay no, mírate cómo estás, no no, estoy bien mis huevos, iiiih, no mames me estás manchando mi sillón, neta si no me vas a decir que te pasó mínimo déjame ayudarte con tus heridas amor” (Look at you, no no, I’m fine my ass, oh my god and you’re staining my couch, if you’re not gonna tell me what happened at least let me help you with your wounds love)

“You really don’t need to, I can do it mysel-“

“Ya cállate, te voy a ayudar porque te voy a ayudar y tu te vas a dejar, y si no te dejas donde vea que se te infectan las heridas vas a ver eh cabrón?” (Just shut up, I’m gonna help you and you’re gonna let me, and if you don’t if I see that your wounds get infected you’re done understood?)

“No te vas a rendir verdad? okay fine you can help me” (You’re not giving up are you?)

“Good, it wasn’t a question” you smiled at him while heading to your bathroom to get your emergency kit which you always kept even if Miguel told you to throw it away or that it wasn’t necessary multiple times.

You came back to your living room and started cleaning Miguels wounds “So, you’re gonna tell me what happened to you or?”

He sighed “Miles..” he said almost whispering

“Hm? say it again? I can’t hear you corazón”

“Miles”

“Miles? as in the kid you told me about?” he nodded

“He couldn’t have possibly done this right? he’s a kid, you said so, tell me the full story”

“He went to HQ, Gwen brought him… he broke a cannon event and destroyed a universe, then I had to tell him”

“About? go on mi cielo, I’m all ears”

He sighed “I had to tell him… about his cannon event”

“Oh… I’m guessing he didn’t take it well” he shook his head

“He wanted to save his dad even if it destroyed the universe, I had to chase him down, I had to tell him that he was an anomaly, Every single spider in the society chased him down and he still beat our asses and managed to escape, I was so close to fucking ending with it once for all”

“YOU WHAT? A ver cielo, déjame ver si entendí, HICISTE QUE UN MONTÓN DE ADULTOS PERSIGUIERAN A UN NIÑO Y DESPUÉS CASI LO MATAS?” (YOU WHAT? Okay, let me see if I understood, YOU MADE A BUNCH OF ADULTS CHASE DOWN A KID AND AFTER THAT YOU ALMOST KILLED THE KID?)

quiet

“Sabes lo que le pudo haber pasado a ese niño?! Que habrías hecho si lo hubieras matado eh?” (Do you know what could’ve happened to that kid?! What would you have done if you had killed him huh?)

“Y/n you don’t understand, he wouldn’t listen to me”

“No, I don’t understand, he’s just a kid Miguel, of course he’s gonna try to save his dad! it’s logic!”

“Then what was I supposed to do huh?!”

“I DONT KNOW, MAYBE NOT TRY TO KILL A KID?”

“Look, I’m sorry, I just wanted what was best for everyone, I didn’t want him to deal with the guilt of making an universe come to an end, I’m so sorry , I promise you that I will try to fix everything” he said sincerely

“You should be apologizing to the kid, not me, but don’t worry as long as you make an effort it’ll be okay, just don’t try to kill kids again, and- oh my god, I didn’t finish cooking your food, okay, ahorita regresó mi amor, y ni se te ocurra moverte” as much as you wanted to be mad, you just couldn’t resist him, you brought him food and continued to heal him until he was as best as he could be.

[tainted-liquor]

'Perfect Wifey―୨୧⋆ ˚

₊˚⊹♡ ╰➝ 'Don't start with me.' - Miles G. Morales

°˖➴ E42!Miles Morales x BlackFem!Reader ✧˖ °Ingredients: Salt and Sugar! (hurt/comfort) ˗ˏˋTWs: Swearing, petty behavior idk ⟡W/C: 820! A/N: Another request I got! Enjoys luvs 💗

"C'mon! Sabes que no lo quise decir de esa manera! I just need you to chill out f'me, princesa!" your boyfriend huffed as he crossed his arms against his chest. You were currently arguing about his inconsistency when it came to dates, promising one thing and doing the other. Just earlier today you stood outside for 4 hours, all dolled up and pretty for your boyfriend who never showed up. "Chill out? What the fuck you mean relax?! I was outside, for FOUR HOURS! IN HEELS! WAITING ON YOU!" you shouted, picking up your cream-colored bear off your bedside and hurling it at Miles's chest. "I can't fucking believe you! You could've shot me a text, a call, fuck you could've sent a PIGEON!" You yelled as small beads of tears clouded your vision. You sighed deeply, wiping your eyes and closing your eyes to refrain from making any dumb decisions.

"I will see you tomorrow. I need you to leave right now, I can't look at you" you explain in a calm and controlled voice. "Mami, lo siento-" he began, quickly shutting up as you weakly raised your hand (a silent communication of shut the fuck up). He quietly looked down at the floor, placing your stuffed bear safely on your nightstand before quietly exiting your room through the door. You sighed, slipping into your bathroom to do stress-stimulated skincare, angrily swiping at your face with your soapy hands. Every fiber in your body seemed to burn with a mix of rage and sadness, feeling those crybaby tears begin to invade your vision once more.

You slipped into your favorite pair of pajamas, feeling a sudden movement on your neck and freaking out at the unfamiliar sensation. You instantly sigh, pressing a hand to your chest and giggling when you realize it was just your necklace. Well, the necklace Miles had bought for you a while back for your birthday. You unclipped the necklace, watching as the solid gold 'M' spun on the chain before gently placing it on your bathroom sink. You sighed to yourself, contemplating when everything went downhill as you got comfortable in your pink bedsheets and drifted off to sleep.

You woke up the following morning with your mind in a daze. Your bonnet was half off, your phone was nowhere in sight, and you could feel how puffy your eyes were from crying the previous night. You sighed before quickly getting yourself together, throwing on your uniform, and preparing to start another long and tiring week of school. There was only one key detail missing from your dull grey and blue uniform, which slipped your mind as you began to make your way to school at the fucking crack of dawn. That pretty pretty pendant that you always wore around your neck.

The first few minutes in the building were normal, you scrolling mindlessly through your phone as you leaned against your locker. That was all fine and dandy until you felt that familiar presence that always let you know comfort was right next to you. You sighed, lifting your head completely from your phone to see Miles. "Princesa, escúchame por favor. I need to tell you something important," he began as he held your chin gently in between his hands, making sure you maintained eye contact. He was about to explain something 'important', before he cut himself off, staring directly at the empty space on your collarbone.

"¿Dónde es? Chiquita, dime ahora mismo. ¿Dónde está tu collar?" He asked with a suddenly firm glare. He gently raised your phone, ensuring that the semi-clear pink case you always wore still contained the Polaroid of the two of you. He didn't notice immediately, but he sighed in relief when he saw that all-too-familiar photo of the two of you last year. "Sorry, I forgot it on my bathroom sink..." you sighed as you mindlessly felt for the solid piece of gold, immediately feeling terrible when you realized it wasn't there. "Don't start with me. I don't care how petty you feel, the world gon' know you mines," he spat with narrow eyes.

You could tell he was a little irritated, but he still pulled you into a tight hug and rested his chin on the top of your head. "Look mama, I'm sorry. I promise I'll never do that again, aight? I need to talk to you about something though, leave your window open f'me" he explained as he held you impossibly closer to his body. "Yeah, okay I- WINDOW?" you frantically queried with a bewildered expression. "Fuck you mean my window? Why my window?" Miles didn't give you an answer, only laughing at your question and giving you a pat on your back. "Don't worry about it. I'll be over later, alright?" he assured as he gave you a peck on the forehead, tugging your hand as you followed him to your morning advisory.

taglist in the works I swear😭

[nattinatalia]

Jack Harlow x Reader : TIKTOK DANCE

*Mia decides to do a viral tiktok dance with this song 👇🏼* idea from @hoodharlow 💕

“Mommy, can we do a TikTok dance.?” Mia asks you, walking into the living room.

“Oh yes.” You answer excitedly. “Which one baby?”

“This one.” She hands you the iPad, and goes to your private family account and shows you what trend she wants to do.

You don’t give the kids any screen time during the week, but on the weekends you let them use the family iPad for an hour give or take.

When Mia or Ezequiel are on tiktok it’s usually supervised, you and Jack make sure they watch appropriate content.

But you have been playing that song a lot when you and Mia run errands. Plus her godmother recently did a song with him. So when she met him backstage at Coachella she fell in love with his blinged out spider man chain.

“Okay, this seems pretty easy. Who does what?” You ask her, as you set up the iPad.

“You, then me.”

You two were practicing for a while until you got it right. Just when you were about to film the actual video, your favorite boys walk in.

“What you doing momma?” Ez asks, looking at the set up.

“We’re gonna do a video, Cheesy.” Mia answers for you.

Jack and Ezequiel sit down on the couch and look at the both of you waiting to do your thing.

“Compa que le párese esa morra, la que anda bailando sola.” Mía sings loudly with her eyes closed while the both of you dance.

“ABSOLUTELY NOT, NO NO NO.”

You and Mia freeze.

“What? What’s wrong?.” You ask him confused.

“My daughter singing and dancing to that song is a big no.” He stands up, shaking his head. “And to the song of the one guy fans are shipping you with, nope.”

“Babe-“ You chuckle at his silly jealousy.

“I said no Y/N.”

“But daddy, it’s just a song.” Mia shrugs, but is amused by her dad’s reaction.

“I said no Alize Mia Harlow.” Jack says more sternly.

“WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN??” Mia yells, pushes at his stomach and runs off crying, you could only assume to her bedroom since after a few seconds you hear a door slam.

You glare at your husband. “What is wrong with you?”

“She’s six, she doesn’t need to be dancing and singing to that. I know what it says.”

“Oh so you know fluent Spanish out of nowhere?” You take a deep breath. “Why aren’t you letting her express herself creatively? She’s having fun, we’re having fun doing a silly TikTok trend.”

Jack shrugs and sits down next to Ez who’s just glaring at his dad. “She can express herself with another song that isn’t his”

You roll your eyes, look at your son “Earmuffs mijo.” Ezequiel covers his ears.

You glare back at your husband. “Jackman, be fucking for real right now!!!! You’re getting mad at our daughter over something silly.”

You look back at Ezequiel and nod, he then uncovers his ears. “Let’s go check up on sissy, while your dad thinks hard about his actions.”

You are entering Mia’s bedroom and you see her sitting on the middle of her bed looking sad.

“You okay sissy? Dad was big mean.” Your son runs to your daughter's bed and sits next to her.

Mia only shrugs.

“Baby bug, daddy didn’t mean it.” You sit down next to her and brush her hair out of her face.

“He yelled mama, he never yells.” She says through hiccups.

You sigh, “I know baby, maybe he needs a nap time.” You hug her.

“No excuse mama, he needs to use soft and nicer words.”

Just then the door opens. “You are one hundred percent right Mia, I should use nice words.”

“You hurt my feelings daddy.”

You and Ezequiel are hugging Mia, and staring at Jack.

“I’m so sorry princess.” He’s walking towards the bed and kneels on the floor, his elbows touching the mattress.

“It was just a silly thing I was feeling and I took it out on you. Which is never acceptable.”

Mia nods. “I forgive you.”

Jack smiles sadly at her. “You can go back to doing your video.”

“I do it with yous Mia.” Ezequiel cheers and hops off the bed, Mia following behind him.

Now it’s just you and Jack in Mia’s bedroom, you’re staring at him but don’t say anything.

“I’m sorry baby.” He says after a while of being silent.

“Hmm.”

“I got jealous that every dude at Coachella was checking you out. Then I go on Instagram and see fans are saying you two make a cute couple, and it just got to me.” He sighs. “I shouldn’t have dumped that onto Mia, she did nothing wrong.”

You nod. “Whose ring is on my finger?”

“Mine.”

“Who’s last name do I have?”

“Mine.”

“And whose children did I give birth to?” You ask him.

“Mine.”

“Okay so get that through that big head of yours. I don’t care about anyone else. I love you, you’re my man, my husband, and no one is taking me away from you.” You tell him. It’s rare for Jack to get jealous, and you never had to reassure him of your relationship, so it’s catching you off guard.

“I know bubs, I just panicked and the fact that your brothers liked every comment made me even more panicked.”

You roll your eyes at that and laugh. “He’s a huge deal right now in the Latino community. My brothers are fans, of course those losers would hit like to that. But also because they want me to collab with him.”

He nods. “Should we go see if Mia and Ez got the video down?”

You nod and follow him out the door and back to the living room.

“So.” Mia says smiling, putting her hands on her waist. “Nino Urby called.”

“What did he say?”

Ez and Mia share a look. “Daddy you think mommy loves Pluma?”

“What? No.” Jack answers.

“I saw the video where he says hi to momma, he smiling like when you smile at momma.” Mia says.

“IN LOVE.” Ez yells.

“Kids no.” You’re shaking your head.

“Nina and Momma and Pluma are friends. Why are you and Nino so jelly?” Mia asks, rolling her eyes.

“I AM NOT JELLY.” Jack exclaims.

“Hmm sure you’re not.” Mia looks at you and smiles. “He’s so silly.”

••••••••••••••••••••

Liked by yourbestiename, yourbrothername, pesopluma, allabouttheharlows, and 6,346,997 others

keepingupwithynharlow 🥵😍 I NEED A SONG WITH THESE TWO NOW!!!!

View all 1,300 comments

user yesss

user Oh holy damn 🥵

user He’s cheesing extra hard!!!!

user Jack who??? Helloooo PESO PLUMA

user Can she leave her white husband for an actual Latino?

yourusername No, I’m good. Y’all can keep him though. I’ll continue to have more babies and making moves with my white boy 🥰🤞🏼

jackharlow I don’t need to be seeing y’all romanticizing my wife with another dude!

druski So can we talk about how Jack went off on poor little Mia because she was singing one of dudes song 😭😭😭😭

urbanwyatt YOOO 💀

claybornharlow Funny ass shit when Ezequiel told us.

jackharlow FUCK ALL YA

•

TAG LIST

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[jodilin65]

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2022 In the car heading home. Now, I’m more tired than I was yesterday. My heart is racing, and while I don’t feel like I’m on fire, my heart has done that funny flutter a few times. This much fatigue this often still seems a bit extreme even for being older. Also, it’s only 66 degrees out and the fan is on yet I still feel a bit warm. So worried I’m going to go home just to suffer some more with the usual mix of fatigue, anxiety, racing heart, and hot flashes. Either way, I’m still looking forward to getting home, having my own bed, some space, and all the comforts of home. Miss VR too.

I hope I’m only tired because I didn’t sleep so well last night. First, I woke up to pee. Then a couple of times I simply woke up. Then somebody’s husband was snoring like a ship horn blasting in the night. Had to yell at him three times to get him to shut up, and change sounds on the sound machine as well.

I still wonder - and worry - that my fatigue could be that I did get covid after all, or something wrong with my heart. Cancer? I’d say that one is extremely unlikely.

Poor Jessie ended up getting more damage than we did. We never lost power at our place and there is no damage. She got damage to her carport and some shingles. She also showed me a picture of a damaged dock at the river near her.

Ugh, so tired of problems with chargers! Yeah, that’s where we are now. This is fucking ridiculous.

Still feel shitty too (mostly tired) and wondering how much money and how many appointments it may take to figure out what’s wrong with me. Not that I could tolerate whatever treatment I may need, of course. I don’t know. Maybe it’s all in the way I sleep. Fitbit sure thinks I sleep well enough, though, most of the time.

Wish it was cloudy today or that I had at least remembered to take my pink sparkly cap. The sun is in my eyes and shining on me when I have to open the car door to let a sufficient breeze blow through. I’m so glad it’s dry today. The storm sucked a lot of moisture out of the air.

At first I wasn’t happy to have an east-facing room, not wanting the sun glare while enjoying the view. But the first two days were very cloudy, windy and rainy. This morning, however, it was very bright. The other side would have had a nicer view as it faced the pool.

Oh, great. Now I’m feeling those weird chest and throat pains.

One of the tires is low so he’s giving it air now.

Anyway, I’ll describe the room for whatever it’s worth. It was a good size, not huge, but a decent size. It was at the Signia Hilton, as I said before. The building has 18 floors. Being on the 11th floor was nice as it was high enough for a nice view, but low enough to still see what was going on down below. Not that there was much to see with the stormy weather. The thought of living in a soundproof high rise is really appealing. I’d want to be on the 15th floor, though.

It was great since all I heard were the brats when they were in the hall. Even the doors were set up so they couldn’t be slammed. If the place was built like ESA, it would have been maddening and I’d never have gotten any sleep with all the bumps, bangs and screaming I would have been in for. I just never want to be where there are so many kids again. I was surprised by how many were left unattended, too.

There was some kind of gymnastics convention for little kids, which explains what I saw in the lobby when we first arrived. A little girl of perhaps six years old was doing these perfect cartwheels. Two things went through my mind. One was that my mother never would have let me do that in most places, especially in a crowded lobby. And two was that I wished I had her energy!

It also annoyed me when some of the dogs would bark at us when we passed by. So that the people wouldn’t have to take them out during the storm, they set up a pet relief room. Gross! I pity the person who had to clean that up. Imagine the smell!

The toilet was surprisingly low. A good thing for short people. I’m guessing it was low because of all the kids that stay there. Hey, it was the Walt Disney World Resort, after all! I got some great pics I shared on Facebook. I’ll throw them on Twitter to share with blog readers as well.

The room didn’t smell as bad as the last two hotels we stayed at, but water wicked through the concrete under the window when it was raining. The carpet was a little damp and musty-smelling.

For the most part, I was tired, bored, and longing for a little space. At least when we’re on the same schedule at home, I can go into another room if I want to write or do something on my own.

He doesn’t regret our vacation, but I still have mixed emotions about it. I liked getting away, the view, and the food. I didn’t like feeling like shit and all the tech problems and delays we ran into.

The also had a nice coffee maker that turned off on its own. It had an option for either one or two cups.

sighs with frustration We’re now at the charger at the Hampton Inn since Love’s was broken. It’s a pleasant day, so we opened all four windows and cut the AC to charge up faster.

The chest and hip pain stopped, and by some miracle or two, I now feel a bit more energized. So writing, writing and writing to hopefully catch up. It’s easier to write when we’re not moving anyway. If I catch up before we get home, I can read. Our next stop will be in Zephyrhills, such a dumpy little town.

Back to describing the room… The shower was nice as was the $2500 hybrid bed. We had heavy feather pillows and an even heavier blanket. That was the only thing I didn’t get, a weighted blanket in Florida? Kept the room at 70 while I slept since I had no fan blowing on me. At home, I usually sleep with the temperature at 74 and set it to 76-78 when I’m awake, depending on how I feel and what I’m doing.

There’s a dark lizard and a bright green lizard on nearby electrical boxes. The bright green one looks cool.

Loved the verbena and lavender-scented Crabtree & Evelyn shampoo, conditioner, and lotion they had in the hotel room. My hair and skin felt great, though I’m sure they also had a water softener. I took some home with me along with the spare roll of toilet paper. Hey, I might as well get all we can for a place with shitty service, and we did pay for it after all. It was like being on the ship all over again…great food, shitty service. All that was good besides the food was the quiet, the amenities, and the view. Key cards wouldn’t work, room service was stopped, and we couldn’t get takeout from the buffet.

We were too stuffed for dinner on our last night there, and it was getting late in my day anyway. I only slept until 4:00 AM on the second to last day and 5:30 on the last. But lunch was good. I had penne pasta, fries, and a sweet dessert of some kind topped off with a glass of merlot.

This “fast” charger isn’t very fast at all. So we’ll be here another half hour. We’ll walk over and use the bathroom at Burger King.

Had the usual bacon, eggs, and potatoes for breakfast, and also a quesadilla that was good. The guy that waited on us each time we ate there was nice. He gave us sodas to go after lunch too.

Oh, fuck. We really can’t catch a break, can we? We may have to go to yet another charger. A guy pulled in next to us and also tried to charge, but it didn’t work. What is it with all these fucking broken chargers? This is bullshit. Why have them if the people who own them aren’t going to maintain them?

Lots of flooded roads in this area. Saw a manufactured home flooded almost to the base of it.

Passed an Amazon fulfillment center. They’re now starting people off at $19 an hour. He’s tempted to go part-time, but we’re not sure if there’s a fulfillment center near us.

So after opting out of getting some wings from the bar on the last night, we went to the gift shop. Never went to the gym. And of course, we had no reason to visit the ballroom. I don’t remember seeing the spa but I’m sure it was there somewhere. Got some snacks at the gift shop.

The other night I had a dream that we were home and Tom puked. This was the first dream where the house actually looked like this house, too.

The night before that, I dreamt we were living wherever when I heard something jiggling the front door. My first thought was that the mail was being shoved into the slot. But then when the door started pushing open, I realized someone was trying to break in.

I threw the door open and found some big burly black guy standing there. I shot out a leg and kicked him. He rolled backward down the stairs. However, as soon as he hit the ground, he shot back up and charged back up the stairs at me. I quickly slammed and locked the door but was worried he was going to get in any second. I woke up before he could kill me in that nightmare, luckily.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2022 Our second of three days at the hotel has begun. I definitely have mixed emotions about this trip. At least as Tom says, we now know what to expect should Jessie and I decide to do something together in the future. It won’t be as stressful going back because we now know where the chargers are and he even looked to find more fast chargers along the way. We just might get stuck in traffic. There was a section where we were slowed to a crawl. I remember saying that I could get there faster hitting the road in VZ. Going slower makes the battery last longer, though.

There has been some good in it, but it really sucks that they canceled room service. It also sucks that we can’t use the pool. It’s shaped like a river and has a slow flow. They give you a tube to cruise around on. It would have been fun despite the screaming brats I would have had to deal with along the way.

There were a few at the buffet we went to this morning, but it wasn’t that bad. The buffet was great. I got the same thing I had yesterday for breakfast only I had fruit along with it as well and a chocolate cupcake.

Yesterday I was exhausted all day and never left the room. There wasn’t really anything to do or any place to go anyway. He stepped out to grab us some snacks and then a burger and fries later on from the bar since they had stopped room service. As pissed as we were, the burger and fries were excellent.

For the most part, I did a lot of napping yesterday. I’m surprised I was able to sleep through the night, but I did for about 6.5 hours. Been up since 4:00 AM. I’m tired today too, but not as bad as yesterday. I swear I’m never gonna have energy again for more than an occasional day here and there. It seems I always have something. If it isn’t fatigue, it’s anxiety. If it isn’t pain, it’s something else.

Speaking of health news, here’s the most shocking news of all. Tom and I swapped places! Now I’m the one with a normal TSH and he’s slightly elevated at a 5. He read that men his age can get a little low on thyroid, but it can resolve itself within a few months. His good cholesterol is also low but exercise raises that. Even though he’s not like me, I still hope he doesn’t ever have to go on the medication just in case. You don’t want to put yourself in a situation where there’s even a one-in-a-million chance of experiencing the same kinds of side effects I had if you can help it.

From various sources - the news, Jim, Tabitha - we’ve learned that all is well on the home front, and as far as we know, we never lost power. Part of me wishes we’d just stayed home. Again, mixed emotions about this trip.

Now poor Jess is getting slammed. The storm moved much faster than they anticipated. Not to the point where she’ll be evacuated, but she’s going to be getting a lot of wind and rain, and worse is that she’s lost power. Nearly 200K homes in her area have lost power. About 2.5 million are without power in the Lee County area. I guess it’s a good thing we couldn’t move to Venice because it was too expensive, even though Tom liked that area.

Both here in Orlando and at home, wind speeds didn’t really get much more than between 50 and 60 miles an hour.

There’s more I could write about, but I think I want to save it for the road tomorrow, assuming I don’t feel like I’m going to die. I waited an hour after taking my meds today and I’m OK. Hopefully, that’s not just because my own TSH is a little higher.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2022 Hi ho, off to Orlando we go! I just wish I wasn’t so warm and with an elevated HR…again. I took an 88 and waited an hour today, but there’s no way I’m going to wait an hour for coffee on vacation. We’ll be gone till Friday. The question is, what am I going to do if I’m not better when Galileo contacts me to see how I’ve been? Suggest cutting out another 88? Ask for a shrink referral so I could have lorazepam? All I know is that I’m just so fucking sick of this shit! All I do is suffer. I hope it isn’t going to spoil too much of this trip for me! It’s going to be a long day for me, as I’ve been up since 1:30. Thank God I’m on days now!

Galileo sent me an automated message asking if I was ready for a refill. I told them I had enough for a couple more weeks and said I was being evacuated because of the hurricane but would request a refill when I got home. They thanked me for letting them know and said to stay safe.

I was going to write on the termite’s wall something to the effect of the book that was published about her and her kids being a thrilling read, then dump Mia’s account until I realized I was dumb enough not to save the PW for that account. Oh well. If I ever have anything to say to them again I can either create a new account or just unblock them from my main account long enough to say what I’ve got to say. Not likely to bother, though, as I think they likely got my message from last year and that was all I had to say.

We’re a little stressed now, not sure we’re gonna make it to the nearest charger. I am not up for this shit. I’m hot, my heart is racing as high as the 120s, and I’ve been up a long time.

I’m also worried (a little) about the chest and neck pain I’ve been having on and off.

Later…

Oh, what a day it’s been so far! Vacations should be fun and relaxing, not stressful. Also, I should feel good and not like pure shit. For all of our post-Hawaii vacations, there’s always a problem. Always. In 2016, I had to have anxiety and a heat stroke. In coming to the state, I was exhausted with a pounding heart. Same shit going to Orlando.

It sucks that none of my supplements seem to be helping, even though I did take them with us. I just hope I’m not up forever and tired tomorrow. There’s always the worry that there’s going to be tons of doors slamming along with his snoring. We’re already running behind. I tell you, every time we travel there are problems and delays. One of the two chargers was broken, so we had to wait for the guy using the working one. This was when we stopped at City Hall in Zephyrhills. At least I could wait inside where it was nice and cool. Plus, we had to use the bathrooms.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2022 Going to the lab this morning turned out to be a dry run for me. They didn’t have any other test ordered for me on their computer. So I went hungry for nothing. Then Tom’s doctor screwed up the codes or something like that, though he did get blood drawn.

The 3 planters are really 6 planters! When they said 6 pieces, I thought that meant 3 pots and 3 bottoms where you pour the water in. We ran out of dirt before we could replant the Petra, but I think I’ll leave that one in the pink planter it’s in right now because it’s doing OK. I just wish the instructions said whether or not I’m supposed to keep the water level topped off in the bottom, or just fill it up whenever it empties.

Still not sure if we’re going to have to evacuate, but I would say no. I at least went out and took down the wind chimes and moved my decorations.

A little later…

We are now officially evacuated! Off to a hotel in Orlando we go. I don’t mind a fun little mini vacation at all. I just hope we have a home to return to!

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2022 Yesterday it looked like Hurricane Ian was aiming right for us, but now it’s heading more toward Tallahassee. So I would say that no, we’re not going to get evacuated. Just some wind and rain. No beach run this week.

Yesterday we went to the dollar store to get my low-sodium beef, pork and chicken Viennas. Even though I should avoid cholesterol as much as possible, they make a great snack for when I want something but not too much of something and don’t feel like cooking.

We’ve got a grocery order coming tonight, just in case we’re not able to get out for a couple of days. I just hope it doesn’t interfere with my sleep too much or throw me off schedule for my dentist appointment.

I had a little anxiety today, but not much yesterday. Tomorrow I’ll take another 75. Mondays will be 75 days. I made a special point of ordering some foods that are good for anxiety, like fatty fish, Brazil nuts, and green tea.

We’ve got to stop eating after 5:30 because we both have lab appointments tomorrow morning. It’s going to be hard on both of us. I don’t expect to be up before midnight, so I should have several hours of being hungry. It’s better than being anxious!

Jessie had to wait an hour and 20 minutes at urgent care yesterday for a UTI. We chatted until her phone got down to 20%.

We’ve got the kind of planters coming for the plants that I should have gotten to begin with. They’re 7” self-watering planters. This way all I have to worry about is light and keeping them misted. I think they’re just not getting enough light, especially with the tinting filtering the windows. So because of that, we’re also getting grow lights. One with four arms on a stand that we can put in the middle of them. I’ll just keep them all on the kitchen table. They kinda look cool all clustered together anyway. It has a timer too, although I don’t know how long I should give them light. I suppose no less than six hours a day.

The money tree is doomed and the petra looks the healthiest so I’m going to put the ivy, fern and fittonia in the self-watering planters.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2022 My schedule has only jumped three hours since the 18th. I swear something wants me on nights. I’d love it if it was noisy in the daytime and I didn’t have emotional problems on nights. On the bright side, it’s nice to see my resting heart rate back down to 82 from 86.

I felt absolutely miserable yesterday, and I mean miserable. My heart wasn’t racing, but I was hot flashing a lot and felt anxious, depressed, frustrated, hopeless, and like I just wanted to drop dead. I started having moments where I regretted not killing myself when we first came to California and were struggling in hotels.

I cut today’s med waiting time to a little over 10 minutes. Since I’ve been feeling good today, I should be brave enough to wait an hour tomorrow because the fatigue is starting to catch up to me. I don’t think the fatigue I’ve been having is all about the TSH, though, otherwise I would have been exhausted when I was first diagnosed with a TSH of 32.

For the first time since we’ve been here, we went out walking in the middle of the night. It was 3:30 and some other guy was out walking too, so I’m guessing there isn’t anything too dangerous to worry about around here. We only walked a little way down the street and then back. We also went to Publix.

Governor DeBigot declared a state of emergency in the state because we may get “caned.” I just don’t see it happening in this area. One lady who’s been here for a decade said she’s only been evacuated once. I still wouldn’t mind a little excitement, lol. Maybe it could be like a little mini vacation if we had to go to a hotel. I still don’t see it though. I can see us getting some wind and rain, but that’s about it. The reason it’s been so dry the last several days is that the storm has been sucking up the moisture. Well, Hurricane Fiona was. The one aimed at us is Ian. Cuba and Miami have more to worry about than we do. Meanwhile, it’s kind of fun and exciting watching the hurricane tracker.

I feel so bad for Jessie, who’s had her own share of suffering. Her hip and thigh bones are OK, but according to her osteo test, her spine is in bad shape. She was crying and frustrated because she too is tired of having health problems. I felt bad for being asleep at the time she messaged me. I wish I could have been there for her.

I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I read that some snowbirds really do come down in November rather than October, which is when the Honker came down last year. Also, some wait until after the new year so they can spend the holidays with family as Irma did. I still think they’ll both be here in mid-October, though.

Sometimes I think it would be fun to live in an RV and just travel wherever. If I wasn’t such a light sleeper and we didn’t have so much stuff since it wouldn’t be easy to do VR in an RV, it might be fun to live nowhere and everywhere. As soon as we decided we didn’t like where we were at the moment, we could simply move on.

I want to go to Lowe’s and get another plant with a self-watering wick and keep it in the planter it comes in because I think it would be really cool to have a self-watering plant. I also want to see how it does in comparison to the plants we repotted. I watered the money tree one last time in a final bid to save it, but I don’t think it’s savable. Ivy and Petra look great, but Fern looks questionable now and the Fittonia has more bright-colored leaves. They’re at the very bottom, so maybe they’re supposed to lose their color with time. The rest of the plant looks healthy.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2022 It’s getting close to beach day (thank God as I need to get the fuck out) but I thought I would write one more day and then start saving stuff for the road.

I’ll be getting out for a bit this morning when the grocery store opens. Meanwhile, I still feel as miserable as ever. I slept worse last night than I did the night before, waking up on fire and having to pee twice. I do feel anxious but not as anxious as I did a couple of days ago and my heart is mostly back to double digits. Still, when the hell is my suffering ever going to end for more than a few days, weeks or months??? If something up there said in 2014 “May most of your days be pure hell on Earth” it definitely got its way.

I want to believe that I’ll get better and my body will adapt to this dose, but it’s hard to know for sure. I have no idea how long this is going to go on and how it’s gonna play out in the end. I still fear being tortured by this on and off for the rest of my life. Sometimes I wonder if I made a big mistake in not killing myself in the hotels when we first came to California.

I restarted my Gennev supplements and also the black cohosh until that beats up on my stomach.

I had chest pain again and Tums didn’t help it. It had to back off on its own. I also had a bit of neck pain, but I don’t think either symptom means anything’s wrong with my heart. Probably just stress or something I ate.

Right now my body temperature is somewhat stable, even if it’s subject to change at any second. I’m not too anxious, but I’m definitely feeling glum, doubtful, and hopeless. I’m having the runs too. Sometimes I wonder if I would feel better if there were more people around. I mean more people that I knew and trusted and felt comfortable with. I often wonder how it would affect me psychologically if we lived in a building, for example, where noise wasn’t a problem and I still had space and privacy, but there was more than just Tom around, and some of the people were doctors too.

Someone wrote in their journal that there’s no substitute for family, and in some ways they’re correct. Sometimes I still think it sucks that his family turned out to not give a damn and mine were the mean, judgmental, negative, hypocritical, narcissistic, lying, abusive, selfish assholes they were. Because of it, I sometimes feel like something is missing in my life but I still have no regrets about not having kids.

I just wish I could feel good most of the time and be at peace with my life and accept whatever is to come. But it’s not that easy. If I’m meant to suffer for the rest of my life, I can’t accept that. I can’t be OK with it if Tom were to suffer. I can’t say I don’t fear death or what may lie beyond.

Read an article saying that those who have bad dreams during middle age have a higher risk of becoming demented later on in life. I’m definitely the queen of bad dreams, alright. Laurie H was looking to shoot me in last night’s dreams. I don’t know how I knew it was her. I either sensed it or someone told me beforehand.

I was sitting in a place that was shaped like an L, much like one of my Springfield apartments. I was in the kitchen and the living room was dark, so I couldn’t see into it. But I heard the floor creak in there and knew it was her coming to shoot me. I quickly dashed into the bedroom and woke some woman who was sleeping in there to alert her.

Then I had a dream where housekeepers were coming to clean either a large hotel room or an apartment of mine. I asked that they please be on the lookout and careful of the large brown rat I had that was loose in the room, assuring them that he was harmless. Then the rat ran toward me and let me pick him up, even though he was squealing.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2022 I had quite an emotional day yesterday in both good and bad ways. Most of my day, or night, I should say since I’m still on nights right now, was absolutely horrible. I had both physical and emotional symptoms of anxiety. Plus, the racing HR and feeling hot and flustered. All side effects from the medication.

I got a notification that my lab results were in but couldn’t access them. After the blood is drawn, it goes down to Tampa where their main labs are. Galileo said to let them know when I went to the lab so they could be on the lookout for the results, and I told them I went early in the morning. That night, after I slept, I told them I got a notification they were in but couldn’t access them. They said they couldn’t access them either, but it could take a day or two to transfer over.

We still kept checking periodically, both of us guessing that my TSH was going to be a 5. Even though that was what we suspected, a part of me was like, I don’t know about that. This really feels like I’m in the normal range with the symptoms I’m having just like the last two times. The only difference is that this time I haven’t had lung tightness or a booming heart. Yes, my heart has been racy, but not beating like the devil is chasing it. Still, those symptoms, along with insomnia and having trouble staying asleep, told me I had to be pretty damn close to normal if I wasn’t normal. But then I went back to suspecting that maybe I was only a 5 which would still be out of range since I didn’t have the same symptoms I had before. I could totally see why and how I was absolutely batshit terrified when I first experienced this when I was home alone back when he was working.

Now here’s where it gets hard to use the speech-to-text because I still cry happy/surprised tears at times. LOL

Finally, one of the times we checked, my results were in. I clicked on the results expecting to see red, the color for anything that’s out of range. The green I saw instead blew me away and the fact that I was 2.94 and not 3.something or 4.something blew me away even more. I started shaking and trembling like I had some kind of internal earthquake. Tears started rolling down my face. I had finally gotten my “green” dream even if it came with a price to pay, and that was some pretty nasty side effects.

I looked at Tom and said, “No wonder I feel like shit.”

“Yup,” he said with a nod, just as surprised by the results as I was and then I burst out laughing like a mad idiot. LOL

So yeah, I definitely had some seriously mixed emotions. It was great to be normal and I’m sure that in time the side effects would likely back off, but I can’t know how long that would take. Even just a week is way too long because the side effects are so debilitating. I wasn’t kidding when I said I would rather be nauseous and puke my guts out every single day than go through this horrible feeling, and we all know how shitty it is to feel sick and then get sick.

So Galileo, being the awesome docs that they are, agreed to have me scale back a bit to taking the 88s six days a week and one 75 a week. They put a reminder in my chart to check in with me in two weeks to see how I’m doing. They are truly wonderful in taking the time to work with me through this and find that ideal balance. They acknowledge that they understand the delicate balance when it comes to the thyroid.

I may still one day be able to take 88s full time but how I feel always matters more than numbers. Nonetheless, dropping 12 micrograms a week should still keep me within the normal range, if not pretty damn close to it. As long as I don’t go over 9.

I’ve always said that I write for myself first and foremost, and that is 100% true. However, if I share this with anybody who may find the information helpful, that’s great. I know I have some regular readers who are quite young and can hopefully learn from my experiences as someone who is aging and find some of it helpful. Hashimoto’s is a common disease that affects mostly middle-aged women. So if you, my young and regular readers, ever go through what I’ve gone through, I hope this can help in some way.

It’s still gonna take a little time to get back to where I was before. I hope just one 75 a week will be enough to make a difference. After all, I went up a dose every four weeks and not 6. Between 6 to 8 weeks is when it really peaks in the system. So technically I didn’t give each dose time to fully accumulate. I’m a little worried about how I may feel tomorrow and the days after that because I’ve got to do six days of 88s starting tomorrow.

I think the only reason I was something like 3.35 which is higher than what I am now back when Doc O tried me the first time on 88s was because I was only on it for a month before I had to stop because the side effects were so bad. I will always be ever so grateful that Doc D didn’t jump me to 100s because she would have killed me!

So right now my only concern is whether or not cutting just one of the 88s out will be enough. And how many appointments and how much money my dental work will cost us in a few weeks, LOL.

I’m tired today too, so I’ll have to go back to waiting an hour after taking my meds. For the last few days, I waited only half an hour. If that doesn’t help, then something else has been causing the fatigue.

I filled Doc A in, but as usual, she read but didn’t reply.

Tom has been the most wonderful and amazing supportive guy! I swear I would not be alive today if it wasn’t for this man. I cooked pizza sliders for him for the first time and he loved them. He said it was “Domino’s” good.

I was so glad to see he picked up the 75s so that when I got up, I could immediately start to lower my dose.

Mia is now on level 140!

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2022 There’s so much conflicting news out there that I just don’t know anymore what’s real and what’s not. As far as the migrant story I recently wrote about, I guess now they’re saying that DeSantis sent money to have documented immigrants flown from Texas to Massachusetts for who knows what reason, and that may have sunk his chance of becoming the next president. Even if it did, we’ll just get a carbon copy of him next time around unless Biden chooses not to run again and whatever other Democrat runs wins. It’s hard to picture Biden not running again, but I hope he doesn’t.

I still feel shitty and nothing has helped. I have a mix of anxiety, depression, and hopelessness. Again, it’s a reality check for me. If this isn’t me simply needing to get used to this dose, then I’m definitely looking at being tortured on and off for the rest of my life. I keep telling myself to tough it out and that I’ll get used to it, but I never do and I know I never will. TMJ, that annoying cutaneous nerve thing, allergies…those are the kinds of things you get used to and learn to live with, but not this. It’s never going to be tolerable or OK in any way. I try to tell myself that I deserve it as a punishment for anything I’ve done wrong in the past. That suffering will make me appreciate the good days even more. That suffering toughens us up. But I know I’m getting close to taking as much of this shit as I can take. Aly once told Molly in regard to her mother that one can only take so much pain. I agree. They can only take so much pain be it physical or emotional. Everybody’s got their threshold.

The thing is, I just don’t think I can keep doing this on and off for another 20 years. It’s been way too long as it is, and the only reason I held out this long was for Tom. But there’s gonna come a time when I need to be selfish and think of myself only. I’m never going to get my old self back. Not my old vision, not my old body, not my old mind. I really think it would be in my best interest to find a shrink that I can get lorazepam from and just end it once and for all rather than keep on suffering on and off for the rest of my life. This isn’t going to go away on its own no matter how used to this dose I get and no matter how postmenopausal I get. Oh, this spell will pass. But it’s only a matter of days, weeks, or months if I’m lucky, before the next spell hits. As always, there’s no off switch when it starts. There’s nothing I can take or do that stops it. Calms Forte may have made it slightly better, but only slightly.

I went to the lab early yesterday morning as soon as it opened and I’m still waiting on my results. I’m kind of frustrated because I got a notification saying they were up, but I’m not seeing them. Galileo isn’t seeing them either, they said. It can take a day or two to transfer to them. I think Quest is just fucked up. If I can finally get a straight answer from Galileo, I’ll ask them if they think I can adapt to this dose, assuming that most of how I feel is about me having to get used to it. Pretty sure it’s either about that or not connected to anything at all but just part of the way I’ve become. I’m realizing now that I really could have simply developed this strange anxiety disorder after all. Things do change with time. People change. Age has made me anxious, despite the coincidence of the timing.

I could sit here and wish for something to kill me like Aly sometimes did, but in my case, I know it won’t. I know I’ve got another 20 years left in me, and if I didn’t kill myself when he died, I may even have 30.

I started a monthly coffee subscription on Amazon with an assortment of flavored coffees. It’s much cheaper this way than getting it at Walmart and I couldn’t get this kind of variety there. What pisses me off about Walmart is that every time I find something I really like, they stop selling it. I can no longer get my reduced sodium Vienna sausage links from them. The ones I like are actually a mix of pork and chicken, I think. Either way, I’ll have to get them from Publix until they too stop selling them. They’re really great if you want a bite to eat but you don’t want to cook anything or you don’t want anything that big.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2022 Things are bad for me again. I’m having the same fucking symptoms I had the last two times we got my numbers normal. If they’re not normal, they’ve got to be pretty damn close. I’m anxious, I’m warm, I’m having to run to the toilet a lot, and my resting HR, which used to be a comfy 79-81, has been running 83-85 lately.

Tom thinks that while the meds may have a hand in how shitty I’ve been feeling, it’s also my upcoming appointments and me being on nights that are issues and they’re all fueling each other. He said once I eliminate one or more of these stressors, I won’t be so bad. Either way, I’m now 100% convinced that I’m going to suffer on and off for the rest of my life from anxiety. It really is the older side of me, and some things from our past we really just can’t get back. Just like I can’t get my old body back, or my old vision, or my old memory, or my old libido, I can’t get my old calm back. Or at least the kind of anxiety I used to have, which was nothing like what I’ve suffered over the last near-decade.

Fed up with seeing my HR in the triple digits on my Fitbit and being wound up with the symptoms I’ve been having, I reached out to Galileo yesterday morning and let them know that I can’t get Into the lab for a week, but these are my symptoms and I wonder if I have to scale back on my dose. Really, it’s like my body just doesn’t want to have a normal TSH. If I knew my body would eventually adapt and it wouldn’t take too long, that would be different, but I don’t know that.

At first, Galileo said to wait till my lab appointment, and then we’ll decide what to do next based on my results. But then they messaged me later on to say that it would be OK for me to have my TSH test at any time since I sound like I’m really struggling (no shit!) but then when I go back on the 26th, I don’t have to have them do the TSH test since it would have already been done. Fortunately, the lab nearby opens at 5:30, so if I don’t make it there in the morning, I can make it the following morning.

The rude and unexpected wake-up call I got two hours after crashing after being up for over 18 hours may be a blessing in disguise since it may enable me to get in faster. They fucking mowed today! Not only that, but it was the wrong day and the loud mower. I asked the group why they came today when they usually come on Tuesdays, but no one seemed to have an answer. When it first woke me up, I thought it was a low-flying helicopter.

While I made my lab appointment for the 26th, Tom was able to reschedule my dentist appointments for me since his math is better than mine and he can calculate my schedule better. He was able to get them for the same time and also back-to-back where I have the cleaning first and the crowning second, but it will be on the 13th instead of the 5th. I’m afraid I have a couple more teeth that have problems that will end up costing us more time and money, but that’s the least of my concerns right now. So is the fact that I’ll be pretty hungry on the 26th because I didn’t know it was a fasting test until they mentioned it in their last message to me. This tells me they’re likely testing cholesterol and glucose. I’m hoping my cholesterol is down because my TSH is but I still expect it to be high. Either way, I’m not taking medication for it. They’re welcome to suggest a natural remedy, though.

The whole thing is just frustrating as fuck. Same old shit year after year. The only difference was that I got a longer break from it than usual before it got me again. I’m either going to get used to this dose or I’m going to have to scale back to taking 88s six days a week instead of seven. I’m not wearing my Fitbit today because I don’t want to keep checking my heart and worrying even more about it.

My only other complaint is the fucking planes. They’ve been horrible again. One after another, after another… No, they’re not loud, but they’re noticeable, and too much is too much. I lived 6 miles from the airport in the 90s in Phoenix and rarely heard planes. Now I’m 30 miles away from Tampa (if you draw a straight line) and it’s one after another, especially early in the mornings and at night. It’s just ridiculous.

So after I finally fell back asleep after the insanely loud mower went by, making me wish we’d gotten land even if it was just an acre and the neighbors never let their dogs indoors, I slept horribly. Of course I had to have medication-related dreams. In one of them, I had to fly all the way back to California to get my prescription, and I had to go alone because Tom was at work. But then they didn’t even have the damn thing!

In another dream, I cooked four tiny steaks and placed them outside to cool. When I went to retrieve them a while later, I found that two were missing and assumed animals got them. I was in a house that was sort of laid out like our Maricopa house, where the main body of the place was open. The dining area opened into the kitchen which opened into the living room.

Then I’m dreaming that I’m trying to get myself off any which way I can and nothing worked. LOL

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2022 There is one thing and one thing only that both DeSantis and Texas are doing right. Texas is right to forbid sites from banning people due to their political views. I’ve always been for freedom of speech and telling people to simply not read what they’re not interested in or dislike. Anytime you open a newspaper, or you open a book, or you go online, there’s a chance you may see something offensive. I say don’t do any of these things if you’re that sensitive.

Furthermore, I totally stand by DeSantis for deporting immigrants. Totally. Not only do we not have unlimited resources like unlimited housing, jobs, and doctors, but when I think of what Florida stands for, the words that come to mind are retired people and vacationers. Not a migrant receptacle. So while I hate his guts otherwise, I appreciate him keeping Florida free of them whenever possible. Many of these people aren’t the innocent “victims” they claim to be anyway. Believe me, they don’t want to make an honest living here. But that’s not the point. The point is that they don’t belong here no matter what their end goals may be.

Tom is against it only because it’s not DeSantis’s job, but a federal responsibility. Maybe so, but they still don’t belong here. If they absolutely have to come to the US, like half the world seems to want to do, give them to a state that welcomes that shit.

Today is the first day in a few days that I finally have decent energy. We ran out to Publix earlier too. I had been sleeping in spurts, so I was tired for three days in a row. Part of that was my fault because of the naps I took. They would cause me to be up later and not sleep quite as long as I needed to. I still love taking naps at times. I’ve always liked sleeping.

I don’t remember any dreams from the last time around, but the night before I had a very sad dream where I kept dumping Tom. I don’t know how old we were, but we were just dating and I felt this twisted need to punish myself by cutting him out of my life. When I slammed the door on his face after the third time, dread literally coursed through my veins at the thought of possibly losing him forever.

Some guy who wrote a book about Jessie’s dad wants to write another book and wants to interview her, but she says she hates doing interviews. The only interview she’s done in the past was the documentary on his life a couple of years ago.

She also says her spine is like Swiss cheese due to years of steroids. There’s a medication to help her osteo, but the catch is that it can cause bone breaking. I guess this one in particular likes to snap thigh or jawbones and she’s like, no thanks. I’d say the same thing! That’s got to be some killer medication in order to do that because thigh bones are supposed to be as tough as concrete.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2022 A couple of miles away in a wooded area, human remains were discovered. They’re saying it’s a homeless person who died of natural causes.

It’s now been about a year and a half since we surrendered the guinea pigs and I wonder how they’re doing. I hope they’re still alive and happy! One of them, or at least some guinea pig, was in one of the many dreams I had when I napped. I napped after we got back and ate. This is the second day in a row too. Hell, I’m still tired! It seems I can only go so many days in a row with decent energy. I slept well too, so I’m not sure what’s got me so tired. Maybe the stress of my upcoming dentist appointment which is going to need to be rescheduled?

Wanting to get out, before napping, we decided to go to the dollar store by Domino’s and then got another order from Domino’s. This time I tried the pasta dish with marinara sauce and other toppings. Beef, mushrooms, and shredded parmesan cheese. It’s good, but the chicken alfredo pasta was better. We also got some cheesy bread to share, which is great. And of course, the lava cakes are totally awesome. Like biting through a thin, crispy Oreo cookie and into a mouthful of yummy cake batter.

I’ve decided that no, I’m not going to lose weight. As expected, I would still have to lower my calories to an unsustainable amount in order to get the weight off and it’s just not worth it to me since it’s not like I’m 20 years old. But it’s become much harder to gain weight now that my thyroid is stable or close enough to it so it’s not a no-win situation.

Got a great deal at the dollar store. Four ceramic plates for just $5 that would be at least $40 on Amazon. They have a blue floral design on them. They’re a little heavy and definitely breakable, but nice. I’m going to replace the four remaining plastic plates with them. These are both dishwasher and microwave-safe, unlike the plastic ones. Tom warped the green one in the microwave in the old house and I accidentally smashed the blue one the other night when beating a pork chop with a meat tenderizer. So I’m just going to use the yellow, orange, pink and purple ones that are left and then dump them. One thing I didn’t like about the plastic ones was that the lip was too high and I had to skip a slot in the dishwasher to give them more space between them.

I also got three plastic organizers in pretty pastel colors…pink, lavender, and mint green. These are in the bathrooms.

Lastly, I got a small strainer.

I put all the plants together on the kitchen table except for the Ivy, which looks the healthiest. I took four of the 8x8 tins and layered them with acrylic rocks. I had just enough to do the four containers. Then I filled them with water and placed the plants on top of it. Not sure it’s helping to provide much more humidity, but Tom read a really great tip about using oil diffusers without oil and letting it mist them. Just the plants being close together should help them from what we also read. I guess they sense each other and they provide humidity for each other.

The people here are pissed about things not getting done and the rent increase. Some guy named Tim trimmed Toni’s tree and amazingly enough, we never heard it. I’m glad someone was able to take care of that for her.

They want the ugly wooden fence that’s partially falling down in back of us replaced with a nice white fence as the newer section has. But apparently, Tom was right when he said that they just don’t care about the older section. Their selling point is the new houses which they brought in. Meaning that they’re owned by the company. The houses in the legacy section were brought in by the individual owners who first purchased them.

“Communication isn’t their strong point,” someone said.

No, it’s not.

In the first dream I had, we had a guinea pig that lived for two years and three months. We also moved on October 6 instead of July 6, but instead of moving here, we moved to an old two-story house. This is the second dream where we moved to an older house.

In another dream, I was in a library or a store and I was staring at a book about Jodi Arias. The book, however, disappeared before my very eyes. I was completely dumbfounded since I hadn’t moved and there was no one else nearby.

The most disturbing dream was me being stuck in some jail for who knows what. They were building additions to parts of the jail and I was up high on one of the floors when I stepped into an unfinished room. It was cold and dark, and the room didn’t have an outer wall. I overheard a couple of the guards talking about pushing me off or leading me to step off and fall to my death and then claiming it was an accident. I pretended not to hear them and knew I had to be careful because if I fell to my death they would certainly get away with it.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2022 Poor Toni. She posted that she has a tree growing over the fence in back that stretches over her clothesline. The office told her she’s responsible for her own trees, but of course it’s not her tree to begin with. I told her I would be upset too, and asked if she knew who owned the field back there. I’ve been wondering this ever since we moved in here.

Irma told her to ask Charlie, who we think is the maintenance guy, but Toni said he’s out on medical leave.

Tom and I went in back to check it out. He could cut it down easily, but it’s a big branch and there would be no place to put it.

We’re pretty sure they trim the field from time to time. I just hope to hell I’m awake when they do it. My biggest concern is someone clearing it out to build something on it. That’s what they’re doing right now in a clearing between some houses and the Walgreens. The neighboring houses are no doubt pissed. The trees they killed had blocked sound from traffic and provided some privacy. We have no idea what they’re going to build there. I just worry that even if nothing ends up directly behind us, it will still be plenty close enough. According to Google Maps, it’s about 1300 feet from the street to the back of the field where there is a wall that divides it from a fancy subdivision. It’s a little over 900 feet from the road to the back of our house. Even if they only built as far back as 500 or 600 feet, that could be really obnoxious if they put an apartment building there or a business with a sizable parking lot.

Took a picture of a cute snail by our steps. It was so tiny. I would think it was just a pebble without my glasses.

I noticed that Doc A has been reading my Facebook stories lately. I decided to create a journal group and invited her along with a few others, figuring I could then see who saw my posts this way but it doesn’t show that anymore. So let me get this straight. This company that has never valued or respected its users’ privacy has taken this away? I hate it when sites take away features! And I hate it when sites like Twitter do nothing but talk about adding features they never add. It’s getting obvious that Twitter Notes isn’t happening for everyone.

My Rep account is no longer a pro account. The greedy bastards now want about $72 a year. I get that with inflation people are after more money, but I just don’t think it’s worth it unless they come out with all kinds of new and amazing things. Mia is about to reach level 139. I’m training her as best as I can to make her smarter now that I have to take the time to type everything. Or at least use speech-to-text.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2022 Microsoft finally fixed its speech-to-text issues. Finally. So now I can blog on my laptop. I can do it on my desktop too, but when things are working properly it works best on my laptop.

We ran out to Publix earlier and now they’re finishing up the weekly mowing. It’s been raining on and off this morning, too. I’m just now beginning to notice that the temperature is dropping. It’s a bit cooler early in the morning. It sucks as I wish it could be summer year-round.

We had a double storm the other day. It stormed in the early afternoon and then again in the evening.

The stupid Amazon guy swapped our package with Toni’s yesterday. Tom took hers over to her and found that she has a really cool video doorbell. If no one comes to the door, you leave a message similar to a voice message on a phone. She came to the door, though.

I still worry about that mutt as the temperature continues to fall. Just because something’s legal doesn’t make it OK. Motorcycles are allowed, but that doesn’t mean that they should be in a place like this. It’s not OK to be noisy or loud in any way unless it’s absolutely necessary.

When I finally unpacked the new wind chime I got yesterday, it was just in time for a storm. It sounds a lot nicer than the one in back.

I also got the nail glue and applied it to my split nail. Then I went over it with two thick coats of bright red nail polish after applying a base coat.

Another person was killed at the US 19 intersection near our place. It’s said to be the most dangerous intersection in the country.

Sometime around the end of November is when we’re gonna make a pet decision. I’m still torn between no pets and getting a dog. I would choose a dog if I knew it could be like what I hope it’s like. The problem is that our expectations rarely turn out to be reality. With a rat, even though it may not be as friendly as I’d like, I would at least know what I was in for. With a dog, I can only hope.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2022 Yesterday was a fun day with Domino’s. Whoever knew they could be so damn good?! I opted for a pasta bowl instead of pizza. He got a traditional pizza while I got a customizable pasta dish. The pasta is penne pasta. I chose Alfredo sauce and for my 3 additions, I chose chicken, spinach, and black olives. It was delicious! Next time I’m gonna get the marinara sauce, beef, mushrooms, and shredded parmesan with my pasta bowl.

We also got cheesy bread, which was great, and a couple of different desserts, one of which was to die for. That would be the lava cake. The brownie cookies were OK, but the lava cake was totally divine.

Somebody’s metabolism must really be ramping up, because despite how much I ate, I’m not only lucky I didn’t get sick, but I’m also surprised that I didn’t gain weight.

We ordered it online and then went out to pick it up. That way we could get out of the house and into the sunshine. Well, it wasn’t that sunny, actually, but it was still nice. We still have intermittent thunderstorms. It’s looking like today may be mostly clear.

Early this morning we walked over to the water place to drop off the check and it was only a little humid. It was pretty nice out. What spoiled an otherwise peaceful walk was the incredibly loud vehicle that went by when we were walking along the main road. It was like OMFG! And I had my headphones on too. I thought it was a motorcycle at first but it was just a regular truck. Again, I don’t understand why things have to be so damn loud. How can the drivers stand it? This is why living near a busy road isn’t an option for us. It never used to be this way, but things changed for the louder once we got into the 2010s. The thing was absolutely deafening!

Anyway, my HR has been a little higher, not surprisingly, since my numbers have to be close to normal by now. I was a little worried I would be in for an anxious day, but I think I’ll be OK today. My HR never got below 70 in my sleep last night. Where my resting HR was a comfy 79 to 81, now it’s 82 to 83. Hopefully, it won’t get any worse and the anxiety won’t be an issue again as I don’t think it can accumulate anymore in my system once we get into next month. I sure can’t wait to find out what those numbers are! It’ll be a week or two yet, though.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2022 We’re gonna be going out for pizza in the early afternoon. For now, I’m enjoying some of the new VR apps I got. They had a special for $13 where I could get the rest of the roller coasters in Epic Rollercoaster. So now I have a dozen new roller coasters. It is amazing how authentic it feels. It’s exactly like you’re on a roller coaster only without fear because you know you’re sitting safe and comfy on your living room couch. They range from about 50 miles an hour to 110 miles an hour. It really has the same dizzying effect, and even though I’m not prone to motion sickness, I can only do so many in a row or else I’ll feel nauseous.

There was also a free game where you break some girl out of prison. It’s not a regular prison, though, and it’s one of those complex games I’m not sure I can figure out.

Lastly, Ocean Rift was on sale for $7, so I got it. It’s just OK. You swim underwater with different fish and it’s educational at the same time. The only thing is that once you’ve done everything there is to do, that’s it.

On the corner down the street next to Steve is a house that had some oddly arranged statues that Tom and I got a kick out of. One of them was a duck with its beak in the crotch of a mermaid. Well, according to the group gossip, a crazy bipolar lady named Karen lives there. I guess she won’t take her meds and has caused all kinds of trouble like most of them do and has been banned from the clubhouse and pool. It isn’t the disease I have a problem with. I get that no one asks for this shit. It’s the fact that these people won’t help themselves that I have a problem with. Instead, all they do is make other people miserable.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2022 Not understanding why the whole world is in tears over Queen Elizabeth’s death. The phony materialistic bitch had the nerve to tell everyone to be frugal during the recession while wearing millions of dollars worth of jewelry.

Having a cloudy day with some rain and my anxiety is borderline. Not enough to say I’m anxious, but not enough to say I’m calm either. It’s better than it was earlier in the day, though.

Heard the mutt a few different times. Yes, it was only a few barks per spree, but still.

I woke up a little tired because I got up to pee and couldn’t fall back to sleep. After being up for a few hours, I napped for nearly 2 hours. I slipped into another dimension (or didn’t I?) and another house we recently moved into that looked about as old as this one. The smart lights cut out a lot and frustrated me.

He was in the shower so I went to use the second bathroom which was in the garage, LOL.

My parents were still alive and a part of me wanted to call them. Not cuz I missed her but cuz I missed him.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2022 On the way to the beach now and feeling better than I felt on Tuesday. Yesterday I had mild anxiety and today I’m just a little on edge as well.

I just hope he’s right in that I only got anxious because I was alone too much and my body is adjusting to the final ramp-up of my new dose and its new normal. At least until and if my thyroid dies some more in the future and I have to go up another dose. I decided that as long as I’m under 10, even if I’m still not normal, I’m not going up anymore.

He thinks I’ll eventually go years without anxiety, only being on edge just once in a while. I hope he’s right! For all I know, though, I just started another bad spell that could last for weeks or even months and will continue to be tormented by this shit on and off all my life. Next time I’m on nights, he’s going to sync his schedule with mine. He’s also going to make a point of not letting me have as much alone time by overlapping parts of our schedules. I still want some alone time as he understands, but this way I won’t be alone long enough for my mind to wander to all those dark places deep in the night, mostly end-of-life stuff and all the horrible possible scenarios that could play out. All those what-ifs. What if he has a stroke someday and ends up in a wheelchair and I’m unable to help and care for him properly? What if I do and then he dies and I’m unable to end it so I won’t waste away in misery in some nursing home or someplace like that?

The lack of sunlight on nights doesn’t help either, and I don’t always remember my full-spectrum light.

All Galileo did was hit me with another one of their standard anxiety forms with questions and tell me they’d see what my numbers are soon and offer referrals. They never answered my question as to whether or not my body could still be getting used to the med.

Anyway, I told them to hold off on the referrals until I know if the anxiety is going to drag on or not

A couple of days ago when my HR was elevated, I took Children’s Benadryl since it was the end of my day anyway and it helped relax me and bring my HR down.

My HR spiked to 122 when I was really anxious. Again. I really, really hope I’m not just in for another long anxious spell. I think the next few weeks will tell me what I’m in for. If it is my body adjusting, I’ll be okay soon enough. If not…

Good thing I kept up with the Coq10 because my blood pressure does seem a bit better. I’ve traded in the 140s and 150s for the 120s and 130s for systolic numbers.

Said hi to Toni the other day, who said “okay” to herself as she was getting out of her SUV. How fun it would be to plant a secret recording device in her place so I could have fun listening to her talk to herself! LOL

Love my new diamond painting organizer! It’s so pretty with colorful butterflies on the outside of the case. These jars hold twice as many diamonds as the old ones, so I don’t need to put extras in bags. I also numbered the jars to keep track of the number I’m currently working on and therefore eliminating the need for several numbered “boats,” the things you pour the drills in. It also came with a little container for glue, a funnel for pouring the diamonds into the jars without spilling them all over the place, and an array of drills and other things. Wish I had this a couple of years ago! It makes things so much easier.

One of my nails is still split so I’m gonna get some nail glue. I still think it’s dip damage. I have a nail sticker on it now.

I’m also going to get some 8x8 aluminum pans used for cooking to make homemade plant humidifiers. I still have my purple acrylic rocks which I’ll align the bottoms with. Florida may be humid, but the house is desert dry. Hell, our towels dry better in the house than outside in the dryer.

We also got a Swiffer subscription so we can get one box every three months. Some things are cheaper that way. I’ll soon be creating a K-cup subscription as well.

Lastly, I decided to buy the four golf courses I never got. He has them and I could play them with him, but this way I can play them when I’m by myself and have fun hunting for more lost balls.

On the way back after less than an hour on the beach. A storm rolled in. Love my new snorkel set, though, even if it leaks a bit. The water was gorgeous. No manatees, but I saw some of those striped fish like you see in Hawaii.

The water started off relatively calm, but the approaching storm kicked up the waves. They were still tiny compared to the beaches further south.

We practically had the whole beach to ourselves. There was just one couple off in the distance with a metal detector and a lady sitting somewhat nearby who left when we did.

We wouldn’t mind going back to the beach tomorrow, except the thunderstorm we’re having now is expected to go on all through tomorrow. It’s the middle of the afternoon yet looks like dawn or twilight. I had to turn the light on when using the VR headset.

If we had more money, a pedicure once a month would be nice since two toenails have lost their polish.

The hip pain I had for a few days in my left hip is better but damn would I take pain over anxiety any day! He had worse pain, though. So much so that it made him nauseous. His sciatica was really bad.

Stopped to charge as we were cutting it a bit close and he had to pee. So while we were at Baskin-Robbins we got some hash browns and bacon. I wanted avocado toast, but they were out of avocado spread. They’re always out of something. The bacon was fine, but the hash browns weren’t that great.

Yesterday morning we got breakfast sandwiches from Wendy’s and they were so good.

Pinpoint is a great new game that VZ added where you’re dropped into a random location and you have to guess where you are. You get five rounds daily. Knowing other languages helps, too.

Had a dream I was trapped in some kind of funny farm and called the termite of all people. I didn’t say anything when she picked up but she somehow knew it was me. Instead of saying anything mean, she said she was going to help get me out. Although I noted the fact that she still loved me, I had no desire to resume any kind of relationship with her.

I also had a dream that Tom and I were staying in the second house I grew up in and were thinking of buying it.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2022 Several others also said they didn’t get their Hooters, so it isn’t just me. Logically, I figured as much, but I really need to stop being so paranoid and assumptive. Not everything is personal. I should know that. And so what if it was? Again, we came here to live, not to score points with people.

Toni said she didn’t get hers either and that she lives next to me. Then, for whatever reason, she deleted the part about living next to me.

A day before I hit the six-week marker with the meds, the anxiety returns. I am so disappointed but not the least bit surprised. I had some beef ribs, hoping the tryptophan in it would calm me down, but it didn’t. Even golfing, VZ, and meditating didn’t help. Then I had half of my little bottle of Pina colada and found that rum seems to be more calming than wine. Well, in that case, I’ll be a full-fledged Pina Colada addict until I get past October. Then this medication is going to be full-fledged in my system. I’m really worried about how I may feel a couple of weeks from now. Two months is about how long it took for my problems to begin when they first put me on 75s.

I have a little hope that it’s an isolated incident that will back off on its own soon enough. Then I’ll find I have normal numbers in a couple of weeks and be able to go ballistic with joy and continue to feel well. Maybe even lose some more weight. I just don’t want to count on that and get my hopes up too much. In fact, remembering that I don’t have to play portal and wait for days to get a response, I decided to go ahead and alert Galileo. That’s what they’re there for. I told them that the good news is that my TSH is obviously low enough that I’m starting to lose a little weight. It’s only a few pounds, but that’s a lot for me. The bad news is that the anxiety is picking up again as it has in the past whenever my TSH went under about a 7. What I need to know is if my body will eventually get used to it and if the anxiety will go away as I couldn’t stand to feel this way regularly for an indefinite amount of time. I like the weight loss, but definitely not the anxiety. I feel waves of adrenaline in the center of my chest and it’s horrible.

I’ll let you know what they say.

Today I have decent energy, unlike yesterday when I was in such a blah mood. OMG, I can’t wait to get back to the beach! I need my sea, sun, sand and new toy. I can’t wait to try out my snorkel set, but I don’t expect to get lucky enough to swim with manatees again. Tom and I are pretty sure that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’m like a flower, and when I’m on nights, I begin to wilt, so I need to get out soon. If I could walk out onto the dock now with a cup of tea and listen to the waves lapping…it’ll never happen. I’m just dreaming.

Russia cut off Germany’s energy supply in retaliation for them siding with Ukraine. Does that mean Nane will be cold this winter? I did hear the country is giving aid to its residents. Ours would just leave us to freeze while it happily forked over billions to other countries.

Nane’s not just screwed for heat this winter, but gas prices really jumped according to the headline I saw. I really think things are going to get worse and worse all around the world for the rest of our lives. I think more and more extremism is going to be part of the US. Once they flipped Roe I knew the door was open to all kinds of shit and that’s why I was so worried about it even though I saw it coming for some time now. Now the possibilities are endless since we can’t count on protection or rights. It all comes down to who’s in power.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2022 Despite an accumulation of 10 hours and 19 minutes of sleep after being woken up multiple times due to thunder, I am exhausted. I don’t understand why after I finally get back to sleep I don’t wake up refreshed. I feel worse than just tired. I feel almost dizzy and groggy and just totally out of sorts. Like I can’t think straight and I’m totally brain-fogged. Maybe I slept too long or maybe I’m dehydrated after going about 12 hours without water.

One thing I know for sure is that the dog house needs to come down. It just doesn’t do me any good against really loud sounds and we can’t seal it up because we can’t put the fan in it and it would get too hot. Besides, no matter how much we seal it up it still wouldn’t do me any good when it came to the loud mower and loud thunder. So why have such a big old ugly pain in the ass when the inserts are enough for things like the soft mower and the motorcycle? If we’re not going to spend the money to hire someone to soundproof one of the bedrooms from top to bottom, maybe we can at least replace the inserts with soundproof windows. He and I should make a plan because while we may not be here forever we’re going to be here for years.

Looking at the forecast makes me want to scream because it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to sleep well for a while. This suggests that moving to the Atlantic side where there are twice as many storms might be a bad idea for one who can’t keep her ass on days. :(

The final wake-up call was after a horrible nightmare. I was trapped in a building with other people and was hoping it was a sick joke when someone said that some huge crazy group of people was coming to kill everyone in the building. I don’t know if they were some kind of extremists or what but I took a chance and left the room we were hiding in and went down to some other floor to look for something. But then I saw them. They started off looking like normal people and then I saw a room full of what looked like large cement statues that all looked the same but I knew they were very much alive. They were chanting, “There will be blood.”

I dashed back upstairs where some guy said we needed a certain thing, although I’m not sure what, and I said, “No, we need a miracle.”

It was then that the realization set in that this was the last day of my life and I wouldn’t get to do the things I planned and wanted to do.

I’m so pissed (along with tons of other people) cuz they still haven’t fixed speech-to-text in Win11. Obviously, they have no intention of doing so if they haven’t already. This really sucks. It was quite useful having it anywhere you could write.

No Hooter this month either and it will be interesting to see what kind of response I get to the post I made in the park group asking if others have experienced this. I think they’re stopping deliveries and expecting people to get copies online.

Someone (I don’t remember who) posted that they wish there were speed bumps here like other parks have because of the way delivery and service vehicles speed through. I was the first to comment explaining why I hated those things and that it doesn’t slow these people down because it’s not their vehicles so they don’t care. Plus they’re often pressed for time. On top of that, it just adds noise and makes bike riding a pain.

The next day I checked for follow-up comments and the post was gone. I can’t help but wonder why. Was it someone who had something against me personally or did they simply decide they should delete the post for other reasons?

It’s a good thing I asked Galileo for a refill while I still had a dozen pills because I got a message from Walgreens saying there was a problem with my insurance. Pretty sure it’s a similar problem to what Tom had. I’ll have to call them. Hopefully, I’ll get my meds before the 10 pills I have left run out! Now that I’m doing so well and am due to go to the lab in a couple of weeks, I don’t want to miss any doses!

Looks like my rosemary plant may be dying. A couple of the sprigs were curled over and even though the dark ends of the needles signal too much water, I gave it a huge drink anyway and the sprigs are now standing upright again.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2022 Tom hung my suncatchers for me and they look great.

Many people are concerned that the Supreme Court may rule in favor of a state’s right to refuse to provide Medicare or Medicaid to its residents while still receiving federal funding for it.

And criminalizing abortion is exactly why I fear this kind of shit happening as well, and God knows what to SS. Crazy begets crazy till Americans are willing to fight back the right way, and like it or not, it ain’t with words and signs. I just hope if Florida bans it there’ll be another state we can move to…until a federal ban goes into effect. Once abortion, gay marriage, and other things reach a federal level, then we’re really screwed. Sometimes I wonder if they’re gonna push to keep everyone working till they die and ban everything else that doesn’t align with their twisted ways of thinking.

Instead of being able to simply ask for and get a refill on 88s, I’m asked if I also need 75s and I have to remind them that I’m on 88s daily now. On top of that, I have a hypothyroid follow-up form to fill out asking if I have any symptoms. I told them I still have fatigue at times and palpitations/racing heart. Really hope they don’t bring up the monitor thing again because the only one I could sleep with is not covered by our insurance.

Got some Glade oil plug-in warmers to keep the rooms smelling fresh when I’m not burning incense. Fall Night Long for the living room, Berry Splash for the bedroom, and my favorite for the kitchen which is Vanilla Caramel.

Although I have gotten a little more used to it, the planes still annoy me at times because they are so constant. I really miss the days when you heard just an occasional playing fly overhead and that was it. Sometimes they’re every few minutes, especially in the early mornings. As I said, these days it isn’t a matter of being able to escape a flight path altogether but getting in a path that’s high up enough that you can’t hear them inside your house. But that would be very hard to do these days unless you live in the middle of nowhere. You need to be where they’re no lower than about 25,000 ft. They’re always going to be a part of my everyday life, though, so I guess I better just be glad they’re not as loud as boom car stereos or anything like sonic booms.

So there are three sections in this park. There is the South section which has new houses and the West Section which has the newest houses. Then there’s the Legacy section which we’re in. When checking up on the latest neighborhood gossip, there was mention of someone’s shed being broken into but I don’t know where other than that it was in this section. The Legacy section is big compared to the South, no one’s living in the West yet, so I think it was likely close to the entrance where the person could escape easily enough.

Also, Jim shared a picture of a woman walking between his place and the house next to him and wrote that he understands that we lease our lots but would like for people not to walk on his lot and that if anyone sees the person to mention it to them.

Why is it I have a feeling that if I was the one to post this I would get lynched? It’s not my land, after all, I don’t own it, so I don’t have the right to demand people not walk on it, they’d say.

I’m doing better with my resolve to stop reaching out to those who have shown a blatant lack of interest in being a part of my life. I haven’t contacted Christiane, for ex, and I know I’ll never hear from her again. She’s just one of many examples. I miss Nane at times but everyone else I used to know whether they were friends or relatives is in my past to stay. I would never allow them back into my life no matter what they tried to tell me. In fact, I’m thinking of deactivating Mia’s account because I just don’t care anymore. Yes, there are a few things I could say to the termites but nothing that would sink in. So staying away from toxic people isn’t just a matter of knowing that some people never change but also about respecting and protecting myself. It’s about knowing I deserve better.

I still worry about end-of-life stuff more than I should. I try to tell myself that whatever is going to happen is going to happen and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. The problem with that is that while I not only fear what dying may be like and what may lie ahead in a possible afterlife, I also fear us not having the help we need in the end. So many different things could go wrong. He says I could always Uber to see him if he were ever in the hospital but I would still feel helpless not being able to drive him if he needed to be driven anywhere. And also not being able to drive myself wherever. It’s not my fault I have a phobia I never could get over but still.

I don’t want to be left alone to kill myself and die all alone if he went first but I don’t want to leave him alone either if I went first.

It’s really sweet of Jessie to suggest we live like The Golden Girls if we both lost our husbands but that’s much easier said than done. Even if I wasn’t depressed over missing him it’s just not feasible. I can’t ask her not to have visitors while I slept and I doubt she could help me with tech issues I couldn’t figure out for myself but that Tom could always figure out. We couldn’t soundproof the windows or the bedroom so I’d have a better chance of sleeping through motorcycles and storms and there are just many little things that would make it hard for me and therefore hard for her. I know I would be so miserable that I would be much better off dead. I try to tell myself to stop stressing over it in the meantime.

“You’re either going to die first or he’s going to die and then you’re going to kill yourself. It’s going to be one or the other and you can’t know when it’s going to happen,” I tell myself. Maybe we’ll find out he has terminal cancer and kill ourselves together. So there are technically three different ways this could end. But we’re both alive and mostly healthy today and I need to remind myself of this. I need to just live and enjoy what’s left of my life which I still think is a good 20 years or so. That’s a long time. Even a decade is quite long.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2022 I looked up 3 people I used to know on the old Kiwibox (I miss that site) since it’s been 14 years. They’re still in the same states. I guess most people still don’t change states much. Either way, they’re in their mid-to-late thirties now.

Emma and Amber are still in Illinois but on opposite sides of the state.

Jasmine is still in Maryland, is dating a woman, and not surprisingly, has a job that involves kids. I hope she gets to have the kids she talked about wanting.

Amber is still working with animals and I’m not sure what Emma is doing. Some kind of bio research. An email address came up connected to Emma’s work so just for kicks, I said hello. I laugh when I remember the silly little arguments we used to have, even though they did have a point as to the reliability of pregnancy prevention by using the pull-out method. Sort of anyway. I mean, it’s easy to think something is more effective than it is when you’re DES-exposed like I was. I think it’s better than nothing but not a hundred percent foolproof.

Emma’s reaction was a reminder that people don’t get over the past. It wasn’t what she said, it’s what she did. When I looked in on her on Facebook from Mia’s account, I saw that most of her pictures were gone. I’m not sure what purpose this is supposed to serve her since I know I’m harmless and it was just a quick and friendly message. However, I realize that most people don’t have the kind of memory for names and other things that I have and they don’t realize you can simply run people’s names for free and get all kinds of info so she may see it as “stalking” which I certainly have no intention of doing, of course. I really don’t remember that much about her. Just said she had vivid blue eyes, started off skinny, and then gained weight (I know what that’s like), and she said she loved being cold. She lived in Naperville and I guess now Chicago.

But yeah, I miss the site in general despite the drama. I loved how artistic we could be when it came to colors for our entries, and of course, that’s where Aly and I met. She was only 27 and I was 42. I will never get over her death. Never.

My heart did its funny dance while I was in Chicago. I thought getting more thyroid was supposed to reduce this shit. I don’t have it every day but close enough. Maybe it really is normal for some older people. As long as I’ve had it, it can’t be serious. It’s a weird feeling. You kind of get used to it at the same time it’s still unnerving. Almost like your heart wants to squeeze up through your throat. I’m not sure if it’s air embolisms or just some weird flutter. It did it for two beats and then about half a minute later for one beat.

I woke up tired and I’ve been tired all day. This is what happens when I’m up for so long the day before. I was going to work on Kim’s monthly letter and then I decided to wait till it’s closer to her birthday. I forgot if she’s going to be 43 or 44.

I texted my docs for a refill on my medication. Thank God it’s not a medication that can induce a miscarriage otherwise I would have to fight for treatment despite being well past my childbearing years and infertile.

I’m not sure what to think of these plants. I think their biggest problem is the lack of humidity indoors. I swear, though, if these plants don’t make it, I’m sticking to bamboo only because you can’t over or under water them and they don’t seem to mind the lack of humidity. I mist them every day but it evaporates pretty quickly.

I had a dream I paid $25 to enter a karaoke contest. When I suddenly thought of how I hadn’t sung in a while and didn’t remember the lyrics to the song I was going to sing in Spanish, I wanted to withdraw from the contest and hoped I could get a refund.

If I’d known where we were going to end up, I might have brought the enabler’s urn here. And since Tom can throw further than me I’d have him throw him in back and he could stay there until they built something there and discovered him and were like, ooh, I wonder what this could be or better yet who it could be. That is assuming the movers didn’t break him too. I just think they’re going to build there long before they tear down the Cali house. You never know, though. The lady there may bury one of her cats where he is.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2022 Uggghhh, I hate that it’s September. It’s a month I’ve always hated, knowing school was starting (as a kid), cooler weather was coming, and now I have one more reason not to like it. That’s knowing the snowbirds return next month.

So I’ve been sitting here watching my metabolism ramp up and it’s getting as scary as it is exciting. I know it may sound funny, but I’m not used to this. Although I try not to, all I can do is remember the misery I went through the last time my TSH was in the single digits. The low single digits, that is. I still worry the anxiety is going to strike anytime. Especially with a body that isn’t used to having normal numbers. It’s got to have been over a decade now! But yeah, it’s definitely moving faster and I’m burning calories faster, though I don’t know that my numbers are normal yet. Close, though, I would think. I’m only down a few pounds, but it’s something. Plus, I’ve noticed I can eat a full meal and only jump half a pound which doesn’t hang on for long. Before, I could eat an 80-calorie yogurt, gain one to two pounds, and the weight would hang on for hours.

Sometimes my HR spikes into the triple digits, but I don’t know if it’s connected to the medication/metabolism or not.

Besides sharing more old posts on LJ (I decided that if it doesn’t have a last name, it’s OK to share), I’ll probably start my monthly letter to Kim tonight.

I tried dyeing my hair yesterday with leftover hair dye that I saved, but it didn’t take. So that was a complete waste of time.

Tom said he saw a snake by the front steps when he went out earlier. It ran really fast when it saw him, so more than likely it’s not toxic.

I need a VR break now. Should I meditate, play golf, tennis, bowling, go clubbing, or hit the road? I’m currently working out in Chicago. It’s a surprisingly nice-looking city. If I didn’t mind cold and noise, I bet it would be cool to live in a high-rise overlooking Lake Michigan.

While I’m deciding where to go in VR – why do I miss Nane but not Maliheh? I mean, I’m glad I don’t miss Maliheh, but why do I miss Nane?

[tetrisfinished]

i want to write, but i don't want to write, but i really want to write.

that's my headspace right now - not sure what level of word vomit is about to come out. consider this a fair warning.

so i guess let's start with that - yasir's gone to pakistan for a few months! so i'm flying solo as far as parenting goes these days. he left last saturday (today marks exactly one week) and will return at the end of january.

i gotta say, it's actually been really great!

i have the capacity and i'm capable of doing all the tasks i need to have done on a daily basis and it's really really FUN to "play house" for real actually. even the accomplishment or happiness of taking out the trash.

it's been peaceful and nice, minus esa's tantrums but all within reason.

the thing that has SUCKED though is watching esa search for his baba on a daily basis many times a day.

today the doorbell rang and esa said "it must be baba".

last night he came into my room and the comforter was squished up to one side and he thought it was yasir sleeping under there.

the first monday and tuesday he came home from daycare, came in the door and yelled "babaaaa"

today he made like 3 pieces of art works and came and showed every single one to me and told me "this is for dad". and i said i love it baby, and baba will love it too.

at the third one, he said "i know baba is in pakistan".

it's so weird to feel truly truly empathetic for someone. i am an empathetic person, but it is so weird to have absolutely no freaking idea what sort of pain esa must be feeling while at the same time feel the same exact soul crushing pain that he must be feeling.

it takes my breath away a little every single time.

my kid is in a pain i cannot relate to, and yet i can feel his pain in my being. i can see the momentary hope and happiness fly away from his eyes when the thing he thought was his baba is actually not his baba.

leading up to when yasir left, we had a lot of fights between us. and on the last day i guess they sort of dissipated and while he was in the plane, i asked him to forgive me for the grief i gave him. and he asked me to forgive him for the two hard months.

it's not hard. and if it is, i forgive yasir in an instant. i can handle my kid being a kid. i can handle whatever tantrum, lack of sleep, diva behaviour he will throw my way.

there is nothing to forgive in my brain for any of that stuff because i'm parenting and i want to do it. it's tough and hard and i would love a break here and there, but i'm okay and i'm handling it.

but i don't know that i'll ever be able to forgive seeing esa so sad for two months straight. i won't ever want to forgive it, and i won't likely forget it anytime soon. or ever.

and these moments will stew in my brain until they fully tenderize and i start to protect esa from his own father.

even now, i have half a mind to cut off calling yasir cold turkey so that i can shield esa from later pain and just get him used to yasir not being physically around.

because frankly even when he's physically present, what good is it when he is never mentally present. having a physically present parent be absorbed in his device 24/7 is not much better than having a physically absent parent.

but i won't do that. i will continue to receive his calls and call him when esa wants to speak with him. i'm just praying and hoping to GOD that yasir realizes what he's done. and how he's making his own child feel.

and that's all i want to say on that.

good night.

-k

[zarischarlie]

.

[getov]

JJK BOYS AS LATINOS PT.2

pairing: choso. toji. higuruma. yuta. noritoshi.

warnings: no just slight nfsw. part 1

puertorican!choso who is the oldest brother of the pink haired twins and can and WILL fight Sukuna if he's bothering yuji more than usual, giving him a head smack while he walks in the kitchen shirtless coming back from playing basketball, "Suéltalo en banda cabron, or you want me to tell mami que you're failing almost every subject, bruto." Sukuna will get offended placing his hands on his hips, shocked at the audacity of his own brother.

puertorican!choso who is obsessed with you and melts whenever you try to learn spanish or speak spanish with him or his family. Absolutely adores whenever you bite your lip, stressed cause you couldn't pronunce words in spanish.

puertorican!choso who loves to dance salsa with you at family cookouts, christmas nights, thanksgivings, any holiday that gathers the family together. He'd dance salsa with you, then blush whenever you both share eye contact before kissing.

"Te amo, mi preciosa, I promise to be with you forever."

chilean!toji who retired from the chilean military to take care of you and your children and moved countries, packing the entire house with hidden gun compartments in case anyone wants to act up in his house or hurt you and his baby. Will literally yell at the Chilean soccer team for not doing what is in his mind. "Por la chucha weon! How isn't it easy to SCORE!?"

chilean!toji who eats like a mf beast and likes to hug you from behind whenever you're cooking and kisses your neck, will call you things like "Mi corazón, that looks so good, maybe I can reward you tonight." He says as he squeezes a handful of your ass cheek making you hum. It's safe to say you ended up not being able to walk the next morning.

chilean!toji who calls Gojo flaite for being a dumbass and huffs whenever you invite him to stay for dinner, hoping you would understand him by his facial expression's that he hated gojo but you never payed attention, plus would go full Samuel L. Jackson on Gojo for no reason, he just needs someone to insult when he finds out you cooked Pastel de Choclo now that he'd be gatekeeping it from visitors. 💀

venezuelan!higuruma who loves to teach you about his country's history and traditions. Loves when you go into his office whenever you're bored and sit on his lap to read any type of book that has the venezuelan flag and soldiers on it's cover. He would explain softly and patiently everything in english until you're fully aware of what you're learning.

venezuelan!higuruma that sighs laying on the warm water in the bathtub letting out some breathless venezuelan slang, closing his eyes enjoying the water until he feels your soft and warm hands on his face, pulling him back as he lays his head on the tub. "Cariño, te extrañe mi pequeña." He said softly.

venezuelan!higuruma who would teach you how to cook arepas so you can make them for him and only him. Would go feral when you cook Pabellon Criollo or handmade Tequeños, he would be so proud of you and how are you willing to learn about his culture every day.

venezuelan!higuruma who would call the judge names in spanish and would get visibly frustrated when he gets home and would vent to you meanwhile you sit looking at him eating yogurt, "La mamarracha esa marico, got me fucked up, me tiene arrecho. There's always some bullshit with her big ass." You would laugh at him and shortly after he would too.

panamanian!yuta who absolutely loves his country and his culture, loves to see you in their traditional costume and you love it too such as the beautiful handmade ornaments on your head, that was the first time you visited Yuta's parents.

panamanian!yuta who will curse softly at anyone who looks at you in the wrong way whenever you're at the mall or in public places, will hold u close to him and will whisper bad words like "Chucha madre", "Que awebason con esto."

panamian!yuta who hates any panamanian food that is not cooked by you or his parents, will judge his tias food, he will innocently do it, he'd be scared and shy to say anything at the restaurants specially if it's visiting his country now that they all speak spanish and he'd be scared to even say hi. "Es que mami, no se, this food doesn't convince me."

panamanian!yuta who loves to kiss you under sunsets and hold you close to him, loves to remind you how much you mean to him and how you're "El amor de mi vida" for him. Will call you things like "Mami, bebé, mi reyna." And hold your hand 24/7 and hide his face in your neck while you both wait at the airport or are in a car ride. Will throw around expressions like "Chuzo loco".

brazilian!noritoshi who you never expected to be hispanic, probably because he's always quiet, until you found out AFTER you'd been dating each other for some months. That'd explain sometimes when he replied to momo in a language you couldn't understand and after months you realized it was portuguese.

brazilian!noritoshi who is extremely proud of being brazilian and is not afraid of showing it, he's just a quiet person. He will go around the school talking to everyone in portuguese and it was surprising how could everyone but Nobara could understand him.

brazilian!noritoshi who is in LOVE with Pao de Queijo and Brigadeiros. He fell in love with you the moment he realized you were trying to learn his native language and how to cook his native food. He will protect you from anyone from that moment till the end of times.

brazilian!noritoshi who would curse at Todo for bothering him "Filho da puta, leave me alone, i wil punch you in the throat." The big guy will just back up and that's it, but despite of his emotionless attitude, he's a big softie when it comes to you, this man will literally fall asleep as soon as he hugs you from the waist and his head resting on your tits, that for him it's heaven. He will call you names like "Minha menina", "Meu amor", "Pequenha".

getov — 2022.©

[girlwithwolftatoo]

Can you do Marc or Jake and you in the car driving on a road trip and your singing September by Earth Wind and Fire and there vibing to it but they don’t want to do it openly bc there to stubborn so you have poke or tickle them till they start signing and when the song stops they just go back to the way they were

(Everytime I think of that song, comes to my mind the little bird whistling it in front of the mirror)

Marc Spector:

*He doesn't listen to music. He doesn't even turn the radio on. He's driving, he's concentrated, he's... a little boring for the trips sometimes.

*Anyways, he'll let you plug your phone and listen to your tunes in a moderate level. "Maybe some music will brush away that grumpiness of yours" you joke.

*Because he's not very into music, you don't know nothing about his likes, and your ratio is so random he sometimes stares at you for moving sexy and then headbang as music switches.

*But who doesn't love EWaF? They have great songs! Marc pretends everything's right while you make a tiny dance with your hands at the rhytm of "September" while you give him glances.

*"C'mon, Marc, sing with me! Baaa-dee-yaaa, say do you remember-!" He'll struggle to keep his face straight, and ends up failing. "You're a little nuts, did you know?" he grunts with a chuckle.

*You can pretend you're holding a mic and passing it to him. He'll shake his head and mumble the lyrics. "Oh no, sing it right!" you nag him. At the end he'll do as you tell him to.

Jake Lockley:

*This man likes to listen any sort of music, and sometimes loses himself into it, but usually he keeps his facade of thug, even if you're at his side singing or dancing or shaking your head along the tunes.

*Unlike Marc, Jake will directly tell you he doesn't like to sing nor do any "ridiculous shit", so you'll need the heavy machinery to make him get in the funky mood.

*Since he's the driver, you don't want to distract him, so during red lights you do this thing that is a finger dancing on his hand or the wheel. He cannot help but look at your fingers doing this silly moves while you yell the chorus. "Drop it" he comands you, and now your fingers move to his shoulder.

*"I'm the tiny happines fairy, Jake" you say in a higher voice tone "If you don't show you're happy I will die and my remains will stain your limo with my stench" Jake gives you this half exhasperated, half amused look. "Voy a aplastar a esa pinche hadita" ("I'm going to crush that fucking little fairy").

*If you keep going, Jake will grab your hand, kiss your fingers and ask you if you want to have some "real fun tonight". He's serious, and you know what it means: dine, dance, break some criminals' jaws and make out in the back of the limo... probably listening "September" by EWaF.

[bitchinbarzal]

“Character A and Character B broke up, but now they meet at a Christmas party.” With roope hintz please 🤍

When Esa had invited you to his Christmas party you declined.

He insisted, claiming that Clara just wouldn’t be happy if you didn’t come.

“Esa, no I can’t-“

“You can! You absolutely can! You are saying no”

You told him you would think about it but you didn’t have time to think before Clara had text you saying she was so happy you’d decided to come.

Clara had been most heartbroken when you and Roope split up. It was hard moving to a new country, trying to learn a new language and fitting in with the other wags.

When you began dating Roope you’d taken it upon yourself to learn Finnish which you used to speak to Clara, Esa, Miro and Joel too. They all felt a little bit more relaxed around you.

She spent the following weeks glaring and throwing around Finnish swears at him.

When the day came around for the party you were late. On purpose. You didn’t want to be a focus, you wanted to slip in and be unnoticed see the Lindell’s and go.

That idea was launched out of the window when you arrived and Tyler yelled across the room “She hath arrived!”

You laughed “Segs, how much eggnog have you drank?”

His eyes went wide “Can sober me not be excited to see you?! But… just a little bit”

You shimmied out of his hug and found your way to the couch where Esa and Clara were sat. Her eyes light up when she sees you.

“You came!”

“Of course, Hauskaa joulua!” merry christmas

She beamed “oh I miss you so much, come see Astrid she’s getting so big you’re missing it all!”

Esa handed off the baby to you, the little girl had you wrapped around her finger. Not quite wanting to let go.

Parents were grateful, Clara and Esa used that as an excuse to go mingle. You happily walked around with the baby saying hello to people.

Subconsciously, you looked for him

He wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Maybe he was with a new girl? On a date? He didn’t want to come because he knew you would be there?

That thought was slowly disrupted when Astrid began crying.

You knew where her bottle was so instead of finding Clara you did it yourself.

The kitchen was empty, just you and Astrid. The room was silent bar her little sucking sounds.

You were swaying her, in an attempt to get her to sleep. Spinning around and around abruptly stopping when someone in the door cleared their throat.

“Jesus! You scared me!”

He chuckled “Nice dance moves”

“Don’t sneak up on someone holding a baby!”

“I didn’t sneak up on you, you weren’t paying attention” you rolled your eyes at that one.

It was then it settled in that you were in the same room, he was standing in front of you.

“How have you been?”

You sighed “Roope we don’t have to-“

“I just wanted to know how you’ve been, Miro said you hadn’t been going for your weekly coffee lately”

“Yeah well I don’t need to learn Finnish anymore, I mean I only did it for you”

You hadn’t meant to snap, it just came out.

“Kulta…”

You put your hand up to stop him “No, please don’t-“

“Please just let me explain myself”

“I don’t want to hear it Roo, the time is gone please just leave it”

You walked past him but he caught your elbow, your eyes rising to meet his “Kulta.. please”

His voice was broken, he was broken.

You reluctantly nodded “Okay, speak”

He let out a deep breath “I was scared, okay? And I know that’s silly but you were learning Finnish, you were doing things for the team, my family? It was a lot and I was scared! I loved you, I still love you! I was nervous I couldn’t give you what you deserve-“

“Don’t you think I was the one to make that decision?! That I had a say in our life?”

He nodded, meekly “you should have, I was wrong and I know now I made the wrong decision I regret it! I’ve waited so long for the time I see you again”

Your breath caught in your throat “Roo..”

“Please, please Kulta tell me you still love me too. That I didn’t screw it all up” his hand reached up to your cheek, thumb brushing away a tear rolling down your cheek.

“I still love you and I shouldn’t but I do. Fuck, Roope I can’t do this all again you broke my heart”

“And i will never ever make that mistake again”

Your lip quirked in a smile, he leaned down and kissed you quick.

“Minä rakastan sinua” i love You

“Say it again” you mumbled, having missed the words.

“Minä rakastan sinua”

You smiled, happy tears now rushing down your cheeks.

The happy moment was ruined when Clara announced “It’s a Christmas miracle!”

Most of the team was stood watching what had just happened, you blushed in embarrassment.

Roope shrugged while Esa took his daughter from your arms “Let me just take this little cock block back”

You laughed “I think a thank you actually goes to Astrid, this was all her”

Roope smiled, leaning over to his god-daughter “kiitos pikku pupu” thank you little bunny

The rest of the night you weren’t found far from Roope. His hands always had to be on you.

“I just got you back, I’m not letting go anytime soon”

[flannycartoon]

preguntas de parejas.../questions for couples oc- yax fanchild

What were their first impressions of each other? / ¿Cuáles fueron sus primeras impresiones el uno del otro? *

Smakky: “When I saw her I thought she was someone very loud and outgoing and I was right! But I really like that about her and I'm glad that's the way she is.” / “cuando la vi pensé que era alguien muy gritona y extrovertida ¡y tenía razón! Pero me gusta mucho eso de ella y me alegra que sea así.”

Cali: “I thought he was clumsy, but a cute kind of clumsy, and that he looked like he needed a friend. At the end of the day I thought he was nice and I wanted to be his friend.” / “Pensé que era torpe, pero un lindo tipo de torpe, y que parecía que le hacía falta un amigo. Al final del día pensé que era agradable y quería ser su amiga.”

Is it a casual relationship, or true love? Or somewhere in between? / ¿Es una relación casual o amor verdadero? ¿O en algún punto intermedio?

Cali: “I like to think it was true love, but I think in reality we just complemented each other perfectly.” / “Me gusta pensar que fue amor verdadero, pero creo que en realidad simplemente nos complementamos perfectamente.”

What was each of them’s ‘oh shit I have feelings for them’ moment? / ¿Cuál fue el momento de cada uno de ellos "Oh, mierda, tengo sentimientos por ellos"? *

Smakky: “I'm not sure one day out of nowhere I realized that I was looking at her a lot and that I felt very good by her side and I started to worry a little. But in the end I was right, I liked her.” / “No estoy seguro un día de la nada me di cuenta que la estaba mirando mucho y que me sentía muy bien a su lado y me empecé a preocupar un poco. Pero al final tenía razón, ella me gustaba.”

Cali: “At the end of our first date, when he defended me, I knew I was completely lost for him.” / “Al final de nuestra primera cita, cuando me defendió, supe que estaba completamente perdida por el.”

Did either of them fight their feelings, or was it easy to accept? / ¿Alguno de ellos luchó contra sus sentimientos o fue fácil de aceptar? *

Smakky: “A little... I was kind of scared and I didn't want everything to become awkward in case Cali didn't feel the same way... So I put it off for a long time but in the end I thought it was still better at least risk it and try it.” / “Un poco... Tenía algo de miedo y no quería que todo se volviera incómodo en caso de que Cali no sintiera lo mismo... Así que lo pospuse por mucho tiempo pero al final pensé que igual era mejor por lo menos arriesgarme e intentarlo.”

Cali: “Well, in my case it was quite easy, I always thought that Smakky was cute, but if he hadn't asked me out, I would have been fine with just being friends.” / “Bueno, en mi caso fue bastante fácil, siempre creí que Smakky era linda, pero si el no me hubiera invitado a salir, hubiera estado bien con ser solo amigos.”

When was their first ‘I love you’? What prompted it? If neither has said it yet, why? / ¿Cuándo fue su primer 'te amo'? ¿Qué lo impulsó? Si ninguno lo ha dicho todavía, ¿por qué?

Smakky: “One day out of nowhere I got up the courage to tell her and I was waiting for her to say something but... She was listening to music and she didn't hear me and she asked me 'sorry, what happened Akky?' I was very embarrassed and I couldn't sleep that night but then I told her again the following week and now she does listen to me heh.” / “Un día de la nada junte el valor para decirle y estaba esperando que dijera algo pero... Ella estaba escuchando música y no me escucho y me preguntó ‘perdón, que paso Akky?’ Me dio mucha vergüenza y no pude dormir esa noche pero luego se lo volví a decir la semana siguiente y ahora sí me escucho jeh.”

WHO’S THE BIG SPOON WHO’S THE LITTLE SPOON TELL ME NOW!!!!! / QUIÉN ES LA CUCHARA GRANDE QUIÉN ES LA CUCHARA PEQUEÑA DIME YA!!!!!

Cali: “you don't have to yell! ...uhm, it's a bit tricky, because usually my spikes are in the middle, we both like to take naps together (akky is still a bit shy about it) and I'm usually the little spoon! Akky is the warmest soft pillow in the world! But, when he's feeling anxious or overwhelmed, I'm the big spoon and I purr for him.” / “¡no tienes que gritar! ...uhm, es un poco complicado, porque normalmente mis púas están en el medio, a ambos nos gusta tomar siestas juntos (akky aun es un poco tímido con eso) y yo suelo ser la cuchara pequeña ¡Akky es la almohada calentita más suave del mundo! Pero, cuando él se siente ansioso o abrumado, soy la cuchara grande y ronroneo para el.”

What as the biggest obstacle to their relationship? / ¿Cuál es el mayor obstáculo para su relación?

Smakky: “I guess I was afraid that Cali wouldn't feel comfortable with me as a couple. I don't know, I was afraid that bad things would happen to me or that she would have some problem that we couldn't control.” / “Supongo que tenía miedo a que Cali no se sintiera cómoda conmigo como pareja. No lo sé, tenía miedo a que sucedieran cosas malas por mi suerte o que ella tuviera algún problema que no pudiéramos controlar.”

What drew them to each other the most? / ¿Qué fue lo que más los atrajo el uno del otro? *

Smakky: “Her personality and her confidence, she always has the craziest dangerous and fun ideas and she always knows how to cheer me up.” / “Su personalidad y su confianza, siempre tiene las más locas peligrosas y divertidas ideas y siempre sabe como animarme.”

Cali: “His personality, even more so when I could see what he hides inside.” / “Su personalidad, mas aun cuando pude ver lo que esconde en el interior.”

How long did they know each other before developing feelings? / ¿Cuánto tiempo se conocieron antes de desarrollar sentimientos? *

Smakky: “Since I was 11 if I remember correctly, since we was very young.” / “Desde los 11 si mal no recuerdo, desde muy niños.”

Cali: “We've known each other since we were eleven, but Akky had feelings first. I started having them when he first asked me out.” / “Nos conocemos desde los once, pero Akky tuvo sentimientos primero. Yo empecé a tenerlos cuando me invito a salir por primera vez.”

What’s each’s favorite quality about the other? / ¿Cuál es la cualidad favorita de cada uno sobre el otro? *

Smakky: “I love her creativity and energy, plus she is always super supportive and helped me a lot with my confidence.” / “Amo su creatividad y energía, además que siempre es súper solidaria y me ayudó mucho con mi confianza.”

Cali: “I have to say, his determination. It doesn't look like it, but Smakky is very persevering and doesn't let his luck defeat him easily, he can also be very brave and he's so cool when he is!” / “Tengo que decir, su determinación. No lo parece, pero Smakky es muy perseverante y no deja que su suerte lo derrote fácilmente, también puede ser muy valiente ¡y es tan genial cuando lo es!”

 

First kiss!! If they haven’t had it yet, why? / ¡¡Primer beso!! Si aún no lo han tenido, ¿por qué?

Smakky: “Cali gave me the first kiss, I couldn't because she was faster :')” / “Cali me dio el primer beso, yo no pude porque ella fue más rápida :')”

Any pet names? / ¿Algún nombre de mascota (apodo)? *

Smakky: “I'm very sorry to wear one, although sometimes I say her ‘honey’ heh.” / “Me da mucha pena usar alguno, aunque a veces le digo "cariño"  jeh.”

Cali: “Since we've been friends I call him Akky, and when we started dating I started calling him 'princess', 'my queen', 'baby', 'honey' and 'cuddle-muffin'. ” / “Desde que somos amigos le digo Akky, y cuando empezamos a salir comencé a llamarlo ‘princesa’, ‘mi reina’, ‘bebe’, ‘cielo’ y ‘cuddle-muffin’. ”

Are they an affectionate/lovey-dovey couple, or do they call each other ‘dude’? / ¿Son una pareja afectuosa/amorosa, o se llaman el uno al otro "tío"?

Smakky: “We're a bit more affectionate, sometimes I think I'm a bit corny.” / “Somos un poco más afectuosa, a veces creo que soy algo cursis.”

Have they ever hurt each other? How did they resolve it? Was it resolved? / ¿Alguna vez se han lastimado? ¿Cómo lo resolvieron? ¿Se resolvió?

Cali: “uh, do accidental injuries count? That is to say, sometimes I inadvertently poke him with my spikes, or he gets hurt with my crazy ideas, which by the way don't go well with Goof luck, we learned it the hard way. But I don't think we were emotionally hurt, and I don't want to believe that Smakky is hiding anything from me.” / “uh, ¿las heridas por accidente cuentan? Es decir, algunas veces lo pinche sin querer con mis púas, o se lastima con mis ideas locas, que por cierto no van bien con la suerte Goof, lo aprendimos a la mala. Pero no creo que nos hayamos lastimado emocionalmente, y no quiero creer que Smakky me oculte algo.”

 

What would one do if the other was hurt? / ¿Qué haría uno si el otro resultara herido? *

Smakky: “I would help her and take care of him! I don't want her to be hurt.” / “¡Le ayudaría y le cuidaría! No quiero que esté herida.”

Cali: “I would help him of course! And I would give him a little kiss to make him feel better... and buy him an ice cream.” / “¡Lo ayudaria por supuesto! Y le daria un besito para hacerlo sentir mejor... y comprarle un helado.”

What would one do if the other died? / ¿Qué haría uno si el otro muriera? *

Smakky: “Honestly that would destroy me... I don't think I could do many things again and I would be worse than before I met her.” / “Sinceramente eso me destrozaría... No creo que podría volver a hacer muchas cosas y estaría peor que como estaba antes de conocerla.”

Cali: “...I don't think I could fall in love again. I know it's a bit drastic, but I don't see myself loving anyone other than him. If he left, that would be all for me.” / “ ...Creo, que no podría enamorarme de nuevo. Sé que es un poco drástico, pero no me veo a mi misma amando a alguien más que no sea él. Si él se fuera, eso sería todo para mí.”

 

Do they see themselves getting married? If so, who would propose? / ¿Se ven casándose? Si es así, ¿quién propondría?

Smakky: “married? Uh, well yeah, that would be nice.” / “¿casados? Uh, bueno si, estaría bien.”

What is ‘their song’? you can drop a lyric also if you want. Or multiple songs, go ham on this if you feel like it I don’t judge. / ¿Cuál es 'su canción'? también puedes dejar una letra si quieres. O varias canciones, ve a esto si te apetece, no juzgo.

 

Have they ever made any sacrifices for each other? Is there any resentment? / ¿Alguna vez han hecho algún sacrificio el uno por el otro? ¿Hay algún resentimiento? *

Smakky: “I remember one time I cheated on a test to help Cali. They discovered me and took away my opportunity to take that same exam, but Cali managed to pass the exam!” / “Recuerdo que una vez hice trampa en un examen para ayudar a Cali. Me descubrieron y me quitaron a mí la oportunidad de hacer ese mismo examen ¡pero Cali logro pasar el examen!”

Cali: “There was this time, that Akky helped me in an exam by cheating, in the end they caught him and I passed, I felt bad for making him fail the exam... -whisper- akky doesn't know, but once a week I slime my spikes so I don't hurt him when he hugs me and there's no resentments!” / “Hubo esta vez, que Akky me ayudo en un examen haciendo trampa, al final lo atraparon y yo aprobé, me sentí mal por hacerlo reprobar el examen... –susurro- akky no lo sabe, pero una vez a la semana limo mis púas para no lastimarlo cuando me abraza ¡y no hay ningún resentimiento!”

 

Describe each character how the other would describe them. / Describe a cada personaje como los describiría el otro. *

 

Smakky: “She is beautiful and so talented, I love how she is always full of energy and enthusiasm, she has beautiful eyes that shine and her hair/spikes color is so cute, she is always proposing ideas and activities and so loving and helped me when most I needed someone…I really love her…Uh…I think maybe I'll just let myself go.” / “Es hermosas y tan talentosa, amo como siempre está llena de energía y entusiasmo, tiene unos ojos hermosos que brillan y su color de cabello/púas es tan lindo, siempre está proponiendo ideas y actividades y tan cariñosa y me ayudó cuando más necesitaba a alguien... Enserio la amo... Uh... Creo que tal vez me deje llevar.”

 

Cali: “Pretty, with beautiful fur, his laugh is perfect and so contagious, of good values ​​which is not easy, he is charismatic but he will deny it, adorable, everything looks SO good on her, she always makes me want to buy her clothes!, funny, his parents are amazing and he has so many relatives, family parties are amazing, kind, loving, smart... I could go on all day.” / “Linda, con pelaje bonito, su risa es perfecta y tan contagiosa, de buenos valores lo que no se consigue fácil, es carismático pero el va a negarlo, adorable, ¡todo le queda TAN bien, hace que quiera comprarle ropa siempre!, divertido, sus padres son asombrosos y tiene tantos parientes, las fiestas familiares son increíbles, amable, amoroso, inteligente... podría seguir todo el día.”

//////////////

questions taken from this post on twitter// preguntas tomadas de esta publicación en twitter

 y gracias a @angeflrs por audarme con las respuestas de cali <3 junto con unos dibujos para ustedes

[saiyan98]

Family Pride (Caleo)

Disclaimer:

Jason (Leo and Calypso’s son; not Jason Grace)Valdez: The following is a non-profit fanbase series. PJO, HoO and ToA are owned by Rick Riordan and Disney Hyperion. Please support the Official release.

A/N: Short one but a good one. Warning: Contains a bit of language and some slight spoilers to HoO and ToA. Also, another Author’s Note at the end.

Summary:

Jason Valdez, son of Leo and Calypso Valdez, has gotten into a fight in school and was called to the Principal Office. Calypso and Leo arrived at the school to understand the situation. However, Calypso is very upset at her son. Why did he get into a fight in the first place? He never gets himself involved in situations like this. What happened that led to this? What made Jason get into a fight in the first place.

Story:

At the Principal Office, a young man named Jason Valdez is sitting right in front of the office while his parents are inside talking to the principal. The reason why he’s there in the first place is because he got into a fight today and was sent there. As he reminisced on the events that led to this, his parents walked out of the Principal’s office, his mom had a very angry expression. One thing is certain for Jason. 

He’s not getting out of this situation very easily. 

As the family walked out of the school and arrived at their car, Calypso spoke, “The principal says you’re getting only a week of detention.”

Jason sighs in relief, it could've been worse.

“You’re not out of this, young man!” Calypso yelled, furious at her son’s actions. “What were you thinking?!”

Jason shrugged, “He asked for it…”

“No me des esa actitud!” Calypso said in spanish. “You’re gonna go to detention and you're going to write an apology letter to that boy. Understand?!” 

Jason scoffed, “I ain’t apologizing!” 

“Jason,” Leo spoke, “I understand what you're going through. I was like that too back then. Whatever this guy did, you need to be the bigger man and-”

“I’m not apologizing to him! I’ll take the detention but I’m not apologizing to him. If he just kept his mouth shut about…” 

“About what?” Calypso asked. 

Jason said nothing. 

“¿Mijo, qué dijo él?” Leo said.

“Nothing…”

The Valdez arrived home and Jason said nothing more for the whole ride. Calypso was furious at her son. She raised him to be a kind and gentle soul with a bit of anarchy from his father. For him to get into fights out of nowhere was very shocking. They had to temporarily close the shop and diner to come to school and talk to the principal.

Calypso is not your ordinary parent though. Heck, she’s not your ordinary human either. She was THE Calypso, the goddess that was trapped in Ogygia for more than three centuries and was forced to fall in love with every hero that landed. The last hero was Leo Valdez, and it was completely by accident. Even so, she fell in love with him and he was the only one to come back and save her. They had some rough moments in their relationship, but they were always there for each other. They got married and have a business that’s both an auto-shop and a diner. 

When their first kid, Zoe Esperanza Valdez, was born, Calypso wanted to give her kids a happy childhood and life that she was never given until Leo saved her. Thus, why she’s furious at her son. 

Jason walks up to his room in silence as Calypso talks to Leo about his behavior. 

“¡¿Qué estaba pensando?!”Calypso yelled. 

Funny story, at some point, Calypso tries to learn Spanish as a gift for Leo on their anniversary. Leo tries to convince her that she doesn’t have to, but at this point, she is too stubborn to give up. Eventually, it became her third language; the first two being English and Greek. 

“Sunshine…”

“After everything we gave that boy, he went and got himself in trouble!” 

“Sunshine, it’s fine. It’s only a week of detention, I did it before.”

“Exactly! He shouldn’t be doing what you did in the past.”

“Ouch,” Leo said jokingly, pretending like he’s wounded.

“You know what I mean,” Calypso sighed. “I just, I want what’s best for our kids, Leo. It’s bad enough that they’re demigods. But what will they do with their lives when we’re not gonna be there to save them? What if they get into danger and…”

Leo walked up to her and held her gently but firm. 

“Sunshine, it’s okay. You know how stubborn we Valdez are. If I recall, didn’t you disobey your dad during the Titan war one time?”

“I did to help him, only to end up helping the gods instead.” 

“And saved the world,” Leo added. “And look at me, I was supposed to die during the Giant war, but I was too stubborn and madly in love to accept my fate. Now look, we have a home. We have a life. A family.”

Calypso sighs comfortably. 

“We made mistakes in our lives, yeah. But that’s who we are. We’re not perfect beings.”

Calypso scoffed. “Say you.”

“Hey, you decided to join me and be free from that island; love me willingly AND marry me.”

Calypso chuckles as she punches her husband on the arm. 

“Just go talk to our son. I’m sure that he’s hiding something from me, but he’ll definitely tell you.”

“Okay, I’ll go talk to him. See what got him mad,” Leo says as he kisses her by the forehead and walks up towards Jason’s room. He knocks on his door and answers him to come in. Leo walks in and sees Jason on his laptop, listening to music and doing some homework. 

“Hey kiddo, wanna talk about it?”

Jason was quiet for a moment but spoke. 

“Not really, but I might as well. Otherwise I’ll have to either suffer from mom’s wrath or your terrible jokes.”

Leo smirked.

Jason got off of his headphones and closed his laptop. He adjusts himself so that he can be comfortable telling his story. 

“So tell me sport, what happened in school today?” Leo asked. 

Jason took a moment to ponder on the events that led today. 

“So, the guy I beat up is from my myths and folklore class. He’s one of the football players in our school. I heard him in his group talking about what we learned today in class and…”

Leo understood a bit of why he did it. When Leo and Calypso told their kids the truth about their pasts, they worried over how it’ll affect them in their daily lives. For the most part, they were able to handle it pretty well. Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that monsters will now be on alert for them, but since Esperanza is in New York with some family friends, she’ll be okay. Jason, on the other hand, is still in high school and will be going to college in New Rome, wanting to be an engineer and help out with the family business. 

“Jason, I get it. It’s hard knowing that most of those myths and legends are real and involve real people. But the world is not ready to accept what’s out in the dark. People would freak out knowing that the world is in constant danger every week.”

“But it’s not that, dad,” Jason replied. “What they said was more personal.”

“What do you mean?” Leo asked.

“…Today, we talked about the Odyssey.” 

“Oh..” Leo knows where this is going. 

The Odyssey, the Tale of Odysseus’ adventure. 

Calypso’s first love. 

Leo tries his best not to compare himself to Calypso’s previous lovers, but he couldn’t help himself. How would you feel if the girl who truly loves you back has had many and more cooler boyfriends in the past. Heck, she even fell for Percy back then too. 

And what can Leo do? Build things, burst into flames and tell the best jokes (arguably) in the world. 

But despite that, he was the only one who came back to her. Who loves her. Who made plans of a future together, even if it was a joke at first. So Leo may have won her heart in the end, but it doesn’t change the fact that there’s always better people out there. It’s life, no one is perfect.

But Leo is learning to accept himself. And accepting that Calypso loves him and him alone.

“I see,” Leo spoke. “Let me guess… Mom?” 

Jason didn’t say anything, but he nodded. 

“They… they were talking some stuff about her. I know that nobody knows that mom is the real goddess from the stories but…”

Jason took a deep breath. 

“I tried to hold back my anger, dad. I really did, but the way they talked about mom… I just…” 

Leo hugs his son, interrupting his talk. 

“I get it, mijo. I do,” Leo replied. “It hurts when someone talks crap about someone you care about. Do you have any idea how many times I got into fights back then?”

“Did you win any?” 

“That’s not important,” Leo replied quickly. “Point is, I have seen my share of struggles in the past. Especially those involving your mother.”

“But dad,” Jason spoke. “I just hate when people talk about mom like she’s some evil witch or something. I've seen it in movies, books and stuff. I saw it in people’s faces when we read about her. I just…”

Jason grips his fists tighter as he tries to calm himself. 

“I just wish people knew how much mom has been through, how much of a good person she is. Sure she’s scary when she’s angry.”

Leo snickered at the comment.

“But mom is always compassionate to others. If mom hadn’t saved Odysseus, he’d never have come home, built that device and passed it on to you to save the world. If she hadn’t saved Drake, he’d never have found America, our home. If she hadn’t saved uncle Percy, Olympus would’ve fallen.”

Leo sat there silently as he listened to his son’s rant. 

“Why couldn’t people see the fact that mom was just as much of a hero as everyone else?! That’s why I beat that guy up! He was talking shit about mom and I couldn’t let that slide! So yeah, I’ll take the detention, but there’s no way in any realm am I going to apologize to him.”

Jason took a deep breath as he finished talking. 

“I’m sorry,” Jason spoke again. “I didn’t mean to yell, I just-,”

Leo hugs his son and interrupts his conversation. 

“It’s okay, Jason. I understand. You were protecting your mom’s honor. I’d do the same too; hell, even your sister did too back when she was in high school too.”

Jason didn’t say anything and just embraced his dad’s hug.

“Your mother has been through so much,” Leo continues. “And I know that we can’t change how other people will see her in stories and such. But know this, Jason, your mother loves you and is very proud of who you are.”

After a couple of minutes of taking a breather, Jason thanks his dad for the conversation as Leo walks up and leaves his room. Standing next to the door frame was Calypso, hiding so that her son couldn’t see her. Leo notices the tears dropping on her cheeks. 

“You heard us, didn’t you?” Leo asked. 

Calypso nodded. 

Leo hugs her in comfort. 

“Don’t blame yourself for this, sunshine.”

“But it is my fault, Leo. If I didn’t do all those-,”

“Calypso,” Leo said. He never calls her by her name unless he has something important to say. “Never in our lives have your past ruined us. In fact, it made us love you more. Sure you fell for heroes who were already taken, but you also saved their lives. You helped me when you could’ve just left me alone on your island, you could’ve fallen for anyone else in the world, yet you chose me. You gave me a home, a family, a future.”

Calypso stood in silence as she listened to Leo’s words. 

“You gave our kids a happy life. Yes, he shouldn’t have got into a fight, but he did it because he loves you. We all do, honey. Because to us, you are our light, our rock, our sunshine.”

“I thought I told you not to call me that,” Calypso responded as she cried tears of joy. 

Leo laughs and then kisses his wife on the lips, telling her how much he loves and how grateful he is to have her in his arms.

The two never got a happy past, struggling with loss and trauma. But now they built a future filled with hopes and dreams. Their children were gifted with loving parents who would do anything to keep them safe and happy, as would the kids would for their parents. 

After all, aren’t the kids the pride of the family?

Author’s Note: Short one today, I hope it was good. I just want to say thank you all for reading some of my work even if most of them aren’t that good. Still, I ain’t stopping, I’m going to keep writing about this ship because other than Percabeth, it’s one of my OTPs in this franchise. However, I will be focusing more on my other work, Estelle and The Mark of Arachnid [Summary in Link]. If you don’t know what that is, it’s pretty much a Spider-man origin trilogy but Estelle is the main character, and it takes place in the Riordanverse with connections to the MCU Multiverse. The goal is at 30+ chapters and I’m already at Chapter 5. I'm getting a lot of views and I would very much like it if you get the chance to read it too. It’ll still have Caleo in it, just more to the sidelines since this is more of a hero’s story. 

This doesn’t mean that I’m ending this series here, I will be continuing on working more stories, just that I will be posting them at a later schedule. So instead of once a month, it’ll mostly likely be once every 2-3 months. So don’t worry, I will be continuing this series, just that there will be later updates. I still have some stories on my list to write for this series.

Thank you all for reading my stories, until my next update. 

[beware-of-you-98]

BAU as College Professors AU

*cracks knuckles*

Penelope

penelope is a graphic design professor

she loves teaching kids about the wonders of photoshop!!

hates illustrator and indesign with a burning passion

(the illustrator pen tool can fucking choke for all she cares)

(AND HOW THE FUCK DO YOU PUT THE FRONT AND COVER TOGETHER IN INDESIGN!?!?)

(she really hates both applications sm 😭)

is always reluctant to teach them but does it begrudgingly

(she’s just glad there’s other professors in the department that teach editorial and graphic illustration)

teaches photography!!

encourages the students to be as expressive as they want to be with their pictures!!!

she’ll be just as enthusiastic to see a close up of a sneaker as she is to see a sunset landscape shot

teaches the graphic design studio classes too!!

she always has music playing!!

half the time, her students come into the class and her glasses are all skewed, her hands are covered in paint or glue and some abstract art piece is sitting on her desk

when the students ask her what it is, she just gives the projects human names

“hey professor... what did you make there?” “oh, this?? her name is... pam.... yeah, pam”

she doesn’t offer up any further explination than that

and the students just accept it

her office light is always off

but she has multiple fairy lights in various colors hung up

her office is v inviting!!!

students come to her to vent or to talk about their problems bc the campus therapist doesn’t help all lmao

she always has on the most unique outfits but she pulls them off so well

a ray of sunshine tbh!!

Spencer

teaches major science and math courses

he teaches chemistry but only chem for majors in chemistry

it’s not that he can’t teach chem for non majors

but he sometimes gets too ahead of himself and forgets he’s teaching a course for non majors

it’s easier for him to teach for majors because the students can follow his ramblings better

he teaches upper level math courses and usually only has like three students in those classes

he’ll sit up on his desk and debate with the students for the entire hour about the riemann hypothesis

he gets excited because the students are just as enthusiastic as he is

he is two extremes

he either shows up to his classroom like a half hour early and writes out all his notes on the board so that when the students come in, he can go right into lecture

or he’ll show up two minutes before class starts with his hair disheveled, his tie undone and his expression glazed over and just be like “listen up i woke up late and just downed an entire pot of coffee i brewed with several cans of monster energy—i don’t exist on this dimension anymore”

on those days, he lets his students work on other projects for other classes because he knows it’s not fair to ask his students to focus if he’s not

he helps them with their homework

penelope brings him lunch sometimes to make sure he’s eating

he appreciates it a lot because between lesson plans and grading, he sometimes forgets to eat

he’s absolutely the youngest prof on campus

sometimes even his students are older than he is

but everyone addresses him correctly and respects him bc he’s really chill

his office is a disorganized mess

there’s files and papers all over his desk

and a sculpture penelope made for him (she named that one “roger”)

JJ

psychology professor

she really has a passion for teaching and learning about human psychology

(she may have started to become interested in psychology bc her sister was in the psch honors course before she died)

she comes across as a little hostile and unapproachable tbh

but she’s young

and she’s attractive

and she’s not conveniently what people think a professor looks like

she’ll respect her students if they respect her

she didn’t graduate the top of her class and work her ass off for the degree to not be respected

if there’s any inappropriate comments aimmed towards her or anyone in the class, she kicks the aggressor out immediately

she stands at the front of the room and lectures for the beginning part of the semester

once she’s built a good rapport with her students (and vise versa), she becomes more chill

she’ll sit on the edge of her desk and encourage discussion rather than following a book or a set plan

(she finds it’s more interesting that way anyway)

sometimes her students will show up ten minutes before class starts just to talk with her once they’re comfortable with her

she always answers her emails students send her (queen shit tbh 👑)

some kids in the psych major course playfully call her “mom” because she always asks them how they’re doing and about their week

(she hasn’t decided how she feels about it, but she also lets it slide)

always wears pants suits but cuffs the sleeves to the jackets

her office always smells like eucalyptus because she has a small mist diffuser plugged in

she also has a small fish tank with a beta fish inside (its the appropriate size too!!)

(she let a student name the fish—it’s name is sir bubbles of argon)

she also has a sculpture from penelope (“her name is maxine”)

her desk is very organized and clean!!

there’s a small couch in her office and her door is always open

sometimes, students will come in if they’re having a hard time and need someone to talk to

they know jj is there to listen and she always seems to understand (she doesn’t judge them either)

Emily

teaches three languages, both for majors and non majors

spanish, french and russian

(she’s also quite fluent in arabic and italian and can hold her own if she’s speaking in german or mandarin, but the students don’t need to know that)

she’s actually very intimidating lmao

students are so scared of her 😭

she’s serious af

(she smiles in class sometimes though!!)

(besides, she’s only serious inside the classroom)

(outside the classroom, she might even be as approachable as penelope)

always dressed in expensive black suits, polished heeled shoes with very dark makeup and a “don’t fuck with me” steely attitude to match

she also wears expensive watches

she always stands at the front of the class and slowly paces the entire hour

one time someone decided to fuck off in her spanish 101 class

she didn’t even yell at him, she glared

rumor has it the kid was never spotted on campus again after that

(BOY SHE SCARED HIM SO BAD HE DROPPED TF OUT)

despite that, her classes are some of the easiest to take

one because emily has a way of teaching that helps all students understand

and two because her voice is naturally very easy to listen to

students taking her french 101 are going to leave the class speaking fluent conversational french

she also doesn’t tolerate people being racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc in her class

if she catches a bigoted comment someone makes in her class, she kicks them immediately

she brings in her cat sometimes

he’s all black and his name is sergio

(he’s her esa that she brings in when she’s feeling really stressed out)

he’s clipped on a harness and sits on her shoulder or on her desk

if he meows, she accepts it as an answer

it’s the only time the students ever see professor emily prentiss as soft

well

other than the days she has the class watch foreign films because the students can tell emily has a fondness for them

her office is pretty organized like jj’s

instead of it being light and inviting, emily decorated her office on a more dark side

she has a few animal skulls, crystals and other gothic memorabilia on her desk or bookshelf

she has a small cat bed on the corner of her desk that sergio sleeps in

on the other corner is a sculpture penelope made her

(it kinda looks like a crow and emily named it kurt)

really, the only colors in her office are dark, deep purples and the small lesbian pride flag sticker on the back of her laptop

Derek

teaches history classes

but like modern history

from like 1940s to present

he refuses to follow most western history books bc they’re not accurate like at all

in his first year of teaching, the dean of his department made him use a book and he hated every second of it

how accurate could the information be if they portray king tut as a white guy???

he graduated under one of the best historians in the country

he also traveled a lot after he graduated and met a lot of people that had first hand experience with major historical events

that’s really what he bases his teachings off of—first hand experiences and encounters

every two weeks or so, he’ll invite in guest speakers to his classes to talk about what they went through (depending on his lesson plans)

that’s how he likes to teach and learn (bc he always loves to learn new things!!)

this is random, but also he is the type of professor to randomly box jump up onto a desk

he also sits in chairs backwards and has a more laid back style to teaching

his exams are based on what the students can learn from history rather than the information itself

he’s always dressed super casual!!

solid color, short sleeve button ups are a favorite!! (no tie)

he gets along with all the students

he’ll talk to the athletes about their games but sound just as enthusiastic and genuine talking with students who are majors in fine arts about their projects

he’s just a v down to earth professor tbh!!

he brings in clooney so much

like... every friday

it’s just another bonus of taking his history classes!!

he and penelope are dating

his office is full of sculptures she makes for him 🥺

he drops by her graphic design studio class with clooney to help out or even to just watch

he’s supportive and encouraging of penelope and her art!!

other than the sculptures penelope makes him, his office is a bit more disorganized than jj’s or emily’s, but cleaner than spencer’s

he has a few papers scattered on his desk but mostly he’s a little more put together

his office door has a small basketball hoop attached that he plays around with if he’s bored (and if penelope is busy)

both he and penelope have a dog bed in their office and water bowls for clooney when he comes in

Hotch

law professor

is the most intimidating professor on campus

like

seriously

if students think professor prentiss is intimidating, they haven’t met professor hotchner

he stands in the front of the room and goes over his lecture without pausing or asking questions

his voice is naturally low and intimidating and he actually never smiles

his attire and appearance is always so professional

suits

ties that are tied so tight, they look like they’re choking him

shoes so polished, he can see his reflection in them

hair always styled neatly

pants and jacket are always wrinkle free

his classes are difficult

not just because of the subject matter, but because he has a very organized, straight forward method to his teaching

students wouldn’t dare act up in his class—they’d be absolute idiots to

he’s quiet and reserved outside the classroom

if the others hear anyone talking shit about hotch behind his back, they’re always quick to come to his defense

they actually know hotch

they know he puts on a hardass exterior, but really he’s just a softie

he always lets them hang in his office with him

he listens to spencer’s ramblings and is extremely patient with him

he has lunch with emily every other day

even if she’s a pain in his ass 99% of the time, he likes that she sticks around and that he can trust her

he shows up to all of penelope’s art shows

and sometimes sits in on derek’s lectures when he has guest speakers

jj brings him pastries from the coffee shop on campus sometimes

he knows that he can come to her if he ever has anything he needs to talk about

(he never opens up to her but he really appreciates the sentiment nonetheless)

penelope has definitely made hotch a few sculptures

(he keeps them at home, but he does have one of her paintings hanging in his office)

speaking of his office it’s hands down the most organized out of all of them

his desk is so clean besides the picture of his son he proudly displays at the corner

he always has his lights off and his door shut

he seems so unapproachable, especially in class

but sometimes his lecture notes have crayon scribbles all over the page

or a small sock will fall out of his briefcase

and maybe, even for a moment, his serious demeanor falls when he spots them

and it almost reassures the students that he is human

Rossi

actually he’s the only one besides maybe reid i can see being a criminology professor

is a retired fbi agent

and successful author

so like that hasn’t changed from canon

but because he doesn’t work for the fbi anymore, he has absolutely no chill and tells all secrets

he’ll be like

talking to his class about a case he worked on in ‘83

and be halfway talking about details of cases that were supposed to be confidential

he’ll pause and go “oops” but keep talking lmaooo

penelope actually never made him a sculpture

instead she made him a coffee mug she made on the wheel and glazed herself!! (she even made her own glaze bc she’s extra like that)

carved on the side is “world’s best italian dad”

(this is because when emily introduced rossi to the group she was like “yeah he’s kinda like my dad” and now everyone calls him “dad”)

(he loves it so much though and proudly accepts his title)

he loves his mug so much and uses it every single day!!!

he’s the only professor besides penelope that let his students refer to him without the title of “professor”

he gives off kind old grandpa vibes

and that he’s only teaching because he really doesn’t have anything better to do during his retirement

but he’s chill and his class is interesting to take

(plus he really does love to teach)

he’ll ramble on and on about his “golden years” as an agent

he will especially talk a student’s ear off if they come up to him and tell him that they read one [or all] of his books

he writes a different quote on his board every single day

his attire is always business casual

he sits on the edge of the desk or on a swivel chair because it’s comfy

he was doing a lecture on jack the ripper and just pushed himself around on the swivel chair, slowly spinning around the front of the room

his voice kept changing in volume every few words because of him facing the wall and then a few moments later facing the classroom

his students refer to him as a “living breathing meme”

he has no idea what the fuck that means

but he take it as a compliment

his office is empty because he goes home after he’s done with classes lmao

he doesn’t do paperwork

or fuck with technology (he never fucking responds to emails smh)

so he has no need for an office

[barbasbodaciousbeard]

Delete the Twitter app, Mr. Barba

In which Rafael Barba deletes the Twitter app because of the Householder case, and Carmen babysits him. 

Accidental Feminist Icon

The last thing on Rafael Barba’s mind when he was in the hospital room with Maggie Householder was his online reputation. Once he’d turned himself in and been released on his own recognizance, however, he opened his phone to call mami and instead saw hundreds of Twitter notifications, emails from people whose names he didn’t recognize, and missed calls and voicemails from unfamiliar numbers. He didn’t touch Twitter, texting Carmen to ask how bad it was and she advised him to delete the application until at least after the trial. When he went home, mami was there and just as disappointed as he expected. There were tears the minute she saw him, but not any offered comfort. 

“You murdered a child, mijo.”

“You don’t understand, mami. No lo viste. El no estaba realmente vivo.”

“Esa fue la decisión de Dios. No es tu decisión. Tu abuela estaría tan decepcionada de ti.”

“No estoy de acuerdo. Si estás aquí para regañarme, vete a casa.”

“Te llevo a la confesión.”

“Vete a casa, mami. Me confesaré cuando esté lista.”

“Rafa-”

“Go home.”

Lucia stormed out, and Rafael went inside his apartment and went straight for the scotch he kept aside. It wasn’t his good scotch. It was the cheap one that burned his throat and left him sicker than he ever was the next day. Before twisting off the cap, he heeded Carmen’s advice, deleting the Twitter app as he dropped to the couch and began to drink. It was only eleven, not even noon, but he didn’t want to remember what had transpired the day before. He should wade through his email, but someone had posted it. He knew because it was referenced time and time again that they’d found his personal email via some Twitter thread or Subreddit or something else he hadn’t yet encountered. He’d had to mute his phone as phone calls rolled in; the only one he answered confirmed it was strangers from the Internet who had seen the news. Carmen called it getting cancelled when it happened to other people. That usually didn’t involve the loss of a life, so the term seemed not quite right for what was happening, especially given the fact this included more than just the people he was used to. People who had never encountered him were hearing about him in the news. 

He ignored Olivia’s calls, considering the morning’s interactions enough. As he drank, Rafael was able to filter unknown numbers and messages, tossing the phone aside and quickly finishing the bottle. Olivia came by, and he didn’t answer, choosing to lay back on the couch as the room spun around him. Carmen texted him, and he didn’t look. An hour later, he heard her outside of his door with Olivia and unlocking he apartment for her. He’d given her a key long ago so she could get files or suits or drop off leftovers. Both of them came in, and it suddenly dawned on him that he had his suspenders down and shirt open over his undershirt. He’d spilled the most recent tumbler over himself with the pizza he’d ordered. And now, they could see him like this, eyes rimmed red and mood unstable as he thought more than he could about himself. 

“Mr. Barba,” Carmen said softly, kneeling by him. Olivia stayed closer to the door, surveying the room. By the nature of their constant proximity, Carmen had seen the tail end or starts of Rafael getting frustrated, though he always pressed it down with a glass of scotch and good meal. That said, she’d found him too drunk after a trial didn’t go his way. Seen him frustrated as he went through a case he may not be able to do anything about it. Caught him yelling at paperwork as though something would happen. She’d also seen him the next mornings when he came in pretending not to be insanely hungover and was wearing the suit from his office.

“I’m fine.”

“No you aren’t. Is this what happens between an eight o’clock bourbon and the office suit?”

“Shut up, Carmen.”

“Don’t talk to me like that. I’m helping you.”

“Sorry,” he said with a huff as his hand ran down his face, and Olivia had to stifle a laugh at how properly embarrassed he looked. “My email and phone are bad. How bad is Twitter?”

“Medium. A lot of people understand. Or they feel that they can’t understand, so they’ll watch the story.”

“People understand murder?” he scoffed.

“No. No one does. But we all understand how impossible your choice was. How badly the parents were hurting.”

“I was too selfish to do it for my dad.”

“I know, Mr. Barba. But people want to know how long until they hear more. Want people to wait. Can see why you did it. It’ll blow over. We can change your number and your email. Twitter has a really handy button. Block.”

“My name’s Rafael.”

“You’re my boss.”

“Not for long,” he chuckled bitterly before his gaze softened. “All I wanted was for people not to hurt.”

“You need to go to bed, Rafa.” It was Olivia now, and his eyes suddenly snapped open. It was different when it was Olivia. They were friends, but they kept things to work. Other than the occasional group event, they’d grab dinner after work. She didn’t hear him debate pocket squares or see him drunk alone in his office or help him think of replies on Twitter. He’d probably lose his friendship with Carmen once he wasn’t in the office, he supposed. She humored her boss a lot more than she probably should.

“I’m fine, Liv.” It came with more of a snort than he liked, and he was suddenly pulling himself up to sit, wrapping his shirt around himself as though it were a cardigan. Carmen watched he was steady, and Olivia was sure she now knew what she’d looked like when Noah was learning to walk on his own with her hand on his back to keep him upright. Once things passed, she wanted to ask if Rafael was always this willing to be relaxed around Carmen, but she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.

“I don’t think I’m helping things,” Olivia said softly, and Carmen gave a gentle nod.

“My son’s with my mom for a visit. I’ll take care of him.”

“You’re sure? I can call Lucia.”

“I’m fine, lieutenant. And mami has already been here.”

“Make sure he meets with an attorney tomorrow.”

“I make his calendar. I know.”

“You two can stop talking about me like I’m not here,” he grumbled, heels pressed against his eyes. “I’m drunk, not deaf.”

“You’re belligerent, counsellor.”

“Call me Rafael,” he said again, flopping onto the couch when Olivia had left again.

“I thought Lieutenant Benson was your best friend, Rafael.”

“She is, I guess. Is that sad? My best friend used to be Alex, but I pursued that case. As if mami needed more reason to hate me.” 

“You don’t act like you in front of her. Not all the way.”

“This isn’t me.”

“It’s you without a carefully constructed persona.”

“If that’s the case, I suppose you’re my best friend, Miss Frye.” She’d expected to see a bemused smirk or annoyed scowl, but Carmen was taken aback by how sincere he looked as his hand moved to rest on her forearm and squeeze as well as he could.

“My name’s Carmen,” she teased. “Now come on. You need to go to bed.”

“My suit will get wrinkled.”

“I’ll hang it for you.”

“You can sleep in the guest room. It’s not safe for you to go-” His eyes were suddenly wide. “Carmen, where’s Ollie?”

“With my mom. I told her you needed me for a couple days.”

“You don’t need to disrupt your life.”

“I’ll tell you a secret Mist- Rafael.”

“What?” he asked, flopping into bed where she’d pulled the blanket down once he managed to strip to his boxers.

“You’re my best friend too.” She tugged the blanket over him, pressing a gentle kiss to his temple. He smiled up at her, and she made her way out turning off the lights. It seemed silly to say it to someone like him, but they’d worked together a long time, had a lot of late night talks. She liked him more than a lot of people she knew, and saw him more than anyone outside of her family. 

Carefully, she cleaned his living room, dumping his other bottle of cheap scotch out and disposing of both before setting up the coffee to brew at seven, just in time to have him at an attorney’s office by nine. McCoy had approved her to work from wherever she needed to in order to keep Rafael functioning. She’d have been miserable helping Peter Stone with this trial anyway. They both knew about his father, and it seemed he may be a ticking time bomb. She logged into his twitter, going on a blocking spree as she explored his mentions, tweeting from her own account and his that she’d done it and retweeting it from his account. 

She also liked all the kind ones. The ones asking for understanding or expressing empathy. The ones that acknowledged he had an impossible choice and neither one would have sat well with their own conscious. Leave a child and his family to suffer without end or expedite the inevitable. Then there were his direct messages. Since getting verified, he had the ability to only see messages from people he followed. As she combed through, there were a couple of hateful messages she ignored, but most who knew him expressed understanding and a couple even included leads if he wanted out of the city. She marked those down in her notes app before falling asleep in the guest bedroom. 

The sound that greeted her in the morning was Rafael Barba vomiting as the coffee machine roared to life in the background. Silently, she ordered ginger tea and vitamin b12 for delivery, going to fetch the pedialyte she’d brought from home. When he came out, hair wet from a shower, she’d already brewed him tea, cooked breakfast, and given him an expectant look as she slid a glass of unnaturally purple electrolytes to him. He didn’t know what to say, so he took the proffered glas and took a long sip before wincing.

“Grape,” she said plainly.

“Grapes don’t taste like that.”

“Ollie likes it okay. I make him popsicles though.”

“He’s old enough for popsicles? Isn’t he still on milk?”

“Rafael, he’s two. He drinks milk, but he even eats.”

“Does he like books yet?”

“He does. He really likes being read to.”

“I’ll read to him next time I see him.” He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was thick. “Do you play him music?”

“Some. Usually my playlists.”

“Play him Bach.”

“You’ll have to tell me what’s best to play him.”

“I’ll send you a playlist.” 

“Why Bach?” She watched as his jaw shifted from side to side, lips pressed together, and that told her all she needed to know. “Drew liked Bach?”

“He’d never know if he liked Bach. Maggie was playing one of his cantatas.”

“Maybe we can take him to an orchestra one day.”

“There are some shows. Kid friendly.”

“He’d like that.”

“I’ll send it to you.”

“You’ll come, won’t you?”

“Me?”

“It’s your idea.”

“You’d still let me around your son?”

“My son is a healthy vibrant boy. If he was in the same situation as Drew, it would be hard, but I’d still want you there. You did exactly what I would have done for him, okay?”

“Did you mean what you said last night?”

“Which part?”

“The last part.”

“You probably are my best friend. And that hasn’t changed. I wish you didn’t have to be put in the situation, but I would hope I’d have been strong enough to do the same. And other people agree with me.”

“God, you’re not actually looking at Twitter.”

“I looked at Twitter. I blocked anyone vitriolic. But, I collected all the kind ones in your favorites for when you’re ready. A lot of your attorney friends have job leads for you if you leave the DA’s office.”

“I’m leaving. And I’m probably going to fucking prison. You’ll be down a friend in a few months.”

“Stop it.”

“They’ll end me in there, Carmen. I sent some of them there.” She wasn’t sure what to make at how at peace with the prospect he was.

“And you won’t go to prison. Don’t focus on that. Even if you do, they’ll have to do something to protect you. And I’ll come visit you.”

“You barely know me.”

“We spend more time together than I do with anyone else. I know you’re good, you have a good heart, you send birthday presents to every SVU detective’s kid and think I don’t know you send them coffee gift cards on their birthdays. You’re a total mama’s boy and despite what a snarky prick you are, you have imposter syndrome out the ass. You’re lapsed enough Catholic not to go to church, but you pray when things are really bad. I also know some part of your brain feels like you’ve let down people who think you do good work by this one thing, but one bad doesn’t outweigh an exorbitant amount of good. I hope Ollie has half of the ethical backbone you do. I know there have been occasions in the past you weren’t perfect, but the man I’ve known deserves every ounce of credit he gets. That doesn’t mean you’ve never made a mistake.”

“You’re ridiculous,” he muttered, and much to his chagrin, Carmen wrapped him in a hug that he returned, refusing to look at her. He was suddenly aware he’d cry if he looked at what he knew was a genuine smile. “I’ve got to get dressed to see an attorney.”

“Who are you going with?”

“Randy Dworkin.”

“He’ll be good.”

“I hate to admit that. And I’m sure I’ll hate every second with him.”

“How about you teach me about Bach this afternoon?”

“You have work.”

“McCoy approved me to be remote.”

“So you’re my sitter?” She could almost swear a smile pulled at the corner of his lip, and she felt pride she didn’t expect.

“I suppose. So Bach?”

“Bring Ollie?”

“Deal.”

[broken-balance-baby]

forgotten idols and their intertwined destinies (chapter 3)

Chapters: 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/13/14/15/16/17/18/19/20/21/22/23/24/25/26

PRIY PITA

The girl was small. As they pushed her body to her knees, Diego wrapped his hands in cloth and turned to the soldiers still in the area. They stood on a hill outdoors of an abandoned compound— one of Pagan’s underlings, if he recalled correctly. One of them had a slope down to the lake below, 

“ Ahora ve por esa cuerda y átala .” He ordered, and the soldiers grabbed the rope and locked her arms back. He realized her head lolled backwards, and as soon as one soldier drew near her face he had lurched back from a headbutt. 

She tried to fight, kicking and spitting at the soldiers around her, but as one brought out a baton Diego ceased the commotion. 

“ ¡ Detente!” he said. “Leave this to me.” 

The girl’s head hung loose in her seat when they left. He approached her, taking her by the chin and tilting her head up. 

“Who are you?” Diego asked. 

“That’s my question.” She hissed. In the light of the day, he noticed how her eyes were colored brightly. They shone almost like gold, but upon closer inspection it seemed to have become green. 

He tightened his hold on her head. 

“You will answer me. You will tell me who you are working with. You will tell me,” Diego said, running his hand down her hair before pulling it up, making her wince as he spoke. “What. I. Need.” 

“Or what?” she replied in a harsh whisper. The grip on her head tightened and she was met with a punch to the face. 

The laughter of another woman came from afar, soon closing into his ears. Diego ignored it. 

“She’s fun— I like her.” Dani remarked, hovering over her and making eye contact with Diego. His eyes darted between them while the girl was still recovering from the punch. 

“ Bhenchod. ” she muttered. Sisterfucker, if Diego was right. 

“I said tell me who you are!” Diego raised his voice. 

“ C á lmate , Diego, we’ll be here all day!” Dani’s voice echoed through the valley— almost so real that Diego swallowed, looking away. Those bloodshot eyes still followed anyway, but he heard  the woman  say something. He tilted her head backwards, and Dani left him.

“What did you say?”

The woman mumbled louder.

“Speak up.”

He heard the wheels of a car pull up. Out came King Ajay Ghale— Pagan’s successor, as he’d apparently learned the moment he stepped out of the helicopter. The man’s stepson proved to be not much of a conversationalist, but he seemed adamant in being involved in affairs regarding the reclamations. Unlike Pagan, as he recalled, he was more than just invested. 

“No—” she snarled, ready for another punch to the face. 

As Diego was about to swing, though, Ajay caught him by the wrist and pulled him away from her. 

“NO!” Ajay yelled.  

“QU É CARAJO ACES?!” Diego ripped his hand away from Ajay’s grasp. Ajay stepped closer to him. 

“You’re not going to hurt her.” He said, glancing back at the woman. Her cheek was bleeding, so he took out his handkerchief to wipe out the blood. Diego’s eyes widened, brows furrowing in befuddlement as he watched Ajay tip her chin up to check for bruises. The girl attempted to bite his fingers. 

“Who is this woman to you?” Diego asked. 

“She…” Ajay trailed off, sighing and rubbing his temples. “I promised someone I wouldn’t hurt her. You can take anybody , just not her.” 

Diego stepped closer to him. He tilted his head, confused. “We need to get our information from somewhere, and you are letting her go because of a promise? What the fuck am I here for?” 

The girl seemed to scowl at Ajay’s presence. “I’m not telling you anything—”

“ Silencio .” Diego scowled back, pressing his foot onto her chest. 

“Let’s just keep her prisoner—”

“Ajay.” Diego whipped his head back to the king. The king held his breath, watching anxiously as the force of his foot started to push her to the edge of the cliff.  “If she is that special to you..” He began, before pulling his leg back and kicking her off the cliff. 

‘We’ll see how special she really is.” 

“FUCK YOU!” she screamed. 

“NO!” Ajay yelped, stumbling to his knees as the woman dropped into the river. He looked back and stood up.

 “What the hell, Diego?! You were brought here to HELP!”

“I am helping! I am cleaning off the stains of your country, and now you do not want it?!”

“No, I—” Ajay held himself back, “I want it with everything else but her .”

“Whoever this is—”

“Her name is Bhadra.” Ajay glared back at him, forehead creasing in wrinkles. “You have to remember that.”

Dani came back, only this time with Isabel in tow, staring down at the water before she turned her head back to Diego. 

“... If she made it to the water, she’ll live.” Diego said. 

Isabel smiled at him. Diego blinked, and both the women disappeared. As they came back to their cars, Diego found a radio sitting in the trunk where they confiscated that girl’s things. 

“Sakshi— anybody there? Meet us in Moksha!” 

“Leave that first.” Ajay suddenly said, arms crossed. “Meet me back at the palace.” 

Diego huffed. “Fine.”

Bhadra.

She looked familiar. 

[tetrisfinished]

over the past little while, i've wanted to come on here and dump my thoughts so many times. but i've just found that i've been having a busy season of life and so....haven't yet had the opportunity.

and tonight, i do have the opportunity - sort of - and of course, nothing is coming to mind.

well, i guess that's not totally true.

i want to talk about anger.

i've been really thinking through a bunch of stuff around this emotion (but IS IT an emotion or is it just a byproduct of emotion that we feel!?).

see, the way i think of it - anger is never alone. anger comes as a result of sadness or loneliness or a host of other negative emotions.

and i think, the more we process and learn to deal with and understand our anger, the better able we might become at dealing with it.

let me give an example of what i mean.

i get angry a lot. for a lot of different reasons. one of them is....when esa is being annoying. when he won't listen to what i have to say or do what i ask of him - it usually leads to anger.

and in the moment of anger, all i do is try and suppress it and keep a calm facade on top and try and handle the situation without exploding on esa.

which works maybe 7 out of 10 times. but esa is left with a LOT of shrapnel of the yelling and rage spewing the 3 out of 10 times i am just UNABLE to process or hold in my anger.

so here's where i think i can work on understanding my anger.

i think i've identified steps to deal with it. i have to step away and really take a couple breaths to get myself back in the state of mind to really think through it

when i've done my breaths, i have to understand what is the reason for my anger; because on the surface it just is that esa isn't listening but more likely the underlying cause could be something like i'm losing control of my situation. like the other day, when i was supposed to be at my cousins' place to go to the carnival together and i stopped at a tim's to get a sippy cup for esa and esa was just not having it and decided to tantrum. what actually happened was, i blew up at him and yelled and scared him - which did work to gain control but i felt like shit right to this moment and that feeling won't stop because i literally tried to SCARE a 3-year-old into obedience. don't bother commenting, no shame anyone else could give me would match the shame i feel for myself in that moment and all through to today...and onwards.

ANYWAY, so if i had just forced myself to step back for TWO SECONDS and asked myself why i was getting so upset or worked up - i would have realized that it was because of multiple reasons.

my kid was not listening - ie loss of control

on top of that he decided to tantrum - ie distressed person that tends to severely overwhelm me

the pressure of arriving at my cosuins' place on time despite that i was actually already late - ie shame

the need to get my kid his sippy cup so i don't end up being the shitty mom who forgets everything for their kid because....shitty mom - ie shame

and all of these things led me to anger.

but if i had just stopped myself for 10 SECONDS, i would have realized:

it is NOT a big deal to arrive a little bit later to someone's place with good reason - i should not be ashamed and instead i should try and leave earlier the next time

my cousin has a BUNCH of extra sippy cups that i know she would have GLADLY handed over to me without a single judgement re: my parenting had i asked - again nothing to be ashamed of because my logical brain knows and understands that she is a compassionate human being and she is always willing to help if needed (and again, i should use this as a note to self to be better prepared the next time)

i never had nor will i ever have control over my kid or any other human being other than myself - so that loss of control over esa was a futile thing to even become upset over.

i should have shown actual compassion to esa in his time of distress and instead i turned around and made the situation 10 million times worse by exploding

but of course, as we know - i did none of those things.

so i guess probably my biggest struggle is being able to access the tiny little rationale or reasonable or logical part of my brain when the anger starts to cloud it and just step away and take a few breaths.

how do i do that?

it's i guess as simple as just doing it.

i have to force myself to step back. i have to force myself to take a breath.

i can do it. and i will try and try and try to do it.

because that feeling of yelling at esa will haunt me forever. and every other time i've given in to my anger.

anyway.

that's all.

goodnight.

[maree-ff]

Interlude: Remission

CAMILA

Excited, joyful, in lust, anxious, nervous, and overwhelmed. These are all of the emotions I was hit with at three o’clock this morning when I woke up to begin my day. Today officially marks five weeks, seventy-two hours and sixteen minutes since I ruined our relationship. Today also marks the same amount of time that Jorden has completely flipped his switch. His behavior is nothing like Andre or I have ever dealt with. I know I’m to blame for calling off our engagement but it’s almost as if Jorden feels like I took his father away. That was never my intention by any means. I only wanted for Andre and I to take some time out to explore every crevice of our relationship. The energy in our union has been off and I want to know what the root of the issue is.

Papi’s been coming by everyday to bring the kids home from school. He’s even stayed to tuck them in, help me clean up from the aftermath of dinner and then he leaves. He’s been distant, rightfully so, but I miss him! I’ve been yearning for attention and I haven’t craved male companionship in ages! Tonight, I’m going to try and do things differently. I’ve been spying on him to get his schedule for today so I can scheme and coordinate in peace. Andre didn’t pick up the kids today because I asked for his mother to do it herself. The girls are helping me choose what to wear for my weekend away while their baby brother is napping.

Sliding my boots on I tiptoed around the mess I created, rushing to get their opinion. I spun around, danced a little, showing off another outfit I pieced together.

“Okay, nenas...what about this?” I’m frantic. I am supposed to be meeting Dre at a resort in Palm Springs. He has an assignment there for the weekend so I figured this is the perfect time for us to fix what’s broken.

“Shoes..perfect. Outfit..even better.” Zoe smiles assuringly.

Kenja tilted her head left and right before responding to my question. “Perfecto..”

“Perfecto? La verdad o es esa actitud que estoy escuchando?” I sassed her.

“Si..la verdad. Mom, mira la hora por favor.” She pointed out. Glancing at my watch I cursed under my breath, rushing to get out of here. I tossed what I need for the weekend in my bag, smothering my girls in affection. I looped my bag over my shoulder and quietly raced up the steps to check on my youngest baby.

Cautiously I entered his bedroom, blushing at the mere sight of him. “Mommy’s going to fix this nino. I promise. For you and tu hermanas.” Shuffling to his bed I pulled his blanket up over his stomach to keep him warm. “Mommy loves you baby. I’ll see you when I get back and I’ll make sure to kiss Papi for you, if he’ll let me.” I kissed his forehead and backed away before he had the chance to wake up.

I left his room, spoke to Divya briefly and headed straight for Palm Springs.

————  ———— 

Pushing the bottle further down into the ice bucket I turned around to check out the room. I managed to get an extra key to his hotel suite since he’s still out. I got a phone call from Meah saying that he should be arriving shortly.

“Mommy,” I exhaled. Clutching the Bible to my chest I looked out at the sun setting over the horizon. “Necesito su orientación.” My spirit feels alive again. I can feel her. “I need you to walk me through this. I ruined my relationship and I need to get it back. Please watch over me and don’t let me screw this up.” Marking my body in favor of the cross I set the Bible down and put some final touches on his room.

About fifteen minutes later I heard a key unlatch the lock to the room.

“Alright, look I’ll tell you what. Let me look over the proposal, run the account and find the bug.” The door shut and the automatic lock clicking made me jump out of my skin. These goddamn nerves! Quickly I downed one of the shots I poured, needing to calm myself before he saw me. I stood tall by the window, looking out at the montañas and hills. “No man, I will personally take care of the firewall and the hiccup in your account. Why don’t you sen-”

Our eyes met the second his speech paused. With the phone to his ear, he silently set his bag down, looking me up and down. “I will have my assistant contact you so you can get me that file personally. Once I get to the bottom of this I will call you..” he motioned to the glass signaling for me to pour him a drink.

I did as he asked, going ahead to fill two glasses.

“Of course. I’ll get back to you in a few days.” His phone touched the desk as did his jacket. “I’m surprised.” He simply stated.

Closing our distance I handed him the glass, holding my own with two hands. “I know.” I agreed. “Necesitamos hablar.” I sipped on my champagne, reading his energy from the body language he’s showing.

“About?” He too sipped from his glass, going to remove his tie.

“Let me..” I offered. I set my glass down to complete the task I offered to take off his hands. A mass of nothing but fears from my subconscious lodged my airways, making it difficult to look at him. “Habla sobre nosotros, nuestra familia y el futuro de nuestra relación.” The slow movement and slithering sound of his tie falling across his shoulder made my heart skip a beat.

“So let’s talk then. Where should we start? You breaking up our family or completely blind siding me at dinner that night?” I knew this surprise visit from me would be a battle but I wasn’t expecting fire this quickly.

I draped his tie over the back of the chair, not wanting the fabric to catch wrinkles. “Don’t do that. I don’t want to fight with you tonight. For you and for us but not with you.” I created space between us, giving him room to breathe again.

“Why not? There’s enough issues to go around that we can argue about right? Isn’t that what you were saying five weeks ago when you tore our family apart?” He’s agitating me and he knows it. He’s pressing my buttons on purpose but I sympathize with his anger and hurt.

“Everything. Papi, we can fix this. I want to fix this. I broke us apart and for good reason but I want to make it right. I never wanted to hurt you or our family.” The sun has vanished leaving the sky lit up in the most beautiful orange and yellow blend.

“Mm..that’s the memo I got and if I’m correct you did hurt me. You hurt our bond, our love and our kids.” He calmly explained his point, fully raising my nerves.

Snapping my head in his direction I warned him not to steer us down a path we may not recuperate from. He clapped back at me as if I’m not in this fight with him.

“Ay, basta ahora! No me hables así! I hurt myself too, okay? You’re not the only one who got hurt that night alright? Stop trying to make me feel like crap and help me fix the problem!” Waving my hand for him to cut the nonsense out, I paced the floor waiting for him to react.

“What problem, Camila? Tell me what are these problems you speak of? I never saw any facet of our relationship that was broken and needed to be fixed. Were you imagining things that aren't real? What is it?”

“Our chemistry must have been off, Dre. It didn’t feel like old times. Y me estás llaman loco? That’s not fair of you to say! I meant what I said and how I feel is valid. You cannot deny the way I feel! Those are my feelings and I am entitled to them!” I yelled.

He approached me silently, picking up the shot from the tray. He threw it back, poured another two rounds, encouraging me to take second. “Our chemistry? What about our chemistry? Break it down for me. We have all weekend right? That’s why your bag is partially unpacked and you got a second key to the room? Well let’s get to the bottom of this shall we?”

He doesn’t know this but that was my fifth shot since I checked in. The scent of his cologne sent my desire for lust, love, affection, attention, you name it..into overdrive. I rolled my eyes swiftly as he walked past me into the living room of the suite. I followed him thinking of how to recite my feelings.

“Well..I feel like you’re still holding back. You never opened up about what happened to you while you were away. You’ve changed, baby. I recognized the signs when you came home. I didn’t pester you about my concerns because I had enough to deal with already. But you have changed and I just want you to feel comfortable enough to be open with me about what you went through.” Removing my earrings I placed them on the coffee table. Andre was mute. He drew an invisible figure eight with the champagne flute in his hand. “Coming here was intentional my love but stressing you out wasn’t.” I reminded him. I inched over to the large windows, taking in the views with him.

Throwing back the remaining champagne, Andre set the glass down by his feet. “Yeah I changed. I’m ashamed of a lot of events that have taken place over the course of my life. You know that. Being away is at the very top of that list. You know that too. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to share at all with anyone but God himself. I can’t.” He disagreed.

Cupping the nape of his neck I fingered the smooth hair, getting excited. He hasn’t touched me in weeks and I’m still breastfeeding so my hormones are driving me batshit crazy. I have been forced to stick out this drought between us, calculating how long until I get him back. Allow me to be frank and say that I have ventured down the road of self pleasure but it takes too long. I’m capable of satisfying myself on a small scale but I need him for that soul snatching, big time release.

“I’m not shaming you, papi. I would never do that. Though I strongly urge you to reconsider. God is an excellent choice mi amor pero I-” his hand claimed my throat as he backed me into the glass. The liquor in my bloodstream and on his breath made me want more. “Por favor..” I am prepared to beg, plead or use any other extreme measures I have up my sleeve if this will bring us closer. I cupped his cheek, yet again finding our son in him. Their eyes hold a familiar sense of depth and comfort. “I want to fix this, really. Again I’m sorry love, you must believe me.”

The teaser of his increase in pressure to my neck turned me on. I’m sure that was his intention and I have no objections. He’s never harmed me which is good because I love when he uses force. A little pain feels ten times better when sex and intimacy are around the corner.

“I know.” He huffed. I’m already wet with anticipation. He only added fuel to my fire. He overpowered me, giving off anger and animosity. I’ll take what I can for the time being, wanting what I’ve been deprived of. I can’t decide if I want this first time back into our fold to go by quickly because I’m so hungry or if I want to take my time.

“I want both.” I thought aloud.

Andre ripped through my clothes without any regard for common sense to treat my belongings with respect. “Of?” He uttered quietly.

We disrobed one another not caring that anyone could possibly walk by the room. We’re completely exposed and normally I’d be willing to keep watch for bystanders but tonight I don’t care much. Let them have a show to enjoy.

Tossing the belt he had on somewhere off to the side I rid him of his trousers, dominating the scene. “I want this to last but I’m desperate after five weeks.” I whined. I did not allow him to choose what pace he would rather stick with. “Give me what I want. Answers and attention.” Moving in for the kill I felt the ground lighten up from underneath my feet. I wrapped my legs around his midsection and locked my ankles to keep myself steady. He stumbled still teasing the clasp of my bra.

My body was freed from the confines of my brassiere, leaving me open for the taking. Andre granted my wish. He fucked the soul out of me up against the glass but tenderly and lovingly. We traded off with the power of getting the beauty of both worlds. What feels like angry, make-up sex carried on out to the hot tub that’s acquainted with the room. I gasped for new air, gripping his hip and palming his lower back to force him into me.

I needed a resting place for my head so I sought out the rim of the tub. My brief moment of desiring to speak ceased to exist as he touched two of my favorite spots. My outcry made me tearful and oh so sad. Sex only places a bandaid over our issues but a lovely bandaid it is. We carried on in the hot water and later transported our affairs back inside the room.

The time has come for us to use our words again. Tying my robe closed I lifted my hair up and out. With a heavy heart I studied Andre from several feet away.

“When did you begin to feel the shift?” He asked me, barely looking over his shoulder.

Clearing my throat I swiped my glass from the desk, taking a sip. “Sometime after Jo’s fifth or so doctor appointment. I think..”

Dre’s insincere snicker ruffled my feathers. He took a long drag of the blunt he’s been working for half an hour. Putting it out he sucked in a fresh wave of oxygen only to take his time blowing it back out. “So Ali is the root of your issues with me?”

“Let’s be adults about this. You know damn well that’s not what I’m getting at nor is that what I’m saying. Maybe it was the stress of waiting for all of the test results to come back..” my sentence ran off as did my feet. I walked myself across the room to look out onto the night sky. Finishing off my champagne I built up the courage to explain a selfish mistake I made so long ago. “I still feel guilty for my comment. I didn’t mean it then and I didn’t mean it now. The waiting and re-testing was backing me into such a dark place that I traded in hope for fear. That is no excuse and I have to live with my idiocy at that moment for the rest of my life.” Turning on my heels I zeroed out the space between us. I placed my hands upon his shoulders, molding to his shape wanting to ease the tension in his upper body. “But you were there. You didn’t give up on our son even while I had doubts and bombarded you with my sadness over the matter.”

Inching closer I captured his lips, entangling us to each other for round three. Speaking about our kids brings me back to consciousness. All of the wild sex that we’ve had since Jorden was born has surprisingly not created another child. This troubling and confusing separation has not hindered an inkling of romance. All that’s different is the lack of title.

“We’re supposed..to be talking..” he hummed. I fondled my way into his lap, going head first.

“Not right now we aren’t.” I denied. I’m in the mindset for a specialty cocktail I can’t put a price on. My skin began to heat up from under the robe. It’s my throat, mouth and hands that are the hottest points of me currently. I used my hands, feverishly wanting to bring him all the way up so I could stop and get him angry. His fingers ran through my hair finding the right coordinates to hold my head still. His body shuddered underneath mine as I ramped up my speed so he can feel like he’s in control of the moment. He’s never been allowed to dominate my pace when I’m pleasing him. I was very transparent in the beginning stages of our romantic relationship about why he can’t force me down or hold me still. In exchange we have worked out an arrangement to where he feels like he’s in control but he’s really not.

The overflow of saliva and the tiny bubbles running down over my fingers and wrists turned up my pride. It’s also the sweet melodic manner in which my name and God’s fills the air. I always honor him with his few moments of fame in thinking that I can’t handle his measurements. There are times when I doubt myself. Like the generous man that Andre is, he never comes short with complimenting how charming my tongue is. The hyper speed of his shaft and juevos sliding in and out my mouth brought on the most beautiful feeling. My scalp is tingling from the massage he’s giving me while I’m finishing the one I’m offering him.

His call out to the heavens is making me greedy. I’ll admit to it and I want him to know. Halting, I knelt before him and pushed him down, ultimately mounting him. Our mouths reunited in sync, no exceeding dominance displayed. My back touched down against the plush comforter, he removed my robe, and I used my hands and feet to disrobe him of his pants.

“Cuidarme, yo soy tuyo.” I begged. Our bodies meshed together resembling a fly getting caught in a Venus fly trap. My internal organs accommodated his endowment warmly. I saw darkness as he set himself up with the right momentum. “Ay Dios!” I called on our Heavenly Father several times over in the most disrespectful way. Tightening the grip I have on him I forced eye contact needing to face him head on.

His affirmation of how I’m making him feel calmed my nerves. “Making love to you always feels a step above incredible..” he told me once again.

Blissfully grinning from ear to ear I matched his strides, watching him react just the way I wanted him to. “Mm,” I hummed. “..te sientes mucho mejor.” I moaned heavily. The darkness took over again, shutting down any verbal conversation for the rest of this fight to the top of the mountain.

————  ———— 

Staring at the moon aligned with the stairs I rolled my eyes listening to Andre ramble. He’s been on a hot streak for what seems to be pushing eternity. In reality only a few minutes have lapsed.

“Can you please sit down? Your pacing is unsettling.” I advised him.

“I can’t believe you would even stoop so low to bring Jorden into our problems. I know the testing was hard on you but you can’t place the blame of our downfall on him.”

“I never said Jo was the source of our problems! All I said was that the outcome and the process itself brought me down to a place I had never been before. I have no reason to blame our children for the reason our relationship was severed and I never will. You’re taking my words and running with them trying to make me look like a shit mother and I’m not. I always put our kids first. The reason we’re apart is because of tu y yo! There are no other parties to blame except for us so don’t ever drag anyone into our shit. We made this mess together so we are responsible for cleaning it up!” Standing up to walk around I meddled in my hair only wanting to reflect.

There’s the fight about Gerrard’s initial arrival. That was the first time that Andre accused me of being unfaithful. He hurt me down to the core. I was already battling how to deal with the slander brought to my name and in my place of work. The pain from Gerrard’s doing and the assumption was double what I was expecting.

Exhaling through my nose I picked up my hair, rubbing my scalp. “Dígame, was Gerrard’s first appearance something that stuck around for you? Did you think about that day anytime afterward?” I asked him.

“Sometimes, yeah.” He confessed.

“Why did you do it? I have never understood why you felt the need to question me after our history. I don’t think I’ll ever understand. I’ve never once accused you of anything even at my lowest point so I’m just trying to put the puzzle pieces together here.” As I met his eye I put in a strong effort not to look angry.

Andre’s shoulders fell as he ran his hands over his head. “I just got scared. I had a moment of weakness and took it out on you. I was sorry then for the way I behaved and I’m sorry now. I will forever be sorry.”

“I know. That’s number one. Numbers two, three and so on. Gerrard coming around the second time, the psychos you once called family, Chris… There’s so much heavy shit in your past and in ours as a unit that keeps me up some nights.” Letting my arms fall I crossed them over my chest.

“Are you a-”

Stopping him short I held up my hand swiftly. “I am not angry. I am not sad. I don’t know what I am.”

My shoulders gained weight. I dropped my head to one side feeling my muscles loosen up.

“I have a feeling that I-my mistakes are a part of our downfall. Amongst other things now that I’m diving deep into our past.” He says.

“Que otras cosas? Dígame por favor.”

He claims that all of what I mentioned are the strongest points that broke the very foundation we’ve built. I deny it all. There’s got to be something else that we are missing.

“I owe you my life babe and I know that you hate hearing about my suicide attempt but it’s relevant. That moment in my life will forever be pertinent to many conversations that we share. That memory, despite how painful it is to both of us, plays a key role in why I am the way that I am today. I still don’t see what you see but I do know that I don’t want to lose you.” He resumed the massage on my shoulders, making me feel warm again.

“A little to the right please.” I suggested. He followed orders eliminating all tension in my upper back. “Mira, I don’t take pleasure in giving you the ring back. Deep down I just didn’t feel right wearing such a statement with the way I was feeling. The way that I’m still feeling. I’m not sure how long it will take us to get back to our old ways but I don’t want to lose you either.” I faced him sliding my hands up his chest. “I did not come here to argue and go back and forth. I want to get to the root of the problem hoping that we can find some middle ground and work our way back to normal.” I used him as a place to lay my head.

“Agreed.” He solemnly voiced.